1001 Albums Summary

Folk/Country Rock. Favorite Songs: Harvest, Are You Ready for the Country, Old Man, There’s a World, The Needle and the Damage Done Least Favorite: A Man Needs a Maid Notes: Started out slow, then picks it up again. There’s twang on the guitars with songs like Heart of Gold. While there’s a good selection of songs here, and while I did decide to grab the full album for my personal collection, there’s a few that I might be skipping depending on my mood. 7/10

Soul Favorite Tracks: You Don’t Own Me, Wishin’ and Hoppin’ Least Favorite Tracks: Mockingbird, Will You Love Me Tomorrow This album is a list of covers, and honestly, I’d prefer the originals for most of the time (the only exception being Wishin’ and Hopin’). That isn’t to say that I don’t hate her voice, but it definitely felt off-putting. 5/10.

Punk/Rock Favorite Tracks: Gloria, Redondo Beach, Birdland, Free Money, Kimberly, Break it Up, Land Least Favorite Track: Elegie This album was a slow grower on me, but I throughly love the album. Some of the tracks starts off slow, but they get progressively faster as time goes on, hitting you with the energy that you would expect from an album like this. 9/10

Soul/Funk Favorite Tracks: Billy Jack, So In Love, Hard Times Least Favorite Track: Jesus In a way, this album has the slow-soul/funk album where it’s a bunch of protest songs about current events back in the day, such as Billy Jack with gun control (and in fact, it’s actually clear as day with the album cover). While the lyrics and the vocals of Curtis is good, I can’t help but to feel bored about the entirety of the album, and it doesn’t help that the instrumental felt a bit out of place for me. While it’ll be in my music collection and be in my usual rotation, I don’t think that I truly have the urge on wanting to listen to them over some of the other collection that I have; mainly just to use it for when it’s on shuffle. 6/10

Pop Rock Favorite Tracks: Drive My Car, Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown), Nowhere Man, Think For Yourself, I’m Looking Through You, In My Life, Wait, If I Need Someone. Least Favorite Track: Run For Your Life I throughly enjoyed this album. I did enjoy more on the A Side than the B Side of this album. They’ve now fine tuned from their earlier stuff and made it a bit more mature than their earlier works. That being said, some of their other stuff like Girl and Run For Your Life is where I either thought that I didn’t like certain elements of the track or just flat out hate. Other than that, great album. 8/10

Dream Pop Favorite Tracks: All Least Favorite Tracks: None What a pleasant surprise for this site to recommend me such a luscious album, though looking at both the reviews on this site and Rate Your Music (where it’s ranked #29 on the site of the best albums of all time currently), there’s two different extremes. You’re either on the camp where it’s such a perfect album, or you’re at the camp where the album is terrible, with the main issue where you don’t understand what the lyrics are. To that, I’d say try to imagine that this is a Shoegaze album, where guitars are the main vocal point while the actual vocals are in the back-burner, being blend in with the rest of the band. I’m on the one end of extreme that I really love this album. 10/10

Folk Rock Favorite Tracks: Talkin’ Bout a Revolution, Fast Car, Across the Lines, Behind the Wall, Baby Can I Hold You, Why? Least Favorite Track: She Got Her Ticket This is one of those albums where the A side is better than the B side. The A side is more jam-packed with amazing songs whereas the B side is okay, but it could’ve been better. The A side is more unified and tight with its slow and medium tempo songs that doesn’t have too much energy but just about right, whereas with the exception of ‘Why?’, there’s certain elements that I think could’ve been different. That being said, this is a great album to listen to and own. 8/10

Pop Rock/Worldbeat Favorite Songs: The Boy in the Bubble, Graceland, Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes, You Can Call Me Al, Crazy Love, Vol. II Least Favorite Song: I Know What I Know Another pleasant surprise from this website. I was going in without really any expectations, and here I am blown away from this album. The inclusion of using African Music in this album works for the most part as it’s used as a celebration of African Music. Even with some of the Pop Rock stuff like ‘You Can Call Me Al’ is a really nice touch that doesn’t break any of the flow at all. Overall, I like this album to where I would recommend it to other people. 8/10

Hip Hop Favorite Songs: Around the Way Girl, Mama Said Knock You Out, Illegal Search Least Favorite Song: Mr. Goodbar The album feels a lot braggadocious in terms of how LL Cool J is the best rapper in the world, and in some aspects, I kinda get why he would do that. From what someone else said online, this is in response to his previous album “Walking With a Panther” was criticized for being a bit too poppy. If true, then I can see why LL Cool J wanted to showcase that he still has it in this album. That said, what’s drawing me back from liking this album is with most of the songs that mentions about him with another woman/women. For example, 6 Minutes of Pleasure showcases LL Cool J and a woman wanting to sleep together, even though the woman already has a different boyfriend and is being tempted by wanting to cheat on LL Cool J. I feel like he should just convince her that she should just dump him, even though in the lyrics, she doesn’t love the rapper. Like, why do you wanna cheat, and why is he going along with it? And then we get to Mr. Goodbar, where LL Cool J is convincing the woman to leave her man and be with him. It’s the same issue as the last example, but this song I got a bit creeped out on when he mentioned, “I’m not gonna rape you.” Like, this isn’t the best wording to use as, if I were to be in this woman’s shoes, I would’ve find that as a red flag. It didn’t help that not only did she have champagne, meaning that she might’ve gotten drunk to the point where she might not legally give out consent, but that I’m a guy. But I think the biggest issue for me is when he uses the fact that he bangs with more women than any other MC does, such as when he raps at one point how the other MC just lost his virginity while LL Cool J was already banging multiple women left and right and is still doing it. Honestly, even with me being an atheist, I’m still the type of guy who wants to treat sex as more of a sacred thing, and when someone brags about how many women they slept with, I felt like they’re a bit too immature for my liking (and a bit perverted, not gonna lie). Like, if I were a rapper, and while I’m not saying that having a good time in bed is not something that I don’t care about when finding a partner, I would just roll my eyes when someone say that, because to me, they’re just treating another human being like an object. Overall, the album’s okay when he doesn’t talk about women most of the time. I’m contempt that I’ve listened to the album, but I also wouldn’t want to have most of the songs in my rotation. 6/10

Hip Hop Soul/R&B Favorite Songs: Creep, Diggin’ On You, Waterfalls, If I Was Your Girlfriend Least Favorite Song: I feel like I would be cheating if I choose Sexy (Interlude), so I’ll go with Take Our Time While I don’t have an outright non-interlude song that I hate, and there’s a few good gems in this album (with Waterfalls being my personal favorite due to this song charting the billboard charts on the week of my birth), I wouldn’t say that I crave on wanting to relisten to the entire album again. That’s not to say that it’s terrible or that it’s boring, but it’s more so that I’m not sure if this album is made for me. It’s a good album, but I don’t think that I want most of it in my personal music collection. 7/10