1001 Albums Summary

This album is a mixed bag for me. The Cash originals and lesser known covers are the strength of the album. The Man Comes Around is an amazing start to the album, and Give My Love to Rose and I Hung My Head are excellent also. The more famous covers are either mediocre (Hurt, Bridge Over Troubled Water, In My Life) or bad (Desperado and especially Personal Jesus). A shorter, tighter collection would have been more effective. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I will probably give the same review to a lot of albums. The musicians have obvious technical skill, but this type of music just isn’t appealing to me.

Slow, morose, and lacking the charm that made Beck a 90s alt rock staple. Only Sunday Sun here carries much weight. The rest is pretty dull.

Monster was a pretty good track, especially the portion with Nicki Minaj. Otherwise this was just a bunch of nonsense.

Dull. Not fun or grand or exciting. Just meh. Not for me.

Neil Young - Harvest ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Album #6 for me, and it’s the best one so far. I’m not always a huge fan of slow, downbeat music, which has been a problem with the project so far for me. I’m certainly familiar with this album’s existence, but I’ve never listened to it before. I have heard a couple of the songs. It’s a strong collection for sure, but just a little too down tempo for my tastes (mostly). I do plan to listen to it again someday, which I will not being doing with any of the other choices provided so far.

One extra star for some interesting guitar work, but otherwise this is just hippie nonsense.

Nah, not for me.

Not great, not bad - very much in the middle. It’s basically the OKest type of music possible. I enjoyed it a lot more than most of the albums on this list so far, but it was a little too soft and slow for me to be super excited about it. And it was repetitive, with a couple of the songs presented twice with different remixes. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Finally, an album that I was excited to listen to (again). The Black Album is an absolute monster in terms of its cultural and musical impact. Some fans felt it was a sell out by Metallica, but it was the opposite. The world finally caught up with metal’s greatest band and we are all better off for it. Every track here is fantastic. There is literally nothing that doesn’t hit exactly. A total master work. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I was looking forward to this one because it was listed on the Rolling Stone top 500 albums of all time in 2012. Sadly there is just not much here to pique my interest. ⭐️⭐️

The Beach Boys Today! by The Beach Boys ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This album is a short but wonderful reminder that music can be FUN if the artists are interested in that. This is not the strongest collection from The Beach Boys, but it is vastly superior to most everything else that this project has spawned for me. I’m very happy that I got to spend some time at the Beach!

At Budokan - Cheap Trick ⭐️⭐️⭐️ I recognize that this album has the most famous version of I Want You to Want Me. And also the intro to Surrender that was famously sampled by the Beastie Boys. But as a collection, I don’t see what exactly pushes this good but not great live collection into legendary status. It does sound authentic and not over produced or polished, but otherwise it’s just fine and not much more.

NEU! 75 - NEU ⭐️ I’m not really sure what about this album is appealing to some people, but it’s not appealing to me at all. It put me to sleep, so I went back and listened to it again, just to be fair. Still boring. The 1001 Albums project is giving me a lot of confirmation bias, that I already know about and like the best possible music. I’m sure that there will be breakthroughs and surprises, but so far I haven’t encountered any.

#15 - Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I’ve never actually listened to a Rage Against the Machine album. I’ve just heard the radio songs. This album is absolutely fantastic. It’s so sincere and authentic and full of…rage…against machines… Considering that this album is right in the wheelhouse of what I was listening to in the 90s, I’m surprised that I never looked into it. I have a very good friend who doesn’t like them so that probably influenced me to avoid them. But this debut album is so strong that I plan to listen to it again for sure. It’s the first new five star album that I’ve covered in this project so far.

Public Enemy has long been one of my favorite hip-hop bands, and Fear of a Black Planet was an album that I spent a lot of time with in the past. Its production is first rate, and the music is just jam after jam. Flavor Flav is at his all time best on 911 is a Joke and Fight the Power is an all-time classic. Released dead center in PE’s run of three massively great albums in a row, the Enemy were at the height of the powers. Not to be missed!

PJ Harvey - Let England Shake ⭐️⭐️ I don’t think that I’ve ever heard a PJ Harvey song before, so I had no frame of reference as far as what to expect from this collection. It’s actually pretty dull. There was nothing here that was of any interest to me, although it wasn’t terrible.

Beck - Odelay ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Day 18 and I’m already on my second Beck album. Which is fine by me because this album is excellent. While the first one I listened to (Sea Change) wasn’t very inspiring, this album delivers a collection that actually sounds like Beck. Groovy guitars, sound effects and lyrics mix together in a gloriously fun way. The second to last track, Ramshackle, is the only misstep here.

Jurassic 5 - Power In Numbers ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I’ve heard this group’s name before but never any of their music. I was very surprised by how fun this album is. Socially conscious, not misogynistic or crude, and some awesome raps. It’s not the style of music that I usually seek out that often, but I was really impressed.

Van Morrison - Moondance ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is simply a fantastic album. Very note and every lyric are in the right place at the right time. I recognized about half of the songs, but the other half were all just as strong. And to think, Morrison’s most famous song isn’t even on this album, and it’s still incredible.

Nitin Sawhnwy - Beyond Skin ⭐️ Only three weeks into the project and I feel like some of my reviews are already a bit repetitive. I guess there’s nothing wrong with the technical musicianship on this album, but boring music like that does absolutely nothing for me.

Bruce Springsteen - Born in the U.S.A. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I was 9 years old in 1984, and this album, through the miracle of MTV, was my introduction to The Boss, and it remains my favorite album of his to this day. It sounds more like a greatest hits collection, with banger and banger, hit after hit, and not a single bad song at all. Undoubtedly, the fact that I grew up with this as one of my favorites impacts my feelings now. But that’s no issue for me. This is a perfect slam hm and I love it.

King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Wow. This is an album with a reputation that certainly precedes it. It’s really really good. I do not think that I can really be sure on how I would rate it after only one listen, but I’m going with four stars for now. I am going to spend some more time with it for sure. I can easily see why so many people view this as one of the best albums of ever made. When I was younger, my brother was a big fan of this album but I never actually listened to it. My tastes at that time were not nearly refined enough to appreciate this work. I’m not sure that they are even now. But this is clearly a prog rock masterpiece that deserved the accolades that it gets.

Suede - Suede ⭐️⭐️ Okish, passable and not very memorable BritPop that sounds like The Smiths but isn’t as good as they are.

Queen - Queen II ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Absolutely had the Queen sound and style from beginning to end, but Queen hadn’t quite reached their peak just yet when they made this one. It’s a like a preview of coming attractions, but it was still very fun.

Maxwell - Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite ⭐️ Skillful enough I guess, but this type of music is not of any interest to me.

I’m not really sure why some of these albums were selected. This is just random and ok but not at all significant from what I can see.

Ugh. I just can’t with this nonsense music.

Oasis - Definitely Maybe ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I’ve never really given Oasis much thought. I know a few radio hits, and I know lots about their band’s internal drama. But I’ve never really done a deep dive into their actual music. But after only three songs I think that this album is definitely maybe going to get five stars…

The guitar on the first track was interesting, but really this just isn’t for me.

#31 - George Jones - The Grand Tour ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is the kind of music that I grew up listening to, because it’s what my parents liked. Once, when I was probably 9 or 10 years old, my parents bought concert tickets for our entire family to see George Jones. Unfortunately, the concert was cancelled and my dad said he wasn’t surprised because he was know as “No Show” Jones. I’ve never researched the validity of that nickname, I just accepted it as true because that’s what my dad said. So I for sure got a chuckle when listening to this album, which Wikipedia says is Jones’s 50th, and in the final track about people gossiping about him and if he was a “no show”. This album is so good. It’s old fashioned country music made by one of the genre’s great at the height of his abilities. It’s 28 minutes of heartbreak and a little bit of humor mixed in. I’ve never heard this album or any of these songs but I really liked it a lot.

Hot Fuss might be the best 90s album of 2004. I’d have to check. It’s totally ok. I’ve never been a big fan of The Killers but this is definitely not a bad album. It’s good. Middle of the road.

Not exciting in any way. Boring jam band music for hippies.

#34 - Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I don’t really have a whole lot to say about that fantastic album that hasn’t already been said. It’s a double album so skillfully crafted that most single albums can’t even compare. Led Zeppelin is hugely significant, and they were in their prime here. This is hard rock at its very finest, and when you listen to it you hear the countless bands that they influenced pretty easily. Pure magic.

Mind-numbingly boring electronic music.

A pretty good set by a pretty good band.

#37 - The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Other than Seven Nations Army, I don’t really know anything about The White Stripes. The album cover made me think that these were drama kids from high school, kinda like Panic! At the Disco, who make very theatrical music. That might not be completely accurate, but that’s how I saw it. This album is amazing. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this far surpassed my preconceived notions and made me want to look further into The White Stripes music.

Very well done and skillful but a little bit too downbeat for my tastes. Constant Craving is an awesome track.

#39 - The Cure - Seventeen Seconds ⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Cure is one of my absolute favorite bands. I was super happy to get one of their albums for today, even if it’s one of their mid-level ones. This was The Cure’s second album after Three Imaginary Boys(Uk - very good)/Boys Don’t Cry (US - excellent). You can hear their sound continue to develop here into what will culminate into 1989’s Disintegration. This is a good but not great album.

This is boring, down tempo music that does nothing for me.

Competent guitar playing but very uninspiring music overall.

This album has a reputation that precedes it for sure, and is frequently listed amongst the best albums of all time. It’s hard to judge how innovative it was at the time when looking back by 60 years. It’s fantastic, that’s for sure. Beyond that, I will have to listen to it a bunch more to decide how highly I’d rank it all time.

Nope.

#44 - Destiny’s Child - Survivor ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Pop music, when it’s well crafted and executed, can be very fun and enjoyable. That’s literally why it’s POPular. That’s where this album falls, into the category of very well done pop music. It’s selfies down a bit in the second half and seems to run a little long, but overall it’s a very solid collection of entertaining hit music. The standout track is Bootylicious.

#45 - The Pogues - Rum Sodomy & The Lash ⭐️ Spirited malarkey. Not interested.

#46 - The Beatles - A Hard Day’s Night ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I think that this stupid album generator ratings machine is broken because I’m trying to give this album 17 stars and it won’t let me! It’s outrageous how good The Beatles were. Their prime was literally their entire career. The best songs on this album (the title track plus Can’t Buy Me Love and basically all of the other songs too) are better than most of the songs on most band’s greatest hits collections. The people who like to be edgy by saying that The Beatles weren’t that good are both objectively and subjectively wrong. This album encapsulates how much fun rock and roll music can be. It’s sheer perfection. And it’s not even the best album by The Beatles.

#47 - Screaming Trees - Dust ⭐️⭐️ This is OKish, uninspiring 90s alt-rock. It’s not bad, but it’s not particularly great either. I’m not sure how it earned its way onto this list, but I’d say it might be out of place.

I liked the very 1980s pop/new wave sound of this band’s music.

Good but doesn’t compare to the masterful Moondance.

Alright. I guess I never really understood what The White Stripes were all about before starting the project. Now, after listening to two of their albums, I realize that they are actually pretty amazing. This album starts off with Seven Nations Army, which is certainly the most famous White Stripes song. That’s about the extent of my knowledge of them before a few weeks ago. Elephant is a very well known, for good reason. It’s better than pretty much all of the rock coming out in that era. I’m really interested in listening to the rest of their albums.

Not for me.