It's hard to imagine a world without 'Kind of Blue'. The language seems, now, so easy and natural - but it must have been bracing in its simplicity when it came out. What an incredible album. What a cast of players.
I thought I knew this album. Turns out I only knew its reputation. Listening late at night, on headphones, it is a whole other experience.
It is still groundbreaking and earth-shattering 60 years on? Perhaps not - this is well-worn territory now, and so many bands have built on DSOTM and taken it in different directions. But gee whiz you can absolutely see why it blew everyone's mind in 1973.
Further reinforces my belief that U2 are a great singles band without a genuinely great album (perhaps I’ll change that when I re-listen to Joshua Tree).
The big singles on this are amazing. Top-tier songs. But so much of this album is dull and lifeless, and sounds like so much else at the time. Moments of unmatched inspiration surrounded by uninspired album tracks.
20 years on, when every lightweight The Voice/X Factor/Idol/whatever contestant has a soul fry to their voice, 'Back to Black' sounds cliched and tired. But you cannot overestimate the impact this had when it came out in 2006: it was the era of new rock and Brooklyn hipster bands, and suddenly this sexy, slinky Wall of Sound erupted from London and recast popular music in its image.
Of course it is now tinged with sadness and tragedy. All those songs about drug-fueled love and refusing rehab were too hard-earned, depriving us of an answer as to whether Winehouse was a genuine superstar or lightning in a bottle.
Perhaps it is too soon to properly judge. Mark Ronson remains ascendant; so much of popular music today carries either his signature or his influence. Maybe we need another decade for music to move on in order to look back with clear ears. But in the meantime we have that voice, that attitude, these songs. Winehouse can more than hold her own with the pop divas of the 21st century, and indeed with the originals from the 60s - and that's some serious company to keep.
Every note of this album is tattooed directly onto my soul.
One of the great stadium rock songs.
One of the great cover versions.
More guitar solos than you can shake a stick at.
And after three albums of raw, minimalist, full-throttle rock and roll, here we get the first real glimpses of the breadth of Jack White's influences and interests. It doesn't always work but it is fun.
Oh, and Meg White is still a badass drummer. None of this works without her.
Some gorgeous moments but not enough of them to make this a genuinely great album. I think of Fleet Foxes as a really solid band with a handful of transcendent songs - and that's pretty good! Not many bands can say that.
I had never knowingly listened to The Style Council before - though I realise I know 'Shout to the Top' - and I would happily have lived my entire life without listening to this album. Yikes.
It takes a while to warm into this - the first few tracks sound very basic and almost comical to 21st century ears - but as we go on you can hear just how much music of the last 50 years used this as its template.
Just superb. Everything is 10/10 - production, rhymes, energy, cool. And could ‘Scenario’ be the single best rap track of all time?
A rollicking good time! 8, maybe 9 all-time classics. Immediately redolent of the Vietnam War era in American popular culture - a band that soundtracked a generation.
I remember watching the video clip for 'Go West' on TV as a kid and loving it, but sensing that I didn't fully understand what was going on. I was young in that particular era of hyper-pop but as a result grew out of it and rebelled against it quite quickly, instead seeking refuge in early acoustic blues and loud guitar riffs.
All of that is to say that Pet Shop Boys have never been my sort of music, and I would say that is still very much true. But you can't deny the craft of 'A Different Point of View', a beautiful song that I'm very glad has come into my life.
Probably won't be listening to any of these other tracks ever again, though....
God this is so bad. I would give it zero stars if I could. It's like a parody of 1970s folk/prog/whatever - I checked several times to make sure it wasn't Spinal Tap. This is comfortably the worst album I've listened to in this list. How did we ever trust Boomers when they insisted this was a classic?
This was completely new to me — and what a find! Dark, moody, full of interesting textures and sounds. Great songwriting. And what a presence Siouxsie is in every track. It is somehow immediately of its era but not dated in the slightest.
What can I say about this record, about this band? Probably, if forced to choose just one, my favourite band of all time. And this record captures so much of what makes them great. It isn’t my favourite album of theirs — I never loved their early, lo-fi noise/thrash tendencies as much as I love J’s knack for a perfect hook — but I can’t really say a bad word about it. Turn up my symphony!
What a cracking record: taut, melodic, sparse, incisive. The Jam are one of those bands where I know a couple of hits and thought I “got it” so didn’t dig further — what a missed opportunity!
A brilliant, ripping record. You can trace entire genres back to this one moment — hell, when Joe Strummer sings “d’ya think I’m a raving idiot” is more dangerous and thrilling than the entire Fontaines DC catalogue. There’s so much anger and disillusionment at a broken Britain, but also energy and drive to make things better, to organise, to stay aware of what is happening around you.
I have never clicked with REM, even though I know they exist on a continuum of some of the great American rock bands. Some of my favourites (The Hold Steady for one) reference them as inspirations, and I can hear that, but it rarely clicks for me. There are some moments on this album - ‘Strange’ and ‘Oddfellows Local 151’ are great, and ‘End of the World’ must be the least likely smash hit in the history of music. But underneath it all is an 80s wry humour and a lugubriousness that just doesn’t do it for me.
This too is showing its age, but how amazing that all my favourite threads of hip hop begin life in this album. The lyricism, the samples, the humour. Brilliant.
Fascinated that this made the cut of 1001 essential albums!
I guess it is interesting to hear what other bands were doing in the mid-1960s, and that it wasn't all British Invasion dominating everything. And I note that this band had some considerable chart success in the USA. But really, this is a very minor footnote in musical history, and you can hear exactly why The Beatles were so thrilling and revolutionary if this was their competition.
It's fine, and if The Beatles, The Animals, The Kinks and dozens of other more interesting R&B bands disappeared from the face of the Earth tomorrow this would be a fun record to have in their place - but I certainly don't think this will make the cut for the next edition of the book...
Bands like The Stone Roses suffer from the passage of time. In 2026 it is impossible to know the impact that this had in 1989, and what a ray of delight and sunshine in must have been in an otherwise gloomy Britain. And certainly it was hugely influential on music in the 90s, even into the 2000s.
But nearly 40 years after its release it is...well, a bit lame? It's like someone took the best bits of Revolver, took even more drugs and tried to recreate them - but worse. A couple of fun singles that have stood the test of time but I really do think You Had To Be There, Man.
'Wish You Were Here' is one of the great songs. And some parts of this are terrific. But mostly it's just a lot of drifting around on somebody else's acid trip, which isn't nearly as fun as going on your own.
A lot of early hip hop seems genteel and mild by comparison to today's music, but not 'The Chronic'. This still hits as hard as ever, in large part due to the bone rattling production that you can feel reverberating in your chest. It's hard, abrasive and confronting, pretty extraordinary considering it is 35 years old!
But it just goes to show you - you should always leave the skits on the floor of the editing bay...
