5/5 Transcendent. I had never listened to Nina before today and was very moved by this album. Especially loved her rendition of Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair.
4/5. Strong first half, but the second half lost me a bit. Never realized how much Bowie sounded like Syd Barrett!
Felt a little bloated as an album, with several of the songs blending together sonically for me.
I like the cycle of life segment on the first half or what would be side 1. A lot of the songs sound the same, however.
Super fun record! I didn’t realize how many hits it had.
I generally like The Cure, but this one was too dark and discordant for me. Maybe I just like their later work better. I can see why this was credited for creating goth rock, because it definitely has the darkness in spades.
The sound is definitely ahead of its time and I can see why it inspired a lot of bands just to try music as a group. Some of the songs in the back half lost me a bit; never have been a big fan of discordance. But others would definitely be growers on another listen.
Really enjoyed this one! Had never heard of the artist before, but I liked the grooves and the guitar playing. Reminded me a lot of Joni Mitchell, but with a huskier, funkier turn and better guitar playing.
I thought this would sound more like rock ‘n’ roll. It mostly sounded like R&B. Still very good, but I am having a hard time understanding why he is regarded as the beginner of rock ‘n’ roll.
Great songwriting. I don’t love Neil’s voice, but no question that he has lyrics that stick with you.
I can definitely picture myself at a tiki bar sipping a hurricane while this plays in the background, waiting for Don Draper to come ask my name. For the vibe alone, it earns a 3.
Enjoyed this! Lots of fun riffs and struck the right balance between playful and heavy. I’m still not sure what any of the lyrics mean, though.
Decent. I like the jammy and bluesy nature of several of the songs, but the singer's voice is grating to me. Otherwise I'd rate it higher.
Hard to believe this was only their second album. It pales a bit in comparison to Can’t Buy a Thrill, which has to be one of the best debut albums ever. There’s still plenty to love, though - slick guitar playing, jazz influence, and tight timing.
Had to listen twice to better appreciate it, plus situate it in the historical context. Once I did those things I understood it and enjoyed it more. To modern ears it sounds sloppy and a bit disjointed, but the riffs and sound were ahead of their time, and I can see why Jeff Beck was so sought after as a player. As a side note, I really don’t like the old mixing style where most of the band is tracked on one side and the rest on the other - glad that fad went out of style.
I really liked this! With it being their first album, I assumed it might be different from their later stuff, but turns out they’ve just always sounded like that. I think REM is a polarizing band, as in you like them or you don’t, but I like them. Strong debut for sure.
This was one of the first albums where I expected something very different based on the name, band name, and artwork. I was pleasantly surprised! The music itself kind of defies categorization: alt rock, trance, acid house…it’s all here and blended up. I think I’ll definitely return to this one for more listens.
Solid early indie/alt rock. A little sloppy but that’s part of the charm!
Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for Queen the day this was assigned, but I found this self-indulgent and kind of same-y throughout. There’s solid guitar and keys work, and obviously Freddie sounds great, but for whatever reason this was a slog for me to get through.
Just good, solid thrash metal with sound lyrics and high-octane rage. I needed this one after pushing through the saccharine repetitiveness of Queen.
It’s background jazz. It gets 3 stars because the musicianship is very good, but…it’s background jazz. And my version (Apple Music) had multiple takes of the same song, so I skipped those.
It’s new wave, it’s fine. Interesting vocals and the singles stand out, but a lot of the background music blends together.
I don’t know why I’d never listened to this band with intention before, but I loved this journey through the darker sides of the comedown. I’m told online this invented trip hop; all I can say is thank you.
If you like house, you should like The Chemical Brothers. It’s well-produced and sounds fresh, but I think a lot blends together toward the end. 3.5/5
I’m just not really into the troubadour/medieval weird folksy thing that was popular in this era, and I still don’t care for Buckley’s voice. It does have a lot of whimsy, at least, so there’s that.
Really makes you think of what could have been. She had such a voice!
I love the Philly sound Bowie brings on for this album, with the horns and backing vocals. I think it’s a more coherent effort than Heroes, which dragged in its second half. Definitely will return!
I’m sure it’s not a lot of peoples’ cup of tea, but I thought these were quaint. Definitely a lot of nostalgia in hearing Marty’s rich voice and imagining the “romance” of the west, where the bad guy gets shot and the good guy saves the girl. It’s all a little samey, though, which is maybe to be expected.
I liked this era of U2 - when they still seemed excited by their own success and before ego pushed its way into sounding the same as every other big arena band. Sunday Bloody Sunday is an obvious standout, but I liked “40” as well, and I’ve been jamming to New Year’s Day for years. Strong 4.5 for me.
This one benefited from a close listen. Initially I thought it was kind of maudlin and corny, but then I decided to listen with headphones and be more focused, and it was better that way. Went from a 3 to a 4. I liked Drive, Sidewinder, and Monty. Probably content never to hear Everybody Hurts again, but that’s because it’s overplayed - no fault of the band. Definitely will return.
I didn’t know funk and psychedelic could sound so good! Some fantastic grooves and guitar on here. However, I hate having to go to YouTube to find music.
This is one of the ones where I think the Anglo influence/bias shows up in this list, although I admit I wasn’t aware that Robbie Williams was the one to bump the Beatles off of the top of the all-time UK top-played artists. Musically, I found this pretty blase. Catchy at times and cloyingly corny at others.
I know how iconic this is, so I know I “should” rate it higher, but it’s smooth R&B soul jams that make you think of silk sheets and Sunday mornings in bed. Not very much revolutionary - at least for me. 3.5/5
Very complex and interesting and moving. I want to come back to it.
I don’t know how to classify this. Weird, esoteric, occasionally catchy? But music that, if my date put it on in the car, I would immediately expect to be either killed or bored to death while he told me about the characteristics of various IBM calculators from the 80s.
It’s fine for what it is, which is that version of samey pop music that was ubiquitous in the early 2000s. Christina has pipes, but it also sounds like she’s trying too hard a lot of the time. 2.5/5
I’ve always liked Nick’s gentle voice and guitar playing, and in particular I liked the addition of strings, flute, and horns to this album. 3.75 rounded to 4.
Fun and cool jazz. I like how lively it was. And it made me feel like an intellectual while reading my book
I liked the more mellow side of these songs, but overall this felt very uneven. The rougher songs had a punk feel to them, which was probably intentional, but I found a few of them borderline unlistenable. But, on the nicer side, the more mellow ones are reminiscent of the indie rock that was to come, so seeing that influence was cool. Overall though, 2.5/5
Probably sacrilegious to say, but I’m a bit tired of Bowie, and I think I still have 3-4 of his records to go. As with the others, I like the singles because they’re familiar and pretty much everything else is solid but didn’t stick with me. So, 3.5/5. Sorry, David.
Wow. I had been in an album slump, feeling like I kept getting meh at best picks, and then this came along and reminded me why I’m doing this to begin with. I can’t believe that all the musical algorithms I’ve been prey to up to now missed the fact that I’d love this album, and I’m mad that I could have been listening to it for years now. I loved it. Broken Heart might be one of the most moving songs I’ve ever heard, and you can hear Radiohead in some of the instrumental interludes. And it has a gospel track?? Man. I’m glad I get to live in a world with music like this.
RIP Tennessee Queen. Always had a lovely and distinctive voice.
A fun throwback. I like Missy’s attitude, and I actually kind of appreciated her spoken bits between songs. The guest spots from Jay-Z and Beyoncé were standouts, and the song Pussycat is honestly hilarious. 3.5/5
It’s wild to think that Otis was in his early 20s when he recorded this. A shame we didn’t get to hear more from him.
I didn’t find much memorable about this album, which was kind of a bummer as I know Adam Ant is considered influential. Ah well.
This was fun. Cult of Personality might be one of the best album openers out there, and in general there’s just a lot of energy and swagger on this record. I like the funk influence, and the guitar playing is hard to top. Strong 4.5/5
This is my second Amy album on this journey, which I think means I’m done with her - and much like her own sadly foreshortened life, that feels too soon. This was a more complete effort than Frank. Tons of swagger but with tighter songwriting and a better backing band. Easy 4/5.
The younger Beatles have an undeniable charm to them, and it’s fun listening and imagining the crowds, the squeaky clean images, and just four dudes pal-ing around. Musically perhaps not as interesting as their later work, but still undeniably good.
I’ve finally gotten to the age where I can appreciate jam, so I liked this. The addition of a flute was fun! And the title track was a standout for me, despite being more of a traditional ballad than a jam. Solid 4/5
Man, what can be said about Radiohead that hasn’t been said before? I’ve always liked them, but Amnesiac is probably the album I’ve listened to least for whatever reason. The first half is so strong, and Pyramid Song alone is worth 5 stars, but there’s too much filler/drag in the second half to justify the full 5. Still, though, Pyramid Song might be among the best tracks Radiohead ever recorded.
Ugh. I don’t really know why this is on this list. It’s joyless, bloated, and it sounds like a worse imitation of Bob Dylan. It only gets a 2 for the album artwork. Surely there are other works deserving of its spot…
I really liked Purple Rain, and there were definitely flashes and glimmers of the same awesome funk-pop-rock fusion on this album, but the length of several of the tracks took me out a bit. If songs like Automatic had been shorter, then I'm there for a 5/5, but as it is, it's a 4.
I'll be the first to admit that I have a soft spot for Coldplay based on when I first encountered them. I get hit with a blast of warm nostalgia like a comfy blanket when I hear their early work, so I recognize that that makes me a very biased voter. They're corny, they're hopeless romantics, they're annoyingly positive - but I wish we had more music like this now, truly, instead of music that focuses on all the ways the world is bad. And a lot of their stuff is catchy. So, 4/5.
I echo others who ask…why a live album? I skipped any track that wasn’t on the original recording because why would I subject myself to 2.25 hours of The Who. Once I did that, this was actually fine. Keith Moon was a great drummer.
I kinda miss this version of in-your-face feminism and girl rocking. It's about as subtle as a sledgehammer, but that's what makes it fun. Some of the writing was a little trite, and none of the songs met the standard for "wow, who would have thought of THAT?", but it was fun and rocking enough for a 3.5/5.
This was kinda like if you took the composer for The Sims (original) build mode music and let him go ham. Interesting and just a lil exciting, but mostly kind of soothing background jazz.
I really like Gillian Welch and her work with Dave Rawlings, and some of the tracks on this record are real standouts, like the title track, Everything is Free, and Red Clay Halo. To a degree, though, the songs run together, which bumps it to a 4/5 for me. Still an album I'll return to in the future.
Another biased review because this album was the one that actually got me into listening to albums as complete works. I still have powerful emotional reactions to most of the songs on this record. My Body Is A Cage is one of the most powerful album closers ever, and Neon Bible perfectly encapsulates what it is to live in the neon buckle of the Bible Belt. 9/5 no other notes.
Enjoyed this one! It felt very evenly paced and didn’t overstay its welcome. Emo music for people who don't want to sound emo all the time.
I already thought it was a bit creepy for a dude who sounded 40+ to be singing songs about wanting to date high school girls, and then my husband told me he got married to a 13 year old at 22 (and she was his cousin). Soooo yeah, 1/5 just for that unfortunate tidbit.
Just two songs? I think perhaps improvisational jazz isn’t for me…or maybe I like the idea of jazz more than jazz itself. Either way, I listened to this while cooking dinner and it was perfectly acceptable background music, but I can’t see myself going back to it. I guess that makes it a 2.5/5.
Killer album. Nails the millennial joy of life tempered by impending sadness. Someone Great is a standout. There’s a tiny bit of filler which knocks it down to 4.5, but otherwise near perfect.
It feels disrespectful not to rate this higher because I do really respect Emmylou, but it didn’t click for me the way I wanted to. The title track is a standout, but others just got to sounding the same to me.
A double album? Of country and what would now be called Americana standards? Surely too much for a 5 star rating - but I think it is. Not only is the playing excellent, but the history captured here is hard to resist. I loved hearing the standards played by some of the legends themselves. Gems like this are why I started this project, and I’ll definitely be telling people about this record.
Decent blues/psych rock, although honestly a bit derivative. Ginger Baker's drumming is a standout.
I liked the rage
I liked how textured and baroque this was compared to his other work, and thought it actually sounded a lot more hopeful than the more melancholy work he got into later on. Solid 4/5
Solid hip hop and rap, better than I expected. It had that semi-hopeful political message of the early 2000s that I found nostalgic as well.
It may be that I just wasn’t in the mood for The Flaming Lips when this was given to me, but I found Wayne’s voice kind of annoying and I guess this made me realize that he’s never been a strong singer. But the rest of the music is interesting enough for a 3.5.
Probably has one of the strongest starts of an album that I can think of. Bono is divisive, I know, but I like this. Strong 4.5/5
Another album that isn't on Apple Music - sigh. There are some interesting arrangements here and some of it is a vibe, but some of the sing-talking is a little grating after a while. I see why it's considered a major influence on rap and hip hop, and the energy/passion/anger are unmistakable. An interesting history lesson for sure. 3.5/5
The standout is definitely Nothing Compares 2 U, not just because I’ve heard it the most before. I wasn’t expecting the quasi-trance elements on here. Overall really enjoyable.
Opening half was really strong but a lot more filler later on. I like Beck, though - kinda edgy but familiar at the same time.
This was a little long, but I liked it. I don’t think I’d heard pretty much anything from Crowded House besides their hits, so I was pleasantly surprised that they sound better when they aren’t playing ballads. Reminded me a lot of REM, and funnily enough, that’s what auto play chose next for me when the album ended. 3.5/5
Apple Music called this “effortlessly catchy”, but we must have differing opinions of what catchy means. I found most of this a dull, whiny grind. Like a worse version of Bowie crossed with the most self-indulgent and emo version of The Cure. Blech. Party Fears Two kept it from being a 1 and is probably the only song I’d return to…maybe.
Damn, this was a good palate cleanser after the new wave trash heap I had yesterday. It is a little longer than needed, but I don’t really care because it’s got grooves and riffs and Chris Cornell can belt it. I think of Fell on Black Days all the time and one time I watched a total solar eclipse to Black Hole Sun, so this is an easy 5/5 for me.
I tried to ignore Kid Rock’s more recent reputation as one of America’s biggest idiot dirtbags so I could judge the music on its merits alone. At first the hits in the first half kinda had me. Stupid lyrics but a stupid good time, you know? And then I hit the middle of the album, just a mindless slog with every song being at least 2 minutes too long, followed by the autotuned flaming shitheap that is Only God Knows Why, and the bizarre, no reason slur in the last song (which was 10 minutes long for literally no reason). Nope, never mind, it really is a 1/5 even without considering his myriad personal flaws. I want 70 minutes back.
A little weird to read writing that calls this “one of the best albums of all time”…maybe you just had to be there. The harmonies are amazing, as always, but some of the songs themselves are kinda weird? Like the one about wanting to protect but also date your little sister. That one aged like milk. Anyway, 3/5.
Damn, this was really good! Sledgehammer has been one of my jams for a while, so I was happy to discover that the rest of the album is strong, too. Great blend of funk, R&B, and world music, plus Gabriel’s signature voice. Putting this as a 4 for now but I might adjust it to a 5 after another listen and more reflection.
As Anthony Kiedis would say, "Awwww, aw yeah!" I listened to RHCP so much in middle and high school that I'm sure multiple people still associate me with them. I don't really care that it's not cool to like them anymore (if it ever was), they will always have a big piece of my heart. I always loved the breadth of this album - everything from the funk rock of Around the World to the punk of Get on Top to the melodic side of Porcelain and Road Trippin'. Listening again in 2026, I do think it's time for a remaster. A lot of the tracks sound blown out or muddy, and whether intentional or not, it just doesn't sound great in an era of Lossless. I also would have swapped in Quixoticelixir for either I Like Dirt or Emit Remmus. But, just for the sheer number of times I've spun this record, I think it has to go on my wall of 5s. No apologies if that makes me lame.
I’m glad I read some of the historical context for this or I likely wouldn’t have cared as much. As it is, it’s a quick jaunt into Harlem with lots of screaming and panting. You honestly want to give James Brown a lozenge or a hot tea for a lot of it. And I still don’t like the early 60s trend of tracking vocals to one side and the band to the other. That said, it sounds like I’d have had a blast if I were there, so 3/5.
I’m sure I’ll be tired of saying this by the end - but here’s another album that I’m not sure why it earned a spot on the list. Plodding, meandering, honestly pretty dull. I couldn’t identify a standout track, if I’m honest. It wasn’t so bad I had to turn it off, which is the only reason it gets a 2 instead of a 1. That and the instrumentation, which is occasionally refreshing.
