1001 Albums Summary

Was disappointed to see this pop up as my first album. Then “Immigrant Song” started and I was like, “Hell yeah!” It went downhill until the end of Side A (“Out of the Tiles”), and then got better again. I like the rock stuff better than the folkier and bluesier stuff. But Bron-Y-Aur Stomp had me tapping my toes. Highlights: -Immigrant Song - Out on the Tiles - Gallows Pole - Bron-Y-Aur Stomp “Since I’ve Been Loving You” was an interminable slog. Album closer “Hats off to (Roy) Harper” - I like the experimental nature of it but it’s not fun to listen to. Love the cover art. Crazy how much Jack White took from all this!

Chrissie Hynde’s voice and swagger are amazing. This album rocks harder than I was expecting by a band whose biggest single is “I’ll Stand By You.” I was surprised by how much of this album I already knew, even songs that weren’t singles. “Precious,” the first song, is a one of my favorites and “Mystery Achievement” is such a cool way to end it. What an amazing pair of songs to bookend the album. I also really liked the punky-experimenting on “The Phone Call”; “Tattooed Love Boys,” and of course “Brass in Pocket”’is a classic. I was surprised that I didn’t really know their cover of “Stop Your Sobbing” - I know the Kinks version well and didn’t care for the version on “The Pretenders.” Also, “Private Life,” their take on reggae, really wasn’t for me but Hynde’s voice is gorgeous on it. I knew at least half the tracks on this album but had never listened to it before. I’m glad I did, I wouldn’t mind coming back to it.

It’s ok for what it is. It’s not one of the 1001 albums I needed to hear. Some perfectly fine radio singles that appeal to angsty teens and a bunch of other songs that sound just like them, only worse. 3/10

I love Cat Stevens’s voice, and the songwriting is great. A nostalgic listen that still holds up. Favorites: Wild World Father and Son Longer Boats (mostly because it was a surprise - never heard it before and it was different from the rest) I’ll listen to this one again.

A very pleasant surprise. I knew only the biggest Siouxie hits before this. But after Juju was assigned to me for this project, I listened to it three times in the past 24 hours. Side A is near-perfect. It’s full of songs that are fun listens but also interesting and complicated. “Spellbound” is basically a song made to dance to at goth clubs, but sounds like it has acoustic guitars in it? Which is apparently all guitar trickery by absolute master John McGeogh? Incredible. 4 goth masterpieces in a row and then, to keep you from getting complacent they hit you with straight-up rock banger “Monitor.” This is an album that demands your attention. Side B is more diverse, and weirder. It’s a tougher listen but so interesting. Album closer “Voodoo Dolly” starts as a haunting, ethereal piece and then picks up the pace, getting darker, faster, and scarier. There are some poppy bits on the album but “Voodoo Dolly,” playing with tempo, getting bigger and smaller, using both deep, quiet and then shrieking vocals, ending in a cacophony over which Siouxie hisses “Listen!”, it gives the message that this band WILL be taken seriously. And makes you want to push play again and start over at “Spellbound.” Side A - 5/5 Side B - 4/5

What a waste of time. The title song “Hearts and Bones” was lovely, but the rest of the album ranged from boring to laughably silly. “Allergies,” “Song About the Moon,” “Cars are Cars”… the same person who wrote that drivel wrote “The Boxer”? “Bridge over Troubled Water”? Knowing what Paul Simon is capable of takes this album from bad to truly disappointing.

“Green Onions” is fun and funky. The rest of the album vacillates between that, and sounding like you’re at a baseball game listening to the organist banging out 60s classics. Pleasant background music and a worthy addition to the list for the musicianship and the band’s place in music history.

The guitar-playing is insane. The lyrics try to be edgy but come off a little silly (like Dave Mustaine is deliberately trolling suburban conservatives). Overall this album is more fun than I'd anticipated. This is the music a teenager in the 80s turns up to 11 in their bedroom after stomping upstairs, shouting to their parents "You don't understand me!" and slamming the door.

I put this on as I was doing work outside, and it was perfect for that. It's pretty funky. 6.5/10

You know how when you're listening to "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) and you're grooving along, thinking how great it is, and then you get to that part where she sings, "Here's a man that makes me, then takes me / and delivers me to a destiny / To infinity and beyond" and you're totally taken out of the moment, and you have to scratch you head and wonder how something so dumb ended up in the song? Yeah, that's the whole "Survivor" album. The girls sound AMAZING together, but the lyrics seem as if they were written by a middle-schooler who still dots her i's with hearts.

I’m about two weeks into the project, and this is the first album that I already knew very well all the way through. I’m not sure if nostalgia is affecting my review, but this was such an enjoyable listen for me. The songs really hold up. U2 were already a really tight band here, the drumming especially stands out. The three singles – New Year’s Day, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Two Hearts Beat as One – stand out as favorites. Refugee and 40, too. A couple of songs in the middle take this from a 5-star to a 4-star but overall I’m happy with how it holds up.

I liked the album, but didn't love it. It was pretty much what I expected, knowing their singles from other albums. But it didn't reach the heights of any of those singles. A pretty solid 3-star album that I might go back to - I think it would make a good listen if I were taking a walk around the neighborhood on a drizzly day.

I loved, loved, loved the funkier soul stuff like “Chain of Fools,” “Come Back Baby,” and “(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You’ve Been Gone.” Also, of course, “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.” I liked the slower songs, but on a second listen I found myself skipping ahead on some of them when they were half-done. Still, what a voice she had! Must have been amazing to see live.

Very cool album! I love that it tells a story from beginning to end. A lot of them sound like songs you’d sing around a campfire, real Americana-sounding stuff. I can see myself coming back to this one.

What a wonderful album! It starts off so strong with "Wanted Man" and keeps up that energy throughout. In fact, the album is so good I feel like I need to defend my not giving it 5 stars. The real problem I have is that there isn't enough of it. Only 10 tracks, but one song is played twice and one of the highlights - "Folsom Prison Blues" - cuts off at the one-minute mark. So it's really only 8 and a half songs. I think if I had listened to the "Legacy" 2-disc version, it would be an easy 5 stars, but that's not the nature of this project. In any case, "At San Quentin" is a real hoot (I love the banter in between songs), interesting, easy to listen to, and fun to sing along with.

Meh. I think I owned this in the 90s when I was going through a Britpop phase but never listened all the way through before. (Probably because it’s not Britpop!) I liked some songs as background music but wouldn’t think to put this on again.

“Crash and Carry” sounds like some Leftfield or Chemical Brothers I used to listen to while getting ready for a big night out in the 90s. “Quality Seconds” reminds me a little of the Prodigy; it might have been fun to dance to at a club. And unlike the rest of the songs, it is blissfully quite short. Other songs are background music with no hook and so forgettable. 2.5/10

Nothing groundbreaking, but a solid pop-rock album with some really strong singles.

This was really not for me.

I’d never heard a Prog Rock album from beginning to end before. But I liked this so much. It’s way before my time, but I think if I had been in college in the early 1970s, this would’ve been on in my dorm room all the time and I would’ve made all my friends listen to it while we were hanging out. This album is full of constant surprises. You never know what you’re going to hear next. Will it be futuristic sounding synthesizers or will it be jazzy piano accompanied by upright bass? Who knows? A song slowing down and down and getting lower and lower so it reminds you of a vehicle coming to a stop? Fun. Spaceship sounds out of Star Trek? All of the audio cutting out of your right ear so that for 30 seconds the sound is only in the left? Sure, why not. Poppy harmonies that sound like The Who? Sometimes. It’s experimental but accessible and was a nice surprise from a band that I thought I wasn’t going to like.

Like every good indie kid in the early 2000s, I ran to hear this album after Pitchfork rated it a 9.7. It was worth the hype. I still find it so moving to this day. “Funeral” was written and recorded soon after the passing of several people the bandmates were close to. It’s an album inspired by, and therefore a great listen for, tough times. But it isn’t sunshine on a rainy day. It’s a loud, dark thunderstorm that you can scream your frustrations to, followed by a rainbow that bursts from the clouds. This is most apparent on my favorite song, “Rebellion (Lies)”. When things are bad, you can choose to distract yourself, or “sleep.”You can dream. You can get away from it all in your mind. In fact, that’s probably the easiest thing to do. But this song warns: “Sleeping is giving in / No matter what the time is…. People say that you’ll die / Faster than without water / But we know it’s just a lie / Scare your son, scare your daughter.” The song builds in intensity and finally explodes at the end with: “Now here’s the sun, it’s alright (Lies! Lies!) Now here’s the moon, it’s alright (Lies! Lies!)” Stay awake. You have to feel your feelings. It’s alright. It’s a cliche to say “the only way out is through,” but that’s the message of this song, and the album as a whole. And with the beautiful compositions on the album, it’s an easier pill to swallow.

How is a record this loud, with some pretty technically impressive guitar solos, so… boring? It’s all so repetitive. This is my 2nd thrash metal album I’ve gotten for this challenge and the first (Megadeth’s “Peace Sells…”) had me smiling throughout and even laughing a couple of times. This record, I was anxious for each song to end.

I thought this album was smart, interesting, and innovative. I appreciate how different it was from most R&B that came before it, and how it opened up the world of "alternative R&B." I'd heard tracks from "Blonde" before but not this one, and I think I like "Blonde" better. But I'm glad that I sat down and listened to this one (I even listened to "Pyramids" twice!).

Exactly what I expected an AC/DC album to sound like. Solid rock songs. I won't be returning to this one, but I didn't skip any songs as I was listening. I can see why people like it.

Wow. Amazing. It’s not just a music album; it’s basically performance art. The hype man in the beginning announcing all the songs the audience is about to hear, the crowd screaming, the musical interludes… all of that combined with some damn fine music, and you have one of the most electric live albums ever recorded.

Boring bluesy dad-rock. “Layla” is worth hearing and the guitar-playing is very good on many of the songs. But Clayton’s voice can’t handle a lot of what he’s trying to do (I know from “Unplugged” that it eventually will). I think he’s going for a kind of soulful rasp but it just sounds weak and untrained. Not easy to listen to. This is not something I’ll ever put on again.

Rap-metal isn’t usually my thing but damn, this band makes it interesting.

My Talking Heads knowledge before this was mostly limited to "Remain in Light," "Stop Making Sense" and their various singles that got radio airplay, all of which I like a lot. So listening to the first couple of tracks on this album, I was disappointed. They were pretty good, but it wasn't *weird* enough. Give me strange poetic lyrics, instruments not normally found in Western music, syncopated rhythms, words in other languages. That's what I want in my Talking Heads! Then "The Girl Wants to Be with the Girls" started and I was hooked. It's weird! Funky and weird. Right after that was "Found a Job," a song that takes us on a journey with Bob and Judy, a couple bored with each other and bored of what's on TV. So they write some scripts, scout locations, engage their friends and family and make their own shows, having so much fun that it saves their relationship. And it's funky. Yes! This is what I want in a Talking Heads album. All this plus "Take Me to the River" and brilliant album closer "The Big Country". I'm happy to have heard this album and I'll be listening to it more.

Pleasant enough but pretty banal mid-90s Britpop. It sounds like hundreds of other albums that came out at the same time. Not bad background music, and their hit single “Something 4 the weekend” is definitely an earworm.

T. Rex really only know how to make a few types of songs, but they do it very, very well. "Metal Guru" is a blast of an opener and lets you know what a rock-n-roll good time you're in for. The lyrics to "Baby Boomerang" sound like stream of consciousness nonsense, but it sure is fun. "Telegram Sam" is basically "Bang a Gong (Get it On)" Part 2, but hey, if you're gonna imitate something, copy from the best. I also liked the kind of ethereal, spacey songs like "Spaceball Ricochet," "Mystic Lady," and especially "Ballrooms of Mars." I first listened to this album at night as I was falling asleep and those songs in particular were great for that. This was a great album and I'll come back for more listens.

Some really, really strong songs especially the singles and the more bluesy numbers. Also some filler. I like a lot of songs on this album but this isn’t one of the White Stripes albums I’d want to listen to all the way through again.

Some fun songs, especially the singles I already knew. Eddie Van Halen’s guitar work is of course impressive.

I love this album. I love the classic pop/rock songs, especially “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” “I Will,” “Dear Prudence,” and “Ob-La-Di-Ob-La-Da“. But this album gets WEIRD and you know what? I love the weirdness too. “Happiness is a Warm Gun” changes melody every 45 seconds or so and they’re all good. But it’s a weird choice for a pop album. “Bungalow Bill” with its random people singing the chorus and then ending in them all applauding themselves? Weird. And endearing. “Rocky Raccoon” had a girl named Magill, who calls herself Lil but everyone knew her as Nancy? What? Love it. There might be some songs on sides C and D that aren’t as strong as the first half. But will I still give this album 5 stars based on the strength of all the rest? I Will.

Blech. I thought I hated Lana Del Rey’s music, and then people whose taste I trust pointed me to songs they thought I’d like. I hated all of them, except for “A&W” (which is heartbreaking and terrifying) and “Mariners Apartment Complex” (great melody, interesting lyrics). Neither is on this album. I went into “Chemtrails over the Country Club” hoping to find something to like, as I did with those two songs. But, nope, this album is especially hateable. There is not a single hummable melody. Spotify says in its song notes that Lana and Jack Antonoff decided to leave in the sounds of her vape to preserve the “rawness of the moment”. Ugh. That fact is about as ridiculous and pretentious as the album as a whole.

Would give it a 3.5 if I could.

For the first couple of minutes of the first song, I thought this was interesting. But her schtick grew irritating so quickly. She sings in falsetto-like voice over computer beeps and… does that over and over. It’s very hard to listen to. I skipped around the album trying to find a song with a hook or something I could grab onto and find appealing. There was nothing there for me.

You mean to tell me that in 1990, when I was all about MC Hammer and Wilson Phillips, I could have been listening to this? This album rocks so hard. I guess I wasn’t ready.

The band really play around with genres here, the lyrics are sharp, funny, and relatable, and Debbie Harry is a force of nature. What struck me on this listen was just how good Debbie Harry’s voice is. Obviously she’s cool as all hell, but she can SING.

Very nice music. I actually fell asleep to it the first time it was on. I think the originals are better than the covers. Standouts are obviously “Monday, Monday” and “California Dreamin’”. I also liked “Somebody Groovy” and “I Got a Feelin’” - the latter reminded me of the dream-pop I liked a lot in the late 90s/early 2000s.

Beautiful voices, beautiful harmonies.

I knew the hits but not the rest of this album. I was pleasantly surprised at how Glam it starts off. “Vicious” is a fun, rockin’ way to start the album and then “Andy’s Chest” keeps up the momentum. “Perfect Day” is a lovely comedown. “Hangin’ Round” takes us right back to the glam rock, and “Walk on the Wild Side” is so innovative. Side A is perfection. 5/5. Then… I don’t know what to make of Side B. It has a lot of playful bits. “New York Telephone Conversation” should be on a They Might Be Giants album. “Goodnight Ladies” is a fun take on a Broadway number. Both songs seem so out of place, but when you consider how *weird* this album is overall, I kinda get it. Side B is a 3.5/5 for me now but I have a feeling it’ll grow on me when I listen to it more. Overall, I’m happy I got to hear this album.

What an album! Some of the Pixies' most radio-friendly treats are here: "Debaser," "Here Comes Your Man," "Wave of Mutilation," "Monkey Gone to Heaven." But they're interspersed with loud, uncomfortable songs that make use of Frank Black's incredible screams, like "Tame" and "Crackity Jones." You never know what to expect from song to song, or even within single songs. They zig when you think they're going to zag. Rock critics describe Pixies songs as "Loud-Quiet-Loud" but the variability between and within songs is so much more than that. It's interesting, it's great to sing along to, it helps you let out your teenage angst, it gets you strutting when you're walking down the street listening to the cassette in your Walkman.

Some have called this “background music” but I disagree. The first half, anyway, is too interesting for that. Plus, I was listening to the album outside and a neighbor walked by during the “Jezebel” exorcism song, and I quickly turned down the volume so he wouldn’t hear. That’s not background / boring! But… is it good? Is it something I’d want to listen to again? I don’t know. The slower, more ambient songs in the 2nd half really drag it down. I think I can appreciate this album, but I don’t think I *like* it.

If I’d heard this music st a teenage house party, I’d think it was fine. But I’m not sure what it’s doing on a list of 1001 albums I need to hear. Sounds a bit like The Hives, but with more slick production. And the slick production makes the mock-punk, wannabe bad boy lyrics sound especially silly.

What a nice surprise! I'd never heard Joan Armatrading before but I really enjoyed this. Her voice is so smooth and her guitar-playing kept me really interested. Favorites were "Down to Zero," "Water with the Wine," "People," and "Like Fire." Some of the music is 70s-funky, but a lot of it sounds like it's from the 90s or later. Her biggest-ever hit "Love and Affection" is on this album and it's mostly FANTASTIC but she lost me with the sax solo (which, you could argue, was actually pretty ahead of its time because it's several years before sax solos come out in force to ruin perfectly good 80s pop songs). Music discoveries like this are what make me glad that I'm doing this album-a-day challenge.

When the first track “Show Girl” began, I nodded my head along to it. Yep, this is perfectly representative 1993 Britpop Glam, I see why this is here on the list. But as the album went on, it became increasingly hard to listen to. The singer has no vocal range and does the same thing on each song. The drumming is insipid. There are no hooks. For an album inspired by glam, there is no flash; no fun. What a slog to get through.

Pretty songs, but I didn’t love them. My favorites were “One of these Things First,” “Fly” (which sounds like it could be off one of the early Belle & Sebastian EPs), and the first two instrumental songs.

I read the reviews of this one first, so I was prepared to hate it. I am actually surprised by how much I didn’t hate it. I can’t help thinking how fresh this must have sounded in 1988. How different it is from the 80s “alternative” in clubs and on the radio. The lyrics are often juvenile, trying to be shocking, but it’s kind of endearing. It’s memorable, anyway. My favorite song was probably the most mainstream one, the single “Lazyitis.” But even that song ends with a “wah wah wah wah wah wah wah” and some odd, feeble attempts at whistling – what is that doing there? The dancey acid house stuff wasn’t bad, but the individual songs went on for too long. Seeing as they were meant to be danced to in clubs, though, I don’t hold it against them. All in all, this wasn’t my favorite record, and I don’t think I’m going to listen to it again, but I think it was innovative for its time and it certainly influenced a lot of music that I love.

This is practically a greatest hits album. I already knew 6 of the 9 tracks on here. The first two tracks are so overplayed they don’t make me feel anything anymore. But that’s not their fault! Then “Just What I Needed” comes on and is (as my students would say) straight fire. I turned the volume up loud for that one and left it there for the rest of the album. The band plays with ska and post-punk elements, both in a very poppy way, and that makes the non-hits more interesting. Highlights: “Just What I Needed” “You’re All I’ve Got Tonight” “Moving in Stereo”

I definitely owned this album when it came out, but I haven't listened to it in 20 years. I was a bigger fan of the singles off "Mellow Gold," and "Odelay!" and my friends and I had so much fun playing the heck out of "Midnite Vultures." This album is very different from all that Beck I knew from before; it actually has more in common with the Nick Drake album ("Bryter Layter") that I got for this challenge a couple of days ago. The production on "Sea Change" is beautiful and really benefits from a listen with headphones. It's a breakup album that lets me sympathize with his sadness without bringing me down with him. Beck's voice is definitely up to the challenge of all the ballads, which you wouldn't suspect from listening to earlier works like "Loser" or "Devils Haircut." Not a perfect album for me, but a really pretty one. Favorite songs: "Guess I'm Doing Fine" "Lost Cause" "The Golden Age"

I couldn't connect with this one. It's not the subject matter: Willie Nelson's "Red-Headed Stranger" was another album of murder ballads, and I liked it a lot. Ditto many Johnny Cash songs. I think it's down to Cave's voice, which is just not for me, and to the sing-along-ability of the songs (there is none). I can sing along to Willie Nelson's and Johnny Cash's songs in the car with friends, but this one, not at all. I liked the duets on "Henry Lee" and "Wild Rose" more than the rest, but 2 stars is all I can muster for this album as a whole.

A friend and I used to trade mix tapes in the 90s, and she put several Cocteau Twins songs on them for me. The ones from this album that she introduced me to were Iceblink Luck and Fotzepolitik. They were, and still are, some of my favorite songs I’ve ever come across. I don’t understand them but it’s like they’ve come from some other dimension, fully formed, just to entertain us. When I got those mix tapes I was 17 and listening to Britpop and Indie Rock; interested in videos on 120 Minutes and songs my friends and I could bop along to. But Cocteau Twins, they were challenging. You couldn’t say what the songs were about and you couldn’t sing along. But they made me feel something, and I was sure that I *got* them. It made me feel… cooler. Older. Less like a kid who liked Britpop bands with cute singers and more like a real music fan. The songs still make me feel like that, all these years later. They’re beautiful and cool, and I feel cooler when I listen to them. Favorites: “Iceblink Luck” “Fotzepolitik” “Fifty Fifty Clown”

It’s not for me, but I was able to listen to it all the way through.

The first two jazzy instrumental tracks are pretty hard to get through. The third song has vocals. Surprise! Your drunk uncle has grabbed the mic at a wedding and is making up a song on the spot, babbling nonsense lyrics like, “Singing a song in the morning/ singing a song at night / Don’t even know what I’m singing about / But it makes me feel alright”. And your drunk uncle has a terrible head cold so his voice is quite thin and strained, and also he can’t hit any of the notes he’s aiming for. So the bride’s family try to drag him off stage and the band don’t know what to do so they play an outro hoping he’ll leave but he WON’T GO, and the outro lasts for 3 FULL MINUTES as it takes several people to drag him away. So that’s the 3rd song. Then there’s one more song of noisy jazzy nonsense, and thankfully it’s over. What is this album? Why is it here?

A lot of reviews here on the site are comparing Travis to a “3rd rate Radiohead”. I don’t think that’s what they are going for at all. Radiohead were always weird and experimental. This is an album of pretty songs sung by a man with a pretty voice. In that sense, I’d compare this more to Art Garfunkel. Then you get to the hidden track at the end. It’s a real jump scare, the way it pops up after 4 quiet minutes, and how it is so angry and brutal compared to the rest of the album. The song is about a neighborhood full of people ignoring domestic violence happening right next to them. So it’s kind of “meta” how this song angrily jumps out of a long stretch of silence, with jarring language and fierce vocals. It’s a strange way to end the album, and its cleverness earns my respect.

I’m torn between 4 and 5 stars. The highs on this album are so high (no pun intended). “I’m Waiting for the Man,” “Heroin,” and “Venus in Furs” are absolutely brilliant pieces of art. But Lou Reed singing like Dylan is a bit of a turnoff, as is Nico’s… well… existence. Ok, the album is ending and I’m listening to “European Son” right now. My decision is made. 5 stars. This song coming out in 1967 is INSANE. I can’t believe they’re doing this. Imagine being a teenager 1967, listening to the top songs of the year on AM radio - “Windy,” “I’m a Believer,” “So Happy Together” - and then hearing the last several minutes of “European Son.” It must have been mind-blowing. This is not a perfect album but it’s a real “Wow” from beginning to end. Brilliant.

This is the best jazz album I’ve heard so far.

On the one hand I sympathize with the editor of the list of 1001 albums. The list first came out in 2005 he had the luxury of looking back on albums from decades earlier, choosing from among them. Of course he's going to pick the Velvet Underground, Miles Davis, The Beatles, etc. They had a clear and measurable impact on the music that came after them. So how, for future editions, does one choose among the albums released that year or the year before? How do you decide what music is indelible, influential, and timeless? It must be a daunting task. Choosing an album like "Dear Science" made sense at the time. Publications like Rolling Stone, Spin, EW, The Village Voice, and Pitchfork's readers poll all named it the best album of 2008. Listening to the album almost 20 years later, though, is it worthy of that praise and inclusion on this list? I don't really think so. The songs have interesting compositions but they go on way too long (so many unnecessary, draggy outros!). The vocals are, again, interesting but the production muddles them to the point where you can't understand half of what he's saying. And the music behind him too often sounds like pretty generic backing tracks - drum loops and guitars over-produced to the point where I'm not actually sure they weren't just put there by a computer. I think that if the songs were performed live they'd have a great energy, but as they are here, the album is kind of boring. Compared to the pop music on the radio in 2008, TV on the Radio stood out. But in 2026, is it an album you should go out of your way to listen to? Not really.

Fun songs, but I was disappointed that the rest of the songs didn’t reach the heights of the two famous singles.

Really great from beginning to end. Listening to it with headphones I noticed the top-tier guitars behind the reggae rhythms, which I hadn’t noticed before. It’s a short album and I was sorry when it was over.

I couldn’t stand to finish a single song on this album. About 30 seconds into each one, I skipped ahead to the next track, hoping it would be better. It never was. In fact, I think the songs got worse as the album went on.

An absolute classic. The first 12 songs are all 5-star songs. The quality goes up and down after that until you hit “Train in Vain,” which is an all-timer. I’d rate this 4.5 stars if I could. But there is just too much good stuff on here to call it a 4-star album.

I was a big fan of Blur's first 3 albums in the mid-90s, and a moderate fan of their fourth, so this album was a bit of a shock when it first came out. It's way less "cute" than the first 4 - there are no stories about characters like "Tracy Jacks" or the "Charmless Man"; no carnival music interludes. It's grittier and more American-sounding. It took guts to step so far away from what was their bread-and-butter, but this was the beginning of the end of my Blur fandom. The music is good (except for "Essex Dogs" which goes from merely annoying to sounding like a broken dishwasher), Damon's voice is sometimes good and sometimes super annoying (with weird filters on it), and the songwriting is pretty different and much darker than what we're used to with Blur. Overall, it's a fine album but it's not the one I reach for when I want to listen to Blur.

Had some good beats, but this was not for me.

WHOO! YEAH!! I just listened to this album with the volume way up and I feel like I just pounded six shots of espresso. I’m ready to run a marathon! I’m ready to rob a bank! I’m ready to challenge some tough guys to a fist fight! Gonna have to ding the album one star for the copious amount of annoying saxophones in the back half. But remind me to listen to this album next time I’m feeling sleepy but have a million things to do. They’ll get done.

I really liked this album. Some of it was toe-tapping music out of a honky-tonk, some was bluesy, and some had me parsing the lyrics like I was trying to decipher a TS Eliot poem. Sometimes it was 2 or 3 of those at the same time. This is the first Bob Dylan album I’ve heard, and I’m looking forward to the others on this list.

I definitely liked this better than Murder Ballads but I don’t think I’ll ever listen to it again.

I can’t tell if this band has an incredible sense of humor, or if they’re a group of truly ridiculous people who take themselves very seriously. In any case, this album was a wild ride. The lyrics are surrealist dream-poetry, backed by Ren Faire music plus Eastern instruments. But… it all works? What it’s aiming to do, it does. And it does it well. I can see why this isn’t most people’s cup of tea, but it’s interesting, it’s funny, and it’s pleasant to listen to.

The songwriting is trying to be sexy but is sometimes sexist and or even comical. It sounds like an 8th grader’s idea of what being a grownup will be like. D’Angelo has a voice that sounds good sometimes. That’s the best thing I can say about this album.

Really solid. The production is great, especially in “Scenario” with so much going on. I think if I spend more time with this I might come back and rate it higher.

"Gimme Shelter" - magnificent, as always "Love in Vain" - a little weaker than the rest; just makes me want to hear the original "Country Honk" - a surprise to hear "Honky Tonk Women"; this version sure does have more of a honky-tonk vibe, and it suits it "Live with Me" - reminds me of what the Stones will sound like in the 80s "Let it Bleed" - I didn't recognize from the title that I knew this song so well; a staple of classic rock radio. "Midnight Rambler" - I do love a song with a fake-out ending, and this song has two! "You Got the Silver" - a nice song. Keith's vocals are like a cross between Mick's and Bob Dylan. "Monkey Man" - the instrumentals in the middle are great, best part of the song "You Can't Always Get What You Want" - a perfect ending. I love when songs build and build, adding in instruments and getting more intense. This is one of the best to do it.

Not only do I appreciate that it’s something different on the 1001 List, this had me grooving from beginning to end. I thought I might have a hard time separating the art from the artist when I saw this album pop up, but damn this was some funky music. The kind I’m gonna turn up loud and embarrass myself with, as I dance along to it at red lights.

Amazing from start to finish. “Let’s Go Crazy” has to be one of the best album openers of all time. And “Purple Rain” is the perfect closer. The guitar playing on both tracks is just jaw-dropping. Prince is such a technically great guitarist and musician, but this album has some real pop gems as well. Of course “When Doves Cry” is one of them, but non-hits like “Take Me With U “ and “Baby I’m a Star” are such quality pop songs. This whole album is a delight.

This is the second Bob Dylan album I’ve listened to, after “Blonde on Blonde.” I appreciated that one more than I liked it. “Freewheelin’”, I loved. Dylan with just a guitar, sometimes a harmonica, sometimes some percussion - it hits different. The poetry is front and center, like you’re listening to an audiobook. An audiobook by an absolute master of the English language. Dylan gets political on this album. His criticism of the people in power is sharp, angry, and clever. “But there's one thing I know Though I'm younger than you That even Jesus would never Forgive what you do Let me ask you one question Is your money that good? Will it buy you forgiveness? Do you think that it could?” And it’s sung with such passion. Even a warmonger in 1963 would have to pause at those lines and reconsider his life path. Other favorites (besides the aforementioned “Masters of War”): A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall Corinna, Corinna Don’t Think Twice, it’s Alright Oxford Town

The singles from this album were so popular and ubiquitous, that it’s hard to remember how fresh this felt in 2004. Britpop was over and several bands, and genres, were competing to be at the top of the alternative heap. And here’s Franz Ferdinand at the helm of the dance-punk revolution. These are songs meant to be danced to at clubs and concerts. Nothing wrong with an album putting out songs meant to be fun and dancey. (They also function well as songs to march to - they keep Marching Time so well, they might as well have been written by John Philip Sousa.) Just seeing the cover of this album put “The Dark of the Matinee” in my head, where it’s been stuck for over 24 hours. It and “Take Me Out” are the best two songs on the album, but they all pretty much follow the same formula so you could pick any track from the list and be happy.

This is an album I listened to at least 100 times throughout my childhood, easily. Mostly on car trips. It’s a real people-pleaser (or it was in my family!). The melodies - often because of the lovely backing piano - are great. The lyrics are sometimes funny (either intentionally or because they are so melodramatic), and often pretty inappropriate for small children on long car trips. Meat Loaf’s voice is smooth as butter. The production on this is awful though. I can’t believe that they haven’t done a remastered version yet. I don’t think I’ve listened to this entire album in at least 20 years and I had fun revisiting it. It’s wild and theatrical. The up-tempo songs are a whole lot of fun. The ballads are more hit or miss. But “Two out of Three Ain’t Bad” is probably in my top 100 songs of all time. Favorites: Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth Bat out of Hell

I don’t get it with this band. I never got it. I was a huge British music fan in the 90s, and I could never bring myself to listen to Teenage Fanclub. But all the cool kids liked them. I felt like maybe I wasn’t cool enough? So then, when the album came up today, I decided to give it a real try. Maybe I could be one of the cool kids! But no. Just… No. The songs are so bland. They are mediocre pop songs with distortion over them. One song reminded me almost exactly of that song from the movie “That Thing You Do”, but with layers of fuzz on top. “I Don’t Know” is a much-worse, fuzzier replica of Matthew Sweet’s “Girlfriend.” And the ones that are kind of catchy (“The Concept”; “Star Sign”) are ruined by two-minute long guitar solos that are just screechy strumming that goes nowhere. Why?

This one didn’t feel as special as Exodus did, but it was great. I was surprised by how much I liked the songs that were not sung by Bob Marley. “Stir it Up” is a classic, and I also really liked “Stop that Train” and “Concrete Jungle.” When concrete jungle started, it had a bit of a funky Stevie Wonder kind of vibe; I wish the album had leaned a little bit more into that. “400 Years” was brutal and important, and the most harrowing of all the political songs on here. The Wailers do that so well, turning angry, rallying cries into groovy, pretty music. One of my favorite tracks was apparently a bonus track added on in 2001, “All Day All Night”. After all the political turmoil of the beginning of the album, this was a very pretty love song.

"Funeral" was such an important album to me when it came out, and this album, six years later, just wasn't. Listening to it again all these years later, I know why. It's loosely held together by the "suburbs" concept, but it's kind of muddled - are we in the suburbs or have we escaped them? And there's some kind of war, pitting us against our suburban neighbors? "Funeral" had such a clear point of view. It tackled life and death, the meaning of existence, and fears of growing up. I feel like Arcade Fire meant for this album to have that sort of deep meaning and it just didn't click with me. The first 3 songs are great, and then it all falls apart.

I’m fine with country music - I’ve loved the Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash albums I’ve heard - but I guess I need it to have more pep. Also, ideally, murder. And no bluegrass. Sadly, there’s not a single peppy, murderous, un-bluegrassy song to be found here. Gillian Welch isn’t for me, but she’s good at what she does. Favorite song was “Dear Someone,“ which sounded like a lullaby. 2.5/5

The songs are banal and forgettable. And the production is terrible! On "Beautiful" the violins are turned up to 11 so you can barely hear the vocals. What a weird choice. I vaguely remember "Natalie's Party," from back in the day, but that's it. I'm utterly baffled as to how this album made it onto this list.

For the first few songs of this album, it felt like pleasant yet kind of boring alt-folk. Then "1972" came on and it all changed. That song was more "alternative rock" sounding. It's a quick song and then "Temptation of Egg" came on and I was totally won over. How gloriously bizarre! It's more alt-rock sounding again, a female voice pops out of nowhere, there are industrial mechanical sounds a in the background along with a whole bunch of sounds I can't identify, and the lyrics are totally surreal. The next song, "Raw," is probably my favorite. It's another weird one, but mostly just the singer and a piano. It has lyrics like "The beat up tin I'd like to call my car / Would deliver me and all to only a lonely bar / And I would ponder this disease like a peeling onion skin striptease / And I would live to let it win / When I was raw / When I was wrong." Working through that, trying to get some meaning from it, felt like brain yoga. Relaxing, yet stretching the boundaries. I thought the next two songs were okay, and then there was another really good one: "Dirty from the Rain." Most of what follows is that less-interest alt-folk thing that started off the album. If this were an EP of my favorite 5 or 6 songs, I'd give it full marks. But as an hour-long album, with half the songs kinda boring and the other half remarkably strange and thought-provoking? 3 stars. I'd be happy to listen to more from Giant Sand, though. I'd never even heard of them before this project and I'm glad this album is a part of it.

This is the 70s-est thing that ever 70s-ed. Which, ok fine, but it’s boring. It dips its toe (whole foot actually) into Prog Rock but doesn’t quite commit. The songs are boring and not at all catchy. When I saw that the album of the day was Supertramp I was like, ok, sure, “The Logical Song” and “Goodbye Stranger” are solid classic rock songs. But this album didn’t contain those, or any other song I’d heard before. I see that all the Supertramp songs I know are on “Breakfast in America” and I don’t understand why this snoozefest was the album of choice and not that one.

There were some huge hits on this album, but revisiting them 30 years later was no fun. The beats are weak and the vocals don’t sound great. I’m not an R&B fan but I can appreciate great vocals and funky beats. This album was a chore to get through.

I ended up liking this more than I thought I would at first. Ray Charles has such a smooth voice, I could listen to him sing just about anything. Tackling country & western songs was a bold choice at the time and he did the songs justice. He made them his own. The record was more old-fashioned than I would have imagined for 1962, especially for someone who had done “Hit the Road Jack” years earlier. But the songs make lovely background music.

This album is all good, but at 17 songs it wore me out a bit. “Fire” (Those drums! That guitar!), “Purple Haze,” “Hey Joe, and “Foxey Lady” were my favorites and are classics for a reason. I also really liked “Stone Free” and “Love or Confusion.”