1001 Albums Summary

There's some very good songs on this album but also some lousy ones too. "Beat It" and "Billie Jean" are excellent and stand out as clear highlights. The horror-themed "Thriller" is also fun. To my ears, "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" sounds repetitive and then there's the cringe-inducing duet "The Girl Is Mine". All in all, not a bad album but it didn't live up to its reputation.

This was a fun listen. Lauper's singing style is idiosyncratic and won't please everyone, but I like it (in shortish bursts). The first six songs are all good to great but then the album loses a bit of steam at the end. There are no truly bad tracks here, although the sub-one-minute piece of filler "He's So Unusual" could've been left out.

A very mellow and pleasant jazz record, perfect for relaxing on a summer's afternoon. "The Girl from Ipanema" is the obvious stand out track but I enjoyed the whole album and wouldn't be averse to listening to it again sometime in the near future. The sound quality was great, too.

The album opens interestingly enough but soon it turns into a slog to get through. Almost all the songs sound way too repetitive, which is why I nearly fell asleep several times. I listened to the album twice, and the same thing happened both times. So the music is pretty soporific and on top of that the lyrics seem to be nothing more than a stream of thought, without any deeper meaning. Not my cuppa tea.

An improvement over the debut album, but even so this isn't a particularly exciting effort. For one thing, a major problem is that I don't really like Thom Yorke's whiny vocal style. Secondly, with a few exceptions, the songs are a bit samey and unengaging. The first few tracks and the album closer "Street Spirit" are pretty good, though. I wouldn't say the listening experience was unpleasant, but I wouldn't go out of my way to play this album very often.

One of the best albums I've heard in a long while. Inventive in every respect, excellent instrumentation, stellar guitar work, and dark yet captivating lyrics about voodoo dolls, severed heads, Halloween and whatnot. Moody and atmospheric throughout with dramatic vocals by Siouxsie Sioux. How could I not love this record? Now I also want to listen to the band's other albums.

It's been quite a while since I last listened to such a sleep-inducingly stodgy album. Musically this is bland and derivative folk rock. None of the songs are memorable and most of the lyrics are just tiresome whining about everything possible under the sun. It gets exhausting very fast. Grant has quite a good voice, I'll give him that, but otherwise I got nothing out of this album but utter boredom.