1001 Albums Summary

I would have been obsessed with this if I heard it when I was 13. They lull you into a false sense of security with their pop sensibilities and then burn the whole room down with the next scorching track. Love this album and it is still stuck in my head.

This album has some great songs like Hotel California, Life in the Fast Lane, and Victim of Love. However, as an album, it's not one of my favorites. The slower songs really bore me and it's not something I would listen to on repeat.

Wonderful album! The fact that this was recorded in 24 hours blows my mind. A born performer. I think "Down in the Valley" is the best song.

Listened to this 3x back-to-back today, and it's such an amazing record. I already knew "E-Pro", but I hadn't listened to the whole album. This reminded me how much I love Beck and how influential he has been to alternative music as a whole. To me this is a callback to early Beck and I love the Dust Brothers' production style here. So many incredible layers and sounds. I dare you to listen to this album without tapping your feet.

Not my jam. The songs aren’t great and he’s a terrible singer.

Cyndi's voice grates after a while, but there are so many great songs on here that not only defined the 80's but are still popular today. This is probably not getting promoted into my daily listening rotation but I was happy that it came up and it's a fun listen.

Another fun 80's listen. I especially liked "Poison Arrow". Really consistent production and the album is paced well.

This fucking rules. So many of these songs and these emotions are just as relevant in 2026 as they were in 1977, especially “I’m so bored with the USA”.

Ace of Spades is a great song. But the rest of this album just sounds like worse versions of Ace of Spades. RIP Lemmy.

I like Belle and Sebastian although this isn't my favorite album of theirs. A bit too twangy for me. I do like the closer, "Judy and the Dream of Horses" quite a bit. That reminds me of their later stuff which is really good.

Why did you do it, Neil? Why did you shoot your baby down by the river? I do hate this slightly less than Harvest though.

Not only was this one of the first albums I ever owned, it was absolutely foundational in building my musical identity. I was learning guitar at the time and you better believe I spent some hours learning these riffs. Although I love all kinds of music, there was a period in my life where I was a dyed-in-the-wool metal head and this album is probably the primary reason why. Even listening today, 35 years after release, this album feels immediate, alive, and absolutely essential.

I feel under-qualified to review this album, as I am not a jazz head. But even I can tell this is pretty exceptional work. Coltrane is incredible, and he's not alone. Each of the session musicians are amazing in their own right, and the mix gives so much room for each of them to breathe. It's as if you are sitting front-row in a jazz club and you have Coltrane to your left, the pianist and bassist center stage, and the drummer off to the right. This album truly needs to be listened to on headphones or a speaker setup with proper stereo spacing. I also dig how the whole album is really one song in four parts much like a classical piece.

This album rules, and the incredible history of the band only makes it better. Truly an album that needs to be listened to at length rather than just the singles. You can almost picture the early 90's UK club scene here. I can hear so many things here that influenced what came after. This is a hidden gem for sure.

The songwriting on this album is just incredible. But the part that really struck me on this listen is the variety of instrumentation and the production. There are so many sounds here and unique rhythms that turn each song into its own little world. I think "Cecilia" is my personal favorite on the album, it always puts me in a better mood. "The Boxer" is probably my second favorite.

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. If it came on in a bar while I was having beers, it would be fine. But I'm never gonna listen to this on purpose.

Really love the musicianship on this record. The band is more of a unit here than the later stuff.

This was a really interesting listen. Jazz isn't my style, but I can certainly appreciate it. I like the different moods in this album and the variety of rhythms.

A masterpiece. Plain and simple.

While I'm not always in the mood for this, it was a truly groundbreaking album and there are some great songs on here. I really dig the creativity of Nick Zinner's guitar parts. He comes up with a bunch of otherworldly sounds that are totally unique. And obviously Karen O is one of indie rock's most infamous frontwomen, for good reason.

This has got a bit more creativity to it than your average hair metal album.

The hype is justified. This is a fantastic album and the deep cuts were much better than I expected. A concept album in every sense of the word, and one of the best to do it. The sounds here are far-ranging and creative yet the songs do add up to a cohesive whole that is a delight to listen to. 5/5.

“Pour some sugar on me” is a great song and this is a great Hair Metal record, but there’s just not enough variety here to keep me coming back and wanting to listen to it again and again.

Although not my favorite CCR album, the big singles here helped define the sound that would make them the biggest band in the world.

Sometimes an album takes you by surprise. I had never heard of this band and had zero idea what to expect. I was blown away by the arrangement and songwriting from the very first track! These guys, to my ear, sound a bit like if Muse and The Living End wrote a soundtrack to a spaghetti western spy thriller. This is definitely going in my library.

This album is basically how I imagine the ’70s sounding in my head. It could be the entire soundtrack to *Anchorman*, which I love. It has some sweet jazz flute. I could also absolutely see myself putting this on for a road trip. “John Barleycorn” in particular is fantastic.

This sounds like a bunch of unfinished demo songs from a high school garage band. 28 songs in 41 minutes? It’s harder to finish songs than to start them, so from a songwriting perspective I just find this album lazy.

Classic CCR album. I listened to this one growing up. This is the classic sound to me, including one of their biggest hits “Bad Moon Rising”.

In general, I'm not a huge fan of live albums. I *love* live music, but removed from the environment it's just not the same. If I'm listening to a recording, I'd rather it be the studio recording that is performed and engineered for repeated listening. This album also falls into one of my other traps which is that every song sounds basically the same (to my ear).

I was 17 and browsing CDs at the Virgin Records Megastore in Denver when the video for Clint Eastwood started playing on the store TVs. I stood there and watched the whole thing, mouth open. The animation! The production! Del's bars! That track blew me away and I immediately bought the album. It was a mainstay for me that year. I still listen to this album, and today's listen through did make me realize how much Blur DNA there was in this album compared to the later Gorillaz albums. Especially songs like 5/4 and Re-Hash. Demon Days may be their masterpiece, but this is the album that started it all while inventing the concept of an animated band. It solidified Damon Albarn as one of my musical heroes, and I still bop to Clint Eastwood when it comes on.

I bought this CD for my best friend for his 16th birthday, but then he got two copies as gifts so I kept one. This is one of the few live albums I like because it was doing something different. It was a one-of-a-kind moment for the band and it was captured beautifully. No Leaf Clover even got a fair amount of radio play at the time. This is a huge double album and it’s not something I listen to end-to-end very often, but when I do I always enjoy it.

Layla is a great song but the other assorted love songs are only OK for me

Opens on a high note with his biggest hit, Like A Rolling Stone. Enjoyed that as usual, but holy shit I was unprepared for Tombstone Blues. I was completely caught up in the tale of struggle that unfolded over the upbeat blues track and I’m gonna be thinking about that one for a long time!

The first four songs on this record are absolutely great and some of my favorite songs of the nu-metal era. The rest of the album gets a bit dark for me and I usually switched to another CD after my faves. Those first songs are 5/5 but the rest brings it down to a 4 for me.

It’s crazy how many times this record has been sampled! This is practically the bedrock of early hip hop. Really cool dive through musical history listening to this.

I really like the synths on tracks like New Frontier and I.G.Y. Some of the jazzier stuff is a little slow for me. The title track is great.

Enjoyed this more than I thought I would. There are some good songs on here, but it's too long and it's not one of my favorite styles.

An incredible feat of an album, and a variety of soundscapes to get lost in. An album of this sheer size is hard to rate based on a single listen, but there were enough sparks here to make me move my feet and snap my fingers.

I love a good 4-song LP. This was a great listen full of interesting sounds and meandering passages. They do sound like soundtracks to a movie all in their own little world.

Incredibly moving. This album is a masterpiece, and it's also a bit too intense for me to listen to on a regular basis. When I'm in the right state of mind though, it's quite the ride.

An absolutely *epic* foundational piece of electronic music history. A soundtrack for the future we never got, but that we deserved. When the bass synch comes in on Pt. 5 it gets me moving every single time. What else can I say but this album must be listened to and cherished.

The amount of hit songs on this record is insane. It's literally the best-selling album of the 21st century, and with good reason. My personal favorite track is "Set Fire to the Rain", but there is something here for everyone. One of the purest recordings of raw human emotion turned into song.

I don’t think anyone knows how to turn a sample quite like Norman Cook. He takes his massive record collection, goes into the lab, and comes out with sounds so original and yet so danceable you’ll be convinced he’s cheating. One of the few DJs to actually cross over into a mainstream artist and score radio hits, and these songs still sound just as wild today as they did almost 30 years ago when this dropped.

This is not my favorite style, and it just sounds like Muzak to me.

Wow, there is some blazing hot guitar playing on this album! I was really surprised by the title track being a 10-minute guitar solo, and more surprised that it kept my interest the whole time. I assumed it was going to sound more like Parliament but this rules.

Oh my god, this is exactly what I needed to hear today. This album is healing me.

Not my jam

I dig a lot of what’s going on here. I love this era of music, and there are some really interesting guitar textures that make me want to listen again. The singer’s voice isn’t my favorite, but I don’t hate it. This is a slow burn.

The first CD I ever owned! CCR is a longtime favorite band and this is my favorite album of theirs. And it has my favorite song of theirs, “Who’ll Stop The Rain”. I’ve listened to this more times than I can count, and I was still so happy to see the cover appear as today’s album.

I love Take On Me but have never listened to anything else by them. I dig this. The Sun Always Shines on TV is good!

Wow, I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would! The dueling lead guitars are much more rock-sounding than I expected.

Incredible opening with the Playstation boot up sound. That brought me back to a nostalgic place before the music even started. This album really surprised me. The first couple of tracks I was wondering if this is not for me, but then Pyramids blew my mind. Very complex, raw, and original songwriting and great progression/song selection.

"Wait and Bleed" is a good song, but the album is just ok for me.

So pleasantly surprised by this album! A very interesting fusion of R&B and electronic music I haven't heard before. And released on Warp no less! I'll be listening to this again for sure.

It’s fine. Don’t hate it, and there are some fascinating sounds which I’m always a fan of. But there’s nothing grabbing me to come back and listen again.

I like some of what’s going on here sonically, but Iggy’s voice just bothers me.

Great vibes. I like this era a lot. Not sure if this specific album will draw me back as much as something like Split by Lush though.