1001 Albums Summary

Knew it was great, but it’s exceptional

- I still find the mockneyness pretty grating, and a lot of the cultural references feel like what they are, namely middle class art school boys trying to portray ordinary British life, and it doesn’t quite ring true in parts and grates - ⁠that said, it is a brilliant album - ⁠it’s a bit like Abbey Road. A brilliant second side, in which the individual songs themselves are not necessarily that strong but they work beautifully together as a sequence - ⁠Building up to This is a low as a brilliant finish

Really weak album. - boring music, really lame song melodies, just big shouty choruses - ⁠really lame prosaic lyrics about teenage angst. None of the poetry of a nirvana or even a pearl jam, on very similar themes - ⁠the rapping is cringe, as the young people say - ⁠even approaching it as angry metal/punk, it sounds really slick and over-produced, no real edge to it.

Fantastic rhymes and flow. Heat beats. Maybe a bit too long and doesn’t quite hang together as an album enough to deserve a 5.

Some outstanding songs on here - Suzanne, and So Long Marianne in particular. But too much of it lacks any melodic or musical punch - just LC half talking and half singing over a meandering Spanish guitar. Not awful by any means, but just a bit meh. The lyrics often feel too wilfully obscure and pretentious - like Dylan but without the crucial humour or the equally crucial musical or vocal impact. Similarly his semi-spoken delivery often feels a bit cloying and pretentious. Remastered and through earphones exacerbates this and it almost feels creepy - might not have felt like this via 1960s audio.

People hold this up as a canonical, definitive metal album, but I just find it boring. Super loud distortion and great musicianship, fine. But the songs are quite dull and go on for ages without any interesting developments. Little by way of hooks or riffs. That said, I think One is fantastic and elevates this up to a 3.