Album Reviews

I'm pretty sure that while I'm on my deathbed I won't be saying, "I'm happy I heard that Ms. Dynamite album!"

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crazy good opening track. sort of a combo between ennio morricone and justice. this is exactly the kind of thing i was hoping for when starting this. the latter parts trailed off a little bit but the general vibe is so magnificent i can't fault it for that really. immediately went back to listen to the start of it after finishing it. i think my appreciation for this kind of thing comes from hearing so much motown growing up. had never heard the name isaac hayes before this but i sure hope i remember it

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Que lastima que no lo hubiera podido escuchar todo de una sentada, porque me pareció increíble, innovador para su época, con mezcla de ruidos poco comunes, pero efectivos. Gran Álbum

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👍

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Certified classic. Holy what an album. Absolutely terrific playing from everyone on here.

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I remember when this album dropped and Pitchfork and the burgeoning music blogs all collectively loved it. I didn’t get it then. Still don’t get it. I promise I’m trying.

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A really decent album that I enjoyed to listen to more than once. Good length and stylistically interesting. I really enjoyed Unhalfbricking when I got that earlier in the project and this has some similarities to that I think. Not quite the same level of joy perhaps, but then I **really** enjoyed that album. This wasn't quite up to that standard, but I'm likely to listen to it again, so it's a clear 4 stars

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"The Next Day is the 25th studio album by English musician David Bowie" Some people just don't know how to quit while they're ahead

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Keep forgetting to rate nowadays Was alright

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Love this album so much. Immediately transported back to my teenage years. Hit play and just rocked out, and horribly sang along since to this day I don’t fully understand everything Eddie Vedder sings

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Didnt listen fill got through like 3 quarters but not really for me yet jad elements i liked

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Not as bad as some other 80s albums on this list… still firmly in 2-star territory

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It kinda feels like they forgot the story in the second half, but the music was great.

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I love this album. I love its rough edges but also Johnny’s innate vulnerability. June’s entry half way through adds energy and joy. What a great duo! Folsom Prison makes me proud to be an American, in spite of our high incarceration rates that made this album possible. Yay, America!

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I wonder, will all the Beatles albums be on this list, or are there actually some universally recognized bad releases?

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i think that this is a very good record, however i personally didn't find it breathtaking or life-changing. i suppose it might not be completely my style of music, hence i had trouble with resonating with it. i obviously liked "changes" and i also enjoyed "song for bob dylan", i guess due to my passion for his songs haha. i think i could've easily ranked it a 4, if i was being a bit more objective, however for now it's more of a 3.5 if i'm sticking with my genuine feelings. i will also definitely have to come back to it to dive more into the lyricism on here.

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It's a nice album to chill/fall asleep to. Memorable lyric what's an Wonderwall anyways. The secret track is a nice change of pace. But I don't think I'll be returning to this one other than a handful of tracks. There are better projects I'd rather have insteas like the bends or grace

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As manufactured bands go, Spice Girls had more integrity.

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Manure

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Nope. Didn't like this at all. Who told them they could 'rock' out the organ? (1/5) I thought **I** was a nerd, but nooo... Emerson & Co. come along and make the dorkiest, dork-fest of an organ album they could imagine with tracks like "The Curse of Baba Yaga". Alright, guys. You failed your saving throws and it's time to leave the church. Get off the organ/synths... Step away from the keyboard, please...

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Putrid and rancid turds.

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The Good: (spoiler alert) THE LAST LC album I have to listen to on this list!!! The Bad: The fact that I had to listen to THREE of his albums… The Ugly: Mr Dimery’s face all smashed in by my fist—this is my imagination, I don’t condone violence… though at times this journey just pulls the worse out of you… If you own a dusty coffee shop, where 2-3 regulars show up only on rainy Wednesday afternoons, well then this is your album! We all know that LC is a poet… yet, as many have said before me, and I will gladly repeat, he has NO BUSINESS performing his own songs. The only positive thing about this album is that it is now done and I will never have to listen to LC again, unless it is accidentally thrust onto me in a movie or some empty dusty coffee shop on a rainy Wednesday afternoon... 1*

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Her voice is the instrument on display here, and it shines, but there's some incredible songwriting on display as well. Lots of politically charged lyrics. But of course -- this list disappoints me, again.. this is the **only** Nina Simone album on this list. She's a woman of color, so her discography and 20+ year career barely gets a mention.. I should probably be surprised she's even on the list. Sure, this might be her most popular (arguably) album, but there is SO much left off the table. Her album "Pastel Blues" has her iconic and haunting cover of "Strange Fruit" and famous protest song, "Sinnerman", for instance. I recall enjoying her first album, "Little Girl Blue", long ago. To be crystal clear, I'm not complaining on this album, however, as "Four Women" (wow, this one is charged up!!), "Wild is the Wind", "Black is the Color..",."Either Way I Lose", & "If I Should Lose You" (that crescendo at the end is so good off of her sustained and pained voice...) are legends. But, why JUST this one record?? Normally, this would be a high '4' from me (a very high 4), as it's not everyday listening, but in protest of the lack of breadth of this list (how much electronica/dance do we **really** need to hear before we die?) this gets a (5/5) in the hopes that future lists will include more of this (and the god-damned SUPREMES!!), rather than some more lanky, disshelved English dudes who want to bang on a guitar or a synth for an afternoon...

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Conor Clapton Committed Suicide Because His Father Sucks Eric Clapton sucks Eric Clapton sucks Eric Clapton's gay And he's fucking gay Your father is the 4th worst singer After Springsteen, Seger and Petty You were sick of his gay fucking songs So you jumped out a really high up window Eric Clapton sucks Eric Clapton sucks Eric Clapton's gay And he's fucking gay Your father sucks so fucking bad You knew you'd get beaten up at school You were sick of hearing "You Look Wonderful Tonight" So you jumped out a really high up window Sometimes I wish you didn't die Because I hate the song "Tears in Heaven" I was glad you died, until I heard that song

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Nina Simone is one of those names that looms large. She is a name I have often heard but have never spent much time with listening to her music. Once again I’m in need of some schoolin’. Her’s is one of those legacy voices that truthfully you need to experience yourself. Well her command and presence came through my ear buds as masterful as anything this list has offered so far this morning. I've been thinking about this album all day. There is such life in these vocals. She refuses to sand down the rough textures that appear. This woman has capital “P” - Power in her voice. The opening track “I Love Your Lovin’ Ways” is a bluesy rocking start to the album. The good times are early and short though because after that there much heartbreak to ponder on this album. “Four Women” knocked me on my ass. “Lilac Wine”, “Breakdown and Let it All Out”, “Wild is the Wind”. She’s singing about harder shit than any metal band out there and complaining less. There is an abundance of heartbreak to ponder on this one but it refuses to fall into mopey-ness. It’s vulnerable and defiant. What a shame this is the only entry we get from Nina Simone.

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This one is far from my favorite of theirs, and frankly ranges from laughably pretentious to downright annoying. There's some decent substance between all of that, and there's obvious proficiency on display, but the tone of the synthesizer lends a cartoonish quality that undermines the overall effect. It's a 2/5 that made me spin Lucky Man just to get the taste out of my mouth.

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This was a progressive rock band going full progressive rock band. And me, well, I am a sucker for classical music done by rock bands. I enjoyed this. That acoustic guitar on “The Sage” was a nice piece. The “Live” nature of the recording also added a layer of fun to the whole album too.

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Nope. Fuck this dude. Didn't understand the hype then, and not about to give him a penny of streaming revenue to find out if I missed anything.

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Not gonna lie, after the initial "what the fuck are we doing here," I actually found this one quite fun and refreshing. In fact, I'd have given a much higher rating if it had been fully instrumental, as the singing threw off some of the groove for me (not speaking the language or having a cultural connection can do that, unfortunately). The fusion of jazz, disco, and traditional Indian music must have caught me in the right mood, as it struck a chord I didn't expect to like as much as I did. Still, while I liked it better than a number of other albums we've had on this list, it isn't something I'm likely to revisit (with the exception of Baby Let's Dance Together, which is legitimately going into my rotation) so it hits the ceiling at a 3/5.

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i love me some socially conscious hip hop, but this wasn’t really doing it for me. i felt like he was mostly talking over the canned 90s beats with little regard to rhyme scheme.

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I can’t believe the top review for this record (as of Dec 2023) is from someone trying to use their PhD in Mathematics as justification for not liking hip-hop. Weak.

Oh fuck yeah, now we're talking. Wait no, I swear I'm not being pretentious. This is the lowest rated album on this site because I guess mostly people aren't very fond of German people smashing metal plates together - who would have guessed. But halle-fucking-lujah, this is something this list needs more of. Albums that make you go "well, that was an experience and now I'm a changed man". Nobody is lying on their deathbed wishing they heard more crappy 80s post-punk or late 60s psychedelic rock. THIS is what we all deserve to be listening to as we embrace eternal oblivion. I'm giving this a high rating not only because I genuinely really love it, but also to help Kid Rock move to his rightful place as the actual worst album on this list. Together we can make a difference. Save the turtles.

Brings back vivid memories of when me and my mate Ray went on a trip to Dresden. We met this rotund goth in a bar, head to toe with tattoos and piercings, real filth and after a while took her into the disabled bogs for a spit roast. We were both pumping away in her with Napalm Death on in the background and her wailing "MEIN GOTT" at the top of her lungs. I remember spaffing all over her back just as Siege of Power kicked in. As i shoot over her, she takes Ray's cock out of her gob and says "do you want fries with that?" in a faux American accent. Anyway, we go outside and there's this gammy little geezer in a wheelchair sitting there furious, giving me daggers, because he's had to wait so long, so I lean into him and I go "I hope you have as much fun in there as we just did you little cunt".

Back when I was in college, there was this dude who would come into the bar I worked at on a Friday night and play fucking 10 Neil Young songs in a row. He would also hit on girls by doing magic tricks. I remember how angry I got every time he made me listen to an hour of Neil Young because I was just trying to have a good time, and he fucking made me listen to this sad, soppy fuck who writes nothing but songs that sound indistinguishable from each other and never seemed to enjoy a happy moment in his entire like. Fuck that guy, and fuck Neil Young. 2/5

Back when I was in college I used to go to a bar and listen to Neil tunes and do magic tricks for women. There was a bartender there, he was the best. I loved that guy. Some of the best years of my life.

Shit like this on the list is both refreshing and infuriating. Refreshing because it is good, fun, interesting, and also not something I would regularly be exposed to! It's why I started this project and keeps me coming back. It's infuriating because the fact that it is included here means that Robert Dimery, the original author of the 1001 albums list is aware that music like this exists. He's clearly aware that there is an entire world of music out there. SO WHY HAVE I LISTENED TO 200 80s BRITISH NEW WAVE ALBUMS AND 200 SCOTTISH ROCK ALBUMS FROM THE 90S??!!?

Rap isn't my preferred genre of music. But I'm a shitty mathematician so I enjoyed this.

I really don't get rap, and I am completely aware of why. I'm a STEM guy, specifically a Ph.D. student in mathematics. Although my verbal intelligence is quite high, it's still about a standard deviation below my quantitative intelligence. Therefore, it should not be too surprising that I prefer melodies to lyricism, and that a genre based on the latter doesn't wow me. I know I'm pretty far out of step with public opinion on this one, but that can easily be attributed to the fact that hipsters with humanities degrees (i.e. extremely verbal-dominant people) are considered the ultimate arbiters of taste for some reason. (Side note: this also explains why prog rock is seen as being for losers.) Best song: Be (Intro), which had a decent instrumental part at the beginning. Everything else just sort of ran together.

Rage In Favor Of The Machine.

Music for incels to wank furiously by

Sorry Boomers/Gen X, I was like 20 when this came out so it's one of the best things to ever happen to me. Sorry it's not King Crimson or whatever.

i ain’t listening to all that i’m happy for u tho or sorry that happened

The beauty of music is that it is subjective. It’s typically great for a certain group of people, though it’s never right for everyone. Some for the masses, some more niche, but it all has its place. Meanwhile, with lists like this, there’s always artists or records that anyone would have put on in place of what actually made it. Personally, I would have included Queensryche’s Operation Mindcrime, Live’s Throwing Copper, Joe Satriani’s The Extremist, Sara Bareilles’ Little Voice, or John Mellencamp’s Scarecrow album on a list of must hear records. Others would put totally different albums on and that's awesome. What someone likes vs. dislikes is truly subjective. Again, that's the beauty. With that said, this album objectively sucks. I mean truly horrible. Something had to be the lowest rated album on the list, and this was a place well earned. There is nothing redeemable about this record. To quote my wife, “they should have stopped at 1,000.”

I am definitely not the target demographic for this album, but I still thought it was very good. There's a lot of skill and artistry put into these tracks, so much so that it is almost invisible. 4 stars for me, plus an extra star just to spite the mathematics PHD guy.

The only enjoyment I got from this was reading the review about the brothers in Dresden and their lovely and talented tattooed friend.