Album Reviews

Very unusual, not one for me.

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85.

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ok, i think Ive had enough Leorard Cohen now. I very much enjoyed the previous albums and had his debut a dew days ago. but this one comes bottom of the list. It still has his trademark charm and wit, the arrangement is still good, but this is a bit more snarky and lacks some of the humility and warmth of previous albums. If i'd had this album first, im not sure i'd have warned to him as much as i have. But i didnt so i can appreciate its value

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Would have given it a 2 and a half to be fair, I am NOT a Neil young fan but this was OK

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Very good Hip Hop Album. Definitely not the last time I listened to it. (On Apple Music)

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Very atmospheric with some very heavy tracks

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Average teen movie soundtrack, not the biggest fan in the club

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alsof je op restaurant een driegangenmenu hebt besteld en enkel drie glazen water kreeg

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Reeks of the 80s. First few songs are good then it tails off significantly.

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Punky, not really for me

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I went into this one with an “Ugh, Neil Young,” but On the Beach turned out to be much better than I expected. Musically, this album is fantastic. There’s plenty of variety from song to song, and I especially loved the bluesier material. “Revolution Blues” and “Vampire Blues” sound incredible musically. The problem, for me, is Neil Young’s voice. We discovered this on After the Gold Rush, and this album confirmed it: I don’t necessarily dislike Neil Young’s voice all the time. It depends on how he uses it. When he gets into that higher, thinner register, his voice becomes grating enough that it distracts me from music I otherwise really enjoy. “Revolution Blues” was the perfect example. Musically, I loved it, but I kept imagining what someone like B.B. King or Stevie Ray Vaughan could have done with those vocals. “Vampire Blues” had the same problem. Great blues music, but I couldn’t take Young’s vocal delivery seriously with it. On the other hand, “See the Sky About to Rain,” “Motion Pictures,” and “Ambulance Blues” worked much better for me. When Young stays in his lower register, his voice fits the music and I can appreciate what makes him such a distinctive artist. Even “Walk On” was a strange case. I loved the upbeat sound, but I kept thinking the song would sound better with someone like Kenny Chesney singing it. So this might be one of the strangest ratings I’ve given during this project. Musically, On the Beach is close to a five-star album for me. Vocally, there were moments when it was closer to one star. If Young stayed in the vocal range he uses on songs like “Motion Pictures” and “Ambulance Blues,” I could easily see myself giving this four or even five stars. Instead, those two extremes somehow meet in the middle. ★★★½

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Ah this reminds me of my salsa dancing days. Good times. It feels like the sort of album you’d only listen to while dancing, not relaxing at home on a record player. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this with my morning coffee… and it gave me just as much energy!

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Jamais écouté avant. Enregistré en une semaine par le seul Dave Grohl, en guise de thérapie après le suicide de Kurt Cobain, Foo Fighters porte sans doute un peu trop les stigmates de ses conditions de réalisation artisanales. La production et le mix sont bordéliques, et beaucoup de moment qui pourraient être épiques semblent comme aplanis par le fait d'avoir été enregistrés en kit... Conséquence malheureuse : aucun morceau ne surnage vraiment ou ne marque réellement à l'écoute, et tout se noie dans un nuage rock certes pas désagréable, mais finalement assez standard. On peut néanmoins être honnêtement impressionné de la performance, d'autant que Dave Grohl concocte ici une recette qui fera le succès des Foo Fighters (devenus un groupe à part entière) dans les années qui suivront : un hard rock à mi-chemin entre grunge et pop-punk, à la fois bruyant et mélodique, ce fameux post-grunge qui ne produira pas que des chefs-d'œuvre, loin s'en faut... Top : This Is a Call Flop : Oh, George

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doo doodoo doowap doowaaaaaah baaah bah baaah cha cha chaaa doowwaaahhh

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Переслушаем

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This is #day783 of my #1001albumsyoumusthearbeforeyoudie challenge, and... just less than a week ago I got Medúlla, which was quite a challenging listen. On to Vespertine, right? "Pagan Poetry" is a title I remember from my teenage years, an entry in a local teen zine. The rest of the record I've never heard until today. What's fun is I'm listening to it on my cassette deck with an amp and speakers. Can't get more analog than this, given that the tape is sealed and has been waiting for its moment since 2001, an official Ukrainian edition from that year. It's fair to say this album, along with Post and Homogenic, is Björk's golden trilogy. What a closure to the trilogy this one is! Beautiful and intricate. And then, the time I picked for listening to the album (evening) is perfect because it turns out that vespertine denotes something relating to or occurring in the evening or at dusk. The record is indeed like a delicate evening flower, unfurling. This is a 5 out of 5. Looking forward to #day784.

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Karen Carpenter had a beautiful voice, but that is about the only complimentary thing I can say about this album. It invokes imagery of the elderly and, even as a general non-fan of The Beatles, that version of “Help” should be considered a war crime.

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Quite interesting and starts off really well with some nice modern psychedelia. An album I should possibly revisit.

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ok

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Not a big fan of nu- metal. It was ok and not too offensive

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Baš dosta fucking loše. Morala bih biti dosta razvaljena i u nekom 90s nostalgičnom raspoloženju da mi ovo bude okej, a ni tad ne bi dugo trajalo. 2/5, 3/10

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La portada es sugerente y elegante. Joni eso siempre lo logrado. No es una artista fácil para mi. He intentado apreciar la belleza que los elogios de sus discos siempre me han llegado pero su timbre de voz y su estilo musical no terminan de llegarme. Laurel Canyon no es mi sitio. Este disco es diferente, suena actual (Weyes Blood sin ir más lejos), atemporal, su guitarra (siempre ha sido un referente como una de las mejores guitarristas de la historia) sí que me gusta. Colaboran Jaco Pastorius (otro referente, en el bajo) o Larry Carlton (guitarra), además de su novio John Guerin a la batería. La entrada no puede ser mejor: Coyote y Amelia ya valen para estar en este listado. Hejira es una delicia, con Jaco sublime. Coyote, de sus travesías conduciendo sin carnet por medio USA (y su relación con Sam Shepard), Amelia (de su ruptura con su novio Guerin, como Hejira o Blue Motel Room, y dedicada a Amelia Earhart ), Furry Sings the Blues que gana mucho con Neil Young en la armónica, A strange boy (sobre otra relación amorosa).. en realidad el disco va sobre una mujer en la carretera reflexionando sobre su existencia y relaciones (Song for Sharon va sobre su relación con Jackson Browne y la de este con su mujer)... pero toca la fibra. Refuge of the Roads es un buen final. Si tuviera que elegir un disco de Joni, este sin dudarlo.

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Ok

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I liked this album to start with, but by about half way through it was really dragging. Maybe a second listen will impress me more. It didn't.

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This is the first album in the entire 1001 project that I have woken up, seen waiting for me, and genuinely thought: I do not want to do this. I have listened to The Wall. I have endured albums that bored me, annoyed me, exhausted me and seemed determined to prove how clever they were. None of them made the project itself feel like work before I had even pressed play. I expected My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy to be difficult for a fairly mundane reason. Kanye West has subsequently said and done things that make me deeply unwilling to spend time with him, while the album arrives carrying an almost absurd weight of critical acclaim. I imagined I would be listening dutifully to some very good music while trying not to let later knowledge contaminate it. That is not what happened. I was not bored. I was increasingly aghast. The irritating first fact is that the album is extraordinarily good at what it does. “Wildly competent” was the phrase I initially reached for, largely because I did not feel inclined to give Kanye West anything more than was absolutely necessary. It became untenable quite quickly. The opening of “Dark Fantasy” is preposterously grand, Nicki Minaj declaiming her fairy-tale prologue before the music arrives in enormous, luscious layers. “Gorgeous” has a guitar sound like an enormously luxurious kazoo. “Power” uses King Crimson brilliantly. “Hell of a Life” somehow finds another use for “Iron Man”. The arrangements constantly shift scale and texture without ever sounding accidental. The record has swagger and breathtaking range. More inconveniently still, Kanye himself is not some mediocre presence being carried by brilliant production. To my ears he has possibly the most distinctively expressive voice in rap. Not necessarily because of vocal beauty or technical virtuosity, but because of what he does with language: smearing and blurring words, bending their pitch, moving between speech, rap and something approaching Sprechgesang. He reminds me in that respect of John Lydon. Lydon did not merely sing punk songs; from his first declaimed note he seemed to establish a new dictionary definition of what a voice in that music could do. Kanye can feel similarly definitional. Even on something as comparatively light as “Gold Digger”, there is no neutral Kanye delivery. Personality is built into the shape of every line. Nicki Minaj demonstrates something related in a different direction. She opens the album as a storybook character and later appears on “Monster” seemingly inhabited by several other people. She is not simply a versatile rapper; she is a remarkably good voice actress. The record is full of people operating at that level. So there is no escape through dismissing the art. The bastard is world-class. There is an arguable case, if one means the complete musical artist rather than merely the pure microphone technician, that Kanye West belongs at the top of his genre. And that makes the rest of the album much worse for me. West has described this record as a kind of backhanded apology after the Taylor Swift incident. I do not hear an apology. I hear wounded doubling down. The Swift incident matters to me without requiring any particular affection for Taylor Swift. It was simply an unusually public demonstration of self-exception: the idea that ordinary social limits could be overruled because Kanye’s judgement, importance or entitlement took precedence. Looking backwards from 2026, it is tempting to treat that as the beginning of a story whose ending we already know, and I have tried not to do that. But the warning was not invented retrospectively. A Garfunkel and Oates video posted in October 2009 was already able to make comedy from precisely the disturbing public persona that had become visible. The canary was already coughing before this album existed. What followed was not contraction. It was this. You think I am too much? Here is more. You think I am arrogant? Watch what my arrogance can make. You object to my behaviour? Look at the scale of my talent. The entire album can begin to feel like an exceptionally beautiful exhibit submitted for the defence. That is where the gorgeousness starts to devalue itself for me. The problem is not ego. Popular music would be considerably poorer if performers were required to demonstrate modesty before entering the studio. The problem is self-exception: the proposition that exceptional ability changes the ordinary terms of accountability. Once I heard that, I found it everywhere. “All of the Lights” turns the confusion and scrutiny of fame into huge melodrama, but my unsympathetic response was essentially: famous man acts objectionably, then objects to the scrutiny produced by acting objectionably. “Monster” makes monstrosity thrilling. Its famous boast now sounds unpleasantly like something displayed in plain sight. “Runaway” gets closer to genuine acknowledgement. When Kanye recognises that somebody has been putting up with his behaviour for too long, I finally felt something resembling recognition: yes, mate, quite. But even that recognition is immediately converted into an enormous aesthetic monument. This is self-awareness, certainly. I am much less convinced that it is self-examination. Recognition without correction is not contrition. That distinction reminded me unexpectedly of my difficulties with Morrissey. There is a temptation, when somebody is sufficiently talented, to become an extraordinarily generous interpreter. The troubling thing becomes part of the persona; the persona becomes part of the entertainment; eventually the capacity to acknowledge one’s own unpleasantness is treated as evidence of moral sophistication. Admirers give the maximum available benefit of the doubt because the alternative threatens something they love. I cannot do that here. Perhaps I would have received this posture differently in 2010. In 2026 I have had quite enough of people turning refusal of correction into evidence of strength: criticism becomes persecution, consequences become grievance, concession becomes weakness, and doubling down becomes authenticity. What might once have looked like outrageous pop-star swagger now looks horribly familiar as a way of operating in the world. That does not retrospectively make the music bad. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy remains beautifully made. At times it is spectacular. “Devil in a New Dress” was another gorgeous confection, and I had no interest in it whatsoever. That became the strangest recurring sensation of the morning: aesthetic recognition without any desire to participate. I have also realised that I cannot simply pretend the later Kanye does not exist for the sake of methodological purity. Other listeners may be able to isolate the 2010 object and judge it independently. I cannot do that without falsifying this particular encounter. The later antisemitism, Nazi sympathy and transphobia are not abstract celebrity gossip hovering outside the record for me. They affect my willingness to enter into the bargain the record appears to offer. I cannot listen to the magnificent self-mythologising and agree that magnificence earns its maker exemption. That boundary is personal as well as critical. There are people I love whom I could not look in the eye while pretending otherwise. So I have ended in a position I did not expect. The album is simultaneously world-class and overhyped. Its craft is not in question. Its mythology is. I do not think its brilliance redeems the posture at its centre; if anything, its brilliance makes that posture more disturbing because it renders it so persuasively. I wanted the artistic judgement to be easier. It isn’t. The bastard really is that good. But admiration is not amnesty. I heard the greatness. I am declining the transaction.

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One of my learning from this project has been that I don't mind a bit of outlaw country. I think Merle Haggard really hit his straps a few albums after this (and we miss the chance to grapple with Merle's complicated politics). But this is a pretty tight album.

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Some good grungey noise . Not my particular cup of tea but some decent tunes and I can appreciate the importance of this to the evolution of rock music.

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Garage rock, a touch of punk, noisy guitars. Very unusual for an album from 2001. Listening to it, you immediately think of Iggy and The Stooges. Not the best thing for me this morning. I don't think I'll be listening to this record again!

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Ah, some straight metal. No need to over-analyse this too much. Thrashy roots but generally a bit slower with some grooves. So a thrash/groove metal middle ground? A New Level hints at Slipknot to come. Ha, listening while walking and then Walk comes on locks right into my stride. Satisfying Also feels akin to Sepultura from around the same time. Best track - A New Level 3.5 stars - call it 4. A decent metal album that I would spin again

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Peter Gabriel seems like the kind of artist whose head, if he ever stopped creating music, would warp and explode like his character in the "Sledgehammer" video. In his first post-Genesis solo album he throws everything into the mix: rock, pop, psychedelia, and vaudeville... somehow it works. The Most Earnest Musician Alive performs songs with a passion that would be embarrassing if it weren't him. "Solisbury Hill" would be enough on its own, but the album is packed with enough oddsongs and heart to be worth repeated listens.

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Not the worst prog album I've listened to on this list, but maybe that's because it was mercifully brief? Scraping a 2.

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Yeahhhh... not very great.. Didn't like it personally 2/5

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Started off enjoying it and then went off it in the end

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Maybe my continuous use of the internet has ruined my attention span, but I still think an hour and a half is too much for a record. It's hard for me to believe that anyone would sit down and listen to this album for that long without feeling bored or disconnected.

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Loved the feeling of loneliness in this songs

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The ugly face of shameless greed

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Corporate slop

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I was recently watching an episode of Ted Lasso (s3e6 if you need receipts) that ended with the team leaving Amsterdam by bus, tired but in high spirits, all singing 'Three Little Birds'. Or, more accurately, the same two lines of 'Three Little Birds' over and over in terrible faux-Jamaican accents. You can't pick your fans. Bob Marley had the ambition to take reggae -- a very specific and marginal musical genre -- and become one of the biggest artists in the world. I admire the chutzpah. Marley did great work in presenting reggae to American and European audiences in a way that highlighted the genre's strengths without diluting the music or message _too_ much. Unfortunately, I just can't shake the feeling that Marley's music is often reduced to a feel-good caricature, as in that regrettable episode of Ted Lasso. Marley's friendly "peace, love, and ganja" aspects were readily adopted by Western audiences who conveniently ignored many of Bob's less comfortable political and cultural messages. I'm sure that Bob would find those audiences ridiculous, but he was happy to sell records to them. Exodus a pretty schmick production -- a crack band in an expensive studio, using recording techniques common in rock -- and it sounds really great. This is the reggae album that even people who don't like reggae can happily listen to. I just find it hard to get past the cultural baggage that has accumulated around Bob Marley since his death. The weird hagiography seems out of kilter with the man and the artist. I need to do more investigation. But this is a fantastic sounding album. 3.5 stars, rounding up.

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I can remember exactly where I was the first time I heard Portishead. I was at the Valhalla cinema when their short film 'To Kill a Dead Man' came on (unannounced? I can't remember expecting to see it) before the feature. I got the references to 60s spy films and Goddard and John Barry etc. I appreciated the low budget, homespun scrappiness of it, even if it is not the most compelling thing I have ever seen. It's an interesting artefact, full of retro references and throwbacks. The soundtrack is more sound design than music and only necessary listening if you're a mad Portishead completist. But then they played 'Sour Times' over the credits. "Woah" I said to myself "what's _that_?" It was mesmerizing and instantly grabbed me. I could immediately grasp what they were presenting. Languid down-tempo hip hop beats, cheesy 60s soundtrack guitar and smoky torch song vocals. It was a simulacrum of 60s torch song or soundtrack, like it was from a crackly vinyl record found in the back of a charity shop or grandparent's collection, but a world where hip hop beats were around in 1965. Or even the samples they created as if they were from (non-existent) old records. I chased the album down and it did not disappoint. 'Sour Times' wasn't even the best song on the album; 'Glory Box' gets the guernsey as best track, in my opinion. It was moody and sad and spacious and artful and different and stylish and gritty and cool and had a consistent and compelling worldview throughout. I was obsessed and listened to it a lot, nearly always as the whole album each sitting. It is one of the core foundational texts of trip hop, although I can see why the band distance themselves from the label. The signifiers of the sound were easily replicated and quickly established a clichéd genre of largely interchangeable moody wine bar background music. Some of it was not bad -- Morcheeba, Sneaker Pimps -- but a lot of it was really forgettable. Portishead shouldn't be blamed for any of the bland dross that copied their formula in the following years -- that is just Sturgeon's Law in action. What the imitator rarely understood is that it isn't about the signifiers -- the samples, the slow beats, the vinyl crackle, the smoky vocals -- it's the visionary _space_ that Portishead created that makes this so special. But I can see why Portishead's subsequent records are a reaction against the production hallmarks of Dummy. Personally, I really like the deliberately fucked up production aesthetic, but it is the songs and Beth Gibbons vocals that really make this album special to me. Moody torch song wasn't really much of thing in the 90s, so this album really stood out on release. I haven't listened to this in a long time -- possibly a result of me over-playing it in the 90s -- but it has been a pleasure to listen to this again today. It still stands up. (And now I confess; earlier in this project, when reviewing Isaac Hayes' Hot Buttered Soul, the track 'Walk On By' triggered a memory for me. "Oh, that's in a Portishead song" I thought, and scrubbed through Dummy about 4 times trying to find the track. Only to then realize the song I was thinking of was '2wicky' by Hooverphonic. Which is a pretty good song but stylistically ripped off from this album).

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The musical equivalent of comfort food. These three were three of the best voices in country music at the time, and they use those voices to great effect here. Trio is truly a collaborative effort, as most of the songs here feature all three singers performing some of the most gorgeous harmonies you've ever heard. To me, Parton easily has the most distinct voice and the best performances, but the thing that makes this album work is how all three work together to make something even better than the sum of their parts. Musically, this album takes a variety of different styles and merges them into a quiet, cozy country pop sound. The gentles guitars and pianos aren't the most adventurous thing in the world, but they're easy on the ears and act as the perfect foundation for the trio's vocals to build upon.

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Greasy fat rat

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There is a section in my record box for DJing parties called "floor fillers". They are singles pretty much guaranteed to get people out on the floor dancing. You can throw them on the deck when energy is flagging a bit or for the last set of the night when you want to leave everyone in a sweaty mess. I'm not prepared to reveal all my trade secrets, but 'Groove is in the Heart' is one of those songs. It is a fun and likeable confection, absolutely chock full o'hooks, and anyone can dance to it. Perfectly deployed guest spots in Bootsy Collins, Fred Wesley, Maceo Parker and Q-Tip. Everybody loves that track. It is one of the greatest pop singles of all time, full of nostalgic 60s and 70s references, sly jokes, soulful pop tunes, silliness and hip-hop inflections.. The rest of the album is similarly brightly coloured and camp fun, but listening through the whole thing is like eating 4lbs of candy in a single sitting. There are tracks here I would happily put on a compilation (or drop in a DJ set), but it is a bit rich as an album. Although I do admire their commitment to fun. There should be more of that. This is a solid 3 star album throughout, with one world class banger in 'Groove is in the Heart' for a bonus star.

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Destroy rock & roll by flailing it with wet noodles.

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It's pleasant and upbeat African pop from the early 90s. the production and cover art demonstrate the aspiration to a level of sophistication, even if the budget clearly didn't extend that far. Personally, I find that kind of fun and charming. But, not speaking French or knowing anything about Mr Koffi, I looked him up on wikipedia. The lengthy sections under 'Feuds' and 'Legal issues' have turned me off. Is his behavior much worse than any number of higher profile Western artists? Well, Koffi's crimes (most notably statutory rape, then fleeing the country to avoid imprisonment) are comparable to Roman Polanski. I think Polanski is irremediable too. The cognitive dissonance between the light and breezy cruise-liner pop (3 stars, I could dance to that) and the terrible actions of the man (no stars, would not recommend) leave me feeling queasy.

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"I won’t say anything ’cause no one ever listens to me, anyway. I might as well be a Leonard Cohen record" -- Neil, The Young Ones. This is the most Leonard Cohen-y Leonard Cohen album. Simple arrangements, mostly just guitar with tastefully restrained string or vocal backings. There are some classic songs here ('Avalanche', 'Famous Blue Raincoat'), and he is putting his back into the wordsmithing. His voice is an acquired taste, but the yelling on 'Diamonds in the Mine' is a real career low point. Cohen's songs often come alive when sung by other more accomplished singers (for example, the I'm Your Fan tribute compilation of Jennifer Warnes' album of Cohen covers Famous Blue Raincoat), so you gotta give him his props for the songwriting. But jeez, some of it makes me want to slash my wrists. 'Dress Rehearsal Rag' is one of the most depressing songs I have ever heard.

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(1/5) There are NO edges on this, is there? It's been so thoroughly sanded down there is nothing to hate -- but likewise and more damning -- there's nothing to love. I haven't been paying attention to most music from the 2010s, but everything is just coated in this slick, greasy autotune bullshit, isn't it? I can't honestly tell if she's a good singer or not. How could anyone? She's drowned out by the persistent and overpowering ambient music, and then her voice is filtered through what seems to be a dozen filters and autotune. Add to my laundry list of reasons why this isn't good -- the extremely repetitive nature of all the songs. The tempo for what seems like every song is within 10 beats of one another. MIX IT UP! What a slog of a runtime as well. I won't blame Ms. Kelela for this, because I can barely tell what she contributed. Let's blast the flattened (apocalyptic perhaps?) musical landscape of the 2010s and later when the handful of major labels and styles just sorta merged into a gooey, greasy blob of autotuned shit. This is a great example of it and could easily be placed side to side with ANY OTHER contemporaneous music and it would truly all sound the absolute same. I feel gross, and I hate what it's all become. There's a hungry totalizing algorithm that says you better not deviate from the formula because if you do the stockholders won't be rich anymore!!! Fuck them all and fuck this.

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I bought this CD when it first came out, it's a lot of fun. This album was wildly over-played in the 90s, so I haven't felt the need to play it much for about twenty years, but my 18-year-old son (hey Alfie!) recently discovered this, and so I have started listening to this again with him, and it's a really fun listen. It's a damn good time and you can dance to it. As a result, when I stumbled across a reasonably priced vinyl copy just last week, I snaffled it up for my collection. There are lots of things to like and admire about Fatboy Slim. He approaches making songs like a DJ, not a musician. He builds songs like miniature sets, with breaks and snippets cut in from his eclectic but well curated collection. The songs are full of hooks and snippets, transitions and surprising changes, and, above all, those big funky breaks. He is not afraid to let a beat play out for a while, augmented with DJ tricks like big sweeping filters, drops or stuttering delays. His taste is exquisite -- wide ranging and obscure -- but not cool. Norman Cook is less concerned with 'cool' than with 'fun'. Is the hook really catchy? Is it funky? Does this drum break insist that you absolutely must dance? And I like that. His songs are fun and inclusive and catchy and easy to dance to. He has a great ear for sounds, hooks, breaks and moments from other records. His sources are often obscure, but not for obscurity's sake. Rather he chooses them because they are a great fresh sound. These tracks are more than the mere sum of their parts; it's an accessible and optimistic collage of energy and excitement. I did copy Fatboy's habit of turning up to DJ gigs with only a box of 7" vinyl singles. I like the way it forces you to only play short, poppy songs, and I use the approach sometimes when doing my own DJ sets. This is the definitive 90s big beat album. Maybe not the world's most 'artistic' genre or album, but one of the most entertaining. Let's dance!

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(sigh) This is a very intimate and personal album, and I am sure that, if it connects with the listener on that personal level, it is profound and meaningful and delicately beautiful and emotionally resonant and blah blah blah. But this does not speak to me. It's not bad -- it's smartly written, tastefully arranged and played -- but Mr Callahan's laconic, deadpan vocal stylings annoyed me more and more as the album progressed. I find his disaffected, enervated drawl emotionally alienating. I can't help but imagine what it would be like if we just replaced all the vocal tracks with a good singer; Phoebe Bridgers is the name that immediately springs to mind because her material is not a million miles from this, but if we're playing fantasy-casting here, what about Emmylou Harris? Shit yeah, now we're talking! That could potentially be a 4-star album. But that final song, 'Faith/Void' has no business being nearly 10 minutes long. That is just taking the piss.

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Dimery is pushing up against his own 'no compilations' rule. He obviously and desperately wants to include 'Legend' on the list, but can't, so has included three of Bob Marley's strongest 70s albums to cover the spread. I would argue that one is sufficient ('Exodus' would be my pick), but this is an admittedly pretty strong album, and it has a few classic tracks, 'Concrete Jungle' and 'Stir It up' immediately spring to mind. The inclusion of two Peter Tosh songs helps add some variety to the album and reduce the filler quotient ('Kinky Reggae' is the most egregious filler track). And the band is certainly _tight_. The groove is always in the pocket, and the band sounds great. Even Chris Blackwell's overdubbing interventions don't ruin the core performances.

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Australians fuckin' love ABBA. ABBA, at their best, are much like Australians; big, dumb, mostly harmless and a lot of fun. It's a recipe for a damn good time. But this more mature, sophisticated, moody, and refined ABBA is not what anyone really wants. Where's the fun? Where are the good times? The crazy outfits? The big catchy hooks and choruses? The ridiculous lyrics? Even the big single is somewhat melancholic. The _joy_ of ABBA is missing in action. While clearly a band at the height of its powers in terms of its craft, nobody is enjoying the process, including the band and this Australian listener. The break-up of the band was inevitable. 2.5 stars, rounding down.

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I was more of a rock guy than dance music guy in 1990, but Pacific State (in all its versions) was inescapable at the time. It is one of the best tracks of late 80s/early 90s UK dance, no argument. It is atmospheric and catchy and compelling, and even the terrible sax playing is weirdly affecting. I have read several reviews that suggest that 808:90 proved that dance music could be an album medium, rather than just singles. Well, 35 years later, there have been plenty of acclaimed dance music albums, but I still lean towards the opinion that dance really is a singles medium. That doesn't work well for this list, as focusing on albums doesn't serve all musical genres or artists equitably and leads to some unfortunate biases. That said, I own this record and the Quadrastate EP and Ooops 12". I think I inherited them from the vinyl collection of Mark Selway (RIP), my friend and former bandmate. Mark went down a deep, dark rabbit-hole of experimental electronic music. You can hear his work on the Lecter Macabre album 13 Hobbs Lane (https://joshshipton.bandcamp.com/album/13-hobs-lane). Be warned; it's difficult listening. Now that I come to think of it, I visited the Eastern Bloc record store in Manchester in the mid 90s because I had heard about it as the early meeting place of 808 State. I bought a really nice LP bag that I still use.

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I feel like much of this smart, stylish 90s electronic album is not designed for the dancefloor, but for listening in the lounge room while coming down from a big night out. It is more intelligent and varied than many EDM albums (largely attributable to the occasional use of guitar and the vocals). I have mixed feelings about the chant-like vocals -- they avoid the usual house cliche of whacking a big soul vocal over the top of an electronic track to give it some drama. The repetitive, rhythmic singing -- often just a single note -- and impressionistic lyrics make the vocals an intrinsic part of the track rather than a decorative topline. But I can't work out whether I really like that or not. Jury is still out. I assume that 'Born Slippy' was an album outtake they agreed to offer up for the Trainspotting soundtrack, which accidentally then became their biggest hit and turned out not to be on the album (oops), but belatedly added to the deluxe issues. The sound is pretty sophisticated, but of that seems to come down to the judicious use of digital delays and reverb. Better than most of its genre but still doesn't really move me.

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This might be the most developed of the 70s punk albums that I've heard. Much stronger musicianship than I would expect from British punk of the era based on what this list has handed me. I think 4 overall but a 5 in the context of its peers.

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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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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??!!?

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.

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

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.

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