Album Reviews

Yeh it’s influential and classical but I still think it’s A little outdated. They were nothing but a pop band. my fav track of this album is Taxman, then yellow submarine, then tomorrow never knows.

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that thing is perfect

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Trash from a trash human. Not listening.

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Sounds like some musically-curious kids wrote three mediocre songs and then decided that writing songs was too hard. So, in order to fill out an album, they spent a couple of stoned weeks just fucking around with the studio’s samplers. Meh with a capital E.

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57. beautiful voice

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A top 5 album from the 60’s— right up there with “Sgt Pepper” and “Village Green”.

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The lyrics are considerably more thoughtful and creative than most popular hip hop. But the beats and the flow are pretty average.

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One absolute banger followed by 10 decent songs. Hard to meet the bar set by Immigrant Song but a totally decent listen, almost to the end.

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This was fine - nothing I was terribly into, but nothing I hated

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Kjedelig, ikke min type musikk. Men ikke slitsom. to stjerner.

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Listened while driving to and from my daughter's soccer class. I mean what else is there to say, it's Stevie Wonder of course it's going to be great. It doesn't have many of his all time classics but it's consistently good all the way through.

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Practically perfect

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This should be on a list of 1001 albums to avoid in your lifetime. No idea what the appeal is of this kind of music. Just a bunch of grumbling over some bluesy and folk instrumentation. Kudos to the fans who like this stuff

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Found this to be quite unremarkable

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Good

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It has a cool sound but its about 30 minutes to long. It makes sense at the height of the CD economy, but not in the age of streaming.

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Oww!!!

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I'm always a sucker for Jazz. This was a great to listen to, and I'm almost certain I've heard Back At The Chicken Shack before. I feel bad for giving 5/5 to all Jazz albums but here I go again.

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I loved listening to this and now want to learn more about this style, the musicians, the inspiration & context.

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The voice sounded familiar but she wasn’t the artist I thought it sounded like. Interesting combination of singer songwriter style with some funk. A pleasant listen.

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Solid classic from the king

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I have a friend who really likes Sparks. I'd always thought they were too quirky for me. In the intervening years (ie since we were at school together in the 80s) I've come to understand their influence better, and I'm glad they're around... but, truthfully, they're still too quirky for me. It's the eccentric vocal and subject matter; the stop-start songs that veer into cabaret. I did like In My Family, which grew into quite a banger. In fact, they sounded like Roxy Music (who I love) now and again; I enjoyed those bits (the last two tracks were pretty good). And, as I say, I'm glad artists like this are around, and, therefore, can't give them a low score. But the overall package isn't quite for me. Sorry.

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Not bad

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Groovy

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long ahh songs giving pizza shop in club penguin favorite song: so what

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Reminded me of the Wu-Tang Clan, really interesting album, hip-hop at its best, original and most uplifting 🎶

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Die sind ja gar ned so Türkisch Rock wieni ghofft han. Janu, schlecht sind ned, aber bsunders guet au ned. 3 mal Köfte bitte

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★★½

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Not too shabby - but not something I would listen to again.

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Wow, Fantano avait raison pour une fois, super album et super weird que ça soit son seul? Beaucoup plus R&B et Soul que je m’attendais, c’est quasiment un Songs In The Keys Of Life Hip-hop, à revisiter assurément

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This album's songs were all over "adult alternative" radio in the early 90's, and I experienced Crow fatigue. But now, listening through the whole thing, I realize it's a very solid album. A lot of credit has to go to the group of singer-songwriters and backing players-'the Tuesday Night Music club of the title--who encouraged and worked with her. Kevin Gilbert, David Baerwald, David Ricketts (who, together, as David and David had a great album of their own) and others were hugely important to this album. I don't think Sheryl Crow was ever again as good as on this one.

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Gram is the best part about this one

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High 4, smooth latin listening with little variation in sound but the couple variations that happen are appreciated and effective

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BuT iT's CuLtUrAL aPpRoPriATiOn!!!!!111 Does anyone fucking think on here? Does anyone know what they're talking about? Does anyone know anything about music? There's a certain type of idiot on here (and in life) that hears something like Graceland and sprints, whistle in mouth, to declare Paul Simon guilty of "cultural appropriation." These are the people who were hall monitors in high school and continue to look for infractions anywhere and everywhere in life. According to these assholes, Paul Simon didn't collaborate with musicians in South Africa, he only extracted their music and their culture. And they constantly ignore (or don't want to bother to look) that the music that's on this album shined a light on artists like Barney Rachabane, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Hugh Masekela and Clifton Chenier. They don't want to take a minute to understand that this album brought these artists some notoriety and that these artists were appreciative. They don't want to admit, by these artists accounts, that the album was a joy to make. And these assholes just never want to acknowledge the most obvious point, that music has always been a conversation across cultures. Genres exist because cultures collide...rock music exists because of Black Americans. Elvis didn't appear out of thin air fully formed, he was drawing from Black gospel, blues and R&B. The Beatles were borrowing Chuck Berry riffs, girl group harmonies, basslines from Motown, American R&B, Indian sitars and the list goes on and on. Jazz is a mix of african rhythms, european brass band instruments, carribean influences and blues scales. Country is a blend of scottish and irish ballads, Black blues structures, mexican influences on Western swing and African banjo classics. Hip Hip was built on sampling funk, disco, rock and whatever else they could find. But the "cultural appropriation" assholes never worry about nuance. As long as they can plant their flag on some moral hill, they'll ignore everything else. They'll ignore the musicians that wanted to work with Paul Simon, the breaking of a cultural boycott in an effort to collaborate on music and the positive feedback from everyone involved. These "cultural appropriation" assholes have one argument, and it's this: Paul Simon shouldn't have made one of the best and most innovative albums of the 80s because it violates my sensitivities. In doing so, these "cultural appropriation" assholes flatten the South African musicians into props for a moral lecture. And in thinking they're somehow protecting them, it reduces them to passive objects rather than creative artists who wanted to collaborate with Simon and brought the world some fucking awesome music. The "cultural appropriation" assholes just ignore that music isn't pure and it's not supposed to be. Humans borrow from each other and cultures mix and to ignore it is to willfully ignore the way culture actually works. They want rigid boundaries when it suits them and they want rigid boundaries in art when art doesn't obey boundaries. So fuck the cultural appropriation warriors, this album absolutely slaps. If you want to downgrade it for farty bass lines and lyrics you don't like, that's fine. But if you want to get on your high horse and write a review about "cultural appropriation" while ignoring all the music you've 5 starred on this site and think you're some sort of a fucking genius you might want to sit this one out.

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I guess I just don't get it. I don't know why we have so many Nick Cave albums on here. Is he interesting? At times. Murder Ballads was ambitious and intriguing, a worthy inclusion. That said, he is very far from great. Want proof? He is revered by a good amount of critics (mainly English), as evidenced by having 5 albums on this list. And yet, here in the States, he has had one album that has sold more than 100k copies. One. That's incredibly hard to accomplish. Is he a complicated artist that is just misunderstood in the US? Perhaps. Or maybe, just maybe, he's a relatively uninspiring/bad signer, who is a lackluster song writer. Some examples, just from this album: "We'd buy the Sunday newspapers and never read a single word." "I don't believe in an interventionist God but I know, darling, that you do." "In a colonial hotel, we fucked up the sun and then we fucked it down again." He's incredibly trite throughout this record. Him trying sing layers about a "twinkling cunt"? Huh? Worse yet, this collection of songs are very basic with zero real musicality to them. The only bonus is that I've now burned through more than half of his albums on this countdown. Only two more to get rid of. While he hasn't supplanted Amy Winehouse as my least favorite artist on this countdown, I realize now I would rather listen to her than him. At least Amy had an excellent voice and talent, even if she totally wasted both. This dude is predominantly just a waste of time.

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When this came up as my album of the day I was less than thrilled. This isn't what I want for Sunday morning dog walking in the cold rain and snow. Well, I couldn't have been more wrong. This is outta sight. Who knew I would enjoy downtempo electro dance pop so much? Quick aside, I try to not call people out for their reviews but come the fuck on, comparing her cover of American Pie to war crimes and human rights violations. It's a 4 minute version of a folk rock classic, not dropping bombs on women and children. Criminy, take a breath and actually listen to what you're saying. But anyway, this is another prime example why Madonna has been one of the most successful artists of all time.

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I’m vibing with the lesbian twang

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This shit slaps, just like I heard it when I was in high school. I remember I had a cassette tape someone burned for me, it was like 74 minutes on each side. One side was this album, the other side was Evil Empire. But plant me smack in the middle of the group of people that didn't pay attention to their politics or care about them. I just liked the anger, the guitar...it is music to have on while you're lifting and working out. It's just hard to take their politics seriously and it was hard to take their politics seriously back in the day. I remember some magazine article where these guys were out golfing...the hypocrisy was just evident from the start. And while I'm sure these guys really believe the shit they're yelling about, they're just cartoons, especially Morello and De La Rocha. They built their identity and messaging on anti-capitalism and anti-corporate power while becoming hugely profitable, major label stars that sold out arenas. They Raged Against corporate exploitation and then sold tickets through Ticketmaster and Live Nation at prices that the working class couldn't afford. Yeah, they've donated money, yeah they protested Ticketmaster at one point but at the end of the day they used the system. They signed with a massive corporation in Sony and always claimed some bullshit along the lines of "we're using their money to spread anti-capitalist ideas" which was just fucking hysterical. Sony didn't sign these guys because of their ideological messages, they did it cause RATM made them a shit ton of money and you don't subvert capitalism by becoming a platinum selling band inside of it. Morello lives a really comfortable, elite life. The rest of the band members do, too (De La Rocha's house that went up for sale a few years ago is very nice but not over the top extravgent, I will give him that, but it was still 3 million) but Morello's a bit above the rest. It doesn't invalidate their beliefs but it's hard to take their moral high ground seriously. There's no personal sacrifice here. In their own way, they're completely safe. They felt somewhat dangerous in the 90s and were always loud and angry about US imperialism, capitalism and policing. They are consistently quiet on authoritarian left-wing regimes, labor abuses in countries that are aligned with their preferred politics and censorship when it comes to their side. I will admit that they've donated millions to activist causes they believe in, they've platformed radical politics since the start, they've never pretended to be neutral on anything and I think they've read the books they put in their albums instead of pretending to have read them. That all said, the self awareness is lacking. They exist inside of capitalism but they think they're morally superior while they rage from the penthouse that overlooks the machine. It's a band that rallied around being dangerous to power but always embraced it, especially when it suited them best. Now... what they should have done was adopt the philosophy of Ian MacKaye. MacKaye didn't just say anti-corporate things, he designed his entire life and career around never having the message and behavior be in question. MacKaye is the anti-RATM. No major labels. Ever. He never had to explain that contradiction because he never got there to begin with. He capped ticket prices for decades. Never gave in to festivals...it was always 5 bucks. It was a moral obligation and he never strayed from it....and he never needed Ticketmaster. Yet, he still sold hundreds of thousands of records. Toured a shit ton. Influenced a lot of bands. He never went to sell out arenas, he never made the luxury leap, he never bought the big house and the fancy car. MacKaye's politics weren't slogans that he tapped into whenever he felt like he needed to...it was DIY or don't do it, keep prices low for all ages shows, no corporate sponsorships, no gouging on merch. He just opted out of the system/machine instead of trying to play some sort of a game that RATM did. RATM chose maximum exposure, mass culture reach...MacKaye chose sheer autonomy and limits. Neither of these ways are invalid or bad, but one avoids hypocrisy completely. If RATM went the MacKaye way, fewer people would have heard them, they might not have been icons and they wouldn't have filled arenas. But no one could roll their eyes at them. So...yeah, I hate their politics. I'm not reading Howard Zinn, I'm not reading Marx, or Guevara or Alinsky or Chomsky. And a big reason why I never wanted to, even as an idealistic teenager, is that in 1996 when I saw RATM's reading list inside of Evil Empire, I just rolled my eyes. So why am I giving this a 5? It's music to lift weights to. As much as they don't want to be lumped into this category, it's music for football players and they had to have known that when they were making it but they did it anyway. It's great rock music, maybe even slightly innovative rock music, it takes me back to a time where I'd blast this album, not give a shit about their politics, understanding that the guys were making the music were hypocrites and realizing that most people are. And that's the lesson to be learned from RATM, it's not revolution, it's not anti capitalist politics...the lesson to learn from RATM is that most people are hypocrites.

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Based Oliver Cromwell.

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Fuck this rapist midget and every scumbag who enabled him.

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"I started to play the song yesterday, and stopped myself. Again, I was angry. Again, another story about the blues of Pharaoh, and the people are invisible. The people are always invisible. "These motherfuckers," I mumbled to myself." -Ta-Nehisi Coates, about 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down'

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This is a really great album. Frank has a lot of really great albums. Music is magic. Back in the days of paper maps me and a buddy would go find undeveloped hot springs in northern Nevada. I drove, he navigated. Lots of road trippin' listening to Van Morrison, Tom Waits and Frank. If you're ever around Austin, NV and you're so inclined, take an evening to visit Spencer hot springs, crack open a Sam Adams Summer Ale, light up a cigar and listen to Frank's Summer Wind for me. Like I said, music is magic and this album swings.

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The most widely misunderstood, and overrated, Beatles album. Something I think captures Abbey Road in a nutshell... They originally wanted to name this album Everest, and the cover photo was going to be the foursome on Mt Everest. Instead they named it Abbey Road and took a photo outside the front door of their studio. Despite its recent critical reappraisal, Abbey Road is not the sound of the Beatles at their creative peak. It's the sound of a band running out of gas, suing each other, and lowering their standards. The Beatles were not trying to make any profound artistic statements, they were trying to fulfill their contractual obligations as quickly as possible so they could move on. All 3 songwriters released better solo albums a year or so after this album came out and, clearly, they were saving their best material. I should mention I am a Beatles fanatic (not a hater) and can acknowledge the positives here. There are a handful of remarkably great recordings on this album, best of which is "Something." "Something" is an all-timer love song and one of the most mature, elegant miniature morsels the band ever made. "Come Together" is also quite unique -- a post-psychedelic reinterpretation of 50s rhythm and blues with a signature rhythm track unlike anything the band (or really anyone else) had ever done. But alongside these merits are serious problems. "Because" is a virtuosic piece of work, overshadowed by the corny Moog sounds. (The Moog generally does not work on this album, in my opinion.) Similarly, "Here Comes the Sun" is a great song at its core, but it gets bogged down with its overblown prog rock arrangement. The B-side medley is probably the best example of their misfire and it still shocks me to read reviews from people who think it's some kind of masterful experiment in songcraft. They took unfinished scraps of songs that might have really had an impact if they took the time to work on them (e.g. "Golden Slumbers," "Mean Mr. Mustard"), threw them in the pot with a bunch of other crap, added a Moog and an orchestra, served it up and said bon appetit. John acknowledged many times in many interviews that the medley was pure lifeless junk. And there's a scene in the Anthology documentary where they are re-listening to studio masters of some of the medley orchestration; Paul is absolutely high on his own farts and George looks straight into the camera to say "a bit corny, init?" Yes! It is very very corny. When the theme to "You Never Give Me Your Money" returns as a horn section during "Carry That Weight," I get a full body cringe. John is only half-present on this album and it clearly shows. There are a number of songs he didn't touch, and he didn't even bother showing up to the final recording sessions. He's also, clearly, not sharing his best work -- most of what he wrote on this album had been kicking around since the band came back from India, and Plastic Ono Band (which is a MUCH better album than Abbey Road) was recorded shortly after this. "I Want You" is the closest thing to a proto-Plastic Ono song on Abbey Road, and it pales in comparison to others in its style (like "Yer Blues" or "Don't Let Me Down"). What we're left with is Paul's ego unchained. The medley has his fingerprints all over it, and "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" is legendary in how badly it pissed off the rest of the band. "Oh Darling" is fine, but it's a weak pastiche at a time when a zillion musicians (including John) were doing a much better job of playing with roots rock n roll revival. It's been quite surprising to see this album get reevaluated in the past couple decades by younger audiences who have elevated it to "masterpiece" status in the same way the Boomers latched on to Sgt. Pepper. I'm not entirely sure why this is the highest rated Beatles album on this site, but it probably has to do with the cleaner production standards compared to their earlier 60s albums; in the end, I think most people just want easy listening. All in all, Abbey Road showed the way to the future in 70s rock radio, but mostly by influencing its worst tendencies, i.e. corny prog pop and soft rock. This doesn't sound like a band at the cutting edge of popular culture, it sounds like ELO or Wings or any number of yacht rock bands. But hey, I suppose that's also why a lot of people like it -- ELO sold a lot of records.

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Murderer, rapist turd.

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Album No. 0125 on my list. There it is. Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side Of The Moon". THE album. My hypothesis is that if you ask people to think of a music album, this may well be the one that's mentioned the most. It is certainly one of the most iconic albums of all time, and possibly the greatest rock album there is - certainly the greatest progressive rock album, and maybe the greatest album of the 70s. I have to admit that it's also one of my favorite albums (what a cliché, I know). It's just not possible for me to judge this objectively in any way, but I guess based on the other ratings of this album on this page, many others seem to like the album as well. I guess "The Dark Side of the Moon" perfectly hits the sweet spot between a complex, progressive, artsy work on the one side and a groovy, catchy, enjoyable album on the other side. It is more than a collection of 10 songs, they all fit together just so nicely. And even more than 50 years later, the album still sounds incredibly great! For nostalgic reasons, I didn't even listen to any of the remasters but to the original, and it still sounds very good. The prodcution was really aehad of its time. The album really has everything. You've got some or Roger Water's greatest lyrics on this ("Time", "Money", "Brain Damage"), some of David Gilmour's greatest guitar work ("Time", "Money"), and singing ("Breathe", "Time"), some of the greatest Pink Floyd atmospheric sound layers ("Time", "Us And Them"). In addition, you got one of the greatest album covers of all time, possibly even the most iconic one ever made. You got some progressive elements (odd time signatures, some extensive instrumental parts), but it really never gets boring. Everything is perfectly nuanced, everything is timed to perfection. To avoid adding the full album to my playlist, I'm leaving out the instrumentals, but will still add "Breathe", "Time", "The Great Gig In The Sky", "Money", "Us And Them", "Brain Damage", and "Eclipse" to my playlist. If any record is a hallmark record, it's this one. I can't praise this enough, would have given 50 stars if I could. 5/5 stars - of course!

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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".

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??!!?

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.

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.

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.

Music for incels to wank furiously by

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

Rage In Favor Of The Machine.

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

The only reason this is here is because it’s from before streaming, when if you bought a shit album you had to convince yourself you liked it.

Most 60's groups had three choices: copy the beatles, copy the beach boys, or sexually abuse minors. These guys changed the game and did all three- Four stars!