Album Reviews

Unexpected banger

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Favorites: Sledgehammer Big Time We Do What We're Told This Is The Picture In Your Eyes

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Can the imitation be more real than the thing itself? Bowie’s “plastic soul” has the touch and taste of flesh and blood. 4.25/5

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nice songs id play in the background.

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I liked the songs well at least two or three. The album in itself felt a little repetitive at least sound wise but since I like listening to similar songs it felt very soulful and warm.

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Not my kind of music. Probably a masterpiece.

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Wer Police nicht kennt, lernt Sie nun hier kennen. Die Musik, die Stimme, all das ist Police.

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It’s funky. It’s fresh. It’s probably historically significant in ways I’m not aware of. Good inclusion.

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not my favorite, still cool album ——————————— Added to Liked Songs Playlist: — All My Loving; — Don't Bother Me; — Till There Was You; — Roll Over Beethoven; — Devil In Her Heart;

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All time classic!

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Kate Bush is a big weirdo and that's great. I'd score the album higher if there wasn't a bloody Irish jig in the middle. Amazing album cover. Strong 3.5

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I love Duran Duran, I love Spandau Ballet. If I didn’t love this, there would be something wrong with me, no? Ahead of its time and tastefully haunting, I am an absolute sucker for synth and this has it in spades. I was surprised to see this came out in 1979, it’s quite ahead of it’s time and you can see the influence here from Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy especially on a track like Despair. A really prominent and powerful bassline throughout this album. Despite being nearly fifty years old this sounds very futuristic, or at least someone’s vision of the future that sounds way cooler than what we actually got. Supremely sleek and listenable, this rocked. The vocalist of Japan considers this to be the band’s peak, and after listening to it I wouldn’t be surprised. Also this was apparently the first foreign record to chart in Japan. Highlights: Fall in Love with Me, In Vogue, Alien

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I listened to this album pretty much after getting some really shitty news and I still liked it a lot. Annie Lennox is an exceptionally talented vocalist and I don’t think, despite some great and sleek production, that this album would be anywhere as good without her on here. This really could have been ‘the one big hit and then a bunch of forgettable shit’, and thankfully it was not. Highlights: Love is a Stranger, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), Jennifer

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This album, for me, really captures the late sixties quite well. I was surprised to read that this was recorded in a huge rush while the band was on its last legs. For the most part, it sounds well-produced and put together. It’s a great album, there’s really only one song on here that I would say is subpar (Changes). As for the rest, I am actually baffled that these guys broke up due to financial difficulties before the album came out. Even reading the Wikipedia page seems to riff on how close these guys were to making it big. This was recorded in the same room right after Pink Floyd in Piper and the four track machine was later used by the Beatles. The last song on this album (the best one) was such a hit, that other musicians went around pretending to be the Zombies to bank on the success of the song. Two of the musicians who did that went on to form ZZ Top. Wild. The irony of a single making it big after a band called the Zombies is not lost on me. Highlights: Beechwood Park, Hung Up on a Dream, Time of the Season

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Truly the worst thing you can say about this album is that it sets its own standards far too high. I'm always a bit sceptical when I see a double album. Elton John and Bernie Taupin have a reputation for extravagance in their music, and it's fully realised here. Even the deep cuts here seem to receive the same amount of love as the tracks that the band probably knew would be big hits. None of this feels phoned-in or like they are going through the motions. Sure, Side D doesn't hit as hard as Side A but it's still good. Highlights: Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding, Candle in the Wind, Bennie and the Jets, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, I've Seen That Movie Too, Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting

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It starts out great with the there best songs on the album. Then Birds and Ships doesn’t quite hit the mark, and Hoodoo Voodoo misses it completely. From there on, only She Came Along to Me, Eisler on the Go and Hesitating Beauty get honorable mentions. The middle part of the album I could do without

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I liked it a lot more on a second listen. It sounds very 90s, but I like the variety of influences and vibes across the track list. None of the songs really stood out enough to want to put them on a playlist but it was an enjoyable listen.

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This project has started disturbing my Apple Music algorithm. Random artists from my previous listens end up in my “radio station”. Most of the time it’s great! Apple knows I’m expanding my knowledge and throws me new tunes from newly discovered faves. But then there are the bad ones. Latter day ABBA. That terrible Beach Boys album. I fear the Flamin’ Groovies are on that list. Not for me. 1/5.

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Ah, smooth and relaxing. With a mug of tea, it's the perfect way to start a monday morning.

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this is ok, kinda of just droning lyrics and the songs sounds blend together

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this is a band I know almost entirely from singles and radio play. man I know this is true of every album, and true of everything basically, but my rating for this feels more indicative of how I approach it than the album itself. There's a review of this where I get irritated by the jingle jangle honkey tonk posturing and Jagger's half-lazy half-too-much vocals. There's a review of this where I'm on the right wavelength and sink into the scumbag lyrics and it hits just right. I don't think either of those are wrong! I think I'd even argue the Rolling Stones are more interesting when they're in creep scumbag mode (under my thumb is a more captivating song than a lot of their singles even though it is completely repellent) the "this sucks" camp has a strong argument when you listen to the lyrics for Let it Bleed though. or listening to monkey man at all. it's a little disappointing the singles are the standout tracks here. more fun when the album cuts surprise you.

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This is #day487 of my #1001albumsyoumusthearbeforeyoudie challenge, and… what looked like a promising endeavor, judging by the description, turned out to be a pretty dull experience. This is far from a must-hear before you die. So background-ish that you end up blending into it. This is a 2 out of 5. Looking forward to #day488.

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rivigt och elektriskt! jag äälskaaar honom

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ok this one was good and I am glad to have listened. fine. music: appreciated. (⌐■_■)

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I quite liked this new album for me. The hip hop sound is quite classicaly 1990s-2000’s so there is some nostalgia aspect to my enjoyment. There are some great tracks that would sound good in a mix due to the cool break beats.

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Nice easy listen, some really good tunes.

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This is widely considered one of the greatest records ever released. While lighter, poppier rock isn't normally my thing, I do recognize how great this record is. It spurned a lot of hits for a reason; because it's a really good record that people love.

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это очень скучно.. искренность не равно 6минутная унылая хуйня

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Another one I’ve heard before! Great themes. Definitely the best reggae album of all time. Great bass.

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Really great Rough and ready Radio free Europe/complaint free album 4

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Uhh. Yeah. Yep. That's some britpop. Yeah it's alright. Not bad. Has some real bangers near the middle to end. Probably the last time I'll ever listen to this in my life though

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This wasn’t a vibe for me unfortunately

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I dug this. hard to put my finger on what makes this stand out from other electronic music, but he has a good sense of texture and knows how to keep things interesting and when to simply ride the groove he's created.

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I can listen to this all day. What a phenomenal album that makes you feel like you were there. So much talent on display from all the musicians.

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It’s horribly bloated. But it’s also pretty good which is annoying. Eric Clapton does have a load of talent. It’s a shame he’s so fucking annoying and stupid

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I'll be a rock 'n' rollin' bitch for you if you give this five stars. This isn't my favorite Bowie album but it's probably his best overall. Straight up classic.

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Something did happen on the day he died. I screamed liked a baby. If it needs justification at all, I’d played a handful of Bowie songs on guitar at my mother’s deathbed the day before. She wasn’t yet gone – she had another ten days - but she was living the end of her life as pleasurably as she could amid the excruciating pain and her strength and consciousness slipping away. She had given me my first Bowie record when I was fourteen, though we’d listened to him in the car for years, especially on those long drives to the hospice when my grandfather was dying two decades earlier. Bowie has always been tied, for me, to grief and dying - and, by extension, to love and living. The surprise release of Blackstar allowed me to briefly share the idea of Bowie’s new work with my mother. But when he died so soon after, we agreed she didn’t need to hear it. If we could only fit a thousand and one albums into her last ten days, she didn’t need something new - certainly not one of her favourite artists confronting the thing she herself was approaching. She was content with the music that had brought her happiness during the five short decades she had on earth. People call Blackstar a grand final statement, but that misreads Bowie’s nature. Sue and ’Tis a Pity She Was a Whore were older pieces tied to another project. The return of Major Tom didn’t feel like a revelation; he had always been part of Bowie’s orbit, a ghost in the system. Bowie had already begun handling the legacy on his previous record, and the Nadsat of Girl Loves Me was simply another of his recurring fascinations. Even Dollar Days, written in the studio, struck me as playful rather than portentous. Bowie rarely said anything definitive, and he wasn’t about to start. Lazarus interests me far more. It was the title song from the musical he wrote with Enda Walsh, which closed its first run at almost the same moment my mother died - within a few hours. Of the four new songs he wrote for the show, it was the only one he carried across to Blackstar. I don’t know why. But it feels like the more searching piece, Bowie revisiting his own mythology through the figure of Thomas Newton and finding something unsettling there. Unlike Blackstar, the show received mixed reviews. Bowie had always been a flawed architect of concept albums anyway. His planned musical of 1984 was never produced. 1.Outside remains gloriously confusing. Even Ziggy Stardust abandons its narrative almost as quickly as Sgt. Pepper. And thank goodness: It Ain’t Easy does more for the record than any plot device could. These failures aren’t incidental: they’re intrinsic. Bowie’s form of invention was incompatible with totalities. His art emerged from excess, leakage, overspill - from the impossibility of containing all his personae within any stable frame. He was part of that generation of art-school musicians who treated popular music as the quickest route to a public imagination. He loved music, but also recognised it as the last mass-cultural space where experimental aesthetics could intervene in everyday life. It was a place to share ideas that could never have found a home in more formal disciplines. He wasn’t a novelist. His paintings were respectable. He was more a star than an actor. But in the interplay of albums, sleeves, performances and videos, he found a gallery for ideas that ranged from the profound to the ludicrous, sometimes in the space of a single track. It’s telling to compare his first and final on-screen appearances. His screen debut, in the 1967 student horror film The Image, shows an artist tormented by a painting come to life - played, of course, by Bowie. In the video for Lazarus, Bowie, dressed in the Kabbalistic imagery of his mid-70s persona, writes frantically. When he runs out of parchment, he writes on the table, then down the table leg, and on. There is never enough space to capture everything. The beginning and the end share the same insight: creation was both his torment and his great animating force. To imagine Blackstar as a final statement is to succumb to a fantasy of closure that Bowie’s entire career repudiates. He didn’t make final statements. Nothing he did was final. He revised himself constantly. He contradicted his own mythologies. He had a decade of silence before The Next Day, and it suited him, but even that felt provisional. Dying forced him into new shapes he might never have adopted otherwise. It was a meeting of compulsion and inevitability, and the work emerged from that tension. It was death, not intention, that made Blackstar the last word. Had he lived, Bowie might have dismissed it or replaced it, and the critics would have obliged. But he didn’t live, and the album became a vessel for our need to find meaning in endings. I struggle to hear it outside that context. And I cannot view it without personal history interjecting: for me, it contains moments of brilliance, moments of silliness, and a great deal of confusion. But I am no better equipped to face death from Blackstar’s insights than I am from the Labyrinth soundtrack - except that Blackstar is, on the whole, the better record. It is not Mozart’s Requiem. But it is the record by - possibly - my favourite artist that was released just as he and my mother died. And that means something. Perhaps too much. My mother’s choices to face down death - Starman, Sorrow, The Prettiest Star - brought her comfort simply by existing, not by offering instruction. Let all the children boogie: words to live by, surely. I’m unsure whether artists are answering a calling or nursing an affliction, but what they produce lets us feel things we might never access otherwise. So when I cried at Bowie’s death, I was crying for my mother. It hardly needs explanation. She died relatively young; he was respectably old. When I think about my own ending, I wonder which model I’ll follow: Bowie’s anxious compulsion or my mother’s remarkable ease. Bowie achieved more; my mother was content with less. I believe she would have liked Blackstar, though I doubt she would have replayed it. Blackstar is only seven tracks, and none of them are built to carry the weight we place on them. Yet Bowie’s achievement with this final album was to remind us that it is the spirit of creation, rather than any specific creation, that is the meaning of an artist’s life. 3.5 It is nearly impossible to listen to Blackstar and not think about death the whole time. And yet we know that for a couple of days after this album was released this feat was entirely possible. Like most people, I missed that window and by the time I sat down with the album every bar and syllable of it was slathered in one unifying ‘meaning’ imposed from up there, in Heaven. Blackstar had drama that couldn’t be stolen. Still, I have my suspicions that in those first two days I would have found less of a gulf in quality between Blackstar and, let’s say, Reality. Reality has both the (apparently ‘defiant’) energy of Blackstar and as much (possibly more) lyrical material that can support morbid close-readings. Yet Reality is more or less forgotten, while Blackstar is venerated - particularly by young people I have noticed in recent years. Listening again this weekend, I can’t help thinking that between the absorbingly odd title track and the lovely closer ‘I Can’t Give Everything Away’, Blackstar mostly gets by on supplying ‘vibes’ while the listener is unable to draw their critical attention from the limitlessly dramatic notion of Bowie’s confrontation with untimely death. There is neither much structure, nor lyrical heft to stuff like ‘Tis Pity or Sue or Girl Loves Me. Drums go round and round. Portentous riffs go round and round. Saxophones tootle. Surely this is not Bowie’s best work by a long shot. In any case, all was transmogrified by the near-simultaneous release of Bowie’s spirit along with his final music. The album begins and ends memorably (and with sublime poignancy in the musical recall of A New Career..). It has an identity. If it should happen to falter in the middle, well…how did I rate Young Americans? 3/5

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Headhunters, hell yeah! One of my measures of whether an album is a classic for me is "could I listen to it every day?" Yes. Yes, I could listen to this every day. My friend Kate introduced me to this album when we were in high school, and it has been a favourite ever since. I have limited love for most jazz fusion, but this I love. It's funky as hell and a lot of fun; it lives in the damn pocket and the band is playing the hell out of everything. Favourite moment; about 7 minutes into 'Chameleon', the lead synthesizer oscillator goes wildly out of tune, and Herbie wrangles it back into key, landing the plane with both engines on fire. Herbie Hancock has done many great things over his career, and one of greatest achievements (in my opinion) is to make music that is accessible without dumbing down. This is likeable and catchy without being stupid or pandering. And you can dance to it! Five stars, no notes.

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835 albums into this project and I've found nothing gets people salty like a Neil Young album.

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Super smooth. Sarah Vaughan is up there in my favourite jazz vocalists, and I think this is the album of hers that I have most enjoyed. Stripped of her usual highly orchestrated, string-heavy arrangements to a bare trio backing, intimately recorded, you get to hear her beautiful tone and phrasing without distraction. There is a touch more breathiness and slight husk in the quieter moments that sounds close and real. Her ability to deliver a real emotional content is wonderful. Probably my favourite Sarah Vaughan record, and I will probably pick a copy up when I see one around. Love the versions of Just a Gigolo and How High the Moon that close out this album. Update: Just last month I found a copy of this in the $2 bin at The Vintage Record in Annandale. I'll take that, thank you. Cover is beaten up, but it's a bargain at twice the price!

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It's funny that the time I have given his first 8 or 10 albums can be measured in thousands of hours and yet somehow I never once listened to this one all the way through. This album is on the other side of the mountain. The side where the trail leads back down to earth. Maybe he got his personal life in order or his drinking more under control, but it sort of feels like he doesn't have as much emotionally gripping music to make. I Want You and Blue Chair are much the best here and worthy additions to the cannon. Home is Where You Hang Your Head is pretty good, too. The rest of this is kinda ponderous to me. A lot of songwriters feel compelled to put out new material on a regular schedule whether the material merits it or not. It has the effect of diluting their overall impact and damages their place in the firmament. I think about this a lot because if I get into the regular habit of writing then I will definitely write more than if I don't have a habit, but if I put myself into a situation where I have to produce on any kind of a deadline then while I will have more finished songs, few or even none of them will stand the test of time. Or worse yet, you accidentally re-write other people's material, as appears to have happened here with Tokyo Storm Warning basically being a poorly disguised Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown. Anyway, I love Elvis but this album should not be on this list and makes me question the person who put it on there. Get Happy!, Trust, This Year's Model are only the first three examples of EC albums I would have put on here before this one.

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One of the greatest albums ever - the end.

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This is top 10 of all time! Neil is my spiritual advisor!

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I dunno…it’s like the sonic ‘candification’ of a phoebe brigers record.

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Uggghhhhh... fuck off with this shit

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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.

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

Music for incels to wank furiously by

5: The moustache that appear on Art if you put your thumb on Pauls face on the album cover. 5: The songs.

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!

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.

Rage In Favor Of The Machine.

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.