As historically important as The Beatles are, I really don't see the point of this album. Their later work revolutionised music - but other than as a historical curiosity, showing where they came from, this feels flat. The songs and performance are still undeniably good, but i've no real desire to go back to it. 3 seems fair.
2.5/5
no im not experienced.
I feel like you need to be in certain mood to fully enjoy this album.
and alas im not in that mood!
well i may rate it differently on another listen but for now...
its ...
Listening session: july 28th, while eating dinner
Listened to before: no
Thoughts: interesting album which must have been influential and refreshing at the time, so I could appreciate it. I wouldn’t listen to it in its entirety though because I found that some tracks were dragging on for too long
Favourite tracks: I Talk To The Wind & The Court Of The Crimson King
Dude, such a chill album, classic jazz, and it was perfect reading music. Would listen to it again, but I couldn't tell you what made it special. It just didn't sound like any other time I have heard jazz. I will have to do more research on this.
Souvlaki, by Slowdive, was truly a triumph in what made rock music exciting in the early 1990s. Swirling guitars, psychedelic song structures, adding on to the traditions of Great English rock with an entirely new twist. Truly a timeless classic.
No? How about a generic sounding bar rock album from an English rock star of yesteryear to the list, in that case? Yes, what a great idea! Where's my paycheck??
I hate this album. I hate how it sounds, hate the vocal hooks, hate the melodies. I tried listening to it twice. Couldn't finish it either time. I had no idea that Costello could go so low in terms of quality and content, but here we are. So many deserving 90s bands should be here, not another Costello record.
I never heard anything by Kanye that I liked, but enough friends thought he was a genius that i figured "Maybe it's just me, maybe i'll hear something one day that makes me understand". It happened with other artists, could happen here.
Well, this is the firat Kanye LP i've listened to in full and...no, I can stick with my first opinion. Production is ok, but really doesn't blow my mind. I guess Jesus Walks is interesting enough? His rapping is passable, but doesn't really blow my mind. None of the lines stand out as amazing.
What really sums it up though is the vibe. I'm used to hearing rap of people boasting about their cars and money and women - fine, it's boring, but whatever. This is different. This feels more like the whining of a kid that got bullied, talking about how now he's famous he's going to bully everyone else. The whole 3 track skit mocking higher education...I guess it's meant to show how brave Kanye was, but it just sounds like the most whiny 'chip on my shoulder' bullshit.
It's said that when you're used to privilege, equality feels like oppression. This whole album felt like that - the guy who usually has no struggles, talking incessantly about the one time he was treated like less than a god, and how one day he'll show everyone. Ugh.
2, because itsnlt even offensive enough to be a 1.
yeah this album's pretty solid. it's not as good as paranoid but it's still great.
honestly my main complaint is that it's not all as sludgy as the start of "wheels of confusion". we're on the 5th? heatwave? this year? and that's the kind of sound i need to avoid falling into the "how long until we stop calling these heatwaves and admit we fucked the climate" hole again. still tho there's plenty of variety to keep me distracted. i like the weird little experimental track "fx", and it was nice to finally hear the original version of "changes" given i'd previously only heard the version ozzy recorded with his daughter in the 00s which was.... not his greatest work imo. plus im pretty sure the 2003 version doesn't have a mellotron and the original does, so there was never any contest in the first place.
anyway yeah i liked this one. nice.
J'ai bien kiffé c'est très proche du 4 mais ça manque d'un truc je trouve ça un peu trop prévisible parfois
1) 22 Acacia avenue
2) Hallowed be thy name
3) Run to the Hills
Escuchar esto a los casi 40 años debe ser una experiencia muy diferente que a los 16. No me dieron ganas de rebelarme, me dieron ganas de gritarle a alguien más joven que no se está rebelando bien.
Have I listened to this album before
No
How familiar am I with this album
Completely unfamiliar
How do I feel about this artist?
I don’t know who this is at all
Pre-Listen Thoughts:
OK something new let’s see what happens
Favorite track(s):
14th Street, Beautiful Child
Post-Listen Thoughts:
His voice reminds me of Gordon Gano but a little more polished, overall this was a solid album. I enjoyed it a lot for something I’d never heard before.
Starts off a little slow in the first track, making me concerned we're getting slow whiney Beck rather than funky hip Beck. But the second track is wonderful. Great slow groove.
A few more tracks in and it's definitely whiney Beck, but somehow it doesn't bother me so much in this one. Most of these songs have a groove to them, despite being pretty slow. I still don't like it as much as Odelay or Guero, but it's pretty good.
Have I listened to this album before
No
How familiar am I with this album
Sort of
How do I feel about this artist?
My dad hates Wilco, I don't mind them. I enjoyed Mermaid Avenue.
Pre-Listen Thoughts:
I feel like this could be a 3 or 4 for me. I like the cover, it's a cool representation of Chicago.
Favorite track(s):
Heavy Metal Drummer
Post-Listen Thoughts:
I don't want to call it boring, but I also can't call it the opposite. Fine background music but not much stood out.
In 2005, I spontaneously relocated to Austin, Tx after an inconvenient hurricane destroyed my world in New Orleans. Oh my, I didn't know what it was about Arcade Fire in Austin, but this album and this band seemed to have an absolute mental grip on every hipster in my apartment complex. (Austin was hipster central so that's a lot of hipsters) I could hear this album in the parking lot from cars, in the laundry room, coming out of windows on pretty days, etc... but I never quite allowed it to take over my own life because there was too much REALLY good music to explore in 2005. Especially local music in ATX.
Now, after listening in its entirety, I get it. I'm about 22 years late to the party, but I understand the obsession.
This is my third Arcade Fire album and my third 5 stars for the band. Probably my favorite "new" discovery since starting this project is Arcade Fire. I slept on it years ago, but I'm so glad I gave all of it another chance. Absolutely amazing.
I've heard of Brian Eno many times but have never (knowingly) really listened to him. This album was delightfully weird and fun. I'll consider it as my invitation to listen to more of his stuff.
I didn't hate it but it was really close. Especially The Kids and The Bed songs ... Those did not make me feel good. If I could give half stars, I would
The Auteurs got that 90s indie-grunge sound that has certainly broken away from the 80s New Wave. I was in for this album pretty much the whole way through. The band authored some solid songs with good subject matter. Sprinkling in a triangle or chimes here and there also gives it a little more depth. I do always appreciate a secret track addition so you know it's a 90s record. This one flew under the radar and would have remained cloaked if not for the list. Not quite starstruck but gets a decent 2.9 star rating from me.
Super intriguing confessions from a clearly troubled hippie. She lived a lot of life by this point in a way that people locked in suburbia could never understand, so maybe that's why I used to find it boring. Her guitar playing is also unusual and more interesting than I expected for an album from this time, it's awesome to learn she used open tunings.
This is a really good record that I heard a lot at the time of its release, and it still delivers. Unfortunately, it came out that the singer is a likely sex pest and their music never improved, only got worse. So I'll rate this according to the fact that it's their high water mark and maybe the singer wasn't a creep at that point.
3.75*
Worth owning for it's strange angular guitar work and slightly unusual compositions. I don't know if this band and album were a consequence of punk/new wave or if they'd have happened anyway, but they were a significant contribution to an era that was terrific fun.
As I have cheated and searched for a few albums, I can tell you that this is the list peaking for me right here, unless there is something truly surprising coming up. Kid A is one of three albums I would consider the ‘best’ of all time, but in terms of subjective and emotional importance to me, nothing can ever come close. Kid A is perfect, Kid A is the basis of my taste in almost everything, Kid A is about as formative as formative gets for me. I can confidently say there is no album I have heard more in my life. Let me now write way too much about it while I listen to it for the nth time.
First, the music. Kid A is a journey away from the confines of 'rock', in a way that I would contend feels pretty timeless. Much was - and probably still is - written about the tortured production of the record, of Thom Yorke's burnout, of the band struggling to figure out where to go after OK Computer. To emerge with something that almost entirely ignores verse-chorus structure, that left the best song these sessions produced ('Pyramid Song') on the cutting room floor, that is so confident it drops a straight-up ambient track in the middle, well it’s a work of genius.
'Everything in Its Right Place' is a warm bath, that hook starting up, the close production, the skittering cut-up vocals, it's the greatest album opener because - by design - it reveals nothing about what’s going to follow, it eases you in to this strange, angular, paranoid world. But track 2, ‘Kid A’ itself, that has always been my favourite. A strange lullaby melody, a bit-crushed vocal, a jittery tribal drum, the synths washing in at the end - this music is just so exciting to me. The whole album just reflects the endless possibility of sound, the re-configuring of the familiar into something alien. This isn't some Metal Music attempt to become willfully obtuse, this is a band wanting to make music that moves and emotes but on their own terms.
‘The National Anthem’ is such an invigorating blast of HORN DEATH that I never tire of, ‘How to Disappear’ is a Normal Song but with ondes martenot and tortured strings crying throughout. ‘Treefingers’ is the only misstep, the only sign of the band reaching too far to make their point in my opinion, but it’s swiftly battered aside by the ‘single’ (sort of) ‘Optimistic’, which again has incredible percussion and sounds like being in a swamp made of lo-res polygons. ‘In Limbo’ skitters across the surface, before the monumental ‘Idioteque’ pummels its paranoid refrains into your skull. If any song has sort of lost its impact for me from this record it’s this track, but only because I just listened to it on loop for months and months and months. I’m wondering writing this how many times my Dad has heard this album of his own free will, and how many times he instead heard it being blasted out of my bedroom! ‘Morning Bell’ is another lullaby of doom and misery, and then ‘Motion Picture Soundtrack’ manages to be both incredibly moving and also aware of its own schlocky production at once, like sincerity being swallowed by irony even as each syllable leaves Thom’s mouth.
Anyway, needless to say, I love it, it’s the greatest record ever made, and the list is all downhill from here.
Now… if you want even more words, here’s another review, this time from a very subjective place, because that's what makes this my favourite album of all time.
I had just turned 16 when Kid A released. By that point I was roughly 18 months into my absolute, all-encompassing Radiohead obsession, devouring anything I could, spending far too much on imports of EPs at Tower Records, annoyingly probably only six months before I was just getting all that stuff and more off Napster. I was primed for Kid A in a way I have never been primed for anything.
In the lead-up to the album Q published a massive interview with the band, where they talked about the influences behind what they were about to release. They mentioned Autechre and Aphex Twin, Naomi Klein's No Logo, Charles Mingus. They covered Can on the accompanying tour, they hired Humphrey Littleton's jazz band for Kid A's sister Amnesiac (recorded at the same time). They talked about Messiaen, Neu!, Squarepusher, and on and on.
All these new influences hit at just the right time - Napster existed (I first heard Kid A the weekend before its release after it leaked online, slowly downloading each track and listening to each one repeatedly before the next one finished) so I could follow up on all these musical leads. And that's why Kid A is of infinite importance to me. I adored music before Kid A, and thanks to Blur's endless namedropping of Pavement in previous years had already started to escape the bubble of late britpop a bit, but Kid A felt like a guidebook for exploring to the very edges of the map, and a manual for how to appreciate music that some would call 'difficult'. I have Kid A to thank for most of the music I now consider my favourite, and weirdly I think this is even more the case as time goes on - it takes a lot for an indie band to make much of an impression at all on me these days.
Nearly done, but first back to the release. A friend and I had convinced his older brother to drive us to Warrington to see Radiohead touring Kid A, the day after the album had released. The little of my paper round money I hadn't already spent on Radiohead hoodies, CDs, t-shirts etc. went on the ticket price, and away we went. Inspired by the aforementioned No Logo, Radiohead toured the album in purpose-built white circus tents, free of any corporate sponsors, hence the odd location - they needed big parks to do this in.
This gig exists in my brain like some sort of mythical experience that I have read about myself in a book, but also I can recall the evening like it was yesterday. I remember the sound as we approached, my incredulity at my friend’s brother’s friend arriving with no ticket and just buying one from a tout, the endless mud and people along the track to the tent, the buzz of excitement. I remember the merch stand (I still wear the top I bought here!), I remember the girl who I instantly fell in love with (I was 16 after all) who spoke to me briefly about the band, I remember being amazed by how much stuff they had on stage, I remember the excitement I had whenever they played a track that would later appear on ‘Amnesiac’, like we were privately visiting the future.
It finished, we went home, I hung the overpriced poster on my wall for years and years until it literally fell apart, I wore my figure-hugging very goth black long-sleeved Kid A shirt to my GCSE results with black nail varnish and a fringe I could hide behind, and said fuck you to my miserable youth.
I lived and breathed this record, it got under my skin and it became a part of me. Kid A is brilliant because it is exciting, it’s difficult but still tuneful, every track is an ocean of possibility, and because without it I absolutely would not be who I am. I genuinely still shiver with excitement throughout, 26 years and thousands of plays later. It doesn’t get better than this.
The Good: NOTHING
The Bad: Me having to listen to this shit
The Ugly: That it seems MIA is good enough to get 2 fucking albums on this list…
FUCK YOU DIMERY!!!!
this is shit, pretty much all sounds the same… …
Hated her other album just as much.
Waste of my time
1*
(4/5) Rock classic by a legendary band. It's good and I love the hits, but they always struck me as a bunch of hyperactive kids running around yelling "Watch this!". It's fine and it might even be fun (or funny) at times, but I don't have the patience for it *ALL* the time. That level of energy is unsustainable for me. I haven't snorted enough (or any) cocaine to keep up with that pace. It's over as quickly as it started, which makes this a quick 'shot' of rock.
I was so looking forward to the day the generator would throw this one at me and it's finally here
I've been genuinely smiling throughout, this is so funny, tongue in cheek, clever and comes from a deep love of music - Booker Tease is just an example of how brilliant this is
SEMOLINA! SEMOLINA!
In January 1993, the Nigerian government arrested and charged Fela Kuti with murder and conspiracy following the beating death of Adesanwo Shokoya, an electrician and technician in his band, Egypt 80. The police alleged Shokoya was beaten to death by Fela's bodyguards after an argument regarding a payment of approximately $138.
Joan Baez has a beautiful and exquisite voice and a preternatural ability to communicate the drama and narrative of folk songs. Personally, I generally prefer a grittier tone (Karen Dalton is possibly an extreme example of a folk singer with a more distinctive voice) than Joan Baez's crystal-clear soprano, but it is really hard to argue with the quality of her singing.
I mean, this was recorded very quickly with, like, two microphones in live takes, with just one or two guitars providing subtle accompaniment, and she nails it. She absolutely delivers beautiful, sensitive and compelling performances all the way through, with nothing to hide behind. Hard to believe she was only 19.
Would it have been more appropriate to include one of her subsequent albums that showed off her songwriting? Maybe. But this is an exquisite example of her to arrange and perform traditional folk material. I think this is possibly my favourite version of the House of the Rising Sun -- it makes more sense with a female narrator, and Joan Baez's performance just feels devastatingly real.
Highlights: Silver Dagger, House of the Rising Sun, El Preso Numero Nueve.
3.5 stars, rounding up.
I played in a local (and staggeringly unsuccessful) industrial band during the 90s. Don't bother trying to look it up, it has been consigned to the memory hole. We played on the edge of a number of local scenes, but never really fit anywhere. The metal guys didn't like that we didn't have a real drummer. The goths thought we dressed in too many bright colours. The indie/alt scenesters thought it was just a horrible noise. In many ways the electronic/dance people were the most welcoming, although they did look askance at the long hair, guitars and Marshalls. But we played quite a few shows at warehouse dance parties and electronic nights and they were amongst the best shows we played. I hung out with a few people from the Clan Analogue collective (look them up, they are still active https://www.clananalogue.org/), and so was familiar with what was influential in the scene in the early 90s.
Orbital were certainly big amongst that crowd, but frankly, it wasn't _that_ different from many of those Clan Analogue acts. This type of electronic dance music sounds awesomely great played through a big PA accompanied by flashing lights in a dark warehouse at 2am in a crowd of dancers while chemically enhanced. But out of that context, I find it all a bit dull. I just don't travel in those circles anymore.
Orbital is rightfully one of the great 90s dance acts -- their stuff is clearly head and shoulders above the average, and the appearance of Alison Goldfrapp is always welcome -- but it doesn't feel relevant to me these days. I quite like 'Sad But True', 'Crash and Carry' and 'Are We Here?' and
(PS - What is with that terrible cover art?)
It's an art pop wunderkammer, full of intricate, exquisite and beautiful crafted objects. I can admire it, but I wish the tunes were a bit catchier, you know? Great cover art, though.
Interestingly, once this album finished playing, spotify kept playing similar female art pop artists, and many of those songs caught my attention much more than FKA Twigs. Bjork, Sophie, Weyes Blood, Sky Ferreira, Fever Ray, St Vincent, Santigold, Flume all came up in the list following. This album was OK, but there is clearly a LOT of interesting, dynamic work happening in this field in the past decade or two. Not sure why this album....
(2/5) A languid, sluggish psychedelic/folk/hippie rock album. The hits, "Sunshine Superman" and "Season of the Witch" I was familiar with already and are truly the highlights, but aside from the slightly upbeat "The Trip", there's not much else on offer here. Really, really boring. Enjoy the hits and drop the rest..
I am reviewing ‘Ray of Light’ days after the release of ‘Confessions II’. Reviews are everywhere, people are talking about it as her best album in 20 years. But her albums always get reviewed -- they are always an event -- which is extraordinary for someone more than 40 years into a pop music career. Not even Paul McCartney really managed that. Pop music is a genre fickly obsessed with youth and novelty, so the idea of anyone remaining an important and relevant pop artist after 40 years is one of the most monumental achievements in popular culture. I mean, here is an artist who has had 38 US Top 10 singles and 50 US Hot Dance chart #1s. Fifty!
So, amongst her long and illustrious career, there are a few albums that stand out above the others. ‘Ray of Light’ is one of those career peaks. It showed that, at the age of 39, she could produce a relevant, exciting and contemporary dance pop album. It also has some of her strongest songwriting, in the title track and Frozen especially. Ray of Light is, to my mind, a song that captures the ecstasy of the dance floor better than almost anything else ever written.
She continues her history of working well with cleverly chosen collaborators; kudos to William Orbit for constructing a fascinating, warm, spacious and not over-polished backing track that complements but never overpowers Madonna’s singing. Unlike much electronic music of the period, it has aged well. Orbit was everywhere in the 90s, remixing and producing. He had a distinctive and tasteful sound, but I don’t think he ever really topped his work here (with the possible exception of the Bass-o-matic ‘Fascinating Rhythm’ single, but never for a sustained album).
I have always found Madonna to be a _believable_ singer, which makes her a surprisingly good ballad singer given her technical limitations. That said, her work on Evita had left her voice stronger and more controlled than ever at this point. I would argue that Frozen is one of her greatest performances. Even the faux-spiritual content here is tolerable because of that credibility. The lyrics occasionally verge on yoga-mama religious dilettantism, but Madonna sings every word like it is important and she believes it with all her heart. This is ironic, because I never believe a word she speaks in interviews (or, worse yet, her megalomaniacal turn in the Truth or Dare documentary, where she comes across like a constantly calculating mean-girl control freak). She often comes across as performative and provocative and boorish but not credible when speaking. But when she sings, she seems like the real deal. It’s a paradox.
Minor nitpicking; the mastering on the streaming version I listened to today was weirdly inconsistent. Also, this suffers from the late 90s trend of albums that fill CD capacity. There is some filler here; Shanti, The Power of Goodbye, or Little Star. Personally, I'd like to see this trimmed to a more focused 45 minutes.
But these are minor quibbles and this album is a monumental highlight in Madonna's extensive and extraordinary career output. She is at her best when she leans into a slightly more experimental dance sound, as she does here. Madonna is one of the greatest pop artists of all time, never better than on this record, and you can dance to it.
Like your experience of listening to Doggystyle last week, I was embarrassed to have The Marshall Mathers LP on when Aislinn walked into the room. The ubiquity of its singles in 2000 should have dulled that embarrassment. It's not as though she hasn't heard these words before. I'd only known the censored radio edits as a teenager, but the missing blanks never concealed much; the internal rhymes usually made the omitted slurs obvious enough. She also knows about this project, so if she catches me listening to something objectionable she'll ask whether it's our album of the day. There is, in other words, an acceptable reason to find me deluged by a torrent of "sluts" and "faggots". Even so, I wanted the headphones back on. Like pornography, certain forms of art change when another person enters the room. The embarrassment is no longer private. The problem is that, unlike pornography, there was no escaping Eminem in 2000. His work was everywhere: buses, shopping centres, bedrooms, MTV.
That ubiquity raises a question that has never really gone away. Challenging art often depends upon context. A line such as "You cheap, lousy faggot" in Fairytale of New York has an artistic function inside the song that disappears once it becomes something drunken strangers bellow every December. The song really is more of the order of a Eugene O'Neill play than a pop hit - the industry forces a category error. Elvis Costello recognised a similar problem with Oliver's Army, suggesting radio stations simply stop playing it rather than rewrite a lyric whose meaning depended on dramatic and historic context. Interestingly, the source of the problem is the appearance of the one offensive word that Eminem studiously avoids using. Art earns a certain licence because it asks us to enter a protected imaginative space. Pop music, however, is designed to escape that space. It leaks into supermarkets, taxis and children's bedrooms whether we invite it or not.
The question, then, is whether The Marshall Mathers LP deserves that artistic licence.
Its defenders generally argue two things. First, that the album is a satirical defence of free speech, saying outrageous things precisely to test tue boundaries and expose society's hypocrisies. Second, that the record stages a dialogue between Marshall Mathers, Eminem and Slim Shady, in the wake of his initial success, allowing one persona to critique another. If either argument holds, then the ugliness of the language becomes part of a larger artistic design rather than an end in itself. Neither argument holds.
Genuinely transgressive artists usually risk something. Momus, for instance, was sued over songs by Wendy Carlos and the Michelin corporation. The physical albums containing the songs were destroyed and he lost substantial sums in the process. His targets were specific, identifiable and powerful enough to answer back. Eminem's provocations rarely work like that. The album attacks journalists, celebrities and campaigners often enough, but its deepest reserves of venom are directed towards women and gay men: groups broad enough to symbolise anything he wishes and too diffuse to answer collectively. If satire punches anywhere, it usually punches down.
Chris Morris understood this better. His parody of Eminem, JLB8, is funnier than anything on The Marshall Mathers LP precisely because the self-appointed provocateur had himself become a worthy target. Satire gains force when directed at power, hypocrisy or certainty. It loses force when outrage becomes the point. The only person to sue Eminem was his own mother, a reminder that the work is soap opera rather than critique.
The album's central contradiction arrives with Stan. It remains its masterpiece because it imagines, however briefly, the consequences of treating violent fantasy as emotional truth. Eminem responds to an obsessive fan not with mockery but with patience, urging him to seek help, cherish his pregnant girlfriend and recognise the difference between entertainment and life. His reply arrives too late. Stan has already driven off the bridge.
If the whole record possessed the moral seriousness of that final verse, The Marshall Mathers LP might be a far richer work. Instead, the following song immediately retreats into incredulity. Who Knew acts as though the very suggestion that songs might influence people were absurd. No reasonable listener believes artists are directly responsible for crimes committed by their fans. That isn't the issue. The issue is that Stan itself demonstrates Eminem understands communication carries consequences. He writes an entire song about precisely that. Having recognised the problem, he immediately pretends not to. No serious person could write the concluding verse of Stan sincerely and then release the album as it is.
That pattern runs throughout the record. Whenever responsibility approaches, somebody else is blamed. The record company wants him to be outrageous. Hip hop, his chosen genre, rewards violence. His childhood damaged him. Slim Shady said it. Eminem said it. Marshall Mathers merely watched. The album's defining characteristic isn't rage but evasion. It continually insists that nothing is really under its author's control.
Sartre called this bad faith: the comforting fiction that we are merely the products of circumstance rather than agents capable of choosing differently. The Marshall Mathers LP is saturated with it. Eminem presents himself as both the most powerful voice in popular music and the least responsible person in the room. But he had a choice.
That's what ultimately distinguishes him from performers like Jerry Sadowitz. Sadowitz understand that transgression works because it is contained. Audiences knowingly entered a room where normal rules are suspended before returning to ordinary life. Eminem wanted no such containment. His record company wanted these songs on heavy rotation. He wanted them there too. The point wasn't simply to offend but to offend millions and profit from the offense. It was not enough that he denied his own capacity to choose, he denied the public choice as well. No one could avoid his vomit and vitriol. We were all subject to the desires of a juvenile demographic and the companies that would exploit their worst impulses.
That commercial ambition is crucial because the album repeatedly mistakes mass exposure for artistic courage. There is nothing inherently brave about saying offensive things when every mechanism of popular culture is amplifying them. He attacks journalists and celebrities and other rappers, never anyone with the power to shut him down, never anyone who is actually affected by his bile. Indeed, the existence of both explicit and clean editions demonstrates how comfortably outrage could coexist with market expansion. Where Momus had records destroyed, Eminem diversifies his portfolio - a version with inexorable Kim and one without. Where Momus loses out, Eminem and his company maximise profits.
None of this would matter so much if the music justified it. Dr. Dre's production is fine, giving Eminem ample room for to display his technical ability. His internal rhymes still tumble over themselves with a certain precision, and his command of rhythm is impressive. Yet technical brilliance continually serves dramatically thin material. The album mistakes escalation for development. Louder, nastier and more offensive becomes a substitute for saying anything new. Even Stan, for all its power, reveals Eminem's limitations as a dramatist. He awkwardly overexplains, drawing attention to the contrivance of the dramatic device when Stan questions how he will send the tape to Slim. Eminem's final sign-off, recognising that "it was... it was... you," is pure melodrama, reminding us again that the whole Eminem performance is soap opera. The worst offence, however, is in the strawman of Stan himself, at every opportunity, Eminem paints his number one fan as a fucking idiot - no idea how he'll send a tape from a submerged car; carefully printing the address in block capitals because writing by hand is hard. The barely contained contempt for his audience makes a mockery of the whole enterprise.
Actually, no, the greatest offence of Stan is the utter dreariness. One might try to pin this on Dido, whose Thank You provides the musical basis of the track, but her song has an actual chorus, there is harmonic movement and uplift, it goes somewhere. Stan is all mire with no release.
By the end of the record, what lingers isn't outrage but exhaustion. Every attack is somebody else's fault. Every excess belongs to another persona. Every criticism proves his enemies don't understand satire. Everybody else is shit. The album demands complete artistic freedom while declining the corresponding burden of artistic responsibility.
The Marshall Mathers LP is not a great work of transgressive art. It is a piece of commercial entertainment that appropriates the language of transgression while remaining remarkably safe within the structures that profit from it. Momus lost records. Costello withdrew his from radio. Genuine loss and genuine agency. Eminem sold millions of copies in two editions and became the biggest star on the planet.
The album's legacy isn't simply that it made offensive language mainstream. It helped normalise the idea that outrage is, in itself, a form of courage, and that refusing responsibility is a defence of free speech. Twenty-five years later, that seems far more significant than any individual slur and the impact is felt. The worst people online are called Stans and the right to be offensive is everywhere online and elsewhere. The cock-headed belief that lashing out is a defense of 'free speech' is the norm. I wouldn't say that this was Eminem's fault - he'd have a tantrum if I did - but he and his fellow angry boys contaminated the discourse for shits and giggles - and money, lots of money. They polluted the air and the media with self-indulgent shit-taking and now everything is clogged up with shit. "I never knew... I never knew..." he yaps. Well, now you know.
NB: I was walking the dog last night and there was a bunch of teens on the promenade, hurling stones, harassing old people, just destroying everything around them. One of them was wearing a Slim Shady t-shirt. So I'm knocking off another half star. -0.5
This album qualified as a cultural event no doubt - I remember the buzz about it among many of our peers in school. I expect there were young men who listened to almost nothing else that year. If that’s a sad thought it’s also perfectly understandable - here’s an album not only remote from the burden of substantive musical material (as most rap albums are) but which is also remote from the lyrical world of gangster rap. Eminem is excluded from offering any spin on the story of the black experience in America or the gang experience so all that’s left to him is the nihilism, the vulgarity and the self-aggrandisement. The Marshall Mathers LP proved ideal for young men with no real interest in music (two bars, round and round and round) and equally with no real interest in rap. Eminem’s facility for cartoonish provocation was gold in an era in which South Park was the coolest show on TV. South Park was very funny - exactly because it understood where public discourse (and popular art) had drawn the lines and when to cross them. Eminem had no such awareness, no such wit - just a limitless energy for the proliferation of images with which he could degrade himself and his audience. It was hard for young men to tell the difference in 2000, it is frightening to contemplate their struggle in 2026.
That Will Smith line is funny though.
0.5/5
I would have been about 13 or 14 when a slightly older school mate mockingly suggested that Autobahn was the sort of thing that I would like. I remember him sarcastically singing "fun fun fun on the autobahn" (as he pronounced it) like it was the most ridiculous song ever. I didn't actually know anything about Kraftwerk at that stage but mentally filed it away for future reference on the assumption that, if an obnoxious prick like him hated it, there must something worth investigating. A year or so later I picked up a copy from the Ashfield Record Bar in Hercules St -- I assume it was cheap, I didn't have much money -- and it became a core part of my nascent record collection. Not owning many LPs, I listened to this a lot.
The sound of this album has become such a part of the mainstream that it is hard to remember how fresh it once sounded. Minimal, repetitive synth pop is everywhere now, but it started here. While the 7" edit of the title track was a mere novelty for many, the album stretched to explore the possibilities of the synthesizer and suggested a whole new approach. I would argue that Autobahn is not as influential (or possibly even as good) as their following four albums, which set became unlikely influences on pop, electro and hip hop. It sounds a bit dated these days.
But I have a nostalgic love of Autobahn because it was a special record for me in my teens. I think my school mate had this pegged as nerd music, played by nerds and only fit for nerds like me. And it is true that Kraftwerk (and I) were nerds. But it was rare in the early 80s for a nerdy kid like me to have musical heroes that I could relate to.
Eventually the nerds would conquer the world, and Kraftwerk would be hailed as the innovators they were, despite the fact that they have essentially rested on their laurels for the past 40-odd years. Personally, I quite liked Electric Cafe, the last all-new album they released. I bought it on release, and I really dig the crisp, super-minimal, lock-step funkiness, especially on the first side. Most people consider it a flop, and it seems to have shattered Kraftwerk's creative operating model. Since then, it has been remixes, the odd "event" single, and increasingly elaborate live shows showcasing their classic catalogue. People say the shows are amazing, but I haven't felt the need to see them live -- the records are perfect.
Oxygene Part II features prominently in the climactic scene of Gallipoli, which is a 1981 film little known in the rest of the world, but an important and ubiquitous part of Australian culture in the 1980s. Do people still watch it? It felt like a cornerstone of our national identity at the time -- fuckin' Pommy bastards drank tea on the beach while the ANZACs died! Died for nothin', mate, for nothin'!
I'm sure either Gallipoli or maybe hearing Part IV on the radio was my initial exposure to Jean-Michel Jarre as a child, and it would be fair to say that I became a fan. I own most of his 70s and 80s albums, usually purchased mail order from the World Record Club catalogue and then obsessively played. But my interest started waning in my mid-teens as I discovered more rock. I don't think I have spun this album -- or any Jarre record -- in over 35 years. They just collect dust in the backwaters of my collection.
History seems to have relegated him to the "naff" bin. Tangerine Dream and Eno and Neu! are all cool, but Jean-Michel Jarre is not. I suspect that is because he was popular. He sold a lot of records and he played some very big concerts. He wasn't afraid of comprehensible harmonies (there is a strong classical influence in his work) and catchy melodies or exploiting the novel sounds of the synthesizer. Listening today, I kind of wish he hadn't leaned so heavily on the tweedily-deedily-deedily noises or the whooshing sounds or fake waves or birds or the LFO sweeps. But I found the listening experience holds up.
Oxygene sounds of its time but still sounds great. It is a now quaint idea of what the future would sound like -- although, in fairness, people are still producing electronic music with cheesy drum machines, big washy synth pads and LFO sweeps. And it has some cracking tunes and it aims to please. It gave me a nostalgic buzz. Maybe it was too popular to be cool, much the way that Mike Oldfield isn't cool. It's an instrumental, ambient synthesizer album that lots of people liked -- improbable, but it happened. More power to him. 4.5 stars, rounding up.
This is delightfully weird. There are things that genuinely surprised me when listening, like the lyrics "We talk about love, we talk about dishwasher tablets, illness, and we dream about heaven." It's surreal and quotidian and full of interesting juxtapositions. I really couldn't predict what would happen next, while remaining placed in a comprehensible framework.
I think we can all agree that this album has absolutely no business being on the list, but I dig it. It reminds me a lot of Laurie Anderson; minimal electronics with pitch-shifted vocals and a slightly askew world view, which makes me wonder why her Big Science album isn't on this list? I mean, 'O Superman' is the bomb, right?
3.5 stars, rounding up because I enjoyed listening to it.
Voodoo People, Poison and No Good (Start the Dance) are catchy bangers. But the album as a whole seems under-baked. As a generally 'rock' person, I approve of the crunchy, dirty sound they get from a combination of noisy samples and crappy equipment, which gives it a more industrial sound than most 90s UK dance (which tends towards a clean digital sheen).
2.5 stars, rounding up for energy and the only appearance of Pop Will Eat Itself on this list (which seems like an oversight, IMHO)
By the time of his final album, Invincible in 2001, Michael Jackson had lost his way trying to recapture past glories. But there was still life left in the model, which Justin Timberlake was happy to step into the vacuum created by Jacko’s abandonment of the field.
The singles are outstanding – Timberlake is a charismatic singer with a sexy confidence with some outstanding production from some of the best RnB producers of the day (Neptunes, Timbaland). The album is overlong, as was the fashion in the late 90s and early 2000s, and I would happily trim 20 minutes of filler.
Time has not been kind to Justin’s public image, especially his apparent willingness to throw Britney Spears and Janet Jackson under the bus to further his own ambitions. And this album is Exhibit A in those crimes, which leaves a bit of a bad aftertaste. Cry Me A River and Rock Your Body are bangers, but it is difficult to listen to them without thinking about the reputational aftermath for Britney and Janet, two artists I greatly admire.
So, this is really a better-than-most Michael Jackson album, released at a time when Michael’s musical output was irrelevant and his public persona unpalatable. Nothing wrong with that, although hard to hold up as particularly innovative (Neptunes’ production aside). There are some great songs pop here, but they do give me a bit of the ick.
3.5 stars, rounding down for the ick.
I had dipped my feet on the edge of but never really dove into jazz before this exercise, and after a dozen or so albums from the genre I've determined that I like big band more than I like jazz, and I REALLY enjoy the former disguised as the latter. Today's album is pretty solid, but it does color outside the lines a bit too much for me, and is slightly less enjoyable than The Dave Brubeck Quartet was a couple days ago. The incredible percussion does fill some of that gap, though, and after falling in love with Fela Kuti's live album from this list, I enjoyed the "afrobeats" inspiration in this one and wished it would have veered more in that direction than the more traditional sounding jazz it sticks to here. It did have me exploring more of his work, and I was particularly intrigued by his Herb Alpert collaboration in 1978. All in all, this one's a 3.5/5 that I'll round up, and I definitely appreciate the introduction.
I can’t believe the top review for this record (as of Dec 2023) is from someone trying to use their PhD in Mathematics as justification for not liking hip-hop.
Weak.
Oh fuck yeah, now we're talking. Wait no, I swear I'm not being pretentious.
This is the lowest rated album on this site because I guess mostly people aren't very fond of German people smashing metal plates together - who would have guessed.
But halle-fucking-lujah, this is something this list needs more of. Albums that make you go "well, that was an experience and now I'm a changed man". Nobody is lying on their deathbed wishing they heard more crappy 80s post-punk or late 60s psychedelic rock. THIS is what we all deserve to be listening to as we embrace eternal oblivion.
I'm giving this a high rating not only because I genuinely really love it, but also to help Kid Rock move to his rightful place as the actual worst album on this list.
Together we can make a difference. Save the turtles.
Brings back vivid memories of when me and my mate Ray went on a trip to Dresden. We met this rotund goth in a bar, head to toe with tattoos and piercings, real filth and after a while took her into the disabled bogs for a spit roast. We were both pumping away in her with Napalm Death on in the background and her wailing "MEIN GOTT" at the top of her lungs. I remember spaffing all over her back just as Siege of Power kicked in. As i shoot over her, she takes Ray's cock out of her gob and says "do you want fries with that?" in a faux American accent. Anyway, we go outside and there's this gammy little geezer in a wheelchair sitting there furious, giving me daggers, because he's had to wait so long, so I lean into him and I go "I hope you have as much fun in there as we just did you little cunt".
Back when I was in college, there was this dude who would come into the bar I worked at on a Friday night and play fucking 10 Neil Young songs in a row. He would also hit on girls by doing magic tricks. I remember how angry I got every time he made me listen to an hour of Neil Young because I was just trying to have a good time, and he fucking made me listen to this sad, soppy fuck who writes nothing but songs that sound indistinguishable from each other and never seemed to enjoy a happy moment in his entire like. Fuck that guy, and fuck Neil Young.
2/5
Back when I was in college I used to go to a bar and listen to Neil tunes and do magic tricks for women. There was a bartender there, he was the best. I loved that guy. Some of the best years of my life.
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.
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??!!?
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.
