Album Reviews

solid 4.0.

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I have always loved the Temptations and the Motown sound in general. "Run Away Child..." and "I Gotta Find a Way" are highlights. I have never been a fan of their version of "I Heard it Through the Grapevine." The algorithm has been pulling some incredible album art for us the past few picks!

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system of a down syndrome ws: Suite-pee

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Finally an album that lives up to the name of this challenge. If Abbey Road is S tier, then this album is for sure A tier (as far as Beatles music is concerned, it's all S tier comparatively to any other group). It's tied with Rubber Soul and Let It Be in my book. Not as cracker jack poppy as their early stuff, but not as out there as the White Album or Sgt Pepper.

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Another artist and I'd probably give it a 5 - but as its Bowie and he's at another level its probably a 4 as whist its very good it fall short of some of his other albums.

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Not bad. Fun music

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Liked.

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The vibes ain’t nothing but the vibes. Of course Lynch worked with this guy. Freaky but then catchy but then…vibes. Ain’t nothing but the vibes.

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Liked it until the domestic violence 🙃

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It was not that bad, but very unpleasant to hear it at some passages.

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Does this album fucking exist? Give it to me fucking straight. I guess the bigger question is, why is a weird, wrongly dated reissue of Regina’s last major work before her untimely death the only album of hers on this list? Pisses me off. But I digress. I don’t know Portuguese. But I know melody, and the melodies on this are fantastic. So are the textures, the grooves, the vocals, the instrumentation, the musicality… it’s beautiful. It’s cool. I don’t wanna talk too much today. I’m tired. I wish more songs stood out, but it’s really good either way. Love it. 9.0/10

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Did not care for this one. Not bad, just not for me.

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I was really hoping this would be a stoner rock band, based on the album cover alone. I think it obvious I knew nothing about this particular band going into it. Instead, it's like the Queers found "regular/basic" rock music and made a bunch of butt jokes. Call it 1.5 just for some riffs.

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I was already familiar with this album prior to listening. This is one of those albums (and one of very few live albums) that is both good listening and historically important. I can't imagine how it must have been to be there and hear Dylan's folk fans boo him for "going electric" like they did. As for the album itself, it's a great listen. The first half is acoustic, including many of his standards. Great stuff. The second half is electric, and it is really incredibly good. The band (or should I say The Band) is excellent. This is peak live Dylan, in my opinion. I would listen to this any time.

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Two hits on this album and the other songs are not ones I'd be likely to listen to again.

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Smooth as peanut butter soul album. A little slow for my taste, but otherwise no complaints

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Yeah, pretty ok sometimes. This album isn't amazing. Lake of Fire was good. The instrumentals are fine. I could see myself listening to a song from this album every now and then.

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This album clearly isn't meant to be listened to in the car on a Sunday drive to the grocery store. It's meant to be blasted into your ears in a basement that smells like soot and cigarettes. Not sure its inclusion on this list really makes sense. It's like being asked to judge the Blue Man Group after listening to an audio recording. It's missing context. The first track is probably the most jarring. Some of the others are pretty enjoyable at times. I liked Assassins and parts of 2 Towers.

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A little too "female soft jazz vocals" for my taste

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ermano q buen album

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I know it's good, but it's also just not my thing. Gave it two listens and couldn't really get into it. Even still, doesn't feel worthy of less than three stars.

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I quite like the music but I am a bit scared of the transgressive lyrics. Might return to.

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Favorite songs: St. Stephen

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Indie girl R&B that is very enjoyable

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I really liked it. Favorite tracks: Everything In Its Right Place, The National Anthem, Idioteque & Untitled.

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a couple of decent tunes saving this from a 1 star

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A few good ones and musically complex but overall not something I would listen to

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only ever heard Tom Sawyer before. i liked 2112 when i last listened to Rush so i think this will be pretty good too Tom Sawyer - 5/5 Red Barchetta - 5/5 YYZ - 5/5 Limelight - 5/5 The Camera Eye - 4/5 (it's good but loooong) Witch Hunt - 4/5 Vital Signs - 4/5 Average score: 4.6/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ scratch that. this is a huuuuge improvement of their overall sound since 2112. some of the tracks being long, but even the 10-minute track The Camera Eye was so good i was willing to forgive the track length for the most part

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Alsooo ich fands ganz okay aber irgendwie is das generell nicht so mein jam. Hab jetzt erst gecheckt, dass ich proud mary eh kenn. Aber irgendwie wars ganz passend beim Tagebuch Schreiben am Fenster :D Nvm jetzt nervts mich schon ein bisschen - keep on chooglin' find ich zachhh. Hab auch kein Lieblingslied vom Album, war wie gesagt nicht so meins.

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Yesterday I went into the Cantina at the new Star Wars land at Disneyland and the bartender leans over, sneakily gives me this, and whispers, “It’s not often we get a Resistance General in here. Thank you for your service.” I almost cried.

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Oh fuck yeah. Oh hell yeah. As much as I love the Beastie Boys, I don't believe them when they say they were making fun of "frat boys and party bros" when they performed "Fight For Your Right." It's not like they grew up right away on Paul's Boutique...there's still a lot of hilarious shit and braggadocio on that album, too...they just had an ear for immaculate sounds and producing by the Dust Brothers. I don't think they really grew up and out of the immature phase until Check Your Head. But it sounds good for them to distance themselves from Fight For Your Right and Girls as quickly as they possibly could. This album is awesome...always has been, always will be. I keep seeing mentions about how it hasn't aged well, etc...but whatever, fuck that. This past weekend, I read an article on the DMV rap scene that was on Pitchfork...because I'm from the area, I was curious. And then I listened to some of the music from that article. All that shit makes Licensed To Ill look like nursery rhymes. The production here is immaculate. The bass is awesome. Sonically, it's a masterpiece. What a great album. Fun, hilarious, quotable...just great.

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Don't believe these liars.

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Pioneers of the alternative rock sound that would define the following decade, the 1990s. R.E.M. was making the jangling guitar rock that would bear the labels of indie and college rock. When I came of age in the nineties this sound would find its commercial success. This entire album sounded about 5 years later than its 1988 release date suggests. Lower sounds abound and I mean listen to the distortion on “I Remember California” And yet, this sound is still a work in progress. The album is all over the place. In spots we have bouncy pop with “Stand” whereas others slow down for more intimate work, “The Wrong Child” or “Hairshirt.” We’re transitioning into new eras on this album. R.E.M. has a new label and creative freedom and they’ll use it. For me it all works. I appreciated R.E.M. as a radio and MTV friendly act during their time, even if I never owned an album. Still, terrific form from a band that was a staple of my younger years.

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One of the easiest 5s ever. such an ambitious project, stuffed with a kaleidoscope of references to a state I may never visit, and with such a variety of great songs with fantastic songwriting. He played like 20 different instruments on this which is just mad Casimir Pulaski Day might be my favourite “sad song”, and very funny to think he didn’t come out until like 2023 when you read the lyrics to “Primordial Beast Of The Palisades” Very bold to have a song relating yourself to a pedophilic serial killer and have it not come off in the absolute worst way possible I always run out of steam a bit towards the end, first half is definitely stronger, but it’s all great still

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Quintessential slop

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Standard, late 60s English pop. Sounds like a Sgt. Peppers imitation, honestly. "Private Salts' Empty Kidney Association Troupe", I guess? A poor man's Sgt Pepper... Through the listen I couldn't take my mind off of this comparison and how this record arranged itself in a similar way, with each song feeding from the tracks before and informing the later tracks. An obvious concept album, so I see where the critics and write-ups make that comparison. The music is just standard stuff for the era though, with only a few really catching my ear but not for long. I hate to do this to The Kinks, because I like a bunch of their earlier work, but this one didn't take off for me (3/5). Reading the other reviews here, there's an angle I didn't consider -- how very English this **IS**. Numerous other reviewers talked about how it takes them to small, country villages, and (this is hyperbolic) tea times with aunties and crumpets and shit... ALL of that is lost on me. I've got no personal context for that. The music is middle of the road, unlike Sgt. Peppers, so nothing elevated it out of mediocrity and pulled me into that world The Kinks seemed to be trying to create. Here's my attempt to bend future lists out of the event horizon of all the British invasions and frankly insular English music world, with some keywords I keep using.. THE SUPREMES should have been included.. Anglo-centrism is bad.. Hope that helps.

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(2/5) Thanks. I don't get it, but it was fine as a cultural artifact. The album was an interesting listen. It wasn't aurally offensive, but it didn't ignite anything either. It all kinda felt the same from track to track, but that could be my lack of understanding and I'm not afraid to admit that. I wouldn't mind some more (not a *lot* more) of this in the list. World music is a blind spot for me and I actually expected more of it. Instead, it's endless amounts of electronic/Britpop bullshit. This is -- by my count -- the second truly "World" music album and is likely just a 'check box' (i.e. quota) addition. We're only a hundred or so albums in.. that's 2%.

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I remember this one being a HUGE album until it wasn't. I remember the song (and that Prince wrote it), and I remember the tearing of the picture and the backlash afterward, but I'd honestly never had an opportunity to hear the rest of the album, and was a little flummoxed when it came up on this list. And when I listened to it, I was a whole other kind of surprised. This is a good album. Maybe not a damn good album or a wonderful album, but much different and more interesting than I'd expected. Way more Tori Amos/Fiona Apple/Bjork adjacent and less Dolores O'Riordan than anticipated (and I am at least a casual fan of all of the above). It may not be a blind 5, but it does round up to a 4/5, and intrigued me enough to search out some of her later work to see where she went creatively after her public ostricism.

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Boy, there's a struggle in my head on this one.. Clapton and Baker absolutely slay the guitar and drums, respectively, but damned if I can't stand Bruce as the singer. "Strange Brew" and "Sunshine.." of course are great, but all the other songs aren't great mainly because of Bruce. I'm taking a knee on this one out of respect with to Clapton and Baker and just give it the average treatment. (3/5)

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To quote Willie Nelson "There are two kinds of men; those who are in love with Emmylou Harris, and those who haven't met her." I only know Emmylou Harris through her records, but that's enough to be madly infatuated. Emmylou Harris has built an incredible body of work as a harmony singer, collaborator and interpreter of songs. But this is one of her rare albums of original songs. Spaciously recorded by Malcolm Burn using a crack band and a host of A-list guests with that atmospheric Lanois-style production, it is spooky and spacious and hard to pigeonhole exactly. It's not the classic country-folk sound of most of her output, but it's classy and sophisticated. But there is no mistaking that Emmylou is the star of the show here. I would listen to her sing the phone book, but this is even better.

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Nina Persson’s cool, almost innocent delivery, the bright melodies, the elegant arrangements, the polished pop shape. Underneath that, a lot of these songs are sour, passive-aggressive, wounded, or emotionally evasive. That contrast is the whole trick. The album sounds sweet without actually being naive.

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I liked it a lot. Interesting sabbath influences coming through (the cover of iron man is obvious, but I seemed to hear variations of the main riff in a later track). The mixing sometimes made it seem like I was listening on the other side of the studio door. Think I'll return to this one in the future.

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In Fall 2005, about a week into my freshman year of college, I went to go see Of Montreal, a band I knew little about -- I was just looking for an excuse to see some live music. The opening band was "The Management" (before they became MGMT). They performed, as a duo, in neon orange zip up hoodies with no shirt underneath. There was no band, just push button backing tracks. The songs sounded goofy, dripping with irony, and the 2 singers carried themselves in a very unserious way. Which is why I was shocked to see this album blow up 2 years later, and even more surprised by the critical praise they've sustained for a couple decades -- some people talk about MGMT like they're the goddamn Beach Boys. 20ish laters, this album still sounds somewhere between "joke music" and the firehose of generic indie pop that dominated my classmates' iTunes libraries back in college. I can see why some of these songs, especially the singles, make people nostalgic for the 2000s "hipster" era, but I find them mostly irritating.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rage In Favor Of The Machine.

Music for incels to wank furiously by

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

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

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

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

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.