Album Reviews

Ein Album wie ein schlechter Tag: laut, chaotisch, und man fragt sich ständig, warum man das verdient hat. Historisch? Vielleicht. Hörbar? Eher nicht.

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First, the elephant in the room: "Smoke on the Water". A legendary yet simple riff made into an otherwise-mediocre song about them being unable to record at a venue because it caught fire. The rest of the album is an excellent exposition of early-70s rock including some amazing guitar and Hammond organ work.

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PJ Harvey's music has never been particularly close to me (so much so that I walked out of her last show in my city), so I listened to this album, considered by many to be her most important, in its entirety for the first time. There was no fireworks display of emotion: it's simply solid alternative rock, sometimes measured, sometimes energetic. There are a couple of hits, and it was a pleasure to listen to. The main drawback is that when Polly switches to a high-pitched voice (let's be honest, it's almost a screech), you really want to turn the record off; fortunately, such moments are few and far between. One journalist disagrees with me, however, and considers the album's only drawback the presence of Thom Yorke — on three songs! It's laughable until you try to imagine his vocals on the other tracks and catch yourself thinking the album sounds like early Radiohead. Let everyone decide for themselves whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.

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Przyjemny album

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This was relaxing in a good way. Felt like I should pour a scotch and sit back and immerse myself in the music.

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Top level pop. Amazing song writing, great composition, interesting shift of wibes.

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Speciaal, heel tof

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Multiple great songs

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I'm just missing a lot of instruments

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The problem with this album is that the last two thirds of the album virtually all make the same point and do the same thing. The first third was more ambitious in topic and style and promised a lot and then it became a bit repetitive in theme. I'm mostly happy with listening them do that but I feel like the album could have offered more ambition.

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I always mix them up with the movie 'Velvet Goldmine'. Both seem a little bit overrated. (Wiki assures me the two aren't unrelated, so this isn't the biggest bungle of mine.) This is very mellow. Kinda like Nick Drake maybe. Oh, just kidding, that's only like half of the songs. The rest has more pep and also more guitar. Supposedly the organ riff in 'What Goes On' is used in 'Once in a Lifetime', but I guess it isn't that memorable, because I wouldn't have clocked it. This is fine. Not offensive but I'm not very excited about it. Highlights: 'I'm Set Free', 'After Hours' Lowlight: 'The Murder Mystery' (although I do like when there are multiple singers)

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Quite an underwhelming offering from these guys

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Думала, что после очередного пика снова станут персохейтером Боуи. Утомило. Но норм.

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Respect to Jeff Lynne and co for having a vision and sticking with it. ELO manage to wear all their influences on their sleeve and yet have their own distinct sound. When it works, it really is good (Turn to Stone, Sweet Talkin Woman, Summer and Lightning), but it’s easy to imagine the cheesy sound and vocoder vocals grate on some. Could it have worked as a single rather than a double album? I don’t know, but it sure felt ELOngated

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Amazing voice and great recording. Title track is an all time classic but the whole album is really great 👍

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Прикольный альбом. Такой поп-рэп альбом в духе Gorillaz. Есть клёвые мелодичные вещи, хотя жанр не совсем мой.

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Good fun! Great mix of punk sensibilities with catchy pop. Favourite track: Heart of Glass

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Nice. Norah has lovely vocals. The mixes of jazz and folk and country influences are interesting. This is a smooth album and i could see it being an ideal soundtrack for evening projects and relaxation.

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I didn’t want to like the Eagles but I did

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Positives: impressive amount of hit songs on one album Negatives: very questionable lyrics at times, “I Want Your Sex” was bad enough but part 2 and 3 were completely unnecessary

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Like a door that keeps revolving in a half forgotten dream Or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind

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Fire album! I love Petals and the whole album sounds very much in its time. I wish more people would review the album for its content and not its frontswoman!!!!

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Bit meh

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very pleasant to listen to. as opposed to an alice in chains album, I didn’t feel like I wanted to take my headphones off because it hurt my ears (not that I don’t love aic, I ABSOLUTELY do. it’s just a more gritty sound). I thought every song had a very nice melody and it had absolutely no skips for me. I loved how beautiful the guitar sounded. it was just a beautiful album in general, which was something I wasn’t expecting from iron maiden. it was the first iron maiden album i had heard, actually, so I was very pleasantly surprised. I also loved the voice in the beginning of track 5; it gave me CHILLS. overall amazing album with no skips.

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Bittersweet and bleak loveliness

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Great album. "Jesus Etc." Is the highlight. 4.5 stars

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slätt lite coldplay-vibes? eller är jag helt ute och cyklar

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Ok

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I knew I enjoyed Ella and most of the classic vocal jazz somewhat, but I was naturally worried if I'll have what it takes to sit through this 3 hour behemoth of the album. Surprisingly, there was nothing to worry about - I loved every minute of it, and also tidied up my room and finished knitting a cowl, all while gently smiling. Wow!

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Side A is very strong, with some great staples like No Woman No Cry, and the guitar work in Them Belly Full and Lively Up Yourself is phenomenal. Side B is mostly good with a few less impactful songs too. It ends on a strong note though with "Revolution".

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Ich mag den Gitarrensound und die Drums. Der Gesang ist für mich wie eine Gabel auf einer Tafel.

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Chav Miss Piggy

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My cats hate this. I trust their judgement.

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Such an impressive lack of creativity.

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This immediately evokes a mall in the late 2000's or early 2010's. "Auto tune crooning"... R&B for people who don't know good music. Technically, well produced but essentially boring. The same themes, lyrics, samples, and music you hear EVERYWHERE. How did this album make the list? This was a slog to get through. What exactly makes this special or stand out from the sea of R&B that sounds exactly like this?? Background music for a dying mall... 1/5, one point for the talented producers who can effortlessly spit this crap out.

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In my share house days in the early 90s, it was common after a big night out for a small posse of die-hards, stragglers and ne'er-do-wells to convene in our lounge room for a late-night chill-out. We were pretty rock crowd, leaning towards alternative, industrial and goth, but The Trinity Sessions album was a favourite for the wee small hours while we came down from the effects of the evening. This record is spacious and gentle, wonderfully and sympathetically underplayed, and Margot Timmins voice is beautiful. I love the simple and honest recording. No notes, five stars.

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after the first two songs i was ready to question myself as to whether i do enjoy jazz after all. the rest of the album however proved i don‘t.

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Am i being punk'd? The opening tracks are kind of obnoxious. Slow jams with childish lyrics. Is this trip hop? Very dated sound. (1/5) Ugh.. Did they just learn what rhyming is? Supposedly Unfinished Sympathy is the standout track, and I'm sorry, I don't see it. Maybe this was a cultural touchstone in a certain time and place, but nothing on this album has held up to the passage of time. The samples are misplaced, just putting strings behind a beat does not make it "ethereal", and the songwriting is hot, steaming garbage. Perhaps I'm a cranky old man now, but I couldn't even see my teenage self liking this too much. There are better ways to create good music using these tools and this admixture of ingredients. Did that mf'er just try and rhyme "weebles wobbles" in a song?? How is this a classic?

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This album was even more "meh" than I expected it to be, and I expected it to be pretty darn "meh." Van Morrison's whiny brand of mildly upbeat folk gets really old really fast, with not enough variation across the album to keep it interesting. Even the titular track offered little reprieve as we've all heard it enough times to dismiss it. Sure, I was happy to let it blend into the background and create a mood that I didn't hate, but I was left unimpressed.

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poo

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First off, this album kicks major ass. If I had a time machine I would go back to the late 60's in San Francisco. For me, the psychedelic rock scene of that period produced some of the greatest music of all time and you could go see some killer live music every day of the week. Secondly, a bit of a rant. This album starts with a 25 minute version of a Bo Diddley song, but the entirety of this book is devoid of a Bo fucking Diddley album. The most egregious omissions of this book is it's lack of real blues music. By my estimation there are only 5 actual blues records on the list. No Howlin' Wolf, no Buddy Guy, no Big Mama Thornton, no Butterfield Blues Band, no Fred McDowell, no Mississippi John Hurt, no Magic Sam, no Freddie King, No Albert King, no Otis Spann, no James Cotton, and on and on and on. I don't have many soap boxes but this is one of them. But anyway, highly enjoyable listen for me. The recordings of these gigs at the Fillmore West in '68 had the Grateful Dead on the bill also, it must have been jam band heaven.

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Hard pass. Tried the first four tracks and this is officially the first album in this sequence I abandoned. I saw someone write that it sounds like a soundtrack. I agree, and not in a good way. Nope. (1/5). Just nope.

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The Good: Just some good old boys… The Bad: Got it confused with The Dukes of Hazzard! The Ugly: The above mentioned tv series getting the same kind of crap as the album we are about to rate… Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Today, we live in a society where too many idiots scream out of outrage about the usage of a word, or the imagery of a symbol… scream scream scream. The opening track, the first time I remember hearing it, I almost choked on my drink when I got to the end of the song… I doubt many people get that far today, because they hear a word that only certain people are allowed to use. To those idiots, I say, get off your high horse, sit down, listen to the song again, and use your f-ing brain—that is if you have one. I do have to be honest here and admit the fact that, frequently, I can’t be bothered to pay attention to the lyrics on many of the albums that I’ve had the displeasure to listen to. So, I too should get off my high horse… But not before rating this album with a 5*, not because it is that special, but because, out of oh so much shit I’ve had to listen to these past couple of weeks, it shows that sometimes something that seems mediocre is actually worth it’s weight in gold.

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Rating shamlessly stolen system from George Starostin: Variety: 2 Adequacy: 5 Listenability: 4 Uniqueness: 3 Emotionality: 2 Been a good 20+ years since I've listened to this one. Never rated it as highly as its reputation, while definitely being able to see where all those critics were coming from. "Brown Eyed Girl" and "Gloria" are more my speed, and Moondance I recall lumping in with stuff like Joe Cocker and The Band which, in my mind, belong to a genre I would classify as perfectly fine wedding reception music. This one I imagine holds a special place in the hearts of elderly uncles everywhere. That being said - wow... "Moondance" is still crazy good, and feels like a classic standard that Morrison must have re-interpreted. Maybe that's the genius on display here that so many Rolling Stone critics adore. "Crazy Love" might even hold up even better though, as I think a brief Youtube search comes back with pages and pages of covers, all the way up to yesterday! Sounds timeless, and easy to see why it's still so popular. While there's no denying Morrison's vocal effort, "Caravan" is where he starts to loose me with his almost lazy sounding delivery and repetitious vocal noodling, reminding me of what I dislike most about him. His voice comes across as less souful and more a calculated imitation of what he thinks "soulful" is. The reputation of "Into the Mystic" as the "stand out track" a lot of people cite baffles me. The song itself is not awful by amy means but just don't get what's so special about it, especially when you've got the above tracks. The simple "Come Running" I think I even prefer over this. For that matter I also don't really understand the love "And It Stoned Me" gets. "These Dreams of You" gets docked points for both excessive sax and the impression that I'd enjoy this way better if Sam Cooke were singing it. Similarly, "Brand New Day" I think is a strong candidate to have been much better if it had been a Joe Cocker song. The backup singers carry this one. "Everyone" hits hardest for me out of all the tracks here. Earworm territory here for sure, and appreciate how it breaks up the samey instrumentation on the rest of the album with the shamelessly twee flute ( is that also a harpsichord?) and baroque sensibility. I'm a sucker for a catchy as hell bit of sugary pop. Feels like it should have been the closer, though "Glad Tidings" as an energetic, if generic feeling of an encore, so I can see it. Ultimately not much here for me to fault aside from my dislike of Morrison's voice and thinking it's three great songs surrounded by competent filler. Tracks to save for a playlist: - "Moondance" - "Crazy Love" - "Everyone"

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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.

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.

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

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.

Rage In Favor Of The Machine.

Music for incels to wank furiously by

this album is everything that punk pretends to be.

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

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.