St. Jude

We have Arctic Monkeys at home

All indie music from this time sounded exactly like this!

British enough I wouldn't be surprised if it made it into future editions of the book.

Not too bad but I'm pretty tired of UK sounding stuff at this point. 3/5.

The last thing the list needs is MORE Britpop.

What took you so long? !! 5

All time number 1 classic

Quite enjoyed it

Has a strong Fratellis vibe. Great Indie British late 2000s sound.

Rating: 7/10 Best songs: If it wasn’t for me

I enjoyed this. I will listen to this again at some point and might add it to my regular rotation. Although, I didn't find it groundbreaking and I think there's already plenty of albums like this on the list.

This was a fun one! Definitely a millennial that just really liked this in his formative years and wanted it on the list, not meant as a criticism. It was just a solid 2000s alt rock killers type album.

Indie rock. No ha estado mal... Un 4, venga.

An unexpected enjoyable album

One of the great UK 00’s indie albums, was very underrated at the time, but now it’s almost overrated in certain circles given the rerelease and The push from the radio X crowd. Still a good album that is already in my frequent rotation. So happy to see this today.

I really enjoyed this album and had apparently heard at least one of the tracks before. Who knew.

Definitely a good style and vibe fit for my interests. Reminds me a lot of arctic monkey and kaiser chiefs. Really like the intentionally crafted brit alt rock. Liked Please Don't and No You Didn't a lot.

Hadn't heard of this band, but it's a decent album. No you didn't no you don't is good. As is not nineteen forever. Pretty short album, but long in substance.

Suprisingly good! Maybe we do need more 2000s rock to listen to

I have never heard of this band before and was impressed with how fun and easy to listen to this album was. I’d definitely check out more of their discography in the future.

Arctic manc-keys; Oasis-ish; Blur-ry; (northern) Kinks - not that I'm complaining! Like a best of Britain covers album, without many songs where they sound like something new. Their biggest song is here though, which is nice.

Oh well, garage-adjacent British rock from the landfill indie years. Like a more polished (and more musically competent) version of The Libertines, or a less polished one of The Strokes, which sort of equals... Franz Ferdinand coupled with The Arctic Monkeys (with an admittedly less spectacular drummer). Still ten times less annoying or ten times more interesting and more authentic-sounding than notoriously terrible acts in that overall umbrella genre -- such as Kaiser Chiefs or Razorlight. But it's maybe a little hard to blame the listeners that experienced somewhat understandable weariness for that noughts revival rock thing when they had to give a spin to this album through this app these days. Who knows, maybe the problem lies more with the "retro-rock genre" itself than in the way it is actually crafted here? In a sense, it's a little unfair to dismiss The Courteneers so quickly. There are quite a few well-executed highlights on this record ("What Took You So Long?" for sure, but also other ones I'm too lazy to name here, placed until the end of the tracklist). Likewise, the slightly mixed critical reception of this LP is a bit of mystery to me. Pretty sure there's been a share of far lesser albums in that style that were praised for no good reasons at the time. But let's face it, The Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes, Franz Ferdinand and The Libertines had been there first. Makes me mull over the randomness inherent to the whole music business game, in a way. Why do some bands make it to the next hot trend first, like two or three years before other similar acts manage to record their first LPs? I guess it's nice that this album was rediscovered by its target audience more recently at least. But does that make *St. Jude* a likely candidate for this list? The jury's still out on this one. 3.5/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums, rounded up to 4 8.5/10 for more general purposes (5 + 3.5) Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 14 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 24 (including this one -- because there might still be a chance this record grows on me, in spite of the déjà vu effect) Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 42 ---- Émile ! J'ai répondu à ton message. Regarde deux reviews au dessus !

Not a bad record, but totally mediocre and not any different from all those British 00's bands that tried to sound like Arctic Monkeys.

This was really nice and energetic.

I liked this, but I did not feel it had a needed slot in the list for me.

One of the great virtues of the list is the blacklight on my simple enjoyment of this brand of music. Certainly, the Arctic Monkeys follow through on the promise of the beginning better, but the blend ends up perfectly rocking. A little shiny-atavistic turn, fair fair.

Serviceable rockalong jams but kind of low on variety throughout.

I am always here for some pleasant post-BritPop groovy rock and roll

I liked this, but I also feel like it sounds like sooooo many other bands. 3 stars.

Typical UK indie of the 2000s sounding like Libertines and Arctic Monkeys with shades of Smiths and early James. Probably got caught up amongst the other similar bands of the time, but not bad.

Well-made British Indie that is catchy, energetic, entertaining. Would listen again. Fave Songs: Bide Your Time, Cavorting, What Took You So Long?, Aftershow

There's some nice songs, it smacks of being what was in vogue at the time, but that shouldn't be held against it. It's good, but is far from standing out 2.9

I liked it

Reminded me of a few other English indie bands I’ve encountered before and perhaps not a critical addition to this list, but enjoyable and well done.

This is an interesting album. It has the sound of style of British music prior to the 2000s but feels like more it could get lost in the mix with all of the other alternative albums. I thought this was alright. It took styles from over the years but didn’t really do anything crazy with them. Just melded them for an updated alternative style. 6.3/10

13 year old me would’ve loved this

Is this Arctic Monkeys-core?

No bad

Pretty cool alt-rock album, veering around in different directions, emo at time. Some genuine 2000's rock bangers on here though, in the sense that they should've been huge famous songs. Like "Bide Your Time," that song is fantastic. Cool suggestion! 3.5/5

Another pretty middle of the road British indie rock band from the early 2000s. It's fine. It's really hard to find something to say beyond it's competently made but it isn't doing anything unique or special. It sounds like mid 2000s indie rock from Britain and that's about it. My personal rating: 3/5 My rating relative to the list: 3/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No.

Straightforward indie, I haven't heard it before but I might as well have. Being in the west midlands I'm probably not quite north enough to really "get" it. I did find the whole album to be unpretentious and easy to enjoy. But also, you know, kind of basic? What Took You So Long is a standout track. It isn't hard to see why someone would count it amongst their favorites. Happy to have heard it, thank you for sharing.

Not as lame as I was expecting. I did visuals for these guys just as this album was coming out and found them pretty forgettable. I was DJing regularly around this time and downloaded a few of these songs but never really played them out. But listening now, a few years down the line, this is…. kind of OK.

I can't say that I really got this album. It's pleasant to listen to, and I could see how someone would like it, but it didn't seem particularly significant to me. The album also went by weirdly slowly for me. Like, I thought I was at least halfway through and found that I was still on song 5. Not bad at all, but not something that grabbed me 3/5

Is it wrong to compare this with the Arctic Monkeys cos they certainly use the same formula (of the first 2 albums) Decent but meh

Forgetful.

This was a typical 2000s British indie rock album. It owes most of its sound to the early 2000s British alternative scene with influences from Britpop and New Wave. The lyrics felt very forced to me. There were some very clunky rhymes that took away from the songs. Overall, nothing here stood out as new or groundbreaking.

The songs are ok, but the vocal performance is poor. Just not that interesting.

The Corteeners debut from the indie landfill era. Holds up a lot better than some of their contemporaries at the time, but still fairly generic for the most part. Rating: 2.5 Playlist track: Not Nineteen Forever Date listened: 01/12/24

One of those albums that I could understand someone else enjoying but for me this just feels like something I've heard several times before. It's not bad but it just left me with the feeling of shrugging my shoulders.

You could hotswap with with any of their contemporaries and not be any the wiser. Is it The Coral? Is it Razorlight? Could easily be. It's not terrible, it's just nothing exceptional from a period of music that had completely lost its way.

Not a bad album. I wonder why a newer UK rock band deserved to be on this list but then I remembered this portion of the list is subjective. Carry on.

Sounds like many other bands

Sounds like a mash-up of The Libertines 'Can't stand me now' and Scouting for Girks 'She's so lovely'. Every track is the same!! It's pleasant enough but so derivative and annoying..

Jarvis, shove saltine crackers down my ears.

The Courteeners sound exactly like about 25 different UK indie bands of the 00s so St Jude is generally unappealing, oversaturated and not really that good. What Took You So Long? has its moments but this was not an album anyone should've said 'why wasn't this on the list?!' and decided to add it because they just love it so much. 2/5.

There were some nice melodies and vibes on this album from a band I’d never heard of. Unfortunately the Manchester and Liverpool mid-90 genre’s sound makes all those bands sound alike and blur into obscurity.

They do not have a great vocal voice and yet their vocals are too high for the music, which makes the songs tired or dull.

Anyone who had to live through the noughties can still have their PTSD triggered by this sort of bland landfill indie. There's a road in China paved with the remaindered CDs of this dreck, and even then, the road feels bland and predictable.