I did my teenage/young adult years a disservice by dismissing Paramore. I saw them in concert in 2009 with No Doubt headlining, but I wasn’t interested. And I think we all know in 2026 Hayley Williams is genuinely punk and, though we cannot and should not compare women, is considerably more punk than Gwen Stefani.
This album SLAPS. It’s delightfully emo and has a surprising kick. The lyrics are emotional and clever and interesting. I love the biting chorus of “Playing God”! And so many songs are catchy.
A great first album on the user album list.
The Who’s Tommy holds a special place in my heart, and I’m just as shocked as you that I never listened to Quadrophenia. I’m so glad I had a reason to listen. I already knew several songs, and it was easy to pick up motifs, which created quite the flowy listen. I expected that and kick ass rock guitar from The Who, but just because it’s anticipated doesn’t mean it isn’t great.
Something must be said about the protagonists in these rock operas in the seventies. This and The Wall have the most unremarkable protagonists, and I found myself deflated. Tommy at least had a disabled lead character, but I found Quadrophenia to be about… nothing in particular. 3.5, for the guitar riffs.
Disco was overlooked by the 1001 albums project, and is overlooked by most people, which is a damn shame. Black Devil Disco Club scratched my disco itch. I love disco music, but electronic music can be repetitive and unappealing. (I know they’re similar genres; we are all full of contradictions.) Despite that, this was an easy album to listen to. It flowed well, though sometimes the repetition wasn’t so enjoyable for me.
This album being created by a French musician makes me think of Kraftwerk in the seventies, in the sense European musicians latched onto electronic way earlier than Americans did. And disco is a very American genre! Those two genres together make the album sound very 1978, in a good way, because both were taking off then.
Bruce Cockburn's Dancing in the Dragon's Jaws is remarkably pleasant and easy going! For such a vivid album title, Cockburn's breezy folk attitude could have been a letdown, but his voice is too captivating to let that happen. For being a folk singer, Cockburn has a good voice (respectfully to Leonard Cohen, unrespectively to Bob Dylan), and his instrumental aspects are very strong.
I'm reminded some of Tim Buckley and Nick Drake, or at least their albums that were part of the regular album list. But Cockburn isn't as psychedelic as Buckley, and the single "Wondering Where The Lions Are" is way more jaunty than anything Drake did. And neither of them incorporated a light Caribbean vibe, which helped keep the album light.
I love the quirkiness that is this album, because I love when a band doesn't take itself too seriously. "Song for Whoever" is cute as it shoves in as many women's names as possible into the lyrics, the chorus of "Woman in the Wall" encourages us liberate the song's victim, and the title of "I Love You (But You're Boring)" made me laugh out loud. The Beautiful South didn't hold back. Even when topics were dark, the songs remained fun and light tonally. The multiple vocalists, particularly male and female vocalists, added to this as they traded off verses. Their voices complimented each other well.
I'm a sucker for this kind of pop music. I enjoyed this album unironically.
Turnpike Troubadours (a cute band name) have an easy, natural way of storytelling. Country music has always been a great medium for storytelling, and I enjoyed how much the Troubadours adhered to that tradition. Their sound was reminiscent of older country mixed with modernity, maybe something like Dwight Yoakam or Travis Tritt in the eighties, but there’s something in the music that makes it sound very 2010.
A side note: I love when song titles are pulled from the lyrics but aren’t what you’d consider to be the most important lyrics. They did that here! Just a little fun for me.
I could not agree more that Beyoncé’s RENAISSANCE belongs here, or maybe even on the regular list, and I’m genuinely surprised the global rating is so low. I’m just glad I listened to this album!
Beyoncé is so purposeful with all her music, and I just loved listening to this album multiple times catching more samples or meanings or lyrics. Maybe what I loved most was how the entire album flowed. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard such a perfect album where every single song slides seamlessly into the next. It’s beautiful. A part of why the album flows, I think, is the same samples used across multiple songs, but I don’t find this to be annoying or uncreative. Also I cannot get over the usage of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” in the last song.
When this album came out, a lot of the talk was about the genre of house music, that Beyoncé brought attention to it. I definitely hear house, and she also included her signature R&B sound. The output is definitely a Beyoncé product that allowed her to explore another genre, much like her follow-up album.
TIL Ariana Grande's "goodnight n go" is a cover of an Imogen Heap song! Once I made that connection, I kept hearing how much Heap's Speak for Yourself influenced Grande's Sweetener album. Heap is on the electronic side of pop, but the dreamy pop tone is present on both. In that regard, I finished Heap's album being less impressed with Grande's, but that's not why I'm here.
Speak for Yourself is a great submission for the user submitted albums. I can't think of anything except for Goldfrapp that's similar to this album. The dreamy sound is such a vibe, man.
In the regular list, we received 6 albums either by Elvis Costello solo or with the Attractions. 6 is more than enough, as I think almost all of us agree on. I couldn't find much in Don't Throw Stones by THE SPORTS that was innovative or that this band did anything their contemporary didn't already do. Even the lead vocalist sounded like Costello.
"If you aren't making [music] that's different, then you're not making anything at all."
I love when an album has a sound we haven't heard in the official 1001 albums, or the user-submitted list. At this point, that isn't easy to accomplish! But Snarky Puppy's We Like It Here did it. Their jazz fusion is fun and energetic. The usage of electronic/synth is different from typical jazz, but the inclusion is good and adds to their uniqueness. Snarky Puppy even threw in some world music! And of course, when an album keeps your attention despite no or minimal lyrics, you have to mention it.
After reviewing more than 1,000 albums, we all start writing reviews in our heads and preparing vote within the first two minutes. I was so happy to be wrong once I made it to the third song because I had such a negative reaction to the first two, which had boring electronic noises paired with jarring vocals. "Paper Trails" has a blues vibe that I'm obsessed with! "Heart" is rock/electronic with really good beats, and the vocals weren't too harsh. I didn't enjoy the rest of the album, but gosh DARKSIDE did something right in the middle of the album. Unfortunately, I just don't think it's enough for a 3.
I'm afraid I heard nothing terribly original in Pedro the Lion's Control. They sounded so much like Kings of Leon, though I admit this album came out in 2002 before Sex On Fire. (We already had three KOL albums!) But it was just so boring and whiny. I kept wondering if Pedro the Lion even enjoyed creating and playing this music.
Kind of a bummer this is a concept album, because I love concept albums and when women do bad things.
Stretch 2 was not for me! The hip hop/electronic was a different kind of combo, but it just came across as weird and unappealing. The distortion was very machine-y and without purpose. I mean, at least Arca had the good sense to keep the album short, but it was so boring and repetitive I didn't know it had looped back around until I listened to it in full nearly twice, which sure defeats the purpose of a short length!
I feel like we’ve already gotten five albums like this, and I’m only 15 albums in with the user album list. The lead vocalist mumbles so much I don’t think you can call it singing at that point. The last song sounded better than the rest of the album, and I beg 2003 Sea Power to at least explore the emo sound.
If every single song on this album said “ft. Paul Simon,” I wouldn’t have been surprised. Contra has an eighties folk-pop Simon sound crossed with the aughts indie sound. It even sounds like music Paul Simon could have created if his heyday was 2-3 decades later. The world beat must be what’s guiding me.
Contra is a pleasant, quick, and very catchy album. I knew a handful of Vampire Weekend songs, none of which is on this album, but that didn’t stop me from tapping my foot along. The lyrics were fun and different. I simply had a good time!
Am I on a reality show where Elvis Costello pops up in my life under different pseudonyms and it's some practical joke that I hear him everywhere?? I enjoy new wave, and I enjoyed the new wave on this album. I'm not sure I heard anything different that I didn't get from the five kajillion Costello albums, but hey, it is a point in Squeezing Out Sparks' favor that this does not include Costello.
I’m not usually a fan of electronic or dream pop music, but Chromatics does something different that I really admire. I can’t quite describe how or why their electronic sounds different, but the album is (mostly) light and isn’t overbearing.
The end of “Tomorrow Is So Far Away” sounds like wind howling. “Killing Spree” isn’t your typical discordant song because it’s dream pop, but it manages to make you feel soooo uneasy in this instrumental. Then the organ or organ-like sound comes in toward the end, and it’s so cool! The minimal vocals were a smart choice, to let their small choices be appreciated fully.
I listened to Night Drive when I wasn’t in a rush, and I’m glad for that since I took my time and went on the journey Chromatics laid out for us. 3.5
Alexa, play “Agony” from the Into the Woods musical.
Amusing album title, yet bland. Shakespeare My Butt has that nineties alt punk feel but in 1991 before other artists made alt punk big in the mid-90s. I’m impressed in that regard, but the album comes across as hallow as Lowest of the Low try too hard. Where’s the substance?
The most unfortunate part of To Be Kind was the lost potential. Multiple times I heard a good beat or the inclusion of world music, and then Swans would drown it out with their experimental and noise genre nonsense. A damn shame, and then Swans had the audacity to think their music was good enough for a full two hours! Jiminey Christmas, this was garbage and on par with Throbbing Gristle.
This slaps! I love how solid metal music is, and Opeth is no exception. If you strip away the growls (which I love, to be clear), the music and instruments are so great! I love how hard they went. I don’t think they were as technically precise as Metallica, but Opeth was good regardless. 3.5
This album slapped A LOT. Anyone who looks at my reviews can tell that 22 albums into the user-submitted list I'm tired of this aughts indie sound. But Fantasies by Metric doesn't have the typical indie sound! A big part is the female lead vocalist, and we love female vocalists. The lyrics are witty and catchy. The emotion is palpable. There's a punk/new wave twist I enjoy. "Gold Guns Girls" asks if it's possible to ever be satisfied. It's all so good!
Maybe I'm very incorrect, but I was reminded of how Olivia Rodrigo sounds today. Metric has a fun pop sound, and Rodrigo does sound like Emily Haines. Obviously, Rodrigo would not be considered indie by any stretch, but truly I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of indie inspired her.
I can't wait to listen to this again, and again. If we're splitting hairs, Fantasies is more of a 4.5, but considering my enjoyment, I have to round this up.
I loved the vibes of Silent Hill 2! No vocals needed on this horror industrial album. Akita Yamaoka created great theme songs and background songs for this video game, and I can appreciate that despite not having played Silent Hill 2, or any of them!
When you’re playing a video game, an instrumental is looped in the background of your location. You get more than a 1.5 minute clip of the song, and you can truly become engrossed in the video game and its surroundings. That aspect was an understandable detriment to this soundtrack. For the fully fleshed songs, not the 1.5 minute instrumentals, they slapped. I can understand why this album was submitted as someone’s favorite.
Música, Gramática, Gimnasia is a unique album. Though Dënver was a Chilean duo, they had a continental European sound, but I’m wondering if that’s due to the electronic aspects reminding me of the German band Kraftwerk. And being released in 2010, the album leans heavy into the disco genre (a good thing, of course). That makes for a fun listen even without understanding the lyrics. I’m glad this was submitted.
A lot of the discussion around Yoko Ono and her music, including Fly, centers around making her into a joke and laughing about how grating her vocals are. That diminishes her musical contributions and activism. I don't want to talk about the bad aspects because I found much to be different.
The first disc included some Eastern sounds, and I admire how true to her heritage she was in Fly. "Hirake," despite its name, is pure American funk. "Mrs. Lennon" is the softest song on the album and is a stark contrast to the others. It possibly contained the best lyrics with its anti-war message; I love when a song's lyrics follows the "less is more" idea.
Yoko Ono is a unique individual who veered far off the path to create music no one has before. There is no one who was doing what she was doing fifty years ago, and still not today. That alone is admirable.
What the Flaming Lips did on Zaireeka is extremely cool. I like the idea of becoming so familiar with the full version produced by all four discs, and completely upending the familiarity by only listening to two or three discs at once. I would love to do this with some of my favorite albums. But the idea is unfortunately outdated because who has four streaming subscriptions to play at once and four separate good speakers? In my youth, my family had a multi-CD stereo system that could shuffle between songs, and I suspect it could play 4 discs at the same time. Shoutout to Buufalooo on YouTube for creating and uploading a mixed version.
That being said, I'm still not a fan of the Flaming Lips. I don't like the vocals. I didn't think much was interesting musically on Zaireeka, only the concept.
I always appreciate an usual album, and Shack-man is that--and not just because of its album art. Jazz and experimental don't go together on paper, or at least they shouldn't. This could be my uninformed opinion, but jazz is always loud and busy. Medeski Martin & Wood allow themselves to be quiet and even have empty moments. They even incorporate funk into their jazz! The album is a little long, but I found myself so intrigued that the length didn't bother me. A testament of a good album. I'm impressed.
For such innovative song titles, Margot and the Nuclear So & So's are surprisingly calm. I kind of don't know what to make of Not Animal because I was and am thrown. Their brand is indie is folky and pleasing. Maybe Not Animal sounds like a bummer of an album in general, but the lead singer’s voice doesn’t drone. I suppose the album’s only sin is being forgettable.
I just cannot express this enough. With a song title like “Hello Vagina,” how was the genre not proto-punk or noise rock??
Wow, this album is really from the eighties. Nik Kershaw wants no mistake about that. It's synth heavy. Human Racing has a lot of the catchy new wave, but I think Kershaw was also influenced by Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine. Or at least I was reminded of her in "Drum Talk." Regardless, this album was too light and lacked substance. I love eighties, and I love the ridiculousness of Air Supply's "Love Out Of Nothing At All," for instance, but Human Racing just isn't as good. Still good enough for a 3.
What a band name. What an album name, too. The album was a little early for alternative but very late for psychedelic folk, which produced a disjointed affect. Not bad, like some of the garbage I've heard, but not good or memorable. Toward the end, there was a jaunty instrumental that had strong horn and piano presence. I liked that the most.
I enjoyed this! I appreciate blues but I’m not the biggest fan. Barão Vermelho does the blues well. Several times my attention was drawn to the wailing guitar, especially during solos. Blues songs traditionally are more downbeat, and in contrast Maior Abandonado was considerably more peppy and catchy, even if I don’t know Portuguese (Brasíl or Portugal).
