1001 Albums Summary

This sounds exactly like you want it to. Solid gold soul with R&B roots. An all time great voice in the prime of his talent with a stellar backing band, Booker T & the MG’s with Issac Hayes on piano. It’s all good but the highlights for me are the more pared down, slow jam affairs that end both sides. Side one closes with the now classic Redding penned I’ve Been Loving You Too Long, and the album closes with the incredibly plaintive You Don’t Miss Your Water. Despite having such an accomplished band, it’s these musically simple songs with great vocals that really let Otis shine and shows just how truly compelling his voice is by itself. Of course it has to be said that Aretha did it better when it comes to asking for some Respect, but the Stones can’t get no Satisfaction compared to Otis’s version here. All in all a masterful example of the genre. Giving it a 9 out of 10 only because even an exceptional genre piece like this cannot to me fully embody the concept of a perfect album when it’s mostly covers. It’s an awesome set. Not a 10.

I have a strong association with this album. My family used to listen to this all the time. And there’s also Running On Empty, a movie with (I think) River Phoenix, that had a huge impact on me as a kid. At the end of the movie there is a very emotional sequence that is scored with Into The Mystic from this album. “I wanna hear it. I don’t have to fear and I wanna rock your Gypsy soul…com on girl” transcendent horns. Beautiful. But the tracks that I was less familiar with don’t always succeed here and sometimes come across as a fine example of music which could easily be parodied.

It’s amazing how a couple of decades can make a protest record against the “establishment” seem like a bunch of callow and insincere millionaires whinging. Maybe it’s the promise this music held to a young man that someone was out there fighting the man and saying the inflammatory things that drove our fantasies of a better tomorrow. A promise that feel more fraudulent as you age because you discover that everything is “the man” and you are a part of the establishment by proxy no matter what you think or hate. There are hits here, Keep The Car Running, Ocean of Noise, that stand the test of time, but others fall short. Having been rent from the naive energy that drives them they seem overwrought and ultimately silly at times. Also one has to consider the band’s own opus when gauging this album and though better than some of the later outings, this is no Funeral and we’re the poorer for it.

Well I’ll start by saying that I enjoyed this much more than I thought I would going into it. Of course I’ve suffered the obligatory but brief fascination with Bob Marley’s Legend album that seems to possess many a young white man when they discover weed. Otherwise I find the reggae to be pretty generally bereft of ideas and rather childish. This album shows a surprising amount of range within the genre and the songs seem fresh and fun. It’s an album to be enjoyed under an umbrella on a beach with an adult beverage. Unfortunately though I’m not much for the beach…or reggae for that matter.

These guys wrote the book on riff rock and this is for sure their consummate outing. The rhythm guitar sound is iconic rock and roll and the tightness of the rhythm section is remarkable. And this is one of the best selling albums of all time having spent a stint on the charts that rivals Thriller. What can that possibly mean? Most people are idiots. Nah there’s something undeniable here for the straight forward rock fan. That’s just not what I am. Also “Let Me Put My Love Into You”?! Real subtle guys.

Wow! This is by far the sleeper hit so far. I remember this album coming out and being enamored of the single Take Me Out like everyone else at the time (it has over a billion streams on Spotify). But I also recall listening to the rest of the album and being frankly unimpressed. How wrong I was. Not only is this an excellent guitar rock extravaganza but I surprised to find that I now knew a lot of these tunes. It seems that in the intervening time since its release this album’s songs has been gaining traction in the zeitgeist. In this case, I’m glad to admit that I was wrong and happy to have found another audio gem to listen to.

Found this very soothing to have on in the background while working. The artistry is apparent and the scales used are exotic and interesting. But I don’t imagine myself needing to revisit it as I would a great album.

Surprisingly fresh and relatable for a fifty year old Afro-Brazilian record. Very enjoyable but it lost a star because many songs have someone yelping or making a sound like pulling a straw in and out of a McDonald’s cup. I found it very irritating and distracting. I’m sure it’s traditional AF but I hate it.

This is a fine example of a style of music that I don’t find especially moving or interesting. SZA is well respected in this genre and has worked with several artists that I respect and enjoy, like Kendrick Lamar and Childish Gambino, but I can’t say I found her superlative to others in this category.

Just awful. Such a surprising let down by an artist I truly respect. The first half, the acoustic side, sounds like any a collection of any post Peter Paul and Mary folk tunes about nothing in particular and I’ve spent a lifetime as a musician and listener trying to avoid exactly the sort of pointless rock & roll epitomized by the electric b-side. I will do everything in my power to never listen to another bar of music from this album ever again.

A solid album for PJ. It shows both the grit and the songwriting chops that make her great. However I’m not a fan of the way the guitars are produced. A little too slick to handle the bigger guitar parts that anchor some of the songs. It it is effective on some of the songs which bear more production weight like A Place Called Home and Beautiful Feeling but less so with material like the opening track.

One of my all time favorites. Hot on the heels of the breakup of his hit duo, Paul establishes the world music and eclectic influences that would mark his solo career while still being rooted in the songwriting sensibilities that made Simon & Garfunkel successful.

A million perfectly played notes. A fine example of the genre which encompasses smoky bar piano jazz. Have to say though I was only dimly aware of its completion when Spotify started playing other jazz albums.

I’m as unmoved by this album as I was when I was 16. The ubiquitous There She Goes was a long time hit on “alternative” radio and was the bane of my existence when it was continuously featured on MTV’s 120 Minutes which was the outlet through which I found new music. When one of my friends, also regular 120 Minutes watchers, inevitably got the album, I gave it one listen and dismissed it. My reaction is much the same now.

This is gonna date me. There was a time before this when the only entertainment I could muster for the frequent long drives I took was a box of old cassettes whose contents seldom changed or grew. In this box was Tears Roll Down, the first Tears For Fears greatest hits compilation, that I bought from a gas station checkout line. I knew and loved the well known singles (most of which come from the album being reviewed here). But I found the other songs at times challenging to like. Given time though and infinite replays, I came to cherish all of the songs. What I didn’t know at the time was that over half the songs from Songs from the Big Chair were on there. This is a nearly flawless album. All of the songs are it could be hits. There is thematic cohesion, incredible production, and tons of songwriting nuance. Love it.

This album will always hold a special place in my heart. This came out when i was 11 and it reminds me of Friday nights at the roller rink, drinking suicides and playing Donkey Kong 3. And the rhythm guitar on Panama is still one of my favorite guitar parts of all time. However besides the singles this album doesn’t have much more to offer. EVH though heralded as one of rock’s greatest guitarist is shamelessly self-indulgent as a lead guitar player and most of the band besides the bass player seem to revel in this same indulgence. For the memories it gets an extra star.

Even in the heyday of my obsession with The Cure this album was a bit much for me. Its relentless mood and full dedication to an aesthetic make it remarkable and one of the most thematically consistent Cure albums. However if you’re not invested by the first song, it’s unlikely that’s full listen will change your mind. Personally I like my maudlin with a dash of pop and melody.

I’m glad that this exists but it’s a difficult listen for the most part. It’s an amazing technical achievement and definitely defies all expectation of what an album comprised of only voices can be. This is not a cappella music as you think of it. But ultimately I found it at times unpleasant and unsatisfying.

mudpie - “ That was quite a double turd that Jagger and co. collectively shat out. I don’t understand why a single song on that record even exists. Can you imagine that there are people to whom that album is very dear? Really, each song was more pointless, boring, and sloppy than the one before it.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

It must be an incredible feeling to approach an instrument completely unfettered by anything save your own imagination. While this consummate ability may cause you to shit out a goofy, Django Reinhardt-style ditty like The Clap (and then name the composition after a venereal disease), it certainly leads to other gems here. Free of some of the excess that can mark the more didactic offerings of the genre and Yes’s own discography. There are some great rock jams, Starship Troopers pt2, and some, for lack of a better word, poppier tunes, All Good People. On the whole though it doesn’t beg me to relisten to it.

This is gonna be controversial but Low is not my favorite Bowie album. I appreciate the artistry and the choice of a world famous singer to put out a very instrumentally focused album. But the cumulative effect is a soundtrack for a movie that never was. The set of songs lacks the storytelling that underpins much of Bowie’s catalog. All in all a technical and artistic achievement to be sure but not a very compelling listen to me.

Post-goth and pre-punk, I was a bit of a metalhead. Even then I despised Megadeth. Dave Mustaine’s faux operatic nasal drivel is more than I can bear or take seriously. While I respect some of the musicality of this record in a purely technical way, it’s too silly to even bang you head to post ironically. I definitely laughed out loud more than once.

Mostly harmless. It’s lush and beautiful and I’m somewhat glad it exists. It even grabbed me a couple of times, like The Ocean’s glorious guitar climax or the haunting Last Orders. The exaggerated cowboy songs weren’t particularly up my liking but an overall decent listen.

There is an otherworldly texture that Fleetwood Mac is privy to that defies all sense. Songs like Sara achieve that quality. They are haunting and incredibly compelling. Others are not. Mostly everything that Lyndsey Buckingham takes lead vocal on has an unfortunate stink I’d call boogie-woogie and we’re the poorer for it.

I’m not super-familiar with Fiona’s catalog but this offering certainly demonstrates a wholly unique songwriting technique. For at least the first third of album this technique is hard understand and not particularly fun to listen to. After this opening salvo the songs become a little easier to digest while maintaining a similar aesthetic. All told this makes for a somewhat unbalanced listening experience.

I like a rap album that has a strong stylistic musical voice as this certainly does. Unfortunately I don’t think the performer was able to pull off raps with as much character and nuance as the backing tracks demonstrate.

Her voice is beautiful, the performances compelling, the songwriting on point…but I just don’t like this album.

mudpie: “This album was an absolute celebration of all the very worst aspects of 80s music production.” me: “The songs on this album barely exist.” Truly unbearable.

I think this is what rap is supposed to sound like. Easy Coast 90’s hip hop at its absolute finest. Found drum loops, musical samples, scratching, and a flurry of words, ideas, and expletives interwoven. A hook here or there but no real push to make pop songs. And the artistry of Nas’ flows are obviously dripping with talent. He has so much to say in every song. The stories are real and compelling. An undeniable Rap Hall Of Fame inductee on this effort alone. I dock it one point because the production is pretty typical. There’s nothing groundbreaking in the beats and they starve for differentiation.

This is proto-everything-I-love… but I don’t connect to it. I honestly don’t know why. Maybe it was just not the moment for me to hear it? Maybe it was the vocals? They’re eclectic and unique. I usually like that, right? Who knows. It just wasn’t for me but I respect it in the pantheon of music.

There are two Elliott Smith albums that mean a lot to me. This isn’t one of them. His masterful songwriting and sonorous voice are in full effect here, but it lacks much deviation from his typical style besides being a bit more produced. I was honestly left with more of a desire to go back and listen to the two albums of his I really love than to revisit this one.

This was my mother’s favorite album. I knew she loved Joni Mitchell and that we listened to her a lot in our house. But I didn’t know this was THE album until I heard the first few notes of the opening song. Then countless evenings of hanging out with my parents after dinner while they drank toddies and listened to this album flooded back from my memory. I began weeping and didn’t stop until the album was done. I cannot express the singularity of moment that I experienced driving into the winter sunset listening to River, my mom’s favorite song from this album, while sobbing, form missing her, from missing that time, the simplicity, the joy, the sorrow. It was everything. I will never forget this album.

My first reaction to seeing this selection, “Led Zeppelin! Yes!…three?!?! Why?!”, and I stand by that assessment. Of all the incredible albums in their catalog they chose this one? Not the record-setting 4 or the solid 2 or my favorite Houses of the Holy or the impressive debut or really any other selection. This isn’t a bad album, messy in places, but not bad. It just isn’t their best in my opinion.

Masterful composition throughout and incredible tones from the keyboards of the day. He seems to use an auto wah or envelope filter in several songs that sculpts the attack and adds a bouncy, almost plucked sound that complements his intricate phrasing. A lot of the album is his fully detailed keyboard or piano part, drums, and voices. Some songs run long in the tooth, and I find his lyrics a little hard to take seriously. But generally a fun listen.

Hated it. The kind of honky tonk, blues, riff rock that I find most useless and self-indulgent on full blast for an hour. Smoke On The Water is such a cliche of the horrible first riff that a neophyte guitar player learns that when they started the song I thought it was a joke until I remembered that it was their horrible song. It’s just as awkward and unimpressive here as when you play it at home I assure you. The whole thing is truly a frenzy of notes without a single original idea.

This list has established a habit of including artists I like, but then choosing an album that I think is an inferior offering to other items in their bin. So it goes with this one. However in this relisten to an album I’d once written off, I can’t deny liking some bits far more than I remember. The bass player and I had a love affair throughout the album, and he knew all the right notes to play. Their most successful moments are the ones where they strip away all the songwriter-y parts leaving the deadly rhythm section and just the accentuating production pieces, a flute segue here, a splash of synth there. Then there’s Wayne’s signature delivery which, though teetering on the edge, often rings true to me. He seems earnest and that’s part of their schtick. I think this is intended to be music for (pseudo-)intelligent, progressive(-seeming) listeners, but they usually get there by playing and singing with recklessly juvenile earnestness. And it works…sometimes. I mostly believe them.

I was familiar with this artist from her radio hits, and frankly I was not looking forward to this. However I found a set of song more charming than they had a right to be. The songwriters and producers seemed to have found more interesting things of her to sing and she sings more interestingly. Her delivery is more breathy, nuanced, and dynamic than your typical pop singer and the production serves her style by being unobtrusive and allowing her to stretch out. The songs are minimal and pretty. All that’s to say though that it was only mediocre and not bad.

I’m not a huge Stevie fan and I’m unfamiliar with most of his catalog except Innervisions which was on this list, but I associate the sound of this album with his later work. The difference in these two records in both quality and style is so great that if his voice wasn’t familiar I would have attributed it to someone else entirely. While Innervisions epitomized funk jazz soul, very little of that is in evidence here. FFF is more a gospelized pop album of the sort that would eventually give us I Just Called To Say I Love You and other tripe. His approach to his instrument even seems to be different. In that album he approached the keys as the cornerstone to the song and managed to play a funky bass line, rhythm chords, and melody lines all at once in a flurry of notes. Accordingly it required less accompaniment since it cover so much ground. In this album, the keys are primarily used to play very simple chord based lines that need more added to the production to fill out the space. He’s like a keyboard player for a lounge singer here. All around a less successful outing than Innervisions and pretty disappointing.

This is the only Elton John album I like. I’ve never been a fan of his really but this one I like. There’s a lot more going on musically than in most of his catalog. But god is this album long. Not just time wise but the listening experience just feels long. By the end of disc 1 he’s pretty much said all he has to say, for the album and his career really. Then there’s a whole other album which includes the dreadful Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting, possibly his worst song ever. Some self-editing would have made for a fine album.

I’m not 100% certain what I expected, but I’m 100% sure it was 20% better than that. First of all, for better or worse this is what a 5 million dollar record sounds like. It is sonically very clean and mixed perfectly for what it is. The low end is warm and present and the detail in the textures is clear even at low volumes. As far as the songs themselves I think I anticipated more songs like “Rocket”, modern R&B hip pop (sic), and less like “Haunted”, interesting and not purely centered on the vocals. I don’t think I’ll run to listen to this again in the near future but I’m glad to have listened to it.

From the first bar of the first song you know you’re in uncharted territory. Layered, syncopated rhythm guitars pulling off something akin to some vein of world music, new wave funk dub bass, groovy solid drum lines, and a front man just dripping with bravado who sings the only thing that can be sung over these tunes while remaining firmly rooted in his own unique style without being gimmicky. These songs are weird and thoroughly pretentious in a way, but they’re great. Maybe it’s exactly that weirdness that makes this so fresh and captivating. The songs never really change. There’s seldom to never a verse/chorus structure. The songs never really end either. They just groove off into the sunset to make way for the next experience. Adrian Belew’s guitar solos are bizarre and somehow always perfect. This is a masterful set of songs.

This put me in mind of music by an artist named George Winston that my parents use to listen to. I believe this style of music is rather pejoratively called New Age Jazz. Apparently there’s nothing new about it. The wiki talks gleefully about the “8 minute vamp in D major” or the “12 minute vamp in G and A”, and I think, “my god how boring!” And I wasn’t wrong. This isn’t a terrible album to have on in the background of a pleasant dinner party but it’s not music to pay attention to.

Meh. Mostly harmless. Some of the ideas are laughably dated (synth string stabs?!), and Janet does not have Michael’s instrument. Ultimately though I’d say the result is no worse than any decent early 90’s R&B/pop album. It may even have had something to do with defining that sound, but mostly I’m unmoved. Miss You Much is a high note in this otherwise mediocre affair.

Fucking hated every moment of it, and it deserves no more of my time. Ever.

They have all the right moves for a modern indie rock band, but I find them unbelievable. There’s no real soul and I’m not convinced they really had anything to say.

Not as unbearable as I thought two hours of drum ‘n’ bass or whatever the fuck this style of music is called. However I’m not a consumer of whatever drugs necessitate imbibing this quantity of mostly uptempo freneticism. When there is singing, the voice used is unpleasant and, to my ear, flat as hell.

This album holds up very well. The sound is at once wholly Portishead and completely different from the sound they pioneered in their first 2 albums. Their sense of mood and longing and payoff are unparalleled. I think Adrian Utley’s approach to guitar might be in my top five personal influences.

Dreadful, I listened to as much as I could. I begrudgingly cede one star for the music sometimes being less than horrible and the production solid for what they had to work with. But nothing can make up for her wretched voice. I hate everything about her junkie rock star persona.

I nice little Brit rock gem that I was not familiar with. Tight guitar rock songs with good melodies and an occasional hook. The production is uneven in spots, but overall a solid album.

What an instrument she has. Incredible control, tone, and soulfulness. The music is kinda corny classic country but it turns out I mind that a lot less than modern country which just sounds like bad pop music with a fake ass southern drawl. Nothing groundbreaking for the genre but her voice makes it worth the listen.

I have never understood the mystery of Bob Dylan’s success and the types of accolades hit and his music have garnered. To be honest though I had never given one of his albums a true listen so I was ready to be enlightened by what many consider his one of his best. The truth is I finished it more baffled than ever by it. To start with, and this is a fucking big one, his voice is wretched to nigh on unlistenable in almost every context. The songs that seemed to even come close to befitting his tone were the straight forward blues numbers that show nothing of his much acclaimed songwriting ability. Then, about that, the songs that are more typical Bob Dylan are mostly unremarkable to annoying. There are a couple of interesting bridges, but nothing approaching groundbreaking. And not to be overlooked is the liberal use of the harmonica. At the risk of being inflammatory, the harmonica is not a serious instrument. It’s a toy. And as such it is second only to the kazoo in the obnoxiousness of its sound. For the most part all the songs it’s featured in can be dismissed. The white boy blues jams can be forgotten. What’s left are a couple few classic rock jams. So what’s the appeal?! The only thing I will cede him is his lyrics have the potential to be intriguing. They’re always creating fantastic worlds, eclectic characters, and are full of interesting turns of phrase, “…where the moon light sins…” However the voice they are delivered with and their setting leave a lot to be desired.

There are a few funky grooves that are fun but nothing about this recording raises it above the level of typical disco fare. The title track is certainly in contention for most prototypical disco song in pop culture. If you wanna indicate that something is 70’s disco, it’s a go-to song. The lyrics on the whole album are childish and totally meaningless or at least unimportant. I seldom if ever in a disco mood so it’s a pass for me.

I found this to be a one-trick surf rock album without much to offer. In addition it’s physically a hard listen because of the poor quality of the recording. The tone is tinny and brash. Not great.

Thoroughly unique with shades of the theatrical and bizarre. Each musician has a very singular approach to their instrument and the synthesis of these disparate voices makes for a sonic pastiche unlike anything I’ve heard. There are familiar songwriting ideas here but they are used only as a foil for the unusual sounds, chords and tones to play with like a pun. Ultimately it’s not extremely satisfying as a listening experience but marks for originality certainly.

This wasn’t the brand of flower child hippy music I was raised on, and it turns out not to be my favorite. There’s nothing particularly offensive or bad about the music and it has moments of enjoyment. But I just don’t connect to the energy or message of the songs and the “psychedelic” elements are sorta laughable, “Surrealistic Pillow”?! “Embryonic Journey”?!

I love this album more than is reasonable. I first heard it when i worked in restaurants and the bartender sometimes played it when it first came out. The sound was so immediate for me it’s one of the few occasions I went out of my way to find out who it was. Whatever it is this album is consistently “just so”. It does what I like when I want it to. The atmosphere and noisy bits are just right. The singer’s voice sublime. I just love it.

No

First of all this outing really requires you to be beyond comfortable with listening to A LOT of electric organ which has never been one of my favorite tones. Second there’s the decision making to blame. It’s apparent that the musicians are dripping with instrumental ability and musical talent but there’s no sense of any critical self-editing to give this stylistic grab bag some thematic backbone. They can do anything, so they try to do everything. The effect is mostly gratuitous. Lastly, there is the disparity in artistry between the sprawling title track which is at least ambitious, the unforgivable “Are You Ready Freddy?”, and everything in between, both in the track list and quality. It has impressive moments but it’s a dramatically uneven affair.

I’ve never understood the appeal of this band, and this album does nothing to reform that opinion.

I know, I know…Coldplay has become the brunt of the joke, hopelessly mainstream, and completely uncool, but I can’t deny I was taken in by this particular album when it was released. They had put out a pretty solid debut which I still prefer, “Yellow” notwithstanding, and there was some expectation with this album that they managed to cash in on, literally. Listening to it now I think it’s greatest sin is mediocrity. It’s not bad to listen to but it’s seldom exciting. Chris can usually find some melodic gems but he sometimes struggles with delivering them effectively. The band borrows a lot from better artists that I’m not sure they fully understand, but they also changed the sound of pop with a few dead simple songs. I accord it an appropriately middling grade.

Just bizarre and as unpleasant to listen to as I remember. They’ve never been my thing but I’m happy they exist. Much love to my childhood friend, and huge Cocteau Twins fan, Eric Johnston.

This album is perfect for when you feel like being yelled at for 44 minutes. I find Aretha’s voice to have all the charm of a stranger’s dead eyed stare in the mall, and frankly after I experience it I feel aggressed. The only reprieve is the well known Natural Woman where her performance is tamped down into a bearable range and pulls off something akin to sexiness. Otherwise it’s a blast of southern soul that I could have done without. And what the fuck is “Groovin’” doing on this album?! Shouldn’t that be stinking up some one else’s beach rock album?

Just fucking boring as fuck. With the exception of El Preso Numero Nueve for obvious linguistic and stylistic differences, I wouldn’t be able to differentiate one song from another. If you played me 100 Joan Baez songs to me, I’d be completely unable to tell you if any of them came from this album they’re so nondescript. Hard pass.

Not my favorite Morrissey album at first listen, this one has grown on me over the years. One thing I’ve always appreciated about Morrissey is that he seems to create his sound by choosing the right musicians and giving them the freedom to create. He could as easily have slipped into the more standard crooner style songs where the music is all but inconsequential.

Gurl Power!!! (Not in a diminutive way) I enjoyed this way more than I thought I would from the first minute. It would have been easy for them to slip into a boring one-tone post punk mess, but each song managed to be unique though of-a-piece. They do a lot with a little bit of ability. Sort of like a Cibo Matto-style sound with 20% less songs about food. Very cool.

This is by far the best of Mr. Wonder’s catalog we’ve yet seen on the list. The songs are continuously adventurous and unique while fitting comfortably within his sound. There’s a lot of interesting experimentation with different tones and instruments although why some artists, like this one, suffer from the common delusion that the harmonica is a serious instrument and not a toy to be left for children. Thankfully he only ruins a couple of songs with it on this recording. Unfortunately one of them is the otherwise beautiful “Isn’t She Lovely”. That tune heads up the possibly not entirely necessary second disc and demonstrates this half of the music’s penchant for running needlessly long in tooth. Besides these missteps though I found it primarily enjoyable and a true testament to the enduring legacy of Stevie Wonder that I had been missing.

Gotta say this one grew on me. I find it impossibly hard to categorize. Maybe avant garde pirate polka rock for your Russian nephew’s bar mitzvah? Still working it out. Fun at times. Some brilliant moments. It isn’t my favorite. Note to the producer, the mix is crystalline to borderline shrill. Fix dat for the re-release. But I found the musicianship and sheer breadth of influences laudable.

“ At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it.” In my own personal telling of the Divine Comedy there’s an additional, tenth ring in the Inferno over whose gate is inscribed simply, “Allman Bros.”

God I love this dude whatever he chooses to call himself. His music transcends all styles to be uniquely his and it’s signed with his magnificently singular voice. I noticed on the early tracks of this album especially the acoustic guitar is recorded with so much pick noise that it becomes a both a melodic and a rhythmic instrument. I truly hope to see Teaser And The Firecat on this list as well.

Another classic by one of the greats. To be honest the list has once again presented the lesser of an artist’s works but I can only truly judge its place in the whole of music not just against their own catalog. By that metric this album is a masterpiece. Flawed in places, uh…Myxamytosis?!, but by turns mostly beautiful, interesting, and awesome.

I’ve probably said it too many times to bear repeating but the list just misses my tastes again. They could have chosen Timberlake’s very solid sophomore effort, FutureSex/LoveSounds. Instead they choose his lackluster, uneven debut. Admittedly the actual quality of the production is on point. I haven’t looked it up but it sounds like Pharrell Williams and/or The Neptunes at their height of influence. The songs are mostly unremarkable and the last song (Never Again?) is unforgivably cheesy and has no place on this album at all. Try again list.

I feel like I finally get Prince’s genius in a deeper way than I ever have before. His genius is in layers. First there’s the sheer volume of content of a certain quality. There is almost an hour and a half of music on this “standard” edition but undoubtedly it was selected from an even deeper well of material. Then there’s His Sound. Complex layers of rhythms from syncopated drum machines, synth melodies, funky guitar riffs, and, if he so chooses, some bass. Prince at his best, for someone that is capable of anything, shows incredible taste and great restraint in what he chooses both to include and to omit in the pursuit of a compelling groove. Once he’s found the groove we find the next layer of his genius: he can write great fucking songs too. Seldom gratuitous, often brilliant, sublime, nuanced, catchy as hell songs. He so accomplished at writing songs in fact that his choice is to sometimes completely forego His Sound altogether and paint with a different brush just because he fucking can. That’s not always as successful in my opinion because sometimes he really nails an imitation of a genre I find inferior to his own, like the misplaced Christian rock-tinged “The Cross”. All-in-all though this is the most consistently likable and listenable set of Prince masterpieces I’ve ever heard assembled. My personal favorite stretch begins with “Hot Thing” and closes with the hit “I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man” which is almost an album’s worth of incredible content for a lesser artist. The self-editing could have cut a little deeper overall in my humble opinion and the critical omission of 2, maybe 3, songs from set would have made it a stronger album experience.

I’ve personally always held that the mystique of Buckley’s tragically early demise has artificially elevated this from the forgettable alt-rock album that it is. That idea was unaltered by this listen. There are some moments of “grace” but the songs are mostly forgettable with the obvious exception of Leonard Cohen’s masterpiece, Hallelujah. The production mostly decent but suffers from the prevailing malady of the state of commercial rock at the time, grunge. Songs of that ilk, like the ironic “Everlasting Life” which would give Mr Vedder a fine backdrop on which to sing in the key of R, seem especially unsuited to Mr Buckley’s voice. A voice whose quality is unquestionable but whose use I find uncompelling to borderline irritating.

Well it’s an uneven affair to put it lightly. The cheapness and variation of production values doesn’t help. There are a couple of songs like “Don’t” that despite empathizing with the sentiment I don’t ever need to hear again. But for whatever reason I love Dinosaur Jr and J Mascis is one of my favorite guitar players. I can’t separate those feelings from this recording because I see all of the riffiness, the noisiness, the songwriting, the surprisingly modern and poetic lyrics, and the solo licks that mark the recordings I like more by them, such as singular Green Mind. For that potential, and because I don’t expect to see Green Mind on this list, I award this album one additional star.

It makes me very happy to see this album, or any Tortoise album, made the list! Such a great super band. The metaphysical soundtrack for a beautiful movie never written. Unique songwriting approaches, significant noise, haunting textures, rhythmic intrigue. I just love what they do. And having seen them perform this and other albums live, I love the way they do it. This is the state of the art for some subcategory of modern jazz.

Childish, predictable, proto-rock bullshit. One point for basically inventing the genre.

Silly

Masterpiece. A thousand and one meticulously chosen sounds orchestrated into a perfectly layered aural fabric that transcends the individual compositions. This is my personal favorite from their exceptional catalog. To me it’s the true heyday of sonic daring from the zenith of everyone in the band’s investiture in the overall output, a period that ran from OK Computer to Amnesiac. “How To Disappear Completely”, my personal favorite, still holds as possibly the finest song they’ve ever recorded. I’ll stop short of going track by track to detail the genius strokes in each, which I could totally do. I don’t have to do that though because it is the thematic and musical cohesion of the whole that truly makes this as a masterpiece of the album art form.

Remarkably unremarkable

Like many I was enamored of the song Pink Moon when it was featured in a Volkswagen commercial back in the day which led me to get his greatest hits album although that’s not how I usually like to approach material from an artist new to me. Listening to this album is a perfect example of why it’s a bad idea. The greatest hits album although good was uneven and as I remember tended toward the maudlin. This album on the other hand is a solid piece of art. Not only are the songs good, interesting and not mopey, they’re unique though thematically akin, the arrangements are beautiful, there are repeated themes, and I love that it is bookended by instrumental orchestra pieces to give the experience some structure. Very well done.

I was surprised and delighted to find that Janis actually has more depth and range to her instrument than her screamfest radio hits would let on. I found her mostly charming and she has a really solid band for a straight up rock outfit. It’s not music I’m compelled to revisit though, and it was corny and churchy in spots. It would have been interesting to see where she might of gone had we had her longer, but I suspect that her ability to sustain the sort of savagery she attacks her vocals with would have been short lived whether she was or not.

I feel like I’ve seen this band at least a hundred times at a hundred smoky clubs though I’ve never heard a note of their music before. They have all the energy and rawness of a decent garage band sort of like an unwashed, punkier B-52’s. Not my favorite but I appreciate the most and DIY attitude hangs on the music liken your favorite pair of jeans.

One of the most irritating aspects of funk music, at least the way Funkadelic plays it, is that the favorite subject for the song is “Funk” and just how fucking funky the song you’re listing to is. It’s a bit like watching a movie you’ve never seen before with the director’s commentary on. It really takes you out of the experience of listening to the music to have the music make reference to itself all the time. However stylistically and musically there was a lot more to this album than I expected. The songs are all a little too long but this is party music, not music for sitting and brooding over so that’s not tragic. Pretty fun all things considered.

A full plate of hot, steaming, Finnish, hair metal wannabe, turds right in your ear hole. I dislike when he said, “I come from the outer space”. And there the joy ends.

Dreadfully long and despite covering a fair amount of stylistic ground not that interesting to me. Being a third of CSN seems to temper his less pleasant musical tendencies and is quite enough for me, thanks.

This is THE Neil Young album for me. It has (almost) all the iconic tunes I associate with the best parts of his solo career, and taken as a whole this album is a sampler platter of the various styles that epitomize that career. There’s the poignant solo acoustic ballad (The Needle And The Damage Done), the riffier acoustic band jam (Heart Of Gold), some proto-grunge electric rocker with his signature dirty guitar sound (Alabama), a little country (Old Man), a piano ballad (the beautiful but perhaps problematically misogynistic Man Needs A Maid), and, yes, some ill-advised though moderate use of a harmonica (Out On The Weekend). There are a few dull spots here and there but that’s probably the album’s worse sin, being slightly less interesting in spots.

Some history for the kids…Unplugged was a show on MTV… okay back up, MTV was a TV channel…back a little further?…okay a TV was like a big tablet that you put on a wall in your house…. Anyway in the before time, Unplugged had a moment as sort a cultural force in popular music. A simple concept of having contemporary and classic artists from various genres perform acoustic sets that took off like wildfire. From the humble early episodes that usually involved no more than a couple of acoustic guitars and a singer, the show became almost instantly successful. Viewers thrilled at seeing familiar bands playing familiar songs in an unfamiliar setting. The format was so successful that “bigger” acts, by acclaim and actual number of personnel, became enticed by this chance to reinvent themselves. Soon the quality of the performances increased and the production values to match. With popularity rising, some genius named Paul McCartney thought it might be a good idea to release his performance as a (bootleg) album. Eric Clapton did the same and won 6 Grammys in 1992. Wasn’t long before everyone was milking this cash cow. Which leads us to grunge superstars, Nirvana, sitting down to record an acoustic set in 1993. It was a moment in time. We didn’t know that they had already released all the studio music they would ever produce and Kurt would be dead in less than six months. This performance would become their coda. They were at the absolute height of their power having recently released the dark masterpiece In Utero. I was a fan. Of them and the show. So when this premiered my friends and I huddled around the TV, programmed the VCR to record it at the same time so we could watch it repeatedly (history lesson on some other time), and watched excitedly as they took the stage, eager to see what they did with the opportunity. To be honest at the time I was disappointed. The set was about a third covers of songs I’d never heard (including Man Who Sold The World which I didn’t know) that seemed designed, especially those in the latter half of the set, to challenge the lay listener’s expectations of Nirvana. The originals they chose were pretty obvious, mostly down tempo songs that didn’t have to be altered much to be performed acoustic like Polly and Something In The Way. Visually they seemed pretty spent or tired or fucked up or something and I remember feeling sorry or sad for Cobain because he was clearly struggling at times. The “Unplugged” banner became more and more a brand and not really an edict by which the artists had to abide and this performance really stretches the bounds of what could be considered “Unplugged”. Dave plays a full drum kit which wasn’t really de rigueur for the show. Chris has chorus on his “acoustic” bass that is definitely running into an amp somewhere. There are all kinds of effects, including distortion, on the guitars in parts, and they’re mic’d so hot they’re often overdriven. To me there was none of the anticipated reimagining of their formula or revelations to be had in the performance. The whole affair smacked of sellout. This listen proved that my feelings have mellowed somewhat in the intervening years. I’m not as connected to the source material so it’s just nice to hear some Nirvana tunes. I remembered it as sloppy, but the performance is tighter than I gave it credit for especially I think when divorced from the visuals. I like the sort of raw overdriven acoustic guitar sound. They found a way to “Nirvana-ify” the Unplugged format, and now I don’t mind the liberties they took. Many of the unfamiliar covers have slipped into the zeitgeist because of this recording like Lake Of Fire, and I still love this version of Bowie’s song almost as much or more than the fantastic original maybe because I heard theirs first. It’s hard for me to consider a live album more than just a collection of songs or a good set, but ironically the mildly enforced format ties this one together into something a bit more.

I’ve heard of this album and always sort of thought the title was a cheeky joke because who in their right mind would put 69 songs on an album. Boy was I wrong. It’s too much music to ask the listener to pay attention to in one sitting and certainly too many to keep ensure the quality of the product. Even if you’re the most creative band in history with multiple songwriters contributing, this many songs smacks of a lack of self-editing. It also means that in order to record this many songs on an Indy record label budget you have to just burn through songs in the studio or record it yourself. Either way the end result is the same, sub-par recordings. All of that is in evidence here, variability of song quality, lack of self-editing, and poor sonic quality. Now the music itself. I have a similar crooner baritone that I’ve always kept bagged as corny or mockable, and here are almost 69 (he doesn’t sing them all) examples of why I was right to do so. I can’t take him seriously. The textures they choose are often just weird not cool and sometimes distractingly grating. It’s not all bad but some energy spent concentrating this vivacity into a focused set of a third the length would have been well spent.

Mostly dumb rock bullshit but there were some cool riffs at times. Pre-Stones Ronnie Wood showed me more here than all of his tenure with that band. Not saying it was good, just slightly more interesting. I’m not a fan of Rod Stewart’s voice by any means, but if you have him why would you let the other guy sing any of the songs. It must have been his band. Rod’s voice sounds terrible trying to sing harmony. Pass.

I so very much wanted to hate this more than I did, and I hate it for that. If the E Street Band ever did anything right it’s probably on this record. It’s bombastic and dramatic and ridiculous and laughable and very very occasionally pure rock bliss. And in the middle is this undeniable firecracker, The Boss(?), standing tall with a shit ton of swagger selling some absurd fantasy of American life. Somehow it all works for a song or two. Extra point for getting the harmonica out of the way in like the first minute.

It’s fine. Sort of the full truth of a certain sub-genre of jazz I might call “light” jazz. Melodic and palatable without asking too much of the listener. It gets a little nudge in the rating because I do think it accomplishes a pretty complete album experience that supersedes its individual performances. It sets and sustains a moody throughout and I could see revisiting for that reason alone.

Well somebody made some money and bought some new toys. This band’s debut album was on heavy rotation in my house when it was first released. I loved the simple but effective production touches that dressed up the clean guitar lines. The melodies were beautiful and catchy. There was a sparseness, a use of silence to create drama and longing that underpinned the sexually charged vocals. When I started this album I was afraid they had lost there way and honestly I think Dangerous is just a mistake despite them obviously being proud enough to start the album with it. Similarly I could dismiss the next two songs though they’re fine enough. However with A Violent Noise and the aching Performance the album takes a remarkable turn. They suddenly rediscover what makes them great. The drama, the sexiness, and the compelling interplay of loud/quiet, noise and silence return to their palette, and the rest is incredible. I had to listen to it twice just to be sure I liked it as much as I did. Their sound has grown and they have a lot of tools at their disposal. Interested to listen to the album between this and the debut and to see where they go in the future.

I fell in love with big band music first through the Swingers soundtrack and then more deeply from a weekly show on public radio called Sunday Swing. Count Basie is one of the unequivocal masters of the form and everything he does right is in full display in this album. This is not jazz. These are precise and meticulous arrangements, and Basie wields his orchestra like a uniquely sublime instrument. The melodies are spot on, the compositions move, he tells a story with no words. I find no exception to it for what it is, a seminal recording in the history of American music.

Another one of mom’s favorites but I didn’t have the emotional reaction that previous selections gave me. The songs that work the best here are the ones that are written and treated like the urban “folk” songs that fit her voice and style best. Unfortunately it seems some producer had to get involved and try to produce much of it like some kind of ersatz pop album which really doesn’t work. The touches are overwrought, stylistically divergent, and in places just corny as hell. I’d say it falls in a category overall of did-not-age-well. Slight bump because the stories are interesting when she focuses on them.

This album gets what it gets because though seminal in the history of rap, especially “gangster rap”, it has only the barest most incipient touches of the creativity that hip hop would grow into. Everything, the lyrics, the nursery rhyme schemes, the delivery, the production, and the ideas, everything sounds dated. I mean can today’s Ice T even support the albums violent, anti police themes after having made millions of dollars playing a police officer on tv for over a decade? Does the justification of the use of the word “bitches”, don’t worry ladies he calls men “butches” too so it’s okay, hold up under any modern logical scrutiny? However beyond all this and in no way impacting my score, I find the use of the “N” word problematic for me as a white listener. This is bound to come up again if virtually any other rap albums are featured on this list so let me address it specifically once. The totality of this album is noticeably light on the use of this word by modern rap standards but there is an entire song dedicated to its use so it feels appropriate to comment on this here. At once there is the very obvious difficulty that listening to this music creates an environment in which I have to repeatedly hear a word that I do not want to and cannot repeat which is almost the exact stated purpose of a song, to get stuck in your head. I was raised in some poor parts of the South, and I have heard this word said more to me in person by people of all shades than I ever need to have heard it. It is a hateful, debasing word to me no matter whose mouth it is in, and I simply cannot understand, rationalize, or support its use by anyone. Arguments that it is somehow a reclamation of a hate word by the oppressed do not hold water with me. It’s not an a word appropriated by the oppressors from some vestige of common black culture. It’s a word of the slavers, of the unjustifiable time when men fully believed they could own another human being to be treated like a lesser animal. These ideas and this word need to come to an end. It is a remnant of a bygone time that we are all best healing from and leaving behind. It is a label of “other” that is unsustainable in our globally connected era. Never again should anyone live in fear of being owned. This is not to say that the experiences of Africans at the hands of European and American slavers should never be forgotten. Let it forever be a cautionary tale of the inhumanity that humans can visit upon other humans, but letting it become a cultural identity serves no one.

What a weird album. By no means enjoyable but I’m sort of glad it exists. Whether this was ever heard by enough future artists to become influential is debatable, but there are clearly some ideas that are ahead of their time in this recording. I hear something akin to the relationship Sonic Youth and a slew of noise bands have with dissonance and atonal sound. The use of electronics and synth tones has to have been groundbreaking for the time. I guess “avant garde” is the moniker that fits. But the songs are only half serious, and never really gel into an enjoyable listen. The version of the album that is linked here is greatly expanded and I actually found that the alternate versions and takes of some of the material unintentionally added a little more intentionality to the collective statement of the album that did it good.

In a previous review for the Unplugged album I called this album a dark masterpiece even though my memory of this album at its release was that it was somewhat lackluster and poorly recorded. So much praise for this album and its Steve Albini production since its release somehow led me to disregard that sentiment and doubt my opinion. It is NOT a masterpiece at all. It’s a pretty uneven affair with some of the songs being just plain obnoxious and purposefully didactic. And in reality it doesn’t even sound good at all. The first critique is also usually the first accolade, the drum sound. They are certainly loud as shit and detailed, but they sound like they were recorded in your living room while you are sitting in it. This roomy reverb tone for the drums and the vigor with which they are attacked is the same for almost every song giving the whole a flat intensity that seldom lets up. Don’t get me wrong, I think Dave is a fine rock drummer, but this album is not why. Then there’s the bass…or is there…? Most of the time I can’t hear it at all and when I do it has a terrible, toyish tone that is anathematic to what should be a heavy band. There are even times where I can sort of make out what he’s playing and it seems like just the sort of rhythmic and sonic texture that the mix and songs so sorely need. That just leaves the guitars, layers and layers of guitars playing almost always the same thing in an attempt to, I don’t know, fill all the empty space left by the non-existent bass and amelodic drums. It’s not much to hold on to.

I tried to explain to my kids what “glam rock” was. Honestly I’m still not entirely sure, but I know that Mark Bolan is at the forefront of whatever it is. It feels like he and Bowie basically invented and perfected this sub genre and they are by far the best purveyors of it. In typical fashion the list has sidestepped the more obvious and successful Electric Warrior, but this one ain’t bad. I will say for my money I prefer Bauhaus’s frenetic cover of Telegram Sam over the more subdued original on this album.

God I hate the blues, and there is a lot of it to hate here. I learned everything I ever needed to know or wanted to hear of blues guitar from watching the Stevie Ray Vaughan “Live at the El Mocambo” (sp?) DVD a million years ago, and his version of Little Wing completely shreds this band take. Interspersed into these tired, formulaic blues meanderings are a few tired, formulaic straight up rock songs too. Lastly I’ve had a long running gripe about the song Layla and particularly its long-winded outro. To say that the very highest note of the very high guitar motif that plays through much of the beginning of the song successfully bends to the right pitch every one of the million times it’s played would stretch credulity. But tell me the very high slide guitar that belabors the outro is in tune and I’ll call you a fucking liar. It’s annoying as hell, and I think about it every time I watch the end of Goodfellas. It gets one mark for the fact that because of this album my name would have been Layla if I was born a girl.

No. Just no. I’ve never considered Alice Cooper a serious artist in any regard and now I know why.

God I hate the Stones and this is just another reason why. They don’t even seem to take themselves seriously. Other than the opening track which may be the only song by them that is worth a shit this is a thoroughly regrettable string of drool from baby’s chin.

HARD PASS AND WHAT THE EVER LOVING FUCK LIST!!!! This band appears to be OPENLY FUCKING RACIST!!! I did not read the article or read the track listing beforehand. I was suspicious after the first song. Disturbed by the third. Got to the fourth and turned it off at the chorus. I don’t believe any band of white guys or really anyone, even ironically or in jest, has the right to sing “We are the master race!” Why is this on here??

Forgettable and long. They would have been better served to put twice as much effort into half as many tracks. I don’t even think 50 Cent is well respected in the rap community so his place here is questionable. The album isn’t groundbreaking or interesting. It plays like a B-grade rapper ruining some tracks from Dr. Dre’s sketch pad.

So Green Day has grown up and stopped singing about farts and jerking off in favor of a “concept” album about the “Jesus of Suburbia”, huh? Still don’t like them but I’ll admit a little nostalgia for purveyors of power chords that their sound is indicative of. Under all the production and distortion most of these songs are basically corny doowop songs that don’t really push the truth of music forward in any way.

This is a very challenging album. None of the grooves are for free. Each song lays down the gauntlet for you to figure out how the songs move. Not always successful but I applaud the uniqueness and taking a big swing.

Willie Nelson is charming. His voice is charming. His approach to guitar, to songwriting, to melody, his hair, his well known affinity for drugs, his very fucking presence, it’s all charming as fuck and it’s all uniquely his own. This is a cover album of songs done just like only Willie Nelson could do them. His heartrending take on Unchained Melody is the absolute highlight for me but I was mostly entertained throughout. Not every song is as captivating as some but they’re pretty solid. Real talk: the overall vibe is pretty corny, but Willie’s charm bears a lot of weight. As an album of covers this comes pretty close to graduating from a killer “set” to being an actual album by the strength of artist vision and singularity of mind in arranging their version to create something new that is theirs.

If Lou Reed ever did anything truly great, it’s probably on this album. He seems to me an artist who is heavily influenced by the company he keeps for better or worse. During this phase of his career, he was hanging out with the right dudes. Together they had or helped the genius to lift his sometimes juvenile two-chord excursions up to sublime textural masterpieces. Perhaps this is Lou Reed’s true genius and perhaps a bit of his folly. He one cool ass muthafucka. He’s so cool that fucking Bowie wanted to sing backup on his album. In the end though they can’t save him from himself. There are songs here that are just wrong. I don’t get why some songs were treated like circus music that make his droll delivery sorta laughable. Juxtaposed against cultural touchstones like Walk On The Wild Side makes for an uneven affair.

Proving once again that my self-proclaimed hatred of country music seems to soften when presented with true country music, this album didn’t suck. Her voice runs along the dot edge of grating/compelling that I find distressing in a fair amount of female country singers, but I appreciated the musicality and the rawness of the songs.

I for some reason went into this listen expecting to find some cool, overlooked gem of pop music from the formative era of my childhood. What I found was nothing remarkable though. Not bad but seldom great. The sound is dated and doesn’t do anything impressive enough to transcend the shortcomings of the production. Also I never know if what I’m listening to is the original incarnation of the album’s track listing or some jumped up reissue with a b-sides and alt takes, but there seemed to be a lot of this album which exacerbated the tedium.

This could have been called Elvis Costello’s History Of Rock ‘n’ Roll Suite, and I think it’s brilliant. Every song seems to flourish from stylistic affection of some branch of the genre into fully realized perfection under his scrutiny. Each expression says “this is where I come from” and “this is where I’m going” at the same time. Even the songs that examine rock sub genres I’m not especially drawn to find a way to embody the style and emblazon his signature brand as if to say, “this is how it’s done.” I’ve generally been ambivalent about Costello’s work, but I’m glad to have been exposed to this one.

No real standouts on this one for me. Certainly nothing to break the stereotype of country song women as helpless, man-obsessed victims of their lover who done them wrong. The harmonies are nice. Linda clearly has the stronger lead voice, but they too sparingly make use of it for that.

A strong, interesting, unique sound that transcends the sum of its parts. It seems to really get into some fascinating territory in the second half. Noticeably lacking a lot in the way of percussion but it feels like a definite choice particularly given how sporadically the dub bass lines support the rhythm in a straightforward way. I dig it.

An appalling example of cultural appropriation. He basically recorded a bunch of South African musicians, made up lyrics over their music, and passed it off as his own. The end result is often pretty silly, but it’s very occasionally sublime. I’m just not sure who to credit for any of that though.

What an appalling drudgery this listen was. Wretched in conception and execution. This is gonna show my age but this hardly qualifies as music.

I’ve always thought of Pixies as more of a greatest hits sorta band because sometimes when their songs aren’t great they’re horrible. A little of that is in evidence on this album but for the most part there are a lot of great tracks.

There’s something absolutely remarkable about this album. The songs, the styles, the influences, the variety, and just the timing of this recording in history are simply sublime. Most of all though her voice is remarkable. As lovely in any language, haunting, controlled and strong. Literally my only complaint about this album is that microphone and recording technology had not progressed to a point to be able to handle the power of her voice at times, and the recording is basically blown out when she really belts one. But it hardly distracts from the enjoyment of this recording.

What a fucking mess. I never liked Oasis. I didn’t like their singles. I didn’t like them in interviews. And I was a Blur fan so I didn’t like them because of their beef with that band. Now I see that they are just as pompous and untalented as I always believed them to be. There’s not an original idea on this whole recording. As a matter of fact some songs openly rip off better songs and still fail to produce anything more than dreadful mediocrity. There’s the opening track that overtly steals the melody from “I’d Like To Buy The World A Coke” and a song later on that is the exact riff from “Bang A Gong”. Add to all that Liam’s obnoxious voice, ridiculous diction (he pronounces “shine” shee-ii-eee-ine one too many times for my taste), and nursery rhyme lyrics and you have a perfect storm of bullshit.

Fucking blues. Apparently in 1966 the genre was already bereft of any original ideas. I’ll begrudgingly give it a point because I really enjoyed the guitar tones if not the performances.

An homage to overdrive. A love letter to distortion sealed with a kiss. A master class in noise. Velvety textures. Haunting melodies. A singular musical experience. Let the warmth of the songs encompass you. Fall into the well of sound.

Anyone who knows R.E.M’s catalog and was paying attention when this album came out knows that this is the album where they “sold out”. Having had a pretty significant hit on their last album on the indy I.R.S. label with The One I Love, and that got them promoted to the majors, Warner Bros specifically. However the undeniably trite Stand not withstanding, this is as solid an R.E.M. album as there is. Everything they do well is in evidence here.

For the first couple of songs I thought what an intriguing nugget of psychedelic rock that I’ve never heard of. But the album sorta devolves into basically silliness and by the time you reach the last song, The Toonerville Trolley, I’m pretty sure they aren’t geniuses and I suspect they may be idiots. I’ll give them credit for a few original idea though.

I’m finding the more I listen to Paul Simon involved albums on this list the more I respect him as a songwriter, but on this recording I was impressed by the arrangements and production as much as the songwriting. There are just some really inspired, classy touches that I love, like the ghostly super-reverby snare accents in The Boxer. The songwriting and performances are on point too. When all three elements work together as they often do, the result is pretty compelling. As corny as it is, it’s hard to deny how evocative the title track is.

This recording breathes bravado. There’s no moment that isn’t completely confident. Not a single second where the artists doubt that they’re giving you the most awesome and perfect version of this idea. A dance album. An electro freakout. A prototype for so much Indy and pop music to come. Love it.

God I just couldn’t do it. I made it to the notoriously cornball Smoke On The Water and couldn’t take anymore. It was so bad that when they pulled out a harmonica on one tune I was just glad it wasn’t another pointlessly obnoxious guitar solo. Just dreadful.

Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooring!

It’s amazing how much I liked this album while disliking almost all of the songs. I’d put the style of most of the songwriting graciously in the realm of traditional folk music, like madrigal music, and I found it mostly uninteresting. However the textures and rhythms that the musicians used to frame the songs was superb. I loved everything the bass player chose and some of the guitar parts are crazy.

Flawless. Every song is wonderful and the second side may be my favorite stretch of music ever produced. This is the jumping off point for the next 50 years of pop music. A fitting end for one of the most influential bands of all time. Even the goofier tunes like Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, a personal favorite, and the obligatory Ringo-sung Octopus’s Garden are right at home here. Simply flawless.

Rufus Wainwright has a relationship with songwriting that I barely understand. I’ve always liked his sound and was really into Cigarettes And Chocolate Milk, but I’ve always found some of his choices rather inexplicable or aimless. This album seems steeped heavily in that side of his output and it’s not especially successful to me. However the songs are typically unique and confident in a way that makes me feel like I’m just not getting it and the fault is mine.

Really list?! Really?! This album? Of all of the wonderful, landmark U2 recordings we get this one first? This is the absolute twilight album of relevance in modern music. It’s the last even partially listenable record in their catalog and really besides the singles it’s a very subpar affair. Bono insists on singing songs that just do not fit his voice and for an elder statesman he seems to have remarkably little worth singing about. I give it one extra point simply because I know they can put out even worse albums than this. After this album the released one of their next albums for free to download on iTunes. It’s so bad that even at free I felt ripped off and I couldn’t even make it all the way through. Let’s hope we get to see Joshua Tree or Rattle And Hum or Achtung Baby or fucking Zooropa or really any of their albums before this one.

Yawn. A band with not much to express worth listening to.

The list strikes again. The Smiths are one of my all time favorite bands, but I would have chosen pretty much any other album but this one to represent them. Well I Wonder aside the songs seem more aimless than previous efforts. The guitar parts aren’t of the precise, ornately picked variety that informs so much of their sound. And the title track is just wretchedly sanctimonious and unpleasant to listen to with its piped in industrial machinery and animal sounds. Still beats the hell out of a lot of shit on this list though so it gets a rating bump.

Groovy. Even if you’ve never heard this recording when some says “hippie music” this album is what you’re thinking of. I will give them a lot of credit for audacity and bravado. Just to open the album with the sprawling unique Alone Again Or took huge brass balls. The rest of the album doesn’t necessarily pay off on the promise of that song, but most of the songs are vaguely interesting if at times a bit silly.

My attention glanced off this album a half dozen times before I gave up on trying to listen to it. I don’t know why, but it just doesn’t connect with me on any level. I know this band is well regarded. I feel like I have enjoyed a song or two of theirs in the past, but I’m unable to remember what those songs were nor are they in evidence here. One star bump because in my heart I feel like it’s me who’s failing them.

Oh god help me I’m not gonna give Skynard a one star review. If there’s anything vaguely listenable this band has produced, it is on this album. Tuesday’s Gone, Simple Man, even mother fucking Freebird for christ’s sake. It’s pretty much the beginning and end of true southern rock. Fuuuuuxk…I’m gonna give it a threeeeee!!! What has this list bought me to?!

What strikes me first about this recording is that it FEELS like the band really enjoys playing with each other. They’re having a blast (intended). And for the most part the songs are pretty fun and have great parts. The guitarist goes a little long in the tooth sometimes and I could have used about half of Free Form Guitar, but dude can shred. I was also surprised to find that I already knew several songs from this album which I had just never attributed to THAT Chicago. I feel like they may have actually released this album under the band name Chicago Transit Authority originally which adds to the confusion. Anyway…decent.

An absolute masterpiece of the genre. Awesome beats; masterful delivery; poignant themes; and it’s almost entirely clean. This is west coast rap undoubtedly but it is the antithesis of California gangster rap. They even seem to challenge those artists with the salient query: how does profiting off of the violent stereotype of black male youth make your culture better? The songs are “hard”, the flows aggressive, it they never succumb to cliche. They have all the charm of Tribe but more balls and better books.

Finally THE Queen album I’ve been looking for!! I knew they were capable of absolute genius in song form but I’ve always found their albums, like the collection of their singles, uneven and sometimes outright silly. But I always hoped for an album that cashed in on the promise of songs like Bohemian Rhapsody and Killer Queen and finally here it is! I don’t know how I never managed to have listened to this one before and truly every song was a discovery and a delight. There was one sorta silly one that was some dunderheaded rock and roll bullshit and didn’t even sound like Freddy singing, but I’ll forgive them that. There are bands who fill whole catalogs with the sort progressions that are one time through tricks Queen will do just to get from one part to another in a single song. The album is positively bursting with ideas and yet stays more focused sonically and stylistically than anything else I’ve heard by them…or ever really. The recording is also an incredible use of stereo mixing and effects and deserves a listen in excellent headphones.

This recording completes a circle of influence spanning from the traditional African rhythms that influenced the American invention of the blues only to be taken as a reference point for a traditional Malinese guitar band. When the first few bars played, a straightforward down-tempo blues riff standard, I fretted (intended) that this would be another melancholy blues affair bereft of anything new. I’m so glad to have been quickly proven wrong. When the rhythm drops you know you’re in fresh territory. “Blues” is only a useful framework on with to hang these vibrant tapestries, but their sound is so much more. Rhythmically adventurous, inventive time signatures, infectious vocals, fierce guitar. This album is pretty sigma not gonna lie. It starts fantastic. I’d give my third eye to play guitar like the first three tracks. However it does dial down the awesome a bit in the second act. Still it closes strong. The last track may be one of my favorites. Exceptional.

George Michael and I have so much in common that I really felt like I “got” this album when I was sixteen. We were both earnest, emotional, deeply heartbroken men, devilishly handsome, a little kinky, and we both had secrets. Not the same secrets mind you but kindred by the burning desire to be shed of them nonetheless. This album “meant” something to me, and I’ll admit to shedding a tear or two then and now. Particularly the plaintive albeit kinda dated title track. I know it’s exactly a piece of art but as a specimen of the state of pop music in 1990 it stood up for me. I dock it one shy of a perfect score primarily for one reason. I listened to a version, the only version available, that was purportedly “remastered”. Someone failed that assignment with disastrous consequences. The recording had ZERO ASS!!! There’s no umph or power or just plain low end to give it some punch and body of modern listening environments. The high end is pushed up to just a decibel below shrill and there is an inexplicably sibilant amount of reverb and delay on the lead vocal in every freaking song. It’s obnoxious. Wake me up for the re-remaster.

I don’t have a lot to say about the album because it, as a whole, didn’t make much impression of me. Solid B+. But I will take a moment to discuss the synergistic relationship between film and music. Before 1994, no one I knew had ever heard the song Son of a Preacher Man. Then Pulp Fiction exposes a whole new generation to nuggets like this one perfectly arranged to accompany Tarantino’s undisputed masterpiece. Since then the song has become emblematic of dangerous romance and I give a lot of credit for this to its use in the movie. However listening to it on its own devoid of the visuals I was struck by the fact that the song was already its own masterpiece of forbidden love. Its use in the movie to usher in the sequence where Vincent Vega finds himself attracted to his boss’s wife is sublime foreboding. Another incredibly on point choice by the auteur. Another delicious bit of irony to layer onto a classically ironic hit.

Karen O + NYC scenster musicians + Maps = $$$ Nah jk. A couple of cool tunes and generally a decent use of a dynamic frontwoman and a limited sonic pallet. The drummer tends to be off doing his own thing to me most of the time but they a’ight.

Real talk: music has moved on in virtually all the ways that define this music. It’s kinda corny. But there’s something charmingly earnest about it and it won me over a bit. That was gonna push me to a 4 but then Spotify played Grandmaster Flash after this album finished and I was reminded of what a true seminal genius of the genre is capable of. That knocked it down a peg.

While they were negotiating the contract for this album do you think the haggled other the inclusion of “the note” needlessly in almost every song? They’re like “5 million and 60% of the songs have the note.” She’s like, “give me 10 million and I’ll do it all the fucking time!” In my fantasy MC drives a hard bargain and usually gets what she wants. Sometimes you’ll hear “the note” just whispering through the background of some song, unrelated to anything else that’s going on. One time I thought there was some horribly errant caterwaul ensuing in the middle distance only to realize it was just another yoddley (sic) application of “the note” and its near relatives. In the end nothing remarkable except maybe the galling modernity of the title track’s ode to open marriage. Wink. I know that’s not what she’d say it’s about but it’s fun to imagine while you listen to it. More fun than whatever appalling banality she’s actually screaming about at any rate.

Proof positive that even geniuses fart out a turd every once in awhile. Very little of the ingenuity that would capture my attention in their later work is in evidence here. Sure it’s very nice and proper and chip chip cheerio but it just isn’t very awesome. I don’t think this album would even make my top ten of albums by The Beatles. In fact on relisten I found the songs smacked of middle class white privilege. Their saccharine take on what they perceived to be the blues or even rock ‘n’ roll is almost laughably under informed and hopelessly cliched. One might argue that this album is why these songs sound so cliched because it inspired so many artists. While that may be important fact for popular music history is is nothing but an irrelevant detail to me the listener.

I can’t remember how my brief love affair with The Cardigans began but it was before Lovefool became a hit and was cemented by the cover of Iron Man. Whoever the character portrayed in the songs is, they have a complex relationship with love and the songs are by turns somewhat cavalier about it and fully obsessed with it. What really struck me on this listen that I had forgotten was how incredibly ironic the song Lovefool is in this context. The saccharine sweet “love” song is really a plea from an emotionally unstable lover who wants to be fooled into believing that the object of their obsession feels the same. “I don’t care about anything but you” is a warning not a playful sobriquet. I think this perspective redeems a song which has unflinchingly become synonymous with the flush of new love, and puts the cherry on top of this European pop delicacy.

There are some absolute masterpieces on here like Southern Man and the title track, some perennial gems, but there are some clunkers too. He has a way of dressing up even those that makes them feel sacred. All in all one of his better efforts.

I’ve always wanted to like this band more than I do. I don’t really know why. I don’t think it will make me cooler to like them but I just feel a kinship to these older dudes who have kinda “made it” on their own terms. But I just don’t. I’ve listened to this album more than some albums I like trying to will myself to enjoy it to no avail. The closest is Afraid of Everyone but even that tune annoys me a bit. I think one major factor is I hate pretty much every choice the drummer makes. He somehow finds the most intrusive, difficult, and unpleasant take on the rhythm and plays it full blast most of the time. He literally sucks all the pleasure out of the songs with these “hey look what I can do” parts.

I adore this album. It has a special place in my heart as indicative of a very happy time in my life. This album dropped and was immediately on the playlist. I love its beautiful minimalism, its sexiness, the longing in every song. I’m struck again on relisten after some time away from this by how sparse it is but how complete the songs feel. There’s a million ideas that could have been laid on top of these songs, but they skipped right to the best 10. There’s a remarkable economy of decision making in this recording to tremendous effect.

Certainly better than the last crazy horse offering we had though Neil still seems to be giving the guys too much room to work. Some classics like Cinnamon Girl and Cowgirl in the Sand. However, the songs tend to be a little self serving. Tangent: listening to Cinnamon Girl again reminded me of the days in my youth when I subscribed to multiple serious guitar focused magazines. Literally every other issue seemingly someone would call out the “one note solo” in this song. When you listen to the album you see that this one note approach is the preferred solo intro quite often.

What a treasure! This is one of the finest executions of the act we call jazz I’ve ever heard. The sustained intensity of a masterwork like Sky is breathtaking. It’s not just a meaningless flurry of notes. The musicians are locked in a flow state together riding a wave of pure inspiration and imagination. When there’s only 4 songs it’s hard not to name check them all, Vein Melter deserves to be mentioned as one of the all time great jazz compositions.

There ain’t a melody worth singin’ or an idea worth repeatin’ or anything that ain’t been played a million times by better musicians than these on this recording. Tim seems to just wanna talk about sex in a really creepy way in between cringeworthy fits of whirrs and yelps. If I was someone who had ever had sex with this dude before this album came out, I’d be hella embarrassed by it.

The importance of this album in my life cannot be overstated. I was just the right age when this came out to be forming my own opinions about music and I loved this album. I didn’t “get” it all at the time, but as my parents played this on repeat for years, it wormed its way into my subconscious and defined the way o would perceive music for life. Aided by the genre-defining “videos”, a novel medium that had just started to stretch its legs in ‘86, the singles became ubiquitous but every song on here is a masterpiece of pop music. From the undeniable strength and drive of Red Rain to one of the greatest live songs of all time, In Your Eyes, ever track is a new and unique look at what pop music can be all delivered with unbreakable earnestness by one of the greatest singers of our generation. A total hit. On a personal side note relating to the earnestness of the songs, I have sought this album out in my adult life numerous times just to revisit Don’t Give Up because I find it one of the most uplifting songs in a dark time that I have ever heard.