1001 Albums Summary

Sounds like a response to Phil Collins at times, and a mess at others. Technically sound, but all over the place. I guess after 20 years of performing, Paul said “idc anymore”. ⭐️⭐️

Actually pretty solid listen. Very reminiscent of Bob Dylan. Nothing I’d add to a playlist, but cohesive and easy to listen to. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

18 straight songs of jig and polka that sound exactly the same. Absolute trash ⭐️

Not sure why this is considered a classic. It’s full of half baked ideas and drunken noodling from the greatest period of sly’s drug and alcohol use that killed the band. Easy to see why. ⭐️⭐️

I see what he’s going for. And I see the influence on trip hop. 1971 is an early period for concept albums, and making it spoken word is a different use of the medium- basically storytelling with a light musical background. It’s creative. Points for that. I don’t think it’s super great or would recommend it, but probably one of those “important” albums with an outsized influence. And, it’s short ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Fair bit to say about this one: Alanis, off a couple of folksier/softer albums took a different path with new production towards an edgier alternative rock/pop sound for Jagged Little Pill. The album title is drenched in irony, as is most of the album: describing both her, and the situation she’s in. She also follows a bit of a journey throughout the tracklist; the first few are very bitter breakup songs, later she sings about finding love again, ending on a happier if perhaps bittersweet note. It’s a well constructed album, not super front loaded, and not a ton of fat either. Maybe 1-2 filler songs. It’s sexual, it’s charged. It’s cathartic, emotive in a way that was a new expression for female singer songwriters of the time. You can draw a line of confessional pop from Joni Mitchell in the 60s to Alanis in the 90s, who then paved the way for your adult contemporary pop singers like Michelle Branch a bit later, and following the line even to the 2010s with Tove Lo- who really brought confessional pop back after the very dance centric 2000s. The album was a smash hit immediately also- universal praise, 17 million sales, 5 Grammies and diamond status cement it in the pop canon, and deservedly so. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A few decent songs I know from the radio but mostly a slog of 80s synth piano. ⭐️⭐️

Another canonical rock album- the problem is, the first half is this sparse, spacey, occasional burbling synth and guitar noodling. Very backend heavy with the two songs I think are decent- time and money. It was designed to be non commercial- a listening experience from start to finish, and it crossfades each track into the next throughout, which was a novel idea. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Not bad. Reminds me of music from the skate games. The title track is easily the best on the album ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The John Lennon cover is a wildly arrogant thing to do, but the album itself is fairly listenable, if a bit repetitive, especially on vocals. Guy has one flow, and he stays there. The music itself is fairly varied- everything from reggae to mariachi, to polka and to more soft rock kind of sounds. “El Aadyene” is probably the best song on the album. It’s also oddly backloaded, the flow gets a lot better about halfway through. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I said yesterday that Khaled only had one flow- Motörhead made a career out of having a very defined, instantly recognizable sound, even if that meant every song sounded a bit like the last. A lot like the last, even. I would go so far even as to say that Slayer stole Motörhead’s formula: make a classic album, then just keep making that same thing over and over. As long as people keep buying it (Motörhead 25m record sales) and keep going to shows (toured until the death of Lemmy in 2015) then you’re doing something right. Ride it to the grave. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Definitely not an album for everyone, but it’s a great blend of what’s basically elevator music, some trance, trip hop, and downtempo. It’s not dancy, but it is easy to listen to, atmospheric, and pleasant. There’s some essence of daft punk and some others in here as well. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Creative, melodic, energetic, and varied- but a bit inaccessible. Some of the songs are 9+ minutes and feature no vocals- not a negative, but hard to say it became a favorite song when the titles mean nothing for recall. There’s elements of jazz, funk, rock, and all kinds of stuff in here. Zappa was definitely on his most avant garde here. Apparently this was also one of the first records recorded with 16 track equipment, allowing for more overdubbing, and eliminating the need for many musicians to be playing at once. Important for that, I suppose. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Bla’s Feels like an REM album but perhaps more aimless and less cohesive. There’s a lot of filler, and it’s propped up by one huge single “there she goes”. I did like “failure” off the back half. ⭐️⭐️

Maybe I like dream pop, or maybe this elevated adult contemporary style just works. Apparently this album, and the Cocteau Twins, ushered in the era of shoegaze and dream pop. If that’s true, you can certainly hear the influence in everything to come later, even elements of things like the Smashing Pumpkins. One element that adds a lot to the dreamy nature of it is the glossolalia- nonsense lyrics. The vocal processing with heavy reverb and delay also generate this trance-like effect that really sells it. If you were into doing some drugz, this would probably sound amazing. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Every song seems like a response to Metallica, bigger, harder, faster. Many start with a little solo, and all of the solos are Dave sounding like he’s got something to prove. This is a hard one to rate. I think it’s still a little raw and unpolished compared to what comes later- but it exists as a gauntlet thrown down at Metallica for kicking Dave out. He had a bone to pick and something to prove, and largely does so. I want to give it a 5 because it’s music I know and love, but when I consider what’s to come later and that it’s kind of a one trick album, it’s hard to do so ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Produced by Bowie, Lou reed’s second solo album definitely shows the influence. The vocal production is very Bowie with the dreamy overdubbed delay sound, and the mixture of piano and rock is too. “Hangin around”, “perfect day”, and “satellite of love” also particularly sound like Bowie songs from both production and lyrical standpoints. Lou will show up again later I’m sure with the velvet underground, but this is a very accessible 70s pop cut that I hear lots of later influence in. Its funny, clever, weird, and sexual all at the same time, I get why it’s remembered fondly. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

If this 1001 albums journey is about highlighting talented songwriters, it’s hard to be greater than Bobby D. He’s quite prolific (Bob was already on his 15th album here), so the hits are spread across a lot of albums, but thankfully this one starts out with a banger: tangled up in blue. Bob alternates between his usual jangly folk tunes to near-country, to soft pop. Though he’s never hard, he is varied in what he can present. Get acquainted with the harmonica. “Meet me in the morning” was a favorite also. Tangled up in blue feels like the blueprint for 90s alt/ adult contemporary. Your blues traveler or sister hazel types. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

If you don’t love Radiohead and The Fray at their most boring, sad sack worst, you won’t like this. ⭐️

At times it sounds like Bryan Adams, and at others REM. There’s a few decent songs: we’re coming out, black diamond, and Gary’s got a boner, but overall it’s very uneven. ⭐️⭐️.5

It’s jazz. Sax jazz. If that Benny Goodman piano, drum, and woodwind style with occasional vocals isn’t for you, this would be a tough listen. Thankfully, that is for me. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A lot of this sounds like rip offs of The Cars and BTO instrumentation, but with nonsense lyrics and a slight new wave bent. Definitely backloaded. Artists only and I’m not in love were highlights, definitely more into that new wave area, but now I just want to listen to The Cars. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Didn’t hate it, didn’t love it. Very frontloaded- first track “New York New York” is definitely the best on the album- very Black Crowes. Some decent adult contemporary pop tunes and a bunch of country fried pop, and some whiny junk too. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Good alt rock album. “All I know”, “dying days”, and “make my mind” were favorites but pretty listenable top to bottom. Dime Western in particular sounds influential on bands like Godsmack- it’s an interesting sound ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Tough listen. Extremely folksy and mostly just highlit Dylan’s voice, which is an acquired taste at best. Couldn’t finish. Grating.

So, the story goes this guy “Tricky” left Massive Attack to do his own thing, and this is the result. Seems like he wanted to do a lot more hopping than tripping, as this definitely leans reggae/hip hop of the trip hop I’ve ever heard. Decent listen, nothing special.

The elements of what would solidify later are there- silly songs like DDevil, with Tankian’s pitchy and goofy delivery- as well as more serious efforts like “know” or “suggestion”. The blueprint is here, they showed up fully formed, but it’s hard to shake the idea that they didn’t just steal some of Jonathan Davis’ 1995 equipment and play some coal chamber and sepultura knockoffs. Perhaps the lack of self seriousness engendered a new audience to their particular corner of nu metal. I just don’t really get why this is the album on the list.

I always thought of Bjork as kind of a joke to describe some yoko ono avant garde stuff, but I was wrong- she’s a serious artist with a great voice. I use the term varied a lot when describing some of these albums, but this is a truly eclectic mix. Everything from pop you’d hear on the radio to Disney theater type songs to polka to sparse avant garde live performances- truly a weird album.

I didn’t particularly enjoy this album, but I can hear a lot of the influence on indie rock to come. It’s got that chime-y, ringing guitar borrowed from The Edge (U2) and a multi instrumental approach with strings, flutes and woodwinds that give it a twee or ethereal, chorale sound. It’s probably one of those albums that informed a lot of music after it that improved on the formula, but points for being first. ⭐️⭐️

Should have called it “anything but timeless”. Opening your album with a 21 minute song is nothing short of masturbatory, especially when it’s sparse and terribly repetitive drum and bass. And this is coming from someone who likes drum step and DmB normally. Overwrought underwritten self indulgent garbage. Couldn’t finish. ⭐️

Intensely personal and at the same time relatable, Loretta Lynn was a fantastic lyricist and songwriter, able to simultaneously flip the bird to men trying to hold women down and yet still exist within the confines of country music that wasn’t quite ready for this kind of confessional, confrontational music from a lady. Nowadays it seems quaint, but this was nearly transgressive in the scene at the time. Until Loretta comes along, country music is mostly “stand by your man”. Loretta’s blend of humor and deeply personal, lived experience really sells this album, which alternates between bright and sunny, upbeat 60’s Nashville production and the the twangier cry in your beer downbeat stuff. It’s a tightly written album, 12 songs, 28 minutes, and doesn’t waste a moment of your time. The title track, “Get whatcha got and go”, and “the shoe goes on the other foot tonight” were my favorites- upbeat, catchy, clever, and sassy. Five stars for Loretta. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Before Biggie Before Tupac There was BEASTIE three white boys from NYC just fuckin around end up making an all time classic that defies easy classification. It hip hops. It raps. It rocks. It’s all over the place, but never loses that infectious groove that keeps your head bobbing and if you’re ever in a group, you will get people singing song. The beasties also blended comedy lyrics and party tunes while smartly sampling sabbath, zeppelin, and others- it’s a wonderful production. So many hits off this one- fight for your right, brass monkey, girls, Paul revere, and NO SLEEP TIL BROOKLYN. Easy 5. Nostalgia, hits, longevity, and still hop hops, rocks, and raps along. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Sounds like a blend of the Psychedelic Furs, Killing Joke, and the Smiths. Not bad, not necessarily my thing, but didn’t waste my time

I thought that the title was just a ha ha funny sex joke. It was unfortunately literal. I selected the 10 most popular songs from Spotify and listened to those, because no album with 69 songs and a run time of three hours is both: a) any good and or b) respects your time. I was correct on both counts. Self indulgent, masturbatory garbage. This trash should be next to the definition of quality over quantity as what not to do. ⭐️

It’s aight I guess

Not as cultural appropriation-y as other reviewers would have you believe. It’s a pretty pleasant listen, all things considered.

The first 40 minutes or so shuffle along in a jammy krautrock way (a new term for me- psychedelic, electronic influences) and then it gets weird- spacey, dissonant, noise type music. They could have left the weird off. This is a very non commercial album, with multiple songs running 15+ minutes noodling around on an ideas. Not good, not bad. It just is. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Chicago’s debut is pretty good- they arrived fully loaded, with their signature blend of jazzy rock and kind of soul/funk inspirations. However, someone along the production line should have taught them the meaning of restraint. There are so many songs that are 6-8 minutes long for no reason, including ones with gaps in the middle that pick up with a totally different sound. Just… split the track. Two 4 minute songs is much more palatable than multiple 8 ones back to back. That has to be earned, and in a debut album, they had zero goodwill. A lot of people complain also about “Free Form Guitar” which is in the middle of the album- an unstructured 7 minute duration noise song. I think it should be praised for being ann early example of intentional noise music, EXCEPT that Hendrix did it in Monterrey 2 years earlier. The beginning to wild thing, and then afterwards- the famous “guitar sacrifice” where he rubbed the guitar against the amp creating space laser sounds and dissonant, noisy screeches. They definitely ripped him off here. The album resumes with their funky jazz rock immediately after. This is a hard album to rate. I want to like it, but the runtimes wear me down. It’s up and down in energy, and while I don’t expect an entire album to be banger after banger, this one has some duds, and when your duds are 7 minutes long, it detracts from my enjoyment of the studs. ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Unlistenably twangy. It’s like the worst Bob Dylan song mixed with a James blunt song. awful. ⭐️

This album makes me want to be Peggy ⭐️ How many more shit albums in a row am I going to get? Ffs

If you know Dinosaur Jr, you know they have one mode, and that was fully established in 1988 (!!) with this album. Their blend of noisy garage rock even feels like it influenced Nirvana to a degree. The album sounds much newer than it is, maybe because it’s so similar to their 90s output. That nose song at the end is sure to off put some but not enough to detract from the overall product. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

With each David Bowie collaboration, I’m really starting to understand the genius. Some of this is clearly Iggy: Lust for Life, Success, the Passenger (is he doing the doors?) and others are clearly Bowie (tonight, weird sin). Whatever blend of creativity it was though, this is a pretty great album. Very listenable today, a number of different modes, and interesting for most of it. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Featuring Bruce Springsteen as: the annoying ass white guy with an acoustic guitar around a campfire who won’t shut up about his self important nonsense bowel movement he’s minted as “art” Zero stars unlistenably bad.

Imagine loving music so much you’d quit your 9-5. Now imagine writing a whole song about it. That’s “we love the music”. In fact, there’s quite a lot of meta music about loving music and dance, and people. Sister Sledge- OG lover girls. The majority of the album bounces and funks along in typical 70s ballads and disco modes, but it’s super tight instrumentation that compliments the awesome voice of Kathy sledge. She is a really incredible singer with the perfect voice for this kind of music. Easy to see why it resonated with audiences of the day. Every guitar phrase and fat bass line also sound straight out of a daft punk sample too, groovy baby. Really enjoyed this one, even if they make you earn the eternal hit “we are family” by placing it in the middle of the album ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ton of wasted time with them talking and introducing the people playing the instruments. This is one of those things I think it was probably better to experience live in a music hall with a bar or whatever around a bunch of tables in 1956, not as a live album in 2026. The music is still pretty good though.

Whiny, draggy, and sparse. Intentionally so, but bored me to tears. At least Johnny is decent at being emotionally evocative with his mournful sound. Just not my thing. He did at least do Big Iron, which is a bad cover, but a song I like.

Let’s get funky with it. Let’s get weird with it. Let’s copy the Animals and Rolling Stones! Before iggy pop struck it solo, he wanted to be your dog, and that dog was a two album effort with the Stooges. They’re in that mix with the Animals and Kinks, pushing distorted guitar sounds and making some edgy tunes for the day. We Will Fall is a weird evil chant sounding thing that was all certainly meant to just piss off parents with some sell your soul stuff, then it gets back to fuzzed out 60s rock. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ decent but a slog in the middle when 8.5 minutes of your 30 minute album are a waste of time.

A truly eclectic album- it’s really a work of art how the production team was able to crossfade and fold each track into the next- going from showtunes to psychedelic rock, to pop, to soul, to the… Plain White T’s? The album is all over the place in a good way, and the majority of the tunes are quite enjoyable as it hip hops between genres. It does run a little long in the tooth, but I didn’t feel like I was wasting my time. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Droogs trade in their moody weirdness for saxophone solos in this one, which I think is a vast improvement. The longer jammier songs flow a lot better, even if the 7+ minute runtimes aren’t exactly earned, the instrumentation is an improvement also. It seems like they were copying The Rolling Stones more with this album, while straying true to their proto punk roots. It was an enjoyable listen. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ohhh Le bangeur Yeah this one rocks. Bowie channels his best rock opera and some Elton John influence and produced an all time record here. Ziggy Stardust was the first Bowie song I ever liked, so it’s nostalgic for that reason, but it’s a well crafted, tight album no matter how you slice it. 11 songs, 38 minutes: strap in for some androgynous rock robot from outer space shit. Favorites: moonage daydream, starman, ziggy stardust, suffragette city ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The concept of outer space has long captured the imagination of artists, writers, astronomers, and even drug users. There’s something incalculably magnetic about the vastness of the celestial bodies. Fewer attention is paid to the great vastness between these great hurtling rocks however, for humanity is relatively dispassionate about the void in which they lay. It is in such consideration that I too learn I am uninterested in the dark, empty space that exists between music and noise. That is to say that this space rock album is boring as hell and there’s one good nugget on it: electricity. ⭐️

I enjoyed this a lot more than more songs about buildings and food- feels more focused, cohesive, and hungry. Favorites: “uh oh love comes to town”, “No compassion🏆”,”psycho killer” ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Not sure if it’s creedence’s best album, but it’s certainly a really good one no matter how you slice it. “Ooby Dooby” is kind of a funny filler song, It’s like “I didn’t wanna write lyrics to this so I’m just gonna do a Little Richard impression with two words”- ripping off Good Golly Miss Molly. Favorites: Travelin Band, Run Through the Jungle, Up Around the Bend, Ramble Tamble (at least 4 mins of it or so) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Does this album prove that the Hammond organ IS a rock instrument? Another one of those canonical rock albums. It’s hard not to rate it a 5 based on tradition and influence alone, but it has the hits to back it up too. Highway star, smoke on the water? That alone really cemented it back in 1972. This shit was heavy then and it still sounds good today.

Want to address a couple of things: 1. To the people who can’t stand Corgan’s voice I get it, it’s an acquired taste. But consider for a moment other alt rock singers of the 90s. Cornell, Cobain, Rossdale, Vedder, etc. could you imagine any of these guys singing the songs on Siamese Dream? No, because these are Billy’s songs, and his voice is the one they’re supposed to be heard from. 2. The recording process This is a fantastic story and also very Corgan. It is true that he wrote and performed all of the instrumental parts on SD except the drums and cello. It wasn’t because he didn’t like James and Darcy or that he didn’t trust them to get it right, it was that he had such an artistic vision for the album that it’s nearly a solo project between him and Butch Vig. The famous layering (of allegedly up to 100 guitars on soma) and creation of the wall of sound was a Butch creation, and in interviews he describes the vision and cohesiveness that Billy came in with being very strong and fleshed out, with Butch adding in his signature wall of sound and other production magic to create an insanely polished album. This was not the norm of the day. Alternative rock was in its infancy, but your Nirvanas and Pearl Jams who were leading the way eschewed the success and “commercial” polish in favor of rougher, rawer lofi-esque garage rock. That unpolished, unrefined sound was more “credible” in the rock scene at the time, rather than selling out and sounding all glossy and put together. Letting the ends hang out was part of the appeal in the grunge era. Corgan and the Pumpkins chose a different path- following more in the vein of the Pixies with a harder edge and a killer loud/soft dynamic than your Velvet Underground type of alternative the grunge guys were doing. And it worked. The album sold like hotcakes and propelled them to stardom. If you enjoy this album, you should listen to their 1993 album release concert from the Metro in Chicago on YouTube. When the loud notes of soma first hit, you can see Billy’s transition to being a rock star for the first time. It’s an electric moment when everything is clicking, and the Pumpkins have finally arrived. Easiest 5 stars of my life. An important album, and one of my top 3 all time that never sounds old, and I never get tired of. The back end does get a bit soft and mushy, but I haven’t heard those songs in a while- listening to the entire thing as a singular product really affirmed my love for the album all over again. The album that launched a million big muff pedals. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Another reviewer hit the nail on the head- it’s like a worse version of a lot of different folksy pop music you’ve heard. I think if this influenced anything, it’s Joji, with the dreamy, sad-sack tone throughout. It gets better after the first couple of songs, so it’s not totally irredeemable but it’s navel gazing dream/bedroom pop at low tide. ⭐️⭐️

Given that this album came out in 2013 I gather that it’s one of the 1085 albums, not the original 1001. Is it old enough to be considered for classic status? Is this the Chvrches album I expected to see on here? The answer to both is probably not- but what it does do is really good. I like the band, and I was familiar with this album, though I did expect that alongside the CHVRCHES name would be “Love Is Dead”, their third album, where I feel they really put it all together. We have their debut instead, and it’s a great synthpop cut, chock full of video game esque sounds, dreamy 80s synthwave modes, and even some upbeat dance type numbers. CHVRCHES would go on to improve on this formula, but the bones of it were fully calcified in this album. Lauren Mayberry’s floaty scotch vocals play well against the synth piano and drumbeat driven melodies, and the album is at its best in the quiet moments, something I don’t feel later albums captured as well. “You Caught The Light” might be the best song on the album- it’s dark, moody, and atmospheric, but not without velocity. And it doesn’t even feature Mayberry’s signature vocals. Martin Doherty does the singing on it, to great effect. It’s almost a Sneaker Pimps trip hop kind of feel, and it fits well within the album as a change of pace. Other favorites: Gun, Recover, Lungs, By the Throat, Broken Bones ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Dad rock (or grandpa rock at this point) central. Frampton breaks out his signature Framptone in this one, but doesn’t overdo it at all, which is incredible given the notoriety of his eponymous talk box (which you can still buy today, 50 years later!) It’s a decent live album, though the tracking balance is a bit off for the drums and bass. It flows between some harder riff based rock and easy listening soft rock all the way to some really jammy stuff that definitely was an influence on jam bands to come later like Phish. Modern bands like Goose owe much to Frampton, too. I was familiar with a number of these songs. Show Me The Way, Baby I Love Your Way, I’ll Give You Money especially I’ve heard on the radio plenty in the past. But the crescendo comes at the denouement- Peter makes you wait for the 14 minute finale (after making you suffer through a boring jammy version of Jumpin Jack Flash {how does he drain all the energy out of it and make it 7 minutes long?}) DO YOU FEEL LIKE WE DO- the most famous usage of the Framptone, and a great guitar solo on top of it. He saved the best for last, and clearly it hit with audiences, because this was the best selling album of 1976. No Eagles? No Bob Seger? No Boston?? Long live the Framptone, king of ‘76 I guess. ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Beck is all over the place in the best possible way in this one. Phrygian mode industrial music, hip hop, rock, electronica, funk… you name it, he’s on it. And it’s all good. Beck is known as a very talented multi instrumentalist, but that’s only part of the story. It takes artistry to be able to take all those disparate things and make it into something not only cohesive, but listenable and enjoyable. An incredible talent. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Didn’t love. Randy is a pretty good pianist and a decent songwriter- the lyrics are at times funny and sad, and tongue in cheek like a song about the burning cuyahoga river in Cleveland lol. It’s a bit of a slog though, just not really interesting. Sounds like atmospheric BG music from a movie. Something you’d hear on a radio in a movie in a scene with dialogue. ⭐️.5

The best way I can describe this is an egomaniacal schizophrenic shitpost. I liked Hot Rats from Frank Zappa but this was a mess. Another reviewer described this as “that secret track you find at the end of an album that’s just the band talking and messing around and maybe some inside jokes, except a whole album of that” and I find that extremely accurate. There’s zero flow, Zero cohesion, zero melody, and nearly zero music. That was probably the point, as Zappa was into making some kinds of grandiose artistic statements, but this is just a guy thinking he’s above it all making “”music”” that no one else can understand because they’re just not on his God level of layered nuance and political commentary and vibes, man. This is garbage disguised as enlightened commentary or satire disguised as trash. ⭐️.5

It’s really difficult for me to call this “rock n roll” as other reviewers suggest, given the lack of guitar on the album, but this is certainly pretty good for rocked-up jazz. Elvis himself even refers to Fats Domino as the real king of rock and roll, but Elvis himself was virtually a country act, so it would also be difficult for him to name someone king of a genre he didn’t play. Examining that- there are actually a lot of artists who lay claim to that “king of rock n roll” title. Little Richard probably came first, Elvis copied a lot of what he and Fats did, and Chuck Berry comes out a bit later and actually wields the axe like a real rock star. Yet they’re all mentioned at some point with the same moniker. I’d probably give the nod to Chuck Berry myself, given that he started the formula for guitar driven music that gave way to actual rock in the 60s. Anyway, Fats does a nice job in his jump blues shoes. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is what the 1001 albums project is for- discovery. I’d never heard of Robbie Williams, but now I’m glad I did. The music sounds like a mix of Black Crowes and Oasis, and maybe a dash of the Verve, a very 90s alt pop rock sound that still feels fresh today. The back half of the album drags a bit, but it’s listenable and not overly long. This definitely feels like a pick by a group of British critics though- some virtually unheard of music across the pond or outside the UK being heralded as one of the 1001 greatest albums and only being 9 years old by the writing of the book. It didn’t sell that well or have a greater influence, but it is pretty decent at least. Favorites: “angels” and “south of the border” ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Every song with Grace Slick is good Every other song except the guitar solo is mid. Simple formula here- more Grace, less everything else. This album is a bit of a mixed bag, but the Grace stuff is great. I had no idea that this Somebody to Love is the original and that Queen covered it in 1976- fantastic songwriting. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Also, I’ve dreamed of the day I could use Grace’s famous quote in a review, so here we go. During a 1998 interview with VH1, the Jefferson Airplane and Starship singer derisively stated, “All rock-and-rollers over the age of 50 look stupid and should retire”. She was right. They are, and do. Grace, of course, was speaking from experience. 15 years after the early successes with Airplane, Jefferson Starship re-recruited Slick back into the group and they had some additional smash hits like We Built This City On Rock N Roll and Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now in 1981/82. These songs are corny and lame as hell, and they knew it. Grace was and is deeply embarrassed by them, and that prompted the famous quote. The old Airplane stuff was real and heartfelt, and this new music just didn’t have the urgency or fire that it did when the band members were in their 20s.

What a waste of time. This music was meant to accompany a visual: the movie. Without that, it’s just background noise, and not very interesting noise at that. If we’re doing movie soundtracks, there’s a whole lot that need to come before this one. ⭐️

There are some ideas and some riffs in here that promise something better than what is delivered. It’s not terrible, but it’s not good. Starting your album off with a song about a lecherous hobo who’s touching himself looking at little girls at the park was a choice, even in 1971.

This is a 90s album of all time. It doesn’t really do anything particularly interesting, or particularly badly. It’s just an hour of music you’d hear in the background of a movie or tv scene from some forgotten movie from 1997. ⭐️⭐️

ZZ Top is a band with exactly one mode. That lane is blues forward riff based 70s arena rock. If that’s not your flavor, nothing on this or any other zz album will be your speed. It’s very nostalgic for me, especially the three big hits, but the rest of it is basically just worse versions of those songs. Sharp dressed man, legs, and gimme all your loving will always be classic rock staples, and nothing on the album makes me die of boredom, so three stars. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’m doing my part to fight the inexplicable boomer love for Neil young by giving this a 1. Not because it’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard, but because it’s boring, whiny, and baffling to me why Neil young had a career beyond CSNY. He was all of 27 when this album came out and spends the majority of it talking about being old and decrepit, needs someone to take care of poor pitiful him. Typical boomer mentality, fuck this music

I am Henry Rollins, hear me ROAR! Me angry, RAAAAAHHH!! The government is bad!!! I want to.. watch tv and drink beer? (!!!!) Black Flag is one of those bands where I think two things are true: 1. You Had To Be There, and 2. The influence is outsized compared to the qualify of the actual music. It’s very easy to dismiss punk, and hardcore punk like this in particular for sounding samey. A lot of punk was made by people who could barely play instruments and thus three-chord-punk was born- very basic stuff with the same drum beats and guitar riffs with whatever angry vocal you wanted to throw on top. It didn’t matter if it was good, it just had to have the attitude. Even the Red Hot Chili Peppers once said on “Funky Crime”: “p(f)unk is the attitude.” That said, this album definitely came equipped with the DNA that set hardcore punk into motion: you’ve got everything from micro songs, to anti establishment textures, to chillin with the homies songs, and even some filler! The album does have a fair amount of variety in terms of structure, which is more than you can say for a lot of punk albums, especially early ones. A lot of these guys showed up at the same time, immediately following the Sex Pistols and Ramones- Black Flag, JFA, Adolescents, Minor Threat, which gave way to Suicidal Tendencies, NOFX, and others who expanded on the “skate” side of things and less political. This one is tough to rate though. On influence alone it’s a 5, but personal enjoyment is more like a 3. ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 it is.

Imagine Mike Myers doing the “Simon” (a grown man acting like a child, complete with goofy cockney accent) bit from SNL for an hour with songs about being horny, his father, drawrings, and going to the pub with his mates. British tomfoolery at its weirdest. That said, this is an inexplicable inclusion into the 1089 albums. Is this a joke? How did this make it in over entire countries of music ? ⭐️⭐️⭐️

It honky tonks, that’s for sure. Not really my flavor of country, but it has that 60s-70s Nashville sunshine country twang that’s fine to listen to once but definitely not over and over. Nothing I’d add to a playlist but far from the worst thing I’ve heard.

I am the iconoclast who wields the blade to pierce the mythos of boomer monocultural music tastes. Somewhere along the way, the eagles were canonized as one of Americas heartland rock icons, an eternal badge, apparently, and that status was probably solidified with this album, heralded as a classic. This album is absolutely mid, propped up by two singles- one each from Don Henley and Joe Walsh. It’s easy to understand why they went solo, the album suffers from a strong whiplash between their two styles- Henley’s soft core poetry and Walsh’s riff focused rock. Beyond that, there’s a history lesson here as to why this is considered such a classic album and held up by boomers as the best ever. In the 70s, and even beyond, your only means of listening to music were twofold: the radio, and vinyl albums you owned. The proliferation (and fragmentation) of music was uncommon and yet to happen- which created these huge monocultures around music. In 1976 or 1977, the eagles would have been utterly inescapable. On top 40 radio and rock channels 24/7, in store PA systems, and on your neighbor’s turntable. This was a universal experience that everyone of the day had. Even if you didn’t like the music, you had heard it. Over and over. It elicited specific and strong memories of a certain time- often for boomers, their youth- and as such planted itself strongly in the minds of America. Unlike today where there’s 70+ years of music available at your fingertips via Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, pandora, or even the radio, satellite or otherwise- you had no choice but to listen to the Eagles or whatever else was on. A lot of people started liking it. And many never stopped. But in 2026- we have choices. We don’t have to listen to the eagles any longer. And I implore you not to.

So I’ve been exposed to Björk now, having had her debut album on the generator before, which I thought was pretty good. It was varied and while avant garde, at least listenable. This is a questionable inclusion at best, given its 2015 publication date and extremely samey subject matter: a breakup. Mostly just how Bjork feels about it. To that point, this album rarely strays from the classic Bjork ethereal whiny vocal over some non matching, unmelodic orchestral arrangement, which makes it seem like every song was cut from a movie scene as background noise in a dramatic moment. Individually some of the songs are decent, but as a whole product, hard pass. I’m beginning to think that this isn’t actually a consensus of great music, but rather a random smattering of 1000+ albums.

Amy Winehouse was a curiosity when she cropped up in 2006. Rehab was everywhere. Commercials, radio, your headphones, tv, you name it. Part confessional pop singer and part sleazy lounge act, Amy did a great job of blending the old with the new in her own style, and it caught on. Jazz, bossa nova, big band, you name a style of the 50s/60s, and she’s touching on it here. It feels pretty timeless honestly, without the conventions of 2000s jazz pop adding datedness to it. While every song isn’t great, there’s enough here to say it’s a good album worth inclusion. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Unavailable to listen to

It’s kind of hard to fathom that Stevie wonder had made 17 albums by 1974, but that is indeed the case. I have long held that no artist has more than 2-4 albums worth of good material, and this is no exception, but that’s not to say this isn’t listenable; it’s just not something I want to hear over and over. Stevie is in his most easy listening mode- stuff you’d hear at the grocery store or department store- inoffensive, not very attention grabbing, but fills time. You Haven’t Done Nothin is the closest he comes to getting groovy, “Superstition” style, but is maybe half of what that song is. ⭐️⭐️.5

Where do i even begin with how or why this is even included in the 1085 albums list? First off, the title. It’s listed as the “Royal Albert Hall Concert”, which Bob Dylan didn’t even play at. In fact, he didn’t even play this show in London. It was in Manchester, at the Free Trade Hall. why have we retained the WRONG title for this bootleg? This has been subsequently released on vinyl, tape, CD, and digital throughout the years, and everyone knows who Bob is and where this was played and where it falls in the lineup of the Bob Dylan discography. Back in 1968, not so much- this was a way to hear an unofficial, but real, live show from Bob, scratchy and shitty as it is. Now- this title mistake is excusable because this is a BOOTLEG recording, which gets me to my next point. Why are we including bootleg recordings in the 1000+ albums you must hear before you die? And especially of BOB DYLAN who appears 7 times in this?? This is far from essential and necessary, not to mention it sounds like it was recorded on a Dictaphone from 1895 on wax! Bob Dylan already sounds TERRIBLE in studio format, both in mixing and his notoriously… polarizing voice, but take that and apply it to a shitty recording from 1966. What a terrible day to have ears. Thirdly: the format. Bob does something both fantastic, and apparently widely controversial and panned at the time in this show- he comes out and plays his twangy acoustic solo stuff on a bar stool for 40 minutes to raucous applause, then he comes back with his backing band “The Band” and plays an “electric” set (as electrified as you can imagine a BOB DYLAN SONG) of ‘the hits so far’ from his catalogue, culminating with maybe the worst live recorded version of ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ I’ve ever heard, and I love that song. This electric set was apparently quite disliked, and Bob was heckled and jeered at in between songs, because “folk music isn’t electric” as the people of the day said. All of this heckling was also CONVENIENTLY EDITED OUT OF A FUCKING BOOTLEG RECORDING. I don’t know if this was for vanity or some Bob worshipper did it themselves, but you can hear the cuts between songs, and where it picks up after some stage banter, which… again, this is a bootleg, not a professionally cut and mixed live album where you’d expect that. Unbelievable. This isn’t a 1 star solely because The Band’s playing and improvisation during the second half electric set is actually pretty decent backing. Better than Bob deserved, that’s for sure. ⭐️⭐️

What a waste of time. Ambient 1 Star. Brian Eno was asked about this in an interview and he said that it’s not designed to listen to, it’s meant to be ignored, verbatim quote. Ignore it from this list forever. ⭐️

I don’t get the hate people are heaping on the Rolling Stones for this album. It is a product of its time, dated as that may be. This music is 60 years old- older than most of the people even reviewing it, and the philosophy of applying whatever moral standards you have from today to music and art of the far flung past is an extremely flawed idea that is just going to lock you out of being able to enjoy things. This is virtue signaling at its finest, and projecting your moral superiority over music old enough to get a senior citizen discount makes you look like a moron. Nobody is going to fuck you because you think Mick Jagger is a tool for singing about stupid girls. If I were to look into the personal lives of every artist I ever listed to, and added or removed their music from my library based on their moral fiber, I would probably not listen to very much music at all. Assessing your enjoyment of music through a lens of “was this person a good person?” is a fool’s errand and serves only to drive you insane. That said, the music is really good. It has the eternal hits Paint It Black and Under My Thumb on it, which instantly catapulted it to classic status, even back in 1966, but there’s a wide variety of music on here that honestly, the Stones didn’t really go back to much after this album. This one is important because it’s the first time the Stones did an album entirely of their own compositions. Their first 3 albums were mostly just blues covers, which was a thing bands did at that time- lots and lots of covers. This is the demarcation point where the Stones became themselves and ascended the other run of the mill, milquetoast, blues-rock Beatles influenced bands of the era. The Beatles had set the pattern with the matching outfits and mod/bowl haircuts, and everyone else was following. It was still going to take a few albums/years for them to come out from under the long shadow cast by John, Paul, George, and Ringo, but we’ll probably get there on another album. Lady Jane is a really interesting one- which is like a medieval twangy, greensleeves esque ballad with a very knightly/war of the roses theme lyrically. Doncha Bother Me is a jangly, bouncy tune that sounds more akin to what they’d be doing later, and the rest of it is a mix of Beatles sounds, and other 60s era pop music. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

What the hell was even that? Freestyle jah rastafari rap over some trash beats?

Welcome to the Chris Cornell show. What a vocal talent he was; on full display here. While the album drags a little long and gets a bit repetitive (feel like it could have shed a couple songs in editing) it’s buoyed by the heights of the singles: black hole sun, day I tried to live, and Spoonman, the latter of which is an eternal banger. It’s a dark, moody, grunge-at-it’s-finest album. The strongest 4.5 stars I can give. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Hey, this grandpa rock is pretty good stuff! This is the album that solidified, if not cemented The Rolling Stones legacy as an eternal sunshine classic. You name it, this album does it in spades. 70s riff based cock rock? Check. Weird twangy druggy interlude? We got that. Country honky tonking? Oh yah. Extended saxophone solo in a rock song? Sure why not. This is the stones firing on all cylinders creatively: the use of horn sections combined with some of the most instantly recognizable riffs and Melodies of rock history is a recipe for an instant (and forever) classic. This began a long run of an extremely high plateau for the stones- a band peaking soon. Maybe the easiest snap 5 star on the list so far. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Honestly, an exceptional proto punk album. They are still working on their punk voice at this point, but the instrumentation, micro songs, and attitude are all there. There are some really crunchy riffs in this, and while most of the micro songs only really exhibit a single idea, some of the longer (>2mins) songs develop some nice structures, and again: the riffs. I hear elements of 90s alt, 80s punk like Black Flag or JFA to come. It’s good stuff for how primitive it is in the genre. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Everybody from the cure to the smiths to the killers in the alternative world owes joy division a little debt for putting the genre on the map with this album. Songs like disorder and interzone set the blueprint up for future alternative music that persists even through the early 2000s. If I was rating on influence alone, this would be 5 stars. While it is at times dry, draggy, and slow, most of the songs are fairly interesting, at least atmospherically. Many of the songs are samey sounding with the ringing/delay guitar notes and the same bass pattern from the drum over almost every song, but it’s more texture for the singer and bass guitar, which feature more centrally. The album also has a drum machine like feel- so much so that I looked it up, and found that it’s not a machine, but that every drum was recorded individually and mixed together to sound like one- creative. 3 stars on its own, +1 for influence on music I like later ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ahh OutKast. Probably the second or third most influential hip hop group of all time, after Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and the Sugarhill Gang. Outkast were masters of blending live instrument playing with samples and thoughtful, complex lyricism and produced some of the most varied, memorable hip hop of all time on their own, and influential to many more contemporaries and artists to come. This album in particular is not their best, nor their most influential, but apparently alongside 2000’s Stankonia, is what the 1001+ albums is giving us to listen to. It’s still chock full of hits- from the eternal commercial and sports game tune of Hey Ya to the wry, shade throwing Roses to starting the album off with GhettoMusick, it suffers not from listenability or variance, but honestly just runtime. Unusual for rap, OutKast constructed their music around the album experience, with a lot of interludes (annoyingly), spoken word or raw audio endings, and crossfading tracks into each over. I think this plays well on this album, but on others it’s not great for just listening to the music. No points off here though, as most of them serve a purpose, at least on the front half. The album is a double, and is essentially a solo album from both Big Boi (Speakerboxxx) and Andre Three Stacks (The Love Below) tied together. Not in any particular thematic, lyrical, or subject matter way, but physically, in the same box. This is a point I will get to shortly. Big Boi’s side is very tight and focused. It’s more rap based, with varied instrumentation, sampling, and beats. He has a ton of features from big artists of the day including Lil Jon, Ludacris, and Jay Z, and most if not all of the songs work pretty well. Not much filler, aside from the interludes. The big single is “I like the way you move”, that, while not my favorite, was a huge pop radio hit. Without Big Boi’s excellent side holding things up, I think The Love Below would have been a major flop. “Roses” and “Hey Ya” appear on this side, and were massive singles, but the rest of it varies between… indulgent… and bad. The only genuinely good song i wasn’t familiar with is the very last one- “a day in the life of Andre Ben (incomplete)” where 3000 finally finds his flow and lets the lyrics fly. What the actual fuck is he doing on “she’s alive”? Andre can sing, is this bad on purpose? wtf is that falsetto? Several of the other songs are just bad 70s funk sex jams that would sound more at home in some exploitation movie from the time. If I were grading them separately: Speakerboxxx ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Love Below ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (mostly buoyed by the big singles)

Golden oldies feels like a term my 95 year old grandma would use to describe things, but that’s exactly what I thought of from the first song on this. Old gold. The original “heard it through the grapevine” is on here and is a banger as ever. Not much to say really, just a good ol soul album. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Not available to listen to.

It’s certainly very pleasant to listen to- upbeat, rhythmic, dancy type stuff. Feels like music you’d hear in the background of a movie set in some exotic locale, be that South America, Africa, or the Caribbean. It has that salsa/samba flow to it, some ska-like parts, and even kinda funk. It was a nice departure from the stuff I’ve been listening to lately, even if I wouldn’t add it to a playlist necessarily. ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Alright I take back what I said about Paul Simon on Graceland (1985). The Bob Dylan parody song “A Simple Desultory Philippic” is genius, hilarious, topical, and temporal. Making fun of Dylan in 2026? Passé, played out. Making fun of Dylan in 1966, as he approaches the height of his fame? Now THAT’S a statement. Simon weaves in a bunch of other references in this too for a genuinely funny listen, replete with terrible harmonica. It’s the complete package. That song alone makes this 3 stars. The rest of the album is reverb to 11 two guys with acoustic guitars harmonizing… like the rest of S&G. The title track is like a repackaged Greensleeves medieval Gregorian chant about… Italian seasonings. It’s alright at best. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ for making fun of Bobby D. That is going straight on the playlist.