1001 CXCIV

Slanted and Enchanted greets you as perhaps a 1990s American college extrovert would - willing to make friends but with somewhat of a hidden, crazed personality that you can’t help but think is a sort of ulterior motive. Nevertheless curious, you humour them and dive in.

It’s precisely how you’d expect it to sound from the cover, the era, and what you’ve heard about the band already, the indie rock darlings that they are. Liberal with the noisy guitar, ... read more

1001 CXCIII

I blame these ‘lads’ for contemporarily perpetuating the very worst subsect of British culture: the “night out”. It’s this soul-sapping, hedonistic hivemind of people that seem to glorify the ‘one night stand’ as the holy grail of life, those who employ cheap alcohol and subterfuge solely to reach orgasm.

This forty-minute journey through somebody else’s grimy streetside life in a post-industrial setting is enough to seriously annoy ... read more

1001 CXCII

This probably had a timeless sound for all of maybe 4 years before it became incredibly dated. You couldn’t make this before about 2006, and you couldn’t make this after about 2014.

Now, I’m all-for that late 2000s / early 2010s indie rock, indie folk, indie whatever-the-fuck, but this is the worse side of the coin. An energetic but ultimately bland sound that matches the honestly terrible album cover. Seriously, what the fuck were they thinking with that album ... read more

1001 CXCI

From Mural I know that Lupe Fiasco is capable of absolute top-drawer rap, so how does he fare on his debut record, 9 years prior to that?

The answer is as if you’re listening to a veteran of the genre. Employing an easy enough narrative (you got your food, and you got your liquor) and enlisting the help of both new-ish voices and experienced MCs (Jay-Z being a highlight on Pressure) to create a rap album that’s over an hour but also one that justifies its runtime ... read more

1001 CXC

It’s incredibly hard to rate a Tom Waits album on first listen, which goes the same for most lyrically-focussed albums that I get on this list, unless they’re relistens.

For the lyrical content of any Waits album is so intelligent, sometimes complex and sometimes simple - so that you may appreciate on first listen what you then come to adore on repeat. It’s OK for instruments to take a back seat here to let Waits’ unique and polarising voice carry the things ... read more

1001 CLXXXIX

“62-year-old Muddy (...) kicked ass, hard, again.”

What more do you really need to say past this excerpt from the reissue liner notes? Waters was undoubtedly a master of the blues, and on the first of his last three acclaimed albums, he comes out swinging, and doesn’t stop until the last ‘plink’ is played on the piano.

The first track, Mannish Boy, is the most recognisable and probably the best track on here, but that shouldn’t let you be ... read more

1001 CLXXXVIII

From the blast of angst that was Punk music came a more honest, emotional sound that still held to the core anger, hopelessness and desperation of its predecessor whilst offering a far deeper sound. And that came to the fore most notably and with the most skill via Ian Curtis & Co., in the form of Joy Division and Unknown Pleasures.

There seems to be a largely unique sound on this and its companion Closer, often retried but never properly replicated, even by themselves as ... read more

1001 CLXXXVII

Starting off as some better-end-of-the-spectrum british New Wave-adjacent pop stuff, Infected transitions into what you’d most like to hear from this genre by the time you’re well into the second side, namely some great guitar tones and great lyrics.

The lyrical side of things is more prevalent in the first half, but manages to combine with some excellent instrumentation from Sweet Bird of Truth onwards to engineer a soundscape worthy of the hectic album cover.

And ... read more

1001 CLXXXVI

I’ll have to go back and see what I wrote for Blood Sugar Sex Magik, but I imagine it’s similar to what I’ll write here.

Apart from recognising the title track, this mostly morphed into one vague worse-end-of-the-90s-rock-scene soundscape. Sometimes a song may open with a nice riff or perhaps have a nice solo, but these never seem to coagulate into a full product of a song that’s memorable. The only reason I remember the title track is due to its sheer ... read more

1001 CLXXXV

This is apparently very honest and is a great achievement in songwriting. Pffffffffff.

At least it’s not Imagine, though I imagine (haha) that it’s also included in the list, so I’ve got that to look forward to. I actually own an Imagine 7” single, and the B-side is Working Class Hero, featured here. And it’s fucking brilliant. In contrast to Lennon’s largest post-Beatles song being a compendium of ‘what if?’s and being forever ... read more

1001 CLXXXIV

Another Byrds album, and another album of pure nothing. Everything that I’ve heard from this band and a few adjacent releases has just sounded like band practice recorded with some good equipment.

Everything once again melts into one, the chief exception being Tribal Gathering (which melts into Dolphins Smile anyway) and the closing Space Odyssey, which might actually be an OK song, though it’s hard to tell when it’s surrounded with all this.

Thanks, Byrds. I ... read more

1001 CLXXXIII

With this, I’ve decided to include an addendum for each album in the list from now on, asking the question: do you need to hear this before you die?

After all, that’s what the list is about, right? It can’t come as a surprise that this, an album centred around one instrument, sparked the idea for this new clause. It really is just that. A slew of (honestly rather unimpressive) drum solos, occasionally broken by unimpressive guitar, and unimpressive ... read more

1001 CLXXXII

Well, it all seems horribly Smiths-y. As in, more Smiths-y than you would expect even from the Janglers-in-Chief themselves.

I can’t speak to all of the themes here on first listen alone, but I doubt the overarching (and in the case of the title track, explicit) references to the meat industry’s barbarism convinced many to stay away from processed meats any more than, say, Hitler’s status as a vegetarian did.

The title track itself reminds me of Steely ... read more

1001 CLXXXI

This album’s title and artwork would be hard-pressed to become more apt for the music they describe - listening to this is like a modern(ish) version of a victorian fair: ‘roll up, roll up! Country Joe and his extraordinary Fish band display a delightful array of... ELECTRIC music!’

It’s of course not just this, there’s an overlaid sense of mid-to-late sixties psychedelia and ‘San Francisco Sound’ to it all, with largely varying track ... read more

1001 CLXXX

It’s good that the first ⅓ or so of this is so enjoyable, as if the last section was what opened the album then I’d be much faster to write it off completely.

But before descending into a mid-eighties synthy sludge, Welcome to the Pleasuredome opens with an incredibly surprising and honestly quite prog-like title track (complete with Steve Howe on acoustic guitar, come on) and the undoubtable classic of Relax. It can hold up without the context of its BBC radio play ... read more

1001 CLXXIX

For a (the) band that considerably influenced Fairport Convention’s Liege & Lief, The Beatles and led to further collaborations with Bob Dylan, it all seems slightly pedestrian.

And by now, yes, I’m aware that these sorts of albums seldom grip you fully on the first listen - that’s why their popularity has declined in the age of streaming - it’s not like you have to get your money’s worth out of a record if you’ve got every other one at your ... read more

1001 CLXXVIII

What a lovely album cover. I wonder if the country music will match its loveliness.

It does. Tenfold. What a stupidly lovely album. I mean, you’d expect something at least halfway heartfelt with Willie Nelson, but this is just something else entirely. It’s like the smoothness of Sinatra and the country sophistication of Cash have blended in a happy union, with the strings pulled by Nelson’s vocals and his musical ensemble.

Willie is still with us and is still ... read more

1001 CLXXVII

Another album that’s very hard to write about. You’re not going to break any new ground. First of all, it’s Dylan, and second of all, it’s Freewheelin’ Dylan. Most of the songs here have well-known covers. There’s nothing to say about the songwriting past acknowledging its excellence. I’ll give it a go anyway.

Sometime in ‘04 Dylan sat down with 60 Minutes, and attested that the songs that made up the peak of his career through the ... read more

1001 CLXXVI

It’s another instance of Britpop that I don’t care for, but at least I don’t hate it. In fact, at some points, the music itself (let’s ignore the uninteresting and probably juvenile lyrics) becomes actually quite catchy. That’s the ‘pop’ bit covered.

I put this off for ages, letting the backlog of 1001-generated albums accrue for a few more days before just deciding to grin and bear it. And I’m surprised! It wasn’t all that bad ... read more

1001 CLXXV

Tidal indeed washes over you immediately as a tidal wave would - the no-compromises confidence of Apple’s songwriting is nothing short of exquisite - from the first note of Sleep to Dream to the last of Carrion.

My first thought upon finishing was the question of which track was my favourite, and this couldn’t immediately be answered, the hallmark of a truly brilliant album. I feel this way still with When the Pawn, Apple’s second outing and one of my most ... read more