Rated 4/10
Fine with a couple of good tunes, however feels pretty functional and way overlong at an hour. Maybe if I had a better sense of Costello's catalogue and it's place in it I may appreciate it more but seems a strange choice for this kind of list.
Rated 8/10
This is pretty great and wished I'd heard it when I was younger; heavier than I was anticipating (sort of a sludge metal/grunge hybrid) with some absolute monster riffs - the opening 1-2-3 of Them Bones, Dam That River and Rain When I Die is unstoppable.
Being an hour-long album largely about drug addiction with pretty grimey production, it can often be a bleak and difficult listen - especially knowing the eventual tragic fate of the lead singer Layne Staley. It may have been better being slightly shorter, but I honestly don't know what I'd cut - in isolation, there's not really a bad track here and it does flow very well.
A strong 4/5. Favourite tracks: Them Bones / Dam That River / Junkhead
Rated 6/10
An album I'd always been aware of (a favourite of the 2 for £10 bargain bin at HMV), but never listened to - mainly because of their most (only?) famous song, "Here She Goes" which I must have ambiently heard hundreds of times from adverts and whatnot. It's a great song in isolation, but it can only be taken so many times.
To my surprise, the majority of the album is much more muscular than "Here She Goes" and has a clear connection with the old Merseybeat and British Invasion style bands from the 60s - almost power pop.
I even checked out some of the BBC live sets they made after reading about Lee Mavers' dislike for the album recordings and preferred these in some ways, a sharper and slightly more modern sound than the actual LP.
It's influence on Britpop (a shameful mark on British musical history) is easy to hear, but it feels superior and better crafted than it's later counterparts. A solid 3.
Rated 6/10
My knowledge of Wings pretty much begins and ends with Alan Partridge calling them "the band The Beatles could have been". He's probably not too far wrong - there's plenty of songs here that could easily fit onto a later Fab Four album if they'd had someone else to give them a good-looking over. The hooks and pop smarts are still there, but it doesn't quite work as well as his albums with the Beatles.
Reading the Wiki of the album was almost as entertaining as listening to it - deciding to record it in post-Biafran war Lagos amidst a Cholera outbreak for the exoticism (?!) and an irate Fela Kuti storming into their studio accusing McCartney of appropriating Nigerian music after visiting his club (only calmed by being played some of their recordings).
The album works best when it strays into Abbey Road medley territory, switching around mid-song and re-visiting previous hooks, and the final Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five is a pretty funky jam - could work well with an extended edit of the piano.
Not an album I'd have listened to without this challenge, but glad I did. I was ready to give it a 4 or even higher on first listen, but the initial giddy high didn't quite stay on repeat listens and I doubt it's one I'll revisit in full too often. Sounds better on headphones too, some nice production. 3/5 on the 1001 scale, 3.5 for me.
Rated 10/10
One of my favourite albums, still as good now as when I first heard it as a teenager and hasn't really dated at all. Love the sound of everything, and it values close listening - the bass and guitar in particular. Intelligent, anti-consumerist/capitalist/imperialist lyrics, coupled with funky jams - what more could you want?
