Reviews by callimar

“Beyoncé” is, well, a typical Beyoncé album: a great voice singing mediocre songs, accompanied by some random ringtones. I'm not too familiar with her recent work, but maybe “Beyoncé” is special because it was conceived as a “visual album”—whatever that means. If the idea behind it was to create music that doesn't make much sense without watching the videos at the same time, then it's kind of succeeded: The songs on "Beyoncé" are not exactly bad, but largely pointless to me.

The journey through the 1001 albums naturally reveals certain breaks in music history. What I find particularly exciting at the moment is the diversification of rock music in the 1970s, which led to the parallel existence of stylistic devices from what were actually successive eras.
“Lust For Life” is an excellent example of this: the music actually wants to move forward and break out of familiar patterns, but it cannot deny its roots in the 1960s and repeatedly incorporates elements that, from today's perspective, one might expect to find in folk rather than punk rock. At the same time, the band refrains from using a denser mix that would be more suited to punk rock, even though this was already available in terms of production technology. As a result, the sound is always on the verge of disintegration, especially in the wilder moments. The crowning glory of this “I'll show you tomorrow, but with yesterday's means” is the totally naive yet iconic cover, which I would rather associate with a folk pop singer-songwriter.
Nevertheless—or perhaps precisely because of this—the nine songs around the title track and “The Passenger” were stylistically influential for the punk movement, and here and there you can already hear London calling.

The Pet Shop Boys' album “Very” is probably the pinnacle of late 20th century musical bankruptcy: 90s dance pop. Unlike other almost forgotten “greats” of this scene, such as Snap or Erasure, the Pet Shop Boys and this album were never really bad. It's just that, in my opinion, this whole style is totally boring. At least “Go West” had a permanent place in the repertoire of European stadium chants for many years.

It took me a while to get used to Fever Ray's self-titled debut album. Now that I've done so, I find it quite listenable. I'm still not a fan of electronica, but with Fever Ray's slow and hypnotic, even somewhat psychedelic approach, it finally makes sense.
I had heard “If I Had A Heart” before and I also liked “Keep The Streets Empty For Me.”
For me, Fever Ray is a more accessible version of Björk.

Ms. Dynamite's “A Little Deeper” isn't bad for a contemporary R&B album. Once you skip the rather annoying “Dy-Na-Mi-Tee,” the remaining 13 tracks offer a variety of ragga vibes that are easy on the ears. I like that not everything sounds the same and that the singer has a pretty good voice, which is complemented on two songs by male singers—whose names I didn't know, but who fit well with the overall sound.
Nothing here is really outstanding, and it remains a genre of music that I can't really get into... Nevertheless, if you need some modern easy listening background music, “A Little Deeper” is not a bad choice.

This one is easy: I will not waste any attention on Kanye West.
Next, please.

Most of “L.A. Woman” differs from what I remembered of The Doors' sound. I'm not even sure if I didn't know this album at all except for “Riders on the Storm” or if I didn't attribute the other songs to The Doors. In any case, this last “real” Doors album is incredibly bluesy and Jim Morrison sounds much older than he actually was. It goes so far that I can't say whether “L.A. Woman” is an unusual Doors album or a great blues rock album that is only attributed to The Doors because, coincidentally, all the band members were involved in it.
Since Morrison subsequently left the band and died shortly afterwards in officially unexplained circumstances, I consider this album (without wanting to devalue the achievements of the other musicians) to be the final statement of this outstanding frontman – albeit one that moves somewhere in the gray area between monumental and disturbing.

This is an exciting album, and it took me a few minutes to realize that. “Darkness, Darkness” sounds like typical 60s folk rock with a strikingly high voice. But in fact, The Youngbloods are much more than that, as they move with remarkable ease across the entire spectrum from rock to jazz on “Elephant Mountain.” Thanks to Young's voice and Banana's virtuosity, my impression is that there are no real breaks, but rather a relaxed meandering that doesn't pay too much attention to stylistic boundaries. This is probably not everyone's cup of tea, but I enjoyed it and I think this is how easy listening should be.

MCMLXXXIV is probably Van Halen's most famous (though not their best IMHO) and surely their most iconic album. Best know for the great but odd "Jump", the party actually starts after that. So I recommend skipping straight to “Panama,” especially since you already know the beginning. The remaining six songs are also great, with “Hot For Teacher” (basically "La Grange" on speed) standing out a bit.
This album definitely plays in the league of legends, but I may have listened to it a little too often.

While Fleetwood Mac are clearly a legend, including their aldum "Tusk" on this list is debatable. Wikipedia says this was a more experimental album (which is not wrong) but my main impression when listening to it was inconsistence. Some of the songs follow very different approaches and not all of them suit Fleetwood Mac well. On the other hand, there are some great songs here, including "Sisters of the Moon" and large parts of disk two. All together, this record leaves me mith some nice ideas and mixed feelings - similar to the Beatles' White Album and thus rated accordingly.

I was only vaguely familiar with Screaming Trees and had somehow expected to come across them during this project. "Dust" delivers decent, well-produced 90s alternative rock without standing out in any way. That's okay, I can listen to this kind of music quite well from time to time. I'm not really familiar with their back catalogue, but from what I've read, this could be another case of "the wrong album made it onto the list".
Anyway, this album is OK.

I don't even know what to write about this album—I'm so shocked that such shallow mainstream pop made it onto the list. Music like this is usually hyped up for a few weeks and then, after a year at most, no one remembers it anymore. I gave up after four songs because it's just annoying, but apparently there's at least one music journalist who voluntarily subjected himself to it a second time...
Anyway, tomorrow there's bound to be another album worth listening to.

Wow, the third boring album in a row!
Before I joined this project, I had only known Elvis Costello by name - so he must be kind of famous. Earlier on this journey, I reviewed an album of his from the 90s which didn't convince me either. However, the reasons are totally different, so he was probably great in the 80s...
Before "My Aim Is True", Costello did his thing as a Singer-Songwriter and on this album he was equipped with a backing band - which as such is a good idea as he has an interesting voice but poor guitar playing skills (the latter I remember from his other record). Still, his voice is not at all times well embedded in the music, leaving the impression of a partnership of convenience. On the other hand, there are a few songs ("Alison", "...Red Shoes") where singer and band align better and give a glimpse of an actually promising and rising artist. As stated in the beginning: Elvis Costello might have been great in the 80s. If so, this still doesn't answer the question why they put his weaker albums on the list.

Buffalo Springfield is a 60s beat band of which there must have been a number by 1967. Their album "... Again" is well produced but lacks anything special to stand out and give it a right to play in this list.
Actually, this is another example of this list not being curated carefully. There already are a lot of 60s albums included and most of them are great. And then they added some random stuff, I guess? If it's to fill up the 1001, there's a bunch of more obvious choices.

I had never heard of Spirit before, and it wouldn't have been a disaster if it had stayed that way. “Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus” starts promisingly with “Nothin' To Hide” and “Nature's Way", but then loses its way in more experimental passages and falls apart over time. It's not really bad, but ultimately Spirit is just another psychedelic rock band from the 70s. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just that I can easily think of 25 better albums in this ballpark that didn't make the list.

I must admit that I massively underestimated this album when it was released. Suddenly, everyone at school liked punk rock, and that was solely because they had heard “Basket Case”. I remember thinking that the song was only so-so at the time. But what really irritated me was that everyone had completely changed their taste in music overnight.
Looking back, these sudden breaks—of which there were several in the 90s—were necessary for the further development of contemporary music. On the other hand, the constant style changes naturally led to very few mature albums being released during that decade. In my opinion, “Dookie” is also extremely important in music history—alongside the punk rock revival, the whole emo wave was ultimately based on it—but it is not a consistently outstanding work.
Long preamble, here are a few notes on the songs: The aforementioned “Basket Case” is based on Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D and was a must for all musicians in the late 90s. I also remember the second real hit, “When I Come Around”, very well. At the time, I missed the “Norwegian Wood” references in “In The End”. Today, the strongest song for me was “Welcome To Paradise”. Otherwise, “Dookie” has its longueurs, apart from a few nice bass breaks. But that's okay, Green Day delivered their masterpiece ten (!) years later—they deserve the development time.

Badly Drawn Boy play... well... poorly composed music. If “The Hour Of Bewilderbeast” had been released in the early 90s, it could have been described as “just another alternative rock band.” But with its release in 2000, it's more like the last gasp of a style that was never meant to last. On top of that, the album has a poorly produced sound that 10 years earlier could have been seen as a protest against the overproduced 80s. This way it's really just a sign of incompetence that the drums don't sound properly integrated because the bass is poorly mixed. It's all a bit sad, because Badly Drawn Boy aren't actually a bad band. Their music is just boring.

Yesterday I reviewed Lou Reed, and Giant Sand strike a very similar note, at least musically. However, Lou Reed was around 30 years earlier and was therefore something of a pioneer of his style. Giant Sand, on the other hand, take a different approach to individual songs, which makes “Chore of Enchantment” reasonably varied. Nevertheless, there are only a few moments that give an impression of inspiration, independent creativity, or even innovation. Overall, it's an unremarkable album.

I don't quite get Lou Reed's “Transformer”. It wants to be a dark album, but it doesn't really deliver. His biggest hit, “Walk on the Wild Side”, doesn't really grab me because, apart from the lyrics, there's not much to it. “Perfect Day” has potential, but it doesn't sound very depressing, just slightly melancholic, which lightens the mood compared to the other songs and therefore doesn't contribute to the gloom. Overall, it has something of Johnny Cash about it, but without his charisma—and since charisma was everything for Johnny Cash, that doesn't leave much.
Actually a two-star album but I give it a third one for detached coolness and the early glam rock vibes.

On “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere,” Neil Young & Crazy Horse offer a healthy mix of early hard rock and country. The album's greatest strengths are the song-oriented arrangements and the band's tasteful interplay. In addition to one or two songs with hit potential, or at least catchy tunes, a slightly more mature production would have done it good. The sound is somewhat reminiscent of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Now, there are certainly worse references, but Jimi was a force of nature that was difficult to tame. Neil Young is definitely not in that category. Nevertheless, this album is well worth a listen!