Rated 8/10
Jumbled messy stream-of-consciousness junkie logic stories about nothing and everything, from a time guitars were endangered and english kids thought this lot could help bring them back. Interesting and, in the uk, important, and surprisingly good
I'm still not convinced live albums merit a place on the list, and bootlegs even less so, but as a record of a moment when everything changed, this one maybe does.
Bob still can't sing, but he can certainly write. I liked the "electric" set more, but the first half was also good.
Rated 4/10
Pretty jumbled and shambolic. She can certainly sing, but maybe hadn't found her style at this point. Pleasant enough, and maybe better after a few more listens, but Canadian country pastiche is not for me.
Rated 4/10
Boring; one of the worst albums I have listened to, not helped by having another boring album stuck onto it (on the linked version)
Still 1,000% better than the one star dross though!!
Rated 6/10
Glam, but still cool. Very Bowie-lite, and a few of their more famous songs, but patchy and inconsistent. Not my favourite genre (or band) but better than I expected
Rated 6/10
Proto punk, but still needing a fair bit of progress to be thee real deal. Important, rather than enjoyable, but worth a listen. Just skip the cover version!
Rated 8/10
Nick Cave doing his thing, over noisy fast punk noise. This is a good thing!
Not quite he "all time classic" I would give 5 stars, but not all that far short. A wonderful insight into one of the great artists as he was figuring it al out.
Rated 10/10
Not as immediate as some of their other work, but really interesting and enjoyable. Roughly the same age as me (the album; not the band), from the same island, and with a similar wide range of musical influences - of course I love it. Fully deserves its place on this list, and fully deserves 5 big stars!
Rated 6/10
Dated and samey, with little light and shade. Influenced a bunch of bands I like, but just too far back and not engaging enough for me to like this. Interesting and deserving of its place on the list though.
Rated 8/10
Classic, if fairly mainstream, rock. No surprise to find out Rick Rubin was involved.
A few great songs, and possibly the worst cover version I have ever heard, but on the whole really good. Not five stars, but way too good for three!
Rated 6/10
Repetitive, like most edm, but catchy and riffy rather than dull and boring. Little to give it away as French, perhaps because their influences are so firmly rooted in the US and UK music scenes. Not my thing, really, but better than the average dance album.
Rated 6/10
Odd English folk, but closer in spirit and sound to Bob Dylan compared to their later work. Not my thing, but interesting as a marker of what was going on at the time
Rated 6/10
Self indulgent and guilty of cultural appropriation on a number of occasions, and yet I quite enjoyed it. Basically background music, aside from the reggae track, but not everything has to grab you and shake you!
Rated 8/10
Proto-grunge, obviously a huge influence on Nirvana and their peers. Enjoyable and fun, without ever ascending to the heights of some of the bands who followed them. I will be diving into the rest of their stuff (when I get time!)
Rated 8/10
Messy, sloppy, noisy proto-punk, a clear influence on a bunch of bands I love. The germ of an idea, yet to be fully realised, but interesting and important.
Rated 6/10
Very shiny, expensive sounding, great production and vocals, but an awful lot of filler outside of the big hits. Not for me, but a solid 3
Rated 8/10
Background music, very loopy and repetitive, pleasant enough but not massively engaging.
Rated 10/10
Pure perfection, not a note out of place, flawless vocals, wonderful lyrics.
One of my all-time musical heros.
Rated 8/10
Late golden age hip hop - around the time beefs, gangsta rap and sampling license issues made everything start getting worse. A couple of classics, particularly the title track, but patchy and inconsistently paced. Very good, but falls just short of his contemporaries
Rated 10/10
Funky as hell, set the template for a whole genre (or two). A band where I only knew the radio hits, and the sampled tracks, but I loved every second of this.
Track 2 probably wouldn't get much radio play nowadays though, if it ever did!
