Reviews by mitch058

I'm still a bit mystified by the project editors' choice to choose three consecutive Queen albums rather than a broader range of their discography, especially because of the three that we get in this collection, only "A Night at the Opera" is really worth hearing before we die. This album is definitely better and more interesting than "Queen II", and I was impressed at the number of genuinely hard-rocking tracks--especially the opener "Brighton rock", the duo "Tenement funster"/"Flick of the wrist", and "Stone cold crazy"--but it would have been more interesting (to me at least) to get their forays into pop albums like "The Game" or "The Works". Regardless, this is still a fun album from a band that was clearly more talented than their glam rock legacy might suggest.

I've never been a big Beatles fan, and I'm nearly 100% positive that I've never listened to this album in its entirety before, so I assumed that there would be a few songs I recognized and others that were new to me. Instead, I didn't hear *anything* I hadn't heard before at some point, which speaks volumes to how popular and widespread this album has been and continues to be. (IT may also indicate that my confidence about never having heard this album before is misplaced.) It's definitely not a perfect album, and obligatory inclusions like Ringo Starr's "Octopus's garden" or the somewhat maudlin "Sun king" are kind of jarring. But what a fitting end to the Fab Four's career.

I'm not very familiar with Todd Rundgren's apparently prodigious output, but it *feels* like the "1001 Albums" editors must have a love/hate relationship with Mr. Rundgren, or maybe they're just haters, because there's no way Rundgren could have had an entire musical career that sounds like this and his previous album, neither of which are all that interesting and/or must-hear selections. But at least this one is shorter (and yet still too long) and the first side is a *lot* more quirky than "Something/Anything?"; sadly side two feels a lot less unhinged and a lot more derivative. And what an album cover--it feels like he somehow channeled in 1970 what AI would do to images 55 years later. I didn't really need the Wikipedia entry to guess that drugs fueled much of the music and concepts in this album (at least the first side), but perhaps he could have showed a little more restraint in layering *so* much into every track? Given the kind of lackluster music he seems to have made solo, and how much he was (and is) sought out to help produce albums, even when he pisses off the band members, I'm beginning to think that Todd Rundgren is a kindred spirit to Brian Eno.

Aside from her big hit "Royals", I think this album is the only music by Lorde that I've knowingly listened to. "Royals" set a pretty high bar, and while I'm not sure she climbs to that level on this album, it's still a very solid pop album and she seems to be able to carve out her own sound pretty well. Highlights for me were probably "The Louvre" and the first half of "Hard feelings/Loveless", and "Writer in the dark" was the only real dud. Her songs are definitely more interesting when she's not pushing for straight Taylor-Swift-style pop tracks.

I've lost count of how many albums we've had so far involving Neil Young, but I know (a) it's a lot (too many, I'd even claim), and (b) I'm glad this one was included. I've never really been able to enjoy Neil Young's voice/singing style, but listening to this one I really wish I could enjoy his quavering whine to make the experience even better. Regardless, there's plenty of great songs it doesn't really matter, with only a few relative duds ("Till the morning comes" is probably the only lackluster attempt, although his cover of "Oh, lonesome me" isn't nearly as good as his originals). It was also fun to read the extensive Wikipedia entry that describes how the entire album was going to be at one point the soundtrack to Dean Stockwell's sci-fi/dystopian screenplay of an "After the Gold Rush" movie that never got made; eventually only the title track and "Cripple Creek ferry" had any connection to the screenplay (which helps explain some of the weirder references in both of those tracks, although I have to admit that until today I'd always assumed the latter song was "Cripple Creek fairy").

A solid album overall, and nice to get a too-rare appearance of an Australian band in the collection. This kind of indie-pop stuff isn't really to my taste, and seemed like a weird mashup of REM, Eddie From Ohio and their countrymate Paul Kelly, but I guess they had their devoted fanbase; I have to admit it makes me wonder (yet again) why these guys made the cut when the big Aussie names like INXS or Midnight Oil are nowhere to be seen. On the other hand, I was also confused to read that this album has been ranked in the top 20 Australian albums by multiple sources, so maybe I just don't get it? I didn't recognize anything from the album, but I can see why "Streets of your town" was their biggest hit from this album.

It's both interesting and a bit baffling to get all these late-arrivals so late in the collection, especially without much context about the albums or why these selections were included. Regardless, I enjoyed this offering by Janjay Lowe/Mon Rovia, and also appreciated getting a non-UK-based artist amongst the 2020s albums. He has an interesting history--Liberian-born, adopted by US parents, lived a portion of his child- and teenage-hood in Tennessee--and it's nice how he injects glimpses of this in some of the tracks, all of which seem to be a kind of strange overlay of hopeful-sounding music with some pretty depressing topics and lyrics. There's kind of a modern-day Cat Stevens aspect to it all, but not quite as insightful or poignant, and a bit too overproduced for my tastes (or maybe just over-compressed). But I'm glad to have heard this album and artist.

I know I'd heard of Gang of Four, but had no idea what they sounded like. And I am now very impressed with this album, a sort of precursor to the likes of The Specials a few years later, and Rage Against the Machine a couple of decades later (and apparently a big inspiration to INXS in between). It's a bit monochromatic throughout, but I enjoy their sound, and so many of the songs have interesting and incisive political commentary; my favorites were probably "Ether", "Guns before butter", and the duo "At home he's a tourist" and "5.45", but I can imagine plenty of 70s British teens (as well as slightly older punk fans) cranking up the entire album in (somewhat impotent) protest. It sounds like their later career never really landed as hard as this debut album, but what a start.

Hm. This very retro/shoegaze-esque album (albeit with a bit more happy beats) would probably be more interesting if the project's editors explained which older album got booted for this one, and why? There's nothing wrong with the album, or the tracks, or the band, but I feel like I could have lived just fine with the existing collection's montage of My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins, Jesus and Mary Chain, Ride, etc. But I liked the album cover (and also "Very online guy")!

It's hard to objectively rank this record, as I think it's probably the first adult-ish record that I remember listening to as a kid, thanks in large part to my parents' impressively meager record collection, of which this and a Beatles Greatest Hits album were as heavy-hitting as they came. I haven't listened to this album for many (many) decades, yet I found myself singing along to nearly every song except the ones I found so tedious as kid (and still do somewhat), namely the farewell odes to Garfunkel "So long, Frank Lloyd Wright" and "The only living boy in New York", plus the closer "Song for the asking". It was fun, though, to get this album 1000 albums into the collection, and to be able to hear how much this album was influenced by the likes of the Beatles (especially with tracks like "Keep the customer satisfied" and "Baby driver") and Paul Simon's need to escape the long shadow of Bob Dylan. Much like Cat Stevens, I find it hard not to give them five stars for an album, even if it's probably not *that* great.

I've never been a big Talk Talk fan, so I'm thankful that the project's editors chose this very *un*-Talk-Talk-like album to showcase the band. It's still not an album I'd necessarily choose to listen to, in part because Mark Hollis' voice and delivery isn't all that appealing to me, but the (relative) lack of synthesizers and drum machine--in 1986 of all years--is incredibly refreshing. The best of the tracks are probably "I don't believe in you" and "Give it up", but all of them are pretty solid, and most are surprisingly slow-paced (but not especially low-energy).

At long last, the last of the Joy Division/New Order collection collective. Much like the other three JD/NO albums, this didn't do much for me, and if anything seemed less interesting than their next album "Closer", although I *am* impressed at how well they launched the whole goth-rock sound single-handedly (apparently thanks in large to their producer Martin Hannett). The best of the lot for me are "Day of the lords", "New dawn fades" and "I remember nothing", but nothing really grabbed me, and even those choices were probably influenced by the weird and presumably fan-created videos that clearly don't date to the album itself. This has all the hallmarks of a cult fan-favorite album, and I feel like I didn't get the right invitation. Sorry guys (both dead and alive)!

Ah, yet another Tom Waits album, with *still* one more to come no less. I don't mind this at all, but it's definitely unfortunate that this collection overloads us with five Tom Waits, leaving no room for other worthy artists in the playlist. I can see why this is considered the before/after mark in his musical career, and I'll admit that I much prefer his After Swordfishtrombones era. This isn't quite as strong as his two later albums in the collection ("Rain Dogs" and "Bone Machine"), but it's still interesting as a transition album, and it's also fun to hear the genesis of his signature tribal-blue-collar-orchestra-esque sound. My favorites were the opener "Underground", "16 shells from a 30.6" and the title track; with honorable mentions to the ballads "Town with no cheer" and "In the neighborhood" (especially with its video). Too much of the remainder, though, was surprisingly bland and forgettable (not something I associate with Tom Waits).

I'm sure my reaction to this album is quite different than for most, but I guess I bought and listened to this album at just the right impressionistic time in late teenage-hood. In fact, the only real critique I always had was how incredibly poorly produced/mixed her early albums were, and I'm very happy that the 2009 remastered version is so much better. I'm not sure I can say why her almost maudlin delivery on so many of the tracks works for me when similar artists like Alanis Morissette or even Adele never really felt as deeply-felt or authentic, but nearly every song I've heard by Sinead O'Conner feels like she's just recently torn out a new piece of her heart in an epically tragic life; this was even more true on her debut "The Lion and the Cobra". (It was always a marvel to me that she *didn't* die of suicide or an overdose, although very sad that she died not long after her son committed suicide.) My favorites are probably "I am stretched on your grave" (and only now discovered that it's an English-lanugage rendition of a 17th-century Irish poem), "Black boys on mopeds", the fantastic cover to Prince's "Nothing compares 2 u" and the eternally sad "The last day of our acquaintance". In fact, the only weak tracks are probably "Three babies" and "Jump in the river".

Well, I'm glad to have finally heard this iconic punk album. Despite hanging out sort-of/nearish-to the small punk crowd in my first high school, I'm pretty sure I hadn't heard anything from this album aside from "Rise above" and "T.V. party" (the latter via "Repo Man" more than anything else), and I'm also happy to know that I wasn't missing much. (On the other hand, there are some pretty interesting covers of "Rise Above", especially by Dirty Projectors (so much better than what we got in their "Bitte Orca" album) and Ibeyi.)

I can see how this became *the* iconic SoCal punk album, with all of that genre's violence and disaffection, but what struck me most was how this album, and maybe a lot of American punk, was using the idea of "music" and "songs" as a vehicle for something else. I'm not really sure what that something else was--maybe just an excuse to release stress and beat the shit out of each other?--but 80% of this album has almost no recognizable relationship with what I'd consider musical direction. But Henry Rollins certainly managed to add in 1000% of unchanneled rage and anger and frustration. Impressive in a way, but not really my thing.

Well, *that* was a depressing experience. Nothing like a high octane pop album by a name I kind of recognize but whose songs I failed to largely understand (literally), to reinforce how much I'm nowhere near the right age or mindset to be even remotely adjacent to the target audience. But on the positive side, I now have a face to put to the name Charli xcx, and now I finally understand what all those bizarre references to "brat summer" a couple of years ago were all about. The videos to "360" and "Von dutch" only added to the sense of the world moving on (not in a great direction. it seems), especially the bizarre argot at the beginning of "360" as they dissect the "look" of the waitress. (It kind of reminded of the quasi-secret language in the movie "Brick", but also sounded painfully like the conversations I've overheard with my tween/teenage nieces.) I'm not sure we really need *two* Charli xcx albums in this collection, especially since the other one is literally from 2026--how can you really know yet if it's a to-die-for album--but there you go.

At #1016, I think I'm getting short-timer syndrome. This is the second Common album in the collection, and not only do I have zero recollection of listening to "Like Water for Chocolate" (only 200 albums ago), but I feel like if I'd gotten this album then, I would be more likely to rave about it (as many critics did when it was released, it would seem). Instead, "Be" feels a bit disjointed, and in some ways Kanye West's production seems really heavy-handed, as if Common didn't have what it took to make his own beats and song structure; tracks like "Faithful and "The food" seem like they could have easily been on a West album. But there's still a number of solid tracks on the album, especially "The corner" (having The Last Poets guest rapping really made it shine), the cinematic "Testify" (definitely helped by the video), and parts of "It's your world" (mainly Part 2), and it's refreshing to have a 42-minute runtime to a hip-hop album. Solid, but not as great as it could have been?

I can see why this album was included in the collection, given the Louvin brothers place in the traditional country/bluegrass pantheon, but I have to admit that their duet style and the limitations of the 1950s recording made me wince with every song. (And kind of ironic that Louis Prima's very entertaining and much better recorded "The Wildest!" is on the facing page in the "1001 Albums" book; clearly that tinny shallow sound on "Tragic Songs of Life" isn't entirely inevitable....)

I'm glad that the likes of Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris found material worth reviving in later years from these guys, but to me the most interesting aspect of this album was reading about Ira's real-life manifestation of many of the songs on this album. Womanizer, alcoholic/substance abuser, rage control issues, even shot multiple times by his third wife (after trying to strangle her), that guy sounds like a piece of work. Sad, though, that he and his fourth wife died in a car wreck from a drunk-driver, only a couple of years after he and his brother Charlie broke up (Charlie couldn't handle Ira's insanity).

A weird coincidence that not ten albums ago I mentioned Queens of the Stone Age, apparently sufficient to invoke them with today's album. I've been a big fan of them for a long time, in part because their sound is so distinctive and different (at least to me), so I'm glad to see them in this project. I'm not so glad that we're relegated to listening to their debut album (such a maddening preference by the project editors), because while this album has a lot of the ingredients for what has made the band so distinctive, it is neither as focused nor as interesting as their later albums; I was actually surprised how much they sound like Soundgarden in several of the tracks (minus Chris Cornell's great voice). Too bad, as they would have gotten a much higher rating from me if this had been "Songs for the Deaf" (the only album I own) or even their second album "Rated R"--less noodling, more punch.

Nice to finally get to the final Sonic Youth album in the collection! I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that while I've owned this album for over 30 years, I barely recognized most of the tracks outside of their (relative) hits "100%" and "Drunken butterfly"; I guess that kind of sums up my affinity to this venerable NYC band. I *did* enjoy the various videos to several of their tracks, especially the "Meet the Feebles"-esque one for "Drunken butterfly" (which was apparently a fan film/video from an MTV contest). And while it's far too long for what you get, I do appreciate it that this album has the most song-oriented and quasi-mainstream(-ish) music from all of the SY albums we've gotten in this project.