Reviews by pops

A frustrating listen. Every time I was ready to write it off as hipster grunge nonsense, they hit me with an actual tune.

My third Deep Purple album, and the third time I'm going to say some variation on "great musicians, some decent songs, but Christ on a bike, they dragged things out." I actually enjoyed the first five minutes of Child in Time - sadly it's 10 minutes long.

Most of this was fun 1960s pop, apart from Melody for an Unknown Girl, which is unadulterated cheese.

I was under the impression this entire album was built around old blues and gospel samples, but it turns out that's only a handful of a tracks. Those are also the best tracks.

Oh, Kanye, why did you have to make such good albums? At least with Kid Rock, I could separate the art from the artist and come to the considered conclusion that they both suck.

I listened to this, enjoyed it a lot and then had a chicken and pancetta bake for tea.

I’d never heard this before which is kind of surprising - I’ve listened to so much of Damon Albarn’s output (Blur, Gorillaz, his solo albums, the Africa Express stuff) so not entirely sure why I decided The Good, The Bad & The Queen was the one I could skip. Anyway, it’s maybe not top tier Albarn but I still really liked it.

I bought this when it came out, so I am qualified to be one of those wankers who moaned about the Johnny-Come-Latelys who only got into them circa Sex on Fire. However, if I’m honest, I didn’t listen to it much so I was happy for the Johnny-Come-Latelys to have them. I still quite like it, I just can’t get that excited about it.

If this was 1001 Singles You Must Hear Before You Die, Groove Is In The Heart would be right up there. As an album though, this is pretty patchy.

I thought I only knew All I Wanna Do, but it turned out I knew Run, Baby, Run, Leaving Las Vegas and Strong Enough too. That kind of points to my main issue with this album – it's nice enough when you're listening to it, but then it slips straight out of your head.

I thought this was going to be very obviously from the last gasp of punk, but actually it feels quite ahead of its time. I liked it a lot.

Thanks to Dedication by the Beastie Boys, I can't see this band's name without wanting to bellow: "Noo-castle! Where Venom comes from!" I would say if they're good enough for the Beasties, they're good enough for me, but I found this a bit tiresome.

Three Feet High and Rising is often identified as patient zero in the epidemic of skits on hip-hop albums, but I love it so much, I can’t even hold that against it. After all these years, it’s still as fresh as a D.A.I.S.Y and a showcase for how fun and inventive sampling can be. (And De La Soul’s gameshow skits are pretty charming.)

I can see why their sound was influential but they didn’t really have the songs to go with it.

The more Kinks albums I listen to, the less I think I’d like Ray Davies if I met him - there can be something a bit sneery about his brand of social commentary. (Did any actual session musicians have to play on Session Man?) However, if I just have to listen to his music and not interact with him, the man’s an incredible songwriter.

I've gone from being surprised that Yeah Yeah Yeahs have two albums on this list to thinking that's fair enough because they are both bangers.

In a Silent Way by Miles Davis is probably my favourite album that I've discovered so far through the generator. I didn't fall for this quite as hard (at least on first listen), but it did confirm that I might well be a Miles Davis fan. Who knew? Not me.

It just kind of washed over me, which to be fair seems to be what Eno was going for.

I'm intrigued to get an album from the 1990s I've never heard of – I had a major music magazine habit during that decade, so normally even if I've never listened to the artist before, I at least recognised the name (looking at you, Barry Adamson and Drive Like Jehu). This one though passed me by on all levels, and I can kind of see why. It's not unpleasant but it didn't make much of an impression. It's also waaay too long.

I'm pretty much at the midpoint of this project, and one of the biggest revelations has been discovering that I like Neil Young. I've had four albums by him so far and enjoyed them all - maybe there's an album lurking in the last 500 or so on the list that will remind me why I always thought I wasn't that keen on him.