Reviews by rylee

A Mormon "rock" band spent their last few active years working with BJ Burton creating some of the most experimental music the indie scene has ever heard. This album, along with Hey What, are perfection.

I was so ready to give this a 1. Immediately, I was turned off by Mike's voice, how close he is to the microphone, his awkward rapping and singing, and I never really warmed up to it. My favorite parts of the album were when he wasn't talking. But what I did come to appreciate was the flow of this album. There isn't any filler here, everything seems at least somewhat necessary to the story. It's a little bit of a hip-hopera, and that's something I haven't heard outside of the musical theater. Still not a fan.

me listening to Al Green's album on the list: Nice. Some sweet soul. Makes me think of my girlfriend. This is what it sounds like when you love your wife. I sure hope this man treated his wife with love and respect.

me reading Al Green's wikipedia page: OH COME ON

Oh I mean come on, it's a modern classic! Anything less than a 5 would be a disservice. Janelle Monae is a living legend. This album has something for everyone, even psychedelic rock fans in the form of Mushrooms & Roses. I'm a little behind on my albums right now so I feel like I shouldn't say much about this but yes, of course, please listen to this. Even some of the most hateful people on this site have a soft spot for The ArchAndroid!

I'd like to apologize to everyone I've annoyed by being a Radiohead fan. Multiple times, during this album, I thought it sounded very similar to The Bends. Turns out this predates it by like four years. Maybe I don't just like that band, maybe I like this style of rock in general. Killer tones in the guitar, funky, groovy, really good production. I wasn't expecting to like this as much as I did, I always assumed U2 was boring, but anthemic, pop rock. This has a lot of subtlety, it's fun, it kinda just...rocks, you know? Am I gonna be a fan of U2? Oh no.

Shoutout to 1001albumsgenerator.com for giving me a place to journal. Shoutout to Hinge, the platform that allowed me to meet my girlfriend. (Hinge!) Shoutout to my girlfriend. Ain't gonna say no names, but you know I love you. (I love you!) Shoutout to all the exes that led me to her. (lesbians unite!) Shoutout to Kara, shoutout to Caro (karaoke!) shoutout to Bruce, Nara, all of them. Y'all led me here and I can't forget about you. Thank you. (thanks!) Shoutout to my girlfriend (she knows!) for her encouragement, to keep journaling. (thank you!) Shoutout to my best friends, Shye, Anthony, Claire (it'll be okay!) shoutout to Allie for knowing me for 15 years. (sorry I was weird and cringe when I was like 12!) Shoutout to Elvis Costello for having six albums on this damn list (for real?!) and shoutout Robert Dimery for adding a 7th Rolling Stones album to the list (eat shit, Rob!) Shoutout to the Rolling Stones for kicking Fiona Apple off the list for the new edition of the book (you still suck!) and shoutout Fiona Apple for being so cool. Shoutout to David Bowie having nine entire albums on this list. (I'm not the biggest fan of you!) Shoutout Radiohead for having six albums on this list (I don't like Kid A all that much!) and for being my first favorite band when I was 15 years old. Shoutout Allie (again!) for also liking Radiohead, shoutout Giles Corey (have a nice life!) for being nice to me when I was a kid in high school. Shoutout to all my teachers. But no shoutout for you, Mr. Nicolay, for perving on your little girl students and drunk texting them after-hours. (he drank himself to death!) Shoutout to my dad for being my family's resident pedophile. (go to hell!) Shoutout all my therapists, including the two who died. (Linda! Gordon!) Big shoutout to my current therapist, Ashley, you rock. Shoutout Lupe Fiasco (Chicagooo!) and all the people he mentioned in the last song (I don't know any of you!) to help make this record possible. It's a great album, classic conscious hip hop, a love letter to his friends and family (he loves you!) and all his favorite artists. (Jay-Z!) Shoutout Lupe Fiasco for being unpredictable and announcing albums and then immediately cancelling them. (where's Food & Liquor II Pt. 2?!) Oh my god, he's touring with B.o.B this year. Oh no. (Take back that shoutout!)

Oh my god. I had no idea what to expect, I just knew that Cohen was a legendary songwriter, and this was written in the months prior to his death. I'm blown away. The deep choir vocals, the penetrative power of Cohen's voice, the beautiful strings, the occasional electronic drum sound, I'm astonished by all of it. I haven't heard an album quite like this before. I know this is very singular in Cohen's catalogue, so I'm not even sure this will translate to me enjoying the rest of his work, and the only other song I know (the big one) isn't in any of the albums in the 1001. So we'll see how it goes. But oh my god. This is magnificent. If I Didn't Have Your Love is one of the most poetic songs I've ever heard. Oh my god.

God DAMMIT.

I want to like Sonic Youth so bad. Noise rock was a pinnacle of my music taste when I was growing up, and honestly, it still is. I'm still growing up. But they've always been on the outskirts of my vision. I think "yeah they're not bad" even though nothing they've put out has really struck me. When I was a kid, I heard EVOL through one earbud while doing schoolwork in class. I thought it wasn't noisy enough. 10 years later, it's still not noisy enough. Not nearly. Not until the very last song was I actually impressed by anything, and by then, it's too little too late for me.

I recently got Seventeen Seconds by The Cure from this journey, which was one of my few touchstones for gothic rock. This sounds very similar; even Sonic Youth consider this their "goth record." I guess that explains why I really despise this thing. Too murky, soaked in echo, mumbling singers, basic chords and melodies...it actually reminds me of shoegaze quite a bit. Wouldn't you know, I don't like shoegaze either. This entire album experience was me thinking "oh, oh this could be something...nope. oh my god. DO SOMETHING" over and over again.

I was teetering between a 2 and a 1. But EVOL is LOVE backwards, and LOVE would be a 5, so...

Ira Louvin was shot by his third wife after he laid hands on her. She was quoted as saying "If he ain't dead, I'll shoot him again" while laying in her hospital bed. Fucking legend. As for the music itself, I like the blood harmonies, but they could do with a metal scream now and again. Needs more blastbeats.

Who doesn't love soul music? I didn't even realize how much I enjoyed it until I started this list, and artists like Isaac Hayes and Sam Cooke positively blew me away. I am fully aware the performances here are brilliant. But I do have one issue, and it's strictly personal.

I work at a bank, and for about a year, I worked at the busiest branch in our market. Some days it was a nightmare. Every day was stressful. One day, my manager got physically attacked by a customer. I had great experiences there, but overall, just thinking about my time there spikes my cortisol. And so does this specific album. Because everyone loves soul, my manager always had the "oldies" station on, pretty much full blast. At least three songs from this very album were on there. I work at many other branches now, and anytime this station is playing, I can feel my stress level rising. That's unfortunately tied to this music too, although I sincerely wish it wasn't. This is a great album from a legendary performer.

Hey Robert? Would you mind stepping a bit closer to the mic? No one can fucking hear you!

My first Cure album. If it was a minute longer, it would be as exactly as long as the drive to my girlfriend's house, which is cool. Other than that, there isn't really a lot here for me.

Assholes. You all love to complain about how the list is 99% British indie rock, jangle pop, Radiohead, Elvis Costello, Rolling Stones, Morrissey, well here's some diversity for you. Experimental electronic pop music from one of the biggest alternative pop stars in decades, and you don't listen to her, she's "hipster bullshit" "unlistenable" "stop pretending to like this" screw off. Some of you like Bjork, right? Here's this generation's Bjork. Here's production from Arca, a legendary producer right before she got famous, who got cosigned by Bjork because of this album. Here's a group of unique love songs that don't sound like anything you've heard before, and you never will again. And you're not paying any fucking attention. You don't give her the respect she deserves. This absolutely needs to be in the 1001 Albums, just to force you all to listen to this. This needs to be heard.

I will say, I thought it was preeeetty good...I like the production a lot, especially. And I liked the drums. Even though it struck me pretty quickly, it wasn't very good at keeping my interest. There's a lot to like here, I think the album sounds great, but it's really just...not my thing. Sorry, that one guy on Discord who was begging me to listen to this.

Neil Young continues to be Pretty Alright for me. I have a bit of a soft spot for albums that are kinda live, kinda not. Shoutout to whoever added Ultravisitor to the user album list. But my favorite part of this is by far the electric set. Sometimes they're playing so fast, and Neil Young in his manner of singing, it almost sounds like punk! Like straight up punk music! Which was already on its way out in 1979, but still. It's a good time.

Brian Eno is a legend. but I've never been very familiar with his stuff. This is largely because I DESPISE ambient. Mostly. It demands patience and attention from me that I simply do not have. Lo and behold, this mostly ambient album didn't get a lot of kudos from me. Yes, parts of it are very beautiful, but it just flits between here, there, everywhere, never latching onto a beat I enjoy, never catching my attention. My sincere condolences to any future ambient that comes my way from this list.

Wait, so like...what is glam rock? Maybe I don't have enough points of reference, but after listening to a bunch of classic blues rock on this list, this sounds pretty similar to most of that. Some of the subject matters in the lyrics are unique to my ears, like the singer calling themselves a queen on the last song, but it seems like glam rock is mostly based on the presentation of the performers...? Huh. I really don't know.

Oh well. This is still very good. It's got distorted jams, sweet love songs, the passion in the singer's voice is palpable...I'm not exactly head over heels for it, but out of anything else I've heard recently, this is the one that made me wish I was in a little jam band at the local dive bar, comping on my guitar, following the 12-bar blues changes. It's a romp.

Pretty good, but pretty one-note. I find that a lot of blues rock sounds the same to me. But this album kinda makes up for that by way of virtuosity, cool guitar work, and a killer rhythm section. This is my first time hearing Jim Morrison's vocals, and he better sound far more interesting in the other Doors albums, because he sounds just dead tired here. Like he's constantly about to pass out. The latter half of the album is pretty great!

Some parts of it were really interesting to me! But it still suffers from the same anti-Rylee infection that I hear in most prog rock, even though I don't know what's causing it. Not a huge fan. Shoutout to Phil Collins' hands for being, by far, the most interesting thing to my ears.

This site is going to tell you that I wrote this review on June 30th, 2026. That is not true. Today is October 18th, 2026. It's been a while.

It's the first triple album on the list. My tendency to listen to each album in one sitting made this harder and harder to get through, and eventually, I just gave up. I moved onto other things. I got a promotion. I got rejected a few times. Then I fell in love, and it lasted. It's still going. Her name is Sierra. I love her so much.

I submitted Jane Doe to the user album list. Someone got that album, and they loved it so much, they read through all my reviews, and they got worried about my mental health, along with the fact that I abruptly stopped this project. I woke up last Wednesday to an e-mail from Alexander, the brains and brawn behind the 1001 Albums Generator. He was asking if I was okay. This person enjoyed my submission so much, they wanted to reach out to me, and possibly connect with me, maybe make a friend.

I wish I could call it an invasion of privacy, but the truth is I'm touched. I sincerely did not expect anyone else to read these reviews, nor care. These aren't even reviews anymore, are they? They're journal entries. But I am a musician. An artist. A lyricist for a band I will never name, because I never want any of you to know who I am. What kind of lyricist would I be if my journal entries, one of the few places where I can really pour my heart out, couldn't be seen by the general public?

The new edition of 1001 Albums You Must Hear... came out this past week. I was so excited, hoping against hope that the entire book could get revamped, built from the ground up again, albums missing from decades prior could get added to patch holes, but no. NO. He added a seventh fucking Rolling Stones album. A third Chemical Brothers album. When have these artists been relevant in the last five fucking years?!

I've decided to do it myself. From here on out, I'm making my own list of 1,001 albums. A combination of the original list, the user album list, my own favorites, and anything and everything else I think is worthy enough to be added. I'll add it to the end of my future reviews, just like a bunch of other folks on this site have already done. All of a sudden, I strongly dislike the idea of one British man telling me which albums are the most important in the world. How about one American woman?

Oh, this is supposed to be a review of All Things Must Pass, isn't it? I forgot. Sorry. Uhhhhh. It's too long.

I took a couple weeks off. This is my second Bob Marley, and unfortunately, I may just not be a fan of reggae. It sounds very similar to the previous one I heard from his band, although the instrumental palette is a liiiittle wider. Other than that, nah. Not for me, unfortunately.