1000 Greatest Albums of all Time

 644 Jane’s Addiction - Nothing’s Shocking (1988) Studio Album - Heavy Rock About the Act: Jane's Addiction are a rock band from LA who were formed in 1985 and have had sporadic existence since, with plenty of in-band tensions and arguments, and have managed to squeeze out four studio albums and two live albums.  About the Album: This was their first studio album. The cover regularly hits lists of "Most Shocking Album Covers". Apparently the singer and frontman created plaster models moulded on his girlfriend, and he got the idea in a dream. My History with this Album: None Review: Let' start with a comparison to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. It's a similar kind of rock. Quite kind of heavy and crunchy. Apparently they were in the vanguard of Alt Rock. So if you like rocky rock, this might be something you enjoy. It's quite varied and there are gentler songs, and more eclectic songs in the mix. The acoustic guitar Jane Says is a bit dull, to my mind, the jazz of...

 645 The Cocteau Twins - Treasure (1984) Studio Album - Dream Pop About the Act: The Cocteau Twins were a Scottish band (from Grangemouth) who existed from 1979 to 1997. They were well-known for their ethereal sound. About the Album: This was their third album, their first to be truly successful and cemented their sound. My History with this Album: None Review: Killing Joke, Bauhaus, Japan, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Cocteau Twins, Bow Wow Wow, and even ABC. There is a box in my head for a kind of 80s pop band, and up until this morning, The Cocteau Twins were firmly in that box, not that I could have named any of their songs. My understanding of pop history is improving all the time with doing these reviews, and now I can confidently state that this album was the birth of Dream Pop. Maybe. The word "ethreal" comes to mind, as does the word "reverb". The drums (apparently a drum machine) and often the guitar sound, are drenched in it, making them sound distant. Thes...

 646 Kiss - Kiss Alive (1975) Live Album - Heavy Rock About the Act: Kiss are an American glam/shock/heavy rock/metal band from New York. They have been in existence since 1973 and are responsible for 20 or more studio albums (depending on how you count them). They have had a pretty stable line-up. They are best known for wearing bizarre black-and-white face paint, and glam metal costumes, and for the length of the lead singer, Gene Simmons' tongue. Oh and they have had several hit singles, quite a few hit albums and have sold lots and lots of records. They are generally thought of as being a shock rock band, as the sort of band that you listened to if you were a bit of a rebel. About the Album: This was their fourth album overall, and their breakthrough, the first three having sold poorly. There was a perception that the previous studio albums had not captured the intensity that Kiss brought to the stage, so there was the thought that a live album might sell better. They seem...

 647 Tom Waits - Frank's Wild Years (1987) Studio Album - Avant Americana About the Act: Tom Waits is an American Blues/Jazz/Experimental singer/songwriter/musician.  He started out as Jazz and morphed  into more blues/folk with some decided "experimental" elements. He has created a kind of hobo/beat poet persona. He has been incredibly successful worldwide. He has also worked as an actor. Since his first album in 1973, he has had 16 more. About the Album: This was his tenth studio album, and contains songs written for a play of the same name. Maybe the play made some kind of sense. My History with this Album: None Review: At first I was like "Yeah, another Tom Wait's album. I'll enjoy this". By the middle I was like "wow, he's really piling on the bonkers this time". By the end I was like "what? Are we not finished yet? More of this?" That might tell you a lot. It might not. So I have enjoying getting to know Tom Waits and his mu...

 648 Sam Cooke - Live At The Harlem Square Club 1963 (1985) Live Album - Soul About the Act: Sam Cooke was a pioneer of Soul music. He came to the pop/soul foreground in about 1957, he had a lot of well-selling singles, and was unusually active in his own business affairs and management. His career was brought to an abrupt end in 1964 when he was shot. The circumstances of his death are curious (and there are contradictory accounts) but other than enigmatically saying that, I want to focus on his music. About the Album: The album was recorded in Miami at a night club. After it was recorded, it took over 20 years for it to be released. Speculation seems to be that at the time it was too "raw" and clashed with a smoother image that his record label were cultivating. It is very well thought of as a live album. My History with this Album: None Review: The main way in which this album sounds raw is Sam's voice, which sounds like he is at the end of a punishing tour, and that h...

 649 Slint - Spiderland (1991) Studio Album - Math Rock About the Act: Slint were a band from Kentucky, formed in 1986, they split just before their second album was released in 1990. They have had several reunions, but no more albums. About the Album: This was their second album, and was released just after they split. It had "critical success". My History with this Album: None Review: It's on the weird side. I have pasted in below my re-usable statement on musical weirdness. This was apparently a hugely influential album in the development of Math Rock, and that rings true to me. I have some exposure to Math Rock, because it's kind of connected in some way to Prog, and I listen to quite a bit of Prog. However, I'm not going to expound on it, because it's not that important in terms of what is this album like, and did I enjoy it. There are two electric guitars, and an electric bass, and some drums. For the most part the two guitars use the same, clean guitar ...

 650 Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes (1983) Studio Album - Acoustic Punk About the Act: Violent Femmes are a folk punk band from Milwaukee. They have had 10 studio albums, two hiatuses and have three ex-members since they formed in 1979. About the Album: This was their first and most successful album. My History with this Album: None Review: I knew the first song as soon as it started. Maybe I've heard it on the radio or something. Oh look, I have a live version of it on a compilation album. And album I thought I had not listened to very often. Well it is very distinctive. They kind of missed the punk bubble, but this has a sort of punk feel to it. For the most part this is acoustic guitar, acoustic bass and drums, and singing. The bass is really nice, it has the crunchiest bass sound ever, and the playing is great. The other two are good, too, deceptively so, because it is simple, musically, and they play with sounding a little naff, but in an ironic way, I think. It's pretty...

 651 The Beatles - Beatles VI (1965) Studio Album - Pop About the Act: Do I really need to tell you who The Beatles were? Well, I suppose it is theoretically possible that aliens from the planet Xzog will get hold of a copy of this series of reviews 245 years into the future, and won't know about Earth's most popular pop band ever, so if so, Felicitous Rgnygings to you, and here we go. Way back in 1960, in the dank, rain-kissed streets of Liverpool, four Quarrymen known as John, Paul, George and Ringo formed a band to play a kind of guitar-based pop that famously didn't get signed to some record label or other. They got signed to a different one, played perfectly-crafted pop and won the hearts of every teenage girl in the world, and popularised mop-top haircuts. They went to America, and America screamed at them, apparently not in a bad way. They claimed to be bigger than God at one point, which made some people laugh and some other people angry. As the 60 evolved from craf...

 652 Ice T - OG Original Gangster (1991) Studio Album - Gangsta Rap About the Act: He's a Gangsta Rapper. He came from da hood, or at least hood adjacent. He made some rap records, and also, bizarrely, started a heavy metal band and released some metal records too. He's also an actor. About the Album: This was his fourth album. At 72:17 minutes it's loooooong. My History with this Album: None Review: The second track is an intellectual female voice giving a short monologue. This is how it starts: "Upon initial contact with Ice-T's music, I had envisioned him to be an ill-mannered and psychologically unstable man with an extremely uneducated and barbaric frame of mind, whose raps displayed nothing but ridiculous jargon, shocking sexual audacity and repulsive images of the ghetto." I would say it's not quite that bad, but this definitely sets the scene. There are some standard topics for Gangsta Rap:  I come from the gangs, I have an inherently violent past ...

 653 The O’Jays - Back Stabbers (1972) Studio Album - Soul About the Act: The O'Jays are an R&B/Soul vocal group from Canton Ohio. They were formed in 1958 and are still going, with two of the original members. They have made a lot of records, and presumably a lot of money. About the Album: This was the group's 6th album, and their breakthrough. My History with this Album: None Review: It's hard to find a 70s compilation album without the mega-hit Love Train on it. That's on this album. If you know that song, you will have a decent idea of what this album is like. Stylistically it slips into the gap between Motown and Disco, They are a vocal band in the tradition of people like The Drifters, I guess, but also looking forwards to bands like The Commodores. The sound is big, and full, and full of strings and brass. There are a good number of up-beat numbers, some are verging on the Funk (especially When The World's at Peace, the opener). There are faster soul song...

 654 The Rolling Stones - Get Yer Ya Yas Out (1970) Live Album - Rock About the Act: Let's start with the facts. The Rolling Stones were formed in 1962 and are still going. They are a British band who were formed on Dartford Railway Station. Their frontman and singer Mick Jagger is famous for big lips and strutting.  In the very early years they played songs by Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Howlin' Wolf. Bod Diddley and Muddy Waters. These days this doesn't sound all that remarkable, but at the time it was, because this Chicago Blues music was not well known on this side of the pond. There were some very influential bands and acts involved in moving the blues on into rock, like Eric Clapton, but the Stones may have been the first, certainly the first high-profile band. They moved on from doing covers to their own compositions, and have achieved mega-stardom and sales. In the mid-60s they were successfully marketed as being bad boys, a counterpoint to the "clean" im...

 655 Alice Cooper - Muscle of Love (1973) Studio Album - Rock About the Act: So I guess pretty much everybody has heard of Alice Cooper. Did you know, though, that from 1968 to 1975, "Alice Cooper" was not the name used by the singer, who went by his birth name Vincent Furnier, but was the name of the band he was part of. When the band started to fall apart, he legally changed his name in order to avoid legal issues and to retain control of the name. Very brief history then. The band started out as psychedelic rock, got signed by Frank Zappa, and kind of invented the genre of "Shock Rock" with a horror theme. This led to highly theatrical concerts and horror-inspired song themes, which got more and more elaborate. In 1975 Alice took the name, and the concept and kept pushing the shock and controversy aspects. The band had 7 albums, and Alice as a solo artist has had 21 so far. Not all ahve been horror-themed, for example in 1977 he released "Lace and Whiskey...

 656 Radiohead - Amnesiac (2001) Studio Album - Experimental Rock About the Act: Radiohead are an English Rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, and have been in existence since 1985, continuously, with no breaks, reunions, hiatuses or even any changes in members. 36 years. That in itself is impressive.  Their lead dude is Thom Yorke, who writes the songs, sings the songs and plays lots of instruments. They are credited for being trailblazers in Alternative Rock. They have created 9 studio albums. About the Album: This was the band's 5th studio album, and was recorded at the same time as the previous album, Kid A. They considered the possibility of releasing a double album but decided it was too dense, so released the material as two separate albums. At this point they had left straight Britpop behind and were being quite experimental. My History with this Album: None Review: I'm having one of those "I don't know what to write" moments. Description? I'll try, b...

 657 Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones (1983) Studio album - Experimental Rock About the Act: Tom Waits is an American Blues/Jazz/Experimental singer/songwriter/musician.  He started out as Jazz and morphed into more blues/folk with some decided "experimental" elements. He has created a kind of hobo/beat poet persona. He has been incredibly successful worldwide. He has also worked as an actor. Since his first album in 1973, he has had 16 more. About the Album: This was Tom's eighth studio album, and the start of his experimental stuff. My History with this Album: None Review: This is proper bonkers. It contains 15 songs in just over 41 minutes, which is less than three minutes a song, and I guess one way of thinking about them is as vignettes, or sketches. There are elements of Jazz, Folk, Blues and experimental stuff here. The instrumentation is often quite eclectic, especially in the percussion department. It has a lo-fi production feel, not dirty or scratchy, but lik...

 658 Doves - Lost Souls (2000) Studio Album - Shoegaze/Space Rock About the Act: Doves are an alternative rock band from Manchester. 1998-2010, 2018-present. 5 albums, some reasonable success, and award nominations. About the Album: This was their first album. My History with this Album: None Review: I feel like I've been here before in this style space, in fact I get the feeling that this area of alt rock has been deemed to be particularly important, or quality, and often I feel quite ambivalent about it. It's the kind of washy guitar, shoegaze, dream pop, space rock, new psychedelia that to my limited understanding was lumped in with "britpop". There have been quite a few albums that I have reviewed that seem essentially like this. For some reason though, I responded quite well to this. If I was a good reviewer, I would be able to put my finger on why, or at least cover up my lack of why with some clever phrases. I don't think it just arbitrary, because I listen...

 659 Jethro Tull - Songs from the Wood (1977) Studio Album - Progressive Folk Rock About the Act: Jethro Tull have been in existence since 1967, with a 5-year break recently. They were named after an 18th Century agriculturalist. They are a British band, and could be thought of as a curiosity, had they not been so successful. Folk in Britain comes in two main varieties, English Folk and Celtic Folk (mostly from Scotland and Ireland, but Northumberland and other places also join in). English Folk has developed a distinctive nasal style of singing. Jethro Tull have managed to successfully merge English Folk, Heavy Rock, and at times Classical and Progressive elements. They have managed to change styles with the times, while maintaining their Folk-Rock core sound. Their frontman, Ian Anderson is a charismatic, mad wizard, who sings lead vocals and plays the flute (famously on one leg). He took flute playing into some quite inventive sounds, and with Heavy Rock (and sometimes otherwise...

 660 Nick Drake - Pink Moon (1972) Studio Album - Folk About the Act: Nick Drake was an English Singer-Songwriter, who released three albums of Folky songs in the late 60s and early 70s. He died in 1974, ages 26, from an overdose of depression medicine. He was hardly noticed in his lifetime, but has gained respect and accolades since. About the Album: This was his third album, the last before he died. My History with this Album: I have heard it before, a few times. Review: This consists, almost entirely of acoustic guitar and Nick's voice. He's a tragic figure, dying at a young age, having suffered from depression. It's a very pure album in the sense that it is just him, and as a result feels very intimate. The sound is very understated, and the vocal delivery very muted. I was actually surprised to find that he was English, as this sort of sound is one I associate with the West Coast of America about that time. The content of the songs didn't really get through to me, ...