This tranche of albums that I
should apparently play before I die had some strong contenders. Love's Forever Changes, heralding the end of the 60s dream; The Beatles' White Album, which I rated 4 as I think they should have made a single album; Wild Gift by X, which was new to me; Motorhead's Ace of Spade all merited a score of 4 from me.
Two albums scored 5 - Nirvana's Nevermind (I rated it because of it's impact on grunge, otherwise I'd probably have rated it 4) and Soft Cell's Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret.
The Soft Cell album is a marvellous confection of sleaze, passion, subversive and generally excellent synthpop. It was released at a particular time of my life when synthpop was exploding and I was regularly clubbing. Great stuff with excellent singles and the peculiar Sex Dwarf, which was accompanied by a wild video which reputedly insigated riots when shown in some night clubs. I saw it in a night club in Edinburgh, but was all stared somewhat transfixed by the bondage gear and slabs of raw meat rather than riot!
| 320
Nov 25 2024 |
Ace of Spades | Motörhead | 4 |
3.28 |
| This album sees Motorhead at their pek, I reckon. Rousing, stirring, fast, heavy - I get Lemmy's insistence that this is rock'n'roll and not a record that fits some of the other metal labels. Probably foreshadowed speed metal. Best track is the title track, but really other than that the album is a bit let down by the lyrics. | ||||
| 319
Nov 24 2024 |
Doggystyle | Snoop Dogg | 1 |
3.42 |
| First impression - what a horrible cover. Second impression - an equally horrible record. | ||||
| 318
Nov 23 2024 |
Nevermind | Nirvana | 5 |
4.39 |
| A massively influential album that led the grunge charge through popular music in 1990s. Despite its huge popularity, I'm in two minds about this record. On the one hand, it doesn't seem wildly original, but on the other it its a pretty rousing listen. I think it deserves a lift from 4 stars to 5 on the basis of its influence. | ||||
| 317
Nov 22 2024 |
Wild Gift | X | 4 |
2.99 |
| Fun and a pleasingly short album. But I think it sounds very much of its time - no bad thing for 1981! | ||||
| 316
Nov 21 2024 |
Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret | Soft Cell | 5 |
2.87 |
| This album came out at a good time for me! I loved it from the moment I first heard it as it filled this wonderful intersection between the alt music I liked, transgressive pop and out and out pop. The three singles on this album are top notch, and the rest of the music is great. I can remember being at a night club when they showed the infamous Sex Dwarf video! Top tracks - Say Hello Wave Goodbye, Tainted Love (of course!), Sex Dwarf. Soft Cell were in the vanguard of the synthpop explosion in the UK charts. | ||||
| 315
Nov 20 2024 |
Ys | Joanna Newsom | 1 |
2.78 |
| Joanna Newsom's singing reminds me of Björk, unpleasantly mannered. It was immediately obvious to me that this wasn't to my taste. There didn't seem to be much connection between the phrasing of the vocals with the quite lush instrumentation - it's as if this is a recitation of words that just happens to have music in the background. Each track is quite long and they feel interminable to me. | ||||
| 314
Nov 19 2024 |
Play | Moby | 3 |
3.48 |
| Well, I've never really been a Moby fan. It's not that I dislike his music, more that I've never really played it except when an album turns up on this list! I kinda like this one, but I feel that the intervening quarter century since release hasn't served it well. The multiplicity of samples are a bit distracting, as I recognised some of them, which perplexed me as I tried to identify them. | ||||
| 313
Nov 18 2024 |
Arise | Sepultura | 1 |
2.67 |
| This album has a particularly ridiculous cover. Musically, it seems quite spirited, but ultimately a bit cliched. The singer sounds pretty grumpy, and the band just sort of bang away. Not my sort of thing, and a bit headache-inducing when played on headphones. | ||||
| 312
Nov 17 2024 |
The White Album | Beatles | 4 |
4.18 |
| Should this have been a double album? It's an impressive collection of songs, considering relationships within the band were getting very strained. But by 1968 I think more sophistication in the lyrics was expected than is shown in many songs here, especially the pastiche songs and the more twee songs. That said, there some absolute crackers in here, possibly the majority. I even like Revolution No9. | ||||
| 311
Nov 15 2024 |
The Hissing Of Summer Lawns | Joni Mitchell | 3 |
3.08 |
| I've never been a great fan of Joni Mitchell's music. It's just that it doesn't really meet my general taste in music. I had never even heard of this album before, or indeed any of the songs. I found the album interesting for some of the musical approaches, but I felt that Mitchell's voice seemed to be somewhat separate from the music. | ||||
| 310
Nov 14 2024 |
Forever Changes | Love | 4 |
3.23 |
| Regarded as one of the great foundational psych albums of the 1960s, I have this in my collection, but rarely play it. I'm not sure how to rate this album. I don't see it as being as influential as other albums from the mid to late 1960s, and the tracks are a bit variable. I like the often weird lyrics and the general sense of coming to the end of the trip that was the mid-60s. | ||||
| 309
Nov 13 2024 |
From Elvis In Memphis | Elvis Presley | 2 |
3.36 |
| A later period Elvis Presley album...in the context of contemporary expectations of albums where the artist wrote most, if not all, of the songs, this is something of a throwback. And where the songs are written for Elvis, and all the music and backing singers are from the studio, I can't see this as a classic or great album, just a studio product. I always wondered what Elvis Presley might have done had it not been for Parker and his determination to make Presley a minor movie star and low grade soundtrack writer. That said, In The Ghetto is pretty fine. | ||||
| 308
Nov 12 2024 |
Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots | The Flaming Lips | 4 |
3.59 |
| Well, I like this album enough to have it in my collection on vinyl. That said, is it a *great* album? | ||||
| 307
Nov 11 2024 |
Boston | Boston | 1 |
3.72 |
| As a massively popular and big selling AOR rock debut, this deserves to be on this list. But I really don't like it at all. It's the kind of music that made punk so necessary. I have dutifully played this album through. | ||||
| 306
Nov 10 2024 |
Fear and Whiskey | Mekons | 2 |
2.63 |
| Gosh. The Mekons. I've long been aware of them, but never really listened to them. I can't say as I understand why this particular album is on this list. I thought it a fun ramshackle romp, but not a great album. | ||||
| 305
Nov 09 2024 |
Neon Bible | Arcade Fire | 3 |
3.36 |
| I reckon bands like Arcade Fire attract an audience who remain loyal. People like me who never really listened to the band and come to the record a while later often miss that audience's experiences. So I played this pretty much unfamiliar with the band and found it a bit dull and average. | ||||
| 304
Nov 08 2024 |
The Who Sell Out | The Who | 2 |
3.04 |
| Well, I guess it's an amusing concept for an album but the jingles get in the way of the songs. And not so many of them seem particularly strong to me. Love the sleeve artwork though. | ||||
| 303
Nov 07 2024 |
Shaka Zulu | Ladysmith Black Mambazo | 4 |
3.08 |
| This is a lovely album. I see some reviews on this site saying that the singing wasn't in English, but to my ears much of it is. Anyway these are the singers who made Graceland. I'm not sure how much of an international profile they have, presumably since the group was founded in 1960 there is a turnover in members over the years. A nice album, but not something I see myself playing often. | ||||
| 302
Nov 06 2024 |
Band On The Run | Paul McCartney and Wings | 2 |
3.66 |
| A remarkably dull and plodding album. I remember Band on the Run having a bit more vim to it than it actually does. This isn't an album I particularly cared for, and I'm unlikely to play it again. It does have an amusing cover. | ||||
| 301
Nov 05 2024 |
The Man Machine | Kraftwerk | 3 |
3.33 |
| Kraftwerk is a band I like, but after three plays, this album wasn't up to their best. The best track here is 'The Model', and the rest seems a bit like filler. | ||||