Get the rhyming Becktionary out, it’s Odelay. Beck’s genre-defying masterpiece is one of those albums that makes its way into everyone’s music collection, regardless of their taste. I remember a guy I knew when I was about 16 years old, showing me his Ibanez guitar in...

Before today, the only thing I know about k.d. lang was her androgynous style. The short hair and white suits are properly associated with her. But I'd never listened to any of her stuff. I found “Ingenue” a tough one to rate. It's not aligned with my tastes, but it's...

The Clash sound different to the rest of the punk bands of the 70s. They're a lot more melodic without moving completely outside punk’s recipe of stepped-back simplicity. Musically, it makes them much more interesting. Sure, it still fits in nicely with the punk...

In July 2023, we saw “Louder Than You Think” in the Galway Film Fleadh. It was a brilliant documentary about Pavement, framed around their eccentric drummer Gary Young. It just so happened that Pavement were playing the Galway Arts Festival Big Top the following week,...

I was only 9 months old when this album came out. A bit too young to appreciate it properly. But I was 13 when Jason Nevins released his remix of “It’s Like That”, which turned out to be the perfect age to discover Run-D.M.C. Nevins’ version was massive. It was played...

There’s a great episode of the YouTube series “That Pedal Show”, a nerdfest on guitar pedal setups, where Daniel Steinhardt and Mick Taylor interview Graham Coxon on his techniques, setup and influences. When asked about the raw, angular guitar sound he crafted during...

Every time a Hendrix album comes up in this project, it puts me in such a good mood. And this is possibly his most upbeat record of the three. “Wait Until Tomorrow”, “Ain't No Telling” and “Little Miss Lover” are the perfect examples of that energetic, positive groove...

Dolly Parton was full of contradictions. She had big hair, big nails and big, ahem, personality. She dressed trashy, but was highly intelligent and articulate. And from what I’ve seen, she seemed like a very genuine, real and properly down-to-Earth nice person. She...

It’s the last day of our camping trip. It’s bucketing down outside, and we have to pack up our tent in the lashing rain. This is not the soundtrack I wanted for today. To say I’ve never been a fan of Frankie Goes To Hollywood is something of an understatement. The...

I always loved “Alone Again Or”. Not just the song, but the name too. I was intrigued by the way that the title is unfinished, without even an ellipsis at the end. It's a fantastically strange song. It starts with a gorgeous acoustic guitar riff, before moving into an...

We saw Beck tour Geuro back in 2006. It was a double-headliner with Radiohead in Marlay Park in Dublin, with Deerhoof supporting too! What a time to be alive! It wasn't just Beck and his band on stage either. They were accompanied by all sorts. A Spike Jonze looking...

Ok. Starting off the 300s with… Slovenian and Yugoslav avant-garde music group Laibach. Right. 🫠 A lot of this album feels like a Bill Bailey comedy sketch. “What if Opus and Queen came from a fascist regime?” he asks the audience as he starts to perform socialist...

I thought the concept and execution of this record was great. When I hear Lupe rap, his cadence and timbre reminds me a lot of Kanye. So I wasn't surprised to discover that Kanye is a producer here, and was loudly singing (or rapping 🫠) his praises in public. Jay Z...

The first thing that struck me about this album was a moment in the opening track “Christine’s Tune” when the pedal steel guitar is suddenly affected by a sticky fuzz tone. It's a striking noise to hear in what, on the surface, sounds like a fairly traditional country...

Zeppelin III was one of the great sidesteps in music history. Moving to a more acoustic and folky sound wasn’t as drastic a departure as it seemed on the surface though. It’s not as big a shock, if you had paid attention to some of the music they produced on the...

Electric Ladyland is one of my favourite albums of all time. The trio of studio albums Hendrix put out in his too-short lifetime were all amazing in their own ways. Are You Experienced? was ground-breaking, Axis: Bold As Love was a lot of fun, but Electric Ladyland...

Ah, great. Another of those “WTF is this, and WTF is it doing on this list” albums. At least it's only… *checks*... two hours long. 🫠 But, in the spirit of this project, let's reserve judgement and give this an objective chance. The first song, “Introduction” fills me...

I'm a pretty recent convert to the church of Stevie Wonder. I was only familiar with the hits, and while I liked everything I had heard, I never held them to the same high regard that others did. “Innervisions” came up earlier in this project and changed my mind on...

I’ve never listened to Bonnie “Prince” Billy before, but if Johnny Cash picks one of your songs to cover in his American series, then I’m going to sit up and take notice. Saying that, I wasn’t blown away by the album. I don’t know, I just didn’t connect with it fully,...

A few years back, at a Pixies concert, a friend made an absolutely wild comment: “There hasn't been a properly good band since 1978”. What a crazy statement. For a start, we were at a Pixies gig! The rest of us started to defend modern music by throwing out examples...

To say that Todd Rundgren doesn't take himself too seriously is an understatement. “Something/Anything” is nutty, in the best way. It's made up of proper 70s-style grooves across a variety of genres. As batshit crazy as things occasionally get, there's some seriously...

Just like Alice in Chains’ “Them Bones” and James Brown's “I Got You (I Feel Good)”, Ray Charles' “Let the Good Times Roll” is one of the great jump-scare openers. After a couple of seconds of silence, that horn suddenly blares in your ear, leaning you covered in the...

When I was in college, a guy I worked with gave me an MP3 CD. Remember those? They were essentially just data storage, and if you filled one with MP3 files, certain CD players could play them just like a regular audio CD. The advantage was that you could fit a tonne...

My quest to fully appreciate Springsteen continues. The album starts with just a harmonica and piano. After about a minute, the rest of the band kicks in, or so it seems. “Thunder Road” continues to build up with more and more layers of instrumentation until every...

The Saints sound like a late-90s indie band. Specifically, The Dandy Warhols. Both tap into the same lineage: Rolling Stones, garage rock, Lou Reed-style snarls, soul, brass and simple, catchy riffs. It’s the horn section on “Know Your Product”. It gives the band’s...

SAULT’s masterpiece feels like a time capsule of a troubling time. Centered around the George Floyd murder and the Black Lives Matter protests that followed, there are some tough subjects being tackled here. But for as hard-hitting as this album is, it’s in no way, at...

Beck is a chameleon. For a while there it felt as if you’d get a new Beck every time he released an album. There was the extreme shift from the attack-on-the-sense, genre-defying, brilliant madness of “Mellow Gold” and “Odelay” to the lo-fi production of “Mutations”....

I only got a few seconds into the movie “Tropic Thunder” before I had to stop it. Not because I didn’t like it, but because I was completely taken with the opening music. Military helicopters fly over lush jungle foliage soundtracked by a muted electric guitar riff,...

After taking a month off, I asked the algorithm to show me what it's got, and it served up an album called “Sex Packets”. Sigh. Well played, algorithm. With a title like that, and lyrics like “My name is Humpty, pronounced with an Umpty…”, this clearly isn't an album...

I've been on a break for the last month. But that's ok. This is a marathon, not a sprint. July is home to the absolute best three weeks of the year to live in Galway. The Film Fleadh kicked off the first of those weeks with a premiere of an interesting music...

“After The Gold Rush” was the first Neil Young album I ever listened to. This was my introduction to Neil. It's kind of the perfect introduction too. You get a proper sample of all sides of Neil on this album. You get the CSN&Y vocal harmonies, Neil's own fragile...

When the movie “The Beach” came out, I was obsessed with it. Sure, I’ll admit that the film has flaws. I mean, there’s that whole “video game” section, where Leo is running around pixelated, set to Blur’s “On Your Own”. What the hell was that?? But, I still maintain...

Today is set to be the hottest day on record in Ireland. Thirty-four degrees. We're not able for heat like this. We're just not set up for it. Sure, we can go on holiday to the south of Spain for a week or so and bask in the glorious heat while we slow-roast ourselves...

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life… We were lucky enough to see The Purple One live at Malahide Castle, Dublin in 2011, in what turned out to be his last ever Irish gig. It was a scorching hot summer’s day at the end of...

This is an album that can't decide what it is. Is it confrontational satire? Opening track “So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star” supports that argument by directly making fun of The Monkees and manufactured rock 'n' roll. Is it psychedelic nuttiness? Whoever...

My friend and I used to argue a lot over who was the greatest guitarist of all time. The argument always came down to the two Jimmys: Jimmy Page or Jimi Hendrix. I’d argue it was Page, he’d say Hendrix. We used to go see an Irish band, Skindive, whenever they played...

I started this project to finally get around to listening to some of the classics that have been on my “I must listen to that” list for years. But also to broaden my musical horizons, and discover bands (and genres) I never even knew existed. And I have. After 275...

I was lucky enough to see the New York Dolls live back in 2004, supporting The White Stripes at Marlay Park in Dublin. Seeing Jack and Meg touring “Elephant” was incredible, but after the gig, we left talking almost as much about the Dolls, and how great they were....

Jean-Michel Jarre is a fraud. When I was in college, a fast food place called Supermacs was a meeting point before and after nights out. We'd often sit at one of the tables out the back, for what felt like hours, as our friend group would assemble one by one. Right...

I’m scared I’ll turn into a jazz guy. Like Tim Heidecker’s character from that “I Think You Should Leave” sketch. Someone's infuriating ponytail-clad partner, ruining a game of “Guess the celebrity” by referencing obscure jazz musicians like Roy Donk (a regular on...

I'm brand new to Michael Franti and The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy, but this is a great discovery. Thanks algorithm. Thalgorithm. Franti’s lyrical content is delivered like a sermon. There are no metaphors here, just a lot of very-direct takes on media...

I knew I was going to love this album from the first 6 notes of the opening track. What a ridiculously great bass line. The beat that kicks in next had me sold. I love funk tunes where the instruments introduce themselves additively. Over the almost sixteen minutes of...

I always said that there was a big difference between a guitar player and a guitarist. I know plenty of guitar players who can play really fast, or repeat exactly the tab they’ve learned. But having the musical instincts to be able to improvise and just know what to...

Back when I was a teenager, there was a bar called “Cooke’s” right beside our school that we used to spend our lunch breaks in. We were only 15 or 16, but the bar staff seemed to begrudgingly tolerate us sitting there drinking vats of coffee and smoking cigarettes....

Drum 'n' bass seems to pop up at awkward moments. Back when I was in first year in college, there was a big night out during “Rag week”. Rag week began as a sort of charity fundraising initiative I believe, but by the time I had landed in college, it had become an...

It's my birthday today. 🎉 After reviewing 266 albums, I was hoping the algorithm would have somehow learned what I like and don't like, and would have “decided” to serve me up something nice for the day that's in it. Some amazing album I've never heard before, that...

When you think of Janis Joplin, you think of someone who was completely wild. In their lifestyle and their musical output. I've listened to this album before, but I'd usually sway more towards the Big Brother and the Holding Company records over Joplin’s solo stuff....

Sometimes an album has the perfect artwork. The cover of “Endtroducing” visually represents what you're about to experience so absolutely perfectly, it's no wonder it's become so iconic. We went to a talk in my hometown a few years ago with Brian Cross, or B+ as he's...

NEU! 75 has a split-personality. NEU! are another band that have been on my “I must give them a listen” list since forever, but for whatever reason, I've never actually heard them until today. Well, that was a big oversight. I didn't expect this duplicitous...

This album got a lot of hype when it first came out and I really wanted to like it, but found myself disappointed by it. I was happy to see it come up again today in the hope that I'd find a new appreciation for it. Unfortunately I didn't. Don't get me wrong, there's...

Mike Ladd falls into the “I've never heard of this guy before” category. Mix that with a genre that isn't my usual go-to and it could go either way. Thankfully, this was a great discovery. I couldn’t find too much info about him, but it seems he started off in...

Beautiful noise. That's the name of a documentary about My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus and Mary Chain and The Cocteau Twins. It's also a perfect two-word review of this album. But, being who I am, I'll add some more words. I love everything about this album....

It feels like every song on Imperial Bedroom is a different genre. Throughout this album I hear new wave, jazz, bossa nova, indie, rock, and countless other genres that I can't describe properly. I hear bands old and new too. Bands that pre-date and post-date Elvis...

Robbie Williams? You mean that fat dancer from Take That? I let out an audible groan when I see this come up as my album for the day. I've been complaining about this faker for years, so to have to sit through 52 minutes of his narcissism is going to be a chore and a...

Bowie was so ahead of his time. He was so in-touch with the artistic scenes that were happening outside of the mainstream, and like a fearless and excitable child, always jumped in head-first to take them on right away. That's how Krautrock and ambient electronica...

I was four months old when this album came out. As I struggled to get to grips with being a human (something I still struggle with), I imagine my 11 year old sister would have been blasting “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” from the radio through our battery-powered...

Odessa is absolutely not what I expected from a Bee Gees album. Where are the chipmunk vocals and the disco pop? It’s actually the second Bee Gees album that I’ve gotten in this project, and Trafalgar had a similar element of surprise to it. It seems that before they...

“Wait a minute, this sounds like rock and/or roll!” Like most of my generation, I first heard I. Ron Butterfly in an episode of The Simpsons. Bart switched out the opening hymn of his church with the seventeen minute long epic “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”, which he had...

I like to rant about Coldplay. There's something about Chris Martin that gets on my nerves. His entire personality, that’s what it is. Although I must say he's quite a good comedic actor. But like Timberlake, I wish he'd stop making music and instead focus on comedy....

Bert Jansch influenced a lot of musicians. Nick Drake and Donovan were famously inspired by his guitar playing, dedicating and naming songs after him, or recording their own cover versions of his music. Neil Young and Jimmy Page took their influence from Jansch in a...

A couple of years ago, I had to travel to California for work. Even though I was flying into San Francisco, I just HAD to stop off in New York. I’d never been before and had to rectify that. It's a city that's a backdrop to so many important cultural landmarks in...

The cover of Rubber Soul shows the Beatles we know and love from the early 60s, but the image is stretched, tilted and distorted, as if the old mop-top image is being pulled out of shape. This was the turning point. I like to organise things into clean categories. In...

(GI) feels like an early step towards hardcore punk, but you can also hear traces of the jagged guitar sound that would later turn up in grunge and the alternative scene. Darby Crash’s snarling rants feel rooted in Sex Pistols/Ramones/Clash/Stooges punk, while Pat...

I remember when I heard this album first. A friend of mine worked in Zhivago, a local music store. Zhivago was an institution of our youth, a place where I had spent countless hours sifting through CDs, not looking for anything in particular, maybe just some...

You can totally imagine one of these songs playing through the extended opening credits of a later Tarantino film. These are more stories than songs. Proper yarns from the old West. He may not have had direct influence, but I feel like Marty Robbins set the scene for...

Noel Gallagher said that Oasis’ mission was "to finish what The La's started”. Until today I only knew The La’s from “There She Goes”, and listening to the rest of this album, it's not the best representation of them at all. They're a lot grittier and more raw than...

I remember seeing Ali Farka Touré in Martin Scorsese’s “The Blues”, a brilliant documentary about the origins of the blues. In the first episode, titled “Feel Like Going Home”, Corey Harris travels to Mali to meet up with Touré, who gives his very strong opinions on...

Eric Clapton is a punchdrunk lovesick teenager throughout this album. He pines over his unrequited love for Pattie Boyd for the majority of these tracks. Pattie Boyd is indirectly responsible for some of the best songwriting in rock history: George Harrison wrote...

I had heard "Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of)" on a free CD that came with Q magazine back in 2003, giving samples of what their writers deemed the best albums of that year. I’d never heard of The Mars Volta, and while on the surface, their music didn't align with my...

At the start of this project, I didn’t fully understand jazz, but after the umpteenth album, it started to click. I might not be a “jazz guy”, going around wearing a trilby, snapping my fingers and whispering “yeah”, but I don’t audibly groan or roll my eyes when a...

PLAY SOME STEELY DAN!! When I was 16, a co-worker of a friend invited us along to see his band perform. He mentioned that they were heavily influenced by an obscure band we'd probably never heard of… no, not Steely Dan, Godspeed You! Black Emperor. We were big fans of...

As an Irish person, I can tell you that we all collectively cringe when we hear Conor Deasy’s American twang. I couldn’t get past it back in 2003, and I can’t get past it now. Which is a pity, because The Thrills have some decent songs. I very much enjoy “Santa Cruz...

You can practically smell the dry ice being pumped around the Top of the Pops stage. I mean, this is as 1990s as you can get. I hear this and I’m seven years old again. Zig and Zag are teeing up shows like James Bond Jr. and Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles on the other...

“If I want a sound, I usually feel better if I've chased it and killed it, skinned it and cooked it.” Every sound on “Rain Dogs” feels as hunted, prepared and sauteed as Tom Waits described. This is most definitely a unique listening experience. More like a collection...

What's for lunch today Chef? Well children, today we’re gonna be serving up some hot buttered soul. This is a real slow burner, slow-roasted to perfection. The best chefs don't rush. As long as these songs are, they never feel it. Intensity builds up slowly over as...

The test begins. NOW. The Flaming Lips have been a huge part of my life, from when I heard them first in college, to attending the 20th anniversary gig of Yoshimi last year in Dublin, to listening to it again today in my garden on an unexpectedly sunny Sunday...

I never took Super Furry Animals seriously. Not in a “I didn't think they were good enough to be taken seriously” kind of way, more that I always thought there was an element of intentional comedy or parody to their music. And some of the resemblances I hear don’t...

When I was 12, a close friend of mine, Conor, died from leukemia. His older brother Evan was one of the nicest guys in the world. While dealing with the grief, and looking after his family, he also became a sort of mentor to Conor's friend group, encouraging us to...

I've been trapped in a hospital for the past week. I'm walking around, getting some movement in, as it relieves the pain in my side. I have my headphones in, as “Lady Soul” soundtracks the fluorescent lighting of the infinitely identical hallways. As I shuffle past...

From the opening electronic noises, I didn't know what this was going to be. I sure didn't expect it to be a crazy jazz fusion odyssey. Opening track “Birdland” is great. It sounds a bit like a 70s TV theme-tune that gets distracted and ends up somewhere completely...

I really liked this album. The way that it blends live instrumentation and electronica is right up my alley. At times the songs feel quite controlled, minimalist and almost robotic, reminding me of Kraftwerk. But a lot of these songs open up to extended codas, where...

When you first hear Guns and Roses, it sounds like a series of impersonations. Axl does his best Robert Plant in “Welcome to the Jungle”. Duff channels Ozzy in “It's So Easy”. Slash brings Jimmy Page, AC/DC and others into his guitar styles. But, all of these...

“Even a cursory glance at the titles will confirm that this is not the new Gloria Estefan album”. Q Magazine's solid description of the Manics’ third album is spot on. The tracklisting is made up of songs with titles like “Of Walking Abortion”, “Archives of Pain” or...

Listening to “Nilsson Schmilsson” (what an amazing name by the way) is like watching a highlight reel of some of the most iconic moments in film and tv. “Gotta Get Up” soundtracks Natasha Lyonne’s character restarting the same day over and over again in “Russian...

The songs on “Celebrity Skin” are highly polished pop-rock. But the themes and lyrics are very, very grunge. Dark, aggressive and highly cynical themes lurk underneath bright, glossy melodies. Or, as Courtney Love herself described it: “I want to be as perverse as I'd...

I had high hopes for this album after hearing the opening track “Faron Young”. It sounds decades ahead of its time, like something Spoon or someone similar might come out with. It’s hard to keep up with all the wild directions this song takes. There are rock’n’roll...

If I heard “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang” come on the radio today, I would have assumed it was Hot Chip’s newest song. Not just the vocals, but the whole vibe and makeup of the song is so like Hot Chip. It’s uncanny. Of course, I wouldn’t hear it on the...

Oh great. Another Morrissey album. 🙄 Just the other day, I was chatting with the creator of this app, thanking them for all the work in keeping it up-and-running. I mentioned how, over 200 days into this, I still look forward to seeing what my album of the day will...

This is definitely a less experimental and nutty Peter Gabriel than on his previous albums. I love the weird side of Gabriel, but what worked so well about his more out-there stuff is the fact that he always focused on melody to bring it all together. So (pardon the...

I first discovered Joni Mitchell way back when I was a teenager in the late 90s. I was a big Bob Dylan fan, and would read a lot about him. She came up a lot, always framed as “The Female Dylan”, so I was eager to hear her stuff. The thing is, if you go into Joni...

Hey! Ho! Let's go! I was wandering along the streets of New York City when I accidentally joined a New Orleans style marching brass band. I was on a stopover in NYC, en route to California for a work event, ambling along 50th street. Before I knew what had happened, a...

Jurassic 5 feel like the modern embodiment of De La Soul. Their overall vibe in particular. They both share that idea that hip-hop could be playful, collaborative, musically rich, and a bit of craic, rather than aggressive. The samples are fantastic, the beats are...

“Fela was using repetition in a way that was hypnotic, but also political. The message and the music were inseparable.” David Byrne put it perfectly. This is what makes “Zombie” work so well. These songs are hypnotic grooves. In fact, so much so that they catch you...

“I have this theory that artists given absolute freedom die a horrible death. When you tell them what they can’t do, they get creative and say ‘Oh yes I can’.” That’s the reasoning Peter Gabriel gave as to why he banned his drummers from using cymbals on this album....

I don't know enough about modern hip hop. I never in my life would have decided to put on music by someone called “Ghostface Killah”, and not to judge an album by its cover, but I wouldn't ever have been enticed to pick this up in a record shop. Well, I would have...

In a previous job, I used to share an office space with a girl who was originally from Lagos in Nigeria. I’m always dying to learn about other cultures, so I’d pester her to find out what I could about the place, from someone who lived there. She taught me some basic...

Some of the artists that I had previously never even heard of, and now I’m a big fan of, thanks to this project: The Pharcyde, Joanna Newsom, Tortoise, Minutemen, Jane Weaver… and now, Wire. I loved every second of this album. It kept me on my toes from start to...

I can understand the influence this album had in bringing Afrobeat to a wider audience, after his father's work opened the doors. It reminds me of the groove experiments you hear in Talking Heads work on “Fear of Music”. Not because of this album specifically, but...

Good Friday? Sgt. Pepper just came up, so it’s a GREAT Friday! Cancel all plans, call in sick to work, here we go… As far as I can recall, Sgt. Pepper was the first Beatles album I owned. Well, proper album at least. I already had the Red and Blue compilation albums....

This is a very different Miles Davis to the one who made “Bitches Brew”. There’s twenty years between “Birth of the Cool” and “Bitches Brew”, but they might as well be an entire universe apart. The latter sounded more like something Can, or even Radiohead, might come...

Everyone in Ireland has a Shane MacGowan story. I remember someone I went to college with telling me about the time they went to see The Pogues: “We were waiting for an hour for Shane MacGowan to make an appearance. When he finally did, he was in such a state that he...

After 200+ days of doing this project, I’ve more or less settled on how I score things. New albums start at 3 stars. It’s enjoyable to listen to. There’s nothing particularly bad about it, but there's nothing particularly special about it either. Albums I really...

Kurt Cobain liked Soundgarden so much that he wanted to join as their bassist. Pretty crazy, right? Disclaimers all around that it’s never been fully verified as 100% true or not, but he was definitely a fan. And listening to Superunknown, it makes sense. For a grunge...

Ladysmith Black Mambazo is a fun name to say. I like to say their name as much as possible. We can all thank Paul Simon for bringing the amazing music of Ladysmith Black Mambazo to a wider audience, but this kind of music speaks for itself. Their distinct African...

I’ve always loved listening to Eels, and it’s been a while since I have properly, so I was excited to see this come up today. It’s been so long since I’ve listened to “Beautiful Freak” that I barely remember anything past “Novocaine for the Soul.” Listening back...

In the (massively underrated) movie “This Is 40”, Pete, played by Paul Rudd, is desperately trying to teach his family about artistic merit over commercial accessibility in music. In a rebuttal to some Nicki Minaj song that had his wife and daughters dancing about the...

In 2006, I went on a trip to London with a couple of friends. We were heading over to see The Flaming Lips play the Hammersmith Apollo, and stayed a few extra nights for the craic. On our first day, we did a bit of day-drinking in a bar in Soho. Amy Winehouse’s song...

Ugh. Monotone nasal-y voices. Terrible, tacky electronica. Eurovision songs pretending they’re artistically profound. It’s Very Pet Shop Boys. “Go West” is the only saviour of this album. I absolutely loved it as a kid. And as an adult, I still do. It’s a weird,...

I’ve never heard of Bonnie “Road” Raitt before today. A lot of the songs on “Nick of Time” are quite bluesy, with a bit of a country vibe to things. Songs like “Thing Called Love”, “Love Letter”, “Real Man” and “The Road’s My Middle Name” are decent enough blues...

New Zealand reporter (with a strong Kiwi accent): “Has it been all sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, that stuff?” Josh Homme: “Six drugs? There’ve been more than that… I need to hear that question again, I’m sorry.” Dave Grohl: “Why? That is the best answer you could...

There's so much going on in this album. The androgynous ambiguity, the sparse electronic production, the constant shifting between genres: pop, R&B, rock, gospel, psychedelia, soul and, of course, funk. Even as a double album running over an hour, it's still a lot...

I remember when “Dreaming of You” came out back in 2002. I absolutely loved everything about it: the energy of the clipped staccato guitar chords, the unbelievably catchy melody, the Madness vibes, and of course that incredible vocal performance. I wanted a whole...

My 200th album of this project begins with the PlayStation 1 startup sound. I feel like that's a good sign. There's very few sounds in the world that evoke excitement like the PS1 splash screen jingle. It's inbuilt in me like a deep Pavlovian conditioned response. So...

“Regard your limitations as secret strengths. Or as constraints that you can make use of.” Brian Eno said that, talking about how embracing restrictions can fuel the creative process. Well Keith Jarrett had plenty of those constraints on the night of this performance....

41 seconds into this album, I knew I was going to love it. Jane Weaver is one of the better discoveries from this project. I’d never even heard of her before, but her music is right up my alley. “Modern Kosmology” is made up of a lot of the building blocks I gravitate...

Who doesn’t like Willie Nelson? He’s such a likeable person. These songs aren't really my cup of tea: slow, country-ified covers of old-timey standards. But there's something charming about them when Willie Nelson covers them. “Blue Skies” is the standout track for...

Every time a jazz album comes up in this list, I find myself saying exactly the same thing: I don't fully “get” it. I can tell that there's something interesting and creative going on, but a lot of it goes over my head. I've listened to this album several times on...

Rush are Jordan Schlansky’s favourite band. That in itself says a lot. The first half of the album is made up of a single twenty minute song that is as ambitious as it is ridiculous. I feel like I'm sitting through a terrible musical, some sort of camp sci-fi rock...

We went on holiday to Porto last year. It was quite late on our last night there, so we went looking for one last drink to say farewell to Portugal. And we stumbled across something quite unique: a tiny bar with just enough space for 4 or 5 people to squash into, but...

I never really got into Stevie Wonder’s music. I knew the big hits, of course, because who doesn’t? But, the music never fully clicked with me. Innervisions starts off in jazz territory, with “Too High” hurting my head with its use of dissonant chords and weird vocal...

It's hard to keep up with Throwing Muses. You can imagine how difficult it must be to dance along to their music at a gig, with all of their ever-changing tempos. I love it though. It's what really makes them stand out, and it's what makes their music so interesting....

I’m not saying that you need to be on drugs to enjoy this album… but it would definitely help. I’d forgotten how experimental Hawkwind actually were. This is psychedelic space rock layered over an ever-present oscillator wind tunnel, while Lemmy attacks his bass...

Sock it to me sock-it-to-me sockittome sockittome. The album opens with what has gone on to become one of the most recognisable songs of all time. And it’s not even Aretha’s song, it’s a cover of an Otis Redding song. But she did something really clever with it: she...

The fact that we’re still using “Killing In The Name” as the soundtrack to protests today says a lot. It says a lot about the state of the world, and it says a lot of the long-lasting impact of Rage Against the Machine. The song never actually went away, but recently...

I’d somehow never heard of The Dictators before today. And they seem to be a key set of figures in the early days of punk. I mean, this album pre-dates the first albums released by The Ramones, The Sex Pistols or The Clash. I can hear that CBGBs New York punk rock...

In 2016 at the reunion gig for LCD Soundsystem, over 5 years after they had finished up, we felt very much like James Murphy in the song “Losing My Edge”. We were HUGE fans of LCD Soundsystem since almost the beginning. We'd seen them live so many times, that we'd...

A friend of ours, Emmett, was DJ-ing at a mutual friend’s wedding a few years ago. The venue organiser was a bit over-the-top when it came to the finishing time, and tried to end the celebrations a little earlier than expected. When told to stop playing music, Emmett...

I'd never listened to Belle and Sebastian properly before now. I was glad to see "Tigermilk" come up, but it turns out that I was expecting to like it more than I did. Don't get me wrong. It's grand. I really liked the first two songs on the album. "The State I Am In"...

Sabbath continue to surprise me. I always liked them, but in my mind I had categorised them in a very specific genre. Sitting down with their albums properly through this project has really made me aware of how diverse they were stylistically. The opening song on Vol....

I like the parts where they sang about California. I was a big fan of the Blood Sugar-era Chili Peppers. And I really liked this album when it first came out too. I guess that makes it obvious that I'm a big John Frusciante fan. I truly think he's one of the great...

My head is spinning. This is a challenging listen that's like a feverish nightmare at times. But I mean that in the best way possible, because I absolutely loved it. The electric piano, reverb, and dissonant, fragmented melodies leave you feeling dizzy. This isn't a...

I gave myself a headache rolling my eyes when I saw this come up. To say I'm not a fan of Morrissey is an understatement. And this goes way back before his dodgy political views became the reason to not like him. I can't separate the art from the artist, because their...

I absolutely love African vocal harmonies. So, I really enjoyed the majority of this album. Miriam Makeba was clearly trying to "ease" Western listeners into African melodies by placing these alongside soft jazz songs. It was 1960, so I fully get it, but I'd happily...

"I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor" was a moment of cultural excitement back in 2006. The music video was what really sold it. It looked like it was shot on an old VHS camcorder (a genius move by the filmmaker), with an intense live performance by a group of young...

Unhinged. That's how I'd describe this album. I'm a big fan of Can. I discovered them in my teens, as a Radiohead fan, after hearing their cover of "The Thief". After diving into their back catalogue, it became very clear that no two Can songs sound the same. Or even...

I have a theory about the Kings of Leon. That the quality of their music is directly related to the amount of hair that they have on their heads and faces. When they arrived on the scene first, they looked amazing. Like they'd time travelled from the 70s: long hair,...

I feel I should have known more about Robert Fripp before now. He's been quite a big part of the music I've loved over the years. He provided the iconic drone guitar of Bowie's "Heroes", was a key figure on Talking Heads' "Fear of Music", and collaborated with Brian...

I haven't seen the movie "Superfly", or any other Blaxploitation films that I can think of. But the movie that comes to mind when I'm listening to this album is Tarantino's "Jackie Brown". Not exactly the same thing, I know, but the music really brings me back to...

In Father Ted, during a talent show, Ted, Dougal and Jack showcase "The Three Ages of Elvis". First, Dougal bops onstage as early Elvis, shaking his hips to rock 'n' roll music. Next, Ted appears in a full leather suit, as the middle era of Elvis, making his...

Towards the end of the first decade of the 2000s, there was some amazing music on the go. Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear, Caribou, Deerhunter, Panda Bear, tUnE yArDs, Atlas Sound and Dirty Projectors were all making unique, interesting music that was also seriously...

I've been quoting Public Enemy for years. In fact, I've already done it in one of these reviews. The line about Elvis in "Fight the Power" has been my go-to for a long time, to back up my feelings about his popularity over black artists of the time. As much as I've...

I had heard of 808 State, but it wasn't until "Pacific 202" came on that I recognised them. As soon as that heady sax riff came on, it was like being transported back to the early 90s. Early acid house isn't really my scene, but I do like this all the same. I can hear...

I'm a big fan of Bob Marley, and even more so of Toots and the Maytals, so reggae from this era is always going to land well with me. That said, I definitely don't know enough about this scene, so I'm glad to see something like this come up to give me a nudge to dig a...

"American Pie" has to be one of the best-known songs ever written. Sure, it'll get an eye roll at a party (probably from me) if someone sticks it on, but in fairness, it's a brilliant song. At eight and a half minutes, you'd think it could lose a verse or two, yet it...

When I was 11 years old, I had the soundtrack of the movie Forest Gump on CD. I would listen to it on repeat. It was a crash course in 60s classics: Wilson Pickett, CCR, The Mamas & Papas, The Doors and loads more. And of course Bob Dylan was on there too with...

Nina Simone wasn't ever afraid of confrontation. She was always pretty full on in her lyrics and delivery. Even in the softer songs, she throws it down and makes you face uncomfortable themes head on. This record isn't obviously loud in a protest-song way, but it is...

It's not really cool to like Rod Stewart. Somewhere along the line he became the leopard-print-clad, wedding DJ favourite, "Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?" version of himself. But, it's important to remember that back in the day he was part of the Jeff Beck Group and Faces,...

If someone says "glam rock", this is what pops into my head. I picture that black-and-gold silhouette on the cover. T. Rex basically set the template here. Marc Bolan's soft vocals sit over bright but never overblown rock 'n' roll guitar. It's a sound that's very...

When we were backpacking around New Zealand back in 2009, I jumped out of an airplane. They say that the stimulus overload brought on by this crazy action means that your brain doesn't fully comprehend or register what's happening for a few moments. That's why it's a...

My dog Louie loves Leonard Cohen. "You Want It Darker" is his favourite song. Louie is a highly intelligent 9 year old golden retriever with a huge personality. We're convinced that he thinks he's a human. When we got a second dog Beau (his brother from a younger...

I never fully got Kendrick in the way I got Kanye. Kanye grabbed me immediately, the samples, the hooks, the big musical moments. Kendrick always felt less about music pulling you in and more about words demanding your attention. "good kid, m.A.A.d city" isn't a...

The first thing that pops into my head when I hear this album is Batman. Tim Burton's Gotham. Jack Nicholson dancing around a museum, spray-painting smiles over priceless art while Prince blares in the background. It was ridiculous and creepy in equal measure. The...

Back when I was a kid, Tracy Chapman was everywhere. You'd turn on the radio and "Talkin' Bout a Revolution" would be playing. On TV, music chart shows would show her playing "Fast Car". When dragged along to do the weekly shop, "Baby Can I Hold You" would be playing...

Nu-metal was the scourge of the early 2000s, and Limp Bizkit were the scourge of the nu-metal scene. These guys were parcelled up and shoved down our throats in the noughties by MTV, and there was no escape. There's so much to hate here. Fred's double-tracked,...

I definitely enjoyed this version of Metallica a lot more than the version that created "Master of Puppets". Thrash metal is very much not my thing. I don't understand the appeal at all. But the music on this album is more focused on melody, and less on thrash...

I love the idea that two of punk's main architects were also the ones who took it apart and rebuilt it into something stranger and more interesting. John Lydon is a madman. That's not a revelation. I recently went to see him do a talk in my hometown with a friend,...

Not as high-pitched as I was expecting. That's the big takeaway from my first proper listen to a Bee Gees album. The other is that there's absolutely nothing special about it whatsoever. A lot of Trafalgar is mellow to the point of drowsiness. Songs like "The Greatest...

Bruce never really clicked with me. From the (admittedly small amount) that I'd heard, it all sounded quite bland, in terms of the music at least. Hardcore Bruce fans, don't come after me. I did always feel like there was a lot of substance underneath the music, and...

I finally got to see one of the Beatles perform live, when I went to see Macca play an unbelievable set in Manchester in 2024. The 81 year old played for three hours straight without stopping for a breath. Obviously there were a lot of Beatles numbers in his setlist,...

I could never take Dizzee seriously. Maybe it was because of hearing Beardyman recreating spot-on impressions of him, morphing into chicken noises. "Fix up, look sharp / bok bok, Bok BWOK". But really, Beardyman was just validating my own opinions of Dizzee. To be...

Unlike Zeppelin and Sabbath, I never really got into Deep Purple. So I came to "In Rock" hoping it might be the record that finally made things click. It didn't. Obviously Ritchie Blackmore is a phenomenal guitarist, and Ian Paice is a great drummer, but the band...

How important is Little Richard to the legacy of rock'n'roll? Let's start with The Beatles. They began as a club band playing Little Richard songs note-for-note, and Paul McCartney famously learned to sing by copying Little Richard's whooping. Mick Jagger borrowed the...

I imagine this album would have made a much bigger impact hearing it for the first time in 1958, but almost 70 years later in 2026, it's still a very enjoyable listen. I can't help but think of the movie "Whiplash" when I hear this type of big band jazz/swing music....

You know that opening scene from David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" where the camera pans down from white picket fences and immaculate lawns to reveal a writhing layer of beetles underneath? Well that scene comes to mind when I think about the Butthole Surfers. I'd never...

Back in 2001, one of the ways that I used to discover new music was by reading Q Magazine. Every year, there'd be a free CD with the "best of" that year's music. This is how I discovered Daft Punk, The Kings of Leon (back when they were good), The Rapture and even The...

I first heard this album back in about 2005. But I don't remember much after the first track. Not because I didn't like it, quite the opposite. I just found it almost impossible to move past "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes". I'd play it on repeat. I just couldn't get enough of...

"Blunderbuss" starts off feeling like a sendoff for The White Stripes. Later albums like "Get Behind Me Satan" and "Icky Thump" can be heard all over the first three songs "Missing Pieces", "Sixteen Saltines" and "Freedom at 21". Feels like Jack White is tipping his...

In the 90s, I was mostly into alt rock, indie and Britpop. The majority of what I listened to was guitar-heavy. But I did like electronic music too, namely acts like The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers. Björk was another artist to make it clear to a guitar head like...

"What's Going On" is one of the all-time great songs. The background chatter makes it feel like you've walked into an ongoing conversation at a party. There's sax, bass, soul, jazz, and even scatting building up a pretty vibrant blend of sound. But it's the shifts...

Last year I went on holidays to Bristol. Home to Banksy and top-tier street art. The birthplace of trip-hop. And of Portishead, IDLES, and Massive Attack. This album reminds me of Bristol. Not just because Massive Attack are from there, but also because there's a...

"Trans-Europe Express" begins already in motion. I mean, it IS a love letter to a train. Repetitive twinkling electronic textures swirl around the repeated vocal of "Europe Endless". Driving, synthesised beats build up, while repeating loops layer on top of each other...

You know that party game where a group of people take turns listing a band that starts with each letter of the alphabet, in sequence? The first person says "Air", the next says "The Beatles", the next "Carseat Headrest", etc. "The Beatles" works as an answer for "B",...

Nobody: Me: *snaps fingers in jazz* Here's a weird one. "Take Five" has to be one of the most famous jazz pieces of all time, right? Well, guess how I discovered this song first? If you said through Rodrigo y Gabriela, the flamenco/metal guitar duo, then you win a new...

I'm a big fan of Queens of the Stone Age, so I had heard of Screaming Trees, because of the Mark Lanegan connection. But I'd never listened to them before. To be honest, I had expected them to be much heavier. They're often spoken about as early grunge, in the same...

Imagine opening an album with what is arguably the greatest song ever written. As tired an opinion as that is, it's very hard to argue that "Imagine" isn't a perfect song in absolutely every way. A simple and beautiful piano melody, with a simple and beautiful...

"Fear of Music" is dance music. Themes of fear, paranoia and dystopia transformed into rhythmic motion. And when you tap into the rhythms, it's impossible not to get completely immersed in it. We always said that we were going to get ridiculously fit, just by copying...

I think I first became aware of Donovan through D.A. Pennebaker's documentary "Don't Look Back", filmed during Bob Dylan's 1965 UK tour. In one scene, Dylan notices a newspaper headline about Donovan, who at the time was being framed as "the new Dylan", a folk singer...

Hot Chip once caused us to crash our car. Well, "crash" is a an exaggeration, but we did hit a rock with our wheel, burst a tyre, crack an alloy and have to be towed back home. We still blame Hot Chip because we were blasting "Over and Over" in the car when it...

I have a friend who has very similar music taste to me. We became friends because of a shared obsession with Radiohead, we were into 60s and 70s rock, folk and the alt rock scene mostly, and over the years he introduced me to some of my favourite bands like Godspeed...

As a youngster, I was a huge Fugees fan. I was 12 when "The Score" came out, and it was huge. Everyone in my primary school had a copy, and it was a regular topic of conversation. But weirdly, even though I know a lot of the songs on Miseducation very well, I think...

An image of Elaine Benes from Seinfeld pops into my head. She's jerkily dancing around in front of her bemused coworkers, an undignified routine that George Costanza describes as "a full body dry heave set to music". That music, it turns out, is the opening track of...

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young are the kings of vocal harmonies. It's the CSNY signature, and they're flawless across this album. There are so many classics here. Songs like "Carry On", "Teach Your Children" and "Our House" are CSNY at their folky best. "Carry On" is...

I'm not really into soul, which is a hurdle I had to get over here, before anything else. That said, The Isley Brothers make a decent case for themselves early on. The phaser-soaked guitar of "That Lady (Pts. 1 & 2)" grabbed my attention straight away. There's...

In the late 90s, Norman Cook was everywhere. He was all over the charts, with radio stations playing his music on repeat. And not just songs released under the Fatboy Slim moniker either: if there was a song dominating the charts around that time, chances were that he...

That iconic album cover. You can't talk about Aladdin Sane without starting with the photo that represents it. Bowie never looked more like a being from outer space than here: eyes closed, pale silver and white skin, red hair, the lightning bolt going through one eye....

I didn't pay enough attention in French class in secondary school. Which works to this album's advantage. If I could understand what Serge is saying, I feel it would only go against this album, and its incredibly creepy concept. So, I'll stick with ignoring what he's...

My fiancée describes Sigur Rós as sounding like a band of whales who have come together to make music. Huge, epic, wailing sounds, like something you'd hear somewhere under the surface of the ocean. Everything is dreamy and hypnotic from the very start of this album....

Buffalo Springfield Again feels more like a compilation album of three individual artists, rather than an album created by a band working together. It pulls together Richie Furay's light folk numbers, Stephen Stills' more complex and sometimes jazzy songs, and the two...

A really nice blend of acoustic melodies and subtle electronica, Seventh Tree was a clear change of direction for Goldfrapp, but one that worked very well. While living in rented accommodation with friends back in 2008, we were getting ready for the Electric Picnic,...

At the Electric Picnic music festival in 2006, the excitement had gotten too much for me. I was a bit "worse for wear", but as soon as PJ Harvey came out on stage I immediately snapped out of it, sobered up by her presence. It wasn't the first time I'd seen PJ Harvey...

"California Dreamin" is still just as great nearly 60 years later. It's become an iconic representation of a musical era, and it's built on perfect harmonies and an instantly memorable melody. The verse sections are often overlooked, with John Phillips' gruffer vocals...

Superfuzz Bigmuff sounds like the Seattle grunge scene being born. I'd never actually listened to Mudhoney, but I knew them by reputation, mostly through being a big Nirvana fan. These songs don't have Nirvana's melodies, but the shared DNA is obvious: the irony, the...

I come for the funk, but I stay for the guitar solos. Michael Hampton, or "Throbbasonic Funkgeetarist Kid Funkadelic" as he's credited, plays insane guitar solos throughout the madcap funk on this album, some that could even rival Hendrix. Seriously some of the best...

Beards, blues, and black suits. Every song on Eliminator immediately makes me think of 1980s MTV. Glossy neon graphics, bad effects, dramatic lighting, wind machines, sunglasses at night, smoke machines. The songs are cheesy as hell and mostly nonsense. But somehow,...

I've always liked Sheryl Crow. Fun fact: she created one of my favourite Bond themes in the often forgotten Tomorrow Never Dies. The movie deserves to be forgotten, not the song. It's no secret that I'm not a fan of country music, but this falls more into something...

I came into this as a Marilyn Manson hater. Back in the late 90s, Manson was weirdly everywhere. Not exactly who you would have expected to be the TV-friendly darling of MTV, but somehow he was plastered all over our screens for a while. The hysteria definitely helped...

There are two BIG reasons to like Dolly Parton: her selfless funding of the COVID vaccine research and the earnest lyricism of her music. Sometimes, on this album, Dolly ends up sounding like Alison Krauss, the type of country folk that I'm fond of, "My Blue Tears"...

Every Christmas I used to make a background playlist for the chaos: preparing vegetables, debating whether the ham was actually cooked, stress levels steadily rising as the planned serving time approached and parents and in-laws arrived hungry, helpful, and offering...

I was 11 years old, when Brian, the slightly unhinged kid who sat next to me in class in primary school, asked me if I listened to the Prodigy. When I said I'd heard of them but not given them a listen yet, he started going on about the song "Poison", giving me a...

The John Martyn I know is the Stormbringer! folky-bluesy John Martyn. One World is something else entirely. This is jazz-dub Martyn: echo, delay, and space doing most of the talking. Where folk, jazz and dub meet is in atmosphere rather than structure. Songs hover...

Amnesiac suffers from one big problem: it lives in the shadow of a masterpiece. After Kid A, the anticipation was massive. I remember living on Radiohead forums, downloading bootlegs from gigs, dissecting rumours about "Big Boots", "Nude", "Follow Me Around". Then a...

As someone who was learning to play guitar in the mid-90s, it was a requirement, not an option, to learn "A Design for Life". Even if you weren't a fan of the Manics. Like it was part of a curriculum. And I wasn't a fan of the Manics. Listening back to this album now,...

I can understand how Bob Dylan fell asleep when he was played this album. I'm a fan of Joni Mitchell, and the reality is that it was just Bob Dylan being very Bob Dylan - but to be fair this is a very, very mellow album. There's a lot of soft jazz bringing the energy...

It'd be so easy to just give this a one-word review: "Bad". But I'll rise above the temptation. I've already said before that I was never a fan of Jacko, even before the abuse stories came out. 80s pop just grinds my gears, and he was the undisputed king of it. The...

I've never been a fan of Tom Petty. I know I'm likely in the minority here. I play guitar with a group at my partner's family reunion every October, and I remember the look of absolute shock and horror on her cousin's face, when I dropped the bombshell that I didn't...

That iconic album cover. A figure in darkness, cigarette glowing, something half-hidden. It sets the tone visually - quiet, mysterious, detached - and gives you a sense of what you're about to experience. Almost. Deserter's Songs didn't really sound like anything else...

They should prescribe this album as medication to remedy stress. As far as shoegaze goes, these songs feel much warmer and more optimistic than a lot of the genre - definitely less raw and aggressive than the "punch you in the face" distorted guitars of My Bloody...

The Who went in a strange direction from where they started off. In the early days, there are moments where they basically stumbled into punk without knowing it: the power chords, the frantic tempos, the sense that Keith Moon was trying to physically outrun the song....

I was never really into Wu-Tang Clan, or this style of hip-hop in general. I did enjoy this though - Method Man's rap style, some interesting choices around structure (the "sparring match" of Meth vs. Chef, for example), and RZA's great beats and samples really...

Feels like one of the seminal records of punk, right alongside the work of Iggy and The Stooges, but there's still a lot of bluesy grit and some slightly unhinged, experimental moments in there too. It's raw, loud, with a real political fire behind it. Also, I was...

I still vividly remember the first time I listened to "Seven Nation Army". I can't remember exactly how I first got into the White Stripes, but it was either through hearing the songs "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground", "Fell in Love with a Girl", or maybe after...

This album sounds like Bowie is lurking just off to the side, smoking a cigarette in a silver jumpsuit, giving the band a small, satisfied nod. I mean, "Whizz Kid" is the most Bowie-sounding song since "All the Young Dudes" - so much so, I had to look it up to see if...

Warm harmonies, a laid-back sunny hippy vibe, at times a bit rockier (like in "You Better Run"), and occasionally drifting into psychedelia. Mostly it's just easy, feel-good, hippy vibes spread across a bunch of catchy tunes. A perfect soundtrack for groovin' on a...

I only really knew "Cranes in the Sky" going into this, and I did like the album, but it’s just not really my thing. It's refined and subtle, and there's a real calm, crafted feel to the whole thing. But for me it stayed more in the "I respect this" zone than...

A group of lads in Wrangler straight-cut jeans, brown leather shoes and white checked shirts, tucked in, with too many of the top buttons opened, jumping around the dancefloor of a soulless nightclub, sloshing their pints of cider and Heineken around the place. That's...

The Undertones have always had this Ramones-like contradiction about them. On the surface they look and play like scrappy, leather-jacketed punks with loud guitars, shooting out two-minute bursts of punk rock. But then you listen to the lyrics, you realise they're...

I don't know WHAT I just listened to. Suba has thrown bossa nova, heavy experimental sounds, acid house, new-age hippie music, and down-tempo electronica into a blender, and weirdly, it's kinda great. Definitely one of the more out-there albums I've listened to...

I remember when Hey Ya! dropped. It wasn't just a big single, it was a cultural phenomenon. It was completely unique and seemed to come out of nowhere. Everyone was shaking Polaroids, asking people to lend them some sugar, declaring themselves as neighbours. I was...

The album opens with "Shout", and it's great stuff. Very dark synth, reminding me of Gary Numan or Depeche Mode. "Head over Heels" is another great song. Although I wonder my judgement is clouded with nostalgia. I first heard this song in the movie Donnie Darko, so I...

I'm a fan of Guy Garvey. But mostly because of his fantastic weekly show on BBC Radio 6 Music, where every Sunday afternoon I tune in to listen to the great music that he curates. His taste is nearly identical to mine. But, oddly I was never a big Elbow fan. The one...

This feels more like an art installation than an album of music. Something you'd stumble across in a white room in a museum of modern art. You sit down on a cold, uncomfortable bench, and listen to the absolute utter madness of this patchwork blanket of dialogue,...

"Yaa yaa, feelin' good on a Wednesday..." Hard to believe this all started with Randy Marsh singing in a bathroom. Autotune. Outside of the world of South Park, I always liked and respected Lorde from the little I’d heard, mostly "Royals". So I was happy to dive into...

What are the odds? 1001 gen randomly serves me Let It Bleed, then the next day it gives me Sticky Fingers, so I write "I'm looking forward to Exile On Main St. tomorrow". And what comes up the following day? The Bends. But then the day after THAT? Here we are with...

The reverb-soaked, echoey sound of a Memory Man pedal feeding back on itself is the sound that opens The Bends, and ushers in the first proper era of Radiohead. To me, Pablo Honey was more like of a collection of songs to supplement "Creep" than a proper Radiohead...

Back when I was in my early 20s, and a smoker, I used to carry around a Rolling Stones "Hot Lips" zippo lighter that I named Charlie, after Charlie Watts. Charlie would often slip out of my pocket during a night out, but would always somehow make his way back to me....

Henry Hill's car screeches around the corner. He's paranoid, wired on coke, chauffeuring his family around, picking up guns and drugs, cooking pasta sauce, all while convinced a helicopter is following him. Playing over this scene, Mick Jagger screams "AMMA...

Radiohead are my all-time favourite band, and with a Copenhagen show on the horizon this feels like perfect timing to revisit Kid A. I've threatened my wife-to-be and our two dogs for years that I'd give a TED Talk on this album. Now's my chance. Kid A sits in my top...

The first time I encountered Mark E. Smith was when he tried to suffocate Joe Cornish with a plastic bag over his head on TV. He was joking of course, but was still kinda following through on it. "Vinyl Justice" was a segment on the Adam and Joe TV show, where Adam...

Led Zeppelin II is one of my favourite albums, so when a friend told me that his dad was getting rid of some old vinyl from his attic, back when I was in college about 20 years ago, I jumped at the chance to save a 1972 pressing of the Brown Bomber. As the old record...

Dark and minimalist. Feels like Burial years before Burial. Setting the blueprint for trip hop. You can feel the shadow of Massive Attack looming here too. The juxtaposition between Martina Topley-Bird's bright vocals and the dark, brooding and chaotic sounds and...

Chaotic. In the best way. Grandmaster Flash and Run DMC cuts beside jazz riffs and flute loops. Reggae moments from the likes of Lee Scratch Perry, mix with comedy stand-up routines, sheep sounds, and a dog barking "I love you" from a Little Caesars ad. The use of...

Thankfully this isn't as cringey as The Number of the Beast, but it still feels very juvenille. The raw production values is what saves it. It has an almost gritty punk feel to it - something that you feel wasn't achieved on purpose. But the core Iron Maiden tackiness...

I dunno. I really like Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I loved Fever to Tell, and played the absolute shit out of Show Your Bones. Maps, Gold Lion, Mysteries, Date With The Night, Cheated Hearts... stellar stuff. Raw, punky, melodic with Karen O taking on an early PJ Harvey persona...

That opening chord. What an iconic moment in music history. I mean, what can I say? It's the Beatles. The first Beatles album that's come up on this list for me. Is it on par with the Beatles who made Sgt Pepper, Abbey Road or The White Album? No. But it's an early...

My dog Louie is a big fan of Leonard Cohen's later work, but that's mainly because older Leonard Cohen's voice sounds like a growly old dawg. Regardless, myself and Louie very much enjoyed listening to this quiet, simple, intimate, dark, striped-back and poetic...

I hated Morrissey before it was cool. Putting aside some of his awful views on immigration and the likes, I just could never understand the fascination with The Smiths or Morrissey. A lot of people who liked the same music as I did, were big into The Smiths, and I...

Back when I was about 13 or 14 years of age, I was going to guitar lessons with a teacher named Mike Arrigan. I wanted to learn some Graham Coxon distortion noises from the album Blur, and Mike was not impressed by the dissonant sounds of Graham's guitar when isolated...

There's something about the pedal steel guitar, as it's used in country music, that immediately turns me off a song. And unfortunately, it's all over this album like a rash. I'm not a hater of country music, but I'm not a big fan either. I prefer the more raw and...

I still remember when I first discovered the Pixies. As a teenage Radiohead and Nirvana fan in the 90s, they had been on my radar for quite some time, but I'd never gotten around to listening to them. Then late one night, I stayed up to watch a Motorhead documentary....

Picture the scene: it's summer time, you're cruising along the streets on your pink moped, sun shining, wind in your hair, Hawaiian shirt billowing in the breeze, Vice City cops on your tail. Mark Hollis is on the radio singing "Baby, life's what you make it,...

This is what I love about this project. I wasn't familiar with the Minutemen before this. Now I'm a huge fan. Double Nickels on the Dime is vast: a double album, made up of 43 songs, but served in bite-size nuggets, ranging in duration from just 38 seconds long to...

Public Enemy said it best in Fight the Power: "Elvis was a hero to most / But he never meant shit to me". As an angsty teen, this was my go-to stance on Elvis, and I was always eager to go on about it at length. In a time of segregation, Elvis was a commercially...

I'm not the biggest fan of jazz, but I respect the genre a lot. I feel a lot of the experimentation and musical theory goes way over my head, and honestly, I would very rarely sit down to listen to even some of the more accessible greats, but I still have a high level...

Ambitious effort, creating a concept album about nuclear weapons, but it comes across a little pretentious, and the musicality is lacking any real depth or interest. The exception being the nutty "The Conference", which is the first song on the album that really...

How do you out-Black Sabbath Black Sabbath (the song) from Black Sabbath (the album)? With War Pigs, that's how. If the guitar riff, accompanied by its unsettling bassline isn't enough, an air raid siren wails, warning you to get ready for something ominous incoming....

Garbage seemed cursed. Shirley Manson went to first meet the band founder Butch Vig, famous for producing Nirvana's Nevermind, on the day that Kurt Cobain committed suicide. Their first promotional tour, supporting Smashing Pumpkins, was cancelled halfway through when...

Sweeping instrumentals, Avant Garde, mutating melodies, bass-heavy, post-rock, tracks ranging from 20 minutes to 2 minutes in duration. Yes, I am here for this music. Never heard of Tortoise before, but after my first listen-through, I instantly categorised them on my...

I'm not a big George Michael fan, but there's no denying that Faith (the song) is an absolute classic. Sure, it's overplayed to bajaysus, but at its core, it's a fantastic song. Faith (the album), on the other hand is a bit meh. There's nothing particularly terrible,...

It's never a good sign when you have to check to see how long an album is. How much of my life do I need to spend enduring this nonsense? 38 minutes for the core album, or 57 minutes if I want to listen to the reissue bonus tracks. 38 minutes is long enough thank you...

Concept album aside, this is a fantastic collection of songs. The Kinks had really matured into a very interesting band here, with clever and very melodic songwriting. The concept album itself works very well too. It's just worth noting that almost every song here...

Ambitious effort tackling some big social issues in a concept album peppered with confrontational "interludes", but ultimately it comes across as pretentious. It's hard to take anything here seriously when it's presented with synthesised drums.

I really like Happy Mondays, and I'm a big fan of the Madchester scene. It was a perfect meld of guitar music and dance beats. And most of the scene's music holds up today, sounding just as good - Stone Roses, Primal Scream and a lot of Happy Mondays stuff still works...

Big beats and weird little skits, with a wide range of samples from the likes of Cymande, kids TV shows, Steely Dan, Funkadelic and Kraftwerk (to name but a few)... this is absolutely my type of hip-hop. De La Soul never seemed to take themselves too seriously, and,...

Back in my 20s, a group of us were out on a "12 pubs of Christmas" pub crawl. Things had (expectedly) gotten a little drunken, and the whole group ended up having a serious shouty argument over whether Meg White was a good drummer or not. It got so heated that we...

Not to sound like the old curmudgeon that I am, but I don't like the musicality of modern hip-hop and R&B. The rhythmic meter and booming bass is repetitive and boring. Insert "old man yells at cloud" Simpsons gif. There's some interesting moments in here,...

Funk, stank, drum machines mixed with live drums, politically charged (and sometimes incypherable) lyrics, roaming bass-lines and screaming vocals, laying down the blueprint for funk, hip-hop and soul for years to come. A funky mess, and I mean that in the best...

Felt like sitting through a big production rock opera. I liked the concept of the dual themed sides, and the orchestration of everything is very impressive. But, much like sitting through a full rock opera, it gets a bit much after a while. Especially when it's...

Knowing what was to come, L.A. Woman felt a lot like a swansong for The Doors. They were blacklisted from radio play, Jim had been convicted after losing his very public trial, and had cleaned up his act somewhat. His tone seemed more seemed subdued, almost as if he...

"There might be accidents, accidents which will be more interesting than what I had intended." Eno's first solo album shows the early signs of his creative genius in artistic process. Madcap techniques like lyrics formed by free-association, throwing a group of...

Green Onions (the song) is an absolute classic. Green Onions (the rest of the album) is very enjoyable too - mostly covers, some sounding even better with the organ than in their original form. But, Green Onions, what a song. That Hammond organ riff, that bass line...

Feed your head. Haight-Ashbury, 1967, the Summer of Love, paisley, and LSD. "Surrealistic Pillow" is a landmark album that captures that whole scene perfectly. But it isn't trapped there - it still plays fresh in 2025, almost 60 years later. From the opening track...

Short, poppy, folky, jazzy tunes adjacent musically to Pavement and Neutral Milk Hotel, but only in their low-fi folky nature, not in artistic merit. There's a laid-back approach to polish in their songs that reminds me of the feel of Pavement's recordings especially....

A work of heartbreaking genius. The juxtaposition of those absolutely beautiful orchestral strings with fragmented and booming electronic beats is such a well considered and fantastic artistic choice. The randomness of the harsh beats breaking apart the softness of...

A "movie for your ears". Nobody can describe this frenzied madness better than the man himself. Madcap jazz fusion with a frenetic level of energy, layers of spacey soundscapes, with soaring guitar solos and dirty saxophones, the instrumentation only broken up once by...

It was my first time listening to Joanna Newsom, and it won't be my last. Really fantastic and unique sounds, both in instrumentation and vocals. Ignoring the timeline of releases, I'll instead cite comparisons to music I was already familiar with. I immediately felt...

Nope. Terrible music from a terrible person.

Imagine you're away on holidays. It's evening time and you fancy a drink, but there aren't too many options in the area you're in. You hedge your bets, and pop into a grimy pub full of locals. The walls have dusty posters of Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper and Iron...

Not for me. Positives: I did enjoy the first song "Penitentiary Philosophy" and the first 2 minutes of "Green Eyes". Negatives: The remaining 67 minutes of the album.

What can I say about one of my all-time favourite albums? I listened to the shit out this album since my late teens. My neighbours have had to put up with my clumsy attempts to play along with every single song on this album on my Gibson Les Paul, a guitar I bought...

Cinematic, literary and melancholic, Scott 4 feels like the score from an existential Western. Full of philosophical musings, it's fitting that the back cover of the LP only has nothing on it but a single quote from Albert Camus: "A man's work is nothing but this slow...

Nobody has made an entrance as epic as Black Sabbath. The self-titled song on their self-titled album announced the arrival of Sabbath with a slow, ominous, dark riff that eventually descends into a glorious bluesy jam. That's what I always forget about Sabbath: how...

"Strange Cargo" is a good name for this. An odd collection of electronic soundscapes, with spoken word interludes, blippity blips and synth, that sometimes verges into hippy "tribal" music territory. At times I feel like I'm listening to music that you'd expect to...

As soon as I saw Paul Weller and Peter Wilson on the cover of this album in dusty trenchcoats, I thought to expect a lot of "dusty trenchcoat music". Think angry new wave 80s social-political rants set to ska basslines. What I didn't expect to find was soft jazz....

I've said it before, but I'm not really into soul. With that disclaimer out of the way, I did enjoy this album. Curtis's voice is quite unique, almost falsetto, yet breaking into quiet screaming at times. That, on top of music that verges on funk and blues at times,...

Kathleen Hanna is a legend. I've rewatched her amazing monologue about how she got blackout drunk in Kurt Cobain's apartment, and woke up to find that she had graffitied "Kurt smells like Teen Spirit" on his wall. And how that song, and its success, seemed to follow...

I'd somehow never heard of Ramblin' Jack Elliott before. I listened to the first four songs of this album, and immediately loved it. It's exactly the style of folk music that I love. Raw, bluesy and loose. I thought to myself, "this sounds just like early Bob Dylan"....

I'm not really into this type of hip hop. I prefer the 80s/early 90s hip hop that was more energetic and used really clever samples. This isn't that. I liked the Fela Kuti tribute, and I feel there are some pretty hefty subjects being tackled here, but I just just...

"Some get stoned, some get strange, but sooner or later it all gets real, walk on." Takes of disillusionment, depression, breakups, death and vampires, fueled by drugs, alcohol and honey slides, written and recorded at times in bursts of instant creativity, it's an...

I found the first half of this album very hard to get through. Quite cheesy/corny melodies, and not really my thing. It gets better in the second half of the album. Songs like "Streets of Kenny", "Cornish Town" and "Since I Met You" are decent enough. But there's not...

Most of the album feels like something you'd hear on Jools Holland's Hootenanny. It's quite honky tonk at times, and 50s doo-woop the rest of the time. Not that that's a negative thing necessarily. "Watching the Detectives" is the outlier, feeling something more like...

Dark. That's how I'd describe this album. Even on the most upbeat songs, there's a dark undertone to everything. A brilliant blend of guitars and electronica, a brilliant blend of dark bass and synth with upbeat melodies, it feels like a representation of a musical...

Syd Barrett is a fascinating, but tragic story. Artistically brilliant and innovative, but lost to mental health issues exacerbated by heavy LSD usage. The stories are straight out of a Hollywood film: finding him sitting in a chair, staring into space with a...

"What have I, what have I, what have I done to deserve this?" That's a quote from me halfway through listening to this rubbish. I never understood the acclaim that the Pet Shop Boys get. Neil Tennant's nasally voice is bad enough, but add in some terrible synth,...

Really unexpected blend of Latin music, salsa, funk, jazz and hip hop. Sounds like it wouldn't work, but it's actually pretty enjoyable stuff.

You know that scene in "School of Rock", where Jack Black as Dewey Finn (as Ned Schneebly) is running through the song he wrote for the battle of the bands, to a group of bemused children? We're not supposed to think it's good. It's over-the-top, corny, stadium rock...

Absolutely loved this album. I'd never heard of The Pharcyde before, but as soon as "Oh Shit" came on, I knew I was gonna love it. This is the exactly the style of hip hop that I love. Brilliant, upbeat, melodic samples, which are at times quite jazz-influenced, big...

If the colour beige made an album, they'd call it "The Man Who". I feel bad shitting on Travis, because they seem like nice guys, but the music on this album is all very beige in colour. There's nothing particularly awful here, but there's nothing particularly...

Weird choice to have this album on here. If this is here and "Back to Black" isn't, there's something very strange going on. I like Amy Winehouse. I think she had some really clever songwriting and brilliantly produced (thanks to Mark Ronson) songs on her next album....

Nope. I just don't understand this genre of music at all. I don't understand the appeal. The only song I could stomach was "Orion", and that's mainly because it didn't sound like the Metallica of the rest of the album. Not for me.

It's fitting that this was released in 1980 because it sounds like a band transitioning from punk to new wave. "Pretty Green" has an Adam Ant feel to the verse, but a more punk rock feel to the chorus. "Monday" is a great song, and feels ahead of its time. "Set the...

I’m not really into this kind of music. Soul, R&B has never really been my go-to. But Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together is what I call an "exception" album. It’s like Beck’s "Odelay" - even if it’s not the sort of thing you'd normally listen to, it’s one of those...

The first Stone Roses album is the first time I heard dance music finally blending with guitar music in a decent way. You can hear the Madchester scene being born in real time on this album, and at the same time the early blueprints of what would become Britpop....

Brian Eno is obviously a musical genius. But he's also a lot more - he's a proper artist, equally as interested in the process of creativity, as the output. And that's very obvious on this album. Going into the studio with nothing, and using the restrictions of his...

Scott Walker perplexes and fascinates me. Of course, I discovered him through Radiohead, but at first I couldn't quite understand how a 70s crooner could be such an inspiration on so much of the modern, contemporary music that I love. And then I heard "It's Raining...

Adele has a great voice. But she's a victim of being overplayed. I tried to listen to this album objectively, but it's hard when these songs have been played to death on every radio station, advert, TV show and as background music while you shop for groceries. Trying...

So, totally not my taste in music. Big disclaimer. I did listen with an open mind though. Unfortunately, it didn't convert me to speed metal, or whatever this is called. I just don't fully understand the appeal. The positives? I feel like there might have been a good...

I had the wrong idea about Teenage Fanclub. They were always on the peripherals of my music taste, but I somehow never actually listened to them. I always thought they were a noise-rock, post-punk, shoegaze type band, a la Sonic Youth or the likes. Instead, they're...

Sugar sound very nineties. Early nineties grunge rock to be more precise. So specifically early nineties grunge rock, that I can imagine Beavis and Butthead interrupting "Hoover Dam" to make "is this a god dam(n)?" quips. But I did really like this album overall. You...

I fully appreciate the musicianship of this. The piano playing is exceptional. I also really appreciated how relaxed and confident a performer she was, dealing with moments waiting on the rest of the band with a cool charisma. But, this style of soft jazz isn't really...

"It's a lot of isolated people, who know how to control and operate electricity. They sneak a listen to American radio, and they get what's going on in Europe as well, and they kind of misunderstand it in a very beautiful way." Björk's description of the Icelandic...

Nick Drake is sort of timeless. While his sound is quite similar to Stormbringer! era John Martyn, it feels like it could have been released this year and fit in perfectly too. There's something about these songs that feel so genuine and real. It's like the songs are...

Quiet, calm but with bursts of urgency, it's Cat Stevens' voice that makes this album work so well. Some absolute classics here, musically augmenting both Cat's voice and lyrics perfectly. The last song on the album, the title track, remains one of my all-time...

Pretty impressive that Shuggie played almost every instrument on this album. I'm not really into this type of soul, but I can appreciate the musicianship and songwriting here. Some of these songs take unexpected, sometimes psychedelic turns, which makes for an...

Peter Gabriel, the mad flower cosplaying loon. I'd never sat down to listen to this album in full. It starts off in proper prog rock territory with the madcap "Moribund the Burgermeister", and I'm instantly hooked. I haven't heard anything like this before, and I love...

Bank in the day, I was never a Pulp fan. I thought that Jarvis Cocker was a very funny and interesting guy, but I could never gel with their music. It felt too posh and full of itself. Having given this album another chance, I feel I get it a bit more now. Some very...

I have to say, I didn't know much about Solomon Burke before today. Obviously, I immediately recognised "Cry to me", but interestingly I also recognised The Rolling Stones. I know they've covered him before, and even played live with him on stage, but it's moreso that...

I don't know if hearing this back in the 80s would have made it a different experience, but I never understood the appeal of Michael Jackson. Of course there are some great songs, but to call this a great album is a serious stretch in my opinion. Bland overproduced...

There's no easing into this album. The sound of Neil's double drop D distorted "Old Black" Les Paul guitar slaps you in the face from the very first second of Cinnamon Girl - it's one hell of a way to get your attention. The unpolished rawness of the guitar mixed with...

Meh. Every song is very samey. I really really liked the older Black Keys stuff like Attack & Release, but I feel like this album was the turning point when they pulled a "Kings of Leon" and watered down the rawness of their sound and became too bland.

First of all, "La femme d'argent" is an absolute classic. Sounded very different to anything else in the mainstream at that time. I'd forgotten how many great songs are on this album. Everything sounds quite 70s, even if there's a lot of electronica and vocal effects....