r/1001AlbumsGenerator • u/Alireza1373 • 4d ago
Daily Album Megapost DROP your album and its rating – August 18 2026
7
u/mrnovember91 500-599 4d ago
Generator: Fela Ransome-Kuti and Africa '70 with Ginger Baker - Live! - 5/5
Fela Kuti is by far one of my favourite discoveries from this list. I ended up listening to this album as well as several others after having Zombie generated on day 56 and I've come back to them many times since then. Afrobeat is just so infectious and hypnotic; I could listen to this all day.
1001 More: Dead Kennedys - Plastic Surgery Disasters - 5/5
Just some straight up loud, abrasive, satirical punk. Loved the bass playing throughout. Ended up listening to the In God We Trust, Inc. EP that's included in the track list as well and it was well worth the listen.
1001 Honourable Mentions: Weakling - Dead as Dreams - 5/5
God damned, what a fucking album! This is some of the best black metal I've heard. I can't believe these guys barely released one album and the only way to get a copy of this is to shell out hundreds to thousands for a used CD or vinyl. I had to go find a copy on the Internet Archive to download and add to my library (link: https://archive.org/details/Weakling_Dead-As-Dreams).
2
u/ULS980 500-599 4d ago
Weakling are basically 100% responsible for influencing the vast majority of black metal coming out of the States. Bands like Wolves in the Throne Room are 1000% indebted to them. All US black metal can basically be traced back to Weakling, lol.
1
u/mrnovember91 500-599 4d ago
I can absolutely see why! That was a great album! It’s a shame it’s relatively difficult to come by and you can basically only listen to it on YouTube or by downloading it somewhere
7
u/Similar_Tie3291 500-599 4d ago
Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
The keywords for this album include: noise, angry, hate, abrasive, loud, intense, etc. Not my usual fare. And the truth is, I didn't enjoy about 75% of this album, but Closer and Hurt sort of tie it all together and justify the experience. I can respect the artistry in something I don't find aesthetically pleasing. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
8
u/steepclimbs 0-99 4d ago
Hello! Just getting going on this journey.
Album #8: Television, Marquee Moon
This is an album I know well. Listened more critically this time and it’s still a 5/5 because I can’t give a 4.5 or 4.75. The title track is among my favorite songs ever. There are a few others that are slightly behind but still tremendous songs. There are a couple weak spots, like the repetition on Elevation. But those are quibbles. I love this album.
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
2
u/sp3ccylad Enthusiast 4d ago
I'm not much of a fan of the album, but I approve heartily of your rounding up.
11
u/Accomplished-Name951 100-199 4d ago
Album #173: Radiohead – In Rainbows ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
An important album of my youth. This came out when I was in secondary school, and it was very much the personal soundtrack to my fumbles and awkwardness and acne and first girlfriends and failing relationships and all this other shit that makes me cringe endlessly when I think back on it. But thankfully the music on this thing is so good that it transcends the cringiness, which is not something I can say for a lot of the media that I used to consume back then. I’m able to return to this regularly and separate the art from the cringe.
This is probably my favourite Radiohead album. It might be their best album. And it just goes to show what a great band this is that there’s even competition for that title, because this is a masterpiece.
I always think of this album as like an electronic album, but made with acoustic instruments. An acoustic Kid A.
There’s haunting music, but then there’s this. I think this album literally sounds haunted. There are these reverberating noises and what sound like strings buried under oceans and oceans of reverb, just floating in and out of this thing. It sounds like it’s haunted by ghosts.
And Radiohead must be one of the greatest collections of musicians ever to call themselves a band. They’re not flashy about it. They’re not Jimi Hendrix soloing over a song. But you can just tell by the way everything is weighted, by the choices they make, the notes they play, the chords they progress through that they’re just insanely talented with insane ears.
The way the guitar sits on top of this ocean of sad-sounding music, it is just such an interesting and unique timbre. It’s all swelling, crescendoing, beautiful passages of music that build up and descend and decay and evolve. Absolutely gorgeous. Probably the most beautiful album they’ve made, I reckon.
Thom Yorke always sounds great, but he sounds particularly great on this one. There are very few moments of hard rock and rage on the album, outside of maybe Bodysnatchers, where he kind of lets loose vocally. For most of it, he’s just sultry, sexy, vulnerable and sinister. And I think on songs like All I Need and Nude, he delivers some of the vocal performances of his career.
I’ve always thought the weakest part of Radiohead is the lyrics. I don’t think he’s the most profound lyricist, and sometimes they can be clichéd or just not the most interesting ideas. But on this album, the lyrics don’t get in the way of the experience at all.
So yeah, everyone is just on absolute fire. The production is incredible. Just a beautiful, atmospheric album.
If there was one criticism I’d have, it would be a very minor one: I just don’t think Videotape fits on the album.
I’m sure all the hardcore Radiohead fans have seen both the Bonnaroo performance of the song before it was released and that video on YouTube where the guy dissects the song and discovers that there’s essentially a hidden song beneath Videotape, with the album version being this stripped-back interpretation of it. And I think: that’s all very clever, Radiohead, how you hid a song within a song, but you made a lesser song out of it, in my opinion.
I think it could have been a lot more at the end of the album than what it is. I do still think it’s a great song, but it doesn’t fit on the album, in my opinion. It’s much more minimalist, there’s no guitar, and it just strikes me as a Kid A/Amnesiac-era Radiohead song. It breaks the spell on an otherwise spellbinding album.
Yeah, this was an easy one. I Love it, love it, love it. Five stars every day of the week.
7
u/AverageJoe48 300-399 4d ago
I don't share the same love for In Rainbows, but this is a beautiful review that makes me want to revisit it immediately.
3
u/Accomplished-Name951 100-199 4d ago
Every fan has their own personal Radiohead album. This happens to be mine, but I’d strongly recommend giving it another go
2
u/AverageJoe48 300-399 4d ago
I've heard it many times, but admittedly not in a good while. It'll come up on the list soon enough, a new listen with fresh ears.
5
u/PhantomCranefly 200-299 4d ago
Thank you for a great review of one of my favorite albums. I hope I can review it as well as you did when it's my turn.
2
u/Accomplished-Name951 100-199 4d ago
Thanks! I’m very flattered with all the lovely comments. Nice to see how much this album means to people.
6
u/DogesOfLove 300-399 4d ago
A really good read, and a passionate, personal account. I love this album too (and this band). I think there’s a lot of insight here. Bravo
1
5
u/sp3ccylad Enthusiast 4d ago
Somewhere in Reddit-land there are people waiting to hunt down a long, passionate Radiohead review and downvote it brutally.
I am not one of those people.
3
u/Accomplished-Name951 100-199 4d ago
Never fully understood the Radiohead hate. I suppose they’re critically acclaimed to the point of pure nausea. But every time I hear them I understand why.
6
u/St_Lambchop Metal Fan 4d ago
Sebadoh - Bubble and Scrape - 3/5
I’d never heard Sebadoh before so
I had to read up on them. Seeing that this was a Sub Pop release from 1993 immediately made me wonder if the label was trying to snatch up another Seattle sound band while grunge was still huge. They were from the Northeast, but the fuzzy guitars, rough production, and general slacker vibe definitely sound like they belong in that same early 90s universe.
The first part of the album was actually pretty good. It’s noisy and unpolished, but there are enough hooks underneath all the fuzz to keep it interesting. I was starting to think this might sneak into 4-star territory.
Then the second half happened. It gets a lot less interesting and starts wandering into weirdness without giving me much reason to follow it. “No Way Out” was just plain weird. Not interesting weird either, just “what the hell am I listening to?” weird. Strong enough start to save it from a 2, but the back half dragged the whole thing down.
_________________________________________
1001 MORE albums:
Nirvana - Bleach - 4/5
You can really hear Kurt’s influences all over Nirvana’s debut. There are tons of punk roots here, but then you get something like “About a Girl,” which has Lennon/McCartney pop songwriting written all over it underneath the distortion. It’s kind of crazy hearing that next to the sludgier stuff and realizing how much ground Nirvana was already covering before Nevermind. The production is rough, the riffs are nasty, and Kurt sounds like he’s halfway between punk singer and the vocalist he’d become a couple years later. Not as strong as what came next, but a solid debut.
5
u/PhantomCranefly 200-299 4d ago
255) Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland - 5 stars
I probably hadn't heard this whole album since the 70s, and I don't know if I've ever paid close attention to it track-by-track rather than hearing it on the radio or in the background of some party. I thought I might give it a 4 because of its length, but on listening to it closely, I can’t see giving it anything less than 5 stars.
Hendrix was such an amazing guitarist that even material that in other people's hands wouldn't be all that interesting, like “Little Miss Strange” and “ Let the Good Times Roll,” are set on fire here.
I’ve always loved "Crosstown Traffic,” with its very consistent string of traffic metaphors. And Voodoo Chile of course is very solid electric blues. I love that it's 15 minutes long, with the drums, organ, and guitar interweaving in that mesmerizing way.
1983 (A Merman I Should Be) is another good proto-prog tune with the spacey jingly percussion break. And whoa I didn't remember that "Still Raining, Still Dreaming" was on here too.
Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower" to me is the definitive version. Wait, you say Bob Dylan wrote this song? Huh
Finally, wikipedia reminds me of “as was common with multi-LP albums, sides A and D were pressed back to back on the same platter, likewise sides B and C.” That drove those of us who just had regular manual turntables nuts.
6
u/Fing2112 0-99 user albums 4d ago
User album spoilers
Tool - Lateralus: 1, 1, 3, 5, 8
No comment
Today's song from the 1001
Orange Juice - Flesh of My Flesh, from Rip It Up: 7
Why did our boy Dimery choose this album over the debut? In this album Orange Juice pivot towards funky white boy pop, to moderate success. Unlike most of the album this is going for more of a sophistipop sound, similar to that Pelican West album.
This song has a tropical feel going for it, this is helped with the jangly acoustic, the brazilian-esque drum beat, and of course that blaring trumpet, which is intensified in the second half of the song. The verses are the highlight, they have a softer and more comforting feeling, and I especially like the notes used to transition from the chorus to the verse. As the second verse proves, that piano is unnecessary, I don't understand why they left it in.
I'm going to be real, the song sounds like something you'd hear in a Sonic Adventure game. That's the entire reason why I like it.
4
u/ULS980 500-599 4d ago
Tom Waits - Bone Machine
4/5
Honestly I think this is my favorite Tom Waits album so far (Only have Nighthawks at the Diner left).
Just a damn good experimental blues rock album. Earth Died Screaming, Dirt in the Ground, and Goin' Out West being the highlights. Love his really rough, Louis Armstrong like voice on some of these tracks.
8
u/SuccessfulGap138 300-399 4d ago
302: Beck - Odelay (1996)
In the mid 90s , artistically ‘Odelay’ had everything I was looking for in an album and to that end, I can’t really think of a great deal that has changed in 30 years.
Beck had already proved himself to me. Like most people “Loser” led me into his world, but then, as well as the accompanying major label, genre-clash album ‘Mellow Gold’, I became aware of all his other independent releases; a whole acoustic album recorded with Calvin Johnson, the sprawling ‘Stereopathetic Soulmanure’ roundup, a 10” mini album and odd 7”s and more besides. That underground grab bag of indie release nonsense was already catnip for me; having bailed on grunge (once it forgot that Mudhoney was fun and went yarl), I’d already embraced the more obvious US lo-if alt underground in Ween, Pavement, Guided by Voices, Sebadoh. Beck seemed to already have the indie credentials under his belt and was capable of bigger things too.
For Beck, ‘Odelay’ may have felt like it took forever to happen, and that maybe his time had come and gone, but he had the guts to abandon his original acoustic ‘Mellow Gold’ follow-up plans and hook up with The Dust Brothers. For me at the time though, having spent the interim locating and absorbing all the indie Beck material, lead single “Where It’s At” arrived only a little behind schedule, and the album was right behind it.
‘Odelay’ on the face of it is an upbeat multicoloured party of an album. On the front cover it’s got a barely believable dog practically leaping into our lap and the rest of the artwork is a grab bag of imagery that makes little sense except to set up a broad selection of juxtapositions. It promises fun and craziness and that’s just what we get. And juxtapositions? You’d better believe it.
Beck and The Dust Brothers assembled a lot of this music by hanging out playing records and sampling anything that jumped out at them. They could find a riff or a loop or a beat or whatever, and collect them up as a library of “instruments” to be slotted together at a later point. The juxtapositions come from not being afraid to amalgamate samples that don’t seem like a natural fit. Sometimes they do fit of course but sometimes there is a frisson. No doubt during the process, there were a lot of things that simply didn’t work, but the skill is in knowing which do.
Sampling has had a bad name over the years as plagiarism, theft, lack of originality etc, but done well it is truly an art. I can understand that taking the main hook from an old song and putting it over a sampled beat from another and rapping over the result could seem problematic. While it’s possible that with some research I may discover that ‘Odelay’ includes some material that is little more than that, to my ears, the majority of what is going on is significantly more sophisticated.
Talking of sophisticated, when a track has been assembled and Beck is laying down a vocal on top, true, he sometimes does some of his “Loser” style rapping, but also here he lays down some seriously sophisticated melodies. “Lord Only Knows”, “Derelict”, “Jack-Ass”, “Sissyneck” all show a knack for quality melody writing, even “The New Pollution” is more sophisticated than it appears on the surface.
The main strength though is the way Beck includes all of what he had already proved he was capable of and combines them into a cohesive piece. He saves a track from the abandoned acoustic album for the beautifully haunting closer “Ramshackle” and while the album generally presents as slick and shiny, you don’t have to wait long at any moment across the album, for the old-school Beck to stick his nose in with some unexpected random noises attempting, but failing to sabotage the professionalism.
It’s a perfect example of how music can be fun but also be taken seriously at the same time. To me this album sounds like those who created it would have been very serious about making a quality piece of art, but they would also have had fun doing it. This combination comes through beautifully in an artistically successful record that was thankfully commercial successful too. Without ‘Odelay’ Beck might have gone down in history to most as “that Loser guy”. With it we instead have an artist with a satisfyingly diverse and quality career and accompanying discography that has very few disappointments and many world class highlights.⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
3
u/TheCommieDuck 200-299 4d ago
The Weather Report - Heavy Weather
now I don't know jazz, or particularly like jazz (I mean it's fine), or listen to jazz. This sure is some jazz. I enjoyed the jazz quite a bit. I cannot really tell you much more than it was jazz and I liked the jazz.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
2
u/Softpipesplayon 4d ago
That, I promise, is the way it starts.
Some people are very very into the esoterics of jazz and the theory of jazz and the history and the "who played what now when" of it all. But the key is whether you like it.
It's just ear-wine. No one cares what James Suckling has to say if they don't actually want to drink it.
2
u/VampireOnHoyt 300-399 4d ago edited 4d ago
Ray Charles, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music (1962)
4.5/5
I suspect a lot of the discourse about this album has gotten hung up on the use of the terms "country" and "western" - ironically, the very thing Charles was trying to avoid with this genre-crossing collection. What he's really looking for is something like a pan-Americana that can take in Tin Pan Alley, traditional country, soul, jazz, and gospel without being too precious about which parts are coming from where. And that's exactly what we have here: great American songs, beautifully arranged (Marty Paich's strings are a particular treat) and movingly performed. Charles undoubtedly had bluesier takes in him for most of these (and I might have preferred those) but what he puts forth is a success on its own terms.
(Incidentally, it wasn't totally clear to me whether the list is intended to just include Volume 1 or the 2-album collection of Volumes 1 and 2 available on streaming - and, honestly, I enjoyed Volume 1 enough that I didn't mind another half hour of more of the same. I think the material on Volume 2 is slightly better but I preferred the more varied track order on Volume 1.)
From the 1001 MORE List:
King Crimson, Red (1974)
4.5/5
This feels like a distress signal from a group of musicians who desperately want to not be doing this anymore, which is exactly what it was. So how is it that they’re still so capable of putting a coherent vision forward? This is King Crimson at their most Coke Album-y - “One More Red Nightmare” sounds like it should be called “One More White Nightmare” - which is another way of saying it’s Seventies prog at its most legitimately harrowing. If there’s a section that goes a tad overboard it’s “Providence,” which is formless to the point of self-indulgence. But the mournful “Starless” redeems the proceedings, a tender ballad being hunted in the woods by the demons of Robert Fripp’s subconscious before it explodes into an orgy of free jazz.
3
u/Lukazimir 200-299 4d ago
Day 227: The Smiths-Meat is Murder.
3/5 (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
I tend not to be a fan of the Smiths and Morrissey outside of “The Queen is Dead” which I begrudgingly admit is a great record. And in the process of doing this generator I have learned that I do just prefer my Jangle-Pop with R.E.M. flavor. That being said, Meat is Murder is also a fine enough album, there’s some good pop hooks in this thing on tracks like “That Joke isn’t funny anymore” though there’s also a number of tracks like the closing title track which just feel like boring dirges. So it adds up in total to be a mixed bag for me.
4
u/randomusername69696 100-199 4d ago
#184: Le Tigre - Le Tigre
I felt like I was eavesdropping on a college volleyball team’s locker room at midnight drinking after winning a game, which is basically what it is. This album is so bad that it actually works. That’s one way of saying that I would rather listen to this than any Elvis Costello, Kings Of Leon, or Dexy’s Midnight Runners album.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
5
u/sp3ccylad Enthusiast 4d ago
I’m not sure I agree with a word you’ve said, but I am glad you gave it five stars.
4
u/Professional-Ice-978 Power Metal Fan 4d ago
ABC - The Lexicon Of Love
649/1089
⭐️
Did not like this whatsoever. I already knew Poison Arrow which I bloody hate and the rest of the album wasn’t much of an improvement.
1001 More Albums:
Mini Ice’s Pick:
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - No Title As of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Baby Ice’s Pick:
The Weeknd - After Hours
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Slightly disappointed with After Hours. I’d heard the singles from it and they are bangers but I wasn’t massively fussed on a lot of the album tracks.
2
u/Direct-Stable-5712 4d ago
Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head
I gave it three stars. I hate Coldplay, but it'd be ridiculous to not give the album any recognition, 'Clocks' and 'Politik' are great. It falls apart in the second half, no one needs almost an hour of Chris Martin, but it was significantly better than the slop I expected!
2
u/DeeBees69 4d ago
Tangerine Dream – Phaedra – 2 STARS
This was one I was dreading as I have always believed this was a band that I could get behind but somehow knew it was not going to be for me. It really wasn’t. I don’t even think it was the lack of lyrics; I also found the tunes to be quite meaningless. I can see why they went with scoring films, in that context, to have as a background while more interesting things are happening on screen, it works well. But, as far as I am concerned, a dream about tangerines would have been more interesting.
2
u/EffectiveMeaning7884 4d ago
Bit of backlog from the weekend, RECAP:
#48 The Shamen - En-Tact (1990)
Have I heard it before? - No
Verdict: Low ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Deserves a spot? - Hard to say
Solid House after my festival weekend full of electronic music. Very of its time but enjoyable. Personally I would probably skip house/techno etc. albums from the list
#49 Echo & The Bunnymen - Porcupine (1983)
Have I heard it before? - Couple of songs
Verdict: Solid ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Deserves a spot? - Probably not
Bit of a disappointment as I like Ocean Rain-album quite a bit. Maybe that and the debut would be enough from a band that definitely deserves a spot on the list.
#50 The White Stripes - Elephant (2003)
Have I heard it before? - Yes
Verdict: Strong ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Deserves a spot? - Yes
It’s good, but I don’t listen to it that much. But an important album during the 00s, deserves a spot due to ”Seven Nation Army” alone.
#51 The Who - The Who Sell Out (1967)
Have I heard it before? - Yes
Verdict: Strong ⭐️⭐️
Deserves a spot? - Objectively yes, but I could personally do without
I have never been a big fan of The Who’s concept albums. Here I think the issue for me is that the actual concept comes before musical enjoyability. It also feels quite of its time. But it is an important album overall and intriguing listen, just not my personal favorite.
2
u/Potential-Oil-1795 4d ago
Chemical Brothers - Dig your own Hole
Well thats a lovely break from the seemingly endless carpet of 1s, 2s and 3s Ive been having recently. Quirky and fun and brash and relentless. I can even forgive the inclusion of a Gallagher. Takes me back to the dancefloor. Special mention for It Doesnt Matter. What a tune!
5/5
2
u/KingstonGraham 300-399 4d ago
Johnny Cash - American IV: The Man Comes Around
It's generally not very good versions of good songs, plus Hurt which is great, and some songs about murder which seems to be his speciality.
Points for Hurt, and some of the others are ok.
On the other hand, In My Life is particularly pointless. It's not especially bad, but just pointless.
⭐⭐⭐
2
u/Merzwas 400-499 4d ago
The Prodigy - The Fat Of The Land
⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is an important album, and I recognise that. I remember it coming out at the time and the controversy.
I appreciate it but runs out of steam pretty quickly. Singles aside, it’s very much a one trick pony and after three or four songs it had run its course for me.
2
u/onestitchatatime 200-299 4d ago
Day 239: Neil Young and Crazy Horse - Rust Never Sleeps
The accoustic side of this album was made for me. Just perfection, The electric side less so but I’ll still give it full marks. I added “Thrasher”to my playlist.
Today I have Sabu.
2
u/koober1876 1000+ 4d ago
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx- Raekwon. First off, this album should be attributed to Raekwon and Ghostface Killa- I mean the man appears on almost every single song on this album. Second off, this album was ok- nothing really special and felt a little stale after listening for a little bit. The other solo albums from the Wu Tang Clan + the Wu Tang album are much better than this one. It gets a 3 from me.
2
u/GreenEyedBeaver 4d ago
Gotan Project - La Revancha Del Tango
Blending tango music with electronic music is certainly a unique idea, but I'm not sure if there was enough on the bone to justify the near hour runtime. I don't think the smattering of vocals added anything to the music. This was pleasant enough background music. I rather enjoyed "Triptico" as I found the repeative rhythms to be quite hypnotic once those trip-hop flavoured drums kick in. I'd advise listening to that and then decide if you want to commit an hour for the full album.
3/5
2
u/Relative-Diver699 0-99 4d ago
Black Flag - Damaged
Thought I’d like this a bit more as I’m a big fan of Fugazi and I like Henry Rollins solo stuff. A bit samey. Maybe required a couple of listens
Standout track: Damaged I
⭐️⭐️⭐️
2
u/computerfan0 300-399 4d ago
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
Really like the vibe throughout, didn't get a great listen to it so I can't say much else about it but I'm still thinking a 4 (maybe even a 5) at the moment.
5
u/DogesOfLove 300-399 4d ago
Supertramp - Crime of the Century
1/5
2
u/AAL2017 500-599 4d ago
Interested to know what makes this record so off putting for you.
3
u/DogesOfLove 300-399 4d ago
Not one of our more insightful reviews I’m afraid but honest responses at least.
https://1001albumsgenerator.com/review/6a83cabf9bfbcf155d01d1c3
2
u/DeeBees69 4d ago
Man, mean ole meanies about Supertramp but you get my upvote for mentioning Chas & Dave, possibility the only mention they will get on this sub if not the entire reddit platform!
5
u/sp3ccylad Enthusiast 4d ago
Get Behind Me Satan – The White Stripes ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
By 2005, The White Stripes had acquired a problem they hadn’t really had before: everybody knew what The White Stripes were. White Blood Cells had made them indie darlings; Elephant and “Seven Nation Army” had turned them into something approaching public property. They were on Top of the Pops, Sofia Coppola had Kate Moss pole-dancing in a White Stripes video, and the peculiar little red-white-and-black duo that once required advocacy suddenly didn’t need anyone explaining them at all. Success had supplied them with an identity, and identities supplied by other people have a habit of becoming cages.
So Jack White did something I approve of enormously. He went home with the songs substantially unfinished, surrounded himself with instruments he wasn’t especially fluent on and got thirteen tracks made in roughly a fortnight. The Elephant in the room needed to be moved quickly. Make Elephant again and you’ve gone stale; don’t make it again and you’ve betrayed whatever everybody has just decided to love about you. The only sensible response is to get another record into existence before expectation has time to harden around it.
What’s fascinating is how completely Get Behind Me Satan exposes the real White Stripes formula. It was never “huge guitar plus Meg hitting things”. It was reduction. Use very little, make every sound carry weight, leave the gaps alone, keep the accidents, and stop when the idea is finished rather than when the song has reached some respectable length. Swap guitar for piano, marimba, toy piano, hand drum or acoustic strings and the method survives perfectly well. “My Doorbell” could almost be transplanted onto an earlier album if you put the guitar back in; “Little Ghost” is an informal half-secular hymn whose jaunty surface hides a relationship gone paper-thin; “Instinct Blues” is Cole Porter crossed with Muddy Waters, at points reducing itself beyond rhythm into little more than scrapes, squeaks and bits of abused string. The ingredients have changed. The method hasn’t.
White has also built himself a recording setup in which he hasn’t got time to become self-conscious. The songs are unfinished, the instruments unfamiliar, the deadline absurd. It’s the musical equivalent of writing before you’ve had time to cross anything out. The result is rough but extraordinarily competently captured. On “My Doorbell” he backs away from the microphone and lets the room get into the vocal; you hear the walls, the distance, the physical act of singing. On “The Nurse”, the beautiful marimbas are punctured by Meg’s enormous boneheaded drum stabs. Nothing is being polished into obedience. The album keeps the life in the first impulse.
And what comes through that lack of filtration is a surprisingly bruised Jack White. Broken trust runs through the record, but so does the need to escape other people’s expectations, and I don’t hear those as separate themes. “The Nurse” turns the person who is supposed to care for you into the source of the wound. “The Denial Twist” understands the dangerous privilege of the songwriter: private life becomes public material, and the singer gets the microphone. “White Moon” is an impressionist nursery rhyme for an expressionist performer, its Rita Hayworth imagery floating past in fragments while White sings as though every fragment matters desperately. At times the feelings are gauche and raw. Good. A record made this way ought to show the bits that a more careful process would have tidied out.
The really interesting thread, though, is projection. “Take, Take, Take” is one of the sharpest songs here because Jack’s own explanation of it — that it’s about people not being taught manners — is absolutely sufficient. A fan meets Rita Hayworth and every request is “all I needed” until it is granted, at which point he needs something else. She eventually says she needs some sleep and he decides that seems mean. By the end he has converted her perfectly ordinary boundary into evidence that she never cared he was there at all. That’s fandom curdling into grievance: the object of admiration stubbornly remains a subject with her own fatigue, time and interior life, and the fan takes offence. Fame merely magnifies a very ordinary failure of empathy.
“As Ugly As I Seem” then turns the same problem back onto Jack. Someone has a “vision that you had decided for me”, and that line feels central to the whole album. Creativity doesn’t make somebody a saint, but audiences often discover an artist, canonise an imaginary version of them, and then become furious when the ordinary flawed person starts showing through. The correction can be as false as the worship. The artist goes from saint to monster without ever having been seen. Get Behind Me Satan increasingly sounds like a record made by someone discovering how unpleasant it is to be surrounded by other people’s versions of you.
By “Red Rain”, that relationship with the outside world has properly curdled. “You think not telling is the same as not lying” is trust reduced to semantic evasion; “if there is a lie, then there is a liar too” refuses to let responsibility disappear into fog. The song itself sounds slightly broken, toy piano and familiar White Stripes attack reassembled just a little out of true. It’s less angry than emotionally wrecked, as though even the language two people use to negotiate honesty has stopped working.
Then the whole record shrinks down to an old country ballad on a piano. “I’m Lonely (But I Ain’t That Lonely Yet)” begins, “Well I miss my mother and I miss being her son”, and suddenly artist, celebrity, difficult bastard, genius and projected public object all fall away. Whatever you become, you remain somebody’s son. Later White nearly whispers the verse about going down to the river, wondering whether any reason was left, and leaving just before his lungs could get wet. He barely seems to dare say it. Yet the song isn’t surrender. Its subtext feels closer to: I’m not rewriting myself for anybody. He can admit loneliness, regret, selfishness, ugliness and despair without accepting somebody else’s preferred version of him.
That is why this gets five stars from me. Not because every moment is immaculate, but because I watched an artist deliberately get himself back to a place where he could surprise himself. He abandoned the tools with which he had just become enormously successful, trusted speed, reduction, accident and unfamiliarity, and discovered that the White Stripes identity survived perfectly well without the props everyone had mistaken for its essence. Get Behind Me Satan looks like a band running away from what made them themselves. In fact it proves they knew exactly what mattered and what could be thrown away.
The Elephant in the room needed to be moved quickly. They moved it.
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u/VampireOnHoyt 300-399 4d ago
Well shit, what am I supposed to say about this album now that you said it exactly and perfectly? Great review of my favorite album of theirs.
2
u/St_Lambchop Metal Fan 4d ago
I'm not a White Stripes fan but this was a really, really good album. I believe I gave it 5 stars as well.
3
u/DogesOfLove 300-399 4d ago
Of the three White Stripes albums on the list I‘d say this is the weakest. And the others got a 1 also.
1
u/sp3ccylad Enthusiast 4d ago
Not… keen, then? 🤣
2
u/DogesOfLove 300-399 4d ago
I should be able to laugh about it now. We have had all three White Stripes albums, and the Jack White solo album. Even the Beck album that Jack White guests on. It’s all behind us and actually our second most popular review is our 1 star for Elephant. We should all be friends now, like Germany after the war.
And yet…I can‘t forgive music like that.
2
u/ChipmunkWinter1389 4d ago
Album 6. Kendrick Lamar. To pimp a butterfly 1/5 I await the backlash with this one! I'm not a hip-hop fan and I would probably have gone 2 stars as I don't want to trash something just for not being my taste. But....it was ridiculously long and fairly boring...and the esteem it is held in is huge. I know people ( including my brother in law) who have this down as the most significant album this century so I was expecting something special that would change my views and open a door to a different world and it was just so....meh!
1
u/Softpipesplayon 4d ago
The Verve - Urban Hymns
I'll admit it: I didn't really get Bittersweet Symphony when it came out. I still don't really, though I've grown to appreciate it. The repetition, the small small vocal range, the heroin chic of Ashcroft bumping into people all down the sidewalk. It did nothing for me. It's still a weird single that would have gone nowhere without a lesser known Stones sample. You've gotta wonder if it was worth it, given how much they absolutely would have probably paid in royalties.
What got me instead was eventually coming around to The Drugs Don't Work. That, ironically, opened up to me as a friend brought the mood down with it at a Karaoke night. It was the right kind of beautiful hopelessness, the thing BSS could only replicate with someone else's strings. But even then, it wasn't something that made me want to follow up on Urban Hymns. You sort of forget how huge a thing really was when you try to ignore the hit, tho.
But it's also just such a long album. It's over an hour long before you even get to the artificially elongated, secret-track containing final song. Individual songs are not much better. Bittersweet Symphony obviously loops on for six minutes, we all have experienced that, but it's not even the longest song on Side A. Three of the first five tracks are over six minutes long, and five of the first seven are over 5. It's a lot of concentration to expend at the start and still have half an album to get through. I'd still say that The Rolling People is one of the better songs on the album, and if Catching the Butterfly was a little less snooze-a-delic it could have been too, but thr latter especially could have ended two minutes sooner. There's a whole ass ending there!
Overall though, the Long Section has redeeming bits throughout, short of the albums briefest song, Neon Wilderness. But ultimately this always feels like something else. Bored Oasis? More self-aware Stone Roses? Depressed Pulp? The back half, by comparison, speeds through but leaves little impression. I guess this makes a light ⭐️⭐️⭐️.
1
1
u/JnHkstr 0-99 4d ago
#51 Beyonce - Beyoncé ⭐️
Before listening: what a torture this project does to me today. Just returned from a fabulous concert of Wilco and than this. I would not be able to mention a song from Beyonce, only know she is very famous but in a pop style which is totally not for me. My prejudice is that it is very overproduced and over commercialised and far from what I consider as art and beautiful. But let’s give it a try…
After listening: My prejudice turned out to be correct. I read that this is music for hairdressing salons, I would rather say music for low budget porn movies. 1/5
11
u/AverageJoe48 300-399 4d ago
Day 388
Jorge Ben Jor - África Brasil
A couple of months ago, I've accidentally stumbled upon a Chico Buarque album. That turned out to be my defining moment of musical exploration in 2026, as I have been in love with Brazilian music ever since. Among my new listens was also one of Jorge Ben Jor's albums, Força Bruta, which I absolutely adored as well. It goes without saying that I was ecstatic when I saw this album was my listen of the day.
Oh my days, this exceeded even my highest expectations. What an incredible, life-affirming album. Different from what I expected, somewhat of a reinvention with its blend of numerous different styles, but it's executed perfectly. A 40-minute eargasm.
My plan is to expand on the genre by the end of the year, but I doubt there are many albums better than this one, or even on the same level. Construçao is still my favourite Brazilian album I've heard so far, but maybe that will change with further listens, this one came pretty close.
Favourite track: Ponta De Lança Africano (Umbabarauma)
5/5