Customer Reviews

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

distortion in music can be great, just ask my bloody valentine...but distortion in history...well, that's a different story...

if you take this book seriously..you end up with the following conclusions:

*1990-2004 were the "golden years" of rock music
**the beatles killed jazz
***black people didn't make music in the 60's

since the book is broken down by decades...i did some quick number crunching and discovered that almost 25% of the book is from the '90s...
include the last 16 years...and it's over a third.....[there's 23 listings from 2004 alone....] by comparison the 50s and 60's combined produce 17% of the picks...every other list of this type i've ever seen flips those numbers around...

the problem with their "recent music" picks is that every catagory is overstuffed [brit rock, indie rock, rap] and that problem is compounded by the fact that the editors give multiple listings to lots of artists who you really only "need" to hear one to "get" them...

some recent "duplicates" include:
a tribe called quest
the beta band
beck
blur
chemical brothers
coldplay
divine comedy
doves
emeinem
missy elliot
fatboy slim
hole [one is one too many]
ice cube
kinks of leon
manic street preachers
oasis
outkast
pavement
primal scream
pulp
radiohead [i luv them, but FIVE pics?]
spiritualized
suede
verve
rufus wainwright ["want two" is not nearly as good as "want one."]
white stripes
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the award for the most rediculous artist with multiple listings: dexy's midnight runners..[3!!!]
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if you check the book's listings, you'll notice that of the 34 albums before "with the beatles," 17 of them are jazz..of the 966 picks that come after, 14 are jazz....any jazz fan will notice what's wrong with that...
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again checking the listings.... from the entire 60's they pick 11 soul albums...from the 90's rap and r&b combined get you 37....the way they distort black music is a crime against history...
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some black artists who don't get a pick:

louis armstrong
bo diddley
willie dixon
howling wolf
robert johnson
scott joplin
louis jordan
leadbelly
charlie parker
wilson pickett
sam and dave
bessie smith
the supremes
dionne warwick
jackie wilson
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the winner for the single album that has the LEAST business being in this book is "cafe blue" by the style council....the reviewer describes it as a "hit and miss affair."

a "hit and miss affair?" life's too short... and ultimatly that's the problem with this book...there's no "baseline" as to what SHOULD make the cut....i see one star albums rubbing shoulders with five star albums...there's no rhyme or reason to the picks...allow me to explain

a few missing albums by people in the book:

after bathing at baxters
anthem of the sun
bob marley live!
combat rock
dear mr fantasy
the 5000 spirits or the layers of the onion
help
magical mystery tour
ommadawn
some girls
shoot out the lights
sunflower
us
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odd combinations/omissions:

culture club but no culture
dr. dre, dr. john and dr. octagon but no dr. buzzard...[dr. strangely strange is probably out of the question....no humble pie, so there's no "i don't need no doctor"]
george jones and norah jones but no rickie lee jones or grace jones
b.b. king but no albert king or the king
"like a prayer" but no "like a virgin"
malcome mclaren but no sarah mclaghlan
mott the hoople but no motley crew
orbital but no orb
silver jews but no silver apples
super furry animals and supergrass but no superchunk
lucinda williams and robbie williams but no victoria williams, tony williams or hank williams [!!!]
coldcut but no beats international
alice cooper but no king diamond
"we are family" but no "diana" [both produced by chic]
weather report but no mahavishnu orchestra
korn, lincin park, limp bizkit and slipknot but no tool...

one cream cd and three by creedence
one pearl jam cd and two by mudhoney
two cds by the eagles but no jackson brown
two cds by george michael and one by otis redding
two temps and no tops
three cds by the pixies and three by prince [a*hem]
four stevies and no smokeys
five cds by tom waits but no warren zevon
seven cds by neil young but no young marble giants

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odd picks:

"and justice for all" over "ride the lightning"
"pictures at an exhibition" over "brain salad surgery"
"led zepplin III" over "houses of the holy"
"pretzel logic" over "aja"
"the sensual world" over "the kick inside"
"selling england by the pound" over "foxtrot."
===========================
because the editors chose not to include collections, you end up with:

"the visitors" over "gold"
"another music from a different kitchen" over "singles going steady"
"pornography" over "standing of the beach"
"the rise and fall" over "complete"
"if you can believe your eyes and ears" over "fairwell to the first golden era"
"groovin'" over "rascal's greatest hits"
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some missing artists from just the end of the alphabet:

this mortal coil
tindersticks
tomorrow
toots and the maytals
trans-global underground
trembling blue stars
trio
uncle tupulo
ultravox
vangelis
vaselines
x-ecutioners
waitresses
weezer
wendy and lisa
yellow magic orchestra
camille yarbourgh
stomu yamash'ta
yaz
tom ze
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if you combine morrisey and the smiths the following artists have seven picks....the beatles, bowie, neil young, dylan and mozza......doesn't one of those names seem JUST a bit out of place?
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ultimately, what we've got here is a book that says you "must" hear five [count 'em] five sonic youth cds but skips chuck berry...yes, you read that right....no chuck berry...pretty much the whole beepin' book WOULDN'T EXIST without him....kind of an obvious flaw...

I just got this book, and have gone though and ticked off the albums they list in my collection. I have a grand total of 115 of the 1001; mostly clustered between 1966 and 1972. Typical, I suppose of a lot of people my age. The book provides me an interesting touch stone that will help me expand outside of the 'golden era' I think.

Several points trouble me about the book however:

1) It has reminded me that I still haven't replaced a bunch of records that an ex-roommate stole from me - including my entire first release Beatles collection. (My total might have topped 150 I think).

2) While no list like this, however large, is going to satisfy everyone, how anyone could include Britney Spears in this list is beyond my imagination. If they just had to have an obvious example of late nineties bubblegum, they could have picked someone with just a little bit of talent, like maybe Kylie Minogue. I expect 99.44% of all readers could think of several omitted albums that would be more appropriate. I myself can't see how they could leave out the Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed, or John Coltrane's Blue Train but find room for Spears.

3) While not actually gathered onto an album until decades after the 78's were recorded, I think a 'special case' should have been made for Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and Hot Sevens. It is not an overstatement to say that without these recordings, very little of the music on the 1001 albums chosen could have ever existed. And even though the 'LP album' as such wasn't invented until much later, taken together they are very much in the general mode of an album, capturing a special time in the artists development and a turning point in popular music.

4) Although this is "1001 Albums..." not "1001 Artists..." several artists are clearly over-represented (Led Zeppelin is great, but do they really deserve 5 albums here) and other very important artists are completely missing (the above mentioned Louis Armstrong; Robert Johnson; Bessie Smith [actually most Blues artists in general], Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Sam the Sham and the Pharohs).

5) I found a bunch of indexing errors - page numbers and inconsistent group names ("Led Zeppelin" and "Zeppelin, Led").

Items 2, 3, and 4 point to a possibly more fundamental problem. I expect that the contributors felt is important to try to balance the weights of the decades and dropped older stuff to make way for the newer. The problem is that much of the newer stuff is too new to be properly considered a 'must hear' important album. Pop music is in a deep cycle of bubblegum, and very little of todays 'pop' is destined to become important historical records. These days, ground breaking takes place by indies and is distributed via the internet. Not a very easy environment for an album to grab the imagination.

Overall I think it is an interesting - if weighty - tome. Ready made to inspire arguements and the widening of horizons. And much more realistic than its 1001 Books or 1001 Movies siblings.

Of all the various 1001...BEFORE YOU DIE books, this one at least made me feel like I had begun to scratch the surface--not that you should be deliberately scratching an album's surface, of course. But you know what I mean. The 1001 BOOKS volume had me feeling like I was not so well-read after all. And the MOVIES version gave me a definite sense of not being all that, uh, "well-screened."

But I can lay claim to being--shall we say?--"well-turntabled," (and that may not be such a misnomer since my halcyon listening days were before the CD era). So at least I have a good percentage of the middle section of this volume's recommendations under my belt.

And I find that I don't really dispute that many of the selections. I see a lot of reviewers have, true to form, protested the inclusion of this artist and the omission of that. I could gripe too. I mean including THREE Madonna albums and only one Laura Nyro?? Come on now, really. One of those ladies is the penultimate pop star, to be sure, but the other was a genius.

And yeah, I could complain that the albums included are often among the "safest" a given artist or group ever produced (SURREALISTIC PILLOW for the Airplane, not AFTER BATHING AT BAXTER'S, say, or CHELSEA GIRL for Nico and not THE MARBLE INDEX or DESERTSHORE). But still it's nice to see so many of my favorite artists included at all.

And it's also kinda nice to see these works still referred to as ALBUMS. "CD" (like "tape") is a FORMAT, but even in the age of downloads (especially in the age of downloads), we need to remind ourselves that there is something special about a COLLECTION of songs by a given artist or band. A record ALBUM (whatever the format)is a compilation that gives you insight into the full range of that artist's capabilities. Books like this can never truly be the last word on the matter, but they do remind us that the "album" has served us well over the past 50 years as a means of giving recording artists of all stripes a serious listen.

Books like this generally suck not because they leave out a few of my favourite albums but because they are deliberately populist, lack depth and consistency and try to be everything to everyone without really satisfying anyone.

I will say however that the list is not bad up till 1980 although I'll never understand, as an example, why Elton John's "Yellow Brick Road" and "Madman Across the Water" is favoured over "Tumbleweed Connection" and "Honky Chateau". The 80s is still reasonable although there are some albums that should be hidden in a box under your bed.

Another gripe I have is why an innovative genre like metal is constantly ignored particularly when the book moves into the 1990s. Metal is constantly relegated to the same few albums of the NWOBHM (Iron Maiden; Judas Priest; Motorhead; Venom) and the Thrash Big Four (Metallica; Slayer; Megadeth; Anthrax) giving the impression that metal stopped in 1988. Death Metal and Black Metal, while being specialist extreme genres obviously didn't happen, yet something as lame as Brit Pop gets excessive mentions. By the time the book gets to the 2000s it is so far off the mark of where it should be going.

According to this book you can die happily without having heard these bands:

A Certain Ratio; Aesop Rock; Albert Ayler; Albert King; Aim; Ambitious Lovers; Amon Duul II; Amon Tobin; Animal Collective; Anthony Braxton; Autechre; Bad Religion; Bathory; Bessie Smith; Bethlehem; Blind Willie Johnson; Blues Magoos; Boogie Down Productions; Boredoms; Boris; Broken Social Scene; Burzum; Cabaret Voltaire; Cannibal Ox; Carcass; Cecil Taylor; Celtic Frost; Charlie Haden; Charley Patton; Company Flow; Cornelius; Crass; Darkthrone; Dead Can Dance; Death; Deicide; Deltron; Descendents; Dismemberment Plan; Don Cherry; Earth, El-P; Emperor; EPMD; Eric Dolphy; Exciter; Exodus; Felt; Foetus; Four Tet; The Fugs; Galaxie 500; Ghost; Godflesh; Godspeed Yr Black Emperor; Gong; Grandaddy; Guapo; Hank Williams; Interpol; Jesus Lizard; Josef K; Kevin Coyne; Khanate; Leadbelly; Lee Scratch Perry; Legeti; Louis Armstrong; Low; M83; Magma; Mayhem; Matmos; Mastodon; MDC; MF Doom; Melvins; Mercyful Fate; Misfits; Mississippi John Hurt; Mobb Deep; Modest Mouse; Morbid Angel; Morphine; Neurosis; Neutral Milk Hotel; Nile; Nocturnus; Obituary; Olivia Tremor Control; Ornette Coleman; Pan Sonic; Peter Brotzmann; Son House; Krzysztof Penderecki; Pestilence; Pharoah Sanders; The Pop Group; Popul Vuh; Quasimoto; Red Crayola; Red House Painters; Rites Of Spring; Robert Johnson; Roland Kirk; Royal Trux; Sage Francis; Foetus; Scratch Acid; Shellac; Dmitry Shostakovich; Sigh; Silver Apples; Sparklehorse; Squarepusher; Karlheinz Stockhausen; Suffocation; Sunn O))); Sun Ra; Swans; Tool; Type O Negative; Ultramagnetic MC's; Ultravox; Ulver; Univers Zero; Edgard Varese; Vaselines; Venetian Snares; Voivod; Wayne Shorter; Weezer; Witchfinder General; Woody Guthrie

If you haven't heard of these then you're looking in the wrong place. These were left out in favour of delightful albums by: Christina Aguilera; Britney Spears; Justin Timberlake; Destiny's Child and Coldplay. They were juxtaposed next to Lightning Bolt; Tortoise; Robert Wyatt and Devendra Banhart. This is what really annoys me because no one listening to the former will like the latter (or I hope not anyway).

Maybe this review reveals more about my snobbery than the content of the book but it's still annoying. I own 554 and there's 80 albums in the list I would not allow in my house under any circumstances.

I'm always sceptical about these kind of books; it's either the writing is too arrogant, or all the facts are wrong. But, with this publication, I'm extremly suprised, and glad to be so, seeing as it's an Australian ABC book!
The records are in chronological order, starting from the 50s - the book begins with Frank Sinatra's "In the wee small hours" and ends in 2005, with the White Stripes latest, "Get beind me satan." The majoirity of the reviews include - the year, the label, producer, art direction, nationary and running time. Plus, a small album cover picture, and then about 350 words on why the album is so remarkable. But, for the most influential, like, for example, The Clash's first self titled album, it includes a quote from the band, a full page picture, and a list of the album tracks and their running times.
The people writing about all these albums seem to know what they are talking about - they know little facts about the people they are writing about, and seem to dig out the dirt on why this album should be in the list of 1001 you should hear before you die. --- It is also a very varied list, with mainstream artists like Norah Jones being included, and alternative artists like Elliott Smith, and DJ Shadow thrown into the mix. Actually, most of the entries aren't from the mainstream, and if they are, they have actually been influential, even if it's only on the 'scene' like The Killers have. (Their album "Hot fuss"is one of the last reviewed)
However, I was suprised with a few of the entries - such as Britney, Christina and Justin - I think inclusions by people like Suzi Quatro, and the Runaways would have been more interesting - as the mickey mouse kids seem to be a sign of the decline in female rock, whilst Quatro and the Runaways prompted girls to pick up guitars and start a' rockin'.
I don't listen to that much music from today, I'm still listening to all the old stuff, the roots of rock n' roll, but I still really love this book, and every few days, I pull it out and have a flick, and read about a band I've heard of before, but never heard.
If you want to -
Improve your CD collection,
Expand your musical knowledge,
Read good music reviews,
Then check this book out.

To start with, I must agree with one of the reviewers further down the line. This is not "1001 Greatest Albums", but "1001 Albums you must hear". There IS a difference. You will enjoy coming across pages that highlight you favorite artist, be it Springsteen, Beatles, Radiohead, Run DMC or Norah Jones. However you will also come across pages that highlight; Kings of Leon, The Beta band, Supergrass, 808 State, and The Damned. This is where the fun starts. You simply wonder, what did I miss out on? It is great if you have a music subscription service to try out all the artist that someone (billed as an expert in their field) thought was THAT significant (not necessarily good mind you). Even if you do not have a subscription service, it is even fun to listen to the 30 sec clips on Amazon, and then decide if you found a lost gem. It is simply fun to browse in either case, so flip thru the pages and enjoy. (The book is big, heavy, and printed on high quality paper, if it was printed in larger than its 8.5" by 6.5" size, it would have made a great coffee table book for its cover art photos alone)

This is an interesting book, if you're unfamiliar with alot of indie music and 80's underground and British stuff. The book loses total focus when the nineties start, however. The most painful omission is Tool, the most painful inclusions are Limp Bizkit and Britney Spears, among many others. Despite being the supposed work of many people, the book seems an awful lot like one (very knowledgable) person's list of individual favorites. It seems every thing Brian Eno was ever involved in, with Roxy Music or solo, is in here, as is every Radiohead album, every Coldplay album and just about every Smiths album. Heavy music is pretty much omitted from the latter half of the book, with grunge and nu-metal getting a few scattered mentions. That this book has no Tool album in it forces me to give it no higher than 3 stars. I did learn alot from this book, however, about albums I was unfamiliar with and genres I didn't know much about.

While it's not a perfect list, it's an interesting book with some good albums listed. One of the good things about it is that it doesn't stick to one genre or only to a few bands. It has rap albums, techno albums, rock albums, pop albums, many kinds. Though it isn't a really perfect list, I can think of many albums that would fit in the list perfectly, and it's a mystery why Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake are in it. But all in all it's an interesting book and has made me delve deeper into my parent's CD and Vinyl collection to find some gems.

I agree with many of the other reviewers that this book has some errors and some very odd album selections... But that is not why I like this book. It's just fun to flip through and find the next random album to buy or play. If you want resource material just use allmusic.com. If you want something entertaining to peruse and you love music, buy this book.

This collection is fantastic! I have spent hours chatting my friend online, regaling him with fun and interesting tidbits about so any albums that we like or can appreciate. So many obsure bands that I thought only i knew off - but not the case! The Smiths - The Cure - Fleetood Mac - Def Leppard - Adam and the Ants - Peter Tosh - Happy Mondays - Jamiroquai - Miles davis - frank sinatra - Elvis - Cocteau Twins - Killing Joke - everybody's included - no matter what albums call to you.

I highly reccommend this book - doubles as a great coffee-table decor piece - as every guest will undoubtly pick and peruse through, easily identifying with something - no matter what there taste.
And secondly, as a truly good source if solid information about your favorite albums. Did you know that The Smiths 1987 album, Strangeways, Here we Com, refers to a notorious Manchester prison? ... I sure didn't - and I thought I was fairly keen on my Smiths info...

Anyway, that just ONE example of cool stuff yuo'll read about in all 1001 reviews by a veritable beehive of (what seems to be) worthy critics/reviewers of music.

Highly recommended