Customer Reviews

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: Revised and Updated Edition

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I buy a LOT of music, listen to even more, and I'm also a writer (American Hit Radio was my book), so I know a bit about this subject. My first book was based solely on hit singles, so I naturally had been considering a second book based on the most important albums ever released. Once "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die" hit the stores, though, it rendered my own plans obsolete. That is fine, and IF this book lived up to its title, I would be the first to applaud the effort. Instead, I am writhing in utter disbelief at the sheer prejudice of its selections, and the virtual idiocy employed to make these selections.
I don't say these things lightly, either. Another thing about me - I am extremely obsessive, so I made it my business to hear every single song on every single one of these 1001 albums. It has taken me a year to complete the task, and I can honestly say that it has been one of the most unrewarding and miserable projects I have ever undertaken. Is there any reasonable human alive on the plant Earth who would select three albums by Dexy's Midnight Runners as music that you must hear before you die? I'm not saying that the Pet Shop Boys suck, but do they have four albums that deserve to be emulated? And don't even get me started on their inclusion of British one hit wonders like Soft Cell, Prodigy, Finlay Quaye and Skunk Anansie. It's bad enough that I had to listen to the ubiquitous hits by these marginal artists, but hearing an entire album of filler, while it is lauded as among the most important music of all time, is virtually criminal. I could go on and on. Is there ANY human left who has not dismissed Limp Bizkit as a thorough waste of time? Even the ex-bandmembers cite their own irrelevance, but this book sees the moronic "Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water" as worthy of inclusion. Before this book was released, my prejudice against this band and this album was based solely on warnings from intelligent critics. Now that my obsession with hearing every album in this book has forced me to hear for myself, I can unequivocally state that the critics are right; this album sucks miserably.
Shall I go on? Obscure English bands with little relevance (or discernible talent) pop up with such regularity that I began to think that all bad music is performed with an English accent. The Beta Band, Gorillaz, Red Snapper, Basement Jaxx, Death in Vegas and Primal Scream elicit moderate attention, but not overt praise. And the writers' obsesson with club music is especially disconcerting. The writers saw fit to include every single album ever released by Morrissey, while American blues, jazz, folk, country and alt-country are terribly neglected. Note that these writers saw fit to exclude Beatles albums like "Magical Mystery Tour", "Let It Be", "Help" and "Beatles For Sale," but felt compelled to include the non-music of Tortoise, , Orbital, Fatboy Slim, DJ Shadow,, LTJ Bukem, the Chemical Brothers, and Reprazent. If you think that Britney Spears debut album is a contender for best album of all time, or that Destiny's Child deserves to be represented alongside Bob Dylan and Radiohead, then you needn't read my opinion any longer. All that I am saying is that I have dedicated my entire life to searching out good music, and this book has not only taken me off track, but ate up one good year of my life in the process. So, please save yourself from exposure to this avalanche of nonsense. And maybe I WILL write my own book after all - It couldn't be any worse. F Tom Ryan

How could "1001 Albums" not include such seminal blues artists as Charley Patton, Bessie Smith, Son House, and Robert Johnson? How could it miss jazz greats like Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Louis Jordan, and Wayne Shorter? Can we live without folk and country legends Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, and Hank Williams? Reggae greats Lee Scratch Perry and Toots and the Mayals? Rock 'n' roll founders Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, for goodness' sake?

Predictable praise is lavished on The Beatles, David Bowie, Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, The Who, and Neil Young, each of whom gets five or more album listings. And there are numerous more recent performers who get multiple listings: Beck, Coldplay, Eminem, Oasis, Radiohead, Sonic Youth, White Stripes, etc.

But great performers of jazz, country, and other genres are given only the barest mention. And where are Howlin Wolf, Jackson Browne, Dionne Warwick, Rickie Lee Jones, Jackie Wilson, Warren Zevon, The Supremes, and Uncle Tupelo? (Classical music is excluded entirely, but there is a separate volume entitled "1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die.")

This book is a discussion starter. It has many fine suggestions and much great music, yet it includes a huge overdose of pop from the past two decades. (And in what alternate universe MUST you hear Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera?) It also overemphasizes British artists by my reckoning. I like Nick Cave, Brian Eno, and Morrissey, but do they really deserve four albums each when so many other artists are given short shrift or ignored altogether?

If you love music in all its multifarious forms, you need to explore further than a paltry 1001 albums, and much further than the ones given prominence here. If, on the other hand, your tastes are not as eclectic as mine (and I admit to having well over 10,000 albums in my collection), you may find this book useful.

Having perused the new edition in the bookstore, I can say that this edition adds essential albums for 2008 and 2009, including Radiohead's "In Rainbows" and Animal Collective's "Merriweather Post Pavilion." Of course, with a few new albums added, I don't know if there are now more than 1001 albums featured, thus requiring a name change to the book. Regardless, it's still a great resource for adding to your music collection. Music nerds of the world unite :)

A huge compilation of influential albums over the past 50 years. Plenty of strong recommendations for the 1980s, but the book lacks in comparison when reviewing the 1950s. It was a bit light on the Motown recommendations, and failed to mention earlier music, such as the era of the 1920s.

Nonetheless, I found over 100 albums that are definitely worth a listen.

To be fair, great to browse, start arguments, and spark what you liked (or hated) about pop music. It lacks much jazz, world music, country, folk--it's rock mixed with what you'd expect from its general editor, a founder of Rolling Stone. It's what mainstream critics acclaim, mixed with a carefully sifted tilt to "diversity" in electronica, rap, R&B, pop, and what used to be labeled "alternative." It has some offbeat British choices: "H.M.S. Sugar" by Shack, two Barry Adamson's discs, and Sensational Alex Harvey Band typify this angle.

However, that kind of idiosyncratic range, beyond the usual choices, makes this worthwhile. I was delighted to find Boo Radleys, Ash, Os Mutantes, Bert Jansch, The Fall, and The Gun Club--all "critic's darlings," admittedly. Dexy's Midnight Runners (all three albums) on the other hand typifies over-praising of certain British (and U.S.) acts. The sense of innovation lessens as this gets closer to the present, or is it just me getting older? A few discs were jettisoned to make room for this (last few) year's models, but Amazon's commenting classes hazard that the ones dumped were, ironically, from earlier in the 2000's. As in "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" (reviewed by me), there's a significant tilt towards the near-present, but I doubt so many of these deserve immortality. Critics dazzled by the latest (critically acclaimed) sensation, I suspect.

Many of their mini-essays lack depth, moreover--this editorial limit may have been imposed harshly. Entries cram in to allow space for full-page covers, snaps of musicians, so often four entries jam into text-only pages as recompense. The space given the music player-like insets with tracks listed in full with writers and times, and key ones marked, takes up a lot of the page and appears unnecessary, if eye-catching for skimmers and scanners.

I'd have liked more words about the music, especially for those records less familiar, than the few paragraphs allotted each entry. An awful lot of these are obvious to most of us who listen to popular and rock music, and a significant amount (as lamented by Mr. Ryan in his review) are predictable and must-haves. But as with classic rock stations and countdowns of the greats, it gets tiresome to have them appear yet one more time, even if they merit it. This feeling of inevitability weighs down such massive projects, on air or in print. How do you include the ones everyone has heard and agrees upon--yet leave room for surprises and neglected standouts deserving a place in the spotlight--without making this book more massive than it is? You really got me.

That being said, delights linger. I found myself, after dashing through it to greet old favorites, going back to read each page. In entries by artists I had zero interest in, I found gems like that starting Cypress Hill's entry: "Richard Pryor is to Cheech & Chong as David Bowie is to James Taylor." There's a lot of sassy wit buried deep here, so part of the reward of this uneven but fun volume is, as when scrutinizing a friend's library (musical or text), you start making your own mental list to compare and contrast. It also, in this age of musical subscription services, allows you to dive in to (legitimately) retrieve on your own key tracks or to skim an album that you've put off hearing but have been curious about--for instance, Belle & Sebastian's "Tigermilk," Jefferson Airplane's "After Bathing at Baxter's," and The Grateful Dead's "Live/Dead," in my case.

While this panoramic report on pop music has lots of blind spots, such an inability to please everyone appears inescapable in such an endeavor. I checked this out of the library, perhaps a wise choice. So, I acknowledge this for sheer effort. It'll never surpass your Top 1000 or mine, sure. Despite a persistent lack of attention to certain acts and subgenres (I leave out my "improvements" so as to keep this brief), it's worth a perusal.