#1001 albums you must hear before you die

[1001albumslist]

Day 1

Album: Licensed to Ill by the Beastie Boys

Have I listened to before? No, but I have heard short clips of "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" and "Brass Monkey"

Familiarity with the artist: only tangentially, my dad is a fan and i've probably heard a few songs in passing but i don't think i've ever sat down and listened to one. of course i've seen the memes about the Beastie Boys tho lol

Background Knowledge:

Beastie Boys debut album, released November 15th 1986 and became the first rap LP to top the Billboard album chart.

acclaimed for unique musical style, chemistry between the group members, and their stylized rapping

ranked as one of the greatest hip hop debut albums of all time

Interesting Info:

the group originally wanted the album title to be Don't Be A Faggot but was rejected by the label for being too homophobic (omfg??!!)

Kerry King of Slayer plays lead guitar on "Fight for Your Right" and "No Sleep Till Brooklyn"

originally recorded a loose cover of The Beatles "I'm Down" which sampled the original song, but it was pulled at the last minute due to legal disputes with Michael Jackson, who owned the Beatles catalog at the time

the full album cover, front to back, features an American Airlines Boeing 727 with a Beastie Boys logo on its tail, which has crashed head-on into the side of a mountain, the former taking the shape of an extinguished marijuana joint

Listened on: Apple Music

General Notes:

rough and raw sound, almost like they’re right there in the room with you, but also very well-produced

interesting way to combine the aesthetics of punk/rock (rock instruments and a more shouted vocal delivery) with hip-hop

i really like the call and response between the different members and how they emphasize certain syllables in the lines by having the other members interject along with the lead

almost?? a parody of classic rap but not quite…a lot of the rhymes are really funny and their delivery is just short of being too over the top to be taken seriously imo- but I guess it makes sense when their first hip-hop single was satirical itself

why do they keep referencing White Castle lmao

always something to be said when a white artist or group releases music in a traditionally black genre/style and the white artist is who finally brings that genre into mainstream media and acclaim. i saw a quote on their wikipedia that called The Beastie Boys "the Elvis of hip-hop" and i think that's an accurate assessment, although not necessarily a bad thing in itself. it's clear from the way the album is produced and the intelligent sampling that they know what they're doing and are knowledgeable of black hip-hop artists that they were obviously influenced by, along with their own previous experience with punk and rock. could we call combining hip-hop aesthetics with punk and rock a sanitization of black hip-hop in the same way many are critical of early white rock n roll artists? i'm not sure, especially because rock is itself a traditionally black genre, even if it has been taken over in the wider cultural imagination by white men. in my mind, this kind of sound is more of a subset of the larger hip-hop genre as a whole, but i think i need to do more research into The Beastie Boys and refresh my memory on classic hip-hop before i make any definitive conclusions

Favorite Tracks: Rhymin’ & Stealin’, Posse In Effect, Fight for Your Right, No Sleep Till Brooklyn, Brass Monkey

Final Review: an interesting album in a larger cultural sense but not really my personal taste. still was really interesting though, and I'm glad i got around to listening to it!

[1001albumsrated]

#25: Elvis Presley - Elvis Is Back! (1960)

Genre(s): Rock n Roll, Pop

He's back! I already said my piece on Elvis early on in this series with his self-titled debut, so I'm going to keep it short with this one.

What was he back from? The army! I imagine it's common knowledge, but Elvis very publicly was drafted and spent 2 years in active duty at the peak of his career. Despite the opportunity to join the Special Services as an entertainer, he opted to enlist as a regular soldier on a standard tour of duty. This was a brilliant move with the press, taking him from a figure who caused outrage in the 50s to a well-loved, warm-blooded American in the eyes of the public. He came back from deployment in West Germany to find that his fanbase was older and more conservative than it had been before, but still just as large or larger. However, his deployment also saw the traumatic death of his mother, and the beginning of his long history of prescription drug abuse that would eventually kill him.

After two years out of the game, Elvis was eager to get back to recording and develop a new sound. Elvis Is Back! finds him taking a poppier approach, more in line with the popular "Nashville sound" that would take over country music in the 60s. This sound suits him well, and feels a little more natural than his early rock n roll escapades. The band in particular is a highlight of this album for me. Boots Randolph (better known to most as The Yakkety Sax Guy, but in reality an all-star session player) is really on fire on this one. The tracklist is a little hit or miss, but the highlights are well worth it. I'd argue Elvis's version of Fever here is the best recording of his career (albeit frankly still a few rungs short of the Peggy Lee version).

I think there's an interesting alternate reality where Elvis could have pursued this sound further and done some interesting things with it. Instead he did a bunch of terrible movies for a decade, phoned in a bunch of soundtracks, quit performing live, burned out, started performing again 8 years later, and spiraled out over the next decade to eventually become the sad Mr. Las Vegas Revue man who would end up dead in the bathroom. I'm not a big Elvis fan, but he deserved better than what Colonel Tom gave him. Regardless, MUST you hear Elvis Is Back! before you die? I was on the fence with this one, but I'm leaning towards Yes purely on the strength of the band and the strength of Elvis's performance on Fever. I'd be hard pressed to give him two slots if I were writing the book, but I think there's a good enough argument here.

Next up: Miriam Makeba's self-titled debut!

[ninevoltheartmusic]

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: Best-of lists vs. natural discovery

Although I have been obsessed with music as long as I can remember, I've often felt like an impostor when it comes to talking to other music nerds. I often feel like my knowledge isn't encyclopaedic enough, like not having listened to the Beatles' entire catalogue somehow gives me less of an authority to listen to any music at all. That's why, many years ago, I asked for the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die for Christmas.

The book does what it says on the tin – it compiles 1001 albums that the editors deemed most noteworthy or important from the 50s to today. My copy, published in 2009, only has a handful of albums from the early 2000s, but I felt like I could handle modern music – it was the stuff from years ago that felt harder to sink my teeth into without a guide. It felt like a great starting point to me at the time. "If I listen to all these albums, surely I'll know enough to count myself as a 'real' music fan," I thought.

The problem was that listening to 1001 albums is a gargantuan task. Even at one album a day, the project would take nearly 3 years. One listen is hardly enough, so the project requires a massive time commitment. I've never been great with consistency, especially when I was younger, so my attempts fell flat. I'd listen to a few albums, not get too excited by them, and forget about the book for a while, then start the process again. Most of the time, it felt like homework rather than something truly enjoyable.

Flipping through the glossy pages, I imagined that I was looking into the future, seeing a version of myself who held all this knowledge and had a complete musical map in their head. Each album is accompanied by a blurb explaining its place in music history, offering some connections to other artists or genres. I was convinced that if I read the entire book cover to cover and engrained each album into my mind, I'd be an expert. The homework would be worth it. I just wasn't sure what use expertise was when what I loved most about music was finding a connection.

In most cases, listening to one album a day doesn't provide enough time to truly connect. Some albums have taken me years of occasional listening to fall in love with them (Gerard Way's Hesitant Alien, for example). It's not always about the sound itself; whether an album resonates often has more to do with hearing it at a time in one's life where something about the lyrics, the mood, the energy just clicks for one reason or another. At that point in time, the album is just right. Even giving a new album a few listens in a day before moving onto the next one feels like inadequate time to see if it sticks.

In the years since receiving the book, I have never stopped finding new music. Instead of following books or lists, I've come across new artists more organically through recommendations from friends, from Spotify, from seeing a band live and loving the opener. After not thinking about 1001 Albums very much for several years, I'm now coming back to it and realizing that so many of the artists that I'd never heard of when I first cracked the spine are now some of my favourites – I didn't need a book to introduce them to me, after all.

I do still want to listen to all of the albums someday. In the interest of trying this project again, I've made a spreadsheet where I can keep track of everything – what date I first listened to the album, how much I liked it, my first impressions, etc. I have yet to fill out the first entry, but I'm not going to hold myself to any timeline this time. Listening to something just to tick it off a list isn't terribly satisfying, to me. A mixture of organic discovery and list-following feels like the way to go, following natural interest and looking to the list when I'm unsure of what to listen to next.

I still feel like an impostor sometimes, even though I recognize most of the names in 1001 Albums now. (In fact, many of my more recent favourites don't feature in any iteration of the book at all.) I still haven't listened to the entirety of the Beatles' back catalogue, and I might never get around to it. But I've learnt that that's the nature of being a music fan; it's impossible to know everything. I'd rather follow my natural interests and find music that I deeply love and connect to than claim an encyclopaedic knowledge that stops at the surface. Being a music fan is about learning and always having more to discover. There are no pre-requisites to being able to say what one likes. I'll never be someone who finds their favourite albums and stops there, keeping the same songs on repeat forever, and I'm comforted by knowing that as long as I live, there will always be great music to hear for the first time and fall in love with when it hits just right.

[harmonicabisexuals]

okay i think i'm going to start the "1001 albums you must hear before you die" challenge in the new year (even planning to start a sideblog to keep track of my thoughts/reviews) but the big question is do i listen to them in a random order or chronologically?

[heavypedia]

Lançado em 26 de setembro de 1969, Abbey Road é o 11º álbum de estúdio dos Beatles. O disco inclui faixas que se tornaram clássicos, como "Come Together", "Here Comes the Sun" e "Oh! Darling". O álbum alcançou o topo das paradas de sucessos em 11 países e está listado no livro 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, de Robert Dimery. Nos Estados Unidos, foi certificado 12x Platina pela RIAA.

Tags: #TheBeatles #Beatles #AbbeyRoad #PaulMcCartney #JohnLennon #RingoStarr #GeorgeHarrison #GeorgeMartin #LennonMcCartney #FabFour #Fab4 #UKAlbumsChart #Billboard200 #Rock #ClassicRock #1960s #60s #1960sMusic #1960sRock #60sMusic #60sRock #Heavypédia #Heavypedia #Heavycast #WilliamWayne #GaleriaDoRock #NaçãoRoqueira.

[hierneneuro]

i was tagged by @imageofvoid THANK YEWW it's been so long since i've done one of these omg

last song i listened to: Legend of a Girl Child Linda by Donovan (because I am currently listening to the album that that song is on bc im still working through the 1001 albums you must hear before you die, which im not sure i'll even finish before i die with the pace that i'm going at. loving the neo medieval vibes of this album though)

favourite colours: YELLOW!!! color of happiness :DD I also like desaturated and light greens, very rich blues, like navy or royal blue

currently watching: NOTHING........ it's been aaaages since i've watched a show or anime (aside from the eternal brba/bcs rewatch loop. im always watching those shows i think ive seen brba like 10 times now and bcs like 3).. i need enrichment

last movie i watched: le far west (1973) by jacques brel while i was still going through my ~7 week brel obsession. it's an ok movie, definitely falls into the category of unserious cinema but it was supposed to be a commentary on american capitalism

currently reading: de verhalen van frans kellendonk (the stories of frans kellendonk) by.. frans kellendonk. it's good i love kellendonk he's a really good dutch author his short stories always resonate so much with me

sweet/savoury/spicy: SAVOURY!! but then afterwards i always have to have a small sweet treat. i've been trying to get into spicy things because all my friends like spicy food but. it hurt :(

last thing i googled: anaconda. because i needed to install it on my home computer to do coding assignments from home

current obsession: HOCKEY!!!!!!!!!11 pittsburgh penguins specifically. sidney crosby more specifically. i never thought i'd get into sports but i saw a post about crosby and andersson from the flames Getting Into It and i just had to know more.. now here i am. gonna try and find an illegal stream of the pens game tonight!!! it'll be my first hockey game that i watch live..

currently working on: an animation to a little improv keyboard tune that i did... i wanna do like super detailed pixel art of a wasp face up close for one of the scenes but i realised i have no idea what a wasp really looks like so first i'm doing a study of a wasp head in ink because that always helps me understand things much better..

i tag @officialcameronfrye @strawberriesforpigs @voladosdetul (if u guys want!!)

[rpfisfine]

thinking abt how i'd like to rly get into music over the summer and since there isn't a 1001 albums you must hear before you die generator equivalent of solely rap records or at least not to my knowledge i like the idea of taking one hip hop album from rolling stone's 200 best hip hop albums of all time list and generating a number from 1 to 200 and listening to one every day

[projazznet]

Duke Ellington – Ellington at Newport 1956 (Complete)

Ellington at Newport is a 1956 live jazz album by Duke Ellington and His Band of their 1956 concert at the Newport Jazz Festival, a concert which revitalized Ellington’s flagging career. Jazz promoter George Wein describes the 1956 concert as “the greatest performance of [Ellington’s] career… It stood for everything that jazz had been and could be.” It is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, which ranks it “one of the most famous… in jazz history”. The original release was partly recreated in the studio after the Ellington Orchestra’s festival appearance.

[lilacerull0]

summer job: listening to every album featured in my 1001 albums you must hear before you die book. in order <3

[deathclassic]

12 🎶

hi jen <3

your album is

Miles Davis - Birth of the Cool

send a number between 1 and 1001 for an album you must hear before you die

[sabadorks]

I'm back at the 1001 albums you must hear before you die list and psychedelic music sucks so bad.

I'm halfway through 1968 so pray for me.

[1001albumslist]

Day 4

Album: Appetite for Destruction by Guns N' Roses

Have I listened before? Not to the whole album, but I know "Sweet Child O' Mine" and I also know "Welcome to the Jungle" from the funniest episode of the podcast Punch Up The Jam (seriously go listen if you haven't heard it, it's absolutely hilarious)

Familiarity with the artist: really only by reputation, it's not a genre that I typically seek out on my own, I tend to think of it as middle-aged dad music lol

Background Knowledge:

debut studio album by American hard rock band Guns N' Roses, released on July 21, 1987

didn't achieve mainstream recognition until the following year, with the popularity of singles "Welcome to the Jungle", "Paradise City", and "Sweet Child O' Mine". 

peaked at number one on the Billboard 200, and became the seventh best-selling album of all time in the United States, as well as the best-selling debut album in the country

Interesting Info:

according to drummer Steven Adler, the percussion was done in just six days, but Rose's vocals took much longer, as he insisted on doing them one line at a time

many of the songs on the album began as solo tracks that individual band members began separately from the band, only to be completed later

in 1999, Rose decided to re-record the album with the then current lineup of Guns N' Roses to "spruce up" the album with new recording techniques. however, the re-recorded version was never released

Listened on: Apple Music

Listening Notes:

I think "Welcome to the Jungle" has been forever ruined for me by that Punch Up the Jam episode lmaooo I can't listen to the song without thinking of it and laughing

Their sound is LOUDDDD

Lead guitar and drums sound great though, Slash is a crazy good guitarist

Axl Rose also has a great rock voice but he's not as versatile as some other rock singers imo

some songs like “Paradise City” are sooo obviously 80s sounding lol....the guitar solo at the end is INSANE though

I feel like most of these songs could and should be edited to be 1-2 minutes shorter

the energy on these songs is electrifying at times but a full hour of non-stop loud and crazy is honestly a bit exhausting and towards the end I just started to tune out

Favorite Tracks: Nightrain, Paradise City, Sweet Child O' Mine

Final Review: not really my kind of music lol, a bit too heavy for my taste. I have to give credit to Slash's insane guitar skills though, and I also thought Axl's voice sounded great and did the job really well. HOWEVER I don't think his voice is as interesting and doesn't have the same pathos as someone like Liam Gallagher, nor is it as versatile. of course, Oasis songs aren't as heavy as Guns N' Roses, but what makes Liam's voice stand out is his musicality and unique tone and color to his voice while still being able to do the rock scream/growl when he needs to. In contrast, Axl is a lot more one-note, and his lower register when he's not screaming or growling is honestly nothing special imo. also I can't help but compare Liam being able to record all of Definitely Maybe in only one or two complete takes and sounding amazing vs. Axl having to methodically record his vocals line by line. I haven't listened to any live Guns N' Roses performances but I'd be curious to see how his vocals hold up live...especially compared to Liam's consistently impressive live vocals in '94-'95.

[1001albumsrated]

#13: Miles Davis - Birth of the Cool (1957)

Genre(s): Jazz, Post-Bop, Cool Jazz

Welp, it only took 13 albums for me to screw up and skip an album by mistake. I went back and edited my prior posts to correct the numbering. Birth of the Cool is a pretty embarrassing one to skip too; like all self-respecting jazz listeners, I'm a big Miles fan, and had been looking forward to talking about some of his work (this is far from the last Miles album in 1001 Albums).

Despite being number 13 on the list, these are actually the earliest recordings in the whole book. Ironically, despite now being considered a classic jazz album and typically viewed as a single coherent album, Birth of the Cool is actually a compilation album comprised of 78 sides recorded by the Davis nonet for Columbia between 1949 & 1950 and later reissued together as an LP. This is more common in Miles' discography than you'd expect; many of his later albums were released a few years after the initial recording as his workflow shifted towards recording long sessions with a single band and then producing multiple albums from a few related sessions.

At the time of recording Miles was coming hot off his breakthrough success as part of Charlie Parker's band. These sessions were some of his first recordings as bandleader and established him as a pioneering voice in jazz. The cool jazz sounds on these sessions stand in stark contrast to the fast-paced technical showcases heard on most bebop albums at the time. He'd already made a name for himself as someone concerned with the aesthetics and timbral quality of sound with his unique approach to trumpet playing as part of Bird's band, focusing on playing "straight" with a pure, unembellished sound (this is a stark contrast to trumpet playing at the time, which had a strong Louis Armstrong influence with a highly embellished approach), and the Birth of the Cool sessions cemented it. The arrangement and instrumentation was highly unusual at the time (a nonet with a french horn!) but was crafted with intention to create the specific timbral textures present on the recording. This kind of thinking was mostly unheard of in jazz at the time (and arguably in music at large), with the main focus of most groups being the technical elements of the performance rather than the aesthetic ones. This approach is one of the few consistent elements in Davis' long, storied, strange career. While the aesthetic goal often changed as his sound evolved, the focus was a constant one that I personally believe is largely responsible for consistently setting his music apart from the crowd over the years.

The Birth of the Cool sessions also started to overarching trend of constant change in Miles' career. He was always trying to find the next new thing, and was never satisfied with resting on his laurels. It's as evident here as it would be throughout his career: by the time Birth of the Cool was compiled and released as an LP, Miles had already moved on to innovating hard bop, and was only a few years from pioneering modal jazz with Kind of Blue, which would turn the genre completely on its head once again. Frankly, most artists would have never left the immensely successful and influential sound of Birth of the Cool, but by the time it was released Miles was already honing in on the NEXT next big thing. To me, what's what made Miles different from the majority of his peers and earned him his legendary status today as one of jazz's finest composers and bandleaders. If you follow the careers of the other top jazz players in history you'll see similar trajectories of never being satisfied with stagnancy (artists like John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and Sun Ra all come immediately to mind; incidentally 3/4 of those listed had large roles in various iterations of Miles' bands).

Another innovative element here was that the nonet was racially diverse and integrated. I need to remind you, this was in 1949. Brown v Board wouldn't come to pass for another 5 years, and the South was still steeped in segregationist Jim Crow thinking. While things were becoming more integrated in the jazz scene, racial tensions in the US were still high at the time and it was very uncommon to see a mixed group like this, both due to the tensions of the time and due to the challenging logistics of touring with such a group (particularly in the South). Miles always said that he simply picked the best players for the job when selecting band members for a session. In this case, he was heavily inspired by modern classical music and found that many white players played that style more to his liking. You could write a whole essay on the topic of racial politics in jazz at this time and I simply don't have the room in a Tumblr post to give the topic the time it deserves, but I'd be remiss not to put the band and recordings in the context they existed in.

Anyways, it probably goes without saying, but yes you MUST hear Birth of the Cool before you die. It's a spectacular listen, and a highly influential one. Also of note, it's a good starter album if you're just getting into jazz and don't know where to begin (I'd also recommend Kind of Blue, but we'll talk more about that when we get there). It has enormous music depth, but is highly accessible to a non-jazz listener.

For the nerds: I listened to this one in hi-res on Qobuz, purely because I was on a roll at the time and didn't feel like going to the other room and throwing the CD in my main system.

Next time (skipping ahead chronologically, because I fucked up and skipped this album): Jack Takes the Floor, for real this time!

[phonomaterial]

I’m doing the 1001 albums you must hear before you die challenge and I’m losing my mind, I can’t do another 80’s dad rock album

[thepsynok]

✨1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die Series ✨ Album: Birth of the Cool Artist: Miles Davis Genre: #CoolJazz #Jazz ℹ️About The Album : Birth of the Cool is a compilation album by American jazz trumpeter and bandleader Miles Davis, released in February 1957 by Capitol Records. Winthrop Sargeant, classical music critic at The New Yorker, compared the band's sound to the work of an "impressionist composer with a great sense of aural poetry and a very fastidious feeling for tone color... The music sounds more like that of a new Maurice Ravel than it does like jazz ... it is not really jazz." In the short term the reaction to the band was little to none, but in the long term the recordings' effects have been great and lasting. They have been credited with starting the cool jazz movement as well as creating a new and viable alternative to bebop. 💭Thoughts : The praises for the album are abundant and the significance is widespread. How an album can come to establish a whole new genre is a feat no less. I find myself in the gorges of musical diversity and it demands your attention in an absent minded way. (Confused yet?) Put it on and go cook that meal (you call healthy). 🍸Goes Best With : Today we’re going to make ourselves an age old Jazz Era drink : The Southside, it’s a tangy mix of gin, lime, soda and mint leaves. And don’t forget the sugar syrup (like you were going to..Bah). Enjoy ! Favourite Tracks: 🔥Move, 🔥Moon Dreams, 🔥Venus de Milo, 🔥Boplicity, 🔥Rocker. Featured Tracks: ✨Move #MilesDavis #BirthOfTheCool #Music #MusicReview #KANSASreviews #Musik_Co_ #TasteYourMusic #PsyNok #Psyn0k #FavouriteTracks #1001AlbumsToHearBeforeYouDie https://www.instagram.com/p/CpE7enLPjHP/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[nehistripesseattle]

From the book “ 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die”, published in 2005 by the by Universe Publishing. Part of the 1001 Before You Die series, it compiles writings and information on albums chosen by a panel of music critics to be the most important, influential, and best in popular music between the 1950s and the 2010s. • • WOW! That’s some feat for Alice In Chains to be included with their album Dirt. As fellow “Chainers” we all think that’s a given. But if you look at the bigger picture and the massive amount of music that’s been released from the 1950’s to 2010’s it’s absolutely mind boggling. What an honor for the band and for us the fans! • • • • • • —————————————————— #nehistripesseattle #LSMS #LSMSAiC #aliceinchains #laynestaley #chainer4life #mikestarrforever #1990s #seankinney #jerrycantrell #the1loveaic #grungeera #dirtalbum #mindfuck #1001albumsyoumusthearbeforeyoudie https://www.instagram.com/p/CqJ7GwFL4T3/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=