80. Paul Simon - Graceland
Too tied up in car tape-deck nostalgia for me to make a fair assessment. I think it's amazing musically but if it's not, it brings me great joy regardless.
81. Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Great singer, great rapper, too much singing, not enough rapping. She flips words early on so brilliantly that it just makes me want a whole album of that thing. Some of the vocal layering later on is irritating.
82. The Mars Volta - De-Loused in the Comatorium
New to me, certainly has a certain raw energy.
83. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell
Show Your Bones has melodies but you can't beat Karen O's sublime wailing here.
84. Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Love it. Mixes hard theatrics with more intricate musicianship.
85. Black Sabbath - Vol.4
Again an interesting variety of sounds.
86. Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath
Doesn't catch like the other two.
87. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
There's something good about the guitar drum ambience, though a little dreary.
88. David Bowie - The Next Day
Didn't hear it when it came out, played it twice and found it ok. Some decent songs but it's not a Bowie I need in my life.
89. 90. Nick Drake - Pink Moon/Bryter Later
The music has a haunting quality that perhaps owes something to the mythology surrounding Nike Drake. Some very good stuff within the oeuvre though the tone is so solidly sombre throughout that it becomes oppressive. My favourite stuff is on the posthumous Time of No Reply release.
91. Miles Davis - Bitches Brew
Exciting, cool, always intriguing.
92. 93. Belle & Sebastian - Tigermilk/If You're Feeling Sinister
Likeable, and something I think I would get into if I had the time to do so. Sadly I have a thousand other albums to listen to.
94. Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Trout Mask Replica
Hadn't heard this in about 10 years. Certainly not instantly catching. Interesting moments, enough to want to return to it.
95. Serge Gainsbourg - Histoire De Melody Nelson
Good but a bit Calvin Klein perfume ady.
96. Ray Charles - Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music
Good fun bopping along to these swinging rhythms and vibrant horns. Nice slower numbers too.
97. The Notorious B.I.G - Ready to Die
Slick flow that carries even the more cheesy production
98. The Incredible String Band - The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter
Quaint, mysterious, lovely.
99. Dizzee Rascal - Boy in Da Corner
A brilliant record. I love the sparse production with its harsh industrial beats and fierce rapping style. Shame he dissapeared into pop stardom because this is a wildly creative work, with sophisticated song structures - even if the lyrical content is heavy on bullshit street brovado.
100. 101. 102. Neil Young - Harvest/On The Beach/After The Gold Rush
A lovely couple of hours revisiting these sweet sounds.
103. King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King
Haunted by the album cover peeking out of my mum's record collection* as a babe, haunted by the sounds as a kid. An album that still haunts me now.
*