'Slipknot'

I listened to these guys play music. They wear masks.

'A Little Deeper'

A simply tremendous artist from a rather unknown female rapper from England. Unlike some, her accent is negligible and sounds pretty American even among the production value.

A Little Deeper came out in 2002 and Ms. Dynamite has done one other album, released in 2005. In 2006, as part of a celebrity race car driving TV show, she was in a serious accident. Years before, her career was interrupted when she punched a cop.

After the accident she left the public eye and despite the announcement of a new album in 2009, it was never released. It takes a miracle for someone to have such an impact on popular culture even in a limited way so it should be no surprise when others fade away.

'Viva Hate' & 'Your Arsenal' & 'Vauxhall and I' & 'You Are The Quarry'

Should someone that records so prolificly as Morrissey be such a person in demand?

I remember when You Are The Quarry was released and it was a major deal. I assumed that The Smiths quit playing together and the get went into hiding (granted, it was his first album in seven years). But I feel like he's done enough to be a pretty accessible artist. I mean, you can have all the Morrissey you really want.

I don't much care for his music and I'm not a huge Smiths fan in the least. Morrissey is actually kinda of a boring subject although almost everyone I know either loves him or hates him.

I don't know if any recording artist of Morrissey's stature to maybe be known for being a vegetarian as much as he is known for being the lead singer of one of the best bands of a particular decade. It's like equating Paul McCartney with being left handed rather than one of The Beatles.

Morrissey is almost equally as known for his questionable sexuality and being an odd sex symbal not necessarily for his looks (he's not terrible looking) but for being a songwriter that wrote about being awkward, out of sorts and depressed. People latched onto that and made them kindred spirits to the point of being boyfriend and girlfriend.

Most like, he is bisexual although publicly he likes playing word games (once calling himself "humasexual" for being attracted to humans) and avoiding any one stereotype because he knows that girls and boys love him just the same. Gotta keep selling those records.

'The Coral'

A boringly good album from a boring British band.

'Our Aim Is To Satisfy'

I wonder if I'll ever make it through all of this electronic, house, dance stuff.

'Figure 8'

No lie, my wife went to high school with Elliot Smith. It was during the years he lived in Duncanville, Texas. She later worked for the local newspaper and when Smith was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song (“Miss Misery” from Good Will Hunting) and she wrote a story about him.

So, when he killed himself in 2003 I was absolutely heartbroken. At the time was digging deep into all of his material including the fantastic Figure 8.

I don’t know if it’s a perfect album, but it’s close. Certainly one of my favorites of all time. I felt that Smith met a healthy median between his lower-fi early albums, which are damn near whispered, and his love for melody along with arranging and adding piano and electric guitar. If Smith was ever happy, I don’t know that he was, it had to have been while recording this album.

'Henry's Dream' & 'Murder Ballads' & 'The Boatman's Call' & 'Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus'

It seemed a daunting task diving into four albums of Nick Cave’s five-minute dirges. I tackled it head on: Just queued all four up in a row and spent three hours mowing through them.

I’m no Nick Cave fan, but I’m not one to hate him either. I will probably not listen to these albums again but I can appreciate a guy that’s made a pretty nice career for himself doing semi-melodic spoken-word albums steeped in story telling straight from the hard edge of the Australian bush. Truly, if Cave has any cohort in this world, it’s Johnny Cash. He’s not the best singer, his music isn’t the most pleasant to listen to, but he’s ghoulish from the subject matter, to wardrobe and overall presentation.

I must say this: It sorta floors me that Cave somehow got four albums onto the 1,001 list. Good, but not four-album good.

'Street Signs'

You know, it’s really not my thing, but this isn’t a bad little album and considering the band are pretty upbeat and socially conscious guys that write theme songs for baseball teams, I’m willing to not vent my feelings, too much. 

I’m a huge fan of Latin music. I’m not too interested in overly polished rock-hip hop-Latin conglomerations. Give me the Latin and stuff the rest.

Generally, it’s 13 three-minute songs with some tremendous background vocals. A happy album.

'Hot Shots II' & 'Heroes to Zeroes'

I wonder how many records The Beta Band sold when John Cusack’s character in High Fidelity uttered the line, “I will now sell five copies of The Three E.P.'s by The Beta Band?” Sub-question: Has any one unknown artist gotten a bigger boost than they did from that movie?

Discuss.

'Fly Or Die'

This album was my introduction to the producer extraordinaire Pharrell, who before this was just a name associated with the production team of The Neptunes. 

Honestly, couldn’t be less impressed. Expecting a bombastic hip-hop record, I got a rock record, which sounds eerily like Lenny Kravitz. The rock record was one thing. Sounding like Kravitz was quite another (Kravitz himself has a guest vocal on the album).

It’s not until the recently released Daft Punk single “Get Lucky” that I saw that Pharrell actually had a little soul. And he didn’t even need to learn to play the drums to do it.