Worth going through, but it is huge. Found some great music! ( )

Heavily skewed towards the avant-garde, the edgy, the profane, the Parental Advisory sticker-able. It's a wonder that sonic comfort food like Boston's debut album made the list. ( )

Ordered chronologically, this book contains albums that are considered to be great by a series of critics. Starting with Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, the book continues on through the rest of the 1950s and on into the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s. Since it has a huge amount of material to cover, I imagine the list had to be pared down quite a bit.

All the entries have the name of the artist, the name of the particular album in question, and some basic stats about the album; the running time of the album, the producer, the art director, and so on. Following that is a small biographical blurb on some select tracks and how it was received at the time of release. Several don't list what the Album Cover looks like, so that is not something you will always get.

Reading through this is like peeking into the history of 20th century music, and can be considered a crash course in modern music. Or at least I suppose it could(I mean, I'm no critic, but I do have opinions). I mostly read this for ideas on stuff to listen to, and reaped some unexpected benefits from finding some weird band names. The 1960s had a few, but the one that stuck out the most was Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band. Butthole Surfers was another weird one, but I think I had heard of them before. ( )

> Par Olivier Horner (LeTemps.ch) : Sous la direction de Robert Dimery. Les 1001 albums qu'il faut avoir
Publié samedi 24 février 2007 à 01:01.

— Sous la direction de Robert Dimery. Les 1001 albums qu'il faut avoir écoutés dans sa vie. Flammarion, 960 p.Une véritable bible, une entreprise collective de près de 1000 pages et cinq décennies sonores, trop large sans doute pour prétendre que tous les CD recensés doivent absolument figurer dans toute discothèque qui se respecte. Aucun disque marquant ne manque à l'appel. L'ouvrage a le mérite de ne pas snober le raz-de-marée hip-hop/r'n'b en mentionnant les répertoires de Destiny's Child ou de Justin Timberlake.

— Gilles Verlant et Thomas Caussé. La Discothèque parfaite de l'odyssée du rock. Hors Collection, 256 p. Modeste et efficace. Les classiques indispensables, Revolver des Beatles, Sticky Fingers des Stones ou Highway 61 Revisited de Dylan sans oublier les répertoires du Velvet Underground, des Doors, de Bowie, de Bob Marley et les disques francophones comme ceux de Gainsbourg, Noir Désir ou la Mano Negra. A quoi les auteurs ajoutent 1800 chansons incontournables et une poignée de coffrets.

— Philippe Robert. Rock, pop, un itinéraire bis en 140 albums essentiels. Le Mot et le Reste, 310 p. Un extraordinaire jeu de pistes. Avec tous les artistes à la marge, souvent cités comme source d'influence majeure par des artistes plus populaires. Ici, ce sont Nick Drake, Robert Wyatt, Can, Vashti Bunyan, Brian Eno, Magma, Bert Jansch, Van Dyke Parks, Pere Ubu, Talk Talk, Jean-Claude Vannier, Townes Van Zandt ou The Zombies qui tiennent la vedette. C'est une histoire plus souterraine du rock qui affleure. ...

There is much for music lovers to be happy about once they get a hold of 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Arranged by decade (1950s to present day), the hefty book is full of compulsively readable reviews written by various music critics, all more than willing to back up exactly why they consider these selections essential to your musical life.

Kicking off with Frank Sinatra’s heartbreaking In The Wee Small Hours, 1001 Albums tells us that Sinatra was almost a has-been when he recorded it. But by expressing quiet pain at his break-up with Ava Gardner, he brought something intriguing and unforgettable to a collection of songs already familiar to many and previously covered, but somehow made fresh and scintillating and beautiful.

As I devoured the pages, certain albums seemed to jump out at me, both ones I knew well and ones "new" to me. Purple Rain, the soundtrack to Prince’s ground-breaking film, remains fresh in my mind because I never stopped liking it. But Actually, by the Pet Shop Boys, stuck for some reason and I remembered 1987 and how much I used to like "What Have I Done To Deserve This?" (a hit for them, with the help of music legend Dusty Springfield). I went to our shelves, checked out the album and discovered that The Pet Shop Boys sound as fresh as ever.

For me, as the chapters ascended in order from the 80s to present day, I felt like I was taking a walk through all of the musical moments of my life and yet making new discoveries. If you live music like I do, can’t get enough of your favorites, and are constantly in search of more great listens, you definitely want to grab a copy of 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
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