I enjoyed the structure and information in this quick read. While I don’t especially agree with the music and album selection, I liked reading about details I didn’t know previously.

One more entrant for the shelf set aside for those 'x amount of records you must love before you die' books, and one of the weaker ones possible, musically. Writing-wise, our journalist friend can guide us through his one-page introductions to his selection of albums, with the usual box-out of factoids, further watching, and three selections from other performers a lover of the album would like. But his taste so rarely collided with mine, even if he did get to start the whole shebang off with 'The Stone Roses'. You will never see more than a dozen of these discs on my shelves, and there are copious reasons why. Cassie? Songwriting-wise, I've known more dynamics in a pot of yoghurt. Plain yoghurt. Young Marble Giants? Ineptness Abounds, more like. Lizzo? Lizzo?????????

If you're coming here for appraisals of known indisputable classics (your "Graceland", your insert-favourite-here), you come in vain. If you're coming here for the records that are one person and one person alone's Desert Island Discs (Rob Dougan counts for me and no mistake), you come in vain. No, what you get is a look back over the last forty years at things that were trendy at one time. Many journalists could have flicked back through their archive and found their more noted, meaningful platters and told us they matter, and in being so broad as regards genres, and so notably smaller than similar books elsewhere, this instance of that happening did not exactly convince. Too much here will never be in the canon of must-owns. And including a set that's a compilation and not a studio album is a cheat.

Thank you to both #NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group/Ivy Press for providing me with an advance copy of music journalist Robin Murray’s nonfiction work, Listen to This If You Love Great Music, in exchange for an honest review.

#ListentoThisIfYouLoveGreatMusic is an interesting curation of 100 albums, which the author believes are essential to shaping music history. The author pulls from a combination of his personal record collection and his expertise as a music journalist turned editor.

The work is appropriately shelved in the Arts & Photography section. The reader will quickly understand why the moment they open the first chapter. Each chapter contains a glossy photo depicting the band or artist who created the album being discussed. The chapters are divided into ten separate sections in accordance with a premise; namely, the reasons the author intermixed certain albums.

The remainder of the page dedicated to each album is displayed like an infographic. The infographic provides information on the history of the album and its creator; recommendations for the best tracks to play, live concert footage to watch, articles to read; and lists three similar sounding artists to listen to if the reader enjoys the music of the artist being featured.

While music junkies will love learning the interesting tidbits about each artist (assuming they do not already know them yet), I felt the piece was lacking in supporting evidence and was heavily subjective. This is purely an opinion work that caters to the author’s own biases. Even though it is clear the author carefully selected each album and thought about why they might belong with the others in each chapter, any music lover could just as easily debunk his theory.

The book blurb claims that the author “steers clear of the usual classics,” but that simply is not true. Many of the artists featured are well-known and obvious candidates. It would have made for a more intriguing read if the author had chosen artists/albums that were not so mainstream. Perhaps, the author wanted to appeal to broader audiences than melomaniacs, but at the very least, he should have provided a stronger premise along with an explanation in each of the chapters. Otherwise, it really is just an Arts & Photography book.

In sum, three stars for the visually appealing format and alternate artist recommendations.

Robin Murray has put together an excellent list of 100 essential albums under different headings such as debut albums, political albums etc.
The list is compiled from the 1980’s so no place for Marquee Moon, Ziggy Stardust, What’s Going On or London Calling.
I’ve always found music at its best when you listen to an album. There is a certain something about listening to the album in full in the track order intended by the artist and sometimes the tracks hold a larger meaning when listened to collectively rather than they do individually. The excellent album ‘Let Them Eat Chaos’ by Kate Tempest is a left field choice in the list that’s definitely best listened to in full.
These days, with music streaming, there’s so much music instantly available it’s tempting to shuffle music rather than listen to an album.
The albums are listed with notes about the album, further viewing/reading and some recommended tracks to get you started. If you like the album it recommends some further artists/albums that you might like.
The debut album list kicks off with the brilliant Stone Roses but, if that’s not to your taste, this is a list that covers many genres of music - world, rock, rap, R&B etc.
Whenever a music list appears it always leads to conversations on what should or shouldn’t be in the list - where are the Arctic Monkeys with their brilliant debut album? However, this is Robin Murray’s personal list and there’s no point in reading a book that lists a hundred albums that I’m already familiar with. It’s an interesting list which has guided me to some new material to listen to and reminded me of some of the albums I’ve enjoyed in the past that I ought to return to. It’s always good to discover a new album so thoroughly enjoyed making my way through Robin Murray’s list and highly recommend this book to any music lover out there.