This got me thinking about how these records were originally received. On their modern anniversaries we mainly hear about how ground-breaking and influential they were, but in a lot of cases were they immediately appreciated at the time?
Perhaps the best way to check this is to look at the various album reviews at the time of original release. Of course with the benefit of hindsight it would be easy to sneer at a reviewer who got things wrong, or mock those music writers who failed to realise the relevance of the recordings. I will try and avoid snarky comments, but that won't stop me poking fun at any suspect journalism or ridiculing any pretentious guff I come across. (And I'll probably be equally guilty of pretentiousness in my own commentary).
To be clear, I will only reference original reviews from publications around at the time of release. Rolling Stone's backtracking in their 500 albums of the 1990s features by writing new mini-reviews, and the constant NME Top Greatest Classic Albums Ever cover stories will not be included. Revisionism will be ignored.
In many cases the original reviews are not readily available on the internet, but luckily they are available from one source or another, so a wide spectrum of opinion should be reflected, from indie weeklies to mainstream monthlies.
There are many good reasons not to breach any copyright by reproducing material in full, I will simply endeavour to selectively quote from this material, and condense in my own words. Comparing and contrasting different contemporaneous reviews of the same album will hopefully give an overall feeling of the general opinion at the time.
If there are any particular albums or even album reviews from a particular publication you'd like to see featured then please let me know in the comments.
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