Local music is the best music. Not the big bands playing arenas, but the quirky upstarts playing the pubs and clubs in your home town, where you take a chance and maybe find something that you love. I’m lucky enough to live in Sheffield which has a vibrant music scene (past and present), but if I didn’t live here then I think that Athens, Georgia circa 1980 would be a pretty good alternative.
Aside from REM, the B-52s are probably the best known example from the post-punk new wave era, with Rock Lobster being a reliable floor filler at Student discos back in the day. The rest of the album shows that they are more than a novelty act, with lots of interesting and quirky tracks mixing punk energy with 50s retro vibes. The overall effect is a huge amount of fun and still holds up well.
Seafood-tastic!
To lose one talented rock star to the entirely foreseeable effects of drugs and alcohol at the age of 27 or 28 is a misfortune, to lose dozens of them is starting to look like carelessness.
As with Tim Buckley, Jim Morrison had a reputation of being some sort of mythical shaman poet. However, for all of his allusions to philosophy and classical Greek mythology he was still just a horndog reeling from one whisky bar to the next looking for another “little girl”. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that less than five years after this debut album he would have piled on the pounds, had a voice that sounded like a retired coal miner and be dead in a bathtub. What a waste.
That being said, this album was one of the defining sounds of the late 60s, along with Sgt Peppers and Pet Sounds. Morrison had a great singing voice that was perfectly backed by Manzarak’s hypnotic keyboards, Densmore’s jazzy drums and Krieger’s solid guitar riffs. Lyrically, well, we’ve already covered that, but they had their moments. The End will always now evoke that scene in Apocalypse Now, and Break On Through and Light My Fire are still thrilling numbers.
Aldous-Huxley-tastic!
Full disclosure, Jackie - the opening song on this album - is one of my most played tracks of all time in my collection. It’s a glorious gallop of a Jacques Brel song, racing through a dazzling sequence of images and ideas (including some quite risque ones!) sung with tremendous gusto by Mr Scott Walker. The rest of the album doesn’t quite live up to the opener, but it’s still an enormously enjoyable experience.
The orchestration can sometimes be a little bit chocolate boxy - Best of Both Worlds sounds like it could have been a Bond theme (albeit for a louche George Lazenby rather than Sean Connery). There are flirtations with country sounds and a couple more Jacques Brel songs as well as original numbers written under Walker’s real name of Scott Engel. Perfect for listening to in your opium den!
Stupid-ass-tastic!
When I reviewed Buckley’s second album Goodbye and Hello I noted that his reputation as a fey romantic folk singer was a misconception as it turned out he was actually a cheating lowlife who had walked out on his wife and infant son early in their marriage. This 1972 release only amplifies the impression that he was pretty much a sex addict on a path to inevitable self destruction.
The album opens with a cheery number about sleeping with a black woman and hiding from a jealous husband, and moves on to songs about asking someone to get on top, creaking bed springs and there are no prizes for guessing what ‘talking in tongues’ is referring to. There is no love or romance here, just drunken screwing around with the morals of an alley cat.
Musically, it’s pretty much by the numbers sleazy blues sung in a throaty croak which reminded me of Jim Morrison’s voice on LA Woman - another ‘romantic’ who was on a similar downward spiral. No coincidence that they both died without ever seeing their 30th birthdays.
For along time I thought that Captain Beefheart was just a novelty act like Doctor Demento or Weird Al, so this album was something of a revelation. To say it’s hard going is an understatement, and first impressions are of a shambolic racket with different musicians noodling to whatever groove is playing in their heads while some crazy dude rants random beat poems over the top.
Continued listening is worth it though, although it doesn’t get any easier. This is actually meticulous free jazz where the apparent randomness will sometimes resolve into a tight focus before splintering off again. The lyrics are similarly thought through as a piece of performance art that would obviously go on to inspire people like Tom Waits and David Lynch.
Moonlight-on-Vermont-tastic!
While Blur and Oasis were scrapping it out in the Britpop wars of the 90s, this plucky band from Sheffield snuck up on the inside and took the trophy. Jarvis Cocker’s songs of working class life and the desperation of poverty and unemployment, hit home in a way that other bands never quite managed. Maybe I’m biased, but as someone who lived through the Thatcherite 80s in Sheffield when whole communities were systematically thrown on the scrap heap this album rings true.
The lyrics reminded me of Ray Davies in places, and the music is similarly timeless, especially on the tracks with orchestral arrangements by Anne Dudley. Aside from the hits, the highlights for me were I Spy, which could have been a Bond theme (albeit for a very low rent, pervy James Bond) and Mis-shapes which could have been written about me as gawky young nerd with specs worrying about being beaten up by townies if I ventured out on a Friday night.
Woodchip-tastic!
Move over Tokyo Sexwale, we have a new contender for the greatest name in history! Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for señor Willie Colón who, in partnership with the similarly magnificently named Ruben Blades (who really should be wearing a cloak and rescuing senoritas with his rapier), have given us the greatest salsa album of all time.
This was recorded in New York in 1978, and opens with a disco riff before launching into a song about life in a plastic city full of plastic people, and how the Puerto Rican diaspora need to work together for a better life. Heady stuff. Other songs talk about the tough life on the streets and gang violence, as well as more traditional love songs and ballads. This easily stands comparison with greats like Tito Puente and Edmondo Ros. Marvellous stuff!
The first rule of songwriting is to write what you know. In Gram Parsons’ case this was booze, shotgun marriages, doomed love affairs and spitting in the eye of the Grim Reaper. He certainly packed a lot into his tragically short life.
He played music from an early age, formed several successful bands and joined The Byrds in 1968 aged just 22 and then quit on principle over a planned tour of apartheid South Africa. He got to know Keith Richards, formed yet another band (The Flying Burrito Brothers) before meeting the then unknown Emmylou Harris who he recruited for his two solo albums.
At this time he was struggling with a crippling drug addiction and alcoholism, but somehow managed to make a solid country rock album greatly elevated by Harris’ vocals, especially on the duets Love Hurts and In My Hour of Darkness.
By rights Harris should have been co-credited for this album, but when Parsons died of an inevitable overdose, his jealous estranged wife removed her from the cover. Her 1975 song Boulder to Birmingham shows how much he meant to her.
Another tragic member of the rockstars die young club.
Elvis Costello’s debut album My Aim is True was a solid start, but it was on this one where he recruited The Attractions as a backing band that he really knocked it out of the park. This came out in 1978 at the tail end of punk in the UK and was one of the first examples of what would be termed New Wave, although most of the songs were written in 1977.
He combined sneering punk cynicism with the sensibilities of a 50s Buddy Holly lookalike with killer tunes. Some of the lyrics don’t quite hold up in retrospect - he did have a habit of throwing in lines like ‘They call her Natasha when she looks like Elsie’ which come across as misogynistic and stop this from being a five star album for me. Pump it Up and Radio, Radio are the real bangers here with a special mention to the utterly thrilling keyboards of Steve Nieve.
The third album from The Velvet Underground was a notable shift from the raw, experimental noise of the previous two releases with Lou Reed now taking a greater role in writing. Whilst the music is somewhat easier on the ear, the lyrics of a track like Candy Says are still progressive, even now, when a song about the experience of transgender dysphoria wouldn’t make it past nervous record company execs.
The penultimate track on the second side is the 9 minute Murder Mystery which is an interesting experimental piece with two overlapping stories being told from either side of the stereo. It’s not entirely successful as the only way to make sense of it is to follow along with a lyric sheet, but I’d rather have a swing and a miss than listen to something safe and bland.
Overall, I still prefer their debut album as a 60s classic, but this is a solid piece that points the way towards Lou Reed’s solo work.
If Kraftwerk’s vision of the future was icy and robotic, Jean Michelle Jarre’s music had a uniquely Gallic sensibility that was more like the comics created by French artist Moebius with curvaceous spaceships floating in the sky over impossible landscapes. We also get more Earthly concerns with the ominous cover of a ruined planet and the synthesised sounds of crashing waves and electronic bird song evoking fears of environmental doom.
This soundscape was created in Jarre’s kitchen studio using a mix of wonky, cobbled together synthesisers with effects created with magnetic tape loops and the innovative technique of taping down certain keys on the keyboard with sticky tape. The overall effect is rather charming and certainly caught the public imagination at the time - parts of this album were a regular feature on TV themes and even background ambient music for The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Needless to say this was hugely influential, notably on bands like The Orb, Air and System 7 who built on these warm and squelchy sounds to great effect.
Frog-tastic!
XTC were always one of the more interesting bands of the late 70s and early 80s, with a distinctive sound bringing elements of English folk music alongside new wave beats. However, frontman Andy Partridge suffered from crippling stage fright so they gave up touring and became a studio band, with releases becoming infrequent.
This album appeared in 1999 after a seven year break and led to long time guitarist Dave Gregory leaving the band for personal reasons during a protracted recording process. Andy Partridge is clearly aiming for a sound somewhere between the Beatles and the Beachboys with harmonies and orchestral arrangements recorded at Abbey Road, but it ends up more like one of Paul McCartney’s more disappointing solo efforts from the 90s.
I’m not sure that even Macca would have tried getting away with lyrics like “as high as a very high thing” or singing about brown nipples. The song Your Dictionary also comes across as a rather petty and bitter response to Partridge’s recent divorce.
In words of the Chernobyl plant manager, this album is not great, but not terrible.
3.6 Roentgens-tastic!
Of all the possible genres available, I was pleasantly surprised to find Brazilian metal on the list today. I’m not normally a fan of the guttural screaming singing style - I get a sort of misophonic reaction similar to hearing someone retching. However, in the case of vocalist and lead guitarist Max Cavalera, it’s not too bad and I can actually make out most of what he’s singing without using a lyrics guide.
Aside from the vocals, the music is great, incorporating traditional Brazilian and tribal sounds with the usual doom laden guitars and bass lines. I particularly enjoyed the tracks featuring Xavente chants recorded on location in the Brazilian interior. This is definitely a case of cultural celebration rather than appropriation giving this album a unique atmosphere.
Great stuff!
Six hundred and twenty two albums down, and I was genuinely struggling to remember if I’d heard Kings of Leon before. Turns out that I’ve already listened to two of them and this is the third. I wasn’t overly impressed before, but would this be three times a charm?
Sadly, no. It’s almost aggressively bland, middle of the road early 2000’s indie rock, with a couple of jarring c-bombs dropped into the lyrics as if to say “Hey, look at us - we’re *edgy*!”. Sorry guys, it’s not working. It might impress someone DJing on Six Music in the coveted Tuesday 2am slot but it doesn’t do it for me.
I checked my 2011 edition of the 1001 Albums and at least the editor Robert Dimery has demoted all three of the Kings of Leon albums from the book, showing that their earlier inclusion was probably a bit optimistic as to their long term staying power.
Oh dear, how sad, never mind-tastic!
Barry Adamson writes soundtracks imaginary movies. If his earlier album Moss Side Story was a British spy thriller this one is one of those strange and nightmarish movies set in a sleazy demimonde of sex and corruption. If the word that immediately springs to mind is “Lynchian” then you’re not alone.
Apparently the great David Lynch himself listened to this album for 8 hours straight before ringing Adamson and asking if he could use the track Something Wicked This Way Comes for a pivotal scene in his film Lost Highway. High praise indeed.
As well as the samples, electronica and jazzy breakbeats this album also features appropriately sleazy vocals from Jarvis Cocker and Nick Cave on two of the tracks. Given that this is effectively a soundtrack album without a film, the final question is does it work as a coherent whole, and I think that it pretty much does, conjuring some strong mental images.
Cinema-tastic!
Amiable folksy sort of music that drifts by pleasantly enough until about half way through the album when he suddenly drops into a blues number where he seems to be comparing himself to a cement mixer for some reason. Wait, what?
Anyhoo, checking his Wikipedia bio it turns out he spent a good proportion of the 60s off his face on heroin and methedrine which might explain some of the left field lyrics. It also might explain why he was the first American signed to Apple records which gave him his big break.
Ok, I guess.
Purists would say that there is no place in jazz for new-fangled gizmos like synthesisers before taking a toot on one of their funny cigarettes. Meanwhile Herbie Hancock is merrily flicking the vees at those snobs and coaxing other-worldly squelches and bloops from his keyboards and building them into a fifteen minute jazz funk track that still sounds like it’s being broadcast from the far distant future and a far funkier planet. Even the cover looks futuristic!
This is a great album that manages to be both experimental and accessible for jazz newbies, bringing in musicians like Paul Jackson on bass and Harvey Mason on drums to funk things up. The synth parts sound amazing and it’s hard to believe that this is from 1973 when Kraftwerk were still building their instruments from tin foil and sticky tape. Mind you, the Head Hunters were not averse to improvising, with a reworking of Watermelon Man featuring Bill Summers blowing into a beer bottle to get a flute sound.
Watermelon-tastic!
The eponymous trio of Dolly, Linda and Emmylou had often worked together and shared songs since the early 70s, but it took until 1987 for them to get together to work on a full album. This is a stunningly beautiful album, with the different voices complementing each other perfectly whether taking the lead or harmonising.
Each of them gets the chance to shine, with a mix of original songs, traditional numbers and covers in genres from country, to bluegrass to pop. It’s almost impossible to pick out a highlight from this collection, but if pushed I’d choose Dolly’s song Wildflowers which is simply perfect.
Ramblin’-rose-tastic!
Punk Svengali Malcolm McClaren once described himself as “the most evil man in pop music”. I wouldn’t go that far (at least compared to some of the vile bigots and predators that I won’t mention here), but it’s fair to say that he was a thief, a plagiarist and an exploiter of other people’s talents. For this album he plundered from South African township bands, New York Hip Hop artists and traditional American folk music with not a credit or royalty to be seen (until he was sued and settled out of court for an undisclosed sum).
This is also a wildly uneven album with the two hits (clumsy yet catchy takes on line dancing and skipping) bookended by samples from a Hip Hop radio show and odd little electronic and ambient pieces. The latter pieces were from producer Trevor Horn and musicians Anne Dudley and JJ Jeckzalik who would later form the much more interesting group The Art of Noise.
Two stars for the original work on this and zero for Mr McClaren himself.
There’s a good argument to be made that 1971 was the best year for music since the invention of the gramophone. This album is a prime example of a good album being more than the sum of its parts. It’s not perfect by any means - Stairway to Heaven plods along for just a bit too long and let’s face it, however good John Bonham’s drumming is, When The Levee Breaks is still a bunch of white guys playing delta blues.
However the rest of the album more than makes up for these petty cavils, with a mix of stomping rock’n’roll and quieter numbers, with a bit of Tolkien-esque elves and goblins folderol prog thrown in for good measure. Speaking of which, The Battle of Evermore is notable for featuring the great Sandy Denny and it’s a shame that she didn’t get to do more with the band as her vocals are a perfect complement for Robert Plant’s.
One of the interesting things with this list is the sonic whiplash effect caused by the random nature of the albums picked every day. Yesterday was experimental industrial noise, and today is some pop-rock from Aimee Mann which is perfectly fine, but just not very exciting.
It was a pleasant listen but I don’t think any of the songs really grabbed my attention or stuck in my head apart from perhaps Jacob Marley’s Chain or Way Back When which has a nicely plinky-plonk piano vibe reminiscent of the Kinks or the Beatles.
There are some albums and artists that have a reputation of being challenging - Lou Read’s Metal Machine Music, Frankie Teardrop by Suicide, and most things by The Fall. Einstürzende Neubauten certainly belong on that list and deserve to be heard at least once.
It’s classed as industrial music, but when you get past the drills and hammering metal there is a lot here to appreciate. There are drum rhythms that would fit right into a Steve Reich symphony, electronic screams, sonic gloomscapes that fill your head with noise and even a cheeky cover of Je T’Aime Moi Non Plus.
This is not an easy listen, but it is an exhilarating one.
Chainsaw-tastic!
A guitar and drums duo playing old school bluesy-rock, who turn out not to actually be siblings despite calling their album Brothers - where do they get their crazy ideas from, eh? Comparisons with another duo aside, it turns out that these two have actually been friends since childhood and this album saw them working out some emotional fallout caused by drummer Patrick Carney having just been through a painful divorce. They managed to sort themselves out and work out their problems through their music.
As might be expected, they have a distinctive sound with echoes of early 70s (and earlier) blues rock focussing mainly on guitar and drums, with some keyboards thrown in for a bit of variety. They had previously worked with producer Dangermouse (of Grey album fame) and he returns here on one track, adding to the retro sound. It’s not revolutionary, but I enjoyed it enough to give it a perfectly respectable 3 stars.
It might not be immediately obvious, but this was a transitional album for Genesis. The classic lineup of Banks, Collins, Gabriel, Hackett and Rutherford was in a good place, coming off a successful album and associated live tour, and the recording process sounds like it was happy and relaxed. They had a reputation as one of the most inventive prog bands of the 70s with all of the frills and flourishes and fantasy that entails.
However, this album is much more concerned with the real world - Dancing Out With The Moonlit Knight talks about Wimpy Bars and Greenshield stamps, and The Battle of Epping Forest is not about warring elves and goblins, but is actually about violent London street gangs. The rest of the songs touch on the tension between a nostalgic vision of the England of the past and the reality of strikes and social changes in the 70s, as well as punning references to classic supermarkets like Tesco, Co-Op, Finefare and Safeways.
Musically, this has all of the proggy goodness that you might want, but going back to it, it’s the quieter moments that shine for me, especially when that funny little bald drummer chap steps up to the mic for a simple and heartfelt love song in More Fool Me.
In hindsight this pointed the way to what would follow the epic supernova flameout of their next album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway when Peter Gabriel would spin off into his own orbit and the remaining band members would coalesce into a new incarnation and head into the brave new 80s.
Prog-tastic!
Possibly one of the most wilfully misunderstood bands of all time, there really is no response to right wingers adopting tracks like Killing in the Name Of as anthems other than to sigh heavily and then punch them in the face until they get it. It really couldn’t be any clearer in its condemnation of violent racist cops if it tried, and even if the album closer Freedom is a little more elliptical (hint - “Diamonds using Clubs to beat Spades” is not a reference to the game of Bridge) there is no arguing with the sentiment here.
This album is still as depressingly relevant now as it was on its release in 1992 in the wake of Rodney King being beaten by cops, sparking protests in response. In fact, there is even more urgency now in the need for resistance to fascism, even if that means violence or ultimate self sacrifice as shown in the chilling picture of the death of the Tibetan monk Thich Quang Duc on the cover.
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me-tastic!
It’s astonishing that an album from almost 50 years ago still sounds as if it’s been dropped through a time warp from a sci-fi future where man and machine have merged, and icy robots dance in the neon lights of a cyber metropolis. This album was massively influential on many genres of music, from 80’s synth pop and hip-hop, to electro, house and EDM in the 90s and beyond. There are even elements of trip-hop and ambient, which explains why this album sounds both contemporary and timeless.
This version is the remastered one from 2009, but to be honest the original sounded pretty good on the cassette that I listened to on my Walkman way back when. It’s difficult to pick out highlights from this as it’s all excellent, but if pushed I would go for the stunning electronic Motorik beat on Spacelab which is still eminently danceable.
Robot-tastic!
This album features a spoken introduction from Mr Ray Price himself promising “songs of happiness, sadness, heartbreak.” To be honest, this is mainly about the latter two emotions featuring late night honky tonks, lonesome streets and ending up in jail because you drank a whole bottle of gin. Again.
Musically, this has its roots in the Western Swing sound with fiddles handing off to gorgeous sounding pedal steel guitars and back again, with solid double bass and drums keeping the tempo going. Ray Price has a mighty fine singing voice holding everything together.
Going back to the intro, Ray urges fans to get in touch and let the band know if you enjoyed the record. Well, I certainly did!
Honky Tonk-tastic!
This came out at the tail end of grunge and got bracketed in with it, leading to a surprise hit for the single Novacaine for the Soul. However, the rest of the album is considerably quirkier, both lyrically and musically, than the typical output of the usual Seattle cob nobblers. The music includes strings, odd little jazz breaks and almost spoken narration on the track “Susan’s House” where the protagonist takes a pleasant stroll though a nightmarish landscape of urban decay and degradation. Lovely.
The only really off putting thing about this is the cover, which has an uncomfortable image reminiscent of a 1930s freak show or similar, which I’m guessing is deliberate given the subject matter of the title track.
Some of my earliest musical memories are of glam bands on Top of the Pops, with their sparkly clothes, platform boots and long hair. Who were these alien creatures and why was their music so exciting?
Of all the stars in the glam firmament, Marc Bolan burned the brightest and sadly the briefest. Like Bowie he transitioned from folk pop into harder glam rock sounds, and I wasn’t surprised to see that this album was produced by Tony Visconti.
The first two tracks Mambo Sun and Cosmic Dancer set a mellow vibe, with Beatles-esque strings before kicking it out of the park with the glorious stomping Jeepster. As well as the well known hits, he also pulls off a great blues number in Lean Woman Blues
1971 really was the best year for music.
The Happy Mondays will be forever associated with a particular year in musical history and it’s not 1990’s Madchester. Rather, it’s 1971 with their iconic cover of Step On by John Kongos as well as numerous other riffs and motifs from that pivotal year. It’s slightly sobering to realise that there is a longer gap between the release of this album and today, than there was between then and the era that Shaun Ryder was gleefully plundering for ideas.
Does it hold up? Well, kind of. The rhythms and dance beats get the job done, Ryder’s nasal Manc drawl is as irritating as ever, but we never did find out what ‘Twisting my melon, man’ meant or what Bez was being paid for, exactly.
Call the cops-tastic!
This is a bit good! It’s described as post-rock, but to my ears it includes elements of krautrock, math rock and minimalism, with echoes of Can, Steve Reich, Roy Budd and Terry Riley. The highlight is the opening track Djed which lasts for an epic 20 minutes and features motorik drumming, spacey bits and glitchy breakdowns.
The rest of the tracks are shorter but no less interesting with blissed out guitars, vibraphones and marimbas. I absolutely adored this album and will be listening to the rest of their work as soon as I’ve finished listening to this album again
Not this guy again, surely? He’s a massive racist bellend who openly stole the work of black artists and covered a reggae song in a cod Jamaican accent. I wish he’d just focused on taking heroin instead.
OK, it’s fair to say that this album is not quite what I was expecting from the founder of the legendary Velvet Underground. It opens with some perfectly fine 70s arty pop, but the lyrics pretty soon take off into surreal flights of fancy with references to murdered oranges, singing elephants and a glam rock stomp about Macbeth. The title track, a Beatles-esque reference to the post-WWI Treaty of Versailles, is probably the highlight, even if it’s an unlikely subject for a pop song.
The reason for all of the random whimsy quickly becomes clear on the second disc of this deluxe edition with a series of demos and outtakes that openly reference the prodigious amounts of cocaine that Cale was evidently doing during the recording with much sniffing and odd bits of studio chatter.
Probably not going to listen to this one more than once, to be honest.
Cyndi Lauper was a breath of fresh air back in the early 80s. The initial impression was of a squeaky voiced, diminutive bundle of energy with multi-coloured hair exploding in all directions. Her biggest hit, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, was a cover of a by-the-numbers 1979 post-punk track by Robert Hazard. Lauper filled it with proto-girl power pep and a New Wave sensibility that immediately improved it by several orders of magnitude.
The rest of the album is equally good, showing an impressive range to her vocals going from a very creditable 1920s style Betty Boop impression on He’s So Unusual to a heart breaking soaring performance on Time After Time.
Definitely one of the best and most underrated performers of the 80s, I think.
You know Billy Joe? Cheesy love songs and faux blue collar novelty songs, amirite? Turns out he’s a bit more than just a piano man, with some cleverly constructed songs. I remembered the hits from this, but the big romantic ballads Just the Way You Are and She’s Always a Woman fall a little flat when you find out that he’s now on his fourth marriage to a series of increasingly younger and more glamorous women.
I was more impressed with the mini song cycle Scenes From an Italian Restaurant that looks at the ups and downs of a relationship over a lifetime, and Vienna which is a tribute to that city with an appropriately Brechtian European feel.
I also found out today that George Martin was initially tapped to produce this album which I think would have made it quite a different experience. As it stands, it’s a fine piece but probably just a bit too smooth for me.
Ian Dury was renowned for thriftily buying his clothes secondhand with the hygienic exception of footwear and underpants. Sound advice!
For some reason this album got shelved with the punk records back in 1977 but it’s more of a mix of funk and pub rock, with a nod to 50’s rock n roll. Chaz Jankel’s keyboards are a perfect foil for Ian Dury’s cheeky lyrics and earthy Essex accent. Session musicians Norman Watt-Roy and Hugh Charles who played on this record were then later recruited into Dury’s backing band The Blockheads.
Highlights for me on this are Sweet Gene Vincent, a tribute to the 50’s rocker, and My Old Man, a tribute to Dury’s dad and the awkward relationship they shared with feelings hidden and unspoken until it was too late. According to the wiki page Dury discovered later that the cover photo (featuring his young son Baxter) was taken around the corner from where his dad had died in a bedsit back in 1968.
I walked into the office today for the first time in about four or five years and this album was conveniently enough long enough to last for the journey there and back again. It was a beautifully sunny day and gulls were circling over Poole Harbour. As I listened, I kept thinking to myself, how much I was going to enjoy this album even more on the next listen and the one after that.
I’m going to give this four stars for now, and I may well come back and upgrade that at some point in the future.
Can’t say fairer than that!
I was just a bit too young to be a proper punk (and to be honest, I was a weedy, speccy nerd so Elvis Costello was more my thing) but I enjoyed that glorious jubilee summer of punk vicariously. After all the filth and fury had faded, nobody was quite expecting this album from John Lydon (formerly Johnny Rotten).
It opens with an existential howl of distorted guitar feedback before a two part screed against religion that is so fierce it makes Richard Dawkins look like a church mouse in comparison.
After the ranting track Annalisa, the eponymous lead single brings a bit of focus to the album and establishes exactly what post punk was going to sound like with Keith Levene’s slashing guitar, Jah Wobble’s god like bass and Jim Walkers Motorik drums suiting Lydon’s sneering vocals.
Critics hated this at the time and it also went down like a cup of cold sick with former punks wanting more cartoon antics. It’s more interesting now to look back on this as an avant Garde experimental piece with some standout moments (Jah Wobble’s bass on the final track Fodderstompf is hypnotic) rather than a coherent album.
Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?
A literary sci-fi concept album name checking JG Ballad, Williams Burroughs and Thomas Pynchon should be right up my street, but unfortunately it’s a little bit of a let down. It opens promisingly enough, sounding like a 1970s prog/krautrock album but quickly turns into something more akin to Franz Ferdinand style indie. Indeed, I would have sworn that Golden Skans, the best known hit from this album, was by the aforementioned band.
As far as the literary pretensions go, it seems to be mainly using words like ‘hypersonic’ and ‘infinity’, and chucking in the odd reference to Westphalia and Aleister Crowley like a nerdy contestant on University Challenge. I did kind of enjoy it but I got the impression that they were expecting it to be a much bigger hit than it was, and the band has been on hiatus since 2015.
When I was a kid growing up in the UK in the 1980s, Top of the Pops was the place where you see and hear new music for the first time. An outrageous or charismatic performance was guaranteed to be the talk of the playground the text day and more than likely would send the single shooting up the charts.
Adam and the Ants were one such band. Why was that guy dressed like a 18th century hussar? Why did he have a white stripe tippexed across his nose? What was the deal with having *two* drummers? They quickly got a reputation as a teeny bopper band but this album shows they had a lot more going on than impressive clothes and fancy videos.
Aside from the African Burundi beat inspired tribal drumming, this album has influences from punk, rockabilly and even a bit of surf guitar from musical magpie and lead guitarist Marco Pirroni. Adam himself was a great frontman and lead vocalist with a different costume for every song.
Pirate-tastic!
Dusty Springfield was easily one of the most engaging and versatile vocalists of the 60s, covering a huge variety of songs including blues, soul, ballads and show tunes. She effectively had two parallel careers with different songs hitting the charts in the USA and back home in the UK.
The original version of this album was just under half an hour, but this remastered version more than doubles that, with some real gems included. My highlights are a delicious version of 24 Hours From Tulsa, Anyone Who Had a Heart and a very different take on Mockingbird. There’s guaranteed to be something on here that will appeal to just about everyone. Simply delightful.
I really enjoyed Massive Attack’s debut album Blue Lines and their 1998 release Mezzanine, but for some reason this one passed me by at the time. Part of the reason for that may have been the departure of Shara Nelson who was responsible for the vocals on their biggest hit Unfinished Sympathy. However, they invited Tracy Thorn of Everything But The Girl to deputize on two tracks and Tricky on two more, and they are both excellent.
Musically, this is a great example of Bristol Trip Hop with deep, vibrant bass lines almost heading into dubstep territory in a couple of places (and there is a dub remix of this album too, that I’ve just spotted). The only slight misstep is the inclusion of a live cover of Light My Fire which doesn’t really work in context. There’s nothing wrong with it per se, but I’d rather have a full live album than a tacked on bonus track.
The early 80s were a scary time to be alive. A gung-ho elderly president in the White House and the imminent threat of nuclear war at any moment - oh, wait, guess things haven’t changed all that much. Anyway, we all lived with dreams of purple skies and people running everywhere, so Prince’s song 1999 was a perfect encapsulation of the zeitgeist of partying in the face of Armageddon.
The follow up single Little Red Corvette similarly caught the spirit of the hedonistic materialism of the era, although there were some lines alluding to casual sex that might have raised a few eyebrows if you listened closely and knew what a packet of Trojans was.
Anyone who bought the album off the back of the singles without being previously aware of Prince’s oeuvre was in for an extremely rude awakening by the time they got to tracks like “Let’s Pretend We’re Married” which leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination.
The opening tracks aside, I don’t think that the rest of this album holds up particularly well, at least compared to his later work, with too much reliance on early drum machines and weedy 80s production. This was a double album and too many songs are stretched way too thin and even the remastered version fails to rescue them.
This is easily the best 60s album that you’ve never heard before, mainly because there is not a radio station in the world that could play this unbleeped. Most record stores refused to stock this too. As well as the category A swearing, this feels genuinely revolutionary, somewhere between an evangelical revival and a political rally inciting the crowd to riot.
I’m not going to get into the arguments about whether this counts as the first punk record - it’s certainly loud and angry, and shambolic in places, but there’s no lack of musical skill in the guitars and rock solid drumming. The standout track is Kick Out the Jams which never fails to make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck and makes me want to punch the air (or a fascist goon).
This is what music can be and should be.
Musical genres are funny things. I started listening to this album, knowing nothing about it, and initially assumed that it was hardcore punk of some variety. I then checked the track listing and saw that the first song was not far short of six minutes and the next two were even longer. The next clue was the vocal style which was that distracting screaming where the lyrics are pretty much incomprehensible. Fine if you like that sort of thing, but not really my cup of tea.
Vocals aside, I enjoyed the digressions into random noise and math rock guitar noodling, particularly the last track on the bonus version where the voice was way down in the mix and much more enjoyable as a result.
A pretty solid 3 stars from me.
1971 was a great year for Rod Stewart. As well as his hit solo album featuring the song Maggie May, he released this album with Faces. The tracks are split between those written by Stewart and ones by bassist Ronnie Lane who also steps up to the microphone for vocal duties and does a great job.
The music is bluesy rock and roll played with what sounds like considerable enjoyment from everyone involved. Stay With Me is probably the standout track but great cover of Memphis, Tennessee by Chuck Berry is also worthy of note.
It’s no surprise that this band were one of John Peel’s favourites until The Undertones came along a few years later, and there are a lot of similarities in the feel of a band of young shavers in their 20s having a grand time.
The early 90s were a bit of creative low point for our Madge, at least as far as music was concerned. It wasn’t until Ray of Light in 1997 and this album in 2000 that she found her mojo again. I’ve probably listened to Ray of Light more (being a fan of producer William Orbit) but Music has a lot going for it and it certainly confounded expectations at the time.
The major issue that most people seem to have with this is the cover of American Pie by Don McClean. There seems to be something of a ‘don’t you dare touch a classic’ reaction from some music fans, but if you are going to do a cover at least try to find something different to say and I think Madonna definitely manages that.
Aside from that, there’s a good mix of stuff on this album with the title track and What It Feels Like For a Girl being the standouts for me. Overall this gets 4 stars from me but that’s only because Ray of Light is even better.
Listening to this album is a little bit like standing on the edge of a cliff during a howling storm. Initially a bit disconcerting, but you quickly come to enjoy the raw power and the random gusts that push and pull you in all directions, followed by brief moments of quiet.
There’s a lot going on here with fascinating flourishes and a vocal range that ranges from a trilling falsetto to something like sounds like a demon gargling broken glass. The music is mostly towards the heavy end of the spectrum but with immensely pleasing digressions into jazz and elements of classical.
Lyrically there are attacks on the church and the Armenian genocide, reflecting the cultural heritage of the band. There are some nicely surreal moments too (“Shake your spear at Shakespeare!”) but one line sums it up nicely
Loud-and-noisy-tastic!
Way back in the 70s my dad bought home a music centre with three cassettes, including a ‘Stereo Spectacular’ compilation and two Stevie Wonder albums. We played this one first and I still remember those funky notes blasting out of the speakers with smooth perfection. After twenty minutes or so, we flipped to the B side and I heard Superstition for the first time - wow!
This is generally acknowledged to be the first album of Wonder’s classic period and it was the time that he started experimenting with early synthesisers, succeeding in making them an organic part of the music instead of the novelty bleeps and bloops of some other contemporary examples. They still sound fantastic today - a true classic.
This album was released on September 11th 2001 and it’s only an accident of history that it was the second worst thing that happened on that day. Even if he wasn’t a massively wealthy billionaire wrong ‘un, this album would still be problematic on many levels.
Let’s look at the use of sampling here. I like sampling. A well chosen snippet of another song, used in an interesting or unusual way with proper credit to the original artist is a valid form of musical expression. Swearing over pretty much an entire Doors track is not big or clever.
Then we come to the lyrical content. As well as all of the mother effin n-words I got as far as the track Girls, Girls, Girls where he starts out by objectifying and demeaning women from all around the world before we get to a verse about a ‘young, immature chick’. Yikes. Huge nope from me.
All genres of music have their time and place. Some you will listen to in a quiet room, some you will whistle along to on the radio, and some simply call for a huge celebration with all of your friends dancing. It’s no surprise that this record falls firmly into the latter category - it opens with the absolute banger Good Times which does exactly what it says on the tin and follows it with a varied selection of moods and tempos to suit every party.
This is also a very human record - no drum machines or programming here, just pure metronomic precision from Tony Thompson on drums giving a solid foundation for Bernard Edwards’ iconic bass lines and Nile Rodgers’ hypnotic guitar. There are strings, brass and backing vocals layered in to give a coherent mix of pure joy on every level.
Studio-54-tastic!
Miles Davis defined the sound of jazz for a decade with his effortlessly cool album Kind of Blue. In 1970 he evolved his sound again, adding electric instruments to the mix and moving from hard bop to the fusion sound that was to revolutionise jazz in the 70s. He included some of the finest musicians of the time on this recording, giving them chords to improvise around a basic musical sketch and letting the music flow.
In one memorable section Joe Zawinul, Larry Young and Chick Corea are all playing electric pianos and bouncing off each other in different parts of the sound stage (left, centre and right, respectively) - this really benefits from being heard on headphones and it feels like you are in the room with them. Nice.
The only thing that I really don’t like about this album is the title, but you can’t have everything
Welcome to the world of the Manic Street Preachers. There is no room here for warmth or ambiguity. Every song is a meticulously crafted manifesto written with icy moral certainty, just in case you hadn’t realised that all right wing politicians, Nazis and serial killers are BAD PEOPLE, m’kay? To sweeten the pill, the music is generally banging rock but interspersed with on the nose sound bites about concentration camps and prostitution just in case you start enjoying it too much.
It’s impossible to listen to this without a profound sense of sadness. When this was recorded, guitarist Richey James was severely depressed and suffering from alcoholism, anorexia and self harm. It seems that the band were happy to put up with him starting drinking first thing in the morning as long as he wrote another song about pain and suffering.
The music press also colluded with this. A notorious incident saw James cutting himself with a razor blade to prove that the band were ‘4 real’ and the response was just to write articles about how edgy the band were instead of getting the poor guy some professional help.
It was not really a surprise that James disappeared after the recording, never to be seen again. Draw your own conclusions.
The first two tags on the word cloud of reviews for this album are ‘Interesting’ and ‘Boring’, and for once I think that sums it up pretty well. There were definitely moments when I thought it would pique my interest - I always like an album with an overture and there were some snatches of opera thrown in too, as well as some nice bits of glitchy noise. However, it would soon drift back into a sort of Lou Reed style pastiche.
Also, this album wasn’t in my edition of the book - always a worrying sign when a comparatively recent release (and yes, I’m old enough that 2000 does count as recent for me) is bumped for something else.
In the words of the Chernobyl plant manager - not great, not terrible.
Music has always been a way to explore the fluid nature of gender and sexuality from Little Richard, to Bowie and beyond. It’s deeply troubling that we seem to have gone backwards from the days when most people were generally accepting (with certain politicians and newspapers being the exceptions the proved the rule) to today’s situation.
Anohni has a beautiful vibrato voice and uses it to sing songs from the heart about her experiences as a trans woman. The highlights are the starkly honest For Today I Am a Boy and the heartbreaking You Are My Sister featuring guest vocals from Boy George. The musical accompaniment is kept fairly plain, mostly simple piano with a couple of torch songs.
This is very much the Velvet Underground as seen through the lens of early 90s lo-fi shoegaze/proto-grunge. The album was recorded for $800 in a garage but still sounds pretty good to my aged ears, with droning guitars and solid drums supporting lead singer Stephen Malmus’ Lou Reed style vocals.
If I have any quibbles with this, it’s that some of the tracks feel a little short - there are 14 in 39 minutes with lots of variation and interesting ideas but too many of them fade out too quickly when they could have easily been expanded into longer freakouts.
This one was a little tricky to track down on streaming, but it was well worth the effort and I’ve put the cd on my to buy list. The opening track ‘Believe’ is a good example of the style, mixing bouncy Latin rhythms with Bollywood funk and rap, to produce an infectious bit of dance music. There are couple of skippable ballads on here which just knocks it down from being a five star for me. Definitely one where I’m going to check out more of their stuff
Sometimes you just want music to be an enjoyable racket, with a group thrashing around and having a good time, without overthinking anything. This album does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a mix of blues, random screams, punk riffs, a bit of dub, weird shit and a very creditable Elvis impression.
You really can’t go wrong with tracks like Fuck Shit Up and Chicken Dog which brings back veteran bluesman Rufus C Thomas to reprise his classic hits Funky Chicken and Walk the Dog, and apparently have a whale of a time doing it.
Solid southern blues/rock and featuring the epic nine minute Freebird, this album should be up my street, but unfortunately it comes with a big red flag - literally in this case. Lynyrd Skynrd (probably the only band named after a strict PE teacher) made a thing of using a confederate flag as part of their stage set and on album covers. They also had a beef with Neil Young’s song ‘Alabama’ and wrote ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ as a response, saying it was unfair to blame the whole of the South for slavery. Given that their music owes a huge debt to the delta blues, this is a disingenuous stance to say the least.
A plane crash in 1977 killed lead singer and front man Ronnie Van Zant, two other band members, their roadie and the two pilots of their charter plane. The surviving members reformed the band 10 years later with Van Zant’s younger brother Johnny as singer, but carried on using the flag until 2012, dropping it for a while and cravenly restoring it for a while after ‘fans’ complained.
Giving this two stars purely for memories of Freebird always being played at school discos that I went to as a kid
Everyone knows the Bee Gees for their cheesy 70s disco records, sung in impeccable falsetto harmonies by three brothers with bouffant hair and impressive gnashers, but today I was surprised to find that they actually started as a band in 1958 and released five albums before this wildly ambitious concept project, originally titled An America Opera.
This opens with the title track which deals with the aftermath of a shipwreck in 1899. From that point it’s all over the place thematically and musically (ranging from orchestral to country to Sgt Peppers influences), and apparently led to the band breaking up for over a year as no one could agree on how it should be produced or what singles to release. Even the album cover caused problems - it was originally released as a double LP with gold embossed lettering and a red flock coating that caused record plant employees to suffer allergic reactions.
Robin Gibb eventually rejoined his brothers in August 1970 and they went on to record another concept album, this time about the battle of Trafalgar. Eventually they discovered tight white suits and disco and the rest is history, much like this album.
File under ‘What the heck were they thinking when they recorded this?’
I have something of an aversion to listening to bands if the first thing I hear of them is that they’ve been nominated for a Brit award or a Grammy or whatever. Chances are high that they’ll be some johnny-come-lately trendy band that have caught the zeitgeist because one of their tracks was on an advert or a movie soundtrack.
I think in the case of The National, I might have been unfair. They had been going for 12 years or so before hitting the big time and seem to have had a solid track record of albums up to that point. The music is very much in the indie vein, with droning guitars and solid, repeating drum patterns with a bit of piano thrown in on some tracks for variety.
I wasn’t immediately hooked on first listening, but I think I’m intrigued enough to give it another listen, which is always a positive sign.
This album falls somewhere between Madchester and Britpop, with some solid guitar work and an oddly affected vocal style from lead singer Tim Burgess evidently heavily influenced by Bob Dylan. The recording was overshadowed by the death of keyboard player Rob Collins in a car crash when he was driving back from the pub with twice the legal limit of alcohol in his bloodstream and not wearing a seat belt.
Reading the wiki article about this gives the impression that Collins wasn’t getting on with the rest of the band up to this point, but somehow they pulled together after his death and salvaged this record by patching together things that already been recorded with help from Martin Duffy from Primal Scream to cover the rest. The final track is supposed to be a tribute to Collins featuring a recording of his voice as a child, but it sort of meanders and fades out.
The end result is mostly OK - three stars I guess, but not one I’d bother revisiting
Jack Elliott was born into a well-to-do Jewish family in New York in 1931 and ran away to join a rodeo at the age of 15. He taught himself guitar and took up busking as a singing cowboy, embellishing his performances with rambling, folksy introductions and earning his nickname. He was a contemporary of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, with an extensive career and much to my surprise is still recording and performing at the age of 94.
This is engaging and enjoyable folk music, but to be honest I’d swap this record’s place in the 1001 albums list for anything by Connie Converse who was trying to break into the New York folk scene at around this time in 1958, but was shamefully overlooked by the male dominated music industry.
Mathangi Arulpragasam, better known as Maya or M.I.A., is a remarkable woman. She was born in London of Tamil parents, and then moved with them to northern Sri Lanka when she was just six months old. They were caught up in the civil war in that country and returned to London as refugees in 1986. Her experiences directly informed her first album Arular and this one, named for her mother, with a wide range of influences and styles.
The original plan had been to record in the USA, but trouble with work visas scuppered that and inspired the track Paper Planes attacking the institutional racism of the immigration system. Instead she used a MacBook and Logic Pro to capture music from all round the world outside of traditional studio environments, including Indian Bhangra, African rhythms, Caribbean beats and Aboriginal voices in Australia. She includes cheeky Bollywood and Tamil movie samples and reworkings of lyrics from Jonathan Richman and The Clash, as well as UK Grime and hip hop sounds.
The lyrics draw once more on personal experiences as well as wider political topics, with the standout being 20 Dollars which tackles war and casual gun violence, inspired by the cost of an AK-47 in Africa.
This is an amazingly rich and diverse album, being World Music in the very best sense of the word. More records should be like this.
A question that arises time and time again on this list is whether you should separate the artist from the art and indeed if that is even possible. There are a lot of cases of musicians who turned out to have problematic personal lives or political opinions but the music still has something to say. In Van Morrison’s case his public persona on this album is of a fairly liberal hippy singing jazzy love songs with a bit of a spiritual side, and this album is perfectly fine if you like that sort of thing.
However, in recent years Van Morrison has made no secret of his far right antisemitic views (writing a jaw droppingly offensive song called “They Own the Media”) as well as his tinfoil hat anti-vax conspiracy theories. It’s also no secret that he has had a turbulent private life and taken a petty dispute with a neighbour about a driveway all the way to the Irish Supreme Court to prove a point (which he lost). Lovely guy.
So, I can’t really appreciate these songs as I might have done had I heard the record with no prior knowledge of his character.
Your mileage may vary.
Let’s start with the positive stuff. There are some really nice guitar riffs on this with funky bass lines and solid production values. After that, it goes downhill. The biggest red flag is not only white people rapping, but white people rapping about sex. Badly.
I mean, they’re not even trying to be subtle here. It’s all hard dicks and creamy beavers like a bit of fevered fan fiction. I imagine. Lead singer Anthony Kledis was 30 when he wrote this, so he hasn’t even got the excuse of being a horny teenager. Seriously dude, take a cold shower and ask yourself what you’re doing with your life.
Also, this was 74 minutes long to fill up a cd and if they’d trimmed the beavers (ho, ho) there was probably a passable album in there.
Musician and producer Mitar Subotić moved from his native Serbia to Brazil in the 1990s, adopting the name Suba and was immediately captivated by the country. He experimented with combining traditional Brazilian rhythms with experimental European electronica and quickly became one of the country’s pre-eminent producers. He produced Tanto Tempo by Bebel Gilberto - one of my favourite albums from this list - and had just finished this record when he was overcome by smoke trying to rescue tapes from a fire in his studio and tragically passed away as a result.
This album gives a perfect example of his unique and influential style and it’s a great loss that he was taken from the world of Brazilian music so young. It shows how much different cultures can learn from each other, to the enrichment of both.
Rest in Peace Suba and thank you for your music.
This album is something of a paradox, marking a transition from Cave’s previous spiky post-punk music to his later, ambient and atmospheric sounds. It’s both accessible whilst also being a tough listen in places, due to the extraordinarily frank and explicit lyrics talking about obsessive and damaged relationships clearly drawn from his own personal experiences. The music is sparse, mostly simple piano accompaniments, but suits the mood that Cave is conveying here.
This is definitely one for listening on headphones when you are in the mood, rather than putting into general listening.
Breezy indie rock from 1992 that sort of drifts by without much of an impact. A cheeky cover of Mrs Robinson by Simon & Garfunkel is by far the best thing on here with the rest of the tracks being a case of diminishing returns with dour lyrics about taking drugs, homeless teens and cheating in relationships, over the top of jangly guitars.
Giving this two stars for Mrs Robinson alone
This is a perfect gem of an album, full of heartbreak and desire. Emmylou Harris mixes traditional country classics with more contemporary sounds, covering Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton and the Beatles bringing a light touch and emotional resonance to all of them. Linda Ronstadt provides harmonies on Queen of the Silver Dollar, pointing the way to album Trio recorded with Dolly Parton in the 80s.
The songs touch on love, loss and longing, with the standout being the heartbreaking Boulder to Birmingham that Harris wrote about the death of her musical partner and mentor Gram Parsons two years previously. This really is a song that deserves to stand alongside I Will Always Love You as classic of the genre.
Everybody knows Maggie May, the standout hit from this album, but I hadn’t realised it was originally released as the B side to Reason to Believe (a cover of a Tim Hardin song from 1961). The rest of the album more than holds up though - a pleasing mix of blues, rock and folk traditions, played and sung with aplomb. As well as the Hardin song there’s also an excellent version of Tomorrow is a Long Time by Bob Dylan.
I get the feeling that everyone involved was enjoying themselves (as can be seen on their iconic performance on Top of the Pops where they all have huge grins and start kicking a ball around while John Peel gamely mimes playing a mandolin).
Rod’s distinctive gravelly voice is to the fore here, and it’s something of a surprise to see that he was only 26 when this was recorded. Having said that, at this point he had two solo albums under his belt as well as being lead singer in The Faces and the Jeff Beck group, so that counts as being a grizzled veteran in this biz.
Mandolin-tastic!
The term Krautrock was a snooty and dismissive expression coined by the British music press who didn’t like the idea of German bands coming over here and playing rock, instead of proper British bands playing pop - if only there was a term for that, eh? Anyhoo, Faust hit back with the first track on this album, an 11 minute epic called Krautrock that does exactly what it says on the tin. Metronomic motorik beats, temperamental analogue synths, weird electronic glitches and fuzzed out guitars all turned up to 11. Wunderbar!
The other tracks on this album are of slightly more variable quality, ranging from bizarre songs to short, experimental pieces, but generally all worth a listen even if only to say “what the heck was that supposed to be?”. I’d still choose krautrock over yet another boring yacht rock album any day though.
Kraut-tastic!
Donald Fagen is not half as cool as the album cover would have you believe. He evidently spent his teenage years as a dorky kid, stuck in his room listening to fusty old jazz stations instead of that scary rock n roll and pining after unattainable girls. After a spell with yacht rockers and steam powered dildo enthusiasts Steely Dan, he put out this album that can charitably be described as easy listening.
It was recorded and produced entirely digitally, and hence has that bland and soulless feel of the early 80s. Purely for this reason it was popular with audiophiles and cd bores who wanted to show off the quality of their hi-fi setups without caring much about the actual music.
In 2007 Radiohead were without a contract and so decided to sidestep the record industry by releasing their music online as a ‘pay what you want’ download. This was a gamble, but it paid off in terms of getting their album out and into the hands of fans and curious bystanders as soon as possible. Reportedly most people were happy to pay the regular price or went on to buy the various physical releases that became available later on.
Aside from the novelty of the release, this was an evolution in their style - less glitchy and weird, more guitar based rock (with some nice string accompaniments), and with a noticeable personal touch to the lyrics. Thom Yorke’s vocals are still an acquired taste, but after being a relative newcomer to their albums until fairly recently I have grown to appreciate them.
The cover to this album made it look like this might be some sort of voodoo zombie themed novelty record, but it proved to be a lot more interesting than that first impression. Dr. John (a.k.a. Mac Rebennack) was a session musician from New Orleans who was working with Sonny and Cher, when a gap in the schedules gave him some studio time for himself. He put together a band and recorded this glorious mix of swampy R&B and creole rhythms that really does evoke misty bayous, moonless nights and something strange lurking in the darkness.
Swamp-tastic!
The Fall are not for everyone, but they were never intended to be. Mark E Smith’s lyrics, accompanied by just about everyone who was ever in a band in Manchester over the years (and your nan on bongos) are complex, baffling and infuriating enough to reward repeated revisiting. Every time I listen to this, or any other Fall album, I will hear a line or a particular turn of phrase that I’m sure I’ve never heard before and that I haven’t the first idea what it means.
“I’ve got shears pointed straight at my chest”
Wait, what?
If this is your introduction to the Fall, it’s as good a place to start as any. The music is basic post punk and remarkably coherent for an album completed in one day (starting as he meant to go on Smith missed most of the planned studio days through illness). By the time the album was finished the rest of the band had either quit or been fired.
An ambitious psychedelic rock opera/concept album recorded in the late 60s at Abbey Road studios? No, not that one. Or that one.
The Pretty Things actually have a good claim to having released the world’s first rock opera, but unfortunately for them their record company didn’t know how to promote it. Given the number of studio tricks they used (aided by Norman Smith who engineered Sgt Peppers and produced Piper at the Gates of Dawn), there was no possibility of playing it live. They did try a performance with them miming to tapes, but apparently they were all off their heads on LSD and it sounded hilariously bad.
There are a couple of nice psychedelic rock sections in this but the story is not easy to follow and the lyrics don’t rise much above the level of ‘Flying to the moon, on a spoon’.
Yet another historical curiosity rather than an essential listen.
Well, this was a properly funky treat. Jorge Ben takes samba rhythms and adds a hefty dose of funk and soul drawing on African and American influences to produce something quite unique. If this album sounds familiar it’s because it influenced artists as diverse as David Byrne and Rod Stewart. I just wish this list had more albums like this!
Fire up the steam powered dildo and prepare to set sail for another helping of baffling 70s yacht rock. This one opens with Rikki Don’t Lose That Number, which puzzled me at the time - why didn’t Rikki just call directory enquiries or look up the number in the phone book? It’s only now that I realise that she was trying to ghost this dork by pretending to write his number down on the back of a napkin or something.
The rest of the album is mostly easy listening, smooth jazz/rock which is ok, but the lyrics are just bizarre in places. Does he mean Barry in Wales? Is he going to meet Napoleon in a secure hospital? What has he got against Buzz Aldrin? I genuinely don’t want to look up the stories behind any of these for fear of spoiling them.
I’m slowly finding examples of rap and hip hop albums that I enjoy, and here’s another one. It helps that it’s from a British perspective and much more relatable than yet another millionaire gangsta rapper.
Little Simz grew up on a council estate in Islington during the 90s and 2000s, and her songs reflect her experiences ranging from playing Crash Bandicoot with her sisters to the dark side of gun culture that some other rappers choose to glorify.
The music is satisfyingly funky and experimental in places, and the rhymes and rhythms are easy to follow with lots of detail to enjoy. Definitely a hit with me!
I’d always thought that Pantera were an 80s hair metal band, but this album from 1992 feels like a very different beast. It has chugging guitars, semi growled vocals and an aggressive feeling that fits with the album cover of someone being punched in the face.
Sometime around the middle of the record, the lyrics started edging into racial politics which felt a bit on the nose for a bunch of white guys from Texas, so I had a look at lead singer Phil Anselmo’s politics, and yikes - no, thank you. I stopped listening at that point.
Punk and experimental minimalist electronica is an unlikely combination, even more so in 1977 when this was released. This was completely unlike anything else released at the time, except perhaps for some of the weird electronic stuff that Wild Willy Barrett was playing with.
The songs are mostly short pieces, playing with repetitive beats, electronic effects and disturbing lyrics, with a prowling vocal style from lead singer Alan Vega that has been compared to Gene Vincent. So far, so weird, and then we get to Frankie Teardrop which is perhaps one of the most disturbing things ever committed to vinyl. It’s a ten minute concept piece apparently based on a true case of murder/suicide and improvised by Vega in the studio who appears to be channeling the spirit of a deeply disturbed individual. Yikes.
Not surprisingly this album wasn’t a mainstream hit, but it has been highly influential. I can hear direct links from this to the UK electronica scene with artists like Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle. The unexpected yelps and dark themes were also an inspiration for Bruce Springsteen on his track State Trooper on Nebraska.
Not for everyone, but a phenomenal album nonetheless.
A 2009 album from an artist that I hadn’t previously heard of, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. It’s described as alt-country, which doesn’t feel quite right. His voice sounds a little like Leonard Cohen, but he’s accompanied by some nice strings that put me in mind of 70s style Glenn Campbell. Other tracks add some interesting bass lines and vaguely middle eastern sounding orchestration - perfectly pleasant listening, but nothing to frighten the metaphorical horses.
Lyrically, he’s in similar territory to Leonard Cohen but I’m not sure if the latter ever sang a song about death from the perspective of a horse though. I’m feeling charitable, so I’ll give this three stars but I think I might have preferred it if this was just him and a guitar in a more minimal arrangement.
The early 90s were a bit of an odd time for music. The 80s were now in the rear view mirror, rave was for the hardcore pillheads and grunge was still just a bunch of cob nobblers in Seattle. Where did that leave the indie kids?
The answer was firmly looking back to the 60s. At least they were being upfront in the album title and the nostalgic picture of a steam train puffing away.
On this album, Blur are harking back to the sounds of the Kinks and early Bowie, who ironically enough were themselves harking back to even earlier traditions of music hall and singers like Anthony Newley.
I mean, I like the 60s, but this album feels almost apologetic for being unsure of itself and the sound they want to make. It’s fine as a whole, but their distinctive Britpop sound was yet to emerge.
#1001Albums
Electric Prunes by The Electric Prunes
https://album.link/gb/i/655574615
The Electric Prunes were a garage band who were genuinely discovered playing in a garage by a record company exec who happened to be passing at the time. The album opens with a nice bit of late 60s psychedelia in I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night) but after that it’s very much diminishing returns with some second rate love songs and novelty numbers, with the whole album clocking in at 30 minutes.
File under a historical curiosity rather than an essential listen.
Fun game! Find your 60s psychedelic garage band name by combining your favourite dried fruit with a power source - mine is the Solar Sultanas!
https://album.link/gb/i/655574615
When I first heard the Beastie Boys back in the 80s, I really didn’t like them. Partly for the embarrassment of white people rapping, partly for the absurd adoption of VW badges as a fashion accessory but mostly because of the way they used the word party as a verb. It wasn’t until sometime in the 90s that I heard this album and went back to give the meticulously crafted Paul’s Boutique a chance.
This album is less sample heavy, and the rapping is still a bit cringeworthy in places (Why do they have to SHOUT, at the end of every LINE?), but the music is pretty good, all things considered. Sabotage is a certified banger helped by the excellent music video directed by Spike Jonze.
A solid 3 stars, and I think I may well give some of their later albums a chance too.
Every now and then on this list an album comes up that is utterly unique and unlike everything that has come before. For this project, Björk moved away from the electronica of her previous albums and focussed on the sounds that could be made with the human voice alone. Aside from one track with a minimal use of piano and some bass synth lines, this really does what it says on the tin.
The sounds produced are stunningly varied, from Björk’s distinctive, otherworldly vocals, to traditional choirs, throat singers, beatboxers and even someone described as a human trombone. Musically this ranges from folk sounds and classical choral, to contemporary beats and something you might have heard sat around a fire in an Icelandic cave 10,000 years ago.
I fully realise that this album might be a challenging listen for some people, but sitting down and hearing it on the best headphones you have is a spine tingling experience.
Not sure if this is a case of Stockholm syndrome, but two hip hop albums in two days, and I’m finding them … OK? I know that I’m probably only catching a fraction of the clever rhymes and wordplay here, but the music is satisfyingly funky and I can let it wash over me. Probably not one I’d go back to and listen again, but I didn’t actively hate it which is probably progress of a sort.
I was slightly wary of this one, noticing that every track was marked with the E for Explicit warning, but ended up being pleasantly surprised. OK, so I’m still not 100% on board with the lyrical content or the relentless nature of the vocal delivery, but the music behind it was varied and interesting with some cheeky and well chosen samples, even including Swing Out Sister.
A cautious 3 stars from me.
One of the interesting things with this project is the opportunity to compare and contrast albums from different eras, and trace the inspirations from generation to generation. I was slightly perturbed to realise that this album was closer to the 60’s that 1990 is to 2026 at the time of listening though!
In this case, this album owes a lot to the psychedelic 60s sound of Jefferson Airplane as well as the unique Fripp/Eno guitar sounds on Bowie’s Berlin trilogy. Ride take these elements and view them through a shoegaze lens into something quite interesting. The album does suffer a little from the need that some bands felt to fill up CD releases with exactly 72 minutes of music. This could easily have been trimmed down to 40 minutes of bangers, but I suppose they thought it was value for money.
This album is something of a mixed bag, opening with a mix of styles and genres, ranging from R&B to rock and even including a James Brown cover before the band finally found something that caught the energy of their live set with the explosive My Generation. Hearing this is still an electrifying experience, with Daltry’s stuttering, amphetamine fueled vocals, Moon’s pounding drums and Townshend’s blistering guitar handing off to Entwhistle’s bass solo.
Flipping the album over leads into the jangly West Coast inspired Kids are Alright, another anthem for the young people of 1965. There are some more covers and R&B numbers, before the improvised freak out of The Ox, also featuring the great session musician Nicky Hopkins on piano.
Is this a great album that must be heard? Maybe not, but it’s certainly a snapshot of The Who at a formative point in their career and a pointer to where they would be going.
It’s impossible to listen to this without imagining a group of long haired musos sitting down with a besuited record exec and saying “Listen man - we’re PROPER musicians - we play CLASSICAL music now”.
It’s ok, I guess, with some interesting use of early synthesisers, but it’s not that much more sophisticated than those novelty records with classical pieces played on a Bontempi organ with a disco beat. On the positive side it made me want to go back to listen to Mussorgsky with more conventional arrangements.
Enough has been written about the irony of a millionaire singing about having no possessions, but a bigger issue is a violent bully (by his own admission) writing a song about being “just a jealous guy”. In the entry for this album Robert Dimery describes that track as being one of the greatest love songs written from a man to a woman, which I think is completely missing the point. Even the way it is sung sounds like the feeble self justification of an abusive man.
After some fun, bouncy rock and blues tracks we then get to “How Do You Sleep” which is another bitter and spiteful attack on Paul McCartney, showing that he had still not forgiven him for the breakup of the Beatles. The primal scream therapy obviously hadn’t worked.
To be positive for a second, with the problematic tracks aside, George Harrison’s guitar adds a lot to the Beatles vibe on this album, compared to his previous solo release. It’s still not on the same level as it used to be though, which makes listening a bitter sweet experience, with the bitter definitely outweighing the sweet.
50%-of-the-Beatles-tastic!
Jefferson Airplane were a middling West Coast folk band until they were joined by Grace Slick in 1967 and two weeks later went into the studio to record this album. There are some filler tracks on here (although pleasant enough in a folky/bluesy style), but the twin hits of Need Somebody to Love and White Rabbit are much stronger, and captured the harder, psychedelic side of the summer of love. Apparently their producer tried to stop smoking marijuana in the studio so they fired him (and found some even stronger stuff).
Here’s a fun game - you can create your own band and album by combining a US president and mode of aerial transport, with your favourite art movement and something from your bedroom. Mine is Monroe Glider with Post-Impressionist Duvet!
Wonderland-tastic!
By all rights this should have been a huge hit. As well as Nick Drake’s sensitive vocals and folk guitar melodies, it has contributions from half of Fairport Convention, two musicians who worked on Pet Sounds and piano from John Cale of the Velvet Underground. It’s well produced and arranged, and is a joy to listen to, with breezy, wistful songs in a folk-rock style.
However, a dispute about the cover art delayed the release that had been planned for Christmas 1970 and bizarrely it was never issued or promoted in North America. As a result, sales fell far short of what they should have been leaving the 22 year old Drake in a depressed and vulnerable state. His third album recorded the following year as a solo project was to be his last, and he died in 1974 aged just 26.
As I’ve said before, I think that any album on the Warp Records label is worth a spin. This one is mostly instrumental with some nice jazzy beats, mixing traditional instruments such as the double bass and trombone with danceable electronica. I really enjoyed this album, but to be honest I wasn’t quite prepared for just how filthy the track “The Rough and the Quick” was - definitely not safe for work!
Headphones-tastic!
For a brief moment in 1982 it seemed that you couldn’t move for roving bands of scruffy herberts dressed like tramps in ripped dungarees and neckerchiefs, playing fiddles and proclaiming (apparently completely seriously) that they were the only people who’d ever heard of Jackie Wilson. Anyhoo, after a couple of hits they vanished before resurfacing three years later with their third album.
On the plus side, they’ve managed to put on some smarter clothes and slimmed down the band to a more manageable four members. As a result the music is a little more laid back with less of the previous faux Irish too-ray-ay malarkey. On the negative side, we still get too much of Kevin Rowland’s peculiarly affected honking singing style and some left field snippets of conversation dropped in between the songs.
There’s also a very odd track complaining about everything on Radio One sounding the same (mate, other stations are available, and maybe you should have tried listening to John Peel instead of the Breakfast Show). This would have had more impact if it hadn’t just been a blatant copy of the riff from Werewolves of London by Warren Zevon (who had to be credited on later releases of the album).
Tramp-tastic!
Lou Reed’s previous album Transformer was a huge hit, but if anyone bought this expecting more cheerful songs about trans people hitchhiking across the USA they were in for a surprise. This album is the dark side of Perfect Day, examining the destructive spiral of drug addiction for a couple called Jim and Caroline living in Berlin.
We get one romantic song about them meeting by the wall and enjoying some Dubonnet on ice, and then we get despair, prostitution, violence and eventual death by suicide. Calling the last track Sad Song is underselling just how grim this is by a long chalk.
Do we really need to hear crying children being taken from their drug addict mother? Well, maybe. Drugs aren’t all just going to the zoo and drinking sangria in the park, kids.
I’m partial to a bit of prog now and again, providing I’m in the right mood for it. However, this album falls into the category of having far too many notes for my taste, with the opening section of the 20 minute title track being a dizzying jazz freak out that’s all over the place. Apparently the keyboardist Keith Emerson wanted to write a piece in 5/4 time which just sounds like being clever for the sake of it, and it was so divisive that it nearly split the band.
It does calm down a little after the start, but there are other problems with this album. The general rule is that you shouldn’t judge something by its cover, but in this case it tells you a lot. The illustration of an armadillo crossed with a World War I style tank is exactly the sort of thing a teenage boy would doodle in the back of his physics textbook, and unfortunately the lyrics don’t rise much above this sort of adolescent level. Indeed, the track ‘The Only Way’ on side 2 features a line so egregiously awful that I almost switched the album off at that point. Your mileage may vary.
I was genuinely surprised when I looked at my watch after listening to this album. 14 songs in just over 15 minutes has to be some sort of record, but at no point do you feel short changed. Apparently some versions of the CD repeated the whole track list just to fill up the disc a bit.
These are all proper songs, not just identical blasts of thrash music. It’s properly tight punk rock, played as fast as it’s possible to get while still being able to hear what’s going on. Lyrically, things are pretty much as you might expect from a LA hardcore punk band - skateboards, general nihilism and wanking are the main themes.
You really can’t go wrong with songs like World Up My Ass, Live Fast Die Young and Deny Everything. The weirdest song by far is the title track which sounds like they are reading out an advert for a swingers club including the phone number! I wonder if any confused and horny punks called this back in the day?
Short-song-tastic!
The Fall are probably the most marmite-y of all bands (and if you don’t get that reference then you are really going to struggle when they include lyrics about Spangles and Vimto). The quintessential post punk Manchester band, fronted by Mark E Smith and featuring a huge roster of members over the years, including your granny on bongos.
Their music ranges from straightforward rock, to electronica, to borderline unlistenable experiments recorded on an old cassette player. The albums vary wildly in quality and tone, but the one constant feature is the lyrics and unique vocals of Smith himself. For somebody that looked a bit like an old tramp on a bench outside the Arndale Centre he was one of the most literate and sometimes baffling poets of the last 50 years.
It really pays dividends to follow along on the annotated Fall lyrics website to check the references and allusions, from 70s sweets (Spangles and Curly Wurlies) to Manchester landmarks, folklore, literature and weird science.
Highlights include The League of Bald Headed Men about old blokes who really should know better going to raves and a sublime cover of Lost in Music where Smith’s idea of a working day starts at a relaxed 10am in the morning.
Manc-tastic-ah!
This is a rare example of an album that I loved when it originally came out, but I’ve cooled on it in recent years. The concept is simple - a monstrously self obsessed rock star who blames everybody else for his problems. He starts with being angry with his father for dying in the war, his mother for being over protective, his school teachers for trying to educate him, his wife for not having much to say to him and even has a go at the “dirty” groupies who want to have sex with him. When all of that becomes too much to bear, he builds a massive wall and becomes a fascist. Is this all starting to sound a little familiar?
I mean, Roger Waters is not exactly being subtle here. I could even accept it as an allegory, if it turned out that fabulously wealthy rock star Waters hadn’t literally spat in the face of a fan at a 1977 gig and fantasised about building a wall to separate him from the great unwashed. He also managed to fall out with his band mates on a spectacular level, getting rid of keyboardist Rick Wright, refusing to comp producer Bob Ezrin a ticket for the touring show, before finally quitting the band himself in 1982 and refusing to speak to any of them again.
For an epic concept album about an isolated rock star with a tough upbringing who becomes a cult like figure, The Who did it first (and better) with Tommy, as did Bowie with Ziggy Stardust.
As much as I like the musicianship of Dave Gilmour, Nick Mason and Rick Wright, I just can’t take Waters self-pitying vocals any more - if I want to listen to these songs again I’d happily choose the Scissor Sisters cover of Comfortably Numb or if you can track it down online Luther Wright and the Wrongs countrified version of the whole album.
One of the interesting things about this list is getting a sense of the things that the editor was into at different times in his life. This is the fifth Sonic Youth album on here that I’ve listened to, and as previously mentioned, they were a band that I missed out on at the time, but it’s interesting to hear the progression in their sound.
The other albums were definitely post punk and proto grunge, but this has more in common with late 60s/early 70s experimental garage rock and beat poetry with a gothic tinge. Tracks like Bubblegum go right back to the Stooges and pull it off with aplomb.
I suspect past me would have enjoyed this at the time, but maybe not as much as current me.
This is a collection of songs written by Hans Eisler and sung by Dagmar Krause. Eisler was a long time associate of Brecht in Berlin in the 1920s and early 30s, and the subject matter is mostly working class life from a socialist perspective. Not surprisingly the Nazis hated it, and both Brecht and Eisler were forced into exile in 1933. I mostly enjoyed these songs, but the English versions sounded a bit stilted and I think I preferred the German language originals on Panzerschlacht: Die Lieder von Hanns Eisler. The YouTube playlist seems to have a mix of both.
Something a bit different today, with a jazz album from South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim that mixes jazz rhythms with the some of the distinctive moods of the townships around Johannesburg. It probably sounds more like New York style jazz than I’d hoped, but it’s engaging nonetheless. I wish I knew a bit more about this album and the musicians than the fairly sparse notes on the wiki page.
“Wall of sound” is an expression that is often thrown around to describe particular production techniques, but I think that it genuinely fits here. In this case the band played the guitar parts on vintage equipment, sampled the output and layered it multiple times to create an effect of a huge soundscape. At points the sound becomes almost abstract and looped, reminding me in places of experimental pieces by Steve Reich and other avant garde musicians.
It’s been described as shoegaze but it’s a little bit too discordant to be comfortable listening for me. I think it would depend heavily on the right atmosphere and volume to work properly.
For a debut album released in 1991 at the height of the Seattle Grunge boom, this has more in common with 70s classic rock and even a touch of metal in places. I mean, it’s perfectly fine and I recall playing some of these tracks in Rock Band on the Xbox, but they’re all pretty interchangeable and nothing has stuck in my head even after two listens.
For all of their greasy hair and baggy jumpers, it turns out that Pearl Jam are just a bunch of lamestain cob nobblers.
There is no question that the Beatles were the greatest rock band of all time, influencing just about everything that has happened in popular music from the sixties onwards. Four brilliant individuals, each bringing something different to the mix with the whole ending up being greater than the sum of its parts. The reasons for the breakup are still being debated by historians, but it’s clear that the lazy trope of Yoko being to blame are simply not true. Whatever the truth, Lennon was obviously deeply hurt by the experience (especially by Paul’s actions) and poured out his pain and grief into this album.
It starts with his feelings about his absent parents, then his anger about his experience of being bullied and dismissed by teachers at school and then his response to the stultifying British class system on Working Class Hero. At the time he was going through Primal Scream therapy which is exactly what it sounds like, with several tracks on this album featuring literal howls of pain.
The pivotal track is God, where he rejects absolutely everything and everyone around him, ending with the mic drop line “I don’t believe in Beatles” then pausing before concluding “I just believe in me … Yoko and me”.
Not an easy listen, and not on the same level as his work with the Beatles, but an important snapshot of his state of mind at the time. He clearly had many other issues to deal with over the subsequent years between this low point and his untimely death, but I like to think that he would have reconciled with Paul eventually given a chance, but I guess we’ll never know for sure.
1971 was a pretty good year for music, all told, but this album has to stand as one of the biggest selling and most influential of the year. This was Carole King’s first solo album as a singer/songwriter and it’s pretty much flawless. It’s been tagged as ‘easy listening’ but that’s a bit misleading - there are some powerful songs here (Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, it’s Too Late and Natural Woman), but they are all sung with beguiling charm and restrained instrumentation. The only slightly jarring note is the murder ballad Smackwater Jack (which is a breezy take on a mass shooting and a summary hanging - yikes!) but it’s redeemed by the title track Tapestry.
This album stands head and shoulders above every other dull snooze fest from white male rockers and gangsta rappers. I just wish more of this list was like this.
“The Troubles” was an epic understatement for a time of unemployment, random terrorism and military occupation. The Undertones stuck two fingers up at all of that and got on with writing more songs about chocolate and girls. Following up the best song about teenage angst ever written was always going to be a tall order but they come pretty close with the fifteen tracks on offer here.
Heartfelt, funny, angry razor sharp lyrics combined with tight guitars and drums playing perfect punk. Completely relatable for anyone who was a spotty teenager worrying about their life.
Subbuteo-tastic!
The British are coming! The British are coming! Just how did the American music scene respond to the British Invasion? Judging by this 1966 album, the answer was to wear revolutionary era uniforms and produce a lot of songs that sounded suspiciously like the Merseybeat sound of three years previously, by which time the Beatles had already moved on to more mystical and drug influenced pastures.
Aside from a couple of cringeworthy and borderline creepy love songs (Little Girl in the 4th Row and Melody for an Unknown Girl) this album improves a lot when they stop trying so much to sound like they’re from Liverpool and throw in a bit of west coast garage rock and R&B. Their best known song on this is probably I’m Not Your Stepping Stone (later covered by bands as diverse as the Monkees and the Sex Pistols).
Another highlight amongst the bonus tracks on this release is a bit of bouncy surf guitar called SS-396 which fortunately turns out to be about a sports car and not the other sort of SS (always wise to check these days).
Tricorn-hat-tastic!
For anyone who grew up in the UK in the 1970s it’s impossible to overstate just how exciting it was to tune into Top of the Pops every week and be genuinely blown away by something new and exciting, and for the playground to be buzzing with it the next day. There’s a story that John Lennon was watching the show one night and called Ringo on the phone to tell him that he was watching Marc Bolan singing a song with Adolf Hitler on keyboards.
Of course, that was the first appearance on TV of Sparks singing This Town Ain’t Big Enough For the Both of Us. Russel Mael was impossibly beautiful with a mop of curls and a flawless falsetto, accompanied by brother Ron with slicked back hair, laser beam eyes and (let’s agree to call it) a toothbrush moustache. The song more than lived up to their appearance, with stonking drums, blistering guitars, keyboards to die for and gunshot sound effects on top for good measure.
The rest of the album is of similar quality, with plenty of memorable songs that still get included in their live set more than 50 years on. They could easily have been one hit wonders, but they have reinvented themselves multiple times over the years, whilst being consistently inventive and engaging.
Geisha-tastic!
Portishead were one of the best known examples of the 90s Bristol trip-hop scene, but after two critically acclaimed albums they went quiet for ten years before releasing their third album, unsurprisingly called ‘Third’. It’s an evolution of their style, and oddly enough reminded me of the Resident’s album Duck/Stab that I listened to recently. Each track feels like a mini soundtrack for a dark Lynchian vignette with driving electronica giving way to a something that wouldn’t sound out of place being sung in a smoky supernatural roadhouse before something horrific is about to occur.
I ended up liking this a lot, listening multiple times to appreciate the mix of styles and influences on offer.
Another band that I vaguely remember from the 80s except for the one track that was featured on the GTA Vice City soundtrack. I was initially taken with the laid back, jazzy feel but for reason they decided to stick a primary school choir over the opening track which kind of spoils the mood a little. Guest appearances from Steve Winwood and Robbie McIntosh pull things back a little, nudging this into the ‘cds to play at 80s dinner parties’ category.
Not great, not terrible.
I missed this one at the time, probably thinking that country music wasn’t for me. Past me was an idiot. This really is a gorgeous album, with a stunning vocal performance and restrained musical backing with just a hint of pedal steel and fiddle to nudge it into the vicinity of country music.
What really makes this stand out is that it’s pretty clear that this is country music with a queer perspective. Shortly after this album was released k.d.lang came out a lesbian, leading to it being banned by various American Country music stations as well as protests at the 1993 Grammy awards. They were idiots too.
It’s always good to start the new year with a new artist who you suspect will become a new favourite. This album opens with ethereal vocals over a glitchy piece of electronica, somewhere between Madonna circa Ray of Light and Bjork’s Volta, but also different from both of those reference points. Other tracks bring in dreamy soundscapes, with elements of trip hop and classical choral vocals.
It’s been called avant-pop and alternative R&B, but I honestly think that she might be on the verge of defining a genre of her own with this album. I’m now on my second listen and already looking forward to my third, before listening to the rest of her albums. This is really very good indeed and absolutely a five star album.
Have you ever had a fever? A really bad one, when you’re sweating in the night, the room is spinning and you’re not sure if you’re asleep or awake, and you can see the shadows in the corner of the room writhing in the darkness.
The music of The Residents is a little like that. Each track is a unique experience, like a David Lynch movie in miniature - by turns disturbing, horrifying or bleakly funny.
At heart it’s an elaborate piece of performance art that’s been running for over 50 years. An anonymous collective, hidden behind giant eyeball masks, making records full of strange and disturbing music, as well as elaborate installations and ground breaking digital projects.
This is art that is designed to provoke a response and is the exact opposite of easy listening albums that drift by without ever engaging you. There is considerable musical skill behind these pieces, and this album was the first one to feature the legendary guitarist Snakefinger.
I could guess before looking at the other reviews that this would polarise opinions and the scores seem to be either ones or fives. In the words of Janice Nicholls, I’ll give it foive!
Eyeball-tastic!
Nobody does quirky, off beat electronica quite like the French. You can trace a direct line from Jean-Michelle Jarre to Daft Punk via Air to this album, and it’s a lot of fun. It’s described as an Opera Disco album, which if nothing else makes for a unique genre crossover.
As you might expect it features a lot of sampling, including over 400 “micro-samples“ supposedly too short to be identifiable - take that, copyright lawyers! I know that at least a couple of these tracks will be going into my dance music playlists on a regular basis.
Put on your best stripy jumper and beret, light up an ironic Galloise and give it a spin!
Frog-tastic!
It is a truth universally acknowledged that if a man enjoys the fruits of a rock lifestyle then good for him, and if he dies at the age of 28 then that’s only to be expected. However, if a woman dares to enjoy sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll then she must be a slut, a whore or most shameful of all, an unfit mother.
Marianna Faithfull was one of the best known faces of the swinging London scene of the sixties. She enjoyed notable success with her first album, as well as an acclaimed movie career, but that all seemed to be forgotten when she was labelled as just being Mick Jagger’s girlfriend. Her reputation was permanently tarnished when she was arrested during a drugs raid at Keith Richards house wearing only a fur rug. Nobody seems to have worried about what any of the men involved were (or were not) wearing at the time.
Faithfull’s life spiralled out of control not long after that incident. She split from Jagger, there were prurient rumours about her sex life, she lost custody of her son and ended up as a homeless heroin addict for much of the 70s.
Nobody expected to hear from her again, until this remarkable album was released in 1979. The vocals are not surprisingly considerably rougher after a decade on the streets, but they are perfectly suited to this angry and powerful album. Musically, it’s a world away from her previously folk tinged pop, being a mix of post punk and new wave synth sounds.
The songs deal with terrorism, mental breakdowns, guilt and an icy cover of John Lennon’s Working Class Hero. The standout track is the closing Why’d Ya Do It about the bitter recriminations of the end of a relationship confronting a partner’s infidelity. Powerful stuff.
Theoretically this is prog rock, and there’s certainly a lot going on with machine gun drum fills, a bit of guitar noodling and a bizarre concept album through line about someone in a coma after taking an overdose of rat poison and morphine. As you do.
There are strong echos of early 70s King Crimson here with a bit of Led Zeppelin thrown in for good measure. It feels like the sort of album you have to listen to with the lyrics open in another tab and a wikipedia page to look up the references whilst taking notes because there’ll probably be a test at the end.
Far too many notes for my taste!
1990 was a strange time for me but that’s a long story for another day. One thing that kept me going through that time was music and especially electronic dance music. The Shamen were in the forefront of a uniquely British electronica sound, along with Orbital and Paul Oakenfold leading into the 90s rave scene.
Sadly, keyboard player and bassist Will Sinnott died in a drowning accident in Tenerife just as this album hit the big time. The band regrouped and produced some notable hits alongside many remixes, live work, procedural software and experimental ambient albums that still sound utterly unique.
They now have something of a reputation for being a bit naff, mainly based on a toe curling (and probably chemically assisted) live performance of Ebeneezer Goode on Top of The Pops a couple of years after this album came out (seriously, look it up on YouTube).
However, I couldn’t give a hoot about what anybody else thinks - this album still makes me want to throw some shapes and dance, which I think is all the band ever wanted.
MDMA-tastic!
Musical crossovers between India and Europe are nothing new. The Beatles and Ravi Shankar are probably the best known example, with influences going both ways enriching both sides. This album from Talvin Singh, a British artist who moved to India to study the tabla, continues the tradition, but it’s something of a curate’s egg.
Parts of it are excellent - the frenetic tabla playing is a perfect fit for the drum ‘n’ bass rhythms on some of these tracks. However, Singh couldn’t resist throwing in a whole bunch of other stuff - choirs, synths, string orchestras, Ryuchi Sakamoto on flute, and probably a kitchen sink in there somewhere too. I honestly think I would have preferred 40 minutes of the minimal stuff rather than a stretched out hour of extras.
The end result is really just OK.
Peter Tosh was one of the founder members of the Wailers, and it’s no surprise that this solo album also features appearances from Bunny Livingstone and Al Anderson - reggae bands were more like informal get togethers in those days.
The title track doesn’t skirt around where he stands on the subject of ganja - I was surprised to find out that it wasn’t legalised for personal use in Jamaica until fairly recently. I’m not entirely sure if claiming that it’s good for asthma and tuberculosis is 100% medically accurate advice, but I think we can let that one slide given the quality of the music backing this statement up.
The rest of the album is similarly good ticking all of the familiar subjects for a 70s reggae album - perfect music for chilling out too!
Roxy Music were always classed as a glam rock band, and to be fair they had their requisite share of funny haircuts and spangly suits when they appeared on Top of the Pops. However, this album would be better described as art rock and you can hear Brian Eno’s distinctive production tricks at play with weird keyboards and tape loops. Brian Ferry’s warbly vocals and Phil Manzanera’s excellent guitars build out the sound, but the creative tensions were too great and Eno left shortly after this, going on to work with David Bowie and others.
Music in the early 2000s was in a dire state - wall to wall Coldplay (or drone along bands that sounded very much like that). It wasn’t until Scissor Sisters arrived in 2004 with a banging cover of Comfortably Numb that it started being fun again. In this instance, they took a self pitying piece of pompous prog and turned it into a big gay disco stomp that was a huge amount of fun.
The subsequent debut album more than lived up to expectations, topping the charts in the UK although not in their home country - what’s the matter America? Too gay for ya?
As well as the big dance numbers, this album really holds up in the quieter and more introspective moments, especially on the song Mary which was written for a terminally ill friend of the band, and is still a heart breaker. “It Can’t Come Quickly Enough” is another show stopper for me.
Absolutely no hesitation in giving this five stars!
Putting-the-pink-in-Pink-Floyd-tastic!
have to admit that seeing a track with the title ‘Shit, Damn, M*F*er’ on this album made me a little trepidatious, but I didn’t need to worry too much. This is very much old school R&B in the style of Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson with a 90s smooth sensibility. There’s a touch of soul, a pinch of smooth jazz and a hint of Prince in the delivery and the end result is pretty good for a debut album
I initially thought that this was some sort of joke - it’s obviously an obscure novelty record (that was inexplicably popular in Canada for some reason) but something about the first track, a cover of Apache, triggered a memory. This particular track was discovered by pioneering New York DJ Kool Herc who found that he could mix together two copies on different decks to get a drum break that went on forever. This discovery was one of the foundational moments of hip hop and the rest is history.
Let There Be Drums, the second track, was an even bigger rush of recognition. This was effectively the Madchester sound of the Stone Roses but 25 years early. You are hearing the origin story of Bez right here. The rest of the album, mostly covers of other popular songs but with added bongos and funky guitars, are similarly good, and this is easily one of the most sampled records of all time.
How 70s could this album be? The answer is none. None more 70s.
Bongo-tastic!
Country music is probably the most divisive musical genre. It’s very easy to be snooty about it or just see it as schmaltzy stuff for rednecks and hillbillies, and to be fair there is, as with every other type of music, a lot of dross out there. On the other side of coin, the very best country music taps into authentic America folk traditions and is played with genuine emotion and talent.
This album falls somewhere in the middle. I was all prepared to write this off as some sort of parody, judging by the opening title track which leans into the familiar tropes with glee. Indeed, one of the later songs is called ‘Good Ol’ Boy’ without a trace of irony.
However, it didn’t take long for Steve Earle to win me over. It’s obvious that he loves the music and the songs, and it’s nicely done without going over the top. On top of that, he seems like a genuinely nice guy - he’s a socialist, pro-choice and anti-death penalty, and he’s not been afraid to criticise the current president, as well as pointing out that the Democrats should do more to engage with working class Americans.
Not the world’s greatest country album, but a solid three stars nonetheless.
At first glance I thought that the cover for this album was a pop up ad, or maybe a tribute to Sheffield’s much missed Cole Brothers department store (as name checked on Richard Hawley’s Cole’s Corner elsewhere on this list).
Anyhoo, it turns out to be an interesting mix of danceable drum and bass beats and smooth vocals, with jazzy interludes from classically trained artist MJ Cole. I particularly enjoyed the tracks with vocals from Elizabeth Troy, but the whole album flows nicely and is a good accompaniment to a rainy Monday morning.
Well, this was a rare treat. Funky soul from 1974, with most instruments and vocals handled by Shuggie himself when he was just 23. Of particular note is the innovative use of early analogue drum machines which give a hypnotic quality to some of these tracks. Utterly charming and delightful to listen to.
My Bloody Valentine were pioneers of shoegaze, releasing two albums before being dropped by their record label and drifting apart some time in the 90s. Therefore, it was a bit of a surprise when founder Kevin Shields started working on unreleased material and put the band back together to release this album more than 20 years after the previous one.
The result is a bit patchy and experimental, but when it takes off it’s really rather catchy, particularly the closing track ‘wonder 2’ which takes shoegaze into experimental drum and bass meets ambient noise territory. Probably not one I’d listen to regularly, but I’d take this over a dull, boring record any day.
Do you remember that old comedy sketch about going for an English, where a group of Indians go to a restaurant and challenge themselves to order the blandest thing on the menu? Well, this album is the audio equivalent. It’s aggressively middle of the road and unchallenging.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s perfectly acceptable to listen to, just not very exciting. Apparently they came second in the Brit awards to Mumford & Sons, which tells you everything you need to know about where they stand in the pop firmament.
On the positive side, I did enjoy the lead vocals from Romy Madley-Croft who reminded me of Sophie Ellis-Bextor. There must be something about singers with double barrelled names that appeals to me.
Ok, I tried. I really did.
Ice Cube’s two previous albums had been (rightly) criticised for being misogynistic and anti-Semitic. This album was released in the wake of the Rodney King riots, and makes powerful points about racism and police brutality.
However, we get to the track Fuck ‘Em which features an excerpt of an interview where he is explicitly asked about calling women “bitches and hoes” and accusations of anti-semitism, and instead of apologising or moving on he just says ‘Fuck ‘em’ and waffles on for a bit. The next track is straight back in with the misogyny.
Nope, I’m out.
West End Girls, their 1981 debut single, gave Pet Shop Boys something of a reputation as a band popular with the yuppie crowd as something to play in the background on cd at their dinner parties. Fast forward through six more years of Thatcherism and it’s clear that Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe had had enough. This album deals with the effects of capitalism, the loneliness of city life and most heart breaking of all, the human tragedy of the AIDS crisis on the song ‘Couldn’t Happen Here’.
There are plenty of bangers on here, but my highlights are ‘What Have I Done to Deserve This?’ featuring the legendary Dusty Springfield, ‘Rent’ and ‘It’s a Sin’ which is possibly their finest hour. The only downsides for me are with that brittle 80s production sound, but the remastered version goes some way to giving it a bit more oomph.
Yet another permutation of Neil Young and one or more members of Crosby, Stills and Nash. In this case, Stephen Stills was the patsy (accompanied by a couple of others) and the result is a 30 minute psychedelic folk rock album that apparently took nine months to finish because they all fell out with each other and worked on their own pieces individually.
The end result is pretty much as you’d expect, sounding like a compilation album put together from vaguely similar 60s bands but with nothing to tie it together. Eminently forgettable.
It’s difficult now to appreciate the scale of the moral panic that arose in response to early 90s rave culture in the uk. There were fulminating editorials in serious broadsheets, speeches in parliament and an authoritarian criminal justice bill where judges tried to come up with a legal definition of what constituted a rave so that it could be banned. The official definition turned out to be “music that includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats” - gasp! The horror!
The police enthusiastically adopted their new powers to dish out a good thrashing to people they saw as dirty hippies, confiscating or smashing up sound systems and throwing people in jail for the most trivial of offences.
The Prodigy were one of the premier bands on the rave scene and this album is in part a response to the CJA with the refrain “Fuck ‘em and their law”. Musically this is solid dance music with good use of samples that don’t get in the way of the beats. Put on your best high court judges wig and robes and party on down to this one.
Rave-tastic!
When I first heard this back at the turn of the millennium I thought it was some sort of novelty record for kids. In a sense, it is. Listening to the whole thing shows it to be nasty, misogynistic, crass and unfunny. Most egregiously of all, it made Dido into an international star.
Not stan-tastic.
The early 80s electronica scene in Sheffield was an incredibly creative period. Heaven 17 consisted of Martyn Ware and Ian Marsh - two former members of The Human League - and vocalist Glen Gregory. They shared a studio for the recording of this album with their former band mates, which must have been an interesting experience.
The theme of this album contrasts funky street life with the burgeoning 80s yuppie lifestyle, nicely illustrated on the cover. Side one has the danceable beats whereas the second side tends more to the experimental electronica side. It still holds up well over 40 years later, at least to my aging ears.
The lead single, Fascist Groove Thang, got played on the John Peel show but was then banned by a craven BBC who were afraid of upsetting a right wing American president. Good job that sort of thing would never happen these days, oh, wait …
Steel-City-tastic!
Music genres are funny things and often used as gatekeeping barriers for reasons completely unrelated to the actual music. Not that long ago there was much clutching of pearls (and other, viler, reactions) in the Country music establishment when Beyoncé released her Cowboy Carter album. However, such genre crossing is nothing new as today’s 1962 album from the legendary Ray Charles demonstrates.
He takes a fine selection of country classics and adds a soulful, jazzy, bluesy twist to them that works perfectly. It just goes to show that for all of their cultural differences C&W and the blues have common roots in the folk songs and traditions of the Mississippi delta and rural America. After all, songs like Your Cheatin’ Heart by Hank Williams speak to common human experiences of heartache as well finding joy in the simple pleasures of life.
This really is an album to wallow in, and if it gets R&B fans to listen to more Country (and vice versa) then the world is all the better for it!
You know Randy Newman, right? The chap who does sugary sweet songs for Disney films and amusing ditties about dancing bears? Well, hold onto your hats because the first song on this album is called Rednecks and includes liberal (in both the political and numerical senses) use of the N word. It turns out to be a satirical jab at both racist rednecks and snooty New York liberals, but wow, does this clang like a lead balloon nowadays.
Apparently this was originally intended to be a sort of concept album about the Deep South, but some songs were dropped at the last minute and replaced with others. We still get some mawkish drinking songs, one about the great Louisiana flood of 1927 and another about Birmingham (not the UK one, sadly).
Musically, this album is fine, but I seriously doubt I’m ever going to listen to it again.
Every so often, this list throws up something genuinely unexpected that I hadn’t heard of before. In this case Laura Nyro is a singer songwriter from New York, and if I hadn’t looked at the date on the album I would have been hard pressed to pin this down to any time in the last fifty years. For an album released in 1968 by someone who was just 20 at the time, this sounds remarkably contemporary.
Nyro wrote all of the tracks here, and there’s a dizzying mix of genres, tempo and feel, often within the same song. She has a gorgeous, soulful voice and her lyrics are equally strong, especially with lines like ‘No one knows the blues like lonely women’ and Emmie, which is an unapologetic love song to a woman.
I wasn’t surprised to read in her biography on Wikipedia that she was a bisexual woman and a feminist, which is probably partly the reason that she didn’t get the public recognition that this album clearly deserved. She died at the tragically young age of 49 from ovarian cancer.
The album is strongest for me on the three stripped down demo versions of the songs Lu, Stoned Soul Picnic (her one reference to the hippie era) and Emmie, which feature just Nyro playing piano with home produced multitracked vocals. They sound utterly amazing and it’s worth looking out for this version of the album to hear them.
Apparently she was an influence of Todd Rundgren and Elton John. Hey, fellas - you might have let the rest of us know about her!
Sassafras-and-moonshine-tastic!
Reliable stalwarts of the British electronica scene of the mid 90s, this is a great debut album. The first six tracks flow into each other as a coherent set, with some great beats and carefully chosen samples. It’s obvious a lot of thought went into this as a showcase for their talents, and still sounds impressive given that they started developing these tracks using a humble Atari ST home computer. They also featured on the massively influential soundtrack for Wipeout on the original PlayStation which cemented their reputation with the cool kids and computer nerds.
The rest of the tracks feature guest vocals from Tim Burgess and Beth Orton showing they are capable of putting songs together as well as killer dance tracks. This album will definitely be getting a repeat listen today.
I loved Psychocandy when it first came out, but for some reason this one didn’t grab me in quite the same way at the time. The obvious difference is that the feedback and distortion from the first album is now gone, but there’s still the same dark, brooding atmosphere with that resonant guitar and drums booming somewhere back in the mix. It struck me for the first time how much this now reminds me of Lou Reed (in a good way) - I hadn’t listened to him back in 83 and certainly not heard Metal Machine Music which is another obvious influence on this wee band from East Kilbride. I’ll definitely be listening to this again and sending a Time Machine back to 1987 to tell past me to give this album a chance.
In 1966 15 year old school chums Chris Bell and Alex Chilton went to see the Beatles when they visited Memphis on a whistle stop tour of the states. After playing in other bands for a while, they teamed up in 1972 to form a song writing partnership that they credited as Bell/Chilton on their album - no prizes for guessing where they got that idea from!
The result is an engaging debut, with some glam tinged rock numbers and quieter moments with some sweet vocal harmonies taking obvious cues from the Beatles and the Byrds, but good enough to stand on their own. Unfortunately the album didn’t do particularly well, leading to tensions in the band with Bell quitting after their follow up. He died not long after at the tragically young age of 27 in a car accident.
So, it’s an obscure relic of an LP, and mostly pretty good, but it’s tempting to imagine how things might have turned out if they’d broken through at the time and had the success they deserved.
1993, and we’re back in grunge-adjacent alt-rock territory here. However, the lyrics on this made me wince - when you get lines like “I’ve got a dick for a brain” you have to ask if someone is being funny, ironic or are they actually serious? The theme of this album is supposedly the breakup of a toxic relationship and sounds pretty po-faced, so make of that what you will. When the album reached My Curse, a song about domestic violence from a woman’s perspective, the overall effect is pretty gut wrenching. I really hope this is not autobiographical. Not a fun listen or a particularly edifying one.
The Beatles were always going to be a hard act to follow. The commonly accepted wisdom is that the songwriting partnership of Lennon & McCartney was the key to the Beatles success, and out of those two Lennon was the key figure. However, it’s interesting to look at their respective post-breakup albums to see how that theory holds up.
George dug deeper into mysticism, Ringo invited his celebrity chums into the studio for a jolly singalong, Lennon (who hated what he called Paul’s Granny music) released a bitter howl of betrayal aimed at his former partner, and Paul took two introspective solo albums and two more with Wings before he hit his stride with this one.
The original lineup of Wings had drifted away leaving just Paul, Linda and Denny Laine to work on this, with Paul pretty much in charge of the process. For various reasons they decided to record in a ramshackle studio in Lagos, contending with numerous problems including being mugged at gunpoint, risking a cholera outbreak, Paul passing out with breathing difficulties from a bronchial spasm and facing disputes with local musicians including the legendary Fela Kuti.
The end result is excellent though, and stands comparison with anything that Paul produced with the Beatles. The opening two tracks were released as singles and are genuine bangers, and the rest of the album has a good range of styles and themes from boozy drinking songs to a heartfelt message to John in a 50s style on Let Me Roll It that may have helped heal the rift between them. The album closer 1985 (which probably felt impossibly futuristic at the time) is another great track and still feels fresh with its use of synths.
Dammit, this deserves 5 stars!
Macca-tastic!
There’s no doubt that this is an album from 1986. We’ve got on the nose songs about AIDS, urban decay, US military aggression, Thatcher and Reagan, with lyrics that sound like they’ve been written by an angry student poet. The music is somewhat at odds with the words, having that characteristic brittle 80s production with brass stabs, horns, harmonicas, drums that sound like someone hitting a large cardboard box with a mallet and backing vocals from Neneh Cherry. I see what they were getting at, but this hasn’t aged particularly well.
#1001Albums
3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days In the Life Of... by Arrested Development
https://album.link/gb/i/715906160
While the gangsta rappers of the east and west coasts were riding around in gold plated limousines, snorting drugs and occasionally shooting each other, Arrested Development from Atlanta were struggling for over three years just to get a record deal (hence the name of the album). The result is a world away from the gangsta scene, full of deft lyricism, heartfelt spirituality and songs with a social conscience. I actually liked this a lot, certainly enough to listen twice and I think I’ll be going back to it again.
Rarely have I had such a disconnect between the impression raised by an album cover and the actual music. I was expecting half an hour of jolly cowboy songs, but I actually got a 25 minute extended jam where they take Bo Diddley’s Who Do You Love (a proper 2 minutes 30 seconds banger) and drag it out into a drug fuelled 25 minute jam session wankathon. Side two isn’t much better, but at least they close the album with a version of Happy Trails. I’d much rather have had a whole album like that, to be honest.
The very definition of middle of the road - dad rock that keeps solidly in the lane of 70s guitar music without ever straying into hard rock or metal territory. The singer Paul Rodgers (now better known for his collaborations with Queen) is apparently from Middlesbrough but you’d never guess from his mid Atlantic accent. This is the sort of album that Jeremy Clarkson would listen to whilst driving on a motorway.
This album is the reason that I stick with this list through umpteen tedious gangsta rap entries. It’s a delight from start to finish, mixing traditional Senegalese music with more familiar folk and western pop sounds. Baaba Maal was one of the inspirations behind the formation of the Afro Celt Soundsystem which builds on this fusion of different worlds. We really need more of this kind of thing!
I’ve tried with Gangsta Rap, I really have. However, for every clever rhyme or interesting musical motif there’s another scatological skit or a barrage of m-f’in n words or an inexplicable reference to Tony Stark. By far the best track on here is a harrowing childhood memory “Whip You With A Strap” which I wasn’t surprised to see was one of two tracks on this produced by J Dilla. Two stars, purely for that track.
I was initially confused by this as I think I’d mixed up Stereolab with Stereophonics for obvious reasons. When I realised my mistake, this album really grabbed me - experimental, bloopy, Anglo-Gallic fun, somewhere between The Velvet Underground and Air with a diversion via the krautrock styings of Can and a touch of Bristol trip hop. The lyrics don’t make a lick of sense (“Crazy, sturdy, a torpedo”) but they don’t need to.
Galloise-tastic!
For most people these days, if you mentioned the name Harry Nilsson you’ll be met with a blank look, but there was a time when he was one of the biggest selling recording artists in the 70s. By all accounts though, he was a shy, private man who hated the limelight and preferred to spend his time getting outrageously drunk with his best friend John Lennon.
If you listen to this album, then there will be at least a couple of tracks that you will recognise from the jaunty Gotta Get Up, the maudlin Without You, the genuine rock banger Jump into the Fire or the (borderline racist) novelty song Coconut. This is a great example of a 70s album that mixes genres and moods with gleeful abandon but whether that makes for a cohesive listen is another matter.
Lime-in-de-coconut-tastic!
Well, this is all kinds of awesome. It was released in 1973 but still sounds startlingly contemporary and timeless, ranging from dreamy ambient flow states to full on freakouts, with metronomic drum beats, electronic sound effects, abstract vocal stylings and noodling keyboards in the mix. Parts of this genuinely sound like trip-hop dance music released this year.
With typical boneheaded reductionism this got labeled as simply ‘Krautrock’ by the UK music press but there’s a lot more going on here than just a motorik beat.
Can-tastic!
In one of those happy coincidences that this list sometimes throws up, yesterday’s album was PJ Harvey’s 2000 release Stories from the City and today’s is her debut. I’ve gone from not knowing much about her to being a fan in the space of 24 hours. This is a great album, unjustly overlooked in 1992 whilst the media at the time were obsessed with those cob nobbling bands over in Seattle for some reason.
Harvey is a great musician and her songs are boldly and unapologetically feminist without falling into riot grrrl cliches. The highlight is Sheela-na-gig which takes the idea of the male gaze and shoves it right back into the face of the patriarchy. I hope that some of the critics who were snooty about this record looked that word up and were suitably surprised when they did!
PJ Harvey was another artist I missed out on in the 2000’s for various reasons, so I was glad to get the opportunity to listen to this today. This is solid, reliable indie rock with a great selection of songs tangentially inspired by New York City. Her voice reminds me a little of Chrissie Hynde, with a similar level of confidence and assurance. The only odd bit is when Thom Yorke turns up on one track and he felt out of place to me.
Imagine a decadent, smoky cabaret bar in Berlin, with a leering MC and a spot lit stage as Ute Lemper walks up to the microphone and brings the house down with an astonishingly varied set. We get Brecht and Weill cabaret classics, surreal whimsy from Neil Hannon, noir detective tales from Nick Cave, and New York minimalist opera from Phillip Glass, as well as songs from Elvis Costello, Tom Waits and Scott Walker. This was a real treat on a gloomy Monday!
The 80s UK house scene was a time of extraordinary creativity and also something of a Wild West for sampling as bedroom musicians and producers gleefully grabbed whatever they liked from movie soundtracks, tv, and the entire history of recorded sound. At least Coldcut approached it with a sense of humour and did eventually get around to getting permission for their samples. This album is a great example of the time, with the highlight being a performance from Mark E Smith of the Fall alongside such luminaries as Yazz and Lisa Stansfield.
Rush never clicked with me back in the 80s. Although I was partial to a bit of prog, their mix of twiddly-diddly keyboards, earthquake level drums and a weird Canadian bloke singing Ayn Rand inspired libertarian sci-fi songs in a high pitched voice didn’t exactly appeal. I listened to the Dolby Atmos remaster of this and while the musicianship is undeniably impressive, especially Neil Peart’s drumming on the instrumental track YYZ, there are still far too many notes for my taste and the whole thing feels a bit cold and clinical.
Atlas Shrugged-tastic!
Patti Smith is definitely one of the most influential artists of the 1970s. She took the beat poetry of the 60s and married it to the New York punk sensibilities of the early 70s with a distinctive voice. You can trace a direct line from her to Blondie, Chrissie Hynde and others, and further out to artists like Nick Cave. The power of this album is found in the quiet moments that purr with menace and then explode into full on freak outs. Essential listening.
It’s easy to make light of Syd Barrett being the archetypal 60s acid casualty or being the ‘lunatic on the grass’, but this is really a desperately sad story. He was clearly a very talented songwriter, founding the band Pink Floyd and writing most of the songs on their first album as well as inspiring their iconic early live performances which were as much about the light shows and the groovy vibes, as the music. However, he went through a mental health crisis that coincided with heavy use of LSD that caused his personality to change resulting in him being dropped from the band.
The record company then pressured Barrett into working on two solo albums, presumably so they could cash in on some of the notoriety that now surrounded him, but the results were mixed to say the least. He was supported by former bandmates Dave Gilmour and Roger Waters who helped with the music but the lyrics ranged from whimsical 60s psychedelia to uncomfortably weird, and were very different from the sort of cosmic space rock that Pink Floyd had moved onto. He later retired completely from the music business and lived a reclusive life until his death from cancer at the age of 60.
Rest in peace Syd.
I remember Everything but the Girl as falling into that particular genre of music to play on CD at 80s dinner parties - low key and unlikely to upset any horses or maiden aunts. This album was a little more interesting though, tending towards trip hop/electronica (with a few restrained breakbeats) paired with Tracy Thorn’s smooth and slightly fey vocals. Solid, middle of the road easy listening.
It’s always possible to tell when someone is having a good time putting an album together, and in Thundercat’s case the fun is infectious. The music is bouncy and funky, even if it does sound like the soundtrack to a Super Mario Galaxy game in places. The last case is a real possibility because it turns out that our Mr Thundercat is something of a nerd.
He dedicates one track to his cat Tron and another about how much he likes being in Tokyo visiting Gundam cafes and spending all his money on anime. He also worries about posting every single thought on Twitter. He does touch on some more traditional lyrical topics but even when he’s getting inadvisably drunk it’s on Bombay Sapphire gin.
Nerd-tastic!
This is an astonished rich piece of work, combining latin rhythms with blisteringly good rock lead guitar. I was amazed to discover today that Carlos Santana was only 22 when this was recorded. The highlight for me is a cheeky cover of Oye Como Va by the legendary Tito Puente. The only thing that drags this down is the horribly sexist origin of the album title and the associated artwork on the cover.
This sounds like the soundtrack to an impossibly cool blaxploitation flick or a 70s James Bond spy thriller set in New York, complete with breakbeats and sampled speech snippets. Looking at David Holmes’ discography shows that he has indeed made a respectable career in recording film soundtracks, so maybe this was an audition piece. Anyhoo, it’s strong enough to stand on its own and is a fun listening experience
If I didn’t know that this album was from 1996 then the opening track here would convince me that this was a lost soul classic from the early 70s. It’s a great beginning, but the rest of the album doesn’t quite live up to it, being self produced smooth, jazzy soul with the occasional cringy lyric - I’m not entirely sure that promising to keep someone in a locked room having sex with them for days until the police come knocking is quite as romantic as Maxwell seems to think!
Drum and Bass is something of an acquired taste, but I found the insistent rhythms on this overlaid with gorgeous vocals to be utterly compelling. The repetitive beats end up being hypnotic and almost fade into the background, in a similar way to minimalist classical pieces by Philip Glass do. Excellent stuff!
It’s not that he’s now a tin foil hat conspiracy theorist and anti-vaxer, it’s just that this album is dull. He takes what should be a thrilling set of soul and jazz songs and somehow turns it into a snooze fest. At no point does he seem to be engaging with the audience in any meaningful way and the whole thing just shambles on without ever grabbing me. This is a double album, and apparently only the first volume. I’ll take a pass on the rest.
29 minutes long with 12 tracks - this is going to be a banging punk album, right? Well, maybe not. I haven’t listened to this album before, but a couple of the tracks are familiar from hearing them on the radio, ranging from nicely harmonised folk to bouncy pop and a Bob Dylan style rant about the government and numerous drug references. One odd surprise was a cover of the carol Silent Night overlaid with a grim news bulletin. Not as good as Bridge Over Troubled Waters.
I think that this album got lumped in with grunge-mania at the time, which is slightly unfair. It’s their seventh album, and pretty much in the same post-punk/experimental vein as previous releases. This is a varied selection of songs, alternating between vocals from Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon, and occasionally descending into howls of feedback and distorted guitars to thrilling effect. Good stuff.
I remember enjoying 21 when I listened to it courtesy of this list, and this follow up is pretty much more of the same. The music has developed into a slightly poppier sound, even touching on a gospel sound on the track River Lea. She still seems to be singing from the perspective of someone much older than the 25 years of age that she was at the time, with a remarkable amount of wisdom and insight. Not really my usual listening but a fine album nonetheless.
Death hangs heavily over this album. Brian Jones, the founder of the band, was unceremoniously fired from the band a few weeks into the recording due to his drug habit and was found dead, drowned in his swimming pool, not long after. The day after the album was released the Stones played the infamous Altamont festival and a young fan was stabbed to death by the Hells Angels who had been hired as ‘security’ for the event.
The high points on this album are the first and last track, but a lot of their impact now is due to their use on every dime a dozen gangster movie set at the end of the sixties. The rest of the music is just more white men from England appropriating delta blues and honky tonk music, sung with Jagger’s louche and lazy drawl. I don’t need to hear this again, I think.
Imagine an album of music made by people who are bored and irritated by the whole process and each other. This album from 1974 is exactly that and sounds as you might expect, a shambolic, rambling mess that was wisely shelved at the time. For some reason it attained a semi-mythical status through bootlegged tapes and was eventually released four years later. They really shouldn’t have bothered.
For an easy listening album, this is surprisingly difficult to listen to, but not for the reasons you might expect. It opens with the syrupy-sweet ‘We’ve Only Just Begun’ which weirdly enough was written as an advertising jingle for a real estate company to sell mortgages to newly weds. Things pick up a bit after a while with Karen Carpenter’s gorgeous vocals being perfectly suited to the three Burt Bacharach songs on this album, and a haunting cover of Help by the Beatles.
Reading the back story to this album revealed a tragedy waiting to happen. Karen was an extraordinarily talented drummer (just search for clips of her playing on YouTube) but her pushy parents and somewhat controlling older brother Richard forced her into the spotlight as lead vocalist, singing sappy songs instead of the upbeat numbers she preferred. Karen managed to play drums on a couple of tracks on this album, and it’s interesting to hear the jazzy, progressive sound on the final track ‘Another Song’ as maybe the style that she preferred.
Karen Carpenter was only 20 when this album was recorded, and her struggles with anorexia and the demands of being in the public eye are well documented. She recorded a solo album, fronting the $400,000 costs, and was devastated when the studio (and her brother) refused to release it. She also suffered in an unhappy marriage to a much older man and passed away from a heart attack aged only 32.
In retrospect, her recording of Help seems painfully prescient. Rest in peace Karen.
As the 90s dawned, the Pet Shop Boys made a conscious step away from the harsh digital sounds of the 80s by using analogue synths and featuring Johnny Marr on guitar. They also brought Harold Faltermeyer in as a producer and Angelo Badalamenti for strings and orchestral arrangements. The result is a more restrained and thoughtful record than some of their better known big gay disco stomps of the 80s, harking back to their iconic first hit West End Girls.
I really enjoyed the lush electronica on this, with shimmering string arrangements set against songs of quiet grief for friends lost to AIDS in the 80s and introspective worries about the state of the world.
Boy bands are inherently ephemeral creations. Some Svengali-like figure will assemble an identikit group from a crowd of young hopefuls, give them a carefully crafted selection of songs aimed with laser guided precision at the tween age demographic and then move on to the next pop sensation after a year or two. What happens to the young men involved when the hits dry up and their first cohort of fans grow up?
I would be hard pressed to name a single hit by Take That, or pick most of them out of a police line up for that matter, but for some reason Robbie Williams broke the mould. He was the cheeky one out of the group, and in the recent biopic A Better Man he was shown as an anthropomorphic chimpanzee character, and not really expected to do anything other than dance in support of the better looking boys at the front of the lineup.
His first solo album combines a bit of jaunty Brit-pop, some mawkish and surprising affecting ballads (Angels is one of the top songs played at funerals in the UK) and at least one genuine banger. OK, so a lot of songs are about how tough it is to date posh girls whilst being showered with drugs and booze, but something about this record rings true.
If you listen right to the end there’s a hidden track called ‘Hello Sir’ addressed to a cruel teacher who once told a young boy that he’d never amount to much, and should give up his dreams and join the army. I wonder if that teacher ever changed his ways?
Chimp-tastic!
There is something inherently tragic about listening to an album from a rock star who died young. Looking at their picture on the album cover, forever frozen in time, with just their songs left to talk to us now.
In Buckley’s case, he released just this one album then died, apparently after a swimming accident, at the age of 30. There’s an additional level of poignancy here, because his father Tim (who had abandoned him as a baby) also died young, in his case from a drugs overdose at 28. Both father and son were not really appreciated when they were alive, but now have posthumous reputations that have grown as time has passed.
Tim Buckley’s ghost haunts this record - it was released in 1994, but it harks back to the folk rock sounds of the 60s and 70s, particularly in the cover versions of the songs Lilac Wine and Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. It’s difficult to know what directions Jeff may have gone in after this, and we’ll never find out.
Being in a band with your mates when you’re a teenager should be a hoot, a chance to lark about and play the music that you love. Judging by the cover of this album, the Jam make it look utterly joyless. This album was part of the late 70s mod revival (only ten years after the actual mod scene) and it feels like they’re approaching the music with exaggerated po-faced reverence rather than any sense of appreciation.
Their cover of David Watts by the Kinks takes a cheeky song about a homoerotic schoolboy crush and sucks the life out of it. Even Down in a Tube Station, the big hit off this album, comes across as preachy and overblown (and it really didn’t need 30 seconds of train noises on the outro).
The best song on here by far is English Rose, where Weller finally lets a bit of wistful longing into his voice with a nice bit of acoustic guitar and sensitive production.
At the end of the 70s some punk bands went political, whilst others disappeared up their own nihilism. The Damned took a different direction, with this album that veers around like a dodgem car in a ramshackle fun fair. It opens with a clip of the actor who played Albert Tatlock on Coronation Street, lurching into a proper punk love song, followed by songs that range from proto-hardcore thrash to heavy metal to lovely piano interludes.
The lyrics pay tribute to characters from the Bunty (a 70s girls comic, m’lud) to Vampira from Plan 9 from Outer Space, and a thoughtful evisceration of organised religion. There are some cheeky snippets of studio banter, with the band clearly having a whale of a time. The album closer Smash it Up (Parts One and Two) was apparently banned by a pearl clutching BBC committee, but is actually a charming instrumental leading into a joyous riot.
Punk-tastic!
One thing that I really enjoy about listening to these albums is the sheer variety of styles and genres that count as music. In this case, this is sparse and acoustic and I guess would be classed somewhere between country, folk and Americana. It was recorded in the same RCA recording studio where Elvis worked, which gives it a unique resonance and suits their style.
The opening track was their initial mic test in the studio, and a later track was recorded the very first time they had played it. It gives the album a very raw and immediate feel, with production that puts you right in the middle of the music. All of the songs are original compositions, but my favourite was Red Clay Halo which sounds like it could have been a traditional Bluegrass number.
Banjo-tastic!
Combining Afrofuturism with trip hop and very danceable dub and reggae inspired beats, this is probably one of the best dance albums of the 90s. I was initially drawn to the song Open Up featuring John Lyndon as a magnificently sneering guest vocalist, but there’s lots more to enjoy here. I particularly like the way that tracks like Release the Pressure and Afro Left build up into dance floor fillers. The production is immaculate and sounds great both on headphones and bass heavy speakers. Easy five stars from me!
You know that meme of the woman pulling a face after trying kombucha for the first time? When I saw that Kanye West was involved as a producer on this, I initially pulled the sour face, but then I saw that J Dilla was also credited on a couple of tracks so, well, maybe face? This is straight forward hip-hop/rap, but the usual barrage of mf’ing n-words is refreshingly low, and the backing music has a sort of 70s soul feel to it.
As expected, the two J Dilla tracks are excellent (‘Love Is’ and ‘It’s Your World’), the latter featuring a chorus of kids saying what they want to be when they grow up, from astronaut to obstetrician including duck and first African American female president, something that could have been sappy but is actually quite sweet in context.
I initially wasn’t sure quite what to make of this album, but then I noticed that it’s a release on the Warp label which is always reassuring to me. It’s R&B at heart, but married with some gorgeous, understated electronica and immaculately produced. It’s a debut album and she lists her influences as R&B, Jazz and Björk which sort of makes sense if you think about the more laid back and ambient areas of those genres. I’m definitely intrigued by this album enough to listen to this again and investigate more of her work.
I’d always assumed that Tim Buckley was a slightly fay folk musician, but this album opens with a menacing anti-war song about the horrors of Vietnam. It’s followed by a series of increasingly psychedelic pieces, some in the folk tradition but others definitely edging into heavier rock. The second track has a sinister fairground calliope in the background and a later track obliquely references the way he abandoned his pregnant wife and divorced her just after his baby (Jeff) was born (“I Never Asked to Be Your Mountain”). Wow. Not much peace and bloody love there.
This is an album very much of its time, and that time is 1967 just after Sgt Pepper’s changed everything. There are lots of dark edges here and a sense of bad times to come.
The idea of a hip hop sci-fi concept album about virtual reality sex at least sounded like someone trying something different, but the actual result was unpleasantly juvenile and prurient. The opening track is an incessant six minutes of rhymes about humping and then the next track uses the lyric “verbally raped”. Big nope from me at that point.
Gene Clark was a founder member the Byrds, but left after various disputes in 1966, and spent the next decade or so in various collaborations and solo projects. This album from 1974 is a bit of a hodge podge of country, folk, soft rock, jazz and gospel, and the lyrics are similarly diverse (and very possibly drug inspired). Apparently it bombed at the time, and in retrospect it’s interesting rather than essential.
This really is a phenomenal debut album, sung from the heart with much to say about the experience of being a young black woman growing up in London at the turn of the millennium. Ms Dynamite herself is labelled as being a rapper, but I’d put this more in the camp of R&B and soul, and it compares very favourably with something like The Miseducation of Lauren Hill. An unexpected delight for a Monday morning!
I was a little bit nervous when I pressed play on this one, but it wasn’t long before I was genuinely enjoying myself. It opens with the sound of a chainsaw ripping through some sheet metal and then gleefully continues with occult songs name checking just about every demon in the AD&D Monster Manual.
It was when I got on to the track Buried Alive which has a comedy vicar performing a burial service as the sound of earth hitting a coffin lid fills your ears, that I realised that these guys were just having a laugh with an album so over the top that it seems designed to cause maximum offence to the moral majority types.
It’s only on Teacher’s Pet where the sexism and the implied story of a schoolboy being seduced by their teacher, that it threatens to cross the line into being genuinely offensive, but we are soon back to cheery songs about vampires and witches and devils.
With this album they pretty much invented the entire genre of Black Metal by accident, and unfortunately some later bands would take it all a bit more seriously.
Satan-tastic!
A friend of mine sent me the title track of this album on a mix cd many years ago and I’m now kicking myself for not listening to the rest of the album before now. The music here falls somewhere between country, folk and Americana with some interesting touches of world music from other places too.
This is Harris’ 19th album but the first where she wrote almost all of the songs, and there are some great guest cameos too, notably Patty Scialfa and Bruce Springsteen on Tragedy. The highlight is still Red Dirt Girl which takes me back to opening a letter from America and putting a cd in the player all those years ago.
This album came out at the arse end of UK rave crossing into 90s lad culture. The result is aggressive, misogynistic and unpleasant, and feels like you are about to be punched in the face by a drunk geezer in an England shirt. I like some of the music, but I really can’t cope with the lyrics or the way they’re sung. I get that the late Keith Flint is now seen as a sort of cuddly grandpa figure but he’s not very likeable on here.
The post punk period in the UK was an extraordinary blast of creativity. Where most punks were largely apolitical (the Clash notwithstanding), Costello's songwriting was a blast against the recently elected Thatcher government as well as covering traditional topics of love and relationships.
It's impossible to discuss this album without mentioning the use of the N word in Olivers Army, and anti-war song told both from the perspective of a soldier serving in Northern Ireland during the troubles and the racist politicians who sent him there to die. Costello was well known for being deliberately provocative (and indeed got into considerable trouble on a tour of the USA around this time by running his mouth off in an argument with Stephen Stills).
He doesn't use the word in this song any more but the fact that it was broadcast on Radio One and Top of the Pops at the time without comment says more about British attitudes at the time than it does about Costello himself.
Other than that, this is a fine collection of songs that have largely stood the test of time.
Kanye West is one of the most successful rap artists of all time, so sure he must have some level of talent, aside from his far right politics? Well, I lasted about one and a half tracks and then looked up the rest of the lyrics online. There’s no pathos, warmth or humour to be found here - just an endless steam of mother-effin n words, bigotry, violence and sexism, with no redeeming qualities, like every other gangsta rapper from the 90s. Appalling.
Bob Dylan is one of the greatest song writers of all time, no doubt about it. I know that his vocal style is a major stumbling block for some people, but this live performance allows the emotion behind his lyrics to shine through.
The first half is his traditional acoustic set, but the second half is where he goes electric, much to the dismay of some hidebound folkies in the audience. They were wrong then and they’re still wrong now. Bob plus a band adds an extra dimension to the music.
Judas-tastic!
You remember that guy in college? The one who thought he was a total legend and would come into the student bar with a traffic cone on his head saying “Look at me! I’m crazy!”, then he did too much acid whilst listening to Sgt Peppers and dropped out to go and live on a mushroom farm in Wales.
This album is the audio equivalent of that guy. They couldn’t afford $20,000 for Moog synthesisers so they built their own out of cobbled together oscillators and the result sounds like being attacked by a swarm of bees whilst wearing a metal bucket on your head. There are some more traditional psychedelic/prog songs on there with lots of audio tricks that probably sounded clever in 1968 but the result now is just about unlistenable and triggered my tinnitus.
The band broke up shortly after releasing their one and only album, and for all anybody knows are still living on a mushroom farm in Wales.
Australian punk is a new genre for me, but to be honest it’s pretty similar to punk from anywhere else in the world. The album opens with the update “Know Your Product”, a pointed blast at consumer culture, featuring an excellent horn section which definitely adds a bit of pep. The album sags a little after this but there are some nice touches of humour and political savvy. Judging by this album they were unjustly overlooked at the time, but interesting in retrospect and definitely an influence on the second wave of punk bands like the Boomtown Rats and others.
The Human League (fun fact - named after a faction in a 70s sci-fi war game) were stalwarts of the early Sheffield avant garde electro scene. However, when half the original line up left to form Heaven 17 the future looked uncertain until front man Phil Oakey recruited two young women that he met in a club one night to act as backing singers and to bring a new dynamic to the band. The fact that they were still at school caused a few problems, when they had to be transported from recording sessions back to Sheffield to sit their exams! The 80s were a different time, but fortunately everything was above board in this case with no funny business.
The album showed a development from their earlier sound to a more pop sensibility, but they still retained a unique style in their songs. Apparently Oakey didn’t think that Don’t You Want Me was all that good, but he was overruled and it went on to be one of the defining hits of the 80s that still holds up today. There’s plenty of other good stuff here too with dance floor filler Sound of the Crowd, a cover of Roy Budd’s classic theme to Get Carter and a song about Judge Dredd.
Asymmetric-haircut-tastic!
Post punk, pre-grunge and completely different to just about everything else happening in 1987. In a weird bit of synchronicity, I found out the track Schizophrenia was inspired by Philip K Dick, just after I finished reading The Man in the High Castle yesterday. It’s very fitting - the album manages to be cerebral and sonically challenging - this is definitely one I’ll be returning to.
To be honest, I was expecting something a little bit more nerdy from these. There aren’t really any songs about the finer points of being a train spotter or what warp numbers in Star Trek mean, but it’s still a fun piece of rap/rock featuring Pharrell Williams and Lenny Kravitz amongst others. Probably a solid three stars but not sure if I’d go out of my way to listen to anything else by them.
This is a bit of an odd one. There’s a solid album of pleasant enough jazzy soft rock here, but for some reason they decided to pad it out to a double by including some tracks recorded at and inspired by the infamous 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago and an utterly bonkers improvised experimental guitar freak out that wouldn’t be out of place on a Hendrix album. File under “What were they thinking?”
It’s tempting to dismiss Slade as a novelty glam rock band, appearing on Top of the Pops with mirrored hats and outrageous mutton chop whiskers, but they were always much more than that. For a while in the early 70s, Slade were one of the biggest bands in the UK and they also managed a great comeback as a last minute replacement for Ozzy Osborne at the Monsters of Rock in 1980.
This album is a classic example of a rock solid band on top form, with a great selection of original songs and a couple of covers. Noddy Holder has a unique vocal style, and you can hear his Black Country accent creeping in. The rest of the band are equally tight, and as well as the stomp along numbers there are a couple of quieter tracks featuring (gasp!) a piano and even some harmonies.
Bostin!
Rock and hip-hop might have seemed like an unlikely combo back in 1986, but in retrospect who better for a group of misogynistic rappers to team up with than some misogynistic rock dinosaurs to sing about taking advantage of school girls at a high school dance. The rest of the album isn’t much better, including a whole song about their favourite brand of trainers.
I had always thought that Todd Rundgren was an 80s rock guitarist and jobbing producer, but it turns out he has a lot of different strings to his bow, including a career that started in the 60s and this wildly ambitious self produced 1973 solo album on which he sings, programs the synths and plays just about everything. Musically this is prog with a sprinkling of 60s psychedelia and experimental electronica. Somehow he also managed to cram 56 minutes of music on to a single vinyl disc. Amazeballs.
French hip-hop was probably the last thing I was expecting today, but this hooked me straight away. My schoolboy French is pretty rusty, so he could have been rapping about his cat throwing up on the carpet or going down the shops, but whatever it was sounded effortlessly cool. MC Solaar himself is of Senegalese origin, so the beats mix in some Afrobeat with soul, jazz and a certain Gallic Je ne sais quoi. C’est fantastique!
America is bitterly divided. A doddering celebrity president is weaponising the government to line his pockets while grinding down the poorest with militarised police actions. Foreign wars are used as handy distractions and the milquetoast democrats are worse than useless. Oh, wait, 1980 wasn’t all that different from now.
Damn, I wish this album wasn’t relevant today but it bloody well is. Songs like Kill the Poor, Holiday in Cambodia and California Uber Alles still hit as hard as they ever did, backed with rock solid classic punk tunes. Fourteen songs in just over half an hour, no messing. Listen to this and then go and eat the rich.
While he was working on his previous album Skeleton Tree, Nick Cave and his family suffered an almost unimaginable tragedy - his 15 year old son Arthur died in an accident in horrific circumstances, leaving behind a family wracked and broken by grief. While some of the lyrics on Skeleton Tree dealt with the immediate aftermath, this album is about the process of going through the grief of losing a child, dealing with anger, despair, poignant memories and ultimately accepting the unacceptable truth. It’s not an easy listen, but it’s an unforgettable one that speaks to a fundamental human experience.
Back in 1973 modular synthesisers and sequencers were expensive, complicated and temperamental things. For this album, the band spent their advance on buying the latest technology available from Moog and then had to spend hours each day tinkering with it before they could start recording. Even when you finally got the sounds you were trying for, the analogue capacitors in the machines would start overheating and affecting the output in unpredictable ways. This can be heard on the title piece, a seventeen minute improvisation in the studio, where the sound starts to go a little wonky towards the end.
The end result is still something magical though - it has a warmth and random charm that is missing from modern digital synths and production technology, and the music points the way towards things like ambient and even acid house and dub sounds from decades in the future from when this was made. Genuine, pioneering musical genius.
Synth-tastic!
Currently listening to this album on my best headphones sat outside enjoying the late August sunshine, and I already feel more relaxed. This is music for lazy days and cool evenings, effortlessly mixing classic beats and trip hop rhythms with aplomb. Unreserved five stars for this one.
There comes a time in every rock bands life when they’ve thrown all of the tellies out of the hotel windows and parked their Rolls Royces in the swimming pool, and they’re wondering how to spend their advance from the record company, and somebody (probably the bass player) suggests recording a live album with (get this man) a full symphony orchestra, because Bach was like, really metal, if you think about it, dig?
The rest of the band will try to dissuade him, but then the accountant says it would probably be good for tax reasons so they book an orchestra and set to arranging their tunes for maximum epicness and coming up with a rude joke for the title - Symphony and Metallica (abbreviated to S&M - do you see what they did there?)
The results in this case are actually pretty good - the conductor and arranger Michael Kamen uses the orchestra to set the stage for Metallica’s signature metal songs and the audience is clearly loving it (and singing along). All of the favourites are here, but the highlight for me is probably the classic Enter Sandman which sounds suitably awesome.
Classical-tastic!
The title and cover for this album make a powerful statement about endemic and systematic racism, and the music and lyrics back that up mostly. I really enjoyed the nods towards Afro-beat and jazz, with production from the great J Dilla adding a lot to the mix as well.
However, there is still an uncomfortable amount of casual sexism and homophobia on here. Apparently Common has now apologised for this, but it’s difficult to understand how you can be opposed to one form of injustice while not seeing yourself perpetuating the same attitudes towards other oppressed groups.
I’m not usually one to judge an album by its cover but in this case, come on, what were they thinking? I don’t care how arty and black & white it is, it’s still a topless woman pretending to breast feed a stuffed toy tiger. Once you get past this, the music is largely inoffensive folky, pop with one weirdly out of place electro dance number.
I was very taken with the Cocteau Twins early albums from the start of the 1980s. They had a certain otherworldly charm that was quite unlike anything else in the charts at the time. However, by the time this album came out in 1990 I think that they’d lost something. I mean, she even sings in English at some points!
The production also had that 90s plasticky, digital feel losing the analogue warmth of the earlier recordings. I guess that they were pre-cursors of shoe gaze but by this point, there were other bands who were shoe-ier and gaze-ier.
Let’s be honest here, if you aren’t already a Tom Waits fan then this album is going to be a tough place to start. It takes a very back to basics approach, recorded in a bare bones studio with concrete walls giving a raw, visceral sound.
The songs take no prisoners, dealing with death, murder ballads, religion (from mawkish to fire and brimstone Old Testament stuff) and the Earth dying screaming. Cheery.
Tom himself is on fine gravelly voiced form and sounds like he’s been gargling with bourbon and razor blades to get in shape. For anyone that can get on board with this, you’re in for a fine time with music that will stay with you for a long time.
If there’s a band from the early 2000s that I haven’t heard of then there’s probably a good reason. In this case the Beta Band are perfectly named - they’re fine, average, middle ranking, unlikely to trouble the charts and most likely to cover for a replacement afternoon slot on the second stage somewhere like Latitude or Truckfest. They won’t frighten the horses or upset your nan. I quite enjoyed the 60s vibe on some of the tracks and the dog barking on Outside. That’s about it.
This sounds exactly like the sort of 70s psychedelic prog rock album that you would expect to hear from someone called “Randy California” (stop sniggering at the back!). It’s a varied mix of different styles and it feels like it influenced other bands - the track Space Child wouldn’t sound out of place on The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis which came out four years after this.
It’s also instructive to compare this with the 1990’s album Lazer Guided Melodies from Spiritualized that came up on my list yesterday - this is very much the sort of space rock that the latter album was trying (and failing) to emulate. Probably not the sort of thing I’d listen to regularly but a solid album nonetheless.
It’s quite an achievement to make an album that you can listen to for an hour and have absolutely no memory of what you’ve just heard. As the final track finished, I genuinely struggled to recall anything about it. I guess it’s 60s psychedelia through a 90s shoegaze lens, with bits of ambient and drone music thrown in. In theory this should be right up my street, but it’s not quite as good as the bands that it tries to emulate - there are nods to the Velvet Underground, the synths from 70’s Who and Hawkwind, and possibly a bit of Brian Eno, but it never quite gels.
It’s billed as Space Rock but it never gets much beyond a disappointing sub-orbital flight.
Every Bowie album is a transition, from one style of music to another and a change of persona too. This album saw Bowie going through a serious cocaine problem, on the edge of a nervous breakdown. He said goodbye to the plastic soul of Young Americans and became the Thin White Duke, a sinister drug addled anti-hero with dubious politics, and took inspiration from European electronica and Krautrock in particular.
The title track pays homage to Kraftwerk’s Trans-Europe Express as it opens with eerie electronic train sounds and builds up a metronomic beat before letting rip in a joyous stomping finale. Other highlights are Golden Years, which harks back to his earlier soul sounds and the final track Wild is the Wind which anticipates the haunting sounds of his Berlin albums and his later film soundtracks.
Mixing down tempo house beats and eclectic samples, with some gorgeous vocals this album hits all the right notes for me. Their most famous track is a cover of Neil Young’s Only Love Can Break Your Heart which is in strong contention for one of my favourite covers of all time. This track was recorded in two hours, featuring Moria Lambert on vocals and earned the band a recording deal and a respectable hit in the process. Lambert was later replaced by Sarah Cracknell who performed the rest of the tracks on this debut album.
I’m not sure why I missed this album first time around, but I’m glad I’ve found it now and I’ll certainly be listening to more of their work.
Just a note for international readers - not everyone in the UK lives in London, or wants to live in London, or even just visit it for a day out to remind themselves why they don’t want to live in London. Even if you’re a Londoner, a concept album about London from well known geezer Damon Albarn and pals is probably a bit much. It didn’t really grab me as each track seemed to just be indistinguishable droning over a bit of plinky plonky piano like a drunken sing along in the Queen Vic, but probably not as much fun.
You might expect an album by a band called The Birthday Party to be mainly songs about jelly, cake and balloons, but hello, who’s this shambling into the studio? That’s right kiddies, it’s our old friend Nick Cave fronting this post punk band and sounding like Tom Waits, if he’d decided to focus on heroin instead of booze.
This is reliably good stuff from Cave though, and clearly shows where he would be heading later with the Bad Seeds and his solo work. One track of note is ‘Release the Bats’ which was an early proto-goth song, featuring the memorable line "sex horror sex bat sex sex horror sex vampire sex bat horror vampire sex."
Goth-tastic!
I mean, of course I’m going to love an album with a song titled “If Your a Wizard Then Why Do You Wear Glasses?“ (sic). This is great, weird, experimental stuff with tribal drums, songs about witches and witch trials, and references to the Brocken mountain legends. I’m pretty sure that this will polarise listeners, but I’ll take this over yet another hip hop or 70s yacht rock snooze fest any day.
Naming your band after a famous Confederate battle in the American Civil War is certainly a flex, but after reading the stories of how the band were made to work on multiple takes of tracks in marathon studio sessions, perhaps Stephen Stills thinks that slavery was a fine idea? Anyhoo, the resulting double album is a bit of a sprawling mess of different genres, but the best section for me is found on side 2 (or whatever the digital equivalent is) which features some nice bluegrass and country sounds amidst the 70s soft rock.
What do you do if you’re a bored teenager in the 1970s, living in a small village in the arse end of nowhere (or Devon as it’s properly known)? You grab a guitar, learn one chord and start a punk band! The Adverts certainly nail the Ramones sound, and they’re a lot more talented than their one chord reputation might suggest. Front man TV Smith has an authentic punk sneer and his songs are spiky and literate, and he’s well supported by Gaye Advert’s amazing bass playing that underpins some enthusiastic guitar and drums to complete the lineup.
The highlight is the (controversial at the time) Gary Gilmore’s Eyes that picks up a macabre death row request from the titular spree killer to donate his corneas to medical science before facing a firing squad. Probably the catchiest song about a murderous eye transplant to hit the top 20!
Eye-tastic!
This was a band that I hadn’t heard of and they were classed as Britpop, at least according to Wikipedia. This washed over me on first listening, but then I went back and gave them another chance and that that’s when they grabbed me. This is closer to folk rock like the Waterboys or Echo & The Bunnymen, with a darker edge hidden under the jangly guitars and (at first hearing) cosy songs.
They’re from Liverpool with Irish heritage somewhere in the mix, and listening closely shows that they are singing about the experiences of being broke, trying to buy drugs and of a would be thief getting knee-capped for his troubles. Yikes. This probably explains why they were overlooked by mainstream music fans who preferred songs about boozy lads holidays and dog racing.
Scouse-tastic!
Courtney Love has been on the receiving end of a lot of misogynistic snobbery from the music press and a particular demographic of male music fans, who saw her as some sort of Yoko figure riding on the coat tails of Kurt Cobain and even wild conspiracy theories blaming her for his death. In response, she put out a string of excellent albums, of which this is probably the best - assured, polished and confident post grunge indie rock with some real bangers. My highlight was probably the final track Petals which is insanely catchy.
Ok, I’m starting to think this list might be deliberately messing with me. After saying that I sort of enjoyed a hip-hop album yesterday, it immediately throws me another one, but this time we’re back to the tedious bragging over tired beats. The only track that I really enjoyed was an ode to the joys of eating cornflakes, and I realised that the hip hop albums I like are the ones that have a sense of humour and don’t take themselves too seriously.
Well, this was a lot of fun - I really enjoyed the variety of music here with Queen Latifah’s assured rapping on top. The guest artists are a treat too, with De La Soul being a highlight. The only downsides were a couple of tracks featuring men, and some of the 80’s house beats sounded a bit weedy in comparison with the more substantial soul and funk tracks.
The UK blues Rock scene of the 60s was a very incestuous thing. People would start bands, split up, go off on solo projects and then reunite for super groups. Jeff Beck was originally part of the Yardbirds but then fired in the middle of a tour.
This was his solo album featuring Rod Stewart on vocals, who, it has to be said, is not really the best fit for this sort of blues music. In fact there’s a good argument to be made that white blokes from England shouldn’t be really appropriating black American music like this. Weirdly enough this album also includes a version of Greensleeves which at least is authentically English. but doesn’t really fit with anything else.
The best track for me was the bouncy singalong Hi Ho Silver Lining (included on the bonus track version) which I remember from many a school disco back in the day.
Life was tough for young people growing up in Northern Ireland in the late 70s - unemployment, poverty and the troubles all loomed large, as well as the universal concerns of teen angst and heartbreak. The Undertones focussed mainly on the last two with their songs that were instantly relatable to anyone who has ever sat in their bedroom wondering if they will ever get a girlfriend / boyfriend (delete as appropriate).
The late John Peel famously declared that Teenage Kicks was his favourite song of and played it twice in a row on his show. It’s still as good as it ever was, but there is a lot more to discover on this album with 16 songs clocking it at just over half an hour. It’s punk played with considerable verve and sung by Feargal Sharkey with his distinctive warbling vocals that were unlike anything else in the charts at the time.
This is exactly the sort of album that there should be more of on this list. It’s an improvised piece based on traditional Indian musical raga forms, telling the story of a day in the life of a shepherd. As well as the evocative sounds of the tabla and santor, there are also guitars and flutes which made this a crossover between Indian and Western music and influenced people like George Harrison and David Crosby.
The YouTube link has the original album:
https://youtu.be/yFWfF3Zow74
Black Sabbath were a band born out of sheer bloody mindedness with their unique sound being a combination of guitarist Tony Iommi’s adapted playing style after losing the tips of his fingers in an industrial accident and Ozzy Osborne’s doom laden vocals that were a perfect fit for songs about the occult.
The album opens with wind, rain and an ominous tolling bell, before that famous tritone chord kicks in like something out a Hammer Horror movie, with a song inspired by a nightmare that bassist Geezer Butler had about waking up to see an ominous black figure pointing at him. Other songs take Tolkien and HP Lovecraft as inspirations, although we are now a long way from the hippy, dippy sixties.
This is widely regarded as the first true heavy metal album (although Ozzy was reluctant to call it that), and it’s certainly one of the biggest influences on the metal scene as evidenced by the bands that contributed to Black Sabbath’s final show just a couple of weeks ago as well as the outpouring of love for Ozzy himself from fans and fellow artists. It was a fine way to bow out - rest in peace Ozzy!
OK, let’s start with the good. This is objectively a fine album, musically speaking. Quincy Jones is clearly the driving force behind this and his trademark production genius is to the fore, and there are songwriting credits for Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney too. The bad, is that it’s very difficult to listen to this knowing what we do about just how damaged Jackson was and how that manifested itself in his later life.
Anyone who grew up as a teenager in the 80s will remember Wham as the ultimate disposable teeny-bop boy band who everyone thought would have a string of number one hits before flaming out and being replaced by the next sensation. No one expected that George Michael would mature into a one of the best singer song writers of his generation starting with the album Faith in 1987 followed by this one in 1990.
Of the two, this is the more introspective and heartfelt record with fewer obvious hit singles. Apparently this made Sony nervous and they failed to promote it properly in the US, leading to long running legal wrangles. This didn’t stop it being a huge hit in the UK though, and it easily stands as one of George Michael’s best albums, made even more poignant by his tragic death in 2016.
There is a particular genre of heavy metal which seems to have been explicitly created to appeal to adolescent boys - the cutesy misspelled names (‘deth’), the badly drawn covers with EC Comics style horror mascots and let’s not even start with the lyrical obsession with gruesome subject matters.
In this case, it’s clear that you shouldn’t judge an album by its cover. It kicks in with a blistering pace, with fast, complex and accurate musicianship that wouldn’t be out of place on a 1970s prog album including surprising digressions where they suddenly throw in a bit of Spanish guitar halfway through a track.
The lyrics are also surprisingly on message - ok, so they mainly deal with war and violence but very much from an anti-war stance, talking about the human cost of war (especially religiously inspired conflicts) and there’s a nice dig at ‘military intelligence’ too.
Good stuff all round.
Way back when, we used to visit my uncle and this was one of the albums that he would regularly put on to show off about how good his expensive hi-fi system was. For me, this album evokes rainy Sunday afternoons and an air of almost unbearable sadness at the prospect of Monday morning and school.
The songs all feel mawkish and self pitying, and a lot of the lyrics make no sense when you stop to think about them. Ok, I can understand why you might prefer being a sparrow to being a snail but this is not a choice that’s likely to arise in the real world, is it? Also, how do you lay down like a bridge? Babies can’t drive! Nonsense nonsense nonsense!
The Boxer is good though, mainly for those booming drum crashes in the chorus. Objectively this is a classic album, but I’ve listened to it enough times in my life.
There are many arguments about what exactly is the first punk album, but it’s clear that while Funhouse doesn’t qualify as punk (the songs are too long for starters), you can trace a line from this to the New York scene and just a few years later to the UK.
It’s a remarkable piece of work - raw, uncompromising, and bringing in elements of the West Coast garage sound with hard rock and a noticeable proto-motorik drum sound that anticipates Krautrock by at least a year. Iggy is on fine form with this (the coughing fit in the middle of TV Eye notwithstanding). Perfect for a freak out!
Say what you like about the 80's but they certainly had the best one hit wonders. Party Fears Two by the Associates was one of those, and bizarrely went on to be the theme music for Week Ending, a topical comedy programme on BBC Radio 4 that I listened to for many years. The rest of this album is best described as experimental, if the experiment is how can we sound like Sparks crossed with David Bowie playing using a cheap 80s synth and guitars filled with piss (seriously, the wikipedia article is an eye opener!). It's a bit of fun and bought back a few memories but I don't think I'd go back to it again.
An all time classic, starting with a classic rhythm and blues sound and developing into the rock ‘n’ roll that we all love, influencing both Elvis and the Beatles along the way. This must have been impossibly exciting to hear for the first time back in 1956 and songs like Blueberry Hill still send a shiver down my spine.
If anyone mentions the Beach Boys, you automatically think of sun, surf, sand and girls (in roughly that order) sung by fresh faced, smiling Californian dudes. Alarm bells already start ringing with the cover to this album depicting a defeated spear carrier on a dying horse, looking like a Scandinavian death metal illustration. Whilst the music sort of sounds like the Beach Boys of old, the subjects include death, student riots and pollution with only a couple of moments where Brian Wilson’s genius shines through (notably in the title track which was a hold over from the legendary lost Smile album).
It’s the Beach Boys Jim, but not as we know them.
Ok, I’m in two minds about this album - it’s gorgeously produced, and Missy herself has a huge amount of sass. However, it opens with a spoken introduction (including a stunningly uncomfortable reference to the current president of the USA) and there are more of these throughout, feeling almost like a dvd commentary track. I get the sentiment, and the call for rap rivalries to be settled through words rather than violence is heart felt, but they still feel out of place.
Missy can also be as crude as male rappers (equal opportunities!) and there is some cheeky use of sound effects (guess what a cat miaowing is a reference to), but her feminism seems a bit reductive. It’s a positive thing to sing about female sexuality but then she limits it by going on about keeping your man happy so his eyes don’t wander. I mean, really?
The best track is a collaboration with Beyoncé in the form of a phone call between the pair of them, and I wish more of the album had been like that.
It still seems slightly incongruous that the city of Bristol should be responsible for the entire trip hop genre, but in retrospect this mix of laid back vibes with a hidden edge fits the place perfectly. This is easily one of the best albums of the 90s, albeit overshadowed by Britpop a few years later and a ridiculous controversy during one of the Gulf Wars where they were forced to change their name to Massive for a while. Unfinished Sympathy is the best known track on here, but everything else is worth listening to on the best headphones that you can lay your hands on.
I’ve always thought that Pixies were sort of the evil goblin godfathers of grunge and hard to get into, but this album actually turns out to feel more like a 60s garage/surf guitar record and is quite a lot of fun. I mostly enjoyed listening to this, but I was slightly disappointed that they didn’t include at least one proper bossanova track.
The Cars are probably best known for their MOR hit ‘Drive’ which was featured as part of the Live Aid concert in 1985, however this album dates back to 1978 and is categorised as New Wave which seems slightly odd. My first impression was that this was closer a 1970s art rock sound, along the lines of Roxy Music and that ilk. It was a pleasant enough listen, but nothing revolutionary - I remembered the track ‘Best Friends Girl’ which was a modest hit in the UK at the time, but the rest of it washed over me.
Oddly enough this album opens with the classic Enter Sandman with a riff that is almost grunge (it was 1991, after all), but quickly settles down into familiar heavy metal territory with a heavy, doom laden song about being scared of nightmares. Apart from that, The Unforgiven plays with a spaghetti western vibe and Don’t Tread on Me gleefully nicks a riff from the song America from West Side Story.
Metal-tastic!
I was somewhat intimidated by this album’s reputation - hardcore thrash punk from wild-eyed Californian anarchists, but it’s surprisingly accessible. Listening to it is like standing on a cliff top in a storm, being buffeted by the wind and feeling the danger and exhilaration of something raw and primal.
There’s the classic punk sound, reminiscent of The Ramones, but they play with that simple structure by changing the tempo and adding new elements. OK, some of the lyrics are screamed and difficult to follow, but others are compelling songs and some highly effective spoken word passages from Henry Rollins in the title track Damaged I, showing where he would later go with his poetry.
My favourite track was probably TV Party, about the joys of watching your favourite shows like Hill Street Blues and Dallas, whilst drinking a few brews. There’s a twist coming though - what if your tv is broken? Oh noes!
Punk-tastic!
OK, I thought that I liked Roxy Music, but it turns out that I just like the early hits with Brian Eno freaking out on his cobbled together synthesisers. This album has a couple of interesting rock/blues tracks and a seriously odd one that sounds like it was recorded in a 1930s Berlin nightclub followed by something that sounds like a combination of lute and medieval crumhorn. Other than that, this album is just a stepping stone on the road to their easy listening 80’s era album Avalon.
Oh, and minus several stars for the seriously dodgy sexist cover
I wish that the 1001 Albums list had more albums like this - a genuine surprise and a perfect accompaniment to a hot and sultry day. Even though I couldn’t understand most of the lyrics, I enjoyed the changing moods and instrumentation which was almost Beatles-esque in places. Definitely something out of the ordinary!
I think I’ve finally worked out why I didn’t get on with Radiohead back in the day. It goes back to their first album and the ubiquitous hit single Creep, which came across as an attempt by some lamestain cob nobblers from Oxfordshire to sound like a Seattle grunge band, and was enough to put me off.
This album marks the start of their transition into a more experimental and interesting style, with Thom Yorke’s distinctive vocals (probably an acquired taste), obtuse lyrics and interesting guitar noodling. It’s not quite as compelling as the later albums, but worth a listen though.
This album was recorded in 1963, but not released by the record label until 1985, apparently worried that this performance would damage Cooke’s reputation as a pop singer. Well, to put it bluntly, RCA are idiots. This is a fantastic performance - raw, unfiltered and soulful, bantering with an enthusiastic crowd and full of energy. Definitely one of the all time great live albums.
This album is a bit overlooked, coming just seven months after Hendrix’s debut Are You Experienced. It’s probably the weirdest and most experimental of his albums too, with a very strange intro and lots of strange audio phasing effects in the production mix. Lots to appreciate here, and it points the way to Electric Ladyland.
This was a revelation for me - an extraordinarily frank and smart hip hop album talking about life, sex and relationships from a woman’s perspective. Each song has a short spoken word section that introduces the themes and they are the polar opposite of the painful skits that are usually found on albums like this.
The music is mainly down tempo with gorgeous vocal harmonies showcasing the lyrics. My only quibble is that this technically an EP rather than an album, but I’ve just seen that there’s a deluxe version that is immediately going on my playlist.
I always thought that Alice Cooper was just theatrics and Grand Guignol but this album has an interesting set of songs, at least from a musical perspective with well produced 70s rock. The lyrical content is a little more dubious, with songs about psychopathic dentists, necrophilia and the less said about Raped and Freezin’ the better. On the plus side, Elected covers the subject of corrupt politicians with sharp observations written while Richard Nixon was in charge, and is unfortunately even more relevant today.
In an uncertain world, it’s always good to start the day with a song that begins “Everything gon’ be alright this morning”. There then follows 50 minutes of gloriously raw, foot stomping blues from one of the all time greats, recorded in just three days with a very live feel to it. It’s one of those albums where it feels like you are in the room with the band, listening to them play.
Well, this is wild.
This classic prog album opens with ‘21st Century Schizoid Man’ that combines an full on Fripp freak out rock guitar solo, freeform jazz, angrily political lyrics and an eerie intro produced when someone accidentally rested their arm on a malfunctioning reed organ.
The second track ‘I Talk to the Wind’ calms things down a little with a flute dancing around the melody, before we get to the mellotron heavy ‘Epitaph’ to close side one. Flipping the album over, there are just two tracks - Moonchild and the cosmic weirdness of the title track which is like some sort of fever dream that builds to an epic climax.
Prog-tastic!
OK, I went on a bit of a journey with this one. I initially expected some sort of child friendly novelty music, but the opening track sounded intriguing right up to the point it turned into a white guy rapping. Alarm bells were starting to go off, but I still thought it might turn out to be something like the Beastie Boys (who really are the exception that proves the rule with this sort of music). I then went to check his Wikipedia page, which ticked every single red flag - confederate flag on stage - check, anti vaxer - check, Trump supporter - check. OK, I’m out.
I have a soft spot for this album, on the logical and sensible grounds that everything from Sheffield is super. The hits from this were ubiquitous at the time, but it’s only listening back now that I can appreciate just how much work went into them - it’s a truly lush affair, with sweeping arrangements from Anne Dudley, cutting edge electronica using a Fairlight CMI from JJ Jeczalik, overseen by producer Trevor Horn. It’s no coincidence that these people would form the nucleus of the Art of Noise just one year after this.
The songs all hold up I think, even the spoken passages that make it feel a lost soundtrack to a fifties movie in places. Martin Fry is a classic crooner who knows how to tug at your heart strings, with love and heartbreak being the theme that holds this album together. Classic 80s!
This one grabbed from the outset, an unexpected snatch of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition played on an old modular synth followed by a sample from a king fu movie (which is pretty much de rigueur for anything related to the Wu Tang Clan). From this point on, the obvious samples are dialled down and the music is dark, downbeat and dangerous. The lyrics have a cheeky sense of humour though, with one typical dis being ‘Yo Momma don’t wear no drawers!’. I also enjoyed a lyrical riff on the song ‘I Will Survive’ and a surprisingly sweet and heartfelt love song called ‘All I Need’.
One of the defining sounds of the disco era, with Bernard Edwards’ funky bass lines laying down a solid groove for Nile Rodgers’ guitar licks to embellish producing music that is guaranteed to get you dancing. This is an album that you could put on at the start of the evening and happily play on repeat with no complaints from your party guests.
Listening to this album is bitter sweet. Brian desperately wanted to complete this album back in the 60s as a follow up to the classic Pet Sounds but for various reasons it was never finished. The stress of this probably contributed to his problems with his mental health and the eventual breakup of the Beach Boys. He was finally able to lay this to rest in 2004 with a live performance and accompanying album but you can’t help wondering how things might have panned out if everything had gone to plan back in 1967. Rest in Peace Brian.
I’m not averse to a bit of Americana and I initially had high hopes for this album - songs like the title track and one called Barbed Wire and Concrete have a gritty, Springsteen-esque feel to them. However, the reality fell somewhat short - it’s fairly by the numbers alt-country stuff, with barely a fiddle or banjo to be heard. There’s also a car crash of a production process detailed on the wiki page, with 90% of the songs being scrapped and a falling out with her long time producer.
1980 was a weird year in Britain. We’d come out of the 70s into a bright, new future of yuppies and royal weddings, but there was a distinct sense that society was rapidly splintering with the Thatcher government busy driving a wedge between the haves and the have nots. There were grim times ahead.
This is a fascinating snapshot of a transition point in music, moving from punk to the darker side of new wave and an industrial/proto gothic sound, influencing later bands like Nine Inch Nails and Soundgarden. I think this was probably overlooked at the time, especially in comparison with Joy Division and there is some great electronica here too. Excellent stuff.
“Hello, I’m Johnny Cash”
Has there ever been a more iconic opening line to a live album? Probably not. Some people might ask why there are two Johnny Cash prison albums on this list and I would say that they are both equally good, with distinct differences in tone. This album feels a little more playful, although the subject matter is as dark as ever - death, poverty, addiction, heartache and the brutal reality of life in prison. Cash even manages to find humour in a song about an inmate on death row counting down the minutes until his execution.
The final track, Greystone Chapel, is notable for having being written by inmate Glen Sherley who was sat in the audience with no idea his song was about to be performed. He did actually work with Cash for a while after his release from prison in 1971, but he never managed to fully escape from his troubled past, Folsom having failed to deal with his many problems, and he sadly took his own life in 1978 aged just 42.
In one of the weird coincidences that this list throws up, this album was masterminded by Q-Tip who also appeared on the De La Soul record that I listened to the other day. It also makes for an interesting compare and contrast - this album pulls to a tighter beat with the vocals higher in the mix, but then layers a jazzy feel on top of the core sound. Again, this is the sort of hip hop that I can get on board with.
I could have sworn that I hadn’t heard anything by the Flaming Lips before, until the track ‘Do You Realise?’ came on and I remembered it being a hit back in the early 2000s, probably because it sounded a bit like the Coldplay style that was practically compulsory back then. Fun fact! Justin Timberlake appeared with them dressed in a shark costume when they played this on Top of the Pops!
Anyhoo, that track isn’t a good example of the rest of the album which starts with a four song sequence with a sort of sci-fi concept with nice bloopy synths and a narrative about the eponymous Yoshimi. I really enjoyed this bit, but the album lost a bit of focus after that. It’s still enjoyable in a vaguely shoe gazey style though.
It’s said not to judge a book by its cover, but in this case this album does exactly what it says on the tin. From the parental advisor warning to the Iron Maiden style apocalyptic zombie thing, it’s clear that this is good old-fashioned thrash metal with pounding drums, galloping bass, growling vocals and lots of fast, twiddly guitar. It’s a brisk 36 minutes in length with songs about war, death and the occult, and not a lot else. It certainly kept me awake on a dull drive back from the office today. Thanks Megadeth!
I’ve not heard of the Replacements before listening to this album, but Apple Music told me that this was their third album with a more mature approach. However, the songs mostly deal with teen angst and one of them has the marvellous title of Gary Got a Boner. Good natured punk fun!
A hip-hop album, heavy with samples and opening with a skit - I should hate this, right? Wrong. Compared to other hip hop albums of the era, this is playful, jazzy, progressive and funny too. The samples here are eclectic choices (and also from a time before anyone thought to get clearance for them from copyright holders!). As well as classic soul and funk, we get artists like Hall & Oates, Johnny Cash, Steely Dan and The Turtles. There's also a cheeky French language tuition record thrown in for fun!
Legal problems with the samples used kept this album off digital platforms for a long time, causing the band to release everything for free on Valentine's Day 2014 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of this album's release. The good news is that an edited version with the samples still causing problems removed or replaced is now available to stream.
Three-tastic!
This album saw the return of original guitarist John Frusciante, who had left the band some years previously after struggling with drugs and alcohol. The recording process sounds like they had fun, creating a relaxed west coast garage feel with a mix of punk, funk and laid back vibes. There are a couple of instances of white people rapping, but fortunately not too many to spoil things.
Judging by the cover I was expecting some sort of parody version of Sgt Pepper’s by the Beatles, but what I actually got was almost aggressively bad. Unfunny skits, unlistenable experimental interludes and lyrics that were written by someone who hated both hippies and ‘the man’, trying to show how ‘CRAAAAYZEEE’ they were but sounding like a budget Dr Demento.
Not much appears to have changed since the first album which very much underwhelmed me. He still sings in that affected, Thom Yorke style where every syllable is drawn out until it collapses under its own weight and you’ve lost track of what he was singing at the start of the verse. I genuinely thought he was singing about being “under the pastries” at one point.
Musically, there elements of classical stuff and hints of Phillip Glass, but it’s mostly inoffensive stuff. There’s nothing like the weird experimental pieces on a Radiohead album, for example. Apparently iTunes wanted me to listen to the Canadian version of this album, which turned out to have some bonus live tracks sung in French which I ended up liking quite a bit more than the rest! How aboot that, eh?
This was the moment that Pet Shop Boys went from being purveyors of cerebral, arty music into producing huge, gay, disco stomps and cemented their place in their British pop star firmament. There’s a lot to enjoy here, but the references to Lady Di on ‘Dreaming of the Queen’ now feel very poignant. Stay for the hidden track after Go West at the end!
This is an album that deserves to stand alongside What's Going On by Marvin Gaye as an inditement of the state of America. Mayfield sings of poverty, violence and oppression counterbalanced by love and faith. A great soul album, in the truest sense of the word.
The Newport Jazz Festival (like its Folk cousin) had a reputation for being cerebral and (small c) conservative, which was why it was such a revelation when Duke Ellington pulled off this barnstorming performance that had the normally staid crowd dancing in the aisles. Due to problems with the recording the original release of this album was mostly a studio performance recorded the next day, but in 1999 another tape of a radio broadcast surfaced enabling us to hear the full show for the first time. This is really live jazz at its best! Nice!
I clearly remember hearing this album for the first time, with no idea of what to expect. That distinctive accordion wheezing followed by staccato gunshots of the drums, and a lyric that evoked the horrors of South Africa under apartheid.
Yes, this was controversial at the time, with a cultural boycott in place but Simon was clearly championing black African music by paying the musicians three times the going rate and giving writing credits. It certainly brought bands like Ladysmith Black Mambazo to a much wider audience than they would have had otherwise.
Does it hold up now? Well, I’ve listened three times and I’m listening again which should tell you something.
I know that this is a critically acclaimed hip-hop album, but something about it was niggling me and it finally struck me on the third track, Hand on the Pump. It opens with a sample of Duke of Earl by Gene Chandler, and I realised that I would much rather be listening to the original.
They’ve just taken a classic intro to a song and chopped it up, without adding anything new or it having any relevance to their track. I have nothing against sampling per se, but it needs to have a reason for being rather than artists acting like a kid in a candy store grabbing everything in site.
How did an anarchist punk band from Leeds, with a name inspired by an Italian Marxist and fronted by a welsh art student singing in a falsetto voice over a cod reggae beat played on a Casio keyboard break into the top ten? Beats me too. It’s kind of catchy, and it turns out that the cheap keyboard sounds are actually played on an expensive Fairlight synthesiser (those distinctive brassy stabs are a dead giveaway and date this album precisely to 1985). The 80s truly were a weird time.
I was initially expecting this debut album from Fiona Apple (no relation to Tim Apple) to be along the lines of other singer/songwriters like Alannis Morrisette and Tori Amos, but I ended up preferring this to both of those. This is actually closer to a shoe-gaze sound (with the occasional torch song) and has considerable depth and complexity to it. I then found out that she was just 18 when this album was released and had written the songs during her teenage years. Wowzers!
This was Dylan’s third album after going electric, and probably one of his best. He’d got the band that he’d been looking for and moved recording to Nashville, making good use of the studio ambience by removing the screens between musicians, adding to the live feel. Talking of the music, he’s a long way from his folk roots here, comfortably playing a mix of blues and rock whilst still being recognisably Dylan.
The first track is a boozy stomp, hitting back at the critics who were still throwing metaphorical stones at him, but after that we get a blues number followed by the incomparable Visions of Johanna, the highlight of the album for me. This is Bob telling stories in ways that feel natural and honest, getting to heart of complex relationships and emotions with precisely the right words. You could listen to just this song a hundred times and still find something new in it each time.
Wow, the tonal dissonance on this album is something else. I knew that Randy Newman had a thing for mawkish tearjerkers on film soundtracks, but I really wasn’t expecting the opening track on this to be about the slave trade. Yikes. We then crash zoom into a cabaret style song about a jaded and debauched star, followed by a supernatural number and then one about a dancing bear. Wait, what? We also get a cheery number about starting a nuclear war for the fun of it.
Recorded live in San Quentin prison in 1968, this is as raw a piece of music that you will ever hear. Cash sings from bitter personal experience of the prison system and connects with his audience in a visceral way, bantering and dealing with hecklers as he introduces each song. There are certainly rough edges to this recording - Cash complains about the camera crew getting in the way (with an iconic photo of him flipping the bird in anger) and struggles with an out of tune guitar.
However, the songs are where this album shines. It opens with a cover of Dylan song and several classics, before Cash sings about his experience of being fined $36 and thrown in jail for picking dandelions by the side of the road, and the blazing fury against San Quentin prison itself which is a “living hell” that does nothing to make convicts better people when they leave. This song was such a hit with the crowd that he gave an immediate encore with both performances on this disc.
The full concert is available on YouTube and it’s well worth watching.
https://youtu.be/PSLsfwTbo4Q
This album is a perfect example of how hip-hip is not synonymous with gangsta rap. This is an art form that can be playful, funny, thoughtful and inspiring without resorting to sexism and homophobia. Musically, this album plays with cheeky samples and inspirations from jazz, to funk, to Afro-beat and even a bit of doo-wop scat thrown in, mixing it up so things never get dull. Genuinely engaging and fun!
Released at the tail end of Britpop, this album saw Blur finally move away from their blinky-blimey, mockney pretensions and shift into a more post-grunge, indie style. Ironically, their shortest track Song-2 was the one that finally made an impact in America and it’s probably the best thing on here. The rest is mostly ok, with the most interesting part for me being the 8 minute experimental track Essex Dogs which reminded me of David Bowie from this era.
There are two Bruce Springsteens. There’s the happy go lucky fellow, goofing around on stage with his best mates from the E Street band, playing a four hour show to a packed stadium. Then there’s the other one, alone with his guitar and a four track recorder, wracked with self doubt and trying to write songs of pain and darkness from the heart.
The original plan was to record these songs with the band, but for various reasons they never quite came together so in the end he released the original demos more or less as is. The result is haunting and deeply personal.
The title track is a proper murder ballad, telling a true story of a spree killer on the run with his girlfriend, coming to a gruesome end in the electric chair. Other songs cover familiar ground of poverty, brushes with the law (from both sides) and used cars, telling authentic stories, accompanied with just an acoustic guitar and occasional harmonica. The one song that stuck with me was Highway Patrolman, with a story about a policeman and his brother Franky who ‘just ain’t no good’. Is blood thicker than water? This song might have the answer.
I’ve previously spotted a genre of music best described as albums to be played during dinner parties in the 80s. Well, this album sounds like the sort of thing that would be played at *those* sort of parties in the 1970s. You know, the ones with men with droopy moustaches and flares, and women in inappropriate kaftans, where they all put their car keys in a bowl at the end of the night. This is weirdly bonkers semi improvised jazz/funk/folk that makes no sense whatsoever.
Amiable post grunge slacker rock that sort of shambles into view, plays a series of songs about nothing much in particular (skateboards are mentioned at one point) and shambles off again, presumably to have a nice lay down somewhere. I mean, I didn’t hate it but it didn’t really grab me either. The highlight was a spacey instrumental riff on an old Dave Brubeck number that came out of left field.
Today, in not judging an album by the cover (or band name), I was expecting a country record, but this turned out to be closer to blues or folk, with an interesting mix of styles and influences. Save for the first track, the whole album was recorded in one day with no overdubs, using a single microphone set up in a church which lends a unique ambience and live feel to the recording.
The highlights are a riff on Blue Moon by Elvis and a cover of Sweet Jane by the Velvet Underground, with vocals from lead singer Margo Timmins being spine tingling throughout.
Willie Nelson is probably best known for his authentic style of outlaw country music, so it was something of a surprise when he teamed up with Booker T Jones to record an album of great American songbook classics from Hoagy Carmichael to Irving Berlin to George Gershwin. The result is really rather affecting, with Nelson’s slightly quavery voice adding emotion to well worn songs with music from Jones on organ and piano complementing him perfectly. Just goes to show that you should never pigeonhole people into single genres.
I have nothing against folk music, per se, but I think it’s best experienced in the snug of a traditional pub, whilst drinking a pint of real ale, and played by women with long hair and floaty dresses, or men with straggly beards and chunky jumpers. Needless to say, fingers should be jammed firmly in lugholes.
This album is in the American west coast folk tradition of the 60s, but it sounds too clean and overproduced, lacking in any sense of authentic lived experiences. The general effect of it was to wash over me, and not have any impact. I suspect that they might be better live.
Grungy, mostly spoken word punk with a nice edge to it. I really enjoyed these tales of creepy carnivals, vicious vampires and sinister sea captains told in a voice that ranges to a mumble, to a shout, to a scream accompanied by wailing guitars and rumbling bass lines. There’s a very eerie ambient hidden track on the end of this album too.
This is album features an unusual combination of instruments - a piano, a violin, a vibraphone and a bandoneón (a sort of accordion) - playing avant garde tango music that crosses over into jazz and classical minimalism with repeating patterns and themes. There’s a playful air to this as the violin and bandoneón bounce off each other, picking up on the rhythms established on the vibraphone. Perfect for a sunny day with a cool breeze blowing through the windows.
This is an album that does exactly what it says on the tin. Songs of heartache, sorrow, loneliness, doom, disaster and tragedy, and one song about how great it is to live in Kentucky. The Louvin Brothers sing in glorious close harmony, accompanying some fine music, mostly in a bluegrass style, although there are also a couple of gospel songs added to this album in case y’all could use some churchin’ up.
However, it turns out that real life was to tragically imitate the art. Of the brothers, Charlie was the sensible one but apparently Ira was the bad seed, prone to drinking and fits of temper, and after they parted ways in 1963 he died in a car crash a few years later. Sad.
Elvis Costello was something of an oddity and impossible to pigeon hole when this debut album was released in 1977. He sported Buddy Holly style specs, a greasy quiff and a punk sneer. Was it punk or rock ’n’ roll? Maybe we should just call it punk ‘n’ roll.
The songs are great though, already showing the remarkable talent that would dominate the UK charts through the late 70s and early 80s. The music doesn’t quite match up, and it was only after this album was released that the Attractions band was formed.
As previously mentioned, I have a complicated relationship with U2. I liked their early songs, full of righteous anger from four young men growing up in the middle of the troubles. However, their songs quickly became preachy and pompous, and they lost their edge (but not their Edge).
The mega successful Joshua Tree had its moments, but as with this album the good bits are entirely down to the production work of Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. The high points are the singles ‘Even Better Than The Real Thing’ and ‘The Fly’, but there’s still a lot of tedious filler on here (I’m looking at you, ‘One’).
Pay your taxes Bono.
Luis ‘Sabu’ Martinez was a regular on the New York Jazz scene in the 50s, playing conga with greats like Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. For his debut album as band leader on Blue Note he focused on music from his Cuban/Spanish heritage with a mix of rumba rhythms and traditional son styles.
As might be expected drums are foremost on this album, with complex, hypnotic poly rhythms and some harsh percussion that sounds like someone banging a tin can, interspersed with yelps and some unusual call and response bits. Also making an appearance is the distinctive tres guitar of Arsenio Rodriguez. Fabulous, life affirming music to brighten your day.
Up until today, I think that Tori Amos occupied the same mental pigeon hole as Alannis Morrisette in my head. However, as seems to be a regular occurrence with this list I was pleasantly surprised again. I found out that she started out in a short lived and not very successful 80’s electro pop band before pivoting into being a singer/songwriter in the vein of Joni Mitchell with a large helping of Kate Bush.
The crucial aspect for this album is that the songs are really rather good, ranging from the confessional to strong messages about the empowerment of women in the face of oppression, set to a mostly piano led accompaniment. I hesitate to call it a highlight, but the song Me and a Gun about her experience of being raped is utterly devastating.
This album had so little impact on me that I almost forgot to write a review of it! It’s very much in the BBC Six Music / Glastonbury indie stage on a Saturday afternoon vein of middle of the road mid 2000s rock music. The only bit that made me wince was when these 30 something rockers started singing about a girl being “only 17”. Yikes.
Ten years on from the seismic shock of appearing on stage at the Newport Folk Festival playing an electric guitar (gasp!) Bob returned to playing mostly acoustic for this album. This is the classic Dylan sound of guitar, harmonica and those familiar vocals, plus a comparatively restrained backing band.
Dylan always denied that any of the lyrics were autobiographical but given that he was in the middle of a marriage breakdown at the time it’s hard not to speculate about some of them. As always, they are complex with multiple layers of meaning and literary allusions, especially on Tangled Up In Blue that explores different interpretations of the title phrase and casually name drops “some poet from the 13th century” set on top of a simple repeated guitar riff.
I wonder if those outraged folkies ever returned to this album and asked themselves what they were so upset about back in 65?
Bob-tastic!
This album establishes its mood straight from the first track. We are very much in gothic gloomscape territory here, with resonant bass lines and sparse keyboards, before the tempo picks up for the second track and we hear Robert Smith’s plaintive, wailing vocals. The lyrical themes are also very much towards the darker end of the spectrum, especially on the spooky hit single A Forest. The definitive proto-goth album!
Goth-tastic!
In contrast to yesterday’s live album, this one feels much more like being at an actual performance. There’s a fantastic opening introduction by Fats Gonder to get you hyped up, before James Brown himself comes on stage at his swaggering, sweaty, sex machine best. He has a fantastic natural rapport with the crowd, leading them in a call and response, feeling very much like the evangelical preacher he would go on to play in the Blues Brothers movie. Just an all round great live performance captured on vinyl!
Motörhead were famously one of the hardest working heavy metal bands of all time, touring relentlessly with a dressing room booze rider of heroic proportions. Traditionally the Hammersmith Odeon would be the last gig on the tour, but ironically on this 1981 outing they didn’t play there, so presumably they were very tired by the end.
Anyhoo, this album does what it says on the tin. An absolutely blistering live set, starting with the iconic Ace of Spades and ending with Motörhead. There’s minimal banter between the tracks - just the name of the song and a quick dedication, and any crowd noise is not audible during the music. If you want live heavy metal, then this is the album for you.
I don’t normally pay much attention to record labels, but I will make an exception for anything from Warp Records from Sheffield who specialise in electronica and dance music. This record certainly lived up to my expectations, falling into three sections.
The opening tracks are all fairly sparse techno with minimalist beats but laying down some interesting patterns that build on each other. The record then moves into some heavier dub step with Middle Eastern flourishes and a richer soundscape to play with. The final tracks then come in with more of an ambient, modular synth feel with echoes of 70s bands like Tangerine Dream.
My personal highlight for this is the track Theme which sounds like it could be the soundtrack for a classic heist movie with bold, brass stabs and a god like bass line underpinning it. Absolutely epic stuff.
When David Bowie had a minor heart attack towards the end of the Reality tour in 2004 and more or less disappeared from public view, we all assumed that he’d retired. What we didn’t know was that he’d re-united with long time producer Tony Visconti, patching up their differences and working on this album in secret almost ten years later, releasing the first track as a total surprise.
The title track (and the cheeky cover) made it seem like he’d never been away, riffing on his classic Berlin era sound whilst bringing it up to date and throwing in some experimental flourishes. It certainly doesn’t sound like someone who is ready to throw the towel in or be content with playing a greatest hits tour for the money. I’m not sure I’d pick this over Blackstar, but it’s certainly one of the better modern era Bowie albums.
Ever wondered what grizzled old hippy Neil Young was getting up to at the height of punk in 1978? Turns out he was recording this mostly live album with a mix of acoustic and electric tracks, reuniting with Crazy Horse for a series of gigs. Musically it’s pretty much by the numbers folk-rock with no real surprises.
However, the lyrics read like something that someone who’d taken bad acid in 1970 might write. He starts by name checking Johnny Rotten, then on the next track he asks what happened to his old friends (presumably referring to Crosby, Stills and Nash) then remembers that he got bored of them and abandoned them because they were just dead weight to him. Ouch.
There are then couple of tracks that give the impression that he got stoned and fell asleep watching westerns on TV and somehow started dreaming about a man from Mars too. Very weird.
Cowboy-tastic!
In the early 80s Billy Bragg built a reputation as a fiery socialist troubadour, just one man and his guitar, recording two critically acclaimed albums and playing benefit gigs for striking miners and supporting the Red Wedge tour during the ‘83 elections. For this difficult third album (which was the working title for a while) he moved away from his earlier raw sound, bringing in other musicians and backing singers, with fuller production. Would this be his ‘Dylan Goes Electric’ moment?
Well, it actually works! He still has the same vocal style, ranging from plaintive wails to strident anger (which is fair to say is an acquired taste), but the extra elements really add to and complement his songs. The first single Levi Stubbs’ Tears from this album marks the transition in style, with a powerful song about domestic violence that is heightened by a single trumpet picking up the melody at the end.
Other songs cover familiar topics for Bragg - the humdrum reality of life in 80s Tory Britain, forthright political commentary and wistful songs of love and romance and marriage. To be honest, I still just about prefer Life’s A Riot With Spy vs Spy but this album can stand alongside the earlier work as a solid start to a discography.
Definitely one of the stranger and more obscure bands on this list, The Monks were five American GIs stationed in West Germany who started a band because they were bored. They performed on stage dressed in monk’s costumes with shaved heads, the music featured pounding drums and a heavily distorted banjo and the lyrics were equally wild, attacking the war in Vietnam amongst other things.
Nervous record companies refused to release their album in the United States because it was considered too experimental and controversial. In retrospect this can be seen as possible proto-punk record, crossed with weird art-rock and even a bit of skiffle.
Monk-tastic!
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this album, but it turned out to be an interesting mix of styles. Aguilera obviously knows her musical heritage and name checks artists from Billie Holliday to Etta James to make it clear where she is coming from.
This is a double album, with the first disc riffing on classic R&B sounds but I think that I preferred the second disc which goes further back bringing in jazz influences and even a 1940’s number in the style of the Andrew’s Sisters which she pulls off with considerable panache.
It’s probably not the sort of thing I’d listen to regularly, but I now have a lot of respect for Ms Aguilera for her depth of talent.
You might think that cutting back a band to just guitar, drums and vocals (and a smidge of piano) would be limiting, but The White Stripes demonstrate a variety of different styles and sounds on this album, starting with mostly grungy garage rock and touching on acoustic folk, country and punk to various degrees. I think I might have avoided this at the time, thinking it was style over substance (and the pretence of being siblings was a bit creepy), but this is solid stuff.
The only thing I’d take issue with is the lyrical content of some of Jack White’s lyrics which come over as a bit whiney and ‘but I’m a nice guy, why don’t women like me?’. I’m giving it another listen though, which should tell you something.
Some albums suffer from being too familiar with the well known hits overshadowing the other tracks. This is not the case here and the music flows seamlessly from the floor fillers to the more soulful numbers.
This album combines the legendary disco beats of Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards from Chic with four amazing vocalists, who are actually all sisters with the surname of Sledge. The result is one of the greatest disco records of all time with the highlight being the anthemic We Are Family.
The only quibble that I have with this is the selection of unnecessary remixes tacked on the end of this edition that add nothing of any note to the original versions. These can be skipped without missing anything.
This is very much on the Western side of the Country and Western spectrum, with songs of lost loves in Amarillo and lonesome boxcars, as well as two songs about good ol’ honky tonks closing with a great Hank Williams cover. I always used to think that I didn’t like music like this, but it turns out it’s the schmaltzy 70s Nashville style that I’m not a fan of. Albums like this bring in elements of traditional blues, rock and western swing and I would happily listen to this in a dusty bar late at night with a beer in hand.
Boxcar-tastic!
I was initially intrigued to listen to this one, mainly because I saw that Thomas Dolby had produced it and I have previously enjoyed some of his work. The album opens promisingly enough with a jaunty honky tonk style tribute to country singer Faron Young, but then it turns into a series of fairly bland and almost identical songs about nothing particularly memorable. It’s a pleasant enough listen, but it falls into the previously mentioned genre of unthreatening CDs to put on at 80s dinner parties.
Blandtastic!
The turn of the millennium was a really strange time. It felt as if we had all been holding our breath as the clock ticked over and we had no idea what to expect from the 21st century. This album arrived at exactly the right moment, mixing weird, glitchy beats, ambient noodling, abstract vocals and discordant jazz breakdowns.
I can see why it took some people by surprise, but would you really have preferred another by-the-numbers collection of rock songs? I’m glad when musicians produce experimental work, even if it doesn’t always land. It took me a while to get into this album, but it’s definitely one that bears repeated hearings, revealing new facets every time.
It’s interesting to go back to this album after listening to Born in the USA, to hear the difference in the sound. Where the later album was bombastic, this album is quieter and more reflective with more piano and less sax, although there are some excellent hard rock tracks on here too.
There’s a slightly odd obsession with cars though - driving around aimlessly, tinkering in oily garages and racing late at night on empty strips at the edge of town. Perhaps it’s the car as a symbol of freedom for a working class kid, although maybe that’s more of an American thing? There are also songs playing with Old Testament themes of vengeful Gods and other familiar themes of urban decay and poverty.
The highlight for me was the song Factory, an utterly devastating indictment of working class drudgery and poverty that chews people up and spits them out at the end of a working day. This easily stands alongside songs on similar themes from Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie.
When this album came out, it was easy to dismiss it as a typical bit of jingoistic, flag waving propaganda. Indeed, Ronald Reagan himself started using the title track as a campaign rally song. However, when you start listening to what Bruce is actually singing the level of disconnect between the bombastic chorus and the verses is enough to give you whiplash.
Born In The USA is a bitter and angry song about the fate of American GIs coming back from Vietnam to find that there are no blue collar jobs in their home towns and then ending up broken and in jail from post traumatic stress. Other songs have similarly veiled barbs - Cover Me is again about coping with hidden trauma and Dancing in the Dark is about someone with a crippling lack of self confidence, at odds with the jaunty, danceable synth pop music.
For me, this album is at its best in the quieter moments, and I’m glad that he chose My Hometown as the closing number which mixes nostalgia with frank honesty about a town suffering from unemployment and racial tensions.
I think that this album is probably Springsteen’s ‘Dylan Goes Electric’ moment that took him from earnest folk troubadour to mega stardom, maybe alienating some of his earlier fans while gaining a whole lot more.
Flag-tastic!
I’m not usually a fan of falsetto vocals on a record, but there was a point that this one won me round, and that was when they started singing about girls from Shipley. Apparently Wild Beasts were originally from Kendall, but are now based in Leeds so that counts as just about local to me. The music also grew on me too, rapidly promoting this band to a solid contender for a Saturday afternoon at a music festival on a sunny day slot.
1965 was a turbulent year for music. The Beatles had just invaded America and Dylan had gone electric (Judas!). The hippies were making their way to San Francisco and amongst them were the Byrds who bought all of these elements together with this album. The songs are a mix of Dylan covers, folk standards and original songs, with the most recognisable element being the jangly 12 string Rickenbacker guitar that is the centrepiece of their sound.
This album fed back into the musical zeitgeist, influencing Dylan’s nascent electric sound as well as the Beatles themselves with the riff from The Bells of Rhymney being a direct inspiration for George Harrison’s guitar on If I Needed Someone. The only slightly bizarre misstep is the final track which is a version of Vera Lynn’s wartime classic We’ll Meet Again, which obviously has a very different cultural impact in the UK.
What do you get if you team up a burnt out old hippy with the legendary dub music producer Lee “Scratch” Perry? The answer is the opening track on this album that sounds startlingly like modern trip hop, even though this came out in 1976. The rest of the tracks incorporate more of Martyn’s folk and jazz roots, also veering into ambient territory on the final track which apparently was recorded by a lake and includes ducks quacking!
What’s Going On is one of the greatest albums of all time, with searing social commentary about racism, corruption and the state of the planet, so it seems a little bit of a step back for the follow up to be a short album about (and let’s be blunt here) making sweet, sweet love.
I mean, it’s not subtle - the opening track gets straight to the point and immediately proposes getting it on. At least let me take my coat off first Marvin, and a bottle of wine and some flowers might be nice too. It seems that the object of Marvin’s lust might have felt the same as he has to beg them to stay on the next track.
However, the rest of the album quickly returns to the hot and steamy stuff with the erm, climax, being the tracks ‘You Sure Love to Ball’ and ‘Just to Keep You Satisfied’. Well, quite.
However, if you are looking for an album to inspire some sexytimes and the object of your affections is similarly broad minded and in the mood, then this might a good choice.
This is yet another album that I overlooked in the 80s, mainly because I didn’t have a cd player or get invited to the sort of dinner parties where this would be played as background music. Listening to this today shows that it really benefits from being heard through good headphones at high quality, rather than on a crackly AM radio - I’ve only just realised that she’s not singing about travelling to ‘Western Maine’ in Smooth Operator.
Sade has a voice that soars effortlessly on this, but she also has an equal writing credit on all of the songs on here, and clearly deserved the huge success that this album enjoyed. I’m not normally a fan of smooth soul/R&B but this is a cut above similar records from around this time.
Dinner-party-tastic!
This album came out in 2012 but the sound is very consciously rooted in 80’s style electronica, with influences including the Pet Shop Boys (but not as orchestral) and Daft Punk (but not as French). I’m in two minds (or heads) about this - it’s a pleasant enough listen but ultimately it’s a little bit insubstantial. I get the feeling it wants to be counted as a dance album but there’s nothing on here that has quite enough oomph to get me out on the dance floor.
From his breakthrough record yesterday to his final album, recorded just before his death in 2006 and released posthumously. This is an album full of strangeness and charm, with traditional instruments like the ngoni and calabash alongside guitars and harmonicas and vocals in a mix of languages. You don’t need to understand the words to feel the powerful emotions running through them.
Touré said that he thought this was his best album and who are we to argue? I also read today that in 2004 he became mayor of his home town of Niafunké and spent his own money earned from his music improving the roads, building generators, and installing irrigation and sewage systems. I can’t think of a better legacy to aspire to.
When young Ali was growing up in a small village in a remote region of Mali he earned the nickname Farka, which means donkey, because of his stubbornness. He wasn’t allowed to play music for cultural reasons, but he went ahead and made himself an improvised one string guitar from a tin can and a bit of string anyway. He quickly picked up the distinctive sound of the region and earned a reputation as a guitarist of note, learning how to sing in seven different languages too.
Some time in the 60s he heard the music of John Lee Hooker for the first time and wondered how this American musician was playing tunes that sounded like the ones he’d grown up with. He quickly realised that the blues must have been an evolution of the much older traditions that he knew. The instruments and languages may have changed, but the feelings were still the same.
I remember hearing this music on the radio sometime in the 80s on a late night show and was charmed by it, even if I couldn’t understand the words. The American musician Ry Cooder was similarly enchanted and tracked down Touré to make an album with him, bringing the best of both worlds together.
Apparently Touré wasn’t happy with his time in America, calling it a ‘spiritual car park’, and some of that sadness and longing for home can be felt here. It’s still a good place to start listening though and will hopefully lead on to people listening to other albums from this truly remarkable musician.
When I was a child Timbuktu was always a mythical place, as far away from home as it’s possible to be. Perhaps we’ve always had it wrong, and it’s Timbuktu that’s home and we are the ones who are lost?
This album comes with almost 50 years of cultural baggage attached, from Alan Partridge to the musical Mama Mia to every wedding disco I’ve ever been to, along with some of the most memorable songs of all time. If you can put that to one side and listen to this with no pre-conceptions then you are in for a treat.
The first thing to say is that this album feels a little like a greatest hits compilation, including ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’, ‘Money, Money, Money’ and ‘Fernando’, but any of the other tracks can justifiably stand alongside these hits. This is immaculately constructed pop, across a variety of genres from cheesy Euro disco to dark cabaret to good old rock ’n’ roll, not forgetting the majestic instrumental title track. The lyrics have an occasional odd turn of phrase (‘Dum dum diddle, to be your fiddle’) which just adds to their quirky Scandinavian charm when sung by Agnetha and Anna-Frid with just a hint of a Swedish accent.
Eurovision-tastic!
This album falls between Innervisions and Songs in the Key of Life and is sometimes an overlooked part of Stevie Wonder’s classic period. Perhaps the problem is that there is just too much good Stevie Wonder to listen to? This was his 17th album and the fourth out of arguably five of the best albums ever made.
There are no well known hits here (with just one number one single), just consistently great tunes in a unique progressive soul style. We have heartfelt love songs (Too Shy to Say) leading into lovely, squelchy boogie rhythms (Boogie On Reggae Woman) and it all flows perfectly. There’s a down tempo number about Creepin’ into someone’s dreams (with backing vocals from Minnie Ripperton!) that segues into a blistering funk attack on the moribund Nixon administration (with backing vocals from the Jackson Five!).
This is a great way to spend a Friday - I’ve listened to this twice in a row, and I’m just about to put it on again! Why not join me?
In one of those odd coincidences that this list throws up, today’s album is from Elastica who were fronted by Justine Frischmann who was half of a Britpop power couple with Damon Albarn and thus indirectly responsible for him writing two of the most self pitying and mawkish breakup songs of all time when they inevitably split up.
Anyhoo, as the saying goes this album is both good and original. However, the parts that are good aren’t original and vice versa. Albarn makes a guest appearance on this on a couple of tracks and was caught out shamelessly ripping off a riff from Wire on the track Connection. The non-Albarn tracks are a bit better, but there are clear similarities to the New York punk sound of the Ramones and especially Blondie on the track Vaseline.
As with Blur, I really wanted to like this, but in the end it swung and missed for me.
I remember hating Girls and Boys when it came out - an infuriating earworm that summed up the banality of early 90s lad culture. Parklife was a different story though, mainly for the fantastic guest appearance by the great Phil Daniels and a nice sense of humour.
I thought I might like the rest of the album, but it’s a bit hit and miss - I do like some of the tracks, especially the punk vibes of Bank Holiday and the places where they are trying to channel the 60s kitchen sink feel of the Kinks.
However, there are just too many jinky-janky, blokey-wokey, blinky-blimey faux working class pretensions from a group of art school students. Damon Albarn’s whiny voice really started to grate on me by the end of this too.
In 1958 Elvis, being poor and working class, was conscripted into the US Army for two years of military service. On his discharge in 1960, he was eager to get back into the studio to make more music with his old band. This album has more of a pop sound than some of his earlier rock ‘n’ roll, but it still sounds good with great production in a state of the art studio. Elvis’s voice had also noticeably improved, especially on tracks like his spine tingling version of Fever.
Apparently Colonel Parker only wanted the band to record the bare minimum eight tracks to meet the contractual obligation, but they actually managed twelve album bangers in the allotted time (plus some classic singles), with some great bluesy R&B numbers as they warmed up and got back into the groove.
Unfortunately after this the Colonel got his way and Elvis went back to making films again, instead of immediately following this up with another album.
Johnny Cash had one of the most distinctive voices, not just in country but across all music. This album, recorded the year before he passed away, is a fine example of his range - combining his own songs, traditional numbers and an audacious range of covers from Simon & Garfunkel to Depeche Mode to the Beatles, doing them all justice. The example that most people will know is his version of Hurt by Nine Inch Nails, where he fills it with his own pain to the extent that Trent Reznor said that it was now Cash’s song.
As might be expected the songs all explore the theme of the fragility of life, melancholy and looking back. It’s a tough listen at times, as his voice cracks with emotion, but he is more than supported by great group of musicians including Billy Preston, Don Henley, Nick Cave and Fiona Apple, with production by Rick Rubin keeping things together. A fine album and a fine tribute to one of the all time greats.
Before listening to any Gangsta rap album it’s a good idea to check Wikipedia to see if the artist in question is dead, a nonce or a Republican (or all three). In Snoop Dogg’s case it seems that he’s now a born again Christian (after being in the Nation of Islam and a brief spell as a Rastafarian for one reggae album). One can only assume that he doesn’t sing quite so many songs about his testicles nowadays. There’s also a disappointing lack of Peanuts references, presumably after legal action from the Charles M Schultz estate.
What do you do if you are a critically acclaimed hip hop duo suffering from musical differences? You go off and record an album each, and then put both of them out as a double album under your joint name and hope that nobody notices.
This is a real curate’s egg of an album. Parts of it are excellent - I was particularly taken with André 3000’s (I wonder if his mum calls him that) up tempo jazz version of Favourite Things, and of course the sublime ‘Hey Ya!’. However, for every inspired line about shaking it like a Polaroid picture, there is one about how roses smell like poo poo.
If you cut out the utterly cringeworthy skits and picked the best tracks from both discs, you would have an absolute classic. As it stands, it’s at least an hour and a half too long.
This album is quite unlike any other on the list that I’ve heard so far. Dreamy, etherial vocals with random, constructed lyrics in an unknown language combined with swirling guitars and synth, recalling some of the ambient, gothic gloomscapes of The Cure. Underpinning it is an occasionally incongruous drum machine making some of the tracks potentially danceable to (at least in 80s era goth discos where everyone was dressed in black and swaying softly).
The result is a shimmering marble of an album, that I’ve listened to on repeat for most of today, occasionally singing along to lines like ‘Hocus Pocus Donimoka’ or words to that effect.
Haircut 100 were the archetypal Smash Hits band back in the early eighties - clean cut young men with boy next door good looks, and I’m afraid to say I was a little bit dismissive of them as lightweight disposable tinkly bonk pop. The lyrics didn’t make any sense as far as I could tell - why was he so worried about going down to the lake, for starters?
Anyhoo, aside from the singles which instantly take me back to that halcyon summer of 1981, the rest of this album is surprisingly good. It’s much more in a Latin jazz funk style than I was expecting with slap bass, horns, marimbas and tinkly pianos. I would happily listen to a couple of tracks from this on a sunny evening with a cocktail in hand and not give two hoots about why he is singing about green escalators.
Favourite-shirt-tastic!
I was all prepared to shrug my shoulders at this album - pretty standard, middle of the road indie stuff from Canadian rockers Arcade fire, with a loose sort of concept theme of life in the suburbs, but one track made me sit up and listen. Month of May is a certified banger - a solid Krautrock beat and even a nod to the Ramones with a ‘1, 2, 3, 4’ lead in, and some great lines about ‘kids all standing with their arms folded tight’.
I started listening a bit more closely to the lyrics, and there’s some nice stuff in here about run down shopping malls and soulless housing estates patrolled by police chasing kids on bikes, where you can’t even recognise the house you grew up in without looking at the numbers on the door. The last but one track is Sprawl II, which is a great 80s style vaporwave pastiche leading into the final section about the Suburbs.
Malltastic!
The Pogues are much more than an Irish folk band and this album proves it. Yes, we still get the traditional songs, although fewer than you might think - there were three out of fifteen that I counted on the original release plus a couple more on the expanded edition including the classic Irish Rover with the Dubliners.
The musical influences are broader and more diverse here - Middle Eastern sounds and wild Spanish fiestas sit comfortably alongside punk influenced folk (or maybe folk influenced punk) with a solid backing band of talented musicians.
Shane MacGowan’s lyrics and vocals are as distinctive as ever from the mawkish Christmas classic Fairytale of New York (with the unmistakable Kirsty MacColl) to ballads and shanties, and powerful political songs about miscarriages of justice and the scattered Irish diaspora. A great album that has stood the test of time.
Late in 1968 David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash all found themselves at a collective loose end, having either left or been fired from their respective bands. They teamed up to form an eponymous supergroup, recording this album just before playing at the Woodstock festival. Aside from the jolly Marrakesh Express about the joys of the hippie lifestyle, this album feels oddly melancholy, with songs about doomed relationships and a sense of a golden age coming to an end.
The trio posed for the cover photo in front of a derelict house before agreeing on the band name and went back a few days later to retake the picture in the right order, only to find that the house had been demolished. That’s a perfect metaphor for the end of the sixties and this album as a whole.
This album starts promisingly enough with what sounds like a solid bit of late 80’s metal, but then we come to the second track. Oh boy. White people rapping is something that rarely ends well and shoehorning it into a metal track just makes it more toe-curlingly embarrassing. The previous lead singer Chuck Mosley just about got away with it, but new boy for this album Mike Patton is a fish out of water (literally, in the notorious shot of a fish flopping around in the video that went with this song). Almost unbelievably, it gets worse when he tries to be faux emotional with the track Zombie Eaters. No, just no.
The album very nearly redeems itself with a surprisingly faithful cover of the classic War Pigs by Black Sabbath, but the overall impression is of something that has dated very badly.
This is probably one of my least listened albums from Elvis Costello and I’m not sure why because it’s really rather good. This is very much a back to basics album after the experiments with Americana on the previous album.
The opening track sets out a theme - this is literally uncomplicated rock, focussing on a raw sound and straightforward lyrics. Tokyo Storm Warning channels Bob Dylan circa 1965 with vivid scenes on each verse and similarly I Want You channels the Beatles She’s So Heavy with a repeated lyric that builds a claustrophobic atmosphere of an obsessive relationship.
For a small suburb of Los Angeles, Compton has produced a disproportionately large amount of Gangsta Rap albums. Ok, I get it, it’s one of the most deprived areas of the USA, and I can’t imagine how tough it must have been to grow up there as a young black man, but I really think I’ve listened to enough albums like this now. This one is probably one of the better ones, unusually featuring a Christian conversion prayer alongside the usual m— f—in n— words, but enough already.
The Clash were never really just a punk band. Aside from the opening track which anticipates the nuclear paranoia of the 80s with a howl of despair, the music here is diverse and literate, covering jazz, ska, dub, Americana (with a nod to Staggers Lee) and good old rock ‘n’ roll. Even that iconic cover pays homage to Elvis Presley’s debut album, and rightly so. This is a band paying their dues and saying things that need to be said, as well as having a lot of fun with bouncy songs about the drudgery of shopping alongside political bangers about fighting fascism. As relevant now as ever.
#1001Albums
I came to this with no idea what to expect and ended up being pleasantly surprised. It’s interesting to compare this with the Genius SZA album that I listened to recently - they have some similarities - the spoken interludes and martial arts movie samples - but I ended up liking this album a lot more. It’s probably because I could understand what he was rapping about and I got a lot more of the cultural references from Fireman Sam to Knock Down Ginger. Good stuff and righteously angry.
Judging by the cover (and I know that’s a bad idea) I was expecting this to be more of a country album, but it turned out to be an amiable bit of 70s style funky bluesy rock/easy listening that put me in mind of Fleetwood Mac. I really loved Bonnie Raitt’s vocals on this, but the music didn’t really do it for me - the opening track is pure 80s cheese (and was somehow a breakthrough hit) but the rest is an improvement (even if she does somehow manage to rhyme ‘Queen of Sheba’ with ‘Amoeba’). I’m guessing this was a lot more popular in the USA than over here in the UK.
1971 was an odd year for music, and this unusual mix of folk and prog is a prime example. We have weird vocals, elaborate guitar noodling, flutes, fingers in ears and plenty of standing on one leg. It’s definitely not a concept album though, at least according to Ian Anderson. There is a theme of organised religion in opposition to a more hippy, dippy god though, which crops up in several places. This probably seemed very deep and meaningful at the time but I suspect that a lot of the lyrics were chemically assisted.
One of the earliest UK punk albums, beating Never Mind the Bollocks to record shops by at least six months (although not released Stateside until 1979, probably due to the track ‘I’m So Bored with the USA’). Also, definitely one of the most overtly political and influential, taking solid hits against racism, police brutality, US imperialism and the generally moribund state of the United Kingdom in the 1970s.
Musically, it’s rock solid, with accomplished musicians building on the 60s garage sound with a solid helping of 70s pub rock and nods to reggae/ska with a great cover of Police and Thieves. A five star classic, no questions.
Oasis were the apotheosis of 90’s lad culture, swaggering and boorish and utterly convinced of their own greatness. They’d obviously grown up listening to Revolver on repeat and did a pretty good job of channelling some of the energy and attitude of that era, if not the musical or lyrical ability. One of the major problems I have listening back is the way that the sound is so compressed to seem louder. I can imagine them in the studio asking the technicians to turn everything up to 11. Blur were better.
I’m not the world’s greatest expert on metal sub-genres but I was expecting something labelled as Nu Metal to be a little more metal. To my aging ears it was somewhere between post grunge indie and a poppier, more accessible version of Nine Inch Nails. One track even has some deeply ill advised rapping and scratching included (and a surprisingly funky bass line too). The lyrics include some swears to get the coveted Parental Advisory sticker but while they are trying to be Dangerous they end up being Mostly Harmless.
This is yet another multi-million selling album from around the turn of the millennium that seems to have completely passed me by for some reason. It opens with an unusual combination of fairly upbeat dance adjacent electronica with a nasal sounding singer-songwriter (one review likened him to Bob Dylan!). It took me a while to twig that I’d heard him doing guest vocals on an Orbital album from a few years later. Mostly harmless.
Ok, the good stuff first. I love the extended clips from the cult movie Shogun Assassin and some of the chilled lo-fi beats on this are really nice, making this less of a sonic assault than some hip hop albums. On the downside, the lyrics sound interesting but (and not to be prudish, but well) the endless torrent of mother effin n-words on every other line make it difficult to follow what he’s trying to say. Not my thing, sorry.
Break up albums are rarely a good idea. Taking the emotional laundry of a ten year relationship and airing it in public isn’t going to end well for anyone involved. Listening to it feels uncomfortably intrusive and the music is very much of the 2002 sub Coldplay genre. Honestly mate, just get over it.
I think the problem I have with early Bruce Springsteen is his vocal style. He was 25 when he recorded this album but he sounds more like a middle aged dad reminiscing about being a young tearaway than someone actually strapping themselves into a suicide machine. That’s not to say this isn’t a good album, but I much prefer the quieter and more reflective tracks like Meeting Across the River than the bombastic numbers.
At a time where everyone else was turning on and tripping out with cosmic psychedelia, Ray Davies writes a perfect picture postcard story of life in England in the late 60s. Same sex schoolboy crushes, trying to find a better job, moaning about the weather, romantic moments by a polluted river and afternoon tea. The Kinks really were something else.
There was a brief fad for Celtic folk rock in the 80s and the Waterboys were a prime example with their biggest hit being The Whole of the Moon in 1985. For this album a couple of years later, they leaned back towards a more traditional, folkier sound with violins, mandolins and flutes coming to the fore. I’m guessing this may have put off some of their earlier fans, but it sounds like they’re having a lot of fun with this, especially on the final live burst of Woody Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land at the end.
Don’t say you weren’t warned - this is an album that does exactly what it says on the tin. This is a collection of songs about death and bloody murder, from the perspective of both victim and murderer. This bitter brew is sweetened by the addition of guest vocalist Kylie Minogue. Apparently Nick Cave asked for the song Where the Wild Roses Grow to be removed from consideration for an MTV award because he didn’t want any Kylie fans buying this album by mistake without being aware of the lyrical content. It’s strong stuff, but it ends on a positive note with a cover of the Bob Dylan song Death is Not the End. Murder-tastic!
OK, not listening to the Smiths for obvious reasons, so the next choice is this solo album from Johnny Marr. Solid guitar rock, with that trademark Marr sound and enough interesting stuff in the lyrics to hook you in. Marr provides most of the vocals too and, while he’s not the world’s greatest vocalist, he does a fine job. Lots of callbacks to the 80s and 90s on this too.
Call the Comet by Johnny Marr (https://album.link/gb/i/1698288982)
Not to be confused with legendary pub rock guitarist Wilko Johnson or the budget British household goods store, this is a band that seems to be held in high regard by some music fans. It started promisingly with some experimental noodling, but then I found it washing over me and not leaving much of an impression. I saw them described as a Rustbelt Radiohead but on this evidence they are more of a Chicago Coldplay.
When I first heard Wordy Rappinghood I assumed that it was just a novelty single. It wasn’t until I saw the Tom Tom Club segment of Stop Making Sense that I realised that this was actually a side project of Chris Franz and Tina Weymouth, drummer and bassist of Talking Heads respectively. Turns out it actually has some really interesting and catchy tracks outside of the two hit singles. As might be expected Weymouth and Franz provide a rock solid core with Adrian Belew of King Crimson playing some funky guitar on top. The quirky lyrics and excellent vocals as well from Tina Weymouth make this a lot more than a novelty record.
I really don’t like Eddie. There, I’ve said it. That stupid 50s horror comic zombie mascot put me off listening to Iron Maiden for ages, which is a shame because they are really rather good. Their debut album is scrappy and full of punk energy (although they would hate being called punks!), and set the scene for the new wave of British heavy metal through the 80s. Charlotte the Harlot is still cringeworthy though.
I have an odd sort of relationship with folk. I start listening thinking that it will not be my cup of herbal tea, then something in it hooks me in. With this album, the mix of traditional instruments and electric guitars builds on Richard Thompson’s work with Fairport Convention but it’s the lyrics about the grubby, despairing state of Britain in the 1970s that really hit home for me. No jobs, no hope, except for a brief escape into a boozy night out.
This is probably Sly and the Family Stone’s greatest album, combining heartfelt soul, funk and gospel with some searing social commentary. The transition from the first track ‘Stand!’ into ‘Don’t Call Me N****r, Whitey’ is shocking, and justifiably so, especially to a comfortably off, middle class white man like myself. Apart from this, the highlights are the drum break on the instrumental Sex Machine and the joyous Everyday People.
After a shambolic tour of the USA in 1965, Ray Davies had a nervous breakdown and decided to focus on his songwriting. This album is the result, being a concept album with vignettes of nostalgia and longing for a lost rural England. There’s a lot of humour here and poignant character pieces about the inhabitants of Ray’s imaginary village. The music is uniquely English too, touching on music hall, folk and psychedelia. Utterly charming!
If you ever had any doubts that Aretha Franklin was the Queen of Soul then this album will lay them to rest. Starting with the definitive version of Chain of Fools, Aretha’s voice swoops and soars with effortless grace. These are mostly secular songs but she also includes a gospel track, People Get Ready, for old times sake, in case y’all could do with some churchin’ up. Fun fact - one of the backing singers is Cissy Houston, mother of Whitney!
With The Beatles
This was the Beatles second album, released just six months after their debut, featuring a mix of original songs and covers. Although the Fab Four were still only in their early 20s at this point, their experience of playing hundreds of gigs in seedy clubs has already made them into an incredibly tight and professional band, buzzing with energy and ideas. Their Lennon & McCartney team is kicking into gear and George gets a track too!
https://album.link/i/1441164362
Chas Chandler, the producer of this album, quit half way through the recording, and it really shows. There is a great album here, possibly one of the greatest rock albums of all time, but there is a lot of meandering before you get to the killer ending of All Along the Watchtower and Voodoo Chile (Slight Return). In some ways, I wish we could have a Get Back style documentary of the recording process to appreciate the work that went into this.
I usually find gangster rap albums heavy going, but this one is a little easier than most. It has an engaging sense of humour with all of the kung fu movie samples and the music has a raw edge to it. Apparently it was recorded in a studio so small that only 8 out of the 9 band members could fit in at any one time, so they would organise impromptu rap battles to decide who was going to appear on each track!
After the musical doldrums of the early 2000’s this album was a breath of fresh Yorkshire air, with the tang of taxi exhaust, Lynx deodorant and chip shop vinegar. These lads are from just up the road from where I live and I’ve probably stood in the same queue outside the station waiting for a taxi to High Green via Hillsborough, please. Authentic Sheffield steel!
Has there ever been a more thrilling two and a half minutes of music than Tutti Frutti? From the opening wop-bop-a-loo-mop to the raw power of Little Richard’s voice and suggestive lyrics that push all sorts of boundaries, this song has it all. Little Richard was a huge influence on the Beatles and taught them his trademark ‘wooo’, and they had Long Tall Sally as a regular part of their live sets, right up until their last gig at Candlestick Park.
John Lee Hooker was one of the all time great blues musicians, without a doubt. However, this album featuring contributions from Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt and Los Lobos didn’t really grab me. It felt a little bit too polished and well produced, and left me yearning for the rough and ready sound of Hooker’s early recordings. However, he was in his 70s when this was released, so you can’t really begrudge the old fella his pension plan.
The Songhoy Blues band formed in Timbuktu in 2012 after being forced to leave their homes in the north of Mali due to political and religious turmoil. The music they make is full of joy as well longing for the lives they left behind. The highlight is probably the final track Mali that needs no translation to break your heart. This is Afro Beat with a rock edge and an unexpected gem on this list.
In contrast to the wild free jazz of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman from around this time, this is a measured and precise experiment with unusual time signatures played on the piano by Dave Brubeck while the alto sax of Paul Desmond swoops around like a big swoopy thing. Anyone listening to this is guaranteed to immediately become 100% cooler although wearing dark suits and spectacles may be a side effect.
In some ways, I wish I could go back and tell past me to listen to this album when it came out, but in other ways I don’t think I would have appreciated it. It falls between post-punk and proto-grunge, but I don’t think I would have realised quite how much it draws from 60s garage as well as The Velvet Underground. Just listen to Here Comes Your Man alongside I’m Waiting For The Man and hear the direct line between them. Anyhoo, present me enjoyed this one!
This is an album from July 1967 that I hadn’t previously heard of, which is probably because it was overshadowed by a certain other contemporary album. Apparently they picked their name so they would be filed next to the Beatles. It’s quite unusual though and an interesting listen - it starts like a low key Bob Dylan singing country, then brings in a French accordion and veers off into some folk psychedelia. It’s all fine, but not particularly memorable.
This is the quintessential punk album - 14 songs in under half an hour, every one starts with a count of “One, two, three, four!” before crashing in. The whole thing was recorded in a week for about $6000, and still sounds authentically raw and exciting. The only thing that still makes me wince is all the references to Nazis at the end - it might have seemed edgy and amusing in 1976, but today - ouch!
Maybe it’s a touch of Stockholm syndrome after listening to yesterday’s album, but when this one kicked in with a bluesy, southern rock feel I was ready for a long haul but it turns out there are 10 songs in 37 minutes on this one which is a lot more reasonable. The 10 songs are all pretty varied too with an interesting mix of styles from garage rock to fay indie to 60s psychedelia. Highlight is Drug which has the blunt chorus ‘We can take drugs!’. Quite.
A live double album with just seven songs on it might seem to be a bit self indulgent, and to be fair it probably is. However, this is amiable southern rock with a bluesy lolloping rhythm that passes the time in an acceptable way. The real surprise is that the Allman brothers weren’t hoary old rockers when they recorded this, but they were only in their mid twenties.
Releasing an album of lost tracks and offcuts just seven months after the previous hit Kid-A was a risky move. However this album of experimental electronica and down tempo lo-fi beats just about pulls it off. I’m still not the greatest fan of Thom Yorke’s voice, but it works better here than on some of their rockier tracks. The highlight is Life in a Glasshouse featuring the trumpet of the late, great Humphrey Littleton. I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue-tastic!
Scott Walker was better known as one of the Walker Brothers (who weren’t brothers or called Walker), so when he released Scott 4 (actually his 5th album) under his own name of Scott Engel it didn’t trouble the charts, which is a shame because it’s really rather good. The songs range from the opening about the film The Seventh Seal as a Morriconesque western theme, to a song about the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, all sung in a gorgeous baritone.
Gangsta rap as a genre is a relentless assault on the senses, more for the lyrical content than the music. This album from Wu Tang Clan alumnus Raekwon has some good points - the track Rainy Day featuring vocals by Candi Lindsay (aka Blue Raspberry) is gorgeous and the John Wu samples are always fun. However, the between track recordings of (apparently unscripted) conversations are hard to listen to. It’s a grim lifestyle with only one way out.
I’m not a huge fan of 80s Hair Metal (shhh, don’t tell my metalhead pals!) but I was pleasantly surprised by this 1976 album from Aerosmith. As with Toys in the Attic it’s a solid slice of 70s hard rock with some enjoyably funky bass lines, especially on the opening track Back in the Saddle. The lyrics haven’t aged all that well - Sick as a Dog is about throwing up in the loo and you don’t have to think too hard about what Lick and a Promise is referring to
When I was a kid, the local radio station would sometimes play classic rock albums in full late at night. I remember sitting out in the garden on a warm August evening, watching for meteors and listening to this album for the first time. It still has the power to send shivers up my spine, even after 40 years and countless listens. It’s nice to see that Clare Torry finally gets a writing credit for Great Gig in the Sky - her voice is the highlight of this!
I would have sworn that I hadn’t heard anything by this band, but then the track Kids kicked in with an infectious beat and hooked me in. This has a fun, glam, 70s vibe, reminding me somewhat of Sparks in it’s variety although the vocalist is nowhere near a match for Russell Mael when he attempts a falsetto on Of Moons, Birds and Monsters. A promising debut album that has put them on my listening radar.
I’m a little conflicted by this. On the one hand, they are a Sheffield band with a proper rags to riches story but on the other hand this is very much transitional album between their heavy roots and their monster pop metal sound of the late 80s. I was quite surprised by just how much they sounded like AC/DC in places here and there’s not much that really stands out, except for Die Hard the Hunter which includes air raid sirens, helicopters and gun sounds.
Ok, let’s address the festive elephant in the room. We all know that the producer of this record is very much on the naughty list but on the plus side his nuts are now definitely roasting on an open fire somewhere hot. Anyhoo, this album pretty much defined the canon of Christmas pop songs in the 60s. The highlights for me are the classic songs from the adorable Darlene Love who is still with us and will be getting royalties from this. Merry Christmas all!
This initially washed over me, but I thought I’d give it another go and it’s definitely a grower. I do have a thing for lo-fi indie beats with slightly fae vocals, and one of the singers reminded me of Lily Allen or someone in that sort of oeuvre. The standout highlight track for me was Two Doves which had some gorgeous strings and minimal guitar. This isn’t going to set the world on fire, but it might spark an ember somewhere with someone who enjoys it.
Bohemian Rhapsody is pretty much everyone’s number 1 song of all time. It’s a sign of just how good this album is, that it doesn’t overshadow the other tracks on here. As the title of the album suggests, this is a grand performance with flourishes, arias, jokes, nostalgia and plenty of hard rock. Some people might not like the 1920s style music hall tracks or Roger’s song about being in love with his car but they are essential parts of the tapestry. Superb!
I was initially surprised to see that this album had just four tracks, clocking in at 46 minutes in total. Turns out though that this is totally justified, with each song being an extended and languorous performance, with the opening track being a version of the David/Bacharach classic Walk on By that totally fills every second of its 12 minutes. Side 2 has the even more epic By The Time I Get To Phoenix which feels like a mini movie in song form. Superb.
I was never really a Pixies fan, which is weird because they were theoretically right up my street back in the day. Anyhoo, for this album Black Francis became Frank Black and released this mish-mash of post punk, surf-guitar, garage and reggae infused songs. It clicked into place for me on the track Ole Mulholland where I realised that he was channelling the spirit of Lou Reed on a song about the LA water system of the 1920s. Infrastructure-tastic!
This is a deeply weird album. I usually listen and then check the Wikipedia page, but in this case something made me look a couple of tracks in and the weirdness made sense. The usual sequence of events is to record a psychedelic folk rock album and then have a drug induced breakdown. Skip Spence attacked his former band mates with a fire axe after suffering severe delusions, spent six months in a secure institution and then recorded this when he got out.
You know that guy.
The middle aged dad who used to be in a pretty cool band when he was younger, then gave it up for a while. Now he’s got the dusty old guitar down from the loft and is determined to show these darn kids with their modern music what real rock ‘n’ roll is, with proper guitar solos that last 10 minutes and edgy swearing and everything. Oh yes, and he’s also somehow turned into a republican and is startlingly homophobic.
Yeah. Fuck that guy.
What is it about slightly fae singer songwriters with a 60s vibe on this list? I really enjoyed this album from someone that I hadn’t previously heard of, then clicked through to Wikipedia to read more about them and found out that they had died tragically young in mysterious circumstances. Expect a lot of wistful songs about lost love and regrets here, and the second listen through was even more poignant in places. RIP Mr Smith.
Remember how I said that Smashing Pumpkins would be better if they focused on being a scrappy indie band? Anyhoo, turns out they went entirely the other way in 1995 and released an incredibly overblown and tedious two hour long concept album. The punning album title is irritating too. It also turns out that the lead singer is a long time anti-vaxxer and far right loon, so he can get in the bin as far as I’m concerned
This is the last album that the Beatles recorded together (although Let It Be was released after this). It’s as fine a coda to their career as you could wish for, although the tensions between them could be felt. Apparently John hated Paul’s “granny music”, Ringo had his moment with Octopus’s Garden and George had two of his best songs included. Side one closes with the relentless I Want You and side two with The End (and the cheeky Her Majesty). Sublime!
It’s interesting that this album popped up today - Tom Waits has said that this is one of his favourite albums, and the themes of loneliness and introspection on this are certainly familiar ones. The cover sets the noir mood and song titles like “Glad to be Unhappy” and “I Get Along Without You Very Well” you know that you are in for some soul searching. Nobody does this better than Frank and this is much better than the cheery Songs for Swingin’ Lovers.
A perfect wake up call - big band jazz with a bluesy twist centered around the voice and piano of Ray Charles. He was just 25 years old when this was released and this was his seventh album in just two years. Side one is bright and brassy, and the flip side is laid back and cool. My highlight is the reflective Am I Blue.
Genius? Yes, I think so
Probably the most influential band with a generic name that defies search engine optimization. They’re probably best known for backing Bob Dylan when he made his seismic step to electric guitar, but this eponymous album is a fine example of how good they are when they take centre stage. It still sounds fresh today, drawing on an American tradition that stretches back over a hundred years.
This album is unmistakably from the mid 80s with that characteristic brittle production, booming drums and overly bright keyboard stabs thrown in at random intervals. I found that I preferred the quieter tracks to the better known stadium friendly anthems like Shout and Everybody Wants to Rule the World. Highlight was probably The Working Hour which opens like something off the Vangelis Blade Runner soundtrack. Note to self - not to be confused with Simple Minds
This was my first time listening to Slipknot - the whole masks, costumes and “look at me - I’m EDGY!” shtick is a bit off putting if you’re not in the target demographic. However, first impressions of this were promising - I enjoyed the distorted feedback and metal guitar work, but I still find screamed vocals hard to follow. The lyrical content is as expected with song titles like Snuff and Sulfur. They’re good at what they do but it’s not for me - sorry!
I was all prepared to hate this album, but then realised that for years I’d been mixing up the Kings of Leon with the Gipsy Kings, probably because of the long hair. Doh! Anyhoo, it turns out that this is quite acceptable indie rock with a bit of a garage rock vibe and the huge plus point that it’s an album from 2003 that crucially doesn’t sound like Coldplay. Highlight is Holy Roller Novocaine which has a lovely bouncy bass line. Not Coldplay-tastic!
It is difficult to overstate just how revolutionary this album is. In just 4 years the Beatles had gone from a jangly boy band playing enthusiastic covers of American R&B songs to producing records of unprecedented depth and imagination. This album mixes rock and roll with surrealism, music hall with poignant kitchen sink dramas, Indian mysticism with farm animals. The final track ends with a huge crescendo that still stops me in my tracks. FabFour-tastic!
1976 was something of a musical wasteland - the excitement of glam rock was gone, leaving only pomp rock, seedy disco and novelty songs while we waited for punk. This album is solid Dad Rock, and the first 3 tracks will be familiar to anyone who has ever heard one of those Jeremy Clarkson’s Driving Songs compilation tapes that you used to see in garages in the 80s. The hits are too well worn and the non hits aren’t that thrilling either. Snooze-tastic!
A 2019 release and a new one for me, and a very pleasant surprise. Michael Kiwanuka has a rich, soulful voice that easily stands comparison with any of the greats and the music is a timeless mix of 70s themed soul, funk, jazz and contemporary elements. It’s rare with these albums that I listen to them more than once, but this is definitely one that will be on repeat for a while. The Dolby Atmos mix on Apple Music is another plus- this really does sound lush
Apparently Eric Clapton (and you should all know my opinion of him now) was a member of the Yardbirds but quit in a huff shortly before they recorded their debut album citing musical differences. As a result, this album is a lot more varied and interesting than it might have been, ranging from blues to psychedelic rock with the odd Gregorian chant thrown in for fun. Jeff Beck really knocks out of the park with his guitar on this, bringing some unique sounds.
I’ve always avoided Neil Young in the past, mainly because I’ve assumed that he was an earnest hippy dippy folk singer due to his association with various permutations of Crosby, Stills and Nash. To be fair, this collaboration with Crazy Horse (not sure if that counts as cultural appropriation or not) is pretty good, adding some much needed blues rock guitar to his songs. Not sure about some of the lyrics on Down to the River though. Cinnamon-tastic!
You know when you go to a medium sized festival and there’s the second stage for the b-list bands? Well, the Auteurs would be a solid act for some time late on Saturday afternoon as you are getting ready to meet your friends by the main stage to see the headliners. Musically they are 90s left field indie Britpop, with slightly (but not too) quirky vocals and the occasional burst of enthusiastic guitar work. Perfectly fine but nothing to write home about.
This was the first Stones album to be entirely written by Jagger and Richards, and, after a promising opening track with Paint It Black it quickly becomes problematic, to say the least. The level of misogyny here is quite jaw dropping, from calling women ‘Stupid Girls’ to wishing they were ‘Under My Thumb’ as revenge for asking to be treated as equals. On side two they then wonder why they are having a hard time living on their own. You do the math, Mick.
This album was the final collaboration between Brian Eno and Talking Heads, and it builds on the previous albums with complex Afrobeat rhythms and Byrne’s occasionally obtuse lyrics. The music relies on the absolute precision of drummer Chris Franz and bassist Tina Weymouth in maintaining repeating patterns for extended periods, until they become almost hypnotic. Fela Kuti was an inspiration for this, with a name check on a bonus track. Polyrhythm-tastic!
I’d always assumed that ‘Theme from Shaft’ was a one off novelty record, but it turns out that Isaac Hayes (who missed out on the title role) recorded the whole soundtrack for the film. The result is a double album of prime 70s funk and soul. Judged on its own merits, most of these tracks lack context so feel a bit aimless. The highlight though is ‘Do Your Thing’ - an epic 20 minute track which makes me feel like driving a car through some cardboard boxes.
There’s no better illustration of Dolly Parton’s talent as a songwriter than the opening two tracks on this album. Coat of Many Colors is a heartbreaking story of growing up poor with a mama’s love. In contrast, the next one is Dolly at her sassy best with a cheeky tale of stepping out with a Travelling Man, with a killer twist. There are also songs of awful spousal abuse, spirituality and the simple joy of a flower meadow on a sunny morning. A pure gem!
Steve Winwood is an insanely talented musician. He was in three influential bands in the 60s and has worked with just about everyone in the music biz. However, this solo album (he played everything on this) falls flat for me. It’s amiable jazz-funk, but it suffers from weedy 80s home studio production and lacks a bit of oomph. The highlight is an unlikely collaboration with Viv Stanshall (of Bonzo Dog fame) who provided lyrics for the title track.
This was another band that passed me by in the early 2000s for some reason. Initial impressions were that this was by the numbers indie rock with a heavy Coldplay influence, but as it went on it grew more irritating. They threw what sounded like a choir of children into the mix but it was the singer’s voice that had a wheedling ‘please feel some emotions’ vibe to it. Anyhoo, turns out he’s a massive online sex pest, so this album can get in the bin.
This is one of those albums where I can clearly remember seeing the cover for the first time - that multicoloured flying saucer with a space ship about to dock promised great things and the album really delivered - mixing electric guitars with orchestral arrangements, some effective sound effects and twiddles, and impossibly catchy songs. The highlight is side 3 which is a sequence ending with the iconic Mr Blue Sky and the instruction ‘Please turn me over’
Weirdly the original release of this album omitted both the title track and their biggest hit, but this version has those plus a couple of other b sides. Anyhoo, with this we are very much in the post punk era with a side line in obtuse lyrics. I struggled to hear what he was singing in places - for years I’d assumed that he was asking his mum to accept his reward. This is probably the best band to be named after a random quote from a Silver Surfer comic.
After their previous album which was mainly Bob Dylan style American folk, and a devastating tour bus crash, Fairport Convention regrouped and produced this album which mixes traditional English folk tunes with (gasp!) electric guitars to great effect. The highlights are Matty Groves which is an epic tale of adultery, murder and revenge that builds for eight minutes, and Tam Lin which has all of the faeries, magic and big rock riffs that you could wish for
This is a change of mood from the previous album, swapping some cheeky love songs for the introspection of In the Wee Small Hours. There’s a good selection of classic tunes, with I’ve Got You Under My Skin by Cole Porter being a highlight. I also found out today that there were two versions of the cover art - the original with Frank looking off into the distance was changed for one where he’s watching the ‘Swingin’ Lovers’ like a slightly creepy uncle!
Live albums are tricky to get right - there needs to be the right balance between the music and the between songs banter with the crowd. Fortunately this album hits all the right notes with a great atmosphere and phenomenal musicianship from the king of the blues himself. This still feels fresh, despite being recorded 60 years ago (and harking back to even earlier songs called out as “Real, real oldies!”). Not sure about his relationship advice though!
I was a bit too young for punk back in the day but new wave hit me right in my adolescent wheelhouse. This album combines the exuberance of 50's rock 'n' rollers like the Crickets with the punk energy of The Stooges, as well as a touch of French nouvelle vague cool. Just about every song on this is a banger, but apart from the hits (and there are a lot of them!) the standout is the cheeky cover of Buddy Holly's I'm Gonna Love You Too. Peroxide-tastic!
I wasn’t expecting today’s selection to be an Afrofuturist concept album inspired by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, but it turns out that it was exactly what I needed this morning. It’s gloriously textured and complex and I’m already listening for the second time. I’m also a sucker for any album that has an orchestral overture! My highlight is the psychedelic Mushrooms & Roses which explores the unexpected subject of robot sex. Droidtastic!
Even though I know this is a crowd funded concept album about the experience of living in the Deep South, it still confuses the heck out of me when they start singing about living in Birmingham. Anyhoo, this takes as its starting point the tragic story of Lynyrd Skynyrd and the plane crash in 1977 that killed half the band, as well as the pilots. It’s a wildly ambitious project, but they just about pull it off, tackling some touchy subjects. Bostintastic!
This album opens with a huge bombastic blast with arpeggiated synths, huge guitar riffs and crashing drums, like Queen crossed with Phillip Glass. It calms down a little after that with Starlight sounding a bit like Coldplay, although Supermassive Black Hole returns to the big 70s glam rock feel. The standout for me is Knights of Cydonia which adds galloping horses and Dick Dale style surf guitar to the mix. Excellent fun all round. Sagittarius A*-tastic!
Sometimes you just want an album of good old fashioned swampy blues and southern fried rock ‘n’ roll to stomp along to. Creedence Clearwater Revival might not be the world’s greatest band, but they really sound like they’re enjoying themselves on this and it’s infectious. Does this earn them a place in this list? Yes, if only for their audacious eleven minute cover version of ‘Heard it through the Grapevine’ which is a whole lot of fun. Bayoutastic!
This is an album that I’ve skipped over previously going from Talking Book to Songs in the Key of Life, but it really is a quiet masterpiece with many standout moments. Living for the City hits hard with a story of a naive young black man moving to New York and ending up on the wrong side of the law, complete with dialogue and sound effects. There are brighter songs too, with Don’t You Worry Bout a Thing being an absolute joy from start to finish.
This is another one of those albums that struck a chord with the listening public as being something to put on if you were planning a cozy night in with your significant other. I’m not entirely sure quite how romantic the line about wanting to be turned on like a light bulb in a darkened room is though! It’s a nice easy listen though - a bit of piano, some folky guitar and smooth vocals from Norah herself. Not my usual cup of tea, but a solid 3 stars though.
For a rap album, this is actually quite sweet and thoughtful. Lupe Fiasco had a tough upbringing, but the thing that he missed out on most was making model trains with his absent father. The cover shows him surrounded by his favourite things, including a Nintendo DS. He tackles the thorny subject of misogyny in rap on one track and spends the outro thanking everyone by name who helped him. The highlight is a two part song about skateboarding. Nerdtastic!
I only knew Van Halen from their 80s hair metal era, so this album was a pleasant surprise. There are interesting parallels between this and Iron Maiden’s first album, with both having a punk edge, but this album also includes blues and even some vocal scatting on one track. The highlight is probably the showboating guitar solo from Eddie Van Halen on Eruption that segues into a cheeky cover of The Kinks’ ‘You Really Got Me’. Good fun all round.
On October the first, 1966 Eric Clapton watched Jimi Hendrix playing at the London Polytechnic. Shortly after, he switched from ripping off black American blues guitarists to, well, you do the math. Disraeli Gears tries to be a psychedelic acid rock album, but it plods and meanders, and manages to seem tediously long for a running time of just over half an hour. Ginger Baker is still a good drummer but Clapton can get in the bin.
This album not only broke new ground in exploring the sounds that it was possible to get out of an electric guitar, it pushed the boundaries of rock music genre mashups with the highlight being the sci-fi epic Third Stone From the Sun which veers wildly from acid rock to free jazz noodling to total freak out. Legend has it that Jimi liked to play so loudly in the studio that the neighbours complained about the noise. Another artist who died far too young.
This sounded intriguing from the description - a debut album based on the artist’s synesthesia where he experienced first love as the colour orange. In actually, this is fairly anodyne R&B (albeit with some NSFW lyrics about running out of condoms) interspersed with random and surreal sound collages. The highlight (or very middling light) is where he pays a confused Muslim taxi driver to act as his personal therapist by keeping the meter running. Weird.
In one of those ironic twists that this list throws up, after yesterday’s album about how lovely drugs are, today’s is from someone who died after a heroin overdose. Janis Joplin had an amazing voice, but on this posthumously released album you can already hear it cracking in places and she sounds much older than her 27 years. The highlight is Mercedes Benz where her prayers gradually get scaled back from a new car to the next round of drinks. RIP Janis.
This an album of its time, and the time is firmly in the Summer of Love in San Francisco. Whilst the Beatles made a token effort to hide their drug references, Country Joe & the Fish are openly passing round the reefers and whispering LSD over the outro. They’re not shy about sex either and the politics are far to the left. The highlight is the cheeky Superbird where he calls on the Fantastic Four and Doctor Strange to take out LBJ. Hippytastic!
n 1959 Miles Davis decided to do something different, moving away from hard bop jazz. He assembled a crew of some of the best musicians around, gave them each a set of scales to improvise around, then lit the metaphorical blue touch paper. The result is like listening to a conversation as music is built up in real time with each player contributing to the piece. Music like this really should be heard live, but this recording is probably as good as it gets.
This is an album that I’ve previously skipped on Bowie’s journey from Aladdin Sane to the Thin White Duke. It’s R&B/funk aimed with laser sharp cynical precision at the American market, and on reflection it’s pretty darned good and sounds better than the R&B that Bowie release in the 80s. The highlight is probably a spectacular cover of Across the Universe but the bitter and angry Fame written with John Lennon is good too, and also foreshadows 80s Bowie too
There are some men of a certain age, probably wearing an old Ramones t shirt that’s a bit too small for them nowadays, who would look at this album and complain that it’s not ‘proper punk’. I would counter by saying that here we have 15 banging tunes in 38 minutes, dealing with boredom, alienation, growing up in an uncertain world that just doesn’t care, as well as the usual teenage concerns of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. What could be more punk than that?
I think that every rock contract in the 70s must have had a clause that the band were obliged to record at least one live album in Japan. Thus we get Cheap Trick, in front of thousands of screaming Japanese fans, plodding through a competent but pedestrian set list. I always assumed that they were hard rock, but apart from the opening track this is closer to glam/pop. The highlight is a Chuck Berry cover where they somehow shoehorn in a drum solo.
When I was a kid, I used to borrow sound effects LPs from the library and record them on to cassettes to make mini audio dramas. This album is a little bit like that, except it also adds in a musical soundtrack for an imaginary film noir with the track names hinting at the unfolding drama. There are some nice nods to the genre with the Hitchcock tune and a stab at a Bond theme. I could imagine using this as a soundtrack for a seedy spy rpg. Cinetastic!
Has there ever been a more thrilling start to an album than Highway Star on this one? It perfectly captures the feeling of driving like a maniac on an open road with some of the best guitar solo work on record. The album calms down a little after that with some nice bluesy rock before we hear *that* riff, familiar to anyone who’s ever been in a guitar shop, and probably the best song about someone burning down a casino. Funky Claudetastic!
Like Bringing it all Back Home, this album is also full of complex, multi layered songs, backed with an electric band playing with gusto and sung by Bob in his trademark honking nasal drawl. Every time I listen to Desolation Row, I swear that someone has put extra verses in that I’ve never heard before, and they still feel relevant - the bit about the passengers on Titanic arguing about which side they’re on feels very on the nose today. Bobtastic!
My uncle used to be a bit of an audiophile back in the day. He had a fancy turntable and big speakers, and when we went round, he’d put records on to show off how good it sounded. This was one of those records. Technically fine, but lacking anything that grabbed me in any way. This is typically overblown 70s pop prog and I couldn’t tell you what any of the songs were about. I did like the ‘bloody well right’ bit and I think ‘Dreamer’ must have been a single.
The 1970s in Jamaica were a turbulent time. Just before he was due to play at a peace concert Bob Marley, his wife Rita, and his manager were shot at and wounded. This led to him moving to London and recording this album. Side one is the stronger, mixing the spiritual and political, with powerful songs. Side 2 is more chilled and has the better known tracks. This needs to be listened to on the biggest sound system you have with bass turned up. Splifftastic!
Mick Ronson and David Bowie were hugely influenced by The Velvet Underground and they repaid the favour by working on this album with Lou Reed. There’s definitely a glam feel to parts of this, but the lyrical content and Lou Reed’s distinctive style loses none of its edge. We still get boundary pushing tracks about trans people, sex of all flavours and a whole song about how nice it is to spend the day in the park off your head on heroin. Smacktastic!
This isn’t an easy listen, but it’s a worthy inclusion on the list. It opens with the mellow ‘Sunday Morning’ but rapidly moves onto stranger ground with songs about sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, layered on top of growling feedback and odd instrumentation. Vocals are split between Lou Reed’s proto punk drawl and Nico’s harmonies. Brian Eno once famously said that not many people bought this album when it was released but everyone that did started a band.
Joan Armatrading has never quite reached the heights of superstardom, perhaps because she has always refused to play the tabloid fame game and kept her private life to herself. This album is a quiet gem, from one of Britain’s greatest singer songwriters, mixing songs of longing and regret with some gorgeously smooth jazzy R&B. There are some very pointed lyrics here too, especially Water with the Wine dealing with date rape.
Louis Prima is probably best known as the voice of King Louis in The Jungle Book, but this album from 1956 is equally joyous. The album was recorded as live in the studio with an excellent group of jazz musicians, who are clearly having a ball, as well as Prima’s wife Keely Smith who provides a cool counterbalance to his wild flights of fancy. It’s a brisk 30 minutes of fun and one of the rare albums where I listened twice. Highlight is opener Just a Gigolo!
Well, this was a lot of fun. Female fronted pop punk, with fuzzed out guitars and even more fuzzed out vocals, tracing a direct line from bands like the Pretenders and Siouxie and the Banshees. It’s not revolutionary or going to change the world in any way, but sometimes you just want something that hits all of the right notes without trying too hard. The highlight for me was the song No, No, No which is very appropriate for the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs.
Clapton is a despicable individual. To misappropriate an entire musical genre while ignoring the oppression that formed it, and going on to express the most loathsome of opinions on a public stage is unforgivable. It’s called the Blues for a reason, and Clapton has not, and never will earn the right to play it. I feel slightly sorry for Mayall being associated with him and apparently Clapton was only in the band for a short while. Skipping this one.
The conceit of MTV Unplugged is simple - get a big rock band to come in and play an acoustic set of their greatest hits. Nirvana approached the challenge differently, picking deep cuts and covers over hits, and featuring The Meat Puppets as special guests. Cobain sounds a little nervous at the start and also uses some amplification and effects in places. He passed away 5 months after this recording, lending it a poignant air, especially on Come As You Are.
Many of the best musicians in the world are to be found strumming away in dusty bars and concert halls, playing to a handful of local fans. In 1996 Ry Cooder went to Havana to record an album with some musicians from Mali, and for various reasons ending up recording an album of traditional Cuban music with a diverse group of local musicians instead. Everyone involved had a great time and the end result is an absolute joy to listen to. Soncubanotastic!
This album was exactly what I needed this morning. Queer French hyper-pop, performed with Gallic elan by lead singer Chris. Unusually, this is a double album with the same songs presented in English and French, and on balance I think I preferred the French ones which gave my schoolboy French a workout. This would go down a storm on Eurovision and I mean that in the nicest way possible. It’s accessible, engaging and fun, and I will seek out more! Eurotastic!
I’m always intrigued when I get a band that I haven’t heard of on this project. This album starts out as fairly low key shoegazey indie before picking up with some nice 60s style psychedelia. Nothing world changing or revolutionary, but well done and good to listen to. The highlight for me is the Byrds-esque Memory Boy, dealing with the fallibility of nostalgia. A solid 3 stars for this.
From the name, I was expecting a bit of country music, but instead got something that sounded like a cross between Coldplay and Ed Sheeran, from a man whose idea of a big romantic gesture is putting his phone on vibrate. This is so inoffensive you could play it at a dinner party for maiden aunts, nervous vicars and people with heart problems with no risk of upsetting anyone. The only edgy thing here is the cover where he is holding a longsword by the blade. Do not want.
After leaving Genesis, Peter Gabriel put out four quirky, experimental albums titled Peter Gabriel 1-4. His record company asked for a more marketable name for his fifth album, so he called it ‘So’. I wasn’t keen on this album at the time - a combination of the mawkish ‘Don’t Give Up’ and the MTV earworm of ‘Sledgehammer’ put me off. Revisiting it reveals some gems though, especially ‘This is the Picture’ with Laurie Anderson and opener ‘Red Rain’. Sotastic!
Alternative bands from the 90s with one word names tend to blend into one for me and I initially struggled to remember anything from this one apart from Stupid Girl. However, I was pleasantly surprised by some of the more down tempo tracks on this that edged into shoegaze/trip hop territory, with the highlight for me being A Stroke of Luck with Shirley Manson’s voice flowing like warm honey. Lovely stuff.
This live album opens with what sounds like a band tuning up at a sound check, then bit by bit they all start noodling around a theme, someone randomly starts singing and before you know it twenty minutes have passed. I always thought that the Grateful Dead were a rock band, but this is closer to free jazz with extended improvisations. I can see the attraction of following them around to listen to this while getting stoned in a field somewhere. Hippytastic!
The extraordinary musicianship on this can’t be denied but it has to be tempered by knowing that Mingus was a angry man, prone to violent outbursts. He once punched a fellow musician in the face so hard it permanently damaged their ability to play the trombone. His anger is reflected in the music here - aggressive hard bop with diversions into blues and classical guitar. Apparently this was originally written as a ballet which is something that I want to see.
Apparently Peter Buck from REM once asked producer John Wood how he captured the intimate sound on this album. Wood replied that Nick Drake had simply sat in front of a single microphone and played his guitar. It really is a captivating performance that was sadly to be Drake’s last as he passed away at the age of 26. I can start to understand why Robert Smith and Michael Stipe were so worried about passing thirty now.
This is another album inspired by turning thirty, although with REM their songs tend to the wistful and abstruse rather than gloominess. The opening track Drive sets the tone for the album with sparse acoustic guitars blossoming into a stunning string arrangement from John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin. The remastered atmos mix also shines here, sounding intimate and epic at the same time. The highlight is still Stipe’s Elvis impression on Man in the Moon.
I only really knew the guitar/drums garage rock stuff from the White Stripes so this album was a bit of revelation with a wider range of instruments on offer, adding piano, marimba and mandolin to the mix. There are also some variations in style too, and I particularly enjoyed the country feel on Little Ghost and the blues rock of Instinct Blue. Nice to hear Meg singing too. True confession - I always thought they were siblings but turns out they’re married!
Apparently Robert Smith had a bit of a crisis of confidence approaching his 30th birthday, thinking that he would soon be past his creative peak. He wrote most of the material for this album on his own, working through his feelings of despair and the band added musical gloomscapes to them. The end result is oddly uplifting, when you remember that Bob is now happily in his sixties and still collaborating with bands who are less than half his age. Gothtastic!
The second album from 1983 this week and it’s a complete contrast. I remember enjoying this at the time but it hasn’t aged particularly well. It’s po-faced and preachy, and you get the feeling that no one involved had any fun at all while they were making it. I can’t imagine U2 busking outside a Pretenders gig and getting invited to be the support act for a night. Knocking off a star from the 1001 albums rating until they start paying their taxes.
There comes a time in every band’s career when someone mentions the C word - the concept album. For a punk band known for three minute pop bangers this is a risky move. However the opening salvo of American Idiot still hits home, relevant today just by changing one word. The album looks American society at the turn of the millennium but not much has changed. Jesus of Suburbia sends shivers down my spine with the final ‘Are you leaving home?’. A punk classic.
If you’d asked me to guess the year and genre of this album from the title, then acoustic folk punk from 1983 is probably the last thing I’d have gone for. This turns out to actually be a lot of fun, written by an 18 year old high school student called Gordon Gano, mixing punky Lou Reed style vocals with bouncy acoustic guitars and lively drums. The highlight is the first track Blister in the Sun which I recognised from the Xbox Rock Band soundtrack.
How 80s could this album be? None. The answer is none more 80s. This is where Duran Duran changed from fay Sci Fi nerd New Romantics into archetypal shoulder padded yuppie icons, with an era defining series of music videos backed up with some great music. Admittedly, Simon LeBon wasn’t the world’s greatest vocalist, but the rest of the band held it together with the standout being John Taylor’s phenomenal bass lines punching through the mix. Yacht-tastic!
I know this album off by heart and not through choice. When I was at university, the guy next door in the halls blew all his grant money on a cd player and only had enough left over to buy this, so he played it on repeat for weeks. I quite like Knopfler’s steel guitar on The Man’s Too Strong, but the rest of the album suffers from that overly bright 80s digital production, it’s way too long and the homophobic slurs in Money for Nothing can get in the bin.
This was the album that came out after Brian Wilson had to give up touring for health reasons, but a year before Pet Sounds. It’s an ok collection of pop tunes with two bangers (Do You Wanna Dance and Help Me Ronda) but a lot of filler for an album that’s less than 30 minutes. The worst bit is the last track which is just two minutes of studio chatter. I initially thought this was a special feature, but it’s on the original release. Lazy, lazy Beach Boys.
A self-aware, sample heavy NYC rock/rap trio, popular with white kids - it’s the Beastie Boys, right? NOT!!! It’s the Fun Lovin’ Criminals (with the all important apostrophe). I actually enjoyed this quite a bit more than I was expecting, particularly when they slowed things down a little and cut back on the samples. The highlight for me was a delicious cover of John Barry’s We Have All the Time in the World.
This is the transitional album where Brian Eno came on board as a producer, turning Talking Heads from an arty NYC proto punk band into something that you could dance to. I haven’t listened to this album as much as some of the others - not because it’s not good, but because the live versions of some of these songs on Stop Making Sense (notably their cover of Al Green’s Take Me to the River) are even better than the ones here.
This is album that requires listening to on headphones - the extraordinary number of MFPH and the toe curlingly explicit references to sex, violence and drugs make this extremely NSFW. Headphones also show off the dense soundscapes of dialogue, jokes, samples, music and rap. You could almost see this as an elaborate satire of a gangsta whose idea of luxury is being able to afford both Sega and Nintendo at the same time, but Biggie was dead by 24. Sheesh.
When I was a kid growing up in the 80s a new song (and video) from the ‘Nutty Boys’ was always a treat, but I’ve never listened to a whole album. On this, their fourth album, they find a different tone, delving into nostalgia for childhood and family life, and tackling darker topics like depression and the aftermath of the Falklands War. This was originally a concept album but it drifted slightly (and let’s not mention the misstep of New Delhi and the cover)
This is a heartbreaking classic of an album. While Nothing Compares 2 U is the best known song, other tracks have an equal or greater impact with howls of despair and anger, as well as more upbeat and joyful numbers. The only misstep is ‘Black Boys on Mopeds’ which is a clunking protest song about Margaret Thatcher, but it was 1990 so we can probably let this one slide.
This was supposedly the album that marked the transition from fay electro pop dweebs to stadium friendly behemoths, but it’s not quite there for me. There’s nothing that grabs me in quite the same way as Enjoy the Silence or Personal Jesus on their later album Violater. The best track is probably the opener “Never Let Me Down” but the rest of the album doesn’t quite live up to this.
This album does exactly what it says on the tin. It starts with an ominous voiceover (“I have tasted maggots in the mind of the universe”) before setting off on a musical journey spanning acid rock, funk, soul, prog and even a bit of gospel in case y’all need churchin’ up. The highlights are the title track and the closing ‘Wars of Armageddon’ both clocking in around 10 minutes. Truly funkadelic!
For a couple of hours this morning, I felt like I was in a 1960s Mad Men style Manhattan appartment, drinking a martini and listening to this box set on my Radiogram. Some of the best classic songs of the early to mid 20th century, sung by one of the very best vocalists, ranging from ragtime to jazz with a touch of soul thrown in. Apparently the original deluxe edition of this came in a wooden box for $100 (well over $1000 now). Totally worth it.
It never ceases to amaze me that an album released 50 years ago, recorded using instruments made from spare electronics and tin foil, held together with string and duct tape, still sounds fresh and startlingly modern. The highlight is the title track, recreating a trip on an Autobahn through the medium of motorik beats and painstakingly crafted sound effects. This is a genre defining album, influencing artists from Gary Numan to Afrika Bambaataa. Stunning
Romantic meal, candles lit, now for some music. Whatever you do, don’t put this album on. It starts with a song about a child custody battle and goes on to anger, jealousy, self pity and the unfairness of paying attorney fees. After a bitter divorce, Gaye was contractually obliged to produce an album and give his ex 50% - he delivered this, which takes petty revenge to a whole new level. Save this for if you get dumped and want to know how not to respond.
When the Beatles started going weird, someone at NBC television had the bright idea of creating a family friendly boy band from scratch for a tv show, and maybe put out some records as well. The Monkees were duly assembled and released two albums, before rising up and seizing the means of production to record their own songs. This album is mostly harmless, but not particularly memorable. Highlight is a snarky song about the Beatles called “Randy Scouse Git”.
Some cities have a distinctive sound, and Athens, Georgia is one of them. REM were one of the bands that defined that sound - solid bass, punchy drums, jangly guitars and laconic vocals with lyrics ranging from the esoteric to the surreal. Michael Stipe has said that he still doesn’t know what Pilgrimage is about and he wrote it. Highlight is Radio Free Europe which one of my Athens friends sent me on a mix tape of local music back in the day.
There comes a time in the life of every rock band when someone discovers a synth in the corner of the studio and wonders what happens when they start randomly twiddling the knobs. In Van Halen’s case this gave us the worldwide monster hit Jump but it’s clear on this album where the rest of the band pushed back for more traditional rock songs about women’s legs and hot teachers. It’s no surprise that they broke up with ‘musical differences’ a year later.
To a teenage pop-punk fan in 1994, this probably sounded like the most important album in the history of the world, ever! In retrospect, it’s full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, sung by people whose greatest fear was that someone might call them a trendy asshole. It’s at its most fun on the middle eastern themed ‘Come Out and Play’ and the bouncy ska of ‘What Happened to You?’
I think that I avoided this one at the time because I assumed that it was just slightly twee French pop. Turns out it’s actually slightly twee Scottish pop, but it won me around with a mix of light, summery tunes and lyrics ranging from the wistful to some pointed jabs at religion. I particularly liked the second track “Seeing Other People” which reminded me of Vince Guaraldi’s Charlie Brown theme music with a bouncy, jazzy feel. Lovely stuff.
Apparently Magnetic Fields frontman Stephen Merrit was sat in a gay bar in New York listening to Stephen Sondheim songs played on piano one day and set himself the challenge of writing 100 love songs. He scaled back the original target to 69 songs (fnarrr, fnarr) but this is still a monumental achievement. These are songs about love in all its varieties, each one in a different style with the three album set lasting just shy of three hours. Amazing stuff!
This album was my introduction to heavy metal, and what a great introduction it was too! Nerdy references to cult sci-fi like Children of the Damned and the Prisoner, songs about marauding Vikings and Wild West battles, occult spookiness and a suspiciously detailed knowledge of the price list of infamous brothel madam Cynthia Payne. The music is top notch all the way through, with galloping drums, virtuoso guitar, solid bass , and Dickinson’s soaring vocals.
Every new decade brings something that kicks against the excesses of the previous one. By the end of the 80s we’d grown tired of shoulder pads and overproduced corporate rock, so this album in 1991 was like a breath of slightly whiffy air. It still holds up (mostly) although in retrospect the references to guns on this are painful. It defined a genre, but we’ve yet to see a grunge revival. Anyone who doesn’t like this is a lamestain cob nobbler!
If nothing else, Napalm Death certainly pack a lot into this album whether they are being paid by the song or the note. Twenty eight song songs in just over half an hour has to be some sort of record, with You Suffer clocking in at just 4 seconds. Genuinely amazing.
Listening to this is like standing on top of a cliff in a howling storm screaming into the wind and just as bracing. I’ve listened twice today and just put it on again for a third go.
After an oddly misjudged introduction from Busta Rhymes, Missy Elliot steps up to show the boys how Hip Hop is done. This is a highly accomplished debut album with a lot of depth and some surprising twists. The highlight is probably an unexpectedly cheeky cover of Pass the Dutchie which becomes a song about the joys of smoking dope.
This album came out at exactly the wrong time. It’s psychedelic beats and sitar breaks were ten years too late, the indie rock energy and quirky production were ten years too early and the actual release date fell in the middle of a printers strike so the album didn’t get reviewed in Melody Maker and NME. This is a shame, because there’s a lot to enjoy here, with the highlight being the full on rock freak out of Insanely Jealous of You.
Somehow Willie Nelson has managed to fit a whole Western tale of love, betrayal and revenge into 15 songs and 34 minutes without ever feeling rushed or constrained. This is evocative music, recalling dusty mesas and smoky saloons, a million miles away from the shmaltzy strings and glittering rhinestones of Nashville. Western music for outlaws!
This is arguably one of the greatest albums of all time, hitting home on just about every level. It opens with a school register being taken and the theme continues with a young woman figuring out life, love and everything, drawing from diverse musical influences and producing something that sounds almost effortlessly perfect. This was Hill’s only solo album but it stands as a genre defining achievement for all time.
I enjoyed the first album from Doves and this one moves on slightly from the previous shoe gazey sound with nods to prog alongside some bouncy, radio friendly numbers. The highlight is M62 Song which takes elements of Moonchild by King Crimson layered with traffic noises recorded under a motorway flyover in the middle of the night.
Woody Guthrie was an amazingly prolific songwriter, leaving a collection of over a thousand songs in a box after his death. Apparently Bob Dylan went looking for them in the late 60s but it took another 40 years before Guthrie’s daughter uncovered the trove and passed the works over to Billy Bragg and the band Wilco to set some of them to music. The end result is inspiring, uplifting and thoroughly enjoyable, and the politics are as relevant as ever.
This is an oddity. Like everyone else, I know all of the Bee Gees late 70s disco classics but I was completely unaware of this album from 1971 which for some reason seems to be themed around famous battles of the Napoleonic era. There are some reasonably enjoyable tracks here (and the odd clunker) but nothing essential. Even their voices don’t sound quite as falsetto as they would go on to be. Great cover though!
I missed this album at the time - I think there must have been other stuff going on in September of 2001. First impressions are of a Britpop band trying to sound American. Second impressions came during the track New York City cops (understandably dropped from later re-releases) when it turned out to be an American band doing Britpop about five years late. Not bad though, with some Stooges style vibes. Minus points for a truly awful album cover though.
This is almost unbearably sad.
Amy Winehouse released her debut album when she was just 19, singing about her life where the men that she craved love from were all weak, manipulative or needy. She sounds tired, cynical and world weary, and in retrospect it’s easy to see the path that she was already heading down. Nobody should be singing lines like “I’ve forgotten all of young love’s joy” when they’re not even in their twenties.
Rest in peace Amy.
This is an oddity and an album that I have never heard before. It has three classics (America, Mrs Robinson and Hazy Shade of Winter), quirky songs about zoo animals and extended sound clips of old people talking. Not what I would pick for a great album, especially one less than half an hour in length.
Sometime around 1976 my Dad bought home a proper music centre with two cassette tapes - a “super sounds of stereo” sampler and Stevie Wonder. I can still remember the experience of hearing the room filled with this marvellous music, hearing each instrument in its own place on the sound stage. The highlight on this for me is Sir Duke, paying tribute to Duke Ellington and other jazz greats.
Fun fact! Boards of Canada aren’t from Canada, but are actually a pair of brothers from Scotland producing a great mix of warm 70s modular synth sounds with samples and glitchy beats layered on top. I always make the mistake of thinking this is an ambient album but the beats creep up on me and I get sucked into the rhythm. Great stuff. Highlight is Aquarius which samples counting and giggles from Sesame Street in an enchanting way.
I was introduced to LCD Soundsystem via the video game GTA IV, which made good use of the track Get Innocuous! mixing the in game gunfire to the staccato drums. The album matches quirky, danceable beats with a flat vocal style that shares a lot of DNA with New York acts like Talking Heads. Apparently, James Murphy hated recording his vocals so covered the studio with tin foil because reasons, hence the album name.
So hipster. Much New York. Very Dance.
This was a completely new one to me! The album starts with the series of nuclear weapons tests carried out by India and explores issues of identity and religion against a backdrop of international tension. Musically, it’s a mix of trip hop electronica and traditional Indian instrumentation and voices, and is an enchanting listen, despite the grim and thought provoking subject matter. It finishes with Oppenheimer’s infamous quote from the Bhagavad Gita.
All too frequently with these albums we see someone producing an amazing album before succumbing to the rock n roll lifestyle. Iggy Pop did it the other way round, battling a heroin addiction with the help of his pal David Bowie who not only helped him get clean and collaborated on a couple of albums but paid for some expensive dental work, hence the goofy smile on the cover! The highlight is the thrilling title track, forever linked with Trainspotting.
This album pioneered sampling techniques, making found sounds like radio announcers and ranting preachers the lead vocal on top of a mix of Afrobeats and Middle Eastern rhythms. Eno and Byrne did take the time to clear the samples that were used, although a recording of part of the Qu’ran on the original release was removed from later pressings on grounds of religious sensitivity. This still sounds startlingly contemporary, despite coming out 40+ years ago
In the late 1970s, Belinda Carlisle, Jane Wiedlin, and Margot Olavarria were at the infamous last gig by the Sex Pistols and realised that they could do a lot better than the shambolic mess on stage. They played gigs for a couple of years, tweaking their sound to pop punk (with a hint of surf guitar) before releasing this phenomenal debut album in 1981. We Got The Beat is the ultimate new wave banger and is guaranteed to get you moving!
By the early 70s, the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle had taken its toll on Jim Morrison, leaving him looking and sound considerably older than his 28 years. His voice had deepened to a husky burr, which suited the blues stompers that the rest of the band gravitated to. This is probably the best of the Doors albums, with the highlights being Riders on the Storm and the spoken poetry of WASP. Jim passed away in Paris just over two months after the album was released.
This is a great debut album and an economical 34 minutes in length. Post punk, alt-rock with a raw edge perfectly captured by the late Steve Albini’s production. There was evidently a bit of tension between the band and the producer, shown through some of the studio chatter that’s included here, but it seems to have pushed them to greater heights. Highlight is the track Vamos (Surfer Rosa) which is sung half in Spanish. Great stuff.
This is a big old slice of funktastic 80’s cheese with a side of soul from one of the great soul voices that sounds like it would be great for a romantic night in. Sadly though, the songs don’t quite measure up to the singer. On “If You Think You’re Lonely Now” our hero whines about “his woman” complaining that he’s never there and is broke all the time, so he does the passive aggressive thing of threatening to leave her. Lovely.
I was today years old when I discovered that Bat Out of Hell is based on a sci-fi rock opera version of Peter Pan, albeit with more songs about sex and motorbikes, and not so many about one handed pirates and crocodiles with alarm clocks. This album is a blast though, with Meat Loafs reliably humongous operatic vocals and Jim Steinman’s over the top score. Highlight is surprisingly filthy song using baseball as a metaphor for risky teenage sex in a car.
Nick Drake is another artist like Leonard Cohen with an intimidating reputation. Unlike Cohen, he died at the tragically young age of 26 only having sold 4000 copies in total of his albums. This debut album is simply produced folk, focusing on guitar and vocals with some restrained strings and percussion on some of the tracks. Lyrically, there are no prizes for guessing what the track ‘Memories of Mary Jane’ is about. Highpoint is a song about sheds!
After the sprawling rock opera double album Tommy, Pete Townshend came up with an even more ambitious project - Lifehouse, a dystopian sci fi concept album with a movie and an interactive live show. For various reasons, the project foundered but The Who rescued some of the songs for this album. The highlights are the first and last tracks - Baba O’Reilly and Won’t Get Fooled Again, both featuring epic modular synth riffs that elevate them to classic status.
It’s rare to get an album that is completely new to me that I listen to twice in a row, but this is one of these. This debut from M.I.A takes glitchy, catchy dance beats and layers on lyrics that range from cheeky to sharply political. Maya Arulpragasam experienced life as a refugee from the violence in Sri Lanka when she was just 11 and this plays out in her music, but it’s done with irrepressible charm and wit. I absolutely love this!
Let’s talk about the good stuff first. This album came out the year before Exiles on Main Street and is musically much superior. There are some really nice (but not exactly original) blues riffs on here.
However, it’s impossible to review this without addressing the steaming great racist, misogynist elephant in the room. Brown Sugar is the most gratuitously offensive song to ever hit the charts, and how it still gets played is beyond me.
This was an unexpected treat for a Monday morning! This was the album that saw the Temptations add a psychedelic twist to the Motown funk sound, played with impeccable swagger. The highlight is the 9 minute epic Runaway Child, Running Wild which features Hammond organ and plenty of wah wah guitar riffs. Groovy!
Many bands adopt stage personas, hiding behind elaborate makeup or costumes. Gorrillaz go one step further, being an entirely virtual band with cartoon avatars drawn in Jamie Hewlett’s distinctive style. Gimmicks aside, this is pretty good stuff - lo fi beats and samples, with a bit of rap thrown in, although I wonder how successful it would have been if it hadn’t been obvious from the start that Damon Albarn was behind it all.
Anthrax are justifiably in the top 4 thrash bands of the 80s, if not all time. This album was produced in a clean, no-nonsense style that allows all of the guitars, drums and vocals to be well separated and clearly audible. The lyrics cover environmental collapse, grief, the plight of native Americans, as well as two tracks based on Stephen King stories and a phenomenal song about Judge Dredd from someone who is a mega fan of 2000AD. Enormous fun!
I’ve been curious about this album for a while, as it gets a regular name check on the Ken and Robin podcast as an essential feature of an RPG night. Turns out it’s a live rock album that ticks all of the tropes including a ‘Hello San Francisco!’ to a crowd of politely whooping American college students. The high point is a cheesy voice box guitar effect. The low point is a cover of Jumping Jack Flash that bears no discernible relation to the original tune.
In 1982 Dexy’s Midnight Runners had a massive hit with Come On Eileen, everyone started dressing like a tramp in torn dungarees and wedding discos were never the same again. Apart from the hit, this is an interesting mix of Northern Soul and folky fiddle playing played with a po faced intensity that’s a little bit disturbing. I probably don’t need to hear this again until the next time I’m invited to a wedding.
How did The Who go from amphetamine fuelled 3 minute mod rock bangers to writing a double album rock opera, complete with overtures, undertures, a symphony orchestra, sex, drugs, pinball and a comedy pervert Uncle? This is quite a piece of work - overblown and rambling, but with some genuinely thrilling moments. I think that I prefer the songs as part of the film, which at least puts them in some sort of context so you can follow the story (such as it is).
I avoided Leonard Cohen for a long time, believing the notion that his music was difficult and depressing. The first is simply not true - this is very easy to listen to, with a minimal approach to instrumentation and Cohen’s distinctive vocals. Whether it’s depressing is open to debate - these are extraordinarily intimate songs dealing with love, loss and deep emotions, and they may well stir memories of your own.
I had it my head that TLC were a girl pop band from the mid 2010’s, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover this slice of engaging R&B with some quirky interludes. The wiki page has the obligatory back story of drugs and crazy stuff, including Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopez setting fire to her boyfriend’s shoes and burning down her mansion. Yikes. Highlight is a cover of Prince’s If I Was Your Girlfriend.
Every decade or so, an album comes out that defines the sound of the musical zeitgeist and breaks out to be a massive hit. However, these albums usually leave me cold. I listened to this, but tbqhwy it’s just dull and never catches fire in any way. I imagine that this is what middle class people listened to at dinner parties in the year 2000. I never went to any dinner parties, which might explain why this didn’t engage me. Your mileage may vary.
The music of The Fall veers wildly between sublime genius and borderline unlistenable, often within the same album, and in the case of the track Paintwork, in the same song. Mark E Smith famously took the master tape back to his hotel room and then accidentally recorded part of an Open University lecture on stars over part of the song. They kept it in, and somehow it all works. This is a pretty good starting point for anyone who is Fall curious.
1979 was a strange time in Britain. The energy of punk had evaporated and no one yet knew what to expect from the 80s. This album captured a particular zeitgeist with icily precise production and the immense bass line of Peter Hook. I was never really a fan of Ian Curtis’s gloomy, monotone vocals but this really was something quite unique. A shoutout for one of the most iconic album covers of all time, showing the radio pulses from a neutron star.
Well, this is delicious! In 1964 jazz musician Stan Getz teamed up with guitarist/vocalist Joāo Gilberto (father of the very lovely Bebel Gilberto) for this album of Bossa Nova classics. The legend goes that they needed someone who could sing a verse in English for their version of The Girl From Ipanema, so they drafted in Astrud Gilberto (then wife of Joāo) whose breathy vocals made this a worldwide hit. Apparently she only got $120 for it!
Depeche Mode somehow went from a squeaky clean and slightly effete synth pop band to a sleazy, leather clad, stadium filling behemoth honking out thumping diatribes against religion with Personal Jesus, and shimmering gloomscapes about depression with Enjoy the Silence. Turns out that all it took was lots and lots of those tasty, tasty drugs. The track ‘Clean’ is a little bit on the nose, although the Pink Floyd inspired bass line is excellent.
I think I might be in love. This is a gloriously sensual bossa nova album from Brazil sung by Bebel Gilberto and backed with electronica rhythms that veer into trip hop in places. There’s a tragic back story to the record on the Wikipedia page, but the result is well worth a listen and is one of the rare 1001 Albums that isn’t in the white male American/British rock demographic.
For ages I had Wilco and Wilko Johnson confused, and wondered why so many Americans were excited about a legendary pub rock guitarist from Canvey Island. Today I found out that they are actually an amiable alt-rock band with country leanings and they were generous enough to put out this double album at the regular price. This didn’t set my world on fire, but it was a good way to spend an hour or so.
This was the album where the original 3 Isley Brother officially recruited their two younger siblings Ernie and Marvin, plus brother in law Chris Jasper to play a variety of instruments, and the result is gloriously funky with some amazing guitar work on show. If you have the means to play it, then the quad mix of Summer Breeze is an absolute highlight.
12 songs in 25 minutes has to be some sort of record! These are all perfectly formed snippets of rock and roll that sound as fresh today as when they were recorded nearly 70 years ago. I hadn’t realised that there are also two songs written by Roy Orbison in here as well, and you can definitely hear his style. The world lost a unique talent on the day the music died.
Right Here, Right Now, Rockafeller Skank and Praise You are amongst the very best dance tracks of the 90s taking samples of classic riffs and putting monster beats and breakdowns behind them. Unfortunately they are also the best things on this album by a long way. I could really have done with out hearing the track ‘Fucking in Heaven’ immediately after the first two bangers. Out of the non hit tracks, the highpoint is an old school acid track at the end.
All that I knew about Frank Zappa before listening to this album is that he had crazy hair, a crazy mustache and crazy names for his kids. Appropriately enough, this album is a crazy mix of jazz, funk, rock and psychedelia that bounces around all over the place. The album is mostly instrumental with crazy lyrics from crazy Captain Beefheart on just one song. Technically very accomplished, but it’s all a bit much.
So, the legend of this album is that in 1975 an 18 year old student called Vera Brandes somehow persuaded noted jazz pianist Keith Jarrett to play a late night gig at the prestigious Köln Opera house. Due to a mix up, an old, out of tune rehearsal piano was set up on stage with no time to get a replacement. Jarrett turned up late at the gig, suffering from back pain and with no time to eat, but still agreed to go ahead despite everything.
In this recording, you can hear Jarrett work with the limitations of the piano - avoiding the out of tune high notes and using different techniques to get better bass notes. He improvised for over an hour, including an encore, with the result being one of the biggest selling jazz albums of all time.
There’s an excellent Cautionary Tales podcast episode that goes into more detail about the background to this unique performance:
https://timharford.com/2019/12/cautionary-tales-ep-7-bowie-jazz-and-the-unplayable-piano/
This was the album that saw the Beatles transition from a jangly Merseybeat band into something much more ambitious. With the help of George Martin, they started playing with different instruments (sitars and fuzzed out bass), genres (country!) and studio effects. Lyrically they were a long way from hand holding romance with songs about dysfunctional relationships and existential angst, and the still shocking Run For Your Life as an album closer.
Somehow I had avoided listening to the biggest selling UK album of the 21st century until now, and it’s a remarkable piece of work. Written by Adele when she was just 21 (hence the title) in the aftermath of what sounds like a toxic relationship with a much older man, it naturally deals with pain, heartache and redemption. Musically, it’s a mix of genres but I found that I preferred the simpler tracks with the highpoint for me being ‘I Found a Boy’
This album feels more like jazz noodling and less like the overblown yacht rock of Aja, so I think I probably enjoyed it more (for some values of ‘enjoyed’).
The vocals on this are a curious mix of 60s Bowie, Ray Davies and Marc Bolan, and it’s no surprise to find that their biggest hit was the Bowie written All The Young Dudes and that they ended up working extensively with Mick Ronson. Entertaining 70s glam but not really at the same level as the acts that influenced them.
Listening to this again, it’s pretty clear that Spinal Tap really wasn’t all that much of a parody. When the opening track bangs on about being a ‘back door man’ giving every inch of his love there isn’t really any doubt about what he’s singing about. We also get a folky song about Gollum making off with the hero’s girlfriend in Mordor which I don’t remember from the books. Oh, and let’s not talk about the drum solo. The remastered version sounds good though
After a disappointing tour of the UK in 1972, Bob Marley and his band were broke and didn’t even have enough for the air fare back home to Jamaica. Chris Blackwell of Island Records advanced them £4000 which got them their tickets and enough left over to put this record together in a decent studio. The result is one of the greatest reggae records of all time, mixing songs about slavery and oppression with gloriously blissed out love songs. Simply gorgeous!
Gloriously swampy, blues rock that bounces along in a fun way, even as the lyrics deal with down and out musicians, doomed relationships and deadly weather. The album fits nine songs in just under half an hour and is a great way to kick off a rainy bank holiday weekend!
This is an album that does exactly what it says on the tin. Effortlessly cool, without being arch. The recordings on this date from 1949 and 1950 but sound vibrant and fresh. A perfect place to start for anyone who thinks that jazz is not for them.
Coming to this album cold, my initial impressions were of a spiky, post-punk record with a strong Siouxie and the Banshees influence. I then read that the band were actually from Georgia, USA and started noticing equal amounts of REM and even a bit of B52s going on. This was interesting rather than essential for me.
This is the album where Bob went electric, much to the annoyance of some of his die hard fans. I’m not sure why it was such a big deal, but the added punch really steps things up on side one, especially on Subterranean Homesick Blues where Bob effectively invents rap and the lyric video at the same time. Side two has some fine songs too, especially the classic Mr Tambourine Man. Highlight is On the Road again where he wakes up with frogs in his socks!
Well, this is cheery. Pain, degradation, despair and hopelessness set to music that sounds like being trepanned with an electric drill. I imagine.
Actually, I’m being hard on this. I do like harsh, industrial electronica - my introduction to NiN was via the Quake soundtrack and I really like the movie and TV soundtracks that Reznor is doing now. Hurt (at least the Johnny Cash cover) is a masterpiece. This is just a bit *too* grimdark for my tastes.
Any album that starts with a ‘1-2-3-4’ is an automatic winner for me. I only knew the insanely catchy hit ‘Alright’ but I enjoyed the bouncy punk energy of this, combined with a bit of cheeky chappy humour in an 80s Madness style. They even channel 60s Bowie on We’re Not Supposed To with daft gnome voices. The final track Time to Go is a good closer, and a strong contender for a song to play at a funeral.
The disappearance of Richey Edwards in 1994 casts a very long shadow over this album. I get the feeling that the band wanted to turn this up to 11 and throw everything into it, but the result sounds a bit bombastic and, well, preachy at times. It really is very loud and worthy, but the quieter track Small Black Flowers that Grow in the Sky (written by Edwards) shows what the album might have been if he was still present.
A seventy minute album from Bruce Springsteen about the fallout from 9/11 is a daunting prospect. From just about any other artist this might have come across as preachy or jingoistic, but the Boss manages to make this thoughtful and considered with light and hope amongst the darkness. The E-Street band are back in business for this album too, which really lifts everything. The highlight is My City of Ruins, dedicated to his beloved Asbury Park.
Oooh, this was an interesting one! Elements of shoe gaze, trip hop and a touch of electronica. According to Wikipedia they started as a dance music group with a hit single before a fire in their studio destroyed all of their work in progress, prompting them into a complete change of direction. It reminded me a little of Coldplay, but predates them by a couple of months. I like this a lot!
The 60s were all about the Beatles vs The Stones, so it’s interesting to compare this album with Let It Be. Both were recorded in makeshift studios with the bands in a fractious state. However the Beatles finished theirs in a couple of weeks, and punched up their sound with Billy Preston on keys, whereas the Stones took a year and sound hungover with tired blues songs. A couple of classic tracks here and the remastering definitely helps. Mostly average.
Another one that bounced off me at the time, probably due to silly band name syndrome (I was reading Smashing in the UK sense of the word). I was expecting a scrappy grunge album but actually got a well produced post rock thing instead, even featuring (gasp!) string arrangements on some tracks. I mostly enjoyed it, but I think I probably would have loved it if it was shorter and scrappier.
This is possibly Björk’s most restrained and emotionally vulnerable album, with electronica dialed back in favour of swirling string arrangements and the lyrics describing the aftermath of a relationship breakdown. It definitely takes you on an emotional journey and I will be checking out the accompanying video art pieces that went with it and passed me by at the time.
This starts out like a simple folk album but rapidly mutates into something stranger bringing in multi-tracking, sound effects, weird instruments, psychedelic lyrics and a 13 minute concept piece about an amoeba. Very 60s but it makes you wonder what was in that mushroom stew they were eating.
When Boy George first appeared on Top of the Pops back in the early 80s there was a brief wave of moral panic about ‘gender bending’ pop stars from the right wing press, recycling the same headlines they’d printed about Bowie and Bolan from 10 years previously. However, he soon silenced the critics with a series of top ten hits and a second album that was full of bright, soulful pop with backing vocals from Helen Terry giving a Motown vibe. Lovely stuff.
On the track Psycho Killer, Talking Heads managed to sound like a postpunk band before punk had even happened. Tina Weymouth’s mammoth bassline and David Burns quirky vocals make this a classic. However the rest of the album doesn’t quite live up to this high point. I think I prefer their subsequent Brian Eno produced albums.
This is a remarkable album by any standard, containing three of the greatest protest songs ever written and setting the radical agenda for the sixties and beyond. For it to be just the second album from a little known 22 year old singer songwriter lifts it even further. This album also contains some self deprecating humour and lovelorn ballads, as well as a lovely, downbeat cover of Corina, Corina which was a highlight for me. Simply essential listening.
This album definitely hits hard while being easy to listen to. Songs about racial injustice, poverty, war and pollution by one of the great soul voices. Hugely influential at the time and it still is relevant today.
New York hip hop has a very distinct sound, compared to the stuff being created on the West Coast at this time. This has a languid feel, almost jazz like in places, but we are definitely in the heart of New York for this. The lyrics hit hard, obviously from growing up in some very tough projects, but there are lighter tracks too with songs about chilling out with friends. Influential but probably not one I would listen to regularly.
It’s amazing to think that David Bowie was still a relative outsider when this album came out and that it sold poorly on first release. There is a lot here that points the way to the directions that his music would take with complex cinematic arrangements on Life on Mars alongside pop classics and lyrics namechecking Warhol, Dylan and the Velvet Underground. My high point is Kooks, an utterly charming song dedicated to his new born son.
Ok, I know that Bono is a pompous arse and that the band have turned avoiding tax into an art form, not to mention that I had an ex that played this all the time, but the opening to this album still makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I suspect that is mainly due to the production work of Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois who conjure huge soundscapes evoking a mythic America. The wiki is a fun read especially Eno threatening to burn the master tapes!
Having an eponymous album name is a sure sign of self confidence. This band know what they are doing, with 12 songs blasted out in under 30 minutes in an entertaining mix of thrash, proto-rap and country, apparently inventing the genre cowpunk in the process. Good fun!
This is pretty much by the numbers post punk with agit prop lyrics about IRA prisoners, situationist politics and violence on TV. At one point he genuinely sings “Love’ll get you like a case of Anthrax and that’s something I don’t wanna catch”. The high point is probably the song about drugs (where he has a choice between Asprin and Paracetamol).
I think that this another case of mistaken identity. I assumed that Super Furry Animals were a novelty kids band, like the Wombles. However, they turn out to be a sort of Welsh psychedelic, shoe gazy, dubstep version of the Beach Boys with songs morphing from mellow piano introductions into glitchy electronica without pausing for breath. One track even features Paul McCartney chewing celery in the background. Enjoyably bonkers!
Air are Daft Punk’s older, cooler cousins - smoking Gitanes behind the bike sheds and wearing stripy jumpers in a post modern, ironic way. They take the lush soundscapes of 60’s Nouvelle Vague cinema, add bloopy 70s modular synths and classic moogs, and top it off with some banging dance tracks (Sexy Boy and Kelly Watch the Stars being highlights). If you have the means to play it, the Dolby Atmos mix of this sounds immense!
This is an astonishing collection of songs, ranging from light jazz to bluesy love songs and the white hot anger of Four Women - showing different perspectives on the lingering evil of slavery and racism in America. The common thread is Nina Simone’s voice, a husky burr that soars into the stratosphere when it needs to.
The previous album was a huge success, but for this one the band got carried away in the studio and produced too much material for a single album so they padded it out with unused songs from previous albums to make it a double. This means that there are a lot of self indulgent tracks on here that all go on a little bit too long or don’t fit, like the funky Stevie Wonder inspired Trampled Under Foot. Kashmir is still a monster track though!
Amiable late 60s folk rock, probably steering more to the folk end of the spectrum. A nice accompaniment to the hour I spent stuck in traffic on the way back from work, although I was tempted to skip the track labelled as a dirge, which did what it said on the tin!
This is one for the ‘what were they thinking?’ files, both for the artist and the compilers of the list.
Side one is some pretty standard 60’s psychadelia, but side 2 turns out to be a 19 minute, full on, acid jazz rock freak out that the band themselves described as "a waste of a side of an album". It’s got harpsichord, harmonica, an extended drum solo and a bit where he starts screaming. I quite liked it, but I’m not sure I’d listen to it again!
The turning point from the hippy 60s into the cynical 70s produced a lot of great music and this album is no exception. I was more familiar with Dolly Parton’s version of the title track than the original, but it’s still as bafflingly obtuse as ever. “Oh, Lonesome Me” is a masterpiece of self pity and staying in, but the highlight is “Southern Man” - a blistering attack on racism in the Deep South with some rocking guitar work.
Another album where the artist was new to me and another case where they died tragically young. This is very much in the vein of 60s singer/songwriters but some of the lyrics are definitely something that wouldn’t have appeared in those days. By all accounts this was more of a hit after Smith’s passing, making some of these songs sound very poignant.
True confession - I always assumed that Aerosmith were an 80s metal band and I had no idea that they started in 1970!
Anyhoo, this album is a gloriously swaggering 70s classic with nods to the Who, the Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath and the Beatles. They even channel George Formby on one song about whipping out his 10 inch … record. The original version of Walk This Way also shows them to be ahead of their time, anticipating quirky hip hop rhythms.
This album was overshadowed by two tragedies - Kurt Cobain’s suicide a week before it was released and the death of bassist Kristen Pfaff two months later from a heroin overdose. There was also a deeply misogynistic rumour that Cobain had ghost written some or all of the tracks on the album.
However, this album is easily strong enough to stand on its own. It’s post grunge rock with some very on the nose lyrics. Good stuff.
This was a band that I hadn’t heard of before and the album was a bit of a mish mash of different styles - a sort of “Now That’s What I Call Generic 60’s Music!”. There was a bit of unthreatening R&B, a side step into West Coast garage, a spot of Spanish guitar and even some birds (or should that be Byrds) tweeting at the start of one track. I’m guessing that they were more popular in the USA but they only had one hit in the UK.
Aretha Franklin was not just the Queen of Soul, but one of the greatest vocalists of all time. This album bridges the gap between gospel and soul, showing that when all is said and done, love songs are the same no matter who you are singing them to. The music sensibly does not get in the way of Aretha’s voice, which soars with emotion on every song.
When I was younger, I had a ‘Best of the Doors’ compilation which was a pretty good selection of tracks from all eras of the band. However, the track order is burnt into my synapses so that when I hear Roadhouse Blues I expect it to be followed by LA Woman, which is kind of jarring when Waiting for the Sun comes on. Taken as a whole, this is a solid blues rock album although Jim Morrison’s voice sounds much older than the 27 years old he was at the time.
From the name of the band I was expecting some avant garde Belgian jazz from the 1950s, and to be fair there are some enjoyably weird bits to this, but it turned out to be more of a proto punk garage rock album and a fun listen. The highlight is probably the title track which shamelessly borrows the bass riff from Neal Hefti’s 1960s Batman theme tune.
I didn’t really listen to Radiohead in the early 2000s even though, on paper, they were right up my street. I think it’s taken a good number of years for these albums to sink in, especially this one. I love the tape loops, obscure electronic instruments, glitchy effects, raw guitars and the concise but sonically dense songs. It’s not quite at five stars, but I think it will get there over time.
Usually with these albums, I listen to them and then have a look at the accompanying Wiki page. In this case, I read about them first and apparently they nearly split up in a dispute about royalties before they’d even recorded the album, with lead singer Perry Farrell claiming 50% of the rights with another 12.5% on top for the music. The band disagreed.
That’s probably the most interesting thing about this generally unremarkable 80s alt rock album. YMMV.
I think I avoided this album at the time, because, as the comedian Ed Byrne pointed out, having 10,000 spoons when you need a knife isn’t ironic, it’s just stupid. What would be ironic is if it turned out that a spoon would have done the job anyway.
Anyhoo, this album turns out to be good in parts. The slightly fey numbers didn’t really appeal, but there are some much harder hitting tracks about dysfunctional relationships that hit home for me, especially the non-radio version of You Oughta Know which was excellent.
Fela Kuti is another artist that I was introduced to by Grand Theft Auto, on the GTAIV soundtrack. This is a brilliant live album, high energy afrobeat with a touch of muscular 70s funk. Fela promises 4 songs at the start of the set, but listen out for a 16 minute bonus track featuring a drum battle between Tony Allen and guest star Ginger Baker from Cream.
The Killers scored a massive hit with this debut album, but for some reason it doesn’t seem to stick with me. I’ve only just listened to it, but I doubt that I could hum the chorus to Mr Brightside if I tried. Musically it’s somewhere between Coldplay and Zooroopa era U2, with an oddly nasal sounding vocal effect applied to lead singer Brandon Flowers on all of the songs. Ok I guess, but I probably wouldn’t listen to it again.
Brian Eno is probably best known for his iconic ambient albums and his work with some of the biggest names in rock music as a producer over the last fifty years. However, his solo albums are not to be missed. He had an amazing set of collaborators for this album including Robert Fripp, Robert Wyatt and even Phil Colllins playing drums on a couple of tracks. Apparently over a hundred songs were recorded and whittled down to ten for the album over a two year period.
The music is interesting and varied, with some funky stuff on the first side and more introspective pieces on side two, giving hints of the ambient material he was also working on at the same time, albeit in smaller chunks. I like this a lot, but on balance I still prefer the previous album Another Green World which is one of my all time favourites.
This is another album where my view of it is coloured by the current political leanings of the artist. Van Morrison seems to have turned into a tin foil hat anti-vaxer with his latest album having a song “They Own the Media”. No prizes for working out what he’s alluding to here.
I listened to this album anyway and didn’t really enjoy it. File in the bin with Morrissey, Clapton et al.
This is an effortlessly cool blend of hip-hop, jazz and some very cheeky samples that flows beautifully. I loved the way that the tribe is introduced in the first track, giving the album the feel of a party where you are meeting a bunch of new people who are all happy to include you in their musical meanderings. My favourite track was I left My Wallet in El Segundo which spins a yarn of an ill advised road trip into the desert.
I was introduced to Tito Puente by the game Grand Theft Auto : Vice City. Every yellow cab in the Little Havana district would be playing Radio Espantoso and it’s impossible not to enjoy the infectious rhythms. This album is a good introduction to Señor Puente and my particular favourite is Mambo Gozon, but to be honest they’re all good songs, Brent.
This is another classic album that I haven’t listened to all the way through before, although I knew most of the tracks especially *that* bit from The Chain which is the theme tune for F1 racing in the UK for some reason. The back story to this album is interesting too, with most of the band going through drug problems and divorces, and somehow still managing to produce a whole load of optimistic love songs. My highlight was Songbird, one that was new to me
If 1990’s Goo anticipated grunge, then 1988’s Daydream Nation harks back to the spiky sounds of post punk and new wave from 10 years previously. This really reminded me of Joy Division in places and I think that Kim Gordon’s bass playing compares well to Peter Hook’s. The only complaint I have about this is that stretching 12 songs over a double album is a bit much - I’d rather they’d cut them down to 3 minute bangers and kept it as a single album.
The early 70s must have been a difficult time for the flower power generation - the optimism of Woodstock giving way to the realities of settling down, raising children and (gasp!) maybe even getting a hair cut. This is an entertaining collection of folk rock songs, with the highlight probably being their version of Joni Mitchell’s Woodstock. Not entirely sure why the cover photo has them looking like something from the 1870s though.
The only thing that I know about Steely Dan is that they were named after a steam powered dildo from William Burroughs’ drug classic The Naked Lunch. This album feels very polished and technically accomplished but like several other classic albums on this list, it didn’t grab me. According to Wikipedia this is classed as Yacht Rock, so maybe I need to own a yacht before I can appreciate it properly?
Remember the other day when I was surprised that the Black Crowes didn’t sound grungy and cynical? Well, I think that Sonic Youth must have got an extra helping to make up for it. They’ve got fuzzed out guitars, laconic vocals, thumping bass and lots of swirling feedback. I don’t think I listened to this at the time, but I liked it a lot. The highlight was Tunic (Song for Karen) which sounds like it was a direct influence on Dry Cleaning’s Magic of Meghan.
This album was recorded and released shortly before Leonard Cohen’s death, so unsurprisingly it deals with some heavy topics - love, pain and faith, but it manages to sound bright and positive too. Cohen is accompanied by a synagogue choir and a cantor in places, and the whole thing sounds very atmospheric and moving. I’d put this along side Nick Cave for an album to listen to in a darkened room when you have time to meditate on what he is saying.
The 90s were supposed to be a grungy, cynical era, so this unpretentious rock and roll album is something of an outlier. I think this is probably the American equivalent of Pub Rock - no nonsense rock’n’roll, nothing fancy but good fun. A particular highlight is a foot stomping cover of Too Hard to Handle by Otis Redding.
80’s thrash metal passed me by at the time - I always preferred British metal bands like Iron Maiden or Motörhead or the occasional bit of cheeky hair metal, and thought that thrash wasn’t for me. I was expecting this album to be hard work, but it turned out to be surprisingly accessible, with some interesting songs and allusions to the Cthulhu mythos. The whole thing is technically brilliant but it still didn’t completely grab me for some reason.
This was a proper curate’s egg of an album. Parts of it were excellent, especially the track Synchronicity II. Sting has mostly stopped singing in a cod Jamaican accent which is a plus point.
However, the hits dragged through overfamiliarity (if I never hear I’ll be Watching You again, I won’t complain). There are some real clunking missteps too, such as rhyming Brontosaurus with ‘lesson for us’ and the track Mother is simply awful.
I came to this album expecting it to be full of fingers in ears, folderol-diddle-aye-day and songs about hobbits. To be fair, there is a line about “Oh My true love” in one of the songs, but this album has a nice mix of folk and some bluesy riffs on (gasp!) electric guitars. There are also a surprising number of Bob Dylan songs, an entertaining French song with what sounds like a hurdy gurdy and the classic Who Knows Where the Time Goes. Good stuff.
Interesting mix of loops, quirky/provocative lyrics and a huge rumbling bass line. I hadn’t heard this before and was interested to read that they worked with Bowie on a later track which I will be checking out.
This album takes a smidge of country, a sprinkling of southern rock and a decent helping of good old rock ‘n’ roll to create something that sounds timeless, and if you didn’t know when it was created you probably wouldn’t guess it’s from the musical doldrums of 1976. Pretty good stuff all the way through, and one bona fide classic hit with American Girl at the end of its succinct 30 minute run time.
Well, this was a treat! Funky beats, black power and a nearly 12 minute cut of Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone that takes up half of side one. Side two is a little more laid back, but still gorgeous listening.
I think I first heard the track La Grange just before ZZ Top became the unlikeliest breakout stars of the MTV video boom with their album Eliminator. I was immediately hooked by this swampy, bluesy, southern rock with a nice mix of foot stompers and slower ballads. The album fits 10 songs into a brisk 33 minutes and is always a fun listen!
I didn’t really get the Madchester sound first time around, but now with a greater appreciation of 60s music I find I’m enjoying it more, oddly enough. I really enjoy this indie guitar sound that is firmly rooted in the 60s psychedelic tradition with some epic drums holding it all together.
Listening to this album is a bit like taking a bath in warm syrup - soothing and relaxing, but ultimately a bit over sweet. Mariah Carey has a gorgeous voice, but she does that thing where it warbles over half a dozen notes in a single word. It’s probably technically very accomplished, but it sounds like a real life autotune in places. The best song was a cover of Prince’s Beautiful Ones and I liked the tweeting bird noises too.
Listening to this album is almost unbearably poignant. I can’t help remembering the first time I heard it, sharing the experience with friends on the internet, thrilled that we were hearing a new Bowie album. We puzzled at the lyrics, especially the references to death, and enjoyed the cheeky bits about someone grabbing his cock. There were even callbacks to his very first album that we had listened to not long ago.
Then we got the news …
This is great! Utterly infectious Afro-Cuban big band jazz from 1957 with a great remaster that sounds as fresh as if it were recorded yesterday. This really put a buzz in a dull Thursday for me!
This is an unusual one! It sounds like a 60s folk album, with added orchestration sung by someone with the phrasing of Bjork and the lyrical sensibilities of Nick Cave. There are five longish songs on this album and they require a certain amount of concentration to follow as it’s quite easy to let it wash over you. I’ll be listening again, which should tell you how I feel about it.
This album has two cover versions of the annoying one hit wonder “Live is Life” by Opus, sung in guttural German accents, which is probably two too many I think. There’s also a cover of One Vision by Queen which ends up sounding like a world war II era propaganda speech.
The rest of the album continues the totalitarian theme with pounding drums, grandiose orchestral stings, industrial noise and speech samples. It all makes me feel a bit queasy.
This is Public Enemy’s third album and it maintains the furious intensity of their previous release. The samples are even more on the nose in this one, and are self referential in places, talking about the furore that surrounded It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. Essential listening but you will feel drained by the non stop sonic assault by the end.
This album is from the 80s but it sounds depressingly contemporary, with songs about a crazy world teetering on the brink of destruction, run by right wing politicians and money grubbing billionaires who are “loyal to the Bank of America”. The jangly guitars and Michael Stipe’s nasal vocals have dated a bit more than the lyrics, but I still found myself singing along with and remembering most of the words to “End of the World as we Know It”
I’m not averse to a bit of prog when I’m in the mood, but to quote Joseph II this really has far too many notes for my taste. It opens with mad, free jazz style guitar noodling and never really calms down at any point. The 18 minute title track has some good parts, but it’s hard work to listen to. Apparently side 2 is supposed to be more folk and rock oriented, but it’s really more of the same, although the songs are a bit shorter. OK, I guess.
This is a very appropriate album for Valentine’s Day, and it very much does what it says on the tin. Seven bitter sweet songs about love, with orchestral arrangements, clocking in at just over half an hour. This still has some of the quirkiness and humour of other songs by the Divine Comedy, especially the references to horses!
If you were a horse
I could ride you through the fields at dawn
Through the day until the day was gone
By any measure this is a remarkable piece of work - 14 tracks accompanied by 17 videos and a slew of other bonus features, dropped as a surprise release with no pre-publicity. This is immaculately produced, with lots of interesting audio samples and flourishes, she has an amazing voice and the lyrics are interesting, but polished pop isn’t really my thing.
Definitely one of David Bowie’s best albums, exploring the psyche of his alter ego Ziggy Stardust. Full of absolute classics from start to finish and sounding timeless. Five Years could have been written now (and why didn’t we listen at the time?)
Full of righteous anger and astute observations on the state of the world and racial injustice. It also rocks hard! Probably one of the best and most influential hip hop albums, but not an easy listen in places.
A double-album from an obscure punk band with 43 tracks? It starts with what sounds like jazz funk and then goes into Spanish guitar and a sketchy live recording. Hmmm. It’s a bit of a curate’s egg this album - I really liked the punk tracks, but I felt they were trying a bit too hard to sound like Talking Heads on the funkier tracks.
I really enjoyed this quirky album from Manu Chao - according to Wikipedia he sings in French, Spanish, English, Italian, Arabic, Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, Greek and occasionally other languages! A veritable one man DuoLingo! Lots of interesting little samples and snippets thrown in too - pretty sure I heard something from Galaxians at one point.
The very definition of all killer, no filler - this album set the template for metal through the 80s. Absolutely blistering all the way through, with the only downside is that some of the lyrics haven’t aged particularly well, especially Night Prowler. Highway to Hell also feels bitter sweet, knowing the way that singer Bon Scott was to die less than a year after this was released. Still a classic though
Enjoyably jazzy, breezy pop that’s very easy to listen to but has considerable lyrical depth. The songs flowed into each other pretty seamlessly, making this a good album to let wash over you, picking out something different each time.
This was an interesting listening experience - I recognised the single from this but the rest was new to me. Definitely psychedelia with a distinctly English touch somewhere between Pink Floyd and the Kinks. I was interested to see that the band originally formed in one of the pubs that I used to frequent in St Albans, near where I grew up, so technically that makes them a local band for me!
I went into this with no idea what to expect and it turned out to be an enormous amount of fun. In places it sounded like the soundtrack to a Disney film directed by David Lynch featuring flugelhorns, wurlitzers and even a musical saw. Stay around for the hidden bit on the last track!
Enjoyably noisy indie rock album, with grungy vocals (although predating actual grunge by several years). True confession - I avoided this for ages because I thought that Dinosaur Jr were a novelty kids band or something. Doh.
Interesting mish-mash of styles switching from 60s west coast garage psychedelia to grungy hipster hip-hop with weird sound effects, slide guitars and record scratches. OK, I guess, but it didn’t really grab me.
Effortlessly cool blend of jazz and Afro beat that fills an entire double album without pausing for breath. Some funky uptempo beats mixed with some slower tracks for variety. Excellent listening.
I’m not sure why I’ve not listened to much Yes before - I think that Jon Anderson’s high pitched singing style may have put me off a bit. This is very much in the 70s prog tradition with long songs and lots of guitar and keyboard noodling, so there’s plenty to enjoy, and the vocals fit in well, so no complaints on that score. It’s surprisingly funky in places too!
I’ve really enjoyed listening to some of these albums from the late 70s and early 80s - my record buying at this time was mostly singles rather than albums, so this is a chance to catch up. I love the punky, new wave edge here - Chrissie Hynde definitely brought something unique to the music scene at this time
I was a little bit puzzled by this one. They are very much one hit wonders, with the excellent single Another Girl, Another Planet that I think was re-released in the 2010s. The rest of the songs on the album don’t really live up to that, with vaguely punkish guitars and nasal vocals but nothing that stands out.
Can this album really be over 22 years old? I don’t think I listened to it at the time, but the singles are still as transcendent as ever, especially Clocks. I will always associate this particular sound with that era, just past the turn of the millennium, when the world seemed a relatively hopeful place.
A bluesy, laid back pub rock album was an unlikely candidate for a hit back in 1978 at the height of punk, but somehow Dire Straits got away with it and went on to be one of the biggest rock bands of the 80s with MTV friendly anthems like Money for Nothing. There’s a lot to enjoy here, especially the hit song Sultans of Swing and the atmospheric guitar lines.
This is an album that demands and rewards multiple listens, preferably with a guide to the samples. There is so much going on here at so many levels, with samples used in surprising and unexpected ways, paired with some incredibly dense lyrics full of allusions and niche references. I can see why this wasn’t as commercially successful as their first album but it’s much more satisfying. It really does live up to its reputation as the Sergeant Pepper of Hip Hop!
A band from the Liverpool area with psychedelic overtones, discovered playing in the Cavern Club - no, not those guys, it’s the Coral. Really enjoyed the mish mash of styles on this, sung in a Jim Morrison sort of style. Opening your debut album with a piratey shanty is a bold move, but one I like. Great stuff!
Enjoyable big band swing jazz from Count Basie, with a hat tip to Neal Hefti for the arrangements who later went on to write the amazing Batman TV series theme music.
There are some nice quirky elements, with whistling and an unusual twanging sort of noise which turned out to be a mouth harp in the background.
I had always heard that Leonard Cohen had a reputation for being depressing and hard to listen to, but I really enjoyed this album. It’s sparse musically, but the production really allows the voice to shine through. The lyrics are on a par with Bob Dylan with occasional bits of French.
There are some nice quirky elements, with whistling and an unusual twanging sort of noise which turned out to be a mouth harp in the background.
Today’s album is The Queen is Dead by the Smiths which I find really difficult to listen to now. The best that you can say is that 75% of the band aren’t obnoxious racist bigots.
I will admit to not being at all familiar with Solomon Burke, and I’m glad that I had the chance to fix that today. He has an amazing soul voice and this album was delightful from start to finish.
From that iconic opening chord, the energy never lets up on this. A fantastic album, and the first that is all original material with no covers. Side one is effectively the soundtrack to the movie, and side two fills it out with songs written at the same time in a blaze of creativity.
Today's album is Regatta de Blanc by the Police, and another one where I am very familiar with the hits but not the rest. Oddly enough these were the bits that grated, with reggae being sung in a cod Jamaican accent by a white bloke from Tyneside. In contrast the standout for me was the instrumental title track and some of the spikier new wave style songs.
This is a remarkable album that rewards repeated listens. It’s complex, layered, playful and chilled at the same time. The samples are eclectic drawing from ambient, jazz, funk and film scores combined in sometimes surprising and unexpected ways. Definitely one to listen to on headphones!
I know the singles off this album but I don’t think I’ve listened to the album before. I remember thinking that this was sort of easy-listening, but it is actually quite tough going in places with some justifiably angry lyrics about poverty and racial injustice. Reminiscent of singer songwriters from the 60s, but with a definite 80s polish in the sound quality.
