1001 Albums Summary

Led Zeppelin IV [conventional title] by Led Zeppelin (1971) In 1982, eleven years after this album’s release, a 17-year-old ‘big man on campus’ named Benny walked into his private-school math class singing: “Hey, hey, mama, said the way you move Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove”. His stern, no-nonsense Intermediate Algebra teacher (me) turned from writing the day’s assignment on the blackboard to shoot Benny a disapproving glare. Benny sheepishly clammed up. But as I turned back to the blackboard to finish, I sang softly: “Ah, ah, child, way you shake that thing Gonna make you burn, gonna make you sting” As I put down the chalk and turned again toward the class, smile met smile as Benny and I shared a trans-generational moment of awareness of the power of Led Zeppelin IV. Benny ended the semester with a surprisingly good ‘A-‘ in math. It would have been a ‘B+’, but his anachronistic love for Led Zeppelin tilted the scales in a positive direction, and I don’t regret it one bit. There was a time when I considered Led Zeppelin IV to be the greatest album ever, and I’m not sure that that time is past. Young people today should do themselves a favor and develop such a strong a familiarity with this record that they will be able to recognize each track from its opening strains, like Beethoven’s Symphony #5 or Bach’s Toccata and Fugue. It’s that good. Few albums have ever had both the variety and cohesiveness of Led Zeppelin IV. Each listen is an immersive experience, striding through an aural gallery of head-banging rock, moan-inducing blues, culture-resonating folk, and a time-transcending mysticism that carries perennial fascination. And tying all these disparate features together is a musical synthesis of sounds of today (the ‘now’) and images of the misty past (the ‘then’—see below). As musicians, each of the six performers (including Sandy Denny, ethereal backing vocal on “The Battle of Evermore” and Ian Stewart, piano on “Rock and Roll”) executes at peak virtuosity. The four members of Led Zeppelin (Jimmy Page [guitar], Robert Plant [lead vocals], John Bonham [drums], and John Paul Jones [bass & keyboards]) are each individually on lists of the ‘greatest of all time’ in their respective categories of performance. Yet no rock group (other than The Beatles) ever played better together. From the electro-windup intro on the opening track “Black Dog”, the listener knows he/she is in for a thrill and a treat, in that order. Robert Plant’s inimitably powerful yet soulful a cappella lead vocal storms onto the scene, grabbing the ears. Then, struggling to discern the meter, the listener immediately discovers the groove, even though it seems that John Bonham’s ingenious rhythmic composition is performing a different song altogether, ignoring the standard gum-chewing backbeat of early rock. But everything is in miraculous sync, as Page and Jones muscle on, all pausing to let Plant do his thing before kicking back in with pure power rock. We teenagers listening to this in 1971 had never heard anything like this before, because there never was anything like this before. Then, without letting up, we hear the smashing rock & roll of “Rock & Roll”, where Bonham reminds us that the backbeat still lives, and Page cooks like never before with wild guitar solo work. Page later said the track was written and recorded in fifteen minutes. I would have paid serious money to sit in a room with Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and Chuck Berry to watch them hear this track for the first time. And by the way, the most convincing cover of this song was done by Heart (the closing track of Greatest Hits/Live [1980]). And just when we think the album is going to mash out hard rock from beginning to end, we are jolted into a little fantasy medievalism with the next two tracks, “The Battle of Evermore” (check out the Tolkien, Lord of the Rings references) and “Stairway to Heaven”, where Page’s first-time (!) experience with mandolin and iconic solo electric guitar passages wrap around Plant’s mystical lyrics (Plant was only 22 years old at the time). “Stairway to Heaven” is in the rock ballad canon because of its dramatically drawn out development and increased intensity over a steady chord structure. It’s one of the greatest songs ever, not because of profound lyrics, but because of its incomparable instrumentation and vocal performance. Yes, it has been overplayed and over analyzed, but it still moves. The amazing guitar solo (at 5:55) and the wailing lead vocal on the closing bridge (at 6:45) still bring shivers after a thousand listens. Side two begins with “Misty Mountain Hop” providing an explanation of the contrast on side one between the ‘now’ of the first two tracks and the ‘then’ of tracks three and four. After a tale of a druggie’s awkward encounter with a cop in the mundane ‘now’, the artist concludes with a flight to ‘then’: “So I'm packing my bags for the Misty Mountains Where the spirits go now Over the hills where the spirits fly, ooh” And the listener, clutching a copy of Tolkien, The Hobbit, is glad to go along for the ride. The ‘now/then’ duality is beautifully pictured in the cover art, where the front side shows the weathered ruins of an interior wall adorned with an old painting of a seemingly even older man, contrasting with a modern but dull and overcast cityscape where buildings battle with trees on the back side. And between concern for “when the river runs dry” (in “Four Sticks”, featuring Bonham’s superlative drumming with four drumsticks in 5/8 alternating with 6/8) to the droning blues dread of what will happen “When the Levee Breaks” we hear of a search for the perfect woman as the acoustic guitar (Page) and mandolin (Jones) accompany the softly melodic tune “Going to California”: “To find a queen without a king They say she plays guitar and cries and sings... La la la la Ride a white mare in the footsteps of dawn Tryin' to find a woman who's never, never, never been born.” When in fact she has been born, and her name is Joni Mitchell, and Robert Plant knows it. But he can dream, and so can we. I will listen to this album till the day I die. 5/5

“XX” by the xx (2009) Never heard this album or heard of this group. Minimalist, airy, intentionally lazy, anti-energy vocals, with mechanical bass & drum—not a vehicle for any display of talent, but a cool enough sound. Lyrics rather plain. Guitar work very plain. Kind of a lazy New Wave—like putting Eurythmics and Edie Brickell in a dark room and piping in opium smoke. This album is okay for background music (though it wouldn’t boost production) or to lower my blood pressure. Not the kind of music that would bring an emotional response out of me. I could write more, but I don’t seem to have the energy. 2/5

“Sticky Fingers” by The Rolling Stones (1971) Since this is one of the greatest albums of all time, I’ll take a different approach here. This album is one with which I’m very familiar. I know it by heart. My older sister bought it for me when it first came out in 1971, and, since my record collection was quite limited at the time, I listened to it thousands of times. It became a very important part of my musical, cultural, and spiritual formation, although I didn’t realize it at the time. For those who have never listened to this music as an album, it might only be familiar through the tracks that became hits, such as “Brown Sugar” and “Bitch”. Or those who are keenly attentive to music may be familiar with other songs such as “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking”, or “Sister Morphine “, which have entered the cultural consciousness of the 21st century. But as an indicator of the influence of this album, one should observe that every song on the album has a separate Wikipedia article of its own. That’s saying something. This album qua album should be listened to from start to finish. Rock ‘n Roll. Decadent and dirty. Crystallized toxic masculinity with only a hint of redemption. Now, to understand this album, let me take you back in history (1970): Meredith Hunter was dead. An 18 year old African American, he was killed by Hells Angels member Alan Passaro on December 6, 1969 in front of the stage at the “Altamont Free Concert”, featuring The Rolling Stones. Hunter had pulled a gun, and Passaro stabbed him five times in the back (later acquitted of murder on the grounds of self-defense). The Stones were performing the misogynistic “Under My Thumb” at the time. How would The Rolling Stones respond to this terrible event in their next studio album? Artistic humility and lamentation or supercharged indifference? You be the judge. Brian Jones was dead. The quirky, talented, inventive, and unstable founder and multi-instrumentalist for The Rolling Stones had died in July 1969 (at the age of 27). Lead guitarist Mick Taylor took his place. That is the number one reason why this album is great. Lead singer Mick Jagger, drummer Charlie Watts, and bassist Bill Wyman knew that the replacement of Jones would make or break the band, so they were highly motivated to excel on this first studio album with the new lineup. How to integrate Mick Taylor to a well-established rock ‘n roll band? It was an artistic and existential challenge, and the Stones were up to it. Now Keith Richards, rhythm guitarist, worked with Taylor to ‘roll’ him into The Rolling Stones’ unique sound of ‘weaving’ lead and rhythm. The chemistry between these two became magical. I probably listened to this album several hundred times before I began to get an inkling of this. Listen closely and you’ll hear it. Richards/Taylor. Rhythm/Lead. That’s the music of this album. The rhythm section (Charlie Watts on drums and Bill Wyman on bass) provides quintessentially steady, if inelaborate tempos and grounding throughout. Keith Richards provides suitable chord structure and underpinning of the melodies in his execution of rhythm guitar. Vocally, Mick Jagger is a mess. But that’s the point. His deliberately exaggerated flaws in his vocal stylings, chaotic diction and tone, loose approach to pitch, and sometimes random exclamations are all calculated to produce the intended effect—adolescent male angst (however far out of touch he is with his own). In “Brown Sugar”, misogyny and racism are wrapped into one hard driven musical wallow with a rollicking beat. In the lyrics, the Anglo narrator reflects on the cultural roots of his present day sexual infatuation with a young Black woman, connecting it back to the sexual liberties of white male slave owners, and further back to the violent sexual domination by white slave traders over their helpless victims. It was the musical answer to the question, “Why is sex with black women so appealing to white men?” (Answer: the screams). It was recorded December 2-4, 1969. Then the Stones were ‘off to Altamont’ where they performed this song live, musically presiding (not incidentally) over the scene where a white man killed a gun-toting black man in front of the black man’s white girlfriend. Now put all that together, bro. The message of “Sway” is that evil, even demonic attacks of depression can only be conquered by love. Set in a bluesy environment, the music is accentuated by the weaving of two guitar lines: bottleneck slide (Taylor) and electric rhythm (this time by Jagger instead of Richards). The song ends with a masterful slide guitar solo by Mick Taylor and an effective string background as it fades. A beautiful and under-appreciated anthem. On “Wild Horses” a serious listener (with headphones) can get a sense of Taylor and Richards ‘weaving’, especially in the first verse, with Richards on twelve string acoustic in the right channel, while Taylor provides blended lead and licks on slide acoustic in the center of the stereo mix, adding overdubbed color (with the lower four strings tuned an octave higher) in the right channel. It becomes a tender setting for the message of devotion a man to his woman in the midst of her suffering. Notice the emotional progression from the insensitively nasty in “Brown Sugar” to hopefulness in “Sway”, and then on to deep compassion in “Wild Horses”. On “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking”, we hear more ‘weaving’. Listen for Richards on the right channel and Taylor on the left channel. At 2:42, Taylor drops out for Richards to set up the remarkable Bobby Keys tenor sax solo. Taylor and Richards both provide underlying colorings to the sax, followed (at 4:40) by an iconic Taylor guitar solo, with Richards providing rhythm support, until Keys rejoins (at 6:00) for a fine jazz romp to the final splash cymbal by Watts. (If you wanted background music to a collage of scenes of mob violence, this would do nicely. And that is exactly what Martin Scorsese did with it in “Casino”. Chilling.) The last two minutes of the track, it is reported, were unplanned. The musicians were unaware the tape was still rolling. God exists. With “Bitch”, we have uninhibited nasty rock, enriched by a sassy horn section over more ‘weaving’ by Richards and Taylor. The musical setting and lustful lyric provide a suitable vehicle for Jagger’s raw vocals. These words depict a driving passion for the beloved that is reduced to autonomic reflex (“like a Pavlov dog”). For God’s sake, woman, throw the dog a bone. “I Got the Blues” is a dirge-like blues ballad, guaranteed to lower your blood pressure after “Bitch”. Again, with beautiful horns, and some exquisite Hammond organ soloing by Billy Preston. And speaking of blood pressure, “Sister Morphine” is a track that could send you to the hospital. A haunting minor key lament of a drug addict’s agonizing withdrawal, addressed to his longed-for but absent Sister Morphine. Mournful tone on the Richards’ strummed acoustic, with accompanying electric slide, this time by the incomparable Ry Cooder. In his delirium, the song’s protagonist is possessed of a sudden terror (“What am I doing in this place? / Why does the doctor have no face?”). If this song doesn’t produce a shudder, you’re already dead. And speaking of dead, the next track, “Dead Flowers” is a piece of lazy passive aggression, presented in a funked up country mood. Jagger’s narrator can’t contain a mocking disdain for his former girl who has apparently moved up the better life, leaving him in some basement “with needle and a spoon”. Vocals with an exaggerated affected southern accent highlight the mockery. The only hint of redemption here is his (vain) hope to someday put roses on her grave. Why am I skeptical? The final song on “Sticky Fingers” is “Moonlight Mile”. Painfully slow, a man living “on the road” longs to be home with his beloved. Fine acoustic and electric guitar work by Taylor. The expansive string arrangement over a gut wrenching piano brings his hope to an almost victorious conclusion, punctuating the powerful bridge before softening at the very end, bringing this song, and this album, to a melancholy conclusion. In its creative conception, the lyrics (as well as the cover art, dangling tongue logo, and other marketing strategies) are unabashedly lascivious and drug-centered. But they are tempered by reflections of darker and even dangerous moods—a perfect concoction for exciting the libido of most every 16-year old American male (like me at the time), who imagined that it was his own picture on the cover. “Sticky Fingers” by The Rolling Stones is, of course, a classic. 5/5

“You Want It Darker” by Leonard Cohen (2016) If you want to hear music written, sung, and recorded by an 82-year-old Canadian Jew sitting in his living (dying) room crippled by fractures in his spine and counting the few painful moments he has left, then this album is for you. And if you don’t want to hear music like that, then shame on you and this album is for you anyway. The expression “You want it darker” is typically what a lover might say to his beloved at the outset of their lovemaking—his accommodation to her sensitivity as he presents himself to her in the darker-ness and says with his mind and body, “Here I am”. For Cohen, this image serves as a prayer to God. Cohen is dying, and God wants it darker. It’s a touching reversal of the God/man Lover/beloved metaphor, and the poet/prophet pulls it of with beauty and horror. This is going to hurt. Death is like lovemaking, and Cohen is ready. “Hineni” (Hebrew for “Here I am”), he says, in resignation to the supreme Will, and with the courage of the prophet (Isaiah 6:8), he faces, embraces the agony. If there’s to be a lullaby, it’s a “lullaby for suffering”. It doesn’t get any darker than that. Cohen wishes there was a “Treaty” between God’s love and his own (There is one [Jeremiah 31:31-14], but I’m not sure Cohen signed it—there are hopeful hints in “Seemed a Better Way”, as he advises himself, “I better lift this glass of blood”, but “not today”). At least he takes it seriously. “My ‘don’t’ was saying ‘do’”, he complains of the temptation contest, but he is quitting the game (“Leaving the Table”) anyhow. And through it all, God’s love has made it real (“If I Didn’t Have Your Love“). Cohen is setting out on the road to death, but he’s “Traveling Light”. His parting advice on his way out the door (to his heart, but more importantly, to you, in case you’re not getting it), is that you should “Steer Your Way” one year/month/day/thought at a time. The outro of the closing track reprises “Treaty” with compelling mystery: “We were broken then but now we're borderline”. So where will you (we? me?) be tomorrow? His voice has been reduced, through age and pain, to whispers punctuated by well pitched basso profondo. But he retains his famous timbre, which compellingly invites the listener to consider, to ponder, to figure it out. It beckons, and you’d better not decline. It’s not just excellent poetry—it’s poetry that grabs you and shakes you a bit. It goes beyond—all the way to the declarative prophetic focus on the past and present in the face of an unknown future. Prophets were generally and unjustly disregarded. Here is your opportunity to rectify. There are negative things to say about this album. But not by me. Leonard Cohen died three weeks after its release. 5/5

“Nevermind” by Nirvana (1991) In my eighteen years as a Protestant minister, I experienced, on dozens of occasions, the responsibility/privilege/horror of that moment in funerary rituals where ‘the preacher’ stands at the head of the open casket, aiming to project empathy and comfort, and looking into the eyes of each mourner filing past and gazing upon the deceased. Some of those eyes were inconsolably sad, some were forlorn, some loving, some fearful, some resolutely formal, some unconvincingly nonchalant. But there were those occasional eyes, easy to spot, that expressed a feeling of being cast off, alienated—emoting an anxious disconnect with the universe of human interrelation. The expression of that precise feeling is the artistic achievement of Nevermind. Throughout this album, singer/songwriter/guitarist Kurt Cobain evokes, battles, and embraces abjection, like snapshots from the biblical Book of Jonah (e.g., 1:16; 2:4-6a; 4:7-9). And he does it with a lyrical and musical integration that grips the listener and won’t let go. By the fifth measure of the first song (“Smells Like Teen Spirit”), the listener is hooked. Punk power chords, heavy bass and raspy, blood chilling screams prompt the sympathetic listener to engage the mystery, dangerously tilting toward the irrational (e.g., the completely capsizing outro to “Territorial Pissings”). Variations in mood and dynamics march us steadily toward the wilderness of alienation. Even in mocking the listener who doesn’t understand, but just thinks it’s cool (“In Bloom”), Cobain is relentless in his darkness and brutality. And the rage of this track is immediately and necessarily followed by the almost convincing invitation (“Come as You Are”) to the friendly fellowship of the remembrance of things past, horrifying though they may be. “I swear”, he says, “I don’t have a gun.” Fearsome apathy in the face of erotic longing (“Breed”) is followed by an anti-therapeutic prescription (“Lithium”) for the poet’s psychotic pose In the line “I'm so happy 'cause today I found my friends, they're in my head”. Recorded music doesn’t have to be redemptive or morally uplifting to soar as art. The listener calls to mind literary analogies (think of Mailer, Capote, Burgess, Poe, Wolff, and even the Bible, if one has a little imagination [Hint: the Book of Ecclesiastes]). But it does have to have resolution. And on Nevermind, the closing dirge (“Something in the Way”) resolves in the despair of a barely-surviving homeless man who nevertheless musters a certain level of sensitivity to the animals he encounters. He cannot bring himself to eat or otherwise damage sentient creatures. There’s ‘something in the way’. Listen to this dark, dark album to fortify an appreciation of the Light. The experience will, perhaps counterintuitively, make you grateful. Like Jonah in the belly of the fish (Jonah chapter 2). 5/5