My 1001 Albums Journey

What a quirky album, mostly in the best ways. A little all over the place, like the White Album. Definitely not as good as its predecessor, begging the question of great art is best created in the storm of chaos as opposed to its settled aftermath…🤷🏽🤷🏽🤷🏽

If there’s any artist that isn’t built for this challenge, for a “first, quick listen” it’s Miles. Dylan, Prince and Bowie qualify too, and they all have one thing in common: a long and illustrious recording career, but a sense, sometimes a passion, to reject following a creative path expected of them by fans and/or their record label. True artists with a “I don’t give a fuck” personality that is driven to follow their personal muse, even if it meant commercial pain. In all these cases it’s led to some transcendent work, multiple times over the course of their careers. Miles is probably the gold standard of this approach, literally changing the course of Jazz at least half a dozen times over his lifetime, almost to the point I was intimidated about diving deep into his discography…it was almost too overwhelming. Then I saw this Netflix documentary, and it changed everything for me. I “got” Miles, and it really opened a doorway into his music and more. A year in and I’m still discovering SO many special moments in his music, and I haven’t even gotten past his mid-fifties output, he was so prodigious. So the 4-rating is simply that I need more time to dive into this masterpiece from his Electric Era. I’m patient: the joys to be gained from getting to know his art is more than worth it 🍷🍷🍷

If it wasn’t for some of the dated production that was of its time, I think I might’ve rated this as a five. The songs still hold up (mostly), and Jay’s sparse beats and scratching work perfectly with Run & D.M.C.’s interconnected wordplay. It’s so solid, they basically laid the foundation for many of the rap cliches that survive to this day. Unlike being stale, here at its origins it comes off as fresh and creative.

What a perfect album to hear for the first time high!

I got giddy as a Swiftie at a Taylor concert when this popped up! I adore this album; so I’m just saying, it’s gonna get a five before I even sit and relisten to it. For simple reasons too: it’s an all-time classic, filled start to finish with iconic songs that absolutely hold up, performed by a once-in-a generation level artist. To this day it still blows my mind that he wrote “Careless Whisper” when he was freaking 17 years old… seventeen!!! Mind blown… I’ve always felt that one of the defining musical trends and strengths of the 80s was it was the era of ICONIC albums… there were many reasons for this; not a minor one being the global reach and power of MTV, but George proved with this one release he was playing on the same level as Bruce, Michael, Prince and Madonna when he dropped it. It was playing everywhere, including in the hood and on R&B stations, where some (older folks) lost their minds when they realized it was the effeminate (and White 😱😱😱!!!) lead singer from WHAM that created this masterpiece, and not some new R&B singer. Amazing such racially motivated gatekeeping was still common in the culture at the time. Times indeed were changing; we all knew that he brought the goods with this one, no matter where he came from. R.I.P. George…gone way too soon.