You relax more than you have in a years sitting in the black leather lounge chair at the Sands while sipping your second top shelf dry martini. Taking a pull from your cigarette--which you still hold between your thumb, middle, and ring finger--you place the glass next to your dinner plate that now only hosts the fatty remains of a dry aged rib eye with bearnaise sauce. A waiter comes to take the plate and silverware away as the lights dim. You see Frank walk into a glowing spotlight, looking older, but then again you're older. After a bit of crowd work, he opens with the Girl from Ipanema. This is your first time hearing the lyrics in English. It alights you. Something new from Frank after all these years. The house lights come up. Grabbing your coat and helping your wife into her furs, you then head to the gift shop. You eye the record Frank put out with songs from tonight's performance and grab it, turning it over in your hand. Your wife stands tentatively eyeing some gold earrings. You go over and ask the shop keep for them, and pay for it all with cash. After all, you saved for a decade for this trip, might as well be extravagant. You hand the earrings to your wife and ask her to put them on. She obliges and smiles. "You look beautiful. As beautiful as when we met", you say, all of a sudden remembering your ragged thumb caressing the rumpled edge of a photo of her you kept in the rim of your M1. Her photo got you through long hard hours sitting in some strangers basement in a bombed out house in Brussels. She grabs your arm and you go back to your room. ... The taxi door slams shut, you've got your luggage, your wife is still wearing the earrings you bought in the Sands. You didn't know it was maybe the last time Frank would play the Sands, and looking back, you'd realize then how lucky it was to see that Vegas icon in an iconic Vegas hotel before the new suits moved in. As you walk up the driveway, you hear loud screaming and raucous keyboard coming from your home. You step into your living room which is hazy with odd smelling smoke. Your son sits there in a smiling daze with a few friends, while someone is screaming at you to "break on through". The din forces you to remember shrapnel from a stielhandgranate ripping at your leg while you clawed for your 1911 to return fire. "Turn that off, please. Your mother and I want to listen to this new record from Frank Sinatra, it's really good." "Is it?," quips one of the dopey friends. "Never trust anyone over 30 man..." laughs your son as he slowly gets up , pulls his record off the player and motions for his friends to follow him as he heads down to the basement rumpus room. Your leg aches. ----- Hearing Sinatra mention a "new sound" on the album after Bossa Nova had seen its hay day is a bit odd. I like this album as a representation of an artist who was already so well established in a sound reaching for something new. Contextually, were I a Sinatra fan, I feel like this album would be much more touching and profound. That being said, I feel like there are better representations of Bossa Nova, and even some better renditions of these songs. I enjoyed the album okay enough, but it doesn't really impress me either.

A interesting combination of the flavor of music at the time, bluegrass sensibilities, and a forward looking sound that anticipates the kinds of singer song writer music that would dominate the 70s. TFBB blend what may be influences of Harry Nillson, the Rolling Stones, an oddly Hank Williams into a genre bending album that both smacks of its era as well as feels out of place in it.

What can you say? It's The King! The record is a fantastic debut, and a showcase of the alchemy that took place to turn the country, blues, and swing into Rock and Roll. The King showcases many of the styles that would dominate music for the next 5-10 years, inspiring acts like Chubby Checker, Buddy Holly and the eventually bands like The Beatles. Elvis was key in bringing this type of music to broader and white audiences, but he was definitely participating in a conversation of his contemporaries who would not see their efforts rewarded with full length recordings until a few years later (notably Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley). If you are interested in the history of rock and roll, this is quintessential listening.

Micheal Jackson makes a statement about the future of his music with this album. Though still very clearly inspired by older contemporaries like Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye, Jackson abandons the conscious and soulful R&B of the mid 70s to delve into something new. Moreover, it seems that Jackson toys with the supremely popular Disco genre, but stays away from a full commitment to the funky and dance forward sounds (he'd rather burn it out). Instead, we are presented with a soft blending of genres to create a newer sound for Pop music. Amazing singles like Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough will make you move to the beat, while soft melodies like Girlfriend have funky piano and bass parts that are as at home accompanying Jackson's vocals as they might David Byrnes. I've never been a huge Jackson fan, but this album is a must listen.

This is my favorite Bowie album. The album starts off with a bang, the instrumentals are amazing, and it foretells the kind of experimentation Bowie would continue doing until the end of his career. From the get go, Speed of Life sets the tone for the record, with some typically Bowie hits like Breaking Glass and Sound and Vision. MY favorite bowie song of all time, A New Career in a New Town sets the tone for the B side. Although the back half starts with the oppressive Warszawa, it is followed by some hauntingly beautiful melodies showcasing a beautiful collaboration between Bowie and Brian Eno.

I understand why the album is on the list. I understand that The Kinks are hugely important to the rock of the 60s and their influence on garage rock can be felt even as far into the future as bands like the Black Keys and The Strokes. But by 1969 when this album came out, their contemporaries had moved away from the tried and true sound of the early and mid 60s and were delving into sonically new sounds, pushing rock into newer directions. Although there are some very solid songs on this album, and it is easy to listen to, it does not speak to me.

A phenomenal debut album from a band that would shape music for years to come. Mike Patton crawled so Zach De La Rocha could run. Start to finish this album explodes with funky bass lines, absurd guitar riffs, and incendiary lyrics. One could even say Nu Metal started here, though RATM defies that genre classification. A must listen.

Full disclosure, I love surf and rockabilly, and the B-52s play with the genre beautifully. Planet Claire and Rock Lobster are worth the listen of this album, and most of the songs are fun and catchy, but some just don't hit. In an era where New Wave is about to take over, it is refreshing to see a band so unabashedly in love with old rock styles.

I appreciate that this is probably one of the first albums in the burgeoning punk rock genre at

A beautiful album. Full of some really surprising pop all the way to somber and melodic pieces. A real shame there aren't any more, but you can absolutely see the influences of other singer songwriters of the time on the work. Some hints of Leonard Cohen, touches of Henry Nilsson. Just a real pleasure to listen to.

When Beck's musical style works, it really works. Odelay had some unforgettable songs that topped the charts when this album came out. Beck's strange alchemy of techno breakbeats, guitar riffs, and samples creates something unique and unforgettable. Often Beck sounds like Cake and the Beastie Boys collided at high speed to smash together into something altogether unique. Track's like Devils Haircut and Where It's At show Beck's perfection of this sound, but more experimental and disjointed songs like Derelict and High 5 just don't hit as hard even though they are still interesting. Regardless, you can see Beck's, and specifically this album's, influence on music that would dominate the late 90s.

Not a single song from this album is on the Billboard Top 100 for 2001. Yet, the Gorillaz seemed to be everywhere at the time. Certainly, the music video played with regularity on MTV. Never having been a big Gorillaz fan, I thought to at first rate this a 2 or 3. However, looking at that list of the Top 100 for the year and re-listening to the b-side of the album, I have to rate it higher. The first two songs on the album made me think "oh great, just more Blur", but then as the album proceeds it astounds: the inclusion of Del the Funky Homosapien, experimentations with dub, intriguing sampling, genre bending; truly this album was unique when it came out. I firmly believe some of the more guitar heavy sounds likewise would go to inspire other indie rock of the mid to late 2000s like the Arctic Monkeys. Oddly, many of my favorite tracks are the smoother love letters to bands like Massive Attack and Portishead, songs like "Sound Check (Gravity)" and "New Genius (Brother)", or the more dub heavy sounds of "Slow Country" and "Dracula". This debut album is a showcase of a group of musicians making the types of music they want to make, and not hemmed in by constraints of genre or even instrument.

You relax more than you have in a years sitting in the black leather lounge chair at the Sands while sipping your second top shelf dry martini. Taking a pull from your cigarette--which you still hold between your thumb, middle, and ring finger--you place the glass next to your dinner plate that now only hosts the fatty remains of a dry aged rib eye with bearnaise sauce. A waiter comes to take the plate and silverware away as the lights dim. You see Frank walk into a glowing spotlight, looking older, but then again you're older. After a bit of crowd work, he opens with the Girl from Ipanema. This is your first time hearing the lyrics in English. It alights you. Something new from Frank after all these years. The house lights come up. Grabbing your coat and helping your wife into her furs, you then head to the gift shop. You eye the record Frank put out with songs from tonight's performance and grab it, turning it over in your hand. Your wife stands tentatively eyeing some gold earrings. You go over and ask the shop keep for them, and pay for it all with cash. After all, you saved for a decade for this trip, might as well be extravagant. You hand the earrings to your wife and ask her to put them on. She obliges and smiles. "You look beautiful. As beautiful as when we met", you say, all of a sudden remembering your ragged thumb caressing the rumpled edge of a photo of her you kept in the rim of your M1. Her photo got you through long hard hours sitting in some strangers basement in a bombed out house in Brussels. She grabs your arm and you go back to your room. ... The taxi door slams shut, you've got your luggage, your wife is still wearing the earrings you bought in the Sands. You didn't know it was maybe the last time Frank would play the Sands, and looking back, you'd realize then how lucky it was to see that Vegas icon in an iconic Vegas hotel before the new suits moved in. As you walk up the driveway, you hear loud screaming and raucous keyboard coming from your home. You step into your living room which is hazy with odd smelling smoke. Your son sits there in a smiling daze with a few friends, while someone is screaming at you to "break on through". The din forces you to remember shrapnel from a stielhandgranate ripping at your leg while you clawed for your 1911 to return fire. "Turn that off, please. Your mother and I want to listen to this new record from Frank Sinatra, it's really good." "Is it?," quips one of the dopey friends. "Never trust anyone over 30 man..." laughs your son as he slowly gets up , pulls his record off the player and motions for his friends to follow him as he heads down to the basement rumpus room. Your leg aches. ----- Hearing Sinatra mention a "new sound" on the album after Bossa Nova had seen its hay day is a bit odd. I like this album as a representation of an artist who was already so well established in a sound reaching for something new. Contextually, were I a Sinatra fan, I feel like this album would be much more touching and profound. That being said, I feel like there are better representations of Bossa Nova, and even some better renditions of these songs. I enjoyed the album okay enough, but it doesn't really impress me either.

When the songs hit, boy do they hit. Neither artist is hiding in this record, instead their are clear indicators of their musical styles intermeshed throughout, performing a delicate transmutation that brings forth some of the best parts of Eno's and Byrne's styles. Whether it is the unmistakably Byrne-esque pushing base line and guitar trills in "Help Me Somebody" or the more abstract stylings of Eno on songs like "The Carrier" the songs still carry a bit of the personality of each musician. I think the greatest fruition of this collaboration comes together on "Regiment" which is undeniably a banger. I can also see that this album definitely likely had an influence on the inchoate industrial scene that would slowly come into prominence toward the end of the decade. The use of samples and sounds on songs like "New Feet" were clearly engaging with bands like Einstürzende Neubauten, while "Defiant" is just a few more guitar heavy riffs away from being a Ministry track. My first gut instinct was a 4, but based on a second listen of the back half, I have to go with a 5.

A great introduction to the music of India. Ravi was clearly a master of his art. Fun to listen to, and you can absolutely see how this music clearly influenced the kinds of noodling we see in later years in Rock music. Probably one or two listens is enough for me though.

I understand the Ramones' impact on music and specifically Punk in the United States, but I can't stand em. They're on the softer side of Punk which never really landed with me. God speed to all of you who like them.

I think the only song that really stuck with me was "I Don't Wanna Be A Solider Mama". The production of that song really feels like something much later, late 70s. From the wailing saxophone, pure keyboard sounds, and crunchy guitar, it feels very in place in even the 80s. No surprise, Phil Spector. I do think this album was a bit ahead of it's time. Up there in that regards with something like Nilsson Schmilsson or Hunky Dory.

UB40 presents a pretty solid dub album with Signing Off. I always have conflicting feelings about the British Reggae and Ska movements, as the frontmen for these bands were mostly not of Jamaican decent, and participating in an art form that had been around for some time. In many ways, I tend to feel the art form is done better by those whose communities created it. Comparing this to say, "Super Ape", by The Upsetters I find the smooth production of "Signing Off" suddenly made more cloying by its pristine production value. I feel like Dub especially benefits from low-fi cuts and samples, as it provides body to the distortion. But a comparison to the legendary Lee "Scratch" Perry is probably unfair. That being said, UB40's approach is refreshing. They clearly love the genre and attempt to make music that is in its style and not some clear anglicization of it (though as is mentioned in the blurb this is where they eventually go). The message of their lyrics also corresponds well with them working in an art form, showing care and precision in their choices. To stick to dub when English Ska was taking off (The Beat was on a hot streak) shows great fortitude of vision.

Protection presents listeners with a beautiful composite of dub, rhythm and blues, and electronica. Massive Attack aided in pioneering a new sound of electronic music that would help shape the later years of the decade. Their unique inclusion of dub and trip hop melodies in their album help to set them apart from contemporaries like Portishead and provides flair that is unique to their style. The titular track "Protection" is as perfect as a smooth electronica ballad can get, while songs like "Karmacoma" showcase Massive Attack's ability to choose sonically distinct samples and put them into a groove. "Spying Glass" is a fantastically updated dub track that walks the line between traditional sounds and the bands stylistic bass. However, the cover at the end of the album is nearly unlistenable. Sweet jesus. It provides a valid reason not to listen to this album on repeat, but instead to restart at track one right after "Heat Miser" ends.

Certainly the Garage Rock Revival of the mid to late aughts, and the Stomp Clap ascendency of the early 2010s would have not had the momentum behind it were it not for The White Stripes. This album showcases The White Stripes influence on the latter, which the crunchy guitars and low fi sounds typical of their work fading away to Mandolin and Piano. The White Stripes were clearly tend setters and architects of that movement, but I am not sure the new direction of this album fully resonates. I couldn't really pick one song that I really enjoyed that got under my skin, but I find that with the White Stripes I often usually need to find the song I like out of their entire collection as opposed to liking their sound. In contrast, I could easily listen to 2002's "The Big Come Up" by the Black Keys (a band clearly influenced by the White Stripes) and find myself enjoying it all. I am not sure if it has to do with the nearly always borderline whiney Jack White's voice, or the often odd Americana departures that always take place in their albums, but something just doesn't hit for me even though I know the musicians are talented and the music well wrought.

A beautiful blend of musical style, Songhoy Blues showcases the artists mastery of guitar that melds perfectly with the drums and vocal melodies.

Certainly not the best Smiths album out there, but still notable for its singles and for being a Smiths album. Truly at the time, their sound was fairly singular. They may be lumped in with other contemporaries like The Cure and The Jesus and Mary Chain, but no one quite sounds like The Smiths. From the oddly light melodies of "Girlfriend in a Coma" to the dreamlike pop sounds of "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" this album delivers on a still evolving sound that could only have come from the unique partnership of Morrissey and Marr. A solid album through and though. Also, Morrisey is awful and may he never get what he wants this time.

I have never been an REM fan, but the fact that this album comes out in 1987 and has a sound that would dominate alternative music airwaves for the next decade does make one pause. In a sense, REM is a perfect example of alternative music because the scope of their music defies easy classification. The strong baselines, frequent use of ancillary rock instruments like tambourine, banjos, mandolins, saxophones etc. all show that REM was crafting a new sound. Not necessarily rock or even light rock, but something different. It is hard to imagine an early 90s dominated by singles from bands like Hootie and the Blowfish, Spin Doctors, Alanis Morissette, Counting Crows, Blues Travelers, Dave Matthews Band all without REM helping to pave the way. Poppier songs like "Strange" and "Exhuming McCarthy" showcase a sound influenced by the B-52s and pop music in general. Multi-instrumental songs like "Fireplace" defy classification, while songs like "King of Birds" and "Oddfellows Local 151" expose an exploration of folk ballad and grungy guitars respectively. REM is a bit of a chimera in that regard, and if you happen to like the form that chimera takes then this is an album you must certainly enjoy. Regardless of my personal feelings, it is a pretty solid album, but I would not put it on of my own accord.

Keep your Beatles, your Stones, your Cream. Give me Sabbath any day of the week.

Really fun to hear some post punk while punk was still in it's hay day. Love hearing where Pere Ubu may have influenced others. Discordant at points, jubilant throughout, and astonishing in moments.