Among the Living is an album I've known since it debuted, though it took a few years before I actually listened to the whole album. It's Anthrax's breakthrough album that solidified them as a member of the Big 4 of thrash metal, joining Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer. The big difference between Anthrax and the other 3 bands is that Anthrax was from New Your City and had an actual singer, who had more old school New Wave of Heavy Metal vocals instead of screaming and yelling. But Anthrax was just as heavy and had chunky riffs. Among the Living holds up today as it's so heavy, and filled with lyrics about societal issues, featuring an anti-war song about the massacre of Native Americans and an anti-drug song, called N.F.L. I think this album can appeal to everybody in some way or another. While I won't say it's a perfect album, I do find myself returning to it about every year for a listen or two. For metal fans, if you've never heard this album, it's a must. They also may have been the first metal band to get into rap music at the time, as Anthrax recorded I'm the Man during these sessions, a rap song that became a pretty big cult classic.

Now we’re getting somewhere. Sepultura is a heavy metal band from Brazil who were formed in 1984, right in my wheelhouse. Except I never really listened to them. When they became huge, I was still a high schooler who had to pay around $20 for a CD. By that time, I was already getting a new CD just about every week, so I had to be really sure about what I was buying. Although there were some mysteries bought along the way, you know, those CDs you bought just because the cover looked cool. But I digress. Sepultura means grave in Portuguese, so that should tell you where the band is coming from. They have very dark and political lyrics, kind of like Slayer or Megadeth. Their music is a bit more like Slayer, very fast, heavy, full of blast beats. Singer/guitarist Max Cavalera had a singing delivery very reminiscent of Tom Araya of Slayer. But Sepultura also has a bit of a groove like Pantera. So, that sounds great, doesn’t it? And they are. But back in the day, I still had issues with the screaming vocal delivery. I never got into Slayer because of Araya’s vocals….and the whole Satanic thing freaked me out too. After seeing their set at Louder Than Life in Louisville, I wish I had gotten into Slayer. Great Odin's raven! I listened to Arise yesterday while watching the NFL RedZone and it was a delight. This album is chock full of riffs and pretty poignant lyrics that could have been written today. I’m sorry I didn’t get into them when I was in high school. I mean, they would have really scared the adults in my life. Which is kind of what a young teenage punk wants, right? Sepultura's sixth album was called Roots, with a song called Roots Bloody Roots, which I really love. I remember sitting in the parking lot of Bob’s IGA one afternoon with Roots Bloody Roots cranked, windows down, and people giving me the stink eye. Good times. Arise was the first album the band had money to record, so they were able to experiment a bit more and take their time with the recording. Arise and the next two albums would cement Sepultura as one of the biggest metal bands in the world. There have been member changes and things every band goes through over the years, but a version of Sepultura is still out there crushing skulls today. If you’re a fan of heavy metal, extreme metal, or just Slayer, you will no doubt enjoy Speultura’s Arise.

I was in my early 20s when this came out in 1996, which meant if it wasn't metal it was crap. I outgrew that attitude, thankfully, and grew to like some dance music, like Daft Punk, Justice, Royksopp and Robyn. Fatboy Slim's BLTC is good, and it has some tasty grooves, but as a whole, I doubt I'll listen to it again. Highlights for me were Song for Lindy, Going Out of My Head (the one song I'd heard before) and my fave song The Weekend Starts Here with a tasty sample of Black Sabbath's The Wizard.

Fleet Foxes popped onto the scene during the time roots music had its big moment with Arcade Fire and Mumford & Sons gaining huge popularity. So around the late-2000s-mid-2010s. Fleet Foxes had a nice little run as the little brothers of those two. My Morning Jacket kind of jump-started this trend about 10 years before it got huge, and frankly, MMJ does it better. This album is full of great harmonies and folk mixed with a dash of rock. As I’m listening back to it now, I’m finding it more enjoyable than yesterday’s listen. I enjoy this type of music, but I need to be in the right mood for it. The whole time I listened to this album yesterday, I thought, “I need to listen to more MMJ." Standout tracks for me on Fleet Foxes' self-titled debut are Sun It Rises, Ragged Woods, Tiger Mountain Peasant Song, He Doesn’t Know Why, with my favorite track being Your Protector.

I was never an Oasis guy when they first came out. I was a metalhead, so these guys were wusses. But I enjoyed this album. Definitely Maybe was Oasis’s debut album, so I had only heard one or two songs before my listen. But after listening to it twice, this will make it into my saved albums list. What struck me was, they reminded me of two bands I love, the Sex Pistols & the underrated hair/blues metal band, Junkyard. The similarities are all have a unique singer and the band plays simple rock ‘n’ roll, though Oasis has more bells and whistles. The standouts for me were Rock ‘n’ Roll Star, Up in the Sky, Digsy’s Diner and my fave was Cigarettes & Alcohol. Maybe I liked C&A because I’m a big Marc Bolan fan and the riff is straight Bolan.

Today’s album was one I’d heard a bunch, as I’m a huge Sabbath fan. Ir may be my favorite Sabbath album, tho they had a great run early on as their first 5 albums are classics. Vol. 4 was released in 1972, which blows my mind because it’s just so heavy. It was also the first album the band produced themselves. This was also one of the most drug-fueled albums they’d recorded at that point, see Snow Blind. All songs were credited to the band and bassist Geezer Butler wrote all the lyrics. The album was critically acclaimed when it was released. And there were no real singles released because A. Black Sabbath was not a singles band, 2. most Black Sabbath songs were too long for the radio and III. they scared mom and the kids. The most intriguing thing about this album, besides being great when everyone who made it was super-high on coke, is that at points it’s the heaviest ever and then you get a song like Changes, a slower, piano-driven ballad. Or you’ll get a very melodic bridge in the middle of Tomorrow’s Dream. The standouts on this album for me are….all of them. This is almost a perfect album. Even tho Sabbath had the same vibe on each record, this one has several curveballs, like Changes, the very weird FX and the amazing Laguna Sunrise. My personal fave is Snowblind. I’ve loved that song since the first time I heard it. It’s heavy and it’s about cocaine. Two things a young kid from the rural south is fascinated by. Black Sabbath Vol. 4 is a must listen in my opinion.

I never got into Neil Young; it’s the voice. But as I get older, I’ve softened on Young, especially after reading 1965: The Most Revolutionary Year in Music and listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young while I read it. Everybody Knows This is Nowhere was supposed to be Young’s 2nd solo album. He borrowed 3 guys from another band that he was supposed to help record their album, but after recording and touring with those guys, Young decided the album would become his & Crazy Horse’s 1st album, rather than a solo album. And the band he "borrowed" his bandmates from was finished. This album is a classic to me just because of Cinnamon Girl. I'm sure you've heard it. It has one of the best guitar solos of all time. Everybody Knows This is Nowhere does have its misses with Round and Round and The Losing End, but the other 5 songs are bangers. Down By the River, about a man killing his gf for cheating, is badass, tho some might say problematic with the subject matter. But I can assure you, Young didn't actually kill his gf down by the river…I think. Other standouts are the title track & Cowgirl In the Sand. This album is filled with folky country and hard rock. It will go into my regular rotation.

David Bowie became the Thin White Duke during this time in his career, less fun than Ziggy Stardust, but still as sexy. This album is less rock n roll and more funk, disco, soul of the Young Americans album but with more electronica which was hot in Europe at that time. This album is a masterpiece in which at no time did I want to skip ahead to the next song. This album was created while Bowie was in the throes of cocaine addiction, so there goes the thought that nothing good ever came out of doing cocaine. The standout tracks are all of them, but especially the title track, TVC 15, about being high and seeing the TV eat your girlfriend, and I loved Wild as the Wind which is practically a straight love song, but I guess I was in the mood when I listened last night. Station to Station is the best album I’ve heard so far. You need to hear it to.

As a metalhead from way back, you might think I’d cringe at having to listen to Norah Jones. However, as I’ve aged, my palate has expanded, and there was a period when I listened to this album for weeks on end. In fact, I was obsessed with Norah Jones. Listening to this album now, I still really like it, but I’m not in love with it anymore. The songs are still good and Jones' voice is top-notch, but musically, many of the songs bored me. As I told someone yesterday, I'm more likely to be able to whistle you a guitar solo by heart than recite song lyrics. But the two big hits, Don’t Know Why and Come Away with Me still do it for me and are perfect. They still give me chills, and I wonder someday if Ms. Jones will be the future ex-Mrs. Bratcher. The rest of the album didn’t hit me like Bowie's Station to Station. Maybe that’s it, it’s hard to follow Bowie. However, if you’ve never heard this album before, it’s definitely worth a listen and maybe worth a few weeks’ obsession.

Two words: S**t sandwich. I can’t express how much I hated this album. Maybe because I’m an old man, but I believe I’d have hated it when it came out in the '90s. It’s a lot of samples, drum machine, and nonsense. If it’s your favorite album and you enjoy it, God bless you. As for me and mine, we say blech. And I like a bit of dance or electronic music. Maybe I needed to be in a rave on drugs to really get this album, but sitting in my chair trying to relax, it did the opposite. I started getting annoyed and anxious. I won't listen to this again and regret having done so this time.

This album came out in late 1993, but I was in love with metal, so it wasn’t on my radar. After listening to it 2-3 times, I should have gotten into the Wu-Tang because the beats are cool, simple, and they sound great. The rapping is very inventive and I think it’s better than anything people are doing today for the most part. Old Dirty Bastard just sounds completely different from anybody and Method Man and Ghostface Killah are legends. Hip-hop today seems too simple and uncreative from what little I hear. The skits aren’t that great, but most weren’t back then. Rappers were not comedians for a reason. The standouts are Bring Da Ruckus, Shame on a N,, C.R.E.A.M., Method Man, and my personal favorite Can It All Be So Simple. I’ll go back to this in the future.

Have you ever thought you knew exactly what you were getting into, only to be totally surprised by what you got into? That’s me with Simply Red. I thought I knew what the band’s album Picture Book was going to be: heavy synths, electronic drums with a new wave sound. Nope. Simply Red’s Picture Book is jazzy and soulful, with powerhouse vocals by lead singer/songwriter Mick Hucknall. The album has an 80’s production style, you know it when you hear it. Otherwise, this album could have been made in Memphis at Stax in 1966. As for standouts, for me, there’s really not a bad song on here. However, I loved Money’s Too Tight, Sad Old Red, and Holding Back the Years, which was the big single off this album. My favorite song on the album is probably Jericho, a Boz Scaggs-type jam. If you’re not a fan of a jazzy/soul sound, you might proceed with caution. I enjoyed this album & while it may not be something I listen to over and over, I will break it out on occasion.

I’d never heard this whole album before but I’ve heard the singles, including one of the best pure pop songs of that era, Malibu. This album came out after the death of Kurt Cobain & his ghost haunts a lot of the lyrics on this album, some sweet, some sad, others angry. As I listened to the music & read the lyrics, I kept thinking, we were pretty damn crappy to Courtney Love, a grieving widow with a child who had just lost her husband, but I digress. Celebrity Skin isn’t a perfect album, but for Hole and Love, it was their best work up to & beyond that point. It helped that 5 of the songs, including Malibu and Celebrity Skin, were written by the alt hitmaker Billy Corgan, & he’ll gladly tell you. One of the many unions of Love's that ended up playing out in the press. Beyond the Corgan songs, there are other highlights on the album and Love wrote all the lyrics, proving she can hold her own in that department. The album has a California theme and contains several songs about Hollywood and how it can chew up & spit out women looking for stardom. The standouts on the album are, of course, my personal fave, Malibu; Celebrity Skin; Awful; Reason to Be Beautiful; and Heaven Tonight. If you’ve never heard this album, it’s worth checking out just for Celebrity Skin & Malibu.

At first listen, T.Rex songs kind of sound the same, & are kind of simple, but there’s a lot packed into each song. Electric Warrior was T.Rex’s 2nd album & it essentially created Glam Rock in the 70s. Without Electric Warrior, we have no Ziggy Stardust, & most certainly no Sweet & Slade & all the other clones trying to capitalize on the T.Rex formula, rock riffs, androgenous fashion and just being rock gods. Electric Warrior is a mix of folk, hard rock and strings. This album also features a song that everyone has heard, "Bang a Gong (Get It On)". The rest of the album is based on a similar groove, the Marc Bolan groove, who was T.Rex. Bolan created this movement after several tries at becoming a rock god. The whole album is a standout, but Cosmic Dancer, Jeepster, Bang a Gong, Planet Queen are my faves. This is an album you for sure must listen to before you die. Plus it has one of the coolest album covers ever.

Tusk is Fleetwood Mac’s double album follow-up to their biggest album ever, Dreams, one of the best-selling albums of all time. When the Mac wrote & recorded Tusk, Lindsey Buckingham wanted something totally different from Dreams, & Lord, was it. Tusk showcases 3 songwriters across 20 songs, Christine McVie wrote 6, Stevie Nicks wrote 5 & Buckingham wrote 9 songs. McVie, who is extremely under-rated, wrote songs that could’ve worked on Dreams & Nicks too wrote songs that for the most part could have been on Dreams, but Buckingham was inspired by punk & new wave & his songs are so different from what Dreams was, it’s almost like he wasn’t even in the same band anymore. Buckingham’s songs were almost punk rockabilly mixed with the Beach Boys. You need a couple of listens to see what he was going for, while McVie’s songs brought you back down to earth, & Nicks was going to Nicks. The song Tusk is one of the weirdest songs ever. It’s nonsensical, it has a marching band playing in it, but it’s got that riff that keeps it locked into your brainpan for days. Standout tracks are Over & Over, That’s All for Everyone, That’s Enough for Me, Beautiful Child, Tusk, & my favorite track, Sara, Sara is about Nicks’s doomed relationships with Mick Fleetwood, Don Henley & a terminated pregnancy. Not a fun song lyrically, but it’s beautiful. While I can see why this album only sold like 4 million compared to Dreams' 10 million & it could have some of the fat trimmed down to an incredible 10-12 track album, Tusk is definitely a great album on its own merit.

Shuggie Otis produced & pretty much played all instruments on Inspiration Information. He was also one of the 1st musicians to use analog drum machines. Pitchfork described the album as "smooth, organ-driven California funk, quasi-new age psychedelia, loungey jazz instrumentals, [and] string interludes—all propelled by the same kind of analog drum machine.” That fits perfectly. It was the last album for a contract with Electra Records, & they dropped Otis after it went nowhere commercially.. You can understand why after listening. The world probably wasn’t ready for Otis’s take on his style of r&b. The album is weird, for what you expect, with the last 4 songs being short instrumentals. The album probably inspired artists to push boundaries using new technology. The first 5 songs are really good with the title track, Island Letter & Sparkle City being my favorites. Not sure the album will enter my rotation, but a few songs will. Must listen for R&B nerds.

Album #15 of my 1,001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die list Jah Wobble's Invaders of the Heart - Rising Above Bedlam At some point, many white musicians got into world music around the same time. Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, David Byrne, etc. Jah Wobble, or John Wardle, got into it as well forming the Invaders of the Heart. The group released Rising Above Bedlam in 1991. I’d never heard of the band or the album. I just never got into world music, though Simon’s Graceland is a great album. It appears Jah Wobble & the Invaders of the Heart put out one good album & Rising Above Bedlam was it. And it’s fine. I probably won't ever listen to it again, but it has nice rhythms throughout, but this ain’t me, babe. Sinead O’Conner even pop up on the 1st track. Trouser Press, whoever they are, called Rising Above Bedlam, “a refreshing departure from some of the flat, occasionally tedious & self-conscious material [Wobble] lobbed out in the '80s." So, that explains Wobble &the Invaders. Nothing stood out to me on this album, but Visions of You features O’Connor & it was very nostalgic to hear her. Maybe I'm just being stubborn & not opening my mind enough, but I'm ready for my next album

I wasn’t a fan of the Brit Pop thing back in the day. I was still stuck in my narrow-minded metal or die mode. Tho I was beginning to grow a bit. By the time Blur’s self-titled album had come out, they’d already been to the mountain top & were on the way down. So, they changed their style and became less Brit Pop and more U.S. Indie Rock. You can also hear that this Blur album is the precursor to what the Gorillaz would be in the future, as Blur’s lead singer Damon Albarn would form that band about 15 years after this album. I can see why Blur caused such a sensation. This album is very good. Song 2, or the Woo-Hoo song, is brilliant nonesense & On Your Own is built around a great riff, but is a bit annoying, which you need in rock ‘n’ roll sometimes. I loved Song 2, of course, Beetlebum, Death of a Party and You’re So Great. I highly recommend listening to this album.

Album #17 of my 1,001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die list Faith No More - The Real Thing Not only have I heard this album before, I bought the CD after seeing the vidoe for Epic on MTV about 1,000 times. That song was a phenomenon. FNM sold 4 million albums worldwide & without that song, I’m not sure it would have gotten to 1 million. Singer Mike Patton just joined the band & he was the catalyst it seemed. FNM is weird, just looking at the band members, they didn’t look like they matched and the songs were eclectic, though mostly metal/hard rock based. Patton liked to rap a bit, but it only occurs in 2 of the 13 songs on the album. There seems to be a running theme throughout the album & that is vampirism/death, which can be the same thing, I guess. Supposedly, 3 of the songs were overtly about murder & Patton was asked to be a bit more subtle with the lyrics. At the time I bought this CD I was 15 or 16, and I didn’t get it immediately. It was too eclectic for my developing brain, I guess. But as I revisit it, this really is a fun and unique album. The highlights for me are Epic, Surprise! You’re Dead, Zombie Eaters (babies are the zombies in this case), Underwater Love (about drowning a lover), and Woodpecker From Mars. If you’ve never heard this album and love metal or weird music, this is a must listen.

I was looking forward to listening to this, but then I heard the first record scratch and sample, & it gave me the nu metal cringe immediately. Then all the song lyrics were about killing or self-harm or I don't care what you think, but stop being so judgey. Slipknot has two percussionists & one of them plays garbage cans or scrap metal. In some cases, I heard the snare drum from Metallica’s St. Anger pop up & I didn’t like that. I didn’t get into Slipknot when this came out in 1999 & nothing has changed, it seems. I liked Wait and Bleed & that’s about it. The other single, Spit It Out, sounded like a heavy 311 song to me in the chorus. For really angry people, which at this point is most of the country and fans of record scratching in their metal, this album is for you, but as for me, I’m sticking with old metal, not nu metal.

I remember the Meat Puppets from their 1994 semi-hit Backwater & for Kurt Cobain expressing his love for the band. Listening to II, it’s easy to see how Cobain’s vocal styling was influenced by Curt Kirkwood's singing. Kirkwood’s singing is not good, at least for my taste, but there are times you would swear it was Cobain singing. II is weird. The first MP’s album was a noisy hardcore punk, but for II the MP’s invented something called “cow punk.” Cow Punk is essentially punk country music. It’s hard to explain, but I like it, except that the vocals are terrible. While I was surprised by how much I liked the album, tho not Kirkwood’s vocals. The instrumentals are great. Highlights for me are Aurora Borealis, & I’m a Mindless Idiot. The Whistling Song & Lake of Fire are 2 good songs with vocals. Lake of Fire’s vocals especially sound like Cobain; in fact, the Meat Puppets joined Cobain on the Nirvana Unplugged show to sing 3 MP songs, including Lake of Fire. For history’s sake, it’s worth a listen, but for me, that’s about it.

Fats Domino is “the real king of rock ‘n’ roll” according to Elvis, who was heavily influenced by Domino. The Beatles, too, were heavily influenced by Domino. This Is Fats Domino was his third album & it includes his biggest hit, the song most everybody has heard: Blueberry Hill. Elvis, Led Zeppelin and the Beatles all covered Blueberry Hill. Blue Monday is also on this album & probably my favorite Domino song. Domino has a distinct style of rock 'n'' roll, driven by the piano, as he was a piano player. The electric guitar as a lead instrument in rock 'n' roll would come later with Chuck Berry. The songs are all a bit similar due to Domino’s piano playing, but every song is just pure rock ‘n’ roll. Domino is like AC/DC in that, you know what you’re getting when you put on one of their albums. You can hear how Domino’s music inspired early Beatles, Led Zep & others to create their own style. For someone who wants to see where rock ‘n’ roll came from and hear one of its main architects, This Is Fats Domino is a great album to check out.

I got into punk rock in my adult years, the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, & a smattering of the Misfits. But never the Clash. Though most of the Clash songs I heard didn’t remind me of punk, like Train In Vain & Rock the Casbah. However, their debut album, The Clash, is "typical" punk for the most part. The songs are short, fast, & full of angry lyrics, tho not all are. Protex Blue is about a condom. I was surprised at how good this album sounded, sonically. Lots of punk albums sound like the bands cranked out the songs in a few hours & then were off to the pub. I loved this album & it's my favorite of the 20 I’ve listened to from the 1,001 list. My fave tracks are White Riot, I’m so Bored with the USA, and London’s Burning. There isn't a bad cut on this album. You definitely must hear this before the end of the week.

I must admit, I wasn’t looking for to listening to this album. I’m not a huge fan of 60s psychedelic with the sitars, harpsichords & just nonsense fueled by LSD. However, I loved this album. First off, it’s mostly acoustic folk music with orchestral highlights. There's very little electric guitar on the album. There are great horn parts, though. It’s kind of a cross between the 60’s psychedelic and folk music mixed with Burt Bacharach. The music is very soft, which I generally don’t care for, but this album is kind of like ASMR. It’s soothing, but the lyrics are about death, freedom, and how the counterculture at the time was not all flowers and peace. If you’re a fan of the music coming out in the '60s, this is the album for you. I’ll be putting it in my rotation.

I don’t know if you’re like me, but there are times when I hear a piece of music & it will almost, or actually, bring me to tears. Not sure why, but it's happened to me quite often while listening to the album. This album has 59 of the greatest songs ever written. You could talk me into saying this is the greatest album ever. I loved it and had so much fun listening to it. It made me happy all day...until my day kind of fell apart. The music is played by a jazz orchestra, with some of the songs being updated from the 1920s-1930s when they were written to better fit the 1960s. My fave tracks are all of them, but I love But Not for Me, Just Another Rhumba, ‘S Wonderful, & Someone To Watch Over Me. That song always gets me. Give this a try and see if it doesn’t tickle you right where you need it.

Album #23 of my 1,001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die list Kacey Musgraves - Golden Hour This album isn’t a new one for me, as I listened to it for about 3 months straight when it came out. I had already been a fan of Musgraves, but this album probably tripled her fanbase, if not more. It’s a very sleek blend of country-pop. The kind of sound country music radio loves these days, except Musgraves is a woman & isn’t talking about getting her teenage queen liquored up in the bed of her pickup. I’m not sure how the song Rainbow wasn’t a huge smash crossover hit, & maybe it was, but it should have also won all the awards because it’s just beautiful. Space Cowboy & High Horse are also great jams. Even if you don’t like country music, you’ll dig this.

I never got into the Britpop scene, but after listening to this album and Oasis’ debut album, I’m thinking I missed some good music. I wasn’t looking forward to hearing this album after a long day, but I was surprised at how good it was. I have no idea why it didn’t make a bigger splash. I even enjoy Richard Ashcroft’s singing more than Liam Gallagher's in a way, though Gallagher has a more unique voice. It seems once Oasis blew up, The Verve was next, but it didn’t happen. One reason might be that it seemed the singer, Ashcroft, & the guitarist, Nick McCabe, started to hate each other. McCabe seemed to be the more serious member of the group & others liked the fringe benefits of rock ‘n’ roll more. The Verve broke up after making this album, reformed without McCabe & made 1 album, then was kaput. This album is enjoyable, but it’s loud. I’m no producer, but something they did during production makes the music become grating after a while & you have to turn it off to give your ears a rest. With that said. I really liked this album & will listen to it in the future. Best songs for me are A New Decade, This Is Music, A Northern Soul, and History. If you’ve never messed with Britpop before, this album is a good one to hear.

Sometimes, this thing I’m doing seems like a pain in the arse, but if I didn’t embark on this journey, I’d probably have never heard incredible albums like this one. It’s just so brilliant. Ry Cooder and others were going to Cuba to record 2 high-profile African musicians with Cuban musicians. The 2 Africans couldn’t get into the country, Cooder & others decided to record an album of Cuban music, which is a mix of African & Spanish music. The album is beautiful & will get you wiggling in your chair. Lots of flamenco-style guitars and syncopated beats. The songs are old standards of sones, guajiras & boleros, which means nothing to me. All I know is it’s incredible stuff. Highlights are Chan Chan, Veinte Anos, Candela and Orgullecida, which sounds like it could have been a Bob Wills country song from the 1930s. I think everyone should check this out, if for nothing else than to broaden their mind.

This is an album I’m very familiar with, as I had a bit of a Stevie Wonder obsession not too long ago. FFF may not be his greatest album, but for anyone else, it would be. FFF came near the end of a 5-album run untouched by any other artist. This album should be on the list just for Boogie on Reggae Woman and You Haven’t Done Nothin,’ with the latter being aimed at Richard Nixon. The rest of the songs are more personal, with several being about Wonder’s relationship with God. They Won’t Go When I Go is a haunting song about how Wonder will leave this earth and go to heaven, while those who aren’t right with God will be taking a short trip to hell. Mostly, the album is about love and no one writes love songs like Stevie. This album is a must listen.

Nirvana's Nevermind gets all the praise for being arguably the greatest grunge album ever. I hate that buzzword grunge. All of those bands at that time weren't playing the same music like boy bands or hair metal, but we've got to classify it somehow. I digress. Pearl Jam's Ten is probably the best grunge album at least the best debut album of that period of time. Each song has meaning and weight. The songs still hold up today as Alive, Evenflow & Jeremy sound just as fresh and vital as when they first came out. It’s hard to believe that 99% of people haven't already heard this album but for those who haven't, it's a must listen.

Most of the lyrics to the songs on Electric seem like a word jumble, while some are kind of elementary. I think that’s what the Cult wanted to do. After being more of an alt-goth rock band, they went to Rick Rubin & asked him to make them sound more like hair metal that was popular at the time. Instead, Rubin asked, “Do you guys like AC/DC?” & they were off to the races. Electric is about the riffs, while the charisma of lead singer Ian Astbury helps sell the sometimes goofy lyrics. Pair Astbury with the riff machine Billy Duffy & you have a recipe for rock success. There isn't a bad song on the album, except for maybe their cover Born To Be Wild, which is not the Cult’s fault; I just hate that song. Wild Flower rules. Peace Dog is an anti-war song, I think. Love Removal Machine is a great title for a great song. This album just rocks hard. If you’ve never heard the Cult, this album is a good place to start. Then you’ll be converted.

Album #30 of my 1,001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die List Simon and Garfunkel - Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme I’ve dabbled in Simon & Garfunkel before, though not this album. It’s loaded with songs that filled me with melancholy, as in, the songs kind of depressed me. It’s not just this album, but a lot of folk music kind of depresses me. No idea why. There are some upbeat moments like A Simple Desultory Phillipic, in which Paul Simon does pretty good impression of Bob Dylan. But otherwise, it's a lot of acoustic guitar & heartbreak. The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine is a hoot. The album is a masterpiece & I find myself listening to it over & over. Many of the songs or their arrangements make them feel like they were sung in the woods by knights who are drinking grog in a tavern in the forest on their way to slay a dragon. The fancy way of saying that is baroque. The album is really short, which is commendable. All the songs are great, & you are likely to have heard Homeward Bound. If you want a taste of why S&G were such a huge influence on folk and music in general, this is a great album to listen to.

This album I know well, not because I listened to it over & over as a kid, but most of these songs are mainstream now, War Pigs, Iron Man, Paranoid. It seems like your grandma knows about Black Sabbath & the late Ozzy Osborne. This was Sabbath’s 2nd album & it’s the one that really broke them. Paranoid was a hit single for the group. That had to really broaden their audience, which led to the right people finding this music, which led to the best metal bands being birthed. It’s amazing how things come together & work perfectly. Tony Iommi with the riffs, Ozzy with the melodies, Geezer Butler with the lyrics, and Bill Ward with a jazzy drum style that really kept the group tight. This isn’t my favorite Sabbath album, probably because I’m still an a-hole at heart, but it’s a must-listen masterpiece. Hand of Doom and Faeries Wear Boots are my faves off this album. Mostly because they are heard less than the hits. Electric Funeral just sounds evil, so it's great as well. Paranoid is a masterpiece & you can hear where heavy metal came from after one listen.

I keep seeing these news stories about how the population is shrinking because younger folks aren’t interested in getting married and having babies. I have the solution, Reverend Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together. I imagine Reverend Green is already responsible for millions of births throughout the world, & I’m damn certain he’s the answer to our current issue plaguing society. I have no desire for children, but when listening to this album, I find myself perusing Facebook for a suitable future ex-Mrs. Lee Bratcher. You’ve probably heard a lot of the songs on this album, but it won’t keep you from wanting to hear them over & over again. Stop what you’re doing, find yourself a sweetheart, put on this album & help the human race survive. If you don't have a sweetheart, this album is still incredible; you just won't be cutting an umbilical cord in 9 months.

I’m a huge fan of Aerosmith from way back. As in, I know their career didn’t begin in 1987 with their Permanent Vacation album. While Aerosmith did good work from 1987 & on, they became legends with their 1st 4 albums, with Rocks being the last in that run. Rocks' creation was fueled by cocaine & heroin, which makes it amazing it was so damn good. Rocks begins with Back In the Saddle, arguably, their best song & each song from there is a banger, ending with my favorite Aerosmith ballad, Home Tonight. The album also contains the best lyric Joe Perry ever wrote, according to Steven Tyler. In the song Combination, which was written by Perry about the combo of heroin, cocaine & him, Perry wrote, "Walkin' on Gucci, wearing Yves St. Laurent Barely stay on 'cause I'm so goddamn gaunt.” Kurt Cobain named Rocks as one of the most influential albums in his and Nirvana’s career. Guns ‘N’ Roses, Metallica & Motley Crue all list Rocks as having a huge influence on their careers. Do yourself a favor, & check out Rocks.

The thing that bugged me about dance/electronic music from the '90s was that many songs were one verse of singing taken from another song that was played over & over throughout the "new" song. I can’t even understand the sample in most cases & the song gets annoying or boring. Moby was 2 for 2 in annoying me from the start of the album, then we get Porcelain, which was pretty good. As I continued to listen, it hit me, this is montage music for shows like House, or Bones, or other one-name TV shows, maybe Suits, yeah, Suits would work too. I couldn’t sit around & enjoy this music, but, good on you if you can. Oh crap! South Side, a song I’ve heard. It’s also a song that sounds like a real song, with Mody singing. I can get into this, but most of the songs seem to be made by AI for AI. As I moved further through the album, a lot of it sounded like it was made with GarageBand and used as royalty-free music for podcasts. I’m an old guy who is set in my ways. This stuff isn’t for me; I won’t be giving this a second listening.

I don’t believe I’ve ever heard an Elliott Smith song, at least not one that I recognized as his. I did remember that he died tragically, either by his own hand or at the hands of his girlfriend. I really wasn’t in the singer/songwriter mood yesterday, but by track 3, Ballad of Big Nothing, I was in. Smith’s album is full of great harmonies & beautiful, though at times, dark lyrics. The music took me right back to the 1990s, for better or worse. Apparently, this album was a bit of a change from Smith’s previous 2 albums, with Either Or having more of a pop feel to it. Whatever Smith did, it worked. It’s a brilliant album. My fave tracks are Pictures of Me, No Name No. 5 and Cupid's Trick.

Album #36 of my 1,001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die List The Kinks - Face To Face I love the Kinks, they rocked hard, were obnoxious & wrote songs that poked at certain muckety-mucks in society. The album Face to Face was a change from the You Really Got Me days. The songs were a little smarter, though still poppy, with a more baroque style. The Kinks never really broke big in the US, mostly due to being banned due to their all-around crappy behavior. Had they been able to tour here, I believe they’d be in the same stratosphere as the Rolling Stones & the Beatles. According to Kinks historians, this is the album that kicked off their golden age & was also the 1st, or 1 of the 1st, concept albums in rock music. The highlights for me are Party Line, Dandy, Session Man, You're Looking Fine & the hit, Sunny Afternoon. This album is phenomenal & would be a great introduction for someone who wanted to explore the Kinks.

I’ll readily admit I’m not the biggest Eric Clapton fan. I think he was god before he became more of a solo singer/songwriter. However, Derek and the Dominoes’ Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs contains no filler & may be the perfect album. I heard the album before, but it was many years ago & probably just once or twice. After listening to it a couple of times over the last day, it blew me away. Clapton is brilliant on this album & I think it's because he had Duane Allman, an alien, pushing him on to greatness. When Clapton is cutting heads with other great guitarists, he always pushes himself. When he’s by himself, he doesn’t seem to have the same fire, in my opinion. If Allman isn't the MVP of this album, then the late Bobby Whitlock is. I’m certain this album wouldn’t be the same without Whitlock's singing & writing. Whitlock is so soulful in his backing vocals and the songs he sang. I can’t pick a favorite song. They’re all good. As I listened, I just kept thinking, “All these songs are so good, one right after the other.” I think this is a masterpiece and probably Clapton’s last great album.

I’m not a big punk guy, but I know what I like. I listened to this album during work & nothing really stuck out to me. It all sounded the same & the singer, while definitely unique, didn’t appeal to me in the least. After listening a second time, with the lyrics & background from Wikipedia, I became a fan. The reason this is in the 1,001 Albums You Must Hear is that the Dead Kennedys are essentially our Sex Pistols, though DK arguably has the better musicians. DK can also match or even better the Pistols with lyrics. Jello Biafra, the lead singer & songwriter of most of the songs, was very into the national & world issues of the day. You can tell from the first song, which is called Kill the Poor. As in, drop a bomb on the poor & clear out real estate that the rich can buy & use. The songs are satirical & hilarious, but Biafra still makes his point. Other songs on the album are, Let’s Lynch the Landlord, I Kill Children, Stealing People’s Mail, Ill in the Head, and their biggest “hit,” Holiday in Cambodia. It’s amazing, or sad, how we seem to have the same issues today that Biafra was writing about in 1980. I think this album is worth checking out for historical purposes & the lyrics of the songs, but it’s not my kind of punk.

I’d heard of the Stranglers & thought they were a punk band, but I never heard them before. Upon hearing the first 30 seconds of Ratticus Norvegious, I realized they weren’t just another punk band. The Stranglers were described by 1 critic as “hardcore pop.” I thought they sounded like the Cars, though not as slick. Not that the Cars ripped them off, but the Stranglers are the perfect melding of punk, new wave & rock with grimy lyrics about the London streets. In addition, this is another “punk” band in which the musicianship is excellent. Jean-Jacques Burnel’s bass is the instrument that holds everything together. The bassline for the song Peaches is iconic. Keyboardist Dave Greenfield’s playing gives the music a ’60s vibe, which I usually hate, but I thought it really elevated the songs. While listening, I couldn’t help but think these songs would work today. I imagine the Stranglers inspired copycat bands that evolved into what became new wave in the '80s. Do yourself a favor & listen to this album just once and you’ll see the Stranglers aren’t just another punk band. This is going in my playlist for further listening.

I was deep into nu metal when this album came out, I know, I regret it too. So, I was excited to listen to this & it started off great, but after about 10 songs, for me, the album ran out of steam. This is a Motown album, but it ain’t your dadd…or your great-grandaddy’s Motown. The musicianship was incredible. Around 2000, Questlove & others started the neo-soul movement & Badu was the high priestess. At least, according to what Wikipedia told me. I enjoyed the album for what it was, but in the end, it was too long & I got bored in the middle. I think the more boring songs were less neo-soul & more samples of other songs. Penitentiary Philosophy is going into my favorite songs playlist, but that’s about it. However, this is prime baby-making music if you want to add to or start a family.

Like most music of the '90s & '00s, I was a young idiot who only really listened to heavy metal, so I missed out on Radiohead. I knew the Creep song & a few others, but never bought one of their albums. CDs cost money & all music wasn't available for pennies like today. After listening to OK Computer, I realize I should have just bought this album because it’s brilliant. There’s not a bad song on it & it still sounds fresh today, though with a 90s sheen. From the beginning, the whole album sounded like the soundtrack to a movie that hasn't been made. You can tell the band really wanted to be artists & not just the Creep band. '90s Radiohead is like the experimental band whose music works & sounds great, instead of being mindless trash. I can’t wait to dive further into their catalog.

I was very unfamiliar with The Modern Lovers, though I recognized their biggest “hit,” Roadrunner. The reason I was unfamiliar is that the group broke up before their first album came out. The songs were recorded in 1971 & 1972, but the album debuted in 1976. Their history & influence on music afterwards are fascinating. If you’re a fan of the NeW York punk scene & 80’s new wave, then this may be the album for you. However, I just plain didn’t like it. The Modern Lovers were influenced by The Velvet Underground, another band I can’t get into. The songs have a Velvet Underground sound, but also a bit of 60s psychedelic with the keyboards. It’s easy to see how The Modern Lovers influenced rock in the 80s; in fact, keyboardist Jerry Harrison later went on to play for the Talking Heads, & drummer David Robinson went on to play drums with The Cars. Those bands were just two of the many bands influenced by The Modern Lovers. I hate being an old man about music that came out before I was born, but the songs are kind of simple & the lyrics are very teen angsty. Founder/lead singer/songwriter, Jonathan Richman isn’t a good singer. He sounds like he’s half asleep when singing, which is more like talking. The lyrics are weird, he has a song about trying to snake a girl from a hippie, & his main argument is that he doesn’t get high & her bf is always stoned. Another song is about his love for the 50s & how he'd rather things stayed the same, which is weird for a rock band in the 70s, especially a proto-punk band. Other songs are about how he can’t pick up chicks. Maybe it’s satire I’m not getting. I will not listen to this again, I don’t think, but I appreciate the band’s influence on music in the '70s & '80s. It's at least worth a listen for music history's sake.

If the Modern Lovers album shaped music history in the '70s & '80s punk and new wave crowd, then Booker T. and the MGs shaped all of rock music before that & still today. They were the house band for Stax Records, out of Memphis, which, for my money, was the best soul label in the '60s. In fact, this album was the first issued by Stax Records. It’s all instrumentals, and you’ve likely heard at least one song, if not several, from this album. The album features several cover versions of well-known songs, like Ray Charles’s I Got a Woman, Twist and Shout and One Who Really Loves You originally sung by Mary Wells. However, the most well-known song is "Green Onions," which can be heard in 1 out of every 10 movies, TV shows & commercials. This is the song that screams early '60s rock. The familiar organ riff by Booker T. has to be one of the best-known riffs ever. This is the epitome of party records. You just turn it on, hit repeat & you never have to worry about the music the rest of the night. This is an album that will be listened to forever.

I’ve always been a Rolling Stones guy, but I appreciate what the Beatles did for modern rock music and recognize they are the best band ever. They are the band that paved the way for all subsequent bands. Near the end of their run, George Harrison had a breakthrough in songwriting and began writing great songs, though sometimes John Lennon and Paul McCartney couldn’t see it. The Beatles' loss was Harrison's gain as his solo debut triple album is a masterpiece. I’d heard several songs off All Things Must Pass, but never sat down and listened to it straight through. What an idiot I am. The album is a crusher, even the instrumental jams included as just filler were incredible. Of course, any music made with Derek and the Dominos and the Stones' horn section, plus other rock legends as your backing band, is going to be incredible. For my money, All Things Must Pass is the best solo work of the Beatles’ members. Lennon’s output was hit and miss and McCartney’s best solo work was with Wings. Ringo, generally the joke of the band, has done quite well for himself with his solo career, but can't touch the other members. Though he is still underrated as a drummer. If you’ve never listened to any of Harrison’s solo work, this album has it all: country music, solid old school 50’s rock, hymns, love songs and all-star rock jams with the likes of Eric Clapton. Speaking of Clapton, I’m guessing that during the recording of All Things Must Pass, Clapton was falling in love with Harrison’s wife and Clapton’s future wife, Pattie Boyd. That’s wild, isn't it? Clapton was so infatuated with Boyd, he even dated her sister. The whole episode could inspire a book, which Boyd wrote in 2008. She must have been an incredible muse. Anyway, beyond the gossip being incredible, All Things Must Pass is for sure one of the greatest albums ever, and you should do yourself a favor and bask in its glory.

Everybody knows The Temptations, you know, My Girl, Ain’t Too Proud To Beg, The Way You Do the Things You Do, but in 1968, radical changes were happening. First, David Ruffin, one of the main voices of the group, was fired for missing shows and regularly powdering his nose. He was replaced by Dennis Edwards. Another radical change was that Sly & the Family Stone was changing R&B/soul music, making it more psychedelic and funkier. Otis Williams, the de facto leader of the Temptations, talked Motown into letting them try a more psychedelic sound and spreading the vocals around a bit. The result was Cloud 9, which was a hit and won the singing group a Grammy. I like the Temptations, both the more pure Motown R&B pop sound, but I really liked the 70s psychedelic Temptations. Cloud 9 had examples of both sounds, with the songs Cloud 9 and Runaway Child, Running Wild being more psychedelic and the lyrics having more of a social bent and not just about wooing a pretty girl. I listened to this album three times and I really liked it, but did I think it was a great album that needed to be on the 1,001 list? Not really. Maybe it’s on the list more for history’s sake. But, as a preview of what the Temptations later became with a look back at what they were, it’s a fun listen. Maybe after All Things Pass, anything I listened to would fall flat. For R&B/soul fans, you’ll like this album, but it’s not one you have to hear before you die.

I’m out of my element when it comes to trip hop, especially British trip hop, but I'd heard of Tricky. I remember reading about him in Rolling Stone and SPIN magazine back in the day. I miss magazines. Anyway, after listening to Maxinquaye, I realized I’d heard a couple of songs off the album, though I’m sure I had no idea it was Tricky. Maybe I heard them in shows or as background music to ads. I didn’t hate the album, but maybe I didn’t get the album? It’s better than Roni Size, but again, a squawking crows choir is better than Roni Size. I can appreciate much of the album, but sometimes the songs do sound like the same thing over and over. However, as far as putting it on for background music, I think it works. It’s got a slow, chill groove, and you can really get some work done when it’s on in the background. But you can check that out for yourself. As for me, I’ve had enough.

Among the Living is an album I've known since it debuted, though it took a few years before I actually listened to the whole album. It's Anthrax's breakthrough album that solidified them as a member of the Big 4 of thrash metal, joining Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer. The big difference between Anthrax and the other 3 bands is that Anthrax was from New Your City and had an actual singer, who had more old school New Wave of Heavy Metal vocals instead of screaming and yelling. But Anthrax was just as heavy and had chunky riffs. Among the Living holds up today as it's so heavy, and filled with lyrics about societal issues, featuring an anti-war song about the massacre of Native Americans and an anti-drug song, called N.F.L. I think this album can appeal to everybody in some way or another. While I won't say it's a perfect album, I do find myself returning to it about every year for a listen or two. For metal fans, if you've never heard this album, it's a must. They also may have been the first metal band to get into rap music at the time, as Anthrax recorded I'm the Man during these sessions, a rap song that became a pretty big cult classic.

It’s pretty cool to get George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, which was incredible, and then Paul McCartney and Wings’ Band on the Run just days later. It gives you a chance to listen and compare solo work from two members of the best rock and roll band ever. I thought Harrison’s All Things Must Pass clearly showed he had the best solo stuff of the Beatles, but when you listen to Band on the Run, you might rethink that just a bit. Band on the Run wasn't as epic as All Things Must Pass, but it’s a damn great album. I’d listened to it in the past, but not more than a few times. Again, I was a metalhead for half of my life before realizing there are other kinds of cool music. Band on the Run has great songs, but unlike All Things Must Pass, some of the song lyrics are just words that sound good together. McCartney was someone who could write a song with placeholder lyrics and then decide those lyrics were good enough. For instance, Jet is a song about McCartney marrying Linda McCartney and how her father wasn’t a big fan. The title comes from the name of a dog McCartney had, and the song appears to be sung to Jet the dog. At one point, McCartney sings, “And Jet, I thought the major was a little lady suffragette.” McCartney said he just liked the sound of the word suffragette and put it in the song. I’m not saying silly lyrics are bad, because they aren’t. I’m not much of a lyric guy anyway; I like a song more for its groove. I’m just saying that Harrison had maybe the more thoughtful lyrics. However, McCartmey’s songs are so good, you don’t even care. Much like All Things Must Pass, Band on the Run doesn’t have a bad song on it. In fact, when the album came out in 1973, the U.S. version had an added song, Helen Wheels, missing from the U.K. version. Helen Wheels itself is a banger. As for which had the Beatles' solo work, I still give Harrison the edge, at least in quality. McCartney has the others beat on quantity. Band on the Run is an incredible album and probably his greatest work beyond the Beatles.

I love the name of this band, The Flying Burrito Brothers, and their debut The Gilded Palace of Sin is a pretty incredible album as it was a big influence on rock and country music in the 70’s and beyond. The FBB was formed by Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman. Both were former members of The Byrds, another influential band in the same kind of genre, though the Byrds leaned more toward pop music than the FBB. Parsons was more the mastermind of the debut album. He wanted to bring the Bakersfield sound, made famous by country legend Buck Owens, into the psychedelic 60’s. At the time, I imagine when people heard the record, they either loved it or just didn’t quite get it, as it was not a commercial success. For someone today listening to the album, there really isn’t much groundbreaking stuff because you’ve heard the Eagles and other countryfied rock bands, including the outlaw country music of Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. I guess the key to the FBB’s sound is the steel guitar playing of Sneaky Pete Kleinow. His playing “provides an almost continuous commentary throughout some of the songs,” according to Wikipedia. Sneaky Pete also supposedly built a fuzz box for his steel guitar and in the song Wheels I couldn’t figure out this sound I was hearing. It sounded like trombones playing one long note and then I thought maybe they found a ship’s horn to put on the song. Turns out it was Sneaky Pete on the steel guitar with the fuzz box. The album is chock full of great country songs that combine folk, rock, psychedelic and gospel music. It’s a great album and I know why it’s included in the 1,001 Records You Must Hear book. It’s both a great musical experience and it’s a historic record that influenced and changed music in the era. This formation of the band broke up after their second album and Gram Parsons got into the rock star life and was dead of a drug overdose right before his 24th birthday. I think just about everyone can enjoy this album, not just musically, but for how you can hear how they influenced others.

I’ll admit, I’d never heard of Barry Adamson and certainly never heard his Moss Side Story album. After doing a little research, I was already in. Adamson, who played in the post-punk band Magazine and worked with other artists in the 70s and 80s, was getting interested in film music. He decided to record a soundtrack for a non-existent film noir movie and use that as his way of auditioning for work in film and TV. Turns out, it worked well as his first solo album. film As I said, once I heard the premise, I was in. The songs are all instrumentals, except for sampled dialogue, screams and a choir. There are three acts in the story and then there are three bonus songs, one of which is Adamson’s verion of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents theme and the theme from the movie, The Man with the Golden Arm. If you’re a fan of Sergio Leone and Quentin Tarantino, you know how important music can be to a movie. In this case, the music is more important than the movie because the movie doesn’t exist. As you're listening to it, you’re imagining the movie playing out in your head. It makes me want to listen to more flim music. Is this something I’m going to listen to over and over or put on at a party? Probably not, but it’s just so cool, I think everyone should at least experience it.

I have mentioned several times that as a younger, dumber dude back in the day, I was just straight up Metal ‘til I die! So, I missed a lot of alternative bands that are now some of my favorites, like Rage Against the Machine, Tool, and Jane’s Addiction. I know, they are metal-ish, but when they came on the scene, I was still grieving the death of hair metal. I would have thought by 2010 I would have been more open-minded, but alas, still dumb. I missed out on The Arcade Fire. At that time, I was listening to the Dan Patrick Show and he’d play their song, Wake Up every Friday to send us into the weekend and that was a great song. I listened to an Arcade Fire album and was not impressed. Perhaps The Suburbs is their only good album, because it is good. Around 2010, we were in a kind of folk rock revival with Fleet Foxes, Blitzen Trapper and Mumford and Sons. I was against this movement, not heavy enough. Though it must be mentioned, I actually liked Blitzen Trapper. I’m a stubborn, stubborn idiot, turns out. Anyway, as I listen to The Suburbs, I see the error of my ways. It’s not some country/folk album, it’s an album that rocks. Maybe they pulled a Dylan and went electric on this album, but every song is good. Month of May sounds like a lost Queens of the Stone Age song. Lately, I’ve decided to weigh the importance of these albums less, even though some truly are, and more judge the albums by, “Did I enjoy this?” The Suburbs, is it important? I don’t know, but I sure as hell enjoyed it.

I have a love/hate relationship with the Doors. I hate just about all the singles, but I love the album tracks. The Doors' debut album has arguably their two biggest hits, Break on Through (To the Other Side) and Light My Fire. I’ve heard those songs since I was born, so I’ve gotten burnt out. I love Soul Kitchen, The Crystal Ship, 20th Century Fox and Back Door Man. Those songs do get some radio play today, but not as much as the hits. I’ve heard 7 of the 11 songs on this album on the radio at some point in my life, which is incredible for a debut album. No wonder it’s on the list. The Doors are the quintessential 60s band with Ray Manzarek’s organ and Jim Morrison’s “poetic” lyrics. The organs supply the psychedelic sound and Morrison’s lyrics supply the drug-fueled poetry that appealed to young people in the 60s. Both, at times, drive me crazy. Plus, I’ve never really been convinced Morrison was a poetic genius. He was insane, which actually works better for rock ‘n’ roll. I’m not a lyric guy, as I’ve explained before, so maybe that’s why I like more of the “easy” songs, like Back Door Man, though it takes on a whole new meaning these days than it did in the '60s. Songs like The End sound cool, but you have to do some research to see what Morrison was trying to say. At the time, this album blew people’s minds. Paul McCartney said it was an influence on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Since that time, and Morrison’s untimely death, the praise and love for the album have only increased. The closing song, The End, is a psychedelic masterpiece, though I can imagine in 1967, it scared the squares to death. If for nothing else, that brings me back around to loving the Doors. Get into the Doors, they’ll get you fired up, make you scratch your head and maybe open up your mind, dude. Ride the snake!

Traffic was a supergroup formed in 1967 featuring Steve Winwood and Dave Mason. Winwood and Mason were the two who put the super in the group and wouldn’t you know, it seems they had trouble working together. One way you can tell is that this 10-track album includes five songs written and sung by Dave Mason and five songs written and sung by Steve Winwood. Also, this version of Traffic had broken up by 1969, though other versions would come together over the years to record and tour. Mason’s songs were more folky rock songs with pop sensibilities. Some of his songs sounded like lutes were being played on them. Winwood’s songs were jazzy, bluesy rock songs, and I liked his half better. Mason’s songs weren’t bad, in fact, Mason wrote the hit on the album, which you might have heard, it’s called Feelin’ Alright. With some of these albums on the 1,001 list, I have to figure out why they were included. I’m not saying this album is good, it is. But it just doesn’t blow me away. The musicianship is great, the songwriting is good. The lyrics are plain enough, save for a few songs that leave you to wonder what they’re singing about. At the end of the day, I enjoyed the album, but it’s not going in regular rotation. However, I think you'll be fine if you want to skip this, but if you like folky/bluesy/rock/pop music from the 1960s, this might be your jam.

You may not know this about me, but I love a good pure pop song and dance music. I grew up in the mid-70s into the early 80s and disco was going strong. My heart may belong to heavy metal, but my booty belongs to dance music. Hot Chip is dance music or alternative dance music or whatever weird genre you have, but at its heart, it's dance music. What makes Hot Chip more alternative, I guess is that it's a band and not a DJ spinning records. Most of the instruments are synths, but that's okay. For the first listen, I was at my desk working, and the next thing I knew, I was chair dancing while typing up the real estate report. Upon second listen last night, I again was dancing in my chair, but paying more attention to the lyrics and the sounds. I swear I heard video game noise samples in the songs. You don’t hink much about the lyrics of dance music, but the first track, Motion Sickness, seemed to by about a Sony Discman playing music for you. I loved Sony Discmans…or is it Discmen? Anyway, other songs are about God, love and the loss of a brother. Pretty deep stuff for a booty-shaking record. At first I wondered why is this album on the 1,001 list, but as I kept going, I kept feeling good and getting happy. This album, at least for me, brought me joy. And it wasn’t like I was sad or down before listening, but it wasn’t until I listened to In Our Heads that I noticed I felt really good. It reminded me a bit of the same feeling I had the first time I heard The Scissor Sisters' debut album. Just pure pop joy. If you’re a fan of dance music or synth-pop, or you just want a bit of a boost, then this album will get you off.

I was still kind of plugged in to the music scene when The xx released their debut album xx. In fact, there was such a buzz about that album that I listened to it. I don’t remember it making a very big impression, but I could have been a narrow-minded music nerd at the time. So, I was kind of excited to be giving it another try. Upon first listen, as I was working at my desk, I really liked it. I thought I’d made a huge mistake back then. While the songs were kind of simple with just a few instruments and some digital sounds, the vibe was very chill and relaxed. And, surprisingly, the songs had a bit of a beat to kind of bop to a bit. After listening to it, sitting in a chair, concentrating and reading the lyrics, I kind of came back to earth. The songs are simple and kind of sound the same, which isn’t bad necessarily, look at AC/DC. The lyrics to me sounded very high school teen, angsty, kind of “I’ll never love again” at age 16. Plus, you can tell this band was a fan of New Order, The Cure, Joy Division, and other 80’s new wave, but what really hit me was The Kills. The Kills are a two-person alt/rock group that is very minimalist and I love that band so much. Check out The Kills’ Midnight Boom. But several songs, I thought, this could have been off of a Kills album. Because I could easily pick out the influences, I thought it was weird that this album got so much love. I remember a band called She Wants Revenge, which I really liked, but the critics killed them for sounding just like their influences. Many of which were shared by The xx. It was confusing. Not that I don’t listen to trashy music, I do, but I really thought She Wants Revenge was going to be around for a while. Nope. Maybe the critics were just being narrow-minded idiots at that time, and 3 years later, they were all in. This album was great when it was just on in the background while you're working. But when I sat down and really got into it, even at 37 minutes, I kept wondering, “When is this going to be done?” Not sure it’s one of the best albums of the 21st century, or of 1,001 you need to hear, but it’s alright.

Ugh. When I saw this was my album for the day, I was not looking forward to it. Mainly because its kind of everything I dislike about 60s music. What really drives me up the wall are the organs. Once the organ made its appearance, it seemed to be in every song. You hear an organ in a song, it's most likely the 60s. I began listening and the organ was there, but it didin’t drive me crazy. But I’ll admit I almost quit listening and was just going to chalk this up to a Roni Size album, unlistenable. But I persevered, dammit! As I continued, I started to groove a bit. I’m certain In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida was the only song I had heard from this album. The other songs are alright. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is the highlight, especially the 17-minute album version. I mean, there’s a 3-minute drum solo in the middle. I think the reason this album is in the 1,001 albums you need to hear is just for history's sake. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida was arguably the first attempt at heavy metal, though I’m sure some could provide earlier examples. The other songs are just good examples of 60s rock, but nothing special. I’d say you don’t even have to hear the other songs, but listening to the 17-minute version of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is a must, at least once.

What in the hell did I listen to? I’d never heard of Laibach and I can understand why. It sounded like music for a fictional fascist regime in a movie, or current hate groups in the world today. Laibach is described as avant-garde in Wikipedia, and I agree. Wiki also says they are associated with industrial, martial and neoclassical music. That sums it up. I’ve never been a fan of industrial-type rock and metal. While there are a couple of Ministry songs that tickle me, they aren’t really my type. I’m not even a huge fan of Nine Inch Nails, who dabble in industrial rock. Laibach seems to be a satirical band playing with some really crazy imagery and ideas. The problem is, when you’re creating satire, making fun of something really evil, some people don’t get satire and are legit into the really evil thing you’re just trying to make fun of. Beyond that stuff, which can be scary, Laibach apparently are huge Queen fans. The reason I know this is because on Opus Dei Laibach includes a cover of One Vision and a few samples from Queen’s A Kind of Magic album. It’s weird to hear One Vision sung as a kind of German military song. The whole album kind of gives me the piss shivers. That’s not to say there aren’t some very musical parts, but when the vocalist keeps shouting, “Jawohl!” throughout the song, it can become comical. By the way, Jawohl is pronounced yah-VOL, with the emphasis on VOL! So, if you’re favorite band is Rammstein, Laibach’s Opus Dei is the album for you. Otherwise, you can skip it….I wish I did.

Songhoy Blues has an incredible story behind its formation and quite frankly, it’s probably the main reason it's on the 1,001, list. Songhoy Blues is made up of a group of people from Timbuktu, Mali. They were forced out of their home during civil unrest, where the people in charge imposed Sharia Law. Under Sharia Law, music is banned. So these musicians moved to another part of Africa and formed Songhoy Blues. The name comes from the fact that three of the members of the band were part of the Songhoy people in Africa. Their style of music has been described as desert blues. I don’t know about all that, but Songhoy Blues are definitely a blues band. They were inspired by the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and John Lee Hooker, according to the band. You can hear it all in their songs. They sing in French and these guys can wail. Songhoy Blues doesn’t play the regular style of American blues we’re used to hearing, But you know it's in there. They’ve added more African rhythms to their songs, making yheir music something new altogether. Well, new to Americans, moat likely. I’d heard of the band before getting into the 1,001 challenge I’m doing here. I’m not sure if I ever listened to them, but I have heard Bombino, who became really popular around the same time as Songhoy Blues. Bombino and Songhoy Blues play a similar style of music. Also, there is some really cool psychedelic African blues from back in the 1970s that will blow your mind. So Songhoy Blues isn’t that new for African rock, but they really brought it to the world stage in 2015. Songhoy Blues is definitely worth checking out. They have a unique way of playing the blues. It’s fun to hear how Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles go into their ears and come out Songhoy Blues. I’m not sure if this album will be a part of my regular playlist, but I’ll definitely come back to it occasionally to kind of refire my synapses.

When I saw Led Zep III come up yesterday, I thought this was going to be easy, as I’ve heard this album about 100 times. I became familiar with it when Robert Plant and Jimmy Page got together for their Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded tour thing. They took about a dozen Led Zep songs and re-arranged them acoustically or using weird instruments. One of the songs they did was Gallow’s Pole, which I had never heard, and it was on LZ III. By the Way, what happened to John Paul Jones in that deal? JPJ is a badass and was a huge part of that group, but consistently gets overlooked. But I digress. The first thing that kind of strikes you about LZ III is that it has a few more softer/acoustic songs on the album, and the lore says it's because LZ wanted to prove to the snobs who had their noses up the butts of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and quite possibly Young, that they could also write cool folky acoustic rock songs. At the time, most critics were lukewarm, at best, about LZ III. Of course, most critics were lukewarm on LZ I & II and by LZ III, LZ were arguably the biggest rock band in the world. It shows you what critics know in the heat of the moment. Now of course, just about every LZ album is universally loved and deemed a classic. For me, the standout on LZ III is Since I’ve Been Loving You, mostly because I’m a huge blues fan and this song is white boy blues at its best. All the songs on the album were written by the boys in the band except for Gallow’s Pole, which was based on an English old-timey folk song, and Hats Off To (Roy) Harper, which was based on an old blues song by Bukka White. A song called Tangerine is on this album, which didin't mean anything to me until I saw Almost Famous and now it's one of my favorite LZ songs. Fills me with such sweet melancholia. LZ III isn’t my favorite LZ album, but it is great and there isn’t a song on it that I’d skip when listening to it. When I was listening to this fervently back in 1994-1995, I wasn’t really paying attention to lyrics, because it wasn’t until yesterday that I found out the song, That’s The Way, wasn’t just a love song about Plant having to leave a girl because he’s got to ramble or whatever. No, That’s The Way is about a mother telling her little boy not to play with the little boy from across town because he’s got long hair and is literally from the bad side of town. Plant wrote it after LZ toured America because the group would get harassed because of their long hair. Man, could we go back to the days were people just cared about the length of your hair? Anyway, That’s The Way still has a message for us idiots today. That's The Way is also in Almost Famous and it just fills me with the same sweet melancholia. Man, I love Penny Lane. LZ III is an album you have to hear, but I expect we’ll see at least 3-4 Led Zep albums in the list.

This album is brilliant. That’s all that really needs to be said about it. Sufjan Stevens is a musical genius, and I think this album will end up being one of the best albums of the century. Now that the hyperbole is out of the way, I’d heard about this album in 2005 when it came out because all I heard was this album was incredible, it was the best of the decade thus far, and blah, blah, blah. I was knee deep in System of a Down, the White Stripes, and other metal-ish music, probably even nu-metal, ugh. I’m not sure I would have appreciated this album as much if I had heard it in 2005. Sufjan Stevens is a singer/songwriter who claimed he was going to write an album about each state. He started with Michigan, which is where he was born, and then Illinois was the second album. Turns out he was joking about his 50 albums for 50 states, but thank God he at least got to Illinois. This album is hard to explain. The style is indie rock? I guess? It’s not the Strokes or Wilco or whatever indie rock is supposed to be, I don’t think. There are orchestras, lwith oboes and strings and bells and it’s like the soundtrack to a musical that wasn’t created yet. Though they did make a musical out of this album in later years. Here’s a peek inside my brain, I love musicals. Don’t know why. Maybe it's because I love music, I've got to have it in my life. So if the songs are good, I’ll buy into people singing to each other all day long. The songs are a mixture of history about Illinois and Stevens' life growing up in and around Illinois. There’s a song about losing a friend to cancer, that almost had me bawling at my desk here. There’s another song about the dead rising from their graves to attack the living. There’s a very beautiful but creepy song about John Wayne Gacy and how each of us has that evil side that we try to hide from everybody else. This album is a must-listen in my mind. Check it out one time and if you don’t like it, I’ll give you your money back. As long as the listen costs you nothing. I’m excited to add this to my regular rotation of albums to revisit every so often, to explore it even deeper than the two listens I had yesterday.

I wasn’t a PJ Harvey fan when she was at her peak, though I wasn’t against her. About the only thing I knew from her was her appearance on Beavis & Butthead with the song, 50 Ft. Queenie. I also heard her on Josh Homme’s Desert Sessions album, vol. 9 & 10, I think. So I went into this album cold, though not afraid. She’s a rocker. Pretenders Critics say this album is her best, and it is really good. The album came out in 2000, so it still has a ’90s sound to it. Harvey is a great singer, and she reminded me immediately of Chrissy Hynde from the Pretenders, a band I like, though I'm not a superfan. The album also includes an appearance by Thom Yorke from Radiohead. While I enjoyed the album, and maybe this is a Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois hangover, it just didn’t make that big an impression on me. It’s good and I’m sure some of you would really like it, but I’m not sure I’ll even remember the title in a year. Perhaps I’ve heard too much in my day. This sounds like 1995-2003. It’s good, but not great. I do love the song Big Exit, which is Harvey’s feelings about being exposed to the gun culture in America. Both songs with Yorke are great, and I loved The Whores Hustle The Hustlers Whore. If you like that kind of alt-rock from the late 90s, I think you’d dig this album, but I don’t really think it’s that special. Maybe three weeks from now, it’ll draw me back for another listen, who knows?

Hot damn, I got a good album for today. If you all didn’t know, in the last decade or so, I’ve really gotten into Motown and Stax records. Rock ‘n’ roll is dead, or at least boring, so I jumped in a time machine and went back to the 1960s and 1970s to hear the jams I missed. And this album is right in my wheelhouse. There are songs on this album that are just imprinted in our brains and we don’t even know how or why. It’s like Aretha Franklin’s music is in the air and you pick it up without even realizing it. While listening to this album at work yesterday, I had to stop working a few times and just listen to these songs. For example, (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman, is just jaw-dropping and I’ve heard it 1,000 times. That song is so good that if you’re a dude, it’ll make you wish you were a woman just so you can really feel what that song means. I mean, it gets to you in your guts. Chain of Fools is a perfect song. It was her biggest hit off this album and was covered very nicely by a band in the hair metal era called Little Caesar. Embarrassingly, that’s how I first heard the song. I loved it then and when I heard Aretha’s version, I quickly realized she, of course, had the better version. People Get Ready takes you to church and for a southern boy like me, growing up in the church, this song reminds me of the incredible music I got to hear all my life. It’s music that swings and makes you feel good. It makes you want to go out and get baptized. Beyond Aretha’s voice, which is universally known and perhaps the greatest singing voice ever, the music is played by the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, or the Swampers. The Swampers played with everybody back in the day, including, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Wilson Pickett, Aretha, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Bob Seger, Paul Simon and more. It’s like fate meant for these two entities to come together. Hell, even Eric Clapton pops up on the song, Good To Me As I Am To You. I’m talking good Clapton, CREAM Clapton. I’ve often wondered if I’m the only one this happens to, but I get this thing where I’ll be listening to music, like great music, music that’s just so good that I start to feel emotional, like I’m going to bust out crying just because, I don’t know, it’s so beautiful. Anyone else like that? No, just me? Listening to this album there were several times I had to literally stop and compose myself. I haven’t had that happen in a while and that’s why I know this is a legendary album everyone must hear before they die.

For the picture I have in my mind of Neil Young, the album cover of On the Beach ain’t it. Neil Young is buckskin coats, moccasins, a flannel shirt, standing in the forest in the fall. On the Beach has him, literally, on the beach in white pants and a yellow sweater. It’s weird. The music, though, is Neil Young. Good music with lyrics that mean something, and his patented stop-and-start, weird guitar solos. This album was his attempt at not doing what he had been doing to get big and famous. I can appreciate that, but without knowing what the albums before this sounded like, I’m not sure I’ll get the big deal. There are a lot of blues songs on here, at least blues Neil Young’s way. I liked everything on here, but I’m not sure its impact is something that can be digested in a day’s listening. It seemed critics were like that when it came out in 1972. It’s one of those albums that grows on you with further listening. I listened to it twice, with the lyrics the first time. I must say, it didn’t blow me away. On many of the albums on the 1,001 list, it’s hard to appreciate things that were new in the 1970s when you’ve heard everything since then. I will say, Neil Young has been a blind spot in my music listening life, and I’m looking forward to more albums. Maybe one day, I’ll just start them and listen to them in chronological order. Until then, I think the significance of some of these albums I’m missing.

Super excited to see that I got this album yesterday. I had so much fun with the Elle Fitzgerald album, I couldn’t wait to listen to this….but I had to wait because football and sports betting took precedence. So after I lost all my money, I popped on Lady Day to help ease my wallet. Well, I was surprised to hear that Billie Holiday didn’t sound like a carbon copy of Ella Fitzgerald. Holiday has a very unique singing voice, at least on this album. She kind of reminded me of a female Louie Armtstong. She has a bit of a frog in her throat. It’s not bad, but it takes some time to get used to, I must admit. After consulting Wikipedia, at this point in her career, her voice had changed due to years of alcohol and drug abuse, and she didn’t quite have her upper register, at least according to critics. However, her voice still has this quality to it that can’t be explained. It’s like hearing Johnny Cash on those American Recordings albums he did in his last few years of life. The music is beautiful with a full orchestra backing Holiday. It’s so good. Nothing like an orchestra to bring out a female singer’s voice. The songs are these sweet, and sometimes mournful, jazz and pop songs. While her voice might not sound the same as it did 10-15 years earlier, it still works. I found myself falling more and more in love with Holiday as I listened to this album. I’m going to go back to hear what she sounded like in her early career. Holiday would be dead inside a year after recording these songs due to years of alcohol and drug abuse. It’s a shame that so many talented artists who make millions happy with their art are also some of the most tortured souls.

Prince was a musical genius, and he was one of the kings of music in the 80s, where he did some of his best work. 1999 was his big breakthrough and it's easy to see why. The first three songs are 1999, Little Red Corvette and Delirious. Those three are easily in my top 10 Prince songs, if not top five. 1999 was also an influential album as it brought the Minneapolis sound to the masses. The sound that mixed dance, electronic music, funk and R&B. I love Prince, but one of my main issues with a lot of his music is that a lot of it doesn’t age well. For instance, when you hear a Prince song, you know what decade it's from. A lot of his songs have weird synths or that lame kind of bass pop or primitive electric drum sound that gives the decade away. You won’t hear too many Prince songs in which you can legit say, “I have no idea what decade that song was made in.” It’s not necessarily Prince’s fault. He had a style, hell, he invented a style. It just so happens the Minneapolis style didn’t age well after about 1995. However, I was surprised to find several songs from 1999 that did sound like they could have been made in any decade. The song Free is a beautiful song that isn’t as buried in the Minneapolis sound as to sound dated. I have no idea why it wasn’t one of the five singles off the album because it’s a very beautiful song. It later became a beloved album track. 1The music on 1999 was so undeniable that MTV started playing Prince’s music videos and MTV wasn’t exactly black-artist friendly at the time. It took artists like Prince and Michael Jackson to help MTV realize their music wasn’t just for black folks, it was for everybody. I’m listening to D.M.S.R. right now, and it’s just a straight-up brick of funk. I’m going to stop writing now and finish this song. Listen to 1999, it’ll give you a good dose of nostalgia and introduce you to some great songs you haven’t heard before.

This album was nothing I expected it to be. I had heard of Tim Buckley, but mainly because of his son, Jeff Buckley. I thought Tim Buckley was a singer/songwriter, and he is, but he evolved from the hippie folk scene to a more avant-garde sound, then to a funk sound before passing away at 28 from a drug overdose. It doesn’t seem like Tim Buckley had enough of a career to land an album on the 1,001 list. Greetings From L.A. was probably his biggest-selling album, but it points out in the Wikipedia article, “Like most of his other albums, Greetings from L.A. did not sell well.” Greetings is a kind of a funk album, kind of a rock album, it’s just kind of weird. I can’t tell if it’s supposed to be a parody album or if Tim Buckley is on the level. As a praody album, it's not bad, but as a legit, 'No, this is the album,' it seems a bit self-indulgent to me. I’m just not sure if I’m supposed to take it seriously. Move With Me is the lead song about a man trying to get a married woman to have an affair with him. Actually, most of the songs are about a man trying to have sex with a woman. Wikipedia did refer to this point of Tim Buckley’s career as the “sex funk” period. The problem with the “sex funk” albums was that the lyrics were a little too out there for pop radio, and what few fans Tim Buckley had made as a folk artist were not into sex funk. But he did gain a cult following, probably swingers and folks from nudist colonies, and those who love visiting nude beaches. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just not a big enough fan base to get you to sell out Madison Square Garden. I still don’t know what to do about this album. Tim Bucklety seems like he might be an a-hole, as he left Jeff Buckley and his mother about six months after Jeff was born and died before any relationship could have been worked out. Jeff Buckley went on to only outlive his father by two years before drowning in the Mississippi River in a weird swimming mishap of some sort. You can live a nice, long life without ever hearing Tim Buckley’s Greetings From L.A. But, if you're into sex funk or are a little sex funk curious, then feel free to indulge.

Bonnie Raitt was huge in the '90s, and I didn’t pay much attention. However, you couldn’t get away from her, as I seem to remember hearing a couple of songs off of this huge album, Nick of Time, including the title track and Thing Called Love. Ordinarily, I’d be programmed to hate this with a passion. It’s essentially everything I dislike. It’s tepid Eric Claptonish pop blues music from the '90s. But, despite my efforts to hate, I couldn’t help but love most of the album. There are cringe parts located in it, the funky bass popping that you hear in ’80s music is in a few songs. One song, Have a Heart, sounds like it could be in any number of 80s romantic comedies, perhaps Weekend at Bernie’s. Holy crapballs! I just googled it, and it was in a little-seen Bob Hoskins and Denzel Washington movie called Heart Conditions from 1990. Heart Conditions also stars CT from Magnum P.I. and Willona from Good Times. Damn, that sounds like a good movie. According to IMDB, “a racist cop receives a heart transplant from a black lawyer he hates, who returns as a ghost to ask the cop to help take down the men who murdered him.” Now that is pure '90s gold. A buddy cop movie with a black ghost and a white racist cop. How was that not a hit? I’m digressing horribly. The more I listen to this album, the more I really love it. Maybe it’s nostalgia, maybe I’m just a fool for the blues, I don’t know why, but there’s enough good stuff to outweigh the cheese. At one point, I was listening to the album while I was working and the song Nobody’s Girl got me. Like I thought I was going to start squirting tears right there in front of the Mac-Mini. Maybe it’s because I know Raitt’s backstory, she was dropped from her label and left for dead so she turned to drugs and booze and food and kind of gave up. She then straightens up and explodes. It’s a feel-good story and this album seems very personal. I may look like a serial killer, but I’m a big softie at heart and Ms. Raitt got me. At the end of the day, I even grew to enjoy Have a Heart. I can see why Nick of Time is in the 1,001 albums to hear list because it’s an album that makes you feel something and you don’t get that from today’s music much.

I’ll admit, when I saw the name Abdullah Ibrahim and the title Water From an Ancient Well, I thought, what is this going to be? I was totally going in blind on this one. Turns out it's jazz, like the jazz you can listen to, not the John Coltrane type jazz where everyone is playing totally different rhythms and keys and time signatures. This style of jazz reminded me of A Charlie Brown Christmas and the Vince Guaraldi trio. There isn’t much information out there about this album, Ibrahim is a South African pianist and composer who is also known as Dollar Brand. Now that’s cool. I’m not really a jazz guy, I just know what I like. I’m not sure I’m smart enough to know what I’m supposed to get out of this album. This kind of jazz isn’t very complicated, so it’s very enjoyable and easy to digest. The album came out in 1986 and a lot of the songs sound like they could be in ‘80s rom-coms at the time. The bass sound really lodges you right in the ‘80s. The songs are very good. I listened to the album three times already and it gets better every time I hear it. Am I grateful to have heard this album before I die? Kinda? I’m probably not going to put it in my regular rotation, but for jazz lovers who may have missed this album, I think you’ll enjoy it.

Oh, baby. I’m sure I’m not the only one who was caught up in the Jagged Little Pill hysteria that began after You Oughtta Know came blasting out of the radio in 1995. Yes, 1995. That’s 30 years ago, people. Ugh. Anyway, I bought this CD and listened to it over and over. I guess I was a teenage girl at heart, but I did really dig this album. I haven’t listened to it in about 29 years, but God knows we all heard enough of it when it was out. I think that’s why I was dreading this listen. I got so burned out on it that I turned from a fan into a hater back in the day. So, as I began my first listen, I got the nostalgia feels that come with being old and remembering when this album was huge and I was young and had all the chicks. Well, some of that sentence is true. Then I heard the first occurrence of Alanis’s, um, quirky, vocal styling. The yips and, the quirks and all the other weird affectations that I assume were real. Were they? But after you get to the hits, I kind of forgot about them and just enjoyed the trip back to 1995. By the time I got to the song Forgiven, I stopped working to listen to it. Forgiven is a great song. Not that the others aren’t, but I’ve heard them 1,000 times. Dang, this is a pretty good rock album. Then you find out that Flea and Dave Navarro played on You Oughtta Know and that’s like pure 1995 Chili Peppers. That can't be bad, right? No, One Hot Minute fans out there? It's very underrated. I may be swept up again in Alanis fever, but I think this is an album that deserves to be on the 1,001 list. Not only was it a phenomenon and helped boost the short-lived Litlith Fair phase, but it’s a damn good rock album on its own. It’s full of quasi-hard rock with pop sensibilities that really worked in the 90’s. If you’ve never heard this album, you should listen to it before you’re dead.

I’ll be honest, I had a busy weekend and I’m tired and sweaty. So, my head wasn’t really into listening to a “British acid jazz trio” as Red Snapper were described in their Wikipedia entry. Their album Our Aim Is To Satisfy is supposedly their best album and I couldn’t be happier for them. It’s not for me. It’s just kind of the same beat over and over with some tiny variation and someone singing a hook over and over, with a little rapping sprinkled throughout the album. The first time I listen to any of the 1,001 albums I am assigned, I listen while working. Saturday, I listened while reading. After the first song, not once did I stop and just listen or think, “Man, that was a great song.” Maybe it was the headspace I was in, or more likely, this type of music ain’t my bag, baby. And that’s alright. Rather than get angry and write how this music shouldn’t exist or call anyone who likes this album idiots, I’ll just not listen to it again and go on with my life. If you’re a fan of acid jazz, you probably already know about this album, but if not, you might want to check it out. Man, I’m tired.

I was never a huge fan of the Sex Pistols growing up. I didn’t like Johnny Rotten's voice, or whatever you call it. I was more into actual singing, plus I’d been conditioned to believe they weren’t very good because they really didn’t know how to play their instruments. I was just a poor, square nerd. But then I got into listening to Steve Jones’s radio show, Jonesy’s Jukebox, and he won me over, so I gave them another try. Turns out I love the Sex Pistols. The Pistols actually could play their instruments, a little bit, at least enough to crank out some tasty riffs. Johnny Rotten, while he couldn’t, or wouldn’t sing, could write lyrics that horrified you, but also made you think…If you could get past the initial shock and all the curse words. Each time I listen to Never Mind the Bollocks, I find a new favorite song. Perhaps my favorite song is Submission. The band’s manager had a shop called SEX that sold fetish items. He asked Rotten to write a song about S&M. At this point, Rotten had grown to dislike the manager and instead of writing a song about sexual submission, he wrote a song about a sub mission. As in, “I'm on a submarine mission for you, baby.” The groove, the riff and the inanity of Rotten singing about being on a submarine mission for a girl’s love is incredible. While the Pistols didn't start punk, they helped amplify it. I’d recommend this album to those who love rock and roll, whatever the genre. But be ready to clutch those pearls if you have delicate sensibilities. Even today, the lyrics paint a very crude, but descriptive picture.

I’m not really a fan of R.E.M. I’ve never owned any of their albums, back when you had to buy music albums. I kind of miss those days in a weird, masochistic way. Anyway, I never bought their stuff, but you really couldn’t get away from R.E.M.. They seemed to be on MTV every hour, back when MTV played music. So when I got their album Green for today, I thought, I’m sure to have heard some songs off this album. I did. I distinctly remember hearing Orange Crush, Stand and Pop Song 89. And I remember liking all those songs. Turns out, maybe I am an R.E.M. fan and didn't know it. The more I got into the album, the more it just kind of sounded like the Beatles filtered through Georgia. R.E.M. can write pop songs. Not sure they really wanted to do that, at least starting out, but they figured out how to write happy pop songs with some not so happy lyrics. You know, the whole spoonful of sugar gag. What’s funny about Green is that this is the experimental album for R.E.M. It was their sixth album and they had a style by that point. Michael Stipe told the band to stop writing R.E. M. songs, and when they did that, you get Green. Now, I’m well aware the album was probably a shock for the hardcore fans at the time, no hardcore group of fans ever wants “their” band to change or grow and evolve. But this album broke R.E.M. open to the mainstream. The next stop was the biggest band in the world for a period of time. I really like this album, being a country boy from the home of Bill Monroe, I love the mandolin that was sprinkled about, but all in all, the group knows how to write a song. And more importantly, they know how to write a song to make you feel something. If you’ve never gotten into R.E.M. you should check this album out. There are some really great tunes on this album.

This is my third Neil Young album during this 1,001 thing I’m doing. Tonight’s the Night was recorded after Danny Whitten, a member of Young's backing band Crazy Horse, overdosed and died. Then, Bruce Berry, a roadie for Young and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, also died of a heroin overdose. The deaths gutted Young and the rest of Crazy Horse. This album was Young, the remaining two members of Crazy Horse and Nils Lofgren, of E Street Band fame, gathering up in a studio, smoking weed and drinking tequila all day, only to begin recording around midnight when they’re all tuned up and high AF. And the album sounds like it. It’s sloppy, Young’s voice is struggling, and it sounds like most of the songs were done in one take. With all that being said, I love this album. I realize it may mostly be the backstory. Before reading about the recording of this album, I thought it sounded like a mess. It legit sounds like a bunch of dudes got high and drunk and decided to record some songs. But when you find out they’re all essentially gutted by the deaths of their friends and this album is an expression of their grief, it turns the album into a masterpiece. This album is the third in Young’s Ditch Trilogy. It’s called the Ditch Trilogy, as Young has become so famous and recognized, he decided to stop making music that had made him famous. He started experimenting more and wanted to create anything except what it was that made him popular. He was “driving his career into the ditch.” Much like Dylan going electric and not wanting to write just protest songs. On the Beach was one of the Ditch Trilogy albums, which I listened to about a week or two ago. It didn’t blow me away, but Tonight’s the Night got me. The songs are dark and filled with grief. They’re also about drugs; in fact, one song, Tired Eyes, is about a drug deal gone wrong in which Young’s friend had to kill a couple of guys. Another song, Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown, is a live song sang by Whitten while Young and Crazy Horse were on tour. And yes, the song is about drugs. Young wasn’t trying to write any hits with this album; he wanted to capture a moment and he succeeded. Tonight’s the Night is like a wake. But knowing that turns it from a sloppy-sounding average rock album into something almost sacred. There are a lot of darkness and grief on the album, but there are beautiful moments too. Lookout Joe is one of my new favorite songs and Lofgren plays one of the most amazing solos I’ve ever heard on the song Speakin’ Out. New Mama is more like CSN&Y, with an acoustic guitar, piano and great harmonies. I don’t know if I’m slowly becoming a Neil Young guy, but after listening to Tonight’s the Night about seven times since yesterday, I’m definitely a Tonight’s the Night fan.

This album takes me back. I didn’t own it when it came out in 1983, but Cyndi Lauper was everywhere, or at least in most of the places I was as a 9-year-old kid. She was on the radio, she was on TV with her music videos, hell, she was on my wrestling show. Her song Girls Just Want to Have Fun was not just a hit song, but probably the song of the year and maybe the next couple of years. In addition, the album had three other top five singles. Although back then it seemed there were a lot of albums with a bunch of huge singles on them. Maybe it’s nostalgia, but it seems like music was bigger back then. The artists were bigger and they were more mysterious. I guess the internet has fragmented music so much that there isn’t an artist who captures the attention of the whole world. But I digress, which is what I do best. This was Lauper’s first solo album, as she had an album with a band called Blue Angel that went nowhere. After regrouping, she put out this synth-pop, new wave classic. This is an album of its time, but there are really good pop songs on here. I know in 1983, I hadn’t fully become a heavy metal snob, and I had no money to buy albums, so I lived on the radio. I remember loving Cyndi Lauper, she seemed fun and crazy. She was also sneaky and subversive as she snuck the song She Bop past most people. I know, as a kid, when it came to She Bop, I just thought Cyndi loved dancing. I said earlier, this album was of the time, and it was, but maybe I’m looking at it from the perspective of living through that time. As I try to listen without old ears, I think a lot of these songs could be hits today. In fact, we could use more songs like these out there in the ether. Maybe it would calm some of these insanos down a little if we all bopped more and fought less. If you’re my age, which is old enough to remember when Cyndi Lauper was all over the radio, or are a young whippersnapper, I think you’ll enjoy a nice trip back to 1983 with She’s So Unusual.

I got into rap around the 7th grade when I discovered Run DMC’s Raising Hell. It was the Walk This Way video. It made me a fan of both Run DMC and Aerosmith and rap music. I’d not heard of Afrika Bambaataa at the time, and not sure I’d ever heard any of his music until yesterday. That is, none of his music performed by Afrika Bambaataa, I had heard Rage Against the Machine perform his song Renegades of Funk, which is badass. I turned on Afrika Bambaataa and while it did bring back memories of that time discovering rap music, it didin’t do much else. Plus, I learned about some troubling issues with Bambaataa and it made me want to enjoy it even less. I instead wanted to listen to 2 Live Crew and early NWA with Arabian Prince on their first album. While they have their own controversies, it's what I grew up with. I’d imagine any young person listening to hip hop today wouldn’t even give Afrika Bambaataa or any rap from the mid-80s a second listen. Even to my old ears, it sounds kind of lame. Is this an album you need to hear before you die? If you’re a hip hop or rap historian, yes; otherwise, I’d just as soon have been issued 2 Live Crew’s Move Somethin’ or N.W.A. and the Posse’s album.

I remember when Beck appeared out of nowhere with the song Loser, a song he will be known for his whole life and beyond. I wasn’t too impressed and never really got into him. It seems I might have made a mistake. I thought Beck was just samples, bad white boy rap, and goofy nonsensical lyrics, then he gets his heart broken, and he makes a brilliant album about heartbreak and loss, which is not nonsense. In fact, it's brilliant. Beck’s Sea Change can be described with two words: beautifully dark. This isn’t a feel-good album, but the music, combined with the dark lyrics, gives the whole album this melancholy feeling of loss, disappointment, and grief. Beck broke up with his special lady friend and decided to just write actual songs with very personal lyrics. Then he had his dad, who composes music for movies, add string arrangements to the album. The strings put this album over the top. I read on Wikipedia that this album was a huge critical success when it came out, and it won Rolling Stone’s album of the year for 2002. I rarely agree with RS on its top albums, but in this case, I feel like they nailed it. In fact, Sea Change might have been a top 3 album of that decade. I can’t stress to you enough how good this album is. It made me feel like I was driving around Los Angeles aimlessly, trying to solve a problem, before ending up in the desert alone on the open road. Sometimes albums will put a specific location or setting in my head. Sea Change is one of those albums. I’m not sure if Beck’s other albums are this good, but Sea Change has made me want to explore more from an artist I had written off years ago.

Um…..Uh……I guess I don’t get it. I’ve heard about Guided By Voices forever, but I never knew anything about them. I was kind of hoping they were a punk band, and I guess some might say they are. Alien Lanes is the group’s 8th album and it has 28 songs with some lasting just 19 seconds. In fact, the album has several songs under a minute. Are they songs at that point? Maybe they’re jingles? Music critics love this band, which generally means I’m not smart enough or I’m not pretentious enough to get it. Or maybe I’m not afraid to admit I don’t like it? The songs seem like they turned on the the recording equipment and decided to make up a song on the spot. I guess I can see the appeal to some. I thought of Weezer, the Who, the Eagles of Death Metal’s first album when I listened to GBV. However, I will also listen to those bands in the future. GBV is what some refer to a lo-fi, indie music. They are praised for their songwriting and their lyrics, but I don’t get it. They actually have what sounds like a dude snoring throughout one song. The song is called Ex-Supermodel. Check it out and tell me a dude isn’t snoring. Hey, I get it, I wanted to snore through most of this album. It’s not all bad; there are several good jingles on the album. If GBV worked on them longer than 2 minutes, they might make actual good songs. I don't hate this album, because I’m old. I've never liked this kind of music. Maybe I’m the pretentious one. I recommend not listening to this unless you like pretentious indie rock or you want to hear how snoring can be a musical instrument.

I never heard of the Soft Boys. I have heard of the Viagra Boys, but they’re a more modern band. Anyway, Underwater Moonlight is the Soft Boys' second album, and it was released in 1980. I’m not sure what happened, but it wasn’t really noticed by anyone, it seems. According to the Wikipedia entry, the United Kingdom was in the midst of a printer’s strike, so none of the rock magazines or newspapers were being printed, and there were no reviews of the album, I guess. Their I found that hilarious for some reason. In 1980, if music critics weren’t able to get there views on new albums out to the masses. How else are you going to build word of mouth back then? I remember reading Rolling Stone, Circus, Hit Parader and RIP magazine to find out which hairband I should invest my time in next. Back to the Soft Boys’ Underwater Moonlight, the album fits in perfectly with the whole new wave type rock that became uber-popular in the early to mid-’80s. The Wikipedia entry keeps referring to the album being psychedelic, and there is a bit of that in it, but it mostly sounds like good ‘80s rock to me. Even though the Soft Boys had bad luck with the printers' strike in 1980, they did go on to influence several bands of some renown, like R.E.M. and the Replacements. You can definitely hear the Soft Boys' influence in those bands. Other bands influenced by the Soft Boys were the Stone Roses and the Pixies. As I’m a child of the ‘80’s I very much enjoyed this album. It’s just weird and different enough to keep you wondering what’s coming next, but it still has good songwriting and musicality to keep you from spinning out into no man’s land like our friends Guided By Voices. I think these guys would have been pretty big if they had come along in 1982, rather than 1980. They were too early for what they were doing. Sometimes it’s like that. If you’re too early, no one but hardcores know you and you’re the grandfathers. If you’re too late, you’re just cashing in, the posers. But, if you weasel you’re way into a group of three or four like-minded bands, you become royalty, the kings. Unfortunately for the Soft Boys, they're the grandfathers.

Amy Winehouse was a very talented singer and it’s a shame she couldn’t keep her demons at bay. I loved the Back To Black album, but I’d never heard her album Frank. Apparently, it was the one that broke her or at least got the right people to hear her. However, Frank gets on my nerves so badly. I can only really listen to it when I’m doing something else. Again, it’s just me, but I hate the whole turning one-syllable words into 20, or changing the pronunciations of words, like curb to c-ur-ay-o-ur-ubay. No, it’s curb. Her scatting and be-bopping are nails on a chalkboard to me. Maybe if I hadn’t heard so many less talented singers who copied her style, it wouldn’t bother me as much. Frank’s music also sounds more like a hip-hop album than a nice classic jazz album. Again, it’s just my personal taste. But Back To Black just sounds so much cleaner and classier. And it led to my discovery of the great Mark Ronson. If you like Amy Winehouse and you’ve never heard Frank, I think it probably is a must-hear for fans. The whole album isn’t full of the stuff that drives me crazy. There are great songs on here, like F Me Pumps, I Hear Love Is Blind, and There Is No Greater Love, but they are mostly the songs that sound like classic jazz standards. If you’re like me and little stupid things irritate you, then you might want to tread lightly.

Elvis Costello was before my time of listening to music, for the most part. Plus, he was kind of all over the place musically. Was he punk? Was he new wave? Was he rockabilly? Was he just old-time rock ‘n’ roll? He was kind of everything. On his debut album, My Aim Is True, his backup band was a country-rock band named Clover. The bad news for Clover is that they appeared in London during the punk movement, so they looked like everything punk was against over there, hippies. But they could play some rock ‘n’ roll. I think Elvis Costello’s aim wasn’t to be punk or hip or anything, I think he just wanted to play the kind of music he grew up on, which was 50’s rock’n’ roll. In 1977, you had disco, big arena rock bands and the youngsters just wanted simple rock ‘n’ roll, hence punk. Unlike most punk bands, Costello could write great songs with catchy lyrics, and with the Clovers, they could play the songs well. I had quite a few of the songs stick in my head and bubble up throughout the day. You could see Costello was going to be someone pretty important because he had what some people like to call “it.” A song called Mystery Dance is on the album, and its just a minute and a half long, but it’s got more packed into it than anything on the Guided By Voices album that still haunts me. I’m excited to check out more Costello as the 1,001 list continues. My favorite songs on the album are Mystery Dance, Welcome To the Working Week, Sneaky Feelings, Less Than Zero, and probably the best song is Watching the Detectives. It’s mostly a reggae song, and I dislike reggae, so you know it must be good. But truly, all the tracks are good, as it's just good old rock ‘n’ roll with catchy hooks and great lyrics. This album was a real treat after GBV and Frank.

Man, I really dug this album. This album is composed of what some people might call “baby-making music.” On this album, Bobby Womack is telling you about how the love of a good woman is everything in a man’s life and how the love of a bad woman is still pretty damn good in a man’s life, but at some point, you’ve got to get the hell out. The Poet came out in 1981. Baby-making music, or good old-fashioned R&B, was not popular. We were in the dying days of disco and R&B was more dance music. Not that you can’t dance to Bobby Womack music, because Stand Up had me taking a break to boogie at my desk. The Poet is full of that classic music where Bobby is almost talking straight to the listener, imparting his worldly advice. Like Bobby had been at the top, he’d had the money, the fame, the women, but what he really wanted was that foxy soulmate that would keep layin’ her love on him. Besides being full of great R&B, some of the songs veer off course a bit. Just My Imagination isn’t the Just My Imagination you’ve heard from the Temptations or the Rolling Stones. This is a song written by Womack using the same title, but there is a steel guitar used throughout that makes the song sound like a country song. It’s weird, but it’s a good song. It’s almost a haunting song. Then you get to a song called Stand Up that is pure disco goodness. Stand up, ‘cause you can’t sit down. And you can’t. This song could be a hit today. It’s pure boogie fuel. I’ll admit, I’ve had a few dogs this past week in the 1,001 list and I’m not sure if I love this album because it’s broken me out of a rough patch or if it’s really a must hear album. I’m going to say it’s a little of both. The Poet is a great example of the dying days of classic R&B music that was used for dancing or for fu….um, loving. Do yourself a favor, when you’re looking to make things hot for your special friend or you just want to boogie, throw on The Poet and let Bobby talk you into something fun.

I had never heard of the band Shack. I had no idea what I was in for, but I was pleasantly surprised. Shack could be described as Britpop. In fact, Shack is a Liverpool band formed by two brothers Mick and John Head and ended up getting signed to Noel Gallagher’s label. So, it doesn't get more Britpop than that. Before becoming a part of Gallagher’s label, the band released three albums and Fable was their third release. The band had actually broken up before their second album came out. They thought a fire had destroyed the master tapes and then Mick Head got hooked on heroin and the band broke up. Someone then tracked down a DAT with the album was recovered. Their second album was released and the band reformed to record H.M.S. Fable. Didn't the whole thing seem doomed from the start? So H.M.S. Fable comes out and makes a bit of a splash in England making the top 25 albums chart, getting good reviews and inevitably making the 1,001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. It sounds exactly what you’d think it sounds like when you find out it’s Britpop, which isn't a bad thing. I think the album is good, I just don't have the affinity in my heart for Britpop. The song Pull Together would be a huge hit today, I think. The song Captain’s Table is like an old-time sea shanty about the singer’s time aboard the H.M.S. Fable. There isn’t a bad song on the whole album. I think the album a grower and when I’m getting a new album to listen to each day, I don’t have much time to give an album a dozen listens. If I were making a list of albums you need to hear before you die, I’m not sure this would make the cut. I think it’s a shame the band had so much bad luck in its time together. They eventually released one more album, then the drummer died and they broke up. If you’re a fan of Oasis and Blur, and you’ve never heard of Shack, this is going to really be satisfying.

I remember when this album came out. I was in 6th grade, I think and Fight For Your Right was everywhere. I guess by that point I’d heard some rap, but this was kind of heavy metal mixed with rap? It was just weird, but loud and catchy. Plus, it was white dudes doing rap? White dudes that used to be a hardcore punk band? Though I didn’t find that out until much later, probably when I heard Gratitude. “These guys play instruments?” Today, Licensed To Ill sounds very basic, at least for how far hip-hop has come/ Though, I kind of think hip-hop has actually regressed today to a simpler style than even used on Licensed To Ill. But I digress. License To Ill now sounds like what it was supposed to be, as I'm older and hopefully smarter. It's a parody, an over the top rap album by morons. Unfortunately, as with most satire or parody, a lot of the Beastie Boys’ fans didn’t realize it. They were creating an army of frat boy losers who took them seriously. Don’t forget, people, as a rule, are dumb. Again, I digress. As a 12-year-old kid hearing this, I didin’t know if I liked it or not. It was music kind of. It was other people’s music kind of thrown together over a beat, with, at that time, pretty middling rapping. It wasn’t until the Beastie Boys broke away from Def-Jam, the label that paid them, and toned down the frat boy mentality, that they became some of the best MCs in rap. However, this is a very fun record. These songs will make you smile, like Girls, No Sleep Til Brooklyn and Brass Monkey. Just great party music. I didn’t even realize it until I was sitting at work with a smile on my face and I was chair dancing at my desk. Plus the groove for Paul Revere goes hard. As for this being a must hear album before you die? I’d say it is. It was the biggest thing in music the year it came out. I mean, they toured with Madonna on her Virgin Tour. Though that little partnership ended as you would expect. You also get to hear early Rick Rubin production. Rubin, of course, would go on to produce at least one of your favorite albums. My favorite Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ album is Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik, which was Rubin. If you’re a youngster who has never experienced the Beastie Boys, I know this album will sound crude to your ears, but after listening to this last night, it spurred me on to listen to their follow-up, Paul’s Boutique, which is probably my favorite Beastie record. The further you go down their discography, you notice how they matured and grew from frat boys to wise old dudes that still knew how to make goofy, yet well-crafted bars, as the kids say.

It always seemed weird to me that Neil Young would join Crosby, Stills and Nash after they already had a brilliant debut album and were one of the biggest groups at the time. Also, it kind of seemed like three of the four in the group wanted to be solo artists anyway. Young went on to become the biggest individual star of the group. But when the Lord blesses you with a win on a three-leg parlay, you don’t question why you deserve it. This album has songs that I imagine would be among that generation’s all-time bangers. You’ve got Carry On, Teach Your Children, Woodstock and Our House. You have heard all those songs. You might not know it was CSN&Y, but they’re recognizable. And another song, Almost Cut My Hair, gets played a bit on classic rock stations. It's my theme song right now as I've not had my haircut in maybe a year? It's unruly. All four played an integral part in the band and all wrote songs for the album and all got a chance to sing lead on a song. Stills is very underrated as a guitar hero. He plays incredible leads and solos throughout this album and Young… Well, when it comes to guitar, Neil’s gonna Neil. But, Young’s guitar polaying has one thing going for it that’s lacking in a lot guitarists, a signature sound. You know a Neil Young solo when you hear it. However, the voices, or the blending of their voices, is what brings everyone to the party. They sing like angels, and lyrically, the songs hit all the right spots. New love, lost love, sad love and letting your freak flag fly. There was a time in my youth when I would have thought this music was lame and anyone who listened to it was just an old square. I still have a regretful flashback about the time I told a dude who was kind enough to drive me and my idiot friends to see ZZ Top that CSN&Y sucked as he was playing it on his tape deck. What a little a-hole I was. Now, I’m the old square who loves this album. So, you should listen to this album before you go to bed tonight, much less before you die.

Now we’re getting somewhere. Sepultura is a heavy metal band from Brazil who were formed in 1984, right in my wheelhouse. Except I never really listened to them. When they became huge, I was still a high schooler who had to pay around $20 for a CD. By that time, I was already getting a new CD just about every week, so I had to be really sure about what I was buying. Although there were some mysteries bought along the way, you know, those CDs you bought just because the cover looked cool. But I digress. Sepultura means grave in Portuguese, so that should tell you where the band is coming from. They have very dark and political lyrics, kind of like Slayer or Megadeth. Their music is a bit more like Slayer, very fast, heavy, full of blast beats. Singer/guitarist Max Cavalera had a singing delivery very reminiscent of Tom Araya of Slayer. But Sepultura also has a bit of a groove like Pantera. So, that sounds great, doesn’t it? And they are. But back in the day, I still had issues with the screaming vocal delivery. I never got into Slayer because of Araya’s vocals….and the whole Satanic thing freaked me out too. After seeing their set at Louder Than Life in Louisville, I wish I had gotten into Slayer. Great Odin's raven! I listened to Arise yesterday while watching the NFL RedZone and it was a delight. This album is chock full of riffs and pretty poignant lyrics that could have been written today. I’m sorry I didn’t get into them when I was in high school. I mean, they would have really scared the adults in my life. Which is kind of what a young teenage punk wants, right? Sepultura's sixth album was called Roots, with a song called Roots Bloody Roots, which I really love. I remember sitting in the parking lot of Bob’s IGA one afternoon with Roots Bloody Roots cranked, windows down, and people giving me the stink eye. Good times. Arise was the first album the band had money to record, so they were able to experiment a bit more and take their time with the recording. Arise and the next two albums would cement Sepultura as one of the biggest metal bands in the world. There have been member changes and things every band goes through over the years, but a version of Sepultura is still out there crushing skulls today. If you’re a fan of heavy metal, extreme metal, or just Slayer, you will no doubt enjoy Speultura’s Arise.

Typically, double albums are a type of ego-driven project by an artist or band that believes their fans want more from them with every new album. What those artists don’t realize is that you always want to leave your fans wanting more. You don’t want to give them reasons to dislike those extra songs on the album or to feel like the double album is more for the band than the fans. There might be one case where a double album might have been better than two separate albums, and that’s with Metallica’s Load and Reload, but I digress. Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is a perfect double album. Every song is a banger. The album flows with a loose concept of nostalgia for the past, and every few songs, you get a new musical style, it seems. Plus, the album is loaded with singles that you've already heard, you just didn't know it. Elton John is a musical genius, and his writing partner Bernie Taupin may be one of the world’s best poets/lyricists. Put them together and you have some of the greatest songs ever created. Just on this album alone, you have Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting, Bennie & The Jets, Candle In the Wind, and the title track, which I think is vastly underrated. Plus, the album kicks off with one of the hardest rocking songs John ever released, Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding. Incredible stuff that I hadn’t heard until my brother told me, “You’ve got to hear this.” It was embarrassing that I didn't know it before Dustin showed me. I don’t have to tell you how good this album is, it’s got accolades out the ying yang, but I can tell you it’s one of the most beautiful and brilliant rock/pop records ever made. You’ll feel good listening to it, and you’ll find yourself singing some of the songs when you aren’t listening to it. I mean, Roy Rogers is such a great song and you’ll only hear it when you listen to the album. Before bed or while you’re winding down for bed, put this on and drift off to dreams of Captain Fantastic and the Brwon Dirt Cowboy.

U2 were just becoming U2 when I was a kid. By 1987, when Joshua Tree came out, I had discovered Van Halen, ZZ Top, just good old classic rock, so I didn’t have time for new rock like U2. I need songs with riffs and guitar wankery. But I remember all the hoopla about Joshua Tree. It was all over mainstream magazines and radio. Still, it didn’t appeal to me at that time. Just young and dumb and full of.....beans. Then I stole my older brother’s cassette tape of U2’s Achtung Baby in 1991 and I finally got it. I figured out that U2 was a great rock band and the best rock band in the world for a long time. It was the songs, the lyrics, the guitar sounds from the Edge, the way Bono belted out his lyrics, the rhythm section made up of the other dudes…..I know them, just let me Google a recipe first…Yeah! Larry Mullin Jr. and Adam Clayton. Those guys are good, too. I’m joking, but that is a tight rhythm section, and it allowed the Edge to experiment with his guitar. The first four songs on Joshua Tree are reason enough to think Joshua Tree is one of the greatest albums ever put out. It starts with Where the Streets Have No Name, then I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, then With or Without You and then Bullet the Blue Sky. What?!? The most amazing thing about Joshua Tree was that, around this time, rock was still in its new wave/post punk time period. What was selling records was keyboards and synths, and beats. U2 wanted to put out a rock album, and they succeeded in recording music that can’t be easily placed in the 80’s. It’s evergreen rock. Which is hard to create as everyone wants to follow the trends or maybe edge closer to what's popular to sell records. This was the album that made U2 stadium rockers, and it’s easy to hear why. All the songs probably sound amazing in a huge stadium setting, as most are stadium anthems. There’s a reason why U2 was known for a long while as the world’s best rock ‘n’ roll band, it’s because they were. Plus, the opening couple of minutes of Where the Streets Have No Name give me that feeling. You know, that feeling that overwhelms you and you think, "Holy crap, am I getting ready to cry?" It's impactful music, which is a blessing because most music is cotton candy, here for a short time and then forgotten about. I’m sure this won’t be the only U2 album on the 1,001 list, but if they’re half as good as Joshua Tree, I’m in for a real treat

Oh man, I’m an Ice-T fan from way back! I have kind of been lying to you all, saying I was a metalhead in my younger years and that any other music was lame to me. Well….There was the gangster rap phase from my middle school years into high school years. It's weird to say, but I was introduced to NWA and 2 Live Crew through church. Told you it was weird. It wasn’t in church, but on a trip with our church youth group. Several of us were in the car of a high schooler who had their license and NWA and 2 Live Crew blasting. Above everything, we thought it was funny. We’d never heard these kinds of words said in music. Most of us had only ever heard Run DMC. We didn't even realize we were listening to two genres of rap, NWA being gangsta rap and with 2 Live Crew that Miami bass sound. I must have bought Ice T’s album called Power by that time, and I remember loving it. Ice T’s voice sounded cool. Even back then, for me, if the “vocals” sounded cool, I was in. None of us country white boys understood what the rappers were talking about. Didn’t have any clue that some, or all, of the stuff they were talking about was real. It was almost like they were war reporters in Vietnam or the Iragi’s skirmishes. After just listening to the Beastie Boys’ License To Ill a few days ago, O.G. is leaps and bounds above it when it comes to rapping and the music. Plus, where the Beastie Boys were just making up stories, Ice-T is rapping about his life in gangs, his influences, people he knows, censorship, how being a famous rapper aint' all it's cracked up to be. The rapping is tight, the lyrics are compelling and the beats for the time are killer. The album is basically Ice T’s bonafides as being the first gangster rapper and if he isn’t, he’s at least the first one to make it big. As a special treat, he even includes a song from his metal band Body Count on this album. Body Count rocks hard. I remember buying their debut album with the Cop Killer song on it that caused all the controversy. Body Count is pretty underrated as a metal band and they still put music out. If you’re a rap fan and have never heard Ice-T and think he’s just an actor, you need to hear this album. It brings back memories of a simpler time, really. Ice-T really does prove he's the Original Gangster with this record.

I kind of don’t know what to do with this album. I really dig it, but is it important? Astrud Gilberto's becoming famous is an amazing story. She went with her musician father to the U.S. to act as his interpreter because he only spoke Portuguese. He’d been invited to record an album. At one point, they wanted English lyrics sung on a song called The Girl From Ipanema and boom, Astrud became a global superstar. You may think you’ve never heard the song, but you’ve heard the song. Anyway, she went on to record several albums, of which Beach Samba was one. The album came out in 1967 and really didn’t make a splash. In fact, one review said it was one of Gilberto’s “less impressive albums.” So, here we are, listening to this album in 2025, and truth be told, I love samba and bossa nova music. It’s the groove. I listened to Henry Mancini’s Mr. Lucky Goes Latin for months on repeat. It’s just good stuff. So, as I listen to Astrud, I think I’ve taught myself to chair samba, but I’m not sure I’d say you have to hear this album before you die. Now, Mr. Lucky Goes Latin? Yes, listen to it. Especially if you’re a fan of The Big Lebowski or a certain Seinfeld episode featuring the bro or the manssiere as some may call it. There is a song called, You Didn’t Have To Be So Nice, on Beach Samaba that Astrud sings with a little girl, which is just about the cutest thing you’ll ever hear. The rest of the songs are good. So if you like The Girl From Ipanema, you’ll love Beach Samba. Also, if you’re looking to switch up your makeout music, except for the duet with the little girl, the rest of the music is prime Latin baby-making music.

Much like a lot of the entries on the 1,001 albums to hear before you die, I was late getting into Rush. There was a time when Geddy Lee’s voice irritated me so much, I couldn’t enjoy the music. I guess after some loud concerts and several decades of listening to headphones/earbuds, my hearing eroded enough that I learned to appreciate Lee’s voice. Beyond the uniquely high voice, there wasn’t anything not to like about Rush. Great songs, weird lyrics, Alex Lifeson’s guitar work was impeccable and drummer Neil Peart was a god among men. Hell, old Neil even wrote the bulk, if not all, of the lyrics to Rush songs when he joined the band. By the time Moving Pictures came around Rush was at the height of their powers. I’m not sure they were exactly radio superstars, but they sure as heck fire became radio superstars with the rise of classic rock stations. I’d swear I’d heard 5-6 of the songs on Moving Pictures on the radio. I know Tom Sawyer and Limelight were classic rock royalty, but Red Barchetta and the Camera’s Eye both sounded so familiar. What’s funny is, Vital Signs was released as a single, but I have no memory of hearing it on the radio. I have a hard time listing my favorite song from the album because it's full of my favorite all-time Rush songs. Tom Sawyer and Limelight get all the pub, but I love Red Bachetta as an album track. It’s about a future where cars are illegal, but the singer has an uncle who keeps a red barchetta at a farm in the country and the singer goes out there sometimes just to drive and feel the wind in his hair. I mean, it's a great story, and a story quickly becoming reality, it seems. Limelight is about Peart’s trying to adjust from going to a “nobody” to being a “somebody.” While Tom Sawyer just makes me think of “The Modern Day Warrior” Kerry Von Erich. The album has an 80’s feel to it. Rush subtly introduces synths to their music without you even really noticing. They were great at changing their sound from album to album just enough that you wouldn’t really notice for like three albums. If you’re a rock fan and have never heard Rush, this album is a great start. If you’re not a rock fan but want to see why Rush fans are insane, this album is a great start. It’s arguably a perfect album with no filler. As for hearing it before you die, you should listen to it before I finish typing this.

Another band I have never heard or heard of, I believe, one song did kind of sound familiar. The Fall is like new-wave/post-punk but in the 90s. It’s almost like everyone moved on to grunge, but these guys liked ’80s rock. Musically, they are pretty good. They have the same kind of guitars as U2 circa the Joshua Tree. There’s just one problem: they’ve got a lead singer singing a different song over the top of the music. This could be another case where i’m a square who can’t pick up on the cool, but lead singer, Mark E. Smith, is barely singing and a lot of times he’s making noises. It’s very weird and quite frustrating at first. But then as you keep listening, the music is good good, you kind of get used to the sounds that are supposed to be lyrics. One of the reviews referred to The Fall’s music as unmarketable and I agree. The lead singer, Smith, was the founding member, so he wasn’t going to fire himself. So, the band was kind of stuck making music that only people doing the 1,001 Albums challenge would even hear. Some of the albums on the 1,001 list have me wondering if the author is kind of playing pranks on the readers every so often. The Fall’s The Infotainment Scan is not dog crap, but it’s not good either. I will say, the song Paranoia Man in Cheap Sh*t Room is pretty good. It’s the one I thought I’d heard before, but I have no idea where. Certainly, it wasn’t on the radio back then, maybe it was on 120 Minutes on MTV, but I rarely watched that. I was, of course, a Headbanger’s Ball guy.

For someone who prides himself on listening to a bunch of different artists and kinds of music, I feel like I start everyone of these out with, I never really go into so and so until later. So, I never got into Bowie until the last 20 years or so. I always kind of thought he was weird and I just didn’t get it. Then I listened to Ziggy Stardust and it hit me, Bowie is a genius. Then I listened to Hunky Dory and I was like Bowie is a genius. Then I heard Life on Mars? and I just wanted to cry it was so good. I still get that way everytime I hear it. I keptlistening to Bowie and even his most experiemtnal stuff was so interesting. Bowie is a genius and while Ziggy Stardust might not be his greatest album, though it’s in the running, it’s arguably his most recognized character. Is it character? Or just his most recognizable version of Bowie? That’s what made Bowie a genius. He had a sound, a Bowieness throughout his career, but almost every album sounded different thant the last. And instead of his fans calling him a sellout or saying he should just stick with this kind of music or that kind of music, they just took whatever Bowie offered up. Zigg Stardust is kind of a concept album or rock opera, though it didn’t start that way. It’s about a messiah who comes to earth to save the world only to get so caught up in fame and fortune he alienates his fans and his band before dying on stage. Truthfully, I never paid much attention to the “story” because the songs were so good. Bowie was Ziggy, of course, and The Spiders from Mars were made up of Trevor Bolder on bass, Mick Woodmansey on drums, and one of Bowie’s longtime collaborators Mick Ronson on guitar. Ronson is one of my favorite guitar players. His guitar work on the album is so good. It’s not guitar wankery, all the licks he provides go to help the song. It’s a shame we lost him to cancer before he could truly become one of the most legendary guitarists ever, even though, in my eyes he did. I’m not good at whatever this is that I’ve been doing now for 88 albums. I can only tell you this album is definitely a must hear as there is no song that’s not great. I feel this could be released today and be a hit, especially Starman, Moonage Daydream and Ziggy Stardust, songs I’m quite positive you’ve heard somewhere before. I loved taking this trip down memory lane. If you do nothing after reading this, just remember Mick Ronson is a great guitarist and search his stuff out.