Already listened to before doing this challenge

already listened to this before the challenge

already listened to this before the challenge

(First record picked that I did not hear beforehand) Later era Elvis is its own appeal from the traditional hey-day 50s period of Elvis. More soulful, country roots touched on versus the rockability rock and roll he was best known for. This would be amazing if he didn't do a bunch of movies and did the typical 1950s men thing of being in the Korean War (he didn't go in combat naturally). This album is in 1969, the US became a much different place. Should have done some acid Elvis because that would've made you even cooler. The record itself is alright, good morning music but really the best part of the album is the second half where the best known songs are. Elvis still is a singles guy more than an album guy, but for historical reasons this one is still up there for him. Shouldn't have done free PR for Nixon though, yuck.

I had something pre-written but I didn't save it right so I'll be briefer. Historically important album, Marvin Gaye is a legend although I prefer What's Going On and his more socially conscious stuff. I just prefer soul music sung by women over men as a personal preference.

Joshua Tree is an album that touches on 1987 politics themes almost primarily and the production done on the record is incredibly solid. A very powerful 1-2-3-4 to start the record and give it its iconic status. However I can't really care too much about U2 and would rather care more about how Brian Eno and Daniel Lenois helped make this record really great. The best U2 song is still New Years Day for me, but Bullet the Blue Sky helps solidify a three star ranking because I am biased and will continue my bias. I will give special shoutouts to In God's Country, Trip Through Wires, and Mothers of the Disappeared. Now may I please get some semi-obscure album instead of music I already know about that would be great.

PEAK

Finally been given an album I haven't fully heard of before, reminding me the reason why I did this challenge. To finally listen to some of these bands that I've heard of or remembered or otherwise find and learn new music that is highly regarded that isn't something super famous. I know of Faces primarily knowing it as where Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood had to go to get away from the crazy and fluid Jeff Beck. What makes this a "must hear before you die" record is Ronnie Wood being a boogie guitar hero. Especially on Memphis and That's All You Need, quite a hypnotic rhythm from the soon-to-be Rolling Stones member. It's otherwise a "dad rock" record, or 'Classic Rock' record if you ever listened to the radio for music before you ever used music streaming services. A Nod Is As Good As A Wink... captures that true rock energy before punk/new wave/metal would shape music going forward. Boogie rock is perhaps better heard in bands like CCR or John Lee Hooker, bands from America where blues began, but the English side of it (sans Clapton thank the Lord) also shows an interesting perspective and twist on it. I'm biased in favor of the John Lee Hooker type since it's what I was raised on, but this is still a good capture of that blues rock sound as it was beginning to wane out.

Rumours is an album. I have now listened to it, even though I have listened to this album via the radio for my whole life. They sure did make a whole lot of money, that Fleetwood Mac. Wonder if that made them all happy. This band would be significantly less insufferable if every member had no problem with orgies. But maybe that means they would have made less money. The music business.

The greatest singer of all time. You don't need any other notes to write about Aretha. One of the saving graces of American society.

I primarily know The La's for That One Song everyone pretty much knows: There She Goes. I did not think that much else about the band, nor its influence on Jangle Pop and the Britpop scene for an album in 1990 that stood apart from the rest of the rising musical trends of the late 80s ushering into the 90s. Turns out they were much more than one hit wonders: one album wonders. The bands perfectionist tendencies would self-immolate the bands future, but the results of their efforts are not in vain: this is a great sounding album. Jangle sounds nice, but it's never a sound I've felt like chasing music wise, R.E.M. aside. Nothing against it, more of a preference for dissonant atonal stuff on my end, though you can tell The La's wanted to feel unique next to bands like MBV or the Madchester scene. Certain parts of this album I like and there's parts of it I can care less for. Son Of A Gun is a weird opening track that kind of shows what the album will be about albeit in a more sing-songy way than most other songs on the album. As someone that likes jam bands and thus long music, the album's closer, Looking Glass, isn't really doing it for me. Freedom Song sounds like an intentionally dull 90s irony scene way. Other songs in between are kind of samey-sounding and not too eye-catching, bad pun may or may not be intended. There are some good positives on this album (aside from There She Goes which is a great song that does carry the record as well as the band's reputation as a whole): Aside from Son of a Gun (which is okay really) the album starts off strong up to Way Out. But that trademark contextual song that made this band stand out and attract influence for the next decade and a half or so of indie music just gets very samey. Like the same pastures of jangle pop guitar sound----it's really all that is. Would be very interesting to see this band evolve more but it seems that Lee Mavers takes the Mark Hollis approach to fame: getting out of the spotlight as best as possible and never answer any questions. I respect that. This was a nice rabbit hole of music to discover, but overall it's alright. Must hear before you die? If you like indie music absolutely, but for everyone else? I disagree.

I guess I am (un)fortunate enough to get both Fleetwood Mac albums within a 3 or 4 day span, lucky me. If only it was the Peter Green albums, my dad (and I)'s preferred Fleetwood Mac period. Glad they chose to not sound more like Rumours and instead sound like if Fleetwood Mac were more influenced by postpunk and all the music changes from the mid 70s onward to the album's publishing date. Great approach! I don't think this album suffers from bloat with its length of songs and being over an hour. There's a couple of songs I could relisten to on my ultimate shuffle placement like Not That Funny or Sisters of the Moon. Between That's All For Everyone and That's Enough For Me is ironically my favorite group of songs on the album. Aside from the self-titled song and maybe Over and Over and Think About Me, the rest just sounds like regular old Fleetwood Mac without any extra spicyness to it. Other than that, it's not bad. I don't particularly care for it, or post Peter Green era aside. It's good it existed and wasn't just standard pop music and was experimental for the genre (and their label's money). Okay that's enough. Please give me some random jazz musician by now please. I think I'm spared from further Fleetwood Mac selections, that's a relief.

Simply Red must be a band huge in England but as an American born a decade after the formation of Simply Red, I have literally never heard of them until this popped up in the 1001+ album generator. I'm going in as blind into an album as any other band thus far, the closest before was Faces--a band I already knew about. Quite an interesting album: the first sound sounds very disco inspired as the second one sounds like a big band live(?) performance with a crooner. Then they finally go in on the 80s synths on "Look At You Now"(holy DX7 batman). There's a Talking Heads cover of Heaven on here, and it's not good. Jericho closes side one to make this record definitely feel like it's stuck in the 80s. Side two opens with the two biggest hits on the album that launched Simply Red into the UK pop landscape. Money's Too Tight is a cover from an R&B band from Cincinnati that translates well to a UK audience. I'll Keep Holding On is the big hit Simply Red had in America, which is one of those songs you hear extensively in grocery stores and no where else. I used to work at one of those places, which makes me biased against the song when it's played on those crappy speakers. Now at home with a more hi-fi set up, hearing the little extra session music instrumentation adds much needed spice to the song, but it's still not something I would seek or search for, but it makes the DX7 sound a lot more grand. The rest of Side 2: Red Box feels like filler: nothing special happening in this song. No Direction is a nice shake-up of tempo, though at this point in the album I'm getting a bit tired of Hucknall's vocals. Picture Book, the self-titled song, concludes the album in a big (reverb) sounding fashion, with cryptic lyrics that finish an album filled of a variety of different sounds, blurring together as a 1980s cocktail of experimental, pop-infused innovation on a variety of blues/rhythm and blues inspired music. This is probably the most "okay" record I've heard thus far. I see its influence, not as much its importance beyond its presentation. I am so whelmed that it does not change my adamant nature on this album: probably really engaging when it came out, but sounds stuck in the 80s. Not a lot of re-engagement for me on this one, my favorite tracks being Sad Old Red and Look At You Now. I don't really want to write more about this. Is it worthy of being in the 1000+ music to hear before you die? very strong "eh" there, the big hits on this album are still played on 80s stations, but Simply Red did not realyl breakout overseas, they seemed like they were content being a UK/European band or sound of the time, America preferred pop music that was much more into vanity, something like this would not last too long. I would've replaced this album with something like Seal II. Perhaps I discount some good number of artists that loved Simply Red and were very inspired by this record to do their own famous records, but I don't hear any of that discussion.

Going to be fully honest: I never dug deep into The Cure aside from their popular singles that continue to hit the airwaves and affect pop culture. So this is overdue, and a good place to start in the band for me. There's some great tone and aggression on the album: very fun listening and not at all slow or otherwise passive pop variations of some 'woe is me' stereotypes one would have of Goth music. Pornography is upbeat, ready to hug your ears with 1982's form of abrasive music. The Cure would later get lighter (less so lyrically for the most part, but certainly of this kind of sound) but I see its relevance in the 1001+ album, given how much influence that not just the band themselves had, but how this was very much postpunk inspired and how other bands can see this album of The Cure alone and mold it into their own gothic image. Great record.

I'm not going to pretend I know anything about Khaled, how he has sold as many records as UB40, is basically king of Middle Eastern pop music, and uhhhhhh yeah that's all I could find out about him. Glad to see this list isn't just euro/american-centric. I love hearing music from countries that most of us fellow American cannot find on a map (I can find Algeria on a map though, it has a distinct shape). Let's hear it: It's interesting to hear a lot of western influence on this record, while still maintaining the Rai identity: at points on this album you can hear R&B, blues, latin, even some 90s electronic touches on it. There's like maybe one line in English, on the Imagine cover, while most of the songs are in Arabic save for one or two in French. Khaled is definitely a very good, powerful singer. I think it's important to hear from artists like Khaled to truly understand music as a global art form, rather than our skewed perspective on it from Western Culture (which in turn, was influenced from Eastern Culture a very long time ago, I digress). Is it truly "must hear before you die?", I mean I don't know his other records, and whether or not they were more influential perhaps if they were in Algeria or among the Arab-French community, but this is at least a good example of Rai and Middle Eastern pop music for us Western, typically English speaking folk to get a grasp of his music. It's good to step outside your comfort zone in music, it's something I don't see enough when people listen to music. Did I enjoy this album? Kind of. I'm very appreciative to hear it, it partially matches my own music sensibilities, but a record like this goes to more of the curious music hobbyists. You might not be let down to hear this.

I'm mostly familiar with Cash's classic albums of the 60s/70s/etc. Never really cared for cover albums, even with the Hurt cover being a focal part of it. The last album an artist ever releases (while they are still alive) can often leave the biggest impact for their presence not just on earth, but as a musician's final will and testament. Think of Bowie's Black Star or Tom Waits last album (as of time of review writing): it's hard to admit you're giving your final word and the approach of it, which explains that these are all songs (aside from the intro, which Cash wrote) are all covers. Johnny doesn't have much else to add, but will like to make various shoutouts to musicians many wouldn't think he would have time to listen to or otherwise appreciate at the end of life: covering stuff like Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode, along with the covers of songwriters and folk/country musicians of his time. For me, it's amazing how much his cover of NiN's Hurt is one of the biggest songs Johnny Cash has ever recorded. We're talking about a man with a whole line of country standards: Ring of Fire, Boy Named Sue (a cover, though the Folsom performance is just that iconic), I Walk The Line, The Man In Black, among many others. You can hear throughout the album that Cash doesn't have a lot of time left on this planet, his voice more gravelly than it ordinarily is. Cash would pass away a year later, recently widowed with the loss of the love of his life, June Carter Cash. For my own personal tastes, this record is so slow (naturally, but I like stuff a little more faster than my resting heart rate). Impactful, yes. Not denying the legacy of this record or its appearance in the 1001+ albums (could be a bubble pick but ultimately does have enough of a lasting impact). Of course the slowness makes sense, a settling down atmosphere for a music legend. It works for something like In My Life. Not much else to add after that. Good record.

I've listened to this album quite a lot as a kid, one of the many CDs my dad just sort of let available for me to burn onto my computer. Before I listened to so much music that my big shuffle folder went beyond insane for even a big music listener, I had maybe 15-20ish albums that I would always hear a few songs every other day or so: The Cars was one of them. And man oh man,. does this album have hooks for days. So many hooks, it's impossible to not hear this album and not have something linger in your head for at least a week. The Cars came at the right musical year of 1978: when the initial wave of punk rock is starting to distillate into a post-punk world, The Cars approached the crossroads of old school rock and roll and the emerging new wave/synthesizer driven music that was to become a big force beyond the disco era. They managed to combine both avenues like how Roxy Music approached glam pop with progressive rock, and make it work. The Cars were one of the big bands of the late 70s (and to very specifically note, again, not the 80s just yet) to make pop rock work with synthesizers to such a degree that it still has that futuristic sound that they went for. Almost ageless, if you don't notice the partially sarcastic lyrics from songs that became used in so many commercials that the sarcasm has been scratched away. In short, The Cars is a solid pop-rock album that helped define New Wave in its infancy. Still sounds great, has its legacy, yadda yadda yadda.

I've listened to this album quite a lot as a kid, one of the many CDs my dad just sort of let available for me to burn onto my computer. Before I listened to so much music that my big shuffle folder went beyond insane for even a big music listener, I had maybe 15-20ish albums that I would always hear a few songs every other day or so: The Cars was one of them. And man oh man,. does this album have hooks for days. So many hooks, it's impossible to not hear this album and not have something linger in your head for at least a week. The Cars came at the right musical year of 1978: when the initial wave of punk rock is starting to distillate into a post-punk world, The Cars approached the crossroads of old school rock and roll and the emerging new wave/synthesizer driven music that was to become a big force beyond the disco era. They managed to combine both avenues like how Roxy Music approached glam pop with progressive rock, and make it work. The Cars were one of the big bands of the late 70s (and to very specifically note, again, not the 80s just yet) to make pop rock work with synthesizers to such a degree that it still has that futuristic sound that they went for. Almost ageless, if you don't notice the partially sarcastic lyrics from songs that became used in so many commercials that the sarcasm has been scratched away. In short, The Cars is a solid pop-rock album that helped define New Wave in its infancy. Still sounds great, has its legacy, yadda yadda yadda.

Given Nirvana's short timespan of existence, they did not hand us many albums, and this as the only official live album they published in the band's existence. I've never listened to it in full before this, although I've heard over half the songs from this show many times. I'm making this review short: good album, kind of overrated (the Lake of Fire cover is horrible), probably belongs in the 1001+ albums (definitely more than some other albums I've gotten to), I only plead that people listen to other grunge music that isn't just Nirvana. The genre has plenty to offer.

After about 20 albums, I finally have a hip hop album. As a Californian (not SoCal), I must support one Cypress Hill, who helped put West Coast Hip Hop on the charts and to be noticed. Just as groundbreaking as Cypress Hill was for that fact, they were also essentially the first mainstream Latino Hip Hop acts. Also they love marijuana, otherwise known as a million other things, like cannabis. The more I reflect on this album and listen, the more I really see its importance in the world, its ripple effect on gangsta rap and what would follow hip hop throughout the decade, on its image for hip hop throughout the world. And all I can say is: damn I am incredibly high.

Raw Power is goated. Arguably the moment Punk was born, especially in the production booth. As for the production on the album....................best to stick to a modern mastering of it, albeit the album title pretty much is the warning that it's gonna sound, well, raw.

I've made modest effort to look into Wilco for the past year, by doing the sidequest albums with Billy Bragg. I've heard Yankee Hotel Foxtrot maybe a few years before that. I do know Someone Else's Song, it was my introduction to Wilco. I first heard it in the 'Meet the Engineer' video Valve created for Team Fortress 2, the greatest video game of all time in its prime. Lots of subversion going on, songs sounding pitiful and soft and then erupting with lots of fun loud guitars and other assorted madness going on from it. Not the biggest fan of Tweedy's vocals, as much as it works for a lot of the songs. That nasally white male indie voice thing is not my thing. Overall I did enjoy the majority of Being There and kind of understand why it would be on this list. It's certainly better than some other questionable choices. Wilco's a significant enough band to have a few albums on there, and I can see why this one was a choice along that other album Pitchfork loves.

R.E.M. is one of those first bands I really liked, long before music became a more serious topic of my life. Green represents the experimental transformation of R.E.M. as this college-aged band already known for their ambiguous and/or incomprehensible lyrics and were titans of a burgeoning scene in Athens, Georgia. Only R.E.M. would find a way to be mainstream and still sound like themselves without completely compromising their artistic integrity. I've already listened to this album before the challenge, so I'm not adding more than that it's a good album, probably not the only R.E.M. album on this list (and if it is, it begs quite a number of questions). They are an important enough band to have about 3 records on the list, Green probably being my third answer after Automatic and Murmur. Those three albums do a great job of briefly summarizing most of their music. Moving on.

Despite being very focused on music history, culture, and the ethnomusicography in between music and society/sociology, I feel like I must have failed something here. I'm from SF and I've never heard of Flamin Groovies, not from my parents growing up or from consuming as much music culture as I can to educate myself. Flamin Groovies were starting in San Francisco around the time the Hippie movement and psychedelia's presence in popular music was waning, but Punk and New Wave were not of age yet. Lot of the music left in between (and what would be the peak popularity of Flamin Groovies career) were somewhere in between, either fully Power Pop like The Beatles or going back to rock's roots with something Blues infused, like what The Rolling Stones would do. The one notable quote about this album that I can find via Wikipedia was a Mick Jagger quote saying that Teenage Head did the blues rock thing better than their own record that year, one Sticky Fingers(!). That's a hearty recommendation, but does that justify a slot to be a "must hear before you die album"? High Flyin' Baby opens the record--straight with the blues rock to go. That aggression is certainly felt on the percussion, not just the drums but the tambourine in addition to the (as expected with rock) guitar. City Lights follows up with a much more specific blues focus with a slower syncopated drumbeat and played on an acoustic. An interesting 1-2 to the record that gets followed up back to HFB's energy with Have You Seen My Baby?, a song that definitely sounds like where rock and roll was in 1971 if you ignored that Canterbury Scene influence. Teenage Head as an album (and the follow-up, Shake Some Action) seems to be the record where the San Francisco Psychedelic sound would informally end the first phase of the SF music scene, setting up the city for its foray into Punk to come. Michigan acts like Stooges or MC5 had some popularity here, but that music scene wasn't mainstream for the SF sound or viewed as anything other than the 'other delinquent music', for people that wanted no acid and purely wanted to drink and do the blues. Flamin Groovies represents the band of the scene that was firmly between both these camps, with Teenage Head being the record to say "we're blues rock guys" and they did deliver on that sound. On the other hand, you can hear why music critics of the time were skeptical of this record, or viewed any impact from it. Teenage Head represents that middle ground that was the early 70s: the aftermath of psychedelia after the rough end of Hendrix, Pigpen-era Grateful Dead (as they went to the country/folk path and retreaded their blues/R&B roots as the mainstay of the SF Sound). Teenage head holds some historical significance as a photograph of a very particular era of SF Music history, one that very much reflects the sign of the times of rock and roll evolving into a new era, it does suffer from that 'dad rock' fatigue that wouldn't really pull in many new (read: younger) people into it, let alone to find the significance beside its time capsule of blues rock. Aside from that, quite a solid record for people that would like to enjoy something on the guise of Montrose minus the studio trickery of the time or Bad Company without its polished production. There is a raw element in this recording that feels very distinctly like a music studio using mid 60s recording gear in 1971. Aside from grabbing as much context as I can find for this album, I still don't think it really fits in the 1001+ album mold. The Rolling Stones would, of course, overlap any influence this album could have in the mainstream the following year with Exile on Main Street, lot of critics and people upholding that as the greatest Blues Rock album ever (rightly so). The development of blues rock, like blues and rock separately, is a focal part of the evolution of American music and music as a whole. But I fear such a selection like Flamin Groovies adds a spot to cover an already well-cataloged list of albums that include those three genres. It feels quite Eurocentric in that regard. I feel like such a list (that this website/we all go around) could cover much more international acts, and for that to occur a band like Flamin Groovies would, again in history, be overshadowed by something else. Teenage Head is a good record, albeit obscured in history because of how fast the music scene was evolving in the 1970s-a phenomenon that affected pop music even more so than an SF Blues Rock band that can now be seen as underrated. I think that covers my thoughts on this album, and its inclusion on the essential albums to hear before death list. For the most part, a quite enjoyable record. I could leave out City Lights because it's a bit too slow for my rocking senses, but they're definitely a lot fucking better than Simply Red. Highlights: High Flying Baby, Evil Hearted Ada (Elvis impersonation), Whiskey Woman Not on the official album but the extra content filled with blues/R&B covers to me are almost as good as the album while also summarizing how bands like Flaming Groovies started back then. Many of them would cover songs they would already know (think of the music they listened to growing up like Louie Louie or something like Wipeout---songs not too hard to learn without formal tools available back then) and playing as fast or hard as possible. That represents the same era of music that this album selection is to represent. It'll make things I said here make a lot more sense.