1001 Albums Summary

Pristine jazz charcuterie board (looks real nice, but won't replace dinner). Cool interplay between piano and sax. Feels preconceived in a way that most jazz does not. More an exercise than an experience?

Hey, this is pretty weird! Sinatra...if he had circus ties instead of mob ties. Whiny trumpet lands like a joke. The recording session musta been the most fun anyone ever had in the history of the world, even if it's not always QUITE that fun for the audience. I was crackin' up when he scatted with throat clearing sounds. Whistle solo was inevitable as death.

At its best (aka slowest and lushest), this plays like a lost Beatles album. At its wonkiest (aka least melodic), it's perhaps TOO British...am I allowed to say that, lol? "End of a Century" and "To the End" light me up--feel like Great Ones...from Lennon, not Albarn. The whimsy of the instrumentals (bari sax!) and background vox is also vaguely Beach Boys. All that is to say: no surprise that I like swaths of this.

If you think you're a punk, you're probably just a nerd. Never self-serious and, against all odds, often beautiful, The Clash does that Bob Dylan thing of shouldering the entire history of popular music (by way of their rebel roots) to make something singular. Bassline in the title track could move mountains (hypothesis: Iceage definitely got their name from this song). "Lost in the Supermarket" just HAS to be the touchstone for all the indie rock I adore, right?

The P-oh-gs. I have today gained awareness of an unforeseen Platonic ideal: Celtic folk-punk. It takes me back to this Shrek game I used to play on my grandparents' PS1, which had a kickin' Irish soundtrack that just went on and on and on--a strange connection, but a madeleine to pleasant aimless summer days nevertheless. I struggle to name a mood when I'd seek this out, but I appreciate the storytelling, adventurousness, and especially the more tender songs..."Fairytale of New York" and "Thousands Are Sailing."

Jack's knack for using the studio as an instrument is vastly underrated (because of that other raw little band he was part of), and it all began here. How the hell he gets that crackly distortion tone is one of the great mysteries of the modern age. Call me crazy, but I think I prefer his country stuff? The subtlety gives him more room to breathe as a player. I also realized while listening that, although the instrumentals are always off the chain, his songs aren't really ABOUT anything...that was probably the first clue that he'd be a bad visual artist, lol (God bless and keep yee).

Ah, the 70s. It's a sign of the devolution of the human spirit that there was a time not so long ago when a deeply weird, subdued, mystical, and philosophical album could be a major hit. Who is the modern corollary to Yusuf/Cat Stevens? Who is our popular seeker? Can we all honestly say that our bodies have been good friends? Does anyone care where the children play? I am blessed by a hard headed woman! I want to build my house from water ice! Please, God, help me, always and forever, kick out the devil and pick up a good book! I had never listened to CS before today, but now I am locked in, baby.

Last night, I had to beat my kid on the ass real hard because he bawled about spending the night at his grandmother's place. I smacked him with the back of my hand real good, and that sent him running and screaming into the kitchen to find Grammy. I felt like the boss (for once) and left Mom's house without saying goodbye--little brat. And then, dammit, Sylvie nagged me all during dinner about the oil in the staircase polish and about how it keeps ruining her night gowns, and I'd just about had it with her squawking when a blotch of mustard slipped off my fork and landed on my favorite tie. I had to go outside and smoke two cigarettes and kick the curb until my toe hurt just to keep from knocking the waiter's block off because of his several nose pimples. We made it to the club about two minutes before showtime (a single stroke of luck). The bouncer showed us to a little table by the bar, and Tall Joe Shmoe in front of me was blocking the stage and laughing real hard in this airy, hacking way, and I was pretty sure this was the worst night of my entire life. But then she started singing. She started singing, and every inconvenience of the night--every inconvenience of my entire life--just kind of slid off my back and collected on the floor in front of the bar. I couldn't see her, but it didn't matter. A voice like a blessing, a voice like the calming hand of God. I thought: This is fine, oh yes, this is very fine.

Am I dead yet? I admit, I got a good long chuckle from imagining Brandi--poor soul--soaking up rays on the beach, spending who knows how much hard-earned dough for some sweet R&R...and then being forced to listen to pummeling jolts of distortion, octave pedals, and busted snares for forty-five minutes straight. Unlike The Pogues, I know exactly what mood I'd have to be in to seek this out. Memories of moshing in the dorm at Belmont. Sometimes you just have to mosh alone in your bedroom, and this stuff is perfect for that. But could a guy get a little LESS weird screechy feedback and a little MORE volume on the vocals, please? Album cover is precise. Selected highlights from Lightning Bolt's Wikipedia page: "Lightning Bolt are known for their so-called "guerrilla gigs", preferring to play on the floor of the venue rather than the stage, creating a tight circle of spectators around the band." "As the group's vocalist, Chippendale eschews a conventional microphone, instead using the type of microphone built into a household telephone receiver, held in his mouth or attached to a mask, which is then run through an effects processor to further alter the sound." "Gibson plays his bass guitar tuned to cello standard tuning, in intervals of fifths (C G D A), using a banjo string for the high A."

Last weekend, Aaron said to me, "True freedom is frightening." And I think his maxim gets at what makes Spy Vs. Spy instantaneously and relentlessly repulsive (but no less interesting). The notes are dissonant, it's true. But the "music" is also completely unmoored from all structure and rule of law. Zorn gives us nothing to cling to. His album seems to blare, for over forty minutes, the message that "GOD IS DEAD, AND WE ARE ON OUR OWN IN THE VOID FOREVER." What could make us frantically kick our little baby feet more than that? This is like taking a ten-hour road trip with your parents while listening to St. Anger at full volume with a crappy pair of ear buds while simultaneously your dad plays Master of Puppets at full volume from the car speakers. The mash occasionally coalesces into an exciting new form, but generally, second by second, the whole experience pushes you closer and closer to bloody patricide. For whatever it's worth, I can now say, with the pomp of a foremost scholar of Medieval Italian poetry, *pushes glasses up* Lightning Bolt would simply not exist without the likes of John Zorn.

I began this 1001 journey in part to become more acquainted with--to be forced to reckon with, more specifically--our "great artists"--like DB--who--also like DB--haven't really truly clicked with me yet. As it were, I've long loved Blackstar, and it's the only DB album I can say that about (for now!). Why am I exhilarated by a man singing his own funeral dirge? I am (we all are) stirred by those rare individuals who refuse, despite and to spite the end, to let our atrophying condition sap us of everything that makes us us. Bowie embraces the ever-after with a creativity that I hope I can find someday. Blackstar is unique among the so-called "dying albums" in that it's kinda freaky! Bowie avoids end-of-life sentimentality and chooses instead to rip through frenetic rhythms and trippy sax solos and sing about whores, virgins, looking for ass, and spitting deds from your deng deng. It's a horny dying album--what in the world--ONLY BOWIE! He doesn't dwell in the past really at all, which stands truer to his legacy as a restless spirit than any "I have lived a good long life" BS could've been. If I'm being honest, I don't understand what MOST of these songs mean even a little, lol. What exactly is a "blackstar," and why is David Bowie singing about it? He taps into a Lynchian surrealism that just. feels. right. This album sounds so dang good! Sure, there's something cool about L. Cohen recording his final songs into a Macbook mic from his literal death bed...but it's also cool how labored over Blackstar sounds. This is not the last gasps and patchwork of the shell of a man; this is a complete gift from a man who tied the bow himself and then--only then--CHOSE to shuffle off this mortal coil. More rock bands should have jazz drummers!

Good music: One more time with feeling Prog rock: One more time with...an unmedicated neurotic disorder Do you hear that six-minute Spanish guitar instrumental? Yeah, that's the sound of an astral hero beast soaring across the kingdom of Glumglum to rescue the king's daughter from the clutches of a guerilla fascist group (Tories) headquartered in the mystical woods. I don't get it. I hope this list eventually changes my tune on prog, but for now, the genre gives me the raging fantods. Needless complexity at the expense of solid songs. Over-intellectualization at the expense of honest human emotion. A tightness that oppresses; a looseness that is not suave. Vocals that live eternally in the hollowness of the throat instead of the earthiness of the diaphragm. I enjoyed bits and pieces of this...the tight harmonies...the little melodies in the bass...I'll never say no to more organ...the doo doo doos in "I've Seen All Good People." But every time I started to get locked in, they'd switch to something totally different or bust into another random solo or say something about the ocean or the sea or a ship or sailing or whatever the hell. In Yes's defense, the new Rodrigo dropped today, and I really want to listen to it ASAP, lol! UPDATE 10:22am: Rodrigo pretty good. Back to listening to Blackstar.

Checked this out from the library circa 2013, ripped it to my iPod, and then nothing was the same. My senior yearbook quote was a line from "How to Disappear Completely." If that's not a sign that you love an album, what is? My ninth-grade biology teacher once said of Kid A, "Why would I want to sit and listen to a bunch of beeps and boops?" I was filled with a rage akin to when the Steelers lose to the Ravens, and if that's not a sign that you love an album, what is? ("Beeps and boops" is less than stupid; it's deranged. I don't merely question the state of that teacher's brain; I also wonder about the state of his everlasting soul. He should be fired and buried, if he hasn't already. Only God can save him.) Thom and Co. run toward any and all contradictions and implode what it means to be a rock band. Instrumentals both cold and warm (listen to the keys on the opener). Electronic glitches both random and gateways to other worlds (listen to the last minute of "Idioteque"...the way the vocals get looped...the screeching in the distance...how the drum machine slowly falls apart). Structures both weird and pop (the "chorus" of "The National Anthem" is brass band train wrecks). Vocals and guitars both human and alien. This album drips with an isolation and anxiety and yearning for beauty and meaning that resonates even more today than it did when I would listen on the school bus in the morning as we wound our way across the empty fields of Huckleberry Land. "We've got heads on sticks...Rats and children, follow me out of town." I'm following...against my better instincts...I'm following.

Mumbly baritone Romantic poetry in Elmer's glue (ingredients: nuthin but sticky sticky guitar & bass). Could listen to this shit for hours. 1983...are you sure you don't mean 2003? I hear the unborn spirit of Cobain too (did not expect this). Listened two times through while strolling, and then realized I was majorly lost and over two miles from home...pressed play for a third time without thinking.

"It's hard to say what's real when you know the way you feel." My dissociative droogs know that truer words have not been spoken. Yoshimi has long been a friend for bad days (I return to her every time my anxiety gets bad, and she instantly makes me feel more powerful and less alone), and her sonics remain foreign still...what the hell did they do to the drums, feed them through a bit crusher? Did they have a bass player at this time or...? For Robert owes debts (pitched-up harmonies; colorful synths; general air of wackiness). I could take or leave the instrumental tracks (except the screaming part), but the song songs are perfect.

Another day, another blessing in the list! I had never heard of Gene Clark, but No Other has everything I love. Off-kilter, spiritual lyrics. Sweet pop melodies. Harmonies that could end or heal worlds ("Strength of Strings"...holy poop). Slightly uncanny live instrumentation (what's up with those guitars on the title track?). Pedal steel! I'm always amped when gifted songwriters let their tunes breathe...there's a confidence and command of artistry required in knowing when to just let it ride...reminds me a bit of Neil and Crazy Horse (in all the best ways). "Some Misunderstanding" is an absolute showstopper. Below is why I can't wait to dig into the rest of his discography: "Although he did not enjoy commercial success as a solo artist, Clark was in the vanguard of popular music during much of his career, prefiguring developments in such disparate subgenres as psychedelic rock, baroque pop, newgrass, country rock, and alternative country."

Mark Knopfler sure can make those six strings sing. Listen close—it's a little European school boy bouncing around the open "ah." Otherwise, this is 75% of a fine Bob Dylan impersonation. I don't believe a word he says. The precision of the playing saps energy and therefore emotion. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just listen to Infidels (best of all worlds). Sorry, Brandon. I like: the sweet tenderness of "Wild West End."

Not sure if this should be humanity's final statement on "war," but definitely a good U2 album. Bono's vocals: hungry...and his melodies: not square like they are today. The Edge's guitar: jagged...and his background vocals: angelic. They're still a band here, not an institution. Now listen, I'm a FAN...I saw them live circa 2018, and a few of their songs are personal all-timers, but their LPs often fatigue me. I listened to War the whole way through and didn't want to turn it off once. Then, I pressed play a second time and got about four tracks in before I switched to Bully - Deluxe, lol.

Plinky slinky rinky dinky...these words rise in my mind, almost mystically. The four most talented (and most insufferable) kids in your high school choir started a band together, and they're singing a cappella—a song you don't know and may never know—each with a hand over one ear (ie that guy from Parks & Rec). In fact, my high-school gf might love this (no disrespect intended). Impressive? Occasionally annoying? Thesaurus lyrics? Not much to cling to? Again, no disrespect intended. I know this band from before...2017...I wore out their song "Up in Hudson"...I'm listening to that one now, and you should too.

"An ugly fart attracts a good looking chick, if he's got money / It's different for Jews somehow" ...are honest-to-god LINES on this album and the only reasons you need to listen to London Calling again and forget that The Stranglers ever crawled out of the afterbirth of the British punk scene. Oh wait, here are some more... "Is she tryin' to get outta that Clitares / Liberation for women / That's what I preach" Are they joking, horny, stupid, or all of the above? Zach—am I closer to theosis now?

As an outspoken lover of melody and dynamic range, this was a hard one. The lyrics are fine as poetry, but indistinguishable and monotone as songs. The instrumentals often start solidly, but then they go and go and go without alteration until the sun explodes and the beat abruptly cuts off. I found myself wanting to listen to LCD Soundsystem instead because they, as I see it, do awesome dance-punk grooves...AND awesome melodies AND dynamics AND song structure. Fav song: "I'm Going to Spain"...of course, it's the only song on the album with its sound. Katie (who was in the car during listening): "0 stars. It sounds like the singer is constantly either vomiting or having sex."

Ahh—to feel the peace that passes all understanding that comes when an album is and continues to be everything its legend purports. The Beatles are the only other band to have housed this much talent and tension at one time. I tried...impossible to pick one favorite song. The guitar playing! The harmonies! The harmonies! The harmonies!