Excellent from start to finish. Despite having David Bowie's lovely hands all over it, this album is quintessential Iggy Pop and laid the foundation for what was coming next.
Not an easy one for the uninitiated. Coltrane's album is soul energy in search of something but never really finding it, The timings switch up without warning. Gillespie is playing with modals. The percussion is off in its own world. Coltrane is pushing at the boundaries of jazz and dangerously skirting around the edges of music before retreating back to safety, but only for a moment. Although it sounds like chaotic jumbling at first, you realize on second or third listening that there is not an unintentional note being played anywhere on this album. Not an accessible or easy record to sit and listen to but that's part of the charm here.
I find the production on the early tracks to be distractingly muddy in places. By the time we get to Lady Jane, it's suddenly clear that the Rolling Stones would earn a place among the rock pantheon. Good songwriting and solid playing all combine with Jagger's voice to boost the whole package.
Along with the soft and reflective "I am Waiting" and "Lady Jane", we get the rougher edges on display in songs like "Under My Thumb" (nearly 9 minutes long!) and "Doncha Bother Me". This is the Stones walking the line between playing it straight and trying to push themselves just a bit out of their own comfort zone. It may not be risky or daring but it is a ton of fun.
Listening to the album start to finish highlights the band's flexibility. Despite being labeled as a straighforward rock band, the Stones had a breadth (country, blues, jazz) that few bands could match in the mid-60s and even now.
Just listening to this album without any of the baggage it carries around these days, I find it fun and spirited music. Back when it was released, it opened up an entire new wonderful world of African music for me that I wasn't aware of and couldn't have easily accessed even if I had been aware of it. I loved the percussion and the bouncy bass sounds that carried through each song and gave the album a peculiar lift.
At a time when music was becoming increasingly artificial in terms of how it was written, made, and produced, this album stood out with its uniquely human warmth and craft. Watching interviews with Simon from around this time, it is clear that his interest in exploring other musical genres and art forms was not cynical or shallow in nature or scope.
Yes it's The Beatles. It's all very good. I don't know what else could be said about this album that hasn't already been said.
I hadn't listened to this album for forty years and I worried about how it would sound after all that time had passed. Would it sound stale and cliched? Would I still love it for all its manic ego-driven energy that hit me the first time around?
I put it on and oh fuck yes. There it was.
The same thrill of screaming guitars, pulsating drums, and Diamond Dave's high-pitched nuclear wailing.
All it took to totally destroy the era of slow reflective AM rock of the mid-70s was the 1 minute 42 seconds of Eruption. This is rock 'n roll at its dumbest and at its best. There is a place for this kind of rock 'n roll. It's the kind of stuff that makes parents worried and 14 year old kids put up posters on their bedroom walls. Van Halen's first foray came out bombastic and vain with a swagger that was arguably earned by the time the final notes of "Running' With the Devil" faded out.
This is not thinking music. It is the music youth - of doing and wanting, bare knuckles dragging on the pavement and throat red raw from yowling at the sky. In the words of a wise man, it is what it is and this album makes no apologies for itself. It is a good time in a smoke-filled carpeted van. No more. No less.
Listening to this album, you can hear all the same creative impulses that led to the origins of the band towards its inevitable implosion years later. The good times wouldn't last but hey, they never do.
This is less an album than a full on journey.
For me, it is like this.
You are walking down a long hallway and each song is a door that opens up into a room full of wonderful lights and colors and things you've never seen before. Or maybe things you had seen before but not quite in the same way.
And as you are pulled along this long corridor and visit each room, the shapes and colors add up to a subtle impression of meaning and you realize that yes, this art. You are experiencing something instead of merely listening.
By the end of it all, you're not quite the same person as the one who started. And you are better for it. When the final notes fade away, you sit there in silence for a bit and try to piece together what you have just heard but by that time, it's already gone and all that is left to do is listen again.
And again.
And again.
Each time, you find those wonderful rooms sitting there, waiting for you again.
Just you.
This album is significant more for what it did than what it actually was.
It helped define a new genre of music that deliberately set itself apart from an industry that leaned hard into acts that were technically impressive feats if musicianship but ultimately hollow in terms of content and social substance. If Pink Floyd's Welcome to the Machine is the question then here is the answer, delivered with a firm middle finger.
And though there's nothing particularly special about this album, it launched punk rock and inspired enough listeners to pick up a guitar or a microphone and do stuff that was even more impressive.
The music itself is hardly special now, nearly fifty years later. But this was not music that was made to be timeless. "Anarchy in the UK" can only be understood completely from its own particular time and place.
The other thing this album did is scare a lot of people. As hard as it is to believe now, the swearing, the sneering, the clothes, and hair -evrn the bad name- was seem as dangerous for this time. The powers-that-be were caught off guard by the music and the band and reacted to it with alarm, which only further raised the profile of the band and ultimately catapulted them into fame.
Years later, the system would learn how to harness the appeal of these acts and turn around and sell them in a nice ironic profitable package.
But this album comes on the frontier and you can enjoy the little hit of unsanctioned rebellion that still comes through in this album.
Another album I hadn't heard for nearly four decades before today. I know this one because it is the sound of a prairie Friday night after the dishes have been put away and the spirits have just been opened.
There is an exquisite pain in these ladies' voices that reaches out and provides a kind of understanding - it offers a way of saying things for people who rarely say much and who are surrounded by vast swathes of emptiness.
If I close my eyes while listening to this album, I can almost see the bold purple hues of a giant sky and underneath it, a cloister of people who live day to day in the kind of places that most folks merely fly over or smirk at when they hear their names.
There is a camaraderie in this music for those kinds of people. And these ladies understood it and poured their own hearts into the songs here , which so neatly express the feeling of existing in these lonely places.
This is the kind of music I grew up with, surrounded by, and lived through, It's where a huge chunk of my youthful memories reside. At that time, I was not a fan, but the years have taught me to appreciate it a little more. Having said that, I've heard enough of it to last the rest of my life and I suspect I won't return to this one even though I don't dislike it. There's just too much baggage for me.
The standout track here is "Telling Me Lies", which features the soaring vocals of Emmylou Harris. The rest of the album is remarkable for its smart collaboration. Each singer is given enough space by the others to shine in the right places. On other tracks (especially "My Dear Companion"), the use of harmony is balanced so tenderly with the solo parts.
I've heard this album a few times so I decided to watch the video as I listened. Some notes I took:
1. Dave Grohl's drumming is incredible. The timing is unreal.
2. The setlist is good. It's a varied mix of obscure and popular songs. It's almost an "intro to Nirvana" session and it's accessible. The covers are fantastic and arguably better than the originals ("Jesus Don't Want Me for a Sunbeam" and damn near "The Man Who Sold The World")
3. It seems like many of the songs were built around Kurt's musical shortcomings rather than despite them. Kurt was not an amazing guitarist or a singer. Having said that, these guys are definitely musicians, which sets them worlds apart from the likes of The Sex Pistols.
4. The cello adds so much to all this. ("Dumb" "Something in the Way")
5. Krist's sneaky basslines are way more complex and thoughtful than they seem at first. ("Come As You Are")
6. Yes, guys. "Pennyroyal Tea" tuned half a step down to A minor key and no accompaniment was the correct decision.
7. Is it a good live album? Yes. It captures the more human moments of a band making decisions together and bantering between each song. You can sense the nerves at the start of the session as they barrel through each song. About halfway through, there's a noticeable shift as Kurt talks a bit more, breathes between each song, and the band relaxes.
By the end of the main performance, they seem to be having fun and just playing music they like, having already proved whatever they had set out to prove. Also The Meat Puppets! This was like a HUGE cherry on top of the sundae.
8. I had forgotten how short some of these songs are. They are structured simply but they never wear out their welcome.
I was never crazy about Nirvana. I never owned a Nirvana album or a t-shirt or whatever during the band's height and I probably couldn't have named more than a few songs of theirs even back then. I never listen to them now. It seemed to me at the time that many people liked Nirvana simply because they were popular. They were just everywhere at the time.
Despite never being a fan, I liked this album. It deserves to be on this list but I probably won't return to it again. It's just too hard to watch/listen to this without thinking about how it all ended. It's a bit like looking at an unfinished painting and you can't help but wondering how it would have turned out if things had been different. Oh well.
Wheeeeeew. This is a tough one. Great album with all the weight of the world on its shoulders.
"What's Going On?" is the sound of a man in a deep crisis over the direction of his life, career, and country.
The 60s have ended and we find Gaye - and America - dealing with the death of innocence and the post-Vietnam and post-Civil Rights era. This album is infused with bewilderment and sorrow at how things have turned out so badly despite all the best intentions of so many people to make things better. This is one of the few albums I can think of where such a simple cover matches so neatly with the music.
And in the gloom of post-Obama world, this music fits neatly into today's world too. It turns out, Marvin, that nothing has really changed. I really wonder what the hell is going on too.
It's okay but it's not her best stuff.
Proto-edgrlord music from the early 1980s. It would deservedly sound outdated in just ten years. Maybe there's something here for someone but it's not me.
I guess this would start us down the road to the PMRC in a few years' time but musically there is nothing special here that bands weren't already doing at this point.
Technically it's fine. The songwriting is good. The vocals are okay. Yeah it's not a bad album in that regard but I can't understand why it's on here.
Nice album. Very chill. Will probably listen to it again. Nothing that really blew me away here.
It is 1983 and rock's trajectory is hitting its terminal endstage. This was where it was all headed.
Here's what we get this year: The Police, Souxsie and the Banshees, Talking Heads, New Order, Eurythmics, Echo and the Bunnymen, R.E.M. - just to name a few. What happens this year is refinement based on the past decades of innovation and though production wouldn't yet make it obvious, the remasters that were year down the road made it clear that we had reached the zenith in '83.
Starting with Elvis and passing along through landmarks such as The Beatles, Woodstock, Pink Floyd, and The Sex Pistols, rock's journey is basically completed this year with the release of watershed albums, among them this one - a masterpiece - Synchronicity.
If you wanted to end a band or a movement with an album, this would be it. At a brisk 39 minutes, this is a collection of songs that are at turns fun, angry, beautiful, thoughtful, and odd. The musicianship is great. The songwriting is excellent. Everyone is at their peak despite what's happening behind the scenes. It's everything a good rock album should be.
There's nowhere for rock to really go after this year although 1984 does an impressive job of keeping up its spirit with some great albums. Everything after that is basically a homage to or heavily inspired by what has already happened although Nirvana gets to place the final period on the end of rock history about ten years later with In Utero (or Unplugged if that's your thing). For all intents and purposes, however, we are done here. Mission complete.
Now this is the kind of music that makes you feel cool even if you're not. Put this on and your chest hair grows and medallions start popping out around your neck. Suddenly you're not just small pimpin anymore. This is the sound of driving around 1970s New York in a brown Chevy Impala with suede interior. Welcome to funk.
This whole album is great and I loved every note. I had already heard most of the records we've had so far but this one was a new and pleasant discovery for me. It's more accessible than Coltrane but still daring in the right places. The album takes a noticably jazzy turn near the end, which recalls Hancock's earlier work. This is the sound of a man moving through genres and experimenting as he goes. Highlights at the 8 minute mark of Chameleon with the song breaking down completely and then reforming itself with sixteenth notes.
Many people were surprised when Rockit came out a decade later, but anyone who had listened to this album probably wasn't.
Yeah, it's okay. I'm not a fan of R&B but I tried to appreciate it on its own merits. The vocals are beautiful. Song writing seems quite solid. I grew impatient at a few of the tunes, which got a little too repetitive after the three-minute mark.
There's something very early 2000s about this album - some of them appear to have a message of empowerment or social consciousness but it's quite shallow and the points are too easy to score. Still, this is probably an enjoyable album for anyone who's into the genre. I'm happy to move on from this one.
Hmmm...this one is a real mixed bag. There are one or two genuinely beautiful songs in here (The Big Ship) and the rest is a mess.
It sounds like Brian Eno poking around a bit with a synthesizer.He hasn't quite figured out that he's not a good singer but he will get there in the next couple of albums. It seems like this one is trying to ride the balance between experimental and popular music and I wish he would just pick one or the other.
A little foray into 70s prog rock. The Beatles are over and everyone is trying to find a way forward. Pink Floyd manages to find the door though. Not terrible but not great.
