"All that is old and already formed can continue to live only if it allows within itself the conditions of a new beginning."
101 Albums You
Must Hear ... Part 3Posted 1:51 p.m., August 16, 2006
|
The third of four parts.
Well, no surprise, this project has taken a great deal longer than I thought it would. Partly, I've been busy. But that's not the whole story. I've discovered that once you get past your 50 favorite albums, naming the rest of a list of 101 gets really difficult. The more slots you fill in, the fewer you have left, and the more difficult the decisions become. Part of the delay has been caused by selecting, rejecting and replacing various picks.
Here is the latest batch, albums 51 through 75, of the 101 albums you must hear before you die. I'll try to get the next one done before you actually do die.
51.) "Live at the Star Club, Hamburg," Jerry Lee Lewis (1989). Have moicy! If there is a sweatier, more demonic rock'n'roll performance anywhere on record, don't even tell me about it. This searing concert was captured on tape in the spring of 1964, at a point when Lewis' career was on the skids, at the very venue where the conquering Beatles only two years earlier had honed the attack that would sweep aside all the pioneering rockers from pop-chart consideration, the Killer included. Whether this is Lewis' revenge on the Fab Four is doubtful. It feels more like some pact has been made with the devil, and Beelzebub has chosen this day, on this stage in far-away Germany, to demand payment.
The result is hellfire alight onstage. Yet there is a bizarre, almost schizophrenic feel to the proceedings—the between-song patter the Killer employs to announce each tune sounds like a man completely in control, perhaps even slightly detached from his audience, maybe even a bit bored. But the music rages, careens almost entirely out of control as the evening's back-up band, the British big-beat group The Nashville Teens, struggle to keep up with their piano pounding elder. The Teens themselves would rise high on the charts with a mid-'60s hit, "Tobacco Road," but there can be little doubt that on this night—in their only show ever backing Lewis—they gave the performance of their lives, if only in self-defense. Highlights: Until this record surfaced, the consensus was that the Beatles had given the definitive performance of Berry Gordy's "Money (That's What I Want)." Guess again. "Mean Woman Blues," the album's opener, sets the pace at a sprint, after which the Killer never lets up, not even during a searing rendition of the Hank Williams ballad, "Your Cheating Heart." This album, which first surfaced on Rhino in 1980, has been called "the purest, meanest rock 'n' roll ever committed to record." You won't get any argument from me. This is perhaps the definitive live rock recording.
52.) "Jazz at Massey Hall," The Quintet (1954). It must have been quite crowded, what with all those giants jammed together on one stage. It's May 1953, and five of the 20th century's greatest musicians--sax legend Charlie Parker, trumpet master Dizzie Gillespie, pianist Bud Powell, bassist Charles Mingus and drummer Max Roach have been invited to play a concert at Toronto's Massey Hall. Bebop is the mainstream music of the day, and each of these men is considered the form's primary innovator on his instrument. So they are stars--but not bigger than boxers Rocky Marciano and Jersey Joe Walcott. And that matters, because the promoters failed to account for the fact that their concert is booked for the same night as the fighters' live televised heavyweight title bout, so almost no one attends. The draw is so puny that there aren't even enough gate receipts to cover the musicians' pay. Even worse, altoist Charlie Parker, at 32 a hopeless heroin junkie who will soon breathe his last, has sold his saxophone. He shows up to the concert with a borrowed white plastic toy sax, which he means to use for the show. Which he does.
Boy does he. Captured on tape and released under various titles over the years, the low-fi recording of the Massey Hall concert is sometimes marketed as "the greatest concert ever." And for once, rank hyperbole comes close to the truth. "Man for man," Rolling Stone magazine noted in 1970, "the quintet that performed that evening was the single greatest group of American musicians ever assembled." Be it so affirmed. Highlights: The show may have been poorly attended, but everyone is on his game throughout. Gillespie kids his way through his own composition, "Salt Peanuts," eliciting an irritated response from Parker, who uses a burning alto solo to air his beef with his clownish trumpeter. Later, possibly aiming to put Gillespie in his place while introducing one of the tunes, Parker refers to him as "my worthy constituent."
53.) "Golden Biscuits," Three Dog Night (1971). They didn't write their own songs, they weren't guitar pyrotechnicians, and they never laid claim to the dubious title "voices of their generation." In one sense, Three Dog Night were a throwback to a simpler time; shrugging off the role of hippy-era prophets and politicians, they were simply old-school entertainers who sang great songs. As a result, they put bottles of wine on the dinner tables of some the greatest unheralded songwriters of their day. Randy Newman, Laura Nyro, Harry Nilsson, even Elton John all owe Three Dog Night for providing their work crucial early exposure.
"Golden Biscuits" is the band's first greatest hits package, and was released too early to include some of their more interesting later hits ("Never Been to Spain," "Old-Fashioned Love Song," "Black and White"), but the biscuits included here are golden, indeed. Nilsson's "One," the first Three Dog Night mega-hit leads off the set, giving way to the band's emotional take on the "Hair" showstopper, "Easy to Be Hard." "Eli's Coming," "One Man Band," "Celebrate," they're all here, each containing evidence that these three long-haired crooners were among the great blue-eyed soul talents of their era, and a band that is well-past due for a critical reappraisal. Highlights: "Try a Little Tenderness," may not have quite the power of the Otis Redding original, but it is an awfully nice cover shot; the understated environmentalist's anthem, "Out in the Country," represents a career peak for this group.
54.) "The Allman Brothers Band," The Allman Brothers Band (1969). It's surprising to note that this record was initially a failure. It is perhaps the single greatest debut album by an American blues band—-begging some leeway from the boys in The Butterfield Blues Band-—yet "The Allman Brothers Band" sold fewer than 50,000 copies on its initial release, despite widespread critical acclaim. No matter, the audience would catch up with the sophomore release, "Idlewild South." But, despite that record's undisputed charms, the first album is the prima facie case for the Allmans' greatness.
There are two main reasons why this freshman effort was so succesful on its own terms. First, this was not a British blues act but a racially integrated American band from the deep South whose understanding of the hard-edged blues- and jazz-based material they were playing was not passed onto them by sailors and pirate radio deejays, but sprang virtually from the very soil itself. Secondly, the seven songs that made up the record had been road-tested a good long time before the band stepped into the studio to preserve them for posterity. The songs and performances captured demonstrate that, by 1969, the Allmans were well beyond ready for primetime. Everything here is A-grade, but the band saves the marquee performances for the end of the album, with the epic one-two punch of band originals "Dreams" and the concert standard, "Whippin' Post." Highlights: The Spencer Davis-penned opener, "Don't Want You No More" introduced the world to the gritty vocals and liquid organ runs of Gregg Allman; "It's Not My Cross to Bear" testifies to the soulfulness of this group at its best, showcasing a riveting Duane Allman guitar lead.
55.) "My Aim is True," Elvis Costello (1977). Though far closer sonically to the pub rock of Nick Lowe's band Brinsley Schwartz than to the aggressive, spiky new wave of his later work with the Attractions, "My Aim is True" nonetheless is a prime Costello document, setting the tables for everything that would follow.
Though it never really sounds punk, this record was lumped in with the punk movement because, front to back, it fulminates rage and frustration, even on tracks that deal directly with sex. At 22, Costello emerged as a fully formed talent, both lyrically and musically, establishing right out of the gates his knack for combining clever, pleasing melodies with a biting verbal attack. It's almost a shock to look over the back of the record jacket and see how many of the great early songs for which Costello is still most associated first appeared on this debut. "Less Than Zero," the debut single, is here, as is "Watching the Detectives," "The Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes," and "Mystery Dance," the latter Costello's own sweaty-teen rewrite of Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues." Highlight: Please point to a more beguiling lyric than this stunning one-liner from Costello: "Don't you know that I know that walking on water / won't make me a miracle man?"
56.) "More Songs About Buildings and Food," Talking Heads (1978). Wherein the nerds were allowed back into the sock-hop barn. David Byrne has gotten more mileage out of a nervous tick than Don Knotts, but if that were all the Heads had to offer, they'd be a footnote no more worthy a spot on this list than Nitzinger. They belong. Bringing Brian Eno in as producer had the effect of placing greater emphasis on the staccato rock rhythms than had been the case with the band's debut. In some spots the Heads here resemble the early Roxy Music-—had Roxy singer Bryan Ferry suffered from Tourette's.
Despite having bulked up the beef in the band behind Byrne, the singer is very much the focus here, with his gulping, twitchy vocals and off-the-wall lyrics. Which is to say nothing of his manic rhythm guitar; Byrne always was the fastest strum in the West, ranking him among the most underrated rhythm guitarists. All in all, this is art for art's sake, from the distorted album cover group protrait fashioned from extreme Polaroid close-ups tacked together, to the yelping narration in "Artists Only" ("I'm painting! / I'm painting again!") But the band managed to hint at a broader personality with the record's two closing tracks. The band's broad cover of Al Green's "Take Me To the River," driven by Tina Weymouth's strutting bass line and Byrne's vocal spasms—-he's the un-Green here—-gave the band a Top 40 hit. "The Big Country" is enigmatic—-it's either Byrne's heartfelt kiss-off to Middle America's sleepy, suburban lifestyle, or it’s Byrne doing an effective send-up of some dismissive jet-setter, reviling America's norms from the lofty perch of his first-class jetliner seat. Highlight: The galloping, synth-spiked, distinctly un-country "Thank You For Sending Me An Angel."
57.) "The Who Sell Out," The Who (1967). Ah, humor. Now largely forgotten amid all the mythologizing and agonizing to be found on the band's later endeavors, in the '60s the Who were not merely among pop's most violence-minded band, they were among the funniest. In this case, even the cover art was a hoot, with Pete Townshend shown applying deodorant from a gargantuan applicator, and Roger Daltry sitting in a bathtub full of beans, with what looks like the world's largest wiener emerging from the mess, dangling over the side of the tub. It's all in keeping with the album's theme, a parody of a pirate radio broadcast—the cover art is simply a collection of the station's trade-mag ads. But the album's exterior wouldn't get this record included here over all other things Who; in fact, this 1967 album represents the Who at the peak of their creative powers. It's too bad that, with "Tommy" two years hence, they would almost entirely forget how well humor can work within the framework of the raw power forged by their monster rock sound.
Side one of the original LP represents the greatest instance of musical sequencing on any 1960s rock disc. After a brief opening salvo of some genuine Radio London radio ad spots—the pirate radio station had recently been shut down, but its operators later sued the band for the unauthorized use of its commercials—the album gets going with an amazing surge. The bruising, disorienting "Armenia City in the Sky," written for the band by Speedy Keene (later of Thunderclap Newman), is the Who's most potent foray into psychedelia. Then it's onto the baked beans ad promised on the cover, and onto "Mary Anne With the Shaky Hands," a funny, albeit juvenile song about a girl whose peculiar sexual talent—represented on the recording by the sound of clattering castanets—leave boys speechless. ("What they've done for a man, those shaky hands!") One tune, "Odorono" mixes the music-and-ads motif, starting out as a sharp Who pop-ballad before wrapping up its short two-minute stay by becoming an advertisement for deodorant ("She should have used Odorono!") Side one of the original closes out with the greatest of all Who songs, "I Can See For Miles," a wild affair featuring anarchic Keith Moon drums and lyrics megalomaniac enough to anticipate punk rock by a decade. Here is to be found the final word on the one-note guitar solo.
Side two seems to peter out a bit—the commercial bits disappear about midway through—though "I Can't Reach You" is an affecting song about spiritual disaffection, and Pete Townshend's solo acoustic jazz excursion, "Sunrise" is probably the single most beautiful piece of music he has ever recorded, as well as one of his most mature. Highlight: The vastly underrated "Tattoo," which Townshend has described as a lyrical examination of the very different ways that he and his ruffian lead singer Roger Daltrey viewed masculinity, is wrapped in the Who's most pristine, Beach Boys harmonies.
58.) "Sea Change," Beck (2002). After spending all those years farming the turf of lovable and geeky, chameleonic prodigy—the chic nerd who could, when called upon, bust out a Little Milton harmonica solo or a James Brown dance step—this record came as a real surprise. Certainly, Beck had proven his hand with authentic-sounding gutbucket blues and folk elements from time to time, but nothing prepared the listener for the sweet melancholia of "Sea Change." Which is not to say this is a depressing album. Cathartic yes. But not miserable. With its acoustic ambience and lush, Paul Buckmaster-styled string arrangements, this is Beck's "Forever Changes," but with none of the fixations on urban and social decay. With Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich manning the soundboard, this comes across as easily Beck's most personal album, recorded shortly after Beck's breakup with his girlfriend, and after his conversion to Scientology. There is none of the free-for-all genre-bending experimentation of "Odelay," or the lounge-soul leanings of "Midnight Vultures," but there is something here even better here—genuine emotional feeling and the power of pure melody. That Beck, the glorious "Loser," even approaches the heartbroken resonance of Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks" on this album is something of a miracle. Makes one wonder what else this guy has up his silk, frilly-cuffed sleeve.
59.) "I Just Can't Stop It," The English Beat (1980). Here's the deal. If you were an early '80s frat boy, and you organized a keg party for your fellow Teeks without managing to slip this ska album on at some point during the festivities, sorry to break the news, but your party was a bust. This was the party album of the Reagan era. Though this, the band's debut album, catches Dave Wakeling and gang reflecting a variety of moods over its 45 minutes (they even include a relatively gentle Andy Williams cover "Can't Get Used to Losing You)," "I Just Can't Stop It" never sheds its infectious ska beat. The exciting opener, "Mirror in the Bathroom," is a paranoid paean to cocaine addiction, and might just be the single best tune to come out of the late '70s/early '80s Two Tone ska revival, with its skittering beat and intense band interplay. "Twist and Crawl" ventures into nervy Elvis Costello territory, while "Whine and Grine/Stand Down Margaret" finds the band waxing political against the regime of then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, fading out with a repeated call for racial unity. Highlight: Hard to choose one, but for pure fun it's hard to beat the dub workout "Rough Rider," wherein singer Ranking Roger complains (or is he boasting?), "She was a strong whiner. / A rough rider. / She whiney-whiney last night."
60.) "In the City," The Jam (1977). You can keep your Sex Pistols. We'll take the the Jam, that most Who-like of Class of '77 bands. It all began here for the trio, with this compelling, rough-as-pavement statement of purpose. Immediately, it was clear to anyone comparison shopping during that critical year of 1977 that the Jam had different ideas than either the Clash or the Sex Pistols, their primary competition. While the Pistols could sneeringly cover rock chestnuts like the Monkees' "Stepping Stone," the Small Faces' "What Ya Gonna Do About It," or the Stooges' "No Fun" in concert, they could never consider including non-punk covers on their records. The Clash would steer away from all but reggae dubs and sloganeering statements like "I Fought the Law." But without irony, the Jam willingly mined primordial rock history, recording a careening cover of Larry Williams' "Slow Down" (also recorded by the hated Beatles—-making it an unthinkable choice for most punk bands). The Jam also included the "Batman" theme, a favorite of the mid-60s Kinks, whose subtle influence here would become overt on subsequent Jam albums.
The band, then, were not self-styled political revolutionaries-—Paul Weller even announced that they planned to vote Tory, a remark that would dog them throughout their existence in the age of Thatcher. What they were really was a trio of mod revivalists with a Who-like reverence for early rock and R&B. The most important difference between the Jam and their contemporaries, however, is that the Jam were musically a cut above their competitors. Though Weller's early vocal style was rough (it would improve), the band had a superior bassist in Bruce Foxton and one of punk's only great drummers in Rick Buckler.
Less overtly political than their contemporaries, they were no less angry. "I wanna tell you / about the young ideas. / But you turn them into fears," Weller shouts on "In the City," a sort of "kids rule" update on "Wild in the Streets." "Art School" is a mod manifesto: "Never worry if people laugh at you," Weller coaches. "The fools only laugh 'cos they envy you." A watershed document. Highlight: The rebellious "Away from the Numbers" contains a fairly unique rallying cry for a punk tune, challenging listeners to live in the here-and-now, and chuck all stupid dreams of Utopian anarchy.
61.) "Time Fades Away," Neil Young (1973). The first of Neil Young's "ditch trilogy" (the others being "On the Beach" and "Tonight's the Night"), this album inexcusably remains unavailable on CD. As the prodigiously unsuccessful follow-up to Young's titanic mainstream hit "Harvest," this record marks the key turning point in Young's solo career. As a live album featuring all-new material, the record defied all expectations, trading in the mellow, acoustic country feel of its predecessor for something louder, harsher, edgier and more intensely immediate. The choice to avoid a proper follow-up to "Harvest," Young has noted, was intentional. "When it got there [the public] would have thought that they understood what I was all about and that would have been it for me," he said. "You gotta keep changing." Still, career missions aside, it was probably because it was recorded shortly after the death of Danny Whitten, the leader of Young's most favorite back-up band Crazy Horse, that the album is so agitated—Whitten, in fact, was supposed to be in this band but was fired for being too spaced out. He then promptly went out and suffered a fatal overdose; Young's guilt over that episode permeates "Time Fades Away."
As Young told Rolling Stone in 1975, this is "a very nervous record." The tension is leavened beautifully, however, by a trio of gorgeously idiosyncratic Young solo piano ballads ("The Bridge," "Love in Mind," and "Journey Through the Past"). But these are spread out, separated by an arresting array of howling, ramshackle, country-fried rockers—performed as only angry drunk men can play them. "Time Fades Away" seems to be a swipe at President Nixon, while "Yonder Stands the Sinner" (with unhinged backing vocals from David Crosby and Graham Nash) is pure paranoid dementia ("Yonder stands the sinner: / He calls my name / without a sound!"). The mid-tempo tunes are equally evocative. The downbeat "LA" is a snipe at the "uptight city in the smog," while the wonderful "Don't Be Denied" may be Young's most autobiographical tune, detailing his boyhood struggle as a child of divorce, making his way in a new town and finding solace in music.
Perhaps it's understandable why fans of the comparatively well-balanced "Harvest" rejected this clattering, cathartic mess, but "Time Fades Away" nonetheless stands among Young's best and most underrated recordings, and also one of his most personal and fascinating. Highlight: The album-closing "Last Dance," again with fiery back-up vocals from Crosby and Nash, pivots on a bludgeoning proto-grunge riff worthy of Flipper.
62.) "In Color," Cheap Trick (1977). The second Cheap Trick album is the most consistently engaging of the great little Rochester, Ill., bar band's offerings. True, it is slightly more polite, a little more "pop" than either its verging-on-punk-rock eponymous debut or its nigh-on-hysterical third album "Heaven Tonight"—-both of which are great in their own right. And both those other two discs contain a handful of songs that supercede anything on "In Color" (side one of the original vinyl version of "Heaven Tonight" representing a clear career pinnacle). But "In Color" has a virtue others lack—nary a song that causes the listener to hit the "Skip" button on the CD changer. Guitarist and songwriter Rick Nielsen has crafted some of his finest work here, blending his encyclopedic knowledge of the guitar pop craft with his warped sense of humor, and his ongoing obsession with suicide. Clearly, producer Tom Wermans has cut the crassness quotient to score the band a radio hit—a gambit that failed. But it doesn't really hurt when the songs themselves are this strong.
"Hello There" reprises the fuzz-rock assault of the debut and would remain a concert staple. "Downed" traverses nasty Lennon territory, while "Oh Caroline" and "So Good to See You" represent the band's greatest pure power pop tunes. Only "I Want You To Want Me," a future gold single in a more muscular live version from the Budokan set, truly suffers from Wersman approach though the song itself is good. Highlights: "Big Eyes," one of the most impressive performances on the band's career-making "Live at Budokan," is equally impressive in the studio version, tying an addictive White Album guitar riff to an Aerosmith-styled power chord attack. "Clock Strikes Ten," one of two songs on the album designed to stoke up live crowds, comes very close to stepping out of the Wersman straight-jacket, featuring a scorching, quadrupled "Helter Skelter" guitar riff and rocking with nearly full abandon.
63.) "#1 Record/Radio City," Big Star (1992). "I never travel far without a little Big Star." That's how the Replacements' Paul Westerberg mythologized this brilliant but neglected Memphis power-pop band in his song "Alex Chilton." Thus was a cult born, leading to the release of this glorious two-fer containing the band's first two LPs. We're breaking a sort of unspoken rule here by including a two-fer, but good luck finding either of these records individually on vinyl.
Big Star, one of the '70s most promising and talented bands, were victims of one of the worst distribution tangles ever to beset any pop act. (Only the Flatlanders had worse luck.) The band initially was led by the tag team tandem Alex Chilton and Chris Bell, who shared songwriting duties on "#1 Record," the 1972 debut album. By the following year's "Radio City," Bell had left, leaving Chilton in charge of the zoo. Most critics argue that the second album—the second half of this CD—is superior, and cut for cut that might be true. But Big Star would never sound as simultaneously spirtual and defiant as they do on Chilton's gorgeous "Ballad of El Goodo," nor would they come up with a tune as spine-chilling as his "Thirteen," a teen anthem every bit as sexually knowing as the film of the same name that would emerge 31 years later. Bell's raucously tuneful "In the Street" was strong enough to reemerge as the theme to the TV comedy "That '70s Show" in the late 1990s.
"Radio City" is the darker of the pair. Though he had already walked out on the band, Bell is said to have contributed to a number of these songs, and his presence is strongly felt. Even so, this is Chilton's show, and even as the strongest of the songs ("September Gurls," "Back of My Car") may be the best power-pop tunes of the '70s, power pop plays a relatively bit part in the story here. The strangely funky "O My Soul" threatens to come unglued at any moment with it's I've-changed-my-mind rhythm shifts and jagged Chilton guitar, but holds together on the strength of the propulsive Jody Stephens/Andy Hummell rhythm section. The bleak "What's Going Ahn" is the sound of a band falling apart; the rhythm drags like the final steps on a death march as Chilton's lyrics signal the emotional resignation that would later derail his career. "Mod Lang," on the other hand, is a howl worthy of "Plastic Ono Band." The fact that the album ends with a guileless acoustic ballad, "I'm in Love with a Girl," gives "Radio City" the feel of a harrowing song cycle. The most powerful offering by America's great cult band. Highlights: The gentle, "Sgt. Pepper" meets "Village Green" pastiche "The India Song" sports the band's prettiest melody; "Daisy Glaze," meanwhile, is about as dark as Big Star would ever get--here Chilton takes the listener on a ride from a break-up with a girl, to a the bar where he is about to score some heroin and get into a fight on the dance floor, where he inveighs, "Nullify my life!"
64.) "Magnetic South," Michael Nesmith and the First National Band (1970). Fresh from his final, fitful days with the Monkees, Mike Nesmith traded in his omnipresent stocking cap for a white Stetson and devoted himself full-time to the nascent country-rock movement—-really, only the Byrds, Burritos Bros. and Gene Clark had gotten there sooner. Nesmith's new rustic approach wouldn't have surprised anyone who'd been paying attention to his TV band; some of the best Monkees tunes were country-tinged Nesmith originals. Perhaps because, as a native Texan, he didn't need to learn the C&W vocabulary from scratch, Papa Nez had a different take on the sub-genre than his countrified cousins. The crack unit that Nesmith assembled for these sessions was so comfortable with couuntry music's rules that it could break them with confidence.
The opener, the propulsive "Calico Girlfriend," might be termed "country calypso." "Nine Times Blue" is closer to the straight stuff, but it segues into the funky "Little Red Rider," which is propelled by a jazzy Rhodes piano figure. "The Crippled Lion" features some tasty steel guitar from the great Red Rhodes, with insistent drumming and piano playing keeping the rock quotient high. "Hollywood" is darkly psychedelic, while "Mama Nantucket" cuts the rug like high-octane Doug Sahm, featuring lightning steel runs by Red Rhodes and Nesmith's warm and funny yodeling. "Keys to the Car" highlights Nesmith's lonesome cowboy acoustic strum, and sly Slim Whitman tenor. Sadly, this and Nesmith's other country-rock records--while influential among musicians--didn't do much in the marketplace. Nesmith would go on to far greater business success as a TV and movie producer-—his "Pop Clips" TV show concept was purchased and turned into MTV, while "Repo Man" was one of the great '80s cult films—-and eventually he lost interest in a music career. More's the pity. With the humane and consciously philosophic approach to songwriting he displays here, Nesmith rightly lays claim to the title, "the cosmic cowboy."
Highlights: "Joane," a fluke pop-chart entry, is almost anomalous in popular song for its calm portrayal of a cuckolded lover's patient, compassionate acceptance of the wayward, and possibly doomed woman he loves. Nesmith infuses the Jimmie Rodgers chestnut "The One Rose (That's Left in My Heart") with a surprising grace. Hank Cochran's "Beyond the Blue Horizon" plays cinematically, complete with sound effects of a hard-working farmer rising from his morning bed, walking past the chicken coop to mount and start up his tractor as he begins his day. The song takes on a grand sweep, building to an impassioned climax, ending only when the tractor pulls back into the farmyard at the end of the day, and the farmer cuts its engine to the evening sound of chirping crickets. It's one of the '70s truly great moments on vinyl.
65.) "Fun House," The Stooges (1970). Probably the most lacerating studio album ever released. Certainly it was the most brutal recording to emerge before the West Coast hardcore punk boom of the early 1980s. This album, in fact, sired modern punk rock. Before the Stooges emerged as a group of teen-aged Detroit thugs, bored to death and looking for action, punk rock was made by snarling, semi-pro psychedelic garage bands with primitive fuzz boxes and squeaky Vox Continental organs. After the Stooges, punk rock quite simply was music for punks by punks, with an attitude stupid and predatory enough to send social scientists into paroxysms of panic. Rock music, indeed popular culture, had never seen a character quite like Iggy Pop, leader of the group, who attained widespread notoriety—not that it helped record sales—for his crazed onstage behavior, which often enough included rolling around the stage in peanut butter and broken glass, then playing the rest of the show covered in that unholy and bloody brew. Which is not a bad visual metaphor for the brutality of the music itself.
On paper, there is little to recommend this record. The pile-driving, unnerving squall of the music frames Iggy's howling lyrics, which are little more than shouted odes to the teen hedonism. Both the music and the lyrics sound as though they are simply knocked off in an afternoon by a bunch of delinquents in possession of stolen gear. Which is to say it is as direct as it can possibly be. And in their day they were utterly reviled, except by a small community of devoted cultists, none so crucial as the rock critic Lester Bangs, who helped to preserve and carry forward the Stooges' punk attitude well beyond their own time. Today, the record is a perennial entry on critics' best-of lists. And that's despite the fact that the first couple of songs are almost sonically interchangeable. It simply doesn't matter because this is music that is not about tunefulness and musicality. It is strictly about aggression and power, and about capturing on vinyl the fury of the band's notorious live show. Which is a matter worth pondering: That there was music like this being produced live on stage in 1969 and 1970 almost buggers the imagination.
Highlights: "T.V. Eye" is Iggy suffering a nasty bout of paranoia, while "Loose" is so boastful of bad behavior that it would be comic if it didn't sound so scary. "1970" summarizes the before-I-get-old attitude of the entire record with its first line: "Out of my mind on Saturday night / 1970 is rolling in sight." The closer "L.A. Blues" is a fiery free jazz freakout that has a great deal more to do with Ornette Coleman's wildest moments than anything the Beatles or Stones ever attempted. This car-crash of a record is so simultaneously ugly and compelling that it is all but impossible to turn away.
66.) "Satan is Real," The Louvin Brothers (1960). Music to convert Unitarians by. A close-harmony duo in the Everly Brothers style, Charlie and Ira Louvin were very much the superior act, creating a body of secular and sacred music through the late 1950s and into the 1960s that ranks among country's greatest and its emotionally resonant recordings. They sang gorgeously and often about damnation and redemption, a fact that is either ironic, tragic, or both: Mandolinist Ira Louvin, the older brother, chief songwriter and soaring tenor, was one cruel, messed-up drunken son of a bitch. Killed in 1965 in a car crash with his latest bride, he had already survived being shot three times in the back by a previous wife after he failed to strangle her. The brothers got booted off an early tour with Elvis Presley, who adored the gospel duo, after Ira drunkenly hissed that Presley was "a white nigger" whose music was "trash." And yet, for whatever it was worth, Ira's Christian devotion never wavered: In his music, it is as if there is no such thing as a secular world, only the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Devil's earthly realm—which was obviously where Ira lived. "That word 'broadminded' is spelled S-I-N," he once sang. "I think religion tortured Ira," his brother later admitted.
Religion certainly tortures this 1960 disc, the Louvin's second all-gospel LP. It sports one of the truly bizarre record covers ever to grace a popular music LP, capturing Charlie and Ira in bright white linen suits, frozen in the middle of some awkward dance step, smiles blazing across their faces, as they stand before what looks like the set of a high school play, replete with burning coals, hellfire and a giant red plywood cutout of a cross-eyed Satan. Reputedly, Ira designed it himself. Satan may be real in this music but he's anything but real in this unintentionally comic, but strangely iconic image.
But, then there is the music. The title track is Ira's irony-free recitation of a old man's confession as he stands amid the church pews to declare, in effect, that the devil made him do it, while warning other parishioners of the hazards of welcoming Satan into one's life. Even the cheesy church organ can't dilute its foreboding impact. Also present is the beautiful "The Christian Life," later covered by the Gram Parsons edition of the Byrds, which enunciates a firm dedication to Christian living but plays like a heartbroken lament, as Charlie mourns, "My buddies shun me / since I turned to Jesus." "The Angels Rejoiced Last Night" tells of a father's redemption from his libertine life after the death of his wife, leaving him to raise the kids alone. The Louvins' cover of the Carter Family's "Kneeling Drunkard's Plea" (later recorded by Johnny Cash) is the flip side—-this time, the sinner simply waits too long to seek his salvation. In "Satan's Jeweled Crown," Ira issues his own confession: "Drinking and running around, / the things I would do were the will of the Devil. / I was selling my soul for Satan’s jeweled crown." None of this would have much interest beyond the kitsch value if not for the power of the music, as crystal clear, impassioned and beautiful as country ever got.
67.) "Highway to Hell," AC/DC (1979). This is the record that established Australia's AC/DC as one of the world's great hard-rock acts. It is also the last to include lead singer Bon Scott, who died of alcohol poisoning after leaving a party several months after the record's release, thereby becoming yet another member of the sex, drugs and rock'n'roll idiot's club. Much has been made of the eerie prescience of the album's hedonistic title track, in which Scott seems possessed of a premonition of the fate that awaits him, yet seems perfectly gleeful about the prospect. That's almost certainly because he did not see his death coming, just another concert tour. The song is really just part and parcel of the record's overarching theme, which, no surprise, is about the lascivious joys of sex and booze.
What makes "Highway to Hell" stand out from the band's more chaotic previous records are the pop touches added by producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange. "Girls Got Rhythm" starts with a stomping four-on-the-floor kick drum beat that falls somewhere between Devo and disco, but its titanic guitars and howling Scott vocal leave no room for doubt that this is high-tensile metal. "Walk All Over You" begins with a menacing four-chord pattern busted up by several Phil Rudd drum cracks that soon go racing off into overdrive, until Scott's brutish lyrics ("You're looking so good under me") kick in. "Night Prowler" is the band's take on the Stones' "Midnight Rambler" rapist's theme, ending perversely with a Mork quote: "Shozbot, nanoo-nanoo!"
None of this exactly marks "Highway to Hell" as a virtuous recording, but the poison is leavened by with the band's cheery, beery punk spirit, and diamond-hard rock. They know they're being outrageous, and clearly, it's fun as hell for them. The music, too, is a revelation, a clinic in minimalist heavy metal. Lange gets much of the credit, cleaning up the band's fuzz-toned guitars without lightening them up one ounce. The effect is to give all the instruments room to breathe, making every nuance audible, and revealing AC/DC as a high-precision heavy metal machine for the ages.
68.) "Band on the Run," Paul McCartney & Wings (1973). Much maligned, Macca finally scores an unvarnished triumph sans Beatles (and in truth, without Wings, as two of the four instrumentalists nixed the trip to EMI's Nigerian studio). McCartney even earns a golf clap from the critics in the process. It's odd, perhaps, to contend that a record hasn't received its due after hitting No. 1 on the Billboard album charts and spawning three top 10 singles—including the No. 1 hit title track—but in some sense, "Band on the Run" is as despised as it is loved, containing everything the Lennonistas love to hate about Sir Paul.
"Bluebird," is bright acoustic pop, "Helen Wheels" is effervescent rock'n'roll silliness, "Mrs. Vanderbilt" is self-consciously cute in the manner of McCartney's "Ram." What sets "Band on the Run" apart from much of McCartney's output is that this album showcases Macca as a writer, not just the effortless tunesmith. Every song, in one way or another, addresses a yearning for freedom, some even toying with the theme of rock band as outlaw gang (not unlike the Eagles' "Desperado," released eight months earlier). That it sounds more like a Beatles recording than any other album by the solo Fabs earns it no demerits. This is one of the best-engineered records of the 1970s, an amazing statement given that it was recorded in primitive digs in sub-Saharan Africa. Tony Visconti's overdubbed string arrangements add weight and clarity to songs that otherwise might come across as unsubstantial. McCartney' bass is muscular and precise. Both McCartney and Denny McLain's guitar parts are sharp and economic. But the best element of all is the unbridled creativity and unrestrained passion that McCartney brings to bear on this project, marking the only time he wouldn't need a weighty collaborator to be at his best. "Picasso's Last Words," famously tossed off as a transfixed Dustin Hoffman looked on, is a moving, even optimistic meditation on death. The lilting title track establishes the outlaw theme, making the transition from dirge to sunny folk-rock with a breathtaking orchestral transition. The surging "Jet" shows off McCartney at his most brash and soulful. A much better record than McCartney's detractors will generally admit.
Highlights: "Let Me Roll It" simultaneously parodies and praises John Lennon with its spine-tingling "Cold Turkey" style repetitive guitar lick and cord-shredding vocal. The weird, piano-thumping "1985" is apparently a glance at the future, though it is mostly incomprehensible—no matter, it builds and builds, featuring one of the most thrilling climaxes in the McCartney oeuvre, before dissolving into an abbreviated, melancholic reprise of the title track.
69.) "Oranges and Lemons," XTC (1989). They've done more critically acclaimed albums ("Skylarking") and possibly even greater ones ("Apple Venus Pt. 1")—and no one is suggesting that those other works should be avoided. But for this listener's money, "Oranges and Lemons" is the stuff. The songs of Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding have never been friendlier, funnier, angrier, nor as emotionally charged, by turns, as are the songs on this stubbornly eclectic double album. This is prime latter-day psychedelia, overflowing with ideas, hooks, intelligence and absurdist humor. Though lacking the cohesion that made "Skylarking" feel like a unified statement, "Orange and Lemons" has the virtue of packing some of this great British band's finest songs.
The opener, "Garden of Earthly Delights," chimes, buzzes and swirls, coming on like the opening sequence of Jimi Hendrix's "Axis: Bold as Love" leavened with a dash of earthy maturity. "Mayor of Simpleton," while perhaps less than entirely sincere in its insistence on swearing off intellect, is still a rollicking good time. It couldn't be much farther afield from the grimacing Reagan-era cynicism of "Here Comes President Kill Again," sort of a poppier "Won't Get Fooled Again" with the bloody coups left on view. And that song itself couldn't differ much more from Partridge's rocking, absurdist statement of romantic purpose, "Merely a Man." The band could arguably be more impressive than it is here, but they were never more engaging. Highlights: The Sgt. Pepper-esque "The Loving" updates gauzy Summer of Love sentiments by preaching hard, practical logic's steadying effect on fostering brotherhood "for lifting humanity higher." The dreamy, album closing "Pet Sounds" pastiche "Chalkhills and Children" is simply the most beautiful piece of music this band ever concocted, thus making it one of the most grandiloquent musical moments of the 1980s.
70.) "Focus," Stan Getz (1962). At the moment where hard bop was just starting to devolve into the eye-rolling ecstasies of free jazz, Stan Getz was regarded as yesterday's news. As a white musician in what was becoming insistently a black man's art, and as the top purveyor of old-school West Coast cool jazz to boot, Getz—while still popular with the record-buying public—was artistically relegated to the slag heap. Until, that is, he put new things into "Focus."
An amazing, strange, yet always accessible jazz recording, it captures Getz consciously stepping away from the underground and heading in the opposite direction. Rather than deconstruct the music to explore irrational relationships between notes and chords, Getz sticks with his cool jazz sensibilities to explore the "Third Stream" possibilities of his musical approach, using the framework of neo-classical orchestration. This is not another tired variation on the Charlie-Parker-with-strings motif. Eddie Sauter's compositions and arrangements were built from the ground up with Getz in mind—the shimmering, gorgeous "Her," for example, is a tribute to Getz' mother (who died during the sessions).
Sauter composed these darkly emotive scores with a big "hole" in them—key melodic lines in each piece were left unwritten. It is into that gap that Getz steps expertly forward; his tenor sax lines, many improvised live in the studio, telepathically glide in and out and through Sauter's alternately nervy and romantic pieces. Miles Davis pulled similar concerto duties in such Gil Evans collaborations as 1957's "Miles Ahead," but where Davis always stood aloof from the rawer feelings of the music, like some impartial commentator, Getz's horn bathes Sauter's score in complimentary, even deeper emotions. (Certainly this is true of "Her.") His horn is the heart of this great album, crying out as if overwhelmed by the beauty and drama of the classicist score. Bossa nova be damned, this is the greatest work of Getz's great career. Highlights: The scintillating tension of "Night Rider" is first relieved, then wound tighter by Sauter's insistent staccato strings, while Getz's sax provides the perfect emotional shadings. "Once Upon a Time," rather than running off with its clichéd title and flowing languidly in a dreamy reminiscence, instead crowds in restlessly, like a disturbing thought encroaching at an inopportune time. "A Summer Afternoon," has a beautifully cinematic sweep, drawing pictures, both hazy and sharp, like a sure-footed short story.
71.) "Meet John Doe," John Doe (1990). If there is a more vivid and moving musical chronicle of a man's struggle to beat back alcohol's demons, show me. On this album, the former bassist/vocalist with the great Los Angeles punk band X, seems to slide on a pair of dusty cowboy boots and fraying jeans, point himself generally in the direction of El Centro, and start walking down that long, lonely, dangerous road—a bottle of tequila in one hand, a guitar in the other. This is roots rock of the highest order, owing as much to Los Lobos and Dave Alvin as it does to Merle Haggard—though conspicuously little to his old band. It also elevates Doe to a place among the greatest of rock singers and lyricists.
In a way, Doe's debut solo disc is his "Blood on the Tracks," although the comparisons stop at Doe's angry and dissolute study of a relationship destroyed. Musically, this rocks far harder than anything in the Dylan canon, and if anything it tops even the spewed rage Dylan mustered in "Idiot Wind." But—as is true for any alcoholic—there are moments of pure clarity, regret and compassion here that render the suffering narrator of these poignant songs an empathetic—-if also pathetic-—figure.
The record actually starts with something of a miscue. "Let's Be Mad" is a middling attempt to summon the ghosts of X, with vocalist Julie Christensen stepping in to fill the role of Doe's X co-vocalist (and ex-wife) Exena Cervenka. But "Meet John Doe" hits its stride immediately afterward with "Matter of Degrees," wherein Doe delivers the line that cuts to the heart of the album: "Changes will come / to steal what we have. / Call it a disease / but it's only a matter of degrees." The sneering barroom blues stomp of "Dyin' to Get Home" works as a hilariously repulsive kiss-off to a lost lover, as a viciously drunken Doe stares into his bottle of tequila and sings, "Maybe my dreams will come true / 'cause I'm French-kissing that worm / and thinking of you." The lovely and sad "Take #52," co-written with Cervenka (who does not appear on the album), describes the struggle of a singer distractedly trying to deliver an honest vocal reading in the recording studio—drink, of course, at the ready—while his life is falling apart. But the heart of the album is the trio of haunted ballads near the album's end, "With Someone Like You," "By the Light,' and "My Offering," the last of which is a painful autobiographical tribute to his ex-wife ("I hear opera from a busted TV in Atlanta / this hotel room is starting to spin / at the Southern Hospitality Inn / My God! That soprano sounds like you.") This is one of rock's most powerfully sincere recordings. Highlights: The controlled passion in Doe's vocal on the Hank Cochrane weeper "It's Only Love" is staggering. And you'll not often hear a more venomously misnathropic blast than the raging, ironically titled "Worldwide Brotherhood."
72.) "Anita Sings the Most," Anita O'Day (1957). If there is a female analogue to Frank Sinatra, here she is. Anita O'Day was something else from the moment the stepped up to the mike during the swing boom of the early 1940s. A full-fledged diva long before anyone outside opera ever used the term, she nonetheless refused to be anything but one of the boys in the band, forsaking the requisite femme fatale evening gowns in favor of boyish band jackets and skirts during her formative years with Gene Krupa's band. After passing through a period recording novelty sides with Stan Kenton's group in the late '40s, O'Day drifted through the first part of the 1950s—developing serious drug dependencies in the process. It was only after she signed as the inaugural artist to the fledgling jazz label Verve that she hit her artistic stride, and this fantastic 1957 date with the Oscar Peterson Quartet is the best of a great string of sides for that label. What Grace Slick did for rock a decade later, O'Day did for jazz—she made her voice another instrument in the band. Slick used her voice to replicate the banshee squall of the electric guitar; O'Day's impeccably rhythmic vocalizations sound as though Charlie Parker's sax had somehow sprouted a tongue and mastered English idioms. O'Day is a full-fledged bebop musician, as exploratory and innovative in her way as any of the pioneers, always eager to explore the harmonic and rhythmic relationships between the notes in the chord.
Most jazz fans remember O'Day as the cool beauty beneath the funky lampshade hat, scatting her way through a deconstruction of the old standard "Tea for Two" on the film "Jazz on a Summer's Day." That is the O'Day on display here. Like Louis Armstrong before her, O'Day is never content to sing a song's melody straight, prefering to bounce around the chords, searching for whatever elusive surprises the music might secretly contain. Peterson and crew tear into this album's opener, "S'Wonderful/They Can't Take That Away From Me," at an impossible pace, but O'Day effortlessly handles the dual tasks of keeping up with the torrid pacing while moving the song farther forward. "Old Devil Moon," ratchets down the mph, but O'Day is no less impressive, as her smoky vocals glide up and down the contours of the melody like a monarch butterfly negotiating a summer breeze. But it's always about the song, not the singer with O'Day, and she infuses ballads "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" with the warmth they demand. Highlight: You'll be wanting to order this man-eater a martini within the first few bars of "Stella by Starlight," and thinking of proposing marriage before the close of "I've Got the World on a String" (even as you're tragically aware that this big-city dame would consume a better man than you'll ever be). Proceed with caution.
73.) "East-West," The Butterfield Blues Band (1966). Remember those pointless, wandering jams that took up entire sides of those old vinyl LPs? (Think side two of Love's otherwise stellar "Da Capo.") You can blame these guys for that. With their second, immeasurably influential second album, the Butterfield Blues Band busted out of their Chicago blues straightjacket—which had resulted in an admittedly stunning eponymous debut—and they began experimenting with forms, scales and rhythms in a pioneering fusion of jazz, blues and Eastern modal music. Specifically, this band, which sported two members of Howlin' Wolf's backing band, almost singlehandedly sparked the psychedelic movement.
The album starts out traditionally enough, or so it appears at first glance, with an electric South Side reading of Robert Johnson's "Walking Blues." But it soon becomes apparent that there is something different at play here. The drumbeat underneath the tune is not the usual loose blues backbeat, but comes across stiffened, almost martial. Allen Toussaint's "Get Out of My Life, Woman," gets a straight pop-blues reading, not unlike what the Pretty Things might have done with it, while "I Got a Mind to Give Up Living" is an intense blues dirge. All in all, these introductory nuggets are relatively standard stuff, if also expertly played and tremendously entertaining. But after that, the standard forms are exploded, first in the modal cover of Cannonball Adderly's instrumental "Work Song," featuring a striking Wes Montgomery-meets-Roger McGuinn solo from Mike Bloomfield. By the time we get to the sighing cover of Mike Nesmith's "Mary, Mary" we know we're not going back to where we started, though "Two Trains Running" is a quick reminder that all this stuff is, after all, the blues.
The closing title track is the main attraction here, however. A mesmerizing 13-minute tour de force inspired by guitarist Bloomfield's maiden LSD voyage, it features some of the most distinctive guitar playing waxed during the '60s, courtesy of Bloomfield, with key support from Elvin Bishop. The song seamlessly stirs heavy blues, samba, jazz and other ingredients into Indian raga, Eastern scales, stirring it all together with a flowing imaginativeness. It would be no exaggeration to say that this is one of those rare performances that literally launched a thousand bands—the Doors, Santana and Traffic being only three of the more obvious contemporary examples. Special kudos belong to Muddy Waters' former drummer Billy Davenport, whose jazz sensibilities corral this unruly tune, infusing it with a sublime logic. It's no exaggeration to say this truly was one of the 20th century's pivotal musical moments.
74.) "Living With War," Neil Young (2006). You're right, it's only been out a few months. But, we had a little longer than that to assess this record because, in what may be an unprecedented move for a major recording artist, Young made the entire album available for streaming on his Web site (http://www.neilyoung.com). And hallelujah! This is prime Neil, the raucous guitar rock standing as a worthy successor to 1990's "Ragged Glory" (sonically it is not that far a cry from the electric side of "Rust Never Sleeps"). It is also the angriest album of Neil Young's career, and easily the most topical collection he has ever penned. This is anti-war, anti-Bush era propaganda, pure and simple. If you're on his side, you will approve. If you're not, you've already gotten the word from Neil Cavuto to skip this one. Either way, you might wonder—-as Young does—-why it is virtually the exclusive domain old and middle-aged warhorses (Young, John Fogerty, Kris Kristofferson, Pearl Jam and Steve Earle) to offer critical artistic comment on this incredibly turbulent time?
"After the Garden" starts things off with a bang and an apocalyptic holler. "Won't need no shadow man running the government / won't need no stinkin' war," Young sings. The title track is a messy anthem: "I'm livin' with war everyday," Young sings, as a heartfelt chorus commiserates behind him. The album's most publicized and notorious song, "Let's Impeach the President," is probably the weak link, the melody a bit too sing-song, the topicality threatening to turn burdensome. What effectiveness it has comes from Bush himself, as Young strings out a series of Bush's own quotes to support his case for ousting the prez.
Clearly, the Canadian singer who 20 years ago waxed rhapsodic about Ronald Reagan has no similarly warm feelings for the sitting Republican president. With the exception of the emotion-laden choir reading of "America the Beautiful," this is all noisy, messy music, giving every indication of being written and recorded in a flurry. That doesn't detract; if anything, it puts the record in the here and now in a way that probably hasn't been achieved since Young himself pushed his Kent State screed, "Ohio" out the door and in the stores within a week of the 1970 campus massacre. Highlight: In "Restless Consumer," Young takes a tentative stab at humor, thundering against Madison Avenue hypnotists while vocally playing the crotchety old grouch part to the hilt. But the lyrics betray very serious ends. "Don't need no ad machine telling me what I need," he growls. "Don't need no Madison Avenue war. / Don’t need no more boxes I can't see / covered in flags ... / Don't need no more lies."
75.) "Ace of Spades," Motorhead (1980). At the time of its release in 1980, this album by U.K.'s Motorhead—the name being British slang for speed freak—was the greasiest, grimiest, fastest and most irresponsibly awe-inspiring heavy metal music on the planet, and not much in the 26 years following its release has topped it.
This is the definitive studio document of Motorhead's classic trio lineup, with roaring vocalist/bassist Lemmy leading "Fast" Eddie Clarke on guitar and "Philthy Animal" Taylor on drums. It features nothing but most low-down, biker-gang outlaw anthems. The high-velocity title track, the single off the record, provides the band with its archetypal statement of purpose, using poker imagery to poke a stiff middle finger at the Grim Reaper ("You know I'm born to lose / and gambling's for fools, / but that's the way I like it, baby. / I don't want to live forever!") Nothing here quite reaches that totemic level, but with 120 mph fastballs like "Jailbait," "Love Me Like a Reptile" and "The Chase is Better than The Catch," you can rest assured that you will not be bored. Repulsed, maybe, if you don't dig a big of scuzz under your nails from time to time. But bored? Impossible. Highlight: If they had never managed to write "Ace of Spades," the band's screaming ode to self-destruction, "(We Are) The Roadcrew" would have crashed in to fill the anthemic void.
-- Kevin Featherly
