101 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
Posted 12:00 a.m., April 13, 2006
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The first of four parts.
This household recently acquired a really fun book entitled, "1,001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die." Lots of excellent choices there, some arguable ones, some grave omissions, but all in all a great effort. But it's too long! How can any of us be sure we'll last long enough on this mortal coil to hear that many records?
So I've decided to fashion my own list, this one a more concise version geared for an anxious age at the precipice. I'm only listing 101 albums. Surely we'll all have enough time to check out that many before the sun is blotted out.
No point in beating around the bush. We'll list the world's greatest albums, best ones first, as voted on and reviewed by the council of critics that live and work inside my head. (Ten of these choices--I won't reveal which--are contributed by the object of my affections, Tammy Nelson.)
The top 25 records on my list, and a review of each, follows below. The rest will follow over the coming week or so (maybe two), with the full list of 101 indispensible discs to be published with the last volley of reviews.
And awa-a-a-y we go....
1.) "The Beatles" (The White Album), The Beatles (1968). Obvious, I know. Sue me. It's my list. My defense is that I have not, at least, chosen the two currently trendiest choices among top Beatles' discs, namely "Revolver" or "Sgt. Pepper." Love 'em both, but when it comes to the Fabs' record that most often ends up in my disc changer, this is the one. The White Album functions as a kind of fractious manifesto for a band that knows too well it is about to implode--Ringo actually did quit during the sessions, leaving Paul McCartney to play drums on the sly Beach Boys pastiche, "Back in the U.S.S.R." Bursting with creativity, this double LP plays almost as if the group feels an urgency to put this eclectic parade of songs into circulation before it is simply too late. The White Album also marks the point where John Lennon wrests the creative control of the band away from Paul McCartney (witness the avant-garde sound collage "Revolution 9"). Highlights: John Lennon's nose-thumbing, myth-puncturing "Glass Onion"; the cheerfully spastic "Everybody's Got Something to Hide (Except for Me and My Monkey)," soon to be covered by Fats Domino; McCartney's wistful, summery "Mother Nature's Son"; and George Harrison's ghostly "Long, Long, Long." (Note that "Helter Skelter," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Happiness is a Warm Gun" are neglected in this highlights list, demonstrating just how superior an album this really is.)
2.) OK Computer," Radiohead (1997). Pigeonholed as a kind a Pink Floyd for the '90s, Radiohead reached the upper stratosphere with one of rock's most accomplished records, an album that even today, nearly a full decade on, represents a digital recording technology high water mark. Yet this is no bleep-blop keyboard bonanza, but a full-on electric guitar assault; its many swatches of MIDI-based electronica serve merely to flesh out the sonic palette of this most organic of aural feasts. A darkly emotional, claustrophobic masterpiece of modern rock. Highlights: Thom Yorke's soaring, Bono-styled vocals on the opener, "Airbag," the crazed but somehow inevitable guitar rave in the middle of the scarifying "Paranoid Android," and everything about the piano-driven rejectionist anthem, "Karma Police."
3.) "Smile," Brian Wilson (2004). The most famous unreleased record in the history of rock music, The Beach Boys' "Smile" was resuscitated, re-recorded and brought to glorious life in 2004, thanks to the persistence the Wondermints' Darian Sahanaja, a member of Wilson's crack touring band. That this record ever saw the light of day is miracle enough; that it even approaches its grand expectations is almost incomprehensible. But it turns out that the 2004 version of "Smile," while adhering tightly to the sounds and arrangements of the abandoned 1967 original, is as much of a piece with this time as of the late 1960s. Wilson and co-composer Van Dyke Parks' simultaneously naïve and hard-eyed take on Americana registers with all the rustic beauty it might have had if it had beat "Sgt. Pepper" to market as it was supposed to. Only the quirky "Vegetables" seems firmly frozen in the hippy-dippy era from which it springs. Small complaint: "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" is about two shades less horrifying here than the quivering original. Also, for the uninitiated, the bizarre alternate lyrics to this version of "Good Vibrations" actually represent Brian Wilson's original (abandoned) set of lyrics. These likely were chosen to keep cousin Mike Love out of the "Smile" royalty cookie jar. Highlights: Now, we finally get to understand what the loony, previously wordless "Do You Like Worms" (retitled "Roll Plymouth Rock") is about--turns out it's a pretty nifty bit of subversive social satire. Highlight: If you can get through the second suite, from "Wonderful" through "Surf's Up" without a profound emotional reaction, you should probably consider medication.
4.) "In the Wee, Small Hours," Frank Sinatra (1955). The first concept album? Country picker Merle Travis might have a claim to that distinction with his 1947 blue-collar tableau, "Folk Songs of the Hills." Sinatra himself had two earlier records that qualify for the concept-album tag. Doesn't matter. With this, his first 12-inch LP, Ol' Blue Eyes provided the blueprint for the many concept albums that would follow in the rock era--for better or worse. "Wee Small Hours" is Sinatra's bluer-than-blue exposition on the crack-up of an intense love affair, having been recorded shortly after the failure of his marriage to the impossibly beautiful Ava Gardner. This deceptively simple songbook, arranged by Nelson Riddle, is the sound of existential melancholy itself, the chronicle of a lonely man, lost in stunned thought, wandering aimlessly through the midnight New York streets in search of who knows what. Notably, it also ranks among the jazziest performances of Sinatra's career. A landmark 20th century recording. Highlights: You can take your pick, but your ears will never stop echoing with the harrowing sound of that broken man moaning his way through the elegantly aching title track.
5.) "The Village Green Preservation Society," The Kinks (1968). Released five years to the day after the assassination of John Kennedy, it would seem obvious that with this most nostalgic record by this most British of bands would have caught the zeitgeist of a generation grown weary of all that violent, oppressive late '60s turbulence. Didn't happen, in no small part because the Kinks were at this point barred from touring the U.S., due to a union dispute. But the fact is, the Kinks were no longer making much of an impression in their native U.K. by late 1968 either. Thus, "Village Green," at the time of its release (the same week as the White Album) ranked among the most spectacularly failed recordings of the 1960s. But, as leader Ray Davies would note on a subsequent record, every dog has his day, and "Village Green" gradually gained acceptance, becoming a perennial steady seller 30 years after its release, consequently setting the stage for the mid-1990s Britpop resurgence that saw acts such as Blur, Oasis and Pulp taking the world by storm. That this music would ultimately prevail in the marketplace is no surprise--Davies' humane, somehow apolitically Marxist worldview cannot be forever ignored. Highlights: "Do You Remember Walter" cinematically captures a fading friendship. The elegiac "Village Green" (one of two tracks with that phrase in the title) is a wonder, deftly depicting small-town English life in a world that means to pass by such simple folk. This album, as one of its contemporary critics suggested, is a record 100 years out of its time--one way or the other. Highlight: The album sports one of the all-time brilliant pop lyric lines: "People take pictures of each other / just to prove that they really existed."
6.) "Hank Williams' Greatest Hits," Hank Williams (1961). Out of print now, so you'll have to hunt. If you succeed, you'll find nothing here but the Talmudic essentials from the founding father of contemporary country music. This 14-song MGM package gets the edge from this critic over Mercury's arguably superior 1978 compilation "40 Greatest Hits" simply because it is the LP that my parents had around the house as I was growing up. Irony alert: I hated this music as a child--the swooping "Kaw-Liga" literally made me nauseous. But like any contemporary adult male from a rural American background, it only took one difficult romance to complete the conversion and "get" the essence of King Hank--the heartsick progenitor of modern folk poetry. Highlights: The best of the best are all here, so pick any one, but for my money the capitulating "You Win Again" takes the loner's sweepstakes.
7.) "Highway 61 Revisited," Bob Dylan (1965). It is no small pleasure to me that perhaps the most revolutionary rock record ever recorded stems from right around the moment of my birth. This is Dylan at his knowing, acid-tongued best, capturing the moment just before he drifted off into the cowboy cosmos with 1966's sprawling "Blonde on Blonde," from whence he simply checked out of the revolution. Not that Dylan Mach '65 is standing at the proper folkie political barricades. Here, Dylan's revolt is purely musical and personal, aimed as much at his rebellious folk audience as at any powers that be, and as such "HIghway 61" is utterly radical, precisely because it rejects straight liberal politics. The mincing, bluesy, harmonica-drenched music here turned rock on its ear, from the opening slap of the amplified snare on "Like a Rolling Stone" to the laser-focused satire of the epic "Desolation Row," a song that opens with an oblique reference to a 1920 mob lynching in Dylan's native Duluth, Minn. Highlights: You can groove all day to the chugging "From a Buick 6," but the sound money's on the suspicious, bluesy snarl of "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, it Takes a Train to Cry." Bob's best.
8.) "Nevermind," Nirvana (1991). I'm a lousy oracle for predicting pop culture phenomena--I thought the mid-'90s Honeydogs represented the Second Coming. But I was right about Nirvana, from my first glimpse of their pep-rally-in-a-dungeon video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit." And of course, I was hardly alone. From the moment this power trio par excellence released that hammering slacker anthem, it was obvious that the pop landscape had suddenly changed. Much has been made of Nirvana's wedding of the Beatles/Black Sabbath sounds, and its Pixies-styled stop/start, quiet/loud dynamics, but its hurricane force came from the voice and howling guitar of the late Kurt Cobain. Coming on like the sociopathic, pot-dealing kid next door, Cobain was the John Lennon of his generation, impaling his music with his personal pain in a way that was both repellent and magnetic, both tuneful and caterwauling--again, like Lennon. It's impossible to guess where this all would have led--was the squalling follow-up, "In Utero," the shape of things to come or simply an audience-shedding detour? It's impossible to say. What we do know is that, with "Nevermind," rock was reintroduced to its own seared, rejected-kid soul. Is it any wonder that all those crotch-rocking hair bands disappeared almost immediately? Highlights: It's a marvel how the rollicking yay-ay-ay-yay's of "In Bloom" gloriously mask the ultimate teen drop-out yarn. And no one since Leadbelly has described the hobo life to such spine-tingling effect as Cobain manages effortlessly to do with his spectral "Something in the Way."
9.) "Forever Changes," Love (1967). The Doors' Jim Morrison once declared that his career ambition was to be as big as Love. He wasn’t declaring himself the Messiah. He was talking about this terrific if ill-fated Los Angeles rock combo, fronted by two black men, which produced what might well be the single most musically brilliant document of the decade. At this point, singer and chief songwriter Arthur Lee had yet to descend into the madness that left him a homeless beggar by the end of the 1970s (thankfully he has since rebounded). The music might be described as Herb Alpert meets the Left Banke, featuring the Byrds. Rarely has a rock arrangement been so purely lyrical, and never has such gorgeously baroque music been welded to such a perverse libretto. "The snot has caked against my pants / it has turned into crystal," Lee croons at one point before describing the trippy nightmare of his apartment's spigot cascading a sickening gray blood-mud. "If you want to count me," he adds in his riot-wizened brush-off to the hippy dream, "count me out." Lee later said he composed this album as a swan song, because he expected he would soon be dead. And yet, there is nothing fatalistic about this music, ever chiming, ever triumphant, totally incongruous and yet perfectly inevitable in the context of this vision of the Summer of Love's dark flip side. The band would never again scale such heights. Highlights: The titles themselves are worth the price of admission: "Maybe the People Would Be the Times, or Between Clark and Hillsdale" is one. "The Good Humor Man, He Sees Everything Like This" is another. It's hard to beat the opening, Brian MacLean composed "Aloneagainor," but the rousing closer "You Set the Scene" contains the true heart of this great record.
10.) "Younger than Yesterday," The Byrds (1967). It's hard to believe that this record captures L.A.'s jangly quartet on the commercial descent. True, erstwhile leader Gene Clark has flown the coop by this point, there is nothing here quite as groundbreaking as the John Coltrane-aping "Eight Miles High," and there is one nerve-racking track, David Crosby's droning, ill-considered "Mind Gardens" that nearly ruins the record. But everything else here is pure gold. Hugh Masekela adds a touch of third world class with his trumpet solo on the savage anti-music-business riposte, "So You Want to Be a Rock'n'Roll Star." David Crosby, despite the misstep of "Mind Gardens," emerges as a major songwriter with two gems, "Renaissance Fair," and the gently manipulative "Everybody's Been Burned," often regarded as the greatest of all Byrds tracks. Not to be outdone, Roger McGuinn makes several key contributions, particularly on "CTA-102," an extension of his sci-fi obsessions. Most impressive of all is the emergence of a pre-Burrito Bros. bassist Chris Hillman, who steps forward with four songs, including two entirely effective proto-country-rock pieces, "The Girl With No Name," and "Time Between." Highlights: Hillman's "Thoughts and Words," a surging, ominous chant that could have fit seamlessly on the Beatles' "Revolver," and McGuinn's soaringly lysergic 12-string solo on the album-closing Crosby-Hillman composition, "Why." As a bonus, the record features the best of the band's many Dylan covers, the chiming folk-audience kiss-off "My Back Pages."
11.) "At Yankee Stadium," NRBQ (1978). From the point of view of this New York combo, which already had proven its mastery fronting rockabilly pioneer Carl Perkins and covering spacey jazz master Sun Ra, this was just another recording date. But to acolytes, it is Holy Writ, even if "At Yankee Stadium" plays things relatively straight by NRBQ standards, Terry Adams' whacked-out piano arpeggios notwithstanding. There's a bit more sunny Beatles flavor here than on previous NRBQ outings: Joey Spampinato's gorgeously acoustic "I Love Her, She Loves Me" ranks as among a handful of greatest Fab Four tunes that never were. Also on board in this stellar batch are the herky-jerky "Green Light," the sneering, boozy, "Ain't No Free," and Adams' Thelonius Monk-channeling ballad, "Yes, Yes, Yes." Highlight: NRBQ's pedal-to-the-floor rendition of "Get Rhythm" ranks as the greatest Johnny Cash cover ever waxed.
12.) "Moanin'," Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers (1958). Jazz as an art form was nearing the apex of its evolution at this stage, though revolutionary records were yet to come from the likes of Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy. But history has proven that Blakey's hard-edged post-bop, not the shrieking free-form stylings of Ornette Coleman, truly was the shape of jazz to come. And in retrospect, that's no shocker. Sporting such brilliant sideman as tenor saxman Benny Golson, pianist Bobby Timmons and the young trumpeter Lee Morgan, this highly accessible, audience-pleasing record actually rocks, but without sacrificing one note of its pure-jazz street cred. A towering post-bop achievement. Highlights: Timmons' hard-swinging hit title track, and the soulful soft shuffle of "Along Came Betty." And don't forget the semi-martial "Blues March," one of the great Blakey showcases.
13.) "Let it Be," the Replacements (1984). Minneapolis' beloved Mats were still very much a band at this stage, still recording for local indie shop TwinTone Records, still very much a Minnesota phenomenon. That changed radically with the release of this record, which finds Paul Westerberg fully flowering as a lyricist on his most potent songs, including "Sixteen Blue," the most compelling confused-teen opus since Ray Davies' "I'm Not Like Everybody Else." The Replacements as a unit are stretching out, meanwhile, even if they have yet to quite clean up their musical act--clearly with song titles like "Gary's Got a Boner" and "Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out," the band is not interested in getting too serious. Diaper-donning Bob Stinson is a force on this record; his careening thrash guitar generating an air of anarchic chaos. Later on, the Replacements would learn craftsmanship, but here they are remain raw, almost unfiltered in the best punk rock tradition. It's just that punk rock never felt quite this poignant. Highlights: Westerberg's solo electric-guitar perfectly undergirds the desperate "Answering Machine," while the Mats would never again get more playfully subversive than on their faux lounge-jazz standard "Androgynous."
14.) "Today!" The Beach Boys (1965). OK, it's not "Pet Sounds" (which I love and will find a place for on this list). Its lowlight ("Bull Session with 'Big Daddy'") is just about the worst dreck to pollute any band's '60s output. But the high water marks of "Today!" demarcate the point at which the still-coherent Brian Wilson found his place as a pop-song heavyweight. Almost nothing on "Pet Sounds" (only "God Only Knows" and "Caroline, No," actually) is quite as grand as the greatest songs on this dazzling package. The 'Boys rarely rocked as hard as they do here on "Dance, Dance, Dance" or with as much assurance as on their cover of "Do You Wanna Dance?" By '65, Brian Wilson's lyrical concerns were growing increasingly mature, as evidenced on the anxious "When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)," and the jazz-inflected Dennis Wilson vehicle "Back of My Mind." There is filler, to be sure. "Good to My Baby" and "Don't Hurt My Little Sister" are the kinds of throwaways that peppered earlier lackluster albums. But this LP was the first recorded after Brian Wilson retired from the touring group to concentrate on studio work, and that move produced immediate and immense dividends. The mother lode is a triad of pop delicacies, each written and sung by Brian--"Kiss Me Baby," "Please Let Me Wonder" and "She Knows Me Too Well." These are early explorations of the "Pet Sounds" template, but far more accessible, far less intently artful, and all the more beautiful for it. Anyone searching for the brilliance of Brian Wilson, minus the drug-soaked madness, need look no further than this record. Highlight: Dennis Wilson can't quite decide whether to choose the words "kiss me" or "squeeze me" during a verse of "Do You Wanna Dance": He simply blurts out "s'kiss me"! But why edit? We're having too much fun!
15.) "Demon Days," The Gorillaz (2005). Writing for the All Music Guide, ace critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine called this collection, "one of the few pop records made since 9/11 that captures the eerie unease of living in the 21st century." It's a fitting description for the great dark post-modern electronica album. The Gorillaz haven't entirely shrugged off their conceit of being a cartoon-based virtual pop band, propagated on their debut record. But this time out, Dan "The Automater" Nakamura is absent, leaving former Blur front man Damon Albarn the undisputed ringmaster. Still, the aura of a collective remains unaltered; outsiders provide key contributions to "Demon Days." Hip-hop pioneers De La Soul drape the schizophrenic hit "Feel Good, Inc." with a sense of menace that is the polar opposite of Albarn's sad, folksy little strum in the tune's surprising middle section; Dennis Hopper's narration makes the bizarre fairy tale "Fire Coming Out of the Monkey's Head" even nuttier than it naturally would be; and Shaun Ryder out-funks Prince on the catchy, enigmatic "Dare." A gloomy, spooky, challenging record that sounds like the lost soundtrack to some forgotten cyberpunk classic. Highlights: Two spartan, spine-tingling dead-soul hip-hop workouts, "Kids With Guns" and "Last Living Souls."
16.) "Johnny Cash Sings the Ballads of the True West," Johnny Cash (1965). Kris Kristofferson once described Johnny Cash as the contemporary Abe Lincoln. Had Lincoln been an amphetamine-fueled folk singer obsessed with history, sin and death, Kris might have had a clearer point. But in this incredible record lies the root of whatever legitimacy Kristofferson might claim for those words. This is Cash as omniscient narrator of deepest, darkest Wild West America, mixing pathos and humor--in two cases, literally gallows humor--with equal deftness throughout the record's 20 tracks. Cash had more intensely focused concept records (his "Bitter Tears" is a more powerfully moving experience) but he was never more authoritative or entertaining than on this mixture of song and narration. Under the accuracy-obsessed tutelage of mentor Tex Ritter, Cash mines this vein with such authenticity that the liner notes contain a glossary of Old West terms. In lesser hands, the spoken word "Hiawatha's Vision" would have been an embarrassment, but coming from Cash it rings like the Sermon on the Mount. But if Preacher Johnny is very much a presence here, so is the Sinner Cash. "Hardin Wouldn't Run" celebrates a notoriously murderous gunslinger, while "Mister Garfield" has a perverse ball with a presidential assassination. Cash's basso profundo reading of "Streets of Laredo" is a near miss, but he nails "Johnny Reb," previously a major Johnny Horton hit. "Ballads of the True West" came at a tormented time in Cash's life, and he approached the project with a missionary zeal, trudging solo across desert alkali flats, communing alone in a forgotten Indian burial ground, nearly dying of starvation until a forest ranger stumbled upon him. (All this in the name of research!) A classic chunk of Gothic Americana. Highlights: You will never laugh harder at the plight of a condemned man than you will upon hearing Cash relate the story of murderous insult artist "Sam Hall." Not far behind is another gallows classic, Shel Silverstein's "25 Minutes to Go," later immortalized on "At Folsom Prison."
17.) "London Calling," The Clash (1979). Punk rock's "White Album." Just as the Beatles had done 11 years before, the Clash defied expectations on this record by refusing to acknowledge the straightjacket of the oddly conservative punk rock aesthetic. This record accepts no boundaries, resulting in as great a leap forward from the Clash's debut album as "Abbey Road" was from "Meet the Beatles." Mick Jones, Joe Strummer and company both look back in anger (the black-hearted rockabilly rave-up "Brand New Cadillac," the Spanish Civil War redux, "Spanish Bombs") and forward to the apocalypse (the title track's paean to nuclear war). Though Jones and Strummer were both at the top of their respective games, surprisingly it is normally quiet bassist Paul Simonon who contributes the album's stunning centerpiece, the sproingy drum 'n bass rebel anthem "Guns of Brixton." As panoramic in its subject matter (everything from the local supermarket to cinema idol Montgomery Clift gets a lyrical nod) as it is in its musical stylings, "London Calling" ascends the peak of the punk mountain, taking its place among the greatest of rock albums. Highlights: Joe Strummer's bird of prey screech near the end of "London Calling," the boozy camaraderie of "Rudie Can't Fail," and Strummer's raging change manifesto, "Clampdown," wherein he agitates: "Let fury have the hour. / Anger can be power! / D'you know that you can use it?"
18.) "The Soft Bulletin," The Flaming Lips (1999). Who can question that God has brushed these 'Lips? This last great pop album of the 20th century (with apologies to Travis' emo-classic "The Man Who"), "The Soft Bulletin" deserves every accolade it has garnered in its seven years of existence, though it is much more than a "Pet Sounds" for the '90s some have called it. 'Lips front man Wayne Coyne may sound loonier than Brian Wilson, but this record is a sincere and heartfelt call to arms in a war against insanity. Coyne's childlike flights of fancy may or may not be drug-fueled--certainly he comes across as a rather normal chap in his television interviews. Either way, on the surface, his songs sound completely daft, even when pinned to this record's celestial orchestrations and synth arrangements. "The Spiderbite Song" sounds like something Daniel Johnston might sing in one of his more unhinged moments. But below the Mad Hatter surface is a moving paean to friendship and loyalty. " I was glad that it didn’t destroy you," Coyne sings of that aforementioned spider bite. "How sad that would be. / 'Cause if it destroyed you. / It would destroy me." Just as moving, if still more incomprehensible is the lush solar salute, "A Spoonful Weighs a Ton." "The Soft Bulletin" redefines the concept of the surreal--here we discover that unreality is beautiful, and sanity is pure nuttiness--making it the ultimate prize. Or, in Coyne's words, "the buzz of love is busy buggin' you." Highlight: The pounding heartbeat kick drum that underlies the questing "What is the Light"; the gliding, glistening slide guitar diving dreamily through "Feeling Yourself Disintegrate."
19.) "The Harder They Come," Jimmy Cliff (1972). Reggae existed well before this LP was released as the soundtrack to the Roger Corman exploitation movie. Desmond Dekker had had a worldwide hit with "Israelites" three years before. But the successful exportation of reggae to the United States really only happened with the double-barreled blast of the Corman film and this soundtrack album. Credited to Jimmy Cliff, who indeed is featured on its key tracks, this record samples a far broader swath of the reggae movement than Cliff alone. This is a veritable library of the early reggae's greatest cuts, including the Slickers' great, brooding "Johnny Too Bad," Dekker's "Shanty Town" and the Melodians' hymnal, "Rivers of Babylon." Cliff gets the best songs, however, his soaring gospel voice makes "Many Rivers to Cross" an emotional tour de force, while "You Can Get It If You Really Want It," and the title track are soul rebel classics. An unbeatable sampler, this album functions as an essential primer on the early reggae movement. Highlights: Toots and the Maytals bring the party tunes, contributing two great upbeat numbers, "Pressure Drop," and "Sweet and Dandy," the latter a musical description of a rural Jamaican wedding.
20.) "Pet Sounds," The Beach Boys (1966). It had some hit songs on it, but the buying public on the whole was not really ready for the full flowering of Brian Wilson's compositional ambitions in mid-1966, when this record was released. They swung around quickly, of course; the band's follow-up, the modular, psychedelic single "Good Vibrations" raced to No. 1 on the charts. Fun in the sun, surf boards and groovy fast cars are relegated to the past, replaced on "Pet Sounds" by adult (or at least advanced teen-aged) concerns about marriage, soured relationships, independence and, in the record's stunning coda, "Caroline, No," a woman's possibly drug-fueled dissolution. There are hints of Brian Wilson's deteriorating mental state, one of which would have been overt had not the band vetoed it: "I Know There's an Answer" was originally titled, "Hang On to Your Ego." Further such indicators lie in his poignant protest, "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times," and his anxious declaration, "I know perfectly well I'm not where I should be" in "You Still Believe in Me." Wanting to communicate what he was feeling in these compositions directly, Brian for the only time in the Beach Boys history handles lead vocals on most tracks, though the album's sainted status rests largely upon "God Only Knows," sung angelically by young Carl Wilson. "Pet Sounds" has a few throwaways, albeit highly advanced ones, including "That's Not Me," and the Mike Love-sung "Here Today." But the album's center of gravity is the four sweeping, painfully sensitive ballads Brian sings--"You Still Believe in Me," "Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)," "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times," and "Caroline, No." The greatest of '60s bands would have slayed a key member to claim authorship of any one of these songs (Paul McCartney rather enviously declared "God Only Knows" the most beautiful song ever written). As it was, the effort it took to write, arrange and record this masterpiece nearly slayed Brian Wilson's sanity. Highlights: Brian's ghostly, wordless vocal intro to "You Still Believe in Me"; the sound of those wonderfully pointless barking dogs and the rushing locomotive that accompanies "Caroline, No."
21.) "Straight Up," Badfinger (1971). Power pop doesn't get any better than this. After the Beatles broke up at the beginning of the '70s, Badfinger--the ultimately tragic labelmates to the legendary Liverpudlians--functioned as a kind of surrogate Fab Four. "Straight Up" doesn't really break the Beatles-lite mold; in fact, the mega-hit "Baby Blue" might be the quintessential Beatles imitation. But it does build on the strength of the band's past successes by conjuring up Badfinger's strongest set of songs. Pete Ham, who had already penned and sung one of the '70's greatest singles--the previous album's "No Matter What"--outdid himself on this set, offering the sensitive "Name of the Game," the wizened acoustic rocker "Perfection," and the emotionally charged "Baby Blue." Tom Evans' double-shot of "Money" and "Flying" plays like a lost "Abbey Road" outtake, while Joey Molland's folksy "Sweet Tuesday Morning" rounds out a sharp batch of contributions from the group's lesser writers. In one sense, "Straight Up" represents an embarrassment of riches, boasting production work by both Todd Rundgren and George Harrison. And few pop records of the '70s had a better closing theme than Evans' "It's Over," a heavy mid-tempo number driven by fat twin guitars and impassioned backing vocals. Highlights: Ham's shrill "Take It All," and George Harrison's reassuring guest slide-guitar solo on Pete Ham's greatest pop ballad, "Day After Day."
22.) "A Salty Dog," Procol Harum (1969). With its third long-player, pop's first and best progressive-rock act finally pulls the disparate stands together, while having the luxury of time needed to make its many musical ideas gel in the recording studio. To be sure, the previous year's "Shine On Brightly," was a leap forward from the tossed-together debut, particularly on the guitar-heavy title track. Here, all the band's eclectic elements--the classical aspirations, the basic rock thud, the R&B and soul inflections--magically coalesce. The dramatic, seafaring saga of the title track is arguably the greatest Brooker-Reid composition, outdistancing even "A Whiter Shade of Pale." "The Milk of Human Kindness" could have been an Elvis Costello number, while the bluesy "Juicy John Pink," gives guitarist Robin Trower a showcase for both his guitar work and his nascent songwriting. The last outing from the classic original Procol Harem line-up, this record is solid from front to back and ranks among the pinnacle of '60s rock recordings. Highlights: Matthew Fisher's virtuoso keyboard workout, "Pilgrim's Progress"; Gary Brooker's vulnerable vocals on the lovely acoustic ballad "Too Much Between Us."
23.) "Miles Smiles," The Miles Davis Quintet (1966). Though less celebrated than Davis' groundbreaking "Kind of Blue" (1959), this sophomore album by the second edition of the Davis Quintet is equally compelling, and possibly even more adventurous than its predecessor. "Miles Smiles" is the finest work by arguably the greatest combo that the trumpet master ever assembled, a group that featured Herbie Hancock on piano, Wayne Shorter on tenor sax, Ron Carter on bass and Tony Williams on drums. "Miles Smiles" is the sound of expert musicians pushing and challenging each other to take the music as far as it will go. But in contrast to some of the more "outside" jazz outings recorded around this time (think Pharaoh Sanders, Albert Ayler or even '65-'66 vintage Coltrane), this music never devolves in an atonal squawk fest. The audience is clearly not be this group's first concern, it's all about the excitement of creativity. But in this case, the audience gets to share in the thrill. Remarkably, the record comprises nothing but complete first takes--not one alternative take exists of any of its six compositions (even the no-second-takes-allowed "Kind of Blue" session had one do-over). Highlights: Davis' trumpet playing is a wonder throughout, putting the lie to the legend that he was too lazy ever to leave the middle register; Herbie Hancock's totally improvised, Chopin-like piano solo on the breathtaking "Circles" is a near miracle.
24.) "Muswell Hillbillies," The Kinks (1971). Not generally regarded as among the top five Kinks discs, I most cheerfully reject the prevailing wisdom. Having ditched their long-term contract with Warner-Reprise, the Kinks' first RCA release finds the quintessentially British Ray Davies and Co. breaking their mold and exploring their American musical influences. As such, it is a record loaded with straight folk-rockers ("20th Century Man,") New Orleans jazz, ("Alcohol,") and country stylings ("Complicated Life," "Muswell Hillbilly"). Crucially, this record is the culmination of Davies' most fruitful period as a songwriter, even if his lyrical concerns are beginning to hint at the insularity and obsession with his own mental state that would weigh down most of the rest of his '70s work. No matter, here it all works wonderfully. The last Kinks album that ranks, front to back, among the truly great rock records. Highlight: I dare you to resist smiling through the entirety of the jaunty "Have a Cuppa Tea."
25.) "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," The Beatles (1967). Had George Martin bucked the still-prevailing custom of holding recent hit singles off the Beatles' albums, this record would have been a miracle. Imagine a "Sgt. Pepper," bookended by "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane"--there would be no question of its status as the greatest record in rock history. As it is, while its influence on the later course of rock music is incalculable, "Sgt. Pepper" over the years has garnered a rather inflated reputation. (London Times critic Kenneth Tynan committed the ultimate hyperbolic transgression when he declared its release "a decisive moment in the history of Western Civilization.") Caveats aside, "Pepper" represents the sunset of Beatles unity, and as such truly was a glorious moment in the history of pop music. Not really a cohesive thematic whole, as some have claimed, nearly 40 years on there remains an undeniable spirit of unbridled creativity, freedom and potential that radiates from its glossy surfaces. "Pepper" was the most advanced production of its era, and its songs are undeniably some of the decade's most accomplished. And the Beatles never really topped Lennon's zeitgeist-capturing "A Day in the Life." Highlights: Ringo's wonderful vocal reading of "A Little Help From My Friends," the dizzying tape-loop calliope on "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite"; and that thunderous E-chord drifting slowly off to infinity at the record's close.
To be continued ...
-- Kevin Featherly
