497. Various Artists, "The Indestructible Beat of Soweto"

 


Obviously the touchstone for white Americans with this is that “wow, Paul Simon really lifted this for Graceland,” but let me reiterate that Paul Simon really lifted this for Graceland.  Like you can hear riffs, little melody parts, bits of song that ended up in Graceland (which is #46, btw).  Now, I understand that Simon collaborated with South African musicians and all that but it just seems bad somehow.  Anyway, back to this album.  If I had to think of one word to describe it, it would be “exuberant.”  It’s like bursting out of the grooves with energy.  Just joyful and amazing.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

103. De La Soul, "Three Feet High And Rising"

Image
  Sorry for the service interruption!  Monday I had, like, work stuff to do and yesterday I was picking my wife up at the airport and they lost her bag and we had to file a claim about that and by the time I got home it was well into my Work Hours and you know, I'm just sorry.  (This was tail end of quite a journey for my wife that found her taking off in Ireland and landing in Newark, New Jersey, and then sitting in a plane for almost three hours and then the flight just getting cancelled and then staying in the Courtyard by Marriott in downtown Newark, NJ [not recommended, she says] and then getting on a flight to SFO at 6:30 am and finally getting back here a solid 14 hours later than expected.) Speaking of the greater New York City metropolitan area, a group of kids from Amityville, Long Island, got together in 1988 and started making songs and released this album, one of the best in hip hop or any other genre, in 1989.  De La have been called the "Beatles of hip...
Read more

3. Joni Mitchell, "Blue"

Image
  Do you want the good news or the meh news first?  The good news is that this album is better than the other Joni Mitchell albums we've seen , or at least better for me.  I hated one of them and barely tolerated the other, so I was not expecting to like this, and after three listens yesterday, it was not as bad as I'd feared it would be.  The meh news?  I still don't love Joni Mitchell and I don't particularly like this album. Obviously, since it's the number 3 out of the Top 500 albums ever made, a lot of people feel differently.  Pitchfork called it "possibly the most gutting break-up album ever made," which may be true, who knows, but if it is it's about breaking up with a whole series of dudes, from Graham Nash to James Taylor to some guy named Carey.  (In Pitchfork's estimation, this is the 86th best album of the 1970s, so not exactly in number 3 overall territory). One thing that bugs me is Joni Mitchell's voice, which I find kind of g...
Read more

A break before the final 2: My Personal Top 100, 100-81

Image
  Like many music dorks my age, I've always been captivated by lists.  I mean, obviously, I'm doing this project , which is just my takes on someone else's lists.  From time to time, I've compiled my own lists of my favorite music in some form or another, but I have never undetaken the daunting task of figuring out my favorite 100 albums and then putting them into order from 1 to 100.  It's an inherently transitory task, as it represents my feelings about these albums at this particular date in history.  Nevertheless, the top 20 at least is very, very similar to a top 20 list I made about 15 years ago, so it's not all out of left field. Brief comments on some of the albums, as warranted. 100. New Order, Low-Life Kind of a forgotten New Order album, but the first one I bought, way back as a youth.  I still remember the tracing paper sleeve that let you slide band members photos in and out so you could have whoever you wanted on the cover.  Best known pr...
Read more