Funeral to Finish

  That's right.  This was the Big One, the Capo di Tutti Capi, the perennial number one Best Album of All Time until they let people other than old white guys vote.  Here we have Sgt. Pepper's, demoted to a (relatively) lowly 24.  Don't weep for what we've lost; celebrate what we had. I mean, it's a pretty fucking good album!!  It kicks off, of course, with a performance of the titular faux band that Paul McCartney dreamed up on a flight to London, which then leads into an introduction of "the one and only Billy Shears," who turns out to be Ringo Starr, of all people, never a featured singer in the Beatles' lineup, gamely baritoning through "With a Little Help From My Friends," a cheerful pop ditty.   The next song, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," really lifts the curtain on what the band is up to here and what they're up to is doing a lot of acid.  The widespread perception that the song is about the effects of LSD (based in p...

  I'm almost sure my Mom had this album in the 70s, nestled comfortably between the original cast recording of The Pajama Game and Deutsche Grammophon's box set of Beethoven, and even if she didn't, she was certainly in the blast radius for this album, our second consecutive day of an album by a female auteur with a singular vision who produced a groundbreaking album.  But if yesterday's album was a formative document in punk and avant garde, today's is a formative document in easy listening.  I don't particularly love either of them. There is close to a 100% chance you know multiple songs on this album, just from cultural osmosis.  I know I did.  You know "It's Too Late" and "I Feel the Earth Move," the latter song written around the time of the now largely forgotten 1971 San Fernando earthquake, a 6.5 temblor that struck on King's birthday, February 9, and caused significant damage.  King takes the metaphor and runs with it, equati...

  It was probably a conflict of interest for ur-rock critic Lester Bangs to review this album for Creem , a music magazine that existed once and that he famously wrote for, when it came out in 1976, because Bangs and Smith were already friends and Bangs, in fact, had promoted Smith's work.  The review is typically Bangs, wild and free-associative: Which is not to say that there's not musical sophistication working here; it's just that it's gut sophistication, unfaltering instinct rather than the clammily cerebral approach of the old "poetry and jazz" albums.  Horses is a commanding record, as opposed to demanding—you don't have to work to "understand" or like it, but you can't ignore it either; it refuses to be background music, stops the action in the room when it's on, and leaves its effects when it's over whether the listeners like it or not. Each song builds with an inexorable seethe, a penchant for lust and risk that shakes you a...

  I had this on in my car the other day and my sister, a white woman of indeterminate age, immediately perked up.  "Wu-Tang, huh?" she said.  "Totally important album.  Foundational." ( As you may recall , my sister has opinions about the seductive powers of 90s hip hop.)  She's absolutely right.  This album hasbecome part of the pantheon, a singular artistic achievement that is (rightfully) regarded as one of the most important hip hop albums, or just albums , of all time. Built on a mashup of samples of classic soul and R&B and sounds lifted from kung-fu movies, the album was unlike anything anyone had ever done before.  Wu-Tang itself was a loose collective of nine or so rappers and DJs, and everyone brought something to the table, but it was RZA (nee Robert Diggs) who presided over the production and shaped the sound. "C.R.E.A.M.," an instant classic, is a prime example of what's going on here.  Built on top of an obscure soul sample (...

  This album has enjoyed a meteoric rise up the Rolling Stone Top 500.  In 2003, it was number 488.  On the 2012 list, it was 481, and now it's 28 .  That's a pretty impressive jump! I want to come right out and say that while this album is perfectly fine to listen to, it failed to ignite any strong feelings in me, which once again puts me in that awkward position of Not Really Caring About a Critically Loved Album.  And I'm not kidding about critically loved; it was Time magazine's number 1 album of 2000, a Pitchfork 10 , and number 3 on Nöjesguiden's albums of the year (which I guess means Nordic youth really got down to it). The sound is something like old-school R&B with a solid Prince influence and a chill, moody vibe.  The songs are uncrowded and mostly downtempo affairs, with a few exceptions.  "Devil's Pie" has a solid hip hop beat and layers of vocals decrying the playa lifestyle: Fuck the slice, want the pie Why ask why 'til we fry W...

  I would have to say that this is the White Album of Beatles albums HA HA HA I've been wanting to do that for so long.  But it's kinda true, right?  I mean, "White Album" is now shorthand for a kind of sprawling, exploratory, multigenre album, usually a double album, where a band tries out all kinds of different approaches and styles.  Maybe members who don't usually sing get to sing and maybe the guitarist plays drums on a track and there's a mariachi-inspired track by a punk band.   This record, the Beatles' ninth studio album, was written largely in India, where the band had decamped to study Transcendental Meditation.  They were supposed to be getting away from music but if you're John Lennon and Paul McCartney and George Harrison you don't really "get away" from music, because you can't, it's just bubbling out of you like exhaling when you're 28 years old or so and under the influence of marijuana and EMI Records.  And ...

  We've had some Hendrix albums that we liked and some that we didn't quite care for , but I am happy to report that this album, the Jimi Hendrix Experience's debut, is absolutely fantastic and I love it. There were initially two versions of the album, one released in the UK on Track records and one in the US on Reprise, with different track listings.  Since Rolling Stone specifically cited the Track version, let's use that one.  Now, of course, Hendrix is known and revered for his guitar playing and everybody is right, he's doing some wild shit on guitar that would go on to influence a whole generation or multiple generations, but there were two things that really stood out to me when I listened back to this for the first time in I'd say 30 years, the songwriting and the drumming. I don't think I even realized that Hendrix wrote all the songs on the Track version (and everything on the Reprise version except "Hey Joe," which was released as a sin...

  Once again we've arrived at a dog-talking-about-organic-chemistry moment, which is to say that I have nothing of value to offer.  I even used to own this album - the only jazz album I have ever owned - and I played it a couple of times at dinner parties when I wanted to pretend to be a grownup.  Then after some wine I just put on the Stones or whatever we actually wanted to listen to.  Adulthood: failed. It doesn't have any words.  Miles Davis plays the trumet.  There's two sax players, John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderly.  And drums.  And bass.  They all play together and it's nice.  I don't mind it at all, unlike  Bitches Brew  which really made me angry.   See?  This is what happens when you put jazz albums on here.  I guess that this was a jazz album that everybody bought and liked and so they voted for it and also it's probably one of those albums you're supposed to like, but still, there should be a...

  Beyoncé Knowles-Carter is such a towering figure in American culture generally, and American music specifically, that even I was aware of this album's release, and as a middle-aged straight white man, I am so far outside of the general hype cycle that I have to look things up on Urban Dictionary to understand jokes on social media.  But even though I had heard some of the songs and knew some of the references - ohhh, that's where "Becky with the good hair" comes from  - I had never sat down and just listened to this whole album all the way through.  Do you want to just cut to the chase?  I think it's a very good album but does not seem like the 32nd best album of all time. With a title based on the old saying about what you do when you're given lemons, the album is all about Beyoncé reclaiming her power after being disrespected in her marriage by her husband, Jay-Z.  The very first lines of the album lay out what's going here: You can taste the dishonest...

  “Show me a person who hasn’t got a darker side, and I’ll call them 'boring!'," Amy Winehouse told an interviewer in 2007, and Amy Winehouse was never boring.  This album, her second and last before her death in 2011 at the age of 27, is a masterpiece, a nearly-perfect set of songs that recall old-school girl group sounds of the 60s while remaining firmly in Winehouse's own inimitable style. The songs are often nakedly personal, vulnerable to the point where it's hard to listen to them.  Winehouse did more than bare her soul; she ripped her chest open and invited everyone in for a look: He left no time to regret Kept his dick wet with his same old safe bet Me and my head high And my tears dry, get on without my guy You went back to what you know So far removed from all that we went through And I tread a troubled track My odds are stacked, I'll go back to black In this one verse, Winehouse casually admits that her lover went back to an old flame, flirts with re...

  Released less than a year after Talking Book , this album has about three absolute first-ballot all time classic songs, "Higher Ground," "Don't You Worry Bout a Thing," and "Living For the City."  The last of these is the remarkable and heartbreaking tale of a man "born in hard time Mississippi" who leaves for New York City where he is immediately thrown in jail and then, when released, lives as a homeless person on the streets.  It's a sad and all too familiar story of racism and unfairness that Womder pairs with a melody that's catchy as hell. "Higher Ground" is a funk masterpiece, bubbling with Wonder's synth and his exhortations to "Teachers keep on teaching/Preachers keep on preaching/World keep on turning/'Cause it won't be too long."  The song was famously covered by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who, I must begrudgingly admit, did a pretty good job.   "Don't You Worry Bout a Thing" ...

  Oh ok so now we're getting into the Boomer Canon.  This album, the Beatles' sixth, has fallen from number five - five  - on this list in 2012 to 35th now, as the voter pool expanded beyond guys who stopped listening to popular music in 1986.  The album didn't get any worse; it's still a great album, but I posit that the broadening of the voter pool has resulted in a more interesting and varied list than we've ever been given in the past (despite a few startling omissions, about which more when the actual list is done).  I will tell you that I have three Beatles albums on my personal Top 100, but this is not one of them. There are entire books about this album so I don't have a lot of new insight, but what I've always found the most insightful take was that if the prior Beatles albums (well, groups of songs, this might be the first coherent "album" qua album) were all about puppy love and holding your hand and unrequited love, this was the first a...

  This was Michael's first album with Quincy Jones, one of the best producer-artist combos in history, and starts off with the incredible one-two punch of "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" and "Rock With You."  I've been wondering my entire life what the lyrics in the chorus were.Was it "Keep on, when the funk starts up/Don't stop til you get enough"?  "Keep on, when the first star shows"?  I never could figure it out/never felt the pressing need to check.  Turns out it's "Keep on, with the force, don't stop/Don't stop til you get enough."  Hmmmm, I like "when the funk starts up" better, but I'm not Michael Jackson. Michael actually wrote that song, one of the first hits he wrote himself, and it's not hard to see why.  It's a bouncy, propulsive pop-disco song with a super catchy chorus.  I bet this still gets the kids on the floor at middle school dances, even though it's slightly...

  Snoop Dogg, a man whose redemption arc could make Ebenezer Scrooge jealous, now owns Death Row Records, the label that was founded by Dr. Dre, Suge Knight and others, and which launched Snoop's truly awe-inspiring career with this record.  Not long after he bought it in February 2022, he pulled this album and other Death Row classics off of Spotify and other streaming services.  "First thing I did was snatch all the music off those platforms traditionally known to people, because those platforms don’t pay,” he said .  “And those platforms get millions of millions of streams, and nobody gets paid other than the record labels."  He's not wrong!  Artists famously make almost nothing from Spotify.  (It's a little confusing since he is  the record label now, but we'll let that slide.)  ANYWAY, that means I had to listen to this album on YouTube and let me tell you it is a mindbending experience to have the darkest shit imaginable, tales of murde...

  Remember when we played covers-better-than-the-originals the other day ?  I've got another one for you, Nashville country-punk progenitors Jason and the Scorchers completely DESTROYING "Absolutely Sweet Marie," from this Dylan album: Sorry about the wretched video quality, but at least the audio is good.  Now compare that to the Dylan original, which, admittedly, is a rocker by the standards of the album but pales in comparison to the Scorchers' version. We're up in the stratosphere now at number 38, and everyone of these albums from now on will be revered by lots of people, even if they're overrated like this album.  (Don't worry, we're gonna see more hugely overrated albums before we're done.)  Like the Scorchers version, this album was recorded largely in Nashville, not quite 20 years earlier.  Dylan used Nashville session musicians, widely recognized as some of the best musicians in the world at the time, along with some of his regular band, ...

  It's not surprising that the lyrics from "Once in a Lifetime," the second single from this album, immediately became part of the cultural canon and are quoted to this day, as they are such a great example of David Byrne's absurdist humor: And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack And you may find yourself in another part of the world And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife And you may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here?" This is also one of the only songs on this album where the lyrics make any sense at all.  In most of the songs, they serve the same purpose as lyrics in early R.E.M. songs, sonic placeholders that exist largely to carry the voice, not to impart meaning.  (In fact, Byrne has said that he began the lyrics on this reciord by singing nonsense to get the sound right, then fit words to the sounds.)  From "Born Under Punches (The Hea...

  On July 5, 1972, David Bowie and his band recorded a performance of "Starman," one of the several brilliant tracks on this album, for BBC's Top of the Pops .  Broadcast the next day, the performance, which featured Bowie playing a bright blue guitar and wearing what appears to be either the upholstery from a particularly loud couch or a rug from your entryway, galvanized an entire generation of British youth and sent the album to number 5 on the British charts. According to Bowie's Youtube channel, "Those watching that night included U2’s Bono, The Cure’s Robert Smith, Boy George, Adam Ant, Mick Jones of the Clash, Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet, Morrissey and Johnny Marr of the Smiths, Siouxsie Sioux, Toyah Willcox, John Taylor and Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran, Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode and many more."  It's possible that not every person who saw it started a groundbreaking 80s band but not likely. The week this album was released, the number 1 record in ...

  Yes. The very first track on this mindblowingly great album is in fact "Gimme Shelter" and let me tell you a little story.  Soon after I procured by completely legal means my first car as a youth I went out for a drive in the country and had the windows down and the sunroof back and was just blasting this song as loud as my system could go and I have never felt more like the main character in a movie.  Absolutely one of the greatest songs in the history of rock. Have you ever heard the isolated vocal tracks?  CHILLS. So yeah I could do a whole blog post about that one song and I almost just did but there are so many other songs.  Recorded mostly through 1969 and released in November of that year, this album (temporarily) displaced Abbey Road from the number 1 slot, which, come on.  It's a ragged, country-blues-rock affair, expertly produced while still sounding like the lads were just sitting around and picked up some instruments and started to jam....

  After two back-to-back hip hop all-time classics, we have finally arrived at an album beloved by whiteboy Gen X dudes who hate songs.  Oh, I'm kidding, Greg, ease up.  Although this is basically bubblegum pop compared to later, completely unlistenable Radiohead , it's the first album where they really start to pull away from coventional rock and into something new.  Now, all snark aside, I want to say that this album is great.  I just like needling Radiohead fans because it's so easy. It took me a long time to come around to this album.  I was a huge fan of The Bends , and like everyone else (well, "everyone else" in an extremely narrow subclass of music fans) was anxiously awaiting Radiohead's next album, and then this dropped and I was not quite sure what to make of it!  It's not immediately approachable indie rock like Bends  was, but it's really one that rewards multiple listens.  I've gotten used to it now?  And like it a lot more...

  I think I picked this up at one of the used record/CD shops on Haight after hearing it playing when I was browsing.  I wasn't a huge hip hop head but it was so instantly fascinating and intoxicating that I had to hear more.  I wish I knew where that CD was.  Anyway, what a blast it's been to revisit for the past 2 days, just listening to it over and over again. This utterly brilliant album which, amazingly, came out in 1991, was one of the first "alternative hip hop" records and a pioneer in the jazz-rap genre, so much so that Tribe used famous jazz bassist Ron Carter to provide some of the low end of the title (actually a double entendre, low end referring both to the bass-heavy sound and the socioeconomic status of many African-Americans).  It's such a clean sounding album, a lot of it just that bass and drums and vocals, with some occasional samples. The connection to jazz is made explicit on "Jazz (We've Got)," the second single from the album,...

  There have been albums on this list that I love, and albums that my friends love, and albums that I just know are somebody's favorite album, but as far as I know this is the first album on the list that I know for a fact is one of my friends' favorite albums.  I wasn't nearly cool enough to be listening to this when it came out in 1994 and so discovered it years later, after a What Is Your Favorite Album talk with that friend, and I distinctly remember listening to it in the back row of a 5 Fulton outbound bus and just being blown away. There are few albums as directly connected to a specific place as this album is to New York City.  The very first sound you hear is the chunka-chunka of the train and then a sample from the 1983 movie Wild Style , regarded as the first hip hop movie.  The second song, "N.Y. State of Mind," is even more explicitly about NYC.  Set over a sample from Joe Chambers' "Mind Rain" and drums borrowed from Kool and the Gang...