Funeral to Finish

  Every once in a while on Twitter the question "what celebrity's death hit you the hardest" and you always get the usual responses - lots of Cobains and Whitney Houstons and River Phoenixes and so forth.  But for sensitive, wounded Gen Xers like myself, Elliott Smith is a not uncommon answer.  It's my answer.  I remember the instant I heard, looking out my office window and feeling shaken and empty and deprived.  I literally could not believe it.  And I wasn't an Elliott Smith superfan!  He just had that kind of impact on me, I guess. This was his last album before jumping to a major label (selling out, I guess, but I don't remember a lot of selling out discourse at the time; it's possible I missed it), it sounds rough and grainy and homemade, which fits because a lot of it was recorded in people's houses - Smith's own, Joanna Bolme's, the house shared by his former bandmembers in Heatmiser.  A lot of it is just Smith and acoustic guitar - usu

  You are Noel Gallagher and you have arrived back in Manchester after being a roadie for Inspiral Carpets on their 1991 American tour to find that your stupid brother Liam is singing with his dumb little band the Rain.  Now, you have been writing absolutely cracking songs for years while on the clock for British Gas and you immediately sense an opportunity.  Join up with Liam's crew of knockabouts and punters and make a real go of it.  And so you tell your idiot brother that you'll join his band if you get to write all the songs.  Liam readily says yes and Oasis is born.  Finally your genius will be brought forth to the world. Your first single was "Supersonic," track 6 on this album, written in a day in the studio in Liverpool.  It's the prototypical early Oasis song; slightly Beatlesesque chords but run through a Manchester filter and pumped up with just a touch of glam, with Liam's snotty oi voice over the distortion.  The song is a hit, going to #31 in Br

  Oh my god, if this doesn't scream NINETIES baby, you can practically see 90210 playing in the background.  This monster-selling album practically defined the sound of the decade, and it's got just one banger after another on it.  I think I even owned this on CD at one point?  Or maybe my ex-wife did, it's really a sisters-are-doing-it-for-themselves thing.  Sure, Left Eye shouldn't have burned down Andre Rison's Atlanta mansion , but I bet he didn't fuck with her any more after that!   The songs!  "Creep" was the first single, a story of revenge cheating set to a complex R&B beat.  Written by Dallas Austin, it was somewhat controversial!  Wow, that seems so quaint now.  Imagine, post-"WAP," a song being controversial because it's about stepping out on your man .  (Dallas Austin, btw, had a kid with Chilli - the "C" in TLC - and has had a rich production career.)  Both Radiohead and Stone Temple Pilots had a song called &qu

  I really liked this album, which was heretofore unknown to me.  Once again, I betray my breathtaking ignorance of modern hip hop music.  Modern-ish, I guess; this came out in 1995.   There's the undeniable swagger you expect from any Wu Tang album, but what got me were the densely packed rhymes.  Check this out, from "Knowledge God": Fake niggaz throw shit in they drinks Club nights we snatch linx politic, Africans and chinks While World of Sport niggaz snort coke by the seconds Niggaz projects filled with fiends injectin Morphine, the God seen more CREAM, and upstate Cousin Reek, almost got hit with fourteen Chill Pah, the God'll be a Star when you come home Light bones and let you rock my 3G stone So, see cousin, yo I was workin, cats I'm jerkin And uptown these niggaz actin like they hurtin Keys twenty-four a brick Columbians be on some bullshit, that's why Poppy got hit There's a lot going on here, but you get the idea.  This album is fascinated by c

  Here's another weird time/nostalgia thing: I was into this album as a much younger person in the mid-late 80's, probably peaking around let's say 1988.  At the time, this album seemed like a relic from a different age; although it was released in 1970, it was unmistakably from THE SIXTIES and it sounded like hippies and long hair and patchouli and all that shit.  There is a song specifically about Woodstock!  Called "Woodstock"!  (Killer song, btw.)  OK so at the time I was super into it, this album was 18 years old.  Only 18 years old!  That's like listening to Arcade Fire's Funeral or Iron & Wine's Our Endless Numbered Days  today and thinking of them not just as older albums but albums from an entirely different age, which is not how I think of those albums!  I continue to be puzzled by this phenomenon, where what was "classic rock" in my youth would merely be "stuff I listened to when I was younger" today.  I guess it'

  This album came out in 1992.  Sadly, 30 years later, Zack De La Rocha's lyrics are still, if not even more, relevant.  Here quoted by guitarist Tom Morello: That's from the second track, "Killing in the Name Of" (actual quote: "Some of those that work forces/Are the same that burn crosses").  Every single one of the 10 tracks on this album are just as explicitly political and defiant and, well, enraged.  It's hard to do openly political music well, unless you're Rage Against the Machine, a social justice organization that also made kickass rap-metal before that became a joke genre. Of course De La Rocha's lyrics take center stage in this operation, because of their stridency and urgency and call to arms.  Like in "Wake Up": Movements come and movements go Leaders speak, movements cease When their heads are flown 'Cause all these punks Got bullets in their heads Departments of police, the judges, the feds Networks at work, keepin&#

  I don't care if you don't like techno or EDM or electronica or Madonna herself, the title track of this album, the third cut, is an absolute banger, a gem of a pop song dressed up in electronic clothes but with a melody you'd kill for and an absolutely outstanding vocal performance by Madonna. As it turns out, Mads got a vocal coach after she got cast in Evita  and found out that stage singing is a completely different animal than pop singing.  "I studied with a vocal coach for Evita and I realized there was a whole piece of my voice I wasn’t using," she said in this fantastic interview in Spin . "Before, I just believe I had a really limited range and was going to make the most of it. Then I started studying with a coach. God bless her."  Together with British electronica icon William Orbit (more on whom later), who co-produced the album with her, she put together maybe the best vocal performance on any of her albums with some serious songwriting.  Yo

  There are some albums that are so perfectly conceived and rendered that they stand alone, a monument to their creator and to music in general. This is not one of those albums. I know that this record is beloved by millions and critically adored.  But ask yourself this: if it wasn't by John Lennon, what would you think of it?  I mean, "Imagine," the song, is kind of treacly and wan.  (It was also mortally wounded by getting the celeb treatment at the beginning of the pandemmy  [Sample YouTube comment: "I played this to my dying grandmother who was on life support. She woke up and pulled the plug herself."].)  "Crippled Inside" has a nice folky feel but isn't all that much.  "It's So Hard" is a freak-blues number that has potential but never really takes off.  "How?" is a snooze, a would-be soft rock jam that fails to launch. Not that there aren't some moments!  I really like "Oh Yoko!" because, unlike some of

  The Dixie Chicks (now just the Chicks, tyvm) were already successful.  In 1998, they released their first album with Natalie Maines, their new lead singer, called Wide Open Spaces, and it was a huge hit.  This album followed in 1999, debuting at #1 and spawning an incredible eight country radio singles.  Basically every song on the album charted.  Then it sold 10 million copies, which sounds like a lot and actually is a lot but Wide Open Spaces  sold 13 mil so I guess it was kind of a letdown. The album varies from very, very country - "Hello Mr. Heartache" could be a Hank Williams song with a few tweaks - to more pop-country, like "Ready to Run" and lots of the other songs.  The thing that really jumps out at you is the harmonies between Maines and Emily Robison and Martie Seidel; they have a great rapport and their voices really sound great together.  I also liked "Sin Wagon," a great Texas 2-step-ish song about a woman who's tired of her man havin

  I have, I'm sorry to say, an intense and personal relationship with this record, so you'll have to bear with me on this one; it won't be very objective.  Although this record was initially released in 2001 (just a week after 9/11, as a matter of fact), I am certain that, at some point and maybe even today, if you asked me to list my 20 favorite albums of all time, this would be on the list.  Not that I would ever do such a thing!  Of course I have done such a thing, repeatedly and obsessively, and will post whatever my current list is at the end of this project. So, back to 2001, when I was a sometimes Wilco fan but for some reason didn't pay a lot of attention to this when it came out.  Pre-Wilco, band leader Jeff Tweedy had been in a band called Uncle Tupelo that I liked quite a bit, but never got to see live.  Wilco, the successor band, put out a few albums before this one, some I liked, some I wasn't really into.  I didn't start really getting into this al

  Every time a paunchy, 50-something white man straps on a Guitar Center Fender Strat... every time a Dad gets into his midlife crisis Ford Mustang and inserts a CD and heads out on the open road (or I-580, whichever is closer)... every time a man with a salt and pepper beard and a KQED sticker on a Volvo nods meaningfully at his Harman Kardons and says "Why doesn't anyone make real rock and roll any more?"... They will be thinking of this album, the Rosetta Stone of Baby Boomers who think they've discovered blues, you know, like the real shit .   Eric Clapton, as you may know, is a huge piece of shit.  Not only did he pine for his best friend George Harrison's wife (English model Pattie Boyd), descending into heroin addiction when he couldn't pry her away initially, but then, when he finally managed to ensnare her, he promptly started drinking heavily, cheating on her, and abusing her.  He's a famous racist who once said - ON STAGE - "This is England

  You can actually hear rock 'n roll being formed on this album.  Like, here's Little Richard taking blues and R&B and gospel and smashing it all together into what we would eventually recognize as rock.  If this list were Most Formative Albums, this album would be in the Top 10.  And just because I love these historical comparisons: this album came out in 1957, meaning that it is as old now as Brahms' Opus 117 was when this album was released. Little Richard only died a few years ago, in 2020, but man, what a life.  His first hit, and the first song on this album, "Tutti Frutti," came out in 1955, when he was 23 years old.  That song, which of course you know, if not the original then maybe the Elvis version, has quite a backstory.  It's been common lore for years that the original lyrics were quite a bit more, um, risque than the final version.  According to Little Richard's drummer, they were something like: "Tutti Frutti, good booty/If it'

  Even with my limited knowledge of hip-hop, I know this much: De La Soul is untouchable.  After releasing one of the most important and groundbreaking albums - not hip-hop albums, but albums - of all time, 3 Feet High and Rising (which we will certainly see in this space one of these days), De La was faced with that same dilemma familiar to every artist whose debut is a stupefying success: what next?  Sadly, many or most acts fold under the pressure.  For every Sound of Silver , there are a thousand Room on Fires . De La Soul did not fold. This album is filled with just as much production inventiveness and lyrical flow and just fun beats as the first album, but there's a turn towards decidedly darker content.  "Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa," for example, is a tale of sexual assault and revenge: Macy's department store, the scene for Santa's kisses And all the little brats demandin' all of their wishes Time passes by as I wait for my younger brother He as

  The greatest hits (or, in this case, "ultimate collection") debate arrives before us again with this lovely, exhaustive compilation of Patsy Cline songs. Before we get into that issue, let's all agree that Patsy Cline is one of the greatest and most influential female singers in country and pop and 20th century music in general.  She had a voice like no other and this collection is a testament to that.  More on that later. So here's my beef with including greatest hits albums on this list.  An album is a particular vision, a cohesive idea formed by a group of songs.  Some of the songs will land, some will not, some will be better than others, but the whole package is a snapshot of an artist at a particular place and time.  Part of the interesting thing about an album is how different the same artist can sound over time.  Take Meet the Beatles and Abbey Road , for example - clearly the same band, but way, way different sounds.  If you put "I Wanna Hold Your Han

  Robyn Rihanna Fenty is, of course, a global phenomenon, a megastar, a probable billioniare (due in part to her fashion, fragrance, and other skincare ventures), and one of the best-selling music artists of all time.  She has sold oer 250 million records, putting her in a league with Elvis, the Beatles, Madonna, Pink Floyd, and Michael Jackson.  This album sold only 3 million copies.  A crushing disappointment. I was not prepared to like this album.  Despite her rarified status, I know almost no Rihanna music at all; in fact, she is the only artist with sales of 250 million or more that I could only name a couple of songs by ("Umbrella" and "Work," the latter of which was on this album.)  I gathered that she worked mainly in the  pop/dance/R&B arena, so I was surprised to hear this album which is just all over the place, and I mean that in the best possible way. The record opens with "Consideration," a clearly dub-influenced lazy, langorous track (wit

  It is some kind of measure of Tom Petty's deep and lasting impact on the American music scene that I knew, and in fact knew very well, the majority of the songs on this album, an album I've never owned and never listened to all the way through.  But damn if I didn't know every note, every nasally inflection, every drum fill, in five of the first six songs: Refugee Here Comes My Girl Even the Losers Century City Don't Do Me Like That I don't know how people who live in LA don't drive around with "Century City" constantly playing in their head every time they pass a sign for Century City.  "Refugee" was pretty much played full-time on the radio for the first few years after it came out.  You know the others.  What is it about these songs that makes them so indelible?   I honestly don't know.  They don't have brilliant lyrics or incredible hooks or any one thing that stands out.  But you know what?  They're all pretty catchy, and t

  Once again, my complete lack of knowledge or interest in jazz has tripped me up, as I am informed that this is one of the most influential jazz albums of all time, but to me it was just kind of like eh, whatever. There's this poem I remember reading in college that was obviously written by a poet/college professor about what has come to be known as impostor syndrome and one of the lines was something about no one knows I've never read Tristram Shandy.  I think about that line a lot (and if you have a line on the poem, please share, I'd love to read it again but I've tried Googling all kinds of things and all I get is reader guides to Tristram Shandy in case you don't want to read it) but instead of trying to BS my way through this post and pretend I'm some kind of musical sophisticate when I'm not I'm just going to trash the artifice and say I don't know shit about jazz and found this album intensely boring. The one moment of enjoyment I obtained f

  This album is so emotionally raw and soul-baringly confessional that I felt kinda bad just listening to it, like "this album is not for you,  a middle-aged hetero white dude, this album is for girls who have been wronged and who have complex interior lives that you will never be able to understand."  Which, fair, it is for those people, but I doubt Amos would want only those people to experience it.  It's like saying the last entry, Black Sabbath's Master of Reality , is only for metalhead stoners.  Of course, that's the intended audience, but Black Sabbath didn't know that when the album came out and I'm sure they wanted everyone to hear it. I have very little prior experience with Tori Amos, so this was all fairly new to me.  My wife, who was a teenage girl when this came out, knew a lot of the songs, which makes sense.  Anyway, after overcoming my initial discomfort with the material, I tried to reckon with this album on its own merits. So Tori Amos w