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

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  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...
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1. Marvin Gaye, "What’s Going On"

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  500 albums later and we're out of albums.  This album was number 6 on the last iteration of the Rolling Stone list and has now moved up to number 1 (displacing Sgt. Pepper , which was the last album to hold that spot).  I think it's a lovely album with maybe three absolutely incredible songs, a fair amount of average-to-good, and some not great songs.  I'm not a voter and will never be a voter but I just don't think this is the best album of all time. In fact, I would be perfectly fine with this list if they just sawed off the top 3 and left the rest as is: 1. Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life 2. Beatles, Abbey Road 3. Nirvana, Nevermind 4. Fleetwood Mac, Rumours And so forth.  But let's take this album on its own merits. The first of the three absolute bangers is the title track, "What's Going On," the scene-setter for the rest of the album, a loose concept album that's told from the point of view of a Vietnam vet returning to a country th...
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251. Elton John, "Honky Château"

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  "Rocket Man," track 5 on this record, is, of course, one of the best-known songs in rock history and a staple of jukeboxes and karaoke machines worldwide, but I want to talk about a different song, one I have listened to far too many times in the last four days to be healthy, "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters," maybe the finest song John and lyricist Bernie Taupin  ever wrote. The song starts quietly, with just piano and John's vocals: And now I know Spanish Harlem are not just pretty words to say I thought I knew But now I know that rose trees never grow In New York City Until you've seen this trashcan dream come true You stand at the edge while people run you through And I thank the Lord There's people out there like you I thank the Lord there's people out there like you Obviously, it's a callback to Ben E. King's "Spanish Harlem," but what the hell is going on here otherwise?  What is a trashcan dream?  I mean, this is clearly about ...
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