Funeral to Finish

  Another one of those acts with more influence than fans, the New York Dolls paved the way for so much glam rock and hair metal and punk.  Kiss owes their entire existence to the Dolls.   I liked, not loved, this album.  It's weird, I don't think I've ever heard it all the way through, but I definitely knew the song "Trash," which is a pretty great song.  What was strange was I know I knew the song from somewhere but I couldn't place where at what point in my life I knew it and it felt strange and disconnected, like another person had once known the song.  Memory is a trip. This would be a good time to point out that the Dolls were snubbed this year for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame which, I'm sure, they're probably proud of.  I've had ongoing debates with people for years about the HOF and whether it means anything and we've never come up with a good answer.  I tend to think getting inducted into a rock hall of fame is probably the uncoole...

  I mean, it's a well-known fact that Neil Young has put out more albums than a single person could listen to in an average lifespan, but not only is this the second Neil Young album we've seen on the List in the past three weeks (and past 10 spots), it's the second one that deals with the overdose deaths of his friends Danny Whitten and Bruce Berry.  This one was recorded before On the Beach but released after, and it's an even more stark yowl of pain and sadness and longing and emotion. The first verse in the first song sets the mood: Bruce Berry was a working man He used to load that Econoline van A sparkle was in his eye But his life was in his hands Berry was a roadie for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and a popular fixture in the LA music scene.  He OD'd just a couple of months after Whitten, who was the former guitarist in Crazy Horse until the drug use got out of hand.  Obviously their loss shook Young to the core, as it would anyone. To say this album is...

  These fuckin Swedes just would not quit.  This album is a collection of basically all their singles between 1972 and 1982, when they were busy dominating pop charts with their unique, chirpy, shimmery synth-pop that was so earwormy I was initially afraid to listen to it because I know a bunch of the songs will be stuck in my head for months.  Also, it's well over 2 hours of ABBA and after about an hour you start to get ear-tired of the, let's face it, very uniform sound. So of course there are all the songs you already know, you got your "Dancing Queen" and your "Fernando" and your "SOS" and your "Take a Chance On Me" and so on and on and on.  I'm being snarky, I know, but has any other group successfully injected so many instantly catchy songs into the public consciousness in such a short amount of time?  Why are Swedish people so good at this? The collection proceeds roughly chronologically, which is a trip because I had never hea...

  I got to the third track on this album, "Grandma's Hands," and this was literally me: The intro is the sample that's the backbeat of " No Diggity "!  So that's where it came from!  But far from being just used for parts in another song, "Grandma's Hands" is a great song in its own right, an easygoing folk-soul ramble about the singer's grandma, naturally, a beautifully written and sung tribute.   This whole album is great!  Of course there are canonical songs like "Ain't No Sunshine," but there are also songs like "Sweet Wanomi," which just feels like a song you know by heart, even if you've never heard it before, like I hadn't.  This was Withers' debut album, and it shows that he arrived as a fully mature songwriter, absolutely sure of himself and the unique blend of soul and rock and jazz and blues and folk that he was fashioning.  As would be expected at the time this album was made, there are a ...

  This collection of deeply stupid songs was nonetheless a required feature in the record collection of myself and every other Gen X boy I knew in the late 70's.  Recorded semi-live in the American heartland, you can literally smell the shitty pot smoke and see the feathery moustaches in the crowd.  I say "semi-live" because there were, to put it mildly, considerable overdubs recorded because Kiss wasn't very good at playing their songs live at this point.  Even the cover, clearly shot in a studio and not at any concert, is a fake. Although the songs are indisputably stupid as hell, this album does showcase what Kiss did so well, and that is fucking rock.  If you ever wonder about how influential Kiss was, this album will clear that up.  I hadn't really realized the extent to which all or most Southern rock is indebted to Kiss, and maybe even specifically this album, until I relistened.  Sure, it's dumb, but there is something so primal and so powerful...

  Just feast your eyes on that cover.  Al Green, resplendent in a crisp white suit, the amount of jewelry appropriate for a soul singer of his caliber, impeccable white shoes and black socks, seated luxuriously in a white wicker chair, accented by a couple of plants and the green lettering.  To today's eye, he looks like the logo of the coolest cannabis dispensary on the block.  I'm sure those allusions weren't lost on the record buying public of 1972.  This cover is absolute fire. Now, how can you not love Al Green?  Answer: you can't not love Al Green, because there's nothing not to love about Al Green.  HOWEVER, because I am a dick and I just can't help myself, I have to say, this is the third Al Green album in the first 195 albums, including Greatest Hits, and that's a lot of Al Green and even some of the same songs.  So maaaayyyyybe I didn't love it as much as I could have?  Plus, and absolutely no shame to Al Green for this, but a lot o...

  For whatever reason, the cosmos has been interested in sending the song "Summertime" across my path a lot lately.  First there was the Lana del Rey album, with its "Doin' Time" which is actually a cover of Sublime's "Doin' Time," which is built on a sample of Herbie Mann's "Summertime," which is a cover of the Gershwin original.  Lana's cover has her referencing "Ras MC" and talking about the "LBC" all in her sultry white girl voice.  It seemed silly to me.  Then I read this really excellent article about Sublime called " The Sun Gods of the LBC " in The Ringer that made me grudgingly appreciate Sublime a little more even as I recoiled in horror at their drunken, drug-fueled antics that endeared and alienated them to all the right/wrong people. So it was no surprise that the universe served me up yet another "Summertime," this one a pretty straight cover of the original in Sam Cooke...