Funeral to Finish

  There is just so much to like about this album, an absolute listening pleasure that I heretofore had never heard all the way through (Phrenology being my intro to the Roots and the only album I ever really explored).  I guess it falls under the "alternative rap" heading, and it is definitely reminiscent of other alternative rap stuff like Tribe Called Quest and some De La Soul.  But definitely its own thing, due I think to the incredible rapping of Black Thought, Malik B, and others.  And not just the lyrics - which are also great, of course - but the way they wrap their voices around a line, punctuate it just right, and mold it to the beat and the music under it.  It's magical. See what I mean?  I really love the way the whole song is put together, from the vocal parts (including that little background vocal; it sounds like a choir but I suspect it's not) to the Fender Rhodes to the steady backbeat.  And the whole album is like that.  It sounds so well thought-out,

  My Mom loved art and going to art museums, but, being a "child of the Depression" as she reminded us whenever we asked for something extravagant like name-brand bread, she really was only interested in figurative art.  She was befuddled and maybe angered by abstract act, and, although she had taken art history classes and been to the finest art museums in the world, would say stupid shit like "I don't understand this.  Anybody could do this" when looking at anything that wasn't an Impressionist or whatever. That's me with this album.  I am a dumb idiot who knows nothing, and I mean, nothing about jazz.  As far as I know, this is the second jazz album I have listened to all the way through in my entire life, the first being Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" which I got in my 20's to put on at dinner parties to seem grown up.  And while it was recognizable to me as "jazz," I have no vocabulary for it, no base of knowledge to use to

  When does an album become a Dad album?  Led Zeppelin albums started off for kids, then became Dad albums, and are now officially Granddad albums (not Grandaddy albums).  Pavement albums are now Dad albums.  Even Green Day albums are now Dad albums.  (When you have a Broadway show based on your music, you are automatically a Parent Band).  This album, however, was a Dad album the day it came out and has somehow become even Dadder as time goes on. (There are also, of course, Mom albums.  Bruno Mars.  Any former boy bander.  John Mayer.  The Hamilton original cast recording.) I hate to break it to the Dads out there but a lot of this album is B-O-R-I-N-G.  Of course you know "Money for Nothing" and "Walk of Life" and you might now "So Far Away" but man, once you get past those things really drag.  Why does every song have a too-long intro?  And why do half the songs sound like Mark Knopfler was just noodling around on guitar and then said "Fuck it, I&

  Man, I don't know.  I realize that this whole list is arbitrary, just as ranking anything is subjective and arbitrary, but I jsut do not believe that this album is better than "Coal Miner's Daughter" (440) or even "Lucinda Williams" (426).  I'm willing to take it on its own terms for what it is, but it really just didn't work for me.  This is going to sound like a lame-ass "but I have black friends" disclaimer but I really do love country music and this would not be what I reach for when I want to hear some country. As country does, there are a lot of songs about drinking!  I do not have a problem with that, either the activity or the topic, but it's such a country cliche that it's kinda funny.  So we've got "Drink in my Hand," "Hungover and Hard Up," and, fuck it, let's just name songs directly after booze, "Jack Daniels." Also, this isn't really country music.  I'm not saying that li

  It's a shame Rolling Stone couldn't have made #420 something like Cypress Hill or one of Bob Marley's lesser albums or something because, you know, like marijuana and 420.  But you could do a lot worse than this 1975 Earth, Wind & Fire album.  The first two songs - "Shining Star" and the title track - are pretty much instantly recognizable if you're a Gen Xer like me.  In fact, if "Shining Star" doesn't immediately transport you to middle school dances I'd be surprised.  Listening to it you can actually smell that Coke machine and popcorn smell I associate with the painful awkwardness of the middle school dance. I did not know until I started reading about this album that it was the soundtrack for a movie of the same name!   Apparently in TTWOTW the movie , "Record executives want a highly-regarded record producer to focus on a white pop act whom they feel has the sound America wants. To keep his creative integrity, Buckmaster care

  This is such a great album.  I forgot how good this album was, even though I remember buying it on iTunes and putting it on my brushed aluminum iPod mini and listening to it on my long walks through Golden Gate Park and around the city in 2005.  It was just such a explosion of sound that I was blown away by it.  And now, listening to it all these years later, it totally holds up. M.I.A. has a pretty amazing backstory that involves growing up during the Sri Lankan civil war and moving to London as a refugee and going to art school and just casual things like "She met Justine Frischmann, front woman of the British band Elastica, through her friend Damon Albarn at an Air concert in 1999, and Frischmann commissioned Arulpragasam to create the cover art for the band's 2000 album, The Menace, and video document their American tour."  You know, just usual young adult stuff.  Then she grew up and got famous and was engaged to an heir to the Seagrams liquor fortune and so on. 

  Every single person in America and most of the world knows the opening four notes of this album, the wah-wah dyoot dyoot doot doot guitar that begins "Let's Get It On," the title track to this album.  It's so ubiquitous that it has become musical shorthand for "person is very attracted to another person" in film and TV and no wonder, it's a great song.  This album was, of course, a huge success and charted for 61 weeks and was the best-selling soul album of 1973. Now I want to preface this by saying this is just one person's opinion and many, many people love this album and I am assuredly an outlier, but: it's a little thin for me.  A lot of the songs sound very, very similar, like Gaye had one good idea and ran with it.  Which, ok!  A middling record from Marvin Gaye is still better than the best record most people will ever make.  I just wouldn't go back to it. ADULT CONTENT FOLLOWS, 18+ PLEASE One interesting thing about the record is ho