Funeral to Finish

  One of the downsides of never getting much into hip-hop in the 80's was that I totally missed some records that are now widely regarded as classics, like this one.  In fact, before yesterday, not only had I never heard this album, which is not entirely uncommon in doing this project, but I'm not sure I'd ever heard even a single song from it, which is. It is very 80's sounding hip-hop, all sparse production and James Brown samples and horn blasts and that shouty kind of rapping.  I liked "South Bronx," which had to have been, and probably still is, a neighborhood anthem.  "9mm Goes Bang" has singsongy "La la la la" backing vocals, incongruously set against a tale of urban violence.  It seems especially poignant knowing that group member DJ Scott La Rock would be killed in a shooting months after the release of this album.  "Remix for P Is Free" really shows off the dancehall influence that BDP was known for. So I can appreciate

  Imagine a warm January night in 1963 in Miami, a noightspot called the Harlem Square Club, absolutely packed with people ready to party, and here comes Sam Cooke, who by then was already a star, having released one instant classic after another, like "You Send Me," "Cupid," "Chain Gang," on and on.  Imagine further that this show, backed by legendary saxophonist King Curtis and his band, was actually recorded for a prospective live album.  Imagine being in that crowd, hearing a singer and a band at the absolute apex of their talents. Now imagine you're a white record exec in 1963 listening to the tapes and deciding they're too wild for the careful pop image you're trying to sell.  And by too "wild," of course, I mean too "black."  Because if there's one thing this album immediately makes you aware of, it's that Sam Cooke took the energy of a Southern black church service in the midcentury era and turned it secular

  Whoops, I totally spaced on this one when it came out in 1991 and so I can't say I was there when Massive Attack more or less singlehandedly created the genre of trip-hop.  In fact, I'd never heard this album before and was only hazily aware that it even existed.  This despite me being very, very aware of Mezzanine , Massive Attack's other album on this list (so far).  So let's dive in! After I listened to it through the first time, I went back and listened to "Unfinished Sympathy" again, mostly because it was the big single, and you know what?  Great song!  I mean, it's hard to listen to this now sitting where I'm sitting and realize how fresh and revolutionary this must have sounded at the time, because now it sounds like, uh, trip-hop, albeit a dancier flavor of trip-hop, which I suppose it was.  I feel like the first track, "Safe From Harm," is really what I think of when I think of trip-hop, that drowsy drums and sliding bass and soul

  Funny story about "Cool It Down," the fourth song on this album.  Back in the day, our pal Burrito Justice had a show on local radio powerhouse BFF.FM and one time me and my friend Olu went on the show and picked songs from our Top 20 Songs list and put them head to head and people voted on which song they liked better.  One of my picks was "Cool It Down," which swiftly dispatched Olu's pick , Blonde Redhead's "I Am Taking Out My Eurotrash."  And why not?  "Cool It Down" is just a great rock song (not that Blonde Redhead has anything to be ashamed of).  One of many on this album, Velvet Underground's last "official" studio album. OK, not that funny. Is the first song, "Who Loves the Sun," an answer song to the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun"?  Sure, why not.  It's a blast of sugary pop, all harmonies and light, but with lyrics about the meaninglessness of life after heartbreak.  ("Who loves

  Do you want the good news first or the bad news?  OK, good news first: yes, this album is a stone cold classic, widely beloved and bearing one of the best songs ever (which we will discuss in more detail below); a psych-era gem; a record store clerk talisman.  The bad news?  Uhhhh, I guess it's not perfect?  This narrative device didn't work out great. Let's talk about the good part first.  There are some absolute bangers on this album.  The first song, "Care of Cell 44," a song you know even if you don't recognize the title (which appears nowhere in the song), written from the perspective of a guy writing his girlfriend in prison, is a lovely pop confection, with Beach Boys-esque vocals and a Mellotron and the whole nine.  (There's also the deliciously contemporary tidbit that they wanted to call it "Care of Cell 69" and their American publisher wouldn't let them.  NICE.)  "A Rose for Emily" is baroque pop, all piano and delicate

  Famously recorded following the death of his mother and the breakup of his engagement to designer Alexis Phifer, Kanye's fourth album seemed like a bizarre outlier at the time, a rap album that's mostly sung, a cold and sparse cry from the heart.  Little did we know that it would go on to become a template for an entire genre, spawning all kinds of Soundcloud rap that would eventually take over the world.  Oh, and Drake's entire sound. The 808s of the title refer, of course, to the Roland TR-808 drum machine that Ye used extensively (he only later learned that 808 was also the area code of Hawaii, where a good bit of the album was made), and it's appropriate in that the whole album sounds metallic and cold and machine-made.  Richly instrumented it is not.  The first song, for example, is punctuated by a drum machine track and a "bloop....bleep" that could be a game of Pong or a heart monitor; Kanye's vocals are wildly Autotuned, giving the whole thing an

  Cocteau Twins is one of those bands that has always rested on the shady periphery for me; I mean, obviously I knew that they existed and I vaguely knew they were influential on the shoegaze/dreampop scene, and I knew the title of this album but I have to confess I had never sat down and listened to it before and you know what?  This is a beautiful album. It starts with Robin Guthrie's guitar, a chimy, chorusy sound, chugging chords, and then Elizabeth Fraser's voice, but just calling it her "voice" really is an understatement.  Not only does she have incredible range, which she shows off on that first song; it's also got an otherworldly quality that carries through the whole album.  It's no wonder that the genre this spawned is called "dreampop;" the whole album sounds like the soundtrack to a dream. After a few listens, I kept coming back to "Iceblink Luck," a perfect little jewel box of a song that shows off everything about this band.