Funeral to Finish

  Jay-Z's first album, it has been called " one of the finest albums of New York's hip-hop renaissance of the '90s " and " both magnificent and lonely, an immaculate crystal chandelier gathering dust in an abandoned mansion ."  I actually don't love it.  The sound is too smooth and uniform for me and while I admire Jay-Z as a rapper, his laid-back style has never really done it for me.   The highlights are all grim in one way or another.  I like "Brooklyn's Finest," featuring Notorious BIG, but it's mostly a sad reminder of how much Biggie left behind and how much more he had to accomplish.  "D'Evils" sounds great, built on an Allen Toussaint sample (with a Snoop sample also prominently featured) but paints a depressing and disturbing portrait of dealing drugs, an activity that is often lionized and glorified in rap.  Jay contrasts his childhood friendships with adult rivalries, and it's dark: We used to fight for

  What brilliant timing, for ths album to arrive in our countdown just as the Kate Bush-assaince is upon us and just months after the single "Runnin' Up That Hill" hit the top 10 in the UK and America again for the first time since 1985 , more than 30 years earlier. The general public did not, of course, wake up one morning seized en masse by a desire to hear Kate's soaring, anthemic single, the first track on this album, it was Netflix's somehow still-going series Stranger Things  that used the song and propelled renewed ineterest in it.  Then it took over TikTok, which is sort of like today's crowdsourced MTV in its ability to drive a song's popularity, with hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of users grabbing parts of the song. It's a great song, and one of only two I recognized from this album, which, believe it ot not, I had never heard all the way through until yesterday.  At first I was pretty sure it wasn't for me, but on second listen

  I can think of two songs where I remember exactly where I was when I first heard them, like they're a Presidential assassination or something.  One of them you will find out later (it's in the Top 10 I think) and one of them is "You Oughta Know," the lead single from this album.  If you were anywhere near a radio or cable TV in 1995 you remember that this song absolutely dominated the airwaves.  I was helping my friend Ian move and it came on the radio and, reader, I was transfixed .  Not only is it a totally kickass song with a great vocal melody and fantastic production (by Glen Ballard, who also co-wrote the album with Alanis), it also was my first introduction to Morrisette's completely unique vocal style, growling and snarling her way through it.  I thought it was incredible and unlike anything else I'd heard. Another data point courtesy of my wife, who told me she owned a copy of this album and that all of her friends did too.  She was a girl in high s

  This absolute banger might be the first rap album I paid attention to, largely because I had a friend who was on the bleeding edge of Nerdy Record Store White Guys Into Gangsta Rap and he used to play it all the time.  The first track I remember going "hey maybe there's something to this rap thing" was "Express Yourself," built around a sample from Charles Wright's classic of the same name, from 1970.  The song is fascinating, actually, not just because it's probably the only song on the album without the word "motherfucker' and also because Dr. Dre loudly disclaims the use of marijuana and other drugs: Even if Yella makes it a cappella I still express, yo, I don't smoke weed or sess 'Cause it's known to give a brother brain damage And brain damage on the mic don't manage nothin' But makin' a sucka and you equal, don't be another sequel Dre would, of course, make an entire album celebrating the virtues of weed a few

  On December 3, 1976, seven armed men burst into Bob Marley's house in Kingston, Jamaica.  They shot Marley's wife Rita in the head while she was parked in the driveway.  Bob himself was shot in the chest and arm, and two others present were also hit.  Thankfully, no one died.  Although the motive is obscure, it was strongly suspected to be political, as Marley supported the People's National Party and it was believed that the hit was ordered by the head of the rival Labour Party.  (Another rumor placed the blame on the CIA, which is always a good possibility). Recovering from his injuries, Marley took the band and left Jamaica for London.  The attempt on his life was surely in Marley's mind when he wrote "So Much Things To Say": But I'll never forget no way: they crucified Jesus Christ I'll never forget no way: they stole Marcus Garvey for rights Oo-ooh! I'll never forget no way: they turned their back on Paul Bogle Hey-ey! So don't you forge

  I think I bought my copy of this album on vinyl sometime in high school, junior year I suspect, and it was with me through college and then on cassette for years after I no longer had a lifestyle compatible with a turntable and stereo setup.  To me, this is the quintessential Neil Young, the Neil Young album that stands above all others.  I'm not alone; for a lot of people, it has maybe the only Neil Young song or songs they know on it.  I went on to other Neil Young albums and enjoyed those a lot, but this is the one I will always come back to. And why not?  It's a lovely album, Young at his most gentle and pure country-folk.  This Young as master songwriter, daring anyone to even come close.  It's a colossal achievement of the form.  Just take a song like the title track.  It's got the gently strummed guitar and piano and the pedal steel all add to the lazy, dreamy feel.  The lyrics are obscure, with typically Neil Young surrealism: Did I see you down in a young gir

  Well, well, well, color me surprised.  Not that this album is number 73 - that's almost certainly exactly where it should be, more on that below, but that it actually was voted number 73 by the same panel of voters who put Plastic Ono Band at number 85.  See, kids?  The system works sometimes! This brilliant tangle of an album blew my fucking mind the first time I heard it.  I wasn't sure what it was, because it sounds more like compressed and intensified raw emotion than music.  I don't even know how to describe it, other than a fever dream set to a squall of guitar and ethereal voices.  I don't think there's any question that this is one of the greatest 100 albums in rock history, and is such an incredible achievement that it's a Third Rail Album that actually deserves to be.  But if I was trying to make an objective list of the 100 greatest albums (which would look quite different from the list we're exploring), I wouldn't be upset if this ended up