Funeral to Finish

  There have been albums on this list that I love, and albums that my friends love, and albums that I just know are somebody's favorite album, but as far as I know this is the first album on the list that I know for a fact is one of my friends' favorite albums.  I wasn't nearly cool enough to be listening to this when it came out in 1994 and so discovered it years later, after a What Is Your Favorite Album talk with that friend, and I distinctly remember listening to it in the back row of a 5 Fulton outbound bus and just being blown away. There are few albums as directly connected to a specific place as this album is to New York City.  The very first sound you hear is the chunka-chunka of the train and then a sample from the 1983 movie Wild Style , regarded as the first hip hop movie.  The second song, "N.Y. State of Mind," is even more explicitly about NYC.  Set over a sample from Joe Chambers' "Mind Rain" and drums borrowed from Kool and the Gang&#

  This is widely regarded as Prince's greatest album (just check out any of the Prince albums ranked lists), and it is truly a monumental achievement, but I have a bone to pick with The List.  Sure, this album is great, and maybe 5 of Prince's albums could probably be on here, but no 1999 ?  I mean, how can you say 1999 is not one of the greatest 500 albums of all time?  There are a lot of notable omissions on here (many of which I plan to discuss in a post at the end of This Journey), but leaving that album off is just criminally negligent. [ EDIT : I realized much later that 1999 is, in fact, on the list , at number 130, and I had just written about it a few months prior, WHOOPS.] Anyway, back to the topic at hand.  This double album emerged from the ashes of two discarded projects, an album with longtime supporting band the Revolution called Dream Factory and a project called Camille in which Prince pitch-shifted his vocals up to a female register and gave that voice t

  And we're back, hopefully well-rested, etc., ready for the final push, the final 46 albums, which we begin with, somewhat puzzlingly, this album.  Of course, this record was a sensation upon its release in 1986 and sold something like 16 million copies and I will confess to having liked "Boy in the Bubble," the lead track, with its rasping accordion and loping beat and slightly disturbing and unsettling lyrics, but there is a lot of mess around this record. First of all, there's the little matter of cultural appropriation, which may be too mild a term here; it's more like the outright theft of a musical style.  Simon defied the United Nations' then-extant cultural boycott of South Africa to go there and record with musicians he had heard on a borrowed casette.  There are varying accounts about the degree to which Simon relied on, or explicitly stole from, the African artists, but there is no question that he came back from South Africa wtih a brand new sound

  Oh hell yeah.  This blast of proto-punk might be the single most influential album on this list, and I'm not even joking.  I mean, Chuck Berry influenced more artists, but that was a comp , and this single album launched thousands and thousands of bands.  Long before the Ramones were on kids' t-shirts, they were a subversive, dangerous, and incredibly fun band. Just imagine buying this record at your local Sam Goodys and getting back to your room and peeling the shrinkwrap off and dropping the needle on "Blitzkrieg Bop," holy shit what a banger.  Turn that shit up, because there are not many pure rock songs better than this one. They're formin' in a straight line They're goin' through a tight one The kids are losin' their minds The Blitzkrieg Bop They're pilin' in the back seat They're generatin' steam heat Pulsatin' to the back beat The Blitzkrieg Bop Like all great rock songs, the song is about the act of rocking, in this ca

  When I went to college long, long ago, every girl's dorm room contained an enormous jug of water, a plant desperately clinging to life, a mini-fridge full of Diet Coke, and this album.  I am not kidding, this and Prince's 1999 were the two most ubiquitous albums at my school, and it's not hard to see why.  This is one of the most comforting and uplifting albums ever made.  I think this is one of the few albums I've owned in all three formats, vinyl, cassette, and CD.  It's every white person's introduction to reggae and whatever qualms I have about compilations can get fucked, it's wonderful. But I say "white person" for a reason.  Bob Marley was a fiery political activist who was keenly aware of the stark racial divides that undergirded the story of Jamaica and the Caribbean as a whole.  His native island, of course, was ruthlessly exploited by Europeans beginning in the 16th century, a legacy whose impacts are felt to this day.  And Marley wro

  I'm not sure exactly how, but this album just feels  Southern, which is, I guess, obvious, given that OutKast is from Atlanta and they were at the forefront of Southern rap.  There are very obvious Southern nods, like the harmonica-and-handclaps breakdown in the middle of "Rosa Parks," itself referencing a pivotal event in the history of the South, which OutKast appeared to use as a metaphor for their own success: Ah ha, hush that fuss Everybody move to the back of the bus Do you wanna bump and slump with us? We the type of people make the club get crunk Ah ha, hush that fuss Everybody move to the back of the bus Do you wanna bump and slump with us? We the type of people make the club get crunk Parks herself was not pleased about the band using her name without her permission and sued their label, LaFace Records.  After years of litigation, the case eventually settled, with OutKast and the label giving Parks a cash settlement and agreeing to work with her charitable int

  I am on the record as not especially liking the other Jay-Z albums that have appeared on this list, but you know what?  I liked this album quite a bit.  I think a lot of credit has to go to Kanye, who produced some of the album's best tracks, like "Takeover," "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)," and "Never Change." "Izzo," in particular, is just a great fucking song.  Built on the skeleton of "I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5, Kanye West's sharp as fuck production gives Hova the perfect platform to unspool his languid, boastful rap.  ("Hova," incidentally, is a nod to "Jehova," as in "They call me J-Hova cause the flow is religious,” from "A Million and One Questions".)  The song tells the story of Jay's start as a dealer: H to the izz-O, V to the izz-A For shizzle, my nizzle, used to dribble down in VA Was herbing 'em in the home of the Terrapins Got it dirt cheap for them Plus if they was short wit