The Art of the Album

[MacLaughlin]

Up next... Classic Rock... or Britpop?

Odyssey & Oracle - The Zombies
Some Girls - The Rolling Stones
Tangerine Dream - Kaleidoscope
Astral Weeks - Van Morrison
The Life Pursuit - Belle and Sebastian
Ejector Seat Reservation - Swervedriver

Why not both?

[davids]

I wrote this a couple years ago, for another audience. It's still pretty accurate.

1. David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust: 13 year old me, discovering girls and glam rock at the same time. My first experiences of desire and transgression.
2. Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols: I saw a report on British punk on The Tomorrow Show and was transfixed. Here’s where I left the mainstream.
3. Ramones - Rocket to Russia: I went to see Iggy Pop hoping for a glimpse of my hero Bowie playing keyboards. The Ramones opened and I, giggling in delight, was smitten for good.
4. Elvis Costello - My Aim is True: Angry, raw, and literate. What a revelation for a 16 year old!
5. The Clash - London Calling: I can’t overestimate the impact this had on me. I remember the first moment I heard it (Regina and I are late for class but with the just-released record finally in our possession, we rush to listen to just one song. We agree “Revolution Rock” sounds promising, so put the needle down on the last song on side 4. “Train in Vain” blows our minds – this is the Clash?) This record not only possessed me with its passion, mastery, and sheer joy, it opened my eyes to the history and expansiveness of rock & roll.
6. The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night, Beatles For Sale, Help, Rubber Soul, Revolver: I can’t separate these records, purchased and absorbed in a few short weeks. I went back to these to try and hear the Beatles as if they hadn’t been aural wallpaper for most of my life. I willed myself to hear them as if they were new, and followed their explosive geniuses through their best work. This is the music of the angels.
7. The Velvet Underground – The VU and Nico, White Light/White Heat, The Velvet Underground, 1969 Live: Just like the Beatles albums, these came to me as a set. I knew of the Velvets from Bowie, but for years they seemed too dangerous, too transgressive, too adult… Well, yeah. But so much more - This is as ugly and as beautiful as music gets. This is art.
8. Richard and Linda Thompson - Shoot Out the Lights: I discover a whole new genre, and I like it. People playing acoustic guitars and squeezeboxes. And writing songs that tear the heart out of my chest. And then the guy with the weak chin uses it as a guitar pick and burns down my house.
9. Replacements - Let It Be: This could be the guys I used to disdain in high school, who cut shop and smoked out by the band practice field. I never realized they were actually the smartest kids in town.
10. Game Theory - Lolita Nation: This is my wild card, a record that affects me so personally I can barely describe it. On one level it’s a twisted, dense, recursive brilliant set of pop songs, with hooks so sharp and deep that they will never leave me. And then there’s the lyrics, obsessively creating and deconstructing the experience of being a wise-ass 20-something white kid in America in the 80s: “A nice guy as minor celebrities go/All right, all together now/Very minor, I know.”
11. Pixies - Surfer Rosa: Crunch and noise and weirdness and beauty. A foreshadowing of the ‘90s.
12. Liz Phair - Exile in Guyville: Girlysounds. Just what I needed to hear with my baby girl in my arms.
13. Radiohead - OK Computer: Their ability to re-imagine Rock, at this late date, still impresses over ten years later. I could listen to “Airbag” every day with deep satisfaction.
14. Sleater-Kinney - Dig Me Out: Nearly twenty years after its expiration date, three young women channel punk for their own ends and become the best band in the world.
15. Outkast – Stankonia: Rap’s own Lennon-McCarthy. This gives me hope that popular music can still occasionally be great.

Honorable mentions: Pavement – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain; Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

[chasea]

I wrote this a couple years ago, for another audience. It's still pretty accurate.

1. David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust: 13 year old me, discovering girls and glam rock at the same time. My first experiences of desire and transgression.
2. Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols: I saw a report on British punk on The Tomorrow Show and was transfixed. Here’s where I left the mainstream.
3. Ramones - Rocket to Russia: I went to see Iggy Pop hoping for a glimpse of my hero Bowie playing keyboards. The Ramones opened and I, giggling in delight, was smitten for good.
4. Elvis Costello - My Aim is True: Angry, raw, and literate. What a revelation for a 16 year old!
5. The Clash - London Calling: I can’t overestimate the impact this had on me. I remember the first moment I heard it (Regina and I are late for class but with the just-released record finally in our possession, we rush to listen to just one song. We agree “Revolution Rock” sounds promising, so put the needle down on the last song on side 4. “Train in Vain” blows our minds – this is the Clash?) This record not only possessed me with its passion, mastery, and sheer joy, it opened my eyes to the history and expansiveness of rock & roll.
6. The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night, Beatles For Sale, Help, Rubber Soul, Revolver: I can’t separate these records, purchased and absorbed in a few short weeks. I went back to these to try and hear the Beatles as if they hadn’t been aural wallpaper for most of my life. I willed myself to hear them as if they were new, and followed their explosive geniuses through their best work. This is the music of the angels.
7. The Velvet Underground – The VU and Nico, White Light/White Heat, The Velvet Underground, 1969 Live: Just like the Beatles albums, these came to me as a set. I knew of the Velvets from Bowie, but for years they seemed too dangerous, too transgressive, too adult… Well, yeah. But so much more - This is as ugly and as beautiful as music gets. This is art.
8. Richard and Linda Thompson - Shoot Out the Lights: I discover a whole new genre, and I like it. People playing acoustic guitars and squeezeboxes. And writing songs that tear the heart out of my chest. And then the guy with the weak chin uses it as a guitar pick and burns down my house.
9. Replacements - Let It Be: This could be the guys I used to disdain in high school, who cut shop and smoked out by the band practice field. I never realized they were actually the smartest kids in town.
10. Game Theory - Lolita Nation: This is my wild card, a record that affects me so personally I can barely describe it. On one level it’s a twisted, dense, recursive brilliant set of pop songs, with hooks so sharp and deep that they will never leave me. And then there’s the lyrics, obsessively creating and deconstructing the experience of being a wise-ass 20-something white kid in America in the 80s: “A nice guy as minor celebrities go/All right, all together now/Very minor, I know.”
11. Pixies - Surfer Rosa: Crunch and noise and weirdness and beauty. A foreshadowing of the ‘90s.
12. Liz Phair - Exile in Guyville: Girlysounds. Just what I needed to hear with my baby girl in my arms.
13. Radiohead - OK Computer: Their ability to re-imagine Rock, at this late date, still impresses over ten years later. I could listen to “Airbag” every day with deep satisfaction.
14. Sleater-Kinney - Dig Me Out: Nearly twenty years after its expiration date, three young women channel punk for their own ends and become the best band in the world.
15. Outkast – Stankonia: Rap’s own Lennon-McCarthy. This gives me hope that popular music can still occasionally be great.

Honorable mentions: Pavement – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain; Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

We can hang.

[nahtnoj]

Stuff I have not seen yet:

Neil Young - Harvest
Neil Young - After the Gold Rush

REM - Every album up to and including Monster, with Reckoning and Automatic for the People being the standouts.

[davids]

We can hang.

I'm looking forward to that.

[boundgear]

speaking of awesome music

78 78s: In Search Of Lost Time : NPR

[alexstar]

Pet Sounds

[GRAVELBIKE]

I wrote this a couple years ago, for another audience. It's still pretty accurate.

1. Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols: I saw a report on British punk on The Tomorrow Show and was transfixed. Here’s where I left the mainstream.
2. Ramones - Rocket to Russia: I went to see Iggy Pop hoping for a glimpse of my hero Bowie playing keyboards. The Ramones opened and I, giggling in delight, was smitten for good.
3. Elvis Costello - My Aim is True: Angry, raw, and literate. What a revelation for a 16 year old!

Honorable mentions: Pavement – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain; Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Based on the Pistols/Ramones/Elvis trifecta, I'd say we're probably close to the same age.

Anyway, my first exposure to Elvis was his second album (This Years Model). Thinking back, TYM was a little more polished, but nothing can match the vitriol of "I'm Not Angry" from My Aim Is True.

My brother loaned me his import copy of Never Mind The Bollocks, and I realized that THIS is what rock was meant to be--loud, primitive, and dangerous. A few years later, Rotten would again change my perceptions with PiL. When my father and sister died less than two months apart (two years ago), I would take solace in PiL's "Theme" and "Death Disco/Swan Lake" played at an uncomfortably high volume.

[davids]

Based on the Pistols/Ramones/Elvis trifecta, I'd say we're probably close to the same age.

Anyway, my first exposure to Elvis was his second album (This Years Model). Thinking back, TYM was a little more polished, but nothing can match the vitriol of "I'm Not Angry" from My Aim Is True.

My brother loaned me his import copy of Never Mind The Bollocks, and I realized that THIS is what rock was meant to be--loud, primitive, and dangerous. A few years later, Rotten would again change my perceptions with PiL. When my father and sister died less than two months apart (two years ago), I would take solace in PiL's "Theme" and "Death Disco/Swan Lake" played at an uncomfortably high volume.

I was already a serious fan by the time This Year's Model came out. My first listen was indelible: With the volume way up, I dropped the needle on side 1. "No Action" starts with a whispered hiss - I don't want to kiss you/I don't want to touch - before the Attractions attack. This is the only time in my life I actually physically recoiled from the slam of a band's entrance.

It was fucking awesome.



I've got a dozen Elvis stories, easy.

p.s. Born 1960. You?

[GRAVELBIKE]

I was already a serious fan by the time This Year's Model came out. My first listen was indelible: With the volume way up, I dropped the needle on side 1. "No Action" starts with a whispered hiss - I don't want to kiss you/I don't want to touch - before the Attractions attack. This is the only time in my life I actually physically recoiled from the slam of a band's entrance.

It was fucking awesome.



I've got a dozen Elvis stories, easy.

p.s. Born 1960. You?

1962. I was a sophomore (?) in high school when punk found me, and I've never looked back.

[HSTFixed]

Jeff Buckley : Grace (if I had to pick 1 album forever this is probably it)

If I can pick a few albums that have had a hold on me at one time or another, they are as follows.

Radiohead : Ok Computer or In Rainbows

Lushlife : Cassette City (for those of you who don't like hip hop albums this is my favorite ever, but it's more of a summertime feel, his new mixtape is much more cold weather)

Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band : Seasons of Change (this is the best album ever in my opinion. That it doesn't have words, adds to that)(It's also a damn good cold weather album)

Bach Goldberg Variations : Glenn Gould 1955

The Beatles : Sgt Peppers

Ben Folds Five : Whatever and Ever Amen or Ben Folds Five (That's a really tough choice and you might even say Reinhold Messner works better as a complete, concise album)

Fiona Apple : On The Bound

Bob Marley : Survival

John Coltrane : A Love Supreme

Eliot Smith : XO

Keith Jarrett : The Koln Concert

Phish : Round Room

Miles Davis : Kind of Blue(50's) or Nefertiti(60's)

Regina Spektor : Soviet Kitsch or Far or just consider her entire catalog 1 long album

is a ballet an album?? Daphnis et Chloe by Maurice Ravel is one of the most amazing pieces of music ever composed, and my favorite symphonic piece

[R.Liverman]

Brain Eno :: Here Come the Warm Jets.

Flaming Lips :: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

Led Zeppelin :: Led Zeppelin II

The Magnetic Fields :: Holiday

Neutral Milk Hotel :: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea

I think that's all for now. Brian Eno deserves more love than he gets. How many musicians revolutionize (create?) their genre then go on to design bike components?

[malcolm22]

not an album in the usual sense. one of the greatest performances of music ever, this is a link to furtwangler's angry and anguished wartime version of beethoven's ninth (the rest is there on youtube as well).

[malcolm22]

and a step beyond even that wartime beethoven performance of furtwangler's is this 1944 performance of bruckner's ninth



"The first climax of the first movement heralds his emotion. The Berlin Philharmonic is fully controlled and its ensemble perfectly together, and yet the tempo is so unstable and dynamically alive that no note falls quite where its predecessors would suggest, as if to reflect the entire orchestra's heaving, nervous desperation. Furtwängler often spent entire rehearsals polishing crucial transitions, but not here; he chops the first movement into dozens of inconclusive fragments, deliberately wrenching the mood from lilting lyricism to raw savagery, the tempos from standstill to runaway, and dynamics from inaudible to heavily overloaded. The movement ends in screaming trumpets, a primordial burst of sheer abject terror as both Bruckner and Furtwängler confronted the most horrifying fear of all: that at the very end of their struggles there would be only a void.

Although nothing could eclipse the unparalleled power of the opening, the wonders of this radical reworking of the Bruckner Ninth do not end with the shattering climax of the first movement. Furtwängler whips the scherzo and trio from a slightly menacing waltz and bucolic pastorale into a furiously driven, vertiginous ride to damnation. He then gradually builds the unintended adagio finale to a terrifying dissonance, after which the exhausted fragments wither into eternal silence.

None of this is explicit in the score. It took Furtwängler to recognize and recreate an absolutely perfect depiction of a single mind and, by extension, an entire world on the brink of collapse"

[OnTheEllipse]

Can't do favorite albums in the absolute sense, but I'd love to occasionally reply to the thread with a Top 100 pick. Right now I'm listening to the 180gm Mobile Fidelity remaster of Wake of the Flood (worth it for the Stella Blue alone). But up next:

Palace Brothers - Viva Last Blues



My favorite Will Oldham record (Master and Everyone is up there), which says a lot about one of the great singer/songwriters of a generation. This finds him at an early and unpolished, but raw and soulful stage.

['nati Chris]

The Wipers- Youth of America, I'll settle for that one but pretty much anything Greg Sage does is great.
It's Casual- The New Los Angeles proof that great punk is still being made.
Mudhoney- Mudhoney and if I'm not mistaken Steve Turner rides.
If Robert Pollard had any sort of filter and wan't compelled to release an album every month Guided by Voices could pretty much dominate this list because they certainly have many great songs.

[OnTheEllipse]

It's Casual- The New Los Angeles proof that great punk is still being made.

never heard of them. i'll have to check it out

If Robert Pollard had any sort of filter and wan't compelled to release an album every month Guided by Voices could pretty much dominate this list because they certainly have many great songs.

Alien Lanes is definitely in my top 50....maybe top 10.

[Ben]

A few I haven't seen mentioned yet:

[vpierce]

Perfect.