It took a little more than year to complete the album list. At the half way point, I began thinking of the next project to do. I suggested on Twitter a song project, which was immediately encouraged, particularly by my BFFS.
This cause great consternation. See, narrowing down albums is hard enough. Narrowing down songs is god damned near impossible. While my top five songs of all time are pretty much set in stone, the numbers afterwards are fluid and ever-expanding. So it becomes a question of how one breaks down the list. I considered by year (already did that one once, years ago). I considered by genre, by decade, by artist, by whim. None of these satisfied. THen, one day, in my eternal search for good music from where ever I can find it, digging through Turkish rock music on-line ( I’m not kidding), it hit me.
By country.
This idea was later solidified while watching the Scottish TV special Scotland’s Greatest Album, which admirably didn’t give the Scots a Wet Wet Wet song to vote for, but still skewed MOR and bland over all (literally- Middle of the Road was on the list with “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep”). I also objected to the Fifa rules of nationality they ascribed to. Essentially, the album was made up with the same artists, with two Proclaimers songs, the wrong Primal Scream song,and their entire nineties selections were actually released in PREVIOUS decades. I found the song selection process flawed. And that irritated me.
This being said- EVERY single song that panel selected was a great song. But the disagreements run deep.
Yes it was a democratically selected list, voted by the people. Scots have terrible taste in music. Though I suspect that similar experiments would probably end up similar.
So I have decided to produce lists of varying numbers, depending on my research and love of various bands and genres and ultimately the quality of a nations music scene. The two nations exempt for the time being are the U.S. and England ( yes, England. I am separating the U.K. like they do for the World Cup. Come on Wales, give me more than the Manics!). The history is so massive that it would take years to finish a list. So they will come towards the end, as I have already taken my previously created lists and began divvying them up.
I am starting with these three countries first- Scotland (I’m irritated); Slovenia (thanks to my lovely BFF and Eurovision apologist Nina for the primary list, which shall be expanded on); and Australia ( I’m listening to a lot of Nick Cave lately).
As always, I appreciate all feedback and recommendations. The email address is fromamess@gmail.com.
Thanks, and wish me luck. I’ve been stuck on a loop of Hue and Cry, Aztec Camera, and Deacon Blue. I might how up to work in tartan leg warmers at this rate.
Few things on this earth are guaranteed. Death. Taxes. The fact that Starbuck Caffe mochas will always taste better with full fat milk instead of no-fat milk.
The only thing more sure than those three things is that I love the Clash. There is only one band I love more than the Clash. But that band has been a source of frustration in the past. The Clash never disappointed me. This may be because I conveniently have never heard the infamous last album, stopping only with the very commercial but still pretty fantastic Combat Rock. I will defend Give ‘Em Enough Rope and Sandinista! until my last breath. But come on, now. I have never seen anyone win a music fight about the Clash being good or bad without them hemming and hawing over London Calling.
In fact, I have never met anyone who hates London Calling. They must exist. What sad people they must be. I mean, i know people who merely like the Clash, and I love some of these people dearly, but even they acknowledge the general genius of London Calling. No one has ever argued with me about this album. Even the Beatles cause arguments.
The place: Manhattan. I think. Somewhere in New York City, at the very least.
The sitch: Spin magazine releases their year-end issue. It’s the issue with all the lists about what’s awesome and what wasn’t so awesome.
This particular list caused a stir, though, because of what was number one.
1991 was a year where Nirvana’s masterful Nevermind dominated everything. Except Spin. No, they decided to give their number one album of the year slot to a Scottish indie band that didn’t sell all that well and probably few of you have actually listened to in your lives.
I was the one person who thought Spin was the true genius magazine in 1991. Because Bandwagonesque is in my opinion- BETTER than Nevermind.
The man from Barking is part of the barking left. Yes, terrible joke.
My politics were shaped as much by the music I heard as a teenager as the life experience I have suffered through. I’m a left-wing Nutter, if you haven’t clued in, and quite proud of it, thankyouverymuch.
Yeah, whatever, bite me.
I grew up with conservative, religious parents who were dismayed by my leftist, atheistic world view. I didn’t care. I felt freer for it. If you don’t believe in heaven or hell, you don’t fear or aspire to either. So the good work you do on earth is strictly for you, because you believe that helping humanity should not come from the wish to please some malevolent overlord, but because it’s the nice thing to do.
I also do not believe in altruism. I get a good feeling from being a decent human being. I get a reward by not feeling like a total bitch five minutes a day.
Billy Bragg was the first artist I ever listened to that made me believe in this mind-set. My father, of course, is good at setting up Liberals as evil money-grubbing lunatics who want to steal his hard-earned money away for lazy people. Billy introduced to me the songs of The Internationale. He was handpicked by Nora Guthrie to finish of Woody’s unfinished songs and released them, along with Wilco, as the two Mermaid Avenue albums that are worth listening to simply because they are perfect.
This reputation as a Thatcher hating, neo commie weirdo with a nasally Essex voice overshadows his finest work. Granted, with an album title like Talking With the Taxman About Poetry, you would assume (correctly) that politics play a role. But the finest songs on the album have nothing to do with overt politics. For all the complaining, his detractors neglest to mention that he does kitchen sink drama well, and that he is a keen observer of modern life.
My love for the Manchester quartet knows no bounds.
Everyone has those bands that implode but you remain devoted to simply because they were so very important to you when you were thirteen. I’ve listed about a dozen o0f them on this list alone. But the Smiths were special.
It's a trick they do with mirrors and with chemicals.
Picking one Elvis Costello record from the reams and reams of worthy Elvis Costello records should have been a nightmare. But it wasn’t. King of America has always been my favourite album by the awesome and brilliant Declan MacManus. There was never any question in my mind it would be on this list, and that it would feature high on it. He shot to fame the year I was born, and he remains the one musician that has never, ever, EVER disappointed me.
This album takes EC away from his humble new wave punk rock beginnings and entrenched him as the man who can do everything. This rich, soulful, country tinged album is criminally overlooked, even within his own catalogue. It breaks my heart.
This ended up being way harder than I thought it would be. At the end of November, I wasn’t happy with my preliminary list, but knew two potentials were being released shortly and that it would change the line up. Then when I locked it down, the list just felt wrong. So I did something I never do:
I delayed publication and listened to every 2011 I own. Repeatedly.
Instead of my usual yuletide, Pogues induced December music coma, I listened to thirty particular albums over and over and over. Then I opened the list back up and made some changes. Hence the late publication date.
But under the cut are the twenty albums I like best. Some people will be disappointed by the exclusion of one particular album. Some will be surprised by the inclusion of others. But I will say this. 2011 wasn’t a grand year for music, but man, some of it was freakin’ fantastic.
Thanks to all the people who threw suggestions out at me over the year. I appreciate it, and you all pointed me to bands I would have never given a chance otherwise. Merci, gracias, danke, tak, go raibh mile maith agat.
It all starts with them, and it will end with them, always.
I’m still recovering from the September announcement of R.E.M.’s end. They were hugely important to me in my life, and even though I know they made the right decision, I’m still trying to get my head around the idea that there will be no more R.E.M.
I have every album. This is the one that remains my favourite. It bridges the famed jingle jangle of Murmur and Reckoning with the vibrant experiments that would follow.
I am probably the only Manic Street Preachers fan in all of North America. I am devoted. 164 songs on my iTunes devoted- only a few bands top them in sheer volume. They are a band with a bit of a sad history, having lost member Richey Edwards a couple of years into their successful 1990s album run. After Richey’s disappearance, the band continued on, releasing the explosive Everything Must Go album that is utterly magnificent.
But it’s This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours that remains my favourite. It’s the album I discovered first, as it has their first international single release, and first U.K. number one. It also holds my favourite song by the band, and as much as I love their earlier, angrier punk incarnation, I appreciate the blend of attitude, politics, introspection, and restrait of this record.
I listen too a lot of music. But even those of us who listen to a lot of music sometimes miss amazing records, usually debuts, from small labels simply because most people want to hear about how much Britney Spears’ album sucked ass. The problems with music criticism is the increasing need to draw in eyeballs ( in a blogger’s case, page hits). This is the problem now with Rolling Stone. I really don’t think that some of those albums on their 2011 Best of list are what their dyed in the wool music writers really think are top fifty material. I also suspect that the one they named number one, while worthwhile as an album and on my list as well, they don’t really think is the number one. Seeing as big music names dominate that list, it’s hard to take the legendary magazine seriously anymore. I miss the Rolling Stone that decided to name London Calling the greatest album of the 1980s, even though it was technically released in December 1979, and was from the Clash, not Madonna or Prince.
Arcade Fire, though, saw their greatest success born out of music journalism. Specifically, 21st century music journalism. The success of the band started with Pitchfork. You all know Pitchfork, right? The much mocked and much respected zone where hipster music nuts with an obsession with the Merge Records roster congregate? Arcade Fire are the money makers of Merge. Anyhow, the band famously were trumpeted by the website as the next big thing. The release of Funeral not only made the Montreal based music collective fronted by husband and wife team Win Butler and Regine Chassange, it kinda made Pitchfork’s name as well.
Bruce Springsteen playing “Born To Run” is pretty much as holy roller as my life gets. Music is my religion, after all. A song like “Born To Run” is the ultimate hymn for those who think that, with its grandiose wall of sound production, kick ass Clarence Clemons solo, and of course, lyrics about cars and sex. All the best music in the world is about cars and sex. Rock and roll is the genre of teenage boys. Their passions dominate.
2011 has been a pretty blah year musically, but I somehow managed to scrape together a couple of lists for you. First up, the 20 songs that I loved most in 2011. Including a country song, a Rihanna song, and Eurovision.
Yes, Parklife would probably be the one you own, if you happened to be a person from the nineties with a modicum of taste. Blur never made a huge impact over in America ( they fared slightly better in Canada), and they never had the breakthrough Oasis had with “Wonderwall”. In the eternal battle for rock and roll supremacy, the USA attempts to win by ignoring the awesomeness from the U.K. The U.K. does dumbass things like accepting Nickelback and Kings of Leon on their earlier, better work, turning them into assholes long before they break back on their side of the Atlantic.
While I could go on for hours about Parklife or The Great Escape, the inherent Britishness and the britpop melodies, there is something very compelling about Blur’s self titled fifth album. Written at the height of laddism, and while Damon Albarn and gang were beginning to succumb to drugs, alcohol, cheese making, and general unrest, Blur is one dark fucking record.
I would have written "Where Have All The Rude Boys Gone" if Ted Leo hadn't thought of it first.
One of the greatest songs ever written about loving music was written by one Ted Leo. A spry, punkish tribute to ska, the lyrics drip with references to the Rude Boy era of British music, particularly the perfection that were the Specials. It has the benefit of being one of the greatest songs ever written, for sure. But it wouldn’t matter how great the song was if it didn’t ring true somehow. “Where Have All The Rude Boys Gone?” is gospel truth. The Specials were, for lack of a better word, special.
I should really see if I can do something for that astigmatism.
There are just some artists you know you should drop from the discussion. I did it with the Beatles. But Bob Dylan is so important to me I couldn’t cut him with the big 5. And this album is just so magnificent I had to put it on my list. It really is an arbitrary process. But it’s my blog, my rules. So it goes.
The album sees Dylan moving away from the Greenwich folkie image to the innovator with its part acoustic, part electric set up. But as always, the deeply sardonic and cynical Dylan writes the lyrics. This album contains some of his best music, lyrics, and attitude. In my mind, it is only matched by his 1970s masterpiece Blood on the Tracks, and if that record had the last track of this album on it, I would have flipped over easily.
How can any self-respecting punk music fan not love the Buzzcocks?
The Ramones are the be all and end all of punk rock. Everything that comes after is punk rock mixed with something else. The Clash used ska and reggae. The Sex Pistols were a glorified boy band. Blondie was disco, Television was arty, the New York Dolls were an excellent drag act, the Adverts could barely play, the Specials weren’t even punk. And the Buzzcocks? They were the pop punk progenitors, the beginning of where Green Day and Blink-182 came from. Please don’t hate them for the latter. It really wasn’t their fault. But it’s hard to imagine “All the Small Things” or “Longview” being possible if Pete Shelley hadn’t sang “Orgasm Addict”.
The Buzzcocks are amongst my eldest daughters favourite bands. They were close to being her first concert if she had bothered to clean up her room. As it is, she listens to Singles Going Steady on pretty much a continuous loop with her Script albums. I’m just proud to pass on such fantastic taste.
It almost bankrupted the label. But then Alan McGee found Oasis.
Rock history is littered with perfectionist geniuses. Brian Wilson comes to mind immediately. But Kevin Shields, the mastermind behind My Bloody Valentine, holds a special place in the hearts and minds of music fans. Because he nearly ended Alan McGee.
McGee founded Creation Records. A crucial label in 1980s Brit indie music, he signed MBV and Teenage Fanclub. He would later find and sign Oasis, but that didn’t help him after sinking a rumoured £250,000 into the two-year recording sessions for Loveless. Creation was in receivership when Oasis hit it big. McGee would go on to be a general pain in the ass and political money man. But he signed this band, allowed them to make this album, and for once I’ll say Good on you McGee.
The pianist in me wants to be amongst the greatest jazz pianists. Peterson, Baisie, Carmichael, Corea, Dearie, Ellington, Gershwin, Hines, Henderson, Jobim, Ibrahim, Legrand, Monk, Mingus, Strayhorn, Tatum, Toussaint, Waller- these are just the ones who have albums currently sitting in my Sunday morning jazz playing queue. But I always save a special place every Sunday for this album, my favourite jazz album, by the much maligned but grossly underrated Dave Brubeck. This is one of the single best-selling jazz records of all time. This fact means that Brubeck is considered a traitor to the cause. Jazz isn’t supposed to sell to mass audiences.
The snobbishness of jazz aficionados means devoted jazz fans like myself perhaps do not talk about our love of the genre as much as we should. I like the populist jazz classics like Time Out because of the accessibility. But to dismiss this album as simplistic and unworthy of serious consideration is plain wrong. The album was always a bold experiment in time signatures. But it has always been shunned in jazz circles. CRitically lambasted upon its release, as jazz purists despise anyone messing with the set in stone rhythms of the genre, it remains the best album to introduce jazz sceptics to the genre. It’s precisely because the innovation makes the album listenable, and friendly to the average person.
One of the best things about the recent OWS protest in Zuccotti Park was that Jeff Mangum, NMH’s erstwhile leader, played music. In the twelve years since the band famously just stopped, Jeff has been a mercurial creature. Recent activity might indicate a future for the brilliant man to come back to. He curated ATP and has played some shows. I can’t tell you how much I want this to happen.
The Athens, Georgian based NMH were ten years ahead of the new folk rock boom that spawned Mumford and Sons. As much as I love Mumford, they aren’t as great as the rawer, more stripped back NMH, who would throw in musical saws and uilleann pipes in their melodies. NMH are simply one of those bands that could have been, but never were, and almost forgotten if it weren’t for the faithful.
Hip hop and I were born around the same time. We grew up together. We once trawled disco beats before discovering life was hard and listening to new music that felt as alienated and angry as we were. There were moments of sweetness, moments of pain, and a lot of fantastic music. But it wasn’t until much, much later, as we both approached our early twenties, where we found our true soulful voices.
Hip hop came of age in the early 1990s, but it’s true blood masterpieces came a decade later. And sitting above it all is the true lyrical king of all, Mr. Shawn Carter.
I am gonna do this without mentioning the "A" word or the "M" word.
Name yourself after the infamous quartet that held on to Chinese power only to be brought down after Mao’s death and you might get labelled. Create a new sound full of jagged guitars and disco squawking, you might get labelled. Be totally awesome and you will get my vote as one of the most vital bands of the last thirty years.
Like everyone else born of the 1970s, U2 were my 1980s. Specifically, The Joshua Tree was my 1980s. It’s one of those albums. It looms large, much like Nevermind. It colours an era. It’s a fine album, a great album. It’s just this one, out the ashes of a newly reunited Germany and a band nearly obliterated by its own expectations, is far superior. It was a massive hit as well, but it came out in 1991. As we know, 1991 is not considered the year of U2.
Such a strange cover for an album with such happy music on it.
I am in love with the city of Manchester. It has a lot to do with Manchester United, certainly, but my love affair with the great northern English city started before David Beckham made me a football fan. See, Manchester is the home of some of the greatest bands that ever existed. Most of these bands came after Joy Division, and sounded nothing like the dark, monotonous Ian Curtis and friends. Hell, after Curtis’ death, the band continued on a New Order and sounded nothing like Joy Division (but remained totally awesome while doing so).
There are some albums that appear on this list that are beyond obvious and tread into cliché. As a Canadian female born in the late seventies, there will be a Joni Mitchell album on the list, and it will be Blue. This cliché wouldn’t exist if the album wasn’t simply one of the most beautiful and emotionally honest records ever created. I don’t know how many times in my life I have listened to Joni’s heartbreak on this record, but it certainly one of the albums I reach for when my heart has been pulverised.
It won the very first Mercury Music Prize. How some random indie Scottish band that could never keep it’s membership turned out the greatest of the house records remains a mystery. The singer was once the drummer for the Jesus and Mary Chain, ferchrissakes. But here it is, the best album to pull out during a party ever created. Continue reading
I adored him when I was young and “Modern Love” was a hit, with its sixties inspired harmonies and bright pop. I loved him even more when I discovered “Heroes” as a teenager, and Low in college. There is a beauty in “Space Oddity”‘s story and futuristic melody that inspires me, as the fury and flailing of “I’m Afraid Of Americans” thirty years later. Few people can claim to have had a career even close to Bowie’s. To pick an album out of this massive collection of brilliance was nearly impossible, but since leaving Bowie off the list was inexplicable to me, I had to buckle down and ask my self a serious question- “Which Bowie song can’t you live without? Take that one.”
I would follow Tom Waits to the end of the earth. Then, when he says “Jump”, I’d probably do it.
Swordfishtrombones is the album that took Waits from the gruff voiced crooner to the ravaged, rough style that would be his later records. The genius of it is, the songs got better.
To me, as big an influence as the grunge scene was, the early 1990s for me means Britpop. Specifically, it means the mighty trifecta of Blur, Oasis, and Pulp. Sure, I’ll take arguments for Suede or Sleeper or whatever, but those three were the big three. Of those three, though, I found Oasis derivative of classic rock ( a good derivative, but still). Blur and Pulp were fresher and rawer. THey both show up on this list, so let me start with Pulp.
I think Pulp is my favourite Britpop band, mostly because I am a little (whole) bit in love with Jarvis Cocker, the Sheffield raised auteur of Pulp. A biting look at the class system in the U.K. circa 1990-1995, it remains one of the best albums of the era.
Rock and roll is full of mythology. Elvis is alive. Paul McCartney’s dead. Robert Johnson made a deal with Satan. This insanity therefore transfers to the music itself.
Say you are a very popular 1960s Southern Cali band who are being overworked to the point of collapse. In the three years of your career, you released a mind-blowing ten albums, four in 1963 alone. But no one takes you seriously. Your undisputed masterpiece is ignored at the time of release. And then you try to take your pop band in a direction it doesn’t want to go. The subsequent work is shelved, with a few of the tracks being tweaked for release on some horrific thing called Smiley Smile. You finally lose it.
This is the story of the infamous Smile, long the lost masterpiece of rock and roll history, and Brian Wilson, musical genius and troubled soul.
When Wilson decided to re-record Smile as a solo project in 2004, I thought he was nuts. But still, to hear the music as Wilson did in his head back in 1966-67 would be a treat. I would later think that Brian Wilson can do no wrong. I still do. Smile is his ultimate solo work, the pinnacle of a long and difficult career. It’s near flawless.
My darling friend Lori. We had David Cook, rock and roll, and deep love for each other. So I know that this video would have made her squee with delight. DC, kids, and Bon Jovi.
Just a moment of real sadness for the day. Then I remember she’s kick my ass for being mopey.
Friends say it's fine, friends say it's good, everybody says it's just like rock and roll.
T. Rex and I have a long love-hate relationship. I hate the twee, “Ride A White Swan” nonsense, where Marc Bolan was done up in so much glitter he looked like a disco ball. I love the riffs of “Children of the Revolution” and “20th Century Boy”, the love of cars and girls that makes for the best rock and roll ( see: Beach Boys, Bruce Springsteen). Fortunately, they had great songs amongst the image, and therefore the best T. Rex album is actually a compilation. But that isn’t an option here. And I cannot leave T. Rex off the list, as they played a big roll in my life (and helped me develop a thing for pretty boys). Therefore, I went with the excellent and least twee of their albums, the brilliant Electric Warrior.
So, this is what orange sunshine does to your brain...
This album is legendary. The crash and burn tale of the Zombies is a favourite among music geeks. A simple tale of St. Albans lads form band, then release a single called “She’s Not There” that I consider to be among the greatest songs ever recorded, and within four years released three albums and completely disintegrated into other projects before reuniting in the early 1990s when everyone realized that the Zombies were among the top five bands of the British invasion and deserved a wider audience. While “She’s Not There”, “Tell Her No” , and “Time of the Season” are pretty ubiquitous songs, they weren’t necessarily as big at the time as you might think, and certainly not as appreciated as they deserved to be. It must have been tough to be a British band circa 1964-1968. Those damn Liverpudlians kinda dominated the conversation. As they still do. Which is why they aren’t on the list.
He was still the only Beach Boy who could surf, you know.
Some things in life are total surprises.
I talk about 1977 a lot. Since it was the year I was born, I kind of admit to liking a lot of really bad things simply because I was born in 1977. Avocado kitchen appliances is a major sticking point of taste.
I have somewhere in the neighbourhood of a half-dozen albums from 1977 on this list- Wire, Fleetwood Mac, Suicide, and the Talking Heads have all popped up. But in all honesty, none of those albums would surprise anyone. If you trotted out most critics best 1977 albums list, most of them would have those four albums, or at least three of them, in some configuration.
What I remember most about Prefab is the ridiculousness of their single “King Of Rock and Roll”, which doesn’t appear on this album, but deserve a mention for the completely random lyrics:
” I am the king of rock and roll completely, up from suede shoes to my baby blues- hot dog, jumping frog, Albuquerque.”
These lyrics were matched by a video with Paddy McAloon lazing around a pool with dancing hot dogs and a frog valet. It is simply one of the most bizarre literal videos I have ever seen.
The insanity of this song and video, the band’s biggest hit, should not dissuade you from the genius that is Steve McQueen.
Rarely does a band enter its recording career as assured in their sound as Moby Grape. The quirky sunshine pop and harmonies of this Cali band are perfection. Sure, they were undone a bit by hype and marketing overkill, but still, the songs are fantastic.
I could say something. But really, all I can say is that I played on my grandparents Mac as a child and I would die without my iPod. And Steve Jobs gave me both of those things.
It is completely irrational. They’re only a band. Many other bands I love have broken up. Many of those bands have gotten back together for reunion tours. I didn’t even cry when the Smiths disbanded, when I was a child and more prone to overreaction.
But when the news of R.E.M.’s break-up came over my Twitter feed yesterday, I was rendered speechless. It’s not even as if the news was shocking, per se. The band has been uneven since Bill Berry left in the late nineties, and their different projects have taken over their lives.
Once again, the best of Canadian music has come together to celebrate all that is wonderful and perfect about my home and native land’s music. This years short list has ten great records on it. But one is the clear favourite.
The ten albums on the Polaris 2011 short list are:
Arcade Fire The Suburbs
Austra Feel It Break
Braids Native Speaker
Destroyer Kaputt
Galaxie Tigre et diesel
Hey Rosetta! Seeds
Ron Sexsmith Long Player Late Bloomer
Colin Stetson New History of Warefare Vol. 2: Judges
Some records loom over your life with the ferocity and personality of a Madonna or an Axl. These records are great records, but they never let you forget it, and they have the ability to swamp lists like this. Hell, I’ve mentioned several.
Then there are the greater records that are subtle, that sneak into your life and stay there, beckoning on rainy days and Mondays,saying to you “But are you really in the mood for Appetite For Destruction today?”
Forever Changes is one of those albums. It is widely considered one of the greatest albums ever- Rolling Stone, NME, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Mojo, Channel 4, Q , and the British Parliament have all considered the album to be a masterpiece.
And it is. The late, great Arthur Lee, along with his band, created the definitive Summer of Love album, acid psychedelia laced with acoustic guitars and a full orchestra, with one of the single greatest collections of songs ever recorded. This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you make an unforgettable, but truly subtle, record.
Some music about New York, love, loss, and everything in between after the cut. It’s ten years worth of thought, anger, frustration, relief and love in several YouTube videos- politics, hymns, accidents of time, and Steve Earle.
Lou is nothing ever but Lou. Even as he shifts, he is always Lou. He wants to be other people, but he can’t. Lou always comes out.
I mentioned earlier a fondness for John Cale’s solo masterpiece Paris 1919. It is a magnificent album, and it is very John Cale. This is very much Lou. Neither sounded that much like the Velvets. But they are all brilliant records.
I just happen to think Transformer is a better effort than the Cale record.
I have tried to figure out how to exactly write this piece.
Then I decided to simplify to the basics.
I love Outkast.
I love André 3000′s spacey, hippy dippy self. I love Big Boi’s muscle and swagga. I love their inventiveness, their boldness, their samples, their lyrics, their sense of history.
@Rosiekonc @NinaGray_ @yesjayme One day, when it's over, I'll take all the seasons and watch them and attempt to figure out WTF is going on. 1 hour ago
