The Album List #18: My Bloody Valentine “Loveless”

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 Album List #22: Gang Of Four “Entertainment!”

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.

I love Gang Of Four.

The Album List #23: U2 “Achtung Baby”

I can't hate them. I just can't. I've tried.

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.

The Album List #24: Joy Division “Closer”

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).

The Album List #25: The Velvet Underground and Nico “The Velvet Underground and Nico”

No, I am happy to see you.

Everyone who bought this album started a band.

So goes the myth.

There are albums who influence far outstrips the record sales. This album is exhibit “A”.

The Album List #26: Joni Mitchell “Blue”

Just... just... just... wow.

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.

The Album List #27: Primal Scream “Screamadelica”

Acid trip ahead.

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.

The Album List #28: David Bowie “The Rise And Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars”

Ziggy played guitar.

David Bowie is one of the great loves of my life.

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.”

So I did.

The Album List # 29: Tom Waits “Swordfishtrombones”

I admit to being a sucker for a growl.

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.

The Album List #30: Pulp “Different Class”

It's a nice day for a white wedding.

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.

The Album List #31: Brian Wilson “Smile”

Found it!

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.

The album List #32: T. Rex “Electric Warrior”

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.

The Album List #33: The Zombies “Odessey And Oracle”

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.

The Album List #34: Dennis Wilson “Pacific Ocean Blue”

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.

Dennis Wilson perhaps outshone them all.

The Album List #35: Prefab Sprout “Steve McQueen”

Cool means cool.

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.

The Album List #36: Moby Grape “Moby Grape”

Bands this great never should be neglected.

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.

The Album List #37: Nirvana “Nevermind”

Obvious. But correct.

This is where the phrase “No shit, Sherlock” comes into play.

The Album List #38: Morrissey “Viva Hate”

The Prince of Sadness and Gladioli Speaks. And it is magnificent.

It’s Morrissey.

The Album List #39: Love “Forever Changes”

Yes, it's from the sixties. Why'd you ask?

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.

The Album List #40: Lou Reed “Transformer”

The Velvet Underground were nothing without Lou.

Jesus, what a statement.

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.

The Album List #41: Outkast “Stankonia”

International and underground.

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.

I love them.

The Album List #42: Madness “The Rise And Fall”

They really were the silliest band ever.

Madness have never been considered an “album band”. They released so many classic singles, their overall albums were ignored.  The Rise And Fall is a really great record from a really great band. I wish people took them seriously.

In the U.S., the band has always been treated as a novelty, if the deep affection for the song “Our House” is any indication.  ”Our House” springs from this record, and remains their biggest Stateside hit. This album, though, was never released in the States. It’s a shame.

The Album List #44: The Pixies “Doolittle”

Monkey Gone To Heaven

The Pixies are what Kurt Cobain wanted Nirvana to be, and they are the foundation of all that is good about the last twenty years of rock and roll.

Doolittle is their masterpiece.

Okay, it’s ridiculous for me to even remotely talk about the Pixies. They are one of those bands. The ones everyone talks about. Smarter people than I have written about them. But this album is just so fantastic, and I couldn’t leave the fucking Pixies off a list like this. Just not happening.

The Album List: #45 The Jam “All Mod Cons”

U.K. version. Always the U.K. version. Billy Hunt all the way, baby.

This may be a clever way to get more Ray Davies on the list.

See, a lot of British bands cover the lesser known, but better, Kinks songs released post “All the Day and All of the Night”. I mean, so massive and definitive are those first Kinks singles that one might forgive the lack of attention paid to their genius.

This is the excuse of idiots. But that’ll come.

The Jam cover the Kinks classic “David Watts” on All Mod Cons. The little ditty B-side is a bouncy little thing, with a “fa fa fa fa fa” hook and Brit pop guitars before Brit pop existed when the Kinks did it. While mirroring the original, the Jam’s cover has a hint of acidity that even the great Ray Davies couldn’t quite muster. It is simply one of the best covers of all time. Cleaner, clearer, and spiteful. Bruce Foxton was cranky.

The Album List: #46 White Stripes “Elephant”

Fringey.

“Rock and roll is dead. Long live rock and roll.”

That’s what the Who said. The music press, though, has announced the demise of the genre since Elvis was King. It seems that every ten years or so some high and mighty music writer declares the genre dead. This is usually based on album sales and singles charts. The fact is that the current market is depressed for albums and that pop music and R&B always sells better as singles. Rock fans love albums, but they’ll only buy GOOD albums. Or Steely Dan albums. Or ELO.

The current spate od “rock is dead” articles lament the rise of Gaga and Rihanna, and the overuse of auto tune. I have no problem with wither Gaga or Rihanna, and auto tune has been used since records first existed in some form or another. The lack of imagination in rock and roll is a more valid claim for the current state of the genre. If OK Go put as much effort in their songs as they did the videos for them, I would love them as opposed to like them. But this doesn’t feel any different to me than the same whingeing  that happened about ten years ago.

Then the Strokes came along and fuck it, indie rock blossomed quickly.

The White Stripes are an anomaly. Part indie rock innovators, part blues and country revivalists, part barbershop pole, the dazzled critics off the bat with their two person genius. It would be the album that shot them into the stratosphere, all on the simple backbeats and inventive guitar work of Meg and Jack White.

The Album List: #47 Madonna “Like A Prayer”

I have nothing clever to say.

I am a girl. Born in 1977.

Seriously? You knew she’d show up eventually, right?

The Album List: #48 John Coltrane “A Love Supreme”

Jazzy coolness, the bestest of the hepcats.

This one is different.

I can’t spew forth the usual “This is an awesome song, this is an awesome band, this vocal is fantastic and just listen to these guitars” bulltwaddle I usually bring to these proceedings. This is jazz, one of the two true American art forms that developed wholly from the New World. It is more American than rock and roll could ever be. And this is one of two jazz records on this list. The other one is influential because it was all about the piano, and I was a piano girl. This one , though, is about the sax.

There are no songs, per se. This is a masterwork of movements, four tracks, totalling over a half hour, of pure, perfect jazz. I can’t tell you what made Oscar Peterson superior to al other pianists save  one other than the fact he was from Montreal and the Canadian in me is pretty adamant he’s one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time.

The Album List: #49 Big Star “#1 Record”

The world would never be the same...

When Alex Chilton died last year, I was quite devastated. He was still relatively young, still touring with both a version of Big Star and his earlier band, the Box Tops.  But it was also very much about the lost opportunities. Alex Chilton could have been the biggest thing in music. He never quite got there.

I mean, he did have a number one hit at sixteen, all hunched over and spotty, singing the sixties classic “The Letter” on TV with the Box Tops. The song is amongst the standards of pop music, covered numerous times, most famously by Joe Cocker.  But Chilton would end up being even better and more influential when he joined an existing trio and recorded with Big Star. The band invented the rules of power pop, an underrated and magnificent subset of rock and roll that favours melodies and harmonies over distortion and feedback. The band would produce three near perfect records in a short span before breaking up.  All three records are fantastic. But this one is just that step closer to pop perfection. Plus it has three songs that if I were on a desert island, I’d be missing terribly.

The Album List: #50 Wire “Pink Flag”

When I get older, I will be stronger. They'll call me freedom, just like a waving flag.

This is twenty-two songs over thirty-seven minutes. It’s fast, precise punk rock. The Ramones may be the band that did it first and best, but Wire was equal in their minimalism. This album is simply fantastic. Literally. It is simple, and it is fantastic.

Wire, the London-based purveyor of short bursts of  punkish guitars and feedback,  is one of the most influential bands of the past thirty years. You’ve heard them more than you realise.  I certainly heard of them when R.E.M. ( oh, them again…) covered this albums stand out track “Strange”, and later when Elastica was sued because “Connection” sound almost exactly like this albums “Three Girl Rhumba”.  Years of promising to actually listen to this album went by until I decided to do a weekend project where I sat and listened to every single record in my collection from 1977.

It’s safe to say I spent the better part of that weekend listening to just two- this one, and Talking Heads: 77.

The Album List: #51 Talking Heads “Talking Heads ’77″

It is very, very red.

I was two and a half months old when this album was released.

A lot of great music stuff happened in 1977 that had nothing to do with John Travolta in a white suit. No, 1977 is the year of Rumours came to us, and it was the number one album the week I was born. The B-52′s played their first gig. The Stones played El Mocambo. Elvis died. So did Marc Bolan. Elvis Costello pissed of Lorne Michaels in 1977, and Lynyrd Skynyrd lost half its bands in one of music’s great tragedies.

Then there were the records themselves. Look at the list under the cut!

The Album List: #52 The Pretenders “The Pretenders”

She is just so cool. I wanna be her when I grow up. Well, her or Stevie Nicks.

This one has been difficult for me to write. Because when push comes to shove, I worship Chrissie Hynde. I wanted to be Chrissie when I didn’t want to be Debbie or Stevie or Patti. But Stevie did drugs, and Patti was by this point in time out of the industry raising her kids, and Debbie was somewhere only she knew in 1990. Chrissie was it for me.  Her attitude was different. Stevie had that dippy gypsy persona with the flowing dresses and the sky-high heels, singing about  dreams, thunder, and… well, gypsies. Debbie was beautiful and glamorous, with a breathy, Marilynesque persona with a reggae, forward thinking beat.  And Patti was Patti. You can never be Patti. But Chrissie was real. She looked fantastic but also looked the part of a rock star. She was smart, talented, beautiful, and fearless. She’s a great person to aspire to be like.

It’s also daunting, and when you fall short- well, you still have the albums.

The Album List: #53 Van Morrison “Moondance”

I could say something snarky and funny, but it's Van Fuckin' Morrison, people.

Putting this list together was a nightmare. I had to make a bunch of arbitrary rules and stick to them, and then there  is the mood one is in when you create the master list. At the time I was kind of annoyed with Morrison, who is actually among my top twenty artists of all time. I now regret having him down here at this number. Certainly the man deserves top fifty on some random blogger’s best album list.

Well, yeah. But I don’t know who I would move down the list.

So here I sit, with one of my all time favourite records not even in the top fifty of my list.

The Album List: #54 Beck “Odelay”

I only want a flying mop head if it will actually clean my floors.

I like odd.

Beck is very odd.

Therefore I like Beck.

I’m usually above using syllogism.

The Album List: #55 Syd Barrett “The Madcap Laughs”

Stripey floors.

Yes, Syd has come back.

This album is a mess, erratic, and difficult to listen to.  This doesn’t make it less beautiful. Syd, descending into madness quickly, somehow managed to create two solo albums of quality before completely retreating. This one is the better record.

With help from former Pink Floyd band mate Roger Waters and school chum and usurper David Gilmour, as well as producers Peter Jenner and Malcolm Jones, and music help from members of the Soft Machine, this album has a rawness and wildness. It’s not polished. Syd’s playing on the acoustic guitar is unpredictable. There are pieces of studio chatter. It’s less a record to me than a historical document, a primary source of sorts. This is Syd Barrett. Recluse. Mad man. Genius. Father of Pink Floyd.

The Album List: #56 The Teardrop Explodes “Kilimanjaro”

What's black and white and sitting on an album cover? The gremlins in Julian Cope's brain.

This band has oddball lyrics, horns that make the Chi-Lites envious, and a sense of time and place that make them endearing. They are clearly Liverpudlian 1980s.  They cannot be from anywhere else in history.

I mean, they are very 1980s. The album released at the cusp of the decade, is full of odd keyboard touches, sharp drums, muddled guitars, and a heavy bass mix. And the horn section.

Lord, such magnificent horns.

The Album List: #57 Jeff Buckley “Grace”

God damn, he was a bit purty, too.

This is a story about an album I listened to only one time in late 1994, then promptly ignored for a decade before I listened to it again and fell in love.

See, the much praised cover of  Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” irritated me at the time. I never like Cohen’s own very 80s arrangement. But I did, however, love John Cale’s icy 1991 version that appeared on the Cohen tribute album I’m Your Fan ( also a highlight- the Pixies doing “I Can’t Forget” and Nick Cave singing “Tower of Song”). I thought Buckley, by taking the Cale version and adding real emotion to it, ruined the damn song. I was seventeen, a Velvet Underground fan, I had just spent weeks listening to Cale’s Paris 1919 album and was convinced it would forever be amongst my top 100 albums.

Yeah, about that. Sorry, John Cale. It’s not anymore. It is in the top 200…

The Album List: #58 Jimi Hendrix Experience “Are You Experienced?”

All looks normal with a fish eye lens.

There are moments in my life in which I snap out of the greyness and the sadness for brief seconds. Lemon sponge cake with raspberry sauce. A good margarita. Doctor Who episodes. A record store that sells vinyl. Proper Sunday Roast dinners.  Call of Duty marathon playing sessions in which I actually improve on my previous best ( I still suck at it). Guitars. Guitar solos.

Hendrix.

I don’t believe in God. I believe in Hendrix.

I’ll be using the original U.S. version of this record, as it’s the first one I owned. And it has “Purple Haze”.

The Album List: #59 Magazine “The Correct Use of Soap”

Some bands exist purely to have me love them. I am convinced of this fact.

But one guy went on to VISAGE!!!! Anyone????

Magazine is one of these bands. The project Howard Devoto was in after leaving the Buzzcocks was the apex of post-punk bands. The fact that the members of these bands would also play in British acts like Visage, Swing Out Sister, Ultravox, and Public Image Ltd.  says much about the bands diverse taste and gift for melody and deconstruction.

As far as Magazine albums go, this is their most commercial/accessible.  You start here if you want to get into Magazine. There are only four albums, and The Correct Use Of Soap comes third. Their début Real Life is a masterpiece as well, but a darker record overall. Devoto was a bitter lyricist.  The poppy songs on The Correct Use of Soap, less angular and electronic, more organic and melodic, counter the bite Devoto brings, making the album a joy rather than a chore. Many people who love Magazine will probably criticise this choice, preferring Real Life.

Fine, but Real Life doesn’t have the Sly Stone cover. And that is worth the price of admission here.

The Album List: #60 Patti Smith “Horses”

Once upon a time, there was a little tow-headed girl child with big brown eyes who grew up in a house with her mother, a kind and music loving woman who was nevertheless very conservative in her views about male-female roles in the world; and her father, a distant man who dismissed rock and roll and could be quite mean when dealing with his free-spirited girl child. His views on women’s roles was indeed quite harmful to this young one, who felt betrayed by him on more than one occasion. When this girl child was thirteen, her mother took ill, and the girl child felt so alone in the world. She took on some of the things that her mother did in the house and felt unappreciated for it.

So she started listening to Patti Smith in secret, because she knew her parents would freak out in a bad way.

By the time this girl child was an adult- well, I’m sure her father is perplexed by her to this day.

The Album List: #61 Aretha Franklin “I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You”

She is Aretha. And that is all I really need to say.

The Album List: #62 Public Enemy “Fear of a Black Planet”

To those who proclaim that sampling is the refuge of the criminal and the creatively bankrupt, let me introduce you to a little album called Fear of A Black Planet.

Honestly, hip hop was crucial to my musical development, particularly in the Wild Wild West early years of sampling. The genre introduced me to soul and R&B and disco that never got played on the radio. It also lead me to rock and roll and pop songs I never heard of either. I went searching when I heard that bass line, or that piano, or that sliver of a guitar.

Hip hop showed me just how narrow radio playlists are. We complain about hearing the same song over and over. The answer was always in front of us. Hip hop made sampling an art form, but it’s dated back to the beginning of time.  And no one has done it better than Public Enemy on this record.

The Album List: #63 Johnny Cash “At Folsom Prison”

I grew up listening to my parents music. It involved a deep hatred for country music. My father preferred classical music, but his favourite non-classical artist was the late Johnny Horton, the nasally whiner who sang “Battle of New Orléans” and “North to Alaska” but died before he did much else. As that was my main exposure to country, it was easy for me to dismiss an entire genre.

When I was a teenager, living in rural Alberta, I was exposed to new country, which was essentially pop songs with ridiculously over pronounced Southern accents.  These artists didn’t help. But the country was sneaking through. I mean, true country. It started with Whitney Houston’s terrible “I Will Always Love You”, which led me to Dolly Parton’s original, making me forget that I had seen a classmate do an air band routine around Parton’s overblown and weepy “Me and Little Andy” that made me want to shoot her. That led me to Kenny Rogers, which led me to “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town”, which led me to Merle Haggard’s “Okie From Muskogee”, which led me to Hank Williams’ “Jambalaya”, which led me to George Jones’ “He Stopped Loving Her Today”, which led me to Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger…

Which led me to Folsom.

The Album List: #64 The Replacements “Tim”

Minneapolis in the 1980s must have been interesting. Yes, there was Prince, the massive superstar with a superego whom I have developed a hate-love-hate relationship. Then there were the rock bands that played on college radio. Soul Asylum, Hüsker Dü, The Jayhawks, Babes in Toyland, The Suburbs- basically 99% of Twin/Tone’s lineup- these bands are among my favourite bands of the 1980s. The king of them all, though are the ‘Mats.

It’s their major label debut, produced by Tommy Ramone, a  ramshackle experience, full of nuance both lyrically and muscially. It is Paul Westerberg at his peak, shredding his vocal chords while the erstwhile Stinson brothers got along just enough to lay down some amazing guitar and bass work, possibly both drunk while they did ( hell, let’s just assume the entire band were pretty much blasted beginning to end). There is even vocal work from the king of power pop majesty himself, Alex Chilton, on “Left of the Dial”.

It’s a mess, but it’s a fun mess.

The Album List: #65 Big Black “Songs About F***ing”

Steve Albini is afraid of girls.

Girls, however, love Steve Albini and Big Black.

Well, this one does, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one.

Albini is known now as a confrontational ass and a “music producer” * of note ( he has worked on albums for Nirvana, PJ Harvey, Helmet, Manic Street Preachers, Jarvis Cocker, The Wedding Present, and, most astonishingly, Joanna Newsom). He also still has a band, Shellac, and writes for various zines around the world. An outspoken proponent of analog recording and indie aesthetics, he is a divisive figure in music, where shiny and digital are now the norm.

Big Black were loud, fast, angry, and surprisingly melodic under the Ramones meets Motorhead music that came out of the two albums they produced.  They seem to be forgotten now by the larger musical community. I came across my copy of the album, purely by accident, in some seedy second-hand store in Edmonton, Alberta. I hadn’t heard of Big Black at the time, but the cover art was striking, the album’s title was comically on point, and I did know Steve Albini’s name.

*Albini hates the term record producer, and often doesn’t take credit for his work on albums. He really is all about the music.

The Album List: #66 Neil Young and Crazy Horse “Rust Never Sleeps”

There was a moment in my life where this album, a live adventure done at the end of the 1970s when I was a mere two years of age, became the album that defined my 1994. It was by accident, for sure, at least, in a way. Kurt Cobain purposefully quoted Neil Young’s line “It’s better to burn out than to fade away”. The line itself is a massive lie, but believed by a personal hero of mine. For the first time in my young life I bought my own Neil Young record. Okay, I copied to tape my own Neil Young record.

As a Canadian, Young is pretty much a part of the Muzak I hear everyday- “Heart of Gold”  is a radio standard. But my parents weren’t fans, so my exposure to him was on the outskirts, and judging by his early 80s output, I wasn’t missing a lot. By the time I was a teenager, Neil had “This Note’s For You”, which had a kinda funny video. BUt he wasn’t being played, at least, not where I was in Southern Alberta. It wasn’t until the “Godfather of Grunge” label came about that I even clued into his reputation. He was a national treasure yet I knew nothing about him.

I borrowed Rust Never Sleeps and Decade from a friend of mine one weekend after Cobain’s death and immersed myself into Neil Young’s world. I could have gone with Decade if it didn’t break the arbitrary “No Compilations/Greatest Hits Albums” rule I have. But Rust Never Sleeps is possibly my favourite Neil record- yes, even more than Harvest and Freedom.

The Album List: #67 Marvin Gaye “What’s Going On?”

Soul. A music with its roots in gospel and the blues, a rich tapestry of takin’ it to church and deep grooves.

And on top of it all was Marvin Gaye, smooth voiced and charming. The man who followed Sam Cooke was a troubled man, but he could sing. Man. Could. He. Sing.

Through out the sixties, as a Motown solo artist and as a famed duo with Tammi Terrell, Gaye was a superstar singer, and the prize in Berry Gordy’s stable. But after Terrell’s death from a brain tumour at the age of 24, and his younger brother Frankie’s reports of action in Vietnam, where he was serving, a depressed and morose Gaye began to write a song cycle that would cause problems for him at his label, but would be one of the definitive protest records of the time.

The Album List:#68 Pink Floyd “Piper At The Gates of Dawn”

Many of my best friends are Pink Floyd fans. I have spent more time in my life listening to Dark Side of The Moon than I ever actually cared to.

I hate Pink Floyd.

Okay, hate may be the wrong word. I do strongly dislike Pink Floyd.  Aside from the cheeky “Money” and the lovely “Wish You Were Here”, I find them pretentious, whingeing boors. But that’s the prog rock Pink Floyd, where David Gilmour and  Roger Waters went batshit crazy with the noodling and the themes.

There is a Pink Floyd I love. This Pink Floyd is the Pink Floyd of “Arnold Layne” and “See Emily Play”. This Pink Floyd is Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd, the crazy psychedelic band with hauntingly beautiful melodies and a genius front man who tragically went mental.

The Pink Floyd that produced Piper At the Gates of Dawn.

The Album List: #69 Scott Walker “Scott 4″

Orchestral pop is an abused art form. Grand and epic orchestrations backing elegant melodies isn’t as easy to sell as, say, Katy Perry’s tits. Which is why Scott Walker is neglected in his home and native U.S.A., but revered as a songwriting hero in the U.K., where he relocated with his band the Walker Brothers in the sixties. His solo career is a lesson in brilliance and bad luck.

Blessed with a gorgeously emotive baritone and a man unafraid of risk ( he was among the first musicians to play electric bass as a studio musician in the fifties), his first five solo records are the stuff of legend. Of the five, it was Scott 4 that showcased his songwriting best. There are no Jacques Brel covers on this album ( though all Brel and Walker fans have nothing but praise for Walker’s Brel covers).

The Album List: #70 Coldplay “A Rush of Blood To the Head”

I. Love. Coldplay.

I know it’s “cool” to hate Chris Martin, the likable, talented do-gooder with the pretty movie star wife and the ridiculously named children. He writes these middle of the road pop songs with pianos and orchestras, and they aren’t massively guitar driven, and the lyrics are pretentious, and-

Shut it.

I. Love. Coldplay.

I particularly love love love LOVE this record.

The Album List: #71 Prince and the Revolution “Purple Rain”

I have a very complex relationship with this album.

I have stop and started this piece all week. I hate what Prince became after Purple Rain- a hateful, vengeful, misogynistic, derivative pop star who would alienate many of his former fans with his prickly personality. He would never be as good as he was in 1984-1987. I even think Sign O’ The Times is the better overall album.

Now, the truth is, Prince was always what I just accused him of becoming. The movie this album is a soundtrack for is a whiny, poorly acted piece of shit. And that personality of his is all over the damn thing. The only parts that are tolerable are the songs, and even then, “Darling Nikki” is one of the single most horrific pieces of music written. I am greatly offended by it, and I’m not a prude.

There is much to admire and love, though, about this record. The music geek in me wins out over the feminist.