The Rest Of The List

I've been working on this for almost 2 years now. While I will continue to review albums, I figure I should just reveal the rest of my list...that way I can also review out of order should I feel like it!:

16 This Heat-Deceit
15 Wire-Pink Flag
14 The Replacements-Let It Be
13 The Beatles-The Beatles
12 Blood, Sweat, And Tears-Child Is The Father To Man
error 11 The Monks-Black Monk Time error
10 Sly And The Family Stone-There's A Riot Goin' On
9 Bob Dylan-Highway 61 Revisited
8 Isaac Hayes-Hot Buttered Soul
7 The Beatles-Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
6 Miles Davis-In A Silent Way
5 Van Morrison-Astral Weeks
4 The Beach Boys-Pet Sounds
3 Husker Du-Zen Arcade
2 The Stooges-Fun House
1 The Rolling Stones-Exile On Main Street

more reviewing to come!

#17 The Monks-Black Monk Time

Artist: Monks
Album: Black Monk Time
Label: Polydor
Year: 1966

note: going through the rest of the list, I apparently put this album at number 17 and 11. I am sure I meant it to be 11, because as I was writing this, I thought it was a bit low. But now to figure out what album isn't here that should be. What album is missing? Oh no...
Neglect! Thy name is my blog. (I wrote this first sentence on 11/28...it's now 1/12/12)
If Big Star's Third/Sister Lovers has a sort-of accidental greatness...a piece so desolate and harrowing, that it's total abandonment helps to cement the music...then Black Monk Time, is its polar opposite: an album which reflects a definitive purpose. Every moment committed to tape has a reason and a meaning. Those who've seen the documentary Transatlantic Feedback or have read the book on the band know this. While Monks may appear on a Nuggets box set, and they may have even appeared at a few garage rock revival festivals a few years ago, the band is eons away from their peers in both sonic quality and band philosophy. There never was a band like Monks and there really hasn't been one since.
Not one single component of the band's sound truly stands out above the rest. For those unfamiliar with the band, they began as a bunch of GI friends stationed in Germany during the early-1960s. After their military discharge, they stayed in Germany and played out as a band called The Torquays. At the time, they fit in pretty well with other bands playing American-style garage rock in the German clubs.
After hooking up with a management group with an artistic style, the group transformed, and long story short-became Monks. The group not only performed songs under the moniker, but dressed like Monks all the time (including the shaved heads!)
Yet the most important impact of this move wasn't really directly linked to being "monks" per se, but more of a singular purpose and focus. That's the greatness of Black Monk Time: purposefulness. Cutting through everything unnecessary so all that's left is the core of the music.
The documentary on the band and surely the book will give more detail, but it's clear that the album strips every good idea down to its essence and leaves nothing else. Unlike, say, Wire's Pink Flag where any idea is really only given a brief lifespan before moving on, Monks compose full songs that only really have one idea. Songs like "I Hate You" and "Oh, How To Do" are just one measure repeated over and over, with slight adjustments in terms of dynamics and start/stops...but the chorus and verse all have the same music. The tribalism of the band is also essential, as floor-stompers like "Complication" and "Shut Up" shun the use of cymbals and focus almost exclusively on toms (which produce a lower-register). The songs are closer to being sonic-assaults than pop ditties, which surely accounted for their unpopularity at the time. But now that we've had Krautrock, Noise, Industrial, and all sorts of non-traditional rock-influenced music, we can see what tremendously important album Black Monk Time really is.
I once read on the website Perfect Sound Forever that The Stooges were avant-garde because nobody had ever been so minimalist. Monks, however, were doing their thing when Iggy Pop was in high school (well if he was 21 in 1968...then in 1965 he'd be 18!). The band stopped being Monks and moved on with their life, totally unaware of the cult that built around them until the 2000s. But there is no doubt now of Black Monk Time's greatness, and that its greatness is due in large part to how strongly it flew in the face of convention in pop-rock at the time.

I thought when I got near the end of this list, it would be easy to write about my favorite albums. But putting it into smart words is just so hard. Thanks for reading!

#18 Big Star-Third/Sister Lovers

Artist: Big Star
Album: Third/Sister Lovers
Label: Rykodisc
Year: 1978 (recorded 1975; Rykodisc 1992)

I began working on this post a month ago, and am going to try to salvage what I have. I think that's pretty appropriate considering the album I'm reviewing!
From one of the most gloriously uplifting albums to one of the most gloriously distraught, Big Star's final album (sans a reunion in 2005) is one of the most haunting and tragic masterpieces of music. Though known for their incredible ability to write melody around glorious harmony and shining guitars, today, Big Star's reputation also largely rests on this, their final album as an active rock band. For all it's melodic gorgeousness, the fact that it is an album that almost never happened, and in a way, was never completed, adds to its legacy tremendously. Few albums capture the sound of a band going through what these guys were experiencing, and as I maintain, that aides in one's appreciation of the album immensely.
Founded in 1971, Big Star was the brain child of Alex Chilton (formerly of 1960s soul-pop group The Box Tops) and Chris Bell. Andy Hummel and Jody Stephens rounded out the lineup...and as the name indicates...the group had big dreams. Unfortunately, the dreams never coalesced...and a lack of commercial success, mixed with booze and drugs and in-fighting saw the group all but broken up by 1975.
The strength and majesty of the album is two-fold...it's mystique and beautiful melodies (that are a part of the former). Many (hell, most?) classic albums have a story: a band with a purpose gets together in some definitive situation at the height of their powers and either methodically and systematically, or just because they are that damn great...bust out a classic. But Big Star in 1975 were broken and bruised. And the album they produced...well it sounds nothing like what built their early albums: chiming guitars, gorgeous harmonies, and a class rock and roll feel.
///Re-picked up in November.
The album as it stands now opens uncomfortably with "Kizza Me." While a strong track and great opener with lots of energy, the dark instrumentation is a radical departure from what came before for the band. Guitars are incredibly low in the mix, and a bizarre piano track and fuzz bass dominate the mix. The following song, "Thank You Friends," is a little more "polished"...and some gorgeous melodies open up the song...and there's even a guitar solo reminiscent of the first two records. With "Big Black Car," we have the band's slowest and darkest song yet, and these three opening songs pretty much summarize the album. There are really odd-ball rockers, with a traditional Big Star melody but that really don't sound like them; there are some dark songs that often sound as if they are about to fall apart; and there are even a few beautifully composed songs that hold together so well, they almost sound out of place. In the first category, along with the opening track, you have "You Can't Have Me" and "O, Dana" which also have a strong, very audible fuzzy bass and piano riffs. The frustration inherent in each song and the fact that with a different arrangement these could sound more "like" Big Star might be related (I wanna feel you kizza me!; O, Dana, come on!; You can't have me, no not for free!"). What often gets the most attention when discussing the album, and rightfully so, is perhaps the slow songs. The way they constantly sound like they are falling apart is magnificent. The way Chilton ends the bridge in "Big Black Car," holding out the last lyric ("It ain't gonna lassssss...t-ah") is not dissimilar from the weakness he exhibits in "Kangaroo" where a perfectly used cowbell seems to be exemplifying his despair. There is also my favorite song on the album, "Nighttime," whose closing lyric "Get me out of here, get me out of here...I hate it here...get me out of here" accompanied by a stand-up bass, sounds like it sums up all of the anguish Chilton must have felt at this point.
The album is rounded out by some well put together songs, too. "Stroke It, Noel" and "Take Care" have gorgeous string melodies (and apparently, the use of strings was inspired by Jody Stephens wanting to use them on his contribution to the album "For You"). Whereas the rest of the album sounds messy and falling apart (which again, adds to its greatness) these songs don't, almost making it feel that if the band hadn't been so desolate, the rest of the album might have sounded this way. We can only speculate at this point.
If ever there were an album that required knowledge of its back-story to help understand its greatness...this is certainly it. It's a truly difficult album to get into that I'm sure many are turned off by after hearing the charm and melody in the band's first two records. But many, after repeated listens and a lot of patience (myself included) seem to finally come around to the record. How do artists whose masterpieces go ignored or unheard feel when they eventually get their due? Chilton has passed, and never really seemed keen on discussing the past, so we may never know. But this album deserves to be cherished, and fortunately, it seems like these days that it is.

#19 Spiritualized-Ladies And Gentleman We Are Floating In Space

Artist: Spiritualized
Album: Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
Label: Arista
Year: 1997

Jesus Christ, are the 90s on pace to become the best decade? For everything, that is. Visible social protest, a strong economy, independent movies, and great popular music (especially with hip hop, but lots of wow-I-can't-believe-they're-getting-airplay as well). Make no mistake about it, Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space is not an album that would be made today. But with people re-buying their entire collections in a new format, the music industry was booming in the pre-Napster late-90s. So it's not that crazy that what was really an indie band on a major label with a strong niche audience...got to make one of the most ambitious, expansive records of the decade. Personal preference for "most artistic" or "favorite" record of the 1990s aside, there is no doubt that Ladies and Gentlemen is a project whose scope in terms of length and size of production was unmatched through the decade.
Of course, none of this would matter with sub-par songs (as the sometimes-good, but ultimately weaker follow-up to this album, 2001's Let It Come Down, proves), and therein lies the genius of J Spaceman: "simple things done well" as a friend of mine once put it. On paper, the structure and layout of his songs dating back to the earliest Spacemen 3 recordings isn't that different from the songs here: two or three chords, verses and a chorus that are very similar and rarely is there a bridge that changes the chord shapes...diversity of song-structure is certainly not what his Spaceman-ness is known for. But the execution of Spiritualized's music is anything but typical, and while most current artists that are ripping off blues legends or writing garage rock songs sound derivative and painfully un-original, J Spaceman's compositions are a testament to how an artist can use a familiar form and do something new with it.
The album opens with the title-track: a lyric-for-lyric (partially, at least) cover of Elvis Presley's "I Can't Help Falling In Love With You". Restored for it's recent reissue, Spaceman gives the song new life, with superb vocal harmony rounds throughout the song. There are at least four vocal tracks by my count on the original release (1. Spaceman with distortion 2. Spaceman without distortion 3. Choir 4. Spaceman loud at the end), along with guitars, keys, and all sorts of other instrumentation. There's a lot going on, but rarely is everyone playing at once, giving the song an amazing amount of space to breathe. That's the album's primary strength: lots of instrumentation, but used well. The album never feels overblown, no matter how much is going on.
Another example is the superb third song "I Think I'm In Love." Though ten-minutes long, the foundation of the song is a 7-note bass riff played at the end of a measure. No matter how far out the song goes...it always rests on that riff. The song has only two parts, and within those two sections they don't stray from their core melody. Still, the simple lyrics and simple melody are carried by the song's ability to just have everything in the right place.
With Ladies And Gentlemen, Spiritualized turned a pretty big corner. The first album and early singles were obviously extensions of what Spaceman was doing with his side of the Recurring LP. Pure Phase was a more diverse, but slightly less cohesive album. At this point, the band was still relatively stripped down and doing simple things. Ladies and Gentleman, however, is longer, more diverse, and bigger than anything he'd tried. The songs are not all guitar-centric, and songs like "Come Together" and "Electricity" showcase Spaceman's newly-found ability to rock out (something he'd really never done before). The symphonic strings of "Cool Waves," the cool jazz of "Cop Shoot Cop" and the bombastic orchestration of "The Individual" are further examples of new things. Whereas earlier album's featured abstract, drone-scapes for instrumentals, the one's here are more aggressive and really fit the album a lot better.
Spiritualized started the 2000s off with high popularity, before Spaceman's pneumonia side-lined the band for three years. They've recently come back in vogue, and with reissues and tours around this album, it's easy to see why. Perhaps it was a bit dwarfed when it was released the same year as OK Computer, the album finally seems like it's getting it's due. And Spiritualized are certainly not alone in terms of 90s bands finally getting the respect they deserve. The album is more dynamic and diverse than most albums in general, let alone the 90s. It remains a remarkable testament to what a band can do when given major label resources (besides just selling more records, like most indie bands strive for when going big time). There's unlikely to be another album like it anytime soon, so enjoy it now!

#20 Minutemen-Double Nickels On The Dime

Artist: Minutemen
Album: Double Nickels On The Dime
Label: SST
Year: 1984

Jeez I've been slacking. Been trying to motivate myself to write this thing for a few weeks now! We enter the top 20 with one of the masterpieces of 1984. This record and band, especially in the last few years (with the help of the superb documentary We Jam Econo: The Story Of The Minutemen), have received plenty of documentation which would be easy to re-hash. Instead, I'll talk about my own perceptions (do I usually do that?) of the album. And Double Nickels certainly isn't the kind of album one is really into after one or even half a dozen listens. Patience is certainly the name of the game, and with an album this diverse, it could take months or years to fully appreciate (I know it did for me). Perhaps it is even best listened to in its original vinyl format, using four-nearly 20-minute long mini-albums as a way to get into it. I don't really know what the best way is. But Double Nickels is the kind of album that, once it clicks, will continue to click in new and fascinating ways with each listen.
As those of you who've read Our Band Could Be Your Life or watched the aforementioned We Jam Econo documentary already know, the title has many meanings. Though most directly a jab at Sammy Hagar (whose "I Can't Drive 55" was a reaction to Jimmy Carter lowering the speed limit), where the Minutemen sought to be "adventurous with music (as Hagar was pretty tame) but safe on the road", the album oozes classic driving record. The record sports a cover photo of the band driving on the freeway with their home exit of San Pedro in view. Each side of the record (lost on the CD, as are several songs, most notably a few covers) begins with the sound of each band member revving the engine of their car. That adventurousness that the band sought comes across in various ways.
Not only is this clearly the band's longest record (and a mammoth one at that, with 46 or so songs!) but stylistically, the band enters territory not even they had charted. From noise-fragments (I guess you could call them that) from Watt and Hurley, to solo, acoustic guitar playing from D. Boon which really allows him to flex his guitar playing muscle, the album is all over the place. Classic Minutemen/working-man anthems like "Corona", "History Lesson Part 2" and "This Ain't No Picnic" play alongside pop-topical gems like "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing" (this album came soon after Thriller, remember...Michael was still the king!) Minutemen were already punk-as-fuck for not being afraid to mix in spoken-word/dream like lyrics and more adventurous music than most of their peers, but with Double Nickels, they were able to really break the mold. And that's really the album's legacy.
Double Nickels On The Dime was the Minutemen's best-selling record. Punk's founding was based on making music fun and exciting again, and eschewing the false rules of rock that had come to dominate popular music. But by 1984, hell by 1980, many of those rules were back in place, only within the subculture. Punk had to be fast, or political, or no-guitar solos, and you couldn't like classic rock, etc. etc. But as people who grew up listening to Creedence Clewater Revival and T-Rex, Minutemen didn't have the same heavy metal background of a band like Black Flag. Just like The Replacements, it seems that early-on, a large part of what made them great is because they didn't know what they were "supposed" to be doing. But with Double Nickels not only did they know what they were supposed to be doing and already outright reject it, they helped change everything punk could be. With Let It Be, Meat Puppets II, My War and Zen Arcade released the same year, bands that had come from similar backgrounds began to find their voice and really come into their own, which they couldn't do without going further in their own direction. It's unlikely indie rock would be as diverse as it is today without the help of these fantastic albums. Double Nickels is an album where exploring song-by-song would be pretty futile...but as a whole, cohesive work, it somehow manages to make more sense than any record of its time. The diversity coalesces into a mad genius. Take your time with this one and listen to it while driving really fast.

#21 The Rolling Stones-Beggar's Banquet

Artist: The Rolling Stones
Album: Beggar's Banquet
Label: Abkco
Year: 1968

This was the second album I reviewed for this blog, and it can be found here: (original review!). I've spent time in this blog and with friends going back and forth between this and Exile On Main Street as favorites, and I had been flip flopping a lot. I won't waste time comparing the two here, and just analyze this album on its own merits, again.
The first of the Stones' run of four classic albums comes from 1968. Having started out as a gritty, bluesy, garage band, the Stones began to come into their own with 1966's Aftermath (their first cover-free record) and Between The Buttons. They took a detour with a poorly-executed (though songs like "She's A Rainbow" indicate, perhaps potentially great) psychedelic record before going back to their roots with Beggar's Banquet. Obviously using the term "adversity" when talking about the Stones, a major label, million-song-selling band, must be understood in perspective, but like most great art, the Stones best stuff was made under adverse conditions. This album was the last to feature any shred of founding member Brian Jones, whose contributions are minimal and often mixed to the point of being inaudible. As a founding member, the stress of having a weak link around certainly must have been difficult. But it allowed for Jagger and Richards to fully seize control of the band, and certainly there must have been a liberating feeling for them to really have artistic control in an un-checked way...with Jones not being part of the equation (all speculation from me, but certainly with Jones as a founding member his voice must have been required to be heard before this record). The results of this album and the few that follow showed the importance of having Jagger and ESPECIALLY Richards be at the forefront of decision-making in the band.
Banquet starts off with classic rock staple "Sympathy For The Devil," a song that actually lives up to the hype with incredible lyrics as Jagger embodies the devil, boasting about destroying old Russia, the Kennedys, and plenty other stuff in-between (don't forget how recent the Kennedy assassination was, Robert's included!). The rest of side one is brilliant, with "No Expectations" a solid old blues number, "Dear Doctor" one of their earlier country forays (though not first), and the Dylanesque "Jig-Saw Puzzle" to end the side.
Side two however is even better. It's the perfect document to show just how hell-bound these sinners were. "Street Fighting Man" calls for support with the youth, "Prodigal Son" is an old blues cover (all those motherfuckers are going to hell), "Stray Cat Blues" is about doing underage groupies, "Factory Girl" is about the innocent girl and her beauty...it's just an exceptional side.
I've written about this record plenty, and I don't have too much more to say. While Aftermath started off their era of releasing great albums, there didn't seem to be a unity to the sound or sequencing of the album. This is really the first Stones album that's great and is more than just a collection of wonderful songs. Fortunately, there was more of that to come!

#22 Charles Mingus-The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady

Artist: Charles Mingus
Album: The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady
Label: GRP
Year: 1963

As Mingus's career progressed, his scope and the overall volume of his work (in terms of just LARGE-ness) constantly increased. Earlier works like The Clown featured relatively small groups. Though albums like Blues And Roots and Mingus Plays Piano would be examples of him returning to his "roots," there is a definite upswing of players on his albums throughout his career (culminating in the likes of Let My Children Hear My Music). His 1963 album, composed as a ballet, is one of the high points of his career and in all of jazz history as well.
No other Mingus album, and certainly few in jazz history, benefit from sequencing and playing-off-itself in a way this does. It's strength lies in the fact that while a pretty sizable ensemble performed the album, and while it's scope is pretty large and ambitious, it still feels intensely personal. Volume in records tends to reduce intimacy, but that's not the case here.
The players on the album are out of this world: Jaki Byard, Richard Williams, along with Mingus are just a few of the notable players. In addition, Jay Berliner's acoustic guitar work is possibly the highlight of the record, personally.
I know this isn't a large review, or even that detailed. But it's a record whose magnificence must be experienced. While the whole thing is built around one theme, it never grows monotonous and constantly brings surprises. One of the finest records of the 1960s and a landmark jazz record.