About 5 years ago, I partook in the fun social
media post-a-thon “20 albums over 20 days that have influenced me in some way”.
One popped up on my memories the other day, so I thought I’d compile them into
one list for a blog post. These were submitted in no particular critical order.
Day 1 - Astral Weeks by Van Morrison
One of the finest journeys in musical album history
– a gorgeous, mystical blend of folk, jazz, and soul, with poetic and
introspective lyrics, all projected by Van Morrison’s stunning voice.
Day 2 - The Queen Is Dead by The Smiths
A marvellous exploration of British melancholy,
wit, and post-punk energy, all in one. Morrissey’s sardonic lyrics and jangly
guitars from Johnny Marr make this an album that’s both intelligent and
emotionally raw. The album is a masterclass in creating beautifully tragic
songs that still feel empowering. ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’ is pure sonic
brilliance, and in ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ we have one of the best
anthems of the 1980s.
Day 3 - Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd
A masterpiece that redefined the concept of the
album as an immersive experience. And the 12 minutes of ‘Time’ segueing into
‘Great Gig In The Sky’ is probably my favourite 12 minutes on any album ever.
Their follow up album Wish You Were Here is equally as good, as is ‘Echoes’
from the previous album Meddle. Some of the best rock music ever written.
This is a brilliant, raw, acerbic antidote to the
soppy, superficial flower-power
bubblegum love songs being churned out around that time! In 1966 nobody was
prepared for an album like this - not even the The Beatles or Bob Dylan
ventured that far into this kind of courageous, counter-cultural sonic
expressionism and intelligent parody of the musical establishment.
Day 5 - Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan
This isn't just the album that got me into great
music, I think it got me into music full stop - it made me appreciate the album
as a work of art, not just as a set of songs with a few singles and the rest as
filler. Amazing that this was released in 1965, before any of the other truly
great albums - it is the first album in rock history that creates its own
little sub-universe and draws the listener into it. Without it, there'd be no
Revolver or Sgt. Pepper, no Electric Ladyland, no Ziggy Stardust and no Dark
Side of the Moon.
Day 6 - Hounds of Love by Kate Bush
The eighties killed off many great seventies
artists, but thankfully Kate Bush wasn’t one of them. Side one is the most
familiar, with the terrific hit singles ‘Running Up That Hill’, ‘Big Sky’, the
title track and ‘Cloudbusting’. But it’s the conceptual innovation on side two
that’s probably the strongest, with a terrific series of songs about a woman
going mad in her own seclusion. And yet the astounding 'Hello Earth' near the
end is probably Kate's equivalent of Hamlet being "bounded in a nutshell
and counting himself a king of infinite space" - knowing there is always
hope when we have thoughts and dreams. Very apt for a time like this!
Day 7 - OK Computer by Radiohead
More than any other, this album taught me about
music as a 'grower'. When I first heard OK Computer, it came across as a
difficult listen. It was a sonic trip that sounded like it was made in outer
space, but I admired it more than I liked it. But after about 15 or 20 listens,
it began to grow on me, and it started to sound more and more like a friend
than an acquaintance. That, I realised, is the multi-layered brilliance of the
songs - they have depth; they grow into the listener's cognisance like acorns grow
into trees; and they sound fresher with every listen. A remarkable achievement!
Day 8 - Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys
There are days when I think this is the best album
ever made (although I think those days would be more numerous if Brian Wilson
hadn't made the big mistake of leaving Good Vibrations off the album). This
album, like all great pop albums, sounds amazing when you first hear it, but it
never stops sounding amazing with repeated listens! An album that exhilarates
you the first time you hear it, but still seems to grow with every listen is a
truly rare and wonderful thing - and Pet Sounds encapsulates that sentiment
more than just about any album.
Day 9 - Can't Buy A Thrill by Steely Dan
Possibly the most underrated band in the world.
With Steely Dan you get an agglomeration of most of the other greats rolled
into one; The incisiveness of Dylan; the wit of Lennon; the slick polish of
Pink Floyd; the melodiousness of Genesis; and the sumptuousness of Frank Zappa.
They get everything right on this album, and on their follow up Countdown To
Ecstasy, which is nearly as good, but not quite.
Day 10 - Hunky Dory by David Bowie
In truth, apart from Lodger, I could have picked
any of Bowie's greats as my choice - from Hunky Dory through to Scary Monsters
- depending on my mood and what I'm looking for. I think that's probably what makes that Bowie
period so special - so many great albums that are so good for so many diverse
reasons.
Day 11 - Blue by Joni Mitchell
Amazing! One of the most beautifully honest and
emotionally deep albums I've ever heard. And there is an ineffable quality to
Joni Mitchell that's not immediately obvious to fathom, in that she doesn't
have a classically great voice, but when you combine that voice with those
profound lyrics and the exquisite music, it has a combined quality that's hard
to beat. I think it's because she uses her voice so magnificently in making it
sound like a musical instrument.
Day 12 - Forever Changes by Love
Almost nobody has even heard of this band, yet in
1967 they made one of the best albums in the history of popular music. I saw
them live when they came to Norwich, and it was the best gig I've ever
experienced.
Day 13 - The Notorious Byrd Brothers by The Byrds
I almost can't choose between The Notorious Byrd
Brothers and Younger Than Yesterday the year before, but the former just grabs
it on account that it doesn't have the dreadful Mind Gardens on it. Other than
that aberration, this is almost perfect pop music! But it's so much more than that - because when you
think of the connective chain, six degrees of separation-style, that began with
The Byrds, it's incredible what a panoply of great music emerged. I mean, you
have all those terrific Byrds albums, at least one really good solo album each
from Gene Clark, Gram Parsons and David Crosby; then there is The Flying
Burrito Brothers created by two former Byrds; and of course we have Crosby,
Stills and Nash (and later Neil Young), from which we get the link to Buffalo
Springfield (Stills), The Hollies (Nash) and later Manassas (Stills), and a
whole catalogue of brilliant Neil Young solo albums, and several decent solos
from Steven Stills too.
That is a *lot* of good music!
Day 14 - Automatic For The People by R.E.M
More than any other music, R.E.M's albums in the
nineties remind me of my important friendships - the created experiences of
what we used to call 'making future memories now'. Smell is the sense most
closely linked with memory, but sound can elicit nostalgia in a way that even
the olfactory senses are too low-resolution to touch - and this album is so
very precious to me. I think this beautiful album is R.E.M's high point
on what has been a fabulous career. Here they substitute the trademark guitar
sounds of their eighties material for the lush string arrangements and a
greater acoustic feel, and they've never been more profound, sincere and
evocative than right here.
Day 15 - Let It Come Down by Spiritualized
There's a mystery attached to Spiritualized: how
can a band this good be so under-appreciated by the masses? Sure, without Phil
Spector, Brian Wilson and The Velvet Underground there wouldn't be a
Spiritualized of this calibre, but even so, few bands in the history of rock
music have been able to create the combination of melodic electricity and
profound delicate beauty as Spiritualized. Their lack of adulation is one of
the cosmic musical solecisms that needs redressing. But in addition, there's a further mystery within
the mystery, because even those who do give Spiritualized their worthy regard
always seem to vaunt their inferior (but still excellent) preceding albums
Lazer Guided Melodies and Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space over
this one. The reality is, Let It Come Down, with its 110 piece choir/orchestra
and the sonic depth of its guitars, brass and piano is one of the most
gorgeous, soulful, deeply meaningful works in rock history.
Day 16 - After The Gold Rush by Neil Young
Can't not have a Neil Young album in this list -
he's terrific. Short and sweet.
Day 17 - In The Court Of The Crimson King by King
Crimson
If Tony Iommi sired a love child with Sandy Denny,
and that child grew up to read Coleridge and learned to play the flute and
mellotron, and they all formed a band, this is what they’d produce. This album is like the musical equivalent of a
brain probe that traverses the rich gamut of order and disorder deep in the
sub-ducts of personality, where we humans are so much better and so much worse
than we can imagine. The contrast from track 1 to track 2 is like going from
Charles Manson to Paul McCartney – you almost can’t believe it’s the same
album. It’s Iago and Desdemona inside the same cranium. And if you have the software, trim down Moonchild
to just the first 4 and a half minutes, and you'll have chopped off the only
boring bit, leaving yourself a near-flawless prog rock masterpiece
Day 18 - Transformer by Lou Reed
Not as seminal as The Velvet Underground &
Nico, but everyone needs a lost weekend-kind of an album, where we have
nostalgia for the old days of Jack Daniel’s, cigarettes, wimmin and the
nightlife - and this album is mine. Equally I’m so glad those days have passed – but
I’ll always have the enchantment of memory, and this music best encapsulates
that reminiscence. This isn’t glam rock, but it’s certainly decadent
rock-cabaret. Yet despite the hedonism, there are few moments in
music that are more beautiful than the last 45 seconds of Perfect Day, with
Mick Ronson’s glorious string arrangements and piano.
Day 19 - The Beatles
It's impossible for me to single out one Beatles
album, as they all mean so much to me. I know you understand, because, let's be
honest, what these guys did was quite remarkable: it takes some special ability
and creativity to make a series of albums like these that pushed the boundaries
of musical innovation further and further away from the competition, yet still
remained wholly commercially appealing to every kind of demographic. Dylan, Hendrix, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones,
Led Zeppelin - they all enchanted subsections of their potential target
listeners at the expense of others - whereas The Beatles charmed everyone in a
feat of intelligent populism that seems highly unlikely to be emulated ever
again. There are no other albums in the world quite of this magnitude, whereby
the music satisfies an almost impossible triumvirate:
1) Of being able to be carefully absorbed on the stereo, with the listener concentrating on every note as they become immersed in the album as a work of art operating from within its own little sub-universe.
2) As background music while they do other things like work or entertain guests.
3) Or as a hit factory, where most of the songs on
every album are indelibly stamped in the public psyche as singalongs in the
car, in pubs, at parties, etc.
Day 20 - Tigerlily by Natalie Merchant
One positive thing about relationships from
yesteryear is that the good music survives long after the romantic residue has
gone back to the dust. A past girlfriend of nearly 20 years ago had this
terrific album by Natalie Merchant, and I thought it so good that I immediately
went on to play.com (remember that website?) and bought her entire back
catalogue, and ditto the 10,000 Maniacs (her antecedent band). It’s one of the
most impressive back catalogues, yet so rarely appreciated as much as it
deserves. Just listen to a song like The Letter – at just 2 minutes 12 it
perfectly captures sentiments we’ve all felt, with the most beautiful
simplicity, you wonder why no one has ever written it before.
