1001 Albums Week 2: 160 and counting!

I meant to write this last week, but I had other things keeping me busy, so I'm a bit behind on writing this stuff up. But I'm making tonnes of progress. Here's all the music I listen to in my second week.

• Lou Reed - Berlin, Transformer/The Velvet Underground -The Velvet Underground: 

Lots of Lou Reed based greatness between these three, The Velvet Underground probably being my favourite. Especially loved the way "Jesus" and "Beginning To See The Light" bleed into each other.

As for his solo stuff, Transformer had the better and more well known individual songs ("Satellite Of Love", "Perfect Day", "Vicious") but I think I enjoyed Berlin slightly more: it seemed to work more cohesively as an album and it felt fresher and quite different from The Velvet Underground stuff.

• Fleetwood Mac - Rumours: So many of the band's classics came from this album. I'll leave it to my good friend Murray Hewitt to explain why;

 

 (Love square! Gets me every time.)

• Iggy Pop - Lust For Life/The Stooges - The Stooges, Raw Power: Having never heard much stuff from Iggy & The Stooges, these albums were quite a treat. Lust For Life was easily the best of the bunch. Wasn't quite as keen on The Stooges though, the meandering "We Will Fall" robbed the album of the momentum it's opening three songs gave it.

• Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92: It seems the less freaky the album sleeve of an Aphex Twin release is, the less crazy the music in the album is. This just sort of passed me by really.

• Metallica - ...And Justice For All: I think I've reached the point now where all Metallica albums just sound the same - there's a whole bunch of riffs and crashing drums for a while, then James Hetfield screams something usually ending in "RRRREEEEEEEEAAGHHHHH!"

• Wilco - Yankee Foxtrot Hotel: This record is a stunningly understated masterpiece. The opening and closing tracks "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" and "Reservations" in particular should be held up as an example of how to emote situations in music without succumbing to melodrama.

• Radiohead - Kid A, OK Computer, The Bends: 

I fucking hated Radiohead when I was younger. I still find them a bit pretentious now, and certainly upon listening Kid A struck me as a very "chin-stroking" sort of album.

However, the further back in time I went, the more stuff I enjoyed. OK Computer had some of their finer individual songs ("Airbag" and "No Surprises" being my favourites), but The Bends was definitely the record I most enjoyed. The main reason was because it was much heavier and more guitar dependent than the others. I used to find myself begrudging to give them any praise at all, but I can tell you I have no problem saying the likes of "Just", "High And Dry", "Fake Plastic Trees" and "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" are works of sheer brilliance.

• Manic Street Preacher - Everything Must Go: As a massive Manics fan I'm ashamed to admit I hadn't heard this album the whole way through until now. After the tragedy of Richey going missing never to be found, this record was a deserved breakthough into the mainstream. "Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky" in particular is a triumph.

• The Beatles - With The Beatles, A Hard Day's Night: Strange how I've never payed much attention to Beatles albums pre-Rubber Soul. Wasn't disappointed by either of these though, obviously. With The Beatles was the more interesting to hear, being much closer to their sound from the Cabin Club days.

• Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique, Ill Communication: Perfect examples of what a creative force the Beasties were in hip hop. Despite the latter featuring "Sabotage", I felt Paul's Boutique blew Ill Communication out of the water, thanks to a greater variety of beats, pace, and some really neat samples (the use of the riff from "The End" by The Beatles being my favourite example).

• Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Everybody Knows That This Is Nowhere: I didn't think Neil had dabbled with the longer rockier stuff this early in his career (this was his second album). Yet another essential listen.

• Pretenders - Pretenders: Oh, so thaaaat's the song Scarlett Johansson does on karaoke in Lost In Translation!

Good stuff all round.

• Talking Heads - Fear Of Music, Remain In Light: More Songs About Buildings And Food had given me high expectations for the other Talking Heads albums on the list, and I wasn't disappointed. Fear Of Music was my favourite without question, with "Mind" and "Heaven" being standouts for me.

• David Byrne & Brian Eno - My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts: Very disappointing to say the least. I don't understand why, when you've got a voice as unique and quirky as Byrne's, you'd deliberately go out of your way to use it as little as possible on this record.

• Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath, Paranoid, Volume 4: Metal basically started with Black Sabbath. Their first album didn't make much of an impression on me, but Paranoid was much better, everything started to click a lot more and you could tell from the way the band played. Volume 4 might be my favourite though, just for fiddling with the formula a bit and going into new territory.

• Sepultura - Roots: I don't know what I was expecting a Brazilian heavy metal band to sound like, but it certainly wasn't a regular heavy metal band! Apart from using vocals from one of the tribes still living in the rain forests, which was cool. But other than that, pretty run of the mill.

• The Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed: 

 Fun fact, Delia Smith baked the cake on the cover of this record.

 

It couldn't quite top Exile On Main St. as my favourite Stones record, but it ran it pretty close. "Gimme Shelter" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want" are two of my favourite Stones songs, but "Midnight Rambler" was also brilliant and I was completely caught off-guard by "Country Honk" - essentially a bluegrass version of "Honky Tonk Women".

• Miles Davis - Kind Of Blue: This is more like my kind of jazz.

• David Bowie - Station To Station: I think I may have found myself a new favourite Bowie record. There's just no resisting the charm of "TVC-15".

• Led Zeppelin - I, II, III, IV, Physical Graffeti: Oh these lot were a right treat to go through. Very few groups had such a consistent run of records than Zeppelin did between I and IV. Physical Graffeti isn't quite in the same league, but still has its charms - "Kashmir" is an essential listen. III is probably my favourite, if you forced me to choose - "Immigrant Song", "Since I've Been Loving You", "Gallows Pole" and "Tangerine" being stand outs.

• Yes - The Yes Album, Fragile, Close To The Edge: Yeah sorry, but next to Zeppelin, this stuff just sounds pretentious and redundant.

• The Band - Music From The Big Pink: Near as dammit perfection here from Bob Dylan's old cohorts. "The Weight" in particular is sublime.

• Van Halen - 1984: Unashamedly cheesy, and I unashamedly like it. There's just some days when you can't beat a bit of Panama

 Other albums I heard and found to be thoroughly deserving of their place in the book were:

• Aretha Franklin - I Never Loved A Man The Way I Loved You (Oh lord what a voice!)
• Crosby Stills & Nash - Crosby Stills & Nash
• Grateful Dead - Live/Dead
• The Doors - The Doors
• The Police - Synchronicity ("Stong writes some good sings", tee hee)
• The Eagles - Hotel California
• The Yardbirds - The Yardbirds
• Love - Forever Changes
• U2 - The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby
• Oasis - Definitely Maybe, What's The Story Morning Glory?
• The Ramones - The Ramones
• The Byrds - Sweetheart Of The Rodeo, Mr. Tambourine Man

 I'm now into my third week of the challenge and have made even more progress, which I'll let you know about in good time. But before then there's coursework to do!

1001 Albums Update: 101 and counting!

I know I said I probably wouldn't do any dedicated posts for this, but I've made a lot of progress already! Just as I thought, the magic of Youtube etc has made my task so much easier, and I've powered through a lot of stuff by listening along while working.

So, here's what I've been listening to this week:

• Neil Young - Rust Never Sleeps 

Albums like this make me miss the days when vinyl was king, and people would find creative ways to use the A side-B side format.

This is a prime example: side A is a largely acoustic affair in the vein of After The Goldrush ("Thrasher" and "Pocahontas" in particular were favourites of mine), while on side B, Neil and Crazy Horse plug their instruments in and play some heavier stuff. 

The only track to appear on both sides (and hence get both treatments), "Into The Black" is classic Neil Young (and all too infamous for being associated with Kurt Cobain's suicide).

• ACDC - Back In Black, Highway To Hell: Can't believe I've never listened to these before, so many classics between the two. "Shoot To Thrill", "You Shook Me All Night Long", "Girl's Got Rhythm".

• Soundgarden - Superunknown: Shocked how dated the production sounds on this - sounds a decade older than it should when you compare to what their contemporaries were doing. Still, some cracking stuff, "Black Hole Sun" and "Spoonman" probably the most famous examples.

• Metallica - Metallica (the black album), Master Of Puppets: Slightly surprised that I enjoyed Master Of Puppets more (Mastaaaaaauuuugh!). The black album is the one which features "Enter Sandman", but I just didn't find the other songs on there to be as memorable.

• New Order - Technique: Being the owner of what I thought was a pretty comprehensive "Best Of" New Order collection, I couldn't believe how little of Technique sounded familiar to me. Aside from opener "Fine Time", this was pretty much all new to me. Still, stumbling upon more of New Order in their prime is a very pleasant surprise.  

• Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here: Nobody makes records like these any more. Loved the ambiance of Dark Side Of The Moon. Dare I say it I might have enjoyed Wish You Were Here more, the title track and the "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" sequences being sublime.

• Guns N Roses - Appetite For Destruction: "Welcome To The Jungle", "Paradise City", "Sweet Child 'O Mine". Need I say more?

• Pantera - Vulgar Display Of Power: I thought Pantera were one of those mid-80s hair bands, was not expecting to hear this heavy metal classic!

• Public Image Limited - First Issue, Metal Box: Not a big John Lydon fan, nothing much changed in that regard after I gave these a listen. However, I absolutely loved "Public Image" from First Issue.

• Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings And Food: I knew I'd love this album the moment I read that title.

• Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation: The closing stretch from "Hey Joni" onwards (sides three and four on vinyl) really make this album for me.

• The Black Keys - Brothers

I realise this goes against popular opinion, but I'm not a big fan of The Black Keys. I enjoyed Attack & Release (which I'd put on the list instead of this album) with its sharp garage rock and some nice riffs. But Brothers completely changed my opinion on the band, and not for the better.

I think when the album first came out I'd started to stream it but must have got bored part way through. I can see why now.
At some point (possibly as early as five or six tracks in) this album doesn't so much slow down as completely grind to a halt. I was hopeful of being proved wrong by the opening few songs, but from "Ten Cent Pistol" onwards things got too long, slow and meandering. I was begging for some variety in pace or musicality but never got it.

This basically went against everything that I felt made Attack & Release so good and left me thinking they should heed the advice of their own song and "Tighten Up".
Anyway, rant over.

• John Lennon - The Plastic Ono Band: I've watched "Nowhere Boy" and that docu-drama that had Chris Eccleston playing Lennon in a really crap wig, and to be honest the biggest impression I got from them was "Wow, Lennon was a bit of a dick wasn't he?" So I was pleasantly surprised by this album, the likes of "Mother" sound really great.

• The Strokes - Is This It: Listening to this it's obvious how indebted most of this decade's guitar bands are to this album, you really can't over-emphasise the influence of the guitar-play here at all.

• Peter Gabriel - So: I enjoyed this album. Yes there was some cheesy stuff here with "Big Time" and "Sledgehammer" but it really worked in context. The likes of "Red Rain" and "Mercy Street" are big highlights and illustrate how fantastic Peter's voice was. Plus it's always good to hear Kate Bush on "Don't Give Up".

• Jeff Buckley - Grace: I wasn't expecting so many great guitars to be on this record, given that it's most famous for Buckley's cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". From opener "Mojo Pin" onwards I found a much broader album than I was expecting and enjoyed everything on here.

• David Bowie - Low, Hunky Dory, Aladdin Sane, Young Americans, The Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars

Low was another album I'd playlisted on Spotify and couldn't remember if I'd heard the whole way through. On listening to it this time round I've concluded that I must have but just didn't notice because it ends unexpectedly. Which is a bit of a shame. I think it'd be my favourite Bowie record if it didn't end so suddenly.

Instead I find myself torn between Hunky Dory (which includes "Life On Mars", "Changes" and my personal favourite "Quicksand") and Aladdin Sane.

Ziggy Stardust... on the other hand has one of my favourite closing stretches on an album ever: "Ziggy Stardust", "Suffragette City" and "Rock 'N Roll Suicide", in addition to perhaps my favourite Bowie track "Starman" (which I'd apparently sing at the top of my voice while in my buggy as a wee nipper!).

Before I gave it a listen I'd got the impression Young Americans was a bit controversial amongst Bowie fans - certainly his cover of "Across The Universe" isn't his best, but I found it to be a good listen nonetheless, in particular "Fame".

• Miles Davis - Bitches Brew: Seems I don't like jazz as much as I thought. Apart from the occasional attempts to fuse jazz and psychedelica I found this a bit of a chore to listen to.

• Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Welcome To The Pleasuredome: This album didn't weird me out as much as I thought it would, which I consider a small victory. Their cover of "Born To Run" really wrong footed me though.

• Alanis Morissette - Jagged Little Pill: I thought I liked Alanis Morissette, but listening back to this I was surprised how overwrought I found it all, and how hammy her voice could sound when she overemphasises stuff. (I'll leave it to my friend Liz Lemon to illustrate this below, or if the embed isn't working here.) Big disappointment.

• Green Day - Dookie: I'd first listened to Green Day during their American Idiot phase, it's really weird hearing them being so youthful. Yet another example of great early 90s rock.

• The Offspring - Smash: Listening to this makes me think of Crazy Taxi. Ah the memories! Cracking stuff.

• ELO - Out Of The Blue: Mum reliably informs me this was the first gift my uncle bought my aunt. It looked a bit rambling at first but upon listening I didn't find it outstaying it's welcome. Plus it's impossible to be bored by an album with "Mr Blue Sky" on it. 

• 10cc - Sheet Music
• ABBA - Arrival
• Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells

I listened to the above three records on vinyl: I was home for the weekend and had a root around some of Mum and Dad's records because if I was going to do this, I had to listen to some of these albums in style at least!

The one I enjoyed the most was Sheet Music by 10cc. Very inventive and poppy, featuring the likes of "The Wall Street Shuffle" and "Oh Effendi".  

Arrival by ABBA was also great fun. Mum and Dad swore they could think of better ABBA albums that deserved to be on the list more, but with the likes of "Dancing Queen", "Knowing Me, Knowing You" (*Alan Partridge voice* ah-haaaa!) and "Money Money Money" I could see why it made the list.

I wasn't too impressed with Tubular Bells though, it just sounded like a very dated attempt to fuse pop and classical - a pointless venture anyway in my book, as The Beatles (Abbey Road's B-side) and Pink Floyd ("Shine On You Crazy Diamond") had already made much more progressive and successful attempts at this.

In addition to all the above, I also gave the following a listen:

• Happy Mondays - Pills Thrills And Bellyaches
• The Verve - Urban Hymns
• Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water/Paul Simon - Graceland
• The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
• Marvin Gaye - Let's Get It On, What's Going On
• Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures, Closer
• Queen - A Night At The Opera, Sheer Heart Attack
• The Smiths - Meat Is Murder

The first two I found flawed but enjoyable and I could appreciate why they'd made the list. The others I really loved (in particular Bridge Over Troubled Water and Siamese Dream) and are without doubt worthy of the list.


Anyway, I've still got a long way to go. Starting with figuring out what my laptop dislikes about this Eagles CD my Dad's lent me...

1001 Albums Challenge: 56 and counting...

I'm very guilty of making impulse purchases.

This Monday I had a pretty bad case of this: not only did I buy my first pair of chinos (navy blue, £7 in Republic's mid-season sale, I thought "why not?") but I also stumbled across the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, half price in Waterstone's (I know the company don't use the apostrophe any more but it'll always remain in their name for me dammit!).

Having been mulling over putting a running theme/challenge/feature in this blog for quite a while, I saw this book as the ideal opportunity to give myself one: I would listen to all 1001 albums in this book preferably before I die of course, and mention if any make an impression, if I feel they belong in this book etc.
I've already got a to-do-list longer than a Leonard Cohen song, but still I thought it'd be fun to experience some music I wouldn't pay any attention to otherwise.

So, after buying the book, my first job was to see what albums it lists which I've already heard. After trawling through it's pages I've found I can already check off the following:
 

• Arcade Fire - The Suburbs, Funeral
• Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid: This album is so tragically under the radar (despite The Guardian's epic fan-boy fervour over her) it isn't even funny. Tightrope alone is a classic.

• John Grant - Queen of Denmark
• Beach House - Teen Dream
• The National - High Violet
• Wild Beasts - Two Dancers
• MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
• TV On The Radio - Dear Science
• Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
• Justice - Cross
• LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver: Another band I absolutely adore. The documentary on their final ever gig, Shut Up And Play The Hits is an absolute must see. I'll probably do a post about this at some point.

• Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
• Lupe Fiasco - Food & Liquor
• Richard Hawley - Coles Corner: *Shameless plug alert* I saw Richard live a little while back, which you can read about here.

• Green Day - American Idiot
• The Streets - A Grand Don't Come For Free
• Mylo - Destroy Rock & Roll: Seriously, whatever happened to Mylo?

• Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus, The Boatman's Call
• Outcast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
• Bruce Springsteen - The Rising, Born In The USA, Nebraska, Darkness On The Edge Of Town, Born To Run: Before I bought this book, I made sure to check that it included Darkness On The Edge Of Town. I consider that album to be as essential as oxygen.

• Johnny Cash - American IV: The Man Comes Around, At San Quentin, At Folsom Prison
• The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, The Soft Bulletin
• Coldplay - A Rush Of Blood To The Head, Parachutes
• The Avalanches - Since I Left You
• Foo Fighters - Foo Fighters
• Nirvana - MTV Unplugged, Nevermind
• Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible
• R.E.M. - Automatic For The People, Green, Document, Murmur: Seriously, they include Green on this list? I wouldn't even put that album on a list of R.E.M. albums to hear before you die! OK, that's a little harsh for an album that has the likes of World Leader Pretend on it, but I'd consider something like Lifes Rich Pageant much more essential.

• Rage Against The Machine - Rage Against The Machine
• Pearl Jam - Ten: Well if there was one Pearl Jam album to make this list it would be this one. I'm just surprised it's their only album on the list though, either Vs or Vitalogy would be prime candidates too.

• The Cure - Disintegration
• Micahel Jackson - Off The Wall
• Neil Young - After The Gold Rush, Tonight's The Night, On The Beach, Harvest
• Paul McCartney & Wings - Band On The Run
• The Rolling Stones - Exile On Main St.
• The Beatles - Abbey Road, The White Album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Revolver, Rubber Soul

Totting up the scores, that put me on 56 albums. I thought it might have been more, but unsurprisingly the further back in time the book went, the fewer albums I'd heard.

So now my task is to add to this total, and I'm going to use this blog to keep my progress up to date. I'll probably tack my updates on the end of any meaningful posts I make (like maybe when I get round to talking about the LCD Soundsystem film) rather than have them as dedicated posts.

With music more readily available than ever these days I'm hoping this won't prove too hard. I've already found 120+ of the albums in the book on Youtube and put them in a playlist which I'm snaking my way through as I speak.

I guess when I reach the end I may start talking about any notable omissions etc. But that'll probably be a long way off.
Wish me luck.