Halfway to the finish line when I pull the rug out from everyone and list one of Yanni's albums as my favorite of all time!
Keep the feedback coming. It's nice to hear that people are at least casually following along and hopefully it's been a nice distraction from all the post-election nonsense and COVID news.
Also, I wanted to point out that this year people will rely on food banks more than ever especially with Thanksgiving and Christmas coming. If you're local to Philadelphia, you can donate at Philabundance of if you can visit Feeding America to donate nationally or find your local food bank. Even if you're reading this post-holidays, it's a donation that's welcomed 365 days a year.
On to the next ten entries...
#50
Play
Moby
Morgan Freeman's character Red in The Shawshank Redemption states that in prison "a man will do just about anything to keep his mind occupied". The same can be said for 14 year-olds on 13 hour family car rides. Every year my family would travel from Indiana to our family's cabins in the upper peninsula of Michigan for camping and fishing. It was my favorite time of the year but the car ride could be brutal for long stretches. My entertainment consisted mainly of two forms:
- Watching my parents try to navigate Chicago traffic in the pre-Garmin, or even MapQuest, era ("Wait, was that was our exit?!? You have to tell me sooner so I can merge over!!").
- Using my fancy CD walkman with non-skip technology.
My CD wallet back then was pretty lean so after one hour (probably of the Godzilla soundtrack) and one battery change, I was pestering my sister to let me borrow some of her collection. What she loaned me during the summer of 1999 was Moby's album Play. I hadn't heard much electronic music other than from a very few artists like Fatboy Slim. The sound of Play was akin to what I had previously heard but some tracks sounded altogether different. I listened and enjoyed the first seven tracks, then I got to "Natural Blues". Then I listened to "Natural Blues" again. Then again. Then my sister asked for the disc back. I turned the volume up and listened again. I really had never heard anything like it.
Similar to what Avicii's TRUE album would accomplish almost 15 years later, Play was a fusion of techno sound and folk/bluegrass sound. The main difference between TRUE and Play is that the samples Moby uses have much more of a southern feel, as many of them are taken from field recordings taken from Alan Lomax's sprawling 1993 box set Sounds of the South: A Musical Journey From The Georgia Sea Islands to the Mississippi Delta. The blend between these soulful, and sometimes even mournful, samples and the electronic sound was unique then and still stands on its own now, even though a few others have attempted to follow in its footsteps.
Not every track on the album uses these southern samples and it's clear to differentiate which ones do and do not. The tracks that use the samples are superior to the rest of the album with the most notable including "Honey", "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad", "Run On", "Natural Blues" and "Flower" (a B-side track also known as "Bring Sally Up" to anyone who has participated in the Crossfit workout). That's not to say that the other tracks are bad. On the contrary, there's plenty to enjoy including "Bodyrock", "Porcelain" and especially "South Side".
The original album was 18 tracks that ended with "My Weakness". A "B-side" supplement was also released and Spotify conveniently combines the two into one album. The B-sides are worth the listen, most notably "Flower", a track so strong that it's hard to reason why it wasn't included on the original album.
But even if you stick to the original 18 track album it's still worthy of the number 50 album, not to mention being the temporary salvation to a 14 year old's boredom as he rode through Wisconsin.
#49
Forever Blue
Chris Isaak
There are some foods like oysters on which there seems to be very little middle ground in regards to taste; people either love them or hate them. The same can be said for the voice of the artist behind the number 49 album, Chris Isaak. You either love his voice or it's just not for you. And if you're out on it, then there's no amount of musical accompaniment that can redeem his songs. I love his voice and I think it's a perfect pairing to the rock-a-billy guitar sound that can be heard on many of his albums.
This selection came down to two albums. 1989's Heart Shaped World was his breakthrough album but 1995's Forever Blue was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Album of 1995 before losing to Jagged Little Pill (Tom Petty's Wildflowers and Pearl Jam's Vitalogy also nominated). Heart Shaped World's biggest song is undoubtedly "Wicked Game" which resulted in the music video that I'm convinced jump-started my puberty. The whole album is strong with "Heart Shaped World", "Diddley Daddy" and "I'm Not Waiting" but it's still not as complete as Forever Blue.
Forever Blue's core of "Somebody's Crying", "Graduation Day", "Go Walking Down There" and "I Believe" is really hard to top and, in my opinion, he never did. There's also the single "Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing" which was used two years later in the Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman/Stanley Kubrick/"what the actual hell?" movie Eyes Wide Shut.
It's a close call and both albums are worthy of consideration but Forever Blue is a more complete album and it takes the number 49 spot.
#48
Exile on Main St.
The Rolling Stones
I was at a driving range recently trying to not focus on how much time and money I've spent on golf for such minimal improvement when I overheard the following excerpt of a conversation between two men.
Man 1: How's life as a new dad?Man 2: It's great man.Man 1: How old is he now? Three weeks?Man 2: Two weeks. But I love it. When I come home and see him smile at me, it just puts everything in perspective.
Bullshit alarm blaring on full blast. Zero chance his son is smiling at him. Maybe his face muscles are coincidentally moving in a smile formation but it's either at random or that kid is relieving himself. There's not a two week old in the world that can go through the mental checklist of "hey, there's a guy, that's my dad, I like my dad, I'll smile at him now". Pretty harmless white lie from the new dad and I understand why he said it. He's just trying to say what he thinks he's supposed to say.
And that logic applies to the way that I have talked about The Rolling Stones for years. I continually acknowledged them as a top rock band despite the fact that I felt lukewarm about them at best and really only knew their major hits. But it felt like musical reverence was the expected treatment of the group. So for years I blindly just counted them as a top rock band without actually doing the musical diligence of listening to most of their albums. When COVID restrictions swapped my office for my house, I had music playing the majority of the time that I wasn't in a meeting. I used that opportunity to finally give the full catalog of The Rolling Stones a chance.
What's dangerous about bands like The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, etc. is that they can become a security blanket for listening habits. The songs are good, they're well known, no one will ever challenge your musical taste if you listen to them. But giving too much reverence to these groups can throw up a roadblock to discovering and fully exploring new bands. The mythos of those legendary bands can also challenge the ability to fairly evaluate their work versus more recent bands. I think it's important to acknowledge the contribution that many older bands have made and to realize that their influence paved the way for generations of other bands. But older or classic rock doesn't mean it's superior to what's been released in the last thirty years. So I tried to listen to the albums of The Rolling Stones as impartially as I could.
They won't go down as my favorite band but their ability to stay relevant, mostly through the sheer volume of quality work, over multiple generations is admirable. The earlier albums didn't strike a chord with me and I doubt I revisit them any time soon and the same can be said for anything after the mid-70s. But there's a four album stretch in the late sixties/early seventies that is clearly the height of their ability and it's easy to see how they paved the way for some subsequent rock groups.
The album that I enjoyed the most was Exile On Main St. which is interesting because it's the album that contained no familiar songs to me. The other albums in contention, Beggar's Banquet and Let It Bleed were also solid and contained some bigger hits like "Sympathy For The Devil" or "You Can't Always Get What You Want" but there were some longer songs on each of those albums that I wanted to move past. Exile's sound was more akin to today's rock and I've been able to just let it play in its entirety which, at 18 tracks, is a testament to its consistency.
I'll never be a diehard fan of the group but at least I feel like I've given them a legitimate chance now. It was important to me to evaluate their work on a level playing field and judge it the same as I would an album that was released in 2017 by a brand-new band. The band is justified in its place in rock history and Exile On Main St. is deserving of the number 48 album on my prestigious list. The album could have climbed a few spots higher were it not for the actions of Mick Jagger. No one talks to John Mulaney that way.
#47
Guero
Beck
In 1996, one of my friends and I agreed to swap a few albums by recording our CDs onto cassette. I gave him Will Smith's Big Willie Style and I think Jock Jams 2. He gave me Everclear's So Much For The Afterglow and Beck's Odelay. Adam, if you're reading this, I'm still so sorry. This has been a trend in my life from a music consumption perspective. I've been lucky enough to have friends (and a sibling) who are generous enough expose me to broader and often better music.
You can imagine the sound quality of a cassette recording of a CD played through a mid-nineties boom box but even with all those obstacles, I could still hear how amazing Odelay was from the first notes of "Devil's Haircut". Listening to it now in superior listening conditions only reinforces that fact, especially songs like "The New Pollution" and "Where It's At". But as great as Odelay is, Guero is better. Side note: guero means pale-skinned or blonde person and, according to a two second Google search, can be used as a slur. So I guess it's not surprising it never came up in my three years of high school Spanish.
The opening track of "E-Pro" has such aggressive and driving guitar work. That's starkly contrasted two songs later by "Girl" which sounds like it was recorded as the soundtrack to an 8-bit NES game. They're two of his best songs and it speaks to the diversity of sound he's been able to produce over a long and prolific career. The rest of the album is propped up by the local neighborhood sound of "Que' Onda Guero", the bass track "Black Tambourine", "Rental Car" and, toward the end, the slowed down "Go It Alone" and the cowboy-feel "Farewell Ride".
I don't feel that Beck is underrated and the musical world definitely gives him his due but the man has been making quality work since 1994. He's done this in a variety of musical styles but none has suited him better than the work he put out in the number 47 album Guero. Some ears were able to pick up on how special he was back in 1996. Others were busy gettin' jiggy with it. Again, Adam, I'm so sorry.
#46
Megalithic Symphony
AWOLNATION
Some of my college friends discovered the band Under The Influence of Giants in 2006. Sadly, that band's duration lasted only one album but it's still very much worth the listen, especially "In The Clouds", "Got Nothing" and "Mama's Room". I missed the boat on that band's arrival and departure but when lead singer Aaron Bruno debuted his next band's debut album five years later in 2011, I was paying attention.
AWOLNATION's first album Megalithic Symphony achieved commercial success thanks in large part to its popular single "Sail". But it would be a mistake to label the rest of the album as just filler around that hit song. It's interesting that this was the song that resonated at a mass level because I count numerous other songs as superior on the album.
The original album is 14 tracks (11 if you don't count the three short intro or skit tracks) but the Spotify version is 32 songs. I wouldn't recommend the extended version as the more concise original album packs more of a punch. "People", "Kill Your Heroes", "Jump On Your Shoulders", "Not Your Fault", "Soul Wars", and "Wake Up" are the highlights but, counting "Sail", that's half the album.
The songs are upbeat but still carry a bit of an edge to them, like singing "Walkin' On Sunshine" at karaoke with your concealed-carry visible to the crowd. The three follow-up albums have had their moments but the band's first full album, coming in here at number 46, is their best output so far.
#45
Sixteen Stone
Bush
The album that took my fifth grade basketball team by storm, Sixteen Stone was the debut album from English rockers Bush. As one of our practices was getting ready to start, I overheard some of the middle schoolers who were walking off the court talking about how great this album was. I had no idea what "sixteen stone" meant and, even after utilizing Wikipedia, I'm still not entirely sure what they're referencing other than some general English weight.
But slight title confusion doesn't dampen the impact of how many hits were on this album. "Comedown", "Machinehead", "Glycerine", "Everything Zen", "Little Things" and "Alien" stood head and shoulders above the rest of the other tracks but that was always my problem with albums from Bush. I would love half of the album could be phenomenal but the other half would be largely forgettable and bland. Normally that would mean that none of their albums would make the list but the six tracks on Sixteen Stone are so strong that it's impossible to not include it here. The rest of the songs aren't bad, they just feel more like filler to me.
I stuck with Bush for two more albums but after The Science of Things ("Letting the Cables Sleep", "Chemicals Between Us") they drifted off my radar until their break-up. I haven't been overly impressed with any of their work since they've reconvened in the last few years but their 1994 album Sixteen Stone, coming in at number 45 here, will go down as a classic semi-grunge, semi-hard rock album.
#44
Rumours
Fleetwood Mac
Imagine being forced to complete a group project with your ex-significant other. Now imagine that the content of the work revolves around each other's shortcomings and the demise of the relationship itself. Pretty safe to say that's not a recipe for healthy a healthy working environment and the work itself will likely suffer. That was not the case for Fleetwood Mac. Similar to how The Bachelor uses relationship drama to generate huge ratings and ad revenue, Fleetwood Mac used that same ingredient to help generate some of the best albums of their generation. Both the TV show and the band do however share the common output of failed relationships.
My parents would play the soothing sounds of Fleetwood Mac softly when I was little and had trouble sleeping. But if the melody of their songs is a placid lake, the lyrics are choppy water with the occasional seven foot wave. That's especially true for the album Rumours. The behind-the-scenes production story of the album is so well known that by now it's more legend than fact, but to summarize the state of the band heading into writing and recording Rumours: keyboardist Christine McVie and bassist John McVie decided to end eight years of marriage and wouldn't speak to each other except to work on the album, drummer Mick Fleetwood discovered his wife had an affair with his best friend, and guitarist/vocalist Lindsey Buckingham and vocalist Stevie Nicks were having a rocky on again/off again relationship that was heading for a permanent off again status.
Nowadays if it's rumored that Taylor Swift wrote a song that alludes to an ex-boyfriend, it breaks the internet for three days. This was an emotional tempest that was widespread across the group that seemed so dysfunctional it's incredible that the album cover wasn't them all just giving each other the finger or lighting each other's furniture on fire. 43 years after its release and it's still incredible that the group was able to pull off the album without breaking up the band.
There's nothing I can or will say about the music on the album that hasn't already been written or said much more eloquently. "Second Hand News", "Dreams", "Never Going Back Again", "Don't Stop", "Go Your Own Way" and "The Chain" are just some of the classic songs found here. "Rhiannon" will always be my favorite song from the band but it's hard to argue that this number 44 album isn't their peak.
#43
Automatic For The People
R.E.M
Similar to Alex Trebek hosting Jeopardy or Al Michaels calling football games, R.E.M. is a band that was always just "there" when I was growing up. But, considering that the band put out 15 albums over 28 years, I took for granted what an absolute powerhouse of a group they were. One of the benefits of creating this list is that it focused me on looking at the entire discography of a band like R.E.M. Listening to the entirety of the catalog was time consuming but it exposed me to a lot of their outside of the well known hits. Some of these discoveries were worthwhile ("Me In Honey" might be my favorite song from the group and I hadn't heard it until eight months ago) and some were pretty terrible ("Radio Song" is not pleasing to my ears at all).
I won't claim to be a true R.E.M. fan but, from the outside looking in, it seems like the band went through three phases. Phase one covered their first three or four albums as more of an underground band popular in colleges. Phase two was when they reached a more mainstream status (or "sold out" as I'm sure a lot of their original fans would claim) including signing with a major record label. And phase three was their last three or four albums which weren't nearly as strong as the earlier work but, after ten albums, even the best creative juices can run dry and there are still some musical nuggets to find even in this later work.
I won't rank all fifteen albums but here are my top five albums from the group.
5. Murmur 1983: Debut album from the group and it's easy to hear through songs like "Radio Free Europe" why they took off at the college scene. Stipe's voice sounds younger but it's remarkable how consistent he was able to sound for almost 30 years.
4. Green 1988: First album on a major record label and the sound does seem a little more polished from the first few albums. Hits like "Stand" and "Orange Crush" pushed the band more toward the mainstream but there wasn't a sacrifice in the quality of the music.
3. Out of Time 1991: I'm sure the true R.E.M. fans are rolling their eyes but songs like "Losing My Religion", "Half a World Away", "Country Feedback" and "Me In Honey" are more than enough to offset the weaker tracks like "Shiny Happy People" (sounds like a bad hippie song) and "Radio Song".
2. Document 1987: I went back and forth between this album and Automatic For The People as the selection for the list. Document would be the album I would recommend for someone who never heard R.E.M. before. "Finest Worksong" kicks off the album on such a high note and that's buoyed by the lyrical Tazmanian Devil "It's The End Of The World As We Know It" (my favorite radio station as a kid changed formats from rock to country and, for its last weekend, played this song for three days straight), the classic "The One I Love" and other tracks like "Disturbance At The Heron House" and "Fireplace". Just a great rock album before the age of grunge set in.
1. Automatic For The People 1992: Noticeably slower paced than prior albums, the album's foundation is mellow tracks like "Drive", "Everybody Hurts" (Dwight Schrute's expression of pain), "Sweetness Follows" and "Nightswimming". That makes the faster paced songs like "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite", "Monty Got A Raw Deal" and "Man On The Moon" stand out even more. There's a reason this album was a smash commercially and critically. Subsequent albums would have flashes of brilliance like "What's The Frequency Kenneth" but it's not to view this as the last truly great album the band put out.
If you're interested in R.E.M. even on a casual level, I would recommend fully exploring the full catalog. You might have a totally different ranking of the albums but I would be surprised if Automatic For The People, album number 43 here, didn't come in near the top of your list as well.
#42
The Battle Of Los Angeles
Rage Against The Machine
Was I an angry youth? No. Was I an advocate for climate change, health care reform or more equal wealth distribution? Not a chance. Did I pretend I was all of the above when I played this album loudly in high school? Absolutely. Rage Against The Machine albums were a necessity for the high schooler who wanted to show those within earshot of the school parking lot that he was more serious about musical choices and was attune to the political landscape.
This may have been the first band where I differentiated that the true talent of the group wasn't the lead singer. That's not a knock on Zack De La Rocha's vocals. He brought a distinctive mix of anger and passion that kept the lyrics from feeling hollow or whiny. But it was Tom Morello's guitar work that was the signature of the group and what drew many fans, including myself, to their music. Songs like "Bulls On Parade" or "Killing In The Name Of" don't succeed unless there's compelling guitar work and Morello provides that in surplus. The group did increase awareness for many of its causes, but it was largely because young listeners were pulled into the band's orbit by Morello's work.
Side note about my previous entry, R.E.M. It's hard for me to believe that Rage Against the Machine debuted their first album in 1992, the same year as R.E.M.'s Automatic For The People. I can't imagine two albums sounding more differently and that could be why R.E.M. was largely lost on me as I started paying attention to the music scene. R.E.M. didn't fit in with the direction the rock scene was heading and I was too young to know their earlier albums so they more or less fell by the wayside for me until recently. Another benefit to Spotify to be able to make up for lost time with some classic bands. Anyway, on to more Rage talk.
I was drawn in to Rage Against The Machine by their 1996 album Evil Empire containing "Bulls On Parade" which is probably the quintessential Rage Against The Machine song and the most recognizable guitar work from Morello and bassist Tim Commerford. But it was the 1999 album The Battle Of Los Angeles that takes the spot on the list. "Testify", "Guerilla Radio", "Calm Like a Bomb", and "Sleep Now In The Fire" were just some of the highlights on this 12 track gem.
"Sleep Now In The Fire" deserves a brief tangent. It's my favorite song on the album and I'm sure I'm not alone in that opinion. It conveys frustration and anger but also a sense of fun. Who doesn't love belting out "I am the Nina...the Pinta...the Santa Maria"? But it also spawned a legendary music video directed by Michael Moore during which the band plays outside the New York Stock Exchange as NYPD attempts to shut it down. The incident eventually caused the NYSE to shut its doors which sounds worse than it was. The steel riot doors closed but trading on the floor continued. What's interesting is at the 1:04 mark of the video, there's a brief shot of someone holding a Trump for president sign which is a reminder that his decision to run in 2016 wasn't a spur of the moment thing. He'd been lurking in the background for years waiting for an attempt to make a run at the office.
The music video would lose to Limp Bizkit's "Break Stuff" video at the MTV VMAs (remember when that was must-see TV?) causing bassist Tim Commerford to climb a structure on the stage in protest. The video may have lost but important to note that we're discussing this music video and not anything Fred Durst directed. Also, I'm spoiling some surprises but Limp Bizkit will not have an entry on this list although I'd be lying if I said I didn't own a copy of Chocolate Starfish And The What Are You Talking About?
It's discouraging that much of what Rage Against The Machine covered in their music during the nineties are still viable problems today (poverty, health care) but they're extremely complex problems that have no simple solution. The band did raise awareness for their causes and they did leave behind some music that will live on far beyond their years, most notably album number 42 The Battle Of Los Angeles. Not to be confused with the alien movie / Aaron Eckhart vehicle Battle: Los Angeles. That one will probably not live on for generations.
#41
AM
Arctic Monkeys
The fifth album from the Arctic Monkeys, AM, is aptly named. To be clear, the AM that's being referenced isn't the AM hours that include a healthy morning workout, a cup of coffee and perusal of work email. Oh no no. These are the very early AM hours after the bars have closed and you're left feeling a little sweaty and a little grimy with the first pangs of the hangover setting. If you're with your current special someone, it can tend to be the time you have that fight you should have had two nights ago at a reasonable hour. The lead-off tracks "Do I Wanna Know", "R U Mine", and "One For The Road" perfectly capture the uncertainty of a relationship through the dim lights of a bar, diner or impromptu 2 AM apartment party.
But worse than the 2 AM relationship fight can be the early AM hours spent alone where the self-doubt and insecurity you've been able to be successfully suppress during the day can surface faster than Free Willy. These moods are captured too with "Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High" and "Snap Out Of It" but particularly in the finale "I Wanna Be Yours" where the snarky wordplay and cockiness from some of the earlier songs is replaced by earnest begging for some kind of connection with a special someone, or really anyone. By the time the last notes of this twelfth track of the number 41 album fade out, you just want a shower, a couple Motrin and to tell your significant other that you appreciate them.
Taking tomorrow off. Hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving! Post for albums 40-31 will be up on Friday.
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