Wednesday, August 27, 2003

The 50 Most Important Albums (11 - 20) (21 - 30) (31 - 40) (41 - 50) Live at Leeds (Complete) - The Who: In the late sixties and early seventies, the Who were the confluence of just about every movement in rock music, from the penchant for concept albums to Pete Townshend as tortured genius songwriter to psychedelia to ear-shattering guitars, but no studio recording (with the possible exception of Who's Next) adequately captured the ferocity of their live performances in this era. This album captures all of the band's impulses and their live presence, and it includes, for me, the definitive version of Tommy, stripped of its studio ornamentation, leaving only its essential core. Kind of Blue - Miles Davis: Great sessions with great musicians playing great solos. On the surface, these songs seem laid-back and peaceful, but a careful listen to their harmonic and melodic innovations is endlessly fascinating. This album cannot be held responsible for all of the cool (or, ugh, "smooth") jazz that followed in its wake. Zen Arcade - Hüsker Dü: Hüsker Dü started out making loud, fast punk songs. There is very little that contains more energy than their early recordings. On Zen Arcade, they stretched out stylistically and temporally to include the droning psychedelia of "Hare Krsna" and "Reoccurring Dream," the quiet "Standing by the Sea," and the screaming "What's Going On" and "Turn on the News." This album was as close as punk rock would ever come to musical sophistication without losing its authenticity. Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963 - Sam Cooke: Keith Richards once said that eventually all rock singers compare themselves to Sam Cooke, and most of them go back to pumping gas. This recording catches that voice at its most incendiary, in a small southern club. Its climax of a small piece of "You Send Me" and "Bring It on Home to Me" is one of the purest recorded instances of the sublime. A Love Supreme - John Coltrane: After a bout of drug addiction, John Coltrane spent the rest of his life chasing after God, with his saxophone as his divining rod. His solos (in a style called, appropriately, "sheets of sound") became an endless, relentless searching, as if maybe one more approach to the problem would yield some transcendent solution. A Love Supreme was the first explicit announcement of that search and the most focused version of it. Solitude - Billie Holiday: Once you've heard Billie Holiday sing a song, everyone else's version will sound somehow wrong. Her choices of melody and phrasing are as convincing as they are unexpected. This album, from late in her career, features several standards, notably "Easy to Love," upon which she placed her indelible stamp. Innervisions - Stevie Wonder: Little Stevie Wonder grew into a musical genius with a social conscience without losing any of his exuberant pop sense. This is an album of great dance songs with meaning, including the masterpieces "Higher Ground" and "Living for the City." It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back - Public Enemy: Like De La Soul, Public Enemy arrived when rap was in danger of stagnation and pushed it in a new direction. But Public Enemy were the Black Panthers to De La Soul's hippies, and there was nothing harder or more strident than this album. "Bring the Noise" and "Night of the Living Baseheads" were highlights of dense, intricate wordplay and sonic assault. Car Wheels on a Gravel Road - Lucinda Williams: Lucinda Williams started out recording blues and country classics by the likes of Robert Johnson and just a few of her own originals. With her self-titled major-label debut, she began recording primarily originals, many of which were in turn recorded by other artists, including Tom Petty and Mary Chapin Carpenter. She spent years recording and re-recording Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, trying to strip the songs down to their most simple and primitive form, to the point that it's almost impossible to locate what makes these songs so affecting. But whatever it is that makes it so, "Right in Time" might just be the sexiest song ever recorded. Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out - The Rolling Stones: The Rolling Stones tour of 1969 was one of the first modern rock tours; it included, among other conveniences, monitors that allowed the band to hear what they were playing. And there has been little done since then to improve upon what a rock concert is. This recording (and the movie Gimme Shelter) captures all of the power of that tour, from the opening thwack of "Jumping Jack Flash" to the intertwined guitar of lines of "Sympathy for the Devil" to the thundering white noise of "Street Fighting Man." (Note: My wife and her brother were at Madison Square Garden for one of the shows that are included on this album--I'm very jealous.) 7:16:47 AM     What do you think? ()

© Copyright 2003 Morgan N. Sandquist. Last update: 11/2/03; 10:36:11 AM.

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