Last September, Rolling Stone magazine released their most recent list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, which includes a greater variety of artists and genres than previous lists. Looking through the list, there were many albums I’d never listened to before and a few I’d never even heard of. In fact, counting it up, I found that I’d only listened to 140 of the albums, although I’d heard songs from many more. So I’ve decided my project for 2021 is to listen to 10 albums each week and write up some thoughts about each one.
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Get ready for a great week as I love all ten albums!!!
Artist: Elvis Costello
Album: My Aim Is True
Year: 1977
Label: Columbia
Have I Listened to This Album Before?: Yes
Am I Familiar With This Artist/Songs from This Album?: Yes
Would I Listen to this Album Again?: Yes
Favorite Tracks:
- “Alison”
- “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes”
- “Less Than Zero”
- “Mystery Dance”
- “Watching the Detectives”
Thoughts: It’s a sign of a good album if several tracks are in regular rotation on the radio decades later. Although in the case of Elvis Costello, I feel that he has a lot of good work from other albums that doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Thus the popular perception of Costello is frozen in his debut album as a pub rocker with hints of the coming New Wave. Still, it’s good to have your first work be so fully realized that it’s still relevant well into the next century.
Artist: The Four Tops
Album: Reach Out
Year: 1967
Label: Tamla/Motown
Have I Listened to This Album Before?: No
Am I Familiar With This Artist/Songs from This Album?: Yes
Would I Listen to this Album Again?: Yes
Favorite Tracks:
- “Reach Out, I’ll Be There”
- “Standing in the Shadows of Love”
- “Bernadette”
- “What Else is There to Do (But Think About You)”
Thoughts: Based on patterns in the RS 500, I would’ve suspected that The Four Tops would’ve have got a compilation album on this list. I guess since this album spawned 6 songs in the Billboard Top 20 that Rolling Stone can consider it a Greatest Hits album. The album contains three of the Tops’ greatest tunes in “Reach Out, I’ll Be There,” “Standing in the Shadows of Love,” and “Bernadette” (all by the Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team). Much of the rest of the album is made up of cover songs of contemporary pop tunes, including two made famous by The Monkees. While I’d prefer more songs written for the Tops, I understand why they felt the need to do cover songs, and really admire their work as song interpreters.
Artist: Hüsker Dü
Album: New Day Rising
Year: 1985
Label: SST
Have I Listened to This Album Before?: No
Am I Familiar With This Artist/Songs from This Album?: Yes
Would I Listen to this Album Again?: Yes
Favorite Tracks:
- “New Day Rising”
- “The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill”
- “Celebrated Summer”
- “Books About UFOs”
- “I Don’t Know What You’re Talking About”
Thoughts: I’m afraid that most of my knowledge of Hüsker Dü is that they are the other 80s punk rock band from Minneapolis and the band where Bob Mould got his start. It’s another case of something I should have paid better attention to a long time ago. This album just plain rocks and sounds perfect on first listen.
Artist: Al Green
Album: Call Me
Year: 1973
Label: Hi
Have I Listened to This Album Before?: No
Am I Familiar With This Artist/Songs from This Album?: Yes
Would I Listen to this Album Again?: Yes
Favorite Tracks:
- “Call Me (Come Back Home”
- “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”
- “Here I Am (Come and Take Me)”
- “Funny How Time Slips Away”
- “You Ought to Be With Me”
- “Jesus Is Waiting”
Thoughts: The second Al Green album on this list is Al Green at his peak with hot grooves and sultry vocals. I like that he could take country songs by Hank Williams and Willie Nelson and make them his own. And somehow he made the gospel song that finishes out the album sound sexy.
Artist: Lucinda Williams
Album: Lucinda Williams
Year: 1988
Label: Rough Trade
Have I Listened to This Album Before?: No
Am I Familiar With This Artist/Songs from This Album?: No
Would I Listen to this Album Again?: Yes
Favorite Tracks:
- “Big Red Sun Blues”
- “Like A Rose”
- “Passionate Kisses”
- “Side of the Road”
Thoughts: Lucinda Williams is a name I’ve heard but I hadn’t before paid attention to her music. She has a big, beautiful, and expressive voice that works well with the blend of country, folk, and blues music presented here. I also discovered that Mary Chapin Carpenter’s big 90s hit “Passionate Kisses” was a cover, because the original is here on Williams’ album and it’s excellent. Lucinda Williams is another great revelation for me in this RS 500 experiment.
Artist: Paul Simon
Album: Paul Simon
Year: 1972
Label: Columbia
Have I Listened to This Album Before?: Yes
Am I Familiar With This Artist/Songs from This Album?: Yes
Would I Listen to this Album Again?: Yes
Favorite Tracks:
- “Mother and Child Reunion”
- “Run That Body Down”
- “Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard”
- “Paranoia Blues”
Thoughts: I’ve long listened to the music of Paul Simon and Simon & Garfunkel, although less so in recent years (partially because I’ve learned how much of a jerk is in real life). Nevertheless, I can’t deny that this is a collection of well-crafted songs. The music is stylistically different from the most recent Simon & Garfunkel album, and contains hints of the “world music” fusion style that would become Simon’s bread & butter in the 80s & 90s.
Artist: Beck
Album: Odelay
Year: 1996
Label: Geffen
Have I Listened to This Album Before?: Yes
Am I Familiar With This Artist/Songs from This Album?: Yes
Would I Listen to this Album Again?: Yes
Favorite Tracks:
- “Devil’s Haircut”
- “Hotwax”
- “The New Pollution”
- “Novacane”
- “Jack-Ass”
- “Where It’s At”
- “Minus”
- “High 5 (Rock the Catskills)”
Thoughts: Not only did I wear out my cassette of this album back in the day, but it ranked #78 on my own list of Favorite Albums of All Time when I ranked them back in 2009. This album was a statement from Beck that he was not going to be the guy who had a quirky hit with “Loser.” Instead there were a few years there in the late 90s and early 2000s when Beck’s unique fusion of folk rock and electronica (among other genres) was some of the most creative music around. I’m surprised that Odelay is the only Beck album on the RS 500 as I would argue for inclusion of Mutations and Guero, and possibly others from his catalog.
Artist: Yo La Tengo
Album: I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One
Year: 1997
Label: Matador
Have I Listened to This Album Before?: Yes
Am I Familiar With This Artist/Songs from This Album?: Yes
Would I Listen to this Album Again?: Yes
Favorite Tracks:
- “Moby Octopad”
- “Sugarcube”
- “Shadows”
- “Stockholm Syndrome”
- “Autumn Sweater”
- “Center of Gravity”
- “My Little Corner of the World”
Thoughts: Once again, we have an album that I included on my Favorite Albums of All-Time list. I ranked I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One at #17, the highest of 4 Yo La Tengo albums in my top 200. Obviously I like Yo La Tengo, who I think were one of the best bands of the 1990s. And I wasn’t even a record store clerk.
Artist: Marvin Gaye
Album: Let’s Get It On
Year: 1973
Label: Tamla/Motown
Have I Listened to This Album Before?: Yes
Am I Familiar With This Artist/Songs from This Album?: Yes
Would I Listen to this Album Again?: Yes
Favorite Tracks:
- “Let’s Get it On”
- “Come Get to This”
- “You Sure Love to Ball”
- “Just to Keep You Satisfied”
Thoughts: Marvin Gaye puts the most courteous and persuasive request for sexual intercourse to music. The album explores the spiritual and healing powers of sexuality with the same consciousness of Gaye’s social justice songs on What’s Going On? The only flaw with this album is that it’s way too short.
Artist: M.I.A.
Album: Arular
Year: 2005
Label: Interscope
Have I Listened to This Album Before?: No
Am I Familiar With This Artist/Songs from This Album?: Yes
Would I Listen to this Album Again?:
Favorite Tracks:
- “Pull Up the People”
- “Bucky Done Gun”
- “U.R.A.Q.T”
- “Galang”
Thoughts: My knowledge of M.I.A. is basically the excellent hit song “Paper Planes,” but I really enjoyed listening to Arular. This is M.I.A.’s debut album (why does the RS 500 seem to value debut albums so much?) and shows her talent rapping over largely minimal drum beats on a drum machine. It reminds of a mix of the simple hip hop of the early 80s with the consciousness of the likes of Public Enemy and De La Soul.
Running List of Albums I’d Listen to Again
- 500. Arcade Fire, Funeral
- 498. Suicide, Suicide
- 497. Various Artists, The Indestructible Beat of Soweto
- 494. The Ronettes, Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes
- 489. A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector from Phil Spector and Various Artists, Back to Mono (1958-1969)
- 487. Black Flag, Damaged
- 485, Richard and Linda Thompson, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight
- 483, Muddy Waters, The Anthology
- 482, The Pharcyde, Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde
- 481, Belle and Sebastian, If You’re Feeling Sinister
- 478, The Kinks, Something Else by the Kinks
- 477, Howlin’ Wolf, Moanin’ in the Moonlight
- 469, Manu Chao, Clandestino
- 465, King Sunny Adé, The Best of the Classic Years
- 464, The Isley Brothers, 3 + 3
- 462, The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Gilded Palace of Sin
- 459, Kid Cudi, Man on the Moon: The End of the Day
- 457, Sinéad O’Connor, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got
- 456, Al Green, Greatest Hits
- 455, Bo Diddley, Bo Diddley/Go Bo Diddley
- 453, Nine Inch Nails, Pretty Hate Machine
- 452, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Anthology
- 451, Roberta Flack, First Take
- 448, Otis Redding, Dictionary of Soul
- 446, Alice Coltrane, Journey in Satchidanada
- 444, Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine
- 443, David Bowie, Scary Monsters
- 440, Loretta Lynn, Coal Miner’s Daughter
- 439, James Brown, Sex Machine
- 438, Blur, Parklife
- 437, Primal Scream, Screamadelica
- 435, Pet Shop Boys, Actually
- 433, LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver
- 431, Los Lobos, How Will the Wolf Survive?
- 430, Elvis Costello, My Aim Is True
- 429, The Four Tops, Reach Out
- 428, Hüsker Dü, New Day Rising
- 427, Al Green, Call Me
- 426, Lucinda Williams, Lucinda Williams
- 425, Paul Simon, Paul Simon
- 424, Beck, Odelay
- 423, Yo La Tengo, I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One
- 422, Marvin Gaye, Let’s Get It On
- 421, M.I.A., Arular
Panorama of the Mountains 