The albums listed in the following list are not my 25 favorite albums; they are albums that changed my life. In some cases, the album opened new horizons to me as a listener, exposing me to new genres and ideas. In other cases, the album represents a larger canon of work by that particular artist; it being the ARTIST—not the album—who is the larger influence. If there are some here you do not have, go get them. You'll thank me. In no particular order...
COMPANY - ORIGINAL BROADWAY CAST ALBUM (1970) I grew up with show tunes playing in the house almost exclusively. This LP was played constantly, and is the best of the bunch. Easily one of greatest musical comedy scores ever written, with lyrical melodies and arrangements which defied Broadway conventions of the time. Every man over 30 and still single needs to be intimately familiar with this album. Because I was exposed to this at such a young age, it would be fair to assume that this work shaped my musical tastes for the rest of my life. Thanks Mom and Dad.
BOB DYLAN - BIOGRAPH (1985) When I was around 16, my best bud, Michael told me I had to check out Dylan. I decided that if I got the recently released 5-LP boxed set, Biograph, I should be covered. A five LP set was a huge investment at the time, and unheard of in popular music. Incidentally, this is first modern day boxed set ever released and it's groundbreaking format—rarities combined with greatest hits and obscure album tracks—is still copied to this day. As of today, I have nearly 200 Dylan albums, almost 3,400 tracks and am still collecting. I guess it wasn't enough after all. Thank you, Mah-Fooht!
THE BEATLES - GET BACK ACETATES (1969) My cousin Billy has turned me on to a lot of great music over the years, but his greatest contribution wasn't in the form of an album, an artist or even a genre. Billy introduced me to bootleg recordings, which combine two of my favorite pastimes; listening to music and obtaining the unobtainable. For the first time, I realized that there was a sea of amazing music out there which (then) could only be found by trolling through the bins of seedy record stores on 8th Street in Greenwich Village. The first bootleg I bought was a slightly lesser version of this one—an acetate of the GET BACK album the way the Beatles intended it to be heard, before it was butchered by murderer/genius, Phil Spector to become LET IT BE. Today, 25 years after it came into my hands, it still remains unreleased. Thanks, Billy!
MILES DAVIS AT CARNEGIE HALL (1961) This is the first jazz album I ever heard and it retrospect, it was an unusual introduction; combining the unique sound of Miles Davis with the neo-classical arrangements of Gil Evans. I purchased it sound-unheard, solely on the basis of the cover (check out the little Miles silhouette at the end of the green trail!) and the reputation of Miles. For a long time, it was the only jazz record in my collection and I listened to it constantly. It still sounds new every time I listen to it. Unlike books, it seems, there are some albums that can be judged by their cover.
BILLY JOEL - THE STRANGER (1977) When I began to write music at the age of 17—looking to develop my own voice and style—I had to stop listening to this album as it's influence was already so pervasive. One of those rare pop albums that has literally no filler, as it's chart success proved. Listening to it now, it strikes me as extremely McCartney-esque, so it's no surprise I still love it the way I do.
JOE JACKSON - LOOK SHARP! (1979) This and the following entry go hand-in-hand as an introduction to one of my favorite artists. I list them both because they each influenced me in ENTIRELY different ways. I don't know which of the two I heard first, but my sister, Robin got me this one on cassette as a stocking stuffer, and it was my introduction to punk. Looking back, the best punk was really just great pop, with an aggressive edge that had been lacking during the most part of the sensitive singer/songwriter '70's. Now, I realize, "Punk" isn't a genre, as much as it's a revival of the music the angriest music of the Stones, Who and Kinks (to name a few) from over a decade earlier. Thanks, Robin!
JOE JACKSON - JUMPIN' JIVE (1981) An introduction to Jazz of an entirely different sort, Joe Jackson's Jumpin' Jive was a beautifully recorded and faithfully arranged homage to some of the greatest music of the 1940's (and in particular Louis Jordan), This is music from a time before Jazz was considered respectable. This is the music your great-grandfather warned your grandfather about. It opened me up not only to Louis Jordan, but Fats Waller, Cab Calloway and a slew of others. Joe said on the original liners, "Go seek out the real recordings," and I did. Thanks, Joe! (and David Frercks!)
CAROLE KING - TAPESTRY (1971) My first exposure the the great female singer/songwriters. This is another album with absolutely no filler, and also served as an introduction to the amazing talent who all worked their magic, weaving pop masterpieces at the infamous Brill Building on Broadway.
THE KINKS - MUSWELL HILLBILLIES (1971) When I was a junior in High School, I took a class called, "American History Through Popular Music," taught by a cool dude named David Econopouly. We spent the first 2 weeks of the class listening to Woody Guthrie and the next eight weeks listening to this album. Dave loved The Kinks. Filled with humor, sarcasm and amazing melodies, this album became an all-time favorite. Dave wound up building his own sailboat and sailed it around the world. Dave, if you're still out there on the open sea, I'll send my message in a bottle, "Thanks, Dave!"
XTC - SKYLARKING (1986) How can something sound so Beatles, and so entirely original at the same time? Quirky, almost nonsensical melodies that on paper should be way too complex to be memorable, turn out to be catchy hooks-inside-of-even-catchier-hooks all wrapped by a wonderful production job by another master popsmith, Todd Rundgren.
JONI MITCHELL - COURT AND SPARK (1974) Without a doubt the most important female songwriter of the 20th Century, there are at least another half-dozen Joni albums that could have made the list. However, this was my first and still my favorite, for it's jazzy classisism. It was "recommended" to me by Prince who quotes from it (in the "The Ballad of Dorthy Parker") on the next album mentioned on this list. (It's funny how every great musical discovery leads right into the next one.) His mention was enough to make me want to check Court & Spark out, and I'm glad I did. Listening to Joni is—to me—the equivalent of a gourmet picnic on the grassy knolls right outside of the pearly gates. Thanks, Prince!!
PRINCE - SIGN 'O THE TIMES (1988) Prince is a musical scholar and teacher. Listening to him, you will be exposed to some of the most influential pop music that came before him. Of course, Prince can take it all and turn it into something entirely new and original. On no other Prince album is his diversity of influences so melded together and evident under one roof. I already said that this album introduced me to Joni Mitchell (as strange as it sounds), but also put me on a path of discovery to James Brown, George Clinton, Sly Stone, Staples Singers, and the entire world of deep funk and hard soul. Prince even does Beatles on this one, in the wonderful "Starfish & Coffee."
STEVIE WONDER - SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE (1976) This album really represents the peak of the trilogy that began with INNERVISIONS and continued with FULLFILLINGNESS FIRST FINALE. Talk about albums that change your life; before I discovered these three albums, I called myself an agnostic. These albums are proof positive of a higher power. If music is nothing more than the organization of sound via the vibrations in the air around us, then how can it move us on such a profoundly deep level? It doesn't make sense, and there is no science to explain it. This meditation began with these albums, and now I firmly believe that everyone represented on this list (like so many other great musicians & composers) are all truly Divine gifts to humanity.
THE ROLLING STONES - EXILE ON MAIN STREET (1972) This was the album that showed me that music doesn't need to be pretty to be beautiful. My all-time favorite Stones album, perverted, trashy, grungy and ridiculously catchy, this album is the seedy underbelly (literally) B-side to my (nearly-tied) second fave Stones LP, "Sticky Fingers."
THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE - ARE YOU EXPERIENCED (1967) Although it may be more popular to credit Sgt. Pepper as being the "sound of the Summer of Love," to me it's this album that epitomizes psychedelia. In contrast to Exile, this album demonstrates that music can rock as heavy as it gets, and still be as beautiful as a Mozart Concerto or an Ellington Suite. Three guys making all of this beautiful noise, yet showing none of the anger of the loud, rebellious rock that proceeded it. For Jimi, the rebellion was love and a canon of music that remains entirely original.
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND - LOADED (1970) To me this album is one of the greatest celebrations of Rock & Roll ever produced. Before leaving the band, Lou Reed took full reigns of VU and crafted this masterpiece. With lyrics that are as literate and layered as any of the great storytellers of all time and vocals that stab you with their conviction, any lover of rock & roll should own this album.
TALKING HEADS - STOP MAKING SENSE (1984) My brother-from-another-mother, Michael and his friend Ron, took me to see this movie at a midnight show in the Village when I was 16. I hadn't been exposed to the Heads or anything like it up until that point. We had the whole theater to ourselves, and we turned it into our private dance party. Art Punk meets Performance Art, and the funkiest grooves ever to come out of a band led by a nerd in a huge, oversized white suit. Thanks, Michael!
LOUIS ARMSTRONG'S HOT FIVES AND SEVENS (1925-1928) Pop music starts here. Period. Satchmo didn't invent jazz, but he defined it and sent it off on a fifty year journey of discovery for countless musicians with these recordings. Louis Armstrong was the first pop music star in the era of recorded music. If you know Satch from "When The Saints Go Marching In," "What A Beautiful World," and his Verve recordings only, then you don't know Satch. After these recordings which he made as a very young man, Armstrong mostly settled down in terms of innovation to use his reputation and fame to spread jazz throughout the world, even if if it meant delivering to largely white audiences only what they wanted to see and hear. You won't even hear him sing on the majority of these cuts (although you will hear his lovely baritone voice recorded for the first time ever), just his virtuoso trumpet playing and innovative band leading. (Make sure you get the much cheaper and best sounding JSP box with the yellow cover. pictured above.)
DUKE ELLINGTON - THE BLANTON-WEBSTER BAND (1939-1942) It should be noted, that like the entry before this, this cannot be considered an album in the modern sense. The "modern-day" LP, constructed from the ground up as an form of expression in-and-of itself, and designed to equal MORE than the sum of it's parts, finds it's roots in the mid-1950's (the first LP appears in 1948, and it's not for another decade that the technology can deliver recordings in stereo). That said, this is the Duke Ellington Orchestra at the peak of it's prowess. The same divine musical kismet that pushed four Liverpudlians together, also delivered composer/arranger/collaborator Billy Strayhorn, tenor sax virtuoso Ben Webster and genius bassist Jimmy Blanton to Duke Ellington within the span of a year. Ellington didn't write and arrange for instruments; he wrote for specific musicians knowing the sound that they would create, pushing their limits and combining their unique tones in a way that foreshadows modern-day synthesis. It's absolutely astounding what this band produced in the span of three years. Perhaps the greatest music of the 20th Century.
ELLA FITZGERALD - THE COMPLETE SONG BOOKS (1956-1964) Okay this is a cheat, as this is really a box compiling of a nearly 10 year project in which visionary Verve producer Norman Grantz had the greatest singer ever committed to tape record definitive versions of the songbooks of eight of the greatest pop songwriters at that time. Which of the eight voumes is your favorite, depends entirely on the composers you are drawn to. My bias is obviously towards the mammoth, "Duke Ellington Songbook," where she is backed by Duke's orchestra. The Cole Porter volumes are equally amazing. It may not be Ella at her jazziest—you won't hear much scatting here—but her voice is as always, angelic and is certainly in peak form.
THELONIOUS MONK - COMPLETE RIVERSIDE RECORDINGS (1954-1961) Okay, another cheat, but still life altering. Where does one start with Monk? My all time favorite piano player, but so much more than a pianist. This maniac practically reinvented harmony. When one is first exposed to Monk, they might think he is sloppily hitting wrong notes. Then you hear different takes and live sessions of the same compositions, and those same harmonic and timing dissonances are there... in the exact same places! Then you listen more and these nuances become the thread of Monk's musical tapestry, almost like mini hooks and themes constructed into the pieces themselves. You find yourself waiting for them, craving them... and that is when you've arrived. Monk has you right where he wants you.
BILLIE HOLIDAY - LADY DAY: THE COMPLETE COLUMBIA RECORDINGS (1933-1944) This one belongs with the Satch and Duke pre-LP era compilations. BIllie's work can roughly be divided into two periods, Her later period on Verve finds Billie drugged and all together melancholy delivering a raw sadness that is addictive to the ear. And then there's this period of her swinging hard with some of the best soloists of the day. Where Ella was pitch perfect, Billie teases and flirts with the notes and phrasing, approaching from below and above, from behind and front. She does it all with such amazing skill and finesse, that you never for a second doubt her intention.
BEN FOLDS - ROCKIN' THE SUBURBS (2001) Billy is retired and Elton is reviving his old sound (albeit to some wonderful results), it was looking like the piano-rock singer/songwriter was dead. Along comes Ben Folds, and his guitarless power pop trio, smashing away, delivering hooks and rocking harder than you ever thought a Steinway could. Thank god for Ben Folds, carrying on the tradition started with Little Richard. This album introduced me to him, but there are a few that are just as good (including Ben Folds Five). Thanks, Jenna!!
ANNETENNA - ANNETENNA (2001) This is the best album you've never heard. In my opinion, it's the best album of the first decade of the 21st century. A relaunching of another band you most likely haven't heard of, Ednaswap. Consisting of essentially the same members (minus Rusty Anderson, who went on a roadtrip with McCartney that continues to this day) , Ednaswap/Annetenna's biggest hit was unfortunately a horrible bubblegum cover version of their raw & beautiful "Torn," sung by one-hit wonder Natalie Imbruglia. Lead singer Anne Previn is to my ears, one of the greatest female rock vocalists all time. The band was signed to Sony as soon as they reformed as Annetenna, and recorded this brilliant album of power-pop. I will never understand why Sony chose not to release it, as I have little doubt that given the right marketing and publicity push, every song on this album could have charted in the Top Ten. For a while, the band was distributing it for free on the internet, but that site is now long gone. If you want it, you'll have to get it from me. Check out Ednaswap's wonderful final album, "Wonderland Park," for a taste of what this infinitely better LP sounds like. I can personally guarantee you, that if you do, you'll write me begging for a copy of this album. Very special thanks to JIm McElwaine without whom I may not have had the good sense to discover much of this music.
Not one album from the Great 90's?
ReplyDeletePearl Jam - Ten
Nirvana - Nevermind
Beck - Odelay
The problem with lists...