100 Albums, 100 Words (10-1)

10. Johnny Cash – American Recordings (1994)

In 1970, Johnny Cash recorded a song called “What Is Truth?” The answer to that question is found here in the honest and unadorned voice that fills this record. Cash’s albums for Rick Rubin’s American Recordings label are all excellent, but this stands above the rest. Unexpected covers (Glenn Danzig’s “Thirteen,” Nick Lowe’s “The Beast In Me”) abound, and often flirt with Cash’s darker side. The humility which suffuses tracks like Kris Kristofferson’s “Why Me, Lord?” makes it not too surprising that Cash considered naming this album after his two dogs (the two sitting on the cover), Sin and Redemption.

9. The Who – Who’s Next (1971)

Sometimes I wish Lifehouse had come to fruition, but it would be tough for Townsend to improve on this album, a bargain at any price. The Who are known for being raucous virtuosos, but this albums shows they weren’t lacking in melodic chops. Splendid experiments in synthesizer – its first use in popular music – bookend this album and augment several other tracks. Nicky Hopkins' soulful piano is pure and easy on "Song is Over," lending the near epic a light, breathy yearning feel. And still Keith Moon bangs the drums harder and faster than anyone else in the history of rock.

8. Bruce Springsteen – Nebraska (1982)

A man howls like a dog lying wounded, his voice echoing the hollowness of humanity across the rolling plains – this is the landscape of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska. Down lonesome country roads roll killers and gamblers, and their pathos fills the stark soundscape with a wall of regret. This is the album that is borne out during the dim hours of midnight, sung from the hood or a rusted out Ford truck whose engine might never rev again. The desperate cracks of steel strings snap against the soul as the desperate vocals of roughshod earth and iron deliver you from nowhere.

7. Prince – Sign O’ the Times (1987)

On the cover, a blurred Prince walks through a world that is all surface, a rich carnival scene painted on a yellow cotton sheet. In the materialistic facade of the mid-eighties, one couldn't have blamed Prince for losing his artistic focus; as it happened, it sharpened into its finest point. In turns frenetic, apocalyptic, sumptuous and effervescent, Prince turns his talents loose over jazz, techno, balladry and the best George Harrison imitation outside of a Ween album. The subject matter is equally diverse: abstinence, broken homes, AIDS, and starfish as a breakfast food. So what keeps it together? Sensational bravado.

6. Jayhawks – Tomorrow the Green Grass (1995)

With vocals more harmonic than Crosby, Stills and Nash and guitars brighter than any sun, the Jayhawks cook up a late summer jam session. Despite song titles like "Blue" and "Bad Time," the music keeps a friendly veneer throughout. It sounds so casual it could have been recorded in your kitchen. The album lives up to its name, planting a seedling in the heart of the listener so that their days will grow greener as each morning arrives. Even when it's a "bad time to be in love," it is a good time to be in love with this record.

5. Joni Mitchell – Blue (1971)

It wasn't until I heard Joni Mitchell sing that I realized how badly I want to be a redneck on a Grecian isle who knows how to do the goat dance very well. The introspective melancholy that pervades this album shoots right through the soul, but it’s often enough a price paid for ecstasy that the listener isn't left wanting to slit their wrists. Mitchell's fingers caress the piano, massaging fertile tone from its keys. The original detail, especially in the "Last Time I Saw Richard," brings a warm, quotidian realism to the album that makes it accessible to anyone.

4. Van Morrison – Astral Weeks (1968)

In listening, I followed you –
a young lad, rosy-cheeked and leather-clad,
you roamed the streets of Dublin,
ducking in and out of Cypress Avenue,
down past the shops,
to where she lay beside you.
You still found the strength

to look straight in her eyes
and see the pale horse galloping

through her lens.

You found the courage to finger the jagged grain
and accept that pain for all of us, to etherize your love,
to stretch your pain across a starlit sky.

And here I sit, ears taut with grief,
afraid to touch

those twelve jagged bars of rejection.

3. Brian Wilson – Smile (2004)

“Nick Walusko – vocals, guitar, eye-patch, carrots.” I have no idea what an eye-patch sounds like on record, but it makes me proud to know that someone out there is playing one. The carrots are easy to identify as their crunchy chomp provides the percussion on “Vega-Tables.” Is this album overly drug-laden? Probably, but it’s still the happiest hodge-podge of Americana ever put on record. Sure, there are a few melancholy twinges, most noticeably in the horns on “You Are My Sunshine,” but for the most part this album is guaranteed to raise more smiles than Sgt. Pepper’s or Pet Sounds.

2. The Costello Show – King of America (1986)

Costello’s first record featured the phrase “Elvis Is King” hidden among checkered boxes. On King of America, he steals the King of Rock’s, the other Elvis’s, band to do what no other foreigner has done so exquisitely – deconstruct the American Dream using the nation’s most proto-typically American idiom, country. From “Brilliant Mistake”’s opening cocktail chatter to the soldier circle jerk that closes “Sleep of the Just,” Costello points a contrarian microscope at Americana. Even the two covers are memorably revealing, especially “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” where Costello Americanizes a British bastardization, albeit a great one, of American R&B music.

1. Nellie McKay – Get Away From Me (2004)

If you blend torch ballads and hip hop, stir in a cup of political angst, sprinkle in some virtuoso keyboards and garnish with irony, you get Nellie McKay. The album cover says it all: our heroine busts a chorus-line pose in a red, hooded pea coat in front of a graffitied construction site. Every track is melodically eargasmic and McKay’s lyrics are filled with the wit we would expect from a twenty-first century vaudevillian. From the moment she starts scatting in Yiddish (hcabnesie? maybe?) on “David,” McKay performs a sultry intellectual seduction that anyone who can hear falls victim to.

100 Albums, 100 Words (20-11)

20. Van Morrison – Veedon Fleece (1974)

From the first strum of “Fair Play,” Van Morrison pours out the fallout from his failed marriage to Janet Planet through coded sorrow. Morrison creates a series of metaphors, using literary figures and outlaws to stand for various aspects of their relationship. The result is impossible to figure out, on a literal level, but the emotive singing more than makes up for this because the listener understands everything that Van intends. This is the logical extension of the second half of Astral Weeks and would have made a fantastic double album coupled with the romantic rural paean of Tupelo Honey.

19. Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On? (1971)

This album has the tireless, friendly flow of a neighborhood meeting, except instead of planning the next block party, the participants are planning the next protest, be it against the war, the destruction of the environment, or the poverty that continues to sap the ghetto. Gaye had to fight hard against Motown brass to get this record on shelves, but once he did it became an immediate landmark and paved the way for several excellent Stevie Wonder albums. Filled with gorgeous vocals and horn fills that trickle between beats, this remains a true measure of the far-reaching power of soul.

18. Bob Dylan – The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963)

It is hard to believe there was another side of Dylan left to show after all of the faces he revealed on this masterpiece. The music here, in both form and subject matter, is more diverse than most double albums. Dylan showcases his mastery of dead-pan humor, rollicking blues hollers, sermons, aching ballads, and topical songs. Not only is this Dylan’s best early album, but it is one of his best albums. Armed with only a guitar, Dylan takes on the world and comes out ahead, winning over listeners every time the ragamuffin troubadour steps out onto the album’s battleground.

17. The Who – Quadrophenia (1973)

Quadrophenia is the Ulysses of rock, the art form’s truest use of stream of consciousness. While Quadrophenia lacks Tommy’s linearity, it creates its own rules as we bounce around between our narrator’s different personalities. While Quadrophenia may lack the sophisticated instrumentation and expert production of Who’s Next, it rocks out rawer than any other Who album, with the possible exception of Live At Leeds. If that’s not enough, you get rare audio footage of Keith Moon attempting to sing on the character sketch “Bell Boy.” They even sample themselves. The joys found here are four times that of most records.

16. Neil Diamond – Hot August Night (1973)

If Neil Diamond was only cool for one night in his life, this was it. Beginning with a scathing critique of society’s reaction to true individuality, “Crunchy Granola Suite,” Diamond goes on to kick props to Lenny Bruce, Humphrey Bogart and Mao Zedong in “Done Too Soon.” Side two features ripping satires of mainstream country (“front teeth missing; well, that’s fine for kissing”). Side three rounds out with a series of ballads, and the aching performance of “Morningside” is downright weepy. I learned to love this record in my crib; I love it more now that I can appreciate it.

15. The Band – The Band (1969)

The Band is the rot-gut swigging Southern granpappy you never had – except he’s four-fifths Canadian and has at least three distinctive, often sublimely overlapping, voices. In twelve songs, this musical troupe nails Americana so completely that Levon Helm should name them all honorary Arkansans. Don’t be dispelled though; everything here transcends its backwoods trappings. The bass on “Up On Cripple Creek” could be being played by Bootsy Collins. “Look Out Cleveland” drives like Deep Purple. “When You Awake”’s majestic, mysterious melody creeps around between every genre and sounds like none of them. The cover is the only thing monochrome here.

14. The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds (1966)

Wouldn’t it be nice if all experiments in symphonic pop sounded this nice? Brian Wilson loved Pet Sounds’ songs of self-doubt and lost love like normal people love dogs, but instead of scratching these tunes behind the ears, he gave them lush arrangements which bring out the full range of their beauty. The arrangements are phenomenal, especially the plodding bass heartbeat that grounds “Don’t Talk.” Carl Wilson’s vocal on “God Only Knows” is heavenly. Mike Love’s vocal makes “Here Today” raise the listener’s spirits. Despite its heartache, Pet Sounds produces empathy, and, through it, fills the listener with newfound love.

13. The Beatles – A Hard Day’s Night (1964)

Yeah, I waited till number thirteen and then picked A Hard Day’s Night. I didn’t even lead off with one of their “good” albums, one of George Martin’s drug-laden masterpieces of masturbatory production, because the truth is early Beatles rock. The chiming guitars are bubblegum, but who doesn’t love a little ear candy? Not only are all the songs originals, but, uniquely, they are all Lennon/McCartney compositions – and this is back when they still wrote together! Each cut is three minutes of sugarpop honey bliss. It’s the music of punch and pie parties, but Sara Lee never sounded this good.

12. Paul Simon – Graceland (1986)

It took nine years after Elvis passed for Graceland to truly become graceful, and when it did, it celebrated and made money for the blacks who Presley arguably stole from, except they were from South Africa rather than the States. Graceland developed more from Paul Simon’s love of South African music than from a desire to shake up apartheid (though he probably didn’t mind that effect). Simon’s love for his source material allows him to effectively overlay it with his own bouncy vocals and blend it with zydeco, rhythm and blues, rockabilly, folk, and the rest of the musical landscape.

11. Bob Dylan – Blood On the Tracks (1975)

It would be easy, and a bit cliché, to point out how Dylan took the corkscrew from “You’re A Big Girl, Now,” gouged out his aorta and spurted his lifeblood all over the ten tracks contained here. Sad as the album may be, however, it has strengths beyond the ability to depress you. Dylan is using unique and powerful ways of dealing with time in narrative. Shifts in tense and point of view fill the album, allowing the songs to be read in several different ways. From "Shelter From the Storm" to “Simple Twist of Fate,” this album contains multitudes.

100 Albums, 100 Words (30-21)

30. Prince – Purple Rain (1984)

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to praise an album that contains life; electric word, life; it means dancealicious grooves and a few scintillating ballads, and maybe some explicit lyrics. Prince exploded with this album, fusing his admiration for Carlos Santana guitar licks to his love of old-school funk beats. He took musical chances, from the bassless “When Doves Cry” to the hyper-technofied “Computer Blue,” and they just about all work. Despite being infamous for spawning parental advisory labels, “Darling Nikki” is gorgeous, almost as much so as “The Beautiful Ones,” one of the greatest singles that never was.

29. James Brown – Live At the Apollo (1963)

It is all here – everything that made James Brown the greatest. Even from this relatively early point, the groundwork has been laid for Brown’s mind-melting funk in this sweaty r & b workout. Start and stop rhythms punctuate James’ blistering exultations of joy and sorrow in the guttural space beyond words. Perhaps the strongest instrument on here is the crowd, and James knows how to play it like a master, calling and responding until he has to scream. If only we could watch him dance, then this album might be able to save the lives of everyone whose lost someone.

28. Afroman – The Good Times (2001)

Bob Marley he isn’t, but Afroman uses more reggae than just about any other rapper out there, and with skill. Afroman’s underrated raps also incorporate rock and gospel. Lyrically he’s an imaginative MC who is not afraid to push a few buttons. In “Crazy Rap,” Afroman raps about getting head from Colonel Sander’s wife. In “The American Dream” Afroman includes homosexuals and teenage mothers in his vision of a unified America broken free from the bounds of corporate slavery. “Because I Got High” cracks on Hitler. Varied as his subjects seem, they all refer to unity in a diverse world.

27. The Clash – London Calling (1979)

All those annoying little ska boys are a small price to pay for this landmark of jazz-punk fusion. Finally garnering The Clash the attention they deserved in America, London Calling blended horns and guitars more naturally than anything by the E-Street Band by making horns rhythm rather than lead instruments. The record showed the band’s deep roots, shown by “Wrong ‘Em Boyo”’s transformation of “Stagger Lee,” something most other punk lacked, allowing it to carve out new musical terrains. From “London Calling” to “Lost In the Supermarket” to “Train In Vain,” it made the world want to rock the revolution.

26. Jill Sobule – Underdog Victorious (2004)

A breakup in three acts with an epilogue. Act One: Jill is tired of being the poor person in her relationship and its really dragging things down. It’s not looking good for the couple. Act Two: Jill retreats from the relationship by engaging in activism, singing a series of political songs dealing with issues ranging from drug abuse to schoolyard teasing to child prostitution in Israel to the intolerance of fundamentalist religious brainwashing. Act Three: The Post-Breakup Blues. The album ends with a hint of future bliss as she falls in love with the female cop who pulls her over.

25. Prince – Dirty Mind (1980)

“Naked funk” is what Prince labeled the bare-bones, demoesque style he unleashed on Dirty Mind, and naked certainly seems to be his modus operandi here. “Sister” is a song about you-know-what with you-know-who. “Head” is about something that goes on below the shoulders, or below the belt. Many of the lurid encounters leave the narrator confused and alone, however, and the album ends on a serious note with the intoxicating dance groove of “Partyup,” a song that suggests late-night dancing as a way of escaping the paranoia created by Reagan’s Cold War policies. This is the first great Prince album.

24. Stevie Wonder – Innervisions (1973)

Falling in the center of a fabulous quintilogy, Innervisions is a massively powerful album, seamlessly blending political and spiritual concerns into a harmonic tapestry of funk, soul, gospel and jazz. “Living In the City” is one of the most powerful singles ever, and the thematic template for Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message.” “Don’t You Worry About A Thing” and “He’s A Misstra Know It All” are similarly powerful attacks on being self-centered. Between the white-hot funk of “Higher Ground” and “Jesus Children of America,” Stevie slips in some beautiful ballads, like “Visions” and “Golden Lady,” making this a very balanced album.

23. The Doors – The Doors (1967)

In April of 1993, this album changed my life. In the short-term, it inspired me to start collecting records, learn to play piano, write crappy psuedo-poetry, and listen to The Doors endlessly. In the long-term, it not only made me see pop cultu re as something serious, but as something worthy of serious study. It led me to discovering music beyond the Doors and real poetry that bore little resemblance to Jim Morrison's drug-addled ramblings. I'd never heard organ before, and the sound was a revelation. It played over and over at my thirteenth birthday pa rty. Adolescence still chills me.

22. Nuggets – Original Artyfacts From the Original Psychedelic Era (1972, 1998)

Few box sets can brag of being hitless, but this one can, and does. Originally twenty-seven tracks of exquisite acid rock madness, Rhino expanded the original two-record set to four cds, featuring three times the tracks that appeared on the original. The result is no less glorious for the distillation. Many songs sounds like dead on imitations of different artists – Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane – but the reverse seems just as likely after a few spins. From Count Five’s “Psychotic Reaction” to The Standell’s “Good Guys Don’t Wear White,” this set is a treasure trove of underappreciated gems.

21. Elvis Costello – This Year’s Model (1978)

A promotional poster for this album claimed it was “made in 1953 for 1983.” This album is thirty years ahead of its time, which means we’ve almost caught up with it. Rockabilly-fueled punk, this album paves the way for 80s New Wave. The Attractions are in top form here, playing every instrument like it is the lead. The bass in particular stands out, especially on tracks such as “The Beat” and “Living In Paradise.” The stop-start feel of many songs pushes the adrenaline. For being considered a forerunner of the punk movement, this sounds big enough to be arena rock.

100 Albums, 100 Words (40-31)

40. Simon and Garfunkel – Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme (1966)

Although Bookends and Bridge Over Troubled Water receive far more attention, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme is certainly the most varied and possibly the most affecting Simon & Garfunkel album. The raucous “Simple Desultory Philippic” and the deeply sorrowful “7 O’Clock News/ Silent Night” are like little else in popular music, and are certainly exotic yet brilliant excursions within the Simon & Garfunkel catalog. Other tracks such as the wistful “Homeward Bound,” the bouncy “59th Street Bridge Song” and the reflective “Dangling Conversation” may follow familiar models, but do so with a graceful delicacy that makes them memorable, not generic.

39. Prince – 1999 (1982)

Following Dirty Mind, Prince knew he had a unique sound, but was unsure of how to develop it. He tried to elongate songs and be over-the-top in his political declarations on Controversy, but a year later he learned how to control the raw power naked funk unleashed on 1999. Prince’s breakthrough, the album contained three top twenty singles, two of which remain classics (“1999,” “Little Red Corvette”). Prince learned more artistically mature ways to politicize his music with “Lady Cab Driver” and “Free” and still managed to keep up his sultry leer on “Let’s Pretend We’re Married” and “International Lover.”

38. Rolling Stones – Exile On Main St. (1972)

Putting on Exile makes you feel like you’re stepping down into a speakeasy, replete with boogie-woogie piano licks, horns and gospel singers. Once inside, exiled from the mainstream, the album envelops you in cathartic celebration filtered through a whiskey-soaked drawl. “Shake Your Hips” is a leering blues. “Shine the Light” is an elegy. “Sweet Virginia” could be a backwoods ode to the state itself. Taken altogether, this is the apotheosis of what Gram Parsons (a close friend of Richards who worked on the album) termed “cosmic American music,” this roots-infused album of juke joint jive feels simultaneously grimy and rejuvenating.

37. The Doors – Morrison Hotel (1970)

Even though Jim Morrison moans that this is the strangest life he’s ever known on “Waiting For the Sun,” Morrison Hotel may be the most normal album The Doors ever released, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. No twelve minute songs about incest, no wigged out poetry readings – just the essence of rock. Robbie Kreiger’s guitar carries all the barroom swagger he can muster on “Roadhouse Blues.” Ray Manzarek’s hands flutter across his organ on the nuevo-funk masterpiece “Peace Frog.” The compositions are tight, leaving none of Soft Parade’s filler. The older I get, the better this record sounds.

36. The Who – Live At Leeds (1970)

Pete Townsend used the studio to great advantage to create pristine recordings unparalleled for their majesty and breadth. Then, in concert, his bandmates destroyed them with virtuosic power as a completely maniacal trio with a really pretty guy who mostly just stood there but occasionally sang. A blend of perfectly nailed covers (“Shakin’ All Over,” “Young Man Blues”), extended jams of songs that go leagues beyond their original incarnations (“Magic Bus,” “My Generation”), and a concise smattering of mostly straight-forward hits (“Substitute”), Leeds provides the perfect introduction to what the Who do best, and that is rock like wild wildebeests.

35. Bruce Springsteen – Born To Run (1975)

Born To Run is a street fantasy, an “opera out on the turnpike,” and a glimpse into the kind of world that plagued Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. The urban underbelly Springsteen creates is populated with a vivid cast of characters, including Bad Scooter, the Magic Rat, and the Duke Street Kings. Behind the gritty tales, though, lies a lush and tender soundscape. Roy Bittan’s nuanced piano invites the listener in while Clarence Clemons tight, bright horn leads shoot right through them with pained solos. More than anything else, this is the sound of E-Street, distilled to its finest essence.

34. The Band – Music From Big Pink (1968)

Coming down the wire from a big pink barn, this idyllic album slowly unravels its strengths. A muted organ begins spreading creaky chords among earthy voices in the gospel strains of ”Tears of Rage,” but by “We Can Talk” Garth Hudson is rocking it like a swamp, building to a peak in “Chest Fever.” Following this up is Richard Manuel’s most aching vocal on this album, “Lonesome Suzie.” The musicianship developed while a Toronto bar band and the sound honed with Bob Dylan in the basement of Hi-Lo-Ha reach their logical conclusion in this blissful blend of smooth country sounds.

33. Beatles – Revolver (1966)

Tonight, on Unsolved Mysteries of Rock, we will consider many of the conundrums and confusions surrounding the Beatles’ Revolver, such as what exactly did Dr. Roberts prescribe? Was “Tomorrow Never Knows” inspired by just LSD, or was a time machine also involved? Why do the head lice crawling around on the cover look conspicuously like the Beatles themselves? And, perhaps most importantly, why did the Beatles choose to name this album Revolver? Was it simply to prevent Ted Nugent from one day using the title himself, or was it just that the music on this album completely blows your mind?

32. DJ Jazzy Jeff – The Magnificent (2002)

Baby Black, Pauly Yamz and Chef Word are stars, at least in Philly, the geographical context that this album is a musical metaphor for. The Magnificent creates community, and the lesser known rappers stand shoulder-to-shoulder with giants like J-Live, Raheem, Jill Scott, Shawn Stockman, and DJ Jazzy Jeff. This is undoubtedly the most underappreciated album on my list, which is shameful because the socially conscious rhymes the rappers construct in their lyrical landscapes build up the people, despite occasionally falling into the misogynistic trap that plagues so much otherwise delightful rap. And, of course, Jeff proves fresher than the Prince.

31. Johnny Cash – At Folsom Prison (1968)

If you were a prisoner who got to go to a concert, what would you like to hear songs about? (Please check all that apply.)

o Sleeping with your best friend’s wife
o Being so busted broke you have to steal
o Shooting cocaine
o Shooting your woman down
o Shooting cocaine AND shooting your woman down
o Shooting a man just to watch him die
o Getting pictures of mom in the mail
o Hangings and electric chairs
o Failed attempts at pardons
o Flushing down old love affairs
o A fellow inmate’s musings on religion
o Dirty thievin’ dogs
o Prison break attempts
o Prison break attempts that are really suicide attempts