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.

2008 Supplement -- Best Male Songs Ever, Vol. 1

Along with the mix tape for the year in review, every year I compile supplementary bonus discs for my collection. This year I made two: my favorite songs by male artists and by femal artists. No artist can have a song repeated. Gender depends upon vocalist rather than songwriter or people playing, just for simplicity's sake. This is the playlist for the male version.

1. Bob Dylan - "Angelina" (Shot of Love outtake, 1981)

Mysterious and deep, this song is filled with magical images. Given context, I think it is about Christian Bob falling in love with a heathen of a woman and ready to do spiritual battle to keep her away from the hellfire. Whatever it is about, it is gorgeous and mind-blowing.

2. Barry Louis Polisar - "All I Want Is You" (1976, reissued on Juno)

This folksy love song is a series of light-hearted metaphors that seem inconsequential. The song's strength though comes across in its seeming honesty. It has that Walden effect, where simplicity comes through as authenticity.

3. Paul Simon - "Graceland" (from Graceland, 1986)

This travelogue about Paul Simon and his son takes a personal journey into America's heart of darkness -- the race-divided South -- in search of the racial unification that occured at Sun records, transforming the personal into a powerful metaphor of national significance.

4. Elvis Costello - "Sleep of the Just" (from King of America, 1986)

Costello has long been interested in writing songs dealing with issues of domestic violence. In this song, Costello, with shifting points of view, depicts a soldier leading a young girl on and engaging in a photographed one night stand with her. He shows the emotional impact this can have by implicitly comparing it to a gang rape in the final verse where her picture is "pinned up upon the barracks wall in her hometown while the soldiers take their turns with her attention."

5. The Band - "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" (from The Band, 1969)

This may not be my favorite Band song, but my interest in it has grown exponentially over the last year. It's no "Up On Cripple Creek" yet, but the working man ethos and litany of crops makes this rural unionizing song a winner.

6. Brian Wilson - "Vega-Tables" (from Smile, 2004)

The brilliance of this song is the child-like wonder it exudes, the same wonder that led Brian Wilson to develop an arrangement that featured people chomping on carrot and celery sticks in lieu of traditional percussion.

7. ? and the Mysterians - "96 Tears" (1966)

I love garage rock, and this organ-pumped pop song is one of the most sadly forgotten hits. Once a chart-topper, it is still little-known and difficult to come by despite Cameo-Parkway reissues.

8. Van Morrison - "Caravan" (from Moondance, 1970)

This epic of blue-eyed soul just surges and ebbs with the wonderful nuances of Van's aformal voice.

9. The Beatles - "Here, There, and Everywhere" (from Revolver, 1966)

One of McCartney's best ballads, this love song is awash in lush melody.

10. Ben Folds Five - "Brick" (1997)

What hooked me on this was the piano figure. Having been familiar with the song for a decade, it wasn't until recently that I payed attention to the words, aching and wrenching, as I drove home for the holidays.

11. Prince - "Sometimes It Snows In April" (from Parade, 1986)

Proof of Prince's egotism, this song is an elegy for Christopher Tracy, the character Prince played in Under the Cherry Moon, the 1986 film he wrote and directed. In the film, Tracy is murdered by Craig T. Nelson (of TV's Coach), the racist father of the girl Prince falls in love with, who is played by Kristen Scott Thomas. Still, despite its egotism, this song boils over with pathos and passion.

12. Arrested Development - "Mr. Wendal" (from 3 Years, 5 Months and 7 Days In the Life of..., 1991)

This was one of the first rap songs I fell in love with, and that was before I realized the powerful social commentary contained within it. The song celebrates hoboes as people too, and explains the virtues of helping those less fortunate. You go ahead Mr. Wendal.

13. James Brown - "Mother Popcorn" (1969)

"Mother Popcorn" has the most post-modern bass line known to man. A funky tune about curvaceous ladies punctuated by ecstatic screams about a salty snack. Classic James.

14. Billy Riley and his Little Green Men - "Red Hot" (1957)

Billy Riley's gal is red hot, and, comparatively, other rockabilly ain't doodely squat.

15. Johnny Cash - "The Mercy Seat" (from American III: Solitary Man, 2000)

Cash's cover of this Nick Cave track is one of the mot powerful gems to be mined from his American Recordings series, and that is saying a lot. The song is a cryptic jigsaw puzzle, a Rorschack test of serial murder and apocalyptic salvation.

16. Thin Lizzy - "Don't Believe A Word" (from Johnny the Fox 1976)

Thin Lizzy may be the most underrated metal band of all time. Their melodies and hooks are fantastic. This song couples those ever-present qualities with a self-deprecation that strengthen's Lizzy's legacy.

17. Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street Band - "Jungleland" (from Born To Run, 1975)

This song is a true epic. When it reaches the midpoint, the song simmers down to a murmur. When it rises from its ashes, the slowly paced piano that restarts it provides a pulse, upon which every instrument imaginable builds, not least of which is Springsteen's tortured and chiseled voice, pushing the song beyond its imaginable limits.

2008 -- The Most Disappointing Albums

1. Hank Williams III- Damn Right Rebel Proud

I've never had a problem with Hank III's vulgarity, and it absolutely enhanced Straight To Hell, but I think with this album it really isn't working. I wanted so badly to be a fan of this collection of songs, but for the most part the ones that stood out only did so in a negative way, and all because he is taking himself to seriously. Just from the song titles alone, like "Candidate For Suicide," "H8 Line," and "Stoned & Alone," you can tell Hank has left the party behind and, rather than being social with good people, he is just stuck on seeing how anti-social he can be.

2. Van Morrison - Keep It Simple Van Morrison has been making the same album over and over, with some changes, since 1968's seminal Astral Weeks. On Keep It Simple, Van Morrison has made all of the possible variations of that album twice over, and is thus recording an album that shows how utterly bored he is. Many reviewers have commented on how Morrison spends a verse of one song repeating the non-syllable "blah" over and over again. Actually, it's two verses. What's sad is that, in his prime, Morrison could have made "blah" sound interesting for as long as he wanted to, working it over like those gutteral 70s howls that punctuated his epics, but now it simply sounds like stagnation.

Honorable Mention: Guns'n'Roses - Chinese Democracy

Nothing could live up to what Axl promised.

100 Albums, 100 Words (70-61)

70. Van Morrison – Common One (1980)

Van Morrison chants this album like a mantra, imbuing it with its own holy flavor. This is fitting as a short of loose spirituality is present thematically. Musically, this is a cousin of Astral Weeks, but lyrically it seems to vaguely deal with some ancient, mysterious power. Morrison seems to be speaking most explicitly about the power of the arts, as implied by his own musical prowess and also through a litany of literary giants he names, including Catcher In the Rye and the poetry of Blake, Eliot, Coleridge and Wordsworth. But really, it’s the music here that matters most.


69. Aerosmith – Rocks (1976)

Rocks is the grimier of Aerosmith’s two great albums, and its “Rats In the Cellar,” one of the hardest songs ever, provides a nice contrast to “Toys In the Attic.” The band has gone from fun to ugly, from high to low; it serves them well. This album also features some of Aerosmith’s wilder experimentation, featuring Whitford and Hamilton on lead guitar and Perry on bass and vocals at various points. Most will remember the hit singles, “Back In the Saddle” and “Last Child;” they are the only foundation upon which this heavy of an album could have been built.


68. Blues Brothers – Briefcase Full of Blues (1978)

I understand the argument that this is perhaps the fakest blues album ever, and I may even accept it, but fake as it is, it’s a damn good jump-blues imitation. As the brothers prophesize in an onstage speech, this album brought to life for several people a dying genre and introduced this music to audiences who otherwise might not have heard it. Its hard to believe that John Belushi didn’t truly believe in this music, and his homage shows as he calls out Floyd Dixon and Willie Mabon. Hiring members of the Stax house band wasn’t a bad move either.


67. Led Zeppelin – Untitled (1971)

The hardest of rock albums. Although “Stairway To Heaven” is among the most overrated songs ever recorded (there’s a reason it was never released as a single), that doesn’t mean it’s bad (nor that I need to read fantasy novels until I know who the “May Queen” is and how to “spring clean” her) and the rest of this album is terrific. John Bonham’s drumming on the opening of “Rock and Roll.” Robert Plant’s soaring vocals on “Battle of Evermore.” Jimmy Page’s exquisite picking on “Going to California.” John Paul Jones thundering bass on “Misty Mounain Hop.” This just rocks.


66. Van Halen – Van Halen (1978)

The incendiary eight-finger tap erupts from the vinyl grooves as Eddie Van Halen’s fingers spin faster than the turntable. This album announced the arrival of 80s hair metal two years before the decade began and even longer before the genre established itself. Van Halen is the template, offering up all the staples of the genre. Party tunes built around scorching riffs (“Runnin’ With the Devil”), a front man who walked right out of a comic book (Roth), and at least one great power ballad (“Janie’s Cryin’”?… well, this is pre-Hagar). Unfortunately, these atomic punks would only stay together through 1984.


65. No Doubt – Rock Steady (2001)

Rock Steady encapsulates good times. It is a rhythm record, one that exudes danceability and builds its shifts around the texture of the tempo. Despite the occasional semi-clunkers (“Running”), the album is very listenable throughout, featuring three terrific singles and a slew of other gems, like the stalker fantasy “Detective” and the Prince-induced fever of “Waiting Room.” The latter especially stands out. Prince produced this and his fluttering falsetto provides backing vocals on the chorus; it’s his best performance since the 1980s. Most of all, this album is the best piece of evidence that Gwen never should have gone solo.


64. Miles Davis – Kind of Blue (1959)

I place a high premium on lyrics, but some records stretch sounds out in such new ways that words would only detract, and Miles Davis experiments in improvisational scales fit the bill. The jazz album to have is one which moved jazz beyond be-bop and into a new age, breathing new life into it and influencing just about everything to come. In addition to Davis’ visionary fervor, the sidemen aren’t bad either: Coletrane, “Cannonball” Adderly, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb, not to mention Wynton Kelly. From the opening notes of “So What” you know this is something special.


63. Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music (1952)

ORIGINAL HIPSTER MAKES ULTIMATE MIX TAPE, INSPIRES GENERATION
HARRY SMITH COLLECTED THESE 84 SONGS. RECORDED FROM 1926 TO 1932. INVENTION OF ELECTRONIC RECORDING TO GREAT DEPRESSION. RECORDED IN APPALACHIA AND LOUISIANA. PULLED FROM PERSONAL FOLK AND COUNTRY COLLECTION. ALSO INSTRUMENTAL STOMPS AND GOSPEL HYMNS. WROTE UP LINER NOTES. MUCH LIKE THIS. PUT SIX DISCS IN THREE SECTIONS. BALLADS. SOCIAL MUSIC. SONGS. SPAWNED FOLK REVIVAL. MANY MUSICIANS REDISCOVERED. CLARENCE ASHLEY. BLIND LEMON JEFFERSON. MISSISSIPPI JOHN HURT. CARTER FAMILY. DOCK BOGGS. ESTABLISHED STANDARDS OF GENRE. COO COO BIRD. KASSIE JONES. OMIE WISE. STACKA LEE. STILL POPULAR AMONG UPPITY FOLK MUSIC AFFICIONADO TYPES.


62. Arrested Development – 3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days In the Life of… (1992)

When Speech gets to preaching on here he is able to infuse a bleak political landscape with healing spirituality, is able to both criticize the downfalls of organized religion, particularly Baptist churches, while expressing how a life lived for God should be a progressive lifestyle. “Mr. Wendal” taught me what good hip-hop could be like, and “Fishin’ 4 Religion” and “Give A Man A Fish” continued to mine that same vein, politically educated, intellectual lyrics that tickle the mind rhymed over a delectable bass beat laid down by Headliner. Oh yeah, that and “Tennessee” and “People Everyday” are endlessly danceable.


61. Jefferson Airplane – Surrealistic Pillow (1967)

Time for a myth-debunking pop quiz!




1. Which of the following statements is NOT true. Grace Slick:


a. was hot until she discovered 80s fashion.
b. is credited with writing the groups second biggest single, included here.
c. is the core of the group.
d. stole “Somebody To Love” from her previous group.


2. Marty Balin is:


a. the nucleus Surrealistic Pillow is built around, having helped compose five tracks, and three
by himself (including the sublime “Comin’ Back To Me”).
b. an excellent guitarist.
c. a founding member of the Airplane.
d. All of the above.


Answers: 1.c., 2.d.