This is part one a simple, straightforward piece - more a list than anything else. People have asked me for music recommendations several times in the past. I haven't provided an in-depth response because, well, I own a lot of music. I didn't know how to whittle it down to a top ten or twenty list and frankly, music being art and art being subjective, a "ranking" seems ludicrous (you'll rarely find anyone less qualified for his position than an art critic). The best I can offer is a list of compact discs I enjoy and figure you might as well.
These were picked off the top of my head as I scanned through my library. I tried to select obscure or overlooked albums, but a few classics slid into the list here and there. Mostly it's alphabetical by artist, except for a few instances where I didn't feel like following that order.
Abba - Gold: Greatest Hits
I can't explain why, but there's something evil about Abba's music. Evil in a good way, as in it makes me want to get wired, get loaded and get laid. Partly nostalgia, I'll admit. But there's something more to it... The soaring harmonies, they way those insidious, simple, high notes on the piano kick the music along. Or it might be something Swedish, perhaps Scandinavian. My wife's half Norwegian, and I love that squeeze-tube caviar they sell at Ikea.
AC/DC - Powerage
Supposedly, Keith Richards' favorite record by AC/DC, which isn't surprising, since it has a Stones-y feel. This is the band when they were just playing straightforward rock and roll, before the heaviness and polish of Highway to Hell and Back in Black. "Rock n Roll Damnation," "What's Next to the Moon" and "Gimme a Bullet" are some of the band's greatest overlooked gems.
Allman Brothers - Live at the Atlanta International Pop Festival / Live at Ludlow Garage 1970
Folk Festival is just like the legendary Live at the Fillmore East record, only with a broader song selection. And disc two of Ludlow's Garage has the greatest, heaviest "Mountain Jam" I've ever heard.
Beatles - Abbey Road
I like Sgt. Pepper's and The White Album just fine, but this is the Beatles record I listen to over and over. "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" is built around this great, sinister lick and "Something" is one of those tunes you wish went on for another five, eight or fifteen minutes.
Beck - Mutations
Somehow, this elegant little record was buried in Beck's catalog, listed as an EP between Odelay and Midnight Vultures. Probably a marketing thing, as it was moody and bleak and mostly acoustic, with little of the sonic painting he was doing on the albums before and after it. People rave about Sea Change and it's a great record, but I think Mutations is as good, if not better, than anything else Beck's done.
Jeff Beck - Beck Ola
Rod Stewart fronting one of hardest guitar records of it's time. It's a no-brainer.
Black Angels - Passover
A hard rock version of the Velvet Underground with a touch of Jefferson Airplane. See final comment regarding Beck Ola.
Black Crowes - Southern Harmony and Musical Companion
Start to finish, the best Faces record the Faces were never able to create. Only heavier. Much, much heavier. "My Morning Song" and "Remedy" also prove that you can never have too many gospel singers backing up a track.
Black Sabbath - Vol. 4 / Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
As to Vol. IV, just listen to "Supernaut." It's one of the few songs I can directly blame for huge gaping holes in the drywall of one of my apartments... The kind of song that compels certain guests to open field tackle others in the living room. As to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, just listen to the title cut.
Blind Faith - Blind Faith (Deluxe Edition)
What's better than "Can't Find My Way Home?" An electric version of "Can't Find My Way Home," along with forty-five minutes of studio jams involving Steve Winwood, Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton. It's easy to say Clapton or Winwood make this record, but I think it's Ginger Baker. Strangest drummer I've ever heard. Sounds like each one of his drums is five feet away from the others. Where a lot of drummers use fills that slow the sound down (much the same way passive voice can slow prose), Baker plays economically, but relentlessly, leaving the spaces and these huge, heavy beats to create a sense of constant forward movement in the slowest of tunes. That or I tend to hear this album under influences creating those impressions...
Bloomfield/Kooper/Stills - Super Sessio
Like Blind Faith, this was a short lived project/supergroup. Goes from blues ("Albert's Shuffle," "Stop") to pop ("Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry") to oddly re-arranged covers ("Season of the Witch," "You Don't Love Me"), all done superbly. The highlight, however, is the nine minute instrumental, "His Holy Modal Majesty," with its amazing jazz/psychedelic organ solo.
David Bowie - Hunky Dory / The Man Who Sold the World
These are two of Bowie's "forgotten" records, which is odd considering they're two of his best. Glam rock doesn't get better. Hell, any rock doesn't get much better. If "Queen Bitch" and "Life on Mars" don't grab you, check your pulse.
The Byrds - Sweetheart of the Rodeo
There are a million reasons Gram Parsons' country-honk shouldn't have worked with the Byrds' layered, California harmonies. In this case, however, it did - perfectly. I couldn't recommend a record more enthusiastically.
Johnny Cash - Unearthed
It was an $80 box set when I bought it and it was worth every penny. How some of these out-takes, particularly the "Redemption Song" with Joe Strummer, didn't make it onto albums baffles me.
The Clash - London Calling
Who doesn't know about this record, right? Every rock magazine for the past twenty five years has listed it in the top ten of all time. That's why I'm not going to speak to the album as whole. Dust off the disc and if you haven't in a while, listen to "Kola Kola," "Wrong 'Em Boyo" and "Guns of Brixton" a few times. Are there any better bass lines in rock? I don't think so.
Dr. Dre - 2001
"What's the Difference"... "Forgot About Dre"... "The Watcher." A lot of older rap can be easily forgotten, or only recalled for its beats. Not Dre's stuff, and certainly not this record.
Bob Dylan - The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live, 1966: The Royal Albert Hall Concert
"Judas," a folkie incensed at Dylan's "electric conversion" famously screams at the beginning of "Like a Rolling Stone." Dylan responds with the meanest seven minutes on vinyl. I think David Fricke said that was the moment rock n' roll began, or something like that. I agree.
Eagles of Death Metal - Peace Love Death Metal
Garage rock you can fuck to - nothing more, nothing less.
The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
I recommend listening to the surround version (available in the two disc set). Total ear candy. Yeah, "Do You Realize" is cheesy, but I still like it.
Jerry Garcia - Garcia
Everything on this record is fantastic. From "The Wheel" to "Bird Song," "Sugaree," and "Loser"... Hell, even the Floyd-like "Eep Hour" is amazing. And the nice thing about this record is it never gets old. These songs age like Hank Williams' stuff. They could have been written yesterday, and they'll stand for the same universal observations in 2040 as they did in 1971.
Gomez - Split the Difference
Schizophrenic, with no one song sounding like another, ranging from pop to psychedelic jams to bluegrass. All done well, closing with an excellent comment on what sounds like fundamentalism... "Cuz we're not here to judge you/We want to be your friends now/And we can make you feel like everything that's gone wrong happened for a reason" ("Nothing is Wrong").
Grateful Dead - 1968-1969
Everybody loves the Dead of American Beauty and Workingman's Dead, and those are classic records. But before they shifted to more of a traditional sound, there was a time where the Dead played epic, bizarre live shows using pieces of the acid-soaked song cycles from Anthem of the Sun and Aoxomoxoa. Many bootlegs from 1968-1969 will have moments where Garcia played as frenetically and skillfully as Jimmy Page, Two From the Vault, Download Series 6 and Dick's Picks 8 and 16 most notably.
George Harrison - All Things Must Pass
If there was an Allman Brother in the Beatles, it was George. All Things Must Pass is a sprawling, indulgent record. Recorded, aptly, using Phil Spector's lush "wall of sound" technique, the album has thirty minutes devoted to nothing but studio jams. Three LPs in total when it was initially released, and not a minute of filler on any of them... This is what the Beatles might have sounded like if Clapton had joined the band and they decided to start jamming.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Axis: Bold as Love
This record will forever live in the shadow of Are You Experienced, which is really a shame. The solo closing out the title track is one of the highest points in music, more a classical composition - something wild and soaring like that crazy introduction in Carmina Burana - than a simple rock anthem.
The Hives - Tyrannosaurus Hives
The sonic equivalent of sticking your finger in an electric socket... Screaming and howling and merciless - two hours of notes in thirty minutes of music, with more infectious hooks than most current pop musicians' entire catalogs. You get your money's worth, and then some.
The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers / Let It Bleed
Let it Bleed... How the hell do you describe this record? A little slice of Hell on vinyl? Has there ever been a more apocalyptic sound committed to record than the opening wails and guitar lines of "Gimme Shelter"? Altamont indeed. And if Let it Bleed was the definitive statement on the end of the Sixties, then Sticky Fingers was a proper kick-off for the next ten years... Film-makers haven't used "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" as the go-to score for scenes of debauchery and violence for no good reason. There's something about that riff, the way it goes through you... It's like the sound of the snake in the Garden of Eden, distorted, using a huge fucking amplifier. Makes you want to do something bad. Don't know what. Just bad.
Nos. 2, 3 and maybe 4 to come in the future.
Posted by PhilaLawyer at 12:13 PM