1001(+) Albums I Had to Hear Before I Die, Apparently (#1-#50)

#1: Herbie Hancock - Head Hunters (1973)

October 23rd, 2024: we begin with an album I'm very familiar with! Head Hunters was one of a few records that provided me a "way in" when I was first trying to get familiar with the history of jazz. I was an alt-rock and prog kid first, and I was about 4-5 years into my journey as a saxophonist, so at first I gravitated towards various flavors of fusion. fusion often has one foot in the world of rock music, but the universe of funk music presented by keyboardist/composer Herbie Hancock and his band the Headhunters was something alien for me at the time.

having listened to this album dozens of times for over a decade, I've come to really appreciate the overall mood it places me in. it really feels like funk music that got inflicted with a heavy dose of jazz, rather than the other way around. the pockets from Hancock's rhythm section (Paul Jackson, Harvey Mason & Bill Summers) run incredibly deep; they're just as capable of creating that signature hypnosis-through-repetition effect of the best funk (the opening few minutes of "Chameleon" being the best example) as they are at providing a playground for Hancock and Bennie Maupin to weave some incredible jazz yarns (Maupin's soprano solo on "Sly" is easily the highlight of the whole record for me). the lack of a guitar (other than the bass guitar, I mean) results in a kind of dry timbre to this mix that really works in its favor.

the arrangement of "Watermelon Man" here may be the definitive version of the song; the bridge on A♭7 is a welcome addition that I miss when I play the Takin' Off version on jam sessions (ditto for the entire form of "Chameleon" with all the different bridge sections and solo vamps!). "Vein Melter" also grows on me a little more each time I listen; the synth strings on that track, and throughout the album, are the one part I would say hasn't aged as well as the rest. on the whole I was shocked at how contemporary the production still sounds in many respects, especially "Vein Melter", which stands out as a precursor to the ground that experimental groups like The Necks would later break. I guess I'm just a sucker for ambient, extended harmonies over a slow drum pattern!

an album I can listen to at any time, in any place, and guarantee myself a good 42 minutes. 9/10

#2: Supertramp - Crime of the Century (1974)

October 24th, 2024: in theory, as a former prog kid who knows and enjoys many of Supertramp's radio hits, I should be really into this. but for some reason, it just didn't leave a whole lot of an impression. the scope of this band's ambition is on full display from front to back (kudos to the sharp production on this album, which presents these complex studio arrangements with pristine clarity!), and there's plenty of moments across these songs that I think come together in a really satisfying way (the end of "Rudy" probably being my favorite example), but on the whole I find it kind of unfulfilling.

in trying to reach a middle ground between the complexity of progressive rock and the accessibility of pop, it sort of compromises on both ends. many of these songs aim for a kind of theatricality and camp that feels somewhat kneecapped by the band's need to play things so straight. it may grow on me with repeated listens, and I'm definitely interested in seeing where the band took this sound on their later 70s output, but I do have to wonder why this album was chosen for the 1001 over one of their later ones. I feel like I'm still hearing a band finding their footing, despite a few standouts like "Bloody Well Right" and the title track. some great saxophone solos too! 6/10

#3: Arcade Fire - The Suburbs (2010)

October 25th, 2024: The Suburbs won Album of the Year at the Grammys, which seems unthinkable in the current era of monogenre pop and hip hop slop those Awards are currently steeped in. this is a bold artistic statement the likes of which you just don't see as often in the rock music mainstream anymore. but, like with Supertramp yesterday, there's a lot I should love, yet somehow I don't find myself getting sucked into the (admittedly very strong) songs and overall conceptual angle. I, too, grew up in the American suburbs, and relate very strongly to the feelings of alienation and desire for something "more" that many of this album's best songs capture quite well!

one thing holding me back from full-on enjoyment is that, across this tracklist, I'm mostly reminded of the artists Arcade Fire are obviously drawing their inspiration from, and part of me feels like I'd rather just listen to them instead. you've got folkloric heroes like Neil Young and Tom Petty, stadium stalwarts like U2 and Springsteen, maybe even some of AF's own indie contemporaries like M83 and Sufjan Stevens. obviously we all have to be inspired by something, but I'm not sure if I get anything out of this music that I couldn't already get somewhere else.

beyond that, while these are some grand, sweeping songs (the string arrangements from Owen Pallett are especially noteworthy) that are often pretty earworm-y, something about the way they're presented feels like there's something being held back from me. I wish these mixes were a little more enveloping; I wish the performances went for a little more blood; I wish there were a few more surprises on the songwriting end. as it stands, this is pretty standard stadium indie fare; if you're into that sort of thing, you'll get more than your fill. but at 16 tracks and over an hour in duration, it's a bit of a hard sell for me. 6/10

#4: Fela Ransome-Kuti and The Afrika '70 With Ginger Baker - Live! (1971)

October 26th, 2024: let's not pull any punches – the most important drummer on this album is Tony Allen. his drumming embodies all the finest parts of a myriad of traditions from Nigeria, America, England and elsewhere, and it sets up The Afrika '70 (plus its leader, Fela Kuti) for great success on both sides of this thrilling live-in-studio session (recorded at Abbey Road!), both with and without Cream drummer Ginger Baker. Kuti's songs and Allen's drums pretty much are the sound of Afrobeat. that's no disrespect to Baker, who does remarkably well! Baker was well-known for being kind of an asshole, but he definitely doesn't play like one here, injecting just the right amount of vitality into side B without stomping on Allen's (or anyone else's) toes. [author's note: two or more simultaneous drum kit players can be a tricky thing, as we'll see with future albums.]

part of what draws me so strongly to the few Afrobeat records I've listened to is the presence of so many engaging layers of rhythm, especially compared to Western funk music which I find, despite its superficial similarities to Afrobeat, is much more minimal in comparison. here, even with two drummers, a sizeable percussion section, rhythm guitar, horns and some unflinchingly repetitive basslines, there's a precision at play in every moment that's difficult to ignore. so, yes, this is a jam session recording where a band plays four chords, each of them for around 8 to 13 minutes apiece; I imagine this is some listeners' idea of hell. if that's you, though, I would implore you to turn your attention away from pitch content! 9/10

#5: Derek and The Dominos - Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (1970)

October 27th, 2024: I'm only five albums in, but four of them have been from the early seventies, and two of them have featured members of Cream. this is some freaky RNG!

from my very cursory research, it seems like Derek and The Dominos was created out of a desire for Eric Clapton to just play some music, maaan, regardless of how it would be received by the audience he'd built up with Cream and Blind Faith. given that pure intent, and the fact that I'm by no means a Clapton fan—apart from his history of virulent racism and conspiracy-mongering, I think he's merely a good guitarist rather than a great one—I approached this with as open a mind as I could muster. I've certainly enjoyed music by people I find just as repugnant as him (if not more), so I really tried not to let my personal perception of Clapton have an effect on my stance regarding this album.

that being said, I am bored to tears by this blues rock sound! every third laundromat, grocery store and radio station in my area serves an endless rotation of songs in this vein, and I am so deeply not the target audience for it! I don't really have an issue with straight-up blues guitar playing, but if you're going to infuse a rock element into it, I'm going to need a lot more in the songwriting department! Clapton's middling guitar antics and utterly vacant vocal presence can only take me so far! I can appreciate that this is probably the best batch of guitar performances I've heard from Clapton across an entire album, but when Duane Allman smokes him just about every time they trade solo blows, it's kind of a moot point. Bobby Whitlock's backing vocals really get under my skin, which is a shame since I like his keys. 77 minutes of this???

I'd maybe return to three tracks here. this truly is "Layla" and some other songs. I'll give D & the Ds credit for their pretty great rendition of "Little Wing", but most of the rest of the covers are utterly banal. and the originals? imagine being down this bad for a happily married woman! I'd maybe be willing to look past that, the ugly core of Layla, if the music moved me, but ("Bell Bottom Blues" and the title track notwithstanding) it very much did not. I'm gonna go watch some B.B. King clips on YouTube. 4/10

#6: Garbage - Garbage (1995)

October 28th, 2024: this one started out pretty unassuming, but a few songs in, it totally had me hooked. by the time I got to "Vow" I fully got it: "grunge" music, but through a studio pop lens! kind of a cool angle that I hadn't really considered. it makes for a listen that's pretty easy-going and slick (this is a Butch Vig production, after all), but which still maintains a genuinely sinister undertone throughout. it won't weigh as heavily on your brain as a Live Through This [by Hole] or a Dirt [by Alice in Chains], but there's definitely something slightly morbid going on here.

like all the best "grunge" (kind of a crappy term, but you know what I mean), strong hooks, melodies and riffs abound. but plenty of this album's best elements—Shirley Manson's somewhat understated presence as a lead vocalist, the prominence of loops and synths and non-diegetic noises of all sorts, the overall Wall of Sound quality of the production—make this a really unique listen compared to most of the other music I think about from this scene and this era. the sound palette does a great job at synthesizing various nineties trends together. reading up a bit on Garbage's origins as a remix group also helped the material come into focus; I can imagine the straightforward rock versions of pretty much all of these songs, and they're all much less interesting than these final products! 8/10

#7: David Bowie - Low (1977)

October 29th, 2024: in May of 2020, when I listened to the entire Bowie solo discography, I ranked this album his second best. it's a decision I still stand by! sorry, I just really love Blackstar (2016), but in terms of "classic" Bowie, this is the album I reach for first. it's just such a succinct and perfect encapsulation of this artist (artists, if we take Brian Eno and Tony Visconti into account) at the peak of his powers! it may not have legendary, generationally anthemic songs with roof-tearing vocal performances like Hunky Dory or Ziggy Stardust or Station to Station, but so much of what makes it special is its understatedness and brevity.

the A-side is 7 flawless rock miniatures, all clocking in around 3 minutes or less, all replete with brilliant details in their pristinely engineered instrumentation, with heavy layers of Eno synths masterfully woven into the fabric for good measure. in many ways these songs (and others from the Berlin years) feel like the bedrock of new wave and post-punk. even the instrumental songs are full of intrigue! the stakes on these tracks are much lower than they've been on previous Bowie albums, but there's a straightforwardness to the songwriting on this A-side, particularly in the lyrics, which I find really compelling. "Sound and Vision" might be the most "perfect" song in the entire Bowie catalog, and there's quite a few contenders there!

then side B transports you somewhere else entirely. Eno takes center stage, with Bowie acting more as an object in the musical scene than a central figure across 4 grandiose slabs of ambient goodness. fuzzy string patches, Steve Reich-esque marimbas, thundering bass tones, droning vocals, and a ton of electronic pads all come together in various flavors. the connection these tracks have to the 7 rock songs that came before them isn't immediately obvious, but they just make sense together. with the rock side, you get terse reflections on David Bowie's state of mind as he tried to kick his various vices to the curb, and with the ambient side, that focus shifts outwardly to his immediate surroundings in West Berlin and the quiet horror of the Cold War. I can't imagine one without the other!

this is one of the most transcendent listening experiences you can find in the entire rock music canon. 10/10

#8: The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced (1967)

October 30th, 2024: this solves a lot of the issues I had with Layla just a couple days ago. in that review, I mentioned my burnout when it comes to the classic blues rock sound, but I mean, Hendrix is Hendrix! if you need me to tell you he's in a league of his own, you should probably get out more! whereas Layla felt, to my ears, fairly reserved and polite, this is fully in-your-face. for as much as Derek and The Dominos pulled out all the stops in terms of their production and instrumentation, there's just no competing with a trio in the raw, especially one with Jimi Hendrix at the helm.

the interplay between Hendrix, Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell is undeniable; the kinship they all felt with boundary-pushing small groups in the jazz world at the time, particularly the mid-sixties John Coltrane Quartet, is deeply felt throughout this tracklist. Mitchell's drumming in particular is show-stopping, to the point that I sometimes find myself focusing on him more than Hendrix! I also appreciate the very rough production and mix, which perfectly matches the Experience's unfiltered approach.

Hendrix's blown-out guitar tone and experimentation with distortion and feedback point in the direction of future trends in guitar music like heavy metal, noise rock, totalism and a whole lot more. it wouldn't surprise me if Hendrix emboldened later avant-garde and fusion guitar icons like Sonny Sharrock and John McLaughlin to keep pumping up the volume! to this day, he's revered as one of the finest guitar soloists of all time (for good reason!), but his abilities as a writer of riffs and songs were also incredibly strong. you've got heavy, bluesy earworms ("Foxy Lady", "Manic Depression", "Fire", "Remember"), mind-altering slabs of psychedelia ("I Don't Live Today", "Third Stone From the Sun", the title track), and even a tender ballad ("May This Be Love")!

this definitely gave me the itch to return to Axis and Electric Ladyland soon but, since they're both in this book, I'll have to wait. even if it takes several years. 8/10

#9: Rush - Moving Pictures (1981)

October 31st, 2024: this is day three in a row I've spent playing a game called "Cool, But I Already Know That One!" [author's note: you might find yourself playing this game a lot if you're going into this challenge already being a music geek at any level, especially if you attempt the mad task of trying to Say Something about each one of these buggers like I have.]

in elementary school, one of the only resources I was aware of for discovering new music was the radio. since I grew up on Long Island, that meant a lot of my first music discoveries came from 102.3 WBAB, Long Island's Only Classic Rock Station. while I've bemoaned my frustrations with the omnipresence of classic rock radio and the classic rock canon quite a lot in my adult years (and even once or twice in this list already), I have to credit WBAB (and Guitar Hero, of course) for starting me on this long journey we call Being A Total Music Dork as a kid in my mom's car. since it was always the more experimental or progressive stuff that piqued my interest, Rush's radio hits, especially the singles from the A-side of the Canadian trio's breakout album Moving Pictures, left a huge impression.

this is some of the most delicately constructed rock music of its kind. all the best aspects of Rush's prior work as progressive juggernauts are present, but even at their most ambitious, they always have one foot on the ground, and that's in the form of some tremendous pop songwriting. lyricist Neil Peart delivers some of his best, most evocative stanzas, which Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee match with some stupendous music. fun time signature changes, astute riffing, and tons of great melodies from Lee. did I mention the synths? too cool. oh, and Peart's drumming is pretty good, too, I guess.

"Tom Sawyer", "Witch Hunt" and "Vital Signs" speak to non-conformity, prejudice, and people that deviate from the norm. these are common tropes in Peart's writing and ones which I find particularly resonant, unlike the Randian/Objectivist tripe that crops up on albums like 2112. "Red Barchetta" and "The Camera Eye" share a focus on the sensual experiences of being in a sports car and a bustling city, respectively. they're easily the album's two loftiest songs compositionally, so I like that their lyrics are less direct, more abstract, to balance things out. "Limelight" is an ode to the barriers artists often have to put up around themselves to keep doing their jobs, particularly as they accumulate fame. Lifeson's solo on this one is deeply moving; to this day, it's probably my favorite Rush song. and "YYZ" is about planes or something.

the first five tracks are one of the most legendary runs in the entire canon! i really like the last two songs, don't get me wrong, but the A-side and "The Camera Eye" could be the entire album and I'd probably still call it one of my favorites of this era. 9/10

#10: Tears for Fears - Songs From the Big Chair (1985)

November 1st, 2024: the operative word here is "Big". this is quintessential eighties pop rock fare from top to bottom; most of these songs hit you with a wall constructed of shimmery guitars, icy synths, big drums dipped in thick reverb, and gripping vocal leads. over time, I've grown to really appreciate the tropes from this era of pop, tacky though they may appear on the surface to modern ears! this decade had a very particular production quality, an ethereal nature that always nevertheless feels like it's operating at a slight distance from me as a listener. there's a sort of intrigue in that dynamic that Tears for Fears, Talk Talk, Kate Bush, Depeche Mode and many more utilized to pretty tremendous success.

the three biggest (and Big-est) songs are big for a reason! I'm not sure I had ever heard the full 6+ minute version of "Shout" before but, damn, it's worth every second! a simple, perfectly orchestrated slow build if ever there was one. do I need to say anything about "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" other than "how did this almost not make the album?" I almost forgot "Head Over Heels" existed, so it was a pleasant surprise to be reminded of it again; I'll never get sick of a crafty modulation between a song's verse and chorus.

the deeper cuts are nothing to sneeze at either! "The Working Hour" has some incredible saxophone work from Will Gregory; "Mothers Talk" has maybe the album's most infectious drum pocket; "I Believe" feels like a cabaret number floating through space; and I like how "Broken" frames "Head Over Heels" and gives it a greater musical context to exist in, then leads into the dreamy, near-ambient closer, "Listen".

I definitely didn't expect to like this as much as I did! hoping for more surprises like that in the days to come. 9/10

#11: Kid Rock - Devil Without a Cause (1998)

November 2nd, 2024: couldn't this have waited until album #1,001? if you couldn't tell by that remark, this was the album which, beyond any other, I was most dreading having to listen to for this.

Kid Rock may be one of the first contemporary conservative grifters; despite his bougie upbringing as the son of auto tycoons, his more recent music deliberately appeals to the sensibilities of a particular kind of Republican voter, the kind who drives (or wishes to drive) an oversized pickup truck with which he (and it's usually "he") never hauls anything other than his own ass, and only ever to work and the grocery store. you know, the sort of guy who imagines himself as rural despite living in a major metropolitan area? Rock's grift has gotten more obvious over time (especially in the Biden years), but a lot of the right-wing signifiers he hit us with on "Don't Tell Me How to Live" are also present on Devil Without a Cause, his breakout album. it's brash, crass, trashy and politically incorrect, and makes no apologies for any of that; unfortunately, like most self-styled "provocateurs" on the right who make it their bread and butter to talk a never-ending stream of edgy tripe, hardly any of it lands hard enough to really be all that offensive.

that's true for his anti-COVID "Don't Tell Me How to Live", and it was just as true here: his music is too terrible to even be offended by. he even drops the N-word on the closing track, and raps on multiple songs about holding it down for "Dixie" (he performed in front of the battle flag of the Confederate States of America, a modern symbol of white supremacy, with some regularity up until just a few years ago), despite being from Michigan, and you kinda just roll your eyes. considering that his recent political signaling has resulted in him basically being banished from any and all polite company, it's hard to feel all that sorry for him and the ever-declining popularity of his Pimp Cowboy brand. conversely, it's also tough to muster up much ire for the Kid; however, I have plenty of anger for the music he has created. the public eating this up, that's one thing. but critics, too? enough for some of them to tell me I need to mark this as essential listening before my death?! that's unthinkable, almost unforgivable; it's certainly an insult to the intelligence of anyone who decides to partake in this challenge.

I'm all for hip hop and rock music coming together, but only if they're both done to a satisfactory level. think of the Beastie Boys, or Rage Against the Machine, or Death Grips in their later years. hell, even Linkin Park. [author's note: or that song Knocked Loose made with Denzel Curry!] on Devil Without a Cause, the rock never rises above the level of corny pentatonic hard rock and heavy metal schlock. the riffs are universally limp and lifeless; even the shittiest Limp Bizkit albums, the ones without Wes Borland, run circles around this. the country nods are similarly terrible, and now part of me has this terrible feeling that, if Rock didn't (somehow) have a smash commercial and critical success on his hands with this, we might have been spared the whole bro country trend. Kid Rock is also, bar none, one of the worst rappers of all time. his flows are embarrassingly rudimentary, and his lyrical abilities are basically nonexistent outside of the knowledge that the ends of his lines must, to one extent or another, rhyme. Eminem's verse on "Fuck Off" is an oasis in the midst of the Sahara the rest of the album's rapping presents, and even he would only make good music for, like, four more years after this!

the thing that I think truly gets my goat with this album, though? most of these songs are about absolutely nothing. booze, drugs, sex (sometimes implied to be with underage girls?), partying. great. not like we already have exactly one billion much better songs about those exact things! and when Rock does try to maintain a topical focus, it's mind-numbing. you want to be a cowboy? again, you're from Michigan. you think the mother of your daughter is a slut? you should probably unpack that one with some professional help. "Only God Knows Why" gestures in the direction of dealing with some personal issues, but again, it's hardly about anything at all. if you're a rapper, you should be able to know how to tell a story, and the only song here that does tell a story ("Black Chick, White Guy") has a terrible story, and it's still a terrible song.

"Devil Without a Cause" is an apt title, but not in the way I think Kid Rock wanted it to be: this music feels utterly pointless. easily the worst rap rock I've ever heard in my life, and I'd be very surprised if there's an album in the book that's worse than this. 0/10

#12: Blur - Blur (1997)

November 3rd, 2024: this is the first Blur album I've listened to from front to back. I didn't really connect with it all the way, and I think that's for two reasons. first of all, I don't have the context of their previous work leading up to this, which features a much more specific Britpop sound, rather than this album's more general alternative rock palette. and second of all, I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy.

it's interesting to see which UK artists manage to make an impact here in the States and which ones don't. our knowledge of the music of the British Isles tends to be pretty scattershot for that reason; Blur didn't really manage to catch the mass attention of Americans until this, their fifth album, six years into their career. is it because they started listening to American "college rock" bands and writing more American-esque songs on this one? well, Oasis made a huge splash with their sophomore album (What's the Story) Morning Glory? two years before this; and even well before that, there's a well-documented history of Americans being fascinated by a "British" musical aesthetic that dates back to the Beatles and the Kinks. for Blur, I think it may have something to do with how their sound and lyrical attitude reflect a specifically English cynicism, one that I don't get much out of since I've never even set foot in the UK. I think Radiohead's OK Computer is the album we Yanks tend to hold in the highest regard there.

undeniably, this self-titled record feels like it was written for a more international audience; the main way its Americanisms come through, for me, is in the rough-around-the-edges presentation. there's still some polish and refinery on display on songs like "Beetlebum" and "M.O.R.", but most of the bits that excite me are the ones that start to feel a bit like they're breaking down. Blur were particularly influenced by Pavement when they wrote this batch of songs, and the best moments definitely feel like they were recorded in view of a shrine of Stephen Malkmus. sonically, I think this record exists in a really cool 90s rock middle ground between the noisier sounds of American indie bands and the sophisticated arrangements of Britpop acts.

which is why it pains me to say that I didn't really connect with this album that well from a compositional perspective! I like the opening two tracks ("Beetlebum" & "Song 2"), but everyone does. I don't really get as excited about any of the other songs apart from the last two ("Movin' On" & "Essex Dogs"), and by the time they come on, the album's already over! there's a lot of neat sounds and good songs in the middle (some that remind me of the future sounds of frontman Damon Albarn's Gorillaz), but none of them really blow me out of the water or catch my attention in any big way.

there's a couple older Blur albums left on this list, and I hope that listening to them deepens my appreciation of what the band put together here. I appreciate the craftsmanship on display, but I think having more of a familiarity with where these guys were coming from musically might make this make more sense. as it stands right now, I thought this was good, but not great. 6/10

#13: Elvis Costello - This Year's Model (1978)

November 4th, 2024: the catchiest songs you've ever heard about the worst guy you've ever met.

I was fully unprepared for the sheer amount of anger that Elvis Costello radiates on these songs, much of it directed towards women! rock music and misogyny are no strangers to each other, of course, but with This Year's Model, I think Costello and The Attractions approach the subject with a satirical angle that's not immediately apparent on the surface. Costello's vocals, particularly on this album's most bitter songs like "Little Triggers" and "Hand in Hand", sneer and simmer with a barely contained rage... and yet The Attractions always make you want to dance! their music acts as a foil to Costello, deflating his rhetoric and turning it back on himself. this is a deeply unsympathetic portrayal of Costello as a man and a human being, and I think he's fully aware of that. hence, it's is an absolute ball. punk rock energy with powerful hooks, all tied together by that kooky organ. 8/10

#14: Miles Davis - Birth of the Cool (1957)

November 5th, 2024: let me just express my gratitude to the curators of this book that the golden era of medium-to-large ensemble jazz, the focus of most of my work as a composer-arranger, is fairly well-represented on it! being a composer-arranger is sort of a (somehow) even dorkier version of being a singer-songwriter, so it's always nice to feel like someone is still in your corner.

Birth of the Cool, a 1957 compilation of singles recorded in '49 and '50 (I thought compilations weren't allowed?) is some of the most exemplary bebop of its time, truly making a case for jazz as Black American chamber music. this nonet lineup, owing to its warm brass section from trumpet down to tuba, is very easy on the ears, which allows your ears to hear through the old recording fidelity and straight into the beautiful counterpoint and harmonic motion present in all of these tracks.

75-ish years on, I'm still blown away by the sophistication in these arrangements, the bulk of which are handled by Gerry Mulligan, one of the architects of the West Coast "cool jazz" sound. Davis is featured prominently on just about every cut, but there's plenty of space for other soloists, including saxophonists Mulligan and Lee Konitz, trombonist J.J. Johnson, pianist John Lewis and plenty more. Gil Evans also makes two appearances here as an arranger on "Moon Dreams" and "Boplicity", foreshadowing many future successful Davis-Evans collaborations which would take place on a much grander musical scale.

this may not go for your jugular like a typical big band record, but what this album lacks in volume and intensity, it brings instead in intrigue. this is music that you can't help but pay close attention to; if you're a writer, you'll listen to this record with equal parts admiration and envy. 10/10

#15: The Beatles - Revolver (1966)

November 6th, 2024: what can you even say about this, or any Beatles album, at this point? like, yeah, this is really good music. I'm probably not going to say anything even remotely contrarian for the entirety of this review! I've even got the weird stereo mixes everyone likes to complain about!

Revolver consistently stays in my top three favorite Beatles albums (the other two will show up someday), and that's for a few reasons.

Lennon–McCartney is a powerhouse songwriting team the likes of which was never seen before or since and et cetera, but give it up for George Harrison's three (count 'em, three) contributions to this album! always nice to see your fave get a bit more shine. "Taxman" is the one everyone loves, and of course I like it a lot (in spite of the fact that I think Harrison should've been paying more taxes if anything), but "Love You To" and "I Want to Tell You" are much more in my wheelhouse in terms of what I mostly listen to the Beatles for: sonic experimentation in a pop context!

yes, many of my favorite tracks are the weird ones. "Eleanor Rigby" with its creepy string arrangement and double-tracked lead vocals; "She Said She Said", which features some jangly, noisy guitar work; "For No One", a ballad with a Baroque flair, complete with a clavichord; and especially "Tomorrow Never Knows", one of the most mind-altering songs in the entire history of pop music. but then you listen to "Here, There and Everywhere", a song that's so straightforward in comparison with all the rest, and it's still completely captivating. this is a very special collection of tunes from a group of musicians capturing absolute magic in the studio. 9/10

#16: The Incredible Jimmy Smith - Back at the Chicken Shack (1963)

November 7th, 2024: Back at the Chicken Shack first came into my life as a listening assignment from Mike LeDonne when he coached an organ quartet I was placed in during my grad school days with the exact instrumentation featured here. the sound of the Hammond organ, compared to a bassist plus a pianist, changed a lot about how I had to react as a member of a band, for a few reasons that are pretty apparent when you put this record on.

the Hammond is, in a certain way, a relic of a bygone era. in the fifties and sixties, Hammond organs were a fixture of jazz bars and clubs owing to their economic value; a skilled organist does the job of two musicians for the price of one! however, the Hammond presents several challenges for the non-organists in the band.

chief among these is the instrument's notoriously muddy low end, which can make it difficult for the drummer and guitarist to lock up with the organist's left-hand basslines. there's moments where Jimmy Smith will speed just slightly ahead of drummer Donald Bailey and vice versa; this game of desynchronizing and recoupling just comes with the territory of organ grinding! as such, a lot of the repertoire that organ bands from this era gravitate to is in a soulful hard bop idiom, with simpler song forms that allow for that push and pull. there's perhaps no organist that typifies this sound, style and era better than "The Incredible" Smith, and this album in particular is a masterclass for anyone looking to play with a little more grease (which I, a suburban white kid, definitely needed to do at the time)!

given that I'm usually paying the most attention to the saxophonist on any given album, I have to give it up to Stanley Turrentine, who plays a ton of great bebop phrasing with a heavy dose of the blues thrown in. I'm definitely still trying to cop his vibe whenever I play at these medium swing tempos. but Bailey and Kenny Burrell hold their own across this tracklist as well! Bailey's drumming is never too busy, and it's often deceptively technical, particularly on the title track, with its upbeats in the left foot. Burrell's role as rhythm guitarist is often very subtle, but he ties the entire band together flawlessly, and his solo spots are pure, understated genius.

newer editions append a version of "On the Sunny Side of the Street" to the end, and I'm never going to say no to that song! it sounds nice in G major. 8/10

#17: The Crickets - The "Chirping" Crickets (1957)

November 8th, 2024: the importance of Buddy Holly and the Crickets to the history of rock music cannot be overstated. across an astonishingly brief recording career, Holly set the template which a host of rock music's earliest superstars modeled their own recordings and live acts after, from John Lennon and Paul McCartney (who named their band after an oblique reference to the Crickets) to Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones and on and on. unfortunately, for my ears in 2024, I appreciate Holly's music more for what it means to music history, rather than on its own musical terms.

for me, it mainly comes down to the very silly backing vocals, which were the style at the time, but often feel like they actively intrude upon the overall musical texture. apparently, there's a newer release of this album that nixes the back-up singers, and I wonder if I'd like it any more without them. the songs themselves are also pretty typical early rock & roll fare; having just listened to Revolver two days ago (an album that released 9 years after this one), it's incredible to think that this genre would evolve at such a rapid pace!

the highlight is "Not Fade Away", with its variation on the Bo Diddley beat, but tracks like "Oh, Boy!" and "That'll Be the Day" can't be ignored. the influence of these songs on the early work of bands like the Beatles and Stones is readily apparent, which makes this a really interesting historical document.

those of us in the Current Year are definitely spoiled by the advances of generations of musicians that have come before. landmark albums in this vein often get hit with the "dated" argument, but remember that, at one point, this was the shape of rock to come! it was one of the first albums to feature the modern rock band instrumentation, which blows my mind, even if the music doesn't always do the same. 5/10

#18: 50 Cent - Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2003)

November 9th, 2024: my middle and high school years, the time of my life where I first got into hip hop, were in the early 2010s. so, while I was having my mind blown back then from fresh releases by Kendrick Lamar, Earl Sweatshirt, Danny Brown, Death Grips and Kanye West (yes, I know), I was also catching up on the underground classics from the 90s and 2000s that were influencing a lot of my favorite new sounds (RIP DOOM). since my ears gravitated more towards the underground and "midstream" of the hip hop world, I missed out on a lot of the mainstream albums that have defined entire eras and subgenres of rap music over the years. I did a lot of further catching up during my 6 years in college, but here I am listening to a 50 Cent album from front to back for the first time at 27.

I'm not too surprised by the ambivalence I see towards Get Rich or Die Tryin' on Rate Your Music, or among younger hip hop listeners generally; it certainly didn't reinvent the wheel or present a new paradigm for the genre. that being said, this is still a strong batch of tracks overall! 50's style as a rhymer is maybe a little rudimentary at times, but he's extremely believable as a character in the world his lyrics present to you as a listener. he's New York to his bones, but the comparison that first came to my mind when listening to this was actually California's 2Pac: that hard, gangster exterior that masks a lot of deep trauma. plus, they both have Dr. Dre in the production credits.

50 handles a lot of his own hooks, and actually holds his own as a singer decently well! there's some serious earworms to be found if you're willing to surrender yourself to his admittedly repetitive subject matter. the stories of shootouts with cops, selling crack, escapades with women and weed smoking start to wear a bit thin by the end, especially through the bonus tracks. but, to me, there's not really a weak link in this tracklist! it's fairly even in quality from front to back; I just think it's a little long for it's own good. not helping matters is a couple beats that don't quite feel as timeless as the rest, the synth strings on "Don't Push Me" being the most garish example. overall, though, I think the production is much like 50's own rapping style: simple, yet highly effective.

the first four tracks alone may be one of the most exciting four-song runs on any album I've ever heard. "What Up Gangsta" makes me feel unstoppable; "Patiently Waiting" features 50 trading verses with Eminem, whose Shady label released this album; I think this was my first time listening to the explicit version of "In da Club", and the hook feels way snappier with its original lyrics, including the reference to ecstasy; and "Many Men" is the song that connects 50 most strongly to the legacy of albums like Pac's Me Against the World and Nas's Illmatic, with its vivid portrayal of the toll that a life of gang-banging can take on one's mind. probably my favorite song here, but it's close.

I hope Get Rich can get a bit of a reappraisal the more distance we get from its release. it may be a bit of a fluke; even as 50 Cent's follow-up album sold like gangbusters, he very quickly found himself outpaced by artists who were more on trend. but, as a time capsule into a world of hip hop that existed for only a brief sliver of its history, one which I was only dimly familiar with as a kid listening to the radio edit of "In da Club" in the car on the way to the doctor's office or wherever else, I found it fascinating. 8/10

#19: Bauhaus - Mask (1981)

November 10th, 2024: my fiance is deep in the Bauhaus trenches, so I'm dimly familiar with this band, and with 80s post-punk generally. going into this album I expected something somewhat ominous, and I certainly got that, but I didn't anticipate how groovy and dancy it would be! I was definitely reminded of David Bowie's late 70s material more than a few times. I don't love the tinny, reverb-drenched 80s production, but I've certainly heard more egregious, mushy mix jobs on other records from this time period.

like with the Crickets a couple days ago, I think I appreciate this a bit more for its place in music history than anything else. after all, Bauhaus are one of the most beloved bands in the history of alternative music, let alone just goth rock; but goth rock's just not really a subgenre I'm as drawn to as others under the post-punk umbrella. it's possible I'd enjoy In the Flat Field or one of their other albums more, but this is the only Bauhaus album on the list, so I'll have to do that on my own time. 6/10

#20: Queen - Queen II (1974)

November 11th, 2024: this is a different kind of Queen than the one I'm used to; apart from the closer ("Seven Seas of Rhye"), I don't think I was familiar with any of these songs beforehand. a lot of the traits that I typically associate with their sound are present here, from the preponderance of overdubs to the progressive song structures to Freddie Mercury's dynamic, captivating presence as a lead singer. the difference, I think, is the heavier instrumentation; I'm not used to hearing Queen in this more mid-tempo, borderline heavy metal space! I like them in this mode, but it also feels a bit humdrum compared to their later albums. Sheer Heart Attack rocks harder, and A Night at the Opera really pulls out all the stops compositionally and instrumentally. despite that, I think this sophomore record of theirs deserves a lot of credit for being the one where they really started to find their footing. 7/10

#21: Steely Dan - Aja (1977)

November 12th, 2024: coming from a background in jazz and classical music, Steely Dan and Aja represent my platonic ideals of what a pop rock band, and a pop rock album, can be. it's rare to come across rock albums this polished that still feel so vibrant and alive. a lot of yarn has been spun about the many session musicians and arrangers that worked to bring these songs to life, but my ear is always most drawn to the songs themselves. I've stolen a ton of chord progressions from them over the years, intentionally or otherwise! Walter Becker and Donald Fagen owe a tremendous debt as songwriters to the harmonic innovations of Wayne Shorter; there's a ton of Shorter-esque weaving in and out of different tonal centers across all of these songs, and Shorter's solo spot on the title track is one of the most exciting crossover moments in the histories of both jazz and rock music.

I like the B-side quite a bit, but this has to be the most perfect A-side in the entire yacht rock canon, right? 9/10

#22: Michael Jackson - Off the Wall (1979)

November 13th, 2024: glitz and glamor! there's a level of sophistication in the songwriting and arrangements on Off the Wall that you just don't see as often in mainstream pop music anymore. dozens of session musicians, arrangers and writers came together to make these songs come alive (especially the Jerry Hey Horns!), and Michael Jackson's smooth, energetic vocals tie them all together. this is absolutely the first album that comes to my mind when I think of the disco era, and I think it's largely off the strength of the initial run of three songs. two of MJ's most iconic hits ("Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" and "Rock With You"), plus the often-overlooked "Workin' Day and Night", which really wowed me. the title track also delivers, of course, but some of the deeper cuts don't have that same sense of impact. and yet, despite the front-loaded nature of the tracklist, I think the record still succeeds on a lot of fronts; some of Jackson's later albums work mainly because of their eclecticism, but I think I prefer the more singular sonic focus of this one. 8/10

#23: LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver (2007)

November 14th, 2024: James Murphy & the rest of his Soundsystem have a deep working knowledge of the slow build. these songs often stretch as long as 7 or 8 minutes, and somehow they seem to flash by. even for as glacially paced as some of these builds are, they maintain this electrifying sense of intrigue at every moment. the mark of having fun is time flying, after all! Talking Heads is maybe the most obvious influence at play (to me, at least), but the influence of 60s and 70s minimal music can't be ignored either. as much as these songs are all undeniable jams, they also have a tendency to put me in a bit of a trance, especially the title track. both LCD Soundsystem and minimalism have a strong association with New York City, so I don't know if I can call that a coincidence!

the mix of electronic and acoustic instruments to create these dance grooves is near-perfect in its execution. this is no doubt a studio project, but it always maintains a live feel. there's little blemishes in the percussion, synths so big they sometimes clip, and often unrestrained lead vocals, but it's all in service to the groove. Murphy's topical focus is also quite strong, mostly centered around the passage of time and its effects on his life and his mind. while these songs often feel like they're suspended in time, Murphy is well aware that time never truly stops, for better or worse. I relate a lot more heavily to the sentiment of "All My Friends" at 27 than I did when I listened to this album for the first time at 19. 9/10

#24: [The] Prodigy - The Fat of the Land (1997)

November 15th, 2024: it's interesting going back-to-back with The Fat of the Land and Sound of Silver, two electronic albums with a punk edge that take pretty different approaches. the Prodigy is undeniably more aggressive, leaning on frenetic breakbeats and howling synths over static house grooves and cold bleep-bloops. it definitely feels like I should either be listening to this in a club or, better yet, while soaring down slopes in SSX Tricky. I'd be very surprised if this wasn't an inspiration point for Joey Valence & Brae, one of my favorite recently-broken-out music acts.

as with Sound of Silver, there's still a lot of repetition at play, but it's less about slow builds and more about subverting your expectations. just when you start itching for things to switch up, they do it! sometimes it's in pretty obvious ways, like taking the drums in or out, or introducing a new vocal. but there's also plenty of tiny details and edits that jostle me and keep me attentive, and I appreciate those moments even more. the three big singles ("Smack My Bitch Up", "Breathe" and "Firestarter") are definitely the highlights, but I also came away with this with a great Kool Keith track I had never heard ("Diesel Power") and the hype-as-hell closer ("Fuel My Fire")! if I could change anything, I'd just take a minute or two off of "Narayan". 9/10

#25: Jorge Ben [Jor] - África Brasil (1976)

November 16th, 2024: a pleasant surprise! my experience with Brazilian music is pretty limited outside of American jazz's flirtations with bossa nova. like any good RYMer, Clube da esquina is one of my favorite albums, and I'm already a fan of one of Ben's earlier records, Fôrça bruta. the sound of the classical guitar is integral to a lot of this music, so I was pretty taken aback by how hard África Brasil rocks! there's hardly any acoustic guitars to be found here, although there's still plenty of great Brazilian percussion, particularly a prominent cuica! we've also got great horn and string arrangements, plus an incredible section of backup singers. the rhythm section also deserves a ton of props!

I can't really speak to any of the lyrical subject matter with any authority, but Ben's singing across all these songs is full of infectious, authoritative energy. he could be reading the phone book for all I know. 9/10

#26: Elvis Costello and The Attractions - Imperial Bedroom (1982)

November 17th, 2024: far be it from me to question Geoff Emerick's production decisions—the dude engineered Revolver!—but this is a very strange mix. there's a lot more of a studio-as-an-instrument feel on Imperial Bedroom in comparison to my previous Elvis Costello outing, This Year's Model. I get the sense that, with Emerick behind the boards, Costello really wanted to lean into the whole Beatles angle. the thing that jumped out immediately was the vocal production; what makes this mix so strange is how far forward they're pushed, and it's especially noticeable since many of these songs feature a ton of vocal overdubbing. I'm not 100% sure if this treatment really suits Costello as well as it does the Fab Four, but I also kind of enjoy hearing his voice with such clarity. he doesn't snarl as much on this record, so you get to delight in his newfound sense of melody a little more. this album's also got a lot more reverb than I'd have expected, truly one of the hallmarks of the eighties!

with the new sound also comes a different approach to songwriting. there's hints of the new wave sound here and there, but in a lot of ways, this is a Baroque pop album in disguise. again, the Beatles are a major reference point. from the way "Shabby Doll" speeds up and slows down; the expansive, Abbey Road-esque sound of "Man Out of Time"; the kooky, massive orchestral arrangement on "...And in Every Home", as well as other hints of brass and winds on songs like "The Long Honeymoon" and "Pidgin English"; Phil Spector's vision of a Wagnerian approach to pop is alive and well in 1982! what really makes this worth listening to for me is that, even with the clear influences at play and all the bells and whistles, Costello's sonic and compositional identity remains very much intact from one song to the next. he's much more introspective than he was on This Year's Model; even just from the sound of the music, you can tell he's in a more melancholy place.

I'm not sure if this needs to be 15 songs long, but there's enough excellent tracks, especially on the A-side, that this is definitely worth at least a few listens. 8/10

#27: Björk - Debut (1993)

November 18th, 2024: Björk's voice is one of the most magical instruments in pop music history. even in the course of a single song, her stylistic range is boundless. something about how her voice raucously floats over these house beats is undeniably infectious. but in between the bangers, there's a dreamy, sensual spirit of romantic ecstasy. it's present on cuts like "Venus as a Boy" and her rendition of "Like Someone in Love", both of which feature some incredible string arrangements, and it's even in some of the icier moments like "One Day", a track that sounds like it would fit right in on Aphex Twin's S.A.W. 85-92. it's still unbelievable to me that Oliver Lake of World Saxophone Quartet fame has his hands on some of these tracks, especially "Aeroplane", which has a delightfully unconventional arrangement; it's probably the song that most strongly points towards the future of Björk's output.

her later albums might be more adventurous musically and conceptually, but her first solo outing sets a tremendous blueprint for her later developments. this is truly a prototypical Björk experience; it's as close as you can get in her discography to a no-frills listen. 8/10

#28: Stereo MC's - Connected (1992)

November 19th, 2024: this won a Brit Award and was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize? could've fooled me. I'll reiterate that I am extremely American, so I have absolutely no reference point for why exactly Connected and the Stereo MC's had such a huge moment in the UK at the time. it's serviceable dance music with some cool drums, surprise horn lines and decent enough rapping, but nothing really stuck with me beyond that.

it gets pretty repetitive just a few tracks in. yeah, dance music is about repetition, but from song to song, I feel like I'm hearing a lot of the same musical tropes. I like the minor pentatonic scale and the Dorian mode, but for a full-length dance album experience, they start to wear out their use after a while. this definitely doesn't feel like an album I should be sitting in a chair listening to; maybe if I was in a different context, like a dance party or something, it would hit differently. but as it stands, I'm not sure I'd call this "Must Hear" material. I guess you had to be there. 4/10

#29: The Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die (1994)

November 20th, 2024: would love to listen to a version of this that edits Diddy and the two atrocious sex skits out. what was the obsession with taking 2-3 minutes out of an otherwise fantastic album for the least funny audio skits you've ever heard?

those blemishes aside, wow. this is one of hip hop's first timeless albums; Biggie Smalls' flows are immaculately constructed, and listening to him light these beats up is a pure delight. there's tons of different approaches to the art of storytelling across these tracks! my favorite is when he plays multiple characters in the same song, like on "Gimme the Loot" or "Warning"; it feels like he was planting a seed for Kendrick Lamar to harvest a couple decades later. "Things Done Changed", "Everyday Struggle", "Suicidal Thoughts" and many other songs portray Biggie's criminal lifestyle and condition in society with vividly macabre detail, matched with ornate, jazz-tinged production and piledriving drum grooves. it's undeniably New York, but the influence of West Coast G-Funk is equally omnipresent. there's also a few glitzier cuts dedicated to his material possessions and the women he's bedding (and threatening to beat if they act out of line), as any mainstream rap classic worth its salt tends to have. the production value and rhyming quality hardly ever dips, but the subject matter is often pretty repetitive.

there's definitely no shortage of material, with 15 proper songs clocking in at over an hour. this was the early days of the CD age, where everyone was trying to fill up as much of that disc as they possibly could. I think you could maybe trim this down by 5-10 minutes and it would be a much tighter experience. but, when so many of these songs are so legendarily good, I can hardly complain! 9/10

#30: Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti (1975)

November 21st, 2024: this is definitely a lot to take in at once. both the newly completed songs and the older cuts included to fill Physical Graffiti out to double-album length present a smorgasbord of sonic ideas, making this perhaps Led Zeppelin's most eclectic release. there's some progressive epics like "Kashmir" and "In the Light", but also plenty of their signature bluesy hard rock sound, particularly on the A-side. elsewhere, "Trampled Under Foot" and "The Wanton Song" feature a prominent funk influence, there's a few acoustic cuts like "Bron-Yr-Aur" and "Black Country Woman", and even a few more straightforward cuts that still come together really successfully like "Down By the Seaside" and "Houses of the Holy". if you like any aspect of the Led Zeppelin sound, you'll be able to find it represented here in some fashion. when these four guys really strike gold, the results speak for themselves. (I'll drill a bit more into specifics on that front as more LZ albums start to show up.)

that being said, whether or not you feel this needed to be 15 songs and 84 minutes long will depend on how many of these different sonic experiments actually pan out for you. for me, it definitely loses some steam by the end. the first two sides are by far the strongest in my mind, although sides C and D each have at least one really strong song apiece: "Ten Years Gone" and "The Wanton Song". "Sick Again" is deeply uncomfortable and I'd be happy to never hear it again. if I wind up returning to this album as often as other, shorter albums in their discography, I'll most likely cut it off before "Boogie With Stu". 8/10

#31: Beck - Sea Change (2002)

November 22nd, 2024: this first listen of Sea Change was my first experience with Beck in a full album context, and while I knew going in that this presents him in a more serious, contemplative mood than his usual, I wasn't ready to be as moved as I was by a lot of these songs! when I saw Nigel Godrich handled production duties and read about this album's despondent break-up themes, that obviously made me think of Radiohead, but I came away from this feeling far more parallels between Beck and Nick Drake. of course, Beck and Godrich's sound is a lot more expansive owing to the higher production value, but the mellow acoustic vibe, the string arrangements, even Beck's singing, all brought albums like Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter to mind.

the run from tracks 1-5 is by far the strongest (that little keyboard melody on "Golden Age" is so perfect!), but I was also pretty blown away by "Round the Bend". on an album full of great string sections, that song probably has my favorite. it's the most haunting song on the entire album, and it really stood out for that reason. I'm excited to see what else Beck's discography has to offer; hopefully I can catch him in a better mood next time! 8/10

#32: Ray Price - Night Life (1963)

November 23rd, 2024: I think I can safely say that Night Life was my first full-album experience with honky-tonk music, a genre I'm only peripherally familiar with thanks to its influence on alt-country, which is typically the only country subgenre that really excites me. so there's that aspect and also, uh, Fallout: New Vegas. I've alluded to how painfully American I am on this list before, but I'm specifically a New Yorker, and even more specifically a Long Islander. country music is huge right now, even on my home turf, but I've always felt a good amount of distance from it.

recently, I realized that what I really can't stand is the various post-9/11 mainstream country sounds, music that feels like so inauthentic that you'd swear it was created in a boardroom. this Ray Price album was hugely refreshing in comparison! I love the sound of pedal steel, and Price's voice is captivating over this selection of songs, pretty much all of which deal with sad romantic themes. there's an unmistakable nocturnal vibe here; slow tempos, unhurried vocal phrasing, the overall downtrodden vibe. I listened to this album at 1:30 in the afternoon, but I think I might have enjoyed it a little more if I waited for sundown (which, depressingly, is around 4:30 right now).

I liked this, but I'd struggle to say I love it or that I'm likely to return to it. classic country music is heavily focused on the lyrics, but I've just never been that kind of listener. and after 12 tracks and 37 minutes of existing in this sonic space, hearing the same chord progressions and melodic phrases return many times, I think I had my fill. I get that the appeal is in the simplicity, and admittedly this album has a killer atmosphere; but once again, I'm spoiled by the innovations of future artists. I'll definitely remember that title track, though! 6/10

#33: Chicago - Chicago Transit Authority (1969)

November 24th, 2024: bear witness to one of the most well-oiled machines in rock music history. these songs are often thorny and complicated, but they always feel good. keyboardist Robert Lamm dominates the songwriting and lead vocal duties on this album, so his contributions stick out the most clearly. "Beginnings", "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" and "Questions 67 and 68" are all masterstrokes that perfectly showcase Chicago's ability to balance tight playing of some difficult compositions (and some amazing work from the horn section, arranged by trombonist James Pankow) with free-wheeling exuberance; the latter really comes through when they kick out the jams on "Poem 58" and "Liberation"!

Terry Kath is one of the electric guitar's most unsung heroes; his rhythm playing fits right inside Danny Seraphine and Peter Cetera's pocket, and his leads are mind-blowing. that's not to mention the strength of his pen and his lead vocals, showcased in the jaw-dropping "Introduction" to this entire double-LP! he also gets some time to drop some legitimately avant-garde noise work on his own solo track at the beginning of side C, as well as towards the end of "Liberation". allegedly, Kath was one of, if not Jimi Hendrix's favorite guitar player. well-deserved praise! 9/10

#34: The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan (2005)

November 25th, 2024: the latter two White Stripes albums deviate from the pattern established by the first four. Get Behind Me Satan may be their most varied, in terms of both style and quality. after "Blue Orchid", a strong but misleading opener in their signature noisy, bluesy element, the tracklist takes all kinds of detours. the bulk of the material alternates between acoustic (piano or guitar) and electric blues, but there's even more left hooks than just the piano. "Blue Orchid" is followed by one of the Stripes' most experimental songs, "The Nurse", which encompasses all of this record's sonic elements into a very strange four minutes. there's also "Little Ghost", an attempt at a country vibe .

despite the quality control being all over the place, more than a couple of these songs are actually pretty great! "The Denial Twist" is probably the most successful of the piano-led numbers, with an infectious groove from Meg White while Jack White pumps out power chords on the keys. the electric "Instinct Blues" pumps up both the volume and the intrigue, with a start-stop pace that lets Jack control the flow of each section to make things feel askew. and there's a reason everyone likes "My Doorbell" so much! the deeper cuts don't really hit quite the same as they do on other White Stripes albums, but there's more than a few highlights that fit right in with their finest, most classic material. 7/10

#35: Queen Latifah - All Hail the Queen (1989)

November 26th, 2024: in a better world, one in which the work of female artists in hip hop was allowed the longevity and staying power it truly deserves, we'd be talking about All Hail the Queen, Queen Latifah's debut album, in the same breath as records like 3 Feet High and Rising. I don't just bring De La Soul up due to their inclusion on "Mama Gave Birth to the Soul Children" (although that's a fantastic song!); 3 Feet High and All Hail the Queen are both emblematic of the ways in which rap music, and particularly rap albums, were evolving as the 90s were about to begin. I'm thinking especially of sample selection, conceptual focus, and most importantly, the expansion of subject matter!

this is often cited as one of hip hop's first major feminist statements, and for good reason. I can think of times where I've heard female rappers attempt to prove that they can rap "as good as" their male counterparts, but Queen Latifah's perspective is much different. she isn't concerned with reaching parity with men, especially considering the evil they do (an evil she speaks about over a KRS-One beat on side B)!

Latifah opens the album with a verse about how she might not be the best female MC you've ever heard, but MC stands for "Microphone Commando", and she'll command your attention anyway. she'll make you dance for her, a task made easier by some excellent beats from DJ Mark The 45 King! I love how rap songs from this era will sometimes have an instrumental break with a sample in one key, a section for the verses with a sample in a second key, and sometimes a hook that's in a third key! the subtle ways hip hop production breaks away from traditional tonality are not lost on me.

the album's most iconic track, "Ladies First", is an ode to female solidarity, a message which I think has been somewhat lost in the modern rap landscape. since i started following hip hop in the 2010s, its culture's inherent misogyny has seemed to only allow for one, maybe two big female rappers to exist at one time. although, maybe with artists like Megan Thee Stallion, Doechii, CupcakKe and many others finding their way into a bigger pond this decade, that might be starting to change! 7/10

#36: OutKast - Stankonia (2000)

November 27th, 2024: almost a quarter of a century after its release, Stankonia has easily earned "classic" status in hip hop circles. the story behind OutKast's fourth album is fairly well-known: after three records which helped open the door for Atlanta and the wider hip hop scene in the South, Big Boi and André 3000 bought their own studio and, with their newfound recording freedom, sought to make something much more eclectic and experimental than anything they had done before.

there's a case to be made that this is the duo's finest work, especially since nearly all of their tinkering and flirtations with a wide variety of styles come together really well. highlights for me include "B.O.B.", which features the duo rapping at lightspeed over chaotic drum 'n' bass chops, with some incredible gospel vocals towards the back end; "Snappin' & Trappin'", which has the album's strangest drum pocket and very little in the way of harmonic or melodic information, but hard-as-nails verses all around (especially the debut recording of Killer Mike); "Humble Mumble", which evolves from an infectious salsa-tinged number to a driving club banger; and the first proper track on the album, "Gasoline Dreams", which borders on a rap-rock sound and immediately fires me up for the rest of the songs that follow. plus, "Ms. Jackson" and "So Fresh, So Clean" are, of course, generational bops.

there's a couple weaker links here, mainly the skits and interludes. I also don't rock with "Toilet Tisha" that hard. but even with that being said, Stankonia is very often my favorite OutKast album. it's hard to choose between this and ATLiens! lots of artists have had their shot at a more "eclectic" album, but few nailed it the way Big Boi and André did here. 9/10

#37: Oasis - (What's the Story) Morning Glory? (1995)

November 28th, 2024: I'd like to focus this review around a single moment which I think sums up (What's the Story) Morning Glory? perfectly: "Don't Look Back in Anger" opening with what is, essentially, just the piano riff from John Lennon's "Imagine".

Oasis were hardly the first (or last) band to be influenced by, or even directly lift from, the work of a Beatle or the combined Beatles. however, what troubled me about this introduction to "Don't Look Back in Anger" was that it felt to me as though Oasis were giving the whole game away; the "game", in this case, is the fact that they have no original ideas, and never have. this is an element of the Oasis sound that contemporary reviews of Morning Glory really went after, and for good reason. it's one thing to pay homage to or write in the vein of one's influences (something Billy Joel has basically made an entire career out of), but it's another to bite them this directly. as many critics and musicologists have noted, "Don't Look Back in Anger" is far from the only example of such biting to be found in the music of Oasis!

I suppose this is pleasant enough while it's on; I wasn't actively offended by any of these 12 tracks, and a few of them are pretty familiar to me at this point thanks to the radio and the Rock Band games. but, once again, I run into the same problem I had with Devil Without a Cause: all of the sound and fury signifies nothing. these are attempts at loud, anthemic rock songs (right down to the string arrangements!), but they all feel completely hollow. not all rock music has to be about something, but it should at least be somewhat surprising! instead, I'm getting hit with these bricked out, mushy mixes and Liam Gallagher's caterwauling. I've theorized that Glassjaw wrote "You Think You're (John Fucking Lennon)" about his brother Noel, who has less distinct songwriting qualities in his entire body than Lennon had in his big toe. 3/10

#38: Norah Jones - Come Away With Me (2002)

November 29th, 2024: Norah Jones' debut album Come Away With Me was released on the legendary Blue Note label, and features her elegant, smokey contralto and delicate pianisms backed by some pretty heavy hitters in the jazz scene at the time. half of these songs feature Brian Blade, who might be my favorite drummer on the planet! unfortunately, I think I set myself up for a slight bit of disappointment in that preliminary research process I take with all the albums on this list before pressing play.

this is an extremely tranquil set of tracks, suited perfectly for the task of looking longingly out of your bedroom window with a cup of coffee. Jones and her band play very tastefully and unobstrusively; you could take the Terrence Fletcher route and deride this as "Starbucks jazz", but there's absolutely a place for this vibe in jazz. it's just not really what I go out of my way to look for as a jazz listener. I guess I was hoping for a little bit more musical excitement and interplay than what's actually here. it comes through every now and again, but I want much more of it!

maybe if I had approached this with a slightly different mentality, I'd be able to appreciate it more for what it is, rather than what I might have wanted it to be. without question, I could definitely say I liked what I heard, but I think if I'm going to return to this, I need to be more prepared to listen to a pop album than a jazz one. 6/10

#39: Taylor Swift - 1989 (2014)

"Never play to the gallery… Never work for other people in what you do. Always remember that the reason that you initially started working was that there was something inside yourself that you felt that, if you could manifest in some way, you would understand more about yourself and how you co-exist with the rest of society… I think it's terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfill other people’s expectations."

December 1st, 2024: quoted above is David Bowie's advice to young artists, advice which he gives in the 1997 documentary Inspirations. it's probably the single most important piece of advice I hold onto in my own pursuits as an artist, other than "you have more time than you think." it's also something I thought a lot about while listening to 1989.

undeniably, Taylor Swift and the creative team(s) she's surrounded herself with have mastered the art of "play[ing] to the gallery." the numbers don't lie, whether it's on the charts or in the bank! it would be uncharitable of me to say something to the effect of, "well, nobody ever went broke appealing to the lowest common denominator," because the last thing I want to do is insult the intelligence or taste of anyone who might genuinely get a lot out of Swift's music. her most rabid fans get a bad rap, sometimes for good reason, but I know plenty of people—including other artists—who love all kinds of music and Taylor Swift! unfortunately for me, I'm just not the type of listener for whom her broad-strokes style of songwriting holds much appeal, if any.

I acknowledge that the simplicity of her music is part of the appeal. her lyrics are replete with pretty surface-level similes. "I'm a nightmare dressed like a daydream" made my eyes roll a little bit, but it speaks to a pretty universal feeling: covering up the pain we carry through life with an exterior of pleasantries. but, in that moment on "Blank Space" and many others throughout this album, I wish she was able to speak to these feelings and experiences with a little more specificity. but of course, specificity isn't the priority with Swift, especially not on this, the album which marks the completion of her transformation from country girl to pop icon.

the main priority? to craft simple, catchy, well-produced, commercially successful pop songs. to the credit of this album, it achieves that goal with flying colors! (Max Martin knows what he's doing? big shock.) these are songs designed to be sung by stadiums' worth of people. within each individual track, Swift stays within about an octave of her vocal range, usually a little more. her melodies often stick to just a couple pitches, and a lot of the choruses are a single pitch repeated. most of the chord progressions are stock four-chord loops (I think the musicological term is "Axis progressions"?), and there's not a key change to be found on any of them. instrumentally, the album is pretty standard, too. it's mostly basic mid-2010s synthpop fare, with the occasional acoustic cut and some strings here and there. all of this is a winning formula for creating songs that millions of people of varying musical ability and knowledge can sing along with and connect to. however, I think it's a losing formula for capturing my own personal attention.

for 13 tracks I pleaded with this album to throw some sort of curveball at me, and it never came. the vast majority of my favorite music features an artist or artists with unique perspectives (whether in sound or words), but since Swift has to engineer every song for mass appeal, her perspective is a secondary concern. I feel like I somehow know less about her than I did before I listened to this! I'm far from an anti-pop person, but there needs to be some kind of left hook if it's really going to grab me. "Style" was pretty alright. I should really listen to that new Billie Eilish album again. 4/10

#40: Beastie Boys - Ill Communication (1994)

December 2nd, 2024: when hip hop beats constructed from multiple samples became much more expensive to produce in 1991, few groups were as prepared to roll with the punches as the Beastie Boys. their skills both on the mic and as a rock trio had been established on previous albums, but Check Your Head and Ill Communication mark the height of their eclecticism. Ill Communication is a rap record, but it's also a whole lot else! the Beasties and Mario Caldato, Jr. are responsible for the bulk of this material, with additional instrumental contributions from Money Mark and Eric Bobo. there's instrumental jazz-funk loungers, throat singing, and a heavy dose of punk rock throughout the runtime. (the two flat-out hardcore songs on here are some of my favorite tracks on the entire thing!)

the Beastie Boys' artistic trajectory across their first few albums sort of reminds me of another staple of Jewish hip hop, the late great Mac Miller. their early work in the space was written off in some circles as gimmicky "frat rap" made by immature posers, but as they progressed, they each proved their bona fides by becoming more and more true to themselves in their work. in Miller's case, it made for a lot of very emotional, depressing work; the Beasties are almost the inverse! this is 20 tracks of pure fun; these three may not be tremendously talented MCs, but their charisma and flows are incredibly fun to listen to. I alluded to Joey Valence & Brae when I reviewed the Prodigy last month, but obviously the Beastie Boys are the group they get compared to the most frequently. I'm glad to see keeping JVB keeping the Beastie Boys' spirit alive in the 2020s, but the original is pretty hard to beat. 8/10

#41: Manu Chao - Clandestino (1998)

December 3rd, 2024: I wrote the first draft of this review on a ThinkPad, a newer (Lenovo) model of the (IBM) laptop Manu Chao recorded Clandestino on in the late 90s. ThinkPads are some of my favorite computers ever made, particularly because of the bang you get for your buck. mine was a model released in 2015; I think I got it for less than $200, and it's still chugging along with minimal issues! apart from being great at the everyday basic things you want a computer to do, it's also allowed me to do a bit of light gaming, and it can even run FL Studio!

the idea of making music on a portable computer (whether it be a laptop, a sampling machine, a tablet or what have you) is so ubiquitous in 2024 that children are using online apps to make songs in their school music classes. that's not even mentioning all of the "bedroom" artists that have achieved huge prominence in recent years. but, an album recorded on a ThinkPad being released in 1998 kind of breaks my brain a little bit! Chao was surely ahead of the curve here, right? in a way, he's an early harbinger of the future democratization of music production that came with the beginning of the 2000s, when MacBooks (all of which come with GarageBand) became widely adopted by consumers. plus, inexpensive (or even free) DAWs became ubiquitous in the software realm across all operating systems at around the same time.

the decision to use such an inexpensive machine as a basis for this album's recording process comes with some distinct musical advantages which Chao utilizes to full effect. following the breakup of his band Mano Negra in 1994, he was living a somewhat nomadic lifestyle, traveling throughout Europe, Africa and South America, never staying anywhere for long. (he did hang out with the Zapatistas in Mexico for a while!) all along the way, he was recording these songs. the variety of locales is depicted not just in the wide array of genres and sounds explored across these 16 tracks, but also the four different languages in which the lyrics are delivered at one time or another. it's a perfect way to illustrate the LP's themes of travel.

the little details even add to the narrative! often, one track ends with the first few seconds of the track that comes after it, so the transition happens at an unexpected point. it's a great way to keep the momentum of the tracks going, simulating the rate at which Chao was moving from one place to the next. but what really ties everything together is how at home he sounds in every musical setting he presents! Latin musical motifs permeate the majority of the tracks, but there's also nods to dub, reggae, house, folk music and plenty more, all unified by his warm presence as a vocalist, with always just a touch of despondence thrown in. this is exceptional music borne out of exceptional circumstances. 8/10

#42: Sly & The Family Stone - There's a Riot Goin' On (1971)

December 4th, 2024: exceptionally funky, and exceptionally freaky. Sly Stone was having issues with his mood and his addiction to drugs, resulting in a drought of recordings from the Family for over a year and a half—a long time to go without releasing a new album in those days! while the band's usual lineup is present on more than a few of the songs on There's a Riot Goin' On, much of this material was created solely by Stone, often enlisting non-Family members to fill them out. the resulting album is some of the darkest music you're likely to hear from funk's golden era.

there's no point at which this music isn't incredibly groovy. if you're a practitioner of the Stank Face, you'll find plenty of opportunities to work your craft. but even when the drums are tight and the bass is locked in and all the other stuff you want from a funk record, there's something mysterious, borderline surreal about it. I think I detected an Afrobeat undercurrent to this, what with the longer, vampier closing tracks to both sides of the vinyl!

the mixes are often jarring, with certain elements feeling wildly prominent while others are barely audible. Stone's vocals, many takes of which were recorded with a wireless microphone while he laid in bed, are often uncanny in how close they feel. the drum machine overlaid with real drums creates a very off-kilter feeling in the percussion on some of these songs as well. this is often a very subdued listen, which definitely caught me off-guard. I wouldn't be surprised if OutKast were listening to this when they made Stankonia, which features a similarly left-field approach to production.

while there's not as much in the way of the sing-along hooks from their prior work, the timbral palette is fascinating, and the pocket is undeniable. 9/10

#43: B.B. King - Live at the Regal (1965)

December 5th, 2024: my first proper live album for this project. (Fela Kuti's Live! with Ginger Baker was recorded in a studio rather than a concert venue.) the decision to include live recordings in the book has been a bit contentious, from what I've seen in online discussions of it; but I think most of the inclusions made are sensible ones. in particular, there's a focus on live jazz and blues recordings which, to me, aren't too much different from jazz and blues albums recorded in a studio anyhow. whether they're in a sound-proof booth or in front of a crowd of people, jazz and blues artists are going to play more or less the same stuff in the same way. and B.B. King can play some stuff on an electric guitar!

the spontaneity King and his band play the blues with is readily apparent. he would often start a tune without his bandmates knowing what it would be or what key it would be played in, and it takes a lot of skill to be able to follow along with that kind of leadership. their performances, especially during King's solo spots, are filled with the same kind of vivacity and interaction I usually expect from jazz musicians! the best part about this album, in my view, is that you can tell King has the crowd in the palm of his hand, both while singing and playing the hell out of his guitar. moving a whole crowd to scream and cheer for you with just a single phrase is a level of control I can't imagine being able to exert over an audience! my only complaint is that I wish this was another half hour longer. 7/10

#44: Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (2006)

December 10th, 2024: I'll lay my cards out now: I've never been a fan of this band. granted, my experience with them was somewhat limited, and it was mostly with the big hits off their biggest album, AM. more power to you if you like that era of Arctic Monkeys, but I never got anything out of "R U Mine?" or "Do I Wanna Know?" or "Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?" (they were asking a lot of questions on that album cycle, I guess.) but, even with my prior personal bias against this band going in, I have to admit, Whatever People Say I Am definitely has game.

the Monkeys' adoration of bands like the Strokes is pretty easy to see here on their debut, but I think they bring a certain British finesse to the whole thing which gives it a unique angle. a lot of the basslines get pretty active! Alex Turner's lead vocals, usually my main sticking point with anything AM-related, are pretty tolerable here. thankfully, he's got a pretty hard-rocking rhythm section behind him. the best moments here are the ones that feel truly explosive. I'm not quite as into their softer side. 7/10

#45: David Gray - White Ladder (1998)

December 11th, 2024: pleasant on the ears. David Gray's mellow guitar strumming and agreeable singing voice pair pretty nicely with this electronically tinged folk rock sound. I guess I just felt like the overall presentation was too plain for my taste. the loop-based composition process for some of these songs robs them of their momentum, since they often don't feel like they're building towards much. again, the sounds being presented are nice ones, but I find them a little too easy to tune out.

this album's success surely paved the way for later "sad sack with an acoustic guitar" guys that would follow in the 21st century, but I think I'd rather stick with Bon Iver, The Tallest Man on Earth, and other such artists that bring a more distinct approach to that archetype. 5/10

#46: The Avalanches - Since I Left You (2000)

December 12th, 2024: a picture of this album's cover should appear in the dictionary under the definition of "kaleidoscopic". it's miraculous that this music even exists, both in terms of its production method and the (what I'm sure were) exorbitant clearance rates for all the samples involved! a lot of plunderphonic and other sample-based music tends to draw a lot of attention to the "found sound" element of the composition process, but the Avalanches find tons of fun and unique ways to make these songs feel seamless, both within themselves and from one to the next. it feels almost akin to a high-level DJ set! one dreamy, summery jam after another that traverses a landscape of disco, hip hop, club beats and psychedelia.

it's hard to resist the urge to move and groove to a lot of these songs, but they're also great for deep listening in the same way as as other plunderphonic masterpieces like [DJ Shadow's] Endtroducing or [J Dilla's] Donuts. where those albums aim for something emotionally darker, the Avalanches aim instead for a bright sense of optimism and wonder. 8/10

#47: The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Axis: Bold as Love (1967)

December 13th, 2024: Hendrix came back around much quicker than I thought he would! most of what I said in my review of Are You Experienced applies here as well; considering Axis was released just half a year after their debut, it features the Experience in a very similar element.

Hendrix's sound-play continues to get slightly more adventurous here, but this might actually be a little more accessible than Are You Experienced! there's plenty of mellower cuts here like "Little Wing", "Spanish Castle Magic", "Up From the Skies" and "Castles Made of Sand", all of which capture the Experience's sensational interplay while also delivering some fantastic, catchy melodies. although you can tell Hendrix and his team didn't have as much time to create and refine the material here, Axis still does a great job of documenting this band's tremendous talents. 8/10

#48: Dion - Born to Be With You (1975)

December 14th, 2024: Born to Be With You was a mid-70s co-production between two artists whose artistic primes had come and gone at least a decade earlier; it was promptly disowned by both of them, and for good reason. but oh, wait, the dude from Primal Scream said he liked it, so now we have to act like it's a significant part of music history.

Phil Spector's production fails on every level. these songs sound absolutely awful; there are basic errors in mixing that turn some of these tracks into non-starters, either because they're unintelligible or because they sound like lifeless, funereal dirges. at all times, there's too much going on. Dion's vocal performances range from tolerable to tuneless. hard pass. 2/10

#49: Destiny's Child - Survivor (2001)

December 15th, 2024: Destiny's Child has a couple songs that I'd call classics of their era of R&B. none of them are on Survivor.

I can appreciate that this is an attempt at a pro-female, pro-empowerment statement from the group, but it feels extremely self-centered in ways that undercut that message. especially odious in this respect is "Nasty Girl" which, with its central lyrical theme essentially just being pick-me slut-shaming, basically invalidates this as a feminist record. plus, I hardly feel any group cohesion between these three women; this is basically a Beyoncé album with some contributions from two other singers who might as well be anonymous, given how subservient they feel. "I'm a survivor", in many other contexts, would be a powerful statement, but then you remember that all Beyoncé's talking about surviving is a few lineup changes, something that almost every band goes through at some point. her vocal antics on many of these songs are legitimately in that Christina Aguilera tier of obnoxious (weirdly on brand with her current-day self-centered girlboss billionaire politics), and they feel so unearned given how little these songs have going for them compositionally and sonically.

this is extremely plain R&B that's as deep as a puddle and sounding more and more anachronistic as time goes on. 4/10

#50: Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Rust Never Sleeps (1979)

December 16th, 2024: an incredibly raw and often emotional listen. Neil Young embraces the dark and reflects on his waning relevance (and his own mortality!) with stunning poetry set first against beds of tranquil acoustic guitar, then sheets of barrelling bluesy noise. this music really set the tone for a lot of the subsequent rock movements that sprung up in its wake in the eighties. the "college rock" groups and the punks of that decade all owe a lot to the sound of songs like "Powderfinger" and the political focus of songs like "Pocahontas". there's even a through line from here to the grunge movement, one which I think is most evident in the opener and closer, the songs here which most openly confront death and the legacy of artists head-on.

rock and roll can never die. 9/10