0020: The 100 Best Rock Albums (31-40)
Submitted by lbangs on Tue, 02/20/2001 - 10:26
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- 31. From the Original Master Tapes - Buddy Holly: Rockabilly is mostly known for its simmering singles; this collection hurls some of the greatest singles ever at the listener at an amazing pace. Of course, Holly wasn't simply a rockabilly artist, and the variety of pop styles he mastered in the genre's infancy is astounding. He also started many fascinating experiments (over-dubbing, echo) that the Beatles would later follow up on. Of course, all this would mean little if the songs weren't near-perfect pop classics. That'll Be the Day, Not Fade Away, Everyday, Peggy Sue, Rave On... The list rolls out endlessly, and the number of artists who have remade these singles testifies to Buddy's vast influence on rock music as a whole. A solid collection bursting with mini-masterpieces from one of the greatest artists to grace the genre.
- 32. Pretenders - The Pretenders: The Pretenders were alchemists of the nth degree. On their fabulous debut, they managed to work new wave and classic rock together well enough to satisfy both camps, and Chrissie Hynde emerged as one of rock's greatest female vocalists. It didn't hurt, of course, that this batch of songs was the best they would ever assemble, or that James Honeyman-Scott was one of the greatest guitar players to die well before his time. The band sounds sexier and more dangerous than most outfits can dream of and yet can still show a vulnerable side with superb ballads such as Lovers of Today. In short, The Pretenders were a jarbled mess of opposing forces, but for this one album, those forces balanced well enough to remain individual qualities and still to create an energizing friction. This album may sound simple on first listen, but repeated spins show it to be a complex beast and one of the most exciting debuts in rock history.
- 33. Meaty, Beaty, Big & Bouncy - The Who: While best remembered for their album rock opus Who's Next, The Who were also a master of the single. Since many of these singles never found a home on an album, The Who released this collection in 1971. They probably didn't realize it at the time, but this is their finest hour. The album is endlessly inventive, catchy, and spilling over with the essence of rock music. The members of The Who may have been the best collection of instrumentalists in rock history. This usually results in a boring band overloaded with eternal solos of expertise. The Who, however, managed to write some of the best songs of 60's rock and play them with reckless abandon. Entwistle throbbed, Daltrey thundered, Townshend blazed, and Moon pounded like a man possessed. Few rock singles can approach touching the majestic power of I Can See for Miles, and that ain't the only classic on here.
- 34. Highway 61 Revisited - Bob Dylan: He had already changed the course of music once, dragging folk from the dusty roadways and playing it to young people who would soon create a religion around it. Dylan was far from through, however, and for the first time over the course of an entire album, he fused that folk with blues and rock to create a sound both rural and urban, both intelligent and visceral. Somehow, the 7-minute-long Like a Rolling Stone worked its way up the charts to number 2, and while legions of folk fans felt betrayed, even more listeners felt an electric shock up their bones into their brains. Every song sounds like a revelation, and this album influenced more artists than hardly any other release. Amazingly, it is not even his best album. For a long time, Dylan's genius was a fountain that continued to gush forward and amazingly refused to run dry.
- 35. Greatest Hits - The Byrds: The Byrds were one of the few American bands not only to equal many of the British Invasion bands, but to take their music, merge it to Dylan's dynamic folk, and create something utterly their own. They have made many fantastic albums, but for a one-stop listen to the band in all its glory, look no further than this amazing disc. Recently expanded to 14 songs, every one a classic, this greatest hits collection is easily one of the finest one-disc compilations ever assembled, and the band still manages to sound fresh and vital over 35 years on. Was the wildly innovative Eight Miles High really played on the radio? This band created miracles and flaunted them with timeless genius.
- 36. Live at the Apollo - James Brown: While his boxed set, Star Time, manages to tell his life story with remarkable ease, this is the one-shot, concentrated dose of soul and funk which stands as Brown's crowning achievement. Backed by the Flames, Brown's kinetic energy knocks the listener over like hammer blows, and he seems to suck in every bit of energy from the live crowd present that night and sling it back over the speakers. Bursting with hits, Brown knew he was the hardest working man in show business that night, and this album proves he was one of the all-time best.
- 37. Slanted & Enchanted - Pavement: While Nirvana revolted against the airwaves, this was the other riot tearing through rock music, although this revolution was not televised. Choosing to use awful equipment to an aesthetic advantage, Pavement basically created lo-fi, and this album was their first major attack on the music world. Slanted & Enchanted drenched its grooves with layers of feedback and noise, but like Nirvana, knew how to write a killer pop tune to skittle beneath the waves. Despite the onslaught of noise, hints of various genres, including country and folk, can be heard strung throughout this album, and while legions of poor rockers aimed to recreate this shot of lo fi glory, no one else even came close. As this album nears its tenth birthday, it somehow hasn't aged a day.
- 38. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere - Neil Young & Crazy Horse: Despite displaying an amazing ability to play in a variety of musical genres, this is the loud, messy, and marvelous sound everybody thinks of when they hear the words Crazy Horse. The band's finest hour, this collection contains 7 instant classics of rock music, and Young prods the band to fill in the holes he deliberately leaves in the middle of the songs. Luckily, Crazy Horse is up to the challenge, and this album's seriously sloppy noise inspired countless grunge bands to create a similar ruckus. Loose, but without a wasted note, this album tends to tower over Young's remarkable body of work, and that says bookfuls.
- 39. Parklife - Blur: The album that ushered in the Brit-Pop age, making it beloved by some and hated by others. While the movement made pop songs popular again, it is easy to miss the more rock and punk based sensibilities bursting from this album. Playing perhaps a bit like a Smiths for the 90s, with Graham Coxon providing wicked yet extremely creative guitar licks over Damon Albarn's brilliant songs examining life and love of Britain's working class, Parklife concluded Blur's quantum leap of quality from the previous Leisure and Modern Life is Rubbish. The band manages to race through many different styles of music without a bad song in the lot, and as a result, Parklife stands supreme as one of the finest albums of the 90s. If you have only heard Blur's Song 2 (and how could you not have), you certainly should check out the band's finest hour.
- 40. The Beatles [White Album] - The Beatles: Just how wild can a double album get and still manage to hold together as a unified work? Perhaps The White Album is an answer of sorts. The Fab Four were now individuals more than a group, and the personalty of each bursts from these songs. Some of the songs are brilliant, some are fair, and some are entirely too short to be judged on their own. Somehow, though, they somehow manage to merge for the most part, creating a massive album that is quite unlike anything else in their large body of work. As the post-modern age proceeds, spewing forth eclectic talents such as Beck and World Party, this album sounds less and less fragmented and more and more triumphant.
Influence and historical importance mean nothing here. Each and every album is ranked based solely on its own artistic merits. All official releases are fair game; only bootlegs are not considered. This is it - the best rock albums ever.
I will be adding entries as time allows. The list is complete, but I wish to write a bit about each album, so it may be a week or two until all albums are listed. I hope to add at least two or three entries each weekday and more if I have the chance.
Creating this list hurt. Great albums were left on the cutting room floor, and sadly, I fear albums near the bottom of the list may be looked down upon. Make no mistake - any album on this list is a fantastic work well worth your time. The difference between closely ranked albums was microscopic at best.
To prevent this list's size from becoming prohibitive, I am breaking the hundred entries into blocks of ten.