[records] favorite albums explained
Submitted by Nick Vane on Sun, 01/26/2003 - 06:43
Tags:
- 1. "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" - Wilco
- 2. "Elliott Smith" - Elliott Smith
- 3. "Astral Weeks" - Van Morrison
- 4. "Figure 8" - Elliott Smith
- 5. "Bringing It All Back Home" - Bob Dylan
- 6. "The Beatles" - The Beatles
- 7. "Liquid Skin" - Gomez
- 8. "The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner" - Ben Folds Five
- 9. "Pink Moon" - Nick Drake
- 10. "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" - Neutral Milk Hotel
- 11. "The Argument" - Fugazi
- 12. "Marquee Moon" - Television
- 13. "The Rise and Fall Of..." - Brainwash Projects
- 14. (tie) "The Soft Bulletin" - The Flaming Lips; "Paul's Boutique" - Beastie Boys
- 15. "Blue" - Joni Mitchell
- 16. "Dusk" - the The
- 17. "Rubber Soul" - The Beatles
- 18. "Abbey Road" - The Beatles
- 19. "Bring It On" - Gomez
- 20. "Transmissions From the Satellite Heart" - The Flaming Lips
- 21. "Highway 61 Revisited" - Bob Dylan
- 22. "Loaded" - The Velvet Underground
- 23. "Love Songs, Volume 1" - The Magnetic Fields
- 24. "Forever Changes" - Love
- 25. "The Great Twenty-Eight" - Chuck Berry
- 26. "EP-LP" - Subhumans
- 27. "And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out" - Yo La Tengo
- 28. "...And Justice For All" - Metallica
- 29. "Whatever and Ever Amen" - Ben Folds Five
- 30. "Fear of a Black Planet" - Public Enemy
- 31. "Pet Sounds" - The Beach Boys
- 32. "Summerteeth" - Wilco
- 33. "Revolver" - The Beatles
- 34. "Pinkerton" - Weezer
- 35. "Free at Last" - DC Talk
- 36. "Exile on Main Street" - The Rolling Stones
- 37. "Never Mind the Bollocks Here's..." - The Sex Pistols
- 38. "Rocket to Russia" - Ramones
- 39. "Is This It" - The Strokes
- 40. "Weezer [1994]" - Weezer
- 41. "Clouds Taste Metallic" - The Flaming Lips
- 42. "XO" - Elliott Smith
- 43. "Havalina Rail Co." - Havalina Rail Co.
- 44. "Much Afraid" - Jars of Clay
- 45. "musicforthemorningafter" - Pete Yorn
- 46. "Jesus Freak" - dc Talk I just watched Free at Last, the documentary of dc Talk's 1994 tour of the same name, and it reminded me of the sheer fun I got out of sitting in the back seat on vacations, internalizing the slo-flow and Bomb-Squad-meets-Up-With-People production of this CCM hip-hop gem. Every track is full of life, gleefully stealing samples, call-outs, and hooks from the top rap artists of the day. Jesus Freak similarly stole, only this time from the titans of alternative rock: R.E.M. and Nirvana. My brother doesn't agree, but I can't hear the title track without hearing "Smells Like Teen Spirit": the clean 4-chord riffs, the way the bass leads in the breakdowns, even the two-shot snare intro! I can't write this off as merely cashing in, though. After seeing Free at Last, I get the sense that dcT really were swept up in the alternative zeitgiest and felt that that was their new artistic and ministry direction. Obviously it worked for the youth of CCM (I remember "Jesus Freak" being played after every youth gathering for three months. I also remember pogoing in the air for three months.), and there was a threat (albeit brief), of the 'Talk taking their increasingly-refined pop/rock into the mainstream, although God had other plans. But Jesus Freak was a fine piece of work. Clean production throughout kept the guitars ringing and the harmonies sharp. From the anthemic jangle-pop of "Colored People" to the worship power ballad "What If I Stumble" and the mosh pit bids "Day By Day" (from Godspell, before it became a joke [see Wet Hot American Summer]) and "Like It, Love It, Need It," this was dc Talk attempting to fuse a wide range of styles and a diverse (for CCM) set of issues into a document of where their focus had been and where it would soon be. For the youth of Hill Country Bible Church, we just knew it rocked.
- 47. "Vegas Car Chasers" - Silage (1998) - Back on the list after being omitted for months. The letdown on this album: the repetitive, simplistic lyrics, which wouldn't be a problem but for their attempt to satisfactorily argue theology and relativism. Again! This is a Christian market release by three guys who first issued a God-awful ska album at the time when that's what you did as Christian artists from the Left Coast. This go-round, they miraculously transmogrified into smart-grooving rockers with a drum machine and chrome-smooth layered vocals. That's a crappy description, so I'll try to flesh it out. When I hear 'grooving', I hear synthesized, white-bread rhythm 'n' blues. I hear 10-piece glorified bar bands with unbuttoned sport coats and no shirts. I hear keyboards. But no! Not here. Vegas Car Chasers is loaded with riffs, to be sure, but they're clean, quick strokes: undeniably grooving. Lance Black's guitar lines bob and flit around the club-worthy drum tracks, with brother Shane's occasional trombone touches being the only vestige from their ska era. It's all about the hook, and each song has a legion. However, as I said earlier, the lyrics are usually either vague (to the non-Christian) or simplistic {to everyone): "More than anything else, I want to be in a band that rocks and rolls/And rolls and rocks/More than anything else, I want to be in a band that walks and strolls/And strolls and walks." I know. Heck, maybe I was so impressed with the sudden, steely precision of the music, that the lyrics didn't bother me as much. But I think it's that Lance's delivery is just as shiny and polished as the music that it melds. He's confident astride his Vegas Strip sonic force, and from his perch he can make epic complaints about the monotony of the road ("Great Alaskan Ninja"), hypocrisy in the church ("Billboards"), and financial debt ("Credit Card") that wouldn't sound out of place on an Audio Adrenaline album. I can't refuse this album, as objectively as I tried to keep it off this list.
- 48. "Electro-Shock Blues" - Eels (1998) - The most cohesive Eels record, informed by the death of several in bandleader E's family. Sometimes, this album is the aural equivalent of the fetal position: ghostly choirs hum about, organ licks are wrapped around themselves, and and E's voice drops to dull disbelief. But the pity never stays for long. The songs take a McCartney-by-way-of-Lennon approach: highly personal, self-aware first-person tales about fictitious people. A diverse array of characters work through and detail E's mental anguish: the exhausted suicide in "Elizabeth on the Bathroom Floor," the teenager in a mental ward of "My Descent Into Madness," the little girl kept in the dark in "3 Speed," the sequestered hospital patient in "Climbing to the Moon". Not to say that this album isn't beautiful. As always, the Eels can pen one sweet melody after another, and strings are used to great (and not overdone) effect. The one-two punch of "Efils' God" and "Going to Your Funeral Part II" are a jolt of hope through the middle of the album. But E keeps the listener off-guard with stray noises, beats, and shifts in mood, letting the listener get a glimpse of his emotional state going into this record. The production is stellar; eveything comes in clearly, the guitars ring out, the low and high end are rich, and the hip-hop styled beats E likes to employ thud with texture. Listen to it all the way through, and you may come out on the other end comforted, and not a little weary. As E muses on "P.S. You Rock My World," 'Laying in bed tonight I was thinking and listening to all the dogs and the sirens and the shots/And how a careful man tries to dodge the bullets/While a happy man takes a walk...'
- 49. "Luxury" - Luxury (1999) - Yeah, I remember where I found this album. Family Christian Store's bargain rack. I'd had good memories of a more rock-oriented Christian music store's five-dollar bin, so I decided to bypass Ultimate Worship 9 and the new Jump5 record and take a chance on something less commercial. I found the third album by Luxury, recorded after a terrible van accident almost broke up the band. On the cover was a sticker quoting a couple venerated Christian artists (Jason Martin from Starflyer 59 and some other guy) touting this band as making some of their favorite music ever. No exaggerations here. From the slow-cooking Radiohead-appropriating maelstrom of "When Those That Are Not Become Those That Are" to the acid-etched insight and fuzz-stomp swagger of "Euphrates With the Golden Hands", this is a rare instance of a modern 'Christian' band reaching expressive and musical heights. Even at their most cynical (another rarity for Christian music), Luxury presents music full of frailty and wonder at human relationships and the power of a terrifying yet merciful God.
- 50. "seven songs" - Kevin Lawson (1999) - 1999's ASCAP songwriter of the year and a childhood friend of my youth pastor, Mr. Lawson used to come down to Texas from Atlanta and play solo sets for our yearly winter retreats. These were invariably the highlights for me. One year, I picked up a copy of his indier-than-indie seven songs release, a collection of demos, mostly without accompaniment. The record benefits from the diminished recording quality and studio hissing, which accentuate Mr. Lawson's rough, soaring vocals. Nostalgia probably lifted this collection of paeans to restlessness and purpose onto my list. But to this day, "Red Velvet Cake," a wistful dissection of an ended relationship, never fails to leave me awash in shared melancholy.
Author Comments:
this is gonna take a while. I'll keep the ripping-off to a minimum, I promise. thanks to lbangs for the formatting idea.
Cloned From:
:) Great list. I have to tell you a little story an item on your list brings to my mind, though, and please promise not to take it the wrong way.
I've written many reviews in various publications that got fans' ires up, but the only actual death threats I ever received for an album review were, oddly enough, from Jar of Clay fans reacting to a negative (but hardly devastating) review I wrote for Much Afraid in a daily Texas newspaper.
I mean, I nearly started a fight in 1991 for writing that U2's Achtung Baby was better than Joshua Tree (there were alot of die-hard old-school U2 fans in Amherst, Massachusetts at the time), but DEATH threats. Nasty ones. From big fans of a Christian band.
Ah, well. I'm still alive. ;)
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
death threats...that's incredibly odd. I have no idea what to say to that, except that I don't know Christians like that personally, but I certainly know Texans like that, so it seems perfectly plausible, albeit incredibly sad (and frightening!)
and by the way...you're completely right about Achtung Baby.
Well, I may not have cared much for Not Afraid, but I very recently heard that Jar of Clay's latest double album actually has a remake of Dig, the title track from Adam Again's Dig, which is both my third favorite rock album ever and my favorite rock album of the 90s. That goes a looooooooooooong way with putting them back in the cool column of L. Bangs' spreadsheet!
Heck, I'm amazed they even knew of the song, or the band for that matter! Not many have.
BTW, scanning your list, I have to tell ya, if you ever have the chance, you really should give Adam Again's Dig a chance. ("All we are say-ing / Is give Dig a chance...." Or something like that...)
;)
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
yeah, as far as I know, Jars' major influence growing up was Toad the Wet Sprocket.
I'll be on the lookout for Adam Again when I head back to Austin. Looking forward to finding it.
Really good list..
I have to admit I haven't heard alot of the artists included even on the first 25.
I think Yankee Foxtrot is a fantastic album, I just have to wonder why you placed so high, but that is you worthy opinion.
I just couldn't bring myself to putting it before Highway 61 or Exile.
Maybe in a few years, my opinion will change.
I will get to YHF soon, hopefully. Because, yes, I should explain myself... as a preview, I'll probably discuss lyrical content, the cohesion of the album, production, and the personal resonance of it.
ooo! finish this list! please!