Over what will likely be the next few years I’m going to be ranking and reviewing the top 5 albums according to users on rateyourmusic.com (think IMDB for music) from every year from 1960 to the present. If you want to know more, I wrote an introduction to the ‘challenge’ here. You can also read all the other entries I’ve written so far by heading to the lovely index page here.

Here we are, slap-bang in the middle of the 60s. But what happened in 1965? Well, Ed White became the first American to conduct a space walk, Muhammad Ali knocked out Sonny Liston to keep the heavyweight title he gained in 1964, Malcolm X was assassinated, and Martin Luther King led his famous civil-rights march to Selma leading to Johnson eventually singing the Voting Rights Act. In Britain Winston Churchill died and the 70 mph national speed limit was introduced.

And here are the top five albums of the year as rated by our lovely rateyourmusic.com users:

#1 John Coltrane - A Love Supreme
#2 Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
#3 The Beatles - Rubber Soul
#4 Bob Dylan - Bringing It All Back Home
#5 Otis Redding - Otis Blue

Coltrane’s back, and we’ve got two Dylan albums?? Count me in. We also see a return from The Beatles and Otis Redding’s first and only appearance. As usual I’ve had a look a little further down the list and spotted a few others that intrigue me:

#6 Vince Guaraldi - A Charlie Brown Christmas
#7 Nina Simone - Pastel Blues
#9 Jackson C. Frank - Jackson C. Frank
#20 The Sonics - Here Are The Sonics

Yes, you read right, I’m going to review a Christmas album. Anyway I’ve been an idiot and set myself the rather large task of reviewing nine this time, so I’d best get started. Here’s my thoughts and ranking of the above nine albums.

Here Are the Sonics is an album that I’ve often heard mentioned as an influence among some of my favourite punk bands but have never got round to listening to.

The first thing you’ll notice is just how terrible it sounds. I mean, it sounds like someone got a tape, smashed it with a mallet, converted it to a low-quality mp3, then uploaded it to youtube before downloading it again on the lowest quality setting. But this isn’t going for any sound quality awards, this is garage-rock, man. This is from an era before you could afford to have decent studio equipment in your house, and so if you didn’t record in a studio, it was likely to sound like the band had been shrunk to the size of borrowers and were playing in a tin can, underwater.

Anyway enough of that, what makes this album is the energy. Lead singer Gerry Roslie has a powerful voice and does that 50s/60s ‘waaaaaauuuuuu’ thing with a fantastic grittiness, and at least 5 times every song in a way that is fun and will bring a smile to the most angry of faces. Mainly covers with a couple of originals thrown in, this is a fun set of songs performed with infectious, charming energy, and I can see why it was so influential. It’s the first album I’ve heard in this challenge that has a really punk attitude, an attitude of ‘here we are, this is what we do, deal with it’. I feel most of the people they influenced improved on what they do here, but it’s remarkable to hear the birth of a more DIY sound and the punk attitude I’ve mentioned. Here are The Sonics! is probably more important than it is great, but a worthy listen nonetheless.

Song Pick: The Witch, Strychnine

7/10

‘Err, Clive, have you gone mad? It’s May and you’re reviewing a Christmas album??’ Yes I am. There’ll be no seasonal discrimination here. Christmas or not, this deserves a review.

A Charlie Brown Christmas is the soundtrack to the film of the same name, which despite being a massive Peanuts fan, I still haven’t seen.

So, once I’d got past the weirdness of listening to a Christmas album while it’s sunny and warm outside and I haven’t been able to see family for months, I began to realise just how much I’ve been missing in not making this a regular part of the Christmas rotation. You should listen to it now too, it makes you feel like a maverick. Find it, press play and scream, “screw you society and your silly calendar, I’ll do what I want, when I want, thanks!!” and maybe throw a chair out the window for good measure.

Silliness aside, this is actually a super relaxing album, so throwing a chair out to it would be nigh on impossible; the gentle jazz will make you put that chair right back down and sit on it in a contemplative manner. It feels like the Christmas equivalent of 1664’s Getz/Gilberto, a musical substitute to meditation.

Guaraldi is a jazz pianist, and these are jazz renditions of various Christmas classics, with a children’s choir sprinkled on top now and again to really up that Christmassy feel. It’s more charming than George Clooney and the band has a wonderful relaxed vibe to it that is just perfect for these songs. Fred Marshall’s double bass feels like it’s giving you a hug with it’s big, heavy, gently rumbling notes. Jerry Granelli’s drumming is so laid back, it’s easy to forget it’s even there at points, and Guaraldi’s piano solos are like the stars twinkling on Christmas eve, as he gently pads his way up and down the keys like a musical cat walking on the piano. I prefer the jazz instrumentals to the tracks with kids singing carols, but there’s not enough of the latter to ever make it annoying, at least not for me. This one will definitely be getting a spin at Christmas this year.

Song Picks: O Tannenbaum, What Child is This, Linus and Lucy, Greensleaves

7/10

Rubber Soul is The Beatles’ sixth studio album and the production has taken a notable step up since A Hard Day’s Night from 1964’s list.

This is the first time The Beatles had an extended time in the studio without other commitments to distract them, and it shows. There’s a bigger soundscape to the recording, more space for all the instruments to shine in and just a general feel that more time has gone into the songs. This generally works in its favour, but also loses it that slightly rougher, more raw edge that A Hard Day’s Night had. Lyrically this is more interesting, though still far from their peak, and there’s catchy choruses a-plenty as you’d expect.

The album opens with 3 great songs, the simple and catchy Drive My Car, the majestic Norwegian Wood featuring a great appearance on the sitar and probably the album’s best lyrics, and You Won’t See Me, a song where the improved production is particularly noticeable, and that features some great, fun, backing vocals that add thickness to the otherwise sparse sound. Where I struggle is with the album’s middle section, where songs blend into one a little too much. They’re all enjoyable enough, but perhaps too breezy and simple to be all that memorable. I’m Looking Through You is the exception here; it’s irresistible chorus melody followed by a punchy guitar part making it stand out from the crowd. The closer, Run For Your Life is another example of what The Beatles do best: an infectious sing-along melody with a bouncy rhythm section and some cheery guitar solos.

A happy, summery album full of catchy and enjoyable songs but that isn’t quite interesting enough to maintain my attention during an attentive listen. There’s better to come from this lot.

Song Picks: Drive My Car, Norwegian Wood, I’m Looking Through You

7/10

Nina Simone’s Pastel Blues is largely famous for the epic 10 minute rendition of the traditional Sinnerman that closes the album, but although that is undoubtedly the highlight, there’s plenty else to enjoy here.

These are all live performances, featuring generally sparse arrangements which really prove that Nina Simone is one of the most interesting vocalists we’ve ever had. She’s certainly one of my favourites. Her voice has a deep sadness to it, and yet also a roughness, an anger. Not to mention the fact it’s probably one of the most powerful voices I’ve ever heard. I mean I imagine if she sang the vocal tour-de-force Be My Husband at a shed, that shed would fall down under the sheer ferocity of her voice. The track features nothing but her vocals and some barebones percussion, and it’s spectacular; an inspirational display of how much interest can be created with the right vocal. It’s quite unthinkable that Nina had initially wanted to become a concert pianist and only started to sing because some clubs she played at asked her to.

Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out and the beautiful End of the Line show her talent for softer pieces, with a more traditional arrangement, creating a richer instrumental backing, but never taking the focus of Simone’s voice. Tell Me More and More and Then Some shows her often underrated piano skills. She’s got a lovely deft, but quick touch on the keys that provides the perfect accompaniment in the gaps between her vocal lines. It’s another highlight, showing the remarkable dynamic range in both her piano playing and singing.

But let’s talk about the star attraction, Sinnerman. The track starts with a simple, rhythmical piano part, but Simone’s vocals, a delicately footstepping bassline and some hi-hat tapping quickly join the fold and we’re away. The song tells of a man running from God’s judgement of the sins he’s committed. The song has a frantic, rumbling energy to it, perfectly capturing the feel of someone running to endless places in a hope to hide from an all-seeing God. It’s impossible not to get pulled in, and by the time Simone bashes out a few frantic chords on the piano and screams ‘power’ for the last time (she screams it a lot) as the band comes in for a final crescendo, you’re left feeling rather out of breath. It’s a masterful performance, a powerful releasing of every ounce of emotion inside her, which makes whatever you listen to afterwards seem a little inadequate and fake somehow.

Song picks: Be My Husband, Tell Me More and More and Then Some, Sinnerman

8/10

Otis Blue is Otis Redding’s third album and features mainly covers of soul hits with three originals.

The album opens with the original Ole Man Trouble and it’s clear as soon as Otis starts singing that his voice is magnificent, gritty, rich and timeless. If the highest quality, most complex tasting honey could sing, this is what it’d sound like. The way he can switch from powerful, to tuneful and soft, to both (somehow) is magical. There’s plenty else here to keep you entertained beyond some of the best vocals you’re ever likely to hear here however. For a start, the originals all show Otis’ considerable songwriting skill, Respect (later to become a signature song for Aretha Franklin) in particular is an absolute banger, made as much by Otis’ desperate, gritty cries for ‘respect!’ as it is by the horns that punctuate every chorus. The final original, I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (to Stop Now), shows Otis’ softer side. A beautifully simple love song where Otis’ gentle croons turn to a powerful, desperate growl by the end of the song.

As for the covers, Otis and the band completely make them their own, even Can’t Get No Satisfaction has a level of vocalised frustration to it that makes it stand on its own besides The Rolling Stones’ version, though that is perhaps the least convincing one. Highlights for me include the superb Down in the Valley, the fabulously uplifting Wonderful World and the groovy as all hell Rock Me Baby where Otis spends three and half minutes asking desperately to be ‘rocked’ in a manner that I don’t think anyone would be able to refuse.

Otis didn’t make many more albums, he tragically died in a plane crash in 1967. This is generally regarded as his best and it feels like an essential capturing of one of the best singers we’ve ever had, at the peak of his powers. It’s also the kind of album I think anyone would enjoy.

Song Picks: Ole Man Trouble, Respect, Down In The Valley, Rock Me Baby

9/10

Jackson C. Frank’s story is a sad one. This is his first and only album and he was unable to maintain his career due to a variety of mental health problems and addictions. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, and after struggles with depression, Frank ended up homeless in New York and died of pneumonia in 1999 aged 56.

Jackson C. Frank is entirely composed of Jackson’s vocal and guitar with nothing else added, and was produced by Paul Simon. Yes, that one. Apparently, Frank was so nervous he had to have screens all around him in the studio and the whole thing was recorded in just three and a half hours.

His voice has a perfect dark sounding reverb, helping give his hollow, low voice a powerful atmosphere. The guitar switches from simple chords to more complex picking and is reminiscent of Bob Dylan in many ways, although Simon’s production makes it sound much heavier.

Each song feels important here, and there’s a power to Jackson’s performances, particularly the vocals, that makes this sound like a lost classic somehow. As well as songs about being sad (e.g. the excellent Blues Run The Game) there’s political content here that’s just as powerful as some of the stuff Dylan was recording in the previous two years. Don’t Look Back urges us to keep looking out for corruption and injustice:

So don’t look back
Over your shoulder
Keep your eye on freedom shore
‘Cause you know
The brave men with you
Also pay the wages of war

He sings these words at the top of his voice, with a simple, loud guitar part that sounds like it’s close to unravelling. It’s a truly powerful piece. Milk & Honey was later covered by Nick Drake, and seems to foreshadow Jackson’s life. ‘I think I’ll be moving on’ he sings over a lovely picked guitar melody. Move on he did, but only to more sadness. My Name Is Carnival is my personal favourite, and has the strongest lyrics on here in my opinion. Frank spins a web of imagery over its six verses, all ending with the word ‘carnival’, perhaps my favourite is the penultimate:

The fat woman frowns at screaming frightened clowns that move enchanted
And the shadow lie and waits outside your iron gates with one wish granted
Colours fall, throw the ball, play the game of Carnival

This album proves Frank to be an expert songwriter, one who crafts melancholy, heavy melodies, can accompany these with a whole host of great lyrics, and perform the whole lot with a remarkable presentness, as if nothing else in the world mattered at that very moment.

‘Just like anything, to sing is a state of mind’ Jackson sings on the lovely closing track Just Like Anything. He’s clearly in that state of mind here, and it’s one of music’s saddest stories that he was never captured in it again.

Song Picks: Blues Run The Game, Don’t Look Back, My Name Is Carnival, Just Like Anything

9/10

Bob’s back. Bringing It All Back Home is his fifth album, and the first after he famously ‘went electric’, one night in 1966 having ‘JUDAS!!’ shouted at him at a gig at the Free Trade Concert Hall in Manchester. Yep, the one in England. A lot of Dylan’s folk fans had decided he’d sold out and no longer wrote music that spoke to them. I can see why they might think the latter, if they were following entirely for his direct political output then that had now very much disappeared (although this particular album is more political than often claimed in my view), replaced by an abstract poetry which, absolutely has less obvious meaning, but is in my humble opinion the best lyrical period of any artist, ever. The complaint that he’d ‘sold out’ I still don’t understand. Yes, he was using an electric guitar like a lot of the popular bands of the day (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones etc), but this sounded like no one else out there. An energetic mix of jazz like improvisation and loudly performed poetry.

The album opens with Subterranean Homesick Blues, Dylan’s first song to break the top 40 in the US (it got into the top 10 in England) and the emphatic announcement that electric Dylan had very much arrived. Often described (probably hyperbolically) as the song that invented both rap and music videos (you’ll no doubt have seen the below video, which originally featured in the documentary Don’t Look Back) it’s a patchwork blanket of anti-establishment imagery, inspired very much by Allen Ginsberg and the beats. Dylan’s social commentary is still alive and well here, as shown by this verse:

Oh, get sick, get well, hang around a ink well
Hang bail, hard to tell if anything is gonna sell
Try hard, get barred, get back, ride rail
Get jailed, jump bail, join the Army if you fail

By the time the song finishes with my favourite lyrical section you’ve had so many crazy images running through your head that it feels like you’ve taken some strange pill:

Better jump down a manhole light yourself a candle
Don't wear sandals try to avoid the scandals
Don't want to be a bum, you better chew gum
The pump don't work 'cause the vandals took the handles.

We haven’t got time to try and dissect every song here, try being the important word there. This is an album where every song is a goldmine of images and ideas, most of which I don’t understand, because I’m not sure all of it can be understood, but that’s what makes it kind of magical. Any meaning is always hovering just out of reach. And hell, I think sometimes people get bogged down with everything having to have a meaning. Sometimes a painting can just be beautiful, a view majestic, a piano solo pretty and inventive, even if there’s no obvious meaning attached. I’m not sure why it’s any different with words, and to me reading pretty much any Dylan lyric from the magical trio of albums Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde is proof of this. The meaning may float tantalisingly out of reach, but there’s no doubt what you’re reading is fabulous, fresh, spectacular, and when the lyrics come alive in the songs, well, it’s heaven.

Honestly, I could write a paragraph about all these songs but I’ll spare you that and talk about a couple more highlight moments.

Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream is an absurd piece about Dylan discovering America before Columbus. It’s a prime display of Dylan’s humour and endless imagination, but perhaps what I love most about it is the start of the song. Dylan starts the first verse ‘I was riding on the Mayflower when I thought I spied some land, I yelled for Captain Arab, I have you understand’ before bursting into laughter along with the rest of the band (who were supposed to have come in). ‘Ok take 2’, Bob says after they’ve caught their breath again, and the band and Dylan proceed to nail it on the second take. It’s a perfect capturing of the way these songs were recorded, mostly within three or so takes, with the rest of the band never having heard them before, and with Dylan frantically jumping from instrument to instrument in between takes giving people ideas for the next one. Take three would often sound like a completely different song from take one. Dylan never sat still, the band never performed it the same way twice, and that’s how everything sounds so immediate. Like the lightning in a bottle of a first performance being captured before repetition has allowed it to escape.

Mr Tambourine Man is probably the most famous song on this album (The Byrds’ cover of it went to number 1), and starts off the acoustic half of the album. It’s a song that I’m not even going to bother to try to describe, I’m just going to plonk the final verse here:

And take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow

If I had to pick a favourite Dylan verse, it might just be that. My favourite performances of the song didn’t come until The Rolling Thunder tour in the 70s however, when Dylan’s rusty, cloudy vocal adds a wonderful added layer of mystery. One such performance features at the start of Michael Scorcese’s excellent Rolling Thunder Revue documentary about that tour.

Dylan’s band haven’t quite hit the peak of the ‘thin mercury sound’ they perfected on the next two albums, and ‘Maggie’s Farm’ remains one of the few songs of this era where I’m not that big on Dylan’s vocal, and that’s what holds this back compared to the other two I mention, but, as I’m about to explain, those are two of my favourite albums ever, so that’s not saying much.

Song Picks: Mr Tambourine Man, Subterranean Homesick Blues, She Belongs To Me, Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream

9.5/10

Widely regarded as Coltrane’s masterpiece, and indeed one of the greatest albums of all time, A Love Supreme was recorded in one session with Coltrane leading the quartet of Mccoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums.

A Love Supreme portrays, in a jazz format, the story of Coltrane’s spiritual awakening. Although there are dissonant sections, it’s not an album I’d describe as challenging as such. Coltrane is not playing in an aggressive or boundary pushing way, it feels like he’s just sat back and let whatever is in him come out, without forcing anything. Don’t get me wrong, the saxophone playing here is still sublime, it’s just effortlessly sublime. This is a recording of a master of his art, at the peak of his talents (we’ve had a few of those this year haven’t we?).

But, although it’s Coltrane’s playing that lifts this to the realms of magic, the rest of the band deserve a mention too for creating the perfect companion to Coltrane’s saxophone awakening. Part II: Resolution is a great example, Tyner effortlessly switches between stabbing at chords and twinkling over notes while Elvin Jones creates a flurry of noise on the drums that somehow keeps a perfect beat, providing a perfect and engaging introduction before Coltrane weaves his saxophone magic. Elvin’s work on Part I: Acknowledgement is notable too, with him creating an almost tribal sounding beat of effortless complexity, there’s so much going on, and it happens at such a pace that it has to go down as one of my jazz drumming highlights. Tyner once again shows his prowess of combining chord stabs and twinkling in his majestic solo on Part III: Pursuance, where he plays at such pace and with such accuracy and feeling it’s truly remarkable. When Coltrane finally comes in and Jones is busy creating yet another masterfully complex and rapid beat, you’re left wondering if you’re actually listening to four humans, or indeed some crazy talented aliens sent down from outer space.

I don’t think you have to know much about the spiritual background to the composition of this album to enjoy it. If you sit back it’ll take you places, wonderful, wonderful places. It’s an album I have no hesitation in calling ‘beautiful’, and it’s certainly one of my very favourite jazz albums.

Song Picks: Part I: Acknowledgement, Part III: Pursuance

9.5/10

5de9704b9bd8773ddbcb1de962f62386.1000x1000x1.jpg — 1. Highway 61 Revisited

Bob Dylan

Highway 61 Revisited is my favourite album of all-time. 10/10

I was going to leave it there, but I won’t leave you hanging like that, so I’ll write a bit about why I like it so much. This is Dylan’s sixth studio album, which is, with the exception of the 11 minute closing track Desolation Row, entirely electric.

I always like the following quote from Bruce Springsteen about Dylan and feel it sums up this album rather well (emphasis mine):

‘The first time I heard Bob Dylan, I was in the car with my mother listening to WMCA, and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody'd kicked open the door to your mind ... The way that Elvis freed your body, Dylan freed your mind, and showed us that because the music was physical did not mean it was anti-intellect. He had the vision and talent to make a pop song so that it contained the whole world. He invented a new way a pop singer could sound, broke through the limitations of what a recording could achieve, and he changed the face of rock'n'roll for ever and ever’

That snare shot that ‘sounded like somebody’d kicked open the door to your mind’ opens the album, and perhaps its most famous song, Like A Rolling Stone, bold, brash announcement that what Dylan called ‘that thin, that wild mercury sound’ had arrived. Once that famous snare hits what follows is a magical soundscape of skipping piano, floating organ, shimmering tambourine and the bass and electric guitar holding it all together. To me it’s a sound of instant joy. Whenever I get new pair of headphones or set of speakers, this is the first song I blast out at full volume. I remember at a good friend of mine’s stag do (Josh Keighley for you podcast listeners) we were renting out a house and on arrival, in one of the massive rooms, I found this massive stereo system. There was no auxiliary input. I scrambled through the CD collection hoping for something, and to my utter joy I found this album. I put it on, cranked it up, and just laid there on the wooden floor, floating up into the dreamland that Dylan and his band create on that majestic opening track. Yeah, I’m great fun at parties.

Besides that opening track, which I suspect is my most listened to song ever, this album is jam packed with energetic poetry backed by a band on top form. Tombstone Blues has a great ramshackle feel to it where it sounds as though it’ll fall apart at any moment, but never does. It Takes A Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry fills me with an insatiable urge to start skipping around, Paul Griffith’s piano again proving to be one of the under-appreciated stars of this album. From a Buick 6 is missing Griffiths, but it’s made up for by a bouncing, friendly bass part which juxtaposes nicely with Dylan’s thin, harsh vocal.

Ballad of a Thin Man has perhaps the album’s best lyrics and vocal performance, and also feels significantly darker and more ominous than the rest of the album. Although no one’s ever got to the bottom of who the ‘Mr Jones’ mentioned in the song is, Dylan used to say ‘this is a song about people who ask me questions’ when performing it live, which suggests it’s about someone who interviewed him, something broached in the biopic I’m Not There. Whoever it is, Dylan wasn’t much of a fan, and spends the song’s six-minute duration tearing them down, singing emphatically every time the ‘chorus’ comes round:

And you know something is happening
But ya' don't know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?

Griffiths is back with incomparable, bouncy piano parts that make Queen Jane Approximately and Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues, not just poetic marvels that sew a tapestry of words in your mind, but ones that do so with an irresistible spring in their step. Highway 61 Revisited is sandwiched between these too and features the prominent use of a tin-whistle, again giving the piece the feel of a train chugging along that is prominent for the majority of this album. Dylan’s humour is particularly on point here as he blends a crazy cast of characters and situations, all linked by the titular highway:

Well Mack the Finger said to Louie the King
I got forty red, white and blue shoestrings
And a thousand telephones that don’t ring
Do you know where I can get rid of these things?

And Louie the King said "Let me think for a minute son"
And he said "Yes, I think it can be easily done
Just take everything down to Highway 61

A thousand telephones that don’t ring? Where does he think of this stuff. Fabulous.

The album closes with the acoustic Desolation Row, where Dylan’s guitar and harmonica are accompanied only by a bass and Charlie McCoy’s fabulously light-hearted sounding lead guitar. It’s an eleven and a half minute masterpiece that shows Dylan at his absolute lyrical peak. The performance is captivating. I mean the piece has no chorus and has the same melody for every verse of it’s epic duration, but you’re never bored, and as Dylan sings his last verse you’re left wondering if you’ll ever hear something quite so beautifully evocative ever again.

Highway 61 Revisited is a masterpiece, it’s my favourite set of lyrics ever committed to an album, and it’s backed by instrumental performances that feel immediate, affecting, and free as a hummingbird. I’ll stop gushing now, but this thing is glorious and it makes me smile just knowing it exists.

Song Picks: Like a Rolling Stone, It Takes a Lot To Laugh It Takes a Train to Cry, Desolation Row, Ballad of a Thin Man

10/10