2024 - Clive's Top Albums of Every Year Challenge

February 13, 2025 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music

So, as I try to keep up with the present while writing about my favourite albums of every year from 1960, here’s my list of a whole bunch of albums from 2024. Over the past few months I’ve listened to all of Pitchfork’s ‘Best New Music’, the top 10-15 or so at rateyourmusic.com, Anthony Fantano’s top 10, and some other stuff, hence why this list is rather long. I also moved house, and welcomed my second son over the same period, so time has been very limited! On that note, there are no song picks for some of these albums, this is generally nothing to do with the albums, and everything to do with a lack of time while I was writing that particular review.

To save all your data plans and scrolling thumbs, I’ll only give the top 20 the honour of having their album art posted here. But anyway, let’s get going:

The ‘didn’t do it for me’ list
Before we get into the list, here’s a few that didn’t massively do it for me, and so despite their reception elsewhere haven’t made my list:

Empress Of : For Your Consideration - ‘One night stand - the album.’ And not a particularly memorable one.
Kali Malone: All life Alone - Creepy, a bit too churchy, dunno.
Still House Plants: If I Don't Make it I Love U: Very inventive, but sounds kind of like the vocals and instrumentation for two separate songs plonked together in a way that doesn't match up. It's deliberate, and no doubt difficult, but I just didn't enjoy it that much.
Vampire Weekend - God Was Above Us - I must have undergone some traumatic event while listening to the band’s vocals at some point, as somehow they just make me feel unpleasant. Unfair, but I couldn’t get into this.
Chief Keef - Almighty So 2 - Was all a bit much, probably my mood at the time...

And now, finally, onto the actual list. There’s 50 albums on it, so let’s get cracking.

50. JUS - 3rd Shift

Love the production and beats, but the lyrics are doing very little for me.

6/10

49. DORIS - Ultimate Love Songs

One of those 'song snippets' albums with songs never over a minute long. I like what it's doing and it's a fun listen, I'm just a little over the auto-tuned spoken style which seems very popular this year.

6/10

48. Yaya Bey - Ten Fold

Like a silky smooth luxury hot chocolate in the dim light of the small lamp in the corner. But, much like that comfortable blanket, it doesn’t leave much of a mark.

Song Picks: crying through my teeth

6.5/10

47. Starchris - Body Meat

I feel like it does some really interesting stuff as it approaches its end, but begins by just sounding like decent but unremarkable auto-tune-math pop.

Song Picks: Obu No Seirei

6.5/10

46. Schoolboy Q - Blue Lips

Schoolboy Q’s sixth album was one for the ‘very enjoyable’ pile. Just a solid rap album, with some filthy grinding bass.

6.5/10

45. Bladee - Cold Visions

Swedish rapper Bladee’s seventh album is essentially an album of those 16th note, half-time songs that usually make up a couple of tracks on your average rap album. In going in so hard on a very specific style you focus more on the intricacies: Bladee’s sad auto-tuned melodies, the atmosphere, the words. None of those quite do enough, and it’s a little too bloated for me to rate it more highly, but there’s some real gold in there.

Song Picks: FLATLINE, Terrible Excellence

6.5/10

44. Sumac - The Healer

Atmospheric, sparse, epic, downright filthy, but a bit roary for my tastes, if roaring metal music is your bag, I’d highly recommend.

Song Picks: World of Light

7/10

43. Jeff Barker & ETA IVtet - The Way Out of Easy

I have to say the repetitive, aggressive bass-line of the opening track got to me after a while, but other than that I really loved this hypnotic jazz album. It has a nice raw, band feel, and some great expressive playing.

7/10

42. The Smile - Wall of Eyes

It sounds luxurious, with innovative and compelling production, but it doesn’t massively go anywhere until the explosive Bending Hectic. It meanders beautifully, but - probably due to the amount of music I’m getting through for 2024 - I’m feeling the need for more focus.

Song Picks: Bending Hectic

7/10

41. Ulcerate - Cutting the Throat of God

ROOAARR. A thoroughly rollocking listen.

7/10

40. Nala Sinephro - Endlessness

Jazzy, pleasant, futuristic but with an eye to the past, much like her debut, but somehow less captivating.

7/10

39. The Cure - Songs of a Lost World

A slow, dramatic descent into apathy. A good comeback.

Song Picks: Alone, Endsong, And Nothing is Forever

7/10

38. Johnny Blue Skies - Passage du Desir

Just bloody good country folk. Nothing groundbreaking, but it does feature plenty of lead guitar noodling, which has gone somewhat out of fashion, but I very much welcomed.

7.5/10

37. Kim Gordon - The Collective

Kim Gordon’s second solo album is a distorted, industrial, shouted list of modern life where the bass is so high it’s shattering against the noise ceiling and fuzzing out across it. The Collective is that feeling of picking up a phone and being pissed off that you just spent 20 minutes taking in inane shite. It’s the realisation that tech is working against you, and it’ll exploit your psychology for ‘engagement’ - for your time is another man’s money. “Fuck you” you scream, in a manner reminiscent of the angrier passages on the album - but it’s a battle you’re doomed to loose.

Song Picks: BYE BYE, The Candy House, Psychadelic Orgasm

7.5/10

36. Kali Uchis - Orquideas

Uchis’ fourth album is an enjoyable, exciting and sumptuous sounding blend of Spanish and English, both in linguistic and musical terms. A refreshing stylistically free pop release that features a bunch of addictive hooks, but also keeps things interesting and colourful on the production front.

Song Picks: Me Pongo Loca, Heladito,

7.5/10

35. MJ Lendermann - Manning Fireworks

Great, catchy alt-country reminiscent of Spider Bags.

7.5/10

34. Los Campesinos - All Hell

It feels at times like they're trying a little too hard to be 'that band that uses football references in their songs', but it's another collection of addictive, catchy indie-rock tracks, with generally engaging lyrics more intelligent than most of their indie brethren.

7.5/10

33. Nilufer Yanya - My Method Actor

I loved her previous release, and I like the fuzzier, heavier development in her sound here (on the excellent Like I Say for example), which plays well with her more poppy vocals and production. One of the things I loved about her debut was the driving drum loops, and the latter half of this sophomore effort is a little lacking in that regard, which makes it lose some momentum. Still great, but not quite as impactful as her debut for me.

Sing Picks: Like I Say (I runaway), Method Actor, Binding

7.5/10

32. Being Dead - EELS

My favourite indie-pop record of the year. It just has a lovely vibe you know. Colourful instrumentation, nice melodies, and it doesn't get old on repeat listens.

Song Picks: Godzilla Rises,

8/10

31. Mount Eerie - Night Palace

I think you have to be in the mood to absorb an Everlum album, and I’ve not quite been in the headspace to properly absorb its bleak melancholy, but I have thoroughly appreciated the way he mixes more acoustic, quiet elements with heavier, more explosive ones. It sounds like a man honestly conveying a mental struggle both musically and lyrically, and I think that was the goal. One I’ll return to in future years and will no doubt love when it hits me at the right time.

8/10

30. Nicolas Jaar - Piedras 1 & 2

I don’t have time to translate the Spanish lyrics, which by all accounts make this a strong political statement. Read the excellent Pitchfork review for info on those. Musically it’s classic Jaar - we’ve got a mix of music and sound effects, combining to create soundscapes that are uniquely his. Piedras 1 has more of the catchy stuff on it, but the catchiness is deliberately obscured by haunting timbres, industrial drones and more. It’s like the melody is the heart and soul of Latin America, trying to shout through the endless drone of oppression from within and without. Or something like that.

8/10

29. Helado Negro - Phasor

Helado Negro’s 8th album is a beauty. Though not quite as memorable as 2019’s This is How You Smile, it provides a different flavour of the black ice cream that Roberto Carlos Lange has named his project after. A soothing, abstract album of soundscapes and flowery melodies sung in a gorgeous hush. It’s not necessarily one that will stick in the brain, but it is one that soothes the soul, and does so in a way that is consistently engaging and magical.

Song Picks: LFO, Colores del Mar, Flores, Wish You Could Be here

8/10

28. Charli XCX - Brat

I can’t say I’m much of a fan of Club Classics, but other than that this thing is just packed full of bangers, and at 42 minutes it feels the perfect length. Charli XCX’s hyper-pop is for the attention deficient and yet discerning - it’s immediate - but it’s also lasting thanks to it’s buried complexity. No mean feat - one of the year’s strongest pop releases.

Song Picks: 365, Sympathy is a knife, So I,

8/10

27. Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere

I'm always slightly wary before putting on a death metal release. 'Is this going to be another one I cast aside and feel like I can say very little about beyond the music being technically brilliant and intricate but there being too much roaring'.

Absolute Elsewhere is full of technical brilliance, and has a fair bit of roaring, but you know what? I do not feel like casting it aside. It blends the epicness of prog-rock and the strangely calm repetitiveness of krautrock, with the pulverising riffs and roaring of death metal - and it bloody works. Lyrically I can take it or leave it, although it's nice to have something a bit more futuristic sci-fi than about the orcs and monsters and blood and the devil that is common in the genre. From an instrumental enjoyment perspective, it's one of the best band albums of the year, no doubt, and many of the sections are simply sublime. It creates a hellish atmosphere, but it's a hell that I keep wanting to return to.

Song Picks: The Stargate - [Tablet 1] and [Tablet III]

8/10

26. 1010benja - Ten Total

Ten Total is just what you want from a debut, An unfiltered, expressive and somewhat raw collection of songs that displays 1010benja’s obvious talents. He flits around, but always sounds at home, and the album has some of the year’s best hooks on for sure. I’ve had Waterworks going round my head all day as a case in point, and I Can is one of those simple songs that goes straight for the feelies.

Song Picks: Waterworks, H2HAVEYOU, Mire, I Can

8/10

25. Mabe Fratti - Sentir Que No Sabes

The avant-garde cellist’s fourth album is a journey reminiscent of all those female musical pioneers such as Bjork, Laurie Anderson, PJ Harvey - that is to say it kicks ass. Sentir Que No Sabes sucks you in with its weird textures and mysterious vocals again and again. I feel like I’m walking in a new world, with someone whispering poetics to me from the old one.

Song Picks: Kravitz, Enfrente, Elastica II

8/10

24. Jack White - No Name

Bouncy guitar riffs, plenty of energy, and production that strikes the perfect balance between raw and polished for this 70s inspired sound.

Song Picks: Old Scratch Blues, Tonight (Was a Long Time Ago), Underground

8/10

23. Hovvdy - Hovvdy

Hovvdy’s self-titled sixth album is a treat. It reminds me of the John Mayer, Joshua Radin type stuff that was coming out in my teens, but it’s way less cookie-cutter. Full of catchy melodies and charm. Probably the album of the year that I’d recommend to more or less anyone.

Song Picks: Jean, Meant, Every Exchange

8/10

22. xaviersobased - Keep It Goin Xav

“What on earth is this? It sounds like 300 T-Pains competing with each other. Is this what the kids are making nowadays?”

“You know, there’s some interesting layering work going on here”

“Damn, I’m lost in an auto-tuned haze of smoke”

“Damn”

“Fresh”

8/10

21. Verraco - Breathe.... Godspeed EP

Relentlessly innovative. A splash of cold water to the face.

Song Picks Godspeed

8/10

20. You Won’t Go before You’re Supposed To

Knocked Loose

My favourite death metal album of the year. Is that because it’s the shortest, or because it features only a sprinkling of roaring? Probably a bit of both; 28 mins is the perfect length for me to listen to something as intense and frenetic as this. Angry, intricate, constantly winding, YWGBYST is a thrill ride you won’t want get off.

8.5/10

Pulverising riffs and a vocal anger that hits like a truck, but with an ability to play with dynamics beyond many of their peers. It’s a rollercoaster of mumbled, quiet to loud and crushing; something Loud Bark encapsulates particularly well - a transition which is done many times, but never gets old.

Song Picks: I Got Heaven, Loud Bark, Aching

8.5/10

A lovely, simple and pure expression of the joy of motherhood. I’m rather jealous that her child gets to listen to lullabies from those warm, comforting vocal chords.

Song Picks: Caroline

8.5/10

JPEG is back with another hyperactive, intense mix of energetic rap and the cut up riffs of some slightly disturbed AI Tom Morello. It doesn’t massively stick out from his previous albums, but it does feel like a slightly more mature, compact and consistent package. Definitely one of the albums I’ve flat-out enjoyed the most this year.

8.5/10

A pretty darn perfect pop record. Lovely melodies, constantly engaging production choices, and a kind of mystical vibe that makes sure it never gets old. Ram that disk right into my forehead.

8.5/10

15. Keeper of the Shepherd

Hannah Frances

Hannah Frances - Keeper of the Shepherd

I’m not sure if prog-folk is a genre, but if it is then this is it, surely. While we have none of the guitar solos or riffs of a King Crimson, we do have musical passages that change time signature - and instrumentation - on a dime. It never feels ostentatious though, just a natural turn of the river, or crack of a twig underfoot changing the road of one’s thoughts. Undoubtedly the star of the show are Hannah Frances’ vocals, which are sublime, giving everything she sings a level of weight akin to that of a cathedral. Whatever note she sings, it soars above the mix with a deserved confidence. In its 37 minutes, Keeper of the Shepherd transports you to somewhere wonderful, mysterious, and somehow familiar.

Song Picks: Bronwyn, Husk

8.5/10

The Youtube rapper’s album of leftover stuff that didn’t fit on previous albums and won’t fit on new ones is a surprisingly cohesive collection of shoegazey, distorted, blurry and grainy tracks that are both emotionally impactful and smart. One of my favourite albums to get lost in in 2024.

Song Picks: Guide Dog, Pretty Privilege, Dusctutter

8.5/10

I don’t think there’s any doubt left that Kathryn Crutchfield is one of the best songwriters living today, and Tiger’s Blood yet again proves that. Every song draws you in with how well it’s performed and paced, and Crutchfield’s melodies soar. Apparently there’s more storytelling on this album, in that some of these aren’t from her perspective as such. But you’d never know - she builds a feeling that feels completely genuine every time.

And if this isn’t one of the best lines of the year my name is Persephone: ‘You play the villain like the violin’.

Song picks: 3 Sisters, Right Back to It, Burns Out at Midnight, Crimes of the Heart

8.5/10

I’ve not followed the whole rap-beef with Drake so some of this is probably going over my head, but lyrically this is definitely less up my street than Kendrick’s earlier, more ambitious albums. That aside though, this is still one of the, if not the, most enjoyable hip-hop album I’ve heard this year. Kendrick’s flow, cadence, and lyricism is still in a class of its own, and when coupled with some impactful, accessible and yet interesting production - as well as lovely appearances from SZA - it makes for an album that is just a straight up cathartic and fun ride.

Song Picks: wacced out murals, reincarnated, luther

8.5/10

Arooj Aftab’s fourth album is dubbed as a combination of Pakistani folk music and be-bop jazz - and it’s stunning. Gentle rumbling basslines, twinkled jazz notes, vocals that sound like they’re coming from the gods, and so much atmosphere it’s almost impossible not to get completely sucked in. Night Reign sticks out as sounding refreshingly unique, while still being comfortable.

Song Picks: Aey Nehin, Last Night Reprise

8.5/10

10. The Past is Still Alive

Hurray for the Riff Raff

Hurray for the Riff Raff’s eighth album is just a fabulous testament to great songwriting. It strips things back to uncomplicated, country productions, with evocative, hummable melodies, and yet it does so in a way that is constantly immersive and entertaining, working just as well as an active listen as it does in the background. This is helped no end by Alynda Segarra’s gorgeous delivery, and colourful vocals. Full of great lines that stick with you (“Here's a silver spoon, so you can gouge out both your eyes”), The Past is Still Alive feels authentic; it’s not trying to appeal to everyone, but in not trying it somehow does.

Song Picks: Alibi, Buffalo,

8.5/10

I’ve never got into FJM before, but this one has me sold. The production is pretty bombastic, and there are some particularly great crescendos during the title track and the superb Screamland. Misty’s lyrics are some of the year’s best, and there’s a Dylan-esque feel to the way his vocals mix with the busy arrangements, particularly on the more driving tracks like She Cleans Up. I’d say it’s varied rather than particularly cohesive, but Misty’s wry lyrical style and his engaging and yet quite monotone delivery tie the whole thing together like one piece of wrapping paper holding together a few too many presents.

Song Picks: Mahashmashana, Screamland, She Cleans Up

8.5/10

**8. “NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD”**

Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Post-rock can be a bit of a one-trick pony at times, with emotional twinkling leading to humongous crescendos of fuzz and reverb all with a melancholy and yet hopeful drive. NO TITLE is different. It has those crescendos, but they’re achieved in a myriad of ways, and the mix of emotions evoked feels more complex. Despite its bleak inspiration, there’s that characteristic post-rock hope there, but it all feels a bit grittier, down to earth, and well, real. The hope feels earned, with a refreshing grime.

8.5/10

‘Hendrix of the desert’ Mdou Moctar is back in a glorious sandstorm of jagged riffs. His 2021 album Afrique Victime was one of my favourites that year and - would you believe it? - this is one of my favourites in 2024. There’s an energy and free-ness to his guitar playing that makes him one of the most interesting players I’ve come across in decades, and - even though I don’t understand the lyrics of course - the tracks have an optimistic power to them that transcends language. I think some of the slower songs show great melodic skill too, such as closer Modern Slaves.

SP: Sousoume Tamacheq, Funeral for Justice, Modern Slaves

9/10

A quite outrageous debut from the ex Black-Midi frontman. The 30 odd session musicians on this thing are absolute gold, playing as tight as a guitar string on even the most complex of arrangements. Influences from across the board, it’s a complex style of jazz-rock with more than a hint of Brazilian influence (no surprise that some of it was recorded in Sao Paolo). Greep’s vocals are dramatic, at times comedic and unhinged, and always engaging (while remaining just the right side of irritating). The vocals are those of a horny madman, and as Anthony Fantano notes; the rambunctious instrumentation makes it all feel a lot lighter than some of the slightly disturbing lyrics would otherwise.

Overall, this thing is just super engaging from start to finish, and completely unafraid to cross new boundaries. It’s nice to have something so instrumentally superb in an age where I think instrumental prowess has become somewhat out of vogue. Here it’s front and centre, and it’s glorious.

9/10

Cowboy Carter is absolutely glorious. Quite probably the year’s strongest vocal performance on a record, and songs rooted in what we know (country, pop, folk) while pumping those genres with new, tasteful ideas. Cowboy Carter sounds massive, and the covers (Blackbird, Jolene) caught me off guard initially - but the more you listen, the more they blend into this album’s classic but oh-so-modern tapestry. Beyonce is Queen - and can we please make sure all her albums have her riding a horse on the cover? I like this trend.

Song Picks: Texas Hold ‘Em, 16 Carriages, II Most Wanted

9/10

Brittany Howard’s second solo album What Now sounds like the entirety of the musical past has been thrown into a blender and then tastefully spread into our ears. Howard's vocals cut through the densest mixes, and keep an R&B influence threaded through everything. But around her things are constantly changing, with influences as far and wide as The Strokes and Curtis Mayfield. If an alien came to Earth and said, “what’s this music thing all about?” I’d give them this and that would pretty much sum it up. A cosmic, mountainous, varied record - all in a tight 38 minute run time.

9/10

UK producer and DJ Djrum’s Meaning’s Edge features quite probably the most interesting and immersive use of the stereo field I've ever heard, and as such I would highly recommend listening on headphones. Sounds are often accented not by volume or timbre, but by their place in the stereo space, something that is particularly evident on the opening track Codex, which is among my favourite tracks of 2024. The percussion, both melodic and rhythmic, flits around you like a musical, flutey version of the innards of a microchip. It’s an anxious fidgeter like me’s dream, every tic, bam, and bop satisfying another over-energetic synapse.

Meaning’s Edge sounds so confident and futuristic, it’s impossible to feel like we’re headed anywhere but a utopia listening to it. And that, in 2024, is quite something.

Song Picks: Codex, Frekm Pt. 2

9/10

Lenker’s sixth album is yet another masterstroke. Gorgeous, varied production that blends the rough with the smooth with aplomb. Lovely, evocative instrumental sections - such as the piano twinkling as the violin gives out a triumphant solo on Sadness is a Gift - melt like butter into Lenker’s warm melodies and personable vocals. Bright Future is a candle in a dark room, it’s cosy, it’s sad, and it slowly burns up any loneliness as fuel.

On a personal note, Anti-depressants are great, but sometimes they make it hard to cry when you need to, you know? Bright Future opened things up - a loving hand through the fog.

Song Picks: Sadness as a Gift, Free Treasure, Vampire Empire, Evol, Candleflame, Ruined

9.5/10

I don’t really like baths, but this albums makes me feel like what I imagine most people feel like during/after a bath. Pratt’s vocals are effortless, delicate, and perfect in such an understated way they’re a whole new level of soothing. Her melodies don’t demand attention - and she’s not one to insist on a standard verse-chorus structure. The songs here aren’t building to anything as such, but they don’t need to as every damn moment is so delicately beautiful that I can’t stop listening. Her nylon string strums are added to with some atmospheric production choices, but it still feels like she’s playing a very intimate gig in your head - every aspect of the songs massaging your brain in a way very little else does. It really is rather special. At less than half an hour, I kind of wish it was a little longer, but it’s brevity means what’s there feels even more precious.

Song Picks: Life Is, Better Hate, World on a String - ‘yeah, I’m just going through all the songs on the album aren’t I?’

9.5/10

1981 - Clive's Top Albums of Every Year Challenge

October 12, 2021 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music

Over what will likely be the next few years I’m going to be ranking and reviewing the top 5 albums - plus a fair few extras - 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.

Well, this one’s taken a while as there’s been some goings on in my personal life that have led to a period of reflection. Possibly due to the fact I’ve lived with these albums for a while, this is one of the highest scoring years of the challenge so far.

But anyway, what happened in 1981 outside of music? President Raegan and Pope John Paul II were both wounded by gunmen on separate occasions, MTV first went on air famously starting with the song Video Killed the Radio Star, AIDS was first identified and IBM introduced its first personal computer.

In music here’s what rateyourmusic.com users rated as their top 5 albums of the year:

#1 King Crimson - Discipline
#2 This Heat - Deceit
#3 Rush - Moving Pictures
#4 Glenn Branca - The Ascension
#5 Kraftwerk - Computer World

And here’s some others I’m grabbing from further down the list:

#6 Wipers - Youth of America
#7 Siouxsie and the Banshees - Juju
#8 The Cure - Faith

But we’re not stopping there, Pitchfork’s top 40 from the 1980s includes Computer World - which we already have - and Black Flag’s Damaged - which we’ll add.

Finally, I’m taking a look at NPR’s best albums of all time by female artists list, as well as their reader voted list on the same topic and grabbing the following from there:

Grace Jones - Nightclubbing
Rickie Lee Jones - Pirates
Stevie Nicks - Bella Donna
The Go-Gos - Beauty and the Beat

That’s 13 albums to battle it out for 1981’s title. Off we go.

The debut solo album from ex-Fletwood Mac vocalist Stevie Nicks sold rather well, and was certified quadruple-platinum in 1990.

Featuring a whole heap of additional musicians, many of whom are pretty big names in their own right, the songs on Bella Donna feel nicely fleshed out and well produced. The production isn’t particularly exciting though, and it definitely verges a bit too much into middle-of-the-road country for my liking. There’s enough inventiveness sprinkled throughout though to raise it above much of the repetitive music in the genre, something which Stevie Nicks’ barnstorming vocals, which are impressive while never being showy, only help with further. Oh and it includes Edge of Seventeen, one of the decade’s best pop songs in my books, featuring probably Nicks’ strongest vocal performance on the album.

Bella Donna didn’t blow me away, but it does have a certain sparkle to it that kept me coming back for repeated listens.

Song Picks: Edge of Seventeen, How Still My Love

7/10

Ignored upon release, Black Flag’s debut album has since garnered quite the following as one of the most influential punk rock albums of all time, as well as pretty much giving birth to West Coast Hardcore. Pitchfork ranked it as the 25th best album of the 1980s.

Damaged is incredibly angry, but doesn’t take itself all that seriously, as shown by the inclusion of hilarious tracks such as TV Party, which essentially details a night in in front of the TV ignoring world events. Very much a three chords and the truth kind of album - though Ginn’s guitar on Life of Pain is spectacular , Damaged rattles along at breakneck speed, jumping from power chord to power chord as Robo smashes the drums like a man possessed. Henry Rollins, who had just joined the band, growls over the top of the din with an anger so cathartic that you feel as if you’ve just spent 35 minutes shouting your head off by the time you get to the end of the album, when in fact you’ve just been sat on your arse typing out a review.

Damaged is a train ride into the pits of hell while entertained by a bunch of a clowns with their finger firmly on the pulse of your demise.

“We’ve got nothing better to do,
Than watch TV and have a couple of brews”

Song Picks: TV Party, Rise Above, Gimme Gimme Gimme, Life of Pain

8/10

The Cure’s third album is stylistically similar to Seventeen Seconds from last year’s list, with gloomy atmospheres and sad, detached sounding melodies drifting out from beneath them.

The Holy Hour sets the tone, a song written by Smith whilst in church listening to mass, a song of people slipping away and unfulfilled promises. As with many Cure songs Smith’s guitar work injects just enough energy and hope to stop it being quite as bleak as bands like Joy Division. The album’s only single, Primary, features that fast paced guitar part common on so many of the band’s poppier songs. A song about growing older, the lyrics are once again as bleak as can be, but the overall feel of the song is perhaps as positive as any on the album.

Faith continues the band’s themes of mortality, alienation, and the general futility of life, something that sounds as dour and grey as the album’s cover. But there’s more to it than that, musically there are lights being shone at Smith’s bleak poetics, as if asking him to turn in their direction, as they flicker to instil some hope.

In the caves, all cats are grey
In the caves, the texture coats my skin
In the death cell, a single note rings on and on and on

Song Picks: The Holy Hour, Primary All Cats are Grey, The Drowning Man

8.5/10

Grace Jones’ fifth album was voted as the best album of the year by NME’s writers, and is widely considered as her best album. It sees her turn to a more new-wave style, blending a whole host of genres such as reggae, dub, pop and funk.

Full of drastically re-imagined covers including groovy baselines and Jones’ characteristic vocal style. The highlight of the covers is perhaps that of Bill Wither’s Use Me, which seems written for Jones’ vocal. Of the Grace Jones co-writes, Pull Up to the Bumper is my favourite; another 80s groove-fest, with a bass-line that sounds immediately iconic. Combine that with the wavy synths scattered over the top and you end up with one of the album’s most infectious tracks. Jones’ suggestive lyrics caused much controversy and many radio stations refused to play it on initial release, but that hasn’t stopped it becoming one of her most well known tracks.

Nightclubbing is testament to Jones’ originality. Undoubtedly a massive influence on lots of later pop-music, both in terms of the music itself, but also her image - which works perfectly with the music here - it’s an album completely unafraid to tread its own path, and sounds like the kind of music that people in the Blade Runner universe would listen to. An 80s vision of a future where fun has become sparse, but still seeps through the cracks of an overly sterile world.

Song Picks: Pull Up to the Bumper, Use Me, I’ve Done it Again

8.5/10

Rush’s eighth album continues the more radio-friendly theme started on their previous album Permanent Waves and features two of their most performed songs, Tom Sawyer and Limelight. It was also their best selling album, reaching number 1 in their Canadian homeland, and number 3 in the UK and US.

The opener, Tom Sawyer, is perhaps the quintessential Rush track, we’ve got a whole mix of time signatures, Geddy Lee’s restlessly strolling bass, Alex Lifeson’s atmospheric and powerful guitar, Neil Peart’s incomparable drumming - which is somehow both robotically in time and yet full of boundless human energy - and it all comes together to make something surprisingly accessible. Very prog, but accessible. It’s one of the finest songs in their catalogue for me. But Moving Pictures is no one hit wonder, Red Barchetta creates one of the band’s best stories, a car chase between the titular classic and two more futuristic police vehicles as our protagonist “[laughs] out loud with fear and hope”. Once again the production is punchy, the instrumentation constantly intriguing, and you’re very much kept on your toes throughout.

Moving Pictures is Rush’s most approachable album, and it’s also my favourite. There’s still a pomposity to the lyrics at times, but it seems to work here as the 3 band members are unable to settle on a tempo, time signature, style, or indeed anything. The album has some truly moving moments - YYZ’s magnificently slowed down, almost orchestral mid-section for example - and it’s just full of instrumental brilliance and unique song-structures. A wonderful coming together of all the band’s powers.

Song Picks: Tom Sawyer, Red Barchetta, Limelight, YYZ

9/10

Rickie Lee Jones’ second album is partially a breakup album after her split with musician Tom Waits, it was critical success and was rated as one of the 25 most underrated albums of all time by Word magazine in 2005.

Pirates is an album focused around Jones’ loose piano led song structures. Her spoken word style fits perfectly with the often dreamy, night-time evoking twinkle of her piano playing and the backing instruments. The way Jones weaves intricately poetic vignettes in the verses and then belts prophetically “We belong together”, the song’s title, in the chorus of the opening track is a perfect example of her songwriting skill. She’s clearly capable of writing more standard, accessible hits (just listen to Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking for proof), but she doesn’t want to, preferring to play with musical structures, poetry and even a mix of genres to create something infinitely more unpredictable and interesting. Traces of Western Slopes is a particular inventive highlight describing care-free nightlife with it’s gorgeously meandering verses and sporadic, tight choruses that seem to drop from the night sky.

I do think Jones’ lyrics get lost in the mix at points, particularly when listening on speakers, which is a damn shame considering how great they are, so this is definitely one I’d recommend checking out on headphones.

Pirates is a real gem, an album evoking late-nights walking quiet streets, thoughts coming and going, and a sense of ease.

Song Picks: We Belong Together, Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking, Traces of Western Slopes

9/10

Back after a seven year hiatus, King Crimson released their 8th studio album, and with it they find themselves making yet another appearance on one of these lists with only guitarist and founder Robert Fripp and drummer Bill Bruford remaining from the band’s previous line-up.

Discipline lives up to its name in that it feels more disciplined and tight than King Crimson’s previous albums. There’s less 9 minute prog-rock operas, and more new wave and inventive pieces that march along like intriguing and intricate clockwork. There’s more than a hint of the Talking Heads here with guitar riffs repeating over and over again until, though staying the same, they seem to morph into something different. The driving percussion, such as on Thela Hun Ginjeet, dares you not to move. On Indiscipline we’ve got an absolutely barnstorming riff by Robert Fripp, as Adrian Belew stutters and shouts over the top while Bruford’s drums thrash around like an animal dying to a variety of time signatures. Initially, I felt like the two closing instrumentals felt out of place here, but I’ve changed my mind on that. The Sheltering Sky is beautifully haunting, and the closing title track sounds like the birth of math rock with its plethora of time-signatures weaving in and out of each other hypnotically.

Discipline very much lives up to its name. A tight, well crafted and disciplined album at the base with the band’s inventiveness and musical skill generously sprinkled on top. It’s a triumphant comeback.

Song Picks: Indiscipline, Matte Kudasai, Thela Hun Ginjeet, Discipline

9/10

The second and final album from the experimental group is assembled from largely improvised recordings recorded in a disused refrigerated storeroom at a former meat pie factory in Brixton, known as ‘Cold Storage’ recordings, a studio space the band would continue to run after they disbanded. Deceit was designed to convey the anxiety around nuclear war at the time.

There’s experimental, and then there’s Deceit, at times it’s so chaotic it can barely be called music, at others - Paper Hats is a good example - you can almost dance to it. Throughout its 40 minute duration, I wouldn’t say boundaries are being pushed particularly, but it just feels like they don’t exist. Triumph sounds like a drug-fuelled instantaneous idea coming to life, S.P.Q.R’s drums try to keep things in tow until giving up and imploding at the track’s end, much like the idea of civilisation it depicts, on A New Kind of Water, there’s definitely a rhythm, but it’s so complex that it’s hard to decipher, and anyone unacquainted trying to move to it will quickly look daft. Some have argued the vocals are the band’s weakness, but I think they add to the off-kilter instrumentals, providing the odd warm respite - the ‘chorus’ on Cenotaph for example - while generally expressing the press of stress not being allowed to escape or breathe. There’s a tension to the album crucial to its atmosphere, a feeling that at any moment the whole thing could blow up, never to be heard again.

Deceit is a mood, one of industrial fear and dissonance. It’s easy to say that it’s unlike anything else, which is true, but it also succeeds in transporting you out from wherever you are into its uneven, brash and creaking world.

Song Picks: Radio Prague, Makeshift Swahili, A New Kind of Water

9/10

Beauty and the Beat is one of the most successful debut albums from a sales perspective, selling over 2 million copies. It’s also widely critically lauded as a key album in the ‘new wave’ genre.

The all female group’s debut is nothing short of a delight, and one of the most fun albums I’ve listened to for a while. Belinda Carlisle’s vocal melodies are infectious, and will be bouncing round your head long after the album has finished. How Much More is a great example of both Carlisle’s aforementioned vocal talents, but also how well the band backs her up. As if the vocal melody wasn’t catchy enough in the chorus, the guitar riff that follows is bound to have you bopping around with a smile on your face. The album continues in much the same vein, with perfectly crafted pop-tunes lined up one after the other containing a simplicity that hits you like a refreshing sea breeze.

Beauty and the Beat is a superb album in its own right, but it’s even more remarkable that it was so successful in a business that was - and in many ways still is - so sexist. They were rejected from many record companies for being just another ‘girl band’, something many had decided couldn’t be successful. Even when the album was released they were the victim of sexist reviews, among the worst of which was by NME, who claimed “It sounds like a joyous, bubbling celebration by five cute girls, with no thought inside their darling little heads save for tonight’s beach party,” while others claimed if 5 men from the USA (you know, that famously mistreated group) had made the album, everyone would have hated it.

Beauty and the Beat is powerfully joyous in the face of adversity, and though the band recall being disappointed in how ‘poppy’ the album sounded when they first heard it, beneath its poppy exterior this album’s attitude is as punk as anything out there.

Song Picks: How Much More, Tonite, We Got the Beat

9/10

Youth of America_Wipers.jpg — 4. Youth of America

Wipers

Wipers’ second album saw a sharp change in direction for the band, from the more traditional short song punk group evident on their debut album, to the more experimental, atmospheric group unafraid to put out songs over 10 minutes in length we see on this record. Youth of America is regularly cited as one of the most influential post-punk albums out there.

Sprawling pieces ask questions more than give answers. The vocal melodies are always catchy and often anthemic. No Fair laments the unfairness of existence, and asks 'why?', and the superb Youth of America is defeatist and bleak on the one hand, while also being a call to arms, "we've got to save it now" Sage screams as the blaring guitar threatens to swallow him. The mid-section consists of screeching guitar parts, drowned mumbles and post apocalyptic wails from decaying machinery. The guitar hook returns towards the end of the song’s over ten minute duration as Sage repeats 'Youth of America' into oblivion. You're the only hope he implies, but you don't get the impression he feels the place is worth saving.

Youth of America is a superb desolate landscape of noisy decay, with Sage’s constantly searching soul encapsulated in a vocal performance seemingly born out of endless frustration. It’s a man shouting all the questions we’ll never know the answers to at the sky, knowing full well no one up there gives a shit.

Through your mirror there is such vanity
Tell me, what is it that it wants from me?

Song Picks: No Fair, Youth of America

9.5/10

Glenn Branca’s debut album is seen as a no-wave classic, no-wave being a pun on new wave, a style of music it was trying to be the antithesis of. No wave tried not to recycle and develop ideas that were already there, but create entirely new ones using dissonance and a lot of noise.

Ascension was largely an experiment as to what would happen when you play guitar strings tuned to the same note at high volumes, those high volumes were brought across more in the band’s famous live shows than they are here, where you’ve got control of the volume and are unlikely to submit yourself to an intentionally loud barrage of dissonance unless you’re feeling brave. I’d very much recommend braving it though, it’s worth it.

Probably the most challenging album on this list, Ascension is noisy, unafraid to offend, single-minded and chaotic. Even more experimental than Deceit by This Heat, it took me a few listens to get into the groove. But once I did, the apocalyptic church bells of Lesson No. 2; the teetering close to catchy riffs while sounding like the collapse of society of The Spectacular Commodity; the death march of Structure; and the title track, which finishes the album triumphantly like a persistent siren accompanying an alien invasion, had completely won me over.

Ascension is like a relentless noisy chisel working away all the barnacles you’ve picked up from your earthly voyage, it’s fucking magnificent.

Song Picks: Lesson No. 2, The Spectacular Commodity, The Ascension

9.5/10

Siouxsie and the Banshees’ fourth album is generally seen as one of the most important post-punk albums, and was both critically and commercially successful on release.

Siouxsie Sioux’s vocals have a real sense of importance to them, whether she's singing about being smitten on the opening track, or about what happens after death on Into the Light, her vocals really pull you into the music. The band's solid, multi genre influenced backing adds plenty of intrigue; the way the toms mix with that timeless guitar line on Into the Light is a prime example of the band's talent for creating a unique atmosphere of darkness that is somehow still inviting. ‘Guitar riffs’ would have to be ticked as another of the album’s strengths with the howling effort on Arabian Nights and 2000s indie foreshadowing guitars on Monitor and Halloween being prime examples. In fact, the more I think about it what makes this album are the vocals, and the guitar work, which are both consistently sublime.

Juju is bloody timeless, something not all that common in the 80s. It could have come out yesterday, and it clearly influenced a whole heap of things that did. It also contains probably the best vocal performances of the 80s so far.

Song Picks: Spellbound, Into the Night, Monitor

9.5/10

Kraftwerk’s eighth album deals with the rise of computers in society, it was ranked as the 25th best album of the 1980s by Slant Magazine, and the 18th best by Pitchfork.

Even more relevant now than it was in 1981, as our lives have now well and truly been taken over by computers, Computer World contains more human sadness in its crystal clear synth lines than their previous albums. Despite its content, it feels more soulful somehow, like the resigned cry of someone who’s only method of communication is through the computers they’re surrounded by.

I think what gives Computer World this magical sense of humanity are two things. Firstly, the production is absolutely top drawer, gone is that harshness from some of their earlier albums - and indeed from the albums of many of their contemporaries - and its replaced with an electronic smoothness that can only be described as ‘warm’. Secondly, the synth melodies here are sublime: like futuristic nursery rhymes they somehow cut straight to the core. Those four notes of the two title tracks seem to echo through the stratosphere all the way to the sun, while Computer Love is probably my favourite song of the 80s so far, with a combination of wonderful synth melodies - which were later used by Coldplay on their 2005 song Talk - complementing the lost robotic vocal perfectly. It’s a masterpiece. As Pitchfork put it when rating the song the 53rd best of the 1980s “It's hard not to wonder if the title ‘Computer Love’ was meant as ‘love for computers’ or ‘love through computers.’ Both ideas are now so commonplace and intertwined that they verge on indistinguishable. It’s hard to think of another song out there that so perfectly and warmly sums up the ‘Computer World’ we live in today.

Computer World came completely out of leftfield for me, I’d really liked the previous Kraftwerk albums that appeared on these lists, but I hadn’t loved any of them and I thought this would be the same. How wrong I was. Computer World perfectly predicts the world we live in today, but instead of making that chilling and apocalyptic as is generally done, they’ve approached the topic with warmth and compassion. There’s a sense that no matter how surrounded by computers we get, our humanity will still seep through the cracks, whether that be by the creation of emotive melodies using computerised sounds, or by writing such as this on that computer screen in front of you.

Song Picks: Computer World (1&2), Computer Love, Home Computer,

10/10

1980 - Clive's Top Albums of Every Year Challenge

August 03, 2021 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music, Clive

And so we begin with the 1980s. I’m going to make a couple of changes (don’t worry they’re not that radical!) to the format of these going forward:

I’m going to make a concerted effort to make reviews shorter, so probably more of a summary feel than the song by song narrative I’ve been relying on fairly frequently. I’m still very much finding my review style, something I hope this challenge will help me with, so I’ll keep experimenting with this until I find a style that seems the most ‘me’.
Instead of doing a roundup at the end of a decade, where I check other lists and review any from the decade that have passed me by I’m going to try and incorporate a few from other lists - particularly female artist lists - as I go.

So, before we get onto music, what happened in 1980? Ronald Raegan was elected President of the USA, John Lennon was shot dead in New York City, CNN was launched as the first all-news network and Janice Brown made the first long-distance solar-powered flight in the Solar Challenger.

Onto music, here’s the top 5 rated albums for 1980 on rateyourmusic.com, which - as usual - automatically get added into my list:

#1 Talking Heads - Remain in Light (Also #5 on Pitchfork best of 1980s list)
#2 Joy Division - Closer - (Also #12 on Pitchfork best of 1980s List)
#3 Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
#4 John Williams - Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back
#5 Peter Gabriel - Melt (Peter Gabriel 3)

Of course, we can’t stop at five, so I’ve grabbed a few from further down the list:

#6 Black Sabbath - Heaven and Hell
#9 Rush - Permanent Waves
#12 David Bowie - Scary Monsters
#14 Kate Bush - Never for Ever
#20 The Cure- Seventeen Seconds

Then, in a futile attempt not to miss anything I’m grabbing the below from a mix of Pitchfork’s best of the 80s list (anything from their top 40 not already included), NPR’s greatest albums by female artists list, and a reader version of the same NPR list.

Prince - Dirty Mind (#33 on Pitchfork best of the 1980s list)
The Pretenders - Pretenders (#60 NPR’s 150 Greatest Albums Made by Women list)
X - Los Angeles (#87 NPR’s 150 Greatest Albums Made by Women list)

And finally a recommendation from a friend: The Cramps - Songs the Lord Taught Us.

That brings the total to a hefty 14 albums. I’d best get on with it. Let’s see who emerges victorious.

Black Sabbath’s 9th album is their first without Ozzy Osbourne, and first with replacement vocalist Ronnie James Dio. It’s also where the 2006 band, again featuring Dio on vocals, gets its name from. The album sold well, becoming the band’s third best selling album, and best selling since 1975’s Sabotage. Critically, a lot of reviews at the time seemed to focus on whether it did or didn’t sound like Black Sabbath.

I’d say it doesn’t sound like Black Sabbath massively. Dio can certainly sing, and his style suits well here, but he doesn’t have Osbourne’s vocal charisma in my eyes (or ears), and sounds a bit cookie-cutter 80s metal to me. I think Heaven and Hell is a really enjoyable album, it’s not as interesting or varied as the previous Sabbath albums we’ve looked at, but it is quite infectious. Iommi’s guitar riffs are on point, and his soloing on tacks such as Die Young is stratospheric. Bill Ward’s drumming pounds more than ever, and Butler’s ever reliable bass playing provides a great foundation to everything.

Heaven and Hell sounds a bit like a band that are really bloody good at what they do playing it safe. Everything sounds clean and rather predictable, but their considerable sonic skill still makes it a very fun listen.

Song Picks: Children of the Sea, Heaven and Hell, Lonely is the Word

7.5/10

Rush’s seventh album see them them turning away slightly from longform songs and towards a more radio friendly format, though the closing song, Natural Science, is still over 9 minutes long.

Permanent Waves is probably one of the band’s most accessible albums, opener Spirit of the Radio is one of their most poppy songs, featuring a wavy arpeggio from Alex Lifeson on the electric guitar, and fluttering and yet completely on point drums from Neil Peart. It’s a pop song written by a band with considerable instrumental talent who aren’t afraid to show off. When the instrumental section lifts off and shifts effortlessly between reggae and metal as the track closes, it’s clear the band have lost none of their inventiveness. Lyrics are never Rush’s strongpoint I feel, and it’s the slightly on the nose nature of Freewill - which is otherwise excellent, especially Lee’s high pitched finish, which was the last time he’d sing like that on a recording - and other songs like Entre Nous, that make the album less interesting than it could be in my opinion. On the epic closer, Natural Science, the band focus on what they do best, flitting from one time signature to another like restless children who also happen to be musical virtuosos, it’s another surprisingly moving epic from the band.

Song Picks: Spirt of the Radio, Natural Science

7.5/10

X’s debut album was produced by ex-The Doors keyboard player Ray Manzarek and ranked at number 286 in Rolling Stones’ best albums of all-time list.

As soon as the starting pistol fires, Los Angeles hits full speed and never lets up. The opener Your Phone’s Off the Hook But You’re Not perfectly displays the band’s unique combination of punk rock and rockabilly in a song about lead singer Exene Cervenka’s sister. Tragically, Exene’s sister died in a car accident on the night of the band’s first gig in support of this album in 1980. The album is energetic, with John Doe and Cervenka’s vocals being consistently great, and working together particularly well on one of the album’s highlights, the haunting The Unheard Music as well as what is quickly becoming one of my famous punk songs The World’s a Mess; It’s in My Kiss, where the rockabilly influence once again adds an unadulterated energy to proceedings.

Inexcusably, in the album’s title track the band drops the ‘N’ word, something an all white band rightly wouldn’t get away with now. The song itself personifies a case of tunnel vision, about someone blaming everyone and everything around them for their problems rather than perhaps once taking a look in the mirror. Apparently the band no longer use the ‘N’ word when performing the song live, changing the lyric to “every Christian and Jew” instead. Unfortunately, it’s still here on the re-release, and somewhat tarnishes what is otherwise a thoroughly enjoyable album.

Song Picks: Your Phone’s Off the Hook But You’re Not, The Unheard Music, The World’s a Mess; It’s in My Kiss

8/10

11. Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables

Dead Kennedys

American punk-rock band Dead Kennedy’s debut album is clearly inspired by the Sex Pistols, and is generally seen as an important album in the hardcore punk genre.

The album is energetic and simple, with much of its appeal being the humour and warble of Jello Biafra’s lyrics and vocals respectively. California Uber Alles is the album’s most famous track, a pop-perfect song about his unfounded belief that California hippy-ism was going to be imposed on the whole of the USA. It’s the only song that prominently features multiple vocal tracks, creating a real punch to the chorus which is further emphasised by East Bay Ray’s searing power chord riffs. It shows Biafra’s vocal energy and humour perfectly. The album’s other banger, Holiday in Cambodia, is a perfect critique of the privileged guy who self-righteously talks about those less fortunate than himself, while never actually doing much to help. The mix isn’t as punchy as California Uber Alles, and again there’s an uncomfortable dropping of the ‘N’ word, but the song is brimming with the liveliness that the band is known for. You could certainly criticise the rest of the tracks for being samey and not all that inventive, but there’s something to be said for the infectious vigour the whole album has. It feels like a musical kick in the arse.

Song Picks: Kill the Poor, California Uber Alles, Holiday in Cambodia.

8/10

Prince’s third album was produced, arranged and composed entirely by Prince in his home studio. He also played the vast majority of the instruments. As you might expect from the title, it’s completely filthy, and is often considered one of the main albums that smashed open the gates for sexually explicit albums and songs in later years.

Quite probably the sexiest album of all time, Dirty Mind is nevertheless a bit too unintentionally comedic to actually be an aphrodisiac. The opening title track sets the tone, managing somehow to be funky and yet entirely on the beat with a synth powering the piece forward like a disco fuelled train. When You Were Mine is one of Prince’s most famous songs, with cracking melody after cracking melody and that synth part combining with the twangy guitar work to create a truly iconic musical moment. Things start to get more comedic as Do It All Night enters the fray. There’s no point me even talking about the subject matter, the title says it all, but that bass part is some of the cheesiest and funkiest disco brilliance I’ve ever heard. Prince’s productions are intricate, and brilliantly measured, which is all the more impressive considering he’s playing most of the instruments here.

It’s difficult to take proceedings particularly seriously as Prince talks about sexual fantasy after sexual fantasy, but damn is this record a lot of fun. It’s rather impossible to sit still, and even trickier to wipe that stupid smile off your face as the album emits a beam of positive energy. Dirty Mind is quite literally ridiculously funky.

Song Picks: Uptown, When You Were Mine

8.5/10

The Pretender’s debut album very much put the band on the musical map, and is regularly mentioned in best albums of all time lists, such as that by Rolling Stone where it came 152nd in the latest iteration.

Pretenders is an intriguing mix of punk - with songs such as the opening Precious with its marching guitars and lively vocals from lead singer Chrissie Hyde - and pop, with hits such as Brass in Pocket and Stop Your Sobbing. Chrissie Hyde is just as at home with either style, and can certainly carry a catchy melody with plenty of personality. There’s a refreshing honesty to all the album’s tracks and Chrissie is unafraid to tackle more promiscuous topics such as on the explicit Tattooed Love Boys. Of the other band members it’s guitarist James Honeyman-Scott who provides the most memorable performances, with his guitar work on Kid being particularly fantastic, from the excellent riffs that follow each verse to the perfect solo that’s just the right side of cheesy. Oh, and there aren’t many better pop songs out there than Brass in Pocket, which blends the band’s punk attitude brilliantly with their growing pop sensibilities.

I think anyone can enjoy Pretenders, it’s a great pop record with some punk smattered in to keep you on your toes.

Song Picks: Stop Your Sobbing, Kid, Brass in Pocket

8.5/10

English rock band The Cure’s second album was their first to yield a UK Top 40 single, A Forest. The band’s lead vocalist and songwriter Robert Smith wrote most of the album’s music and lyrics at his parents’ home on a Hammond organ with a built in tape recorder. Bassist Michael Dempsey didn’t like the direction the band was going in and so left and was replaced by Simon Gallup.

Seventeen Seconds is regularly cited as an early example of gothic rock due to its gloomy atmosphere, and its that atmosphere that makes this record. The album is blurry, undefined, and rumbles along while you fill out the gaps in your mind. Guitar and piano lines are often repeated seemingly endlessly as you’re lifted into a quiet, calming, and ill-lit dream. Robert Smith’s vocals are often barely audible over the instrumentation, a distant, melodic mumble about failing relationships and the endless existential struggle. The album does occasionally pop out of the clouds and hint at The Cure’s poppier side, with songs like Play for Today perfectly demonstrating their penchant for bouncy guitar riffs perfectly accompanying Robert Smith’s quietly tortured vocals, with each as capable of a hook as the other. A Forest provides a slightly murkier demonstration of the same talents.

Seventeen Seconds is not the kind of assertive album to drill your brain with ideas, it’s a more passive, contemplative album for your brain to add its own notes and thoughts, for which it provides a rather gorgeous foundation.

I drown at night in your house
Pretending to swim, pretending to swim

Song Picks: Play for Today, Secrets, A Forest

8.5/10

7. Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

David Bowie

David Bowie’s 14th album followed his critically lauded and massively influential Berlin trilogy. Scary Monsters sees Bowie turn to a more commercial sound, with a removal of the more experimental electronic tracks prevalent on particularly the first two albums of the trilogy. Scary Monsters was regularly talked about as Bowie’s last great album, until the releases of The Next Day and Blackstar in 2013 and 2016 respectively.

Scary Monsters feels like a culmination of the poppier aspects of Bowie’s 70s recordings, with catchy melodies, slightly overblown production, and that line between accessibility and weirdness that Bowie always treads so well. Songs like Ashes to Ashes and the bouncy Fashion are perfect examples of this, while Teenage Wildlife treads similar sonic grounds to Heroes, with Robert Fripp’s guitar - which is prevalent on many of the album’s songs - once again providing a perfect dramatic and melodic backdrop to Bowie’s howled vocals in what I think is one of Bowie’s more underrated songs. An album full of 80s pomposity while still being very Bowie, Scary Monsters is somehow both simple and complex at the same time. The sugar rush of a sweet, and the depth of flavour of a good vintage cheddar. Obviously those two things together would be disgusting, but hopefully you get what I mean.

Song Picks: Ashes to Ashes, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), Teenage Wildlife, It’s No Game (Pt. 2)

8.5/10

6. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Soundtrack

John Williams

Composed by John Williams and recorded with him conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, the Star Wars soundtrack is unarguably one of the most iconic soundtracks in cinema, and nowhere is that demonstrated better than in this soundtrack release for Episode V.

Obviously the main theme is quite probably the greatest main theme of all time. Nothing gets my excitement flowing quite like the start of a Star Wars film as the text scrolls and the horns blare out that fabulous, triumphant tune. But it’s the lesser known pieces that make this collection what it is; the gentle, meditative beauty of Yoda’s Theme, the tentative hopefulness of The Training of a Jedi Knight, and the tense, winding The Heroics of Luke and Han. The latter first introduces the famous melody of The Imperial Death March, which is then elaborated on in Darth Vader’s Theme, one of the most perfect pieces ever written for a soundtrack, perfectly capturing the menace that is The Empire, while the gentle flute sections make it clear there’s hope of some humanity beneath the mask.

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back does exactly what you’d want a soundtrack to do, it transports you to another world, in this case one of the greatest universes ever created. It’s a cinematic, nostalgic and glorious testament to the power of music in elevating everything, even if that thing is already damn fabulous.

Song Picks: Main Theme, The Imperial March (Darth Vader’s Theme), Yoda’s Theme

9/10

Kate Bush’s third album was the first ever album led by a female artist to enter the UK charts at number 1, and sees her trademark high vocal grace numerous inventive productions - much like her debut.

The album contains three top 20 singles, which summarise the album well. Babooshka, a tale of a woman who poses as someone else to test her husband’s loyalty, and one of Bush’s most famous songs. A great example of how she can make the slightly weird wonderful, with her Babooshka chorus being rather difficult to remove from your head once you’ve heard it. Army Dreamers is a more delicate number, featuring great interplay with Kate Bush’s clear vocal and the murkier male backing vocal, it’s a Waltz that skips along with a sad acceptance of a son’s death in war. The album is closed by Breathing - which is a good example of the effective production present throughout the album - which Bush herself worked on alongside Jon Kelly - skipping from ominous, almost orchestral sounds to a beautiful floating bass and synth section that Bush perfectly complements with a vocal that sails from softly piercing highs, to comforting lows as effortlessly as only she knows how. It’s a masterpiece written from the perspective of a foetus growing in the womb and frightened by nuclear fallout, musically portraying the juxtaposing tone of comfort and fear perfectly.

The rest of the album’s tracks live up to those, continually highlighting Kate Bush’s considerable talent for singing, songwriting, and intrigue. Like a lot of my favourite albums, you never feel like you can grasp it completely, it slides slowly and delicately out of any attempts to catch it.

Song Picks: Breathing, Army Dreamers, All We Ever Look For

9/10

Released two months after Ian Curtis’ suicide, Joy Division’s second album was again produced by Martin Hannett, who’s sound had such a big influence on their first record. As with their debut, it’s regarded as one of the best albums of all time, and particularly important in the post-punk movement.

Closer is as desolate, industrial and bleak as its predecessor, but it’s a little more tight, with less of what could be called ‘jams’. The album opens with Atrocity Exhibition, featuring a rather jolly tom riff from drummer Stephen Morris, which is accompanied by a screeching racket and Curtis’ characteristically deadpan delivery, painting a world of chaos. ‘This is the way, step inside’ he sings as he invites us into the uncomfortable, dissonant noise of his mind. The synth on Isolation is surprisingly catchy, one could even say positive, but Curtis’ detached lyrics about an affair he had on his wife are anything but:

Mother I tried please believe me
I'm doing the best that I can
I'm ashamed of the things I've been put through
I'm ashamed of the person I am

Passover features some of Sumner’s best guitar work, and is a great example of how the band always wrote around the bass and drums, the guitar and vocals providing power from that jumping off point. This is something again evident in the glorious A Means to an End, where Curtis repeats ‘I put my trust in you’ to infinity like a disappointed citizen of the Earth.

By the time we get to the closer, Decades, which again juxtaposes something hopeful - that spritely synth part - with the majority of the track sounding like oblivion itself, it’s been another journey into the a bottomless, dark pit. But one of inescapable beauty.

Song Picks: Isolation, Passover, A Means to an End, Twenty Four Hours

9/10

The debut album by American punk rock band The Cramps was recommended to me for inclusion on this list by my good friend Alasdair.

Let’s be honest, the rock ‘n’ roll that shocked and offended many of our ancestors now sounds pretty tame. Songs the Lord Taught is perhaps as close as we’ll get to understanding how they felt in the 1950s. Although the album’s influences are clearly rock ‘n’ roll and rockabilly, their smothered in so much grime that they become barely recognisable. On the cover of Jimmy Stewart’s Rock on the Moon the guitar is treated with so much echo and reverb that its tight percussive sound becomes a mush only just recognisable as a rock ‘n’ roll riff, and yet still infinitely danceable. Lux Interior’s vocals have great immediacy and freedom to them which complement the band’s messy theatrics perfectly. On Garbageman, the instrumental section in the middle sounds like some sort of garbage disposal centre; crunching, full of sludge and undefined. Interior’s vocals blend in perfectly, like a man who’s just walked into this monstrosity and decided to spontaneously howl along to the centre’s futile attempts to deal with capitalism’s waste. Producer Alex Chilton called the band the night before the album was due to be mastered asking them to re-record the whole thing. Obviously, they refused, and it’s that insistence on being an unfiltered version of themselves that makes this album the messy and unfettered piece of timeless brilliance that it is.

Songs the Lord Taught Us is quite unlike anything else, but while that often comes hand in hand with something being challenging to listen to, I don’t think that’s the case here. Buried beneath the wholesome mud are accessible melodies and riffs that anyone could enjoy, and indeed this is one of the most straight up enjoyable albums I’ve ever heard. A cathartic reminder that even when utter chaos unfolds in front of you - as I’m sure it did during these recording sessions - just going with the flow is sometimes the best thing to do.

Song Picks: Fever, Garbageman,

9/10

Talking Heads’ fourth album, and final album produced by Brian Eno, sees the band experimenting with polyrhythms and funk heavily inspired by Fela Kuti. Regularly considered the band’s magnum opus, it features more side musicians than any of their previous albums.

Remain in the Light is a whirlwind of grooves starting with the perfectly produced and grooviest song ever written about the Watergate scandal, Born Under Punches, and finishing with the eerie and sparse The Overload. It’s a journey of musical creativity, never afraid to repeat itself to burrow its ideas deep in your brain, and punctuated by enigmatic and spontaneous vocal performances from Byrne. These combine perfectly with his new stream of consciousness lyrical style, something he adopted due to struggles with writer’s block, as well as due to inspiration from early rap and African academic literature. The band are on infectious top form and the Fela Kuti afrobeat influence is obvious, but it's the unexpected touching moments like the darkly atmospheric Listening Wind, featuring some superb howling guitar work from Adrian Belew, that makes Remain in the Light not just an album of enjoyable tunes, but an album of continual intrigue and mystique. I had to read into them to work out what many of the album’s songs were about, but I’d actually advise against that. Byrne’s bursts of lyrical energy plant images and ideas in your mind that differ with each spin of the record. It seems to morph into whatever you most need that day, and for that reason it’s one of those albums that’ll be a companion for life.

Song Picks: Born Under Punches, Listening Wind, Once In a Lifetime

9.5/10

1. Peter Gabriel III (Melt)

Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel’s third solo album is technically called ‘Peter Gabriel III’, but has taken on the name ‘Melt’ due to its cover art. Melt is widely thought of as Gabriel’s breakthrough album as a solo artist, demonstrating his willingness to push things in new directions.

Melt feels like the perfect introduction to the 80s. It kicks of with Intruder, which triumphantly introduces us to the sound of the decade, a gated snare drum played by Gabriel’s former bandmate Phil Collins. Collins features on many of the albums tracks and even performs a very ‘In the Air Tonight’ fill on No Self Control. Gabriel’s vocals are engaging throughout, showing much more variation than any of his Genesis work with everything from a resigned croak on the aforementioned Intruder, to a triumphant scream on the powerful And Through the Wire. Production wise it’s colourful, with saxophones (yes, I told you this was 80s), xylophones, synths and a whole heap of guitar effects creating a futuristic, dramatic atmosphere. The album is notable for the way it nails its crescendos - No Self Control’s nearly takes your head off for example - and how it manages to nail drama while somehow not quite dropping into the cheese that most of the music attempting the same in the 80s did. There’s echoed saxophones on Start, reverb worthy of the world’s largest cathedral on No Self Control and cascading power chords on I Don’t Remember. It all threatens to become too much, to collapse under its own sense of pomposity, but it never does. Every song hits an all-conquering home-run, flooding life into fatigued veins. It embraces the dark, and then obliterates it with light, finishing with a magnificent ode to the murdered anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, a seven and a half minute call to arms which finishes, most fittingly, with two gated snare drum blasts. The 80s are here my friends, the 80s are here. Melt is an ambitious, perfectly executed album that’s a perfect representation of its decade.

You can blow out a candle
But you can't blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher

Song Picks: And Through the Wire, No Self Control, Family Snapshot

9.5/10

1970s - Mop-Up and Albums of the Decade List

May 27, 2021 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music

As promised, before we move onto the 80s, here’s a 70s roundup article, with a whole heap of albums that I didn’t get round to in the individual year lists followed by my best of decade rankings.

Where have you plucked this lot from you ask? Well I added anything that I hadn’t covered already that: is rated in the top 50 of the 1970s on rateyourmusic.com, placed highly on the Pitchfork best of the 70s list, and a few from some female only best-of lists across the internet. Here’s the 13 that are thrown into the mixer for this 70s round-up special, listed alongside the year they were released.

The Velvet Underground - Loaded (1970)
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band - John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970)
Funkadelic - Maggot Brain (1971)
Dolly Parton - Coat of Many Colours (1971)
Janis Joplin - Pearl (1971)
Sly and the Family Stone - There’s a Riot Going On (1971)
Leonard Cohen - Songs of Love and Hate (1971)
Novos Baianos - Acabou Chorare (1972)
Aretha Franklin - Amazing Grace (1972)
Yes - Fragile (1972)
Labelle - Nightbirds (1974)
Heart - Dreamboat Annie (1976)
Buzzcocks - Singles Going Steady (1979)

Let’s rank this lot, and then we’ll see if any of them make it into my best of decade list!

The first hard rock band fronted by women, Heart, was led by sisters Nancy and Ann Wilson. Their debut album, Dreamboat Annie, includes the band’s hits Magic Man and Crazy on You.

It’s refreshing to hear female vocals over the top of the rocking instrumentals on display here, and the whole thing has a very polished sound. I’ve never been the biggest fan of hard rock, it feels like one of those genres that hasn’t aged all that well to me, but there’s plenty to enjoy here. The guitar riffs underpin the vocals perfectly, Crazy on You being a particularly great example of this, the vocals have great range and thankfully avoid that high pitched squeal that was all the rage in 70s heard-rock. The album has a great flow to it, ending with a nice reprise of the title track, and there’s some really beautiful moments such as Soul of the Sea, which has a fabulously Fleetwood Mac feel about it. The Wilsons’ vocals create a dreamy, ethereal feel that makes this record stand out amongst others in the genre.

Dreamboat Annie is a very enjoyable listen, and of course important as the first women led hard rock recording. As with most hard rock, it leans a bit too much into cheese at points, particularly with (Love Me like Music) I’ll be Your Song, and the production is a little uninspiring, but there’s plenty here to make it a very worthwhile listen.

Song Picks: Magic Man, Soul of the Sea

7/10

12. Coat of Many Colours (1971)

Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton’s eighth album is generally regarded as her best, appearing both in in the Time and Rolling Stone best albums of all time lists. Parton has said that the album’s title track is the best song she’s ever written.

Coat of Many Colours is straight up country, so if that’s not your bag then you’re not going to get on with this. I can’t claim to be the biggest country fan, but when done well I do enjoy it in smaller doses. This album is a delight generally, Parton’s jolly melodies soar over the plodding country arrangements. The title track is pretty much the perfect country song, a touching tale of a mother’s love. Traveling Man is perhaps the album’s other highlight, a twangy guitar rock ‘n’ roller that’s as American as the Grand Canyon. The record continues in a similar vein, with pleasant country song after pleasant country song showcasing Parton’s considerable talent for a melody, and production that really makes them shine.

The grass is always green with Dolly in your ear, but sometimes, as in the final two tracks, it gets a little too green. The ‘la,la,la’s’ of the final track catapulting things a little too far into ‘cheese’ for example.

Song Picks: Coat of Many Colours, Traveling Man,

7.5/10

labelle nightbirds.jpg — 11. Nightbirds (1974)

Labelle

All female vocal group Labelle’s fourth album was their most successful to date, and features their biggest hit, the often covered Lady Marmalade. The album is generally regarded as one of the greatest combinations of poppy r&b with funk and soul. Rolling Stone listed it as the 274th greatest album in their all time top 500 list.

The opener is probably more famous to my generation for the cover by 90s band All Saints, but Labelle’s version of Lady Marmalade trounces that one. That groovy bass riff, the gentle cowbell, the iconic vocals and melodies, it’s a pop gem, and a perfect meld of all the group’s influences into something truly unique.

LaBelle, Hendryx and Dash’s vocals work together brilliantly, with songs like It Took a Long Time being a great demonstration of that, but any of the lively tracks here would serve to make the point. Nightbirds glows with infectious songwriting, Allen Pouissant’s production - which is as comfortable as a warm sofa - and vocals as perfect and soulful as any of the decade. Oh and Hector Seda’s bass playing is some of the most underrated I’ve heard.

“It’s just an all-girl band, dealing with the facts and the pain”

Song Picks: Lady Marmalade, All Girl Band, What Can I Do For You, Somebody Somewhere

8.5/10

10. Songs of Love and Hate (1971)

Leonard Cohen

Cohen’s third album was the only one to make Rollling Stone’s best 500 albums of all time list, and placed at #74 in Pitchfork’s best of the 70s list. It’s here though because it’s rated at number #38 for the 1970s on rateyourmusic.com. Cohen himself spoke rather negatively of the album two years after its release:

"I suppose you could call it gimmicky if you were feeling uncharitable towards me. I have certainly felt uncharitable towards me from time to time over that record, and regretted many things. It was over-produced and over elaborated...an experiment that failed."

Right from the the opening murmurs of Avalanche it’s clear we’re in for a dark ride, as Cohen’s vocals sing his usual poetics over the top of a dark, syncopated guitar line in a timbre even more tired than usual. Though I love the sparse nature of Cohen’s debut, I disagree that this is overproduced and I feel Bob Johnston’s production additions, generally consisting of murmuring strings, flesh out the songs nicely. I think that Cohen’s more passionate vocal performances, such as his intense growl on Diamonds in the Mine, would have worked less well without Johnston’s production touches.

As usual with Cohen, the whole thing is gorgeously poetic, and he’s undoubtedly one of the best lyricists we’ve ever had, something his hummed - and occasionally growled - delivery really emphasises. It doesn’t floor me as much as his debut, but it’s as majestic and bewitching as you’d expect, with a depth as mysterious as the Mariana Trench.

Song picks: Avalanche, Last Year’s Man, Diamonds in the Mine

8.5/10

Fragile Yes.jpg — 9. Fragile (1971)

Yes

Yes’ first album with keyboardist Rick Wakeman features only four group compositions due to time and budget constraints at the time, the remaining five tracks are solo pieces, one from each member.

Those 5 solo pieces demonstrate just how much talent the band contained, and it’s remarkable that 5 such individually creative people could work together in a way that created something that was actually surprisingly modest. Opener Roundabout is a Yes favourite, and a great demonstration of their ability to create progressive music that is accessible despite it’s penchant for tons of different sections and time signatures. All the solo contributions are welcome breaks from the more lofty band recordings, but it’s Steve Howe’s Mood for a Day that’s a particular highlight, a beautiful instrumental acoustic guitar piece that twitters like exotic birds in the Sun.

Fragile doesn’t feel as important or weighty as the later Closer to the Edge, but there’s a real charm in its surprising sprinkles of simplicity, and the closing track, Heart of Sunshine, is a perfect segue to the aforementioned album, with Anderson’s belted out vocal foreshadowing his vocal style on a lot of its songs.

Song Picks: Roundabout, Mood for a Day, Heart of Sunrise

8.5/10

Aretha Franklin.jpg — 8. Amazing Grace (1972)

Aretha Franklin

Amazing Grace, Franklin’s 1972 live album, was recorded at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, with Reverend James Cleveland and the Southern California Community Choir accompanying her. It remains Franklin’s best-selling album, and the best-selling live gospel album of all time.

One of the finest vocal performances ever committed to tape, Aretha’s every word seems to soar like a beam to the heavens. The backing choir provide the bed for Aretha to bounce off, and bounce she does, providing quite probably the decade’s most energetic and iconic vocal performance. It’s warbling and over-sung at points, things I’m not generally a fan of, but here it sounds like Aretha’s soul exploding with joy, and that is quite the thing.

I’m not even remotely religious, I don’t think there’s anything waiting for us after death or that there’s any meaning to our lives beyond those for a spider or a mouse, but I don’t think you need need that kind of belief to enjoy this. There’s a undeniable sense of history, soul and weight to the whole thing that doesn’t require any faith in its subject matter for it to affect you rather deeply. That said, you definitely have to be in the mood for it!

Song Picks: Mary, Don’t You Weep; How I Got Over, Amazing Grace

8.5/10

7. Buzzcocks (1979)

Singles Going Steady

As a compilation, it’s debatable as to whether this belongs here, but Pitchfork named it the 16th best album of the 70s so I’m including it. Singles Going Steady was intended as an introduction to the band for an American audience, where it was the band’s first album released. It was eventually released in the UK in 1981, after it became a successful import. The album features the band’s 8 singles from 1977 up until Singles Going Steady’s release followed by the B-sides to each of those singles in chronological order.

Put simply, Singles Going Steady is a trip, destination Bangertown. As Jason Heller of Pitchfork puts it, it’s "a paragon of songwriting about the pain and joy of love that stands as one of the most endearing, intimate, and impeccably crafted batch of earworms in either the love-song or punk-rock realm". It’s hard to disagree. The record shows Buzzcocks for what they were, one of the best singles bands we’ve ever had, and certainly the best pop-punk singles band to ever grace our ears.

Song Picks: Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve),

9/10

Janis Joplin - Pearl.jpg — 6. Pearl (1971)

Janis Joplin

Joplin’s second solo studio album was released three months after her death due to an accidental heroin overdose. It was the final album released that she directly participated in, and was recorded with her final touring band. Paul A. Rothchild, who also produced The Doors, was given production duties here, and creates Joplin’s most polished sounding record. Rolling Stone ranked it 112th on their best albums of all time list.

Pearl is a magnificent display of what a vocal talent Joplin was. Her trademark raspiness extends to both her powerful (My Baby), and more delicate vocals (Me and Bobby McGee). She’s one of those rare vocalists where her tone, timbre and character mean that pretty much everything she sings has a gorgeous, intangible soul to it. The acapella Mercedes Benz is a perfect example of this. There’s not many vocalists who could carry an acapella performance so perfectly, and the fact it was the last song she ever recorded makes it all the more poignant. Joplin was due to record the vocals to Buried Alive in the Blues on the day of her death, and the instrumental, backing track sound feels like a hole in the middle of the album, a touching reminder that Joplin passed away during its creation.

Rothchild’s production and Joplin’s band back her perfectly, keeping the emphasis on her otherworldly vocals, while providing enough interest and edge to make sure things never get stale. Joplin was an incomparable talent, and Pearl is a beautiful goodbye. There’s no doubt she would have gone on to record a whole host of amazing records, but this is certainly a powerful one to finish with.

Song Picks: Move Over, Mercedes Benz, Cry Baby

9/10

plastic ono.jpg — **5. John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970)**

**John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band**

John Lennon’s debut solo album was released at the same time as his wife’s album, titled in the same way, Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band. Heavily influenced by Lennon’s recent primal scream therapy, it focuses largely on Lennon’s personal problems, including those from his upbringing.

Songs on John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band are incredibly simple, rarely featuring more than three chords and a few instruments, and often have a repetitive, almost trancelike quality to them. There’s a clean honesty to all the material here, and it’s one of those albums that is perfectly encapsulated by the cover. It sounds like the musical equivalent of what might go through your head if you were to sit under the peacefulness of a tree and meditate on your life. There’s beautifully quiet moments such as the piano led Love, and rockier - more Beatles-esque - moments like the fabulously gritty sounding Well, Well, Well - where the primal scream therapy influence becomes evident in Lennon’s unrestrained screams - but the common thread that holds the whole thing together is a wonderful sense of spontaneity and freedom. This is something particularly evident in the penultimate track God, where Lennon lets go of everything, even the Beatles.

Song Picks: Love; Well, Well, Well; God

9/10

Maggot Brain.JPG — 4. Maggot Brain (1971)

Funkadelic

Funkadelic’s third album was ranked the 14th best album of the 1970s by Pitchfork, and is the last to feature the band’s original lineup.

The album opens with the title track, a 10 minute guitar solo by Eddie Hazel, and the album’s most famous song. The band’s leader George Clinton was apparently high on LSD and asked Hazel to play as if his mother had just died The rest, as they say, is history. There’s no doubt in my mind that Maggot Brain is the finest guitar solo of all time, backed only by the odd sound effect and an arpeggiated guitar (apparently there was more playing along, but Clinton faded them out in the mix to keep the focus on Hazel’s guitar), Hazel delivers a stratospheric solo that says more than a lot of albums, books and people without saying a single word. It soars with its Jimi Hendrix inspired fuzz and wah effects, reverbed to sound as if they’re coming from some hole in the ground. I can’t remember the last time I was so completely floored by a song, it skitters and roars, howls and screeches, all in melodies that seem to stop the passing of time. It is, as one critic puts it, “an emotional apocalypse of sound,” and it might just be my favourite song of the 70s.

The rest of the album could never compete with something as stupendously powerful as that opening track, but it doesn’t fall all that far behind. Featuring a slightly more conventional psychedelic funk the band proceed to entertain the hell out of whoever is listening with some of the funkiest riffs in town (Hit It and Quit), bass lines that could make a gravestone groove (You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks) and yet another Eddie Hazel masterclass on the musical steamroller Super Stupid.

Quite honestly, I’m struggling to think of a more consistently entertaining 36 minutes of music in the entire decade.

Song Picks: Maggot Brain; Super Stupid; Hit it and Quit It; You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks

9.5/10

3. There’s a Riot Going On (1971)

Sly & the Family Stone

The soul and funk band’s fifth album was named as the 4th best album of the 70s by Pitchfork and it’s title is an answer to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, released six months earlier. Regularly cited as one of the most influential albums of all time, it’s recording process was by all accounts a huge mess, with Sly Stone fraying to drug abuse, and the band falling apart around him.

You can practically smell the marijuana, hear the cocaine snorts, and feel the mental fog emanating from all 12 of the album’s tracks, where the drum machines sound as if they’ve been used because they’re the only thing that couldn’t succumb to the drugs flying around, and would thus be able to hold the band together somewhat. The band plays loose and hazey, but this is hands down the funkiest album I’ve ever heard. Every track grooves with a crackled genius, Sly’s vocals often sounding so laid back it’s no surprise that he recorded some of them lying on a bed with a wireless microphone. The album lays out the cold, dark truth about America, both lyrically and sonically, but it does so in a way that’s soulful and enjoyable in a manner completely devoid of kitsch and cheese. There’s a Riot Going On is an album where I have real trouble picking my favourite tacks, everything fits the mood, everything is perfect.

9.5/10

2. Loaded (1970)

The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground’s fourth album was the final album recorded featuring founding member Lou Reed, who left before it was released. By the band’s next release, Squeeze in 1973, all but Doug Yule had left and thus this is often considered the ‘last’ album by the band. The album’s title alludes to the fact that they were asked by their record label (Atlantic) to produce an album ‘loaded with hits,’ a request which leads to this being the band’s most accessible release. Reed wasn’t pleased with the album on release, unhappy with the incorrect songwriting credits and the edits that had been made to the album’s song and running order without his consent. Nevertheless, the album is very much regarded as one of the 70’s best, with Pitchfork ranking it at #14 for the decade.

Loaded is a gem of enjoyable melodies, breezy productions, and a vibe not unlike peak 60s Dylan. Below that thoroughly enjoyable exterior, lies some incredibly intelligent songwriting. With hits like ‘Who Loves the Sun’ conveying a flat pessimism, which contrasts with both its poppy melodies and instrumentals as well as other pop songs of the time. The album’s other hit, Sweet Jane, is a bona-fide banger, with a sing-along chorus and engaging verses featuring evocative lyrics, again with more than a hint of Dylan to their delivery.

Loaded is the result of asking an incredibly talented band to make pop hits against their will. It’s catchy, easy-breezy and brilliant, and yet hides an intriguing bitter sarcasm at its core. Sometimes the true test of a band’s mettle is how well they can tread paths that have already been trodden. In the case of the Velvet Underground the answer is fabulously, creating a record that works both as a collection of pop hits, but that still has the band’s stamp of ingenuity, wit and intellect all over it. Sometimes pushy, money driven record labels genuinely lead to masterpieces.

“Oh, all the poets they studied rules of verse
And those ladies, they rolled their eyes”

9.5/10

acabou chorare.jpg — 1. Acabou Chorare (1972)

Nocos Baianos

We’ve had quite a lot of Brazilian music from the 70s on this list, and it’s all been a delight, so I’m delighted to be able to throw another one in. Voted as #49 of the 70s by rateyourmusic users and coming in at #1 on a list of the best Brazilian albums by Rolling Stone in 2007, Acabou Charare (No More Crying in English) is Novos Baianos’ second studio album.

Listening to some Brazilian music is always a refreshing change from the mainly Western music in these lists. I suspect once this challenge is complete I’ll look at doing some sort of ‘best albums from each country’ challenge to widen my horizons a bit in that regard.

Acabou Chorare is an absolute delight, the energetic hit Brasil Pandeiro and fan favourite Preta Pretinha start the album off perfectly. The former demonstrates the band’s flawless combining of male and female vocals, gorgeous, jolly guitar riffs, and melodies to make even the coldest of hearts sing. The latter is musical honey, Moreira’s vocals are so effortless, calm and tuneful and they blend with the samba of the nylon guitar like the ingredients of some timeless meal. The energetic guitar solo skitters and sparkles like a thousand butterflies in the blue sky, one of the prettiest songs of the 70s. I’m trying to keep these reviews shorter, but rest assured the album is littered with such brilliance, Swing de Campo Grande and the title track are some further highlights.

Acabou Chorare is an album that I think I’ll be turning to to lift my mood whenever I need it, along with some of the other Brazilian greats of the decade. Acabou Chorare is the musical Sun, an album of such positive energy and life that I cried the first time I heard it. As the Arial font of an e-mail blurred to some strange splodged painting, I felt the kind of joy of discovery that has been so hard to come by in the groundhog day lockdown shroud.

Song Picks: Brasil Pandeiro, Preta Pretinha, Swing de Campo Grande

10/10

1970s - Best of the Decade

And now, having reviewed over 130 albums from the 1970s, it’s time to rank my favourites of the decade. I’m upping the list from 25 (as in the 60s) to 30, as it was just too hard to cut it to 25. Here goes:

#1 Stevie Wonder - Songs in the Key of Life
#2 Miles Davis - Bitches Brew
#3 Pink Floyd - The Wall
#4 Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks
#5 Novos Baianos - Acabou Chorare

#6 Pink Floyd - Animals
#7 Miles Davis - Get Up With It
#8 Jorge Ben - A Tábua de Esmeralda
#9 Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
#10 Bob Marley and the Wailers - Exodus

#11 Joni Mitchell - Hejira
#12 Joni Mitchell - Hissing of Summer Lawns
#13 Milton Nascimento & Lo Borges - Clube Da Esquina
#14 Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
#15 Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
#16 David Bowie - Low
#17 Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
#18 Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water
#19 Yes - Close to the Edge
#20 Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run

#21 Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols
#22 David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
#23 Pink Floyd - Meddle
#24 The Velvet Underground - Loaded
#25 The Clash - London Calling
#26 Sly & the Family Stone - There’s a Riot Going On
#27 Stevie Wonder - Innervisions
#28 Joni Mitchell - Blue
#29 The Stooges - Raw Power
#30 Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti

What a decade it’s been. The artist of the decade award has to go to Pink Floyd, with no less than five records in the end of decade top 30 list, something that I’m not sure will be beaten for the remainder of this challenge. Joni Mitchell comes in second with three records on the list, with an honourable mention to Miles Davis who got two entries into the top ten.

And so it’s time to get back in our time machine, and move to the decade of shoulder pads, neon colours, and oversized jumpers, the 80s. See you there.

1964 - Clive's Top 5 Albums of Every Year Challenge

May 15, 2020 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music

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.

Well, we’re moving along nicely through the 60’s and we’ve now landed in 1964, so what happened outside of music? Well Khrushchev fell from power in Russia, President Johnson was re-elected as president of the USA after completing what would have been the final year of JFK’s term. Race riots broke out in Harlem and other US cities, Harold Wilson won the election in the UK as leader of the Labour party and the world’s first lung transplant occurred. And now that’s out the way, as usual, we’ll get to the music. Here’s what rateyourmusic.com users rate as their top 5 albums of 1964:

#1 Eric Dolphy - Out to Lunch
#2 Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto - Getz / Gilberto
#3 Charles Mingus - Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mings, Mingus
#4 The Beatles - A Hard Day’s Night
#5 Herbie Hancock - Empyrean Isles

We’ve got our first Beatles entry, our first bossa-nova album and the return of the one and only Charles Mingus. On looking further down the list there’s two Dylan albums which I absolutely can’t pass up this opportunity to talk about, as well as an album by blues legend Muddy Waters, an artist I’ve always wanted to listen to. I’ll add them all to the pile too:

#6 Bob Dylan - The Times They Are A-Changin’
#11 Bob Dylan - Another Side of Bob Dylan
#15 Muddy Waters - Folk Singer

Once again we’ve got eight to get through. Strap yourselves in. Actually, just sit down, seatbelts are probably excessive for this. Here’s my thoughts and ranking of the above:

The Beatles’ third album and their first appearance on this list, A Hard Day’s Night features songs from the soundtrack to the film of the same name, and is the first to feature entirely original compositions.

A Hard Day’s Night is a testament to the fact that The Beatles really were the masters of coming up with a catchy melody. If this album was a balloon and catchy melodies were air, it would explode with a bang at a similar volume to that of a sonic boom. In terms of hits, we’ve got the title track as well as Can’t Buy Me Love (factually inaccurate, I’ve bought loads of things I love) but everything around them is just as catchy and fun.

I generally find The Beatles’ vocals a little bland and thus I prefer their later albums where they get more experimental lyrically and instrumentally, but there’s no doubt that this is a very strong set of simple, catchy pop songs. At times they’re a little too simple, particularly lyrically, but there’s a level of charm to the whole thing created by the simple vibrant guitars (particularly George Harrison’s 12-string Rickenbacker) and the well performed harmonies that alleviates this problem somewhat.

A Hard Day’s Night has a certain level of rawness that I appreciate too, the mix isn’t quite as clean as it is later in their career. The bass and guitars have a level of mud that makes the vocals stand out a little more, and it just gives the whole thing a lovely happy-go-lucky feel, and a slightly, dare I say it, punky edge. A 30 minute, 60’s pop, sugar rush.

Song Picks: A Hard Day’s Night, Can’t Buy Me Love, I Should Have Known Better,

7.5/10

EmpyreanIsles — 7. Empyrean Isles

Herbie Hancock

Jazz pianist Herbie Hancock’s fourth album and his first to make it onto these lists, like Out to Lunch (which we’ll get to soon) and many others we’ve heard previously, features Freddie Hubbard on cornet, who along with Hancock, is very much the star of the show.

On the opener One Finger Snap Hancock’s characteristic light, quick touch is evident as his right hand dances up and down the piano like a grasshopper with 73 legs. It’s a style completely different to Thelonius Monk’s, with more notes, less space and less rhythmic interest. Things tend to sound like scales played delicately but quickly with a wonderful precision and with accents providing the variation and interest. It’s a style I rather like. Hubbard is on characteristically fine form here too and the two work very well together. On the dreamy Oliloqui Valley Hancock comps twinkly chords beautifully as Hubbard’s cornet creates a musical painting of colourful dots across a canvas held together by Ron Carter’s rock solid bass and Tony Williams’ enigmatic drum flurries. Carter’s soulful bass solo towards the end of the track is also noteworthy.

Cantaloupe Island, a jazz standard nowadays, features a wonderful piano line from Hancock and Hubbard is perhaps on his finest form of the whole album here, accentuating the piano’s rolling chords delicately, but with plenty of feeling, like the vocals to Hancock’s instrumental bedding. The way Hancock manages to keep the song’s core line going while soloing around it is incredibly impressive, and it took me a while to realise there weren’t two pianists playing.

The 14 minute closer The Egg is perhaps the most experimental piece here, with less of a central theme. Hubbard weaves in and out of Williams’ drum whirlwind which seems to get more and more ferocious as the song goes on. Hancock is remarkably quiet in the first half of the track, but makes the most of it when he is in the limelight, chatting sparkly melodies and ideas to the rest of the band to respond to. Things go eerily quiet in the middle, as the band seemingly go to sleep, Carter’s rumbling bass gently waking everyone up out of their slumber. Hancock wakes with some of the finest piano playing on the album, with a timeless solo, evoking the night sky turning to dawn as a forest begins to wake, insects skittering about their morning routines.

Empyrean Isles is just a really solid jazz album, featuring a quartet that works beautifully together playing some really memorable compositions, and you can’t ask for much more than that.

Song Picks: Cantaloupe Island, Oliloqui Valley

8/10

FolkSinger — 6. Folk Singer

Muddy Waters

So, I got a new set of headphones through the post the other day, which will likely be the last in my embarrassingly large collection for a while, because I absolutely love them. Fittingly, the first album I listened to on them was this one, and indeed it was the first time I’d heard it. Within the first few chords and words of the opening track My Home Is In The Delta I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. It sounded so crisp, so deep, so wide, so bloody alive. I had a massive smile on my face that I struggled to remove for quite some time.

It turns out, it wasn’t entirely my headphones; this is just an absolute masterpiece in acoustic recording. That reverb on Muddy’s voice and the instruments is so good I’d say it’s the darn finest reverb I’ve ever heard. Enough about the production quality, what’s the actual music like you say? Ah, yes. Well, luckily, it’s pretty damn good too.

First of all, despite the title (which was chosen due to the popularity of folk at the time), this is very much a blues album, and a wonderfully bare-bones one at that. Waters plays acoustic guitar and sings, backed by Willie Dixon on bass (he’s also to thank for the brilliant production), Clifton James on drums and Buddy Guy on another acoustic guitar. The arrangements leave plenty of space for Muddy’s fabulously dynamic, deep and soulful vocals and the guitar playing has that wonderful blues groove that everyone loves, right?

On that last point I have to confess I have a bit of a bias towards the blues, it always brings me nostalgia for a time when I used to spend my summers at a blues festival near my Dad’s in Switzerland. The blues has always had a cosy predictability to it, something I don’t generally like in music, but that the blues manage to get away with.

Talking of predictability, once you’ve heard the opening track, you’ve pretty much heard them all here. I suspect a large amount of them are in the same key even but it hardly matters. Muddy’s vocal performance is so full of character, and so beautifully recorded that you feel like you’re sat in on a historic moment, a fly on the wall to one of the most influential blues musicians out there. The repetition is comforting, a warm hug in dark times, a 3-point shooter using the same graceful technique to hit the net time after time.

Song Picks: My Home Is In The Delta, The Same Thing, You Gonna Need My Help

8/10

This may be Dolphy’s first appearance on these lists as a bandleader but we’ve heard plenty from him before, he’s just been stealthily avoiding the limelight. He appeared on Coltrane’s 1961 releases Africa/Brass and Ole Coltrane as well as Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz from the same year. Incidentally, he also appears on Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus (yep, that’s what it’s actually called) from this year. Unfortunately, he died later on in 1964, of a reported diabetic coma, so this, sadly, is the last we’ll hear from him as a bandleader.

Out to Lunch is generally regarded as an avant-garde jazz classic, but what does this philistine who knows nothing about jazz think about it? Well, let’s find out. I love the name and the cover, so that’s a good start.

The opening track Hat and Beard refers to our man Thelonious Monk from the last post (1963) and opens with a bass and brass walk with a childish fun to it. The xylophone only serves to increase this fun as it comes in playing the exact same line, which plays throughout the song in one form or another. The song sounds a bit like everyone taking it in turns to practice a very specific sequence of notes while the rest of the band mucks about trying to distract them. It’s interesting, slightly mystical sounding, has a strange amount of parallels to ambient music, and is quite unlike any jazz I’ve heard so far. Kudos.

Something , Sweet Something Tender interestingly mixes a rather jolly saxophone part with an ominous bass part, combining to create an opening with a strange tension to it. Again, the piece sounds very much like play, sparse play though, the kind of play where someone is lurking around the corner about to abduct you. Actually it’s probably not that dark, but it does sound like something that could be playing as a mildly scary, slightly uncoordinated monster wakes up in the woods of a fairytale, distracted by every falling leaf as he stumbles on looking for the hero.

Gazzelloni is probably my favourite, with Dolphy’s flute playing being both impressive and playful (there’s that word again). I mean it’s out of control, ‘you can’t put a leash on this baby!!’ he screams as he unleashes a flutey wall of noise that sounds like a bunch of comedic birds twittering at each other. Only Freddie Hubbard’s trumpet manages to shut him up, answering in an equally joyful, if slightly less reckless manner. It all combines to create a piece that’s happier than an un-budgeted trip to the sweet shop, and as manic as a kid shortly after consuming all said purchased sweets.

I’m not going to go into the other two tracks in detail, they’re creative, dazzling, confusing and fun just like those I’ve already struggled to describe. This is an album that shows Dolphy’s considerable skill as a multi-instrumentalist (he plays flute, clarinet and saxophone at various points) as well as as a bandleader. It can’t be easy holding something as experimental as this together. This is not an easy listen, and after my first few listens I was left a little confused. The more familiar it’s gentle madness got though, the more it grew on me, and I can now firmly say I’m a fan. I can’t help but feel it’s a little too challenging, and perhaps more inventive than it is a joy to listen to at times, but I can’t deny its fun, its vivacity, its creativity. It must have been one hell of a lunch.

Song Pick: Hat and Beard, Gazzelloni,

8/10

MingusMingus — 4. Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus

Charles Mingus

Just look at that album title would you!! No one but Charles Mingus would have the audacity to just repeat his surname five times and call that an album title. What a man. Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus which I’m just going to refer to as Mingus x5 from here on for obvious reasons, is essentially a greatest hits album. Now before you scream at me, “Clive, you’ve already given the classic Out to Lunch a measly 8/10 and now you’re telling me a greatest hits collection is an album, who do you think you are? Alan Partridge?”, just hear me out. This is Charles Mingus, he wouldn’t just slap a load of previous recordings together and release that, oh no, he’s re-recorded them, reworked them a little in places, renamed them, and also added a cover of Mood Indigo for good measure.

Now, with the exception of Hora Decibutus, which is a new version of E’s Flat Ah’s Flat Too from Blues & Roots, and Mood Indigo I’ve not heard any of the original versions of these songs so they’re all new to me.

The opener II B.S. reminds me why I fell in love with Mingus in the first place. Catchy brass lines, stomping bass and saxophone flurries building up to a chaotic crescendo of smashed cymbals and shouting, before breaking back down again. As always with Mingus, there’s plenty to latch onto, and it makes you want to tap your feet.

Then, to prove that he’s far from a one trick pony, comes IX Love, a song of dissonant tenderness. The brass instruments are reminiscent of The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, creating a kind of uneasy carpet for the rest of the music to sit on. The sax plays off this beautifully, with a more straightforward minor scale feel to it, it’s all a little uneasy, but nevertheless memorable.

Celia is probably my favourite track here, which starts with a sweet, cloudy saxophone line before Mingus’ bass takes us for a walk through a night-time scene of alto-sax shrieks and a hug of tubas accompanying us on this mystical journey. The tension builds with some stabs towards the end before the bass and drums leave space for a majestic conversation between a whole host of saxophones up there in the trees, as you lay on the grass and look up at the stars.

The Mood Indigo cover is performed with similar aplomb and then Better Get Hit In Yo’ Soul comes up and again reminds you just how well Mingus crafts a rowdy and yet catchy number. This one sounds like a party that’s got out of hand but no one cares. What? Tony’s gone and knocked over the grandfather clock?? Susan’s had a few too many and smashed your entire glass cabinet? Marlon’s accidentally set fire to all your cigars and you’re all stumbling about in the Cuban smoke wondering what’s going on???

Who cares, man? This’ll make a great story.

Theme for Lester Young is perhaps the album’s least interesting track but thankfully Hora Decubitus ensures we finish on a high. Mingus x5 is a pretty great place to start for anyone wanting to check out just why Mingus is a bloody genius. It features him at his most energetic and his most tender, and although it’s not as cohesive as some of his other work (Tijuana Moods and The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady spring to mind), the fact it was all recorded in the same sessions means it doesn’t feel as disjointed as your usual greatest hits collection.

Mingus doesn’t make the top 5 again on any future rateyourmusic.com list, though I’ll probably be checking out his 1972 album Let My Children Hear Music when we make it to that year, as I’ve heard plenty of great things about it. But for now, this seems like a good way to say goodbye to the cigar smoking genius. A collection of his best material, performed emphatically well. Cheers Charles.

Song Picks: Celia, Better get Hit In Yo’ Soul, II B.S

8.5/10

AChangin — 3. The Times They Are A-Changin’

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan’s third album, and the first to feature entirely original compositions was to be his last with an intensely political message.

I remember I heard the title track in the cinema during the opening of Watchmen, well before I was particularly into Dylan. I remember thinking at the time that the it had such an urgency, such a sense of grandeur, and such an all encompassing sound that was remarkable for a song featuring only vocals, an acoustic guitar and a harmonica. The thing sounded huge. Obviously the cinema sound-system played a part in that, but I still feel like that about the song. It’s colossal. It’s a shame the rest of the film didn’t live up to that opening, which is still one of my most memorable musical moments in cinema.

This is both Dylan’s most and last political album. The humour of his debut has gone, there’s no breezy love songs anymore, this is just a set of stark, brilliantly observed songs about the fraught environment that Dylan was surrounded by in the 60’s.

The title track The Times They Are A-Changin’, which was deliberately written as an anthem for the change of the time, succeeds in doing just that. It’s prophetically performed, brilliantly written, and one of the most impactful songs I’ve ever heard. A real favourite.

Other highlights on this album include With God on Our Side, where over 7 minutes Bob tells how various opposing countries and ideas have claimed to have god on their side, and that if this is true god’s supported a whole manner of ills such as genocide and death. Dylan ends the song prophetically with the line: ‘If God’s on our side, then he’ll stop the next war’.

One Too Many Mornings is a rare moment of respite from the political preaching, and besides the title track, is my favourite song from the album. The line ‘and I’m one too many mornings, and a thousand miles behind’ that is repeated throughout the song is one of my very favourites, and delivered with the relatable resignation of never being where one wants to be.

When the Ship Comes In and The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll are two other examples of Dylan at his political best, the former with a sense of drama that mirrors The Times They Are A-Changin’.

There’s a lack of humour to this album for sure, and its political message can get overbearing, but there’s no doubt it contains some of the finest political songs ever written, and they’re sung, as ever, with an urgency and importance that Dylan never failed to bring across. It’s not quite as consistently engaging as Freewheelin’, and a bit more one-note, but it’s still rather special.

Song Picks: The Times They Are A-Changin’, One Too Many Mornings, With God On Our Side, When The Ship Comes In

8.5/10

Getz/Gilberto is a bossa nova album by American saxophonist Stan Getz and Brazilian guitarist João Gilberto. It also features Antonio Carlos Jobim on the piano who had a big hand in composing most of the tracks but obviously wasn’t deemed important enough to get his name on the album title, or perhaps two slashes is just one too many slashes? Who knows.

As mentioned in my review of Charles Mingus’ Tijuana Moods way back in 1961 I’m a big fan of two musical cultures coming together, and I’m delighted to say that this is another instance of it working really well. Considered as the album that popularised bossa nova around the world, Getz/Gilberto was a commercial as well as a critical success back in 1964. It’s opening track The Girl from Ipanema (Garota de Ipanema in Portuguese) is a song you’ve no doubt heard of, and is probably the most well known bossa nova song worldwide.

I’m not going to hide my feelings until the end of this review; this album is an absolute delight. Joao Gilberto’s nylon string guitar playing is as smooth and simple as butter (it’s just milk innit), and his singing has such a quiet, relaxing, contemplative feel to it that it’s hard not to get whisked away. Stan Getz’s saxophone playing may not have the technical prowess of someone like Coltrane but my, does it have feeling. That thing hums and sings in his hands, it expresses so much with so little, and is easily some of my favourite saxophone playing. I mean just listen to Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars), the song starts with one of Astrud Gilberto’s appearances, she also stars on Girl from Ipanema, as she sings of quiet nights and stars in a beautifully evocative way, again in a similarly un-showy and relaxed manner to Joao Gilberto’s vocals. Shortly after the words ‘oh how lovely’ float from her lips, in comes Getz with a short saxophone lick that took me straight to the promised land, a moment of pure magic.

Listening to all 33 minutes of this has got to be one of the most relaxing experiences anyone can have. I mean yoga, meditation and all that just seems redundant now that I’ve discovered this. I feel like I’m taking off, slowly rising over the Earth, zooming out on all the troubles of the world, before being planted back gently to wherever I’m sitting as the final saxophone note of Vivo Sonhando plays. This is a masterpiece in understatedness, every note is effective, nothing is overdone, and it all works together to create one of the prettiest things I’ve ever heard. It’s really hard to create a happy and relaxed sounding album that doesn’t sound painfully cheesy, and even less easy for one to include the saxophone so extensively (a famously cheesy instrument thanks to the 80s). Sometimes it’s not about pushing boundaries, but about mastering your craft so much that you can make something masterful sound as if you could play it while asleep. An absolute triumph.

Song Picks: Girl from Ipanema, Corcovado,

9.5/10

Dylan’s fourth album still has nothing but his voice, acoustic guitar and harmonica on it, but don’t let that fool you, Bob has taken a very new direction here. Gone are the political songs, replaced by a set of introspective, at times surreal, songs performed with a particular lack of vocal restraint.

Another Side of Dylan is a lyrical turning point, and the glorious birth of the more abstract poetry that would fill the rest of his 60’s albums. Lyrically, this is some of his strongest work in my opinion, and they are very much a main part as to why this is such a fascinating and underrated album. I think Dylan’s vocals are perhaps at their most testing here, he pushes them to where they perhaps shouldn’t go, but they have a more delicate feel to them. Gone is the invincible and prophetic Dylan of The Times They Are A-Changin’, he’s been replaced by a more poetic, introspective, and fragile version.

Chimes of Freedom is a case in point, a masterpiece in my eyes. Go and listen to it, I implore you. I’d say just read the lyrics, but you’d miss out on a truly captivating vocal performance and the wonderful melody that ends every verse. Here’s a section for you to read in the meantime:

Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail
The sky cracked it's poems in naked wonder
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leavin' only bells of lightning and it's thunder
Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
And the poet and the painter far behind his rightful time
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

The imagery created is fabulous, and the Rimbaud influences are evident (a poet Dylan was reading plenty of at this time and a massive influence on his lyrical style). This is where Dylan turns from a folk musician, to a singing poet. From someone who points a finger at things that exist, to someone who creates things that don’t.

To Ramona is another personal favourite of mine and another lyrical masterpiece which again shows Dylan’s uncanny ability to captivate without the need for a chorus. The verses end with a familiar, powerfully performed melody and before you know it, you’re hooked into yet another world of word mastery.

Dylan’s humour is evident here too in I Shall Be Free No 10 and particularly in Motorpsycho Nightmare where you can hear Dylan cracking himself up, his story getting more and more ludicrous as he decides the way to appease a farmer whose daughter he’s just been caught in bed with is to tell him he looks like Fidel Castro. This is the 60’s, in America. Bad idea.

Here’s some lyrics from the underrated gem My Back Pages:

A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

I mean just read that! I’m not sure what it means, but it’s amazing. Which is pretty much how I’d sum up Dylan’s lyrics from this point forward. Sure, his lyrics were easier to decipher before, but they’re now full of mystery, full of imagery, full of stardust, like a magical dream that floats in your memory as you wake up, unable to grasp it again.

I’ve not even mentioned the famous It Ain’t Me Babe? which closes out this album, there’s just too much to talk about.

Another Side of Bob Dylan is one of Dylan’s more challenging albums, but one that is well worth the effort. Give it a few spins, let those slightly erratic vocals become more normal and then sit back and focus on the words, you won’t regret it.

I have to be honest, I didn’t think Dylan was going to take the title for 1964 when I started listening to these and Getz/Gilberto had it in the bag right up until earlier today. Then I listened to this again, and the fact that I’ve been listening to this thing for 10 years and still find new bits of magic every time is pretty spectacular. It’s unfair to compare an album that’s been a part of your life for so long to one you’ve heard for the first time a week or so ago, but this just pipped it to the post.

9.5/10