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

1973 - Clive's Top Albums of Every Year Challenge

September 07, 2020 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music

Well, hello there 1973, let’s have a look at what happened in your fine year. A ceasefire was signed ending the involvement of American groundtroops in the Vietnam war and the US also stopped bombing Cambodia, ending 12 years of conflict in Southeast Asia. Pablo Picasso died and Marlon Brando rejected his Best Actor Oscar for The Godfather in protest of the US Government’s treatment of Native Americans. TCP/IP was also invented, which a decade later would become the chosen communication method for computers over the internet.

Rateyourmusic.com users rate the following five albums as their top 5 of 1973:

#1 Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon
#2 Can - Future Days
#3 Stevie Wonder - Innervisions
#4 King Crimson - Larks’ Tongues in Aspic
#5 Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy

So, we have Led Zeppelin with yet another entry, along with returns from Pink Floyd, Can and King Crimson. Stevie Wonder on the other hand, makes his first appearance. Of course, as usual. I’ll take a look further down the list and throw some more into the mix:

#6 Genesis - Selling England by the Pound
#7 Iggy and The Stooges - Raw Power
#9 Herbie Hancock - Head Hunters
#10 David Bowie- Aladdin Sane
#11 Faust - Faust IV
#16 Tom Waits - Closing Time
#19 Bob Marley & The Wailers - Catch a Fire
#51 Renaissance - Ashes Are Burning
#97 Betty Davis - Betty Davis

And that’s 14 to get through this time, quite the battle royale. Let’s see who emerges the victor, and then I really should start reviewing a few less every year or I’ll never get this thing done. Anyway, here’s my reviews and ranking of the above 14 albums.

AshesAreBurning — 14. Ashes are Burning

Renaisannce

The fourth album from the English prog-rock band was the first of theirs to make it into the Billboard 200, peaking at 171. It’s also the album where they made a conscious decision to distance themselves from the more electric guitar led progressive rock bands that were starting to clog up the musical landscape and head in a more acoustic guitar led direction. Interestingly, most of the songrwiting was handled via post. Dunford, the band’s composer, who was later to join the band more fully, would send his melodies to Betty Thatcher, the group’s lyricist, before the whole thing got passed onto the rest of the band to come up with the arrangement.

Can You Understand opens the album with a dramatic piano led start backed by staccato drum and bass stabs before the whole thing explodes into motion. Once Annie Haslam’s choir-like vocals come in the whole thing has a distinctly more acoustic feel, which closes out the track and continues until the end when the soundscape expands somewhat again. Let It Grow is a gentle love-song about taking it slow and appreciating one another. The arrangement is strikingly simple for a prog-rock band and Annie’s vocals are quite wonderful, particularly the flawless falsetto she demonstrates in the chorus. Tout’s piano lines provide the perfect emotional follow-up to each chorus, twinkling like a drizzle of rain on a sunny day. It’s a lovely song. On the Frontier again demonstrates Renaissance’s main strength, their ability to craft pretty melodies, and in this particular instance creating an uplifting rallying cry for us to join the frontier. The frontier for what? Well you can decide that for yourself.

Side two opens with Carpet of the Sun and again Annie’s melody is so perfect it makes you wonder if you’ve heard this song before as it all sounds so strangely familiar and timeless. The violin, gentle percussion and of course the piano all provide luscious backing for the melodies as Annie sings a load of philosophical ideas, wrapped in the imagery of nature. The penultimate track, At The Harbour has what I’d call the album’s most ‘prog-rocky' melody, and thus is probably my least favourite song, though I do like the gentle twinkle of the plucked acoustic guitar and the evocative imagery of Thatcher’s lyrics. The album closes with the title track, an 11 minute journey through a beautiful sonic environment evoking that of a mythical forest as Haslam’s vocals seem to sing of passing into the afterlife. If the beautiful finale of the song is any indication, it seems we’ve got something pretty great to look forward to.

Ashes are Burning isn’t massively pushing any boundaries, and presents a fairly well-trodden folky sound, but it does contain some beautiful peaks and melodies. Though at times it borders on being a little cheesy, it remains an enjoyable, evocative listen throughout.

Song Picks: Let It Grow, On the Frontier, Ashes are Burning

7.5/10

13. Larks’ Tongues in Aspic

King Crimson

The fifth album by King Crimson sees a dramatic change in the band’s lineup, with only Robert Fripp remaining from the original one, and introducing four new members including drummer Bill Brufford - who left Yes after Close to the Edge, an album I loved from 1972. It draws more on Eastern European classical music, and the most striking change in sound is perhaps the removal of flutes and saxophone, and the addition of violin.

The opening 13 minute Lark’s Tongues in Aspic (Part I) is a song of contrasts. It starts with a James Muir percussive soundscape building up a tropical atmosphere before a thumping Robert Fripp riff smashes through the tropical feel like a bulldozer through a holiday resort. The atmosphere changes dramatically from then, and it becomes a haunting piece of peaks and troughs, building to Fripp’s devastating riff again before Brufford moves things along with a rattling beat accompanied again by Muir’s extravagantly varied percussion. This frantic middle-section is followed by a slow section, which sounds as if it’s coming from a mountain village, the violin having a charmingly amateur feel to it. It could easily have finished with another Fripp barrage, but it doesn’t. Building instead to an eerie soundscape of synths and ambient chatter.

Book of Saturday is a chilled, if slightly unremarkable song, the band creating a luscious, rather light-hearted landscape to back John Wetton’s vocals. Palmer-Jones’ lyrics depict the struggles of adapting to life in a new place on Exiles, a song that uses a mellotron for much of its instrumental impact, and features a typically drifting melody from Wetton. Easy Money sees the band grooving before another crescendo of percussive craziness from Muir - who seems keen to just pick up anything lying around and use it as an instrument by hitting it. Indeed he is credited as playing ‘allsorts’ in the album’s sleeve. The melody gives me slightly Pink Floyd feels, but the soundscape shows a much more Eastern feel. Talking Drum builds things very slowly back up to a rockier feel before the final track and pièce de résistance Larks’ Tongues in Aspic (Part II) dials the rock up to 10 with a whole host of weird time signatures, off-beat drumming and inventive sections. Some of the distorted guitar parts have clearly been incredibly influential and you can hear descendants of that sawed riff scattered through music over the next few decades, and even today. It’s a song that builds and builds to its riff based crescendos, ending in one that features some of the most scattered, chaotic drumming I’ve ever heard, before the guitar just swarms the soundscape like a terrifying horde of locusts, eating away everything and leaving us with silence. It’s one of the year’s best pieces of music and perhaps the first example of progressive metal.

Lark’s Tongues in Aspic has some of the highs of In the Court with the Crimson King, but it doesn’t quite have the consistency, containing some more fillery sections and songs - e.g. Talking Drum.

Song Picks: Larks’ Tongues in Aspic (Part II), Easy Money

8/10

SellingEngland — 12. Selling England by the Pound

Genesis

And the first Genesis album to grace our list is their fifth. An album about the decline of English folk culture in the face of American influence - as referenced in the title - it spawned the band's first top 30 UK hit with I Know What I Like. The album itself made it to number 3, and features many of the band’s most popular songs.

Dancing With the Moonlit Knight sets the tone for what's to come and is a pretty good indication of how much you'll like the rest of the album. The song combines folk with prog-rock as the whole album does. It starts with a folky, slightly cheesy start lamenting the loss of his country. Peter Gabriel's singing of the album's title followed by some a lovely folky soundscape seemingly straight from some band of elves. The end of the song turns to much more intense prog-rock as the organ ups the drama and Phil Collins racks up a whole heap of technically skilled beats, fills and stops, setting the tone for what is one of the finest drumming albums we've had so far on the challenge. Yep, there's more to him than that fill on the Cadbury's advert.

I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) is a song very much depicted by the album’s cover - a painting by Betty Swanwick that the band asked her to add a lawn mower to. The song depicts someone being persuaded to change in a multitude of ways and do more exciting things, but our protagonist just wants a simple life doing what he does best, mowing the lawn. The song features a strikingly anthemic chorus, a spoken word section, and plenty of that prog-rock keyboard sound that was so loved in the early 70s. The following Firth of Fifth starts with a keyboard solo that seems to spiral in on itself repeatedly, played by the group’s keyboard player Tony Banks, who wrote the song. It’s a pretty straight example of prog-rock with it’s switching of time-signatures, intensities and moods, all ridden by Phil Collins like he’s physically tied to the ideas of the rest of the band. The guy switches from complex section to complex section like he’s been doing it since birth. Hackett’s guitar - which is a reworked version of something Banks had written - is a majestic finale to the track, and competes with some of Pink Floyd’s best solos for sheer effective, emotionally affecting simplicity.

More Fool Me is the album’s only song to feature Phil Collins on vocals, a role he was to take up permanently in 1975 when Peter Gabriel left the band. Uncharacteristically for the album, the piece is a simple love song, reportedly written by Collins and bassist Bill Rutherford in a short time while sat out on the steps outside the front of the studio. It shows Collins’ talent for a stadium filling chorus that was to become a big part of his solo career later on.

Side two opens with the 11 minute Battle of Epping Forest, a song written by the Gabriel about the gang wars in East London. It’s my least favourite track on the album, held back by the fact the lyrics seem a little squashed in and forced, which to me reduces the impact of what is some very solidly performed prog-rock otherwise. After the Ordeal is a nice enough if slightly unremarkable instrumental with a nice climax. The albums’s final epic, the 10 and a half minute The Cinema Show has lyrics imspired by T.S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land. The song ends in a 4 and a half minute keyboard solo by Tony Banks, accompanied by the drifting of the rest of the band culminating in perhaps Collins’ best drum work on the whole album. The two minute Aisle of Plenty serves as a bookend to the album, reprising the opening track’s melody and lyrical themes, featuring a vocally intense outro that is both haunting and great.

Selling England by the Pound is 70s prog-rock through and through, it loves getting all complicated with time signatures and mixing things up constantly within songs. I have to confess to not being the biggest prog-rock guy, but despite that I still think this is great. The vast majority of the songs are interesting, well crafted, and the whole thing fits together cohesively. Phil Collins’ breathtaking performance on the drum kit throughout is probably the thing that’ll keep me coming back though.

Song Picks: Dancing With the Moonlit Knight, I Know What I Like, More Fool Me

8/10

Aladdin Sane (a lad insane - geddit?) is Bowie’s sixth album, and the first he wrote and released from a position of stardom. Bowie was by now huge in the UK, and Aladdin Sane was partly inspired by his keenness to be a big deal in the states too. Aladdin Sane was Bowie’s follow up character to Ziggy Stardust, and described by Bowie as ‘Ziggy Stardust in America.’ The album cover was the most expensive ever up to that point and has become one of his most iconic images. The text also looks charmingly like some WordArt from Windows 98.

Aladdin Sane sounds a bit more extravagant and a smidge heavier than the previous The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, but it’s still very much glam-rock. The album opens with Watch That Man, which is about an after-party put on by the New York Dolls’ lead singer David Johansen - ‘that man’ being him. The song has an exuberant party atmosphere and introduces Mike Garson on the piano, who’s playing adds bright colour to many of the album’s songs and features a guitar riff at the end by Mick Ronson that must have been stolen endless times in the years to come. Aladdin Sane introduces our protagonist in an anti-war song which features a piano solo from Garson that wouldn’t be out of place on a boundary pushing jazz album, it’s dissonant chord stabs giving a dark edge to the otherwise bouncy feeling instrumentation.

Drive-In Saturday features one of the album’s catchiest - and perhaps Ziggy Stardust-like - choruses, and it unsurprisingly reached #3 as a single. In Bowie’s words, ”it’s about a future where people have forgotten how to make love, so they go back onto video-films that they have kept from this century,” as you’d expect from Bowie, he builds this future world with aplomb, both lyrically and musically. We move onto the world percussion fest of Panic In Detroit, about the 1967 Detroit riots before moving onto the brilliant Cracked Actor - a song about an aging actor’s encounter with a prostitute which begins with a particularly Oasis-esque riff to close out side one.

Time opens side two with more Mike Garson piano wizardry, which provides much of the song’s burlesque, cabaret atmosphere. Bowie’s melodic “we should be home by now” that opens the chorus helps raise the song from an inventive piece of brilliance, to an inventive piece of brilliance that is also infectious, and perhaps my favourite track on the album. The Prettiest Star is a gentle saxophone led song written for Bowie’s first wife, Angie Barnett and Let’s Spend the Night Together somewhat recreates the party atmosphere of the opening track, once again largely thanks to Garson’s honky-tonk piano chords. The album is closed out by the infectious romp The Jean Genie - given a real backwoods blues feel by that amplified Harmonica sound, and the less known, but quietly beautiful, piano ballad Lady Grinning Soul, featuring yet another brilliant performance from Garson, who swirls along creating ribbons of notes to cocoon yourself in.

Aladdin Sane more or less continues the trajectory of 1972’s Ziggy Stardust, adding some heavier and fuller production, as well as Garson’s brilliant piano playing. The song writing isn’t quite up to the consistently great standard of Ziggy Stardust though, and that’s why it ends up slightly lower in my estimations. Though it has to be said, Ziggy Stardust is an unfairly high bar to judge anything by.

Song Picks: Watch that Man, Time, The Jean Genie, Lady Grinning Soul

8/10

Betty Davis’ debut album is filthy, funky as all hell, and absolutely one of the sexiest albums ever. Davis was married to Miles Davis for a year and also a close friend of Jimi Hendrix’s - who Miles accused her of having an affair with. She’s featured on the cover of Miles’ 1968 album Filles de Killimajaro - which also includes a song about her - and is also believed to have introduced Miles to a lot of the music that influenced his late 60s material and beyond. Now, prepare yourself for a review that features the word ‘funk’ so often, it should probably get a Guinness world record.

Betty Davis pulls no punches, and starts with the funktacular If I'm In Luck I Might Get Picked Up. We’ve got a groovy, skipping drumbeat, a heavy guitar riff and the addition of a variety of percussion as well as an organ all creating an endlessly grooving, funky atmosphere. And then we get to Betty Davis’ voice, which is gravelly, expressive, breathy, and suggestive as she sings confidently of wanting to be taken home.

Your Man My Man features the band on top form, the guitarists, and particularly the bass bouncing around the drums like a noisy off-beat pogo stick. The clean backing vocals remind you just how much character Davis’ vocals have. There is so much energy and immediacy behind them, it’s hard to imagine her being anything but an exceptional live performer.

Stepping High in Her I. Miller Shoes tells the story of someone who comes to the city with talent and dreams, only to have them crushed. It’s based on the life of Devon Wilson, a onetime girlfriend of Jimi Hendrix’s. The song sees a change in the usual off-beat bass drum patterns you usually hear in funk, replaced by a much more straightforward beat. It gives the song a more straight hard-rock feel, one which the Jimi Hendrix-esque guitar riffing only aids. This break in funk helps the beat hit hard again when we get to the following Game is My Middle Name, featuring perhaps Davis’ most extravagant vocal performance backed by a Creedence Clearwater Revival style guitar riff, which turns an otherwise straight-rock arrangement into a surprisingly funky one.

Betty Davis’ extravagant vocals are as energetic and sexually powered as Mick Jagger’s, and it’s a heavier, tighter, and funkier version of the Rolling Stones that I’d most compare the sound of this album to. Betty Davis is the powerful arrival of one of funk’s pioneers, an irresistibly funky 30 minute package.

Song Picks: If I’m In Luck I Might Get Picked Up, Your Man My Man, Game is My Middle Name

8/10

ClosingTIme — 9. Closing Time

Tom Waits

Tom Waits’ debut album is perhaps not what you’d expect for fans of his later albums. It’s tuneful, accessible, and not at all as experimental as his later material. It is however beautiful. The album cover was apparently inspired by how Waits wanted the album to sound. He’s pictured with beer, a shot of whisky and a pack of cigarettes by a bar-piano. I’d say the cover nails it.

The album opens with Ol’ 55, one of Waits’ first songs, and one which was covered by the Eagles - a band Waits was less than keen on. It’s a simple song telling the story of a guy who only has a limited time to see his girlfriend because of a curfew. Waits’ piano is beautifully backed by some gentle drums, bass and piano, but it’s the piano itself that is the star of the show. That opening twinkle is particularly gorgeous. Waits is a convincing storyteller, with vocals that are interesting enough to add depth to the simple melody.

I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You is an intriguing reverse love song about a man who sees a woman at a bar and hopes they don’t fall in love as that would only cause him to ‘feel blue,’ presumably when she inevitably left him. It again shows Waits’ ability to tell a simple story, hooking you in with a repeat of the song’s title at the end of each verse to a catchy hummable melody.

The album is packed with well-written and engaging songs like the above - with jazzier instrumentation mixing things up on songs like Midnight Lullaby - but there’s a couple of times when it goes beyond that. Martha for example is a straight up masterpiece. It tells the story of an old man calling up an old lover over 40 years after they’ve broken up. Tom’s vocal is notably more ragged, convincingly passing for a man many years older than his 23 years, which helps to sell the performance. The song is minimally backed by some strings and sparse backing vocals towards its ending as Waits sings sadly of wanting to rekindle an old, old flame. The song’s melody soars and combines with the poignant lyrics to create something that only the coldest of hearts would fail to be moved by.

Tom Waits was a regular at a bar called ‘The Troubadour’ in LA, and it was there where a performance of Grapefruit Moon floored David Geffen and got Waits signed to Asylum Records, eventually leading to this release. Grapefruit Moon is included on this album and it’s easy to see why the song had such an effect on Geffen. Waits sings his way through three gorgeous verses with a ragged vocal similar to that on Martha and a melody equally as moving. It’s unclear exactly what it’s about, but to me it’s the story of an old man - Waits’ vocal style seems to back this - looking back on his life with more than a little regret.

Never had no destinations
Could not get across
You became my inspiration
Oh, but what a cost
And every time I hear that melody
Something breaks inside
And the grapefruit moon, one star shining
Is more than I can hide

Closing Time is a humble telling of familiar stories of love and loss - and ice cream. Waits’ performances are completely present, relatable, and affecting. I’m excited to get to Tom’s more famous releases, but this is a quite remarkable debut.

Song Picks: I Hope that I Don’t Fall In Love With You, Martha, Grapefruit Moon

8.5/10

Head Hunters_Herbie Hancock.jpg — 8. Head Hunters

Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock’s twelfth album saw him turning to funk, and a more accessible style of music. Or in his words, ‘I was tired of everything being heavy. I wanted to play something lighter.’ It is one of the defining moments of the jazz-fusion movement, and one of the first examples of jazz-funk.

Chameleon kicks things off with a quacky bass part played by Hancock on an ARP Odyssey synthesiser, and its marching groove dominates much of the track’s drive, along with Harvey Mason’s syncopated, funky beat with an infectious hi-hat shuffle. As Mason and Hancock march on Hancock splatters clavinet all over the track, creating a 70s sci-fi vibe as he plays the thing like a saxophone. The breakdowns - at 7:21 for example - are a sublime, offbeat and syncopated dream, filling your bloodstream with ‘the funk,’ leading to seriously restless limbs. I’ve already mentioned Mason’s drumming but I’m going to mention it again as it’s him who keeps the whole thing grooving along with the synth bass - and later Jackson’s actual bass, driving it for the full 15 minutes like a lively train with an impeccable sense of timing - a Swiss train if you will. By the time conga wizard Bill Summers comes in you’ve started bopping round the room like a pigeon, hypnotised by this music. It’s got soul, man.

Watermelon Man, a song that was already a jazz standard by now having been recorded numerous times - is back with an all new funky version. This one begins with an intro by Bill Summer blowing into a variety of beer bottles. The groove laid down by Mason’s bopping drums and Jackson’s bumbling bass is so relaxed its an absolute miracle a hammock doesn’t just appear out of nowhere when you listen to it, something that is only emphasised in its cool-as-a-cucumber breakdowns. Sly is, as the name implies, something that would be a fitting soundtrack for a spy, or indeed the Pink Panther. The bass footsteps along gently, as the rest of the band provide moments of panic, as our spy is about to be caught. Somewhere in there we’ve got the groove of safety before things all get a bit hectic as our agent has presumably got themselves into an inevitable car chase. The congas skitter like the vegetables in that market stall he’s just driven through and the Benny Maupin’s sax bends like the tight alleys he’s trying to lose his pursuer in. It’s a bit of a journey this one but it’s still got that infectious dance-able quality to it that is splashed all over this record.

The album ends with the brilliantly named 9-minute Vein Melter, which relaxes things significantly, rolling on like a walk through an empty town with a loved one. There’s the un-nerving echoes of eerie instruments in the distance, but you needn’t be too concerned because Mason’s bass is always there for a comforting hug, should you ever need one.

Head Hunters is a marvellous jazz-funk odyssey, and shows yet again Herbie Hancock’s ability to create worlds and stories with sound. Here he’s managed to pave the way for a whole new genre, while still making a downright accessible piece of music that pretty much anyone can enjoy. Remarkable.

Song Picks: Chameleon, Watermelon Man

8.5/10

Faust IV is - predictably - the German krautrock band’s fourth release. It was the last album by this incarnation of the band, though the band is still active today with a different lineup. The album was recorded after they were dropped from Polydor Records - largely due to them being rather hard to classify or market - and were taken up by Richard Branson’s then new label, Virgin Records.

The album opens with Krautrock, a track of distorted brilliance, creating an industrial, echoed atmosphere that’s central ‘melody’ is rather accessible. It builds and builds but takes around 7 minutes just for the drums to come in, by which point you’re in an industrial German trance. If anything, the drums add some comfort to the intimidating din, as the robotic R2D2-like noises begin to get more frequent and jumbled. It’s an 11 minute piece that is difficult to describe as anything else other than a fall into a distorted abyss where everything fragments and crumbles, much like the room of abstract thought in Pixar’s masterpiece Inside Out - if you’ve ever seen that. Once the waves of distortion bleed into The Sad Skinhead you’re already sold to the album’s intriguing sense of mystery. The Sad Skinhead only serves to increase this mystery by being the absolute opposite of what you’d expect to follow that song, a jolly, bouncy song that owuldn’t be out of place on the Nintendo 64’s Banjo Kazooie soundtrack. Lyrically it’s somewhat darker than that, something which you only have to pay attention the first verse to notice.

Apart from all the bad times you gave me
I always felt good with you
Going places, smashing faces
What else could we do?
What else could we do?

Jennifer takes us back to the distorted and echoed sound of the opening track, but this time it’s used to create the bedding for perhap’s the album’s catchiest track, featuring only two lines which are repeated throughout: ‘Jennifer, your red hair's burning, Yellow jokes come out of your mind.’ The song’s end is a distorted explosion, followed by a completely unexpected jingle on a variety of instruments seemingly preceded by a shout of ‘everyone only play happy notes!’

Side two opens with Just a Second, a song featuring an infinitely weird twittering like skitter of synthesisers, underlaid by what sounds like a UFO turning on its engines. But you’ve heard nothing yet, as Giggy Smile / Picnic on a Frozen River, Deuxieme Tableau is probably the weirdest of the bunch. Driven by a rattling drum beat and the melody of that ridiculously nursery-rhyme-like vocal which sings lyrics that could only have been written while under the influence of a variety of recreationals. The song mashes together a whole host of genres that probably shouldn’t work, and comes out the other end as something rather fantastic, with a Dan Deacon like feeling of joy to its climax, inspired by a chirpy melody line seemingly played on a toy, over and over again. It stops completely abruptly, leaving you thinking you’re about to receive a call, every goddam time.

Läuft...Heißt Das Es Läuft Oder Es Kommt Bald...Läuft starts with two band members conversing - the title a transcript of their conversation - before launching into a song that when described would sound overly complicated, but is actually just a simple guitar plucked number containing two lines in French which translate as ‘I’m not afraid of wasting my time, I’m not afraid of losing my teeth.’ The second half prominently features the organ, and what it plays is quietly beautiful, touching, and as always, completely unexpected. It slowly distorts - obviously - gently pulsating before the organ seemingly breaks, creating a swirling crescendo which fades back into the beautifully simple part from before. Quite honestly, it’s one of my favourite musical passages of the year.

Things finish with the dry It’s a Bit of a Pain, a song featuring the brilliant lyrics, ‘it's a bit of a pain, To be where I am, It's a bit of a pain, To be what I am’ sung with the utmost seriousness. The melody is simple, but the accompaniment features some Velvet Underground levels of dissonance and madness, particularly the chattering, garbled robot that seems to be trying to convey something rather simple that we’re just too dumb to understand.

Faust IV is quite unlike anything I’ve heard before. It’s unpredictable, completely mad, weird, disjointed, and yet it’s also strangely accessible. It sounds like a band trying to thoroughly deconstruct a pop framework, rather than one completely off the leash. And in the end that catchy heart is still there, it’s just been blown to a million infinitely interesting pieces.

Song Picks: Krautrock, Läuft...Heißt Das Es Läuft Oder Es Kommt Bald...Läuft, Giggy Smile / Picnic on a Frozen River, Deuxieme Tableau

8.5/10

HousesoftheHoly — 6. Houses of the Holy

Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin are back with their fifth album, and their fifth to have made it on these lists. Quite the record. This one sees them actually putting some thought into the album’s name, though interestingly the title track - which was recorded for this album - didn’t appear until their next release.

The album’s cleaner and less distorted guitar led nature is clear from the off on The Song Remains the Same where - although the song definitely still rocks with a boundless energy - it’s less of a aural barrage than the heavier tracks on previous albums. Rain Song is a rare ballad from the band and features Robert Plant’s favourite vocal performance. Track three, Over the Hills and Far Away is a song about the hippie lifestyle and starts with a delightful acoustic guitar part that’s a wonderful mix of twiddly notes and solid strums. The second half is perhaps the heaviest the album gets, as the distorted guitar makes a brief return before everything disappears into the bottom of a well to be replaced by a soothing goodbye, leading us nicely into the John Bonham written The Crunge. Bonham wrote The Crunge’s funky drumbeat which Jimmy Page sings over in the style of James Brown - something that gets more exaggerated as the song goes on, emphasising the song’s not entirely serious nature. Page’s ‘where’s the bridge?’ joke at the end of the track takes this yet further. Rather unsurprisingly, the piece began its life as an on stage jam.

A lot of the album was written in a jovial atmosphere on Stargroves - Mick Jagger’s estate that he’d purchased in 1970. The estate cost him a massive £55,000 (£857,202.46 in today’s money). This jovial atmosphere is yet again evident on Dancing Days, a song with a clanging guitar riff and optimistic lyrics. Producer Eddie Kramer particularly remembers the band dancing around to the final mix in the garden at Stargroves, which is a lovely image. Now, before we talk about D’yer Mak’er we’ve got to talk about that name. Well, it’s based on the fact that ‘did you make her’ said in various British accents (e.g. Cockney) sounds like Jamaica, and the song is reggae inspired, geddit? Anyway, it’s one of my favourite Led Zeppelin songs. That riff like sunshine, Plant’s silly vocals, Bonham’s bouncy beat. D’yer Mak’er is absolutely delightful, a musical trip to a beach full of people being daft and having a good time.

No Quarter features one of my very favourite Led Zeppelin riffs - and there’s plenty of competition - as Jimmy Page saws his way over Bonham’s pounding beat. The riff magic is interspersed with Plant’s I’m-stuck-down-a-large-echoing-hole-please-help-me-out vocal that breaks up the pulverising riffs. An instrumental section towards the end sounds like a trip through some mysterious tunnel, and the whole thing is remarkably dark, Plant’s vocal sounding like that of a dying man by the time the last onslaught comes around. It’s another Led Zep favourite for me. Dark, brooding and mysteriously handsome. The album’s final track The Ocean probably sounds like a gentle sweeping epic to finish the album, but this is Led Zeppelin we’re talking about. The Ocean is in fact an AC/DC-esque celebration of their fans - ‘the ocean’ referring to the ocean of fans at their concerts. It’s the perfect way to finish an album that is strikingly optimistic and happy sounding, an album full of the gratitude of a band happy with where they’ve got to.

Houses of the Holy continues the band’s remarkably consistent run of albums and the second half is probably my favourite side on any Led Zeppelin album. It’s an album made by a band having a lot of fun, and that shines through.

Song Picks: The Song Remains the Same, D’yer Ma’ker, No Quarter

8.5/10

Future Days marks the third year on these lists from the German krautrockers. It’s their fourth album, and the last to feature vocalist Damo Suzuki. There’s no crazy story about its recording this time, which is a shame, but the album is interesting in the more ambient direction it takes. Focusing on as, critic Anthony Tognazzini puts it, “creating hazy, expansive soundscapes dominated by percolating rhythms and evocative layers of keys.”

From the start of the opening title track this dreamier atmosphere is clear. There’s less abrasiveness to the sound here and even Damo’s vocals have taken a chill pill, leading largely to quiet mumbles that fit effortlessly into the gorgeous musical soundscapes of the band. The song builds slowly on a syncopated drum beat, off-beat percussion and the repetitive picking of a guitar following an ambient start. The piece never crescendos - it doesn’t want to - and simply drifts along like the most pleasant of clouds on a calm Summer’s day. The guitars, keys and synthesisers add twinkles here, Damo appears now and again to talk about saving things for ‘future days’ before disappearing into the sky again. Around the 6 minute mark we’re launched off a ramp, the abyss looming below as things get darker and a guitar echoes from the bottom of the world’s largest pit, but it’s not long before we reach the other side of the ramp, breezing along again with Suzuki’s enigmatic ramblings. We’re launched again towards the song’s end as a synth helicopters loomingly above before everything fades out, Suzuki’s shouts of ‘for the sake of future days’ distorted and fading. It’s a gently funky, beautifully realised piece of music that’s strangely infectious.

Spray again relies heavily on the percussion to drive the track which takes a while to settle into its groove, but once it does there’s a wonderful clarity to everything. In particular the aforementioned percussion, which marches along in a way that brings to mind Miles Davis’ 1970 masterpiece Bitches Brew. Remember though on Bitches Brew there were three drummers and a percussionist, here we’ve just got Jaki Liebezeit who is clearly a master at creating percussive soundscapes. His drums blending seamlessly with the percussion - presumably overdubbed after - that colours it. Suzuki appears only rarely to add some variety to the musical soup, and the rarity of his appearances only makes his bizarrely brilliant rambles more effective.

Moonshake is that unusual beast, a 3 minute song by Can. not only this, but it’s one of the funkiest things I’ve ever heard. The bass and drums plod along as Michael Karoli’s guitar grooves around it like some funky alien around a pole - ok, that’s a weird image. Suzuki whispers along some characteristic nonsense in a way that’s somehow catchy. It’s a fabulous 3 minute example of just how singular, inventive and goddam effective Can are.

The entire second half f the album is taken up by the 20 minute sweeping epic Bel Air, which starts with the lapping of waves and a gentle chugging of a guitar. The organ darkens things somewhat but Suzuki’s vocal melody is remarkably twee. It sounds like a stroll on a beach as the sun is at the cusp of setting. Holger Czukay’s great basswork is particularly evident here, and its his quietly pulsating bass line that takes the song forward from the four minute mark, as the drums rattle on and the vocals get more and more distorted. The drums however remain so clear it sounds like you’re playing the things yourself. It all stops around the halfway mark to the sound of birds and mosquitoes before the guitar comes in with a new rhythm, this time perhaps more tropical. Suzuki continues to weave repetitive and happy melodies before he vanishes again, never to be heard again. There are points where it sounds chaotic, the drums frantic, the guitars and synth clashing in high pitched echoes, and yet miraculously it remains calming. There’s always that warm, chugging bass to return to, and although there is certainly some chaos around it, it feels like quiet chaos. The type of chaos that happens in your brain when you have a lie down and try to shut your brain off as various threads of thought try to quietly weave themselves into obscurity. Bel Air isn’t really a song as such, it’s a musical painting.

Future Days is my favourite Can album so far, it builds an atmosphere that’s impressively complex and chaotic for something so calming, and I don’t think there’s anything out there much like it. Suzuki’s last appearance on an album for the band is a restrained one, but it’s his measured, unexplainably catchy appearances that lift the sound perfectly every time it needs it. Future Days is an exercise in complex minimalism, if that is indeed a thing.

Song Picks: Moonshake, Future Days

9/10

4. Catch a Fire

Bob Marley & The Wailers

Bob Marley and the Wailers had just finished touring the UK and didn’t have enough money to return home to Jamaica. They approached producer Chris Blackwell, who agreed to advance them the money for an album so they could go back home and record it. Bob Marley returned with the tapes to London and - with the addition of some overdubs from Wayne Perkins to ‘westernise’ the sound a little - Catch a Fire was born. It’s now considered one of the greatest reggae albums of all time and began a successful period for the band under Chris Blackwell at Island Records. The album’s title is another way of saying ‘burn in hell’ and features on the song Slave Driver, Marley’s song of contempt about the slave trade. The cover above was only on the first 20,000 pressings, and opened like an actual zippo lighter, it was also used for the 2001 CD re-release.

To me, Bob Marley is one of the best vocalists of all time. His high and always perfectly in tune and characterful vocals can cut through any mix, and are the perfect companion to the concrete rumblingThe album starts with Concrete Jungle, a song perfectly demonstrating the abilities I’ve just outlined above. It jumps from gorgeous melody to gorgeous melody as Aston Barrett’s bass gently rumbles along and Bob Marley’s lyrics talk of his move to the US from Jamaica. I’ve already mentioned Slave Driver, which bounces along with a certain jolliness that defies its darker lyrics, featuring the particularly prescient couplet, ‘Today they say that we are free/Only to be chained in poverty.’ Few ever mastered the art of political lyrics without making them sound overly self-righteous quite as well as Bob. 400 Years - a different version of which appeared on the earlier Soul Rebels - is the first of two compositions by Pete Tosh on the album. His hollow, deeper vocal contrasting nicely with Bob’s as he sings sadly of 400 years of slavery and oppression. This is followed by Tosh’s second contribution, the more spritely Stop that Train, a song featuring a melody that you can’t help but song along to, and a song that perfectly demonstrates The Wailers’ ability to repeat lyrics and yet somehow never make them tiresome. Baby We’ve Got a Date sees the introduction of Bob’s backing vocalists Rita Marley - his wife - and Marcia Griffiths who complement Bob’s sumptuous melodies beautifully, and only help to increase the sunny atmosphere of the song.

Side two features more of the same, and not in a bad way, as the Wailers’ sun-drenched-concrete sound continues to transport you through classics such as the straight love song Stir it Up, Kinky Reggae and the slightly darker No More Trouble and Midnight Ravers. The latter shows the Wailer’s ability to groove along to just one chord, Bob’s melodies keeping things engaging, something they were to master on the song Exodus in 1977. The 2001 re-release saw the addition of High Tide or Low Tide (one of my Bob Marley favourites) and the jangling All Day All Night, but I won’t cover those here.

Although my favourite Bob Marley era will always be the productions Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry led - particularly Soul Revolution - this is undoubtedly one of the many highlights of his time with Island Records. Chris Blackwell changed their sound to one more accessible to Western audiences with the addition of Wayne Perkins’ guitar twinkles while maintaining the roots of what Bob’s music so engaging - and is no doubt largely to thank for Marley’s worldwide fame now. The gentle and yet dominating dubby bass lanes, those crisp off-beat guitar strums, and Carlton Barrett’s musical drums all create an atmosphere like no other, and one that was to drive Bob Marley’s career for years to come. Catch a Fire features one of music’s most powerful figures on top form, weaving gorgeous melodies for fun, and never losing touch with the strong political message of love and acceptance that his career was built on.

Song Picks: Slave Driver, Stir it Up, Baby We’ve Got a Date, Stop that Train

9/10

Considered one of the forerunners of punk-rock, Raw Power is the third album by the Stooges and sees a turn into more anthemic songs, led by the fact that the new guitarist James Williamson co-wrote much of the material with Iggy Pop. The Stooges were largely in disarray following the release of their previous album Fun House and on relocating to London Iggy Pop put together a new band to back him. He also mixed the first version of this album, which was rejected by the label for some dubious choices - particularly related to the stereo nature of the mix. Bowie was drafted in to re-mix the entire album in a day for its 1973 release. Iggy Pop was then invited to remix the album himself in 1996 for a re-release, and although I know it’s probably cheating, it’s this mix I want to review. Bowie’s mix is fine, and it’s worth mentioning it’s only the 1989 CD version I’ve heard, which I gather Iggy Pop hated, and so the original mix in 1973 may well have been better. The 1989 version I have access to just sounds a bit quiet, it doesn’t smash you in the face like Iggy Pop’s later mix does. Sure, technically I think Bowie’s mix is better and Iggy’s is compressed to within an inch of its life to make it pulverisingly loud, but I think that fits the album better. The guitars are also WAY more forward in Iggy’s mix which, again, serves the album well.

Onto the actual music. The album opens with Search & Destroy, an aural assault of the best kind. James Williamson’s guitar is an absolute force of nature. Iggy roars lyrics about a soldier’s experience in Vietnam and by the time we get to the last chorus the guitars are so loud and compressed that the whole things sounds like an unholy mess, and it’s aboslutely glorious.

James Williamson’s influence cannot be underestimated on this album, and I think the riffs are superior to those on the Stooges’ first two albums, an improvement he is wholly responsible for. Gimme Danger again features a great riff, which benefits from being pushed way to the front in Iggy’s mix. Pop’s distorted shouts have no issue being heard among the din, and it just gives the whole thing a whole load more power, which is what this album is all about.

The title track opens the second side of the album, again featuring a pulsating power-chord riff from Williamson, it’s a song about heroin, something that seemed to be a must for any wannabe edgy 70s band. There’s some rather interesting percussion on the track, including a tambourine and what sounds like a bell of some sort, which juxtoposes somewhat with the menacing, distorted guitar riff to create an atmopshere of fun and abandon. The screeching guitar solo at the end is a messy, drug fuelled cry for anarchy. It’s another piledriver of a track.

Columbia Records demanded the album have at least two ballads that could be played on the radio, one of those was I Need Somebody, a song where Iggy’s vocal is so distorted it sounds like the Strokes. It has a surprisingly catchy chorus, and a slightly calmer atmosphere than much of the album. I probably don’t need to say at this point that Williamson - who liked to write his songs on acoustic rather than electric guitar - provides yet another excellent guitar part. The calm precedes another storm, the dancy Shake Appeal, which pretty much dares you not to get up and dance as it’s gallant riff and vocals run through your veins. Iggy has stated it’s his favourite song from the album, and it might just be mine too.

The final track is Iggy’s message about how he knew the band was doomed to failure - none of their three albums sold very well during their existence - and seems an appropriate way to end their last album. He does seem to know that the band will be appreciated later on though, “we’re going down in history/we’re going down,” he shouts above another distorted barrage. How right he was.

Raw Power is my favourite album by the Stooges. To me it’s the culmination of what they were about, the final realisation of their sound, both in terms of the performance and the mix - as long as you listen to Iggy’s 1996 mix. The production does the material justice, creating a sense of anarchy, abandon, and just raw power, man.

Song Picks: Search and Destroy, Gimme Danger, Raw Power, Shake Appeal

9.5/10

Stevie Wonder’s 16th album - yep, I know that’s a lot - sees him transitioning from romantic ballads to more complex compositions. As with Herbie Hancock’s Head Hunters, the album features the ARP synthesiser prominently. Stevie Wonder also plays the vast majority of the instruments on the album, being perhaps the first example of a ‘one-man band’ we’ve had on the challenge. Most songs feature him on the piano, bass moog, synthesiser, and drums while other musicians accompany him on a couple of other instruments.

Too High is a dominated by a funky ARP synthesiser line, bumbling along accompanied by a very technically proficient drum part. Wonder plays every single instrument on this thing, which is stupendously impressive when you listen to it. It’s complex, catchy and groovy, stopping and starting effortlessly with the tightness of a well knit band. it still perplexes me that he could overdub his own playing so effectively and in time. Lyrically, the song is a bit of an anti-drug warning. Visions sees Wonder joined by a bass, acoustic guitar and electric guitar which all create a sumptuous, gently twinkling atmosphere to he warmly sings of inner and societal peace before we head into the album’s first mega-hit, Living for the City.

Now, Living for the City is a masterpiece, a tale of a Black man who dreams of life in the city, only to find its just a new flavour of inequality, leaving him disillusioned by the song’s end. A poignant commentary on race-relations in the USA, it’s also a perfectly crafted song instrumentally and melodically. Wonder’s vocals are gruff and rock ‘n’ roll and his melodies as catchy as a really big fishing net. The backing vocalists give the chorus a wonderful boost, catapulting Wonder’s cries of ‘Living just enough/just enough for the city’ into the realms of musical magic.

You’d think something so brilliant couldn’t possible be followed by anything even remotely comparable right? Well, you’d be wrong. Golden Lady is a simple love song, lifted again by Wonder’s golden syrup vocals and a chorus melody that seems to have dropped down straight from the heavens. Then we segue into Higher Ground, a song famously covered by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I’d probably go as far as to say it’s the funkiest song to appear so far on the challenge, that synth quacking along like Donald Duck on the funk juice as Wonder sings of reincarnation and second chances, seemingly unaware of his effortless genius. As you make your way through Wonder’s balanced look at modern religion in Jesus Children of America, you’re once again left pinching yourself when you find out he is playing every instrument on the song.

All is Fair in Love is another of the album’s true masterpieces, and one of the most affecting songs written about love I’ve ever heard. I mean just read this first verse:

All is fair in love
Love's a crazy game
Two people vow to stay
In love as one they say
But all is changed with time
The future none can see
The road you leave behind
Ahead lies mystery

Couple the song’s brilliantly evocative lyrics with Wonder’s cataclysmic vocal performance; going from gentle, to vibrato, to belting out notes at the top of his voice, and you have yourselves a powerful, powerful song. The album ends with the positively tropical Don’t You Worry About a Thing and the possible shot at President Nixon He’s Mr Know It All, another song driven by a melody that flows like lava through the chorus

3 days after the release of Innervisions, Stevie Wonder was involved in a car crash that involved a log smashing through the car and squarely into his forehead. Amazingly, he didn’t die, and was reportedly too scared to try and play an instrument while recovering in hospital, afraid he’d lost his musical skill. When he did eventually try a clavinet and realised he could play it, singer Ira Tucker noted, ‘man, you could just see the happiness spreading all over him. I'll never forget that.’ Innervisions is the work of a man for whom music very much was his life. Blind since shortly after his birth, Wonder was signed to a record label ever since the age of 11. Only someone who had been so absorbed in music from such a young age could have made Innervisions. The words musical genius are overused, but i have no hesitation in using them for Stevie Wonder, an this album is indisputable proof of that.

Song Picks: Living for the City, Higher Ground, All is Fair in Love, He’s Mr. Know It All

9.5/10

Pink Floyd’s eighth album, The Dark Side of the Moon, is probably one of the most famous albums out there, and one you’ll hear repeated many times if you ask people what their favourite album of all time is. It’s an album that’s almost impossible to listen to outside of its almost mythical place in the zeitgeist. It’s also Pink Floyd’s best selling album, and one of the bst selling albums of all-time, with over 45 million copies sold. A concept album about ‘greed, time, death and mental ilness’ according to Wikipedia, it well and truly put Pink Floyd on the map.

The album opens with Speak to Me, a one minute introduction track that begins with a heartbeat and recordings of the band talking, before the sound of a helicopter hovers in and we drop into track two, Breathe (In the Air). Gilmour’s ‘uni-vibe’ pedal makes his axe sound like a futuristic slide-guitar, and we have the album’s first lyrics, an imagery dense poem about going with the flow. The last verse sums it up nicely:

For long you live and high you fly
But only if you ride the tide
And balanced on the biggest wave
You race towards an early grave

The following On the Run is another soundscape piece, that whirling sound created by a Synthi AKS synthesiser, and the rest of the spacey soundscape was created in a whole host of interesting ways. The sound of a variety of vehicles flying around in an empty black night on another planet is quickly stopped as we hear an explosion, followed by the gradual introduction of a ticking clock, leading us into one of the album’s highlights. Time begins with a clatter of pendulums and other metal, which fades into an ominous ticking and booming of what I’m assuming is a synth. Pink Floyd continue to hammer home the fact they really are the masters of soundscapes with the rumble of a conga from ear to ear, before a more traditional rock arrangement enters alongside David Gilmour’s vocals. The song returns to the theme of Breathe, of making the most of now. It does so in a much darker way than Breathe though, something evident in the song’s last four lines:

“Far away across the field/The tolling of the iron bell/Calls the faithful to their knees/To hear the softly spoken magic spells.” The song fades effortlessly into the epic The Great Gig In The Sky which features Clare Torry’s spectacular, traumatised sounding worldess vocal, which I used to find rather irritating but has now grown on me. The song’s title refers to heaven, and the soundscape underneath Torry’s vocal is rather heavenly, the soft piano chords are accompanied by the odd bass note, seemingly gliding across the cosmos. Torry’s vocal is angelic and cataclysmic all at once.

The we reach the first single on the album, Money. It opens with an incredibly innovative use of the sound of coins and a cash register to introduce its 7/4 time signature. It is the only song on the album that made the top 20, and in fact the only song in history to do so containing a 7/4 time signature. The song is a pretty blunt critique of commercialism, and features David Gilmour on absolute guitar god form when the song switches to 4/4, with solos that light up the piece like a Swiss firework display - go watch a firework display in Ascona and you’ll know what I mean.

Ok, we’ve critscised capitalism and the root of all evil, money. Now it’s time for war to come under the microscope in Us and Them, a song that for some reason is rarely in the conversation when talking about the greatest anti-war songs, but probably should be. We’re all just ordinary humans, the song emphatically dictates, and thus all war is senseless. Torry is back with backing vocals in what is one of the album’s hugest sounding songs, the end of each verse crescendoing into a burst of tuneful anger.

The album moves onto the keyboard an guitar solo led Any Colour You Like, which sparkles like a million possibilites, followed by Brain Damage, another song about former frontman Syd Barrett’s mental instability, before we end with Eclipse, a wholehearted list of how nothing really matters in the end, ‘for even the sun is eclipsed by the moon.’

The Dark Side of the Moon is a magnificent album. Even today, in 2020, the thing does not sound like it was recorded on this planet, the musical paintings it weaves belong to another universe. The Dark Side of the Moon is a timeless piece of art, it’s themes as universal as the stars.

Song Picks: Time, Money, Us and Them, Breathe (In the Air)

9.5/10