1968 - Clive's Top 5 Albums of Every Year Challenge

July 03, 2020 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge

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.

So we’ve made it to the penultimate year of the 60s, and if I continue this relentless pace of posting one every two weeks I should be finished some time in August 2022. Realistically though, I won’t be able to, and it won’t be finished until some time after that. Anyway, 1968, here’s some of the year’s most famous events: Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, Tommie Smith and John Carlos performed the Black power salute in silent protest at the Mexico Olympics, Apollo 8 became the first spacecraft to orbit the moon and Boeing introduced the first 747 ‘Jumbo Jet’.

Musically, these were the top 5 albums released according to rateyourmusic.com’s users:

#1 The Beatles - The Beatles (The White Album)
#2 The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland
#3 The Velvet Underground - White Light/White Heat
#4 The Zombies - Odessey and Oracle
#5 Van Morrison - Astral Weeks

So, we’ve seen the top three before on these lists but we’ve got a couple of newbies to the challenge bolstering up the top 5. Because I’m a masochist and like to give myself work, I’ve also spotted these 5 albums from further down the list which look intriguing:

#6 The Kinks - The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society
#7 The Rolling Stones - Beggars Banquet
#9 Aretha Franklin - Lady Soul
#11 Pink Floyd - A Saucerful of Secrets
#13 Simon & Garfunkel - Bookends

And well would you look at that? We’ve got ten albums to get through again. It’s as if I like nice round numbers isn’t it? Let’s get cracking, here’s my ranking and thoughts on the above.

odessey and oracle.jpg — 10. Odessey and Oracle

The Zombies

The Zombies’ second album, Odyssey and Oracle, wasn’t much of a success initially (and the band split up pretty soon after its release because of this) but has gained acclaim as the years have gone on. Partially recorded at Abbey Road Studios, their music bears a significant resemblance to that of Abbey Road’s most famous artists, the Beatles. There’s also more than a hint of the Beach Boys in their harmonies.

It’s easy to see how this album has gained so much acclaim, although a little puzzling as to why it didn’t initially. Odeyssey and Oracle is full of wonderfully catchy songs featuring varied instrumentation, slick production and harmonies that engulf you like a warm bath. The psychedelic nature of the album only ever serves to keep things interesting, and never leads the whole thing off the rails. The lyrics are surprisingly dark at times, something which is cleverly hidden by the comforting melodies that contain them.

Odyssey and Oracle is one of those albums you’ll swear you’ve heard before, it’s timelessly well written songs jogging memories that don’t exist, reminding you of unexplained gaps in your memory of things that should have happened, but didn’t. How could a song be this good and yet have had so little airplay? How come this hasn’t been part of my life sooner? I don’t have the answer to these questions, but I do know your musical life is about to improve should you allow this pop gem to enter it.

Song Picks: Care of Cell 44, Maybe After He’s Gone, Beechwood Park, Changes

8/10

LadySoul — 9. Lady Soul

Aretha Franklin

Aretha’s twelfth album is another vocal delight. Now, I spent most of my review of 1967’s I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You raving about Aretha’s amazing vocals, so I’ll spare you the superlatives here. Let’s just say her voice is as timeless and demanding of attention as ever, there doesn’t see to be a note in existence she can’t hit the bullseye on, and although she can get a little warbly for my tastes, it’s never completely gratuitous.

Again, Aretha’s original compositions sit effortlessly beside covers of classics such as People Get Ready and Money Won’t Change You. (You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman was written for, rather than by, Aretha Franklin, but it’s hard to imagine anyone else doing the song justice. The bombastic way she sings ‘You make me feeeeeel’ multiple ways before soulfully pouring out ‘like a natural woman’ is one of those great moments of recorded musical history where you can’t help but stop in your tracks and listen.

I’d say this is a stronger album than I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You purely because the band adds a little more, the opening track Chain of Fools is testament to this. An infectious bass and drum groove and some funktacular guitar work complement Aretha’s vocals perfectly, creating my favourite song on the album.

Song Picks: Chain of Fools, (You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman

8/10

VillageGreen — 8. The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society

The Kinks

Well, that’s probably the longest album name we’ve had on the challenge so far. I’m going to give the album a short review as revenge, take that. This is the Kinks’ sixth studio album and their final one featuring all the original members as the bassist left following this album.

The album is sometimes referred to as a concept album about English life, in fact music-critic Stephen Erlewine described it as a ‘concept album lamenting the passing of old-fashioned English traditions.’ The reality however is that Ray Davies, the group’s lead singer and songwriter, did not compose the songs to fit a preset idea or concept. It just happened to be that he was scribbling a lot about these themes in the preceding two years when the album’s material was written.

Let’s cut to the chase, I love this thing. It’s such a merry affair and feels like sitting outside on a fine summer’s day, beer in hand, chilling. Sitting by the Riverside sums the whole album up perfectly with the line ‘Sitting there just drinking wine and looking at the view’.

Oh, and it has a song on it called The Phenomenal Cat, which has to be a contender for the greatest song title of all time. It also starts with the flute and features a prominent tambourine as Davies sings about this phenomenal cat, has there ever been a breezier song? It’s all filled with a cheerful creativity that nicely shows what this album is all about.

A jolly collection of simple, unassuming songs about day-to-day life that have production and instrumentation varied enough to keep it engaging throughout. I’ve talked before about how hard it is to create a genuinely happy album without it being cheesy, and the Kinks have absolutely nailed it here. Put this on, and even if it’s rainy and wet outside, it’ll feel like the sun’s come out. Magic.

Song picks: Last of the Steam-Powered Trains, Picture Book, Starstruck, All of my Friends Were There

8/10

BeggarsBanquet — 7. Beggars Banquet

The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones’ last album before Brian Jones was kicked out the band later drowned in his swimming pool following struggles with drug addiction, Beggars Banquet sees the band getting more instrumental experimental and is a notable step up from their previous work for me.

Sympathy for the Devil features brilliant syncopated drum patterns spread across the stereo field that create a really unique drum fuelled, energetic atmosphere, which the piano and Jagger’s strained vocals perfectly complement. It’s one of those rare moments in music where everything just clicks, and is both really inventive and catchy at the same time. Factory Girl features a similarly innovative use of percussion.

Street Fighting Man, a song about riots, is a good example of Mick Jagger’s fierce and growling vocal throughout this album. A song recorded mainly on acoustic instruments (unusual for such a ‘heavy’ song), it has a really unique sense of space to it. Dear Doctor displays Mick Jagger’s often underrated ability to howl out a tune, bang in tune, and Salt of the Earth finishes the album with a heartfelt celebration of the working-class.

Beggars Banquet sees The Rolling Stones really hitting form. The songwriting has got more interesting and consistent, and the production is both cleaner and more full of ideas. It’s an album that’s a real pleasure to listen to, both fun and engaging, and featuring one of the year’s most captivating vocal performances.

Song Picks: Sympathy for the Devil, Street Fighting Man, Dear Doctor, Factory Girl

8.5/10

WhiteLight — 6. White Light / White Heat

The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground’s second album ditches pretty much all the accessibility of their debut which means we’re left with a 40 minute assault on the ears in the spirit of the aforementioned album’s more challenging tracks. Initially I didn’t really enjoy this all that much and found it too challenging but now, although I still don’t like it anywhere near as much as their debut, I’ve come to enjoy the creative chaos of it. I think it’s best to think of it as rock’s version of Free Jazz. An album written with complete freedom, with minimal concern for structure, melody etc.

Inevitably this means the album would go on the ‘difficult listening’ shelf, but it’s also rather rewarding when you stop trying to force it to fit your ideas of what an album and music should be.

The simplest song here is the gorgeously relaxed Here She Comes Now where Lou sings about a topic unknown (though some suggest it’s his guitar) in a remarkably out of breath manner for a song so vocally simple. The opener White Light/White Heat describes the effect of methamphetamine in much the way Heroin described the effects of its titular drug on their previous album. They’re the two most accessible songs on the album, which includes such weird delights as the instrumental, dark, mini-audiobook The Gift, the stoned, gently psychedelic Lady Godiva’s Operation and the suitably thrashing mess I Heard Her Call My Name.

Most challenging though, is closing track Sister Ray, a 17-minute noise-rock marvel that perfectly finishes this tumultuous, seemingly stream-of-consciousness record. Apparently the producer Tom Wilson walked out half-way through the recording because he was so shocked by the utter noisy chaos unfolding before him. Recorded in one take with warts and all left in, the song is a remarkable recording of a moment of unadulterated musical freedom. The drums march along uniformly while all the other instruments dart off in different directions trying to create as much, and as punishing a sound as possible, as the piece threatens to burst at the seams and explode, emphatically destroying your ear-drums. Lou Reed has talked about the topic of the song and stated, “I like to think of ‘Sister Ray’ as a transvestite smack dealer. The situation is a bunch of drag queens taking some sailors home with them, shooting up on smack and having this orgy when the police appear.” Something he describes as a ‘scene of total debauchery and decay.’ Just like that scene, the song is a complete and utter filthy mess, but if you just sit back and relax your innate resistance to its punishing dissonance, you’ll find yourself escaping reality for 17 minutes, swept away by it’s anarchy.

White Light / White Heat is a challenging album, and you’d struggle to call it an enjoyable listen in the traditional sense, but hidden in it’s jumbled spontaneity is something magic, a frenzied manifestation of a mind with no boundaries.

Song Picks: Sister Ray, White Light/White Heat, Here She Comes Now

8.5/10

Their fourth studio album is a concept album about life from childhood to old age, although this is only true of the first side, and the second side features mainly unused songs from The Graduate soundtrack, and Mrs Robinson, which was of course used.

I was immediately struck by how modern this sounded, Save the Life of My Child features some of the first synths I’ve heard so far in this challenge and the rowdy heavily reverbed ambient crowd wouldn’t be out of place on a recording today. The song has a strangely sinister tone, one that I absolutely wasn’t expecting, and it’s a great opening to the more experimental nature of this album. It the story of a bunch of people frantically trying to stop a child committing suicide by jumping off something.

America is perhaps my highlight on the album, and is a prime display of Paul Simon’s great lyrics and the duo’s melodic skill. It’s the story of Paul Simon and girlfriend Kathy’s trip around America, while contemplating the meaning of the American dream. The songs starts with some sumptuous low-key humming and each verse ends with a melody like a crackling, heart-warming fire, ‘.... to look for America’ they sing, as the image builds of a whole country of people looking for a country, which seems to disappear the harder they search.

Overs explores the point of a relationship where both parties know it’s over, but are too afraid to say that out loud. A similar topic to that of Dangling Conversation from 1966’s Sage, Rosemary & Thyme. This one has a remarkably more light-hearted feel, which juxtaposes nicely with the sad and resigned lyrics, ending perfectly with the verse:

How long can I delay?
We're just a habit
Like saccharin
And I'm habitually feelin' kinda blue
But each time I try on the thought of leaving you
I stop...
Stop and think it over

Voices of Old People is just that. The voices of old people as recorded by Garfunkel at United Home for Aged Hebrews and the California Home for the Aged at Reseda. It’s a touching and intimate break in the music which precedes the lovely Old Friends, an image of two old men sat on the bench together as the world goes by. Bookends (Reprise) marks the end of the concept part of the album as we move to the more ‘poppy’ part of the album. The highlight of which is undoubtedly the famous Mrs Robinson, a song with the most infectious of choruses, and which actually has little to do with the film, having been written before it’s inclusion. The album is also notable for the fact that it barely has any lines that rhyme, something pretty rare in the rock album world.

Bookends is definitely Simon & Garfunkel’s most experimental album, and my favourite up to now (we still have their classic and final album Bridge Over Troubled Water to come in 1970 though which could change that). It’s an album that perfectly demonstrates Simon’s lyrical skill, has some impressively clean and progressive production (particularly on that second track), and is just and album that begs for you to dig a little deeper. I’d have liked the concept nature to extend beyond the first half, but it still works well regardless.

Song Picks: Save the Life of My Child, America, Mrs Robinson

8.5/10

Pink Floyd’s second album is very much a transitional album. David Gilmour (who is so crucial Pink Floyd’s sound in the upcoming years) was joining, Syd Barrett was leaving. Gilmour contributed on all but 2 songs, while Barrett appeared on 3. Gilmour was initially brought in to cover for Syd Barrett’s ‘eccentricities’ such as when he was completely unresponsive on stage, but it was soon clear this was unworkable and Syd left the band. Notably, the band’s drummer, Nick Mason, states this is his favourite Pink Floyd album.

A Saucerful of Secrets very much feels like the birth of the Pink Floyd who would go on to record classic albums like The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here. Less psychedelic, and more spacey. Often cited as being a very diverse album because all members of the band contributed songwriting to the album, I actually feel that this is a more cohesive record than their debut (which was mostly written by Barrett). There’s an otherworldly, dreamy atmosphere to the whole thing perfectly encapsulated in the so-fragile-it-would-combust-if-you-touched-it See-Saw. The amount of additional instruments used to create a whole universe of sound is quite remarkable, and unlike anything I’ve heard up to this point in this challenge. I felt like I was being sucked into the world’s most gentle black hole, emerging on the other side to a whole new glorious sky of stars, planets and gentle explosions in the distance. Perhaps the most notable evidence of this ‘soundscape building’ is the epic title track, a 12 minute odyssey into the slightly ominous unknown. The piece is in 4 parts, and there are various theories as to what they represent. My favourite theory is that the four parts are all different sections of a battle ( the theory goes something like part 1: set-up, part 2: the battle itself, part 3: the view of the dead, part 4: the mourning of the dead). The piece works like a charm as a musical representation of a space battle, and by the time you get to the gorgeous final part Celestial Voices (which is a piece dominated by beautifully evocative organ chords, heavily reverbed as if reaching all corners of the universe) you’re there with all your space-being friends, feeling a kind of beautiful sadness at all the non-existent space-beings that have died. It’s quite magical.

Other parts of the album are perhaps a little repetitive and ‘floaty’ for the lack of a better word. It’s hard to get a grip on some of the songs as they seem to hover just out of reach. The whole thing feels very dreamy, which can make it feel like it lacks substance. To me though, the ethereal nature of it, mixed in with the more concrete riff-led tracks like Corporal Clegg is what makes the album what it is.

The final track Jugband Blues, which is Barrett’s last composition for the band is a tearful goodbye from a troubled soul. He sings of his detachment, before releasing the last verse over a gorgeous chord sequence, seemingly floating off into space never to be seen again.

And the sea isn’t green
And I love the Queen
And what exactly is a dream?
And what exactly is a joke?

Song Picks: A Saucerful of Secrets, See-Saw, Jugband Blues

8.5/10

The Beatles, more commonly known as ‘The White Album’ is the Beatles’ ninth album and by far their longest coming in at a whopping 1 hour and 33 minutes long. ‘Now, it can’t possibly all be good if it’s that long can it?’ I hear you say. Well, actually I’d argue that all of it is at least ‘good’ with a lot of it significantly better than that, and as a package it’s rather extraordinary, actually. The fact is though, you’re unlikely to find people agreeing on which songs are the best on this album, or indeed which ones should have been left off to cut down the obscene running length. There’s 30 songs on this thing, yes 30. Thus I’m not really going to go into song detail too much as I’ll be here all day, and I’d quite like to finish this challenge sometime before 2040.

Most of the album’s material was written from March to April while the band was on a meditation course in India, and the album has the feel of a bunch of material written really quickly. It reminds me of a challenge I do every February called FAWM (February Album Writing Month) where the challenge is to write, record, and upload 14 songs for everyone else doing the challenge to hear in the month of February. This time constraint leads to less of a critical mindset, there’s no time for writer’s block, and thus you end up following through with ideas you might otherwise think are stupid. Usually, in my case at least, this leads to a bunch of pretty varied songs, some fitting simplistic styles to make them quicker to write, others just a bit mad, weird experiments that very occasionally pay off. The White Album to me sounds a bit like what would result if the Beatles did an elongated version of this challenge. Some of the material is very simple, some of it’s a bit mad, quite a lot of it is pretty special, but all of the 30 songs are just that, songs. With the exception of the psychedelic and haunting Revolution 9 there’s no interludes or longform experimental instrumentals. Not that there’s any problem with those of course, it’s just rare for an album of this length not to contain significantly more. There’s plenty of experimentation within the songs however, and you’ll notice as you listen just how many of the ideas put forward in this album have become entire subgenres. Quite the achievement.

It’s a weird one is this record. I think the Beatles have absolutely created albums that are more cohesive (e.g. Sgt Peppers). The fact is though, The Beatles has a special atmosphere to it, like you’re sitting in on some of the world’s finest songwriters spontaneously recording some ideas, and the fact that it’s just so bloody long means you’re always discovering something new. Despite its simplicity, it’s length means you never quite feel like you’ve got to the bottom of it, and that makes it an album with probably unmatched longevity in their catalogue.

In many ways, this album encapsulates to me the joy of songwriting. There aren’t many albums of this length that can entertain for their entire duration and never feel like a slog, The Beatles absolutely achieves that, in fact it goes beyond that, it’s never less than a lot of fun. 1 hour and 33 minutes of it.

Song Picks: Back In The USSR; Blackbird; Helter Skelter; Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da; Revolution 1

9/10

I mean it’s hard enough getting through this monstrous double-album due to its 77 minute running time, reviewing something so expansive is even more difficult, but having just reviewed ‘The White Album’, this should be a walk in the park ey?

Electric Ladyland is Hendrix’s third and final album before his untimely death in 1970 after an overdose on sleeping pills. It’s also the only one of his albums he produced, and thus can certainly be considered the purest, most unfiltered distillation of what he was trying to achieve musically. His past two albums were already ground-breaking but this behemoth of an album pushed things yet further and features in my eyes, some of the best psychedelic rock ever recorded. Actually, scrap that, the best psychedelic rock ever recorded.

Obviously we’ve got the ‘hits’ here such as his mesmeric cover of Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower, which Dylan himself has appraised as the definitive version. Dylan had already brought the splendid lyrics to life in his version on 1968’s John Wesley Harding but Hendrix made the song larger than life, an explosion of lyrical imagery, a memorable display of bombastic, busy drum playing, and above all, some of the most iconic guitar soloing ever recorded. Simply put, he turned it from a brilliant song into a masterpiece. Other hits include the irresistible Crosstown Traffic where the guitar appears more like a bunch of distorted backing vocalists than a guitar, with a riff that has to be one of the most infectious things ever written. Besides that we’ve also got the incomparable guitar wizardry of Voodoo Child (Slight Return). A song which starts with that famous, quacky intro, which soon turns into a riff that could plough through mountains, planets, hell, even time itself. That transition is one of my favourite moments on any album. The song is only elevated further by one of Hendrix’s finest vocal performances, it’s perfect closing track to the album. While we’re talking about vocals, it’s interesting to note that Hendrix was never particularly confident about them, and insisted on recording behind a screen when singing.

But, that’s enough about the shorter, more instantly gratifying songs on the album, let’s talk about the record’s two sweeping epics. The first one we come across is the 15-minute psychedelic trip Voodoo Chile which features drummer Mitch Mitchell at his absolute best, flurrying around the kit like a tropical storm, building up into a hurricane of fills that seem to take off into the stratosphere. The guitar improvisation is superb too and proof to me that Hendrix is rock guitar’s answer to the jazz genius of Coltrane etc. Hendrix wanted to create the feel of an ‘informal club jam’ (Wikipedia), and thus got everyone in the studio to record some background shouting etc, which is used throughout the track. The crescendos benefit from Winwood’s organ part, adding further creatively scattered notes to Hendrix’s virtuosic soloing. I think it’s quite impossible to listen to the piece and not be absolutely blown away by it’s spontaneously in-the-moment brilliance. Hendrix’s longest song is also perhaps the definitive display of how at one he was with the guitar, whatever he thought, he could do. The second epic 1983… (A Merman I Should Turn to Be) is more of a mood piece, but one that again displays Hendrix’s ability to sing the most beautiful melodies with his guitar. I particularly love Hendrix’s bass work on the track too (Redding didn’t contribute bass to this one) which has a spaced out chattering quality to it. The guitar melodies that bookend the track are as stratospheric as they are beautiful.

Electric Ladyland is an unfiltered look into the mind of one of rock’s greatest innovators, a final, colossally beautiful goodbye from someone who - although he was a massive influence on what was to come - has yet to be overtaken as a guitarist.

Song Picks: Crosstown Traffic, Voodoo Child (Slight Return), Voodoo Chile, All Along the Watchtower

9.5/10

Now, to understand how Astral Weeks, Van Morrison’s second album, came to be, I think it’s important to know about how the recording sessions operated. Essentially, Morrison sat behind a screen with his acoustic guitar and played as the band improvised around him. This band was essentially a jazz one led by Richard Davis (he played bass on Eric Dolphy’s Out to Lunch) who was accompanied by guitarist Jay Berliner (who had previously worked with our man Charles Mingus), Warren Smith Jr on percussion, and Connie Kay on drums. It’s this Davis led quartet that makes the album just as much as Morrison does.

Berliner said of the recordings, "We were used to playing to charts, but Van just played us the songs on his guitar and then told us to go ahead and play exactly what we felt." Kay said similar, “we more or less just sat there and jammed.” It’s this freedom that gives the album its unique sound. Lyrically, it’s not particularly coherent, but more a set of gorgeous images and spontaneous ideas flung into the air, much like the instrumentation that accompanies it. Put quite simply, I think it’s a unique combination of the jazz that has blessed these lists and the poetic melodies that have started to appear since the mid-60s.

Throughout the album, Morrison’s voice is beautifully melodic, his guitar playing simple and smooth like butter, and his lyrics seemingly magical:

And you know you gotta go
On that train from Dublin up to Sandy Row
Throwing pennies at the bridges down below
And the rain, hail, sleet, and snow

Combine this with a band that seems to know exactly what Morrison is going to do at every turn, and has the ability to throw the most delightfully colourful musical paint to fill in Van Morrison’s meditatively ‘present’ performances, and you have what is, in my opinion, one the greatest and most unique albums of all time. On that note, I think Madame George, some of the lyrics to which I posted above, is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever recorded.

In terms of some closing words to this review, I think my original rateyourmusic.com review of this album summed it up rather well, so I’ll finish with that:

‘Well this is just completely singular isn't it? I can't think of anything remotely similar. Free-form jazzy country folk. There's no structure, it just ebbs and flows along as Van Morrison spins melodies over the top, weaving a tapestry that floats somewhere in the realm of the images created in our minds while reading a book, intangible and yet beautiful. An album that flies, and forces you to fly along with it.’

Song Picks: Astral Weeks, Sweet Thing, Cyprus Avenue, Madame George

10/10

1967 - Clive's Top 5 Albums of Every Year Challenge

June 20, 2020 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music

Ok, here we are at the end of 1967, let’s take a look around and see what happened besides a whole heap of great albums being released. The six day war ended with Israel’s victory, race riots broke out across the US and particularly in Detroit, three astronauts were killed in a fire at the test-launch of Apollo 1, Che Guevara was shot to death after his capture in Bolivia and pulsars were discovered. If you want to see some great photographs from the year then I’d highly recommend this article from The Atlantic.

Now, onto what we’re here for. Here’s what rateyourmusic.com’s users rate as the top 5 albums of 1967:

#1 The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico
#2 The Doors - The Doors
#3 The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
#4 The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced
#5 Leonard Cohen - Song of Leonard Cohen

Four of those are debut albums and thus new entries to our lists, only The Beatles have been here before. 1967 was such a stupendously strong year that I’m going to pick five more albums and throw them into the mix too:

#6 Pink Floyd - The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
#10 The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Axis: Bold as Love
#11 Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band - Safe as Milk
#15 Aretha Franklin - I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You
#18 Bob Dylan - John Wesley Harding

I’m not exaggerating when I say this is the strongest year yet, and it’s going to take some beating so let’s get right into it, here’s my thoughts on and ranking of the above ten albums.

PiperattheGatrsofDawn — 10. The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn

Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd’s debut album is the only one made under Syd Barrett’s leadership, and the only one to feature him extensively as he left part-way through recording their next album as his use of psychedelic drugs and reported schizophrenia made his behaviour increasingly unpredictable.

This is a less polished, messier affair than their famous albums once Syd had left, but Syd’s eccentric songwriting talents are evident here. The album starts with a bunch of songs that have sections that are surprisingly poppy (The first two minutes of Flaming could easily be a song by The Beatles) but then descend into psychedelic, spacey trips of the 60’s variety. Pink Floyd’s ability to build a psychedelic soundscape is evident on Pow R. Toc. H where a whole host of instruments and occasional ambient chatter and shouting create a whole world in a song. That kind of musical world-building is present throughout this whole album, peaking perhaps with the rambunctious Interstellar Overdrive which ends in such a mass of noise that you feel like you’ve just been hit by a brick wall, or as Abbey Road engineer Pete Brown put it, recalling walking in on them recording the song, ‘I opened the door and nearly shit myself’. Lucifer Sam is perhaps my favourite song though, a brilliant mix of an infectious hook, driving guitar riff and the kind of otherworldly soundscape that makes this album what it is.

Overall, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn leaves me a little confused, but in a good way. I love where it takes me, the band clearly know how to create an atmosphere with their sound and although the whole thing hasn’t completely grabbed me for whatever reason, there’s something charming about the weirdness of the whole thing.

Song Picks: Lucifer Sam, Interstellar Overdrive

7.5/10

Another debut album. This time by the fabulously named ‘Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band’.

At its heart Safe as Milk is a blues record, but it’s not one of those predictable blues records. No, no, no. This is creative, gritty, and more than a little bit mad. Captain Beefheart’s (Don Van Vliet for those who don’t like eccentric stage names) vocals sound like the ramblings of a mad-man who doesn’t want you to understand what he’s saying. When you can understand what he’s saying it’s often so surreal and mad that it’s rather difficult to get a grip of. Take these lines picked out in the album’s Wikipedia article, from the song Abba Zabba:

Mother say son, she say son, you can't lose, with the stuff you use
Abba Zabba go-zoom Babbette baboon
Run, run, monsoon, Indian dream, tiger moon

Oh Captain, I’m lost, lost in a sea of mad nonsense. Of course, this is an extreme example and Mr Van Vliet is capable of writing some pretty simple lyrics too, take those in Call on Me, where he spends the entire song mentioning the many times his ‘baby’ can call on him.

If you’re lost and it’s all just a bit rough for you, then I’m Glad is the song for you. A surprisingly soulful pop-jaunt including the unexpected complement of some backing singers. It wouldn’t be out of place on a Van Morrison album. Delightful.

Safe as Milk has a fantastically grungy, raw sound, that captures a great energy, aided by Captain Beefheart’s drawly, growling vocals. It feels like a vivacious mix of the delta blues and punk, and it comes highly recommended.

Song Picks: Sure’Nuff ‘n’ Yes, I Do; I’m Glad; Electricity, Plastic Factory

8/10

NeverLovedaMan — 8. I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You

Aretha Franklin

The eleventh studio album by Aretha Franklin is the first to appear on these lists, and probably her most famous. It’s essentially a great collection of performances by one of the best vocalists we’ve ever had. Consisting mainly of covers, the album doesn’t do anything all that exciting instrumentally and the production feels a little old, even in the context of 1967.

The band plod along, providing a perfectly adequate and easy-listening backing to Aretha’s towering vocal performances, without adding much to them. The album opens with one of the finest pop recordings ever, a cover of Otis Redding’s Respect, you’ll all have heard it’s infectious, dance inducing and heart-filling brilliance, and it’s one of those rare songs that gets people of every generation to the dancefloor. The album doesn’t quite continue at that level, but then if it did it would be the undisputed best album of all time and all other music would be deemed pointless. Well, maybe not quite, but it’s still an impossible bar to meet.

The rest of the album is still great and Aretha continues to captivate until the closing notes of the beautiful A Change Is Gonna Come. She is one of those singers that makes you want to sing along all the time, but then immediately makes you realise that you sound like a strangled possum in comparison. It’s worth noting how at home Aretha Franklin’s own compositions sound here. My two favourite examples are Baby, Baby, Baby, which has a deliciously calm groove, and the backing vocals provide a luscious bedding to Aretha’s splendid vocals (did I mention she could sing?), and Dr. Feelgood, which is a strong display of the raspier side of her voice.

I Never Loved a Man The Way I Loved You is the capturing of one of the greatest singers of all time, at her best. Nothing more, nothing less.

Song Picks: Respect, Good Times, Soul Serenade

8/10

Their debut album, The Doors is one of those albums you’ll always see knocking around on top albums of all-time lists and is generally regarded as one of the biggest influences on the psychedelic rock genre.

The Doors is a rock album with a jazz-sensibility. There’s a lot of instrumental sections and a freedom with song structure that is refreshing. The Doors never hesitate to repeat things as much as they feel like, and it’s in their repetition that the album cements itself into your brain, slowly hacking away at it with it’s catchy and yet un-poppy hooks like a determined and slightly scary woodpecker.

Break on Through is a prime example, it barely has a verse and is largely just a repetition of the line ‘break on through to the other side’ which builds and builds vocally as Jim Morrison is almost coughing the line out of his throat by the end of his song, having depleted himself of all his vocal energy.

The Doors sounds quite dark, Morrison’s voice has a reverb on it that makes it sound like it’s coming from the bottom of some deep chasm, a voice from the darkness, something his slightly ghostly tone only amplifies. It’s an album where I appreciate it’s artistry more than feel an urge to listen to it as such but it creates an atmosphere unlike any other album in my view, and that, combined with the great instrumental performances, original song structures, and powerful and varied vocal performance from Jim Morrison, makes this whole thing rather special.

And I haven’t even mentioned Light My Fire have I? You should go and listen to it, it’s their most famous song for a reason, and that reason is that it is splendid, magnetic, catchy, dark, hypnotic and so many other adjectives. In less adjectives, it’s a masterpiece.

Song Picks: Break on Through, Light My Fire, Back Door Man

8.5/10

JohnWesleyHarding — 6. John Wesley Harding

Bob Dylan

Dylan’s eighth album sees him returning to a calmer sound, and although he’s still backed by a band, the sound is much more acoustic and folky than that of his last few albums. I see this as less of a departure from those albums though, and more of a relaxed blend of everything from Another Side of Bob Dylan to Blonde on Blonde.

Vocally and instrumentally this is less brash than anything before it, and in fact his vocals are rather soothing here. Lyrically it still has the surrealness of some of the electric trio of albums (and Another Side of Dylan) but as Dylan himself said, ‘what I’m trying to do now is not use too many words’. The lines are more calculated, there’s no lines thrown in just for the sake of a rhyme. This loses them some of their playfulness, and to me, their magic. With his looser lyrics it felt like a rhyme could always throw a song or an image into a new, unexpected direction, as if Dylan himself had no idea where it was going, which kept things exciting. On John Wesley Harding that’s lacking a little and although the more calculated lyrics make the songs leaner, it also makes them a little colder.

Nevertheless, this still features the kind of evocative imagery you’d expect on a Dylan album. You only need to look at the final verse of All Along The Watchtower (later covered by Jimi Hendrix in what even Dylan agreed was the better version) to realise that Dylan hasn’t lost his touch:

All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While all the women came and went
Barefoot servants too
Outside, in the distance
A wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching
The wind began to howl

I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine is another favourite, reminiscent of Visions of Johanna in it’s vocals, and bewitching me in a similar way whenever it comes on. The closer I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight is an underrated gem, a perfect country song, and the perfect signal of what was to come next. Even the vocals sound like they’re straight from his next album, 1969’s Nashville Skyline.

Recorded after Dylan had recovered from his motorbike accident in 1966, and around the same time as the famous Basement Tapes were being recorded (though they weren’t released until 1975), John Wesley Harding is Dylan at his most gentle, even the band plods along here, backing the change in Dylan’s vocal style perfectly. It serves as a great segue from the ‘thin mercury sound’ to a more country sound, and although it’s not as memorable as his best, it’s still one I turn to regularly, and a reminder of just how singular Dylan is. There’s no other album that sounds quite like John Wesley Harding, a black and white mix of folk, country, and lyrics to spin carefully shaped images in your mind.

Song Picks: John Wesley Harding, All Along The Watchtower, I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine, I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight

8.5/10

Are You Experienced Is Jimi Hendrix’s debut album, and widely regarded as one of the greatest rock debuts of all time. It’s another album that had different songs on the UK and US release. I’m going to be reviewing the US edition because I prefer the cover (see above, isn’t it glorious?), and because it has Purple Haze on it, and the UK edition doesn’t. Frankly, you’d have to be rather silly to review an album without Purple Haze on it if there’s a version out there with it on.

The aforementioned Purple Haze opens the album, and might just be the most emphatic announcement of the arrival of any artist on the first track of their debut in history. After a staccato intro Hendrix comes in with one of the best guitar riffs ever written, which is soon added to by some superbly scattershot drumming from Mitch Michell and another messy, infectious, riff from Hendrix, backed by Noel Redding’s gritty, wide-as-a-landscape bass. It encapsulates everything that’s great about The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Hey Joe was the band’s first single after Hendrix was plucked from backing guitarist obscurity and eventually ended up under the management of ex-Animals member Chas Chandler. Chas had enjoyed Hendrix’s performance of Hey Joe live and in a moment of rock ‘n’ roll history, sought to find Hendrix a permanent band, which ended up with the aforementioned Redding and Mitchell. The three perfectly complement each other and Hey Joe is another great example of this. They lay down an infectious groove which expands into a cosmic whirlwind of guitar solos, busy and brisk drumming and solid bass grooves holding the whole thing together. Mitch Michell is, in my eyes, one of the main reasons for Hendrix’s success, I can’t imagine a more perfect drummer for him. He has a light-touch jazz style that means he can be superbly busy and mesmeric while never taking over the song. This busy, hyperactive style goes well with Hendrix’s brilliantly filthy and virtuosic guitar work. Hey Joe’s solo sections are a perfect example of this.

The Wind Cries Mary is an example of Hendrix’s often under-appreciated lyrical skills. With a Dylan-esque talent for imagery he builds a variety of scenes which conclude with the wind uttering ‘Mary’ in one way or another, culminating in this fabulous last verse:

Will the wind ever remember
The names it has blown in the past?
And with its crutch, its old age, and its wisdom
It whispers no, this will be the last
And the wind cries Mary

The album’s 60 minute running length is chock-full of great psychedelic rock and blues songs and features classics such as the Hendrix guitar showpiece (well you could say that about all of them to be fair) Foxey Lady, the blisteringly pacey and irresistible Fire, and of course the rolling, fabulous Mitch Mitchell showcase Manic Depression.

The only negative thing to say about Are You Experienced? Is that it feels a little more like a greatest hits collection than an album. The production quality is not completely consistent (see the great I Don’t Live Today, which sounds rather thin), and it just doesn’t feel as cohesive as what was to come. I’m being nit-picky there though, as this is honestly one of the best rock albums you’re going to hear, and the fact it’s a debut is honestly rather mind-blowing.

Song Picks: Purple Haze, Hey Joe, I Don’t Live Today, The Wind Cries Mary, Manic Depression

9/10

SgtPeppers — 4. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

The Beatles

The Beatles’ eighth album was their first following their retirement from live performance in August 1966. It’s a concept album performed by the fictionalised Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, an idea born in Paul McCartney’s brain on a flight where he thought of creating a song including an Edwardian military band. Again, like Revolver, it incorporates a whole variety of musical influences such as Indian, psychedelic and circus music. To me, it perfects what Revolver began.

The album starts with the delightful title track as over the hum of a crowd talking the band announces it’s arrival, ‘It was 20 years ago today, that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play…’, the crowd cheers and we’re off. It’s a fun song full of positivity, joy and fun, and it perfectly sets the mood that you’re listening to a fictional band’s performance. Although the crowd noise never re-appears (until the penultimate goodbye track from the band), you’ve still been transported into that environment, and it’s partly that context that makes the album so wonderful to me.

The album is a radiant beacon of joy. It’s whimsical, full of catchy, almost nursery-rhyme like melodies, and yet it never gets annoying. Quite the feat.

With A Little Help From My Friends sounds like a kids song (save for the ‘I get high with a little help from my friends’ line) and perfectly encapsulates the childish fun that a lot of this album has. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds was inspired by a picture drawn by Lennon’s son, who came home from nursery one day with a picture of his friend Lucy in the sky, and it was titled as the track is. The song is generally believed to be about LSD, with the title alluding to that (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds) however Lennon has strongly denied this (you can watch him denying it here). I believe more in the line that it’s a reflection of his love of ‘Alice In Wonderland’ as a lot of the imagery in the song’s brilliantly vivid lyrics reminds me of Lewis Carroll’s style. The iconic opening verse is a great example:

Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes

Anyway, whatever the song is about. It’s a merry, catchy, jovial song which shows a band unafraid to create something which could be considered quite childish, and to me, it’s that childish sense of fun that makes this album so special. The fact that this song was inspired by a child’s picture, just makes that idea even more great.

It feels kind of foolish to talk about all the songs on this album, similar to The Beach Boy’s Pet Sounds from 1966, this album feels like a whole, and talking about individual songs doesn’t do the album much justice. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is vivid, colourful journey into the mind of some of the best pop songwriters we’ve ever had. Even When I’m Sixty Four, which I find too simplistic out of context and don’t usually enjoy, shines in the context of this album. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is an unbridled joy, and has a special place in my heart. I’m going to stop my review there before I use the word ‘joy’ even more times than I already have.

Song Picks: Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, With A Little Help From My Friends, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Getting Better, Within You Without You

9/10

Whereas Are You Experienced? sounded like the greatest of greatest hits collections, Axis: Bold as Love sounds like an album. The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s second album was released just 7 months after their first, and sees them venturing deeper into psychedelia.

Before we start talking about the album, let’s talk about that controversial cover, which none of the band had anything to do with and Hendrix particularly disliked. He didn’t see the relevance of the band being depicted as various forms of Vishnu, and felt it would have made more sense if the cover was influenced by his Native American background. The cover was banned in Malaysia because of how it appropriates the Hindu god.

At 38 minutes, this album is significantly shorter than the band’s debut, and it feels like a tighter, more cohesive ‘experience’ because of it. Hendrix is clearly pushing what he does in the studio here with the opener being more of a skit than a song as Mitch Mitchell interviews him about space with both their voices warped before the guitar travels around the stereo field, creating the image of falling into a psychedelic black hole. It’s weird, but it really puts you into the mood for what’s to come.

The album also features Hendrix performing some softer material, Up From The Skies has wonderful gentle bounce to it, Hendrix’s voice sounding particularly warm and comforting as he sings about an alien visiting earth and being less than impressed with what’s going on. Again, the use of the stereo image to swing Hendrix’s guitar around makes the whole thing an otherworldly experience. Castles Made of Sand is honey in song form. It’s sweet, gentle and smooth as all hell, using the change of the seasons as a metaphor for the changes in Hendrix’s own life. Perhaps most famous of the soft songs though is the gorgeous Little Wing, which ends in a magnificent, stratospheric and yet chilled solo.

Besides these breaks in the schedule though we’ve got the band at their absolute rocking best. Spanish Castle Magic sounds huge and features a riff that could obliterate whole planets. As Hendrix’s starry solo bounces around half-way through the track you feel as though you’ve been shot into space out of a cannon. Guitars may sound thicker nowadays, and drums more slick and punchy, but there’s still not many songs out there that can compete with the sheer ferocity of this track. Neil Redding’s ability to carry a track on his own is really emphasised on the poppy Wait Until Tomorrow where he provides a lot of the thrust of the song. A track that also features some great phasing work on the drums, making Mitchell’s drumming sound positively cosmic. Speaking of cosmic, let’s talk about the end of the closing title track. Mitchell’s short and otherworldly drum solo marks the start of a Hendrix guitar solo that, when combined with the seriously psychedelic sounding drums, is like some ginormous god picking you up and spinning you through the whole universe. It really is that good.

The whole band is on top form on Axis: Bold As Love, and though they were already stupendously good at creating tracks that were infectious, heavy and transformative, this is where they really nailed what it means to make an ‘album’. I’m rather excited about 1968’s Electric Ladyland, the band’s final album.

Song Picks: Spanish Castle Magic, Little Wing, Axis: Bold as Love, Castles Made of Sand

9.5/10

songsofchohen — 2. Songs Of Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen

Excellent, Leonard has finally joined the party! Although, this is not an album you’d want to put on at a party unless you want everyone to leave feeling all melancholy and reflective, having spent the ‘party’ staring at the ground contemplating the pointlessness of their existence . Songs of Leonard Cohen is the wonderfully originally named debut album (yep I know, another one) from the Canadian poet.

It’s very much an acoustic guitar led album, but features lots of subtle touches that gently add to the album’s dark atmosphere (see Master Song & Winter Lady), including Nancy Priddy’s gorgeous backing vocals.. What really makes the album though, is the combination of Cohen’s gentle nylon-string guitar fingerpicking, his almost spoken word singing style, and most importantly of all, his poetic lyrics.

In a way, the guitar playing and ‘singing’ is quite bland, but in this context, where the words are so majestic, that’s exactly what you need, nothing should distract you from them. The album opens with the famous Suzanne (first published as a poem in 1966) which features a heavenly chorus ending in the so-good-I’ve-run-out-of-superlatives line ‘For you've touched her perfect body with your mind’. The final verse is a great example of how stupidly brilliant our man Leonard is with words:

And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone

Excuse me while I just go and rip up everything I’ve ever written. The album continues much in this vain and I could plonk pretty much any of the album’s multitude of other verses here and marvel at their glory.

By the time So Long Marianne, one of the greatest songs ever written, comes round, what is a surprisingly full band sound complete with drums doesn’t sound too out of place. After all, though the album is quite sparse in many ways, when you really listen in there’s actually rather a lot going. The drums I’ve mentioned are overly busy, but not quite enough to distract from a song that is as touching, poetic, enveloping and sadly catchy as So Long Marianne, one of the multitude of timeless songs that 1967 has brought us.

The Songs of Leonard Cohen is like a book of poetry in musical form. Perfectly performed and produced, it’s the fleeting meeting of two art forms, creating a melancholy classic that sounds so unique I don’t think you ever forget your first listen of it. I, for one, can remember exactly where I was when I first entered its mystical world.

Song Picks: Suzanne, So Long Marianne, Master Song, Winter Lady

10/10

Velvet&Nico — 1. The Velvet Underground & Nico

The Velvet Underground

It’s unthinkable now that an album as iconic as The Velvet Underground & Nico wasn’t an immediate success, but it wasn’t. The album was initially a sales failure (entering the album charts at number 199), many record stores refused to stock it, radios didn’t play it, and critics largely ignored it. This is largely attributed to the controversial topics the album contains such as drug abuse and prostitution. However, I think a big part of it was just that it was so far ahead of it’s time that people couldn’t handle it. Nowadays, the album enjoys a well-earned status as one of the best albums of all time. In fact, the rateyoumusic.com community rates it not only as the best album of 1967, but the sixth best album of all time, higher than any album we’ve had so far on this challenge.

The album has been so influential on subsequent music that Brian Eno famously said that although it only sold 30,000 copies initially, ‘everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band’. The album’s recording was funded by Andy Warhol, who managed the band and also created that iconic album cover, perhaps the most famous album cover of all time. Although Warhol is listed as the producer too, he didn’t really have much influence over the sound, but Lou Reed states the fact that he just let them do exactly what they wanted is the main reason for the album that resulted, and in that way you could say he’s had a pretty big influence on it.

Part of the genius of the album is just how varied it is and yet how unified it sounds. The opener Sunday Morning is a beautifully blissful track that embodies the feeling of a sunny Sunday morning. The xylophone gently skips along as Lou Reed’s vocal seems to glide over you like a cloud, but a big fluffy white cloud as opposed to a sinister dark one. It’s a beautiful song. Compare this with the raucous closing track European Son and you’d never know they came from the same album. The band marches on into an aural oblivion of shrieks and fuzz and clatter and noise and out of tune guitars, a complete and utter chaotic assault on the ears. But the journey to that ending, and the musically suicidal ending, makes complete sense somehow.

As the band progresses from the marching, relentlessly cool I’m Waiting For The Man, to the melodic (and Nico’s first vocal performance) Femme Fatale, to the challenging and yet surprisingly catchy S&M inspired song Venus In Furs you get the feeling that every song on this album is going to be unlike anything else, a small fragment of brilliance. And it turns out that feeling is right. Run, Run, Run rushes along brilliantly, telling its stories of drug-hunting and abuse with a noisy spring in it’s step. The brash guitar ‘solo’ as sign of the chaos to come. All Tomorrow’s Parties sounds like a warped folk song, Nico’s vocal adding a great surrealness to the so-free-it’s-close-to-falling-apart instrumentation. Heroin though, is the most Velvet Underground song here, a song that tells of the use of the titular drug, alternating between a gentle guitar part and a rapid thrashing of chords, as the Reed’s vocals and thoughts barely keep up. All the while there’s a drone that gradually turns into a messy, scrambled squeak as the song enters it’s chaotic finale. It’s the free-est thing I’ve heard since Free Jazz way back in 1960, an uninhibited mess of noise and ideas that turns into something brilliant and incomparable. Then we’re back into a more accessible sound with There She Goes Again, a delightfully catchy number complete with backing vocals and ooooo’s. Nico returns for her final vocal appearance in a song where her German accent (that adds so much to her vocals) is particularly prominent, I’ll Be Your Mirror. The penultimate track The Black Angel’s Death Song is a perfect primer for the aforementioned noisy closing track European Son. There’s just enough to latch on in Reed’s vocal to keep you sane, even if a violin screeches along in an out of tune manner throughout the song. By the time European Son has come and gone, you’re left wondering who has just walked off with your mind, but you also feel strangely free.

The Velvet Underground & Nico is an experience like no other to listen to, it’s both challenging and endlessly rewarding. There’s a perfect mix of accessible stuff, and stuff that is just completely mind-bending. It’s both a mess and a masterpiece.

Song Picks: Sunday Morning; Heroin, Run Run Run, There She Goes Again

10/10

1965 - Clive's Top 5 Albums of Every Year Challenge

May 24, 2020 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Song Pick: The Witch, Strychnine

7/10

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

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

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

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

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

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

7/10

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

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

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

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

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

7/10

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

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

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

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

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

8/10

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

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

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

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

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

9/10

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

9/10

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

9.5/10

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

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

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

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

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

9.5/10

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

Bob Dylan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10/10