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Neil Young |
121 |
| Harvest |
1972
Reprise
UK: 1
US: 1
Producer: Neil Young, Elliot Mazer, Henry Lewy & Jack Nitszche |
| In his own words the ‘Heart Of Gold’ single put Neil Young ‘in the middle of the road’, hitting number one in the US, quickly followed by Harvest hitting number one in the album charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Young had experienced critical acclaim as a member of Buffalo Springfield and as a solo artist, and had also enjoyed considerable commercial success with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. It was Harvest, however, that really made Young a household name. A lot more mellow and country-tinged than previous releases, the album included the emotive country rock of ‘Old Man’, the beautiful longing of ‘A Man Needs A Maid’ with Jack Nitzsche’s tender string arrangements, the stark emotion of ‘The Needle And The Damage Done’, ruing the dangers of heroin use, and the rocky ‘Alabama’ with strong harmonies courtesy of David Crosby and Stephen Stills. Young would head ‘for the ditch’ on his next couple of releases; Tonight’s The Night, his frazzled epic of paranoia and drug abuse, and On The Beach, an equally bleak but moving collection of songs.
Track Listing: Out On The Weekend / Harvest / A Man Needs A Maid / Heart Of Gold / Are You Ready For The Country? / Old Man / There’s A World / Alabama / The Needle And The Damage Done / Words (Between The Lines Of Age).
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The Staple Singers |
122 |
| Be Altitude: Respect Yourself |
1972
Stax
UK: -
US: 19
Producer: Al Bell |
| The Staple Singers had spent most of their earlier career focusing on gospel music, making the crossover to mainstream soul music in the mid 1960s. It was their move to the Stax label in the early 1970s that defined their compelling mix of R&B, gospel and soul, with Pops Staple’s mellow bluesy voice and daughter Mavis’s sensational soul vocals, that reached its peak on this joyous collection. With Al Bell producing, as on their previous album The Staple Swingers, and backed by the renowned Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, the group created their finest album; including the Billboard number one ‘I’ll Take You There’ with a breathtaking lead vocal from Mavis, the vibrant ‘Respect Yourself’ and the gospel funk of ‘This World’. The group would release a two more albums with Stax, before signing with Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom label, reaching number one again with the ‘Let’s Do It Again’ single in 1975, with Be Altitude: Respect Yourself remaining a career-defining peak.
Track Listing: This World / Respect Yourself / Name the Missing Word / I'll Take You There / This Old Town (People in This Town) / We the People / Are You Sure / Who Do You Think You Are (Jesus Christ the Superstar)? / I'm Just Another Soldier / Who.
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Pink Floyd |
123 |
| Dark Side Of The Moon |
1973
Harvest
UK: 2
US: 1
Producer: Pink Floyd |
| A hugely ambitious and innovative collection that finally broke Pink Floyd in the US, and firmly established their distinctive mix of progressive and psychedelic rock. With Roger Waters’s lyrics addressing sombre themes of psychosis and death, themes that he would continue to explore with the band until his departure after 1983’s The Final Cut, and with the band and engineer Alan Parson’s stretching the confines of studio technology to their outermost limits, Dark Side Of The Moon contains some of the group’s most compelling and enduring material: including the lilting ‘Breathe’ with Dave Gilmour’s warm vocal and elegant slide guitar; the dynamic ‘Us and Them’ with it’s multi-layered harmonies; and the blues-rock of ‘Money’ with its unusual time signature and innovative used of sound effects. It would take the group another two and a half years to record a follow up, 1975’s equally impressive Wish You Were Here, further cementing their position as one of the biggest and most inventive rock groups in the world.
Track Listing: Speak To Me / Breathe / On The Run / Time / The Great Gig In The Sky / Money / Us And Them / Any Colour You Like / Brain Damage / Eclipse.
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The Beach Boys |
124 |
| Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) |
1965
Capitol
UK: -
US: 2
Producer: Brian Wilson |
| While this collection has been viewed as a backwards step after the experimentation of side two of The Beach Boys Today!, released only four months prior to this 1965 set, Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) contains some of the Beach Boys’ finest songs and some of Brian Wilson’s most adventurous productions. Opening with the driving ‘Girl From New York City’ it was clear they had set out to make a classic Beach Boys’ record; the Beatlesque ‘Girl Don’t Tell Me’ with a soaring vocal from Carl Wilson and the Motown beat of ‘You’re So Good To Me’ were fine pop songs, as was the US number one single ‘Help Me, Rhonda’. But it was the symphonic pop of the outstanding ‘California Girls’ with its sublime intro, and the innovative arrangement and beautiful harmonies of the experimental ‘Let Him Run Wild’ that were the real highlights of the album, with Wilson hinting at the majesty of the Pet Sounds album that would be released the following spring.
Track Listing: The Girl From New York City / Amusement Parks U.S.A. / Then I Kissed Her / Salt Lake City / Girl Don’t Tell Me / Help Me, Rhonda / California Girls / Let Him Run Wild / You’re So Good To Me / Summer Means New Love / I’m Bugged At My Ol’ Man / And Your Dreams Come True.
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David Bowie |
125 |
| The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars |
1972
R.C.A.
UK: 5
US: 75
Producer: David Bowie & Ken Scott |
| Following on from the eclectic and innovative Hunky Dory, Bowie took a more direct approach on this 1972 release, mixing his camp theatrics with some full-on glam-rock noise. Opening with the desolate and despairing 'Five Years' and closing with the equally sombre ‘Rock N’ Roll Suicide’, Ziggy Stardust would be a concept album loosely based around a mythological rock star figure from another planet; as the Ziggy phenomenon exploded in both the UK and the US, with Bowie undertaking a massive promotional tour, it soon became difficult to tell where Bowie's personality ended and his alter-ego's began. Backed once again by the Spiders From Mars, including the talented Mick Ronson, who would provide the perfect foil for Bowie's creativity and flamboyance in the studio and on stage, Bowie would release some of his finest songs on this collection: the frenzied glam rock of "Suffragette City' and 'Hang On To Yourself', the uplifting pop of ‘Starman’ and the foreboding grandeur of ‘Rock N Roll Suicide’. Bowie would return with Aladdin Sane the following year, and continue on a remarkable path of experimentation for the remainder of the decade.
Track Listing: Five Years / Soul Love / Moonage Daydream / Starman / It Ain't Easy / Lady Stardust / Star / Hang on to Yourself / Ziggy Stardust / Suffragette City / Rock 'n' Roll Suicide.
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Love |
126 |
| Forever Changes |
1968
Elektra
UK: 24
US: 154
Producer: Arthur Lee & Bruce Botnick |
| It was the intriguing mix of garage-rock, folk and psychedelia and the imaginative song writing of Arthur Lee and Bryan McLean that really established Love as one of the finest and most innovative American groups of the 1960s. Their unique and eccentric sound was most evident on the horn-driven opening song ‘Alone Again Or’ and on the insistent folk of ‘A House Is Not A Motel’ with its dramatic electric guitar freak-out climax. Other particular highlights include the hypnotic ‘The Daily Planet’ and McLean’s sombre ballad ‘Old Man’, and the jaunty ‘Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hilldale’. While largely ignored in the US, Forever Changes did experience modest commercial success in the UK, increasingly becoming a critics’ favourite as the years passed. A chronic heroin addiction forced McLean to leave the band shortly after this collection was released, and Lee brought in an entirely new line-up for the disappointing follow-up Four Sail, leaving this album as the group’s crowning achievement of their late 60s heyday.
Track Listing: Alone Again Or / A House Is Not A Motel / Andmoreagain / The Daily Planet / Old Man / The Red Telephone / Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hilldale / Live And Let Live / The Good Humor Man He See Everything Like This / Bummer In The Summer / You Set The Scene.
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Led Zeppelin |
127 |
| I |
1969
Atlantic
UK: 6
US: 10
Producer: Jimmy Page |
| From the ashes of the New Yardbirds Jimmy Page created a true musical phenomenon; recruiting studio musician maestro John Paul Jones and two unknowns from the Black Country, singer Robert Plant and drummer John Bonham, he formed a new group whose inventive blues based rock would be highly influential for the next four decades. From the breathtaking dynamics of the frantic rock n’ roll of opening song ‘Good Times Bad Times’ to the monumental closing track ‘How Many More Times’, Led Zeppelin tackled climactic blues on ‘You Shook Me’ and ‘I Can’t Quit You Baby’, proto-heavy metal on ‘Communication Breakdown’, and the experiment folk of ‘Black Mountain Side’ and ‘Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You’. It was on the dazzling psychedelic rock of the majestic ‘Dazed And Confused’ that the band really demonstrated their ambition and their astonishing sense of musical dynamics, with Bonham’s thunderous drums and Page’s inventive guitar. Under the shrewd management of Peter Grant Led Zeppelin would become one of the biggest bands in the world, whose experimental studio offerings and explosive live performances would bring them staggering commercial and critical success.
Track Listing: Good Times Bad Times / Babe I’m Gonna Leave You / You Shook Me / Dazed And Confused / Your Time Is Gonna Come / Black Mountain Side / Communication Breakdown / I Can’t Quit You Baby / How Many More Times.
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Cat Stevens |
128 |
| Tea For The Tillerman |
1970
Island / A&M
UK: 20
US: 8
Producer: Paul Samwell-Smith |
| Cat Stevens had achieved considerable success in the late 1960s as both a singer and songwriter, especially with his compositions ‘The First Cut Is The Deepest’ and ‘Here Comes My Baby’, re-emerging in 1970, after an extended period of convalescence due to contracting tuberculosis, as a introspective folk-troubadour with the impressive Mona Bone Jakon. Released only five months later, Tea For The Tillerman remains his most engaging effort, hitting the top ten in the US album charts, and establishing Stevens as a major star of the singer-songwriter movement. Produced by ex-Yardbird Paul Samwell-Smith and with string arrangements from Del Newman, Stevens impressed with his emotive song-writing and distinctive vocal style; including the emotive orchestration of ‘Sad Lisa’, the sombre folk of ‘Father and Son’, the environmentally-minded ‘Where Do The Children Play?’ and the hit single ‘Wild World’. Stevens’s future releases met with increasing success for much of the rest of the decade, although his output became gradually more hackneyed, with nothing to rival this inspiring effort.
Track Listing: Where Do The Children Play? / Hard Headed Woman / Wild World / Sad Lisa / Miles From Nowhere / But I Might Die Tonight / Longer Boats / Into White / On The Road To Find Out / Father And Son / Tea For The Tillerman.
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|
Simon & Garfunkel |
129 |
| Bridge Over Troubled Water |
1970
C.B.S. / Columbia
UK: 1
US: 1
Producer: Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel & Roy Halee |
| Released at the beginning of a new decade Simon and Garfunkel’s fifth album would signal the end of the duo; it remains one of their finest collections, following on from the impressive Bookends from 1968, and met with huge commercial success, with both the album and the title track single hitting number one in the US and the UK. This collection was dominated by the soaring beauty of the title track, with Larry Knechtel’s dramatic piano and Art Garfunkel’s timeless vocal. Bridge Over Troubled Water remains their most stylistically diverse collection: from the ethereal balladry of the title track and the wistful ‘The Only Living Boy In New York’; to the Latin American tinged ‘El Condar Pasa’; the horn-driven rock n’ roll of ’Keep The Customer Satisfied’ and the trademark Simon & Garfunkel folk of the gentle ‘So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright’ and the epic ‘The Boxer’. Both Garfunkel and Simon would embark on successful solo careers, with Simon, as the duo’s songwriter releasing a string of impressive records well into the next decade.
Track Listing: Bridge Over Troubled Water / El Condor Pasa (If I Could) / Cecilia / Keep The Customer Satisfied / So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright / The Boxer / Baby Driver / The Only Living Boy In New York / Why Don’t You Write Me / Bye Bye Love / Song For The Asking.
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The Byrds |
130 |
| The Notorious Byrd Brothers |
1968
C.B.S. / Columbia
UK: 12
US: 47
Producer: Gary Usher |
| Leading off with the contrasting sounds of ‘Artificial Energy’, the band’s frenetic horn-driven ode to amphetamine use, and the graceful, nostalgic folk-rock of Goffin and King’s ‘Goin’ Back’, it was clear that the Byrds remained just as musically as inventive as they ever were, despite the departure of David Crosby during recording. Crosby’s psychedelic influence was still felt, however, particular on the ethereal ‘Draft Morning’, with the graceful verses building to dramatic crescendos, with added sounds of gunfire, and back again. Hillman and McGuinn demonstrated their increasing fascination with country music, hinting at the direction that they would take on Sweetheart Of The Rodeo seven months later, and their increasing desire to experiment: combining country rock with a psychedelic interlude on ‘Wasn’t Born To Follow’; and on ‘Old John Robertson’, contrasting up-tempo country rock with mesmerising baroque string arrangements. The Byrds’ experimentation was also evident on Hillman’s ‘Natural Harmony’ with its innovative mix of Moog synthesisers and the steel guitar of Red Rhodes.
Track Listing: Artificial Energy / Goin’ Back / Natural Harmony / Draft Morning / Wasn’t Born To Follow / Get To You / Change Is Now / Old John Robertson / Tribal Gathering / Dolphin’s Smile / Space Odyssey.
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| THE GREATEST ALBUMS
EVER 121-130 |
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