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The Beach Boys |
021 |
| Pet Sounds |
1966
Capitol
UK: 2
US: 10
Producer: Brian Wilson |
| Viewed by many as Brian Wilson’s crowning achievement and a milestone in the history of popular music. Although breaking into the top ten in both the US and the UK, it wasn’t the huge commercial success that Wilson had hoped for and initially it met some opposition from within the Beach Boys; Mike Love in particular voicing his disquiet over Brian‘s experimentation and his willingness to work with other lyricists, and the move away from the surf pop music that had previously served them so well. Spurring on the Beatles to attempt to match its ambition and beauty on their Sgt. Pepper album the following year, the true influence of Pet Sound’s innovation and musical depth would not be truly recognised until many years later. Under the pressure of following up this exceptional release with the equally ambitious Smile project, Brian Wilson would retreat away from the music business due to mental health problems and the excesses of drug use, handing the musical reins of the group over to younger brother Carl.
Track Listing: Wouldn’t It Be Nice / You Still Believe In Me / That’s Not Me / Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder) / I’m Waiting For The Day / Let’s Go Away For Awhile / Sloop John B / God Only Knows / I Know There’s An Answer / Here Today / I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times / Pet Sounds / Caroline No.
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The Rolling Stones |
022 |
| Let It Bleed |
1969
Decca / London
UK: 1
US: 3
Producer: Jimmy Miller |
| Following on from the groundbreaking Beggars Banquet the previous year, Let It Bleed has become one of the Stones’ most highly regarded works. An energetic and soulful record that would benefit from Jimmy Miller’s unfussy production, the Stones would follow this effort with the equally impressive Sticky Fingers and the double set Exile On Main Street. Keith Richards had befriended Gram Parsons the previous year, and his influence is clear on the likes of ‘Country Honk’ featuring Parsons’s former band-mate Byron Berline on fiddle. But it was very much another impressive collection from the Jagger/Richards song-writing team, especially on the graceful ‘You Can’t Always Get You Want’ that closed the album; with Al Kooper adding elegant horn and organ parts. Opening track ‘Gimme Shelter’ reflected the darkness and paranoia that had begun to surround the band; founder member Brian Jones had succumbed to a drugs and drink overdose in the summer and the Stones would headline the Altamont festival the day after the release of Let It Bleed, witnessing the hippy ideals of the 1960s come to a violent and foreboding end.
Track Listing: Gimmie Shelter / Love In Vain / Country Hock / Live With Me / Let It Bleed / Midnight Rambler / You Got The Silver / Monkey Man / You Can’t Always Get What You Want.
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Guns N’ Roses |
023 |
| Appetite For Destruction |
1987
Geffen
UK: 5
US: 1
Producer: Mike Clink |
| A stunning debut that even Guns N’ Roses would never match. The influences were numerous, the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Sex Pistols, AC/DC to name a few, but this collection was highly original and infectious, blowing fresh air through the stagnant 80s US rock scene and spawning a myriad of pale imitations. ‘Paradise City’ and ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ would provide two mammoth hit singles on both sides of the Atlantic. Mike Clink provided a punchy polished production, while still allowing the unfettered energy of the band to flourish; Duff McKagen‘s prominent bass and a huge drum sound driving on Slash‘s and Izzy Stradlin‘s boisterous guitars. With the exception of drummer Steven Adler, all members offered song-writing contributions, weaving tales of LA’s seedy underbelly to a raucous, yet always melodic soundtrack. On future releases the band would become ever more ambitious, but this ambition often led to overblown pretension instead of the flair and urgency that made their debut so attractive.
Track Listing: Welcome To The Jungle / It’s So Easy / Nightrain / Out Ta Get Me / Mr Brownstone / Paradise City / My Michelle / Think About You / Sweet Child O’ Mine / You’re Crazy / Anything Goes / Rocket Green.
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Stephen Stills |
024 |
| Stephen Stills |
1970
Atlantic
UK: 30
US: 3
Producers: Stephen Stills & Bill Halverson |
| Recorded amid a very creative period for Stephen Stills following phenomenal success with Crosby, Stills & Nash. Utilising the talents of many fellow musicians and friends, including Hendrix, Clapton, Booker T., Ringo Starr and Mama Cass, Stills achieved an impressive and varied collection of songs. Largely eschewing the minimal acoustic template that had been so prevalent with his work with Nash and Crosby, Stills used the opportunity to indulge his love for blues guitar on ‘Go Back Home’ and ’Black Queen’ while also embracing folk, rock and soul styles. The gospel infused ‘Church (Part Of Someone)’, the delicate ‘To A Flame’ with its mesmerising glockenspiel parts and the epic closing tune ‘We Are Not Helpless’ were outstanding numbers and the commercial ‘Love The One You’re With’ provided Stills with a hit single, peaking at number fourteen in the US. In the next couple of years Stills would release a rather underwhelming follow up before teaming up with Chris Hillman to form the impressive Manassas.
Track Listing: Love The One You’re With / Do For The Others / Church (Part Of Someone) / Old Times Good Times / Go Back Home / Sit Yourself Down / To A Flame / Black Queen / Cherokee / We Are Not Helpless.
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Ryan Adams |
025 |
| Gold |
2001
Lost Highway
UK: 20
US: 59
Producer: Ethan Johns |
| Gold was a decidedly more commercial and polished effort than Adams’s debut Heartbreaker. However, it remains none more engaging and affecting for it. A sprawling and ambitious collection of sixteen songs, it would go on to sell over a million copies worldwide and earn Adams a couple of much deserved Grammy nominations. Moving away from the more acoustic approach of his debut, Adams ventured out with a more rock feel, none more so on the opening tracks ‘New York, New York‘ and ‘Firecracker‘. However, it was on the plethora of ballads that Adams’s emotive and melodic song-writing talents really came to the fore, especially on ’Sylvia Plath’, ’When The Stars Go Blue’ and closing song ’Goodnight, Hollywood Boulevard’. Once again Ethan Johns would provide a sympathetic production, as well as playing the majority of the drums and offering some sterling string arrangements. Following the success of this record, Adams engaged on a prolific musical journey, that has always remained equally endearing and challenging.
New York, New York / Firecracker / Answering Bell / La Cienega Just Smiled / The Rescue Blues / Somehow, Someday / When the Stars Go Blue / Nobody Girl / Sylvia Plath / Enemy Fire / Gonna Make You Love Me / Wild Flowers / Harder Now That It's Over / Touch, Feel and Lose / Tina Toledo's Street Walking Blues / Goodnight, Hollywood Blvd.
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Jeff Buckley |
026 |
| Grace |
1994
Columbia
UK: 50
US: 149
Producer: Andy Wallace |
| Although on release it was a commercial disappointment, Grace has since enjoyed considerable critical acclaim, in no small part to Buckley’s amazing voice and his song-writing gifts, and has now sold over two million copies. Drowning in a swimming accident at the age of 30, this collection would be the only record he released in his lifetime, subsequent posthumous releases have shown that there was much more that his creative talent had to offer. Buckley impressed not only with his own work, his dramatic and emotive ‘ Last Goodbye’ and ‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Over’ were particularly ambitious highlights, but also in his distinctive readings of others’ work; Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ was a stirring, erotic rendition and ‘Corpus Christi Carol’ and ‘Lilac Wine’ were also made his own. Grace has since received praise from the likes of Dylan, Bowie and Jimmy Page and is now recognised as one of the most impressive releases of the 1990s, and surely one of the greatest debuts of all time.
Track Listing: Mojo Pin / Grace / Last Goodbye / Lilac Wine / So Real / Hallelujah / Lover, You Should’ve Come Over / Corpus Christi Carol / Eternal Life / Dream Brother.
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Michael Nesmith |
027 |
| Magnetic South |
1970
R.C.A.
UK: -
US: -
Producer: Felton Jarvis |
| Driven by the frenetic steel guitar of Red Rhodes in the lead-off track ‘Calico Girlfriend’, Magnetic South is a pretty, engaging slice of country-rock. Including Nesmith’s most successful single, the mournful ‘Joanne’ which charted at number twenty one in the US, the album finally showed that Nesmith was just more than a quarter of one of the America’s most successful fabricated pop acts. The record showed off the warm musicianship of the The First National Band and the song-writing skills and soulful country croon of the quiet Monkee. Not a million miles from the direction Nesmith had been taking the Monkees in the latter part of the 60s; an earlier template for his country influenced pop was heard on 1969’s ‘Listen To The Band’. Magnetic South met with little commercial success, and Nesmith continued in a country rock vein for the remainder of the 1970s but never quite reached the artistic heights of this collection.
Track Listing: Calico Girlfriend / Nine Times Blue / Little Red Rider / The Crippled Lion / Joanne / First National Rag / Mama Nantucket / The Keys To The Car / Hollywood / The One Rose (That’s Left In My Heart) / Beyond The Blue Horizon.
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The Beach Boys |
028 |
| The Beach Boys Today! |
1965
Capitol
UK: 6
US: 4
Producer: Brian Wilson |
| In just fourteen months, Brian Wilson, having abandoned touring with the group to focus on writing and production, would mastermind the release of this album, the equally impressive Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) and his masterpiece Pet Sounds. Moving away from the surf songs that had provided them with considerable success since the early 1960s, Wilson would become more experimental and innovative in both his song-writing and his arrangements. The sublime ballads ‘Please Let Me Wonder’ and ‘Kiss Me Baby’ would hint at the majesty of the Pet Sounds project that would be released the following year. However, the Beach Boys showed they could still create joyous upbeat pop songs, including ‘Help Me, Rhonda’ and ‘Dance, Dance, Dance‘, plus a riotous version of Bobby Freeman’s ‘Do You Wanna Dance?’. An obsessive approach to music would soon derail Wilson’s creative spirit but on this collection it was apparent that his was a formidable musical talent.
Track Listing: Do You Wanna Dance? / Good To My Baby / Don’t Hurt My Little Sister / When I Grow Up (To Be A Man) / Help Me, Rhonda / Dance, Dance, Dance / Please Let Me Wonder / I’m So Young / Kiss Me Baby / She Knows Me Too Well / In The Back Of My Mind / Bull Sessions With ‘Big Daddy’.
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Bruce Springsteen |
029 |
| Darkness On The Edge Of Town |
1978
C.B.S. / Columbia
UK: 16
US: 5
Producers: Jon Landau & Bruce Springsteen |
| Normally eschewed in favour of it’s landmark predecessor Born To Run, this 1978 release laid bare the darker side of Springsteen’s rock n’roll dream. Having faced a traumatic court case against his ex-manager after the release of his breakthrough album, Springsteen slipped into a more foreboding and austere frame of mind. Despite this it still ranks as one of his best efforts with highlights such as ‘Badlands‘, ‘Racing In The Street’ and the title track exploring the often bleak realities of the working man’s life, but always offering a ray of hope for his songs’ characters and his avid listeners. The line-up of the E Street Band had finally settled after a number of line-up changes prior to Born To Run, which would suit the albums tight, direct arrangements. Springsteen would constantly flip between explicitly commercial offerings and darker, more introspective material for the rest of his career, following this release with The River in 1980, the bleak Nebraska in 1982 and then the huge commercial success Born In The USA in 1984.
Track Listing: Badlands / Adam Raised A Cain / Something In The Night / Candy’s Room / Racing In The Street / The Promised Land / Factory / Streets Of Fire / Prove It All Night / Darkness On The Edge Of Town.
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Townes Van Zandt |
030 |
| Townes Van Zandt |
1970
Poppy
UK: -
US: -
Producers: Kevin Eggers & Jim Malloy |
| On this, his third album, Van Zandt released the finest set of songs of his career. From the opening ‘For The Sake Of The Song’ through to the closing ‘None But The Rain‘, the standard was exceptionally high. Veering somewhere between folk and country, with often no more than an acoustic guitar for accompaniment, Van Zandt, sounding more world-weary than someone twice his age, sang an affecting collection of songs of love and love lost. Despite the often depressing lyrical content of songs such as ‘Waitin’ Around To Die’ the young Texan’s voice had a strange uplifting quality, none more so than on the tracks ‘I’ll Be Here In The Morning’ and the up-tempo ‘Fare Thee Well Miss Carousel‘. Commercial success largely evaded Van Zandt for the duration of his musical career; however, his musical legacy remains as significant as any of the major songwriters of the 1970s, perhaps more so.
Track Listing: For The Sake Of The Song / Columbine / Waitin’ Around To Die / Don’t Take It Too Bad / Colorado Girl / Lungs / I’ll Be Here In The Morning / Fare Thee Well, Miss Carousel / (Quicksilver Daydreams of) Maria / None But The Rain.
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| THE GREATEST ALBUMS
EVER 21-30 |
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