#8 - Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water
If anyone on this list needs an explanation of how good this album is, you can email me. I don't expect my inbox to be filling up any time soon.
Favorites: Only Living Boy in New York, The Boxer, Baby Driver
Least Favorite: Bridge Over Troubled Water (ironic, no?)
#9 - Vigilantes of Love, Audible Sigh
Those of you who know me have seen this coming for some time. Your only surprise may be that it isn't higher. My fanboy status for VOL may have declined over the past years, but this album abides as one of the true greats of the alt-country genre, and probably a snapshot of the band at its height. More talented as a poet than a musician, lead man Bill Mallonee crafted intense, literary lyrics that on this album finally got their due support from equally talented band members. Barn-burning rockers combine with quiet glimpses of hope and a raw brand of melancholy that few others can match. I still remember when I first heard this album: it was two weeks before I was getting married, I was living by myself in a tiny rented house on a farm in Bristol, Tennessee, and this came in the mail. Only problem: no stereo. I dug through still-unpacked boxes until I found my computer, dug it out, plugged in the crappy standard computer speakers and dropped the album in the CD-Rom slot. It sounded awesome.
Favorite tracks: She Walks on Roses, Extreme North of the Compass, Solar System (click for a listen)
Also available on Emusic: Check it.
Apologies for the extended absence - I think you can tell who on this list is in graduate school. Job interviews, teaching, and dissertation writing (or staring at the computer screen for 5 hours and producing one paragraph) have consumed much of my time, plus the fact that we just reverted to dial-up internet (yes, it still exists) and uploading images becomes painful and slow....
So, in typical Aaron Cowan fashion, it's time to scoot in here at the last minute and catch up. In the words of Homer Simpson, "Put on a pot of coffee. Then drink it, and start making hamburgers! I'm pulling an all-nighter!"
I probably don't really like this album more than Who's Next, The Joshua Tree or any number of others already on this list, but I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that, below the top 5 or so, this list is pretty arbitrary and random. The first track, "Annie Waits" lets you know what this album is all about right off the bat - great piano pop and handclaps. Of course, now that I'm a dad I get all weepy over "Still Fighting It." This album also wins the "Most Proper Names Used in Song Titles" award for its fun twisted biographical vignettes...plus, the title track mocks corporate white rap-metal, which, despite its now-dated references, is still funny. Good times.
Favorite tracks: Annie Waits, Still Fighting It, Not the Same
God this album is so good. What else to say? Besides the aptly-described "art wank" of Revolution 9, I defy you to find one track on here you wouldn't want to hear at any given moment of any given day. The definitive proof that art and listenability are not mutually exclusive.
Favorite Tracks: See above
Thanks to my parents for raising me to love the music that would produce this music. And thanks to Forbes for telling me about it.
Favorite Tracks: Lion's Mane, Beard Stealing Bread, Upward Over the Mountain
One of the aforementioned albums my parents raised me to love. There aren't many artists that can release an album in a entirely new fake voice and pull it off, but Dylan inhabits the metaphysical stratosphere upon which other musicians fear to tread. The giant finger to all who still held on to the belief that Dylan was the spokesman for his generation, as he revealed himself to be the "song and dance man" he'd always insisted he was. Throw this on some night this spring when you're having dinner and see if it doesn't convince you, despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary, that life is good.
Favorite tracks: Girl from the North Country (with Johnny Cash), Peggy Day, Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You
More later - horrible, horrible essays on WEB DuBois' The Souls of Black Folk await the wrath of my pen. The red ink will flow like rivers.....
#14 - U2, The Joshua Tree (1987)
Overly earnest
Still good after all these years
Despite Edge's hat
#16: Spoon - Kill the Moonlight
I'm too tired to write something about this album that it deserves. It's really good. Alternately cocky and hopeless. Awesome percussion and a great album for headphones. Oh, and any album that gives a lyrical shout-out to the Chicago Manual of Style is alright by me.
Free sample below.
Standout tracks: Paper Tiger, The Way We Get By, Back to the Life
#18- Beulah, The Coast is Never Clear (2001)
In keeping with Brandon's Neutral Milk Hotel post, I'll keep the Elephant 6 theme going here. I'm really starting to realize how subjective these ratings are for me, depending on the mood or the day. Do I really like that Tracy Chapman album better than The Cars? Is this really my 18th favorite album? My top five are pretty solid, but other than those I feel I'm pretty much making it up as I go along. So, this is the one I pulled out of the air at the moment.
It was late summer of 2001, we had just moved to Cincinnati and I was in the glorious period after moving to a new locale but before beginning the soul-crushing experience that is grad school. And, Melissa was working full-time, so I had lots of time on my hands. The local alternative rag recommended this album for anyone "Jonesing for the new (then-delayed) Wilco album" (was I?!?) On good faith of the review and smooth cover art, I plunked down my $12 at the record store and gave it a listen. And I enjoyed it. That's all.
Then, in March of that year, after a grueling winter quarter I collapsed on a beach of the gulf coast of Florida, pulled my hat over my eyes, and put in this disc (yes, Sugar, on a Discman). This time the confluence of setting, emotional exhaustion, and music clicked, and I began to love this album. I would best describe it as "Indie-country-jazz-pop for lying on the beach" Comparisons to Summerteeth-era Wilco or Granddaddy are apt - indeed, I think Tweedy & Co. toured with Beulah before Summerteeth, so there was no doubt some mutual influencing going on. The lyrics are often jarringly incongruous, such as in the seemingly upbeat pop/rock number "A Good Man is Easy to Kill" which upon closer listen is the protagonist, speaking to the object of his affection in a coma, unable to focus on anything but his own insecurity about love: "When you flew through that windshield / And your life passed reel to reel/Was there a bit part for me?"
This album won't change your life and didn't redefine the direction of pop music or anything, but damned if 5 years later I don't still find it really enjoyable.
Standout Tracks: Gravity's Bringing Us Down, What Will You Do When Your Suntan Fades, Gene Autry (which has the best horn solo in a pop song ever. Period.)
Best Listened To: On summer evenings with an alcoholic beverage and a nice breeze
#19-Tracy Chapman, Tracy Chapman (1988)
I admit, I'm a little embarrassed about this choice. Feel free to mock me openly if you wish. I know TC is usually the fave of the female college sophomore Indigo Girl set, but here it is. I discovered this disc in high school when one of my parent's old college burned-out hippie friends (they had a lot of them) accidentally left it behind after a visit. I was moving out of my Christian anthem rock stage and discovering my mom's old Dylan and S & G records and this hit my sweet spot. If you only know Tracy Chapman from the ubiquitous single "Gimme One Reason to Stay Here" don't hold it against her. "Talkin' Bout a Revolution" is about the gutsiest first track on a debut record ever - not too many female guitar playing singer-songwriter types want to introduce themselves to the world by telling everyone that "poor people gonna rise up/and get their share/poor people gonna rise up/and take what's theirs" The sad desperation of "Fast Car" still gets me 15 years after my first listen. While "Why?" is melodramatic and idealistic, what folk musician has ever been accused of reasonable, solution-based suggestions for gradual change in social policy? The social songs are balanced by some more traditional fare exploring love and relationships that avoids becoming trite.
Okay, then, my first two albums have been both self-titled debuts. If you don't think Backstreet Boys, Backstreet Boys (1996) is next on my list, then I have to ask: Do you even know me?
You got a fast car
And we go cruising to entertain ourselves
You still ain't got a job
And I work in a market as a checkout girl
I know things will get better
You'll find work and I'll get promoted
We'll move out of the shelter
Buy a big house and live in the suburbs
also, sorry, I forgot to say hi. I'm Aaron Cowan, from Cincinnati, former college roomie of Big Cougar and hallmate of Papa Shoe. Oh, and in case my reference to "the burgeoning teenage sexual culture of the postwar era" (or whatever BS I wrote) didn't give it away, I'm a historian. And a damn good one, too.
Alright, that's it - I'm in. I can't hold out any longer. So, (in my best Casey Kasem voice) coming in at #20:
The Cars - The Cars (1978)
The cover art gets to the heart of what this album was all about - the revival of a 1950s-era obsession with big cars and glammed-out women, all fed through the clear-plastic steering wheel of New Wave synth. When people say the 1980s were the 1950s, they ain't just talking about the pro-business Republican president and big hair. Seriously, would any of the following song titles be out of place on an Eddie Cochran record? "Good Times Roll", "My Best Friend's Girl" or "Bye Bye Love"? Ocasek's vocal inflections on "Best Friend's Girl" are a none-too-subtle nod to the stylings of Buddy Holly, and while few 1950s records included lyrics like "right here your hands are soft and creamy/right here your mouth is wet and dreamy" or "I don't care if you use me again/i don't care if you abuse me again", The Cars simply took the burgeoning teenage youth sexual culture of the postwar era to its new punk and post-porn heights.
Serious points have to be deducted for "I'm in Touch With Your World" but other than that regrettable misstep, this album is tight through and through.
Plus, we have Ric Ocasek to thank for the genius that is the first Weezer album. I can only imagine the joy that must have crossed his face when Rivers Cuomo walked in and said "I've got this song called 'Buddy Holly'...." (Also, curiously, both this album and Weezer's Blue Album would make the list of "best debut albums in rock history" and the best albums by both respective bands)
I hope and pray there is a special level of hell reserved for Circuit City for reducing the sexual angst and obsession of "Just What I Needed" into an anthem to sell plasma TVs.
Also, as we honor the Cars here, let us never speak of "Drive.
Best Tracks: Just What I Needed, You're All I've Got Tonight, All Mixed Up (not to be confused with the equally brilliant Red House Painters cover)
Best Listened to: When you just aren't feeling New Wave enough
