Essential Studio Albums

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Stevie Wonder - Talking Book

It’s hard for me to find another artist where his uptempo material is the stuff I am always after, and on the other hand the ballads I viscously dislike. For instance, Superstitious, Big Brother and Maybe Your Baby here are awesome uses of funk, soul, and an iconic voice. You Are the Sunshine of My Life, I Believe…a waste of time for me. This is part of the reason owning the definitive Stevie Wonder greatest hits is a must have, but I never really considered diving too deep. There’ll be a few of his better known albums here, and this one was an up and down adventure, but I have to believe his next few will be more worth it. But Superstitious might be my favorite Stevie Wonder song and it’s here so that is something.

The Essential Track: Superstitious

Up Next: Bob Weir - Ace

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Bob Weir - Ace

The Grateful Dead songbook is massive, but it also exists in rabbit holes and through trapped doors. There’s rarely a focused discussion on the band’s solo albums, done in the midst of their creative peak, but these albums hold nearly as many live Grateful Dead staples as the canonical material. On this one, Bob Weir puts to tape live staples Greatest Story Ever Told, Black-Throated Wind, Playing in the Band, Looks Like Rain, Mexicali Blues, One More Saturday Night, and Cassidy. That’s a good chunk of songs to be mainstays of the band’s live show to never hit a proper Dead album, but as that good list demonstrates, falling down a Dead rabbit hole rarely results in disappointment. This is quite the solid studio album that eclipses even some of the main material.

The Essential Track: Playing in the Band

Up Next: Jerry Garcia - Garcia

[liebzz]

Jerry Garcia - Garcia

In another twist, Garcia is among the best albums Jerry Garcia ever recorded and sits among American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead as pure masterpiece works. Cross all the fields of Garcia’s career at that point, there’s Americana, there’s wild experiments, there’s dark imagery and sad characters. And if you listen to live Dead albums, it’s essentially a Grateful Dead album. The album starts with Deal, Bird Song, Sugaree, and Loser - Basically 4 songs that are bona fide staples of the live shows. Add the epic ballad To Lay Me Down, and the live show return from Space that is The Wheel, among the best songs he’s done, and you have yourself a phenomenal album.

The Essential Track: Sugaree

Up Next: Mickey Hart - Rolling Thunder

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Mickey Hart - Rolling Thunder

The trifecta of Dead member solo albums, this may be the least Dead sounding of the albums, but with contributions from Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia in spots, this is not a complete departure. The drums definitely take the wheel, but the use of horn sections and some different rhythms differentiate this from say the Dead catalogue. And that notwithstanding, this is a very good album. Two songs also on Ace feature: The Main Ten which is Playing in the Band, and Pump Song that is Greatest Story Ever Told. The latter is a complete rearrangement while the former is less of a deviation but they are both great. Young Man is a solid straight ahead rock song on an otherwise slightly off kilter sound. There’s always another stone to unturn in the Grateful Dead universe.

The Essential Track: The Main Ten

Up Next: Big Star - #1 Record

[lvc]

I may not get to it tomorrow, which means you might have to be waiting for Stevie.

That's it. I'm cancelling my subscription to this chat room.

[liebzz]

I may not get to it tomorrow, which means you might have to be waiting for Stevie.

That's it. I'm cancelling my subscription to this chat room.

Dad rock + dad jokes about dad rock = bliss

[liebzz]

Big Star - #1 Record

This begins a duo of albums I again probably should have heard at some point but never quite got to it. I also had no clue what they were going to sound like absent any research. This first album is very much a pop rock record, almost a bridge into the 70s what the Beatles were doing in the early to mid 60s. At the same time, they are ahead of straight forward rock bands of the mid-to-late 70s and beyond, as if they are serving as the bridge between pop rock and college bands of later years. In some instances, particularly on Don’t Lie to Me, they just rock, while the closing few tracks are more an advance on REM. It creates a both fascinating and yet easily listenable experience. Enjoyed this quite a bit.

The Essential Track: Don’t Lie to Me

Up Next: Roxy Music

[liebzz]

Roxy Music

For all the experimentation, this band has a real theatrical pop streak to them that actually works to ground the music in a good sense of form. It’s certainly art rock, but it’s not chaos or even hard to listen to. It also makes those moments where they experiment a sense of excitement. Re-Make/Re-Model opens on muffled conversation but quickly turns into a solid song. If There Is Something is catchier than I initially thought, and same with Bitters End. Sea Breezes emerged for me as a favorite despite being one of the more experimental tracks. A fascinating listen balancing almost the trag suite albums with a Queen or David Bowie.

The Essential Track: Sea Breezes

Up Next: Lou Reed - Transformer

[tragabigzanda]

[Kevin Davis]

I really love the second Roxy Music album, For Your Pleasure. "The Bogus Man" is a sonic delight!

[tragabigzanda]

[liebzz]

Lou Reed - Transformer

For this one, I had heard parts of this album but apparently never the whole thing. Perfect Day and Walk on the Wild Side are the obvious songs I have heard plenty of times, but I never much explored his solo stuff despite decades of listening to the Velvet Underground. Hangin’ ‘Round, Wagon Wheel, and I’m So Free are the exhibits on why I should be regretting that. This album certainly feels like signature Lou Reed, and there’s a familiarity to him even outside VU that I can appreciate here.

The Essential Track: Walk on the Wild Side

Up Next: The Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street

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The Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street

Had you asked me before this journey what my favorite album was, this would be it. To my ears, this was the synthesis of all the things that were great, not only with the Stones, but all of rock music. Varied yet cohesive, long but you never want it to end, and just song after song of greatness unrelenting in the face of electric blues or experimental jams or country or hard rock or anything else they felt like throwing in the pot. Rocks Off and Rip This Joint are two of the most hard rocking songs they’ve ever delivered and they start this thing. Shake Your Hips is all boogie blues, Tumbling Dice and Loving Cup two classics that may not have the star power of their most known songs but bring classic Stones to the fore. Sweet Virginia is a work of genius. Ventilator Blues and Stop Breaking Down are cool as hell. All Down the Line, Shine A Light, Soul Survivor all mic drop moments of greatness. Happy might be the top Keith song. Everywhere you turn here you get the Stones on top of their game - even with all the shenanigans and chaos that went into recording this thing.

The Essential Track: All Down the Line (it’s basically almost all of this album so I am almost just throwing a dart at the tracklist)

Up Next: Neil Young - Harvest

[liebzz]

Neil Young - Harvest

It’s hard to really put into words how much I enjoy 70s Neil Young, and there are a good number of contenders for the crown jewel of that run. This is one of them. This seems in many ways like the quintessential Neil Young album - full of classic songs and hitting you with some of that restless tinkering that you almost don’t notice it’s there because it’s so expertly woven into the fabric of the album. A Man Needs a Maid and There’s a World have an orchestra backing him, but somehow it works. On the Weekend, Harvest, and Heart of Gold give you this sense or paint the album in such a manner that folks might call this country rock or something in that vein, but Alabama and Words (Between the Lines of Age) explode out the speakers in their moment - at once fitting in the album’s mood while working a bombast that’s nearly Zeppelin-like. Needle and the Damage Done is a live cut, but I don’t know that there’s another way to present that. So we learn this album is all over the place and yet everything flows quite naturally. One of several of his masterpieces. I am picking Words as the winner here because it is plainly one of my favorite Neil Young songs

The Essential Track: Words (Through the Lines of Age)

Up Next: Allman Brothers Band - Eat A Peach

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Allman Brothers Band - Eat A Peach

It’s a real shame that you can’t talk about Eat A Peach without talking about the monumental loss of Duane Allman. This comes as a tribute on the heels of his death, but also on the heels of At Fillmore East, an impossibly great live album so good it probably would be near the top of this list if I included it. The 9 tracks that make up this double album are pretty much all essential pieces of the Allmans canon. Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More, Melissa, One Way Out, and Blue Sky are all staples of classic rock radio, and deservedly so. Les Brers in A Minor is a 9 minute instrumental that rivals Elizabeth Reed, the live version of Trouble No More is a reminder that no one could do what they did but them. Stand Back is classic Allmans. Mountain Jam is maybe the toughest listen here because it’s more than a half hour long of pure twin guitar jamming, and then there’s album closing, and perhaps Duane Allman’s final studio showcase in Little Martha, yet another instrumental on an album that’s dominated by them - and still this stands as one of the great rock albums. My favorite here is the near perfect Blue Sky, a preview of the Allman Brothers Band to come but also a pure moment of song writing and band interplay perfection - the sort of thing the Allman Brothers were always capable of in the studio, and though they have some of my favorite albums, they even still rarely get this good in that format.

The Essential Track: Blue Sky

Up Next: ZZ Top - Rio Grande Mud

[VinylGuy]

The Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street

Had you asked me before this journey what my favorite album was, this would be it. To my ears, this was the synthesis of all the things that were great, not only with the Stones, but all of rock music. Varied yet cohesive, long but you never want it to end, and just song after song of greatness unrelenting in the face of electric blues or experimental jams or country or hard rock or anything else they felt like throwing in the pot. Rocks Off and Rip This Joint are two of the most hard rocking songs they’ve ever delivered and they start this thing. Shake Your Hips is all boogie blues, Tumbling Dice and Loving Cup two classics that may not have the star power of their most known songs but bring classic Stones to the fore. Sweet Virginia is a work of genius. Ventilator Blues and Stop Breaking Down are cool as hell. All Down the Line, Shine A Light, Soul Survivor all mic drop moments of greatness. Happy might be the top Keith song. Everywhere you turn here you get the Stones on top of their game - even with all the shenanigans and chaos that went into recording this thing.

The Essential Track: All Down the Line (it’s basically almost all of this album so I am almost just throwing a dart at the tracklist)

Up Next: Neil Young - Harvest

this is a weird take i know, but Exile doesnt quite work for me as other Stone´s albums like Sticky Fingers or Some Girls.

[wease]

Allman Brothers Band - Eat A Peach

It’s a real shame that you can’t talk about Eat A Peach without talking about the monumental loss of Duane Allman. This comes as a tribute on the heels of his death, but also on the heels of At Fillmore East, an impossibly great live album so good it probably would be near the top of this list if I included it. The 9 tracks that make up this double album are pretty much all essential pieces of the Allmans canon. Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More, Melissa, One Way Out, and Blue Sky are all staples of classic rock radio, and deservedly so. Les Brers in A Minor is a 9 minute instrumental that rivals Elizabeth Reed, the live version of Trouble No More is a reminder that no one could do what they did but them. Stand Back is classic Allmans. Mountain Jam is maybe the toughest listen here because it’s more than a half hour long of pure twin guitar jamming, and then there’s album closing, and perhaps Duane Allman’s final studio showcase in Little Martha, yet another instrumental on an album that’s dominated by them - and still this stands as one of the great rock albums. My favorite here is the near perfect Blue Sky, a preview of the Allman Brothers Band to come but also a pure moment of song writing and band interplay perfection - the sort of thing the Allman Brothers were always capable of in the studio, and though they have some of my favorite albums, they even still rarely get this good in that format.

The Essential Track: Blue Sky

Up Next: ZZ Top - Rio Grande Mud

Blue Sky is a perfect song. There are a few live versions with Duane on them and any version with him is a treat. Just as this one is.

[liebzz]

The Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street

Had you asked me before this journey what my favorite album was, this would be it. To my ears, this was the synthesis of all the things that were great, not only with the Stones, but all of rock music. Varied yet cohesive, long but you never want it to end, and just song after song of greatness unrelenting in the face of electric blues or experimental jams or country or hard rock or anything else they felt like throwing in the pot. Rocks Off and Rip This Joint are two of the most hard rocking songs they’ve ever delivered and they start this thing. Shake Your Hips is all boogie blues, Tumbling Dice and Loving Cup two classics that may not have the star power of their most known songs but bring classic Stones to the fore. Sweet Virginia is a work of genius. Ventilator Blues and Stop Breaking Down are cool as hell. All Down the Line, Shine A Light, Soul Survivor all mic drop moments of greatness. Happy might be the top Keith song. Everywhere you turn here you get the Stones on top of their game - even with all the shenanigans and chaos that went into recording this thing.

The Essential Track: All Down the Line (it’s basically almost all of this album so I am almost just throwing a dart at the tracklist)

Up Next: Neil Young - Harvest

this is a weird take i know, but Exile doesnt quite work for me as other Stone´s albums like Sticky Fingers or Some Girls.

To be fair, this album, as great as it is, doesn’t blow away Sticky Fingers and there are times I hear one of those albums and say it’s better than the other and then reverse course when I listen to the other. If I listened to both albums back and forth 10 times, I’d probably choose Exile 6 of those times.

[liebzz]

ZZ Top - Rio Grande Mud

Ah yes, we are closing in on that signature ZZ Top stomp. This is filled with those bluesy rock riffs that are maybe a tad obvious but have that cathartic quality that makes you want to rock your head to it. The sort of internal definition of that southern blues sound that’s always fun to listen to. And it’s still good fun for them. Just Got Paid, Ko Ko Blue, Chevrolet, Bar-B-Q, Whiskey N’ Mama and Down Brownie are all excellent examples. They even their own epic in Sure Got Cold After the Rain Fell. Solid album.

The Essential Track: Sure Hot Cold After the Rain Fell

Up Next: Yes - Fragile

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Yes - Fragile

I’ve certainly heard the single version of Roundabout, and had no idea it was this prog behemoth in full length. It makes for a turn twisting adventure, much like the other highlights that extend run times. South Side of the Sky, Long Distance Runaround fading into The Fish, and Heart of the Sunrise are the other long form adventures, with the band at times taking it seemingly as far as they could. The prog heroes here have fully arrived.

The Essential Track: Long Distance Runaround > The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus) (cheating but they really work as a pair)

Up Next: Chicago V