Essential Studio Albums

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John Lennon - Double Fantasy

I have to admit that as time goes on, the narrative that John Lennon was the creative genius behind the Beatles, and/or that he had the strongest post-Beatles solo career gets shattered by decent but not extraordinary albums. Granted, if you were looking at just the Lennon contributions to this one, you’d have a pretty decent argument for me. Watching the Wheels is fantastic, and his other classics from here - (Just Like) Starting Over, and Woman - are pretty good in their own right. Beyond that, there’s really not too much depth to this album, which seems to be attempting to express the challenges of a family from both John and Yoko’s perspectives.

Here’s a brief summary of Yoko’s contributions:


The Essential Track: Watching the Wheels

Up Next: Billy Joel - Glass Houses

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Billy Joel - Glass Houses

The first half of this album is stupefyingly good. Channeling nearly early Beatles-like pop, Joel has a ton of momentum banging through You May Be Right, Sometimes a Fantasy, Don’t Ask Me Why, It’s Still Rock and Roll To Me, and All For Leyna - I was fully prepared for what started as my favorite Billy Joel album. The second half doesn’t match the first and drops off considerably but is still pretty good, including album closer Through the Long Night. But good news is it didn’t grate on me like it sometimes can. Good stuff.

The Essential Track: You May Be Right

Up Next: Pete Townshend - Empty Glass

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Pete Townshend - Empty Glass

I think it’s hard to conceive of Pete Townshend outside the Who. Yet, here, Empty Glass may up the ante against the late era Who output. It’s hard to even think of music he made contemporaneous that even holds a candle to the raw power of Jools and Jim and Gonna Get Ya. Add to that the classic pop of Let My Love Open the Door, the excellent title track, Rough Boys, I Am An Animal, and A Little Is Enough and you have yourself a fantastic album.

The Essential Track: Jools and Jim

Up Next: Neil Young - Hawks & Doves

[Birds in Hell]

Absolutely love McCartney II, probably Paul’s best record.

Yoko’s songs on Double Fantasy are light years better than John’s.

Kiss Kiss Kiss and Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him are all-timers.

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Neil Young - Hawks & Doves

This is a fascinating album, and one I liked considerably more this time than last time around. Yeah, Union Man and Colin’ Apart at Every Nail still seem a little hokey to me, and Lost in Space wasn’t a place I followed Neil, but really the rest is quite enjoyable. Little Wing, The Old Homestead, the title track, and of all tracks, Stayin’ Power really resonated and stuck to me. I’d even like to give this a handful more listens and have all of this grow on me some more. It’s not as fun as the last few, but it’s got some charm in there for sure.

The Essential Track (on this listen): Stayin’ Power

Up Next: Tom Waits - Heartattack and Vine

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Tom Waits - Heartattack & Vine

It seems from taking a cursory look on the internets that this is not the most beloved Tom Waits album. Departing somewhat from the jazz lounge over to the blues lounge, Tom Waits seems to be taking a slightly different approach here. The songs do seem more rooted in the blues, particularly the songs I think make up the heart of this album - the title track, Downtown, Til the Money Runs Out, and Mr. Siegel. Even hearing Jersey Girl here is grittier and bluesy rather than Springsteen’s version that is more pastoral and fan service joyful. Tales of this album being middle of the road, at least to my ears, are highly exaggerated.

The Essential Track: Heartattack & Vine

Up Next: Bob Marley and the Wailers - Uprising

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Bob Marley and the Wailers - Uprising

This would be the last album before Bob Marley’s passing. On this album, I wasn’t all that invested in the first half - maybe because it just seemed like a retread of countless other Bob Marley albums - good enough but nothing to report. In the second half, starting with Work, then Zion Train, Pimper’s Paradise, Could You Be Loved, and Forever Loving Jah, the album takes off and lives up to its reputation as one of his better albums, mostly because there’s some decent variation from the formula without losing the soul of Bob’s delivery. The album ends, most famously, with Redemption Song, which is one of the more beautiful sparse songs I can remember hearing. The themes, the vulnerability, basically everything about this is stunning with just Bob Marley and an acoustic guitar. Incredible swan song.

The Essential Track: Redemption Song

Up Next: The Police - Zenyatta Mondatta

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The Police - Zenyatta Mondatta

On their third album, we get a huge upgrade I think from the last one. Don’t Stand So Close to Me is creepy, but it’s a solid hit anyway. Driven to Tears is really quite good - reggae inflected but really more rock driven. When the World is Running Down… is a great song I totally forget existed. Probably haven’t heard that song since I was a child. Bombs Away, Man in a Suitcase, Do Do Do Do Da Da Da Da, and Shadows in the Rain are other really solid highlights here. It’s quite an enjoyable album, even if not perfect.

The Essential Track: When the World is Running Down, You Make the Best of What’s Still Around

Up Next: The Pretenders

[coptheriotact]

how often are you finding side B to be the better side?

or how often are you thinking an album may not be very good, but its redeemed by the last few tracks?

[wease]

I wish I could’ve gotten Driven To Tears while Matt was still with the band.

[liebzz]

how often are you finding side B to be the better side?

or how often are you thinking an album may not be very good, but its redeemed by the last few tracks?

Fascinating because I am again about to post that about the Pretenders. I think it’s maybe a quarter of the time at most. I generally feel through these albums that they tend to be front loaded, and not that they get bad, but it starts to fall off a bit in the second half, or at least that the middle tends to be the hardest part for artists to get right. But lately, ‘78-‘80 so far, a lot of backloaded albums.

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Pretenders

The hit single, Brass in Pocket, is something that I think colored this band for me in a way I just never thought to dig any deeper. When taking in this one, it is immediately amongst my least favorite here - it’s fine, but despite the lyrics it is nothing special to me. Pretty much the rest of this album rocks. From the opener Precious through Tattooed Love Boys, the pace is such that I looked down and all of the sudden several tracks had passed. But this is another of those albums I think really opens up in the second half. Stop Your Sobbing, Kid and Private Life both great, but the closing of Lovers of Today and Mystery Achievement, both with extended jams, are epic. If I only knew that Brass in Pocket was more the anomaly.

The Essential Track: Lovers of Today

Up Next: Peter Gabriel 3: Melt

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Peter Gabriel 3 [Melt]

This album is completely wild. I absolutely loved it. Intruder, No Self Control, And Through the Wire, and Not One of Us immediately jump out to me, but everything on here has its place. Just a front to back masterclass. It holds as a rock album, but experiments with sounds enough to keep it interesting without ever losing focus. Damn, I wish I had this one in my sights before today.

The Essential Track: And Through the Wire

Up Next: The Cure - Seventeen Seconds

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The Cure - Seventeen Seconds

Here are the long intros you are looking for. In fact, some intros are so long they take up the whole song! I would need several listens here to unpack everything - not that it’s all that complex, but it seems like even in the simple rhythms that there’s more to tell in further listens than one on the surface. Immediately, Play for Today, Secrets, and A Forest stick out, and there’s really no complaints here because the driving rhythms become more and more addictive as the album progresses - but hopefully there’ll be plenty of time to go back and chew on this some more.

The Essential Track: A Forest

Up Next: Siouxsie and the Banshees - Kaleidoscope

[LoathedVermin72]

Billy Joel - Glass Houses

The first half of this album is stupefyingly good. Channeling nearly early Beatles-like pop, Joel has a ton of momentum banging through You May Be Right, Sometimes a Fantasy, Don’t Ask Me Why, It’s Still Rock and Roll To Me, and All For Leyna - I was fully prepared for what started as my favorite Billy Joel album. The second half doesn’t match the first and drops off considerably but is still pretty good, including album closer Through the Long Night. But good news is it didn’t grate on me like it sometimes can. Good stuff.

The Essential Track: You May Be Right

Up Next: Pete Townshend - Empty Glass

I do not appreciate this "Sleeping with the Television On" erasure

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Siouxsie and the Banshees - Kaleidoscope

This third album from Siouxsie and the Banshees leans more post punk than punk - at least from my first listen. There’s little bits of experimentation here mixed in with exactly what I would expect from a rhythm centered album. Happy House stuck out immediately as really good. Christine seemed really full of nice hooks, and Skin was a more than solid closer. Is it one of my personal favorites, probably not, but it fell pretty comfortably in the middle of all this, which given how few albums I have disliked so far, is really complimentary.

The Essential Track: Happy House

Up Next: The Durutti Column - The Return of the Durutti Column

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The Durutti Column - The Return of the Durutti Column

On listening to this, it gets sort of hard to explain what it’s all about. The closest I could come to is a mash of jazz fusion with the more modern rhythmic approaches with the spirit of those minimalist albums, and even a hint of dance. Certainly makes for an adventurous listen, and frankly it’s quite excellent. Sketch for Summer, Katherine, Conduct, Jazz, Sketch for Winter, and Experiment in Fifth were my favorites here.

The Essential Track: Conduct

Up Next: Killing Joke

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Killing Joke

I generally populated this list by taking your collective suggestions, my personal favorites, and consulting a lot of “greatest” blog lists, for which there are endless amounts. I recently saw a reference to this album and decided to throw it in. Despite its last minute inclusion, this was one hell of a record. Requiem starts this and serves notice that loud rock and electronic elements can play together well. Bloodsport is damn near dance-y. The Wait is really more rock focused and heavy. War Dance, Primitive, Change, Complications, and S.O.36 are also just great highlights and seems like a preview of what would explode in the 90s. A nice little find here.

The Essential Track: Bloodsport

Up Next: Wipers - Is This Real?

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Wipers - Is This Real?

Staying with some heavy music, this album has a really wonderful spark. Rather than a retread of the other punk albums covered here, this has a real connective tissue feel to bands that I grew up with, like Nirvana (huge fan of their cover of D-7), especially in their sense of timing (the loud-quiet-loud thing, or a change in tempo to speed up or intensify the chorus in just such a way). This was a good suggestion and no surprise a Matt Cameron is playing tribute to this album and band.

The Essential Track: D-7

Up Next: The Ramones - End of the Century

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The Ramones - End of the Century

This one starts well with Do You Remember Rock ‘N’ Roll Radio, but it also takes a major gear shift as the production is clearly different and there’s all sorts of stuff here, even a horn section. I’m Affected is a good follow, but then it seems like the band is sort of losing its way in the middle, and This Ain’t Havana is probably the next decent track. Rock ‘n’ Roll High School is a classic and High Risk Insurance probably rounds out an okay and listenable album, but nothing near the records that came before it.

The Essential Track: Do You Remember Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio?

Up Next: Kate Bush - Never for Ever