Essential Studio Albums

[liebzz]

Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt & Emmilou Harris - Trio

What’s immediately remarkable about this album is how well these three different voices harmonize as well as they do. This takes a more traditional approach to country music and feels quite twangy, but the songs keep a sort of universal impact that can hit you even if country’s not your thing - particularly on album highlight Telling Me Lies. There are plenty of other highlights here too - The Pain of Loving You, Making Plans, Hobo’s Meditation, and I’ve Had Enough are first listen gems. There’s lots of potential for these three working together.

The Essential Track: Telling Me Lies

Up Next: George Michael - Faith

[liebzz]

George Michael - Faith

Stepping out from Wham, George Michael made one of the biggest albums of the decade in Faith. I mean, it was everywhere for a long long time. Listening to it now, seems like nearly every track was a hit, and good on him for that - an album he painstakingly curated and crafted. And for a pure pop album, it’s quite good. The closest parallel I have is Prince, though I think something about Prince’s energy, an anything is possible wild energy, versus Michael’s more controlled pop, is my strong preference. But comparisons to the impossible aside, I found more out of this than I expected, not being a particular fan of this kind of pop. The 10 minute I Want Your Sex here is the winner, but even then, it needed something in the 7-8 minute mark to push it over the edge.

The Essential Track: I Want Your Sex, Parts 1 & 2

Up Next: Pink Floyd - A Momentary Lapse of Reason

[liebzz]

Pink Floyd - A Momentary Lapse of Reason

This is the first Pink Floyd album without Roger Waters, and while there are a lot of bright spots here, he’s definitely missed in both his bass and in the song writing a bit. Learning to Fly is one of those singles I have always found addicting, and that hasn’t changed. What I really was getting into though with this album was Dogs of War and On the Turning Away, the latter of which I think I have always held out as a big highlight. One Slip, the connective tissue between the two songs, is also quite good. Does the album lose some of its steam on side 2? I think so, but it never drags things down to the point where it’s a real problem. It’s not on the level of their collaborative works in the 60s and 70s, but it’s a solid album nevertheless, and much needed for me after I was ready for a bit of a sonic shift. The album ends on another really solid highlight in Sorrow.

The Essential Track: Dogs of War

Up Next: Roger Waters - Radio KAOS

[liebzz]

Roger Waters - Radio KAOS

It’s always fun to get a direct comparison between split artists in the moment. For Roger Waters and David Gilmour, their respective efforts apart are a reminder that their collective efforts were nearly exclusively stronger, but they both have their individual merits in their subsequent albums. On this one, Radio Waves is a great opener and the top of this album, but there’s never really a huge drop off. The concept is a bit wonky, at least the concept being delivered through the fictitious radio station, but the songs largely solid - it doesn’t need to be a concept in the same way The Wall makes no sense without the interaction of each track. I still enjoyed this one in a general sense though.

The Essential Track: Radio Waves

Up Next: The Housemartins - The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death

[liebzz]

The Housemartins - The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death

Over their two albums, this band was remarkably consistent. Another album full of pop nuggets that recall 50s and 60s rock n roll, they again came up with a nice collection of tracks headlined by the opening two tracks: the title track and I Can’t Put My Finger On It. There comes a point where it feels a little bit too similar as the album progresses, but this is a short enough length that it doesn’t dull the senses. Just good solid power pop rock music.

The Essential Track: I Can’t Put My Finger On It

Up Next: The Bats - Daddy’s Highway

[liebzz]

The Bats - Daddy’s Highway

This debut from The Bats is quite solid - one of those albums that would easily be a low-fi hit amongst the indie fans. They have the jangly rock vibes down tight, though the extended version I listened to maybe was a little too much of a similar sound. That said, it feels repetitive because the tempo is pretty quick and the hooks pretty good- the vocal duo attack here is a nice distinguishing feature of this band. Take It and North By North were what really grabbed me here.

The Essential Track: North By North

Up Next: Weddings Parties Anything - Scorn of the Women

[liebzz]

Weddings Parties Anything - Scorn of the Women

This is another really good Aussie folk rock album, with a bunch of really nice highlights. Hungry Years, The Infanticide of Marie Farra, She Works, the title track, Away Away, The River is Wide, and By Tomorrow were my favorites here. This one’s got a real Irish pub rock band feel to it and manages to keep a good momentum even though it rarely deviates from that basic rock sound - sometimes this is all you need.

The Essential Track: The River is Wide

Up Next: Midnight Oil - Diesel and Dust

[liebzz]

World Party - Private Revolution

Karl Wallinger is the primary driver of this band, or at the least its debut. This is maybe the closest I’ve heard any singer sound like Mick Jagger - it’s eerily reminiscent. The music even has some Stones swagger to it, though often differentiates itself enough not to be a carbon copy by any means. All this should be taken as a compliment. The songs here are pretty strong, the instrumentation, largely by Wallinger himself, is well crafted to hit the right spots. I frankly never heard of this before it was suggested and it was a nice surprise of a rock album that’s a modern interpretation of the psych rock era of the 60s.

The Essential Track: Ship of Fools

Up Next: John Hiatt - Bring the Family

[wease]

Did you skip Midnight Oil?

[Higgs]

Did you skip Midnight Oil?

Whoah

[liebzz]

Did you skip Midnight Oil?

Whoah

I posted. It must have timed out and I missed it.

[liebzz]

John Hiatt - Bring the Family

This is about as straightforward a rock album as I feel like you’ll really get. Yeah, there’s some element of blues also going on here, but it’s sort of so ingrained that it’s almost unnoticeable. I enjoyed all of this, and there’s not much to make note of other than the surprise at just how normal it all was.

The Essential Track: Thank You Girl

Up Before: Midnight Oil - Diesel and Dust

[liebzz]

Midnight Oil - Diesel and Dust (again)

What I wrote that never made it here on this one was so full of profound adjectives and narrative that Pitchfork got red in the face and took it down. I’ll never be able to again capture the magic I put to pen again. In reality, what I was getting at with this album is that when the Oils swung on this one, they swung big and hit some upper deck homeruns. Cases in point are Beds Are Burning, Dreamworld, The Dead Heart, and Sometimes - all all-timers for me, Oils or otherwise. The rest of the album is still really good, but damn those four tracks are incredible.

The Essential Track: Dreamworld

Actually Up Next: Warren Zevon - Sentimental Hygiene

[Matters]

In case no one has mentioned it recently, this thread is really something great. From time to time I pick a random page and start reading and it always rewards. Thanks Liebzz.

[liebzz]

In case no one has mentioned it recently, this thread is really something great. From time to time I pick a random page and start reading and it always rewards. Thanks Liebzz.

Thanks. It’s been a rewarding experience discovering new artists and albums while shedding new light on albums I already knew. A Momentary Lapse of Reason and Diesel and Dust on this page alone have new life from listening in this context rather than as part of a deep dive.

[liebzz]

Warren Zevon - Sentimental Hygiene

Wait a minute…how on Earth has this album completely passed my radar in any capacity for the last 40 years. Just looking at the guest list on this thing, which features everyone from R.E.M. to Heartbreakers, Chili Peppers, Neil Young and Bob Dylan, someone surely had to pull me aside somewhere and just say “dude, you gotta hear this!”

Somehow that didn’t happen, and I was instead stopped in my tracks when I heard THAT guitar tone on the opening title track. I had to do the double take realizing his backing band was R.E.M., particularly because they sound so heavy. Not to mention the songs are most lot pretty great, though a bit of an incongruous closing with the dance track Leave My Monkey Alone. I really should have known about this album sooner.

The Essential Track: Sentimental Hygiene

Up Next: Sisters of Mercy - Floodland

[oasisfan35]

Warren Zevon - Sentimental Hygiene

Wait a minute…how on Earth has this album completely passed my radar in any capacity for the last 40 years. Just looking at the guest list on this thing, which features everyone from R.E.M. to Heartbreakers, Chili Peppers, Neil Young and Bob Dylan, someone surely had to pull me aside somewhere and just say “dude, you gotta hear this!”

Somehow that didn’t happen, and I was instead stopped in my tracks when I heard THAT guitar tone on the opening title track. I had to do the double take realizing his backing band was R.E.M., particularly because they sound so heavy. Not to mention the songs are most lot pretty great, though a bit of an incongruous closing with the dance track Leave My Monkey Alone. I really should have known about this album sooner.

The Essential Track: Sentimental Hygiene

Up Next: Sisters of Mercy - Floodland

Though perhaps a bit uneven overall Zevon's catalog is chock full of great moments, the musicians he surrounded himself with over the years is almost a study in itself.

Been a big fan for a while, though I'd say I listen to more live shows than albums these days.

[liebzz]

Sisters of Mercy - Floodland

Man, this is a dark and gloomy album, particularly in that first half. Granted, it is good, and quite a bit outside my comfort zone - not that I am regularly playing theme from Sesame Street or anything - but this is locked in a dark bedroom with 80s posters on the wall and shunning the outside world teenager dark. The depths of despair break though for the phenomenal This Corrosion, which might be my favorite track from this band thus far. Flood II was also quite good, and it seemed I preferred the second half by a small margin.

The Essential Track: This Corrosion

Up Next: The Cure - Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me

[liebzz]

The Cure - Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me

The Cure take the creative space and time here to expand their sound on this double album. I’ll admit there’s a list of the best of this album I could turn into a single album, but I give them all the credit for taking the space for shots at what they do best, pop rock ear candy, and a few weird takes. The pop rock songs come off like sticking their collective heads up from the clouds, specifically on Why Can’t I Be You?, Just Like Heaven, Hot Hot Hot!!!, and The Perfect Girl, while they deliver the usual goods on Kiss Me, All I Want, and Fight. Shiver and Shake is one badass song as well in here. But that single, Just like Heaven, is pretty untouchable here.

The Essential Track: Just like Heaven

Up Next: Siouxsie and the Banshees - Through the Looking Glass

[VinylGuy]

I remember being a kid and trying to find Roger Water´s Radio KAOS and then picking Pros and Cons and being blow away with it. I never quite liked Kaos and its
probably because Pros and Cons is way better.