Essential Studio Albums

[VinylGuy]

Pixies - Come On Pilgrim

This could be among the top of my list of bands that this thing was intended for - bands I knew I needed to hear but never quite got to. I have indeed heard a very limited amount of their work, and certainly not this. It’s not perfect but really I don’t think it’s meant to be that. It’s really a band pushing rock music to the next movement - one that will build over the next few years in this thread until it breaks. All that said about the importance of the band itself, the short album, if you call it that, has a bunch of great moments slightly ahead of their time, and despite its short run time contains quite a bit of range - they are not just a quiet/loud/quiet band. My favorite of the bunch was The Holiday Song, but all this is good - I suspect it gets much better even, but this is a good start.

The Essential Track: The Holiday Song

Up Next: Descendants - All

Oh you are indeed going to experience some of the best music out there if you are not familiar with Pixies's work. I agree that Pilgrim is not perfect but a good direction of whats to come next.

[liebzz]

Descendents are cool because they do the poppy punk stuff but then they're also surprisingly sophisticated musicians with jazz and progressive influences that show up in their music. Imagine Green Day attempting something like "Iceman"

You are 100% correct.

[liebzz]

The second Dukes of Stratosphear album isn’t on Spotify so we’ll hold that one for the moment and move along to Pieter Nooten & Michael Brook’s Sleeps with the Fishes.

[liebzz]

Pieter Nooten & Michael Brook - Sleeps with the Fishes

This is a beautiful album, and maybe now my favorite of the minimalist/ambient albums, though it often transcends that a bit to seem more like classical music. It is certainly dark and foreboding, but it doesn’t have the same suffocating weight as some of the other dark albums we have covered. The vocals are not easy to decipher nor do they seem meant to be, more like another instrument in the layers, nearly in the background. Suddenly I is brilliant and the winner here for me.

The Essential Track: Suddenly I

Up Next: Pulp - Freaks

[liebzz]

Pulp - Freaks

Fairground sets this up as a sort of carnival atmosphere, and you can almost have the visual in your head of the Coney Island freak show - the bearded woman, the snake man, whatever - as you get through that opening song, and then it sort of settles down with the accessible I Want You. This album doesn’t always feel as wild as that opening track or as predictable as the song that follows, but lives somewhere in between those spaces. The Never Ending Story really grabbed my attention here, but this is a better album than you think, akin to last year’s Geese album in my head. Not one that I would label immediately astounding, but adventurous and always interesting.

The Essential Track: The Never Ending Story

Up Next: Alyans - Ha 3ape

[Birds in Hell]

The second Dukes of Stratosphear album isn’t on Spotify ...

You should be able to find it as part of the anthology Chips from the Chocolate Fireball.

[Birds in Hell]

Pieter Nooten & Michael Brook - Sleeps with the Fishes

This is a beautiful album, and maybe now my favorite of the minimalist/ambient albums, though it often transcends that a bit to seem more like classical music. It is certainly dark and foreboding, but it doesn’t have the same suffocating weight as some of the other dark albums we have covered. The vocals are not easy to decipher nor do they seem meant to be, more like another instrument in the layers, nearly in the background. Suddenly I is brilliant and the winner here for me.

The Essential Track: Suddenly I

Up Next: Pulp - Freaks

So glad you enjoyed this one, it’s a fantastic record.

[liebzz]

Pieter Nooten & Michael Brook - Sleeps with the Fishes

This is a beautiful album, and maybe now my favorite of the minimalist/ambient albums, though it often transcends that a bit to seem more like classical music. It is certainly dark and foreboding, but it doesn’t have the same suffocating weight as some of the other dark albums we have covered. The vocals are not easy to decipher nor do they seem meant to be, more like another instrument in the layers, nearly in the background. Suddenly I is brilliant and the winner here for me.

The Essential Track: Suddenly I

Up Next: Pulp - Freaks

So glad you enjoyed this one, it’s a fantastic record.

Agreed. I think the right word for this is balanced. It’s not what I would typically listen to per se, but it is controlled without being strangled, strange without jumping off the deep end. Minimalist without leaving you waiting for something to happen. Just rightly balanced.

[liebzz]

Alyans - Ha 3ape

This is an interesting little test because despite the fact that I really don’t break down songs or albums or anything of the sort on lyrical content, it’s still almost exclusively the case that if there are words on the track, they are nearly always in English. So a non-English language album is an admitted rarity. Getting Soviet synth pop as the genre is good and well - though synth pop is the outer reaches of my personal taste. All that said, with no reference to the lyrics I think this was pretty good. They do a lot of interesting things that lead more into rock territory that I enjoyed, particularly on AaNTe OrHR. The bass is pretty good here really, and the guitar flourishes are not flashy but solid. I am walking away positive.

The Essential Track: AaNTe OrHR

Up Next: The Smiths - Strangeways, Here We Come

[liebzz]

The Smiths - Strangeways, Here We Come

Breaking up the band as this was being released, I don’t think I really hear some sort of clue to that in here. I quite enjoy everything I have enjoyed thus far with this band on this album - particularly how Johnny Marr structures his work. There’s something a shade different - the album just feels slightly lighter than the others. But the songs are still really good - the first three in particular I really liked, and Unhappy Birthday and Death at One’s Elbow might be describable as fun! Either way, this seems in line with their other work, so it’s a surprise they went their separate ways after this.

The Essential Track: A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours

Up Next: The Replacements - Pleased to Meet Me

[liebzz]

The second Dukes of Stratosphear album isn’t on Spotify ...

You should be able to find it as part of the anthology Chips from the Chocolate Fireball.

Brilliant and coming very soon!

[liebzz]

The Replacements - Pleased to Meet Me

It’s funny when I think back to how I couldn’t actually get through their live album - and here I am a couple years later with a multi-page love fest for their studio work. This is another such album that I was immediately sucked into. IOU and Alex Chilton are fantastic openers here. The Ledge is also a really killer highlight. It seems like maybe they pulled back just a tad and it reflects in a more approachable album. It might not be Tim, but more than close enough to be worthy of another classic from these folks.

The Essential Track: The Ledge

Up Next: The Dukes of Stratosphear – Psonic Psunspot (for real this time)

[liebzz]

The Dukes of Stratosphear - Psonic Psunspot

This is more of the same from the last album - 60s psych rock and pop - at times recalling late era Beatles or maybe partially an earlier Grateful Dead (as in their debut), which feels both like a sonic adventure and retro fun all wrapped together. Vanishing Girl is a perfect example of this, but there’s a lot on here that’s great, my favorite here being Braniac’s Daughter. Another real solid side project that could have/should have a few more albums.

The Essential Track: Braniac’s Daughter

Up Next: Sonic Youth - Sister

[liebzz]

Sonic Youth - Sister

For me, Sonic Youth’s brilliance lies in their ability to toe the line between pop level accessible rock and pure noise. This album is really one of those great examples of them finding a balance and with the threat of derailment ever present, waiting for that very last moment for the wheels to come off. Schizophrenia, Stereo Sanctity, and Hot Wire My Heart seem like they are writing the textbook on alternative rock, and this is interspersed with art rock side quests that deliver as many goods as these tracks. End it with Master-Dik, which finds the band falling off the deep end on some noise rock Gene Simmons (?) vocal sample gnarled into something chaotic, and you have a band who on this one has their cake and ate it too - pop sensibility and noise rock without compromising on either front.

The Essential Track: Schizophrenia

Up Next: The Jesus and Mary Chain - Darklands

[liebzz]

The Jesus and Mary Chain - Darklands

This next Jesus and Mary Chain album provides a pop rock landscape for gloominess. Granted, where they got it, they got it on the nose, which is at least half or more of this album. The title track, Happy When It Rains, Down On Me, April Skies, Fall, and About You stuck out as highlights. I wouldn’t say I disliked the rest and I could find great moments in those songs too, but the weight of gloom certainly weighs heavier as the album progresses.

The Essential Track: Fall

Up Next: 10,000 Maniacs - In My Tribe

[liebzz]

10,000 Maniacs - In My Tribe

So sometimes albums hit and sometimes they don’t and it’s not always easy to say why. I liked a few of the songs here: What’s the Matter Here?, Hey Jack Kerouac, Like the Weather, and Don’t Talk were all pleasant enough, and hell, My Sister Rose was fun in that opening band at a festival when no one else has arrived yet and you’re just vibing to being around live music kind of way. But if I’m being honest, much of this really just bored me. I’m probably really more of a band guy, and this band is fine, but they lack the magic of a jangly R.E.M. or the oomph of a good folk rock band. They are really a vehicle for Natalie Merchant, whose voice is pleasant enough, but needs a bit more from said band to get to where this needs to go.

The Essential Track: My Sister Rose

Up Next: Sinead O’Connor - The Lion and the Cobra

[liebzz]

Sinead O’Connor - The Lion and the Cobra

By the time my exposure to Sinead O’Connor came around in the early 90s, I think the discussion centered around Nothing Compares 2 U, and the controversy on Saturday Night Live. That’s about it for background, so I don’t know what if any expectations I had coming into her debut album. I will say, giving it a first and clean listen, that this is one fantastic album. The opening trio of Jackie, Mandinka, and Jerusalem set her up as a legit rock star, and set the table moving forward, even if things take slight detours into different sonic territories. I Want Your (Hands On Me), Drink Before the War, and Just Call Me Joe are similarly exceptional to end the album. And that’s most of it. The others are solid as well, but I was happily surprised with the quality of what she’s got going on here.

The Essential Track: Drink Before the War

Up Next: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough)

[liebzz]

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough)

This is one of the few of the near misses for Petty. Wildly uneven, but there’s still gems in here. Jamin’ Me, Think About Me, All Mixed Up, and the title track are all fantastic and classic Tom Petty. It’s not that the rest are bad, it’s that it doesn’t quite pop like his other albums, and there’s a sort of thinness to the recording that makes some of it, particularly Runaway Trains, sound almost synthetic. It’s also a little challenging knowing already how great it’s gonna get.

The Essential Track: Jammin’ Me

Up Next: R.E.M. - Document

[liebzz]

R.E.M. - Document

As a 15 year old, it was a year for me where I really discovered the rock music that would carry me through the next 30+ years. I found Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Led Zeppelin really all at once, and soon thereafter followed a number of other bands, including R.E.M. - I had at that point found my way to Out of Time, the brand new Automatic for the People, and this one. Even way back then, I just connected with this album at moments of catharsis (the opening Finest Worksong), reckless abandon (haven’t we all tried and failed over all these years attempting to keep up with Michael Stipe on It’s the End of the World As We Know It), and anthemic chorus belting (The One I Love). It’s the landing pad developing over several albums where R.E.M. shifted from the pure jangle of Murmur to the big rock sound that took over my stereo as a kid. And there’s still nuggets to find here all those years later relistening to Lightnin’ Hopkins and King of Birds. Picking a winner here would be hard but for the pure joy (that I can still pump my fist and give a cathartic “YES!” when it comes on) and everything that flushes back still from hearing It’s the End of the World As We Know It.

The Essential Track: It’s the End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)

Up Next: U2 - The Joshua Tree

[liebzz]

U2 - The Joshua Tree

I always sort of felt like this album delivers in layers. You have the impossibly recognizable hits in Where the Streets Have No Names, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, and With or Without You. And on Where the Streets Have No Names, it really is an enviable opening, with the organ slowly giving way a that Edge riff that’s so recognizable yet still delivers every time.

The next layer are the obvious killer tracks that sort of push this album into great territory: Bullet the Blue Sky, Trip Through Your Wires, and One Tree Hill are those for me. The one that caught my attention this go ‘round was Exit, which just builds into a huge payoff, the kind of stuff that makes the histrionic drama of U2 so impactful. They sure did hit a home run on this one.

The Essential Track: Bullet the Blue Sky

Up Next: Michael Jackson - Bad