Essential Studio Albums

[liebzz]

A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory

As great as their debut was, this one is even better. Digging deep to incorporate jazz and a deep groove, this album is nearly perfect. The classics here are just that - Check the Rhime and Scenario are pretty inescapable here - but there are plenty of gems deeper into this album, like What?, Jazz (We’ve Got), Excursions, Buggin’ Out, and Verses From the Abstract. Mostly though, you can’t go wrong anywhere here because of that perfect blend of funk, jazz and hip hop. I don’t know that it’s ever been done this well.

The Essential Track: Jazz (We’ve Got)

Up Next: Cypress Hill

[liebzz]

Btw, I bottom paged Blood Sugar Sex Magik in case anyone was waiting on that one.

[VinylGuy]

BSSM is a top 5 for me, and their best along with Californication. The leap of their sound from MM to BSSM is also quite amazing. I feel Soundgarden did something similar with SU.

[liebzz]

BSSM is a top 5 for me, and their best along with Californication. The leap of their sound from MM to BSSM is also quite amazing. I feel Soundgarden did something similar with SU.

I really like Mother’s Milk so it pains me to agree but I do. BSSM is really on another level, and they never sounded like this again, but there’s a reason why, as I remember, that they had a 4 year gap to the next album that was nearly seamless because BSSM was ever present for all that time. It still has never gone away really nor really gotten old in my eyes.

[VinylGuy]

I love MM but this one is on another level, not only in terms of songwriting but also sonically.

[Birds in Hell]

Keidis maybe a bit horny

That's an understatement, but a great record all the same.

[liebzz]

Cypress Hill

This is one of those classic hip hop albums that I don’t hear much about these days, but it, really along with Black Sunday, was pretty ever present for me in the early 90s. The opening Pigs, How I Could Just Kill a Man, and Hand On the Pump are particularly key to my early hip hop exposure. And this album keeps things moving with a lot of stoner rap, and deep grooves. Real Estate is also another key track from these guys. A solid album still!

The Essential Track: How I Could Just Kill a Man

Up Next: Geto Boys - We Can’t Be Stopped

[liebzz]

Geto Boys - We Can’t Be Stopped

I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a more raw and direct hip hop/rap album than this one. Funny thing is I owned this album as a 13 year old kid. What were my parents thinking!? I do have a good recollection of about half these songs, but I don’t think I remember the extent of the extremes they push here - the sort of thing that more than teeters on the edge of shock value for its sake. There are a few things that come out of this though: the excellent Mind Playing Tricks on Me, the album ending Trophy, and of course Homie Don’t Play That…


The Essential Track: Mind Playing Tricks on Me

Up Next: Ice Cube - Death Certificate

[liebzz]

Ice Cube - Death Certificate

Formerly of NWA, Ice Cube’s third solo album is pure gangsta rap, and it can be rough to listen to, though there are some really good moments here. What ends up being hard to tell is whether the decent into madness of A Bird in the Hand is tragic or a glamorization of how it happens. Does Ice Cube lament this sort of urban cowboy existence, or thrive in the chaos? The album seems to struggle between the two, but its social commentary in songs like I Wanna Kill Sam or the Alive On Arrival > Death > The Birth recycles the theme. I am not particularly a fan of most gansta rap and I can’t say this album is something I want to revisit, but there is a point to it all.

The Essential Track: A Bird in the Hand

Up Next: Ice-T - O.G. Original Gangster

[liebzz]

Ice-T - O.G. Original Gangster

This album was a bit of a surprise for me. I expected something not so dissimilar to the previous album I just listened to, but Ice-T pushes a lot more sonic boundaries, though thematically not so different, though I think this is slightly less abrasive - slightly. The highlights on this long album include Mic Contract, Mind over Matter, Bitches 2, and the title track in the first half, though this opens up in the second half as Ice-T announces he contains multitudes with Body Count, Escape from the Killing Fields, and The Tower (is he sampling the Halloween theme song here?). It’s a 72 minute album and you can feel all those minutes, but the shifts in style ultimately make it worth it.

The Essential Track: The Tower

Up Next: Tupac Shakur - 2Pacalypse Now

[liebzz]

Tupac Shakur - 2Pacalypse Now

As compared to the other gangsta rap we’ve covered this morning, this is the smoothest, but with no less impact. Words of Wisdom feels like smooth jazz, while Part Time Mutha, working off a Stevie Wonder song, is closer to soul. Add to that 2Pac’s smooth delivery, and even with similar themes, the political messages hit more effectively - at least for me. Brenda’s Got a Baby, and Soulja’s Story suck you into the message and storytelling. There’s a reason 2Pac was a central figure in this subgenre.

The Essential Track: Part Time Mutha

Up Next: Boyz II Men - Cooleyhighharmony (ugh)

[liebzz]

Boyz II Men - Cooleyhighharmony

I owned this album when I was 12/13 years old, and it was one of the last albums I really bought until I really started discovering rock music for myself as a teenager instead of based on what my older brothers listened to (Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, etc.). So this is a little awkward in that this is among the discs I feverishly uploaded on used CD stores or the garbage can - though there were other albums and singles I had after before that storm.

As far as the album itself, it’s full of the sort of melodramatic love lost and gained crap that a 12 year old thinks they’ll one day connect with. I remember being initially drawn in by Motownphilly, and frankly that’s actually a decent song here. The rest just is soul killing sanitized hip hop adjacent pop music. 35 years later, I can confidently say I was right to toss this thing away. It wasn’t at all hard to say goodbye to yesterday.

The Essential Track: Motownphilly

Up Next: Sarah McLachlan - Solace (we’ll use the Canada release date)

[liebzz]

Sarah McLachlan - Solace

Again, we circle around a genre that typically does not suit my personal taste. Experimenting and trying these things out though is what this is all about. For this album, admittedly I mostly felt disengaged. Perhaps it is the overly sparse musicality, and the sheer focus on vocals - McLachlan has a beautiful singing voice, but that is almost never enough for me. I largely landed on it’s fine for most of this - with a shout out for a very good Black that includes some interesting arrangements. Plenty of respect here even if this doesn’t quite do it for me.

The Essential Track: Black

Up Next: Tom Waits - Bone Machine

[liebzz]

Tom Waits - Bone Machine

It seems with most Tom Waits albums, there’s a period of recalibration, where you have to take time to enter his brain. This album is no exception, entering the sparse basement where he recorded this slowly, and as the album progresses everything seems to absorb and you once again get a brilliant album full of wonders. The immediate track for me was In the Colosseum, which is all drums and percussion but somehow sounds as full and complete as any song - and the sort of darker themes that Waits explored in this album. Goin’ Out West, Murder in the Red Barn, Black Wings, That Feel, Such a Scream, The Earth Died Screaming, and The Ocean Doesn’t Want Me are all just brilliant track here. Yet I think my favorite, for all the incredible moments here, is a nearly ramshackle I Don’t Wanna Grow Up, which takes all that darkness and brings a sort of levity. Really loved this one.

The Essential Track: I Don’t Wanna Grow Up

Up Next: Uncle Tupelo - Still Feel Gone

[liebzz]

Uncle Tupelo - Still Feel Gone

The second this thing kicks in, it’s an immediate reminder that this band straight up kicks ass. The Farrar-Tweedy writing duo didn’t last all that long, but hell if they didn’t just produce banger after banger, and here so consistently good it’s hard to pick a favorite or highlights because every song is just in that right place - country tinged rock music that feels immediate yet there’s a sense of the forest from the trees that takes you away. Fall Down Easy and Punch Drunk are probably the top contenders for me here, but this album is remarkably consistent and excellent.

The Essential Track: Fall Down Easy (it wins on the end jam that is pretty great)

Up Next: John Prine - The Missing Years

[liebzz]

We’re still slow walking our way through the epic year that is 1991, but since the next few years of releases are pretty deep, getting a head start on the list for 1992. Here’s what I have so far:

Alice In Chains - Dirt
Alice In Chains - Sap
Screaming Trees - Nearly Lost You
Nirvana - Incesticide
Sonic Youth - Dirty
Mudhoney - Piece of Cake
The Gits - Frenching the Bully
The Breeders - Safari
Sugar - Copper Blue
Kyuss - Blues for the Red Sun
Faith No More - Angel Dust
Primus - Miscellaneous Debris
Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power
The Vaselines - Enter the Vaselines
The Frames - Another Love Song
Uncle Tupelo - March 16-20, 1992
R.E.M. - Automatic for the People
Marshall Tucker Band - Still Smokin’
The Black Crowes - The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion
Blind Melon
Tragically Hip - Fully Completely
Neil Young - Harvest Moon
Tom Waits - The Black Rider
Sublime - 40 Oz. To Freedom
Arrested Development - 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life of…
Beastie Boys - Check Your Head
Rage Against the Machine
Dr. Dre - The Chronic
Stone Temple Pilots - Core

[oasisfan35]

The Screaming Trees album is actually Sweet Oblivion

Buckethead Bucketheadland
Leonard Cohen The Future
Nine Inch Nails Broken (an EP)
Soul Asylum Grave Dancers Union
The Cure Wish

[VinylGuy]

Tom Waits - Bone Machine

It seems with most Tom Waits albums, there’s a period of recalibration, where you have to take time to enter his brain. This album is no exception, entering the sparse basement where he recorded this slowly, and as the album progresses everything seems to absorb and you once again get a brilliant album full of wonders. The immediate track for me was In the Colosseum, which is all drums and percussion but somehow sounds as full and complete as any song - and the sort of darker themes that Waits explored in this album. Goin’ Out West, Murder in the Red Barn, Black Wings, That Feel, Such a Scream, The Earth Died Screaming, and The Ocean Doesn’t Want Me are all just brilliant track here. Yet I think my favorite, for all the incredible moments here, is a nearly ramshackle I Don’t Wanna Grow Up, which takes all that darkness and brings a sort of levity. Really loved this one.

The Essential Track: I Don’t Wanna Grow Up

Up Next: Uncle Tupelo - Still Feel Gone

My mom got it when it came out and i hated it as a kid. I was like wtf is this dude saying? I did liked Going Out West, which it was kinda of a hit back then, at least in Argentina.

Years passed, i enter to the Waits universe because of movies, and his Aslyum years, and now it might be my favorite from him. Its a masterpiece and sounds absolutely amazing.

[liebzz]

The Screaming Trees album is actually Sweet Oblivion

Buckethead Bucketheadland
Leonard Cohen The Future
Nine Inch Nails Broken (an EP)
Soul Asylum Grave Dancers Union
The Cure Wish

Whoops!

All added.

[liebzz]

Tom Waits - Bone Machine

It seems with most Tom Waits albums, there’s a period of recalibration, where you have to take time to enter his brain. This album is no exception, entering the sparse basement where he recorded this slowly, and as the album progresses everything seems to absorb and you once again get a brilliant album full of wonders. The immediate track for me was In the Colosseum, which is all drums and percussion but somehow sounds as full and complete as any song - and the sort of darker themes that Waits explored in this album. Goin’ Out West, Murder in the Red Barn, Black Wings, That Feel, Such a Scream, The Earth Died Screaming, and The Ocean Doesn’t Want Me are all just brilliant track here. Yet I think my favorite, for all the incredible moments here, is a nearly ramshackle I Don’t Wanna Grow Up, which takes all that darkness and brings a sort of levity. Really loved this one.

The Essential Track: I Don’t Wanna Grow Up

Up Next: Uncle Tupelo - Still Feel Gone

My mom got it when it came out and i hated it as a kid. I was like wtf is this dude saying? I did liked Going Out West, which it was kinda of a hit back then, at least in Argentina.

Years passed, i enter to the Waits universe because of movies, and his Aslyum years, and now it might be my favorite from him. Its a masterpiece and sounds absolutely amazing.

I struggled a little at the very beginning, but once you get inside his little universe its brilliance.