How Did You Discover Your Top 10 Albums?

[epilogue]

Silly Joey, everyone knows Wish You Were Here is the best Floyd album.

That's definitely been my experience with Pink Floyd fans. And with music fans in general as I've gotten older. I love Wish You Were Here. It's a great album and I can't fault anyone for putting it in the top slot. But sometimes it really feels like people do that because Dark Side is too obvious or too ubiquitous. Certainly fatigue plays some small part, right?

Either way, both outstanding records. But Dark Side is my favorite.

Yea, for me it's probably a combination of fatigue and running length. Dark Side is a masterpiece...but I find it to be a bit long and cumbersome, whereas WYWH can slide into an afternoon listening sesh real easy...

Wish You Were Here is the longer of the two, though.

HAHAHA! I had no idea. Something about that album makes it more easily digestible for me, though. It might be that the running time is more song-oriented, and has less of the experimental/collage aspects of DSOTM?

That could be, yeah. Part of the reason DSOTM flies by for me, though, is how connected it is. Each side is like one long song with multiple movements. And I really love that kind of stuff. I'm also really big into Thick as a Brick and Passion Play by Jethro Tull for the same reasons. So, yeah, I think you're on to something.

The other barrier to WYWH for me is what I discussed earlier about lack of vocals. Fucking Shine On... takes ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS TO GET STARTED. It drives me nuts. It's one of my favorite Pink Floyd songs now. But I still hate how long it takes for that thing to really get going and do anything.

[Norah]

Shine On does nothing wrong.

[Kevin Davis]

Pink Floyd are one of those rite-of-passage bands that it's almost impossible to not overload on when you're a young, horizon-expanding music lover. But unlike some others (Doors, Hendrix to a degree), they really hold up for me -- the songs still cut through even once you've committed all the sonic trickery to memory, which takes some doing. These days I'm most likely to reach for their early stuff or "The Final Cut" (easily the most underrated album of their career, and arguably Roger Waters' finest hour as a writer), but I still think "Dark Side" is pretty comfortably their masterpiece. Loved your write-up, Joey -- my own is coming soon!

[tragabigzanda]

Top 10 maybe?
Hello Morning
Close Captioned
The Kill
Place/Position
Do You Like Me?
Latest Disgrace
Recap Modotti
Nightshop
Break
Life & Limb

I'd maybe bump Life & Limb for Epic Problem

[epilogue]

But unlike some others (Doors, Hendrix to a degree), they really hold up for me

I guess I can understand The Doors -- LA Women gets a ton of play in my house, but everything else they've done has fallen by the wayside. But Hendrix?! His stuff sounds as immediate and fresh as any other band I can think of.

Yeah, I still haven't gone through any kind of Hendrix phase.

[tragabigzanda]

[Kevin Davis]

I still like and greatly admire Hendrix, but a lot of his stuff has just grown kind of stale for me. I tend to gravitate toward his slower, more melodic stuff now ("One Rainy Wish," "May This Be Love," "Little Wing"), and in very occasional doses; his ability to incorporate these melodic guitar licks that run almost contrapuntal to the vocal melody was his greatest gift as a guitarist I think, that acute awareness of how the vocal and instrumental lines in a song talk to each other -- a blues trick, but he mastered it in a pop idiom. That said, hearing him shred for 10 minutes at a time on a 12-bar blues holds little interest for me at this point, I'm afraid. The Doors I think just plain suck.

[tragabigzanda]

[LoathedVermin72]

I haven't heard a Hendrix song in years

[Self]

I almost took all of the Floyd stuff off of my phone, the other day. I couldn't bring myself to do it, but I skip every one of their songs that comes up. I'm just never in the mood, anymore.

[Norah]

I almost took all of the Floyd stuff off of my phone, the other day. I couldn't bring myself to do it, but I skip every one of their songs that comes up. I'm just never in the mood, anymore.

Same. With the exception of Wot's Uh The Deal.

[Kevin Davis]

KD has totally overlooked the fact that the rhythm section is often the best part of a Hendrix recording.

Ha. Obviously was never the case for me.

[tragabigzanda]

[Kevin Davis]

Come to think of it the drumming in "Fire" is pretty insane.

[tragabigzanda]

Top 10 maybe?
Hello Morning
Close Captioned
The Kill
Place/Position
Do You Like Me?
Latest Disgrace
Recap Modotti
Nightshop
Break
Life & Limb

I'd maybe bump Life & Limb for Epic Problem

[Kevin Davis]

Bob Dylan - "Blood on the Tracks"
Christmas Eve 2000, I went over to my grandma's for the annual family shindig, and like I always did in those days, I took my CD player and a few CD's along (never could say when an opportunity might come along to sit alone in a room and brood, so I had to be prepared at all times). My uncle saw the "Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits" CD peeking out from the front pocket of my backpack and asked how much of his work I was familiar with (at that time it was only the hits album and "Desire"). He immediately insisted that I expand my repertoire to include "Blood on the Tracks," going into a wildly animated spiel involving several of the song titles and what I'm fairly sure were some misinterpreted lyrics to "Tangled Up in Blue." I really, really liked the other Dylan stuff I owned, so I wasn't a hard sell; on the 26th, freshly equipped with my annual supply of Best Buy gift cards, I eagerly threw "Blood on the Tracks" into my cart along with whatever else I felt compelled to add to my collection that day (this was 2000, era of "Bawitdaba" and "Nookie," so I don't want to think too hard on what that might have been).

It took a couple weeks for all the songs on "Blood on the Tracks" to really sink in -- first it was the big story songs ("Tangled Up in Blue," "Simple Twist of Fate," "Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts"), but as the song structures started to come into clearer focus, every song's individual genius started to become evident. That's the first thing that really bowled me over (and still does): the expansive song templates (for example, in "Idiot Wind," there is one line at the end of every verse, verses that comprise 6-8 lines each depending how you break them down, that hangs on by itself and rhymes only with the other words that occupy that spot in the template -- something you don't notice until you've processed the song through a few times, but when you discover it, you notice what an amazing sense of continuity and resolution it brings to the verses). This album really got me to think about how songs are built, as organizational constructions -- not just chords and melodies, but placement of parts, lyrical and musical, and how certain parts call back to other parts in ways that offhandedly tie the whole thing together.

The second was the emotional register of the record. Being something of a lonely teenage sad sack, the way Dylan expressed heartbreak with such eloquence and intellect but also such righteous, merciless fury was highly appealing to both the oversensitive wuss and the angsty grunge kid in me. I had a lot of friends into that late '90's/early '00's emo, and "Blood on the Tracks" completely ruined me for all of it, as if Saves the Fucking Day or Jimmy Eat Fucking World had one damn thing at all to tell me about my emotions after I'd managed my way to the heart of "You're a Big Girl Now." This album made me a Dylan fan for life and is still my all-time #2 album. And the uncle who recommended it to me later became a family recluse and went kind of crazy, I continue to hope not as a direct result of listening to this album.

[doug rr]

Bob Dylan - "Blood on the Tracks"
Christmas Eve 2000, I went over to my grandma's for the annual family shindig, and like I always did in those days, I took my CD player and a few CD's along (never could say when an opportunity might come along to sit alone in a room and brood, so I had to be prepared at all times). My uncle saw the "Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits" CD peeking out from the front pocket of my backpack and asked how much of his work I was familiar with (at that time it was only the hits album and "Desire"). He immediately insisted that I expand my repertoire to include "Blood on the Tracks," going into a wildly animated spiel involving several of the song titles and what I'm fairly sure were some misinterpreted lyrics to "Tangled Up in Blue." I really, really liked the other Dylan stuff I owned, so I wasn't a hard sell; on the 26th, freshly equipped with my annual supply of Best Buy gift cards, I eagerly threw "Blood on the Tracks" into my cart along with whatever else I felt compelled to add to my collection that day (this was 2000, era of "Bawitdaba" and "Nookie," so I don't want to think too hard on what that might have been).

It took a couple weeks for all the songs on "Blood on the Tracks" to really sink in -- first it was the big story songs ("Tangled Up in Blue," "Simple Twist of Fate," "Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts"), but as the song structures started to come into clearer focus, every song's individual genius started to become evident. That's the first thing that really bowled me over (and still does): the expansive song templates (for example, in "Idiot Wind," there is one line at the end of every verse, verses that comprise 6-8 lines each depending how you break them down, that hangs on by itself and rhymes only with the other words that occupy that spot in the template -- something you don't notice until you've processed the song through a few times, but when you discover it, you notice what an amazing sense of continuity and resolution it brings to the verses). This album really got me to think about how songs are built, as organizational constructions -- not just chords and melodies, but placement of parts, lyrical and musical, and how certain parts call back to other parts in ways that offhandedly tie the whole thing together.

The second was the emotional register of the record. Being something of a lonely teenage sad sack, the way Dylan expressed heartbreak with such eloquence and intellect but also such righteous, merciless fury was highly appealing to both the oversensitive wuss and the angsty grunge kid in me. I had a lot of friends into that late '90's/early '00's emo, and "Blood on the Tracks" completely ruined me for all of it, as if Saves the Fucking Day or Jimmy Eat Fucking World had one damn thing at all to tell me about my emotions after I'd managed my way to the heart of "You're a Big Girl Now." This album made me a Dylan fan for life and is still my all-time #2 album. And the uncle who recommended it to me later became a family recluse and went kind of crazy, I continue to hope not as a direct result of listening to this album.

i'm ok that its your #2 and my #1..when you're done with your rankings of albums I would appreciate it if you would write up a lengthy review of Thrasher..you know, the song we both agree is number 1

The motel of lost companions
Waits with heated pool and bar.

[doug rr]

music break

[Kevin Davis]

The NYC sessions -- be still my heart, Doug RR.

Supposedly a forthcoming Bootleg Series is to be all "Blood on the Tracks"-era material. Not sure what's left to leak (no new titles according to the recording sessions guides), but an alternate "Meet Me In the Morning" sans band, which never circulated on bootlegs, was put out on a Record Store Day single a few years ago. Pretty tantalizing stuff.

[Kevin Davis]

when you're done with your rankings of albums I would appreciate it if you would write up a lengthy review of Thrasher..you know, the song we both agree is number 1

Oh snap -- it might even come up during the ranking of albums.