Essential Studio Albums

[LoathedVermin72]

Ha, “My Hometown” is the only song I don’t like on BITU

[liebzz]

R.E.M. - Reckoning

Tour stop #2 in the IRS years finds a band that’s got much of the same energy and power, and perhaps even more jangly pop sweetness. I don’t ultimately like this one quite as much, but not for lack of great songs, it’s just how great Murmur is. But the absolute highs here are just as high. The singles So. Central Rain and (Don’t Go Back to) Rockville - the latter of which has always been among my favorite R.E.M. songs for reasons I can’t explain - are fantastic, but add Time After Time (Annalise), Letter Never Sent, Second Guessing, and personal album favorite Pretty Persuasion to the list of killer tracks - plus Harborcoat as a great opener. Damn folks this was a great band.

The Essential Track: Pretty Persuasion

Up Next: Red Hot Chili Peppers

[liebzz]

Ha, “My Hometown” is the only song I don’t like on BITU

It’s the closet here he came to bridging Born in the USA with Nebraska. If it were all acoustic guitar it would make just as much sense.

[Higgs]

Love love love that Sade album. I have an original pressing on vinyl and it is one of the best sounding albums I have.

i picked up an 80s nz pressing a few years ago and it sounded so good it made me want to sell all my records pressed after 1989

It sounds amazingly good.

I did myself no favours the other night listening to the PJ vinyls I got for Christmas (VS, Vitalogy, Yield) and thinking they sounded a bit muddy. Thought it was my set up so put on Diamond Life. Nope, not my set up. Then played Kind of Blue just to confirm. That sounded glorious too.

[liebzz]

Red Hot Chili Peppers

The Chili Peppers circuitous route through music is a pretty wild journey that starts rather disjointed here. I think it’s pretty clear that the sound they wanted didn’t show up on this. For most of the record, the natural talents of this band - Flea’s bass and Keidis’s spitfire vocals, are buried in drum reverb if there ever was such a thing, and guitars, resulting in the blast of energy that was the Chili Peppers hidden from direct view. Where that muddled mess isn’t ever present is where the album shines most - True Men Don’t Kill Coyotes, Get Up and Jump, and Police Helicopter. Green Heaven, Buckle Down and Out in LA are all good songs that the sound of the album kind of ruins. There’s gems in here, but the band wouldn’t repeat this kind of sound again and would become more themselves on subsequent albums, turning into one of the all time great American bands. A shame that there’s a very good album to be had here but it just doesn’t quite come together.

The Essential Track: Police Helicopter

Up Next: Run-DMC

[VinylGuy]

Its was fascinating to me to read Anthony´s book and learnt so much about that first album. They lost their original lineup just before they were about to record the album and Andy Gil, the producer, hated the band, so its kinda clear the album didnt have a chance.

Also incredible that Cliff Martinez is the drummer there.

[liebzz]

Run-DMC

If Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five was a moment in time where hip hop started, this album seems like the very first next step in its evolution. This feels less funk and more rap melding many sounds to elevate the message. These guys have a message that cuts pretty deep while breaking down so many barriers and never seeming like a caricature of themselves. Rock Box is a massive leap forward in bringing rap and rock together. 30 Days is a killer track. Hard Times sets the table for this really well. It’s Like That, Sucker MCs (is this the genesis of bringing the beef to the diss track?), and Jam Master Jay are all highlights of an album that thrills in its deliberate musical delivery as it does with its vocal deliveries. You can just feel the influence this has on the rest of the genre moving forward.

The Essential Track: Rock Box

Up Next: The Honeydrippers - Vol. 1

[wease]

Run-DMC

If Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five was a moment in time where hip hop started, this album seems like the very first next step in its evolution. This feels less funk and more rap melding many sounds to elevate the message. These guys have a message that cuts pretty deep while breaking down so many barriers and never seeming like a caricature of themselves. Rock Box is a massive leap forward in bringing rap and rock together. 30 Days is a killer track. Hard Times sets the table for this really well. It’s Like That, Sucker MCs (is this the genesis of bringing the beef to the diss track?), and Jam Master Jay are all highlights of an album that thrills in its deliberate musical delivery as it does with its vocal deliveries. You can just feel the influence this has on the rest of the genre moving forward.

The Essential Track: Rock Box

Up Next: The Honeydrippers - Vol. 1

Fuck yeah. For me, rap will never get better than their first 3 albums.

[liebzz]

The Honeydrippers - Vol. 1

One thing can be said for Robert Plant’s post-Zeppelin career: he contains multitudes. When Led Zeppelin ceased, so did that approach to music that Plant took. His solo albums represented a level of departure, but this is a whole new angle: old school rhythm and blues covers delivered about as close to the originals as you can get. Sea of Love is the one I know I heard before, and well…these are pretty good covers. As a Zeppelin fan with the tattered worn out t-shirt, you want to reflexively hate it as Plant gone off the rails, but in his voice, he does bring life to these songs. Against 15 year old me that wants the Plant who brought those Zeppelin tracks to life, we’ll call it a draw.

The Essential Track: Rockin’ at Midnight

Up Next: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - From Her to Eternity

[liebzz]

Run-DMC

If Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five was a moment in time where hip hop started, this album seems like the very first next step in its evolution. This feels less funk and more rap melding many sounds to elevate the message. These guys have a message that cuts pretty deep while breaking down so many barriers and never seeming like a caricature of themselves. Rock Box is a massive leap forward in bringing rap and rock together. 30 Days is a killer track. Hard Times sets the table for this really well. It’s Like That, Sucker MCs (is this the genesis of bringing the beef to the diss track?), and Jam Master Jay are all highlights of an album that thrills in its deliberate musical delivery as it does with its vocal deliveries. You can just feel the influence this has on the rest of the genre moving forward.

The Essential Track: Rock Box

Up Next: The Honeydrippers - Vol. 1

Fuck yeah. For me, rap will never get better than their first 3 albums.

Yeah, this is really good.

[LoathedVermin72]

Run-DMC

If Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five was a moment in time where hip hop started, this album seems like the very first next step in its evolution. This feels less funk and more rap melding many sounds to elevate the message. These guys have a message that cuts pretty deep while breaking down so many barriers and never seeming like a caricature of themselves. Rock Box is a massive leap forward in bringing rap and rock together. 30 Days is a killer track. Hard Times sets the table for this really well. It’s Like That, Sucker MCs (is this the genesis of bringing the beef to the diss track?), and Jam Master Jay are all highlights of an album that thrills in its deliberate musical delivery as it does with its vocal deliveries. You can just feel the influence this has on the rest of the genre moving forward.

The Essential Track: Rock Box

Up Next: The Honeydrippers - Vol. 1

Fuck yeah. For me, rap will never get better than their first 3 albums.

Come on now. Nothing against Run but this is like saying rock music never got better than Chuck Berry.

[liebzz]

Some folks born between 1938-1948 might argue that rock music never did get better than Chuck Berry - all in the eyes and ears of the beholder.

[liebzz]

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - From Her to Eternity

Listening to this album inspired a memory of a 10th grade field trip to the Guggenheim Museum. At least at that time, the museum kept a separate gallery for the works of Robert Maplethorpe (spelling I am sure if off there), whose art was highly controversial. The point isn’t the content of the art, but my reaction to it, immediately drawing away, part visceral disgust, part challenge to my understanding of what art is or could be. In that vulgarity, you force yourself to ask whether your appreciation art is passive (I.e. going to go look at the pretty paintings), active (engaging with this vulgarity as a challenge to your own conventions), or some combination thereof. And I’ve always thought that this was the point of his work - to rattle into questioning your own path as an active or passive participant.

Enter Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds debut album. It’s not at least outwardly vulgar, but it is visceral and challenging. It’s delivery abrasive. The kind of thing that without a conscious decision to step further into the journey, you might just draw yourself away and go find some mid-60s harmony to float away on. It’s in these moments where you decide what kind of listener you are going to be. Whether I liked this album seems besides the point of whether I engaged with it. The only right way to respond on that is to leave that question open.

The Essential Track: Well of Misery

Up Next: Psychedelic Furs - Mirror Moves

[liebzz]

Psychedelic Furs - Mirror Moves

Another year and another excellent Psychedelic Furs album. Really the first four here are fantastic: The Ghost in You, Here Come Cowboys, Heaven, and Heartbeat. Alice’s House, Only a Game, and Highwire Days I also recall sticking out a bit in a good way. While this one seems to skew a little more new wave on memory than the others, it doesn’t lose much in the process - just great song after great song. I do wish I had these folks on rotation before this thread.

The Essential Track: Heaven

Up Next: INXS - The Swing

[liebzz]

INXS - The Swing

This seems like the beginning of a transition for INXS. The prior albums were good and this one is pretty good too, but it seems like here the band is melding new wave and post punk with some funky bass lines in a slightly different way. While Original Sin is the opener and the one song that really distinguishes itself, the quality here is consistently good. My only issue is that it seemed like the mixers or whomever didn’t seem to adequately account for volume balances as some songs came in loud and others low.

The Essential Track: Original Sin

Up Next: Violent Femmes - Hallowed Ground

[Higgs]

INXS - The Swing

This seems like the beginning of a transition for INXS. The prior albums were good and this one is pretty good too, but it seems like here the band is melding new wave and post punk with some funky bass lines in a slightly different way. While Original Sin is the opener and the one song that really distinguishes itself, the quality here is consistently good. My only issue is that it seemed like the mixers or whomever didn’t seem to adequately account for volume balances as some songs came in loud and others low.

The Essential Track: Original Sin

Up Next: Violent Femmes - Hallowed Ground

My sister had this on vinyl. Lots of happy nostalgic memories for me.

Hallowed Ground is top level shit. The Violent Femmes were one of my first "own music" discoveries. Enjoy.

[liebzz]

Violent Femmes - Hallowed Ground

Apparently these songs were already written and ready to go before even their debut came out, and this album seems to be different from the first, though not as if this is a different band by any stretch. While the attention seems to be focused on some of the religious lyrics and allusions here, and really there’s nothing wrong with those songs that vary from pop to almost gospel on the album closing It’s Gonna Rain, my focus instead are on two all-timers and a few more highlights. The all-timers for me were Country Death Song and Never Tell - two very different tracks but both phenomenal at what they are doing - and the blueprint for later bands like RM’s latest heartthrobs Geese to follow. I Know It’s True But Sorry to Say, and Sweet Misery Blues are both also excellent tracks. This brings me to Black Girls, which lyrically wouldn’t hold up the same today (I am not sure it even did then), a Stones-like toe of the line, but then musically it’s an absolute gem incorporating the Horns of Dilemma into an epic jam. Some of these choices may have proven to be divisive for some, but ultimately this is a pretty killer album from an excellent band.

The Essential Track: Never Tell

Up Next: The Smiths - Hatful of Hollow

[liebzz]

We’re just about at 900 (897 to be exact and since I had a listening lull thanks to the Verizon outage today, I’m going to get just a bit ahead of myself, and do something slightly different. In the last 50 albums, only one cracked the top hundred (Prince’s Purple Rain all the way to #26). So based on the lack of change, I’ll share the next hundred down to see some different albums - note that I would still consider all of these essential, which would go I think 500 deep or more already:

200. New York Dolls
199. ZZ Top - Eliminator
198. Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman
197. The Velvet Underground - Loaded
196. The Ramones - Rocket to Russia
195. Rolling Stones - Out of Our Heads
194. Rolling Stones - Aftermath
193. The Doors - Morrison Hotel
192. Curtis Mayfield - Roots
191. The Who - Tommy
190. Blind Faith
189. Donald Fagen - The Nightfly
188. Grateful Dead
187. Grateful Dead - Aoxomoxoa
186. Steely Dan - Pretzel Logic
185. Otis Redding - The Dock of the Bay
184. King Crimson - Red
183. Big Star - Radio City
182. King Crimson - Lizard
181. Bruce Springsteen - Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ
180. The Band - Stage Fright
179. Sly and the Family Stone - Stand
178. Bob Dylan - John Wesley Harding
177. Curtis Mayfield - Superfly
176. Wings - Band on the Run
175. King Crimson - Larks’ Tongue in Aspic
174. Genesis - Selling England By the Pound
173. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - The Message
172. Paul McCartney - Tug of War
171. Steely Dan - Countdown to Ecstacy
170. Bob Marley and the Wailers - Natty Dread
169. The Police - Outlandos D’Amour
168. The Clash - Sandinista!
167. Psychedelic Furs - Mirror Moves
166. Midnight Oil - 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
165. Peter Gabriel - IV (Security)
164. Mission of Burma - Signals, Calls and Marches
163. Psychedelic Furs
162. Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy
161. Miles Davis - On the Corner
160. Nick Drake - Bryter Layter
159. Metallica - Kill ‘Em All
158. Elvis Costello & the Attractions - This Year’s Model
157. Rush - Moving Pictures
156. The Police - Synchronicity
155. Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Zuma
154. Santana - Abraxas
153. The Doors - LA Woman
152. The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms
151. The Stooges - Fun House
150. Van Morrison - Moondance
149. The Stooges - Raw Power
148. Grateful Dead - Wake of the Flood
147. Brian Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets
146. The Replacements - Let It Be
145. Neil Young - Re-Ac-Tor
144. Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues
143. Dire Straits - Love Over Gold
142. Psychedelic Furs - Forever Now
141. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Long After Dark
140. Michael Jackson - Thriller
139. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Hard Promises
138. Talking Heads - Fear of Music
137. Parliament - Mothership Connection
136. Stevie Wonder - Songs in the Key of Life
135. Grateful Dead - Workingman’s Dead
134. Neil Young - Tonight’s the Night
133. Neil Young - Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
132. Rolling Stones - Goats Head Soup
131. Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left
130. Credence Clearwater Revival
129. Bob Dylan & the Band - The Basement Tapes
128. Credence Clearwater Revival - Green River
127. The Band - Music From Big Pink
126. Lynyrd Skynyrd - Street Survivors
125. Violent Femmes - Hallowed Ground
124. The Beatles - Let It Be
123. Black Sabbath
122. Mott the Hoople - All the Young Dudes
121. Bob Marley and the Wailers - Kaya
120. Violent Femmes
119. XTC - The Big Express
118. R.E.M. - Reckoning
117. Prince - 1999
116. Fleetwood Mac - Tusk
115. Deep Purple - Machine Head
114. Iron Maiden - Piece of Mind
113. Credence Clearwater Revival - Willy and the Poor Boys
112. The Band
111. Credence Clearwater Revival - Bayou Country
110. Stevie Ray Vaughan - Texas Flood
109. Dire Straits - Making Movies
108. Heart - Little Queen
107. Bruce Springsteen - Born in the USA
106. Led Zeppelin
105. Led Zeppelin - Presence
104. Santana III
103. Black Sabbath - Vol. 4
102. Bob Marley and the Wailers - Catch a Fire
101. Iron Maiden

[coptheriotact]

145. Neil Young - Re-Ac-Tor

[liebzz]

The Smiths - Hatful of Hollow

I remember as a matter of principle being slightly annoyed at Black Pumas for basically releasing different deluxe and extended versions of their debut album each year stemming from the date of release. It seemed like they were milking their one album, but this actually seems to become more commonplace, though I can’t say for sure since this is only anecdotal evidence. Rewinding 40 years, it seems pretty wild for The Smiths to release a b-sides an alternate version takes album nearly alongside their debut album. It helps that I might actually prefer this one, the versions seem to have a bright and jangly feel, and it includes the b-side How Soon Is Now?, in all its 7 minute glory, which might not quite fit sonically, but is the best of the bunch here and elevates this album, even with solid recordings of songs that made the debut.

The Essential Track: How Soon Is Now?

Up Next: Scratch Acid