Essential Studio Albums

[wease]

Don Henley - Building the Perfect Beast

This is the next stop on our brief tour of mid-80s adult soft rock. This one eclipses the others, with a handful of very solid tracks: the classic The Boys of Summer, All She Wants to Do Is Dance, the title track, and You’re Not Drinking Enough. The remainder of the tracks are not terrible but not really much memorable or something I’d go back to. Considering my general disdain for The Eagles, this is an accomplishment.

The Essential Track: The Boys of Summer

Up Next: Steve Roach - Structures From Silence

I was gonna say I kinda like Don Henley solo but share your feelings towards the Eagles.

[liebzz]

Steven Roach - Structures From Silence

We haven’t covered ambient music in a while, and while it’s generally not my cup of tea, I try to get the most I can out of it when it comes up on the list. On this one, there’s at least a pure 80s feel to Reflections in Suspension, and I even thought this could have soundtracked quite a few moments in Stranger Things or some 80s sci-fi exploration scene. The other two songs also seemed to work well in that despite their length they went by quickly in the background. Walked away from this one thinking pretty positive.

The Essential Track: Reflections in Suspension

Up Next: Brian Eno - The Pearl

[liebzz]

Harold Budd / Brian Eno - The Pearl

This is another in a short run of ambient albums that worked well in my background this morning. I generally tend to prefer Eno’s collaborative albums with this being no exception. As juxtaposed against the Steven Roach album, this one has shorter tracks, and while there’s not a tremendous difference from track to track, for the most part, it does break things up a bit. The track that does stand out from the rest, because it is so different, was An Echo of Night, which more or less is exactly what the title suggests.

The Essential Track: An Echo of Night

Up Next: Michael Brook with Brian Eno & Daniel Lanois - Hybrid

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Michael Brook with Brian Eno & Daniel Lanois - Hybrid

We close this trilogy of ambient albums with this one, a gem and maybe my favorite ambient album thus far? It’s sometimes hard to describe the idea of textures in music, but if someone asked me what I meant by that, I would point them directly here. The way these sounds are layered, from the keys to the infinite guitar line and the variety of electronic sounds creates those textures and an atmosphere that pulls you in more than existing in the background. Sometimes it’s haunting, and other times it’s peaceful, but with these three in collaboration, it always feels something over these 40 minutes. May just have been what I needed to gain a deeper appreciation for the genre.

The Essential Track: Hybrid

Up Next: The Dukes of Stratosphere - 25 O’Clock

[Birds in Hell]

Pleased you enjoyed that one!

[liebzz]

The Dukes of Stratosphear - 25 O’Clock

This XTC side band ran it back to the 60s, a wild combination of Pink Floyd, the Beatles, or whatever other rock band that had some touches of psychedelia circa 1967. It’s so present in that time period it almost seems like a spoof of that sound even with the intent of exploring that territory outside the bounds of their primary band. It’s certainly entertaining and each of the songs here are quite good. This is a short but really fun album, and really I could pick any of these nearly equally to be a favorite.

The Essential Track: 25 O’Clock

Up Next: The Cure - Head on the Door

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The Cure - The Head on the Door

This album can probably best be described as the most weightless of The Cure’s albums to date. Normally lush and awash with guitars and a general sense of heaviness, this album instead is a highly diverse album that seems to tinker around the edges, but the cacophony of guitars that give that heavy sound are largely absent. For at least an album, this shift works really well. Everything on here is really good, with In Between Days, Six Different Ways, The Blood, and Close to Me (so poppy) emerging as favorites. This band sneaks up on you with the number of great albums they had in the 80s.

The Essential Track: In Between Days

Up Next: Kate Bush - Hounds of Love

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Kate Bush - Hounds of Love

Thus far in this thread, I think my take on Kate Bush was recognizing great artistry, but nevertheless not really liking it all that much. It’s one of those fine lines and it seemed almost unfair to hear something I know is good but just not quite connect the dots.

All of that changes with Hounds of Love. Whatever it is about this album, it just feels like every right button was pushed, and it’s an album that feels cohesive despite the sense that at every turn and corner, there’s a surprise waiting to hit. I certainly knew Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) before this - after all, I did watch Stranger Things and wish hearing the song could help me escape the upside down. It’s still a great and eccentric pop song. Add Hounds of Love, The Big Sky, and Cloudbusting as pure acts of genius here in the first half. The second half is perfection, from Under Ice all the way through The Morning Fog is just an adventurous stroll though just about every conceivable soundscape, kaleidoscopic yet set on a central concept.

I could have told you in the first paragraph here that this is what Kate Bush was capable of, except this is beyond what I would have truly expected.

The Essential Track: I could go with almost any of the tracks but on initial listen we go with Cloudbusting

Up Next: Heart

[Jorge]

Hounds of Love is amazing

[liebzz]

Heart

The fall of Rome. The 2004 ALCS. Sears & Roebuck. These are but a few of the epic collapses of great empires. And then there’s Heart: once the heir apparent to Led Zeppelin. This album, outside of a couple good tracks, represents that epic fall from grace. From the hard rock masters of Dreamboat Annie and Little Queen to soft rock adult contemporary power ballads that made me beg my parents to change the station circa the mid-80s.

The Essential Track: The Wolf

Up Next: Phil Collins - No Jacket Required

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Phil Collins - No Jacket Required

This I guess is the album that truly turned Phil Collins into a mega superstar. It’s also likely, much like say Purple Rain and Thriller, one of those albums that is issued with your 80s membership cards. It doesn’t necessarily go with my personal all time favorites, there’s plenty of really top notch singles on this, namely Sussudio (c’mon, you know you secretly say the word), Don’t Lose My Number, and Take Me Home. Add Long Long Way to Go to the list of excellent songs here, and the rest is easy to enjoy adult pop rock (I don’t always have to dislike that). Probably slots right behind his debut for me.

The Essential Track: Don’t Lose My Number

Up Next: Dokken - Under Lock and Key

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Dokken - Under Lock and Key

Time for a little hair metal. This band, of the hit song In My Dreams, is another caricature of the hair metal scene, though this band aches to be taken seriously. Heard in the present day, it seems more like an unintentional comedy album. In My Dreams does at least have a solid jam close to the end, but this is nothing I am probably ever coming back to.

The Essential Track: In My Dreams

Up Next: Motley Crue - Theatre of Pain

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Motley Crue - Theatre of Pain

This is the center point of hair metal to me, in part because I grew up with this album around me since my two older brothers wore this album to death, and in part because this contains all the elements of a hair metal album. The goofy song that’s meant to show badass defiance (Smoking in the Boy’s Room), the token ballad (Home Sweet Home), the song about rockin’ out (Raise Your Hands to Rock), and context free fast guitar solos (Louder Than Hell). It’s not as bad as I anticipated it would be, actually.

The Essential Track: Home Sweet Home

Up Next: David Lee Roth - Crazy From the Heat

[liebzz]

David Lee Roth - Crazy From the Heat (EP)

So this short EP marks the end of the original lineup of Van Halen, as a few weeks after this came out, David Lee Roth was no longer in the band. Rather than a straight continuation of the pairing of Roth’s voice with a fast screaming guitar (that would come later), this is David Lee Roth hitting covers like they were show tunes. Of particular note would be Just a Gigolo and California Girls, the latter video of which is not just etched in my brain, but an iconic moment for the 80s and for MTV in particular. Might be most useful as a historical marker, but it’s all the fun Roth brings to the party packed into 15 minutes.

The Essential Track: California Girls

Up Next: Stevie Ray Vaughan - Soul to Soul

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Stevie Ray Vaughan - Soul to Soul

Stevie Ray Vaughan’s third album with Double Trouble is still good, but it seems like a step backwards for him. The playing is still great and all, and Say What!, and Change It in particular are really good, but this album doesn’t quite capture the same thrill and excitement in its playing as the prior two albums. Perhaps it’s taken for granted, or the fireworks weren’t quite the same, but despite this still being a very good album, seems almost slightly disappointing - perhaps the bar was just raised so high.

The Essential Track: Change It

Up Next: Sheila E. - Romance

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Sheila E. - Romance 1600

This album certainly has Prince’s fingerprints all over it. It also has a distinctive jazz feel to it, which maybe I could have missed had I not taken a few days of a jazz sabbatical just because I had the itch. Either way, this is another really good album, anchored by A Love Bizarre, the 12 minute epic in the middle of this album. The radio edit was the main hit from this album, but the full version gives the listener a chance to really dig into some of the pop, jazz, rock, and dance elements. Sister Fate, Dear Michelangelo, and Sheila E.’s composition Merci for the Speed of a Mad Clown… are the other highlights here.

The Essential Track: A Love Bizarre

Up Next: Sade - Promise

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Sade - Promise

This is another smooth vocal jazz album mixed with some soul from Sade. Seemed very similar to her debut, though that’s not a problem given how good her debut was. The Sweetest Taboo is the known quantity here, though everything here is good - Never As Good As the First Time, Maureen, Is It a Crime, and War of the Hearts jumped out as highlights, and an instrumental jazz number is in here that’s great that I don’t recall which song that was, but it was excellent.

The Essential Track: The Sweetest Taboo

Up Next: Run-DMC - King of Rock

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Run-DMC - King of Rock

For their second album, Run-DMC really focused on melding rap and rock music, which of course was the very thing they did so well with Rock Box. On this one, the title track is the centerpiece of that sound but they also explore other musical avenues, most notably reggae and dance hall on Roots Rap Reggae. Darryl and Joe, and Can You Rock It Like This are also highlights, though this doesn’t feel as much of a landmark (perhaps because it seems less socially conscious) than their debut.

The Essential Track: King of Rock

Up Next: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Freaky Styley

[wease]

There is none higher
Sucker MCs call him sire

[coptheriotact]

Run-DMC - King of Rock

Overplayed this album when I was 12