Thursday, September 3, 2009

album of the year choices explained

ok, so it seems that my list might've been a bit overwhelming and unaccessible without explanation; after all, why should you, the reader, listen to my choices without justifiable reason? fair enough. i will now scribble down some notes beside my choices to encourage you to explore that which you have not already done so.

1955: miles davis -- 'round about midnight
1956: elvis presley -- elvis presley
1957: john coltrane -- blue train
1958: buddy holly -- buddy holly
1959: miles davis -- kind of blue
1960: john coltrane -- giant steps
1961: miles davis -- steamin'
1962: ray charles -- modern sounds in country western music

1955-1962 was jazz's peak as far as i'm concerned, with the best albums from miles davis and john coltrane coming from this period. if a year had a definitive davis or coltrane album, i picked it. for the years where they did not have a definitive album, i explored explored early rock n' roll and r&b.

1963: bob dylan -- the freewheelin' bob dylan (the year that i feel rock n' roll truly started and jazz began to decline. i don't know much about folk music, but if you could only have one folk album, this would be it. it's also a far superior choice to what the beatles offered from this year.)

1964: john coltrane -- a love supreme (at worst, the second best jazz album -- *kind of blue* being the default number one, although it's a really tough choice between the two. now, if you want a rock album from this year, seeing as how this was jazz's last great stand before it was overtaken by free jazz and fusion, look no further than the beatles' *a hard day's night*.)

1965: bob dylan -- highway 61 revisited (again, another rock milestone from dylan -- folk meets electric rock n' roll. starts off with like a rolling stone and never slows down. if you don't like dylan for whatever reason, the beatles put out *help!* the same year.)

1966: beatles -- revolver (pretty much a default choice. the standard of am pop/rock. no real weak spots on the album and many classic songs. a pleasant "trip". perhaps if i knew the kinks better they could challenge the beatles for this year's title. also, miles davis's last excellent album came out this year -- *miles smiles*.)

1967: jimi hendrix -- are you experienced? (completely revolutionary album expanding the limits of guitar and studio effects, plus introducing hendrix's unique style of playing. most of hendrix's "normal" hit songs are from this album. album is better and more revolutionary the sgt. peppers'. velvet underground's debut velvet underground and nico also deserves honorable mention.)

1968: jimi hendrix -- electric ladyland (completely revolutionary album pushing the limits of guitar and studio effects to the limits. hendrix's playing reaches new heights on all along the watchtower and voodoo chlid (slight return). the album is a unique and eclectic mixture of different genres, and was instrumental in inspiring, for better or worse, miles davis to try to revolutionize jazz with bitches brew -- see the song on that album *miles runs the voodoo down*. hendrix's axis: bold as love also came out this year.)

1969: beatles -- abbey road (by 69-70, rock n' roll was evolving and diverging in different paths. you had jazz-fusion (bitches brew), heavy metal (led zeppelin, black sabbath), and prog (king crimson). but the best album was still a conventional rock album. i still find this album to be a bit overrated and have one too many silly tracks for my tastes, but it has a lot of great material, including harrison's two gems which rank among his best contributions to the beatles and can hold their own against just about any mccartney/lennon tune. beautiful melodies and harmonies and some studio experimenting as well without going too far off the deep end. the last album ever recorded by the beatles, and their proper swan song, as let it be was really an incomplete project undertaken prior to abbey road.)

1970: john lennon -- plastic ono band (why didn't i know about this album until recently? blame it all on the radio singles from lennon's next album, imagine, that pushed me in the wrong direction. this is a singular album in rock history, with lennon's true brilliance finally being unleashed no-holds-barred as he is free from the constraints of being a beatle and having to write pop songs. very few albums have such uncompromising reflection about life on all levels. runner up for this year goes to black sabbath's paranoid.)

1971: led zeppelin -- IV (zoso) (pretty much the default choice. still feels like a product, but not as synthetic as, say, metallica's black album. i considered other choices like bowie's hunky dory, t.rex's electric warrior, and marvin gaye's what's goin' on, but ultimately i think led zep still deserves the nod here.)

1972: david bowie -- the rise and fall of ziggy stardust (revolutionary glam rock concept album. unlike other bowie albums, i find the melodies on this album to be quite satisfying. if you don't like bowie, the stones put out exile on main st. this year.)

1973: the who -- quadrophenia (it was between this and dark side of the moon. ultimately, quadrophenia got the nod because i feel it was more pro-actively innovative with its vision, whereas dark side of the moon is a trance of sorts to escape reality. this was the who's last great moment, whereas floyd still remained entirely relevant for the rest of the decade.)

1974: queen -- sheer heart attack (one of the weakest choices on the list. basically, nothing good came out this year. i would've put kraftwerk's autobahn had i felt it deserving, but while it was more innovative, i don't think it was better than this queen album. i consider this to be queen's best and most hard-rocking album. the guitar solo of brighton rock contains glimpses of thrash metal riffs years ahead of its time.)

1975: brian eno -- another green world (oh, brian eno. naturally, being a big u2 fan, i had to check out some of eno's career. this album manages to be really poppy and catchy without the usual accompanying annoyances. i also enjoy the sonic shades, colors, and textures layered throughout the album. i'd write more if i knew the album better, as i am still getting acquainted with it. if eno is too weird for you, there were also excellent albums put out this year by pink floyd, bruce springsteen, and bob dylan.)

1976: stevie wonder -- songs in the key of life (stevie's most expansive and quintessential album. not as consistent as innervisions or talking book, but the highs are higher and its vision is uncompromising, with stevie taking on all personal and political subjects. musically as satisfying as anything he ever put out. if you don't like stevie wonder for whatever reason, i'd recommend bowie's station-to-station. like 1974, a pretty weak year for music.)

1977: kraftwerk -- trans-europe express (the year of punk, which means i opted for the non-punk choice! this is kraftwerk's best album, an album so accessible that even hip-hop groups have sampled it. if you have to go punk, i'd suggest television's marquee moon, which started a subtle guitar revolution and was an indelible influence on guitarists like the edge.)

1978: van halen -- van halen I (i used to play eruption on guitar, so of course this album was going to win. of course there's plenty of punk and disco stuff from this year if you don't like van halen, but be warned: you're missing out on a lot. not just all of eddie's guitar tricks and solos, but some classic riffs and songs -- van halen before it was really approaching a "hair metal" type phase with 1984 -- and his signature guitar tone known as the "brown sound", a perfect balance of distortion so as to infuse the songs with unrivaled energy, but not distorted enough to be labelled as cacophonous heavy metal.)

1979: pink floyd -- the wall (album by default. yeah, the wall has its moments and some classic songs, but to me it's not quite a top-tier record. that being said, it's still a classic and i have to listen to it every so often for some reason; perhaps it brings out the child in all of us and reconnects us to the fondest memories of those years before it seems life became compromised by the grown-ups responsible for all of the world's problems. a worthy runner up would be xtc's drums and wires.)

1980: ac/dc -- back in black (i considered blizzard of oz simply due to randy rhoades's brilliance, but upon relistening to this album, it dawned on me that the entire album kicks total ass, not just the 3 main hits. in fact, this might just be the most kick ass rock n' roll album of all time. and that, in spite of anything one might hold against ac/dc, is enough to win it this year's honors. if you're totally against metal in any form, there's lots to choose from this year, including talking heads' remain in light, joy division's closer, and u2's boy.)

1981: king crimson -- discipline (just a terrible year for music, and perhaps not so coincidentally, the year mtv was born. yay. a very accessible prog record and one of crimson's best albums, right up there with in the court of the crimson king. successfully incorporates a lot of new wave influences and adrian belew's guitar infuses new life and perspective into the band's revamped lineup. one of the few prog albums i've heard that you can actually follow from beginning to end like a normal album without it meandering off path or regressing into "plodding along" mode. u2's october is an underrated album from this year and takes a few listens to get acclimated to, but after that you should be rewarded with a unique introspective and spiritual quest undertaken by the band, and in particular, bono.)

1982: michael jackson -- thriller (the default choice. prince's 1999 was also excellent, but that album faded too much towards the end and was too protracted as dance tunes often are. i actually enjoy jackson's next two albums more, where he writes almost all the songs, as opposed to this album, where he only wrote 4 of the 9 tracks. still, jackson manages to turn all other material into instant, memorable classics. and while the sound is not revolutionary, especially compared to 1999, it was a cultural landmark -- the thriller video, the hard rock crossover with eddie van halen's guitar solo on beat it, and michael moonwalking during his performance of billie jean for motown 25. and billie jean, objectively, has to be one of the top 10 songs ever written; i read somewhere that it gets over 250,000 spins per week at clubs around the world -- imagine that!)

1983: stevie ray vaughan -- texas flood (unlike other years, this year had too many great albums. r.e.m.'s murmur is probably the best album, and u2's war the most meaningful, but the most enjoyable to me was srv's debut. his playing was second only to hendrix -- and despite what some people said at the time, srv is not a hendrix clone even though the influence is obviously there -- and he actually combined it with jazz playing and his unique sampling of blues influences to create an approach to playing the blues that was both singular and groundbreaking. if you could only have one blues album, this would be it.)

1984: prince -- purple rain (as acclaimed as it is, i think purple rain could easily be considered one of the top 10 albums ever, yet it always manages to only land somewhere between 30 and 80 on critics' all-time album polls. one of the few albums i can listen to for days on end without feeling like the album becomes boring and repetitive. one of the sexiest albums ever made. prince at his peak hitting on all cylinders. seeing the movie also enhances the listening experience to this soundtrack. u2's the unforgettable fire is a criminally underrated album from this year; other people prefer born in the usa or van halen's 1984.)

1985: john fogerty -- centerfield (another weak year for music. the default choice is tom waits's rain dogs, but seeing as how i'm still trying to get into tom waits and explore his back catalog a bit more, i'm going out on a limb at volunteering a country choice. yes, country dave, if you can imagine that. this is just a solid country album, but with more of a rock n' roll feel and memorable pop melodies. topics range from baseball to corruption to pop culture. if you're scared of country, remember that fogerty was the main guy in ccr, so it's not that big of a jump from that to his solo stuff.)

1986: metallica -- master of puppets (best metal album ever! well, at least in the "heavy" category. this album is mightily heavy indeed, a real bruiser that punishes and pummels everything in sight; a great album for anger release when that emotion arises to a high level every so often. first half of the album in particular is just about flawless. people allergic to metal can listen to r.e.m.'s fables of the reconstruction.)

1987: guns n' roses -- appetite for destruction (really, just a great fucking album, hands down. ushered in the era of "explicit lyrics" with mainstream rock n' roll, and i think laid the groundwork for bands like nirvana to become mainstream in the years to come. a real kick ass album focused enough to satisfy minimalists, but diverse and musically proficient enough to satisfy even the most technically minded shredder. this year was great for music. if you wanna go beyond gnr, plenty awaits: satriani's surfing with the alien, u2's joshua tree, r.e.m.'s document, michael jackson's bad, prince's sign o' the times, etc.)

1988: r.e.m. -- green (1988-1990 are years where there aren't any really great or definitive albums, just a bunch of very good ones. most critics would place public enemy's it takes a nation of millions to hold us back or sonic youth's daydream nation here, but more some reason i don't find either one of those to be as satisfying as r.e.m.'s green. green is an uncool choice because it was the r.e.m. album done on a major label, and hence attracts the "sellout" label (although this didn't fully occur until their next album, out of time). this interpretation is simply wrong; the album builds on the politics of the previous album, but also explores other topics, putting stipe in a place of artistic vulnerability he hadn't done before up to this point. please do not judge this album from the single *stand* alone! the pixies' surfer rosa is also a very good album, but my problem with it is that it only has a few good complete songs, whereas everything else is just bits and pieces of good ideas that are never fully brought into any cohesive framework.)

1989: joe satriani -- flying in a blue dream (1989 was between this album and nine inch nails's pretty hate machine. flying in a blue dream is not satriani's best -- that would be surfing with the alien -- but it is his quintessential; he sings on 6 tracks and the scope of his playing is breathtaking on the instrumentals, seemingly taking you to a dimension even beyond that of surfing with the alien. so why flying in a blue dream over pretty hate machine? well, to be honest, i just think pretty hate machine sonuds too dated in the 80s, almost -- heaven forbid i say this -- sounding like depeche mode at times. nine inch nails will have its day on my list in the not-so-distant future...)

1990: pantera -- cowboys from hell (another year with a plethora of albums to choose from: alice in chains' debut facelift, steve vai's passion and warfare, megadeth's rust in peace, etc. but i chose cowboys from hell. yes, vulgar display of power is better, but 1992 had so many worthy candidates that i figured pantera ought to have a place on my list, and cfh is probably their second-best album. it's got tons of dimebag shred solos, phil doing his iron maiden impressions, and kick ass songs. and hey man, there's a reason phil's got "cfh" tattooed on the side of his skull -- don't fuck with the cowboys from hell! but in all honesty, cfh beats out the other 3 albums because it is the most well-rounded overall and has incredible energy. to be fair, the album did steal some of its sounds from other bands in the texas-new orleans metal scene, most notably a band called exhorder. but we'll let that slide; cfh is still the winner for 1990.)

1991: u2 -- achtung, baby (ok, here we go. why not nevermind? first, i'm not dismissing nevermind due its overwhelming popularity and critical appeal. it's just that achtung is flat out better. it's more innovative, has better melodies and lyrics, and better embodies the spirit of the times -- zeitgeist! need evidence? how many guitarists have been able to copy the edge's guitar work, especially on this album? that's right: none. melodies and lyrics are subjective, but i will say that a song like *one* is more timeless and pertinent to today than *smells like teen spirit*, which is "classic" for its time period alone. as for zeitgeist, yes nirvana was relevant for rejecting 80s culture in america. however, achtung was relevant for embracing a new outlook for the world in the wake of communism's downfall. so when all is said and done, achtung is more relevant in both time and space than nevermind. i find it hilarious that achtung is frequently ranked anywhere from number 60-90 on all-time album lists. achtung could easily be number one in my book, and objectively, i can't see how it rates below the top 10. and just to make things clear, achtung is head and shoulders above what the joshua tree aspires to be.)

1992: rage against the machine -- rage against the machine (ok, let me make this clear at the outset: 1992 was one of the greatest years for music ever, even better than 1991, which other than achtung and nevermind, had use your illusions, black album, dangerous, ten, blood sugar sex magik, etc. any one of the following albums could be the winner for 1992: vulgar display of power, automatic for the people, rage against the machine, dirt, and the chronic. so why rage? well pantera and r.e.m. already have spots on my list, and the other two are metal and rap. rage against the machine was the first band to successfully fuse both together, so they win via this tiebreaker.)

1993: smashing pumpkins -- siamese dream (c'mon, do i really have to explain this?! actually, i would like to point out that siamese dream, imo, is the last "perfect" rock album, and in being so, is an endpoint for perfectly mixing the history of rock n' roll -- from 60's rock to prog to david bowie to post-punk to heavy metal to indie -- into one seamless stream of artistic euphoria delivered via corgan's "wall of sound" guitars. there is perfect balance on the album -- great melodies but nothing so catchy as to become a trivial jingle, great dynamics without anything being overextended, if not great lyrics per se then lyrics that complement the melodies without any obvious flaws, memorable guitar solos without taking the spotlight away from the core of the music. in utero is a nice runner-up.)

1994: nine inch nails -- the downward spiral (the downward spiral is not a perfect album; in fact, it is flawed much like the wall is. however, the doesn't stop it from being the quintessential album of the mid-90s (well, at least 94 and 95, with mellon collie covering 96). released a month before cobain's death, reznor became the new face of alt-rock for the next two years; downward spiral shirts were everywhere and concerts sold out in minutes! sure, dookie sold more albums, but it did not contain the mystery, the jim morrison sex-god persona that accompanied trent reznor and his music. and the song *closer* is a true work of genius. i also find the incorporation of electronic elements to be far more expansive and tasteful than had been done on previous nin albums. a good runner-up would be tori amos's under the pink, which is probably a little bit better of a record, but doesn't nearly embody the spirit of "a generation" in the mid-90s the way a downward spiral did. live's throwing copper, although not as complete a album as the other two, had some great songs and imo was the last rock album with "fresh, unadulterated rock vibrance". basically, that translates into it was the last album that gave the impression that rock was still a thriving genre. the next few years would still produce some excellent rock albums, but they all indicated that rock was on the decline by experimenting with other genres, the general world outlook and themes portrayed in the songs, the channeling of energy expressed in the performances, the decreasing vitality and lack of originality for guitar sounds/textures/dynamics, etc.)

1995: smashing pumpkins -- mellon collie and the infinite sadness (i could write a book on why this is the most criminally underrated album ever. undoubtedly the best true double album ever made, just superior artistic vision, diversity, timeless singles, classic videos, philosophical themes, corgan's best lyrical album -- the last great stand for angst-ridden 90s alt-rock. a true epic and masterpiece. if i had to pick a runner-up, i'd go with 2pac's me against the world. surely, oasis's (what's the story) morning glory would not be a bad pick either.)

1996: 2pac -- all eyez on me (westside! yeah, me against the world is actually better, but eyez is his definitive album. first double album of original material in hip-hop history, which ignited a trend of copycat double albums in the following couple years. first disc is a true classic, second disc is above average material. what's great about this record is it retains enough of the introspectiveness of me against the world and combines it with the vengeance and inner turmoil of 2pac's life after spending time in jail, but at the same time the record has a party/chilling out vibe with it that makes you wanna enjoy life in spite of the underlying nihilism. this was also death row's and the g-funk gangsta-rap genre's last great album. paula cole's this fire was also an excellent album that came out this year, although it didn't take off until well into the following year; it's my favorite album in the 90s from a female artist other than tori amos. dj shadow's endtroducing and beck's odelay are two of the critics' favorites. if you like hip-hop but don't like the 90s gangsta trend, then you the fugees' the score should be up your alley -- there are some underground rap albums from this year as well if you find the score to be too mainstream. btw, 1996 was the beginning of the end for 90s alt-rock, which is why the runners-up are not rock -- see metallica's load, etc. for mediocre-bad rock music. the only "good" rock albums to come out this year were rage against the machine's evil empire and tool's aenima.)

1997: u2 -- pop (yeah, ok computer blah blah blah. pop is the album that fused rock and electronica, and it did a fairly good job. it's like the bitches brew of electronic-rock fusion, except it's a far better album than bitches brew could ever be. really, the idea of pop is better than the album, which is why i changed the track order and used live songs for 10 of the 12 for my personalized version of pop found under the blog entry for u2 mixes. anyway, to me, pop was the last meaningful rock album that was totally uncompromising. and for that reason, it will always have a special place in my heart, capturing that uncertainty and downtrodden vibe of the late 90s as we headed toward the millennium without having a clue as to what the fate of the world would be.)

1998: tori amos -- from the choirgirl hotel (an underrated album and her last good album; to venus and back was good but not at the same level as her first four albums because it was mostly b-side material. tori does a great job of blending electronic elements seamlessly with her songs, and although the electronic aspect might seem experimental on the surface, her songwriting here is more focused than on her previous record. the miseducation of lauryn hill was also a very good album -- a critical and commercial success -- from this year.)

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