A few weeks ago a couple of Australian journalists Toby Creswell and Craig Mathieson published a book
titled The Best 100 Albums of All Time. It’s been out for a few weeks now but
only now do I think I’m ready to start addressing the general topic. I’m not going to attempt to put a top 100 together,
or even a top 10, but over the course of the next week or so, I’ll play and then give
some idea of what I think about the usual suspects that clutter the upper end
of such lists, give an indication of some of the albums I think are worthy of a
high placing but which are frequently overlooked, suggest some live albums,
some Australian albums and finally reveal my number 1.
As is the norm for such exercises, I should indicate my
reservations about this as an exercise and then give my idea of my criteria for
inclusion. Given that I’ve decided to
embark on this exercise by the publication of the Creswell/Mathieson book, here
is the top 10 that they’ve come up with:1. Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
2. The Beatles - Revolver
3. The Clash - London Calling
4. Nirvana - Nevermind
5. Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
6. Joni Mitchell - Blue
7. The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
8. Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
9. The Velvet Underground & Nico - The Velvet Underground & Nico
10. Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.
From what I
understand the duo did this by deliberately limiting the number of Beatles,
Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan albums for inclusion. They also did not solicit anyone else’s
opinion by conducting a poll of experts, however randomly or carefully
constructed, favouring an analysis of the polls that have been undertaken in
the past.
Fair enough. After all, many types of biases can come into such polls as analysed depending upon who you talk, the most obvious being a preference for Amercian vs British acts (and vs Australian acts if one was conducted in this country), more recent vs older releases and the inevitable marginalisation of genres such as dance music, blues, jazz, hard rock/metal, alternative, electronica, reggae, etc by inviting one of two genre experts to flavour the overall result.
And then there’s
the concerns I have about the construction of such lists. Not only are many genres sufficiently underrepresented
by such polls, I would also suggest the concept of focusing on albums
effectively reduces the number of candidates down to a time frame that would
start in the mid 1960s when artists began to conceive of albums as artistic statements. Thus, many albums from
rock’s pioneers, especially from the 1950’s, when albums were basically one of
two hit singles with a lot of filler attached, are never considered.
But I would also argue that the same applies to albums from around, say 1990 when the CD became the dominant format for releasing albums. The extra running times have caused many acts to release albums with extravagant running times which ensured that a typical CD could hold about the same quantity as two vinyl albums. Add, record company practices of releasing new albums by artists every second or third year, you essentially had acts releasing the same amount of new material in the same time frame but with varying numbers of individual releases. And we’re really yet to see what impact the all digital era is going to have on the concept of the album. With many acts gaining control of their release schedules and choosing to release albums via their own websites, the tendency – led by Radiohead – has been for such acts to return to vinyl length running times.
Ultimately notions
of what constitutes “the best” is an extremely subjective matter and the odds
of any two people on the planet delivering the same 100 tracks would have to be
extraordinary. My own notions are no
different. For the purposes of this
exercise, my criteria is to arrive at the album that gives me the greatest
pleasure and has been able to consistently do so over a long period of
time. My selections will:
- include only officially
released albums conceived by the actual artist; single artist or multi artist compilations
(which are not standard across the world in any case) are excluded as are box
sets and CD + DVD packages.
- consider only
the original version of the album; extended versions, collector’s, legacy or
special anniversary editions are largely excluded but albums re issued with additional
tracks with the intention of that becoming the standard version are included,
and
- to allow live
albums, excluding those which are complications, box sets, special editions,
etc. Bootlegs are excluded.
I’ve also got some ideas to deal with the issue of not clogging issues through having to decide between albums by certain acts, but I'll justify these when we'll get to them.
And so, I started this process today by listening to some of the records in my collection –
the usual suspects, as it were – that tend to routinely appear in these top
tens:
(# 588) The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely
Hearts Club Band (1967)
Apparently
Creswell and Mathieson have not included this album – a frequent winner of such
polls – in their top 100. I’m not sure
what their reasoning is but I would not include this in my top 100 either. In fact, I’d doubt it would get in my top 200. Whilst I have no doubt whatsoever, that this
is probably the single most significant album ever released – after all it
pioneered conceptualised album cover art, is a form of early rock opera (though
not sustained), was one of the first to publish lyrics on the sleeve – it doesn’t
come close to even being my favourite Beatles album. Either of Revolver, Abbey Road, the White
Album and probably Rubber Soul has it covered.
Although the Sgt. Pepper/With A Little Help From My Friends opening is
almost the strongest to any Beatles album, and the epic A Day In The Life is
the best closure to any album in history, it’s the tracks in between that let
the side down. Being For The Benefit Of
Mr Kite sounds fairly dated now, Harrison’s Within You Without You is too long
to justify its inclusion and When I’m Sixty Four and Lovely Rita are
trite. She’s
Leaving Home, whilst an effective track, sounds out of place within the largely
joyful tenor of the rest of the album. And
the failure to include Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane is just plain
unforgiveable. Put another way, being the most significant album
of all time doesn’t necessarily result in the best album of all time.
(# 589) Van Morrison – Astral Weeks (1968)
I love Van
Morrison and I think this is a great album which brilliant combines soul, folk,
blues and jazz influences. Sweet Thing, Cypress
Avenue and Madame George are awesome and The Way Young Lovers Do employs some interesting
Spanish influences. And yet, no matter
how many times I’ve played this, it only holds my interest for as long as it
lasts. Even today, after owning this for
about 30 years I did not have the ability to recreate the melodies in my
mind. If the album isn’t on, I simply can’t
do it. Even today I’m not sure what to
make of this; is it proof of the musical complexity and hence genius of the
music or has the penny simply not yet dropped?
I simply don’t know. With such a
fundamental dilemma, I can’t place this anywhere near my top 50.
(#590) Bob Dylan – Subterranean Homesick
Blues (aka Bringing Them All Back Home) (1965)
(#591) Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited (1965)
Two albums,
combined length 99 minutes (only 25% longer than the longest CD) and, more importantly,
released a mere 5 months apart, it is almost impossible to overstate the significance
of these two albums on modern music as we know it today. These were the albums, or should I say the
music, that changed rock from silly love songs with even sillier lyrics. Both
albums, with their mixture of acoustic and electric music, employed some of the
most abstract lyrics ever committed to vinyl and completely demolished all
notions about popular song lengths. In
other words, Dylan succeeded almost by himself in setting up rock music as
an art form like other forms of “serious” music. Consider some of the tracks on these albums; She Belongs
To Me, Maggie’s Farm, Mr Tambourine Man, It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),
It’s All Over Now Baby Blue, Like A Rolling Stone, Ballad Of A Thin Man, Highway
61 Revisited, Desolation Row– these are some of the most admired, and in some
cases, covered songs in the history of recorded music and have inspired countless
acts over the years. Their influence over The Beatles, for example, probably cannot be calculated.
Over the years,
I’ve steadfastly refused to separate between these two albums. Given the combined running time which could
make for a reasonably priced double CD and that the music was recorded and
released over a timespan in which some of today’s mega acts would struggle to
record an EP, I do not have the slightest hesitation in grouping these two
albums as a single entity which occupies the no. 2 position on my list.
I’ll go through
some more usual suspects tomorrow.
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