every every EVERY time i try to speak, my tongue gets tied

81.

astral weeks
van morrison [warner brothers, 1968]

ephemerality is bittersweet; the insatiable longing for the past, for the innocence of youth, for before the heartbreaking realization that the world is rotten, erratic, and cruel, is a constant wellspring of inspiration for starry-eyed romantics everywhere. like the wispy seeds of a dandelion floating across the breeze, the fluorescent dance of fireflies, or the comforting cacophony of crickets, Astral Weeks evokes humid summer evenings of years irrevocably lost. Van Morrison reaches deep into his childhood and adolescence, swells up with half-remembered, half-dreamt memories and bursts with yearning. this is impressionistic, aqueous music; it ebbs, flows, cascades, and recedes, enthusiastically building up with anticipatory crescendo then slowing reeling down in hesitant decrescendo. Morrison gave the musicians little direction, telling them only to follow his lead and play how they felt; indeed, the record sounds "organic," stemming from the source like twisting brambles. the strings gently climb and ascend on the title track and then come crashing down in a torrential downpour on "sweet thing," while the horns explode in rapturous ecstasy on "the way young lovers do." if Van isn't moaning, sighing, or belting lyrics about the "viaducts of your dreams," sleepy car rides down suburban lanes, or tragic transvestites, his voice gesticulates with broken syllables and wordless improvisation, like a wounded cherub or an uproarious drunk. Astral Weeks is a sweeping, grandiose record, encompassing forlorn tragedy and earthy sensuality, a spelunking journey down the caverns of memory in search of lost time; few records are as recklessly imaginative or as ruefully spiritual.

slow burner moment: i received Astral Weeks as a Christmas present when i was thirteen or fourteen; at the time i was burning through the established canon like ravenous raccoon. it literally made me fall asleep the first few times i tried to listen to it. however, as i grew older i began to appreciate it more. in fact, when listening to it again for the purposes of this project, i realized that i definitely should have ranked it higher, much higher, actually. like, top thirty. so, first official SHOULD BE HIGHER designation from the listmaker himself.

second verse same as the first

82.

ramones
the ramones [sire, 1976]

armed with four chords and an irreverent attitude, four tough-looking dorks from Queens bludgeon the bloated pretensions and self-important grandeur of mid-70s rock, spark a still-resonating musical revolution, and alter the pop landscape forever! the mythology has become ingrained in the popular consciousness; it's a classic David v. Goliath underdog story. by stripping the sleazy glam of Bolan and the New York Dolls of its libido, speeding it up, and mainlining a healthy dose of girl-group pop sensibility and straight-out-of-the-garage fervor, the Ramones forged the template for punk rock: unlearned, untamed, RAW. their debut album is an exercise in economy and brevity: fourteen songs with unwaveringly similar structures in a half hour. Joey barks lyrics about glue sniffing, child abuse, and not wanting to go down to the basement/walk around with you while Johnny shreds furiously like a screaming wood chipper. the rhythm section - Dee Dee's pulsating bass and Tommy's pounding drums - socks you in the gut, steals your wallet, and leaves you to rot in the gutter. however, for all its unhinged ferocity, Ramones is more dopey and bashful than grumpy; "i wanna be your boyfriend" wallows in saccharine, and "Havana affair" and "today your love, tomorrow the world," flippant, politically incorrect send-ups of the Bay of Pigs invasion and Nazi Germany, revel in camp mockery. "53rd and 3rd," a tribute to the street corner where Dee Dee would whore himself out for drug money, is perhaps the Ramones' darkest, most disheartening track, even if it abides by the restrictions of the formula. with its obsession with trash culture, cheap thrills and cheaper drugs, and unrelenting ennui towards the musical and political establishment, Ramones distills the attitudes of disenfranchised, disillusioned post-hippie youth culture.

D.A. Pennebaker moment: Ramones: Raw is probably the most gratuitous example of a shrill, lazily-edited fly-on-the-wall band documentary. instead of providing compelling insight into the band, it just presents them [mainly replacement drummer Marky] as obnoxious, self-obsessed idiots. it is literally painful to watch.

in south carolina there are many tall pines, i remember the oak tree that we used to climb

83.

sweetheart of the rodeo
the byrds [columbia, 1968]

country music is the antithesis of "hip:" rural and reactionary; inherently suspicious of all things new, urban, and youthful; unapologetically banal, from the trite, mawkish lyrics to the cornball cowboy hat showmanship borrowed from vaudeville. thus, when the Byrds traded in their chiming Rickenbackers for the rickety lilt of a dobro, the pulsating folk-rock throb for a languid clippity-clop, ponderous drug-induced existential dread for cloying, unaffected schmaltz, it marked an audacious and potentially divisive aesthetic shift. thank Gram Parsons, the yearning wunderkind with a death-drive gleam in his eye and megalomaniacal ambition that sensed something magnificent and quintessentially American in a style of music that most in the rock community emphatically dismissed. Sweetheart of the Rodeo is a joyous, spirited record, punch-drunk off the simple pleasures of the simple songs. bookended by two Dylan covers, the raucous, celebratory tribute to mail-order brides "you ain't goin' nowhere" and the bread-line ballad "nothing was delivered," the album runs through a gamut of country styles, from the po' boy Woody Guthrie shuffle of "pretty boy floyd" to the white-boy gospel of the Louvin Brothers' "the Christian life." the record's highlight is the tear-in-the-beer Gram Parsons original, "hickory wind," a wistful, sad-sack ode to lost youth and corrupted innocence. Sweetheart of the Rodeo is unprecedented in its un-ironic embrace of a style of music most of the Byrds' contemporaries avoided like a drunk leper - especially in the midst of a hostile culture war - and still unsurpassed in its rambunctious jocularity and unexpected profundity; it may be a lighthearted record, but it reveals more about the American experience than most of the horribly dated, pretentious hippie drivel released the same year.

dance the chicken reel moment: the Byrds appeared on the Grand Ole' Opry in Nashville to promote this record. those in charge were suspicious of allowing "long-hairs" to perform on the vaunted stage, and when Parsons ripped into "hickory wind" instead of the announced Merle Haggard cover, it firmly "pissed off the Nashville establishment." so much for winning favor with the yokels!

changing, designing, adapting our mentalities, improving our abilities for a better way of life!

84.

dazzle ships
orchestral manoeuvres in the dark [telegraph, 1983]

from the Paleolithic Age to the digital age, from chipped flint to microchips, technology and history have been inextricably linked, bound together in mutual causality. in simplified terms, social, political, and economic developments lead to new technologies lead to social, political, and economic developments; it's the mechanism that fuels the grand historical narrative of "progress." released near the whimpering conclusion of the Cold War, Dazzle Ships explores the utopian promises and the dystopian realities offered by the perpetual love affair between history and technology. it's a remarkably forward-thinking record, peppered with snippets of "found sound" - robotic toys, automated telephone messages, newscasters reporting atrocities in an impassive deadpan - that predict not only the experimental moments of major twenty-first century recording artists but also the inexplicable loneliness of hyper-connected techno-post-modern society. it's a rather dour affair; the tracks alternate between downtrodden, shimmering synth-pop ballads like the sighing "silent running," and more abstracted musique concrète sound collages. the few uptempo songs, like the effervescent, Brave New World-evoking "genetic engineering," are laced with gloom or smirking irony. in the face of a technologically overwhelmed future, a strong half-sentimental, half-mocking nostalgia for the archaic and the arcane permeates through the album, from its title and other World War II allusions to the metaphorical references to dead or dying forms of technology - radio and the telegraph. it may not be as accessible as OMD's other material, but Dazzle Ships is a complex, innovative record illuminating the tension between the past and future, technological progress and social stagnation, man and machine.


techno-kitsch moment: though this album was panned by critics and shunned by the record-buying public when it was first released - it's considered one of the most notorious "flops" in British pop - a recent reissue has led to critical re-evaluation. Pitchfork's Tom Ewing, one of their best writers, wrote that Dazzle Ships is a more pleasurable album now than in 1983 because the then bizarre, "futuristic" use of electronic voices and instruments has become kitsch and comforting, like playing a game on the NES. i don't agree necessarily, but it's an interesting theory.

and baby, baby, BABY, do you liiiiike it?

85.

untitled [led zeppelin iv, zoso, etc.]
led zeppelin [atlantic, 1971]

the most obvious and reductive utility of music is escapism, a means by which to elevate above the mundane triviality of humdrum everyday existence. so why not escape to a world of easy women, Biblical floods, Stonehenge, and fucking Ringwraiths? Led Zeppelin tapped the vein that leads to every adolescent boy's heart; they exemplified the "sex, drugs, and rock n' roll" mythos, but they were total dorks obsessed with blues records and Tolkien. yes, all the aspects that make Zep an easy-to-loathe target of anti-rockist revisionists glare on this record - the asinine, self-consciously "poetic" lyrics, the bloated studio gimmickry, the unambiguous pillaging of the blues - and most of the tracks are victims of the classic rock radio massacre, but, you know what, anyone who doesn't flail around maniacally as soon as John Bonham's massive drums announce the orgasmic final verse of "stairway to heaven" is probably trying too hard. the multi-tracked blues-on-creatine of "black dog" leaves a trail of sleaze, and the fuck-all abandonment of "rock and roll" treads close to redemption. "four sticks" is savage funk with a fuzzed-out Moog solo, while "misty mountain hop" swaggers by with odd syncopation. the record's two mandolin-driven tracks, "the battle of Evermore" - with guest vocalist Sandy Denny - and "going to California" are ruefully unsettling and mournfully uplifting respectively. the finale cover of Memphis Minnie's "when the levee breaks" is a town-destroying tidal wave of studio effects and earthquake drums. IV is the definitive Led Zeppelin album because it encapsulates their over-sized, ridiculous essence: half bombast, half fantasy, all majestic and exhilaratingly romantic.

killa bees sold fifty gold sixty platinum moment: apparently this is third best selling album of all time in the United States, after Thriller and the fucking Eagles. but, obviously, record sales aren't an accurate measure of a record's aesthetic quality because, you know, people are stupid. only two other albums on this list of best-sellers appear on mine. WHAT COULD THEY BE?

i crawl like a viper through these suburban streets, make love to these women, languid and bittersweet

86.

aja
steely dan [mca, 1977]

the silky-smooth jazz arrangements and lush, crisp production are often misconstrued as signs of effete wimpiness, but Steely Dan isn't all cocaine and caviar with Christopher Cross in a yacht off the coast of California; wry, detached cynicism and subversive contrarianism emanate from their records. popular lore paints Donald Fagen and Walter Becker as unrepentant perfectionists, wary of mainstream trends and defiantly operating in the idioms of jazz and classic pop. Aja is a quintessential example of their mastery of sound and studio; the production is intricately textured and luxuriant, a bonsai garden of carefully tended notes and tones. the chordal progressions are unpredictable, sometimes bizarre, and the solos - usually by renowned studio musicians - abound in nonchalant virtuosity. the Hawaiian wind title track is a winding, intricate showstopper concluding with a cascading drum attack, while "peg" coasts in on its easy accessibility and then confounds with its mocking Michael McDonald backing vocals and an earworm trumpet riff. "black cow" is sardonic, crystalline funk, and the Odyssey-inspired "home at last" riddles with mellifluous synthesizers. the album's highlight is "deacon blues," a melancholically derisive ode to youthful, conquer-the-world naïveté. this is the record where all the elements that define Steely Dan consolidate, and the remarkable attention to sonic detail controverts any disparaging, milquetoast label: soft rock, jazz-rock, yacht rock, whatever.

daisy age moment: several tracks from this album have been sampled in rap songs, but the most charming example is still de la soul's "eye know," which takes takes that aforementioned trumpet riff from "peg" and skedaddles with it.

i never let the mic magnetize me no more

87.

paid in full
eric b. & rakim [4th & broadway, 1987]

the sweet, tender haze of nostalgia has romanticized "old-school" hip-hop culture into a good-natured, violence free utopia of breakdancers, graffiti artists, DJs, and b-boys makin' with the freak-freak. but, rap in its infancy bears little resemblance to what dominates the charts today, especially in terms of the cadences of the MCs and their lyrical content. the rhyming was generally unsophisticated and unwavering braggadocio rivaled party-starting hype as the supreme subject matter. enter one Rakim Allah, flanked by his scrit-scratchin', bass droppin' DJ Eric B. On Paid in Full, Rakim introduces poetic devices heretofore underutilized or unseen in rap - internal rhyme, alliteration, complex metaphors, enjambment - while Eric B. generates a vibrant wall of sound using soul and funk samples. the unfaltering boasting and excessive use of echo on the vocals - see "my melody" - are retained from the old-school aesthetic, but this record represents a watershed moment, a marked shift in focus for hip-hop. Rakim doesn't shout or Mickey Mouse to the beat, he flows, he simmers, he sputter-mutters, he spins, bodyslamming the rhythm the ground for the one-two-three count. "pump up the volume!" he exclaims on "i know you got soul" before casually droppin' intricate rhymes like a modern-day Lorenz Hart. ignore the Eric B. solo DJ cuts, they've dated terribly, and instead, nod and sway while Rakim grinds with sloppy, frothy big-booty bass on "move the crowd" and decimates all challengers on "Eric B. is president." Rakim is commonly regarded as the greatest rapper of all time, and this record pops at the seam with brilliance while establishing a new paradigm; long live lyrical complexity!

non-sequitur moment: contemporary rap is full of allusions to Rakim and his songs, but the best reference certainly is found on 50 Cent's verse on "hate it or love it:" "daddy ain't around, probably out committin' felonies/my favorite rapper used to say 'ch-ch-check out my melodies.'"