10 favorite albums

In these days of iTunes and streaming music, the album has almost become a lost art. Oh, they’re still being released but there’s a feeling that it’s all just an arbitrary grab-bag, and people will take what they want and leave the rest. A song here, and a song there. And that antiquated notion of a “concept album”? Forget about it!  Well, I personally love the construct of an album. In fact, when I write original song lyrics, I often group them into imaginary “albums” and that makes it so much more meaningful to me. Sure, there are usually “duds” on every album, songs that you tend to skip. But at least you have a chance to become acquainted with them before you skip them. There is a beautiful art to how one song can lead into another and guide the thoughts and emotions of the listener, to take them on a journey that they would miss if they only downloaded one or two songs from the collection. So with that in mind, I offer some thoughts on ten of my favorite albums. It’s not really a top ten list, in that favorites have a way of changing, and these will not be presented in any particular order. And there is a lot of great work that will not be included in this list because I can’t write a 100-page blog entry. So this is just a sampling of really good albums, and I hope some of you might consider giving some of them a listen from start to finish.

JOHN MELLENCAMP: LIFE, DEATH, LOVE AND FREEDOM (2009)

As a huge Mellencamp fan from way back, I could have chosen any one of four or five different releases, but the one I’m listening to the most right now is this recording, his first collaboration with roots music icon T Bone Burnett. This marked a turning point for the artist, moving away from rock and towards an eclectic mix of folk, country, blues and Americana. Others that followed this album have not been as strong. The songwriting is exquisite in its melodies, instrumentation, and lyrical themes. It’s pretty downbeat, but that’s nothing new for Mellencamp. There is the dark humor of “John Cockers” about a crotchety old loner: “I used to have some values / now they just make me laugh / I used to think things would work out fine / but they never did do that.” This is followed by “A Ride Back Home”, which is a sad appeal to Jesus to end the singer’s failed earthly life and take him to heaven early. Then you arrive at “Jena”, which is about an actual racist incident that occurred in a Southern town of the same name, and “Mean” which seems to be about the religious right. “County Fair” is a ghost story of sorts, with the protagonist matter-of-factly detailing his final hours on this earth before he is senselessly murdered. Yet in spite of all the morbidity, there are fragments of sweetness and light, as “For the Children” is a kind of blessing bestowed upon the next generation by someone who admits that he doesn’t understand this life at all, but he has hope anyway. And “My Sweet Love” is one of the most catchy love songs you’ll ever hear.

KATE BUSH: THE DREAMING (1982)

Kate Bush blossomed into full musical maturity and creative genius with this trippy album. Before, she was fairly subdued, a shy-sounding teenage girl, in spite of her more animated onstage persona, which reflected a rich dance background. While she could always be described as a wee bit eccentric, this album took that quirk over the edge and took the listeners into flights of fancy that they never could have previously imagined. While not exactly a hit, “Suspended in Gaffa” is one of the most infectious and addictive tunes in her arsenal. She takes you around the world with “Pull Out the Pin”, a mediation on the violence of the Vietnam war from the perspective of the Vietcong. The title song takes you to Australia to witness the Aborigines getting swept off their land by the white man. “Night of the Swallow” is a heart-wrenching plea of a woman trying to keep her over-confident loved one from embarking on a deadly mission. Most captivating of all though is a pairing of songs, “Leave It Open” and “Get Out of My House”, both occupying the end of the two “sides” of the record. They are both ominous and cautionary reflections on the forces we allow to enter into our life, and what we try to keep out. In a way, they almost contradict each other, and at the same time compliment, like two sides of the same coin. The latter track ends in a spectacularly spooky and hysterical fashion, as Kate transforms into a mule. You can’t miss this.

ROBYN HITCHCOCK: EYE (1990)

When Robyn Hitchcock has a band backing him up in the studio (the Soft Boys, the Egyptians, the Venus 3), the songs tend to be very poppy and accessible. Oh, there is still the macabre and surreal imagery that his lyrics are known for, but the music tends to be radio friendly, even if the record labels and radio stations are not friendly back. But when Hitchcock goes solo, we have something very different. The songs tend to be quite stripped down, and consist mostly of an acoustic guitar and his raspy English vocals. The production is not smooth at all; some songs end quite abruptly and in unexpected ways. The lyrics are even more edgy than normal, yet with an insanely dark cackling-clown sense of humor. Take “Executioner” (“I know how Judas felt / but he got paid / I’m doing this for free / just like Live Aid”) or “Aquarium”: (“She says she’s gonna saw her head off / she only does it for attention”). Perhaps one of the most cosmically strange and funny songs of his entire massive oeuvre is “Clean Steve”, which I won’t quote here cos you just have to hear it for yourself. There’s also great tenderness on the album as he exposes his heart in the mortality meditation of “Glass Hotel” and the bitter breakup dirge, “Linctus House.” This is a moody album, and I listen to it when I’m, well, moody. “Should I say it with flowers, or should I say it with nails?” – “Linctus House”

HOWIE DAY: STOP ALL THE WORLD NOW (2003)

The original title was going to be From a Northern Sky, which would have been a much stronger title, and very evocative. Several songs would have hinted back to it in their lyrics. But that’s a small matter. Day has said he was influenced by Jeff Buckley on this album, and I can see that, although I find Day’s music to be more accessible than Buckley’s, and no less dramatic or well crafted. This is an artist who wears his heart on his sleeve, and that’s probably why I love him so much. Every track is infused with an intensity of emotion, as if the survival of the world itself hinged on whatever he’s singing about (which, incidentally, is usually love). Maybe that explains the album title. “Brace Yourself” is a warning to potential romantic interests, as if to say, “When I fall in love, I become a powerful and unpredictable force of nature”. There’s an earnestness in these songs that confronts the dangers of love and passion, as well as the beauty and tenderness. Arguably, the most powerful song on the album is “End of Our Days”, which was featured prominently in the 2006 documentary The Bridge, about the world’s most popular place to commit suicide, the Golden Gate Bridge. While I don’t think suicide is actually the subject of the song, there is such a depth to the feeling expressed in both words and melody that the filmmakers obviously thought it had the gravitas to capture the film’s dark tone, which actually featured live footage of real people jumping to their deaths.

THE WHITE STRIPES: ICKY THUMP (2007)

Jack White and his cohort Meg White (not siblings, but formerly married) made their blues-rock fusion mark on the world with six studio albums in eight years. Then they wrapped it all up with a Canadian tour and accompanying film (Under Great White Northern Lights, excellent, by the way) and then went their separate ways. My opinion, which I think is a rare one among fans, is that they got better with each album. Their first one was the worst one, and their last one, Icky Thump, was the best. I first heard the title track in my friend Holly’s car, riding home from film school one night, and it was revelatory. There are many guitarists I admire, but the authority and confidence with which Jack played on this song struck me like a bolt of lightning. And then you add the in-your-face lyrics: “White Americans, what? Nothing better to do? Why don’t you kick yourself out – you’re an immigrant too.” Just…wow. The rest of the album follows almost as strongly as that opener. The searing “300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues” lets us into one of those uncomfortable relationship conversations that we all have, and between verses, breaks out into brain-piercing guitar noise that sounds like people playing with assorted saws to punctuate the emotional intensity of the proceedings. “Prickly Thorn, but Sweetly Worn” has Jack experimenting with bagpipes, much the same way he played with marimba in the previous album. There’s a slight lag in the second half, but the record closes with a light-hearted exhortation towards taking ownership and personal responsibility (“Effect and Cause”). I hate that The White Stripes had to end it, but since they did, it’s wonderful they did so on this high note.

DIRE STRAITS: LOVE OVER GOLD (1982)

This is for people who love the guitar and love storytelling. In its five long tracks (one of them nearly 15 minutes in length), we get a lot of both. These are what Mark Knopfler traffic in. Stories of love (mostly lost), stories of corruption, stories of locations in time(s). You take it all in with Knopfler propelling you through the songs in long instrumental sessions both gentle and fierce. It’s always beautiful though, and the 3-minute guitar solo that closes “It Never Rains” is my favorite guitar solo, period.

BILLY JOEL: SONGS IN THE ATTIC (1981)

Before Joel hit it big in 1977 with The Stranger, he recorded four lackluster albums with not a lot of artistic control over the proceedings. He wrote the songs, of course, and sang and played piano, but the production and musicianship by the hired guns were not up to the level of Joel’s songwriting craft. So, in the early 80’s, he released one of the only live albums I actually like, an album that takes the best material from those early works and revitalizes it in a live setting. The result is a stunning revelation of just how good a songwriter he was to begin with, and the potential that those songs had. The most staggering example of this improvement is “Captain Jack”, the cautionary tale of young restlessness (and recklessness) and drug addiction. This was actually released in its original version in 1973 and was a hit; that was the version that was later put on the Greatest Hits compilation. But the Attic version is infinitely better; when he launches into the final chorus, the anger is palpable, and if you think Billy Joel is a bubblegum artist with nothing to say, you’ll never feel that way again. Other standout tracks are “Streetlife Serenader” and “Summer, Highland Falls.” These are thoughtful, meditative, reflective tracks that were written and recorded before Joel became a hit-making machine. Their place is in our hearts, rather than on the charts.

FLEETWOOD MAC: TUSK (1979)

You may wonder what was going through the mind of singer/songwriter/guitarist/producer Lindsey Buckingham when he steered the band on this sharp left turn from their mega-hit breakthrough Rumours from 1977. Tusk is nothing like Rumours, not in the slightest. It was a commercial failure and disappointment at the time, but now it enjoys a unique following as something of a cult favorite. Like most Mac albums with this particular lineup, it features contributions from Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie as well as Buckingham. But Buckingham dominates with the lion’s share of the songs on this double-album, and the songs are…well…different. I don’t know what he was listening to at the time, but it wasn’t Mac contemporaries like the Eagles! The songs are wild and frenetic and sometimes rather incomprehensible. Nicks does her usual heart-pouring therapy sessions, but really takes it up a notch on the epic “Sara”. She also contributes the most hard-edged and mysterious track on the album, “Sisters of the Moon”, which is the band as close as it gets to hard rock. (I can imagine a heavy metal cover of this, it would be great.) And for McVie’s part, while she is sometimes the weakest link, her songs of love and romantic passion are enough to make the heart melt. She is at her best of this album.

SUZANNE VEGA: DAYS OF OPEN HAND (1990)

This album was sort of a transition between the soft folk of her 80’s offerings and the more electronic-oriented music that would come later. What is really compelling about this album is how introspective the songs are. And many of them, I can relate to on a deeply personal level. Take the opener: “Oh Mom, I wonder when I’ll be waking. It’s just that there’s so much to do and I’m tired of sleeping.” Two songs later, on “Rusted Pipe”, she sings of tentative beginnings: “Now the time has come to speak. I was not able. And water through a rusted pipe could make the sense that I do.” She runs a gamut of human experience, from dreaming (“Book of Dreams”) to civic duty (“Institution Green”) to the complex nature of communication (“Big Space”) to a harrowing medical crisis (“50/50 Chance”) and finally the long spiritual journey that is life itself (“Pilgrimage”). Many times, I have made mix tapes to express who I am, and at least one song from this album would usually be included. Many times, I’ve felt like “I could have written this!”

U2: THE UNFORGETTABLE FIRE (1984)

This is a unique collection of songs that were largely inspired by a visit to a peace museum, and witnessing its various displays. So you have two songs about Martin Luther King Jr (actually the weakest tracks on the album, not because of their subject but because of less imaginative musical choices). You have love songs set in the backdrop of nuclear devastation, after a series of paintings made by survivors from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (The band actually took the name for the album from that painting exhibit.) There’s a song about the decline of Elvis and, in a larger sense, of America. There are two songs about drug addiction in Dublin. And there is a really sweet love song, one of my all-time favorites that I want played at my wedding (if I ever have one), “Promenade”. All this may not sound very enticing, but it’s the music that really shines here, as it captures this mixture of very serious and dramatic topics. One thing that stands out much more than usual is Adam Clayton’s bass, throbbing underneath Edge’s melodic guitar rhythms and unusual frenetic outbursts. Bono sings with his usual solemnity, but here it doesn’t come across as pretentious or preachy like it does on, say, The Joshua Tree. You hear the heart of a man weeping for humanity’s suffering, and there’s a universality to it that is unmatched on any other U2 album in spite of such specific subject matter. The highpoint is the title track, which ends with a lovely orchestral coda that will leave you breathless, speechless, or both. And by the way, the video that was made for that song is my absolute favorite music video ever. It’s as powerful as the song itself.