That Wonderful Year in Music... 1974

Ah, 1974. The year of Watergate, streaking, and... Symbionese Liberation, I guess. Glam-rock was king, punk and disco were in their nascent stages, jazz fusion and Kraut-rock kept the nerds entertained, and R&B was as silky-smooth as ever. Overall it was a decent year for Top 40 radio, though what actually got airplay that year was eventually overshadowed by career albums from lesser-known artists. It's a somewhat misunderstood and overlooked year, with most of the big dogs (Led Zeppelin, The Who, Pink Floyd) either sitting the year out or working extensively on their next project, yet top-heavy in great music either way you shake the stick.

TOP TEN ALBUMS:

1. Court and Spark, Joni Mitchell. There's no question that this fair-haired Canadian songstress has earned her legendary status. Most of her albums have been very consistant in that they all seem to contain six or seven brilliant songs, accompanied by some agreeable filler near the end of the disc. Spark is her one album where every track clicks; everything from "Help Me" to "Raised on Robbery" is a luscious swirl of orchestral flair and tight melodies.
2. Rock Bottom, Robert Wyatt. Recorded in the wake of a freak accident that left Wyatt crippled from the waist down, it may shock some people that the former Soft Machine drummer's best solo effort was written before he fell from a third-story balcony. The sound of the album is melancholy, yet it bursts with life; beneath all the bizarre prog-jazz flailings and the disdain for conventional songcraft is a story of a man redeeming himself via music.
3. Radio City, Big Star. Neglected in their time, Big Star became a cult favorite long after the band (or more specifically, frontman Alex Chilton) fell apart, as well as a cautionary tale about the need to nurture a gifted artist. Their second album might be the best of their three "classic" albums. Reduced to a trio after the departure of Chris Bell, Radio City trades their debut's mild skepticism or something a tad more cynical and yearning. In a way, this album is the essence of pop imperfection.
4. Here Come The Warm Jets, Brian Eno
5. Pretzel Logic, Steely Dan
6. Too Much Too Soon, New York Dolls
7. Fulfillingness' First Finale, Stevie Wonder
8. Treasure Island, Keith Jarrett
9. Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Brian Eno
10. I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight, Richard & Linda Thompson. Anyone who thinks The Swell Season's story of finding and expressing love through music is somehow original and unheard-of clearly hasn't done their homework. That's not to say the "Once" soundtrack is terrible or anything, it's just that the Thompsons beat them to the switch 35 years ago.

Honorable Mentions: Diamond Dogs, David Bowie; Autobahn, Kraftwerk; Meet The Residents, The Residents; Kimono My House, Sparks; Crime of the Century, Supertramp; Mysterious Traveler, Weather Report.

THE 15 BEST SINGLES:

"Waterloo," ABBA
"Beach Baby," The First Class
"Hooked on a Feeling," Blue Swede
"Sundown," Gordon Lightfoot
"Spiders and Snakes," Jim Stafford
"Bad Company," Bad Company
"Skating Away," Jethro Tull
"Radar Love," Golden Earring
"Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)," The Raspberries
"The Loco-Motion," Grand Funk Railroad*
"The Payback," James Brown
"Then Came You," Dianne Warwick and The Spinners
"Mockingbird," Carly Simon
"Oh My My," Ringo Starr
"Dancing Machine," The Jacksons

*For the record, that might actually be the only Grand Funk song I like. Music critics hated them in the '70s and I think their vitriol is in the right place. This spirited cover of the old Little Eva tune holds up quite well, though it's a shame that a then 12-year-old dance tune blew anything that Mark Farner and Don Brewer did write out of the water.

So Awful, It's Brilliant: "The Night Chicago Died," Paper Lace. I single out this particular song for its inane first verse: "Daddy was a cop/on the east side of Chicago/back in the U-S-A/back in the bad old days." I was not aware that my city's finest had a cop patrolling the middle of Lake Michigan, unless there's an underwater neighborhood that I'm not aware of.

Your thoughts?

That Wonderful Year in Music... 1999

After spending the past few months writing up best-of lists from years that I knew were strong and top-heavy and contained some of my all-time favorite albums, I decided to challenge myself this time around. The late '90s and early '00s have never really been that high on my radar because I just wasn't into top 40 and CHR around that time; rather than play this by memory, I decided to do my homework. When I look back at that year, it was around the time that I really got into classic rock; I had my first real tastes of bands like Led Zeppelin, The Who, and The Rolling Stones during the summer that I turned 15. 1999 was also the year where I began pursuing a career in radio; I hadn't really thought about what I wanted to do with my life at that point, and I had listened to the old WXCD-FM in Chicago to such an extent that I was really curious about being a disc jockey.

In a way, the soundtrack to '99 gets drowned out by all the other artistic achievements of that year. It was a strong year for movies, with cinematic milestones and cult faves such as The Matrix, Being John Malkovich, Magnolia, Fight Club, Man on the Moon, Office Space, and to a lesser extent American Beauty. Over on television, "The Sopranos," "The West Wing," "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," "Freaks & Geeks," "Family Guy," "Futurama," and "Spongebob Squarepants" all bowed in '99. The year in literature alone gave us Isaac's Storm, The Onion Presents: Our Dumb Century, and the third Harry Potter novel. From a pop culture standpoint, the whole year was an assault on the senses. After five weeks of research, however, I think I've pieced together a pretty good summation of what the sounds of 1999 were all about. Here goes:

BEST ALBUMS:

1. The Soft Bulletin, The Flaming Lips. After fiddling around with an experimental, neo-psychedelic sound for a little over a decade, The Lips pieced together a career-defining album in the wake of a bizarre incident that nearly destroyed the band. (Listen to "The Spiderbite Song" for more details.) Their previous release Zaireeka was an experimental, four-disc cacophony of noise that denies any comparison; Bulletin is not as difficult or layered but probably just as weird and a lot more accessible.
2. 69 Love Songs, The Magnetic Fields. This set is paid as advertised; three CDs with 23 tracks each, all of which run about two minutes in length, each about love, infatuation, and romance. The songs bounce from one genre to another, from punk to country to the old soft shoe, with a minimalist acoustic sound that's equally cozy and charming. My only question is, why 69 songs? ;)

3. Play, Moby. Nearly every track on this disc either became a top 10 hit, was used in a TV commercial, or became the theme song of a short-lived TV show. If you churned out that many catchy tunes, you'd use every part of the cow, too.

4. Summer Teeth, Wilco

5. When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts..., Fiona Apple

6. 1965, The Afghan Whigs

7. Remedy, Basement Jaxx

8. The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, Ben Folds Five

9. Midnight Vultures, Beck

10. Californication, Red Hot Chili Peppers. I have a weak spot for a good comeback story, and the Peppers' resurgence stood out the most that year. The uneven One Hot Minute notwithstanding, this was the true follow-up to RHCP's 1991 breakthrough Blood Sugar Sex Magik. With guitarist John Frusicante back in the fold and frontman Anthony Kiedis looking at his demons in the rearview mirror, Californication is as cathartic as it is a goofy, funky party album.

Honorable Mentions: The Gay Parade, Of Montreal; Stupid Dream, Porcupine Tree; How I Learned To Love The Bootboys, The Auteurs. 

BEST SINGLES:

"My Own Worst Enemy," Lit

"Drive," Incubus

"Let Me Go," Cake

"The Kids Aren't Alright," The Offspring

"Take a Picture," Filter

"Everything You Want," Vertical Horizon

"Steal My Sunshine," LEN

"She's So High," Tal Bachman
"Angel," Sarah McLachlan

"The Great Beyond," R.E.M.

BEST VIDEOS:

1. "Learn To Fly," Foo Fighters. In a summer where the death of John F. Kennedy Jr. dominated the gossip pages, several music videos with plane crashes at the heart of the plot were pulled by MTV out of respect to the mourning family. Where Filter's "Take a Picture" and eerie and mopey, "Learn To Fly" was a fun romp. Plus, how can you go wrong with a cameo by Tenacious D?

2. "My Name Is," Enimem. The first of many topical and incendiary clips by the "artiste" Marshall Mathers. His Clinton impression looks kinda like Andrew McCarthy.

3. "Praise You," Fatboy Slim. Spike Jonze's gonzo imagination runs wild again. The whole clip is the end result of a mockumentary about a spazzy small-time choreographer (played by Jonze) and his gaggle of dancing misfits.

4. "The Child," Alex Gopher. The director of this video has repeatedly referred to this effort as "word porn," though it's what happens after procreation that dominates the premise.

5. "Coffee & TV," Blur. A poignant love story about anthropomorphic milk cartons, with a mystery to boot. I can't say anything else about it without ruining the plot, though the ambitious usage of old-school trick photography is a sight to behold.

Special thanks to mtjaws for his contribution to this blog entry.

That Wonderful Year in Music... 1969

With the 40th anniversary of Woodstock and the moon landing in the rear-view mirrors of our minds, this month's musical lovefest drops down on 1969. It's difficult to find fault with the waning days of the '60s --Altamont notwithstanding-- if only because so many major acts were running on all cylinders. It was the last great year for Motown and all things psychedelic, the first great year for hard rock and the singer-songwriter era, and AM radio bubblegum was at its apex. Alas, this year was jam-packed with so much good stuff that I couldn't squeeze it down to ten songs and ten albums, so this month I decided to double up.

BEST ALBUMS

1. Abbey Road, The Beatles. The Fab Four's last studio effort --and their penultimate release as a band-- is a case example of brilliance under duress. There was little questioning the fact that John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison were barely on speaking terms at this point, with Ringo Starr at the eye of the storm. The album itself is a continuation of the themes set by The White Album and strongly foreshadows the entire band's varying solo careers. Several ideas, including the "Sun King" medley on Side B, feel unfinished or half-hearted yet mesh well together. Harrison steals the show, however with two of the finest songs he ever wrote, "Something" and "Here Comes The Sun."
2. Led Zeppelin II, Led Zeppelin. Where the first album was 45 minutes of compelling, hard-charging acid-blues, the sequel found Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Bonham and John Paul Jones moving towards a sound that would be distinctly their own. "Whole Lotta Love" sets the tone and it never lets up.
3. The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground. Of the Velvets' four proper albums this is arguably my favorite. They're all masterpieces in their own right, but there's something about their third full-player that I keep coming back to. Most rock historians judge this album as the one that single-handedly turned folk-rock upside down, an argument that's hard to dispute; it's a mostly acoustic affair flavored by the nihilistic weirdness of the Velvets' first two efforts. Purists often deride Doug Yule's presence on the disc (he replaced founding member John Cale) but he only factors on two tracks; Lou Reed is the undisputed star here.
4. Tommy, The Who
5. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Neil Young
6. The Band, The Band
7. Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin
8. Arthur (Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire), The Kinks
9. Let It Bleed, The Rolling Stones
10. Willy and the Poor Boys, Creedence Clearwater Revival. In this day and age, a band releasing two new studio albums in one calendar year is unheard of. In 1969, CCR released three LPs, and third of that bunch rivals Cosmo's Factory as one of their strongest efforts. The beautifully haunting "Effigy" notwithstanding it's also their breeziest album, 30+ minutes of country-blues-rockabilly fun.

11. In a Silent Way, Miles Davis. If there's an album in the legendary Davis oeurve that parallels The Beatles' Rubber Soul as a turning point in the artist's style and dynamic, this is probably it. Muted and ambient, In a Silent Way was a farewell of sorts to the bebop-tinged jazz that put Miles on the map and the beginning of a hard push into avant-garde and the fusion sound that dominated his early-70s work.
12. In The Court of the Crimson King, King Crimson
13. Nashville Skyline, Bob Dylan
14. Blind Faith, Blind Faith
15. Santana, Santana
16. Unhalfbricking, Fairport Convention
17. Chicago Transit Authority, Chicago
18. Karma, Pharoah Sanders
19. Volunteers, Jefferson Airplane
20. Trout Mask Replica, Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band. Upon listening to this album for the first time, one could call this double-LP a bizarre, unlistenable mess; after all, it's five "musicians" that can barely play their instruments as a white Howlin' Wolf imitator recites stream-of-consciousness poetry. Then you peel away the layers; the sound was orchestrated to be abstract, the arrangements carefully scripted and manicured by Beefheart himself, Don Van Vliet, and his partner in crime Frank Zappa. A highly influential album in the punk/new wave era, not as a literal musical starting point but as a catalyst of do-it-yourself experimentation.

BEST SINGLES (AM RADIO/TOP 40)
"Dizzy," Tommy Roe
"Suspicious Minds," Elvis Presley
"Sweet Caroline," Neil Diamond
"In The Year 2525," Zager and Evans
"(Theme from) Hawaii Five-O," The Ventures
"Tracy," The Cuff Links
"One," Three Dog Night
"You've Made Me So Very Happy," Blood, Sweat & Tears
"Polk Salad Annie," Tony Joe White
"Get Together," The Youngbloods

BEST SINGLES (R&B/BLUES/PSYCHEDELIC)
"Get Ready," Rare Earth
"Baby It's You," Smith
"What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)," Jr. Walker & The All-Stars
"Compared to What," Les McCann and Eddie Harris
"Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In," The 5th Dimension
"With a Little Help From My Friends," Joe Cocker
"Spirit in the Sky," Norman Greenbaum
"Touch Me," The Doors
"Space Oddity," David Bowie
"Pictures of Matchstick Men," Status Quo

Finally, for next month's annual musical salute, I was thinking of doing a people's choice. I'd like to cover the year 1999, but I've only listened to five or six albums from that year (not counting the Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys CDs that my sister nearly played to death). Feel free to PM me your suggestions.