Number 32: Let it Bleed

Album: Let it Bleed

Artist: The Rolling Stone

Year: 1969

Information: This album doesn't exactly have any notable history recorded, or at least of what I've been able to find. However, one interesting snippet is that "You Can't Always Get What You Want" predates the sessions for this album and even predates Beggars Banquet's release.

High Points: One of the greatest rock recordings ever made, "Gimme Shelter" is the Mt. Everest in an album with other large, daunting mountains. Every time I hear this song, I get goose bumps, which is one of the greatest compliments I can give to a song. The parts that really gets me is when Merry Clayton is singing. Specifically the point where her voice cracks when practically screaming "Rape, murder" and you can hear Mick Jagger in the background yelling "Whoo" in response to how emotional she was being. Even in the beginning, the song is great. The building guitar solo, percussion, and Mick's nearly impossible to understand lyrics bring about an air of the coming apocalypse. A truly great song.

Low Points: The forgettable song, to me, on this album is "Live with Me." I cannot remember this song at all, and that's usually a fair indicator of how I feel about a song.

Is it Great? I really love this album.

The song has two other great songs, "Midnight Rambler" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want." 

"Midnight Rambler" is a very bluesy song, recounting the escapades of an ubiquitous murderer. It builds up to great peaks and crumbles down to deep valleys, practically getting down to just a harmonica. The song ends in the middle of a large arch, getting bigger and bigger to the point where the murdered finally catches you and he'll "stick my knife right down your throat, baby, and it hurts!" I have one complaint with the song, however. The harmonica is very prominent on this song and bubbles under the surface practically throughout the entire song. This song could have reached new heights if the harmonica were to break out from behind the rest of the music and deliver a very strong, bluesy attack.

The other is "You Can't Always Get What You Want." Now, I understand that the phrase has become cliche, but you can't blame the song for that happening. In fact, I would say that it is quoted so often because the song is so impressive. It starts off quiet and tender, with very high-pitched singing, provided by a choir. Then it goes silent for a moment, and then starts off again with Mick singing with maraca and acoustic strumming accompaniment. It goes on like this for a bit until the rest of the band kicks in and the song just becomes really fun to listen to.

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"Love in Vain" is another great song, a heart breaking tale originally written by Robert Johnson, credited under his pseudonym Woody Payne. It's a very slow, blues song and exceptionally written about the sadness of a recently lost lover. 

"You Got the Silver" is similar to "Love in Vain." It's another touching song, this time it's sung by Keith Richards, who I feel did this song great justice. It also features Brian Jones on autoharp, which is the last recording of Jones to be released. The song also ends on a peak, with Keith eschewing the chorus for a very passionate, near-screaming vocal delivery.

"Country Honk" and "Let it Bleed" are two country-rock songs. Contrary to popular feeling, I actually quite enjoy "Country Honk." It's how the song was originally written and I like it, especially the line "But I just can't seem to drink you off my mind." However, the song is weirdly muddled and it can be hard to make out. "Let it Bleed" is an okay song, but I wouldn't say it's great.

"Monkey Man" is an interesting song. It has good parts and bad parts. The vocal delivery and music on this song is really entertaining and powerful. However, some of the lyrics can be stupid "I'm a cold Italian pizza, I could a lemon squeezer." But, it does get a little weird at the end when Mick sings "I'm a monkey!"

Number 17: Nevermind

Album: Nevermind

Artist: Nirvana

Year: 1991

Information: Some guys got a recording contract and made an unsuccessful first album with a few drummers. Then, they got a stable drummer named Dave Grohl and blah blah blah.

High Points: "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is considered one of the best songs ever made, so I'll choose it as the high point of this album.

Low Points: Pretty much all of it.

Is it Great? No.

When I listen to this, it's sounds like heaping piles of garbage on fire. Just tons of garbage burning.

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I am supremely thankful for what this album did, it killed hair metal. Hair metal had been going on for far too long and this album came out and basically put it out of its misery. Thank you.

However, this just doesn't sound good. I don't understand why people are so in love with Nirvana. My friend's mother cried when Kurt died and refused to go to school. People were very devoted to this band, but I really can't comprehend why.

This album honestly sounds bad to me, it's a ton of murky riffs under some shoddy lyrics. I really just don't get this album. I will assume that this album was a product of its time. Perhaps if I had been alive and it was able to make an impact on me, I would have different feelings about this album. However, that is not the case and this album sounds like a lot of poor music.

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I feel like I've repeated myself enough on this review. As you can probably tell, I'm having trouble finding words to exactly describe my feelings on why this album isn't very good. I feel like the first two sentences perfectly encapsulate how I feel, and to try to write more would just be redundant.

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With all that said, I do like the song "Polly."

Number 185: The Stooges

Album: The Stooges

Artist: The Stooges

Year: 1969

Information: A talent scout came down to an MC5 show to check out the band and had hopes of signing them to Elektra. During this show, The Stooges also played and caught the attention of the same talent scout. Subsequently, both acts were signed.When it came time to record for them, The Stooges had a total of five songs, all of which were staples for their live sets. They handed in their five songs and were promptly rejected, to which Iggy said "That's okay, we've got lot more songs." They didn't. They went to their hotel room and wrote three songs overnight. The new album was accepted.

High Points: "I Wanna Be Your Dog" is the highlight, of course, and what a highlight it is. The song is very high energy and has a repeating guitar and piano riff throughout the song. The lyrics also tell of angst and self-loathing, someone reducing themselves down to someone else's pet. That's all the person longs to be, something that sleeps at the foot of your bed.

Low Points: Pretty much the rest of this record.

Is it Great? Kinda.

I will say that this album has two other good songs, which are "No Fun" and "1969." The other songs are monotonous. They absolutely sound like the same song over and over again, other than the awful "We Will Fall." I will give them some slack, due to the fact that three of their songs were all written in the same night, most likely in a rushed manner.

As I have said before, I like weird. I love avant-garde because originality is built into the genre. Usually weird experiments in sound are exciting and captivating. Nothing could be further from this description than "We Will Fall." It's practically the same bar over and over again, nothing actually happening. The whole song would seem to be building towards something, with the ominous backing track aided by John Cale's viola, but it never does anything. It maintains its boring format for ten minutes and leads you to wonder why John Cale thought this was okay. 

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This record is more important than it is good. It's important for the aesthetic it made, which went on to help create punk music. The elements of distorted guitars, screaming the lyrics, and the very simplistic arrangements are the ground floor of a genre.

However, it's just not a great record, which is a bit disappointing.

Number 246:Freak Out!

Album: Freak Out!

Artist: The Mothers of Invention

Year: 1966

Information: The Soul Giants were a bar band that commonly played doo-wop music. They were doing so when Frank Zappa discovered them and eventually joined the band by filling in for the recently defunct guitar player. Frank renamed them The Mothers and eased them off of playing covers to playing his written, original material. They were soons discovered by Tom Wilson, formerly Bob Dylan's porducer, who was under the impression that The Mothers were a white blues band. Once recruited, they then had been forced to rename their band, for fear that it had a negative connotation. During the recording sessions, Tom Wilson became increasingly enthusiastic about the record so far and, in Frank's own words, "he was so impressed he got on the phone and called New York, and as a result I got a more or less unlimited budget to do this monstrosity."

High Points: "Trouble Every Day" is a very wordy, blues song. It covers a few different people's views on the Watts Riots, all of whom find fault with the police and it has the signature, wheezy harmonica that accompanies the usual blues song. However, as with all the songs on this album, no matter the genre that the songs occupy, they don't exactly fit. One of the things that makes this song good is the fact that it never gets preachy, it hardly states an overt opinion. Throughout the song, he usually just states what's happening and why he perceives it's happening, he never tells us all to get along.
Low Points: "How Could I Be Such a Fool," is, for the most part, a bit formulaic, something that these songs rarely are, and it's a tad boring.

Is it Great? Yes, it's a very good album.

I was never really a Frank Zappa fan, he kind of annoyed me. Maybe it was the fact that Zappa has a fan base that is a tad cult-like. I'd also read about the infamous animosity between Frank Zappa and The Velvet Underground and, naturally, I sided with The Velvet Underground. Or maybe it had to do with his facial hair becoming iconic. For whatever reason, I wasn't completely on the Zappa train.

In fact, the first time I heard this album, it was playing in the background and I eventually took it off the player because I thought it was awful. None of it sounded good to me. I even switched it over to "Wowie Zowie" because apparently everyone loved the song. When I heard it, I couldn't understand why people were so in love with the song and, quite honestly, I still don't.

However, I decided to give this album a second chance about half a dozen months later. That brings us to second impressions.

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My musical appreciation has been growing very rapidly and it all started with The Beatles. Originally, I wasn't a very avid musical fan. I  would listen to some stuff, but when I look back on it now, most of it wasn't very good. It was all just the average alternative rock music. Funny thing is that I originally detested The Beatles. I thought they were a pop group that churned out cheesy singles that everyone was somehow entranced by. Then I actually heard their music and I fell in love with it. I listened to them exclusively for about four months. Then I discovered the likes of Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, The Band, The Velvet Underground, Neil Young, and The Beach Boys. I also began to develop a taste for the avant-garde and found weird music to be attractive and alluring. 

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When I listened to the album again, I actually started to enjoy it. The album swept across countless genres and managed to stay original and interesting. The songs start to get weirder and weirder the further you listen,  like going down an elevator to increasingly bizarre floors. However, all the songs manage to fit together and paint an image of Zappa's version of materialistic America. Even when Zappa was being critical, a lot of the songs still manage to maintain funny elements. Such as the song "Go Cry On Somebody Else's Shoulder" and even the title of a song, "Help, I'm a Rock," which is a very weird tribute to Elvis.

Don't get me wrong, most casual music fans probably won't like this, but there are things to be appreciated here. Zappa's guitar work really shines through many of these songs, as does him humor and intellect. If you're the more dedicated music fan that can appreciate music on a deeper level than what it appears to be on the surface, then I recommend this album to you. If you are not that kind of music fan, then I recommend looking elsewhere.

Number 60: Trout Mask Replica

Album: Trout Mask Replica

Artist: Captain Beefheart

Year: 1969

Information: Captain Beefheart was making weird music. He and his Magic Band were on a label that was rapidly becoming an exclsuive"bubble-gum" pop company, called Buddah (sic.) Obviously, his label eventually decided that the Captain wasn't right for their company/image and had him dropped from their label. Frank Zappa, a high school friend of Van Vliet's, picked him up and signed him to his label, Straight. From there, Zappa acted as his producer in the way that Andy Warhol acted as The Velvet Underground's producer: he gave them a place to record and gave them full, creative control. Van Vliet rented a small apartment and had his band locked up in it for eight months. He began to assert complete dominance over his band mates by forcing him into eventual submission, usually through a process of verbal and physical abuse. He also forced his band to constantly practice his compositions (reportedly up to fourteen hours a day,) so that during the first session, twenty musical tracks were knocked out in the studio in six hours. Out of all of this came the fabulously weird Trout Mask Replica.

First Listen: Alright, this is interesting. "Frownland" is almost a conventional rock song, other than the disjointed guitar licks. Why wouldn't they edit the mistakes in his reading? "Dachau Blues" seems a bit tasteless. "Ella Guru" has an oddly catchy chorus. I have no idea what's happening in "Hair Pie," but I want it to stop. I enjoyed "Moonlight on Vermont," maybe I wasn't listening very closely. Some of these songs began to blend together, until I reached "China Pig." I liked it, I could understand it. I let the songs keep playing, without keeping tabs on names, until I reached something truly awful. I hit another narrative, but with music behind it. In fact, the only reason I know the name of this song is because I wanted to make a mental note to never listen to it again. The song is called "Pena" and it is frightening. "She's Too Much For My Mirror" is a clever title. "The Blimp" is another narrative set upon an unrelated Mothers of Invention musical bed. I don't know why this is happening to me, but it is. Who was that on the other end of the phone that said "That was good, I'm just gonna play that back in the studio?" Was that Frank Zappa? Why Frank, why? I like the poetic, pretty title of "Steal Softly Thru Snow."

Second Listen: Frownland doesn't make anymore sense to me, I still just don't know. "I have a girl named Bimbo. Limbo. Spam." Seriously? "Hair Pie: Bake 1" even with it's clever title just sounds awful. I remember being fond on "Moonlight on Vermont." Not this time, it goes on too long. "Pachuco Cadaver" is actually a pretty good, (mostly) instrumental song. No, I do not get you, Mr. Beefheart. The trio of "Bill's Corpse," "Sweet, Sweet Bulbs," and "Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish" still seem to mix together for me. "China Pig" is like blending Tom Waits and Robert Johnson into one, unseemly smoothie. "My Human Gets Me Blues" is an interesting electric blues number that I don't understand and I don't believe Van Vliet did, either. "Hair Pie: Bake 2" finished with the sounds of sleigh bells being abducted by aliens. 

Here goes.. "Pena." What the hell? Seriously, you're never the same person after listening to this song. This song is actually frightening. And it hurts. It hurts so much. How did they find this person? Did they hire him to be awful? I don't...  

"Well" is a God-send. It's a simple reading, it seems to cleanse the palette of two and a half minutes of  the audio version of madness. "When Big Joan Sets Up" appears to be about four different songs connected by an odd solo on a brass instrument. All the lyrics are incomprehensible screams and, later, another brass instrument makes the sound of a muffled scream. It resembles the sound that someone would make if you were to go to their house while they were sleeping, found their CD player, and began playing this album at full blast for at them. And then proceeded to punch them in the stomach. The next few songs are some slightly-normal blues songs. However, "Sugar 'n Spikes" gets to a breakdown point which sounds to be about 10 tapes of drums placed on top of each other, which then dissolves into some scat blues.

During "Wild Life," I had this sweeping feeling of relaxation and comfort. I looked at the cover with Beefheart holding a fish (not actually a Trout) and wearing his Quaker-style hat (is that a shuttlecock?) and everything seemed to make sense. I get "Wild Life." It makes sense now. I can't say the same for "Hobo Chang Ba." That still sounds horrible. "Steal Softly Thru Snow" actually seems to not just have a great title going for it, but the song also seems to be very poetic. "Veteran's Day Poppy," an acid-rock song, closes out the album and it's another, nearly-normal song.

Now that I've finished my second listen, I'm not sure how much longer I can do this.

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In closing, I imagine that the "revelation" I spoke about in "Wild Life" will be a recurring thing after a while. Like many people say, to fully understand this album, you must repeatedly listen to it.

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For some reason, I keep wanting to listen to this album. I'm confounded by it, but I just want to keep on coming back. Maybe it's the fact that it's so weird. It eludes me, leaving me something to look for. Leaves me something to try to understand, which good music should do. It should make you question what you're listening to. It takes you out of your place of comfort and takes you to a new, foreign land where you must find your grounding. And you'll keep listening. Eventually putting the pieces together, but always finding new questions, never sure if they'll be answered. But maybe that's the point. Trout Mask Replica is an album of insurmountable mystery. How can something that sounds so horrible at first sound so great after a few listens. How does it "click" like it does? With every listen, you're provided with a new puzzle piece to add to your collection. But, with this album, there will always be a few lost pieces.

 I encourage everyone to listen to this album at least once.

Number 16: Blood on the Tracks

Album: Blood on the Tracks

Artist: Bob Dylan

Year: 1975

Information: Dylan was finally coming out of a rut of sub-par and scathingly reviewed albums. At this point, most had considered that the talent that had filled Bob's 60s work was gone. However, Dylan's next album would reassure most that it was still there. Dylan was going through a very difficult break up at this point, and it's ghosts fill out this album. Therefore, the songs are mostly of heartbreak and angered put downs, reminiscent of "Like a Rolling Stone." 

High Points: "Tangled Up in Blue" is a strong contender for the best song on this album, even the title is superb. Dylan tells the story of a man who becomes forlorn and thinks about the woman he used to love. He wants to know if she's changed at all and thinks about how her parents didn't like him. He reminisces about their previous escapades and wonders where it went wrong. Then it switches to present tense and we find him in a strip club, where he sees someone familiar. The rest of this song gets very vague and unclear, in the usual Dylan-style.

Low Points: This is a tough one, but I'm going to go with "Meet Me in the Morning." Although the song does have pleasant lines, such as "Look at that sun/sinking like a ship," I find the other songs to be better than this one. Preference, I suppose.

Is it Great? It's very good.

Touching on a few other songs, "Idiot Wind" is a very strong tune. It's filled with lyrics that talk are bitter, biting, contemptuous, but sad. The song is about a woman that the singer had lost and turned on. He decides that she is the epitome of lacking intelligence.

"Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts," is another good song. It's seems a bit out of place on this album, seeing how it's cheery and not about the heartache of love lost. However, the song is almost nine minutes, but it never really seems nine minutes long. If you listen closely, you'll be taken on an odd journey through the many adventures of the Jack of Hearts. The song seems to have a deeper meaning to it, but the lyrics are so heavily coded that it's hard to determine any deep meaning from the song. 

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All of the songs are enjoyable and most incorporate some kind of humor that really makes these songs great.

Number 15: Are You Experienced

Album: Are You Experienced

Artist: The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Year: 1967

Information:  Around the age of 15, Jimi received his first guitar, which he had dedicated himself to. For hours a day, Jimi would sit at the radio and play along to songs, all of which was done by ear. It's truly remarkable to note that Jimi never had any guitar lessons and most likely had didn't know what the blues scale was. Jimi was playing in many different bands as their guitar players until he finally decided to start his own. Once they were assembled, they began to struggle a bit, not really garnering much public attention or notice. However, that changed when Paul McCartney found his music and championed it in Britain, leading Jimi to world wide acclaim and stardom.

High Points: It's hard to decide which is the better song, "Purple Haze," and "Fox(e)y Lady." Both are great guitar songs.

Low Points: There aren't really any songs I dislike on this album. However, I suppose there might be one forgettable tune, because when looking over the track listing, I can't remember "May This Be Love."

Is it Great? It is.

This album really revolutionized guitar. To talk about its influence would take a fair bit of time, and it would be easier to read about it from the major guitarists of now and yesteryear who have taken cues from Hendrix. However, it's easy to understand why this album was so influential when listening to it. Every song bursts with energy and huge licks that seem to explode off Hendrix' fret board.

Hendrix had yet to write as great a song as "Little Wing" or traveled into the deep psychedelia of "Electric Ladyland," but his debut album is practically bursting with potential and undoubtedly one of the best debut's ever made.

Number 14: Abbey Road

Album: Abbey Road

Artist: The Beatles

Year: 1969

Information: Recorded after, but released before Let it Be, Abbey Road is The Beatles' penultimate album.  At this point, all the Beatles realized that this would be their final album, and such realization brought about a happy, breezy quality to this album.

High Points: The two best song on the album are "Something," and "Here Comes the Sun," a remarkable achievement for the overshadowed Harrison. "Something" is the story of a man who is attracted to someone, but the reason is illusive. Asked if he'll ever love her, his answer is always unclear. "Here Comes the Sun" is a folk-y little song that Harrison wrote while sitting in Eric Clapton's garden, watching the sun rise.

Low Points: "Mean Mr. Mustard" isn't such a great song. It's a little awkward and nonsensical and John once described it as "a bit of crap I wrote in India."

Is it Great? It truly is one of The Beatles best efforts and I believe it is worthy of it's ranking. 

The other part worth mentioning is the medley. It starts off with "You Never Give Me Your Money" and ends with the hidden track "Her Majesty," which at first belonged in the medley, but was moved to the very end of the album. From there, is was sort of forgotten about until Paul heard its placement and thought it fit quite well.

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On a side note, it's kind of interesting to place "Her Majesty" after "Mean Mr. Mustard" and listen to what that would have sounded like.