Can be so facetious, the heavyweight champ

Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time...

#473 : Barrio Fino - Daddy Yankee (2004)

Just when Latin pop radio was hitting a ballad-heavy plateau, Puerto Rican MC Daddy Yankee set the industry aflame with his 2004 reggaeton opus, Barrio Fino. Crowned by the hydraulic bounce of Yankee’s first international hit, “Gasolina,” the record marked a colossal breakthrough, not just for the rapper himself, but for the entire genre known as reggaeton: a raw blend of hip-hop and reggae, born in the mean streets of San Juan.

Ah yes - Barrio Fino, Daddy Yankee's breakthrough reggaeton album.  I don't need to describe this one to you, surely?!?  OK, I'll give it a go anyway - just on the off chance you've not heard it.  Being the world's greatest reggaeton fan, I obviously knew exactly what I was expecting from this album - some bleepy noises and some dude rattling on in Spanish.  And boy, did it deliver!  

I did listen to it, but the language barrier involved with something some heavily based around the lyrics makes it impossible for me to engage with so I think it's probably best if I just say "not for me".  "Like You" is at least partially in English and whilst I didn't engage with that track, it feels harsh to gauge the album just on that track.  Having read the reviews, I believe that "Gasolina" is the track to test drive if you want a prime slice of reggaeton - but my suspicion is that you're either a fan or you're not and your position is unlikely to change.  "Customers also listened to" - errr, yeah, them.

#472 : Ctrl - SZA (2017)

Thanks to SZA’s lyrics about insecurity, jealousy, loneliness, and her search for “lovin’ and licky,” this assured debut brought a new self-searching spirit to R&B. The tracks are gentle and erotic, but beneath the singer’s soft-grained style, there’s fierceness; in “Dove in the Wind,” she tells a lover she can easily replace him with a dildo. On “Love Galore,” a duet with Travis Scott that describes an ambivalent breakup, she makes clear the vulnerability beneath the bravado: “Gimme a paper towel, gimme another Valium.”

I was very vaguely aware of SZA (or "Scissor" as Alexa calls her) and amazingly hadn't assumed she wasn't a country music artist - I had her in the "RnB all sounds the same to me" camp.  And whilst I must say the sound and the vocal delivery seems pretty generic (to my uncultured ear anyway) there's certainly a little something more than I was expecting in the lyrics.  "Dove In The Wind" (lyrics here) in particular features some arresting lyrics - amusingly the version I was listening to had one word censored out and I was like "what's the point?!?").  I'll also call out "Prom" as a track that seemed to put in a bit more effort - it stood out to me amongst the gentle warbling of the rest of it.

The array of pretty famous guest artists on a debut album is somewhat surprising, but given that she'd already written songs for Beyonce, Nicki Minaj and Rihanna, I'm guessing she had a pretty impressive set of contacts.  Having said that, "customers also listened to" PARTYNEXTDOOR, Summer Walker and Bryson Tiller who are all completely unknown by me.  Such things might make a suspicious person (like me, possibly?) somewhat sceptical as to how this album found its way onto the list - personally, I don't see what this album has to make it stand out in a particularly crowded field but, to be fair, it's not a field I'm overly familiar with, so maybe I should just take other's word for it.  Overall, I didn't mind the album but it feels very unlikely I'll ever revisit it (but I did save "Prom" to one of my playlists).

#471 : Surrealistic Pillow - Jefferson Airplane (1967)

Psychedelic scholars have long tried to pin down just what the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia did on this album (besides contribute some guitar playing) to earn a credit as “spiritual adviser.” But the real trip is the Airplane’s hallucinatory distillation of folk-blues vocals, garage-rock guitar, and crisp pop songwriting. Grace Slick’s vocal showcases — “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love” — made Surrealistic Pillow a commercial smash during San Francisco’s Summer of Love, and Marty Balin’s spectral “Today” is still the greatest ballad of that city’s glory days.

Now this is exactly the sort of album I'd never have heard, except for a Facebook chain nearly 2 years ago where I asked for classic albums I might have missed out on and Faris kindly suggested this (and it really is a classic, being one year older than me).  My verdict at the time was "dated in places but more enjoyable than I was expecting" which I suspected was unlikely to have changed in the intervening period!  And yes, that description is still very accurate although I would say that some of the other albums I've listened to on this list have made me think that maybe this album isn't quite so dated - maybe "of its time" would be a less harsh description.

It has some decent tracks on it though - "Somebody To Love" doesn't really sound dated at all and I'm surprised there haven't been more cover versions of it over the years (and yes, I NOW realise the Jefferson Airplane version is actually a cover).  "White Rabbit" is also enjoyable despite it being the biggest load of hippie nonsense on there (and there's quite a bit of competition on this album alone).  I do think the album would have benefited from more Grace Slick - I like her voice and her Wikipedia page is a thing of beauty ("Slick was arrested at least four times for what she has referred to as "TUI" ("talking under the influence")!)

"Customers also listened to" exactly the sorts of groups you'd expect - Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Byrds, The Mamas - and I fully expect to hear more from such people further up the list.  All in all, I'd say it's an OK album but unlikely to be massively loved except by people who both lived through that time and are able to remember it.

Which leaves me with a quandary - the album I couldn't understand, the new album I didn't really appreciate or the old album I didn't really appreciate.  I think it's going to SZA - she just shades it in terms of a consistent level of quality.

#476-474 - I know what I like and I like what I know
#470-468 - Not a great selection