I'm gonna dream 'till Monday comes in sight

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

#485 : I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight - Richard and Linda Thompson (1974)

With Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson was one of the first prominent Sixties folk rockers to look to his native England’s traditions for inspiration. After leaving Fairport, he joined with his wife, Linda Thompson to make stellar albums in the Seventies. Richard played guitar like a Sufi-mystic Neil Young; Linda had the voice of a Celtic Emmylou Harris. Bright Lights is their devastating masterwork of folk-rock dread. Radiohead even picked up some guitar tricks from “The Calvary Cross.”

I like Richard Thompson's voice, but have never been overly enamoured with any of the stuff I've heard him sing and wasn't aware of any of the stuff he'd done with Linda, so was looking forward to hearing what this sounded like.  And I quite liked it - the title track in particular has an immediate hook to it.  It's not exactly a happy album and a lot of the issues raised seem as relevant today as they were back then, but it has its moments of humanity and hope.  It certainly won't be to everyone's tastes - the strong folk elements to some of the songs will scare people off, although a lot of the reviews praise the guitar playing which I'd have to say somewhat passed me by, so I might have to revisit it.

"Customers also listened to" albums by Richard Thompson and also albums by Linda Thompson - I guess that's not a huge surprise, but on the strength of this album, I may well be joining them in finding out a bit more.

#484 : Born This Way - Lady Gaga (2011)

“Over-the-top” isn’t an insult in Gaga’s world; it’s a statement of purpose. Her second album is a work of blessed bombast, all arena-size sonics and Springsteenian romanticism, complete with a Clarence Clemons sax solo. There’s a thumping, half-in-Spanish song that proposes marriage to “a girl in east L.A.” (“Americano”), a synth-pop jam that includes a come-on on to John F. Kennedy (“Government Hooker”), and a touching ballad about a guy from Nebraska (“You and I”). Fittingly, the glam-slam title track became an LGBTQ anthem.

I thought I'd listened to this album back in the day and definitely knew the singles, so wasn't expecting any surprises.  And mostly, it didn't deliver any surprises - the singles in particular are strong and there aren't any obvious weak songs on the album.  But...

...I was left with a feeling of being a bit underwhelmed by it all.  She's a master at knowing what buttons to press both lyrically and musically, but given a whole album of it I was definitely "OK - I've had enough of this now" well before the end.  And don't get me started on the teenage sulkiness of "Hair".

I appreciate that 2011-era Gaga meant a lot to a lot of people, so I understand there's a lot of love out there for this album - but there's less love from me than I was expecting.  "Customers also listened to" Katy Perry and I suspect I'd be more likely to join them than revisit this album.

#483 : The Anthology - Muddy Waters (1947-1972)

Muddy Waters started out playing acoustic Delta blues in Mississippi, but when he moved to Chicago in 1943, he needed an electric guitar to be heard over the tumult of South Side clubs. The sound he developed was the foundation of Chicago blues — and rock & roll; the thick, bleeding tones of his slide work anticipated rock-guitar distortion by nearly two decades. The 50 cuts on these two CDs run from guitar-and-stand-up-bass duets to full-band romps — and they still just scratch the surface of Waters’ legacy.

This is another one I'm mostly skipping, I'm afraid - it's not quite a box set given that it's just the 2 CDs, but it's still 52 tracks!  I checked out a couple of the tracks and, in common with a lot of other blues music, I admired rather than enjoyed them - I have had some excellent evenings in blues clubs in Chicago and been frankly astonished at the skills on display, but I find my enjoyment doesn't translate across to recorded versions.

Whilst I wouldn't declare myself a fan or even mildly knowledgeable about him or his body of work, I have absolutely no qualms in declaring Muddy Waters a musical giant truly worthy of the label "great" but I still think "best of" albums don't have a place on this list - hopefully Mr Waters (or more accurately, his estate) can find it in their hearts to forgive me.

Which leaves us with the plucky English underdogs coming out as winners over the American musical behemoths - everyone expected that, right?!?

#488-486 - Not a great selection

#482-480 - A bizarre ride indeed