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Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time... #379 : Moving Pictures - Rush (1981) On Seventies albums like  2112  and  Hemispheres,  Rush mastered the high-prog epic.  Moving Pictures  was the record where they proved they could say as much in four minutes as they previously had in 20. Songs like “Tom Sawyer,” “Limelight,” and the Police-like “Vital Signs” showcased the trio’s superhuman chops in a radio-ready framework, while more adventurous tracks like the Morse code–inspired instrumental “YYZ” and the synth-heavy suite “The Camera Eye” found them tastefully streamlining their wildest ideas. Said Geddy Lee, “We learned it’s not so easy to write something simple.” Rush were one of those groups I was aware of and suspected I didn't like, but wasn't entirely sure whether I did or not - I guess that's an improvement on me just assuming I hate them.  So well done me - and I was intrigued to listen to this album.  I also have to say

Completing  my trip up The Guardian's Best Albums of 2020 list... #1 : Fetch The Bolt Cutters - Fiona Apple Recorded over a five-year spell in her California home, Fetch the Bolt Cutters encompasses every euphoric rush and hopeless roar as Fiona Apple telescopes between historic incidents that once diminished her to find their common thread. Its homespun rhythms, swaggering and souring piano, and sweet harmonies laced with industrial clatter provide the mercurial force for her to break open the codes of silence and mistrust that exploitative men use to divide women. She breaks free of constrictions, skewers and then undresses the affectations used by the powerful to conceal their abuses, and interrogates her own part in these structures. Filled with a lifetime’s worth of compassion, Fetch the Bolt Cutters isn’t just the album of 2020 but a future classic, a rare combination of innovation and profound deep feeling. And so, we finally reach #1!  Would it be a worthy winner?!?  Well..

Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time... #382 : Currents - Tame Impala (2015) Aussie studio wiz Kevin Parker found surprising mainstream success with his band’s refined neo-psychedelia, thanks in large part to the danceable ease of songs like the hit “Let It Happen.” Tame Impala’s breakthrough is a modern take on trippy bliss, burying vague intimations of displacement and anxiety under pillows of soft, neon synths and Parker’s twee-Bee Gees falsetto. After  Currents , he was getting calls to work with Lady Gaga and Kanye West, and Rihanna was covering one of his songs. I'm not entirely sure there's a phrase more likely to result in raised levels of concern than "neo-psychedelia" ("twee-Bee Gees" is going to come close though) but fortunately I wasn't coming to this totally blind so wasn't scared off.  I'd always admired Tame Impala for their ability to achieve some degree of success whilst very much

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's Best Albums of 2020 list... #2 : Future Nostalgia - Dua Lipa The track that gives the album its name contains the brassy line: “You want what now looks like, let me give you a taste.” It’s true, but it’s also not – Future Nostalgia owes a great debt to the musical past, nostalgic itself for the costume jewelled glitz of disco and the Day-Glo of 80s powerpop and those who have gone before. It references Olivia Newton-John, turn-of-the millennium Madonna, 1930s Lew Stone (and by extension, 90s White Town), 80s INXS, Lily Allen and the Who. Deftly cajoling these disparate sounds into a lithe 43 minutes of pristine club-pop music that does sound incredibly “now” is nothing short of alchemy. I'd heard Ms Lipa's first album and liked it (well worth checking it out if you haven't heard it - but the fact that there were 9 singles released from the album means you probably have) and had always meant to check this one out, but had, for no obvi

Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time... #385 : Rocket To Russia - Ramones (1977) The Ramones wrote their third album on tour, as they took the gospel of three chords and ripped denim beyond New York’s five boroughs. Rocket to Russia was also their first true studio triumph: an exuberant, polished bottling of the CBGB-stage napalm of Ramones and Leave Home. The razor-slashing hooks bring out the Top 40 classicism in “Rockaway Beach” and “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker,” plus the lonely-boy poignancy of Joey Ramone’s vocals in “I Don’t Care” and “I Wanna Be Well.” I knew perfectly what to expect from this album, because I've always hated Ramones (not The Ramones, I've learned).  However, it turns out at the very worst, I can actually tolerate them - and some of the tracks here I even liked.  I always thought they were untalented noise makers, but there's a reasonable amount of skill on display on this album - and a surprising of amoun

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's Best Albums of 2020 list... #3 : Sawayama - Rina Sawayama If you were forced to describe Rina Sawayama’s debut as succinctly as possible, you’d probably opt for a pop/R&B/nu-metal hybrid with a dose of stadium-rock bombast, which sounds like the most appalling generic fusion in musical history. But that doesn’t account for the skill with which Sawayama picks her way through her formative musical loves, and how adept she is at arranging them as dynamically explosive contrasts. It turns out to be one of 2020’s most striking and unique pop albums, the kind of risk-taking debut that gets you excited at what the artist behind it might come up with next. This is another album about which I had no previous knowledge - and from the description above, I was expecting a bit of a mess.  And if I'm being honest, that's pretty much what we've got here - but it's a very well put-together, confident mess.   If I was forced to describe it, I

Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time... #388 : Young, Gifted And Black - Aretha Franklin  (1972) Aretha Franklin was 29 at the time of  Young, Gifted and Black , and she was already on her 19th album and her second record label. With her gospel-choir training and jazz chops, there was nothing she didn’t know about singing. Franklin covers (and vivifies) Paul McCartney and Elton John, not to mention Nina Simone’s title song, an anthem of the civil rights movement, and she sings the self-written hits (“Day Dreaming,” “Rock Steady”) with calm certainty, guided only by the spirit. Yes, I had just about heard of Ms Franklin before - I'm not sure I'd ever listened to any of her albums, but I wasn't expecting to be disappointed by the skill on display.  And it won't surprise you to hear that I wasn't - the girl really could sing.  If anything the ease with which she navigates the vocals often makes you forget how difficult a

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's Best Albums of 2020 list... #4 : Set My Heart On Fire Immediately - Perfume Genius Mike Hadreas’s work has always dealt with heavy themes including abuse and bullying, but with the opener of his new album, he asks to be relinquished of his trauma. “Let it drift and wash away,” he sings on Whole Life. Yet absolution prompts a tug of war, and the spectre of shame looms, although it’s now dressed in the rollicking chug of On the Floor, the poppiest Hadreas has ever sounded. The record doesn’t conclude in rebirth. “I thought the sea would make some pattern known / And swim us safely home,” Hadreas laments on sparse closer Borrowed Light. Yet this is not weary resignation: for an artist who has been in constant metamorphosis, such acceptance feels revelatory. I'd wasn't aware of him or anything he'd ever done, so it's safe to say I was coming to this fresh.  And if you listen to this, I think you'll be coming to it fresh as well b

Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time... #391 : Kaleidoscope - Kelis  (1999) “I hate you so much right now!” Kelis blasted on her debut single “Caught Out There,” giving spurned lovers around the world an instant anthem. It set the tone for a knockout R&B debut.  Kaleidoscope  was also a showcase moment for the Neptunes (Pharrell and Chad Hugo), who helmed the album’s production, backing Kelis with a barrage of splatting keyboards and thwacking drums and giving the album a taut consistency. Yet the singer was so charismatic she might not have needed them. “I hate you so much right now!” doesn’t lose any force a cappella. Was this really 21 years ago?!?  I love "Caught Out There" (it's a proper classic tune) but don't believe I'd ever listened to the album, so was looking forward to doing so.  And it's a fine album which doesn't seem to have dated at all - good vocals over high quality backing, tightly pro