Black flowers blossom, fearless on my breath

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 amount of Beach Boys-esque harmonies (and considerably more harmonies than the last Beach Boys album I had to suffer on this list).  There's also a fair amount of intelligence and humour on display as well.  So, who exactly I've been hating all these years is unclear - I hereby apologise to the Ramone brothers (and yes, I've also now learned they're not actually brothers either - what an education this has all been!).

Wikipedia has quite a bit to say on the album - the section on sales volume was interesting in that the album sold far fewer than expected and Ramones blamed The Sex Pistols for this because they "turned people off the genre with their antisocial behaviour".  It did get to #31 in Sweden though!  "Customers also listened to" all the people you'd expect, who I've not had a lot of time for so far, but I might need to revisit some of them given my experience with this album.  All in all, a very pleasant surprise.

#384 : The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society - The Kinks (1969)

While their British Invasion peers— the Beatles, the Stones, the Who — were getting psychedelic, Ray Davies took his band for a pastoral retreat, with witty portraits of quaint English small-town life fading away like “Big Sky.” Nobody bought it, but Village Green went on to become one of the Kinks’ most influential statements. “With ‘You Really Got Me’ and ‘All Day and All of the Night,’ we were saying, ‘We’re here, we’re gonna grab you,’” Davies told Rolling Stone. “The music on Village Green says, ‘Come find us.’”

The second Kinks album on the list and let's just say the last one wasn't exactly my cup of tea. I was aware of the title track, and whilst I don't mind Kate Rusby's version I'm not too taken with The Kinks effort.  So I think it's safe to say my expectations weren't too high for this album - and I'm afraid to say I'm not entirely sure it even managed to meet them.  I didn't totally hate it - it's just a collection of average songs, all of which are just a bit too twee referencing village greens, cricket pitches, steam trains and the like.  I can only begin to imagine what their rockier fans made of it back in the day...

...and fortunately I have Wikipedia to tell me it was well received critically in the US but almost completely ignored in the UK - and whilst it wasn't commercially successfully at the time, it's now The Kinks best selling album, although it took 50 years before it was certified as a gold album in the UK!  I can see that those people who like to look back to "better" days would hold it dear, but my suspicion is that it was already looking back with somewhat rose-tinted glasses when it was released.  "Customers also listened to" Small Faces and The Zombies (from St Albans, don't you know?!?) - and there's little danger of me investigating either on the strength of their connection to this album.  Another one that's not for me, I'm afraid.

#383 : Mezzanine - Massive Attack (1998)

The Bristol, England, collective that invented trip-hop — Daddy G, Mushroom, and 3D — got even heavier on Mezzanine. They turn the Cocteau Twins’ Elisabeth Fraser into a soul diva in “Teardrop,” and “Angel” is a six-minute ride into the abyss, with the legendary reggae singer Horace Andy wailing over levee-busting drums, cinematic strings, and blasts of guitar. “We like reclaiming the guitar,” Daddy G told Rolling Stone. “People say black music shouldn’t have heavy guitar, but who invented all that heavy-guitar shit? Jimi Hendrix!”

Another album I own and like - although I'd struggle to claim it enjoys uninterrupted playtime on the old CD player.  I do however love "Teardrop" - such a classy track (and Elisabeth Fraser's finest hour imho).  I would say however, if you read the above description and expect massive blasts of guitars and drums, you are going to be disappointed - it's still very trip-hoppy, with just a few more guitars and drums involved than usual.  

Wikipedia has a few things to say about the album, but nothing that comes close to this for sheer wtaf?-ness under the heading "Mezzanine DNA"

On the 20th anniversary of Mezzanine's release, the record was encoded into synthetic DNA—a first for an album. The project was in collaboration with TurboBeads Labs in Switzerland; the digital audio of the album was stored in the form of genetic information. The audio was then compressed using Opus, coded in DNA molecules—with 920,000 short DNA strands containing all the data—and then poured into 5,000 tiny glass beads.

Errr, yeah - OK.  Moving along swiftly, "customers also listened to" Portishead and Tricky - no surprises there (Maxinquaye in particular is very much in the same ballpark).  All in all, it's a fine album - well worth the investigation if you're not aware of it and it also has a very fine album cover.

All of which leaves me in an unexpected place - Mezzanine is my favourite album of the three, but Rocket To Russia feels like it deserves some recognition after all these years of me hating it (without having listened to a note).  So, I'm going to declare The Kinks Are... as the well deserved non-winner of the round. with the spoils being shared equally by the other two.

#388-386 - It's all about the legacy
#382-380 - Two pleasant surprises