They talk about us - telling lies

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

#400 : Beauty And The Beat - The Go-Go's (1981)

The most popular girl group of New Wave surfed to the top of the charts with this hooky debut. Everyone knows “We Got the Beat” and “Our Lips Our Sealed,” exuberant songs that livened up the Top 40, but the entire album welds punkish spirit to party-minded pop. It’s one of those albums where every song feels like it could’ve been a single — from “This Town,” a sweet, tough celebration of their L.A. scene, to the haunting “Lust to Love” to the album-ending one-two punch of “Skidmarks on My Heart” and “Can’t Stop the World.”

The Go-Go's were big in the US but didn't really do a lot over here, although Jane Wiedlin holds a special place in my heart for playing Joan Of Arc in Bill And Teds Excellent Adventure - party on, dudes!  I was however aware of their version of "Our Lips Are Sealed" (which is the original, although Terry Hall co-wrote it) and I liked it, so I was expecting to like the album.  But I really liked it - it's got a good energy to it and some great tracks which are skilfully executed.  It's also surprisingly indie in places - I definitely heard some Throwing Muses/Pixies guitar sounds on there.

Wikipedia notes that the album wasn't particularly well received upon release, but does then also point out it got to #1 in the US album charts, so I guess it did OK!  WIkipedia also states "The Go-Go's were the first (and to date only) all-female band in history who wrote their own songs and played their own instruments to achieve a No. 1 album" - this just seems mad!  Interestingly, given their general keenness to include any random fact, it doesn't include the fact that "Our Lips Are Sealed" was written by Wiedlin and Hall because they were, as she puts it elsewhere, "having a kind of romance".

"Customers also listened to" The Bangles who would be another group I'd be very happy to see on this list (but it appears I won't) and Dexy's Midnight Runners, which doesn't seem like an immediate match to me.  I'm really glad I was pointed at this though - I very much enjoyed it.

#399 : Smile - Brian Wilson (2004)

This album lived in myth for decades. Brian Wilson’s unfinished response to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club took nearly 40 years to finally come to fruition. Longtime Wilson collaborator Van Dyke Parks helped him realize his vision, with lush string arrangements, sublime melodies, and vocal harmonies, all impeccably constructed. Close your eyes and you can imagine how it might’ve changed the world in 1968, but with Wilson’s influence still all over scads of indie bands in 2004, it sounds and feels majestically modern.

Well, I was aware this album existed because I haven't lived under a rock my entire life and I wasn't expecting to like it - suspecting it would be far too full of itself for mere mortals such as me to enjoy.  And, well - I didn't hate all of it and there are some definite moments of beauty in there, but there's also quite a lot to hate in there. There's no need for anyone to put a swanee whistle on an album ever, let alone repeatedly as he does on "Mrs O'Leary's Cow" which I absolutely hated - so imagine my surprise when I read that was the track he won his first Grammy for.  Also, some of the lyrics aren't, shall we say, exactly brilliant

Out in the barnyard, 
The chickens do their number. 
Out in the barnyard,
The cook is choppin' lumber.

I'm not going to delve into Wikipedia - I just know there's just too much nonsense in there without even looking at it.  "Customers also listened to" The Beach Boys - no-one saw that coming now, did they?  All in all, a musical curiosity which seems to have been treated with far more reverence than it deserved.

#398 : The Raincoats - The Raincoats (1979)

The Raincoats came up with one of the most experimental and thrilling sounds to emerge from the London punk explosion — four women making their own gloriously unkempt racket. As guitarist Ana Da Silva explained, “We rehearsed for hours, but we always fell apart.” Da Silva and Gina Birch chant over Palmolive’s manic drums and Vicky Aspinall’s buzz-saw violin, for gems like “In Love” and their gender-twisted cover of the Kinks’ “Lola.” Their debut album finally got its long-overdue U.S. release in 1993, at the insistence of Raincoats superfan Kurt Cobain.

And talking of musical curiosities, we have The Raincoats.  Let me start by saying this album is truly awful.  It sounds excruciatingly terrible and is easily dismissed as utterly without merit.  And yet...

...no, it's definitely terrible.  But as Wikipedia and Rolling Stone point out, Kurt liked it - and if Kurt liked it, everyone else has to rave about it.  I can imagine it was "an experience" seeing them live and part of me is quite impressed they managed to convince someone to allow them to make this album - but that doesn't mean they should have.  "Customers also listened to" a load of names I recognise as having hated back in the day - and I find it unlikely my view will have mellowed with age.  A definite "no" from me.

The Go-Go's win this round for me by approximately a million miles.

Pause - 20% of the way there
#397-395 - well done to the "least bad" winner