A thousand kisses from you is never too much

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

#364 : More Songs About Buildings And Food - Talking Heads (1978)

For their second record, Talking Heads found the ideal producer in Brian Eno: Their trilogy of albums with him made the band’s reputation. David Byrne splutters over the twitchy rhythms of “Artists Only” and “Thank You for Sending Me an Angel,” while crooning “The Big Country” as a ballad about feeling lost in America. The Heads cover Al Green’s “Take Me to the River,” a Memphis R&B hit just a year old at the time that they make feel like some kind of ancient prayer.

I'd never heard this album but I like Talking Heads, so I was looking forward to listening to it and expecting to enjoy it.  And I did.  But...

...when you think about all the great Talking Heads tracks over the years, even if we just consider the early years, there's not a great representation of them on here.  If we look at the tracks on "Stop Making Sense" (which is a great album, even if I'm not sure I allow it to be considered for this list) then only one of them (out of 9) is from this album - "Take Me To The River" which, whilst being a fine cover version, I wouldn't say is one of my all time fave Talking Heads tracks.  I actually think "Artists Only" was my favourite track on the album which wasn't one I had heard before.  Interestingly, Talking Heads had 4 albums on the 2012 version of this list, but on this 2020 version, they've dropped down to 2 - hopefully the next one will be better than this one (and no, it's not "Stop Making Sense").  

Wikipedia doesn't have a lot to say about the album other than noting it was the first of 3 albums they did with Brain Eno (I suspect he has a few albums on this list!).  Wikipedia also has surprisingly little to say about the group given how influential they were, but it seems that was because they were putting all their effort into David Byrne's entry - which is a bit of a shame because I found the other members of the group somewhat diluted his annoyingness (that's a word, right?!?).  "Customers also listened to" a load of groups from back in the day that brought back many memories (some good, some bad!) - but I think I can safely say that my memories of slightly later Talking Heads are better than those generated listening to this album.

#363 : The Mothership Connection - Parliament (1975)

George Clinton leads his Detroit crew of “extraterrestrial brothers” through a visionary album of science-fiction funk on jams like “Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication” and “Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker).” It’s a concept album inspired by Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey, with Clinton as an outer-space radio DJ, broadcasting uncut funk from “the Chocolate Milky Way” and telling the people of Earth, “Put a glide in your stride and a dip in your hip, and come on up to the Mothership.”

I knew exactly what I'd be getting here and I knew I'd appreciate rather than enjoy it, getting bored with it way before the end of the album.  And that's pretty much what happened, although I think I got bored with it quicker than I was expecting.  I'd have to say for someone who is obviously one of the funkiest people who've ever lived, George Clinton asks others to "give up the funk" a lot - you'd think he could share it around a bit more.  The main question I've taken away from this album is whether "Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication” is a worse title track than ""Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" as used by Isaac Hayes on Hot Buttered Soul - it's a thorny issue and no mistake.  Apart from that - meh.  It's an impressively barmy album but does very little for me, I'm afraid.

Wikipedia has remarkably little to say about the album - although I was somewhat amazed to learn that "Give Up The Funk" sold more than a million copies as a single.  For the interesting stuff, you have to go to George Clinton's Wikipedia page - the picture of him alone is worth the price of admission!  I never realised that Bootsy Collins played in both George Clinton's and James Brown's bands - that some serious muso credentials there.  "Customers also listened to" a load of other Clinton related stuff - I guess if you've got the funk, you've got the funk.  But I, unfortunately, am not in possession of the funk - and am never likely to be so.

#362 : Never Too Much - Luther Vandross (1981)

In the Seventies, Luther Vandross sang backup for Sister Sledge and Roberta Flack and co-wrote David Bowie’s “Fascination.” As a solo artist, he embodied sophisticated soul in the post-disco era. His debut LP shows off a dazzling range that came almost too easily — from the title track, one of the defining dance-funk hits of the Eighties, to his stunning rendition of the Burt Bacharach and Hal David classic “A House Is Not a Home,” which made the song uncoverable for future generations of singers.

I'd never listened to this album but was very much aware of the title track and so was expecting the rest to be a sweeeeet slice of soul.  And I'd suggest this is closer to the truth than the "dazzling range" that Rolling Stone talks about - he's a very fine soul singer (who certainly put in the hard yards before he got his shot at solo stardom) but, funnily enough, what he does is sing soul songs.  He does it very well though and it's quite interesting that it's not really the sort of thing that guys seem to do any more.  It's also a bit unfortunate he's gone for the Bill Cosby look on the cover, but I guess he wasn't to know how that would all work out.

Wikipedia again has very little to say about this album, damning the 2 million selling album with the faint praise "This is one of the better R&B albums of the early '80s" - Luther must have been ecstatic with such a verdict.  The entry for the man is slightly longer (in fact, the list of people he sang backing vocals for runs the album entry close for length!) and reminds me that he died in 2005, which I'd completely forgotten.  "Customers also listened to" Alexander O'Neal and George Benson - two names I'd completely forgotten about from back then, but it really does feel like no-one makes music like that any more (or I guess they still do, but it just doesn't set the world alight).  All in all, an impressive album but not really my thing.

Tricky one to declare a winner - before I listened to any of them, I'd have expected it to give it to Talking Heads but I was just a bit disappointed by that album so I think I'm giving the win to Luther because, although it's not really my sort of thing, I can recognise it as a fine example of that sort of thing.

#367-365 - We're really not on a good run here
#361-359 - Not a lot in common with this selection