Every morning I walk towards the edge and throw little things off

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

#291 : The Writing's On The Wall - Destiny's Child (1999)

Looking back now, Destiny’s Child seem like the last gasp of the R&B vocal group, a tradition that was swept out of the mainstream in the 2000s. On this kinetic, shattering album, the group — especially a wunderkind named Beyoncé Knowles — took a more hands-on approach to writing and producing, helping to craft juddering club singles like “Bills, Bills, Bills” and “Bug a Boo.” The ballad “Say My Name” quickly became a modern standard.

I wouldn't describe myself as a huge DC fan, but I was aware of some of their slightly better known singles (there have been a few of them, after all) and I'd go as far as saying I generally liked them.  But I'd never experienced a full album of theirs, so was interested to see how it went.  However, before we get to the album, we have to talk about that intro.  I'm really not convinced a pastiche of a Godfather-style meeting to discuss "Destiny's Child's commandments of relationships" was the best idea - someone really should have talked them out of that.  But, once you've got past that, you get what you're expecting - sweet vocals and harmonies over tight backing tracks.  The good tracks are good examples of multi-vocal R&B - "Jumpin Jumpin" and "Say My Name" stand out for me, even though it's not really my kind of thing.  And then we come to the terribly warbly outro - someone really should have talked them out of that as well.

Wikipedia has the usual nonsense to say about the album (although the critics were a bit "meh" at the time), but obviously I headed straight for the "Controversy" section - which tells the story of how Beyonce previewed the video for "Say My Name" by announcing that two of the group were leaving - before the two in question (the ones no-one remembers any more - LaTavia and LeToya) were aware of their imminent departure.  Apparently this resulted in, shall we say, "much lively discussion".  

But, in the end, we ended up with only 3 people in the best-known Destiny's Child lineup (Beyonce, Kelly and Ken - there's some 80s Smash Hits humour for you!)  which feature heavily on their Wikipedia page and I suspect we'll get a chance to come back to it, which saves me reading it now.  "Customer's also listened to" TLC - which I'm writing without even looking it up and they're the first group listed (10 points to me!), followed by Brandy and Mary J Blige.  It's not totally my thing, but I didn't hate it and I have to admit the good tracks are toe-tappingly good (but somewhat eclipsed by what came later).

#290 : Speakerboxxx/The Love Below - OutKast (2003)

For a decade, OutKast were a duo defined by dichotomies — regional versus celestial, order amid chaos, blackness and the universal. On their fifth studio album, that tension could no longer be contained on one CD. Big Boi’s verbal funk overflowed on Speakerboxxx, his half of the double-disc set, while André 3000’s inner crooner exhaled like never before on The Love Below. It was a gamble to break up their twin alchemy this way, but in dividing themselves, OutKast conquered: America fell as deeply in love with the borderless pop bliss of “Hey Ya!” as it did with the slick talk and soulful horns on “The Way You Move.”

I liked "Hey Ya!"  (after all, what's cooler than being cool?) but I can't say "Roses" really pushed any buttons for me, so I never investigated this album any further.  I had heard it was a bit odd though, so was intrigued to hear what was going on.  And I can confirm, it is indeed a bit odd - I'd say it's a game of two halves, but that's not really the case either.  Speakerboxxx is the more consistent of the two halves, but I'd have to say none of it jumped out - it's all somewhat generic hip-hop to me.  The Love Below is very much not generic, but it's not entirely clear whether that makes it good - with some of it being just plain bizarre eg "Where Are My Panties?" manages to be even odder than the title suggests.  So I'm not entirely sure what to make of it all - I would also point out the whole thing is 132 minutes long, which it really doesn't need to be.

Wikipedia gives it the old "met with universal acclaim" schtick, with very few facts of interest involved.  What did leap out at me is the excellent names of some of the people involved with the album though - John Frisbee, Fonzworth Bentley, Khujo Goodie, Preston Crump, Zaza and Joe-Mama Fritzberg are all involved.  "Customers also listened to" Justin Timberlake apparently - which wasn't a connection that immediately jumped out at me.  Whilst I didn't hate this, I'd be interested to know how many people have listened to this album in its entirety more than a couple of times - I can assure you I won't be adding my name to that list.

#289 : Post - Bjork (1995)

“I have to re-create the universe every morning when I wake up,” Björk said, explaining her second solo album’s utter lack of musical inhibition. Post bounces from big-band jazz (“It’s Oh So Quiet”) to trip-hop (“These Modern Things” seems to be both of those things at once). Lush and disorienting, dissonant yet ensnaringly lovely, it proved the “Icelandic pixie” who’d dazzled MTV viewers fronting the Sugarcubes, was, in fact, one of the Nineties’ truly boundless musical thinkers. Fun fact: For her vocals, Björk extended her mic cord to a beach so she could sing to the sea.

I've already covered Bjork in some detail here, on which I declare this is probably the best Bjork album, so I'm not really going to say a lot more about it.

The Wikipedia entry for the album is amazingly long - it's got to be one of the longest so far (eg Peter Gabriel's So comes in at 50k characters, but Post has 95k!).  The main fact that jumped out at me though was that the video for "It's Oh So Quiet" was directed by - go on, guess.  Yup, it was Spike again.  Her Wikipedia entry is similarly lengthy - I must admit I didn't feel up to the challenge!  "Customers also listened to" The Cardigans, Massive Attack and Edwyn Collins - not entirely sure how Edwyn makes the list there!  But I love Bjork and particularly this album, so was very pleased to listen to it again.

Only 8 years covering the three albums (and it was definitely my kinda time period) but there can be only one winner - Ms Guðmundsdóttir all the way for me.

#294-292 - A surprising winner
#288-286 - Two good albums and one very, very bad album