Music is what I've got baby

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

#346 : AM - Arctic Monkeys (2013)

Not many Brit-pop bands come up with strong second acts like this. The Arctic Monkeys debuted with the stun-gun pop punk of 2005’s Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. But by 2013, they’d moved to L.A. and, on AM, hit a sound that frontman Alex Turner likened to “the Spiders From Mars covering Aaliyah.” The results were not unlike David Bowie’s transformation on Station to Station — alluringly spooky, full of distressed falsetto soul, noir guitars, and rife with bar scenes that look like crime scenes with dead-end hookups.

I like Arctic Monkeys attitude and particularly "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" (their snappily titled debut album) but had never managed to get into AM despite several attempts (and a somewhat shonky live set at Glasto).  And, somewhat unsurprisingly, one further listen didn't immediately change my mind.  It's an impressively crafted album, but the heavier boomy sound just doesn't do it for me - I don't hate it, but I don't like it either.  There's also a special mention for "I Wanna Be Yours" which I thought had particularly weird lyrics...

I wanna be your vacuum cleaner
Breathing in your dust
I wanna be your Ford Cortina
I will never rust

...and then I read they were written by John Cooper Clarke and I just went "Ah yes - that makes sense now".

Wikipedia doesn't have a lot to say about the album other than it sounds different to previous Arctic Monkeys albums and it was very successful.  The band's page is very lengthy but seems to say remarkably little - although it's interesting that there have been 6 Arctic Monkeys albums and they've all got to #1 in the UK (they don't feel to have been around that long or have been that successful to me).  "Customers also listened to" Gorillaz, which is a link I hadn't considered but I can see it and Foster The People, which is a good album if you haven't heard it.  So, if you haven't heard this album, I'd recommend you listen to it because it's a good album and you might like it, but I don't.

#345 : The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle - Bruce Springsteen (1973)

Reeling from the commercial fizzle of his debut LP, Bruce Springsteen threw off the “new Dylan” baggage and applied his Jersey-bar-band skills to some of the funniest tunes he’d ever write: “Rosalita,” “Kitty’s Back,” and the boardwalk love song “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy).” The music is loose, jazzy, and full of ambition — a studio take on the live muscle that Springsteen was already famous for — and “New York City Serenade” is the first of Springsteen’s epic street operas.

I love Bruce Springsteen as a person, although I can't claim to have loved everything he's done (in fact, there's plenty I haven't loved in the slightest) and I'm not as familiar with many of his earlier albums as I feel I should be.  And yes, he's another random act I've seen live - he played for 3 hours straight until they pulled the plug on him!  However, I'm not sure I'd even heard of this album, let alone heard any of it - but I was looking forward to it.  And I enjoyed it - it's the sound of a young guy enjoying himself whilst also becoming aware that maybe things are never going to be this good again (he was 24 at the time after all - getting on a bit!).  The sound wasn't exactly what I was expecting - there's grand piano and tuba on this album in places, which isn't exactly the classic Springsteen sound.  There are times he sounds remarkably like Dire Straits or Elvis Costello - I should point out he obviously wasn't copying them because neither of them had released anything yet!  There's also definitely a John Cougar Mellancamp sound at times - not a massive surprise I guess.

Wikipedia doesn't have a lot to say about the album other than it didn't sell well on release but has done OK since he became slightly more popular in later years - in fact, starting with his next album Born To Run.  The Wikipedia entry for the man himself gives you an idea as to how popular the man is - he's a god in the eyes of many.  As an aside, if you like either the man or just music in general and haven't seen Blinded By The Light yet then I thoroughly recommend it - it eloquently expresses how music has the ability to encourage and inspire anyone.  "Customers also listened to" mostly other Springsteen albums - and why wouldn't they?!?  I'm not sure I'll be rushing back to this album but part of that is that there are so many other Springsteen classic albums I have yet to experience - which I suspect I'm going to get a chance to do soon enough.

#344 : Funky Kingston - Toots & The Maytals (1973)

Loose, funky, and exuberant, Kingston is the quintessential document of Jamaica’s greatest act after Bob Marley. Showcasing some of the Maytals’ best songs (“Pressure Drop,” later covered by the Clash) and borrowing from soul, pop, and gospel, Funky Kingston introduced the world to the great Toots Hibbert. He performs versions of “Louie Louie” and, in a down-home surprise, John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” with Toots changing the lyrics from “West Virginia” to “West Jamaica.”

Hmmm.  It would be a stretch to say I like reggae, but I don't mind it and I appreciate the skill, personality and energy involved in the better examples.  But (and I apologise in advance for this) it all pretty much sounds the same to me - and this album is no exception.  Does this make me a bad person?  Probably, in the eyes of some - so I won't make things any worse by providing any further comment, other than saying that the John Denver cover works surprisingly well!

The Wikipedia entry for the album gets very confused about there being two different versions of this album - it doesn't sound like the trickiest thing to understand, but it seems to have blown Wikipedia's mind.  The Wikipedia entry for the band seems surprisingly short to me for a group that even I know were influential - after all, as Wikipedia tells us "Their 1968 single "Do The Reggay" was the first song to use the word "reggae", coining the name of the genre and introducing it to a global audience".  It also tells us  "Toots and The Maytals were the musical guest on the first episode of SNL that Donald Trump hosted on 3 April 2004" - they truly were different times.  

I was also intrigued by this snippet "In 2006, they recorded a reggae/ska version of Radiohead's 'Let Down" for the tribute album, Radioread. The album was a song for song makeover of OK Computer into reggae, dub and ska" - I've heard the Nevermind reggae version and it works surprisingly well, so might need to check this out.  "Customers also listened to" Jimmy Cliff, Desmond Dekker and Peter Tosh, but no Bob Marley - is reggae a case of "you can like one or the other, but not both"?  Either way, I'm sure this is perfectly good reggae but I can't really tell. - it's not UB40 though, so that's got to count for something.

Tricky one to declare a winner - I feel Toots has the best tracks, Arctic Monkeys have the best album and Bruce has the album I like the best (but I suspect he's going to get more chances to win later).  So let's be contrary and give it to Toots and his Maytals because I can't imagine any other scenario where a reggae album gets a chance to win.                                                      

#349-347 - An easy winner
#343-341 - Speaking words of wisdom