scaryblog

Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time... #200 : Diamond Life - Sade (1984) Nigerian-born fashion designer Sade Adu and her London band defined elegantly cool Eighties soul with their smash debut,  Diamond Life.  Torch ballads like “Smooth Operator” and “Your Love Is King” had a New Romantic opulence under the bittersweet pang of Adu’s voice. She wrote her first song, “When Am I Going to Make a Living,” on the back of a bill, while walking home in the rain from a bus stop after work. As she said, “All the songs I’ve ever loved — even jazz stuff — are things that tell a story.” Our second visit with Sade on this list and it's got me wondering how is it possible to know an album so well that you've never actually owned?  Easy these days, I guess (although as my eldest explained to me "what even is an album?  no-one listens to them these days") - but it was tricky back then.  I don't think I even owned a home-taped vers

Pausing to catch my breath on my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time... So, 300 albums in - I must have learned something by now, surely?  Overall, I felt this section to be an improvement on the previous one, but when I looked back there are some pretty barren patches in there.  It's still too male and too old but I think I've found a way to quantify that now (see below).  Another thing I've quantified this time around is how many albums I'm listening to for the first time and the numbers have been surprisingly high throughout, particularly since I think I've listened to a lot of music.  I guess it's just the case that Rolling Stone think I've just not been listening to stuff that's all that great - although if I'm honest, I'd have to say I feel their choices are, in the whole, unlikely to change my views.   What I've known all along, but is becoming abundantly clear is that the whole idea of just picking

Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time... #203 : Pink Moon - Nick Drake (1972) N ick Drake recorded his last album in a couple of nights, mailed the tapes to Island Records, and checked himself into a psychiatric ward. If the music were as dark as the lyrics, it might be unlistenable. But Drake’s soothing vocals and unadorned acoustic picking unfold with supernatural tenderness. Few heard Pink Moon when it was released, but its stark beauty has touched the intimate bedroom folk of Cat Power, Elliott Smith, and many others. I know and like Nick Drake, but haven't previously viewed this as his finest work - and I wasn't expecting this view to change on one listen, given how often I've listened to Five Leaves Left and Bryter Later and how much I like them.  And my view did not change.  It's not wildly different - it's just not quite as smooth for me (and I'm sure his state of mind might have played a part here).  I als

Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time... #206 : Low - David Bowie (1977) David Bowie fled to Berlin to kick cocaine — not to mention his other drug of choice, stardom. He moved into a flat above a hardware store and restarted his music from scratch, teaming up with Brian Eno and producer Tony Visconti.  Low  was split between electronic instrumentals and quirky funk like “Sound and Vision.” It began his famous “Berlin trilogy” — though it was cut mostly in France — topped off by  Heroes  and  Lodger.  In 1977, Bowie also produced Iggy Pop’s two finest solo albums,  The Idiot  and  Lust for Life. I had tried Low before and struggled to get into it.  And it's an odd one - as is often the case with Bowie albums for me, I know the singles (or single, in the case of this album) so well that I struggle to pay attention to the rest.  But in this case, a lot of "the rest" are weird electronic instrumentals that would struggle to hol

Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time... #209 : Raising Hell - Run-DMC (1986) Working for the first time with producer Rick Rubin, the Hollis, Queens, crew of Run, DMC, and Jam Master Jay made an album so undeniable, it forced the mainstream to cross over to hip-hop. “Peter Piper” kicked the rhymes over a jingling cowbell sampled from an old jazz-fusion record. On “My Adidas,” “It’s Tricky,” and “You Be Illin’,” Run and DMC talked trash while the DJ made their day. They even hit MTV with a vandalistic remake of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way,” featuring Steven Tyler and Joe Perry. Our second visit with Run-DMC - and last time  they probably considered themselves somewhat short-changed on account of me being oh-so-very-clever (I get so few opportunities, I have to take them where I can).  I promise to give them a fairer crack of the whip this time though.  Expectations were pretty much what I expect everyone else would be expecting from an alb

Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time... #212 : Wild Is The Wind - Nina Simone (1966) Aretha was the Queen of Soul, but Nina Simone, as one of her album titles proclaimed, was its high priestess, and this 1966 LP is among her most enthralling and eclectic. With her dusky voice at its most commanding, Simone works her way through roadhouse soul (“I Love Your Lovin’ Ways”) and dramatic set pieces (the melancholic “Lilac Wine,” later covered by Jeff Buckley). It peaks with “Four Women,” an ambitious saga of racially diverse women and their struggles, written by Simone. Nina Simone is one of those artists I feel I should like, but never quite manage to make it beyond the "admire" stage - so I wasn't expecting too much from this.  I actually found this album surprisingly difficult to listen to but not for any musical reason - s omewhat bizarrely, on Amazon all the tracks are named incorrectly and it completely threw me. Once I