No one brings a rose for Emily

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

#246 : Mama Said Knock You Out - LL Cool J (1991)

“Don’t call it a comeback,” LL Cool J demanded on the album’s fists-of-fury title track, except that’s exactly what it was, one of the all-time great comebacks. A brash superstar at 17, LL made a serious misstep on 1989’s corny Walking Like a Panther, but he was back in full force here, cold chillin’ over Marley Marl’s deep-funk beats as he rapped about round-the-way girls, hanging out on the streets of Queens, and the boomin’ system in his ride.

I was aware of LL Cool J, but didn't think I particularly liked him in that "yawn - you're such a tough lover boy" rappy kinda way so I wasn't looking forward to this.  But, I was actually quite perplexed by the whole thing - it's not as unpleasant as I was expecting and a lot of it reminds me of Will Smith.  I've got no problems with Will Smith (and teaching a 2 year old Emily to sing "Welcome To Miami" for when we landed there is one of my proudest parental moments) but I don't think even Will would claim his music was "great".  And I'm pretty certain it's not a comparison that LL would be massively happy with (even if I'm happy to turn it around and say that Will sounds like LL).  It was particularly weird on "Jingling Baby" because in my head I was "Getting Jiggy With It".  All in all, I found it "fine" but there's no danger of me ever coming back to it.  And 61 minutes of tracks which sound remarkably similar was way to long for my liking.

Wikipedia tells me I'm wrong - Chris Rock even declared it to be the 6th best hip-hop album of all time but in the wise words of Eminem "I just don't give a fuuuuuck".  It also distressingly tells me there's a sweaty LL Cool J MTV Unplugged performance out there - there's not much I won't try to Google, but even I have some limits.  His Wikipedia page tells me that the bemuscled album cover star has turned into a smiley old man - and looking at his date of birth, I mean OLD because he's even older than me (by 6 months, but hey, who's counting?  Oh, I am.).  Unusually for a hippy-hoppy type, he doesn't seem to be all that interested in feuding with anyone and he's been married to the same woman for 25 years - he's a homeboy in more ways than one.  He's also been in more than one film or TV series, which suggests he has more acting ability than most - the boy has just knuckled down and gotten on with life.  "Customers also listened to" a load of people I don't particularly like - which makes my general indifference to this album all the more surprising.  Bizarrely my biggest emotion is that its overall blandness has robbed me of an opportunity to rant about how much I hated it.

#245 : Heaven Or Las Vegas - Cocteau Twins (1990)

Cocteau Twins were Scot goths who helped invent the dream-pop aesthetic that ruled U.K. indie during the Eighties. Heaven or Las Vegas is their arrestingly beautiful pop peak, despite being released as the band itself was in turmoil, largely brought on by guitarist Robin Guthrie’s drug addiction. Somehow, they created something wholly transporting; Elizabeth Fraser’s celestial soprano works like a vocal Rorschach test, gorgeously floating over Guthrie and Simon Raymonde’s magic-hour instrumentation.

Once upon a blog post, many moons ago, before I even started listening to massive lists of music, I touched upon my massive love of Cocteau Twins album artwork but massive indifference towards their music.  But I was willing to give it another go - and I'm still not there, I'm afraid.  I like it for about 10 seconds or so and then I'm just like "la la la - not listening" - it is a beautiful album cover though.

Wikipedia has more on the album than I was expecting, but reading it suggests it's pretty content-free.  The recording of the album sounds reasonably stressful what with two of the group expecting a child together, whilst one of them had a massive cocaine habit ("fortunately" it was the father and not the mother).  Apparently, "Fraser and Raymonde believed that the new baby would prove a diversion from Guthrie's dependency", but as Wikipedia unsurprisingly puts it "their wishes did not pan out".  Also, because these things interest me, "The final artwork is a long exposure of Christmas tree lights that were flicked against a color backdrop".  ("Spell color!" "C O L O U R - that is incorrect!" "Muuuummm!")

The band's Wikipedia entry is pretty dull - they formed, they made music, they split up, they got back together, they split up again very quickly - "In 2005, the band announced that they would reunite to headline Coachella and embark on a world tour but the reunion was cancelled a month later after Fraser refused to perform on stage with Guthrie".  I must admit the main question I've taken away from this comes from the Rolling Stone description above and the earth-shatteringly important query is "Hold on - are the Cocteaus really goth?".  So obviously, I asked Google "Are cocker spaniels hypoallergenic?", which didn't overly answer the question if I'm honest.  Going back and clicking the correct auto-completed search query suggested that (unusually for the internet) there are many schools of thought - tbh I'd never even considered them as goths, but having read some of the arguments I can agree they have "goth sensibilities".

"Customers also listened to" This Mortal Coil, Lush and Throwing Muses (I'm always going to mention The Muses when I get an excuse to do so) - and I would go for any of them about this album, I'm afraid.

#244 : 808s And Heartbreak - Kanye West (2008)

Part of Kanye West died in the fall of 2007, when his beloved mother, Donda, passed away; soon afterward, his 18-month-long engagement to designer Alexis Phifer fell apart. So when he returned in 2008 with 808s & Heartbreak, it was akin to watching an emotional purge and resurrection. Drenching his voice in Auto-Tune and turning his synths to their coldest settings, he sang of unbearable winters, shattered love, and endless nightmares. Part of West’s healing was charting a path where the distinction between rapping and singing was beside the point. Within a few years, Drake and others picked up the torch he’d lit here and ran with it all the way to the top of the charts.

Out last visit to Kanye didn't end particularly well - and this was another one I wasn't previously aware of, so I was interested to see if it was more like the stuff I knew.  And nope, this is different again - welcome to Auto-Tune City!  Soooo much of it.  Yes, I appreciate this was before absolutely everyone was doing it, but with that argument he's just opening himself up to taking the blame for everything that came to pass.  I positively liked "Love Lockdown" but I'm afraid that wasn't enough to compensate for the rest of it - ultimately, it was all rather boring, which was the last thing I was expecting from Mr West.  I'm very interested to know how this album would have done commercially if had been recorded by someone else - not nearly so well I suspect.

Wikipedia tells me that reaction was mixed, with the critics generally being kinder than the public - he does seem to enjoy a suspiciously easy ride with the critics.  The section on legacy is interesting though - there's no doubt there was more Auto-Tune in the charts after this album, but boy has there been a load of rubbish written about it.  Right - I'm feeling brave enough to tackle a section of Kanye's Wikipedia page today - let's go for hmmm, now let's think,  controversies?  You know it makes sense - "Over the course of his career, West has been known to compare himself to various influential figures and entities in art and culture, including Kurt Cobain, Leonardo da Vinci, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Google, Jimi Hendrix, Thierry Hermès, Howard Hughes, Michael Jackson, Steve Jobs, Ralph Lauren, Michelangelo, Jim Morrison, Nike, Pablo Picasso, Axl Rose, William Shakespeare, Socrates, David Stern, Donald Trump, William Wallace, Andy Warhol, Anna Wintour, and Willy Wonka".  And in the personal life section, I learned he's married to someone called Kim Kardashian - who's she then?  She must be a real retiring wallflower for me never to have heard of her - oh well, maybe she's got a Wikipedia page I can check out sometime...

"Customers also listened to" all them rappy types - ho di hum, eh?  Overall, I was surprised at how dull I found this but it sounds like I wasn't alone - although quite a few people seem to have re-evaluated it, I fear there's little chance of me doing so.

All of which leaves me in quite a pickle with regards to the winner of the round, I can tell you.  It's definitely not going to Kanye, but I don't feel I can give it to one of the others either - they were both just too average and also too different from each other for me to pick one over the othe.  I'm tempted to play the British card and give it to the Cocteaus, but if I'm being honest this was the album I actually listened to least, so that feels wrong.  

All of which leads me to invent a new rule - playing the joker.  Which is nothing like what playing the joker normally means, but hey - my football, my rules. Because 100 isn't divisible by 3, I've always had a round of 4 to close out the century - but there's no reason it has to come at the end now, is there?  For instance, if I needed another album because the selection was just too meh to pick a winner then it would make sense to pick another album to resolve the deadlock.  Let's just hope it's not Neil Young or Bob Dylan, eh?

#243 : Odessey Or Oracle - The Zombies (1968)

The Zombies broke up two weeks after they completed Odessey and Oracle, in December 1967, and the album wasn’t released in the U.S. until 1969. But its baroque psychedelic-pop arrangements continue to exert a powerful influence, particularly on whimsy-loving indie rockers. Recorded in London at both Abbey Road and a Stones haunt, Olympic Studios, Odessey combined the adventure of Sgt. Pepper with the concision of British Invasion pop. And “Time of the Season” went on to become a Number Three hit.

Well, well, well - didn't that work out nicely?  I've never heard of this album, but it was released in a mighty fine year by a band that hails from the fine city of St Albans - so tbh it was probably going to win whichever round it was in, but it's definitely going to win this round, no matter what it sounds like.  Me?  Biased?!?  Well, like - yeah!  And your problem is?!?  To be honest, I wasn't particularly expecting to enjoy it, but I actually found it a lot more bearable than a lot of the other albums from that supposedly fine year for music - it was quite interesting the way it bridged between the early 60s more straightforward pop and the late 60s utter nonsense pop.  Having said that,  a couple of hours after listening to it, I couldn't name a single track from the album - but I also know that if I had to listen to it again, I wouldn't run screaming, so it's actually earned its place as the winner without me having to rely on hometown bias.

The Wikipedia page for the album is quite interesting - the band were struggling with morale at the time of recording and the whole thing sounds like a massive faff with a stereo recording being mixed down to mono before the record company told them "No, it has to be stereo - and you'll have to pay for it yourself because there's no money left".  They then released the first single from the album and it got nowhere so they just gave up.  At which point, "Time Of The Season" was released in the US and got to #3!  Time then somewhat got away from them, but they reformed in 2008 to perform sold-out 40th anniversary shows for the album which went so well they've been hanging around together ever since.  And their Wikipedia page (and the world-renowned publication The Herts Advertiser!) proudly announces that last year they got into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame - not bad for a load of guys in their 70s, and they're still planning on touring whenever they're allowed to do such an activity.

"Customers also listened to" all them people from back them - none of whom I've liked as much as this lot.  I wouldn't describe myself as their hugest fan, but it's been an interesting listen and an even more interesting read, so it will come as no surprise to anyone that they win this round!

#249-247 - Over 40 million albums sold between them
#242-240 - All return visits - some more welcome than others.