I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it

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

#255 : The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan (1963)

Bob Dylan’s second LP was released on May 27th, 1963 – three days after his 22nd birthday. It was a tender age for such a triumph. On Freewheelin’, the poetry and articulate fury of Dylan’s lyrics and his simple, compelling melodies transformed American popular songwriting. His wholly original grip on grit, truth, and beauty in “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” and “Masters of War” still changes everyone who hears this album, four decades later.

After a strong run by the ladies (The Slits, Janis, Joni, Dolly, Tracy), it had to come to an end at some point didn't it?  But did it really have to end with Bob?!?  Sigh - off we go again...

But.  Wait.  Why aren't my eardrums bleeding?  What are these actually listenable songs doing here?!?  Is this the same Bob Dylan?!?  <checks picture on cover>.  Well, he's a lot younger than some of the previous incarnations, but I'm pretty sure it's the same guy.  Whisper it quietly, but what if Mr Stanniland was right all along about Bob?!?

Hoooolllllddddd on there, let's not go overboard now.  But, whilst I can't claim I think this is the greatest album ever, I have to say I didn't mind it and there weren't any songs I absolutely hated.  And I even liked "Blowin' In The Wind" and "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall", although the latter did make me laugh with its templatised format for lyrics

What did you see my <insert random description>?
I saw <something random that sounds pretty bad>
I saw <something equally random that sounds slightly worse>
<and repeat for a VERY long time indeed>

Job done!  Wikipedia has an incredible amount to say about the album - some of the songs have more written about them the average album has got recently, particularly "A Hard Rain...".  Boy, do people love that song!  However, despite this album being a vast improvement, I still don't feel brave enough to read his Wikipedia entry - he needs to be more consistent before he earns that accolade.

"Customers also listened to" mostly other Dylan albums, but also some Pete Seeger, Lou Reed and Patti Smith - none of which I'm massively taken with.  But Bob is definitely taking steps in the right direction on this list (although given that this was his second album, there's a good argument that he took plenty of steps in the wrong direction in real life).

#254: Head Hunters - Herbie Hancock (1973)

One day in the early Seventies, jazz pianist Herbie Hancock was chanting in front of his Nichiren Buddhist scroll when he heard Sly Stone’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” looping in his head. He immediately got to work on Head Hunters, an aerodynamic groove machine built around catchy riffs, squelching synths, and airtight, danceable beats. As Hancock put it, the LP unified “the jungle, the intellectual, and the sex” — and gave jazz its first platinum-selling album.

I was aware of Herbie Hancock from "Rockit" which I remembered from the video as much as anything else, but apart from that I had absolutely no knowledge, so was intrigued to listen to this.  Anticipation of enjoyment of a jazz-funk album featuring 4 tracks, the shortest of which is over 6 minutes, wasn't exactly massive, but there was intrigue at least!  With the first intrigue being around finding the thing - it's not on my streaming provider of choice, so I resulted to listening to the album on YouTube (which always feels to me a bit like someone's taped it for you and just given you the cassette without having written the tracks on the piece of card - which we all know is just rude).

I'd say the album is better than I was expecting, but not really my sort of thing - I would agree with there are catchy riffs, squelchy synths and airtight, danceable beats, although I'm not so convinced it unifies the jungle, the intellectual and the sex.  But maybe that's just me.  It's just some fine old synthy-noodling which is perfectly acceptable to have on in the background, but I can't say I really listened to it or would be likely to not really listen to it again.  It's also got a distractingly weird album cover (apparently it's a tape head demagnetiser).

Wikipedia has more to say about the album than I was expecting which leads me to believe it was quite a big deal at the time.  A statement I can quite believe is "the album made jazz listeners out of rhythm and blues fans, and vice versa" - whilst I can't claim to be an afficionado in any of the genres involved, I can see it has crossover appeal.  I have a few more problems with "Until George Benson's Breezin'(1976), it was the largest-selling jazz album of all time" not because it didn't deseve to sell well but because I struggle to imagine George Benson coming out with something close enough to this to be considered in the same genre - maybe I'll get to find out more later (but it feels unlikely).  

Having read his Wikipedia page, it feels like he worked hard for his success.  To be honest there are so many names in there I don't recognise, but I do recognise the fact that Miles Davis invited him to join his group at the age of 23 is a big thing.  I also like the fact that he got married the month after I was born and is still married to the same lady - long marriages seem to be a sign of general niceness, although bizarrely there are no other allusions to niceness or otherwise, which is unusual for Wikipedia.  The random fact that jumped out at me is that he appears in the film Indecent Proposal as himself - I can only assume it's a random celeb cameo that they used to do more of in those days, although I'm struggling to imagine it was entirely essential.

"Customers also listened to" lots of other jazzy, funky stuff I guess - the album not being on Amazon means I can't tell you though.  All in all, an interesting musical detour that I suspect some people would have got very lost in but I just tapped my toes and nodded my head and moved on.

#253 : The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn - Pink Floyd (1967)

“I’m full of dust and guitars,” Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett told Rolling Stone. Here’s what that sounded like. The band’s debut is all playful, psychedelic imagery and acid guitars. “Astronomy Domine” shows the group’s pop side; “Interstellar Overdrive” shows its spacier freakouts. Released at the height of the Summer of Love, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn sums up the headlong feeling of the moment just as aptly as the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper.

More Floyd, so soon after #264?!?  Given this is Syd-era Floyd, I was expecting it to be slightly different, and I was very much not wrong in that assessment.   And it's an interesting one - I quite liked some of the sounds arranged on the album, but it didn't really add up to the sum of its parts for me.  I also found some of the tracks annoyingly childish - I feel if you're going to make an annoying noise, then you should at least be serious about it.  Although I was -1 when it was released, I obviously agree with the sentiment that it's of its time - I imagine if you were slightly older than I was back then it brings back many happy memories.  And I might get into it if given much more time, but I'm afraid it's way down the list of albums I'd try that with at the minute.

Wikipedia has the usual huge amount to say about a Pink Floyd album - with the interesting stuff being about Syd's behaviour ("The band initially hoped that his erratic behavior was a phase that would pass") or general conflict surrounding the band ("it was the beginning of endless problems The Floyd had with Capitol. It started off bad and went on being bad").  I did learn something however - the album's title comes from one of the chapter headings from The Wind In The Willows.  So it's not been a complete loss.  Reception seems to have been mixed at the time, but (of course) it's been re-evaluated since as a masterpiece and, you're never going to believe this, people have even worked out that "LSD is named as a direct reference" - I wonder how many hordes of musical scholars had to be involved to work that one out.  Time's running a bit short here, so I'll skip over the band's encyclopaedic entry - I'm sure it's still mostly conflict and tension.

"Customers also listened to" Floyd, Barrett, Waters and Gilmour - they know what they like, them people.  Again, an interesting listen but not really for me, I'm afraid.

Well, well, well - it does appear that if you have a million different Dylans making a million different albums then FINALLY you find one that I don't hate enough such that I can declare it the winner of the round.

#258-256 : Sisters are doing it for themselves!
#252-250 - We're firmly in the 70s here!