You try to play like Mr. All-of-that

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

#273 : Entertainment! - Gang Of Four (1979)  

Formed in 1977, Gang of Four combined Marxist politics with punk rock. They played staccato guitar-driven funk, and the stiff, jerky aggression of songs such as “Damaged Goods” and “I Found That Essence Rare” invented a new style that influenced bands from the Minutemen to LCD Soundsystem to agit-rappers Run the Jewels, who sampled Entertainment!’s “Ether.” Even when they’re barking at you about the capitalist commodification of desire, they never sound like dogmatic grad students because the songs bite so hard.

Hmmm - I'd heard of Gang Of Four, but really only as influences on other groups - I particularly remember Franz Ferdinand saying how much they were inspired by them.  And having listened to the album, I can state that they really were.  Like, I'm not sure they ever listened to anyone else.  But, whereas I quite like Franz Ferdinand, Gang Of Four just felt like hard work - maybe I just wasn't looking for someone to bark at me about the capitalist commodification of desire.  I'm guessing I'm not the only one - but if I am, then I can live with that - it just wasn't doing it for me.

Wikipedia gives the album the curse of death - "Kurt Cobain listed it as one of his 50 favourite albums of all time".  It also has the biggest load of nonsense about the album artwork - I bet these guys were a great laugh at parties.  The Wikipedia entry for the band confirms this fact - "Oh boy, these guys were a great laugh at parties" - so I think that's settled.  Well, what it actually says is "Gang of Four's music brought together an eclectic array of influences, ranging from the Frankfurt school of social criticism to the increasingly clear trans-Atlantic punk consensus" - but that's pretty much the same, isn't it?  The one fact that did interest me was that Gail Ann Dorsey was a member for 5 minutes in 1991 before she went off and spent 20+ years hanging around with Bowie, and I'd have to say that it seems like she made the right choice there.

"Customers also listened to" a load of people we've seen before on this list, most of whom it won't surprise you to hear I hated.  I didn't totally hate this album but I really didn't like it either.

#272 : White Light/White Heat - The Velvet Underground (1968)  

“It’s a very rabid record,” bassist-violist John Cale wrote in the liner notes to the 1995 box set Peel Slowly and See. “The first one had some gentility, some beauty. The second one was consciously anti-beauty.” Drowning their songs in guitar fuzz and drone, the Velvet Underground captured the toe-clenching freakouts of their live shows with their second album — the most extreme disc in VU’s extreme catalog. The blow-your-wig-back highlight: “Sister Ray,” 17 minutes of amplifiers screaming.

Another record from the year of my birth and, before I read the description above, I didn't think I was going to like it.  After having done so, I was sure I wasn't going to like it.  However, nothing could have prepared me for how much I was going to absolute detest it.  God, it's awful - I'd actually like you to listen to it because it will save me having to describe it, but then you'd just loathe me for having asked you to do such a hateful thing.  So just run away, kids.

Wikipedia tells me "the album's socially transgressive lyrical themes and avant-garde instrumentation challenged popular music sensibilities at the time, creating a muted reception" which I believe is another way of saying "people thought it was shit".  And they were right.  And I have another 3 of their albums to come.  Sigh.  I'm grumpy now.

#271 : What's The 411? - Mary J Blige (1992)  

There was no way R&B was going to keep its distance from hip-hop; they had too much in common. But it required the right singer to build a road between the two. On her first album, Mary J. Blige was marketed as the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul, and the Bronx-born singer lived up to the regal hype, singing about pain and resolve in equal measures. Even when songwriters stuck her with pedestrian lines, you feel genuine longing and the weight of her experiences in every word.

I've heard the odd Mary J track in my time and I don't mind her - she seems enjoyably feisty, so I was looking forward to listening to this, although my main thought was she was going to have to deliver something truly awful not to win this round.  And it's certainly not truly awful, but it's not as interesting as I was expecting - it's pretty much generic R&B with the lightest sprinkling of hip-hop which doesn't do enough to distinguish it from the crowd for me.  But it's no White Light/White Heat, that's for sure.

Wikipedia has very little of interest to say about the album, noting it was generally liked and sold 3 million copies but that's about it.  Her entry is more wide-ranging - the woman has done a lot with her life!  Singing, acting and more endorsements than I can believe, quite frankly.  I'd forgotten she was in the first season of The Umbrella Academy - she acquits herself well in that.  She doesn't sound like she's had the easiest life, but she's made a lot of it so credit to her for that.  "Customers also listened to" a load of people I'd never heard of and I feel it's unlikely we're going to come into contact any time soon.  A sneaky peak tells me we've got another Mary album further up the list and I'm hoping for more from it - this was "fine", but no more than that.

Having said that, it was in a class of its own in this round - an easy winner.

#276-274 : Yes, yes and NO!
#270-268 : Three people who have five letter names.  And nothing else in common.