Born down in a dead man's town

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

#142 : Born In The USA - Bruce Springsteen (1984) 

Bruce Springsteen wrote most of these songs in a fit of inspiration that also gave birth to the harrowing Nebraska [see No. 150]. “Particularly on the first side, it’s actually written very much like Nebraska,” he said. “The characters and the stories, the style of writing — except it’s just in the rock-band setting.” It was a crucial difference: The E Street Band put so much punch into the title song that millions misheard its questioning allegiance as mere flag-waving instead. The immortal force of the album is in Springsteen’s frank mix of soaring optimism and the feeling of, as he put it, being “handcuffed to the bumper of a state trooper’s Ford.”

Welcome back, Bruce - it doesn't feel like it's been any time since we last saw you.  Mostly because it wasn't.  So - does anyone actually need me to describe this album?  I suspect there are 5 year old goat herders in Outer Mongolia that can sing along to most of the songs - certainly most of the 7 top 10 US singles are reasonably well known.  I liked the album very much back in the day (without every actually owning it) and whilst I find I prefer less up-tempo Bruce these days, I still enjoy listening to it to remind me I was young once.  And the title track is still a great track indeed - even if its message was completely missed by 99% of the people who sang along to it.

Wikipedia tells me that most of the album was written at the same time as Nebraska, his previous album.  He then recorded all of the songs he'd written (including the tracks that ended up on Nebraska) with the E Street Band (making them sound totally different from the demos) - and then decided to release some of them in demo format as Nebraska and some of them in band format nearly 2 years later as this album.  Talk about making your life complicated!  I think it's fair to say this album did slightly better commercially with sales of over 30 million globally.  

It also tells me that the cover photo was taken by Annie Leibowitz - because obviously you need a world-renowned photographer to take a picture of a guy's arse.  Unfortunately, some people thought he was, as Wikipedia puts it, "urinating on the flag" - which required some quick backtracking on his part but as he put it "in the end, the picture of my ass looked better than the picture of my face, that's what went on the cover. I didn't have any secret message. I don't do that very much", which is very much confirmed by his huge Wikipedia page.

"Customers also listened to" the weird mix of artists we see for 80s albums - where else would you see Toto, Poison and Bonnie Tyler happily sitting together?  I think this album is one of the better ones from the 80s though and I don't think too many would argue it's done the work to earn its place on the list, even if it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea.

#141 : Doolittle - Pixies (1989) 

The Pixies’ second full-length album proved that noisy, arty college rock could be just as fun as anything else on MTV. With his antic vocal style and free-associative lyrics, singer-guitarist Black Francis seemed detached from humanity, but the rest of the Pixies grounded him. Bassist Kim Deal adds tart harmonies that feel like sarcastic asides, drummer David Lovering powers the loud-quiet-loud dynamic that influenced Nirvana and many others, and guitarist Joey Santiago tosses out concise, buzzing riffs. The Pixies’ second album is loaded: With “Debaser,” “Here Comes Your Man,” “Monkey Gone to Heaven,” “Hey,” and “Gouge Away,” it’s the college-radio version of a greatest-hits album.

Our second visit with the barking mad Black Francis and his Pixies and last time I said I preferred this album to that one, so let's see if I was telling the truth.  And yes, I was.  Phew -  you'd never have forgiven me otherwise!  It's still pretty quirky and annoying in places, but it feels tighter and more thought out than Surfer Rosa - so much so that I'm prepared to stick my neck out and say I like it.  "Monkey Gone To Heaven" is their best track for me (it sounds great loud) - I still suspect most people will hate it, but check it out if you're not aware of it and like your music to be challenging, but not too challenging.

Wikipedia has a reasonable amount to say about the album, but unsurprisingly it's all very serious.  I was surprised to read that the album got to #8 in the UK charts - I was even more amazed that Bossanova (their next album) got to #3 (but it doesn't make this list - no doubt Rolling Stone viewed it as them selling out).  I know quite a few people that absolutely worship Pixies, but I didn't realise there were quite so many people that liked them enough to at least buy their albums (back in the day when people did such things).  I previously covered how influential the band were and that's pretty much all Wikipedia has to say about them, other than Black Francis and Kim Deal really didn't like each other very much at times.

"Customers also listened to" The Breeders, Sonic Youth and The Lemonheads - a range of "challenging" for you there.  I hadn't listened to this album in ages and was pleased to be reminded how much I liked it, so this was a lovely surprise. 

#140 : Catch A Fire - Bob Marley And The Wailers (1973) 

This was the album that introduced the whole world to Bob Marley, expanding his audience beyond Jamaica without diluting his bedrock reggae power. At the time, the Wailers were truly a unified band, fronted by three extraordinary singers in Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Livingston. The rhythm section of drummer Carlton Barrett and his brother, bassist Aston “Family Man” Barrett, defined the reggae beat. Producer and label boss Chris Blackwell subtly overdubbed and remixed the original Jamaican sessions for international ears, but the Wailers’ ghetto rage comes across uncut in “Concrete Jungle” and “Slave Driver.”

I am aware of Mr Marley and his Wailers, but wasn't sure I'd heard any of this album - reggae isn't really my thing, so I wouldn't have sought it out and none of the track titles jumped out at me.  And having listened to it, I knew "Stir It Up" but that was it.  I found the album inoffensive but not the earth-shattering event that Wikipedia is bound to inform me it is - but as I say reggae isn't really my thing, so my opinion should be pretty much ignored.  Although, interestingly, the album version I listened to had both the album versions and the original session versions and I preferred the original versions, so maybe I'm a reggae purist without even realising it? (for the avoidance of doubt, I do not believe this for a minute).

Wikipedia tells me that it is a very fine reggae album indeed - which came about because the band toured the UK with Johnny Nash, who pissed off back to the US without leaving them enough money to get home so they went to see Chris Blackwell at Island Records who offered them the money home in return for an album.  It also tells me that during the supporting tour, they opened for one Mr Springsteen and there are definite parallels between their music despite coming from very different worlds.  The most interesting section was about the album packaging - the first 20,000 copies had a Zippo lighter on the cover and opened like a Zippo lighter, which I'd have to say I'd be fascinated to see!  

The Wikipedia entry for the group tells me they formed in 1963 (this was their fifth album) and is surprisingly short for such a well known group.  Sadly, the main thing I took away from it was surprise at how many of them died young, including 3 that were murdered - there's only one surviving founder member out of five.  To lighten the mood somewhat, I'll include this from Peter Tosh's entry - "At some point after his departure from the Wailers, Tosh developed an interest in unicycles...He often amused his audiences by riding onto the stage on his unicycle for his shows" - you weren't expecting that now, were you?

"Customers also listened to" Bob Marley, Ziggy Marley, Peter Tosh, Jimmy Cliff, etc, etc.  As I said, reggae's not really my thing so I won't be rushing back to this but I didn't mind it, so won't be upset if our paths cross again.

Three perfectly fine albums - maybe this list is (finally) actually getting better as we get further up it!  Part of me is tempted to give this round to Pixies because, despite its challenging sections, it's a well put-together album whereas Bruce sounds like he just got his mates in the studio and they did what they do.  However, he's lost the last two rounds somewhat arbitrarily (and also because I knew he had more chances) and, reading Wikipedia, it's clear he put a lot of work into making something sound so easy.  So he pips Pixies on the line - go Bruuuuuce!

#145-143 - Two huge albums - and one not quite so big one
#139-137 - Ozzy takes on some ladies who've sold a few albums