I want to be the girl with the most cake

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

#106 : Live Through This - Hole (1994) 

One week before Hole’s breakthrough album was released, Kurt Cobain killed himself and made Courtney Love a widow. The media attention that followed guaranteed a close listen for Love’s fearsome songs and her shift from pure riot-grrrl punk to a more stable sound that MTV could embrace. Her coded songs have dark topics, including death (“Kill me pills”), violence (“Pee girl gets the belt”), and body shame (“Bad skin, doll heart”), as well as motherhood. (Cobain and Love became parents two years earlier, and briefly lost custody after she was reported to have used heroin while pregnant.) The horror in Love’s exposed voice on “Asking for It” and “Doll Parts” gives immediacy to her firsthand stories about being an outcast “pee girl.”

Ah, Courtney.  You've certainly lived an "interesting" life, haven't you?  Not one I would have opted for and you've certainly not tried too hard to make people like you at times, have you?  And Steve Coogan - wtf happened there?!?  Anyways, this is all about the music - what do we think about that?  I actually quite like Hole and this album - it's generally agreed to be their best album (although I think "Celebrity Skin" is their best track - I love that).  I think the best tracks on here are "Doll Parts" and "Jennifer's Body" but it all shuffles along at a reasonable quality level and the level of emotion she howls is impressive.  I totally realise most people will hate it, but it works well for me.

Wikipedia has a lot of text, but very little content.  The main point of discussion is addressing the rumours that Kurt ghost wrote the album - I'd suggest this is unlikely because it's way better than the shit he was churning out at that time (although Love herself has said exactly the opposite).  The album was well received critically and did OK commercially - it got to #13 in the UK which suggests they were more popular than i remember them being.  The band's Wikipedia entry is quite lengthy and features quite a few lineup changes and disbandments, but they all still seem to get on well enough, which is somewhat surprising.  It also tells me she lives in London now (I struggle to imagine she has a 3 bed semi-detached out in the suburbs) and informs me that Frances Bean Cobain is now 28.  How time flies, doesn't it?

"Customers also listened to" a particularly random mix of US indie bands - no obvious links otherwise.  I like this album and was pleased to relisten to it - Irealise it won't be to everyone's taste, but if you like that sort of thing and haven't heard this then check it out and don't be scared off by Courtney and her somewhat spiky reputation.  I also love the album artwork - it reminded me of Carrie, so I was super pleased to read on the internet that was the look they were going for.  I don't know, it's almost like sometimes I know what I'm talking about.

#105 : At Fillmore East - The Allman Brothers (1971) 

Although this double album is the perfect testimony to the Allman Brothers’ improvisational skills, it is also evidence of their unprecedented connection with the crowds at New York’s Fillmore East. “The audience would kind of play along with us,” singer-organist Gregg Allman said of those March 1971 shows. “They were right on top of every single vibration coming from the stage.” The guitar team of Duane Allman and Dickey Betts was at its peak, seamlessly fusing blues and jazz in “Whipping Post” and “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.” But their telepathy was cut short: Just three months after the album’s release, Duane died in a motorcycle accident.

I can't say I knew anything about the Allman brothers, although I remember we'd bumped into Duane somewhere along the way up this list (ah - he was mates with Derek).  Having read the above, I had no idea what to expect - and having listened to it, I'm not entirely sure how I'd describe it.  I guess a blues/jazz fusion seems as good a description as any.  Not really my thing - there was an impressive level of guitar playing, but what feels like it would have been AMAZING live just comes across as "OK, I guess" when recorded.  I would say it was a very short 76 minutes though, which either suggests I fell asleep or I enjoyed it more than I was aware of - I'm not sure which it was.  A double LP with only 7 songs on is an impressive achievement though!

Wikipedia has very little to say about the album other than the critics liked it - although it gives no clue as to whether anyone actually bought it.  Over half the entry is track listings of the four different versions that are out there - fascinating reading as you can quite imagine.  The band's entry tells me they were far more famous than I was aware of - although more so in the US than the UK, so I can probably be forgiven.  They also had a somewhat turbulent history - losing two members to motorcycle accidents and having an inordinately high number of heroin addicts (even for this list) amongst their number.  It's a fascinating read and very much of its time, bringing to mind the era featured in the film Almost Famous - it also features the fine quote "They wanted us to act 'like a rock band' and we just told them to fuck themselves".

"Customers also listened to" a load of bands featuring the name Allman - there's no danger of fans straying too far it seems.  However, this is the only Allman entry on the list and I suspect it's not giving me a typical view of their stuff (all their albums can't feature 22 minute tracks, surely) - at some point I might make an effort to check out some of them other stuff because if it turns out like Lynnrd Skynnrd then that wouldn't be the end of the world.  But there's little danger of me revisiting this, I'm afraid.

#104 : Sticky Fingers - The Rolling Stones (1971) 

Drummer Charlie Watts remembered the origin of Sticky Fingers as the songs Mick Jagger wrote while filming the movie Ned Kelly in Australia. “Mick started playing the guitar a lot,” Watts said. “He plays very strange rhythm guitar … very much how Brazilian guitarists play, on the upbeat. It is very much like the guitar on a James Brown track — for a drummer, it’s great to play with.” New guitarist Mick Taylor, replacing Brian Jones, stretches out the Stones sound in “Sway,” “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking,” and “Moonlight Mile.” But “Brown Sugar” is a classic Stones stomp, and two of the best cuts are country songs: one forlorn (“Wild Horses”) and one funny (“Dead Flowers”).

Last time I really enjoyed their album from a slightly earlier time and this one is similarly highly regarded, so I was looking forward to listening to it.  And whilst I didn't enjoy it quite as much as Beggars Banquet on first listen, it was a perfectly acceptable listen with some obvious high points - "Brown Sugar", "Wild Horses" and "Dead Flowers" worked best for me.  It feels like it would be a grower as well - I'd say the late 60s/early 70s Stones are probably one of the blindspots I'm most pleased to have addressed through this list (and there have been a lot of blindspots I've not been at all pleased to address)

Wikipedia has surprisingly little to say about the album, except for one subject.  Which is obviously the original album artwork, which featured a working zip which opened to reveal a pair of underpants.  Not only was this prohibitively expensive to produce, it also had the added side effect of ruining the record - somebody really didn't think things through there, did they? (Andy Warhol, apparently).  Critical response appears to be have "well, it's a great album but only a good Rolling Stones one" - commercially people didn't care and bought it by the truckload with it being #1 in the UK and US for 4 weeks.  The band's Wikipedia entry is still huge and the random facts picked from this era are that this is the first album featuring their tongue logo and that around this time they became tax exiles because their new manager pointed out that, despite what they'd been told by their previous one, they hadn't paid any tax for 7 years.  Oops.

"Customers also listened to" The Who, Lou, Lennon, Jimi, Eric - early 70s rock fans don't venture far away from their core set of albums.  I found this a slight letdown, but only from the heights of Beggars Banquet - it will be interesting to see what I think of the remaining two similarly iconic Stones albums on the list.

So I think there's little doubt that the greatest albums on this list are the 1971 offerings, but I've got a soft spot for Courtney and think her personality and history have at times somewhat distracted people from her contribution to the music of the time which I very much enjoy, so she's getting the round.  And no, I'm not expecting this to be a popular opinion.

#109-107 - An interesting mix
#103-101 - Three different eras