It's no secret ambition bites the nails of success

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

#124 : Achtung Baby - U2 (1991) 

After fostering a solemn public image for years, U2 loosened up on Achtung Baby, recorded in Berlin with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. They no longer sounded like young men sure of the answers; now they were full of doubt and longing. “It’s a con, in a way,” Bono told Rolling Stone about the album in 1992. “We call it Achtung Baby, grinning up our sleeves in all the photography. But it’s probably the heaviest record we’ve ever made.” “One” may be their most gorgeous song, but it’s a dark ballad about a relationship in peril and the struggle to keep it together. Yet the emotional turmoil made U2 sound more human than ever.

I've already patiently explained that this is the best U2 album here, so no-one could possibly disagree with this being their highest placed entry on the list.  Could they?  Well, obviously they will - but, more than most, U2 are one of those bands that your favourite album depends on which era of theirs you like the best.  I know people who've consciously avoided listening to this because they hated Rattle And Hum so much, which is a shame because this is a fine album.  And I think it's their best!

Wikipedia tells us that the creative process was, at times, tortuous and involved considering splitting up whilst staying in a crappy hotel in East Berlin over winter.  Sounds like fun to me!  And when they thought they'd finished, Brian Eno listened to it and said "what is this shit?" - but it got there in the end!  And did OK, I guess - global sales of over 10 million and #1 in the US, but only #2 in the UK, kept off the top by Michael Jackson's Dangerous, which I guess I can understand but I'm pleased to say we won't be seeing on this list.  It also tells me the 20th anniversary edition was released on 6 CDs and, for no obvious reason, includes Zooropa, the subsequent album (which is a bit of a mess, but quite an interesting mess - unlike Rattle And Hum, which is just a mess).

Like last time, the band's entry is still too long to do justice to here, so let's include a particular bizarre section from Bono's entry - "During his childhood and adolescence, Bono and his friends were part of a surrealist street gang called "Lypton Village"...The gang had a ritual of nickname-giving. Bono had several names: first, he was "Steinhegvanhuysenolegbangbangbang", then just "Huyseman", followed by "Houseman", "Bon Murray", "Bono Vox of O'Connell Street", and finally just "Bono"".  A surrealist street-gang?!?  And to think they say that the kids these days get up to no good...

"Customers also listened to" Guns'N'Roses, The Verve and Lenny Kravitz - all close-ish to the same sort of sound, but in different ways.  But I'll take this over any of them - I really like this album and listen to it reasonably frequently.

#123 : Led Zeppelin II - Led Zeppelin (1969) 

This album — recorded on the fly while the band was touring — opens with one of the most exhilarating guitar riffs in rock & roll: Jimmy Page’s searing stutter in “Whole Lotta Love.” As Page told Rolling Stone, “On the second LP, you can hear the real group identity coming together,” by which he meant the unified might of his own white-blues sorcery, John Bonham’s hands-of-Zeus drumming, Robert Plant’s love-god howl and surprisingly tender lyrics (the gorgeous “Thank You”), and John Paul Jones’ firm bass and keyboard colors. Other great reasons to bang your head: “The Lemon Song,” “Heartbreaker,” and “Ramble On.”

Last time I surprised myself by liking a Led Zep album much more than I was expecting to - would the surprise continue?  In places, yes - but at first listen this seemed to be a less consistent offering than Physical Graffiti.  I found myself really liking sections of it, but in other places I was like "what are you doing that for?" (I'm looking at you, drum solo).  It was also a bit heavier than my tastes generally stretch to, but the skill involved is impressive - you never doubt they're making the sounds they want to make, even if it's not to your taste.  I obviously recognised "Whole Lotta Love" from TOTP, but I never realised it wasn't their version that was used - it was CCS' instrumental version instead.  Because, obviously - why wouldn't you?

Wikipedia gives us the full fan track-by-track breakdown but actually tells us remarkably little about the album, other than it was recorded in less than ideal circumstances, but came out pretty well and sold even better.  It's also amusing that given I have commented on the complexities involved in the sleeve artwork for the previous two entries on the list, for this one "The album sleeve design was from a poster by David Juniper, who was simply told by the band to come up with an interesting idea".  The album got to #1 in the UK and the US and "Whole Lotta Love" is one of only two Led Zep singles to chart in the UK - in 1997, after they broke up because they never allowed UK singles at time of release.  I suspect you can probably guess the other charting single - but that was in 2007, resulting from the promotion of the album Mothership.  I still can't be bothered to wade through their Wikipedia entry - I've just got the one more opportunity on the list to do so! 

"Customers also listened to" Cream, Jimi Hendrix and Deep Purple - no surprises there, except that we've only met one of them so far on this list and one of them we won't get to meet at all.  Overall, I liked this more than I would have expected when I started the list, but I didn't think it was as good as Physical Graffiti.

#122 : The Downward Spiral - Nine Inch Nails (1994) 

“When I rented the place, I didn’t realize it was that house,” claimed NIN’s Trent Reznor about recording Spiral in the onetime home of Manson-family victim Sharon Tate. Despite “a million electrical disturbances,” Reznor made the most successful album of his career — a cohesive, willful, and overpowering meditation on the central theme running through all of NIN’s videos, live shows, music, and lyrics: control. While Spiral has its share of Reznor’s trademark industrial corrosiveness, it’s balanced by the tentatively hopeful (and intensely personal) “Hurt” and soundscapes inspired by David Bowie’s Low.

Last time we met Mr Reznor, I surprised myself my liking it much more than I expected, so was interested to see what I made of this.  And listening to it, I found myself thinking he'd doubled or trebled down on this album - on all the bits I didn't like from the previous album whilst removing all the bits I did like.  I'm a man who doesn't mind a bit of noise, but there's just too much noise on this for me, I'm afraid.  But I can see the disaffected youth would have taken it to their dark, black hearts and would have hated themselves if I'd said I'd loved it, so I'm glad to keep them happy by saying "No thanks!" - I'll just stick with my Jesus Jones albums which are still quite noisy but I find much more enjoyable.  I do quite like the Johnny Cash cover of "Hurt" though - it suits his voice well (and there's not many songs I say that about).

Wikipedia tells me I just don't get it - oh well, never mind, eh?  I'm sure Mr Reznor can handle the disappointment with his 4 million global sales.  Bizarrely, in the US, the Republican Party took great exception to the track "Big Man With A Gun", saying it was mean to them - were they seriously expecting him to write something saying how great they were?  The band's (OK, his) Wikipedia entry is HUGE and from it, I learned that he won the "Event Of The Year" award in 2019 from the CMA (Country Music Association) - bet you weren't expecting that now, were you?  You have one (short) paragraph to see if you can think of the reason.

"Customers also listened to" a load of people I either didn't know or I liked way more than this.  Which, to be honest, isn't exactly a huge recommendation - I really didn't like this.  

And the reason he got a CMA Award?  He wrote "34 Ghosts IV" which was extensively sampled by Lil Nas X in "Old Country Road" which broke the record for longest number of weeks at #1 in US - 19 weeks, which quite frankly mystifies me but what do I know, eh?

I'm afraid U2 were always going to win this round for me, but I liked some bits of the Led Zeppelin album more than I was expecting.  Unfortunately, I also hated some bits of it more than I was expecting - so congrats to Bono and the other lads (as I'm sure they like to be known)

#127-125 - An unexpectedly fascinating read
#121-119 - A fine (mostly) 70s selection