Yeah, I miss the kiss of treachery

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

#118 : Hotel California - Eagles (1978) 

In pursuit of note-perfect Hollywood-cowboy ennui, the Eagles spent eight months in the studio polishing take after take after take. As Don Henley recalled: “We just locked ourselves in. We had a refrigerator, a ping-pong table, roller skates, and a couple of cots. We would go in and stay for two or three days at a time.” With guitarist Joe Walsh replacing Bernie Leadon, the band backed off from straight country rock in favor of the harder sound of “Life in the Fast Lane.” The highlight is the title track, a monument to the rock-aristocrat decadence of the day and a feast of triple-guitar interplay. “Every band has their peak,” Henley said. “That was ours.”

I'm not a huge Eagles fan in general (and was very underwhelmed last time), but any album that opens with "Hotel California", "New Kid In Town" and "Life In The Fast Lane" isn't to be ignored.  Which, of course, I've completely done until this point in my life.  Would the rest of the album live up to that standard?  Well, no not really - but they're still fine tracks and it's still a fine album.  Maybe even great - I'm not sure I could pronounce it to be great on one listen, but I'll give it a "fine" for now.  

The Wikipedia entry for the album is shorter than I expected and has very little actual content, although I laughed at the fact that some of the songs had to be recorded multiple times because Black Sabbath were recording in the studio next door and they were so loud that the noise could be heard on the Eagles recordings.  I was also somewhat surprised that The Beverley Hills Hotel threatened legal action because they're the hotel on the cover - they'll sue over anything in the US, won't they?  Sales were adequate, I guess - 32 million copies globally - and still going given that it featured in the year-end US rock and country album charts last year.  It's also somewhat mad that it's not their best selling album - Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) has sold over 42 million copies.  Which is a few, and completely mystifying looking at the tracklist.

Looking at the band's entry, it certainly feels like Hotel California was the first beginning of the end for the group - one of the group left before the album, they spent most of the time arguing and then they fired another of the group at the end of the tour.  However, all this pales into insignificance when compared with the vital fact I learned reading about their previous album One Of Those Nights - I never knew they wrote this.  In fact, I don't think it ever occurred to me that anyone had written it - but I should warn you that plenty of you won't have the faintest idea what I'm talking about :-)

"Customers also listened to" a lot of albums from around that time, many of which we've already seen on this list.  I enjoyed this, although it feels unlikely I'll revisit any more than the first three tracks.  I was actually quite surprised to see it so early, it feels like the sort of album that Rolling Stone would have had much higher - maybe they were just having an off day.

#117 : Late Registration - Kanye West (2005) 

The College Dropout introduced the world to a polo-shirt-wearing preppy who merged backpack-rap politics and bling-rap materialism. But it was on Late Registration that Kanye West really started showing off, calling in savvy producer Jon Brion to co-produce an album that ranged from triumphal autobiography (“Touch the Sky”) to witty club pop (“Gold Digger”) to heartstring-tuggers (“Hey Mama”), packing in Chinese bells, James Bond themes, and Houston hip-hop. The end result was a near-perfect album that remade the pop landscape in West’s own oddball image.

Ah - Mr West, I've been expecting you.  After all, it's been 87 places since we last saw you - are you feeling OK?  I had heard this before and thought it to be OK, but not as good as College Dropout, so I never bothered going back to it.  Until now, and I still don't think it's as good as College Dropout - although it has more ambition than his debut, I don't think it quite pulls it off and you also get the impression he's starting to believe the hype.  It's still pretty good though if you like that sort of thing - "Touch The Sky" and "Gold Digger" would be my highlights (with the latter featuring an unfortunately catchy chorus), but they are the third and fourth tracks, which leaves you with another hour of stuff to listen to with the feeling that it's just not quite as good as what's come before.  Track order is important, people! (or was when people used to listen to whole albums)

Wikipedia has both a lot and very little to say about the album - diving down into the detail on the most pointless aspects without saying anything particularly useful about the album as a whole.  The critics and the public liked it though - global sales of over 5 million are always pretty handy.  But, boy was I amused to find it only got to #2 in the UK charts, kept off the top by McFly's Wonderland - I can only begin to imagine how happy he was about that.  His entry reminds me the "George Bush doesn't care about black people" episode happened around this time, but I'd forgotten quite how awkward it was - Mike Myers is solidly sticking to the script, but I think it's fair to say he's very aware that Kanye isn't and doesn't quite know what to do about it.

"Customers also listened to" Outkast, Estelle, Nelly, 50 Cent and Missy Elliott - a somewhat random selection, I'd say.  I didn't mind this and liked it way more than some of his albums we've seen so far but it doesn't feel like an album I'll be rushing back to.  Only two more Kanye albums to go on the list though!

#116 : Disintegration - The Cure (1989) 

According to the kids on South Park, this is the best album ever made. According to many depressive Eighties-minded kids, it’s the only album ever made. Disintegration was the height of stadium goth rock, with the Cure stretching out for long, spacious wallows like ‘Plainsong” and “Prayers for Rain.” But it also shows off Robert Smith’s stunning pop mastery on “Lovesong,” which Smith wrote as a wedding present for his wife, and the rapturously forlorn “Pictures of You.” On “Fascination Street,” his voice shakes like milk as he makes adolescent angst sound so wonderfully, wonderfully pretty. “I was trying to put in one or two beacons of light in amongst the darkness,” he told Rolling Stone.

Staring At The Sea, their greatest hits album, was one of the first CDs I bought - along with another greatest hits album, Louder Than Bombs by The Smiths (although they referred to it as a "compilation" album because greatest hits isn't cool enough for The Smiths).  I was initially slightly surprised that none of the tracks from this album were on Staring At The Sea, but then I realised that this came out 2 years later, so that possibly explains that.  But I was expecting to like it and for it not to prove too surprising.  And that's pretty much what I found, although I would say that the quality level stayed higher throughout the album than I was expecting - it's got a very "lush" and immersive soundscape throughout (which sounds particularly fine through headphones).  All in all a very pleasant surprise and well worth a listen if it had passed you by (like it had with me) and you don't mind a bit of goth, shimmering or shoe-gazing.

The Wikipedia entry for the album relates a peculiar story, telling us that despite the brooding nature of the songs, it was a well-natured and good-humored recording session.  And then, in the next breath it's telling us that Robert Smith was so massively depressed at the thought of turning 30 (so old!) that he stopped talking to anyone and Lol Tolhurst was so drunk all the time that the others took the piss out of him and then demanded he was fired.  Sounds like a right laugh to me!  To get to the truth, we have to ask a critic - "Reviewer Barbara Ellen noted the large range of emotions in Smith's lyrics, "from deep, loving pink to an ugly, violent maroon and almost back again"".  Yes, quite.  

The band's entry features a picture of an amusingly young (and thin) Robert Smith and reads as a bit of "band member merry-go-round" - there's no doubt who's the boss.  I particularly felt sorry for the guys who found out they'd been sacked from the band when they saw some tour dates on a fan website and that was the first they'd heard about them.  "Customers also listened to" The Smiths, Joy Division, Pixies - and INXS.  Hmmm - 80s fans are odd.  I really liked this on first listen and certainly intend to revisit it - it's very atmospheric.

So - not Kanye but the other two are very much in with a shout (even as I'm typing this!).  I liked them both and suspect further relistens would improve my opinion.  I think I'm going with The Cure - it feels more likely I'll revisit that one and listen to the whole album because Hotel California has such a strong opening three tracks that I might well not make it past them.  The Cure is also "more my thing" so unlucky to Don, Glenn and the lads and well done to Bob and the boys.

#121-119 - A fine (mostly) 70s selection
#115-113 - I struggle to understand why