But every time it rains, you're here in my head

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

#70 : Straight Outta Compton - N.W.A (1988)

N.W.A’s debut brought West Coast gangsta rap to Middle America and changed hip-hop forever. It was the launching pad for the careers of Ice Cube, Eazy-E, and Dr. Dre. “Back then we was calling it ‘reality rap,’” Ice Cube told Rolling Stone years later. “‘Gangsta rap’ is the name that the media coined.” Ice Cube’s rage and Dr. Dre’s police-siren street beats combined for a truly fearsome sound on “Express Yourself” and “Straight Outta Compton.” But it was the protest track “Fuck Tha Police” that earned the crew its biggest honor: a threatening letter from the FBI.

Three letter bands are a nightmare with their use (or not) of full stops - why don't N.W.A have one at the end?  It's madness, I tell you!  Anyway, this our first and only visit with the group on this list, although various members have popped on several albums we've experienced along the way.  I was expecting to enjoy it more than I was expecting - does that make sense?  Maybe it would be more accurate to say I was expecting to enjoy it whilst at the same time knowing I shouldn't really be doing so both because of the questionable content and the complete irrelevance to my life so far.  And yeah, I think that's pretty much where we got to - the lyrics relating to the police and the neighbourhood are powerful and believable (but of course I have no way of knowing if they're actually that realistic) whereas I think it's fair to say the lyrics relating to members of the opposite sex are generally horrendously misogynistic.  There is a lot to be appreciated here - in particular the lyrical interplay between the members of the group is well done and a lot of the samples included have been used multiple times since.  But the unpleasantness is somewhat overwhelming to someone with such a delicate constitution as myself, I'm afraid.

Wikipedia doesn't make much effort arguing with any of the points I make above - with a lot of people agreeing it's good, but at the same time, terrible.  It makes an interesting point that it somehow managed to sell a million copies before anyone gave it any radio playtime outside of the LA area, although apparently 80% of the sales were in white suburban areas - very street.  It also tells us that amusingly, Dre wasn't initially too keen to record "Fuck Tha Police" because he was spending weekends in jail due to traffic violations - however, this reluctance disappeared once his time was served.  Bizarrely, it also includes the following recommendation - "Sinéad O'Connoe, then herself controversial, appraised in 1990 that "It's definitely the best rap record I've ever heard" - I imagine that must have driven sales through the roof.  The band's Wikipedia entry doesn't have a lot to say about the group other than that they were only together for 4 years (with the split being particularly acrimonious), but have had great influence since, both as a group and then as individuals. 

"Customers also listened to" - yup, all them lot.  This was an interesting album to listen to but not one I'll be revisiting, I'm afraid.  I'm obviously such a snowflake.

#69 : Jagged Little Pill - Alanis Morissette (1995)

Alanis Morissette was 21 when Jagged Little Pill was released, but she was a show-business veteran — she’d been on a Nickelodeon TV show and had made two flimsy dance-pop albums — and she knew what kind of music she wanted to make. “I found that the more truthful and vulnerable I was, the more empowering it was for me,” she said. Songs like “Ironic,” “Head Over Feet,” and “Hand in My Pocket” were calm, even philosophical, but it was “You Oughta Know,” her full-throated riposte to a callous ex, that made her reputation, partly because there was no one like her.

I knew and liked this album at the time, but couldn't say I'd revisited it in many a long year.  I remembered the high points ("You Oughta Know", "Ironic" in particular) being good but the rest of it being somewhat underwhelming and had the suspicion I'd find it somewhat dated - so was interested to revisit to see whether this was the case.  And to my surprise, I found this very much not to be the case - there's more variety than I remember and the quality is pretty high throughout ("Hand In My Pocket" and "Head Over Feet" in particular being much better than I remembered) and it hasn't really dated at all (especially when you consider how much Taylor Swift similarly went on about her exes, nearly 20 years later).  Having said all that, "You Oughta Know" is still streets ahead of the rest being a fantastic scream of rage from a scorned woman - "Does she know how you told me you'd hold me until you died?  But you're still alive".

WIkipedia tells the album did OK - selling 33 million globally,  #1 in countless countries (including Scotland apparently - I didn't even know there was a Scottish chart!) and winning 5 Grammys.  It also tells me that Dave Navarro and Flea both play on "You Oughta Know" - it sounds very much as though they ripped up the existing tune and rewrote it, but they're not credited as such.  It's also not entirely clear how they came into contact with a relatively unknown 21 year old Canadian - but the end result worked out well enough for all concerned.  It also tells me that "Ironic" was the biggest hit single off the album thanks to the "unique music video featuring four identical but differently dressed Alanises driving around in the same car" - which I totally didn't remember, so I had to check it out.  And it's just terrible - and features some appalling lip syncing, so I'm not sure why everyone loved it.  I also wasn't aware there was an acoustic version of the album released on the 10th anniversary - I checked it out quickly and it sounds fine, if not exactly essential listening.  

Her Wikipedia entry reminded me of one of her finest hours, playing God in Kevin Smith's Dogma - a, shall we say "uneven" film, but still worth checking out.  She's actually done quite a lot of acting over a reasonable number of years which suggests she possesses slightly more ability than the usual singer.  One of the films she was in had the snappy title "Fuck" - and its Wikipedia entry amusingly includes the following somewhat obvious statement from the director - "He named the film Fuck despite anticipating problems with marketing".  He's a proper Einstein, I can tell you.  Anyways, Alanis is still doing the music stuff as well, although slightly less successfully than back in the Jagged Little Pill days - and she gives the impression that she's perfectly happy with that state of affairs, thank you very much.  Despite some rocky times, she comes across as having a pretty sorted life now - married for 11 years with 3 kids (although I never knew she was engaged to Ryan Reynolds - back in 2002, when he must have been about 10 or something).

"Customers also listened to" No Doubt, Sheryl Crow, 4 Non-Blondes and Len.  Len?!?  Never heard of him.  But I was glad to be reintroduced to this - it's stood the test of time much better than I had envisaged and I will be adding it back on to my "listen every so often" list.

#68 : Hounds Of Love - Kate Bush (1985)

Kate Bush was an avant-garde auteur as well as beloved English pop star. Her New Wave masterpiece Hounds of Love is one of the greatest examples of an artist enjoying Top 40 success while luxuriating in her own eccentricities. Playing a futurist Fairlight CMI synthesizer and singing in an ecstatic operatic chirp, she muses about Freudian psychology, career challenges, love and family, dreaming sheep, and waking witches. Side One had hits like “Running Up That Hill” and “Cloudbusting”; Side Two was an epic “story suite,” moving from goth terror to sci-fi abstraction to dark rustic revelry. It’s no wonder Björk, Florence Welch, and Mitski are just a few of the artists who’ve been swept up in Bush’s sensual world.

Errr - who's Mitski?  Anyway, on to more important matters.  Despite a lot of evidence to the contrary, I'm not a complete monster - I am very much aware of this album and I like it a lot.  But, it's definitely a game of two halves - the "Hounds Of Love" half, which I love and listen to a lot and the "The Ninth Wave" half, which I never listen to, because I just get stuck on "Cloudbusting".  So we're going to resolve that now, just after I listen to "Cloudbusting" a couple of more times - "I still dream of Orgonon"...

And, it won't surprise you to hear that the "Hounds Of Love" half is still fantastic - you can probably guess my favourite track, but they're all great really with lots of layers and complex sounds across all of the tracks and just the right level of quirk ("It's in the trees - it's coming!").  But how did "The Ninth Wave" do?  I was actually more familiar with it than I was expecting - I've obviously got beyond "Cloudbusting" more often than I remember.  It's quirkier and more challenging than the first half with even more layers and complex sounds (sounding particularly fine over headphones), but as a result I think it's more immersive - it feels like it flows better and takes you along with it, although exactly where you end up is unclear.  I think there's not a lot of point in over-analysing Kate Bush, you're only going to end up with a hurty head and no answers - just enjoy the journey.

The Wikipedia entry for the album isn't nearly as interesting as I was expecting it to be - basically it's "Kate made an album".  Although I did learn that the album launch party was held at the London Planetarium - they played the album accompanied by a laser show.  Cool!  It also makes the point that it wasn't nearly as well received in the US as it was in the UK - both by the critics and the record-buying public, being one of the very few albums on this list which sold more in the UK than in the US (1 million vs 200,000).  The critics loved it in the UK though - one quote was "If I were allowed to swear, I'd say that Hounds of Love is f***ing brilliant, but me mum won't let me".  Wikipedia also makes the completely obvious point (that had never occurred to me) that "The Ninth Wave" is prog rock - does that mean I'm going to have to stop being rude about it?!? (obviously not - exceptions are allowed!)

Her Wikipedia entry is lengthy, generally quite serious and very much in love with Kate (and why shouldn't it be?).  It makes the point that she has collaborated with a lot of well known artists - "Artists who have contributed to Bush's own albums include Elton John, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, David Gilmour, Nigel Kennedy, Gary Brooker, Danny Thompson, and Prince" - but none of those collaborations will top this for downright strangeness.  We obviously can't let things pass without mentioning her slightly impressive work with Peter Gabriel ("Games Without Frontiers" and "Don't Give Up") but I'm also a fan of her work on Big Country's "The Seer".

"Customers also listened to" that bizarre mix-up we only see for 80s artists - Talk Talk (their "best of" is definitely one of the better ones out there), ABC, Prefab Sprout, Bronski Beat and Shakespears Sister (that's a good album that I've not heard in years).  But Kate holds her own place in many people's hearts and all her albums are interesting (to varying degrees), but I suspect this one is a lot of people's favourite - including me and it's always a pleasure to revisit it

So - three first time visits on this list, which seems surprising given how far up the list we are (although I'm not even going to try and count how often we've met members of N.W.A before).  I liked Jagged Little Pill more than I was expecting to, but you're not seriously expecting me to give this to anyone other than Kate, are you?!?

#73-71 - Three one word album titles
#67-65 - Three second visits