Don't know what I want, but I know how to get it
Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time...
#82 : There's A Riot Goin' On - Sly And The Family Stone (1971)
This highly anticipated studio follow-up to Sly and the Family Stone’s 1969 blast of hope, Stand!, was the grim, exact opposite: implosive, numbing, darkly self-referential. Sly Stone’s voice is an exhausted grumble; the funk in “Family Affair,” “Runnin’ Away,” and especially the closing downward spiral, “Thank You for Talkin’ to Me Africa,” is spare and bleak, fiercely compelling in its anguish over the unfulfilled promises of civil rights and hippie counterculture. “It is Muzak with its finger on the trigger,” wrote critic Greil Marcus in Mystery Train. Take that as a recommendation.
Our third trip with Sly and his family (although the first one was a greatest hits, so is obviously to be ignored) and last time I didn't mind it, but Wikipedia did warn me it started to go wrong after that album, so let's see, eh? (although the presence of "Family Affair" here has to provide some optimism). Overall, I'd say Wikipedia's fears weren't quite borne out - it's darker but generally fine, maybe a bit noodley and lacking in focus in places (although it's possible that's the general idea). "Family Affair" would be the highpoint for me and the rest of it is generally OK, if not particularly memorable - but I'm really not convinced I needed the yodelling on "Spaced Cowboy" though. It's a cool album cover though - and I'm surprised there wasn't more controversy around it given how much they like their flag over there.
Wikipedia has both a lot and very little to say about the album - the record label were worried whether they were going to see anything because of Sly's heavy involvement with both drugs (which meant he was missing a third of their gigs) and the Black Panthers (he was told to sack the white members of the group). But, the record turned up and got to #1, so they were happy in the end. The critics weren't convinced at the time but, of course, given its success and increasing influence they're now convinced it's a classic. The band's entry confirms that things got steadily worse after this album - in 1972, Larry Graham (the bassist, credited with inventing "slapping") had to leave the band after some of Sly's entourage heard a rumour he'd hired a hitman to kill Sly, so they attacked his entourage which resulted in him having to escape through a hotel window. An interesting day at the office then...
"Customers also listened to" Curtis and George - no surprises there. Their over-the-top funkiness is somewhat dialled back here which means I preferred it to most of their stuff, but there also wasn't a lot to draw me back to it.
#81 : BEYONCÉ - Beyoncé (2013)
“I didn’t want to release my music the way I’ve done it,” Beyoncé said. “I am bored with that.” So she dropped her self-titled album on an unsuspecting world at the end of 2013, without a word of warning. Her fifth solo album, Beyoncé showed off her musical scope and feminist outreach, but it was also a visual album with a film for each song, shot around the world: New York, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, and of course, her native Houston. She had high-profile collabs: “Superpower” with Frank Ocean, “Mine” with Drake, “Flawless” with Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “Drunk in Love” with her husband, Jay-Z. But Beyoncé proved that nobody else was on her level.
This is our first visit with solo Beyoncé on the list and I generally like most of the stuff she has done over the years, but I think the only album I've listened to is Lemonade - which I listened to once and liked, but never went back to. So I was interested to listen to this - I was generally expecting something pretty smooth and pretty cool. And pretty smooth and pretty cool is what it is - it's a very clear sound (it sounded very fine through headphones) with some classy vocals and, for a very pleasant change, some spoken word sections that seem to make some kind of sense (and aren't trying to be funny) - Adichie's speech on "Flawless" is particularly good. The quality bar seemed pretty high throughout - I think "Pretty Hurts" stood out most for me, but that's probably just because it's the opening track. This is very high on the re-listen list for me - and at some point soon I think I'm going to have to switch over to giving every album a couple of listens in order to say a bit more than "it seemed good but I can't remember any more than that".
Wikipedia has a lot to say about the album, but it's particularly fascinated about the release strategy - the whole "let's surprise everyone with an album and a load of related video" thing BLOWS THEIR MIND! There's even an entry for the term "surprise album" - In Rainbows by Radiohead is credited as being the first one but they gave ten day's notice, whereas Beyoncé just put the album on iTunes at midnight on a Thursday, which even I agree is a step up in terms of the surprise. She shifted 5 million copies of the thing though, so I guess people liked the surprise. But it only got to #2 in the UK - kept off the top by Ellie Goulding's Halycon which I'd have to say somewhat passed me by at the time, so I was somewhat surprised to see it's spent 142 weeks in the album charts, including 3 weeks at #1.
Now, I wonder if Wikipedia has anything to say about Beyoncé? Nah, not really - that's a shame.
"Customers also listened to" Destiny's Child (I wonder why?), Rihanna, Janelle Monae and Nicki Minaj - some ladies with proper attitude there. I was expecting to like this and did but suspect I could grow to like it a lot more - she's an impressive lady.
#80 : Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols - The Sex Pistols (1977)
“If the sessions had gone the way I wanted, it would have been unlistenable for most people,” Johnny Rotten said. “I guess it’s the very nature of music: If you want people to listen, you’re going to have to compromise.” But few heard it that way at the time. The Pistols’ only studio album sounds like a rejection of everything rock & roll — and the world itself — had to offer. True, the music was less shocking than Rotten himself, who sang about abortions, anarchy, and hatred on “Bodies” and “Anarchy in the U.K.” But Never Mind the Bollocks is the Sermon on the Mount of U.K. punk — and its echoes are everywhere.
Being the tender age of 9 at the time, I never really understood The Pistols and punk in general (although I remember the amusingly covered up record sleeves in the shops so I wouldn't see the word "bollocks"). Now I'm the not quite so tender age of slightly more than 9, I better understand the cultural and social drivers that drove punk - but that doesn't mean I enjoy the music, and particularly not The Sex Pistols. But I've never listened to the whole album, so was "looking forward" to doing so. And well, I'd struggle to say I enjoyed it but there was more skill involved than I was expecting - I don't like John Lydon's vocal delivery, but there's little doubt that he's making the sound he and others want him to and it works well on "God Save The Queen" and "Anarchy In The UK". I can also imagine that seeing them live was an "experience" - although not one I expect I'd have enjoyed. I think my main gripe is the lack of variation between tracks - but I guess a punk aficionado would just tell me I just don't get it. Which is undoubtedly true.
Wikipedia tells me I very much don't get it - this is one of the finest albums ever made (errr - no it isn't). But there's some interesting stuff in there - the surprising levels of skill I mentioned appear to be entirely down to Steve Jones (who played both the guitar and bass, because Sid Vicious was completely unable to play bass, despite having been hired to do so) and Paul Cook (the drummer) who took the whole thing very seriously indeed. There's an amusing section on the band interacting with Queen in a neighbouring studio - Sid got physically thrown out by Freddie after trying (poorly) to insult him whereas Johnny was just awestruck by him. The most interesting section is on the obscenity case brought against a Nottingham record store manager for advertising the album, which Richard Branson then paid John Mortimer to defend - and they won with the verdict summary being "we hate you and really wanted to find a way that we could have made you lose, but we couldn't". Different times indeed.
The band's Wikipedia entry is, as expected, full of incident. For those of you not aware of "the Grundy incident", check it out here (featuring a very young Siouxsie Sioux) - it's hard to imagine how anyone thought it was going to end well. And it didn't - for Bill Grundy, anyway. It's also amusing to read the reasons given for Glen Matlock leaving the band - he liked the Beatles, didn't look like a Sex Pistol, was always washing his feet and his mum didn't like the songs. Definitely not rock and roll material, although he did return when Sid somewhat inconveniently overdosed on heroin whilst awaiting a murder trial - all the stuff on Sid is really rather sad, if somewhat compelling. All in all, it's an interesting read and never dull.
"Customers also listened to" The Clash (I'd have been amazed if they hadn't been there), Ramones, The Buzzcocks and Dead Kennedys (the latter two having been somewhat discarded by history compared to other bands from around that time). It's very much of its time, not for me and there's no chance of me listening to it again, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be and the related Wikipedia entries were a fascinating read.
I can't give this round to Sly - I only "didn't mind" it and whilst it might have been culturally relevant at the time, it's relevance just passed me by now, I'm afraid. Which brings us back to chalk and cheese again, but this time we have one album I enjoyed and very much want to listen to again and one I didn't entirely hate, but have no intention of listening to again. However, I think even the keenest of Beyoncé fans would struggle to argue her album had the cultural and musical impact that the Sex Pistols album had (even if it all it did for me was give me a giggle at obscured album covers). So, what do we mean by "great" and what's the point to declaring a "winner"? I mean, why I am even doing this?!? Answers on a postcard please - but in the meantime, I'm quite happy to declare another tie as long as you understand that I did not like The Sex Pistols album (although I also didn't hate it as much as I was expecting to).
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