I don't think there is nothing I can do now to right my wrongs

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

#76 : Super Fly - Curtis Mayfield (1972)

Isaac Hayes’ Shaft came first — but that record had one great single and a lot of instrumental filler. It was Curtis Mayfield who made a blaxploitation-film soundtrack album that packed more drama than the movie it accompanied. Musically, Superfly is astonishing, marrying lush string parts to deep bass grooves, with lots of wah-wah guitar. On top, Mayfield sings in his world-wise falsetto, narrating the bleak tales of “Pusherman” and “Freddie’s Dead,” telling hard truths about the drug trade and black life in the 1970s. “I don’t take credit for everything I write,” Mayfield said. “I only look upon my writings as interpretations of how the majority of people around me feel.”

I had absolutely no idea what to expect from this, but it came from Curtis Mayfield who I liked last time way more than I was expecting (and he would have won many rounds, but was unlucky to come up against The Bends) so I had high hopes of enjoying it.  And yeah, it was similarly enjoyable - although the lyrical content is somewhat more world-weary this time around, the music is indeed very cool with, as Rolling Stone notes, "lots of wah-wah guitar".  I don't have a lot more to say about it, but it's certainly one of the finer examples of funk we've met on the list so far and hence, from my position of relative (ok, complete) ignorance of the genre, it justifies its lofty position.

Wikipedia gives us a fascinating fact - "Super Fly is one of the few soundtracks to out-gross the film it accompanied", which obviously sent me off down a rabbit hole to find more examples - the internet isn't massively helpful on this matter, but Shaft and The Harder They Come seem distinct possibilities, which I have at least heard of - unlike Pure Country by George Strait who starred in the film of the same name, which has the distinction of me never having heard of the album, film or artist, but he shifted 6 million copies of it!  Anyways, back to Super Fly - ah no, that's pretty much it other than that the record company weren't expecting the soundtrack to do well but it got to #1 in the US.  We covered him in some detail last time and he remains a righteous dude and much loved by other artists - as we are about to find out.

"Customers also listened to" Sly, George and Gil - no surprises there.  But I've found Curtis the best of the funky funksters on this list - I'm quite tempted to check out his greatest hits.  This album is a little bleak in places, but a fine listen.

#75 : Lady Soul - Aretha Franklin (1968)

Aretha Franklin’s third Atlantic album in less than two years is another classic, with “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” “Ain’t No Way,” and a slinky version of the Rascals’ “Groovin’.” It was a year of triumph and turbulence for Franklin: Although she made the cover of Time, the magazine reported details of her rocky marriage to Ted White, then her manager. But Franklin channeled that frenzy into performances of funky pride and magisterial hurt. Among the best: the grand-prayer treatment of Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready” and her explosive anguish on the hit “Chain of Fools.”

Our third (and penultimate) visit with Ms Franklin and she's generally impressed so far and, given some of the tracks listed above, there was no reason not to expect this trend to continue.  And yeah, it's a perfectly fine selection of songs delivered well - "Chain Of Fools", "People Get Ready" and "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" are all classics and the rest are hardly shabby (I'm quite tempted to seek out a bad Aretha album to see exactly how bad she can be - I'd imagine it would still be pretty passable).  No-one's going to listen to this album and get any surprises, but sometimes you know what you need and it's nice to have someone you can rely on to deliver it.

Wikipedia has remarkably little to say about the album, other than noting the presence of Eric Clapton on "Good To Me As I Am To You".  To make up for this, I did some more digging on "People Get Ready" because I knew it was a cover version but didn't realise it was written by Curtis (in his Impressions days).  The Wikipedia entry for the song is surprisingly short for such a culturally significant song, just casually mentioning in passing that "Martin Luther King Jr named the song the unofficial anthem of the Civil Rights Movement" which I guess is some kind of recommendation.  It's been covered by an impressive range of people - Bob Marley (and coincidentally, I listened to that version whilst writing this up), The Everly Brothers, Jeff Beck & Rod Stewart (which has the cheesiest video, but isn't too bad) and Bob Dylan (which is not so good).  We've covered Aretha's Wikipedia entry before - but I'll come back to it next time for some final Aretha-based goodness.

"Customers also listened to" all the soul names - and Sly, who I was slightly surprised to see on the list.  I think this is the best Aretha album we've had so far - it will be interesting to see what the next one is like.

#74 : The College Dropout - Kanye West (2004)

In 2003, Kanye West was a Chicago kid who’d produced some hot beats for Jay-Z, wore pastel polo shirts with the collars popped, and wanted to be on the mic, not behind it. Record labels were skeptical, but West got over on wit and determination; he wrote and sang the hit “Through the Wire” while his jaw was wired shut after being in a car accident, and followed it with more dynamic tracks, including “Slow Jamz,” about the seductive power of soul music, and the gospel riot “Jesus Walks.” West loved Jesus and strip clubs, made arrogant claims about his talent, and then professed his insecurity — which made his music all the richer.

Our FIFTH (and penultimate) visit with Mr West - yes, I know I've been rude about the frequency of his appearances on this list, but I would have to say the quality is improving - why, the last album almost deserved to be on the list.  Which brings us to this album, which I have to declare up front that I really like.  For some particularly unclear reason, it was originally bought by the very lovely Mrs Reed (my wife, not my mum!) - it's not really her usual cup of tea at all, but she's often to be heard singing along with young Kanye, self-censoring herself as she does (a trick the runs in the family since both daughters would be in BIG trouble if they sang all the words to some of the stuff they listen to).

There's a lot of intelligence, humour and (surprisingly) normality in evidence on the album both in the songs and the skits, which are generally around the theme of the value (or not) of a formal education - "When a lady walks up to me and says "Hey, you know what's sexy?" - no, I don't know what it is.  But I bet I can add up all the change in your purse very fast".  The better tracks for me ("All Falls Down", "Jesus Walks", "The New Workout Plan" and "Through The Wire") are also well spaced out throughout the album which was a criticism I had of his last entry in the list.  I would say he lets himself down right at the end - "Last Call" is an impressive stream-of-conscience narrative but I'm really not convinced we needed 12 minutes of minute detail about his record deal (in fact, I'm pretty convinced we don't need it).  The other thing to remember about this album is that when it came out, he really wasn't that annoying - it's soooo hard to imagine that now though.

Wikipedia confirmed something which I could only hope for and has made me very happy - "Jesus Walks" contains samples of "Walk with Me", performed by The ARC Choir and "(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going to Go", written and performed by CURTIS MAYFIELD".  I don't remember having found an artist involved in all three albums in a round so far, so well done to Curtis!  Wikipedia has a lot more to say about the album, but having read it, there is surprisingly little content in there - basically Kanye made an album and people liked it.  That and it is "credited for popularizing the chipmunk soul and conscious rap subgenres" - I bet you didn't know that now, did you?  Kanye's Wikipedia entry is too long and too earnest to extract useful snippets from, but it does bring home that he really had to fight to get his chance with this album, but I think we can safely say took his chance well.

"Customers also listened to" Lupe Fiasco, Twista and Cam'Ron - none of whom I know anything about, which somewhat surprised me.  I know Kanye has his knockers, but I think this is a great album and well worth a listen - and I'm interested to listen to the one left on the list, which I've somehow avoided so far.

Three fine albums, but this round is an easy win for Kanye for me.  However, Curtis deserves a special mention for managing to provide input to all three albums.

#79-77 - Three last calls
#73-71 - Three one word album titles