She's got a smile that it seems to me reminds me of childhood memories

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

#64 : Stankonia - Outkast (2000)

There’s a thrilling sprawl on OutKast’s fourth album, a sense of limitless possibilities within the boundaries of hip-hop. Big Boi and André 3000 rap about baby mamas’ mamas (“Ms. Jackson”), the perils of sex (“We Luv Deez Hoez”) and alcohol (“?”), feeling excluded from the American dream (“Gasoline Dreams”), good manners (“I’ll Call Before I Come”), and the trauma of teen pregnancy (“Toilet Tisha”). The music is sexy, bold, and hard, mixing, on “B.O.B.,” distorted metal guitar, an HBCU gospel choir, and a jittery techno beat. Big Boi says OutKast is “cooler than a polar bear’s toenails,” adds that they’re “just lyrically twerking,” and tells the police, “Officer, get off us, sir.” “We call it slumadelic,” said André 3000.

Our second (but not our last) visit with Outkast and last time I was somewhat perplexed by it all - and considered it unlikely this was going to change my opinion.  And yeah, I still don't really see the appeal - you couldn't accuse them of going for the obvious and there is definitely some skill involved, but where Rolling Stone opts for "thrilling sprawl", I'd opt for "sprawling mess".  I don't hate it, but I don't get the point to it - yes, I'm quite prepared to accept the problem lies with me, but it's a problem I can solve quite easily by never listening to it again.  And seriously, who calls a song "?"?  And 73 minutes long as well, sigh.  I'm not sure exactly what sort of person would like this sort of thing, but I can assure you it's not someone like me.  

Wikipedia tells me that record critics are EXACTLY the sort of people that like this sort of thing - closely followed by 4 million people in the US.  It only got to #2 in the charts over there though (kept off the top by Jay-Z) and was their third album in a row to peak at that position - but the follow-up, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, made it to #1.  It makes the point that this album was a reaction to hip-hop not moving with the times and was one of the first to embrace rave culture - I can't comment on whether this is the case, but can understand it may well have contributed to its popularity.  It also makes the point that Outkast (unlike many of their contemporaries) consider women to be, I don't know, maybe people who have, I don't know, maybe feelings - this was something I picked up on when listening to the album and they deserve a lot of credit for this (but only if you consider women to be people who have feelings, I guess).

Outkast's Wikipedia entry is a lengthy and interesting read, although I'm not entirely sure I understood a lot of it - they make an interesting pair though.  The section entitled "Lawsuit" is interesting because they were sued by, of all people, Rosa Parks, who never came across as the litigious type.  The reason for this is that they released a single called (go, on guess) "Rosa Parks" - which had pretty much nothing to do with her, but used the metaphor of moving to the back of the bus to suggest that Outkast were overturning the old order of hip-hop and people had to make way for them.  They initially won the case, but Parks' lawyer appealed on the grounds that "the song had nothing to do with her" - which seem somewhat flimsy grounds to me.  And whilst this was going on, just to make things even more complicated, Rosa's family then took her lawyers to court on the grounds that this was all nonsense, nothing to do with Rosa and just lawyers trying to make money.  God help you if you ever get sued in the US - but Rosa and Outkast came out of the situation looking good in the end.

"Customers also listened to" a mixture of them hippy-hoppy types, most of whom are more mainstream than Outkast.  At the minute I'm of the opinion that, whilst I don't hate their music, they and this album are an acquired taste which I have not yet, and don't expect to, acquire.  Although this situation may change in 15 albums time...

#63 : Aja - Steely Dan (1977)

If you were an audiophile in the late Seventies, you owned Aja. Steely Dan’s sixth album is easy on the ears, thanks to both its meticulous production and its songs — this was Walter Becker and Donald Fagen’s no-holds-barred stab at becoming a huge mainstream jazz-pop success. And sure enough, thanks to sweet, slippery tracks like “Deacon Blues” and “Peg,” this collegiate band with a name plucked from a William Burroughs novel and a songbook full of smart, cynical lyrics became bona fide superstars, shooting to the Top Five and selling platinum. And, yes, Aja even won a Grammy for Best Engineered Album.

Our second (and last) visit with Messrs Becker and Fagen and last time I went completely overboard with the praise and declared it to be "perfectly passable" - my expectations were similar this time around, although I can't say I recognised any of the songs from their titles.  And, unfortunately, my expectations were not met.  It is indeed a meticulously produced album (I felt I had to listen to it through headphones after the description above) - but it's also incredibly dull.  All very smooth dullness, but nonetheless very dull smoothness.  It seems to be the very definition of yacht rock, so I can believe it went down very well in the US, but not so much over here - possibly on account of the weather not generally being so great for lounging around on yachts.  "Peg" annoyed me because I couldn't remember the track that sampled the saxophone tootery - I had to cheat and resort to letting Google tell me it was "Eye Know" by De La Soul.  If you like Christopher Cross and Foreigner but find them a bit too exciting, then check this out - otherwise, avoid.

Wikipedia tells me the title is pronounced "Asia" and confirms that it's of a very high standard both technically and sonically.  It then provides absolute no details around either aspect - the only other fact of any interest is that the master tapes have been lost, so things are as good as they're going to get on that front.  The album was well received though - top 5 in both the UK and the US with over 2 million copies sold.  And I've still no idea why.  The band's Wikipedia entry is somewhat odd and includes a very specific section breaking down the music and lyrics of Steely Dan songs - which is probably interesting for about, oooh, 3 or 4 people worldwide.  It also includes the following bizarre statement "Steely Dan disbanded in June 1981. Becker and his family moved to Maui, where he became an "avocado rancher and self-styled critic of the contemporary scene".  They got back together in 1983 though, and kept going until Becker's death in 2017, but Fagen is still keeping the flag flying.

"Customers also listened to" The Doobie Brothers, Peter Frampton and Boz Scaggs - none of whom I really know much about and, on the strength of this album, I will be avoiding.

#62 : Appetite For Destruction - Guns'N'Roses (1987)

The biggest-selling debut album of the Eighties, Appetite hit the metal scene like an asteroid, bringing the grit and fury of Seventies rock back to a mainstream hard-rock scene that was starved for something real. Indiana-bred Axl Rose’s five-alarm yowl bowled over listeners. Guitarist Slash gave the band blues emotion and punk energy, while the rhythm section brought the funk on hits such as “Welcome to the Jungle.” When all the elements came together, as in the final two minutes of “Paradise City,” GN’R left all other Eighties metal bands in the dust, and they knew it, too. “A lot of rock bands are too fucking wimpy to have any sentiment or any emotion,” Rose said. “Unless they’re in pain.”

Well, GNR are going to have come up with something pretty terrible not to win this round, aren't they?  I'm not a huge fan of theirs, but if I had to pick one era where I find them mostly bearable it would be this one - before they (or more accurately, Axl) started to believe the hype.  I don't remember ever having listened to the album, but the quality of singles is high and I was expecting more of the same.  And unsurprisingly, that's pretty much what was delivered.  I can't say that all the tracks are quite at the high quality level of "Welcome To The Jungle", "Paradise City" and (particularly) "Sweet Child O' Mine" but they're still perfectly fine if you like that sort of thing - I suspect I would love this album a lot more if it had come out 5 years earlier.  And was maybe 10 minutes shorter.  I also suspect there's not a lot more to say about the album - if you know and love the album, then you'll be writing to your MP complaining that I'm not praising it more and if you don't know or like the album, then you won't be about to (re-)listen to it, no matter what I say.

Wikipedia has a proper entry for the album, including lots of interesting but completely pointless facts.  Axl recorded his vocals a line at a time - which pissed everyone else off big time.  The two sides to the vinyl version are labelled G & R (I like things like that!).  The album nearly included "November Rain", but didn't because it already had one ballad on it.  The original artwork "depicted a robotic rapist about to be punished by a metal avenger", but for some weird reason, record shops didn't like it.  And one last one - the super deluxe edition of the remastered box set released in 2018 featured a "hidden cassette version", which makes you wonder how big the box was if you could hide a cassette in it.  Some more usual facts are that the album wasn't well received by the critics or noticed by the public on release until their manager managed to get MTV to play "Welcome To The Jungle" - at which point things rather took off and over 30 million copies were sold, making it the best selling debut album of all time.

The band's Wikipedia entry is also somewhat lengthy and features the odd tale of excess, but I'm going with a reasonably banal fact that I never knew - they are called Guns'N'Roses because they were formed from members from two other bands - L.A. Guns and Hollywood Rose.  Apparently, "rejected names for the band included "Heads of Amazon" and "AIDS"", so I think we can say they probably made the right decision.  The rest of the entry is well worth a read if you think your life is a bit boring - you'll be very satisfied with how boring you are it by the end of it.

"Customers also listened to" Van Halen, Whitesnake, Bon Jovi, yada, yada, yada.  I liked this album more than I was expecting to (I suspect there would have been complaints if I'd hated it!) - I don't think I'd put it on again very often, but there would be times I'd be in the mood for it.  And "Sweet Child O' Mine" really is a very fine track indeed.

I can't say they'd have struck me as easy winners when starting this exercise, but GNR are a long way ahead of the competition here for me, so well done to Axl and the boys.

#67-65 - Three second visits
#61-59 - Some amusingly dated album covers