Stayed in bed all morning just to pass the time

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

...hmmm - two albums from a couple of ladies from a similar era, but that's about where the similarities end, I believe.  But I am unable to comment any further because I know one album very well and like it, whereas the other one I've never listened to.  And it will probably not surprise you to learn that Tapestry is the one I'm familiar with - and Patti is going to have to pull something special out of the bag to beat it.

#26 : Horses - Patti Smith (1975)

From its first defiant line, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine,” the opening shot in a bold reinvention of Van Morrison’s garage-rock classic “Gloria,” Patti Smith’s debut album was a declaration of mutiny, a statement of faith in the transfigurative powers of rock & roll. Horses made her the queen of punk (her CBGB buddy Tom Verlaine of Television co-wrote the Jim Morrison tribute “Break It Up”), but Smith cared more for the poetry in rock. She sought the visions and passions that connected Keith Richards and Rimbaud — and found them, with the intuitive assistance of a killer band (pianist Richard Sohl, guitarist Lenny Kaye, bassist Ivan Kral, and drummer Jay Dee Daugherty) and her friend Robert Mapplethorpe, who shot the cover portrait.  “The real thing,” Smith later said, “was to keep rock & roll in the hands of the people.”

The only thing I know about this album is that it was ALWAYS in the Our Price bargain bins and I was never once tempted to buy it.  I was imagining it to be quite challenging, but not the unpleasant levels of Velvet Underground challenging.  Or maybe I was just hoping for that.  However, having to listened to it, I liked it - it's not as challenging as I feared, and whilst it's not something I'm going to go mad on after a couple of listens, I suspect I could grow to like it a lot if I put the effort in, which I'd like to do.  Someone who did go mad on it is PJ Harvey - big time.  And I suspect Courtney Love might have listened to it a couple of times as well.  And Debbie, Chrissie, David Byrne and a lot of singers further on down the line.  And, in turn, I suspect Patti listened to a few Janis Joplin albums in her time.

I particularly liked her voice and thought the backing band was good - much tighter than I was expecting.  As Rolling Stone notes, the album does indeed have a great opening line but all the tracks are pretty good and surprisingly varied - I'm not sure I can pick out highlights yet, but I did find "Birdland" quite poetic (although at over 9 minutes, possibly too poetic).  I also feel the need to type "Land:Horses/Land Of A Thousand Dances/La Mer(de)" as a particularly unwieldy song title for a lengthy (9:26) song which I didn't actually tire of.  And finally, I liked "Elegie" as an elegant (and thankfully short) exit to the album.  PJ Harvey is definitely the touchpoint for me here - if you like her stuff and haven't heard this, then you probably should.

Wikipedia mentions that the production of the album was "interesting" - the band were popular on the NY live scene, but had broken instruments and no experience of recording, so John Cale (ex of Velvet Underground) had a big job on his hands and there were lots of arguments, including a physical altercation between the two guest musicians on the album.  In the short term, Cale got absolutely no thanks for his efforts but 20 years later Patti did admit that maybe, just maybe, she didn't make things easy for him.  The rest of the album's entry is all about how influential it is - it mentions PJ Harvey and Hole as being strongly influenced by the album, but also mentions R.E.M. and The Smiths, neither of which I picked up on massively.  I can see her vocal delivery influencing Michael Stipe on some songs, but don't really hear much more than that - something to listen out for next time, I guess.  Sales for the album have apparently never been great but for some weird reason it decides to give us the UK sales since 1993, which doesn't seem to be a massively relevant number to me.  It does, however, have one of the coolest and most iconic album covers we've seen on the list so far.

Her Wikipedia entry tells us that she knows a lot of people in the music business and beyond - the girl must have a very full phone.  She's obviously an exceptional talent magnet - she moved to New York in 1967 and pretty much the first person she bumped into was Robert Mapplethorpe (before he'd even taken a single photograph).  They had "an intense romantic relationship, which was tumultuous as the pair struggled with times of poverty, and Mapplethorpe with his own sexuality" (just possibly on account on him being one of the gayest men who's ever lived).  She pretty much retired for the 80s, got married (to a Mr Smith!), moved to Detroit and had kids (one of whom is married to Meg White from the White Stripes).  Her husband died of a heart attack in 1994 and she was tempted out of retirement by her good friends Michael Stipe and Allen Ginsburg - and since then she's kept her hand in with various very artsy activities.  She's had an interesting life and no mistake!

"Customers also listened to" Janis Joplin, Lou Reed, Velvet Underground, Television and PJ Harvey - no-one was straying too far from the fold there.  But whereas I've not particularly enjoyed (or absolutely hated) many of those artists' albums on this list, I really liked this one and will be making an effort to revisit it.

#25 : Tapestry - Carole King (1971)

For a decade, Carole King wrote pop songs with her then-husband, Gerry Goffin: hits such as Little Eva’s “The Loco-Motion” (Eva Boyd was the couple’s babysitter) and the Monkees’ “Pleasant Valley Sunday.” Then King’s friend James Taylor encouraged her to sing her own tunes. “He just made it look so easy,” she recalled. “So I did Tapestry in the same spirit.” She slowed down “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” (originally a hit for the Shirelles in 1961), with Taylor and Joni Mitchell on background vocals, heightening the melancholy inside, while her warm, earnest singing brought out the sadness in “It’s Too Late” and the earthy joy on “I Feel the Earth Move.” As King later recalled, “I wasn’t in the same league vocally with Aretha Franklin, Joni Mitchell, Barbara Streisand. But I knew how to convey the mood and emotion of a song with honest, straight-from-the-heart interpretation.” The resulting collection of songs saw King remake herself as an artist and became one of the biggest-selling albums of all time, creating the reigning model for the 1970s female singer-songwriter.

The Rolling Stone descriptions are getting longer, aren't they?  They're not making any more sense though - although this is one of the better ones, because it does at least give you some clue what it's on about.  I like this album - I couldn't tell you how I came to hear it, but it was a long time ago and whilst I don't play it often, I always enjoy revisiting it (and did so again).

All the tracks are, at the very least, fine tracks - as the description above says, she's not in the premier league of singers, but I think she brings a natural quality and more emotion to the lyrics than some of her more technically gifted colleagues.  This is possibly most true on "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" - her "normal" voice conveys the joy in the lyrics more than some of the (many) other versions.  As an aside, this is our third visit with that track on this list (after Aretha and Mary J) - I don't remember any other tracks that we've heard that many times.  The other highlights for me are "I Feel The Earth Move" (and yes, I knew Martika's marvellously 80s version first), "It's Too Late" (where she balances regret and acceptance very well), "You've Got A Friend", "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?" (none too shabby backing singers) and "Smackwater Jack" (which I always think I'm going hate, but then instantly find myself singing along).  But, to be honest, the rest of the tracks all pootle along nicely - none of this album is challenging but sometimes that's just what you need.  Nice songs, sung nicely - yes, I'm sure some people think it's bland, but obviously they're just philistines so if you've not heard this, then do your ears a favour and check it out.

Wikipedia has remarkably little to say about the album - particularly if you compare it with the entries for either of the albums in the previous round.  The main item of interest I took away from it is that the her cat (as seen on the album cover) was called Telemachus, which seems an extremely songwriter-y thing to do.  Apart from that, the first two paragraphs basically say "she wrote it" and "she recorded it" and the rest of the entry is "people liked it".  She won the Grammys for Album, Record and Song of the year and sold like a gazillion copies.  It has the second longest run in the US album charts - 313 weeks, which is only slightly behind the 724 weeks for DSOTM.  Bizarrely, it only got to #4 in the UK charts - kept off the top by Top Of The Pops Vol 18, which was one of those weird cover albums (because it was before the days of Now! albums) with a particularly bizarre tracklisting (including "Get It On", "Me And You And A Dog Name Boo", "Won't Get Fooled Again" and "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep").  Heading swiftly back to the album, I'd have to say the "Legacy" section is particularly poor - I'm guessing she just doesn't inspire Wiki-fanatics in the way that other singers and genres do, which is a shame because for many people this is still a much-loved album after 50 years.

Her entry is somewhat fuller but not particularly well put together, although liberally sprinkled with interesting facts if you make the effort to read it.  I think this was my favourite though, just because it seems so unlikely "Bruce Springsteen showed up in person at the Beacon Theatre, New York on March 7, 1976 to sing "The Loco-Motion" with Carole for the night's final encore" - it's also amusing when you think that was 45 years ago!  The other thing I noted is that all pictures of Carole have her with a massive smile - except for the cover of Tapestry, obviously.

"Customers also listen to" James Taylor, Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell and Don McLean - no major surprises there (unless you consider the absence of American Pie from this list).  I like this album though and, whilst it is very much of its time, I also think it's aged well and has some timeless songs on it.

Firstly, let me say it's been an absolute pleasure to have a round with two ladies in, both of whom have lived fascinating lives and are still very much doing their thang well into their 70s.  It was also a joy to listen to Horses - Patti did indeed pull something special out, I really think I could grow to love it and she would have won plenty of previous (and probably subsequent) rounds, despite it being a first-time visit.  But, unfortunately for her, she came up against an absolutely classic album, so she will have to be happy with second place - and well done to Carole.

#28-27 - Not the finest round for me
#25 - An album no-one's ever heard of