When you believe in things that you don't understand then you suffer

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

#61 : Paid In Full - Eric B. & Rakim (1987)

Ice-grilled, laid-back, diamond-sharp: Rakim was the Eighties’ greatest rapper, and this album is the record that cemented his legend. Paid in Full was one of the first hip-hop records to fully embrace Seventies funk samples on stone hip-hop classics such as “I Know You Got Soul” and “I Ain’t No Joke.” With a stark, chill declamatory flow that broke from the singsong-y style of most rapping at the time, Rakim moved hip-hop from stories about the world of the hood to ones about the mind (“I start to think and then I sink/Into the paper like I was ink”). Eric B. built the title track out of a luscious sampled bass line, and Rakim recounted days of poverty when he had “nothin’ but sweat inside my hand,” a problem solved by this debut’s platinum success.

Not an album I'd heard before, but I was aware of "I Know You Got Soul" - I don't mind it, but couldn't go much crazier than that about it.  I think it's fair to say I was expecting a historical curiosity, but not much more.  And that's pretty much where we were - it sounds very dated now, although I'd disagree with Rolling Stone and say it's a strange mix of "stark, chill declamatory flow" and "singsong-y style". Some of it sounds a bit like a growly early Will Smith, whereas some of it is very much more challenging.  In particular, "Eric B Is On The Cut" is a very odd track - all scratching and beat and no vocals.  The one historical aspect I did like was spotting bits that were sampled in later tracks - the internet tells me there are countless examples, but two that stood out for me are "I Know You Got Soul" providing the title line to MARRS' "Pump Up The Volume" and "As The Rhyme Goes On" strongly influencing Eminem's "The Way I Am".  The album cover is also amusingly of its time!

Wikipedia makes the point that it's a very influential album as opposed to wildly successful, although it did manage to shift a million copies.  It was recorded in a week - impressive compared with time some of the behemoths on this list have taken to produce.  Apparently Rakim "pioneered the use of internal rhymes in hip hop" - I bet you didn't know that now, did you?  All the rest of the album's entry bangs on about how many people love it and most of their entry bangs on about how influential they were and I can quite believe that it & they seemed refreshingly different back in the day.  But I don't have enough knowledge to either confirm or deny this state of affairs so I'm happy to give them their spot on the list, but can't imagine any scenario where I'd ever listen to it again.

"Customers also listened to" Public Enemy, Run-DMC and Big Daddy Kane - I assume the latter is in a similar old school hip-hop vein to the other two, but I must declare my ignorance in this matter.  An interesting listen from a historical viewpoint, but not one I'll be revisiting I'm afraid.

#60 : Astral Weeks - Van Morrison (1968)

Astral Weeks was the sound of sweet relief. Van Morrison was newly signed to artist-friendly Warner Bros., after a rough ride with his previous U.S. label, Bang, when he made Astral Weeks in the summer of 1968. He used the opportunity to explore the physical and dramatic range of his voice in his extended poetic-scat singing, setting hallucinatory reveries about his native Belfast (the daydream memoir “Cypress Avenue,” the hypnotic portrait of “Madame George”) to wandering melodies connecting the earthy poetry in Celtic folk and American R&B. The crowning touch was a superior jazz quartet, who recorded their basic backing tracks in one three-hour session, without any instruction from Morrison on what he wanted or what the lyrics meant.

Another album from a year with a track record of very fine output - it being 4 months younger than me.  I had listened to this album a few times back in the day, but not in a long time - I remembered it as being somewhat like what he gave us last time, with a bit less focus (which I seem to recall annoyed me somewhat).  My initial attempt to listen to it got off to a somewhat rocky start because I was finding it all very same-y - until I realised Amazon was playing me the title song on repeat rather than playing the album.  But once we got over that,  I'd say the songs are "fine" - there's a nice poetry to them, but they feel a bit aimless in places which soon begins to add up over the course of a whole album.  I think if you're in the mood for some directionless Celtic noodlery, then it's probably your one-stop shop - but that seems like the kind of mood that doesn't come around all that often.  I did like the sound of the band though - even more so having read the description above.

The Wikipedia entry for the album is "interesting" to say the least - the description above talks about "a rough ride" with Bang Records, but that ain't the half of it.  He was in middle of "creative difficulties" regarding his next album with the head of Bang Records, who had a congenital heart defect, which resulted in him having a fatal heart attack.  His widow blamed Van for his death, so consequently prevented him from going into a recording studio or playing live and tried to have him deported.  Warner Brothers managed to partially release him from this contract but he had to give Bang Records three original compositions a month for a year as recompense - so he went into the studio and recorded 36 nonsense songs in one sitting (and these were released in 1997 for the Van completists out there!).  And all this happened before the album was even started - the rest is pretty dull in comparison.  The album wasn't well received upon release - being most ignored in the UK completely.  But, of course, all the critics agreed it's now way better than sliced bread.

His Wikipedia entry is still lengthy, but unfortunately he's still being an arse about Covid, so I'm going to ignore it.  "Customers also listened to" Dylan, Young, The Band and Jackson Browne - the latter being a curious omission from this list given how often his albums pop up in this section (but since I don't think I've ever heard a Jackson Browne album, I can't comment any further).  I didn't mind this album, but it was a bit meandering for me - I'll stick with Moondance as my Van Morrison go-to album.

#59 : Talking Book - Stevie Wonder (1972)

“I don’t think you know where I’m coming from,” Wonder warned Motown executives in 1971. “I don’t think you can understand it.” Indeed, the two albums Wonder released in 1972 — Music of My Mind and Talking Book — rewrote the rules of the Motown hit factory. Talking Book was full of introspection and social commentary, with Wonder producing, writing, and playing most of the instruments himself. “Superstition” and “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” were Number One singles; “Big Brother” is political consciousness draped in a light melody: “You’ve killed all our leaders/I don’t even have to do nothin’ to you/You’ll cause your own country to fall.”

So he wrote it, performed it and produced it?  And this was one of two albums he released this year, you say?  I guess he's a bit talented then - although I wasn't overly impressed with the other album when I listened to it.  From this one, I was only aware of "Superstition" and "You Are The Sunshine..." so didn't really have any other expectations than some more of that.  And it kinda is, but at the same time, isn't quite - there are some more challenging tracks in there (he sometimes seems to be playing "unusual" notes, but it still somehow sounds OK) and some of them feel a bit noodley, but unlike Van, you believe that Stevie is making the noise he's always intended to.  I get the impression if I was more musical, I'd appreciate it more - but I'm not, so we are where we are.  However, "Superstition" is a fantastic track - he's another random artist I've seen live and the version he did of that track was just great.  I also liked "I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)" which wasn't a track I previously knew.

Wikipedia tells me this was his 15th album - he was the ripe old age of 22, after all.  It was also released after he toured with The Rolling Stones - there must have been some very fine concerts on that tour.  Apart from that, it doesn't have a lot to say about the album other than noting it was well-received and people considered it more mature than his previous work.  His Wikipedia entry is huge but that's going to happen when you've been in the music business for 60 years - and he's still only 71, so he's got at least another 20 years to appear on Later With Jools, because they do love an older dude on there.  He's the only artist to win the Album Of The Year Grammy with 3 consecutive releases (amongst his 26 Grammys in total) - we still have two of them to come, with the other one being nowhere to be seen and I'd never even heard of it, so I assume it's dated badly.  Wikipedia also tells us he's had 9 children with 5 women and it doesn't know the names of one of the women and one of the children - and you can tell it just kills them to have to admit this!

"Customers also listened to" all them male Motown artists, most of whom we've met on this list and will often meet again.  Overall, this didn't quite push the buttons I was expecting - I enjoyed it enough, but feel it's unlikely I'll be drawn back to it and am hoping for more from his remaining two entries on the list.

Three albums which were interesting enough yet not quite up my street - Stevie does enough to win the round with "Superstition" alone for me but I think it unlikely I'll be revisiting any of them.

#64-62 - A very mixed bunch
#58-56 - Two albums I'd never heard of.  And one everyone has.