Who'll be my role model now that my role model is gone?
Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time...
#46 : Graceland - Paul Simon (1986)
Frustrated by the experience of writing good songs that didn’t come to life in the studio, Paul Simon set out “to make really good tracks,” as he later put it. “I thought, ‘I have enough songwriting technique that I can reverse this process and write this song after the tracks are made.’” Simon risked severe criticism by going to South Africa (then under apartheid) and working with the best musicians from the black townships. With the fluid energy and expertise of guitarist Ray Phiri and the vocal troupe Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Simon created an album about isolation and redemption that transcended world music to become the whole world’s soundtrack.
I am slightly aware of this album and I'll put the other albums in this round on notice now - you're going to have to go some to beat this. I'm not really sure what to write about the album - it doesn't really have any obvious contemporaries to compare it against. Rolling Stone's choice of the word "fluid" is a good one, with the unfamiliar (to me, at the time, anyway) rhythms and harmonies working exceptionally well together. There aren't any dud tracks - if I had to pick highlights I'd go for "You Can Call Me Al" (with the video doing him no harm at all introducing the album to the masses), "Under African Skies" (just beautiful harmonies), "Crazy Love, Vol. II" (and yes, there's no volume I) and "All Around The World Or The Myth Of The Fingerprints" (snappy title!). If, somehow, you haven't heard this album then you really should - it might not be your cup of tea, but you should really give your musical tastebuds a chance to find out.
Wikipedia has a lot to say about the album, but we've got to address the controversy that resulted from Simon basically completely ignoring the anti-apartheid cultural boycott of South Africa that was in place at the time. It got him into a lot of trouble with some very serious people - and even worse, it made Billy Bragg "sad". I can see that the boycott was in place for a good reason (apartheid is bad, kids) but I also struggle to see how recording some music is really such a bad thing. Some guy called Andrew Mueller wrote "Apartheid was of course a monstrosity, but it would be absurd to suggest that Simon's introduction of South Africa's music to the world prolonged it and quite plausible to suggest that it did some small amount to hasten its undoing" and that seems a pretty sensible viewpoint to me. However, he didn't do himself too many favours by including Linda Ronstadt on the album, fresh from her accepting $500k to play Sun City. Oops.
There's a lot of other interesting stuff in there, but the most interesting thing I found was from somewhere else - the (short) bass solo in "You Can Call Me Al" is actually the original (even shorter) solo as played by Bakithi Kumalo combined with a copy of it played backwards - which makes it impossible to play live apparently. The album did OK commercially - somewhere around 16 million copies sold globally. His Wikipedia entry is also quite lengthy - he comes across as a nice enough, but somewhat earnest fellow. I didn't know he was married to Edie Brickell though - hopefully she lightens his mood from time to time!
"Customers also listen to" Talking Heads, Dire Straits and Peter Gabriel - similar but different, I guess. So this is our 2.5th (and last) visit with Paul - which feels about right, but maybe he should have been allowed another 0.5 for Bookends or Live In Central Park (despite my general uncertainty about live albums on this list). But for me this is most definitely his crowning achievement.
#45 : Sign O' The Times - Prince (1987)
Oh Amazon, what have you done?!? I specifically searched for "sign o the times" because I obviously didn't want The Belle Stars track (which isn't a terrible track, but I wouldn't argue that it's dated well) - but it forced Harry Styles' "Sign Of The Times" on me instead. Although, Amazon music search isn't usually that good, so I was surprised it got so close. I've started this album several times, but never quite managed to finish it - it starts with the title track and, for me, struggles to maintain that high (or, to be more accurate, completely fails to maintain that high) - but I promise I'll stick with it this time...
...and I've made it! I still say it suffers with the strength of the opening title track, but it's mostly enjoyable with "U Got The Look" and "I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man" also particularly standing out for me (but probably because of familiarity) - "The Cross" was probably my favourite "new" track. Some of it reminds me of Outkast which was claimed to be so ahead of its time - but is approx 10 years after this and there's no denying that Prince is funkkkkkk-i-errrrr (although at times you are left wondering whether this is such a great thing). Some of it also reminded me of Stevie Wonder - which wasn't a comparison I was expecting, but seems reasonable when I think about it and probably came about from my greater exposure to Little Stevie as a result of this list. The album feels like it would either benefit or suffer from a repeat listen - either I'd grow to like it more or I'd get bored with all the quirk. Either that or I'd just listen to the title track repeatedly - let's not assume there's any chance of me actually learning anything from this exercise.
Wikipedia actually doesn't have a lot to say about the album - it was well received critically, although some critics thought the songs sounded like outtakes, which seemed harsh to me. It didn't do so well commercially, which somewhat surprised me because I seem to recall lots of people owning it (although looking at the numbers it did relatively well in the UK when compared with other countries). And that's pretty much all it has to say on the matter - which seems odd, particularly when compared with the next album's entry. Prince's entry is, of course, encyclopaedic and includes a fact I didn't know that surprised me - he played the guitar on Madonna's "Like A Prayer" (and probably a million other tracks as well). It also includes the following particularly bizarre sentence "In 2006, he was invited to dub the Prince XII cat in the film Garfield - A Tale Of Two Kitties, but gave up for unknown reasons and was replaced by the actor Tim Curry" - the mind boggles. He was a stellar talent though and is sorely missed by many.
"Customers also listened to" Janet Jackson, Tina Turner and George Michael - the usual slightly random selection from the 80s fans. And this was our third trip out of four for his purple majesty and I'd say this is the one I've enjoyed most so far, so I have high hopes for the next one - which, given it's in the top 10, is certainly higher than I was expecting it to be.
#44 : Illmatic - Nas (1994)
Other rappers were harder and brasher, but nobody captured the creeping menace of life on the streets like this 20-year-old from New York’s Queensbridge projects. With lines like “I never sleep, ’cause sleep is the cousin of death,” Nas showed more poetic style than any MC since Rakim. His debut begins with the sound of a subway train, and for the next 39 minutes, he seems to visit every street corner from Queens to Brooklyn, detailing drug deals, escapism, persecution, prison life, and survival. Throughout, he displays a pure focus (there’s only one guest verse) and explosive dexterity; it’s one thing to say “I drop the ancient manifested hip-hop,” as he does in the first verse of “Memory Lane,” it’s another to back that up with a stunning, acrobatic second verse. Illmatic was an instant classic that never crossed over, which only deepened its myth with hip-hop heads.
Our first and only visit with Nas on the list and I had no idea what to expect - if pushed to guess, I'd have gone for some seemingly average rap that I didn't mind but struggled to identify why it was so highly regarded. And yeah, that's pretty much where ended up - I'd say this is definitely bassier than average rap, but I'd struggle to say that makes it definitely better. I didn't mind his rap style (as much as I can differentiate between various people's styles) and the backing tracks are well put together but whether this should be at #4, #44, #444 or #4444, I really couldn't say. I was pleased it was only 40 minutes long though and even then it was starting to drag somewhat, although "It Ain't Hard To Tell", the closing track, was probably the one I enjoyed the most. Once again, I suspect my life so far has not really helped me understand the appeal of this album - and to be honest, I'm quite happy that things have turned out that way (but I'm sure that's also true for many of the people that bought it and declare it the best thing ever).
Lordy, Wikipedia has a LOT to say about this album (I think it's the third longest we've seen so far). Apparently it's not just hip-hop, it's groundbreaking intellectual poetry hip-hop and there is an awful lot of text stating exactly the same thing in a multitude of different ways - it's really more of an advert or a eulogy than a Wikipedia entry. Despite the critical adulation, it wasn't incredibly successful commercially at the time of release, but has gone on to sell over two million copies in the long run. Apparently many of his subsequent albums have sold better despite every critical review reading "well, obviously it's not as good as Illmatic".
Turning to his Wikipedia entry, I was very pleased to see a controversies section - who doesn't like a good hip-hop feud? His beef with Jay-Z is the most entertaining of the lot, with it having all started because Nas didn't turn up when Jay-Z invited him to the studio and quickly escalated into various tracks on their albums along the lines of "I hate him - and he smells". Apparently everyone agreed that Nas won the feud with the song "Ether" which resulted in Jay-Z freestyling over a Nas track and "In the song, Jay-Z makes reference to Nas's girlfriend and daughter, going into graphic detail about having an affair with his girlfriend. Jay-Z's mother was personally disgusted by the song, and demanded he apologise to Nas and his family, which he did in December 2001". You know things have gotten serious when the mums have to get involved! He also, obviously, randomly supports Everton.
"Customers also listened to" them Wu-Tang boys, Mos Def and Mobb Deep - all of whom I'd probably struggle to tell apart. I didn't hate it, but I was startingly indifferent towards it - I'm quite happy to accept the problem lies with me, but I think we can quite safely say it's not a problem which is going to be resolved.
So Prince put in a decent shift, but he didn't do enough to dislodge Paul from pole position, I'm afraid - so well done, Mr Simon.
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