You touch me - I hear the sound of mandolins

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

#52 : Station To Station - David Bowie (1976)

The title track is where David Bowie proclaims himself the Thin White Duke. Thin he was: Station to Station was recorded in a blizzard of cocaine in Los Angeles, with Bowie subsisting on green peppers and milk and almost never sleeping. The manic mood fueled an album that was futuristic but accessible, “plastic soul” speeding toward the electronic epiphanies of his Berlin phase. “TVC 15” is New Orleans R&B as robotic funk; “Golden Years” is James Brown from outer space, with Bowie’s amazing falsetto; and the 10-minute title track summed up his constant sense of motion at the time — opening with the sound of a train coming and eventually exploding into a Euro-disco breakdown that sounds like Saturday Night Fever at the android factory.

Yet another classic Bowie album I know the singles from but have never listened to in its entirety - but I'd say "Golden Years" and "TVC 15" are up there in my top Bowie singles list so I had high hopes.  And yeah, I liked it - it sounded particularly fine over headphones, showing up various new bits on even the songs I thought I knew.  For a change with a Bowie album, there isn't a great deal of variation - if you like "Golden Years", I don't see why you wouldn't like the rest of it.  "Station To Station" is too long, but gets away with it by breaking into several sections (and it doesn't really start for a minute either!).  And it's our second appearance of "Wild Is The Wind" on the list - a slightly different version from last time.  The whole album is a very brief 37 minutes - I'd have liked to hear a bit more but not the two live tracks tacked on the end of the reissued version or the four CDs tacked on the end of the deluxe version.

Wikipedia tells us that he really wasn't in a good place at the time - "Stories circulated of the singer living in a house full of ancient Egyptian artefacts, burning black candles, seeing bodies fall past his window, having his semen stolen by witches, receiving secret messages from the Rolling Stones, and living in morbid fear of fellow Aleister Crowley aficionado Jimmy Page" and "Bowie himself remembered almost nothing of the album's production, not even the studio, later admitting, "I know it was in LA because I've read it was"".  All in all, it's one of the more interesting album entries and well worth a read if you like a spot of Dave.  The album was well received by critics and the record-buying public, although Wikipedia claims it sold more in France than the UK, which seems somewhat unlikely.  And, since this isn't our last visit with Mr Bowie, I can put off trying to read his Wikipedia entry for a few more days.

"Customers also listened to" a quite interesting mix of 70s and 80s artists, reflecting his lengthy musical career, I guess.  I enjoyed this album - it's my favourite of his entries so far and it will be interesting to see if the one remaining entry can top it (and no, it's not Let's Dance which was obviously my introduction to the great man).

#51 : The Great Twenty-Eight - Chuck Berry (1982)

In the latter half of the Fifties, Chuck Berry released a string of singles that defined the sound and spirit of rock & roll. “Maybellene,” a fast, countryish rocker about a race between a Ford and a Cadillac, kicked it all off in 1955, and one classic hit followed another, each powered by Berry’s staccato, country-blues-guitar gunfire: “Roll Over Beethoven,” “School Day,” “Rock & Roll Music,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Johnny B. Goode,” “Back in the U.S.A.” What was Berry’s secret? In the maestro’s own words: “The nature and backbone of my beat is boogie, and the muscle of my music is melodies that are simple.” This collection culls the best of that magic from 1955 to 1965.

Uh-oh, the G word combined with a suspiciously late release date (although he was at least still alive - he died in 2017 at the ripe old age of 90 and I imagine that was quite some life!).  I can't consider it worthy for consideration, but I listened to it anyway out of historical curiosity.  I enjoyed it, although I'd argue with the title - I'd go for The Great Ten Or So And A Perfectly Passable Remainder.  The top tracks ("Roll Over Beethoven", "Johnny B Goode", "Memphis, Tennessee", "No Particular Place To Go" for me) are all absolute classics though and, although the recordings sound dated, you do have to remember the youngest tracks here are coming up to 60 years old and the actual songs still sound remarkably fresh - I can imagine they must have blown people's minds at the time.

Wikipedia has pretty much nothing to say about the album, but a bit more about the man.  It's an interesting read, but if I were you I'd concentrate on the "Legacy" section rather than the "Physical and sexual abuse allegations" section.  It seems a shame that his only #1 was "My Ding-a-ling" which I think it's safe to say isn't his finest work, but he certainly left a legacy and comes across as quite a humble man in that regards.  Amusingly when he was (most deservingly) inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, he was praised for having invented "not only a rock and roll sound, but also a rock and roll stance".

"Customers also listened to" Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Eddie Cochran and a lot of other names from back in the day.  I enjoyed the highlights of this album but 28 tracks was a few too many for me (and Wikipedia reminded me it didn't include "You Never Can Tell" which would have been nice to see).  It is though, of course, completely invalid for inclusion in this list.

#50 : The Blueprint - Jay-Z (1982)

With The Blueprint, Jay-Z took on anyone and everyone who wanted to sit on his throne, even the jesters. “Takeover,” one of rap’s most precise and unrelenting diss tracks, commits GBH on rappers Nas and Prodigy from Mobb Deep. When Hova isn’t taking shots at record executives, cops, critics, haters, biters, and his absent dad (and still, sadly, using the word “faggot”), he inches toward vulnerability on “Song Cry.” “Izzo (H.O.V.A.),” with dynamic production by Kanye West, gave him his first Top 10 single. Jay-Z elevates clever rhymes and innovations with an unmatched air of calm control and a cavalier confidence. Here’s the moral of the story, courtesy of “Takeover”: “You guys don’t want it with HOV.”

Our third (and final) visit with Jay-Z and so far I've been very "well, it's perfectly passable, I guess, but what's all the fuss about?"  So can anyone guess what's going to happen here with his widely acknowledged masterpiece.   Wellllll...it's perfectly passable, I guess, but what's all the fuss about?  Sorry but I just don't get it - he (or, probably more accurately, others) do a good job with the backing tracks, but I'm just not convinced by his rapping ability.  For example, let's pick out this from "Girls, Girls, Girls" which is him telling us (at length) how much he loves the ladies

I love girls, girls, girls
Put your number on this paper
Coz I would love to date ya

I mean, that must have taken him AGES to come up with.  He is also somewhat obsessed by the N word - sigh. It also felt far too long, so imagine my surprise when I found out it was only 63 minutes long which is positively brief in comparison with some of his contemporaries offerings.  Just to make him even grumpier, the only track I will praise is "Renegade", which has Eminem doing the heavy lifting on it and just giving it an extra dimension which the other tracks just seemed to lack.

Wikipedia, of course, tells me I'm totally wrong and this is one of his, and hip-hop's, finest ever works.  Apart from that, it doesn't have an awful lot to say about the album other than noting it was Kanye West's breakthrough work as a producer and that it was released on September 11, 2001, so it wasn't the top item on the news that night, but still sold very well - although really only in the US where it got to #1, but it peaked at #30 in the UK.  

Right - as this is his last visit I'll actually read some of his Wikipedia entry.  He was hip-hop's first billionaire and is apparently "the 2nd wealthiest American musician to date" behind Kanye, although Dre and Taylor may also be able to make similar claims.  Bizarrely, Herb Alpert also features on a lot of lists of extremely wealthy US musicians, which lead me down a rabbit hole of "musicians who are surprisingly wealthy" which includes Herb ($850m), Emilio Estefan ($500m), Grizzly Bear ($135m), Enya ($140m - what?!?) and Tokio Hotel ($100m - who?!?).  Oh dear, that's all we've got time for - he's not going to be happy this wasn't all about him, is he?

"Customers also listened to" Nas and a load of other people I've never even heard of.  Never mind, eh?  So, having listened to 3 Jay-Z albums I remain mystified as to the appeal - he's perfectly adequate in the rap department but I don't see what he brings that results in him being considered top tier.  But I guess it doesn't really matter what I think, does it?  And I've got absolutely no problems with people loving him, but believe me when I say I will not be making any further attempts to understand the appeal.

So, would anyone like to guess who's going to win this round?  Anyone?!?  Yes, Mr Bowie, it's you!

#55-53 - Another "quite well known" album
#49-47 - an odd mix