| Repost of my list |
[Dec. 22nd, 2008|11:07 am] |
I had this here, removed it because it doesn't seem to reflect the rules, thought better of it, decided to repost it.
Expanded comments at the end, for those who've already read it. It's still up on my LJ here if you want to see what others said before.
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1. John Coltrane -- A Love Supreme (1965)
2. Beatles -- Revolver (1966)
3. Keith Jarrett -- The Koln Concert (1975)
4. Carl Orff -- Carmina Burana (Eugene Ormandy/Philadelphia Symphony; remastered reissue, 2002 )
5. Patsy Cline -- Greatest Hits (1967, the Decca Records release)
6. Sex Pistols -- Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (1977)
7. Elvis Presley -- Elvis Presley (1956)
8. Hank Williams -- 40 Greatest Hits (1978)
9. Robert Johnson -- King of the Delta Blues Singers (originally recorded in 1936-37; repackaged in 1998)
10. Jimi Hendrix -- Axis: Bold as Love (1967)
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11. Patti Smith -- Horses (1975)
12. The Clash -- London Calling (1979)
13. Ornette Coleman -- The Shape of Jazz To Come (1959)
14. Various Artists -- Stiffs Live Stiffs (1978)
15. Frank Sinatra -- Trilogy (1980)
16. X -- Los Angeles (1980)
17. Talking Heads -- Fear Of Music (1979)
18. Beatles -- Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
19. Brian Wilson -- Smile (2004)
20. Beach Boys -- Pet Sounds (1966)
21. Anthony Braxton -- Six Compositions: Quartet (1984)
22. James Blood Ulmer -- Tales of Captain Black (1978)
23. Tony Bennett -- Forty Years of Artistry (1999)
24. Ella Fitzgerald -- Ella and Basie! (1963)
25. Aaron Copeland -- Appalachian Spring (recorded many times since 1944; I prefer the original scoring for chamber orchestra)
26. Richard and Linda Thompson -- Shoot Out The Lights (1982)
27. Richard Thompson -- Rumor and Sigh (1991)
28. Ray Charles -- The Genius of Ray Charles (1959)
29. Albert Ayler -- Holy Ghost (recorded 1960-72; issued, 2005)
30. Various Artists -- 400 Years of Folk Music (1964)
31. Various Artists -- The United States of Poetry (1996)
32. Pink Floyd -- Wish You Were Here (1975)
33. Bob Dylan -- Blonde On Blonde (1966)
34. Bob Dylan -- Blood On the Tracks (1975)
35. Otis Redding/Jimi Hendrix -- Live At Monterey Pop Festival (1968)
36. George Gershwin -- Rhapsody in Blue (Paul Whiteman Orchestra recording from 1924, with Gershwin on piano, reissued 2000 )
37. Ludwig Van Beethoven -- Ninth Symphony (again, many recordings exist)
38. Woody Guthrie -- Woody Guthrie : The Asch Recordings (released 1999)
39. Miles Davis -- Kind Of Blue (1959)
40. Bruce Springsteen -- Nebraska (1982)
41. John Fahey -- Blind Joe Death (1959)
42. John Fahey -- The New Possibility (1968)
43. Thelonius Monk -- Live At The Jazz Workshop, San Francisco (1962)
44. The Who -- Quadrophenia ( 1973)
45. The Rolling Stones -- Exile on Main Street (1972)
46. Liz Phair -- Exile in Guyville (1993) (NOTE: Can't have #45 without adding this one!!! )
47. Benny Goodman -- Carnegie Hall "From Spirituals to Swing" Concert (recorded 1938, released 1950)
48. Chuck Berry -- Greatest Hits (this has been released and repackaged so many times it's hard to pick a date)
49. Charlie Parker -- Jazz at Massey Hall (2004 reissue of a 1947 concert -- reissue is longer)
50. Weather Report -- Live In Tokyo (1972)
51. Public Enemy -- Fear of a Black Planet (1990)
52. Public Enemy -- It Takes a Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back (1988)
53. Run-DMC -- Run-DMC (1984)
54. BDP -- By All Means Necessary (1988)
55. Van Morrison -- Astral Weeks (1968)
56. Andres Segovia -- Andres Segovia: Baroque Favorites (mid 70s)
57. Johann Sebastian Bach -- The Brandenburg Concertos (the Deutschegrammaphon recording from the mid 70s)
58. Johann Sebastian Bach -- The Goldberg Variations (as recorded by Glenn Gould, solo piano, mid sixties)
59. Parliament -- Tear The Roof Off : 1974-1980 (1993)
60. Gal Costa -- Gal Costa (1969)
61. D'Gary -- Horombe (1996)
62. Various Artists -- Duende! (no, not us; flamenco collection from the early 90s)
63. Paco de Lucia/John McLaughlin/Al DiMeola -- Friday Night in San Francisco (1981)
64. David Bowie -- The Rise And Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (1972)
65. Nirvana -- Nevermind (1991)
66. Sleater-Kinney -- All Hands On The Bad One (2000)
67. Various Artists -- Left of the Dial: Dispatches From The 80s Underground (2004)
68. Sonic Youth -- Daydream Nation (1988)
69. Joni Mitchell -- Blue (1971)
70. Joni Mitchell -- Hejira (1976)
71. Stan Getz -- Getz/Gilberto (1965)
72. Herbie Hancock -- Headhunters (1973)
73. Branford Marsalis -- The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1992)
74. Velvet Underground -- Velvet Underground and Nico (1968)
75. Sam Cooke -- Portrait of a Legend (1951-64) (2003)
76. James Brown -- Live At The Apollo (1963)
77. Buddy Guy -- Can't Quit the Blues (2006)
78. Muddy Waters -- Hard Again (1978)
79. B.B. King -- Indianola Mississippi Seeds (1970)
80. Howlin' Wolf -- The Chess Box (1992)
81. The Who -- Who's Next (1971)
82. Jefferson Airplane -- Surrealistic Pillow (1967)
83. Black Sabbath -- Paranoid (1970)
84. Metallica -- Master Of Puppets (1986)
85. Ralph Stanley and The Stanley Brothers -- Clinch Mountain Gospel (2001)
86. Django Reinhardt -- In Paris (1939)
87. Various Artists -- Township Jive (early 70s collection of South African Pop)
88. John Coltrane -- Interstellar Space (1967)
89. John Coltrane -- Ascension (1965)
90. Duke Ellington -- Fantasy in Black and Tan (again, too many release dates to pick one)
91. Sister Rosetta Tharpe -- Complete Recorded Works, Vol 1 (1996 -- someone needs to collect ALL her stuff into one box!)
92. The Staple Singers -- The Ultimate Staple Singers (2004)
93. James Brown -- Sex Machine (1970)
94. Sly and The Family Stone -- There's a Riot Goin' On (1971)
95. Jimi Hendrix Experience -- Are You Experienced? (1967)
96. Madonna -- Ray of Light (1998)
97. Pink Floyd -- Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
98. Ella Fitzgerald w/Joe Pass -- Take Love Easy (1973)
99. Bob Marley and the Wailers -- Catch A Fire (1973)
100. The Master Musicians of Joujouka -- Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka (recorded 1968, released 1971)
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Notes:
-- When I read the original criteria, I took them very literally. I said to myself, "If someone dying wanted to know what we are capable of as humans in the art of music, what would I play for them? What choices to represent the spectrum would I choose to let them know how much we were able to transmit through the art of song? What would I send them off with?"
I also tried to think about the fact that the person dying might have limited exposure to certain genres of music, and to try pick things that would help them appreciate what particular genres sounded like and did well. Again, with other criteria, my list would have been different. That's the nature of lists.
Hence, my decision to range far and wide. I didn't want to restrict myself to the stuff I prefer listening to, although I love all of what's on here and listen to it frequently.
If I'd had my druthers, for instance, there'd have been a lot more Richard Thompson and Bruce Springsteen on the list, but I chose to simply pick things I thought best represented who these artists are. I also left off a lot of stuff I personally love simply because I had to choose a broad spectrum of work -- hence, nothing from the GY!BE world of music, from Captain Beefheart, from a variety of alternative noise/folk/jazz artists, and some other folks whose work I love a lot. It became a problem of limits with only 100 recordings to choose from.
-- I also tried to pick stuff that has stood up to at least a few years' worth of consideration as to its place in the greater scheme of things. For instance, I'm really digging TV On The Radio's newest album right now; I'd never have considered it for the list, though, because too many times I've grooved on an album, put it away for a while, and then come back to find the bloom's gone off the rose. Maybe if I get to rewrite the list again five years from now, "Dear Science" will be on there. Maybe not. I can wait.
-- Reading other lists, I was really, really surprised at the narrow range of music presented in most of them. Maybe it's because I'm older, and grew up in the days of freeform radio when you'd hear Duke Ellington and the Doors and Dusty Springfield and Debussy one right after the other on the same station as a matter of course, but I've always listened widely. I think most people don't know how to listen widely anymore, thanks to our narrowing, microtrend-worshipping, conformist cultures and subcultures.
I'm sorry if that sounds like a disrespectful comment, but I needed to say it. It's half my reason for reposting my list -- to offer some contrast. Snobby, arrogant, and rude, perhaps. Tough. That's my job around here, I think, sometimes. Don't assume I enjoy it.
I look at my list and think it's narrow too, but I blame that on the limit of 100.
-- Placement and position in the top ten was easy, surprisingly enough.
-- 11- 100 shouldn't be taken as a measure of my appreciation for a specific album, except when there are multiple entries from one artist. Then, the ranking reflects my feeling about the merits of the albums compared to each other, e.g., Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" is a better album than "Dark Side of the Moon," in my opinion.
-- I also assigned myself another criterion: I have to have owned all these albums at one time or another. Many have been sold in the last few years, while others pass through my hands to other people who I thought would appreciate them or needed to hear them, and I never got them back. That's life, and it's cool with me. But if I'd ever owned stuff like Bollywood film music, a better selection of ragas, a Balinese monkey chant, gamelan recordings, rai, etc., they would have been considered and it's likely some of it would have showed up here.
-- Many of the artists I chose, especially those outside the rock and jazz arenas, either predate the advent of the LP or have released so many albums (B. B. King, for instance, has released over 100 albums, although I chose a single LP for him) that finding an "album" to represent them was difficult or impossible. in order to reflect my feeling that these artists were important, I included various greatest hits and compilations to get them out there for people to think about.
This is especially true of things like "Live Stiffs" and "Township Jive," which are more than just comps; they represent important moments in the history of modern popular music.
Ok, gang, take me to task again. I don't care. Punching bag, as I said, seems to be my job.
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