House Burn Down? The 50 Albums You’ll Need To Put That Smoldering Mess Behind You And Make Everything Right Again
It’s wildfire season here in the west, and as happens this time every year, the local news shows are rife with reports filled with everything from preventative measures, to ideas for emergency getaway supply kits, and so on, and so on, and so on.
All good stuff to know, but one thing is always missing from this wall-to-wall fire news: music.
No, I’m not suggesting they score some groovy tunes over the endless footage of burning hillsides and ash-covered wretches unrolling sleeping bags in high school gymnasiums (though it would a daring, monotony-breaking way to get some young, visionary assistant editor fired).
It’s just that when the lacquer-haired news anchors are running down the litany of things people should remember to take with them when they evacuate, no one ever mentions our music collections. I understand there’s a prioritized pecking order here involving pets, important documents, family heirlooms/photographs and the like, but, after that, what’s more important than our music collections?
Refrigerator-door-quality kid art fingerpaintings? “Collectible” Franklin Mint plate sets featuring Princess Diana, big eyed clowns, or The Wizard of Oz? Dopey school yearbooks? Wedding dresses?
The director’s cut of all 32 seasons of “Jon and Kate plus 8” on DVD?
No, no, no….None of it.
So, right here and now, I’m advising everyone out there to set aside room for your music collections in case you might need to hightail it out this fire season. If you are among the unlucky ones whose music has been lost to a combination of flames and personal shortsightedness, well, read on.
Below is a list of the 50 albums absolutely vital to restarting your music collection and getting your life back in order—assuming sitting around in a booze-and-grass induced stupor and listening to music was a big part of your life before some homeless guy forgot to put out the campfire in the vacant lot next to your house.
Yeah, I know that a lot of people hate lists, and what gives me the right to say what is “absolutely vital,” blah, blah, blah. But, since I happen to like pedantic and subjective lists, I’ve decided to subject you to this one here, and if you have anything to say — good, bad or otherwise — you know where to do it.
Note that for purposes of variety, no artist shall be included more than twice. Also, while the majority of entries will be original studio albums, I’ve decided to include some multi-artist compilations/box sets and greatest hits collections where warranted. Some items will have comments, some won’t. After the first two—my favorites—everything is in RANDOM ORDER, so don’t go all retarded if you think something is too far down the list. Most of this stuff is still in print, and if not, that’s why the baby Jesus invented garage sales, swap meets and eBay. Here goes.
The 50 Albums You’ll Need To Put That Smoldering Mess Behind You
And Make Everything Right Again
1) The Beatles—REVOLVER (1966). The greatest album of all time.
2) The Beatles—ABBEY ROAD (1969). A close second.
3) The Dream Syndicate—THE DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES (1982). With apologies to Love, The Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield and others, this is the best record ever to come out of Los Angeles. The Doors? The less said, the better….
4) Tom Waits—HEARTATTACK AND VINE (1980). How great would it be if, every time the Dodgers won a game, the title track came oozing out over the stadium speakers instead of “I Love L.A.?”
5) Lee Hazlewood—COWBOY IN SWEDEN (1970). Beautiful weirdness from America’s answer to Serge Gainsbourg.
6) The Hoodoo Gurus—STONEAGE ROMEOS (1984). Australia’s not all Kylie Minogue and Men At Work, you know.
7) Frank Sinatra—FRANK SINATRA SINGS FOR ONLY THE LONELY (1958). So good, it’s almost worth getting dumped.
8) Camper Van Beethoven– TELEPHONE FREE LANDSLIDE VICTORY (1985). David Lowery is one of America’s great songwriters.
9) Cracker—CRACKER (1992). See above….
10) James Carr—THE COMPLETE GOLDWAX SINGLES (2001). Right up there with Otis and JB. Stunning.
11) The Temptations—PSYCHEDELIC SOUL (2003). A double disc PSYCHEDELIC SHACK on steroids. Worth the price of admission for “Take A Stroll Thru Your Mind” alone.
12) The Pixies—DOOLITTLE (1989). I know, I know—SURFER ROSA, SURFER ROSA. But, as great as that album was, it didn’t have anything on it nearly as freaky as “Monkey Gone To Heaven” or “No. 13 Baby.”
13) Led Zeppelin—LED ZEPPELIN 1 (1969). Not knocking their later efforts, but this just burned without all the goofy Viking pajamas stuff.
14) Tom Jones—LIVE AT CAESAR’S PALACE (1971). Come for the music, stay for the pervy/drunken/vaguely racist stage patter.
15) The Smoke—IT’S SMOKE TIME (1967). If the BBC didn’t ban the single “My Friend Jack,” you’d know these guys.
16) Tom Waits—RAIN DOGS (1985). It exists in a world of its own.
17) Bob Dylan—HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED (1965).
18) Bob Dylan—BLONDE ON BLONDE (1966). What? You were expecting EMPIRE BURLESQUE?
19) Elvis Presley—THE ESSENTIAL ELVIS PRESLEY (2007). The omission of “His Latest Flame” aside, this two disc set, while flagging a bit toward the end, just about lives up to its title.
20) Sam Cooke—LIVE AT THE HARLEM SQUARE CLUB, 1963 (1985). It defies all superlatives. Just get it.
21) NUGGETS II: ORIGINAL ARTYFACTS FROM THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND BEYOND (2001). This 4 disc follow up to the original NUGGETS box set is, for me, simply best best anthology compilation box set to have ever roamed the planet.
22) NUGGETS: ORIGINAL ARTYFACTS FROM THE FIRST PSYCHEDELIC ERA, 1965-1968 (1998). The first NUGGETS box is nearly as good as #21 above, and well worth inclusion in your new collection.
23) Huey Piano Smith And His Clowns—HAVING A GOOD TIME WITH HUEY PIANO SMITH AND HIS CLOWNS: THE VERY BEST OF, VOL. 1 (1997). When you think New Orleans Rock & Roll, you think Fats Domino. See if that’s still true after listening to this one. Utterly essential.
24) Nirvana—IN UTERO (1993). Some say BLEACH, others opt for NEVERMIND. Both are fine records, but this is their unsettling and beautiful masterpiece.
25) Husker Du—NEW DAY RISING (1985). Under all the crash and burn lies a great pop band. No, that is not an insult.
26) Muddy Waters—ELECTRIC MUD (1968). A number of so-called blues “purists” still look down upon this record. Their loss, as it only gets better and better each time you hear it—especially the slithering “Tom Cat”. A must.
27) John Lee Hooker and Canned Heat—HOOKER N’ HEAT (1971). Pure shambling blues heaven, the apex being “Whiskey and Wimmen.” Unlike on later collaborations with other artists, here it is apparent that Hooker is really into it and having a fucking ball.
28) Ray Charles– THE BEST OF RAY CHARLES: THE ATLANTIC YEARS (1994). These recordings should banish all thoughts of Jamie Foxx from your mind.
29) The Rolling Stones—BEGGAR’S BANQUET (or LET IT BLEED, or EXILE ON MAIN STREET…it’s up to you.) (1968, 1969, 1972).
30) Pavement—CROOKED RAIN, CROOKED RAIN ( 1994). Yes, indie purists tend to lean more toward SLANTED AND ENCHANTED, but this is one of the best and loopiest psych/country/folk rock LPs of all time. Had the Grateful Dead ever recorded an album even half this good, I might almost understand all the twirly, furry apologists that still litter this earth. Almost.
31) The Rain Parade—EMERGENCY THIRD RAIL POWER TRIP (1983). Trippy, trippy, trippy. David Roback split after this album to form Clay Allison, which became Opal before mutating into Mazzy Star after Kendra Smith left to live in a cave or something like that. Perfect music for quitting your job and sewing the curtains shut.
32) Meat Puppets—UP ON THE SUN (1985). A record so good it one time made a trip through El Paso almost tolerable.
33) The Beach Boys—PET SOUNDS (1966). Enough good things can’t be said about this record.
34) Oasis—STANDING ON THE SHOULDER OF GIANTS (2000). WHAT’S THE STORY MORNING GLORY goes without saying, but this one has been criminally overlooked. Supposedly they’d lost the plot by this time. However, even with the inclusion of Liam’s dreadful first song, “Little James,” this darkest of Oasis albums deserves a new listen.
35) THE COMPLETE STAX-VOLT SINGLES 1959-1968 (1991). This 9 disc set is a bargain no matter the cost.
36) HITSVILLE USA, VOL.1: THE MOTOWN SINGLES COLLECTION 1959-1971 (1992). If Berry Gordy was a somewhat creepy control freak, he also knew his music.
37) The Beta Band—THE THREE E.P.’s (1999). Years ago I interviewed these guys on my radio show and couldn’t understand a damn thing they said. No matter, as they sing much more clearly than they speak. A great, weird record.
38) Mercury Rev—DESERTER’S SONGS (1998). A record that makes bad grass feel like the chronic.
39) Elvis Costello and The Attractions—BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE (1986). THIS YEAR’S MODEL was great, but this record is whatever lies beyond merely great. Their finest moment—an incinerator belching the smoke of torched guts and bile. Like the old saying goes: keep your friends close, and your girlfriends closer….
40) Hank Williams—THE COMPLETE HANK WILLIAMS (Box Set) (1998). Now, does anyone really need a 10-disc Hank box? Yes. You do.
41) John Coltrane—COLTRANE: THE CLASSIC QUARTET: COMPLETE IMPULSE! STUDIO RECORDINGS (box set) (1998). Someday, you’ll thank me.
42) The Clash—LONDON CALLING (1979). Their peak. After this, I kind of lost interest when Joe Strummer went all Nicaraguan on us.
43) Pink Floyd—DARK SIDE OF THE MOON (1973). Synced-up viewing of “The Wizard of Oz” optional.
44) The Replacements—TIM (1985). Get the remastered one with the bonus tracks. You didn’t think I’d leave these guys out, did you?
45) Iggy and The Stooges—THE STOOGES (1969). Everyone loves the campfire singalongs “1969” and “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” but the real gem here is the unnerving “We Will Fall”. Get the double disc remastered version with all the extra tracks and some bleach to clean your needles.
46) Public Enemy—FEAR OF A BLACK PLANET (1990)
47) Public Enemy—IT TAKES A NATION OF MILLIONS TO HOLD US BACK (1988). I couldn’t decide between these two. It wasn’t that one was better than the other; it’s that neither one lacked by comparison. Both are brilliant, so both get in. Now if I could only erase the image of Flav as a reality show whore.
48) XTC—SKYLARKING (1986). Just edging out BLACK SEA, but it could have gone either way.
49) The Dukes Of Stratosphear—CHIPS FROM THE CHOCOLATE FIREBALL (1987). Hey, to me they’re two entirely different bands!
50) Velvet Underground—WHITE LIGHT, WHITE HEAT (1968). Years ago, my downstairs neighbors were a bunch of junkies, but they were listening to stuff like Blackfoot and Skynyrd. I wasn’t heartbroken when the coroner’s van showed up one day….
Yeah, yeah, I know — this isn’t on the list, that isn’t on the list, etc., etc.
You’re right; and I thought about just saying “fuck it” and zooming well past 50 entries—but, if I did that, I might as well have just gone all the way up to 2,597 and retitled the thing “Every Album I Don’t Completely Hate.” But, what fun would that be? Even as I am getting ready to end this list and hit the send button, I am acutely aware that there are no Kinks, Os Mutantes and several dozen other bands I wish were on the list; 50 is a finite number — this is what you get. Personally, I’ve never read a list I didn’t think I could improve upon, just as I’ve also never written a list that fully satisfies me.
Aah, sweet irony.
But at least you now have something to use as starting point to rebuild your music collection even better than it was before. Sure, there’s no 80’s synth stuff, hair metal or world music done by rich white guys, but it turns out most people don’t need much help in amassing shitty, lame music.
For that, there’s always iTunes.
Popularity: 8%
Blood and Chocolate? Fuckin’ A, man. Best Costello album.