56. Spacemen 3 - Taking Drugs to Make Music To Take Drugs To (1990)
While the Spacemen 3 aren't necessarily a band that has had a huge impact on my life story. They are ranked pretty high due to the fact that I love their music without having to give it a story. True, there is no nostalgia behind them for me... there is no memory or certain time they remind make me recall with a heavy/light heart. But they are a constant. Heard Spacemen 3 first off of some sh!tty compilation I bought for 5 bucks at a local music place. They were the diamond in the rough. The quintessential SM3 album is "Perfect Prescription" which came out in 1987. That album was a concept album that dealt with a person's experience with a drug trip, and ultimately is their best work. However, sometimes I'm not in the mood for a concept album and I can pop this "greatest hits" compilation in and hear the full, eccentric gamut of Spacemen 3's work. You don't feel like you're listening to the same band in any 2 songs back to back. They range from psychedelic, to punk, to pure rock, to drone/shoegaze. With this compilation you get to hear all of the above and more.
Check out: The Sound of Confusion, Come Down Easy, Amen
55. The Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs (1999)
Hahahaha. Oh Stephen Merrit wrote "69" - what a joker. So, let me tell you about the story behind the album. This is... a concept album in which Stephen Merrit tries to send up classic pop albums... by writing 3 album and throwing them together. The idea is brilliant, however, when you get an album of this length you have... filler... a lot of filler. But the great songs certainly are great. And there are quirky little songs that play with style a lot "We Are the King of the Boudoir" is a song backed by a harpsichord, and sounds like it came out of the bizzarro Medieval Times. Now... if I thought it would be fair to chop this album down to one CD and put all of my favorite songs on it... chances are it'd be higher on the list. Stephen Merrit has an interesting voice, doesn't sound like he has any particular training (which is not necessarily something a lot of people have) but it's warbling, sometimes delicate, sometimes crass... but always Stephen Merrit. You feel like you might be listening to a mixture of Morrissey and Johnny Cash. There are some clever lyrics, "Busby Berkeley Dreams", is touching and shows that Merrit can forgo the goofyness of the filler songs and truly write if he wanted to. But then you get "songs" like "Experimental Music Love" which is Merrit saying the title and then putting some kind of echo effect on it and letting it go on for about 30 seconds... pretty lame actually. There is a song called "Punk Rock Love" where he sends up bands like Good Charlotte and New Found Glory by singing in a nasally voice and throwing some ska in the background. I could go forever detailing every song and it would all be interesting even if the songs aren't good... or even songs. Give this a listen if you really are music ADD like I am sometime.
Check out: Busby Berkeley Dreams, Papa Was a Rodeo, I Don't Believe in the Sun
54. Stone Temple Pilots - Core (1992)
"I AMMMM SMELLIN' LIKE THE ROSE SOMEONE GAVE ME ON MY BIRTHDAY DEATH BED!" - whhewww what a way to start an album. This is one of those that was standard listening for a kid growing up in the 90's who liked rock. STP was part of the grunge scene yeah and Scott Weiland would go on to front Velvet Revolver, rock supergroup extraordinaire. As my music tastes "grew more refined" or as I started to move on from the hard rock, grunge thing I left STP on my shelf like I did with several groups. And again I was reminded recently due to the advent of games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band reminded of them and went back to listen to what was once a staple of my music collection. This album isn't quite my thing anymore, not that it isn't enjoyable or anything - but just... better remembered like it was, and how much it meant to me as an angsty early-teen. Some great rock tracks came off of this album - "Dead and Bloated", "Sin", "Vasoline", "Creep", and "Plush" are album highlights. This was a great debut album for STP and really opened up some doors for them later in their career.
Check out: ^Those highlights I mentioned, and also No Memory to hear some interesting instrumental noodlings that would be important later in STP's career.
53. Ray Charles - Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music (1962)
As much as I'd like to relay the importance of this kind of cultural cross over, I really can't do it any better than any of the several biographies written about Ray Charles... or even the movie "Ray". I'm from Atlanta, Georgia - which means I have a soft spot in my heart for Ray Charles to begin with... forget the fact that he is one of the greatest artists of the 20th century... but as you may or may not know, "Georgia on My Mind" is Georgia's state song (after we had banned him from performing in the state because he wanted rights and we said, NOOOO). However, that song is not on this album. This album is soulful as hell, you can just feel it inside of you - in my experience it is one of the few albums that really gets a visceral emotional response out of you on the first listen. I can't do Ray any justice with my own words... but the inspiration for so many artist, again the country album coming from a black man in the mid 60's is so important for a desegregation of music type -- kinda like the Run DMC/Aerosmith collaboration of its day. So many black singers after this became wildly popular, and some even prolific. Someone on rateyourmusic mentioned Joe Tex, and I have to say - that among Ray's contemporaries - Joe Tex was among the greatest talents (If you've seen Tarantino's Grindhouse/Death Proof you've heard him). Anyway, back to Ray.
Check out: His entire discography.