18. Paul McCartney - Ram (1971)
That's right, there's a Paul McCartney album here. I'd say why, but let's have a tiny bit of back-story first. Following the breakup of the Beatles, fans could be forgiven for expecting sweeping artistic statements from each one of them (alright, three of them). Lennon delivered the superb
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Harrison the epic
All Things Must Pass. McCartney on the other hand didn't; his first solo record being the slap-dash collection of demos
McCartney. Here's where he starts to take things a bit more seriously, by writing an album's-worth of material with his wife Linda. Although
Ram still has that ramshackle feel, the production sounds a lot fuller and more considered than
McCartney. It's easy to dismiss
Ram as an album of hastily-composed songs thrown together on one LP, but on the other hand it's just as easy to see it as album which, as a result of the lack of a stylistic blend between songs, becomes greater than the sum of its parts. It's hardly the most abrasive record ever made, but it remains a glorious, melody-driven pop album, with a few harder rock 'n' roll numbers like the gorgeously noisy
Smile Away and the playful
Monkberry Moon Delight to spice things up a little. Probably the most intriguing part of the album would be the
Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey medley - to some ears five minutes of cheesy noise, to others a masterpiece of a collage of differing melodies and structures. Either way, it's one of McCartney's most experimental solo tracks, and one of the high-points on a very diverse and endlessly fascinating record.
Ram is basically the sound of McCartney doing what he was good at; writing great pop songs with terrific melodies and harmonies to make it all work. Ambitious yet unpretentious = classic album.
The best bits: Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey,
Ram On,
Monkberry Moon Delight
17. Midnight Oil - Diesel and Dust (1988)
Despite virtually being superstars in Australia, by the time the year of my birth came along Midnight Oil were little more than a rumour in Britain and the US. Anyone who knows the Oils will know that whatever they did musically, vocalist Peter Garret always had a very strong message to deliver. In order to get the world of 1988 to listen though, a softer approach was required. Gone are the rough edges and eccentricities of earlier albums such as
10-1 and
Red Sails In the Sunset, and in comes a production style which favours the tuneful side of Midnight Oil's songwriting a lot more. To say 'the Oils went pop' though would be grossly simplifying things - it's true that the in-your-face punk attitude of their earlier works are no longer there, but this allows each band member to apply careful thought to less-aggressive songs like
the Dead Heart and
Arctic World, while the aimed-at-the-masses production approach provides fantastic results on the faster numbers like
Dreamworld and
Bullroarer. Best of all though, the lyrics are typically politically-oriented; the majority of these songs being concerned with Aboriginal rights, and you've gotta give the guys credit for seeing
Beds Are Burning, a song which explicitly demands indigenous reparations, climb to the higher reaches of singles charts all over the world. Regardless of this though, from my experience the Oils are band you either love or hate. I think it should be obvious which category I fall into.
The best bits: Dreamworld,
Warakurna,
Sell My Soul
16. Happy Mondays - Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches (1990)
Out of a mountain of pills and hallucinogens comes this masterpiece of catchy hooks, cut-and-paste rhythms and Shaun Ryder's atonal lyrical mumblings, and without doubt the best album from the Madchester craze. While their Stone Rose contemporaries delivered classic pop songs, the Mondays announced the arrival of the ecstasy age in pop music. It's an album that only a bunch of junkies could have created - a reinterpretation of oldies (John Kongos'
He's Gonna Step On You Again becomes the anthemic
Step On), sometimes plagiarising entire songs (the fantastic
Kinky Afro was in no small way based on LaBelle's
Lady Marmalade), all the while subverting pop song structures, while the rhythm section does a magnificent job in giving each one a blissfully danceable edge. Although the credit for this collage of style and sound goes to the production team, the idea of painting such a vivid, drug and sex-fueled picture of urban life was entirely Shaun Ryder's, revealing himself here as an extremely talented lyricist. It's basically a thuggish and sleazy album which mixes elements of acid house (containing some brilliant samples, like the flute on
Bob's Yer Uncle with pop-rock, and an absolute classic which had a massive influence on that whole Cool Britannia thing in the 90s.
The best bits: Donovan,
Bob's Yer Uncle,
Holiday
15. The Zombies - Odyssey and Oracle (1968)
I won't lie; it's not like I'm a massive fan of psychedelia or anything. This, though, counts as my favourite ever such album, mixing dreamy melodies, harmonised choruses and colourful swathes of mellotron based around the rock 'n' roll song structure. Ironically, considering in
Time Of the Season it spawned their biggest hit,
Odyssey and Oracle was intended as a swansong for a band on the verge of splitting up during recording. The results are just mesmerising, and ones which made an instant impact on yours truly. With solid rhythms, white-hot piano melodies and textured mellotrons, it delivers some of the best psychedelic songs ever in the form of
Changes and
Hung Up On a Dream, as well as some wonderfully composed pop songs with that same psychedelic air about them like the uplifting
Friends Of Mine and
Care Of Cell, and more downbeat, emotional centrepieces for the album such as
Beechwood Park and
Butcher's Tale. I could go on, but there's already a pretty solid review of this somewhere in this forum, so I'll just say it's an end-to-end classic and one of the very finest albums of the 60s.
The best bits: A Rose For Emily,
Changes,
Friends Of Mine