Well, that's the tenth essay. I'm one-tenth finished!

Here is a preview of the next ten, and this is as much for me as it is for you, so I can get my ideas down. Also it's nice to see these summaries and the growth of where the idea started out to what it ended up being, since these are my rough draft, preliminary ideas.

11. Kid A – Radiohead - Will write this tonight, about depression(my depression) and the numb yet depressed feeling Radiohead gives that I connect so deeply to.

12. Entertainment! – Gang of Four - About politics in music and anarchy and rebellion in general(this was supposed to be the topic for London Calling but I changed that to Cold War paranoia and the futility of punk and the fight it waged, this album is much more political than London Calling so I figured it more, appropriate.)

13. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars – David Bowie - I really don't know what I'll talk about. I just really love this album. Maybe glam.

14. Perfect from Now On – Built To Spill - how the quest for perfection can affect people and possibly destroy them.

15. Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd - about Floyd and the whole Barrett situation maybe, maybe the effect of acid on a generation. Actually that sounds good. Acid on a generation.

16. Trans-Europe Express – Kraftwerk - The arrival of machines into music

17. The Velvet Underground & Nico – The Velvet Underground - about my experiences of first getting into indie music as this was the gateway band.

18. Let It Be – The Replacements - about the struggles The Replacements went through to get stardom and how they are the top band from the eighties in my mind who should have been famous but weren't.

19. Bee Thousand – Guided by Voices - No clue, haha.

20. Odessy and Oracle – The Zombies - This'll be a big one, about the rise and fall of the sixties.

I love the way you just have an album and go with it, i wish i could do that if i was as a good writer. I'm definitely looking forward to the Ziggy, Kid A and Bee Thousand entries.

69 Love Songs is my favorite album, hands down. Stephin Merritt should be hailed as a god of lyricism and broken hearts.

Note: This is a rehashed and revised version of my Kid A review, plus some added in things. By this point I am sick of Kid A. I have been stuck for a day and a half trying to write about this damn album. This essay is part praise and part indictment.

There are a lot of different forms of depression. The one I have is a sort of numb detachment, an apathy for things. A very selfish thing. The kind where you say, f*ck it, nothing matters.

Radiohead have carved out a very unique sound, a sound which I dub 21st Century Cocaine Music. It's electronic, it's frantic, and it's incoherent, like you're speeding down a long tunnel at 2 A.M. in a black Mercedes and two people you just met at the nightclub are doing lines and screwing in the backseat. And yet, for all it's manic anxiety, the core of their sound is numb, like all of this is being broadcasted by a man in a coma, and I say that with all the love in the world. Kid A especially takes on and embraces this tone. It's an album of contradiction and duality, it's electronic yet organic, elusive and fragmented yet precise in the emotion and meanings it evokes.

'Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon. There are two colors in my head.'

That's the sort of fragmented, detached images we are given right at the start of the album. This album is lyrically populated by the sort of lines that stands on the fence between heavily symbolic and perhaps that joking Dylanesque throwaway that makes the songwriter grin as dipsh*ts like me try and dissect them and find a hidden meaning. The sorts of lines that while being interviewed the songwriter goes 'I don't know where that came from. Your guess is as good as mine.' This is a subconscious album. The purpose of it's lyrics are not to give you concrete meanings but phantom tones and images that evoke whatever feeling that happens to be associated with it. For each listener it's different and that's what makes it so special. And that's also what makes it so frustratingly elusive.

And at times, frustratingly boring. Usually multiple listens reveals more layers to an album. Surprisingly, with Kid A, more digging reveals nothing. I used to think this as their best album. I don't know anymore. At this point I'm wishing I did an 'OK Computer' essay, but then I realize that perhaps not all of my essays have to be glowing endorsements. This album can reached an unmatched brilliance at times. At other times, it seems almost irrelevant. I would call that a dichotomy, but I think in the end it is poor decisions by the band. Because there are some songs on Amnesiac, which was recorded in the same session, that are brilliant and some songs on Kid A which are subpar. Like Treefingers or Optimistic. Add in 'Pyramid Song', 'You and Whose Army', 'Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box', 'Like Spinning Plates' and replace 'Morning Bell' with Amnesiac's version of 'Morning Bell'. Add that third verse into Motion Picture soundtrack and cut out the hidden track. Listen to the demo: YouTube - Radiohead - Motion picture soundtrack rare demo

I give you, the improved Kid A, which would be three times better and be in the running for my favorite album ever. I defy you to claim it isn't improved:

1. Everything in it's Right Place
2. Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box
3. Pyramid Song
4. Kid A
5. The National Anthem
6. How To Disappear Completely
7. You and Whose Army
8. I Might Be Wrong
9. Amnesiac/The Morning Bell
10. In Limbo
11. Idioteque
12. Hunting Bears
13. Like Spinning Plates
14. Motion Picture Soundtrack(with third verse added and hidden track removed, but keep the same instruments)

That looks like an improved album right there.

I love the image of the carnival. The symbolism. It's such a bittersweet and perverse sort of atmosphere, it looks flashy and great on the surface but dig deeper and you'll find a rotten underbelly populated by maggots. A carnival is confusing. A carnival is the perfect symbol for a decade of decadence, that's what the 2000s were and right now we're feeling the start of that hangover. We're in the same category as the 20s and the 80s. The last song on this album sounds like a carnival winding down. It's tragic sounding, somehow it sounds whimsical at the same time, and always, numb. It's the greatest song on the album.

I think you're crazy...maybe
I think you're crazy... maybe

How the f*ck did we get to this point? How did we get to a point where the government we thought would be our salvation is a giant beast gasping for life smashing things up trying to solve an unsolvable problem and probably just making it worse? How did we get to a point of such moral bankruptcy and excessive shallowness, where the highest rated TV shows show graphic murders, and flashy reality shows where we see broken celebrities humiliate themselves for us like those monkeys with a little hat and cymbals, and they desperately cling to the hope that they can get on top again, yet, as we watch them, we all know that isn't gonna happen...I ask you...how?

Hmm... Your new version of Kid A may sound better by itself, but that would mean taking those great tracks off of Amnesiac. I know they were recorded on the same album, but you could combine certain tracks from different albums by any band and make an improved album. You might as well just make a greatest hits compilation. Really, both Kid A and Amnesiac stand by themselves as great albums, and they actually aren't all that similar. Also, I completely disagree about Morning Bell. I think the version of Kid A is fantastic, and the one on Amnesiac is really nothing great. Still though, the majority of your review was a nice read. Keep up the good work!

I've listened to Kid A a lot over the last day and a half and I'm convinced that it isn't a great album by itself. Oh, and my solution is that Amnesiac doesn't exist, nobolds.

Note: wouldn't it have been kind of funny and ironic if I ran off without finishing this, after swearing I wouldn't?:rofl:


Using music as a way to express distaste about the society that swarms and surrounds you is an age old concept. For instance, the lyrics to perhaps one of the greatest compositions of all time, 'Ode to Joy' are taken from a poem supporting universal brotherhood, and Beethoven added lines that all men are brothers, something that was definitely not the status quo in Vienna circa the 19th century. For all intents and purposes, 'Ode to Joy' was the original 'All You Need is Love', and with a better melody to boot. But really, politics and music didn't really take off until the early 20th century. Take the haunting Billie Holiday song 'Strange Fruit', one of the most poetic songs I've ever heard. Or the songs by Woody Guthrie, like 'This Land is Your Land', an angry protest in response to Irving Berlin who just wrote 'God Bless America.' By the way, as a side note, I hate 'God Bless America', and I think Guthrie's song should be our national anthem.

Then of course there was the 60s. In the early 60s, there was the civil rights movement, and by the end, everyone was railing against Vietnam. And the king of these protest songs was Bob Dylan. He was deemed the head of a movement he really wanted nothing to do with. And then, of course, he raised the question, did these songs really do anything? Bob Dylan used to call his protest songs 'finger pointing songs', and he famously said that, 'I've only got ten fingers'. Dylan left the movement because perhaps he saw that songs cannot enact any sort of tangible change in the world, and all it amounted to was a bunch of whining. Dylan refused to disassociate himself with the evils of the world by singing about them and profiting off them, while truly doing nothing to actually solve anything.

There were political albums after Dylan, and there always will be. Look at Immortal Technique.

But if you want to listen to a catchy post-punk affair with funk and reggae influences, which also happens to be the greatest political album of all time, Gang of Four takes the cake with 'Entertainment!'. Even the band name is a great political reference to the 'Gang of Four', four leftists within the Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong's last wife, who were all eventually jailed and exiled for crimes against the Party. It's weird to think that these guys aren't classically defined as 'Punk', because their attitude is insanely punk. But I guess their chords and music aren't simple enough, so they are Post-Punk, taking the punk attitude and combining it with more interesting things musically. And this thing really is interesting musically, it twitches more than a bug that was half-crushed.

I was reading 'The Corrections' by Jonathan Franzen and there was a scene where a bunch of leftists and radicals were protesting and one of the signs said 'This heaven gives me migraine', a great line from what I see as the best song on the album, 'Natural's Not In It', which rolls on like a bullet train and in each line it describes a new scene, almost protesting through short machine gun sentences. The problem, of leisure, what to do, for pleasure. The main target of this album is capitalism, the sheer amount of times it mentions consumers and buying things it really staggering. Most political albums lose focus or turn into watered down versions of operas with no real concrete message, but 'Entertainment!' has a concise message, and coincidentally, concise music, twitching guitar chords almost never rambling off into a solo.

Protest music and rebel music try and enact change. But it's hard to intentionally enact change. Whenever humans on a massive scale try and intentionally change something and get a desired result, they screw it up most of the time. Think of all the major revolutions that have taken place, they usually end in disaster. The French Revolution is probably one of the greatest examples and a great story overall, ending with the Reign of Terror and the rise of Napoleon.

The reason Animal Farm has stayed with us is not because it's an exact allegory of the Russian Revolution, it's because it tells us a lot about human nature. In the end, the pigs are acting exactly like the humans they just overthrew. Most revolutions just propel a new class of people to the top, and the lower classes are the ones who suffer.

I think the sheer fact that society is still in a moral decay and still selling itself out means that political albums don't mean squat. But it's noble of them to try. And despite all of the nihilist futility I threw at you, 'Entertainment!' is still a hell of a listen.

I'm new around here and I've only had time to read your first essay, but I'd just like to say congratulations on these. Like many I'm familiar with the vast majority of the albums (even if not, i'm likely to check them out) in your list, so it's great to see your personal thoughts on the album, or thoughts provoked from the album. Great little essays and I look forward to reading both the ones you have completed and hopefully the remainder of the list.

Good luck with them!

Well, the Morning Bell on Kid A >>>> Morning Bell on Amnesiac.

This is undoubtedly some of the best writing on this site. Fantastic job on every one, I really enjoy the touching personal accounts as well.

I have no idea what I am going to write about. But I have to keep on writing. I've taken like a week long break to refresh my mind and I don't know if I am refreshed, but too bad, I gotta keep going. Oh yeah, the album... the album...the album. I don't know what the hell I should write about. It definitely should have something to do with the album and David Bowie.

Bowie's lyrics walk the line between meaningful and nonsense, and so will this essay. As an homage of course, a freaky deeky homage to the space tarantulas and groovy Groovitrons on planet Funky. Am I doing a Bowie homage or a George Clinton homage? And what a coincidence, this is essay thirteen, the unlucky one. Thirteen is an unlucky number because of the Knights Templar. What did they find under Solomon's Temple of Groove? I bet it was pretty freaky, man. And love is not loving.

Bowie said during his appearance on the show Storytellers, that he'd been accused of helping to kill the Sixties, and that he took particular offense to that. 'The Sixties were already dead', he said 'I just helped to clear the rotting corpses'

That tickles me.

You know what I don't like and think is pretentious? I won't give you time to answer because I will say why. You see, I never really wanted you to answer, I just wanted something to say as a buffer to the next statement I will say about what I don't like and think is pretentious: albums with insanely long names that can't fit on one line of white lined paper if you're writing it down. I'm looking at you, 'Lifted' by Bright Eyes. Damn you Oberst! Whenever I was listing my favorite albums I would get pissed off whenever I came to Ziggy because it was so long and it would disrupt the aesthetic I was building when scribbling the list down in the middle of pre-Calculus in high school.

I have just read an interview where Bowie supposedly explains the plot of this album. It makes slightly more sense than the story of Scientology. I'm not the biggest fan of concept albums. I think that the simpler the plot and concept is, the better it works. I don't like dumb operas, I like albums with one loose overriding concept. Like Sufjan Stevens. Or '69 Love Songs' by Magnetic Fields.

But who cares what it's about? The goal is music, not narrative. On the surface, this album is an amazing collection of brilliantly written pop songs, that rise and fall in mood and temp but never in quality, and have their own sense of grandiosity and reach up into the sky in a very 'I'm the King of the Whole Goddamn World' sort of way. It's that which Bowie does best, an all or nothing, operatic, catchy number with vocals that pulse with emotion and character every breath he takes. Just look at 'Under Pressure'

When I hear the last song on this album, which is my favorite track, here is the image I get: Bowie on a stool, smoking a cigarette, a look of cool detachment on his face, reminiscent of William Shatner and his spoken word version of 'Rocket Man'. Then imagine that the curtains burst open just as the drums kick in and as Bowie first sings the line 'Oooh oooh ooh, you're a Rock and Roll suicide'

And then the thing becomes a laser show, with Bowie on a platform surrounded in mist that rises higher and higher as he says 'OH NO LOVE, YOU'RE NOT ALONE'

The freakiest thing about this album is how uninnovative it actually is. This album is literally Bowie putting on a weird suit, then playing songs that are some of the most accessible things you can play. It's great and a funny sort of practical joke. Imagine hearing the hype about this new 'Ziggy' album by Bowie, about how he is all dressed up as a character. You must think, 'Wow, that sounds pretty out there', but when you listen to the album, you hear a beautiful Rock and Roll homage to 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow' in the song 'Starman.' Like I mentioned previously about 'Exile on Main St.', this is not innovation, nor is it a rehashing, it is a perfection of a certain sound. And Bowie hit the f*cking mark. And always remember this:

YOU'RE NOT ALONE

YOU'RE NOT ALONE

YOU'RE NOT ALONE

YOU'RE NOT ALONE

YOU'RE NOT ALONE

Few things are as effective at halting the creative flow than an obsessive pursuit of perfection. It's like a dog chasing it's own tail. The Ouroboros. The Monolith in '2001'. The green light in 'The Great Gatsby'.

I fancy myself to be a writer. At least, that's what I tell people at parties. My first novel will be called 'Dead Flowers', and I've got the majority of the chapters and ideas all lined up in my head, I have literally a fifty page biography for each of the main characters, these people are so real in my head, yet when I sit down and start writing I keep stalling after finishing the first chapter. See, I'm a perfectionist. Imagine my horror when I realized these things can't be edited after you submit them.

Werner Herzog is one of the most important German directors, being one of the primary figures in the German New Wave in the 1970s, with haunting films like 'Aguirre: The Wrath of God', shot in a tropical jungle and one of the greatest depictions of madness ever on film. The main character leads a doomed expedition up the Amazon river in search of the mythical city of Gold, El Dorado. El Dorado, one of the most fascinating legends of Human creation. Every civilization has their Holy Grail myth. A myth which is the concept of perfection. Whatever perfection is in one's mind, that is what the myth can represent.

To be human is to reject and simultaneously strive for perfection.

I'm tired of trying to be perfect. Most of us didn't ask to be born. I'm tired of trying to make love to the world with my writing and my ideas. Vonnegut once said if you try and do that, your writing will get pneumonia, so to speak. From now on I'll try and write about only what I find interesting and pleasing. I want to please one person. Me. And if people like what I write then that's great. Because that tells me that I'm not alone, I'm not as crazy as I thought. And the feeling of breaking away from isolation is a nice one.

However, being alone and crazy is a little comforting too. Because we were lied to. We aren't perfect, unique individuals. Mr. Rogers lied. And to be crazy and in isolation, means, as Orwell once said 'to be in a minority of one.' And it's nice to be unique.

Some things come really close to perfect. I'd say that Apocalypse Now comes pretty close to perfect. The Hollow Men and The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot. They come pretty close. The Great Gatsby is probably the closest human endeavor that reaches the impossibility of perfection. The Sistine Chapel.

Now that I think about it, The Pyramids are pretty perfect, too. Maybe perfection exists only within the realm of mathematics and science. E=MC2. But Mathematics and Science, they are cold. Cold Perfection. They bring no emotion to them. Only enlightenment. Only understanding. Maybe that's the thing. Maybe, nothing emotional can be perfect because emotions are an imperfect and unpredictable thing.

To listen to the album is to be taken along on a ride that doesn't reach the perfection status, but it without a doubt reaches the masterpiece stage, and that's rare enough, so I'm thankful. It is a wonderland of guitars, rising and falling like the tides, with a grace reminiscent of the heavenly points of light which navigate the sky above us like galactic steamboats.

As I listen, I think Velvet Waltz may be my favorite song on the album. It is appropriately named, because it moves forwards beautifully, like a dance between two true loves. No, that can't be. That's too cliché of an image. To perfect. Too fitting. I reject it.

To use the terminology of the album, imagine a metal sphere, ten times the size of Jupiter, floating just a few yards past the Earth. Now, reality and physics would dictate that something ten times the size of Jupiter would have enough gravity to pull something puny like the Earth and the Moon in way before it got that close to actually pass us. But never mind. Appropriately, this is a colossal, ten times the size of Jupiter sort album. With only eight songs, it clocks in at just under 55 minutes.

Is perfection a uniquely human concept? Do alien cultures have the same concept? This album was recorded and rerecorded three times. The title is apt.

That eternal strive.

well, what can i say? this is great, i know it, you know it, the people of the world know it. only thing to worry about now is getting to that 100. Godspeed, best of luck and even if you can't finish it, i can see the Editors Pick in this thread's future ;)

oh wait, didn't realize it was already here, hehe.


oh, and sorry about the double post.

I've decided to clip a few of the albums off of my list and add new ones as my taste expands. I've done this because some of these albums do not interest me anymore, and I've also decided to try and expand the musical types. For instance, punk and indie rock populate the majority of this list, and due to a lot of these albums being in the same genre, themes begin to repeat themselves. Hopefully this will create a more diverse list and as a result, a more diverse series of essays. However, Indie Rock will still dominate this list, haha.

Also, for those interested, here is a list of the additions and those who got cut:

So here is the revised remaining list:

15. Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
16. Trans-Europe Express – Kraftwerk
17. The Velvet Underground & Nico – The Velvet Underground
18. Let It Be – The Replacements
19. Bee Thousand – Guided by Voices
20. Odessy and Oracle – The Zombies
21. Maggot Brain – Funkadelic
22. Loveless – My Bloody Valentine
23. Nevermind – Nirvana
24. Marquee Moon – Television
25. Slanted and Enchanted – Pavement
26. Deceit – This Heat
27. F# A# Infinity – Godspeed You Black Emperor!
28. The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses
29. Is This It – The Strokes
30. Songs of Love and Hate – Leonard Cohen
31. Ambient 1: Music For Airports – Brian Eno
32. Siamese Dream – Smashing Pumpkins
33. White Blood Cells – The White Stripes
34. Spiderland – Slint
35. Violent Femmes – Violent Femmes
36. In The Attic of the Universe – The Antlers
37. Repeater – Fugazi
38. The Low-End Theory – A Tribe Called Quest
39. The Cars – The Cars
40. Zen Arcade – Husker Du
41. Pink Moon – Nick Drake
42. Merriweather Post Pavilion – Animal Collective
43. Dear Science – TV on the Radio
44. Weezer(The Blue Album) – Weezer
45. Tago Mago – Can
46. IV – Led Zeppelin
47. Who's Next – The Who
48. Blue – Joni Mitchell
49. Music Has The Right To Children – Boards of Canada
50. My Aim Is True – Elvis Costello
51. This Nation's Saving Grace – The Fall
52. ...Endtroducing – DJ Shadow
53. The Perfect Prescription – Spacemen 3
54. Quality – Talib Kweli
55. Are You Experienced – The Jimi Hendrix Experience
56. First Utterance – Comus
57. Chairs Missing – Wire
58. Double Nickels on the Dime – The Minutemen
59. Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! - Devo
60. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot – Wilco
61. Kaleidoscope World – The Chills
62. Black Monk Time – The Monks
63. Unknown Pleasures – Joy Division
64. Apologies to The Queen Mary – Wolf Parade
65. Sail Away – Randy Newman
66. Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? - Of Montreal
67. Starsailor – Tim Buckley
68. In The Court of the Crimson King – King Crimson
69. The Queen Is Dead – The Smiths
70. The Joshua Tree – U2
71. Psychocandy – The Jesus and Mary Chain
72. No New York – Various Artists
73. Nebraska – Bruce Springsteen
74. Dire Straits – Dire Straits
75. Second Edition – Public Image Ltd.
76. Crazy Rhythms – The Feelies
77. Sonic Boom – The Sonics
78. Dust Bowl Ballads – Woody Guthrie
79. Screamadelica – Primal Scream
80. Since I Left You – The Avalanches
81. Bitches Brew – Miles Davis
82. The Sun Sessions – Elvis Presley
83. King of the Delta Blues – Robert Johnson
84. What's Going On - Marvin G.aye
85. There's a Riot Goin' On – Sly and the Family Stone
86. Richard D. James Album – Aphex Twin
87. Horses – Patti Smith
88. Legend – Bob Marley
89. Turnstiles – Billy Joel
90. Straight Outta Compton – NWA
91. Electric Warrior – T.Rex
92. Everything All The Time – Band of Horses
93. Tea For The Tillerman – Cat Stevens
94. Kinda Kinks – The Kinks
95. Los Angeles – X
96. Kick Out The Jams – MC5
97. The Soft Bulletin – The Flaming Lips
98. Laughing Stock – Talk Talk
99. 1990 – Daniel Johnston
100. Requiem Mass in D Minor – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Really liked this essay DM. I'm also a (recovering) perfectionist. If you don't believe me you could go check out the Nick Cave review in my journal... the short three paragraphs is far from perfect but check out the link in there of the same album review. Now that was ridiculous of me! Looking forward to the next essay. =D

Definitely looking forward to Wish You Were Here. :D

In The Aeroplane Over the Sea is one of the most brilliant pieces of music I've ever heard. Your review was illuminating to me to say the least. Excellent.

The White Album review was spot on in your description of the group.

I look forward to reading more of your thoughts...especially can't wait for Odessey and Oracle.

Oh BTW, I'm a little disappointed you won't be reviewing Pet Sounds. I would have liked to hear what you had to say about it.

It was a hot summer day, the fifth of June, when Sid Barrett strolled into Abbey Road studios, hair and eyebrows completely shaven, overweight, clutching a plastic bag, a specter, once captain of a band which, since the release of their previous album, 'The Dark Side of the Moon', was the biggest album in the world. It took a while for them to recognize him.

The irony is that he showed up the day they were working on the final mix for the song 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond', a direct tribute to him. He sat down for a while and had a conversation with the band, but when they played him the song, he showed no signs that he understood the relevance of the song. He showed up at David Gilmour's wedding later on that day, and then disappeared. None of them would ever see the man again.

After he left, Roger Waters broke down and wept.

I just watched a part of a documentary/TV series called 'Lords of the Revolution', it was about Timothy Leary. Turn on, tune in, drop out. Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream.

He's either cited as a hero and philosopher or a foolish, dangerous man who brought a whole generation to it's knees with six words. I think he's a little bit of both. He opened up doors to the consciousness and more so than any other single person, ignited the Sixties.

LSD destroyed people. It also saved people. There are plenty of stories out there about it's effects. The story of Daniel Johnston is a chilling tale about what LSD can do to someone who is already mentally unbalanced. Then there is the story of Sid Barrett, somebody who lost complete touch with the world, because of LSD.

It's a testament to Sid's effect on his band mates that for a lot of their career, they looked back and talked about him. Some of their best songs have to do with insanity, a subject they became obsessed with after Sid left.

However, I wonder how much of a loss Sid Barrett actually was. All of the bands best work is done after he left, with the possible exception of 'Jugband Blues' in my mind. If Sid Barrett didn't go crazy, Roger Waters wouldn't have led the band, and he wouldn't have taken the band in the direction that it did. And without him leaving, there wouldn't be a David Gilmour, who, despite not being in what people would call 'a guitar band', produced some of the best solos in Rock history. And without him leaving, the band would lose some of their most memorable songs, and the majority of this album wouldn't exist.

But who knows, maybe if Sid stayed on board, a Lennon-McCartney relationship would have spawned with him and Waters that would have produced even greater songs. You can spend all day contemplating the 'what if's' in history.

You could argue that acid did more damage than good. Actually, I truly believe that to be the case. If acid never came into prominence, the psychedelic movement may not have existed, but that's really the only genre to suffer. The drug of choice in Andy Warhol's Factory was speed, not LSD. Bob Dylan did his best work hopped up on speed.

Pink Floyd make a great album here, with just five songs, the shortest being 5 minutes and 8 seconds. They just don't cover insanity and their fallen band mate, however, they cover consumerism and the rising tide of conformity. 'Welcome to the Machine' seems to be a product of them just finishing 1984. It's a dark and foreboding song, but somehow still catchy. Perhaps the best song on the album is 'Have a Cigar', without a doubt the funkiest song Floyd has ever done, perhaps the best hook Floyd has ever done,('We call it Riding the Gravy Train!), and interestingly enough the only Pink Floyd song with the vocals done by someone not in the band.

It must have been a hell of a thing to follow the monumental album of the decade, and Floyd did a hell of a job, and in my mind, made a superior album.

I just wanted to drop by and tell you I finally listened to all of Funeral by The Arcade Fire and that it was the very first album so far to make my cry.

Just finished hearing your version of The improved Kid A album, I must say that is a perfect album, held all together from the beginning till the end. I always dive into this blank trance listening to Kid A or Amnesiac, to wake up not remembering what I was listening to in the first place.
With this version, I get into this state of trance, but the music is always there, getting better and better.
All I say is ... problem solved.

Btw great work on the Bob Dylan review, that first paragraph gave me the chills.

I think you made a serious mistake with your improved Kid A album. Where is Life in a Glass House? For me, it's the stand out track from Amnesiac. The horns are better even than in the National Anthem. Awesome jazz bit with a (surprisingly) good vocal from Thom. Do people really not give that song credit? It's fantastic!

^ great track ... but you can't put two ending tracks.

I'm sorry to see The Ramones, Blondie, Pixies, and The Beta Band cut from the list. But, adding Wolf Parade, Primal Scream, Boards of Canada, A Tribe Called Quest, The Avalanches, and replacing Kind of Blue with Bitches Brew more than makes up for it. Wishing you major encouragement, especially since the ones I most want to see are between 71 and 81.

If this was the only thing on music banter I'd still be a member.

This thread is such an excellent read. You give an incredible insight into legendary albums in a way which i've rarely seen before. Keep up the good work :)

It's been a while since the last review, don't let me down!

I miss Davey Moore and also his/her reviews. Come back to MB you son of a bitch!

And once again, I appear out of the mist.


Recently, I re-watched the movie 'Blade Runner' and I forgot how astounding that movie really is. It does justice to the sly biblical themes that it presents, like the concept of the prodigal son, but what was really interesting was the questions it posed. When machines become so advanced that they're able to replicate humans in almost every way, what's the difference?

Today the world is dominated by machines. Machines control our money, they get us to and from most places, they allow us to farm en masse, they allow us to talk to each other from long distances, and generally unite and keep the world running. But a question must be raised, without the use of tools, what are we? Humanity got to where it is because of our usage of tools. So who's in control, who really has the power?

power: possession of control, authority, or influence over others

Looking at that, can we honestly claim that it is us who has the power over the machines, because if we were so powerful, why do we depend on them? A brain is no use if there is no limbs or other body parts. I think it's more of an equal relationship. At least until we build sentient machines. Then, we have reason to worry.

Kraftwerk seem to embrace a machine sensibility. They call themselves showroom dummies, and the cover of the album really supports that. They're trying to say that, in the end, if you look at science and evolution, we're just complex machines. The best computer ever made is still the human brain. And again, it raises the question, just what is the difference between man and machine?

Trans-Europe Express invokes the feeling of travel, the album being named after what is now a defunct rail system in Europe, that stretched between countries. That is a prime theme in the work of this band, the sense of traveling, going places, perhaps leaving somewhere forever and trying to find a new place to call home. And while many accuse Kraftwerk of trying to be like machines a bit too much, there is a pulsing humanity lurking beneath the surface of this album, with songs like 'Hall of Mirrors', where they say 'Even the greatest stars, despise themselves in the looking glass.'

The album is composed as if the classical way of composition and music making never went out of style. I say that is pretty spot-on. All classical music needed was an electronic revamp. And Kraftwerk provided that. Even if you don't like techno, listen to this album at least, for it is the magnum opus of a highly important band in the development of 20th century music.

Life is timeless, and so is this album.

Loved the closing line.

Oh he's back!

Great entry as usual. Will have to check that Kraftwerk album now, as I only got Man-Machine which I enjoyed thoroughly.

--Michaela Williams, Chicago Daily News

--George English, Fire Island News


I was sitting in my friend's dorm room. The music is very loud. What is particularly interesting about his room is the fact that everybody draws on the wall. It's a constantly changing work of art. What's also cool is the kid across the hall from my friend is a man of immaculate taste and a regular in Ralph's room(my friend is Ralph.) You see, the room I'm in is a popular room, and a constant cast of characters goes in and out of the place. The man across the hall is named Ryan, and he has a monster of a record collection. His record player and all his vinyls are in Ralph's room, because Ralph's room has the speakers, and Ralph's room has all the dangerous and illicit things inside.

A shiver went through my spine when the cocaine hit my brain. For the next forty-five minutes I was on the verge of acting violently towards the entire world around me. Urges so strong it was hell trying to tame them and stay civil. I am an animal. I want to break that chair. Knock down that wall. Punch my friend in the face. It hit me right as the viola was wailing. Venus in Furs. I was speeding through a tunnel and my mind was racing and so was everybody else's. A fevered wail from someone across the room. It's a girl we know. She got excited by something and had a bottle of oxycodone in her hand. She gasps dumbly. The top wasn't on all the way and flew off when she shook her arms. Now the opiates are all over the floor. I laugh at her. The way the pills dropped, it looked like they fell out of her like a damn slot machine.

'Hey, Kelsey's paying off!'

I blame her craziness on The Velvet Undergound. It's the perfect soundtrack for a drug-haze. It gets you in a mood where bad things can potentially happen. It's that insanity and fear, lurking beneath the surface that makes this album so appealing. It goes without saying that it was quite revolutionary in 1967. Not even Dylan reached the depths that the Velvet Underground did.

We were all high and all crazy. There's woods behind the dorm. About ten of us went out there and chased each other around, throwing snow and horsing around. It was an intense inter-personal experience. That's what college has been like for me. I've been hanging out with the underground the seedy underbelly, the shady characters. It's an amazing way to live but is only possible in the briefest time frame. I've seen people go from promising young scholars to drug addicts within a couple of months. It's a hell of a ride while it lasts, though.

Every time I play the 'The Velvet Underground and Nico' vinyl, there's usually someone in the room who hasn't heard it before. And usually, that someone is a stoner or a duggie, and they always like the Velvets. I'm convinced that this is the drug album. The album is swimming with desperation and dirt. It just, sounds dirty at certain points. It gets the fear going.

On my first acid trip, I listened to it. During 'Sunday Morning' I wept... for myself and the stupid decisions I made. I was trying to grasp in my head the overwhelming entirety of everything. I know now that the acid trip was my spiritual awakening. The sound had surrounded me and burrowed deep into my mind like a goddamned gopher. It's an angry, aggressive beast this album, teeming with polar opposites, love and hate, aggressive passion and comatose hypnotism. It's a soundtrack for dirty, druggy insanity.

An enigma wrapped in a riddle. Why weren't they popular when they very well should have been? Why did they name their magnum opus after a beloved album by the most beloved band of all time? The Replacements tried their best to open the door for others to come. Instead, in a drunken rage they busted the door until it was splinters hanging off hinges, then blacked out and fell down to the floor, drunk and drooling. Later on, Pearl Jam and Nirvana walked on through without much effort.

If they had come along at a later date, let's say the late eighties and early nineties, I don't doubt that these guys would have been popular. Hell, even in the late 70s they would have been popular. But the mid-eighties just didn't care about angst. The mainstream had been Reagan-ized and focused on partying. Hair bands were happy to oblige. For all intents and purposes true punk was dead, and New Wave was taking over.

As I listen to Let It Be, I realize that The Replacements can probably be labeled as Pop-Punk. Think of them as a raw, much more talented version of Blink-182. Blink-182 was a big part of the music of my childhood and my generation, because they sang about being a teenager and growing up. It struck a nerve. The Replacements sang about the same stuff, but were more mature and smarter. They were brats that made great music. Tough bastards with a sensitive side.

There were obstacles. The Replacements never made as good of a top-to-down album as Let It Be. There albums probably weren't consistent enough. But they were always producing gems. They were sloppy drunk on SNL, and caused a ruckus that probably prevented them from appearing on more TV shows. Paul Westerberg's voice wasn't powerful enough for the melodies he envisioned, and so his voice instead is wildly passionate scream that I absolutely love, but isn't very conducive to mainstream success.

Let It Be is a maelstrom of changing seas and shifting moods. The Replacements go all over the map and score a bulls eye with each attempt. The first song, 'I Will Dare', is a coming out party, full of the unbridled passion of youth. In some ways, Paul Westerberg could be as passionate about being a teenager as Brian Wilson was. Just listen to the song 'Unsatisfied' It startles you with it's frankness and honesty. 'Favorite Thing' is a great love song, with the guitars sounding like 'Hang Onto Yourself' by David Bowie. 'We're Coming Out' is the most hardcore things The Replacements would ever do, and they do a good job at it. 'Androgynous' gives a good defense of the 80s clothing style. 'Answering Machine' has some of my favorite Replacements lyrics:

They were always too clever by half, and it prevented their mainstream success. If they really wanted to be as big a band as lets say, Motley Crue was in the eighties, they could have, but they chose not to. But despite all that, Let It Be really is a populist record. And I don't say that in a bad way. The Beatles were a populist band.

Whatever it was, so it goes, let it be, let it be.

This is not an essay or a normal review. It isn't even an anecdote or a short story. Just read it, listen to the album and figure it out. There's a clue in my avatar. Find out who the man in the picture is and read up on him(wikipedia will suffice)





The sound waves bounced around inside his skull,
backwards into time he is/was/will be sent,
a curious regression triggered by an aural association
a remembrance of things past(in search of misplaced clocks!)
into his memory and into the unfolding ugly depths of his mind.
The ugly depths of his mind goes well with the beautiful sounds.
The echos, the fear, the melodic trance machines
and the surreal mystical connections that everything seemed to--

He is sent back to a starry night, late last summer,
the cricket cacophony naught but a buzzing background hum,
staring intently into the sky, smoking, searching for hardcore UFOs,
seeing satellites crawl across the sky,
sitting with a friend and a box of fireworks,
shooting them off,
the explosions shot outwards
with white hot tendrils of light
which cut through the immense black sky.
No aliens were found.

A new memory, going forward but still facing back,
now: a new line running straight on the grid
his hope is a slow decline downwards and spiraling
The girl he has a crush on, singing and yelling in the rain as they ran for shelter:
“speed up, slow down, go all around, in the end.”
she runs faster than him and he can't catch up.
she runs through the night and is young and full of life
she screams and she cries in ecstatic joyous splendor
she wants him to come, but he can't follow her there,
even though he wants to
he just ain't quick enough
and she won't slow down
which is why he had the crush in the first place
he knew it was an impossibility.

A new memory, going forward but still facing back,
When he was on acid and going insane,
smashing a piece of wood on the ground
imitating his heroes who smashed their instruments on stage
he felt he was on stage
twenty-five seven
the cure, the catharsis, pure emotional release
freaking out tour groups on campus, shouting:
“THIS IS IT. THIS IS THE REAL SHIT. THIS IS THE FEAR,
THE PASSION AND THE TRAGEDY”
nobody dared interrupt his awful bliss.

you know things could get much worse
you know things could get much better
could be better!

Down and out.
A guy he knew got arrested for robbing a liquor store,
the Arabs who owned the place chased him all the way down the street,
screaming in their native tongues and finally tackled him.

Let's just go get out of here
down and out

“I can't bear to shout but right now i'm trapped inside my mind.
I feel like a scientist sometimes, or a journalist, sitting here,
trying to show you the things inside my mind,
with hopes that you'll like it,
because if not, then hell, why even try?
please, someone unlock my mind
i seek to understand me
it is not working out.”

The smell of her house
he can remember it
it looks so nice
it was always nice, all of it, it's entirety
his brain is a cluttered mess.
they're all a mess

rusty and divided steel
a clash of swords and a clash of wills
we could argue and fight all day
but who cares?
Nobody will win.
Nobody ever wins.
So we sit there with our
rusty and divided steel
the race is yet to come

Well, the man in your avatar is Marcel Proust, who wrote in search of lost time, which is referenced in, and seems to have been imitated by (in style at least) the poem you posted. Did you write it? I haven't listened to the album yet, i admit, but my guess is that the poem is essentially the story of the album? I don't know, i'm probably wrong.

By the way, Your post on Daydream nation inspired me to get it straight away even though it held little to no interest to me before. Brilliantly written stuff. I love how you meld your own experiences and observations with the music to create something more than a review.

I don't think they'd be able to explain it eihter, 'cos they're too far gone.

I'd keep Kid A just as it is, I don't really like Amnesiac. Indeed until the new song Lotus Flower I haven't really cared for Radiohead's music since Kid A.

I would have liked Pet Sounds and Forever Changes to have been kept on the list. Forever Changes is classic druggy melodic psychedelia.

For some odd reason I've never appreciated the music of Radiohead with the same level of intensity as most of the band's hardcore fans. And it's not for lack of trying to like Radiohead... I own most Radiohead's acclaimed albums: The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A and In Rainbows and I'm still wondering why so many people find Radiohead such an extraordinary band. I don't hate the band but I can't think of a single song of theirs that stands out as a masterpiece of pop music.

This is the best review I've read in a long time. You are kick ass right now. I love the first paragraph particularly.

Please don't compare this group to The Beatles. John, Paul, Ringo and George were in another class compared to The Replacements as far as I'm concerned.