51. Otis Redding - Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul (1965)

1. Ole Man Trouble*

2. Respect

3. Change Gonna Come*

4. Down in the Valley

5. I've Been Loving You Too Long*

6. Shake

7. My Girl

8. Wonderful World

9. Rock Me Baby

10. Satisfaction

11. You Don't Miss Your Water

A-

I'm of two minds about this album. On the one hand it's obviously an important and influential one. It features some truly brilliant production, too - the sound is warm and clear, and the backing band are note-perfect throughout, providing a driving yet classy rhythmic accompaniment to the songs that's worth the price of admission on its own. 

But on the other hand, the style in which Otis Redding sings on this album is perhaps my least favourite style of singing there is. Well, no, that's not quite fair - my least favourite style of singing is whatever the hell Chad Kroeger thought he was doing when he recorded "This Is How You Remind Me". But if I'm being honest, I do not like overwrought, fire-and-brimstone, brimming-with-grace-notes singing. Redding mumbles, wails, and makes countless asides through this album, and does practically everything except sing the bloody songs. Which is annoying, because he has a truly great voice, and if he had just reigned it in a bit (as he would do to great effect on "Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay", for example), then this could have been a truly great album.

That said, after a few listens I began to warm up to ol' Ramblin' Redding. I can see why a lot of people admire this album so much. I realise I'm in the minority when it comes to my opinions on a lot of singers, and particularly what I consider over-singing (blame it on being raised in the 90s, and having to suffer through the peak of Mariah Carey's career). And really, it's not so excessive as to prevent this from being a great album. But for me the real selling point is the backing band. Booker T. & the M.G.s are back to provide rhythm and guitar, there's some marvellous horn work (which Redding was apparently in the habit of writing himself), and there's even Isaac Hayes on piano. I don't think the covers on this album can match the originals (or at least, "My Girl", "Satisfaction", and "Change Gonna Come", which are the ones I'm familiar with), and no sane person who's heard the Aretha Franklin version of "Respect" would ever side with the Redding original, but they're all great songs in their own right. 

Really, thinking about it, it's a testament to the greatness of Otis Redding that a guy like me, who really does not prefer this style of music, would enjoy it as much as I did. 

50. Bob Dylan - Bringing It All Back Home (1965)

1. Subterranean Homesick Blues*

2. She Belongs to Me

3. Maggie's Farm

4. Love Minus Zero / No Limit

5. Outlaw Blues

6. On the Road Again

7. Bob Dylan's 115th Dream

8. Mr. Tambourine Man*

9. Gates of Eden

10. It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)*

11. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

A+

Here we are. The big Five-Oh. I didn't think I'd last this long, honestly. I think this might even have been the final album I reviewed before giving up last time. Maybe I should start linking this blog. I could be the next Nitsuh Abebe.

Anyway (boy I segue with "anyway" a lot), here we are with a pretty great album to ring in number 50. This is the album where Dylan went electric, and the results are astonishing.

Honestly, I'm pretty glad I'm doing this project if only because it's forcing me to listen to Bob Dylan. I've been a fan of the odd song of his for years but I've never really gotten around to listening to his albums properly. So hearing Bringing It All Back Home was pretty great.

It's easy to forget just how odd Bob Dylan was (and, I suppose, is). But then what do you expect of the only musician to ever win the Nobel Prize for Literature? And Bringing It All Back Home is a deeply odd album. It's another one of those "two for one" deals - the first half is all electric rock, while the second half is mostly acoustic material. The result is an album that really showcases the many sides of Mr Dylan, and his range and strength as a songwriter.

The album is mostly composed of great songs, so it's easier to just point out the ones I didn't quite like as much. Honestly, "Outlaw Blues" is simplistic and repetitive. It's an OK song but can't compare to the highlights on this album. And "On the Road Again" is a fun putdown of Bohemia, but not particularly deep or interesting. They're both good songs but more interesting for their novelty at the time then as lasting artistic statements.

Every other song on this album, however, is brilliant. Things kick off with "Subterranean Homesick Blues", one of the strangest songs on the album and still a deeply peculiar work 60 years later. A deranged, stream-of-consciousness description of the counterculture and all its highs and lows, it really captures the paranoid, overwhelming nature of the scene. Then you have "She Belongs to Me", an elegant blues-based love song full of lovely poetic imagery, and perfectly capturing the mixture of possessiveness and submission that characterises love. "Maggie's Farm" is a hilarious outburst, a rollicking blues number that could be about being fed up with any number of things, but is probably about the strain put on Dylan by his fame and his desire to break out of the constraints of being spokesman for his generation. Then "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" is another heartfelt love song, and a truly beautiful one (favourite lyric: "My love, she's like some raven, at my window with a broken wing"). Then you have the two weak tracks, and then "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream", which is a hilarious parody of the conquest of America that no words can do justice to.

Flip the record, and you have some of the strangest and most beautiful music ever recorded. "Mr. Tambourine Man" could be about anything, but I think it's about music - both the joy of making it and the joy of listening to it. But then it might just be about getting high. In any case, it has one of the most gorgeous melodies ever recorded, and it's my favourite song on the album.

Then you have "Gates of Eden". What the hell is this song about? Eden is the point of origin for mankind, but everyone in the song is trying to return there. But then Eden was never destroyed - God placed an angel outside with a burning sword. So I guess this song, which describes all sorts of chaos and despair, each verse closing with a contrasting comment about what's going on inside the gates of Eden, is about the corrupt nature of the world and the impossibility of ever going back to a prelapsarian state. Everyone is trying to reach Paradise, but it's impossible. The world is what it is, and until we stop trying to regain Eden and deal with the world on its own terms, were just going to keep making things worse. I think that's what the song is about.

"It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" is a far more straightforward political song, and often ranked as the best on the album. It's filled with venom and vitriol but it's pretty self-explanatory - everything is going to hell.

Finally, we have "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". Literally every slow, bitter rock ballad owes a debt to this song. It's gorgeous and poignant, and musically it prefigures so many songs. 

Anyway, it's odd for me to go through an album song by song, but this album really deserves that kind of in depth (ish) treatment. It's a truly great album with some truly great songs on it. And this isn't even Dylan's creative peak! The songs on this album are strange and rambunctious and sonically confrontational (side one) and beautiful and cryptic and deeply moving (side two). I've listened to it like five or six times and I'm still not sick of it. It's really great.

49. The Sonics - !!!Here Are the Sonics!!! (1965)

1. The Witch*

2. Do You Love Me

3. Roll Over Beethoven

4. Boss Hoss*

5. Dirty Robber

6. Have Love Will Travel

7. Psycho

8. Money (That's What I Want)

9. Walking the Dog

10. Night Time Is the Right Time

11. Strychnine*

12. Good Golly Miss Molly

A-

So this album wasn't the first instance of hard rock. The Kinks released "You Really Got Me" in 1964, and "Louie Louie" came out in 1963. But even so, it's a fucking heavy record. It's comprised mostly of covers, but the real standouts are the original compositions. "The Witch", with it's stop-start guitar riff and thunderous drums, is unlike anything else. And it's about a witch, for some reason, which is awesome and prefaces the bizarre subject matter of so much punk rock. Then you have "Boss Hoss", a thunderous ode to a kick ass automobile that again features a fantastically heavy sound and deeply odd timing. "Psycho" is just pure vitriol, and wonderful. And "Strychnine" is like nothing else. I mean what do you make, in 1965, of a band singing a thunderously heavy ode to drinking a deadly poison?

So yes, the Sonics were an odd bunch.

The rest of the album consists or remarkably solid covers of 1950s rock tunes. The sound is heavy and strange throughout. "The Witch" features almost surf-like guitar solos. Many of the tracks are accompanied by a saxophone that hits like a punk guitar solo. It's all pretty magnificent. One of the best songs (included on the rerelease but not the original LP) is "Santa Claus", where in response to the question "what fills my stocking at Christmas" singer Gerry Roslie just screams "NOTHING!" over and over again.

I'm always a bit iffy about regarding things as proto-punk. As Borges said, things tend to create their own antecedents. But then again, several of these songs were issued on important compilations in the early 70s, and did in fact have a big and direct influence on punk. But putting all that aside, this is just a great rock & roll record. It's about as heavy as you could get in 1965, and it's wonderfully catchy while also being deeply strange. Everything is recorded in the red. Roslie bellows like a lunatic, and the rhythm section is just plain evil.  If you like 50s rock but always wished it hit harder, or you're interested in the birth of punk, then this is a pretty great record to get. It's the platonic ideal of the "strip it down and crank it up" approach to rock.

48. Jerry Lee Lewis - Live at the Star Club, Hamburg (1964?)

1. Mean Woman Blues*

2. High School Confidential

3. Money (That's What I Want)

4. Matchbox

5. What's I Say,Part 1

6. What'd I Say, Part 2

7. Great Balls of Fire

8. Good Golly, Miss Molly

9. Lewis Boogie

10. Your Cheatin' Heart

11. Hound Dog*

12. Long Tall Sally

13. Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On*

C+

So I tried to like this album, I honestly did. But let's just face it - it's kind of shit. I know people love to go on about the wild men of rock, unhinged energy and all that shit, but you know what's better than all that crap - a decent groove. This album is a rhythmless mess. Yes, Lewis is a dynamite piano player, and he redefined the instrument and brought new levels of showmanship to rock. But as a vocalist he's just fucking annoying, and frankly it would be nice if he could lock in with his band more (on the songs where he actually manages this the album manages to approach something good). The overall impression I got from this album is of someone who really wanted to be Little Richard but lacked the vocal chops, so he compensated by acting like a fucking lunatic.

Add to this the fact that the album sounds like it was recorded through a cardboard box, and the deeply unsavoury revelations about Lewis' personal life, and the whole result was something I found pretty annoying. I did listen to it twice, just to be fair - the first time sober and the second time (as it seemed warranted, given the material) with a few drinks under my belt. And honestly, if I was an immature fuckhead obsessed with the rawness and wildness of rock instead of, you know, actual fucking songs, and if I was trashed, I probably would have enjoyed this a lot more. It's definitely music for drinking to.

The biggest problem is just that this album takes off at a roar and never really develops. It's basically like listening to one long, loud, fatuous song. The lyrics are moronic, the backing band are almost inaudible and frankly not that great, and the whole thing just left me feeling bored. Not pissed off. Not scandalised. Not any of the things an album like this was probably aiming for. Just bored. 

I do like piano-led rock, mind. I loved Here's Little Richard. I loved the first Dresden Dolls album (although it helps that Brian Viglione is a fucking incredible drummer, and that Amanda Palmer has a voice like a sexy Satan). I even, god help me, like Elton John. But this album is everything I hate about rock & roll - a view where nothing matters but rawness, wildness, and sticking it to the man. You know who the man is? The man is the guy who has to come in after you leave and clean up all the broken bottles and vomit. That is the man you are sticking it to, nine times out of ten.

Anyway, I can see why people like this album. I just don't get it, I guess. I don't think I've ever really liked Jerry Lee Lewis, even as a kid. I'm really on the fence about the whole '50s rock and roll thing to begin with. Oh well. Honestly it's kind of nice to be able to give my first unequivocally bad review. I was kind of worried I'd like everything on the list and then what's the point? I could have just posted a single post that read "All these albums are good and you should buy them".

However, just in the interest in fairness, from Wikipedia:

[[In 1998, Mojo included Live at the Star Club on their list of the best 20 live albums of all time.[10] In 2003 the Digital Dream Door included the album at number 4 on their list of the greatest live albums of all time.[11] In 2011, Goldmine included Live at the Star Club on their list of the best 13 live albums of all time.[12] In 2015 the NME included the album at number 34 on their list of the greatest live albums of all time.[13] Also in 2015, Rolling Stone included the album at number 16 on their list.[14] In 2020, The Telegraph included it at number 2 on their list of the best live albums of all time.[15] Also in 2020, The Independent included it at number 4 on their list of the greatest live albums of all time.]]

So your mileage may vary.

47. Buck Owens and His Buckaroos - I've Got a Tiger By the Tail (1965)

1. I've Got a Tiger By the Tail

2. Trouble and Me

3. Let the Sad Times Roll On

4. Wham Bam

5. If You Fall Out of Love With Me

6. Fallin' for You

7. We're Gonna Let the Good Times Roll*

8. The Band Keeps Playin' On*

9. Streets of Laredo*

10. Cryin' Time

11. A Maiden's Prayer

12. Memphis

B+

I'm really starting to warm up to all this country music. I doubt it will ever be my favourite genre, but so far all the country albums on the List have been pretty enjoyable.

This album apparently typifies the "Bakersfield Sound". I can see why it became so popular. Where all the preceding country albums have been slow and (honestly) a bit dreary, Tiger... adds a peppy rock back beat, jangly and jaunty guitars, and a welcome sense of humour. The rock influence is so prevalent that there's even a Chuck Berry cover ("Memphis"). Not to say that this is by any stretch of the imagination a "rock record". It's still pretty damned country, with lots of twangy, nasal vocals, fiddles and pedal steel guitar. But it's a fun listen. 

The title track kind is kind of misleading as to what's to come - it's almost impossibly upbeat in sound, even as it tells the tale of a man who's shacked-up with a wild woman and just can't handle it. The rest of the album is slightly more sedate and steady in sound, although the first half still packs quite a punch. There's a lot of cheeky humour, too. "Wham Bam" is pretty clearly about a guy who's happy to do the deed as long as there are no strings attached. "We're Gonna Let the Good Times Roll" is about a guy who's excited that his girlfriend's coming back to town, for all the obvious reasons. But then you have sadder songs like "Cryin' Time", the lovely "The Band Keeps Playin'On", and the mournful-if-still-slightly-tongue-in-cheek "Streets of Laredo", about a dying cowboy. And through it all the lyrics are pretty clever and insightful, in that rough-and-ready way that country lyricvs so often are. No "Yeah yeah baby I wanna hold your hand ooh yeah shake for me baby" nonsense here, just proper songs with proper lyrics about real life and all its ups and downs.

The thing that really stands out on this album, though, is the guitars. The album has a stripped-back sound, and the guitars chime and wind and twang marvelously in a way they really haven't in any of the albums on the List so far. There's some marvelous interplay on display, as well as a couple of lovely chiming guitar intros that sound incredibly modern.

Apparently the Bakersfield Sound led directly to the development of country rock. Is this a good thing? I mean, that means this album is indirectly responsible for the Eagles. Then again, "Desperado" was a pretty great song. So I guess all is forgiven.

A fun listen and an obviously important collection of music. 

46. The Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones (1964)

1. Route 66

2. I Just Want to Make Love to You

3. Honest I Do

4. Mona (I Need You Baby)

5. Now I've Got a Witness (Like Uncle Gene and Uncle Phil)

6. Little by Little

7. I'm a King Bee

8. Carol

9. Tell Me (You're Coming Back)

10. Can I Get a Witness

11. You Can Make It If You Try

12. Walking the Dog

B-

And so we come to the Rolling Stones, perhaps the most overrated act in rock history. Yes, they produced "Street Fighting Man" and "Gimme Shelter". They also foisted the godawful "Brown Sugar" on the world, and let's not forget "Dancing in the Streets".

Anyway, at the point of time of this album the Rolling Stones were just another rhythm and blues act, taking  American black music and fumbling through pretty solid interpretations of the original music. The rhythm section is aces and Keith Richards is a great guitarist. The problem is (and always will be) Mick Bloody Jagger. The guy is a fine enough singer, and on this album he does a decent job. But honestly, he would go on to be one of the most self-indulgent singers in rock, with a sort of overblown drawl that only appealed to heroin addicts and fourteen year old girls. 

At this point, at least, he was just doing straight interpretations. As a result he can't fuck-up the dynamite musicianship of the band, and the result is some pretty enjoyable music. There's nothing particularly remarkable about this album, and honestly if it wasn't the Rolling Stones'  debut it probably wouldn't be on this list, but it's an enjoyable R&B record. I particularly like the Bo Diddley nod "Mona", which introduces interesting rhythms and a distorted guitar to an otherwise straight R&B record. 

So, yeah. The Stones were always a good band and they do a good job here. Just be prepared in the future for several albums of a skinny white dude screaming about drug abuse in the voice of a black preacher.

45. Dusty Springfield - A Girl Called Dusty (1964)

 

1. Mama Said

2. You Don't Own Me*

3. Do Re Mi

4. When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes*

5. My Colouring Book

6. Mockingbird

7. Twenty-Four Hours from Tulsa

8. Nothing

9. Anyone Who Had a Heart *

10. Will You Love Me Tomorrow

11. Wishin' and Hopin

12. Don't You Know

A

About ten years ago, my sister and I were sitting around drinking and listening to music (as we often did, and still do when the opportunity presents itself). My sister's tastes mostly run to top 40 pop, while I generally go for older or more indie stuff. Anyway, I put the Jesus and Mary Chain's Darklands on and I'll never forget my sister's proclamation: "I want to fuck his voice".

I bring this up because honestly, that's how I feel about Dusty Springfield. Her voice has the perfect mix of charm, intelligence and downright sensuality, and I fucking love it. Add to that a collection of great song choices and and enormous, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to production, and this is just a great record from start to finish. 

The great thing is that Springfield has range. She can blaze through upbeat soul like "Mama Said" and play the wounded lover on the slow "My Colouring Book". "When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes" is an utterly joyful, and wonderfully over-the-top song with an irresistible hook that tells the story of a man originally dismissed who slowly wins his love. But the really good stuff is the slow ballads. Leslie Gore will always own "You Don't Own Me", but Springfield does a wonderful job of it and the lush production adds an interesting twist to the song. And "Anyone Who Had  Heart" is similarly gorgeous. She may not be able to quite match the originals, but Springfield has her own particular take on the songs that makes them stand on their own. I'd also like to refocus on the production, which is a trifle overblown but at the same time irresistibly catchy, as opposed to the slick and taut original versions of most of these songs.

It's kind of interesting, really. Dusty Springfield sings with an American accent, and her songs ape the American originals, but no-one quite manages to perfect the imitation and the result is something strange and unique. I mention this because, pretty much since the '50s, this has been the story of British rock and soul - white people trying to sound black, and ending-up sounding completely unique. It's especially true of the Rolling Stones, who are the next album on this list.

Anyway, this is a great album. If you love early 60s pop (which I do) then you owe it to yourself to hear it. What's amazing is that this isn't even the best Dusty Springfield album on the list - the superlative Dusty in Memphis is still to come.

44. Solomon Burke - Rock 'n' Soul (1964)

1. Good Bye Baby (Baby Good Bye)*

2. Cry to Me*

3. Won't You Give Him (One More Chance)

4. If You Need Me

5. Hard, Ain't It Hard

6. Can't Nobody Love You

7. Just Out of Reach

8. You're Good for Me*

9. You Can't Love Them All

10. Someone to Love Me

11. Beautiful Brown Eyes

12. He'll Have to Go

B

So Solomon Burke was the first official "soul" artist, singing the sort of music that people in this day and age think of as classic 60s soul. That's a pretty big deal. What isn't a pretty big deal is this album.

I mean, yes this album contains a load of very successful singles. But when did success ever equate to quality? David Lee Roth had a big hit with a godawful version of "California Girls". The problem is that while Burke has one of the all time great voices, his material just doesn't live up to it.

Which isn't to say that this is a bad album. All the songs are good, to varying degrees, and it's a nice enough listen. There just isn't that extra level of oomph to elevate this above "pretty good for its time" soul music.

There are exceptions, of course. The first two tracks are dynamite. "Good Bye Baby" features a truly extraordinary degree of range in the singer, as he's forced to play the wounded lover gearing up for one last triste. And "Cry to Me" is a song so great there are no words to describe it. I mean, what even is it? A bizarre hodgepodge of every hip music style present at the time, it's gorgeous, rhythmic music paired to a truly great lyric delivered by a truly great singer. Burke was a preacher from being a child, and he really sells the idea of turning to music for solace when everything has gone terribly wrong. And this is ten years before "Rock n Roll Suicide". 

So anyway, this is a good album but not a particularly memorable one for me at least. If there had been more sturm und drang gospel like "Good Bye Baby" or rhythmic weirdness like "Cry to Me" I might have liked it more. The problem is that lack of decent tunes. Everything about this album is polished and perfect but there really aren't many memorable tunes. I've listened to it three times and there's not much I remember. Which is annoying as Burke is a truly great singer and he obviously had a good production team behind him. This is the problem with pop albums in general, though - a couple of good songs and a bunch of filler.

43. Jacques Brel - Olympia 64 (1964)

1. Amsterdam*

2. Les Timides

3. Le Dernier Repas

4. Les Jardins du Casino

5. Les Vieux

6. Les Toros

7. Tango Funebre

8. Les Plats Pays*

9. Les Bonbons

10. Mathilde

11. Les Bigotes

12. Les Bourgeois

13. Jef

14. Au Suivant*

15. Madeleine

A-

So now we come to an opportunity for me to brush off my high school French. Five and a half years of study and this is literally the only time it's ever been useful, unless you count reading French Wikipedia articles because for some reason French Wikipedia has a lot more biographies for pornographic actresses than the English version. Anyway, I learned two things listening to this album, and they are 1) Brel's lyrics are some next level shit, and honestly give Bob Dylan's a run for their money, and 2) I am not very good at French. In fact I had to pull-up the lyrics for each song on this album and read through them because to be honest I could only understand one word in five. But I think it was worth the effort, and I got the gist of most of the songs even if I didn't quite understand every word.

So anyway, on to the album. I guess I was already familiar with Brel in translation, because people like Scott Walker, David Bowie and Shirley Bassey have all done pretty memorable covers of his work. In particular, Bassey's recording of "If You Go Away" would have to rank as one of the most heart-breaking songs I've ever heard. Then you have Walker's version of "Au Suivant" (which he called "Next"), which is a truly bleak and harrowing piece of music that details the loss of innocence as a group of soldiers are lined up and fed one by one through a mobile bordello on the battlefield. I'm not sure if the song is autobiographical or not but it's heart-breaking and one of my favourite songs, even if it's not as musically memorable as some of the other songs.

And really, the music on this album is pretty great. Fortunately, you don't really need to understand French to enjoy it. Brel has a great voice and the arrangements are interesting and catchy. Brel is as much an actor as he is a singer, and he perfectly conveys the emotion and drama of each of these songs. Which is pretty important, because this is not your typical grab-bag of sappy love songs. "Amsterdam" is a nigh-apocalyptic look at sailors on shore leave in the titular city. "Les Vieux" is a meditation on old age, and the rich and poor alike brought low as they wait for their inevitable deaths (something that hit pretty hard as I recently saw my ailing grandparents for the first time in years). "Les Toros" is about a bullfight, and seems to be a metaphor for something but I'm not sure what (I think it's contrasting the thrill of the spectators, picadors and so forth with the pitiful position of the bull, who dreams as he falls of a special hell for all those bastards). "Les Plats Pays" is about Brel's native Belgium, and the special kind of love that you can have for your homeland even when it's kind of a shithole (something I can identify with as I live in Geelong, which I think is quite nice but which a lot of people have a low opinion of and which to be fair does have a lot of meth heads and bike thieves). There are love songs, but they're mostly bitter or ironic like "Mathilde", which is about a man's former lover returning and the narrator cursing her even as he realises he's doomed to be with her again. But then you have goofy songs like "Les Jardins du Casino" and "Les Bonbons", which significantly lighten the mood.

Anyway I'm not going to go through every song on the album because that would be stupid. This is a pretty great album, though. The music is great, and the lyrics are the icing on the cake if you happen to be able to understand them (which, if any francophones read this, I would like to reiterate that I barely did). Even as a blind man groping through the darkness of these songs I couldn't help but appreciate Brel's genius, and see why he's so highly regarded both in the French-speaking world and abroad. 

Incidentally I think this is the only French-language album we have on the list until Serge Gainsbourg pops-up with Melody Nelson - an album that can only be described as "deeply problematic", although it does have beautiful arrangements. 

Tune in next time for an album with one great song on it and a bunch of boring bullshit filler! Au revoir!