153. The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground (March 1969)

 

1. Candy Says*

2. What Goes On

3. Some Kinda Love

4. Pale Blue Eyes*

5. Jesus

6. Beginning to See the Light

7. I'm Set Free

8. That's the Story of My Life

9. The Murder Mystery

10. After Hours*

****1/2

If you're the sort of person who believes in "bests" then this probably isn't the best Velvet Underground album. The mix of in-your-face experimentalism with classic pop on ...& Nico, and the pure aural insanity of White Light/White Heat, tend to attract a lot more attention. Loaded, on the other hand, is just so damned accessible - I mean, it has "Rock & Roll" and "Sweet Jane" on it! But the older I get, the more I like The Velvet Underground best. Reed and co knuckled down and tried to write an album of commercial pop rock while still retaining the experimentalism of their earlier work. The result is an album of mostly clean guitars, containing mellow rockers and gentle ballads, where the sonic freak outs of the first two albums are twisted into more conventional song structures. It's an astonishing and truly ground-breaking album, but in a very understated and amiable way. The odd rhythms are still there, but slowed down and used to anchor beautiful melodies. The guitars are still weird and innovative, but they twist and wind around one another rather than bludgeoning you with white noise. And the lyrics are some of the best Reed ever wrote. "Candy Says" is a heart-breaking song from the perspective of a transitioning transsexual, and I kind of agree with Reed that it's probably the best song he ever wrote. "Pale Blue Eyes", another of my very favourites, is an incredibly mature love song about adultery and learning to accept that you can't always hold on to the one you love. And "After Hours", featuring the fragile, childlike vocals of drummer Moe Tucker, is the perfect closer - a 1920s-tinged number about turning away from the world and finding solace in isolation, even as you come to terms with the fact that it's really not what you want.

The only real misstep on the album is "The Murder Mystery". Reed claimed that it was positioned there as a cold rebuff to the story of personal growth told by the preceding eight songs. Personally, though, it just kind of sounds like an attempt to out-weird John Cale, who had left the group acrimoniously prior to the album. I mean, this song has a cool riff, and at first it's kind of fun in a "what the hell am I listening to?" kind of way, but it goes on far too long and getting to the end is something of a chore. Unsurprisingly, Reed himself apparently considered it kind of a failure. It serves its purpose on the album thematically, I suppose, and makes the appearance of "After Hours" twice as welcome, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. 

So yeah. Maybe they released "better" albums, but if I could only keep one it would probably be this. 

152. Elvis Presley - From Elvis in Memphis (June 1969)

1. Wearin' That Loved On Look

2. Only the Strong Survive

3. I'll Hold You in My Heart (Till I Can Hold You in My Arms)

4. Long Black Limousine

5. It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin'

6. I'm Movin' On

7. Power of My Love*

8. Gentle on My Mind

9. After Loving You

10. True Love Travels on a Gravel Road

11. Any Day Now*

12. In the Ghetto*

***1/2

I've never been a member of the cult of Elvis. I like some of his songs fine, and I've more or less enjoyed the Elvis albums I've had to listen to for this book, but I pretty much never listen to his music (the only real exceptions being that I have "Heartbreak Hotel" in my liked songs on Spotify, and his Christmas album gets dusted off once a year). From Elvis in Memphis is a very good album, and I can certainly see why so many people hold it in such high regard. But the gushing reviews kind of baffle me. I guess Elvis and I just don't click. 

Possibly this is because this is big, bold Sixties soul music. It's an excellent example of the genre, but as I've said on numerous occasions that's not really a genre I much care for. All of which makes it sound like I'm ragging on this album, but I'm really not. It's a perfectly nice listen, and for Elvis fans it must have been a real treat after watching him spend the 60s releasing dreadful film after dreadful film and mostly recording pop schmaltz. I'd say this is, of the three Elvis albums in the Book, easily the best one; and if Elvis had recorded more material of this calibre he might actually deserve to be called "King of Rock & Roll".

Still, this is in many ways a standard pop album - a bunch of pretty good songs, mostly covers, with one or two truly brilliant songs thrown in. And really, "The Power of My Love" is pretty awesome - a funky, down and dirty behemoth of a song that gives Elvis a chance to be genuinely sexy for the first time in years. Then there's the pretty ballad "Any Day Now", and the touching "After Loving You" - I know a lot of people would disagree with me, but I'll always maintain Elvis' real strength lay in pretty ballads.

This is something I think is proved by the final song on the album. Really, "In the Ghetto" had to be a closer. It's very much the odd song out. For the rest of its running time this is a fun album of well-played R&B, soul and country. "In the Ghetto", on the other hand, is a very pretty and very bleak number chronicling the short, sad life of a child born into poverty, who grows up to be a car thief and winds-up getting shot by the police. Now, I love this song, and I always have. When I was a kid in the late 90s, I lived in a podunk town in the country. Our mum used to take us to the pub (kids were allowed in the general area, but not the main bar), and my little sister and I would drink fire engines, play darts and pool, and hassle mum into giving us money to play songs on the jukebox. I remember our three favourites were "Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog", "We've Gotta Get Outta This Place", and "In the Ghetto". I was captivated by the sadness of the song, and the way it managed to tell a story in such a moving and well-constructed way. I guess I've always been kind of morbid. 

Anyway, this was a fun listen, and a must for Elvis fans. Even an unbeliever like me really enjoyed it. I can't imagine how much someone who genuinely loves the King's mush-mouthed warbling would like it. I guess in many ways Elvis' story is a bit of a sad one - a story of wasted potential and unmet expectations. He had it in him to be truly brilliant, but ended up being forced to grind out a load of crap. From Elvis in Memphis offers a glimpse of what might have been, even if it wound up being too little too late.

151. Dusty Springfield - Dusty in Memphis (March 1969)

1. Just a Little Lovin'

2. So Much Love

3. Son of a Preacher Man*

4. I Don't Want to Hear It Anymore

5. Don't Forget About Me

6. Breakfast in Bed

7. Just One Smile

8. The Windmills of Your Mind*

9. In the Land of Make Believe*

10. No Easy Way Down

11. I Can't Make It Alone

****

I can't remember the first time I heard "Son of  Preacher Man". Following the release of Pulp Fiction it became something of a staple of classic rock stations in the 90s, back when they still played music from the 60s and 70s. I do remember being captivated by it, though. I barely understood what sex was, and here's a song that's sexy and smart and soulful and irresistibly catchy all in one. And that really sums up this album. It's a classic pop album in that it's a selection of good songs (pretty much all covers), given a new spin by integrating pop with southern soul. But the approach is a magical one, and while there are many minor songs on this album there isn't a single bad one. 

I think this album's approach is best summed up by Springfield's version of "Windmills of Your Mind". The theme song to The Thomas Crown Affair, the original is a dark and paranoid folk number. Springfield and Co, however, twist it into a cathartic celebration of being driven to the edge of reason by love, sonically lush and almost upbeat, all in contrast with the borderline nightmarish lyrics. Apparently Springfield didn't want to record it, but I'm glad she relented. It's one of the oddest and most compelling songs I've ever heard.

At the other end of the spectrum is "Breakfast in Bed". Springfield at her best projects a smart, sophisticated and extremely classy brand of sensuality, and her vocals are beautifully served by the understated soul backing track. 

Given that this is really just a collection of songs, it holds together quite well as an album. The numbers are very well-chosen, and the album is structured so that things gradually progress from upbeat and sexy to darker and more wistful by the end. But things never get too dark, really. It's the sort of album you could put on post breakup, or at an easy going cocktail party, and either way it would fit perfectly. 

150. Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left (July 1969)

1. Time Has Told Me

2. River Man*

3. Three Hours

4. Way to Blue

5. Day Is Done

6. Cello Song

7. The Thoughts of Mary Jane

8. Man in a Shed*

9. Fruit Tree*

10. Saturday Sun

****

One of the frustrating things about doing this is that I'm often listening to music I don't like when I'm not in the mood for it. I tried to listen to Five Leaves Left yesterday and got annoyed. I woke up this morning, however, feeling sad and weird, with that odd sensation of nakedness that I sometimes experience that feels as though the world were trying to stab my soul. So I put this album on, and found it was the perfect antidote to my occasional feelings of hopelessness and fear.

It's kind of impossible to talk about Nick Drake without mentioning the mythology that surrounds him. A painfully shy young man who would almost certainly have been diagnosed with ASD had he been born a few decades later, he stumbled through life making counterintuitive bids at fame that completely eluded him, recorded three eerily perfect albums of melancholy folk music, and died (more than probably a virgin) at the age of 26 from an overdose of antidepressants that may or may not have been deliberate. A peerless guitarist with a soft, enchanting voice, his lyrics were at once deeply obscure and oddly resonant. With the benefit of hindsight, they describe the journey of a young man from a hopeful outsider who's optimistic that he'll one day, given time, find what he wants in life, to an embittered recluse who's unwillingly accepted that he simply has no place in the world. His three albums are like one long suicide note. As a consequence, he's become something of a patron saint for disaffected weirdos who, for one reason or another, just can't seem to fit in.

Despite all I've just said, Five Leaves Left is a largely optimistic album. The dark atmospherics are tempered by lush arrangements and uplifting melodies, and while Drake's lyrics explore alienation and the gulfs between people, they also give the sense of someone who is still hopeful, and perhaps even comfortable in their isolation. The best example is probably "Man in a Shed", a wryly funny song that's probably the most direct thing Drake ever wrote, about a weirdo who lives in a shed trying to seduce a woman who lives in a beautiful house, not really expecting to succeed but arguing that she might find that a shed is actually much nicer than she thinks.

The main thing that Drake trafficked in, though, was beauty. You may not always be sure what he's getting at, but his studio recordings are gorgeous and haunting, and nothing really captures this better than the strange and enchanting "River Man". It could be an old folk song that fell through a portal to another dimension. In any case, it was the first Drake song I ever heard, and the song that convinced me I needed to check him out.

 I still prefer his last two albums to his debut, probably because they were the two I owned on CD for years, but this is a strange and beautiful album, perfect for when the stress of the modern world is getting you down and you want to wander in a twilight world and ponder the great imponderables. Bryter Layter is baroque and rocking, while Pink Moon is stark and compelling, but Five Leaves Left is just so damned pretty. A very melancholy kind of pretty, but then that's the kind of pretty I like best. 

 

149. The Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed (November 1969)

1. Gimme Shelter*

2. Love in Vain

3. Country Honk*

4. Live with Me

5. Let It Bleed

6. Midnight Rambler

7. You Got the Silver

8. Monkey Man

9. You Can't Always Get What You Want*

***1/2

More of the deeply frustrating, frequently off-putting, occasionally brilliant Roling Stones. Maybe the greatest singles band of all time, but their albums just don't do it for me. There are a few reasons for this, all I suppose pretty idiosyncratic. 

The first is that Mick Jagger is an affluent white guy from Britain who really, really wants to be a poor Southerner (ideally, a black one). It's weird. 

The second is the band's obsession with trying to make poverty, substance abuse and risky sex seem, for lack of a better word, poetic. Once again, these are very wealthy guys from middle class backgrounds, and few things piss me off more than rich people from good homes trying to sound poor. I also sincerely doubt Mick Jagger spent as much time hanging around in squallid basements shooting heroin as his lyrics seem to insist he did. 

The third is just that these are incredibly talented musicians and songwriters, and yet most of their music is just really well-played filler. Don't get me wrong, there are two absolutely brilliant songs on this album. And the Stones really do push music in some new and interesting directions - the style of music on this album, a clever mix of folk, blues, gospel and rock, would basically come to define the early 70s. But then you have crap like "Monkey Man" and the long, pointless jam "Midnight Rambler" almost completely tanking side two of the album. And "Love in Vain" is just a pointless exercise in attitude with utterly banal lyrics. The Stones seem to be trying to tap into the awesome power of Americana and American roots music, but they just don't have the lived experience and direct connection to the material to manage anything more than a bit of technically impressive play acting. I'm sorry, but I need a bit more to go on than something sounding really "real" and "bluesy". A decent hook might be nice, which "Country Honk" at least has even if it's not as good as the rock version.

All of which sounds pretty damning, but I'd say the complete opposite about the opening and closing tracks. On "Gimme Shelter" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want", the band are firing on all cylinders, and Jagger manages to tap into subjects that genuinely matter and that he feels strongly about. "Gimme Shelter" is fucking apocalyptic, and perfectly captures the sense of dread and uncertainty in the air as the 60s came to a close. It also features one of the greatest guitar riffs ever devised, which helps. It still sounds like nothing else, a nightmarish mix of hard rock, psych and gospel that unfortunately sits completely at odds with the more mellow material making up the bulk of the album. 

"YCAGWYW" on the other hand, goes in the opposite direction. I don't have to describe it to you, as you've probably heard it about a hundred times, but it's a bold, risky track that shouldn't work yet really does. It's also one of the few moments on the album when Jagger drops the bullshit and sings about something real - there's no pseudo-Bluesman bullshit, just a direct and affecting song about learning to let go of the past and be grateful for what you've got. 

So yeah, I can see why people like this album so much, and it really is very good. It's just that I think the bookends have led people to overlook the weakness of the majority of the album and accord it legendary status when it's really just a mishmash with a couple of great songs and a couple of real duds.

Also that cover art is just awful. 

148. The Pentangle - Basket of Light (October 1969)

1. Light Flight*

2. Once I Had a Sweetheart

3. Springtime Promises

4. Lyke-Wake Dirge

5. Train Song*

6. Hunting Song

7. Sally Go 'Round the Roses

8. The Cuckoo

9. House Carpenter*

***1/2

The first Pentangle album was a sprightly mix of jazz and folk. The sound on this album is far denser and more claustrophobic, and draws from a much wider range of styles and genres. Personally, I tend to prefer the debut, but that's mostly because I owned it on CD for many years. This is a good album, but the music is so densely layered and complex at times that it can render the lyrics pretty difficult to understand, which is annoying when it comes to something like "The Hunting Song", which is exactly the sort of faux-mediaeval fantasy nonsense that I love.

The first really impressive thing about this album is the way it incorporates so much different music into a consistent sound. When Blood, Sweat & Tears tried to do it, they ended-up just writing terrible songs that switched genre about twice a minute. The Pentangle instead look for the commonalities in various folk traditions and then work them into a consistent folk-rock style. So one song will combine jazz timing, bossa nova "ba ba pa da" singing, a mediaeval lyric and vocal, blues guitar, and what sounds like a sitar or a tambour, all mixing perfectly with a fundamentally folk-rock approach. I've never really heard much else like it, although echoes of Basket of Light can be heard in a great amount of more recent folk music. It's all doubly impressive because this is an entirely acoustic album, but it still manages to kind of rock.

The second really impressive thing about this album is Jacqui McShee's gorgeous vocals. She gives a kind of stilted reading of most of the lyrics, but this really just reinforces the aching purity of her voice. And the bit on "House Carpenter" (one of my favourite songs) where the instruments drop out and it's just her unaccompanied voice singing about a Heaven she knows she'll never reach is just heart-breaking.

All in all this is a very good, very strange album. I like it quite a bit, but I find sometimes listening to it that the Pentangle went a little overboard, and maybe jammed a couple too many ideas into the music. That makes it brilliant if you're looking to rip them off, because there are so many great ideas, but a little fatiguing if you want to listen to the whole thing from start to finish. Still, there are lots of unexpected surprises, and several moments of real beauty here, and I'd definitely recommend tracking this down. 

147. Bee Gees - Odessa (February 1969)

1. Odessa (City on the Black Sea)*

2. You'll Never See My Face Again

3. Black Diamond

4. Marley Purt Drive

5. Edison

6. Melody Fair

7. Suddenly

8. Whisper Whisper

9. Lamplight

10. Sound of Love

11. Give Your Best

12. Seven Seas Symphony*

13. With All Nations (International Anthem)

14. I Laugh in Your Face

15. Never Say Never Again

16. First of May

17. The British Opera*

***

Here we have our first (sort of) Australian album. Australian music isn't really served well by the List - there are eleventy million Nick Cave albums, but nothing by Paul Kelly or the Drones. Then again the Book doesn't like to get to weird, really. In any case, this is a nice album. But you know what? Lyrics matter. And while the Bee Gees, as it turns out, are pretty brilliant musically, their songs are let down by lyrics which are simultaneously self-important and largely incomprehensible. So while I found many of these songs to be quite pretty, I was frustrated that they tended to be rather sophomoric. 

A good example is the title track. It's a sweeping song with many well-crafted sections and a truly awe-inspiring chorus. It's also about a fictional shipwreck or something? A sailor floating about on an iceberg writing a letter to his girlfriend? I don't know. I commend the Brothers Gibb for trying something ambitious and different, but it makes precious little sense.

This contrast between pretty, ambitious music and crap lyrics goes on to define the album. It's annoying, because the Bee Gees penned the astonishing "Staying Alive", so they would eventually be capable of writing decent lyrics. I think I read somewhere that even the group were a bit dismissive of this album - that they were basically railroaded into doing something "meaningful", because it was the late 60s and you weren't a Serious Artist unless you released a double album with an eight minute song on it. Still, this is a very impressive achievement musically. These days the Bee Gees are something of a joke, but it's easy to forget that they were a real group making real music before they bared their chests for the truly hilarious promotional video for "Staying Alive". I will admit, though, that it took me a while to be able to listen to this album without getting visions of hirsute, perfectly coiffed visages. 

If you're in the mood for ambitious, pretty pop music then this is a good album. But it's really just a good album, and not really worth getting too excited about with the exception of the brilliant title track and the very enjoyable instrumentals. It's basically progressive pop for bored housewives.  Also "Melody Fair" is just a bad song, unless you're a teenage girl suffering from toxic femininity in 1969.