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| Ten Thousand Motels |
MUSIC
30 Albums every guy should hear before he dies
Miles Keylock, GQ magazine
Fri, 07 Jul 2006
So, you’ve finally cottoned on to the fact that having a plethora of playlists downloaded on your iPod is one thing but not having anything worth playing is another. Yep, according to Miles Keylock, it’s time to kick-start a good old-fashioned CD collection. Start by tuning in to the 30 albums you must hear before the big DJ in the sky hits eject.
1. Frank Sinatra: In The Wee Small Hours
A washed-up jazz crooner reinvents himself as a bar stool balladeer. Sinatra’s cool confessions nail his bust-up with babe Ava Gardner. Take a long sip from the bottom of the bottle ennui that makes this the greatest break-up album ever.
2. Hank Williams: 40 Greatest Hits
The only country and western album you’ll ever need to own. Honky tonk’s own Elvis cruises down the original boulevard of broken dreams, narrating his tear-in-my-beer tales of cheating hearts and being Whiskey Bent And Hell Bound.
3. Billie Holiday: Lady In Satin
The blues breaks. Lady Day channels her junkie pride into a set of naked torch songs that provides the fucked-over and fucked-up emotional outline for Janis Joplin, Marianne Faithful, Courtney Love and countless soul-baring psycho-chicks to come.
4. Miles Davis: Kind Of Blue
This is the most critically-hyped jazz album ever. But it’s worth it just to hear Miles’s impressionistic trumpet tones leading master sax blaster Coltrane into spacious tone poems that actually swing through the silences.
5. Muddy Waters: Muddy Waters At Newport
The album that got Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Keith Richards hooked on electric blues. The primal chord-call fuelling Hoochie Coochie Man, Got My Mojo Working and Baby Please Don’t Go injects sex straight into the whole rock ’n roll equation.
6. Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited
Folk music plugs in. This was Dylan’s electric move and quickly elevated his freewheelin’ verse from hippie-protest poems to a singer- songwriter who actually sounds like he makes a difference, man.
7. John Coltrane: A Love Supreme
The heavyweight saxo champ’s spiritual search for redemption starts here. The notes of polyrhythmic sax invoke a prayer-like path beyond generic jazz into the serenity of sound itself.
8. The Jazz Epistles: Jazz Epistle Verse One
The Rosetta Stone of homegrown jazz. Bras Kippie Moeketsi (sax), Abdullah Ibrahim (piano), Jonas Gwangwa (trombone) and Hugh Masekela (trumpet) shape the sound of South African jazz still to come on this pioneering adventure in township be-bop.
9. Beach Boys: Pet Sounds
Shelving the surf songs. Brian Wilson locks himself in a studio to create his answer to the Beatles’s Rubber Soul. The result? A psychedelic pop masterpiece and, in God Only Knows, the best wedding anniversary song ever.
10. The Velvet Underground: The VU and Nico
The dark side of the ’60s summer of love. Scraping viola drones, gritty guitars and glacial folk ballads map everything from S&M fantasies and drug celebrations to blank celebrity hangovers.
11. Jimi Hendrix: Electric Ladyland
A psychedelic blues rock head-knock. Hendrix’s LSD-laced acid rock test, an unnervingly high octane overhaul of Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower and that nude album cover make Ladyland an essential snapshot of the ’60s looking beyond flower power.
12. The Beatles: The White Album
The sound of the Fab Four falling apart at the seams. A blockbusting collage of pristine pop, rollicking rock ’n roll, novelty sing-alongs, and in Harrison’s While My Guitar Gently Weeps the best song Lennon and McCartney never wrote.
13. The Stooges: Funhouse
The definitive garage punk blueprint. Oozing a young, fucked-up anger, Iggy Pop, as chairman of the bored, leads his three chord stooges on a sex and drug-addled street crawl that remains a garage punk-rock blueprint.
14. Miles Davis: Bitches Brew
Jazz has left the building. Tune into his bitchin’ improvised ambient, psychedelic, soul, funk, rock and blues jam brew or just drop out. Spin a vinyl copy on 45rpm and you’ll hear just where the drum ’n bass generation stole all their broken beat strategies from, too.
15. Serge Gainsbourg: The Ballad of Melody Nelson
Seriously seedy. Okay, okay, it’s a concept album about a dirty old man cruising for teen pussy in his Rolls-Royce. Unsurprisingly, chamber pop doesn’t get more erotic than hearing Gainsbourg’s lascivious lounge lizard croon coupled with Jane Birkin’s breathy Lolita whispers.
16. Rolling Stones: Exile
On Main Street Rock ’n roll’s finest hangover. With Mick busy shagging Bianca, it was left to Keith to mainline country, blues, and R&B into a head-heavy rock ’n roll collection of sheer lyrical gems.
17. Elvis Presley: Aloha From Hawaii via Satellite
The madness of King Elvis. A rock ’n roll prophesy of reality TV with Presley refurbishing Blue Suede Shoes, Hound Dog, Fever and Suspicious Minds with spellbinding glam karaoke crooning covers.
18. Bob Marley & The Wailers: Exodus
Religious Rasta experience. Exodus showcases Marley in the role of Natural Mystic, a Rasta prophet blending funk, disco-dub and psych-rock into the smoking reggae anthems Jamming and Exodus
19. Prince: Sign o’ The Times
Royal question: How does a midget with a perm and tight pants pull so many chicks? Simple: deliver a Masters class in soul seduction that marries Ray Charles’s blues and James Brown’s panty- moistening funk bravado with x-rated old school soul slow dance moves that put sex back into pop.
20. U2: The Joshua Tree
Zeitgeist moment. An Irish band avoids becoming also-rans after taking a holiday in the Mojave desert with a landscaped selection of epic, hook-laden guitar ballads and subtle, well-crafted stories that perfectly capture our search for political and deeper personal meaning.
21. Bernoldus Niemand: Wie is Bernoldus Niemand?
Forget Kombuis, Kerkorrel or even the Kalahari Surfers. When it comes to bakgat alternative Afrikaans protest songs, James Phillips’s alternative country tales of moustaches and military conscription are a mind-altering snapshot of what apartheid’s madness meant to white men.
22. Arthur: Kaffir
In the beginning. Way before he was choreographing ‘cake cutting’ (Sika Lekhekhe), kwaito king Arthur dropped a generation’s defining sonic calling card. M’Du designed the blueprint and Mandoza crossed it over for whiteys’ ears, but Kaffir is the album that really kick-started the kwaito revolution.
23. Mudhoney: Superfuzz Bigmuff
The real sound of Seattle. Forget the slick chart attack of Nirvana’s Nevermind, Bigmuff is the real deal. A greasy concoction of garage punk that celebrates the simple joys of chasing skirts and getting stoned.
24. Johnny Cash: American Recordings IV – The Man Comes Around
Brutally honest. Deconstructions of Nine Inch Nails’s Hurt, The Beatles’s In My Life, Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus and more make this set of country covers an appropriate epitaph for the outright King of Outlaw Country.
25. Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP
A meta-rap masterpiece. This collection blurs the boundaries between humour, horror, satire and documentary with super-slick rhymes freeing hip-hop from its ghetto-life straitjacket.
26. Zim Ngqawana: Vadzimu
Visionary. This saxophone-fuelled song suite marries intellectual and spiritual jazz traditions, tracing the beat routes of the African Diaspora. Music to dance to, make love to, weep over and even laugh along with.
27. Nouvelle Vague: Nouvelle Vague
The only covers album you’ll ever need. Bossa Nova makeovers of ’80s favourites from The Cure, XTC and Depeche Mode to Joy Division and The Clash make this essential aural wallpaper for those who appreciate how music is best branded as another lifestyle accessory.
28. Felix Laband: Dark Days Exit
Fairytale dream world. Dosing Steve Reich’s classical cool with Ennio Morricone’s cinemascapes, shadowy electro-funk, deep dub and cartoon electro-pop electronic savant Felix Laband tweaks our synapses with his altered universe of glitches, beats ’n breaks.
29. The Mars Volta: Frances The Mute
New sounds. Packed with comfortably mind-numbing Pink Floyd melodrama, string-laced, post-rock acoustics and a paranoid Radiohead flow full of surreal tempo changes and psychedelic fire, this is the sound of 21st century rock re-imagining itself as a spaced-out spaghetti western.
30. R Kelly: TP.3 Reloaded
Reality TV R&B. If Outkast and Kanye West are hip-hop’s Messiahs, then R Kelly is the urban contemporary anti-Christ. His utter lack of irony on soap-operatic magnum opus Trapped In The Closet make this a rhythmic excursion you’ll play over and over again.
[Edited by Ten Thousand Motels] |
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| BILL PERKS |
THE MAN COMES AROUND-JOHNNY CASH..I HOPE TO BE LISTENING TO IT AS I DIE..
WE'LL MEET AGAIN
DONT KNOW WHERE
DONT KNOW WHEN
BUT I KNOW WE'LL
MEET AGAIN SOME SUNNY DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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| Trey Krimsin |
I bought Funhouse about a month ago and I was shocked. No I wasn't shocked, I was amazed. After hearing this album, you see how so many bands today don't know what rock and roll is really about. They've never heard the opening howls of Iggy Pop on every song. These bands cannot match the ferocity and power The Stooges put into this record. The Stooges' Funhouse is the greatest rock album the general public has never heard.
[Edited by Trey Krimsin] |
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| Egbert |
Funhouse kicks ass. |
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| pdog |
I own alot of those... |
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| Egbert |
quote:
pdog wrote:
I own alot of those...
#30? |
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| Trey Krimsin |
I own one-third of the albums on that list.
[Edited by Trey Krimsin] |
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| GotToRollMe |
quote:
Trey Krimsin wrote:
I bought Funhouse about a month ago and I was shocked. No I wasn't shocked, I was amazed. After hearing this album, you see how so many bands today don't know what rock and roll is really about. They've never heard the opening howls of Iggy Pop on every song. These bands cannot match the ferocity and power The Stooges put into this record. The Stooges' Funhouse is the greatest rock album the general public has never heard.
[Edited by Trey Krimsin]
Ya stepped right in the middle of it there. Spot on!
If I was gonna pick one Sinatra album though, it would be "Only The Lonely." As great as "Funhouse" but in a totally different way (good drinking music too).
[Edited by GotToRollMe] |
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| pdog |
quote:
Egbert wrote:
#30?
No, not that one. A bunch of the jazz ones and the rock ones... My wife like that Marshall guy, so I've heard his stuff... Her 30 odd CD's are seperate from my thousands. |
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| Egbert |
quote:
pdog wrote:
No, not that one. A bunch of the jazz ones and the rock ones... My wife like that Marshall guy, so I've heard his stuff... Her 30 odd CD's are seperate from my thousands.
I keep my wife's CDs separate from mine as well. The shelves for my CDs only hold 350 so I keep the rest boxed up in another room and spend an inordinate amount of time shuffling CDs back and forth depending on factors such as season and taste - it's kind of like having "starting" and "bench" CDs. Her's would get in the way...
Have you heard Rather Ripped yet? |
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| pdog |
quote:
Egbert wrote:
Have you heard Rather Ripped yet?
The new Sonic Youth... I haven't, almost got it when it was realeased a few weeks ago. Is it good, great, okay...? |
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| Egbert |
quote:
pdog wrote:
The new Sonic Youth... I haven't, almost got it when it was realeased a few weeks ago. Is it good, great, okay...?
Haven't heard it either. May pick it up tomorrow...
...or maybe Sonic Nurse or Murray St. instead.
[Edited by Egbert] |
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| Altamont |
quote:
pdog wrote:
The new Sonic Youth... I haven't, almost got it when it was realeased a few weeks ago. Is it good, great, okay...?
check the new Built To Spill 'You in reverse' . i rike it a rot. aNy record that opens with an 8 minute song and pulls it off is good in me book |
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| Jumacfly |
Where is Emotional Rescue???
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| egon |
i don't understand 25 & 30 |
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| gimmekeef |
So..a man therefore could die happy never hearing:
Sticky Fingers
Let It Bleed
Beggars
Ya Ya's?
Sure! |
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| GotToRollMe |
quote:
gimmekeef wrote:
So..a man therefore could die happy never hearing:
Sticky Fingers
Let It Bleed
Beggars
Ya Ya's?
Sure!
Yeah, that list is bogus. I'm not too crazy about lists, but I think I might give it a shot if I get the energy later.
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| pdog |
quote:
Altamont wrote:
check the new Built To Spill 'You in reverse' . i rike it a rot. aNy record that opens with an 8 minute song and pulls it off is good in me book
I've heard alot of good stuff about this album. |
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| MrPleasant |
Every gay man needs to listen to these:
TERMINATOR (Reed)
PIN UPS (Bowie)
SHE'S THE BOSS (Jagger)
CAPTAIN FANTASTIC AND THE BROWN DIRTY COWBOY (Elton John)
EVITA: THE MUSICAL (Andrew Lloyd Webber)
MECCANO'S GREATEST HITS (Meccano)
EMPTY GLASS (Townshend)
ARRIVAL (Abba)
(Anything from Wham!)
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| rogerriffin |
quote:
MrPleasant wrote:
Every gay man needs to listen to these:
TERMINATOR (Reed)
PIN UPS (Bowie)
SHE'S THE BOSS (Jagger)
CAPTAIN FANTASTIC AND THE BROWN DIRTY COWBOY (Elton John)
EVITA: THE MUSICAL (Andrew Lloyd Webber)
MECCANO'S GREATEST HITS (Meccano)
EMPTY GLASS (Townshend)
ARRIVAL (Abba)
(Anything from Wham!)
jajaja
jajaja
jajaja
very good!!! |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
10 Indispensable Albums
NEWSWEEK ON AIR
Carly Simon
Newsweek
July 17, 2006 issue - Pick 10 albums that everyone should own? Your editors have asked me to do something that is impossible. Now, why would they do a thing like that? I know they just want me to be decent and honest, but I tell you, this could be the end of me. I can see friends of mine, made over the years, who I have left off this list climbing up the little hill to my house with hatchets, obscenities and arsenic, shouting: "Why not me?" Then the scene goes black and I go to the Light and things are revealed to me and I see my mother and father again. The thing is, if I don't go to the Light, I may run into some of these brilliant musicians at some music-industry event and I will avoid them ... go to the ladies' room ... and sneak out to the street and the cold night air, missing my final hug and photo opportunity with Clive Davis and Bono. Nevertheless, here is the list and, really, no one should miss these albums. In most cases, these artists had a sound that had never been heard before. Or at least it was a first for my ears when I was glued to the radio and there were daily outings to record stores. I haven't included any women, which could be construed as highly sexist. It's only that I'm jealous of all women and I'm not going to arbitrarily tokenize any of the great ones right now. Keep posted.
"Highway 61 Revisited," Bob Dylan.
"Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people."
"Natty Dread," Bob Marley and the Wailers.
Includes "Lively Up Yourself" and "No Woman No Cry."
"In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning," Frank Sinatra.
Wanted to copy everything he did. I couldn't ... didn't ... won't.
"Behind the Gardens, Behind the Wall, Under the Tree," Andreas Vollenweider.
Incessant listening for years. Andreas's first.
"Mo' Roots," Taj Mahal.
Reminds me of my grandmother.
"Abbey Road," The Beatles.
Why try to be cool?
"Tea for the Tillerman," Cat Stevens.
Will never get over wanting to be inside that sound.
"Sticky Fingers," The Rolling Stones.
Especially "Moonlight Mile" and Paul Buckmaster's strings.
"Sexual Healing," Marvin Gaye.
He had a really strange father. Imagine what he would have done if he were still with us.
"Sweet Baby James," James Taylor.
Simon's new album, "Into White," is coming out in October.
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| IanBillen |
Here are some I would include:
-Who's Next
-Appetite for Destruction
-When the Man Comes Around : (as previously mentioned)
-Some Girls
-Never Mind
-Dirty deeds (just to have an AC/DC classic in there)
-Dark Side of The Moon (just to really experience PF Although I am not any real nutty fan over them but do appreciate their sound)
-A good Queen Album (say Night at the Opera or Day at The Races)
-Possibly Thriller (yes, not because I love MJ but because of what it was and to not for get the Wacko Jacko chapter)
-SGT. Pepper (instead of The White Album) Because of it's innovation.
Ian
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| Jumacfly |
quote:
IanBillen wrote:
Here are some I would include:
-Who's Next
-Appetite for Destruction
-When the Man Comes Around : (as previously mentioned)
-Some Girls
-Never Mind
-Dirty deeds (just to have an AC/DC classic in there)
-Dark Side of The Moon (just to really experience PF Although I am not any real nutty fan over them but do appreciate their sound)
-A good Queen Album (say Night at the Opera or Day at The Races)
-Possibly Thriller (yes, not because I love MJ but because of what it was and to not for get the Wacko Jacko chapter)
-SGT. Pepper (instead of The White Album) Because of it's innovation.
Ian
Nice new avatar Ian, I love this frog and I guess it's a special Word Cup 's one 
Anyway I suggest "Off the Wall" instead of "Thriller".
This record shines and got great arrangements and a brilliant production by Quincy Jones, the strings and horns are perfect.
It's,IMHO, a monument of the Disco era, yes, the same era of Abba you read it well 
A Queen record? hum hum...replace it with a Pixies record and you can have a decent list. |
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| TornAndFrayed |
quote:
pdog wrote:
The new Sonic Youth... I haven't, almost got it when it was realeased a few weeks ago. Is it good, great, okay...?
It´s okay but not great. Four or five excellent songs, the rest is mediocre filler. Murray Street and Sonic Nurse are much better IMO.
[Edited by TornAndFrayed] |
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| Ihavelotsajam |
quote:
TornAndFrayed wrote:
It´s okay but not great. Four or five excellent songs, the rest is mediocre filler. Murray Street and Sonic Nurse are much better IMO.
[Edited by TornAndFrayed]
Rather Ripped is a lot more melodic than Murray Street or Sonic Nurse. I know melody is not exactly what they are known for-- probably why I seem to like this album as an exception more than a rule. |
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| voodoopug |
This is not an accurate list, and should be dismissed by us (true stones fans).
The correct list is:
# A Bigger Bang
# No Security
# Bridges to Babylon
# Stripped
# Voodoo Lounge
# Steel Wheels
# Dirty Work
# Undercover
# Tattoo You
# Emotional Rescue
# Some Girls
# Love You Live
# Black And Blue
# It's Only Rock 'N Roll
# Goat's Head Soup
# Exile On Main St
# Sticky Fingers
# Get Yer Ya Ya's Out
# Let It Bleed
# Beggars Banquet
# Their Satanic Majesties Request
# Between The Buttons
# Aftermath
# December's Children (And Everybody's)
# Out Of Our Heads
# The Rolling Stones Now!
# The Rolling Stones No. 2
# 12 x 5
# The Rolling Stones (England's Newest Hitmakers) |
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| Factory Girl |
quote:
Trey Krimsin wrote:
The Stooges' Funhouse is the greatest rock album the general public has never heard.
[Edited by Trey Krimsin]
I love Funhouse. Down on the Street, Dirt, and Loose are genius.
I think you should also check out Raw Power.
Per FPM, "Iggy is an American Treasure." |
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| BILL PERKS |
quote:
MrPleasant wrote:
Every gay man needs to listen to these:
Anything from Wham!)
WHAM'S "WHERE DID YOUR HEART GO" RULES(WRITTEN BY DON WAS) |
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| Dan |
quote:
voodoopug wrote:
# Their Satanic Majesties Request
If I hear this before I die, then dying wont seem so bad |
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| voodoopug |
quote:
Dan wrote:
If I hear this before I die, then dying wont seem so bad
then you would be missing two three very good songs: 200 light Years, Shes a Rainbow, and 2000 Man. These are great songs and would kick the shit out of efforts by all of the subpar bands that members of this board seemingly want to orally satisfy (See: Steely Dan, U2, Macca, Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, Motley Crue, The Cars, Wierd Al Yankovic, etc) |
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