Another ten, another blog post. With these next ten albums, we get two double albums, a trio of country superstars and a variety of other great styles and albums from legends. So with that, here are Rolling Stone's Top 500 Albums of All Time, albums 490-481.
490. Gang of Four-Entertainment!
I’m particularly a fan of bands that came from the Gang of Four sound, particularly bands like The Rapture, and to a lesser extent Maximo Park. Entertainment! starts off with two songs, “Ether” and “Natural’s Not In It”, that are a great example of Gang of Four’s style: fun post-punk with a political stance. After listening to Entertainment!, it’s hard that more bands don’t consider Gang of Four a major influence. What they do with their debut album is clearly influential on so many younger bands over thirty years later.
Suggested Track: “Natural’s Not In It”
489. Steve Earle-Guitar Town
One of my biggest pet peeves is when people say “I love all kinds of music except country and rap.” Guess what? Then you don’t like all kinds of music, you like a few kinds of music. I state this because this group of ten albums features some of the greatest country music ever. First off we have Guitar Town from Steve Earle, an album that predates the alt-country style and is some of the best in that genre. The problems that Earle faces in Guitar Town aren’t “country music problems” but human problems, dealing with issues that we all face. Earle’s songs transcend genre though when his message is this strong. Guitar Town is a beautiful take on a self-described hillbilly that’s more happy being on the road than trapped by the normal ideas of being trapped in one area.
Suggested Track: “Someday”
488. D'Angelo-Voodoo
In the past ten albums, I described how I’m not that into funk music and that I’m not a fan of albums that seem to play out as one large song with little distinction between tracks. As much as I do like her track to track, I personally don’t like much of Erykah Badu’s recent work for that very reason. But something about Voodoo works greatly for me. Maybe it’s the great combination of musicians that D’Angelo gathered for this album that included J Dilla, DJ Premier, Raphael Saadiq and Questlove. Or maybe it’s the fact that it is arguably one of the sexiest albums of all time. But this album works for me in ways that others don’t, because what I love about Voodoo is how it feels like one near eighty-minute riff where D’Angelo gathered his friends and just tried things out. The great use of samples in “Devil’s Pie”, the extra verses by Method Man and Redman on “Left & Right” and the insane near perfection of “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” all lead towards D’Angelo trying, and succeeding, on finding a sound unlike anyone else, while still sounding like great funk and R&B artists of the past.
Suggested Track: “Untitled (How Does It Feel)”
487. The Smashing Pumpkins-Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
When I was younger, instead of receiving an allowance every week, I instead asked for a new CD a week. While not the most fiscally responsible idea, it was what I constantly wanted. It was this weekly goal that led me to purchase albums that will surely make it on this list, like Odelay and OK Computer at the age of 11, and highly influenced my tastes at a young age. One album I always wanted was Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, a double album, which would mean spending half a month’s “allowance” on one purchase. Unfortunately I never had the patience and therefore never bought the album. Years later I downloaded the album, but never listened to it. Until now. And oh my god, I was a fool. Maybe it’s just the anticipation, but Mellon Collie has blown my mind. I worried about a common problem I’ve encountered with the double album, which is that the album’s great tracks get frontloaded, as I suspected this album would. The first half of the first disc is like a Smashing Pumpkins Greatest Hits with tracks like “Tonight, Tonight”, “Zero” and “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”, but the album is so incredibly consistent and beautiful, surprising and changing in brilliant ways. The second disc does slow things down considerably, as I expected, but still is a nice supplement to the first disc and the package as a whole is something that I think young Ross would have absolutely waited two weeks for.
Suggested Track: “Tonight, Tonight”
486. Funkadelic-Maggot Brain
On one of my few drives from Virginia to Georgia, I was listening to an edition of NPR’s “All Songs Considered” with the category of something along the lines of songs that remind you of summer. The song “Maggot Brain” from Funkadelic was mentioned as the listener said that she used to drive around at night, windows down, blasting the song. At this suggestion, I followed along, and man, what a great idea. This ten-minute guitar solo intro to the album is somewhat of a misrepresentation of the fun that comes later on the album. The next song, “Can You Get to That” is fun enough that Sleigh Bells decided to use it on their song “Rill Rill”, which I had no idea before. The album is filled with great, fun songs, but book ended by two songs that couldn’t be more different. While “Maggot Brain” is a solemn, almost heartbreaking mode, the album builds in anticipation to the complete clusterfuck of insanity that is “Wars of Armageddon”. Anything goes on the final track, but at that point, nothing is a surprise anymore so it completely works.
Suggested Track: “Maggot Brain”
485. Loretta Lynn-All Time Greatest Hits
I first fell in love with the awesomeness of Loretta Lynn with her brilliant comeback album Van Lear Rose, produced by Jack White and was one of the most surprisingly badass albums I’ve probably ever heard. To be honest though, I really had no context for Lynn beyond knowledge that “Coal Miner’s Daughter”, the song and the film, were from and about her. Thankfully All Time Greatest Hits fills me in on the blank spots. Lynn paints her career as a woman who won’t take shit from anyone, except possibly from the man she loves, and the song titles pretty much point this out. She threatens to kick the ass of the women trying to steal her man (“You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)”, “Fist City”), yet even when her man is too drunk (“Don’t Come Home A Drinkin’”) or has left her alone with an abundance of children to take care of (“One’s On the Way”), she stays with the man, even if he way do her wrong. With “One’s On the Way”, I also found it interesting that Lynn plays a woman who realizes that the world is changing, but for her things aren’t ever going to be any different as she sings:
“The girls in New York City, they all march for woman’s lib, and Better Homes and Gardens shows the modern way to live, and the pill may change the world tomorrow. But meanwhile today here in Topeka, the flies are a buzzin’, the dog is a barkin’ and the floor needs a scrubbin’, one needs a spankin’ and one needs a huggin’, Lord one’s on the way.”
This duality to Lynn is what makes her such an interesting character in the country genre, regardless of how true her songs may be, and after decades in the music industry, she still had great stories and unique viewpoints that make her worth paying attention to.
Suggested Track: “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man with Conway Twitty”
484. Merle Haggard-Branded Man
Maybe it is because he is following up Loretta Lynn, but Merle Haggard didn’t have quite the same success as Lynn did for me. Surprisingly, he doesn’t feel like he has the same edge I liked about Lynn, even though he sings about going to prison, which he actually did. But Haggard’s heartbreak is what makes Branded Man such a compelling release. Even though he’s been hardened by prison, his heart is still as weak as ever. “Don’t Get Married” deals with Haggard hoping his sweetheart doesn’t get hitched while he’s locked up and “Loneliness Is Eating Me Alive” appropriately has Haggard dealing with crushing solitude. The most effective here though is “Gone Crazy”, where Haggard literally believes he is going insane since he doesn’t have the girl he believes to be the love of his life. Haggard presents himself in a way that is a surprise, given his tough history and demeanor.
Suggested Track: “Gone Crazy”
483. The Notorious B.I.G.-Life After Death
While I never purchased Mellon Collie as a child, I was able to purchase Life After Death. The only catch was I purchased the single-disc, edited version of the album. This bastardized version either left off entire tracks or edited them heavily. In fact my first “Parental Advisory” albums I purchased during my pop-punk phase, with artists like Blink 182, Sum 41 and The All-American Rejects, where “dirty” language only added to the teen angst. But I digress. Even with this half-sized album, Notorious B.I.G., along with Jay-Z, quickly became my favorite rappers, even to the point where I never really had any appreciation for 2Pac, almost out of East Coast respect. The 90s MTV rap explosion brought me not only to love the hip-hop of the time, but also led me to love directors like Spike Jonze pre-Being John Malkovich.
Life After Death was released shortly after B.I.G.’s death, but at that age, all I knew was that he was now dead and that it was part of the East Coast/West Coast rap feuds. While historical context does make Life After Death to an extent bittersweet, it is a phenomenal goodbye. I think when an artist dies at such a young age, as Christopher Wallace did at the age of 24, it is easy to believe that they are only so beloved because they weren’t able to have the usual arc of long-lasting artists, wherein there is a rise to popularity and the supposedly inevitable fall. But Life After Death and Ready to Die are enough to prove that he truly was one of the most important rappers of all time before his demise.
But now to Life After Death, B.I.G. is able to make himself still seem threatening even, well, after death. With artists guest-starring like R. Kelly, Mase, Lil’ Kim and Faith Evans, it’s a much better eulogy than the then Puff Daddy’s “I’ll Be Missing You”. It’s impossible to talk about Sean Combs without talking about his love for Wallace, and it’s clearly evident here. Combs lovingly produces the album, full with great samples that made Combs such a powerhouse in the 90s. Life After Death is an incredible second album and a suiting goodbye to one of hip-hop’s most influential artists.
Suggested Track: “Hypnotize”
482. Elvis Costello and the Attractions-Armed Forces
I think I like Elvis Costello for the same reasons that I like St. Vincent. Both are artists reminiscent of something that we’ve seen before. While St. Vincent may seem like a perfectly normal singer-songwriter, her music is beautiful, but with a tinge of darkness that makes her almost eerie. Elvis Costello’s music is almost like an homage to earlier days, 50s rock n’ roll and Buddy Holly. But Costello also has that darkness. Armed Forces has anger and darker issues at its core, while still a fun album if you want to simply take it as catchy tunes. I’ve always appreciated Elvis Costello, which probably also stems from my love of Saturday Night Live and his impromptu “Radio, Radio” performance, and I’m excited to hear more from Costello on this list, an almost certainty.
Suggested Track: “Green Shirt”
481. The Smiths-The Smiths
Like all people my age, we find out we like The Smiths then realize the closest things we will get to new material is solo work from Morrissey. The weird thing is, I don’t really like Morrissey solo, but with The Smiths, I think he is great. For those who don’t know, The Smiths are constantly stuck in a perpetual state of heartbreak. While this could be obnoxious with a lesser band (cough Dashboard Confessional cough), it’s endearing with The Smiths. It’s a shame that they are essentially the band to influence a thousand mediocre-to-bad emo bands. Their first album, the self-titled The Smiths is a good introduction to the band, almost like a mission statement as to who they are and what their style will be. I personally like where The Smiths go from here more, and from what I can tell Rolling Stone agrees with me. The Smiths isn’t so much a disappointment as it does excite me for where the band goes from here, before their destruction in only a few short years.
Suggested Track: “This Charming Man”
So now, here are my rankings for the albums we have listened to so far (original chart rankings in parenthesis):
1. The Smashing Pumpkins-Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (487)
2. Funkadelic-Maggot Brain (486)
3. The Notorious B.I.G.-Life After Death (483)
4. Kiss-Destroyer (496)
5. D'Angelo-Voodoo (488)
6. Earth, Wind and Fire-That's the Way of the World (493)
7. Loretta Lynn-All Time Greatest Hits (485)
8. Public Enemy-Yo! Bum Rush the Show (497)
9. The Smiths-The Smiths (481)
10. Cyndi Lauper-She's So Unusual (494)
11. Steve Earle-Guitar Town (489)
12. Gang of Four-Entertainment! (490)
13. Husker Du-New Day Rising (495)
14. Mott the Hoople-All the Young Dudes (491)
15. Merle Haggard-Branded Man (484)
16. Eurythmics-Touch (500)
17. Pearl Jam-Vitalogy (492)
18. Elvis Costello & the Attractions-Armed Forces (482)
19. Albert King-Born Under a Bad Sign (499)
20. ZZ Top-Tres Hombres (498)
Also, if you'd like to follow along, and I recommend you do, it has been very entertaining and a great learning experience for me, you can do so with my Spotify playlist Rolling Stone Top 500 Albums, which I am updating with every new post.
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