Music

19: Jazz (Queen)

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Album: Jazz
Artist: Queen
Year: 1978

1. Mustapha
2. Fat Bottomed Girls
3. Jealousy
4. Bicycle Race
5. If You Can’t Beat Them
6. Let Me Entertain You
7. Dead on Time
8. In Only Seven Days
9. Dreamer’s Ball
10. Fun It
11. Leaving Home Ain’t Easy
12. Don’t Stop Me Now
13. More of That Jazz

I’ve never been a huge fan of Queen as stadium rock has never been my thing, though I do enjoy many of their singles. For some reason, this album hits the right notes for me despite only have a couple of songs I’m crazy about. Crazy thing is Freddie Mercury wrote five of the thirteen songs and those are easily my five favorite.

Mustapha opens things, and while it’s completely nonsensical, utilizing several languages and some made up words, it has great energy and is a great lead-in.  Jealousy is a decent ballad made better by the buzzing guitar work. Bicycle Race is silly but has some pretty impressive changes in meter and chords.  Let Me Entertain You is a simple rocker but a great sing-a-long. And finally, Don’t Stop Me Now is transcendent. It’s been ranked the number one driving song and I can’t disagree. Mercury’s writing, rhyme scheme, piano playing, and harmonizing with his band mates is just insane. It was also wonderfully introduced to a new audience in the famous zombie killing bar scene in Shaun of the Dead.

As for the rest of the album, I can sing along to Fat Bottomed Girls but only so often. I also enjoy If You Can’t Beat Them and Dreamer’s Ball. More of That Jazz is an odd choice to end the album considering Don’t Stop Me Now would have been a great closer. The final song acts as a summary of everything we’ve just heard, much like old musicals would often have during the credits.  It’s actually pretty good for what it is, but I can’t imagine every listening to it outside the context of the album.

Music

20: For My Broken Heart (Reba McEntire)

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Album: For My Broken Heart
Artist: Reba McEntire
Year: 1991

1. For My Broken Heart
2. Is There Life Out There
3. Bobby
4. He’s in Dallas
5. All Dressed Up
6. The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia
7. Buying Her Roses
8. The Greatest Man I Never Knew
9. I Wouldn’t Go That Far
10. If I Had Only Known

Reba was 36 years old when this album was released, making it her eighteenth album. She has slowed down considerably. Through 1999, at age 44, she had released twenty-four albums, but she’s released only four since, deciding that acting poorly in her shitty sitcom was more rewarding. Or something.

The first two songs were the two big hits, and they’re good, but pretty generic. Bobby is a painful song about how euthanasia can affect family and is one of my favorite songs. Continuing with crushing emotions, All Dressed Up is about a lady with Alzheimer’s in a nursing home who continually stares out the front window waiting for family that’s never coming. I’ve had similar clients in my career, so I connect with it, but the song has a subtle touch that makes it accessible to all.

Reba’s cover of Vicki Lawrence’s The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia definitely does it justice. The Greatest Man I Never Knew is another somber tune about a girl who grows up with a father who is home but not present. The rest of the songs are pretty much about broken relationships and are all solid. If I Had Only Known is probably my favorite of them and with its slow tempo makes for a good end to Reba’s best album.

For those noticing that all ten songs on the album are all about heartache and death, it’s not coincidence. This was the first album she released after her band was killed in a plane crash (a plane she would have been on had she not been suffering from bronchitis).  She only wrote one of the songs on this album (Bobby), but admitted the song selection reflected her emotional state at the time and her hopes that it would be a healing project.

Music

21: Rubber Soul (The Beatles)

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Album: Rubber Soul
Artist: The Beatles
Year: 1965

1. Drive My Car
2. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
3. You Won’t See Me
4. Nowhere Man
5. Think for Yourself
6. The Word
7. Michelle
8. What Goes On
9. Girl
10. I’m Looking Through You
11. In My Life
12. Wait
13. If I Needed Someone
14. Run for Your Life

After five albums, The Beatles had slowly been getting away from boy-band pop. Most of their pure rock songs were covers, but they had been showing signs of maturity with their writing, with numbers like And I Love Her, Yesterday, and I’ve Just Seen a Face. Whether it was age, practice, or good drugs, it finally all came together for Rubber Soul.

Drive My Car is pop no doubt, and a song that turned me off a bit at first. But Paul’s energy is so infectious that I now I can’t help but sing “Beep beep beep beep, yeah!”  John then follows it up with my favorite Beatles song, Norwegian Wood, a short but powerful tale of sexual frustration and arson. Plus, they bring out the sitar, which is perfect here.

Speaking of frustration, I’m Looking Through You and Run for Your Life are as bitter as you can get. While these songs have been accused of being misogynistic, I’d like to think Paul and John were not monsters and were just exposing and then exaggerating their raw emotions after dealing with difficult personal relationships.

The album isn’t all about anger. In My Life is one of my favorite love songs, simple but endearing. I’m also a fan of Michelle, You Won’t See Me, and Harrison’s Think For Yourself.

Despite four top-tier songs, the album falls a bit for me because the filler is pretty unimpressive. It’s not as mindless as their filler on previous albums, and shows some creativity with their use of various instruments and vocal stylings (e.g. The Word is mostly just one note), but if I never heard Girl, Wait, or What Goes On the rest of my life, that would be just fine.

Music

22: You Don’t Mess Around With Jim (Jim Croce)

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Album: You Don’t Mess Around With Jim
Artist: Jim Croce
Year: 1972

1. You Don’t Mess Around with Jim
2. Tomorrow’s Gonna Be a Brighter Day
3. New York’s Not My Home
4. Hard Time Losin’ Man
5. Photographs and Memories
6. Walkin’ Back to Georgia
7. Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels)
8. Time in a Bottle
9. Rapid Roy (The Stock Car Boy)
10. Box #10
11. A Long Time Ago
12. Hey Tomorrow

A common crack about Jim Croce is that people are surprised to find out he died when he was 30 years-old because he looked like he was approaching 50 at the time. I think he also looked this age because his songwriting often sounded like a guy approaching middle age as well. While his songs are generally simple, the lyrics often carry a mature bent generally not seen in those in their 20’s. The guy did have a hard life, as thanks to his record company he died in debt despite his success. Apparently, his plan was to quit music after his last tour because he was constantly homesick for his wife and son. My father was on his way to see him in concert when Croce’s plane crashed.

Croce’s velvet voice carries his ballads. Time in a Bottle, written for his son, is one of the sweetest songs I’ve ever heard.  New York’s Not My Home is one of the more earnest city mouse/country mouse tales out there. Operator is corny but also one of the better songs about a conversation with an operator. Considering I’ve never had a conversation with an operator (and now never will), it shows how timeless Croce’s writing really is.

He adds a bit of twang for his more up-tempo country songs, such as You Don’t Mess Around with Jim and Rapid Roy. My favorite of these is Box #10.

Music

23: Big Love (Tracy Byrd)

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Album: Big Love
Artist: Tracy Byrd
Year: 1996

1. Big Love
2. Cowgirl
3. Good Ol’ Fashioned Love
4. Don’t Take Her She’s All I Got
5. If I Stay
6. Don’t Love Make a Diamond Shine
7. Tuscon Too Soon
8. I Don’t Believe That’s How You Feel
9. Driving Me out of Your Mind
10. I Love You, That’s All

Tracy is probably best known for Watermelon Crawl, and it’s my favorite song by him as well. But while his earlier albums had a few monstrous hits, the filler was exceptionally poor.  His third album, Love Lessons, nearly made the list. When his fourth album came out, I was blown away.  While not every song here is amazing, it really feels like these ten songs were meant to be together, which is a fine achievement considering that the ten songs had nine different writers. Not a big fan of the album title, but the cover is nice, and implies Byrd’s big love is the expanse of nature.

Gary U.S. Bonds wrote Don’t Take Her She’s All I Got, which has been a big hit for everyone who’s recorded it, including Byrd. Big Love was the other smash from the album, and it’s a decent opener. Cowgirl is great tongue-in-cheek country swing. If I Stay is a sad, up-tempo break-up song but it would also make a great ballad in any genre. I Love You, That’s All is another break-up song, and one I kind of modeled my own break-ups after (i.e. not being a whiny ass about it).

After this album, Byrd kind of went good ol’ boy for a while, and he slowly rolled off the charts and he hasn’t done much lately. He’s one of several country artists whose favorite album of mine is their fourth, and most of them fell off a cliff afterwards. I think part of the reason is that a lot of them, once they make it big, stop singing about relationships and move towards family, or patriotism, or how awesome it is to be a redneck. In Tracy’s case, it was also because the filler got more boring than ever.

 

Music

24: Blue Moon Swamp (John Fogerty)

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Album: Blue Moon Swamp
Artist: John Fogerty
Year: 1997

1. Southern Streamline
2. Hot Rod Heart
3. Blueboy
4. A Hundred and Ten in the Shade
5. Rattlesnake Highway
6. Bring It Down to Jelly Roll
7. Walking in a Hurricane
8. Swamp River Days
9. Rambunctious Boy
10. Joy of My Life
11. Blue Moon Nights
12. Bad Bad Boy

The Grammy Award winner for Best Rock Album starts out with a country song, naturally. It’s only an average song and it tanked on the country charts, but it leads into the rest of the album pretty well. Hot Rod Heart is a simple rocker; decent, but nothing all that memorable. At this point the album proves why it deserved the Grammy.

Blueboy is classic Fogerty, a little bit country with some rockin’ electric guitar solos. Had it been released in rock’s hey-day in the 60’s, I have little doubt it would have been a top ten hit. A Hundred and Ten in the Shade is a low-tempo song that fits the mood of the title perfectly, and Fogerty is complimented with the perfect backing vocals of The Fairfield Four, a gospel group that has been around since 1921.

After that we have the hardest rocker of the album, though the lyrics on Rattlesnake Highway are a bit over the top. Walking in a Hurricane is the best hard-rocker here. Bring It Down to Jelly Roll is another good country/rock mix. The last half of the album has a bit less bite. Swamp River Days and Blue Moon Nights, while pleasant, are pretty generic songs reminiscent of the slow parts of the CCR albums.  Rambunctious Boy is the worst song, but not so bad as to ruin the mood. Joy of My Life is a ballad John wrote for his wife, and it’s fine.

Bad Bad Boy is an interesting way to wrap things up. It’s a decent rocker and it has a nice fade out at the end, but it doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the album. It’s a bit disheartening that after working on this album for a decade, it doesn’t have a more consistent theme, but the production values are fantastic and it’s easy to tell he poured his heart and soul into each song. It’s a good thing, too, since shortly after this album’s release, Fogerty’s voice started to degrade. He’s had a few decent songs since, but the last ten years have not been kind to him vocationally. He can still sing his country songs, but anything that requires the howling voice like Up Around the Bend or Have You Ever Seen the Rain? can make your skin crawl.

Music

25: Just For You (Neil Diamond)

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Album: Just For You
Artist: Neil Diamond
Year: 1967

1. Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon
2. The Long Way Home
3. Red Red Wine
4. You’ll Forget
5. The Boat That I Row
6. Cherry, Cherry
7. I’m a Believer
8. Shilo
9. You Got to Me
10. Solitary Man
11. Thank the Lord for the Night Time

I am an unabashed lover of Neil Diamond despite the fact that nearly all of his songs are complete fluff, with the rest being as cloying as possible. The passion he’ll imbue banal lyrics is admirable, and the guy can write a solid melody.

Just For You is his second album and it looks more like a greatest hits collection. Red Red Wine and I’m a Believer became famous because of UB40 and The Monkees, respectively, but he’s got six other pretty big hits here. And the non-singles aren’t too shabby either.

You Got to Me and Thank the Lord for the Night Time have significant harmony sections that my friend and I used to sing together late night at Perkins. Yes, we were those people. At least we tried to keep the volume down.

Music

26: Rabbit Fur Coat (Jenny Lewis and The Watson Twins)

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Album: Rabbit Fur Coat
Artist: Jenny Lewis and The Watson Twins
Year: 2006

1. Run Devil Run
2. The Big Guns
3. Rise Up with Fists!!
4. Happy
5. The Charging Sky
6. Melt Your Heart
7. You Are What You Love
8. Rabbit Fur Coat
9. Handle with Care
10. Born Secular
11. It Wasn’t Me
12. Happy (Reprise)

Jenny Lewis is more famous for Rilo Kiley and for starring in The Wizard, but has ventured out into solo work as well. While I’m not a big fan of her second solo album, Acid Tongue, where she invited a bunch of guest musicians to play along with her, I’m a huge fan of her collaboration with The Watson Twins.  There’s a pretty significant “finding religion” theme throughout, and it feels more like a manufactured theme than any genuine transformation for Lewis, but either way, it works for me.

The Watson Twins are an excellent complement to Jenny’s voice, especially on Rise Up with Fists!! and The Charging Sky, two fantastic songs. And for the most part, the lyrics tell pretty good stories. Melt Your Heart and You Are What You Love are a testament to her writing. Unfortunately, the album slides a bit after the latter. The title song, while a pretty painful story about a upper middle-class girl with a shitty mother, has a repetitive rhythm that sounds like a children’s song, and I don’t think it matches the lyrics. The rest of the songs are fine, but don’t stand out for me and I don’t feel motivated to finish the album.

But if you like Rilo Kiley, you have to give this album a listen.

Music

27: Mad Season (Matchbox Twenty)

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Album: Mad Season
Artist: Matchbox Twenty
Year: 2000

1. Angry
2. Black & White People
3. Crutch
4. Last Beautiful Girl
5. If You’re Gone
6. Mad Season
7. Rest Stop
8. The Burn
9. Bent
10. Bed of Lies
11. Leave
12. Stop
13. You Won’t Be Mine

I was very excited when this album came out and I came away feeling it was the best album I’d ever listened to. Mad Season is definitely more polished than the band’s first album, but as the years have gone by it has lost something. I think part of it lies in the first song, where Rob Thomas sings about how he’s not angry anymore. It’s autobiographical, as around this time Rob got engaged and a lot of the bitterness and cynicism kind of melted away. I’m happy for him, really, but while Mad Season still contains some passion, it is mostly missing the rawness that turned me on to them initially.

Rest Stop still contains that mood, but the chorus is repeated about eighty-four times, ruining the mood by the end. Stop is as angry as anything you’ll hear from Matchbox Twenty, but it’s one of the weaker songs lyrically. The songs that are great musically aren’t all that emotionally resonating.  Still, the music is good enough that I still enjoy listening to the album. There are no songs I dislike, and it ends on a pretty solid note with You Won’t Be Mine, a haunting tune featuring Thomas on the piano. Other favorites are Last Beautiful Girl, Black & White People, Mad Season and Bent.

I have liked virtually nothing Thomas has put out since this album. I felt More Than You Think You Are was wretched outside of the mediocre singles. And every single since has done nothing for me. His songs, initially inspired, have become incredibly generic and flat.

Music

28: No Easy Walk to Freedom (Peter, Paul and Mary)

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Album: No Easy Walk to Freedom
Artist: Peter, Paul and Mary
Year: 1986

1. Weave Me the Sunshine
2. Right Field
3. I’d Rather Be In Love
4. State of the Heart
5. No Easy Walk to Freedom
6. Greenland Whale Fisheries
7. Whispered Words
8. El Salvador
9. Greenwood
10. Light One Candle

Everyone’s favorite folk hippies are most famous for puffing on magic dragons, leaving on jet planes, and blowing in the wind. And while I certainly like all of that, this is my favorite collection. Right Field is a classic original, detailing the shame of playing right field for a Little League team.  Greenland Whale Fisheries is an almost 300 years old sea shanty and they do it justice. No Easy Walk to Freedom is a great tribute Nelson Mendela; I’m sure when he was freed four years later it was a fabulous day in the Peter, Paul, and Mary households.

My two favorite songs are State of the Heart, an elegant ballad by Peter, and El Salvador. It’s a scathing, powerful protest song about the then civil war that the U.S. was involved in, and it got the band booed at concerts. I was too young to be aware or concerned about the conflict, so it holds little emotional resonance for me. All I know is that Peter Yarrow rocks it out and it sounds awesome.