Five Decades of Fine Music
Saturday, July 31st, 2004 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranthI was quite taken by the 'Five Albums' meme, as purveyed by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
swisstone and flyingsauce amongst many others: and the thought of picking an album from each of the last five decades (scary thought!) appealed.
Naturally I got horribly bogged down in various bits of this exercise. Daft idea. Will be coming up with (shorter) posts on each decade, stamina permitting*. Meanwhile, this all feels horribly predictable.
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin (1969)
Highlight: Communication Breakdown
The first few Sixties albums that sprang to mind were all by Jefferson Airplane, but then I realised how horribly patchy they were: true, I love the blend of American folk-rock tradition and psychedelia, but most of the songs aren't actually very good.
Led Zep I, on the other hand: well, there are songs I like better than others, but Robert Plant's octave-spanning wail at the end of the guitar riff in 'Communication Breakdown' still sends me, every time. And the whole album is punchy and bluesy and full of energy.
I don't think I owned this album until very recently, but I've played several cassettes to death.
What I was actually listening to in the Sixties: that would've been (a) nursery rhymes, as performed on Radio 4, and (b) Glenn Miller (though come to think of it we didn't have a record player until the Seventies). I did not even hear of Woodstock until the 1980s, I suspect.
Patti Smith - Horses (1975)
Highlight: Gloria
I could do five (or fifty) Seventies albums -- definitely my Musical Era of Choice -- but this was my first choice and not even [insert your musical favourite here] could displace it. Wonderful Mapplethorpe cover; wonderful cover of Van Morrison's 'Gloria'; Smith at her punk-poetess best, with nasty visceral images and spidery guitar riffs in 'Land of a Thousand Dances'; proper rock stuff too, on 'Break It Up'; and bouncy frenetic punk-pop in 'Free Money'. Having seen Patti Smith play a wonderful set in Hackney a few years ago, I may never go to another of her shows, in case she breaks it.
What I was actually listening to in the Seventies: Abba, once my parents gave in and bought me a radio; Jefferson Airplane/Starship, after I discovered the record library; bad covers of bad disco, via the cheap 'chart music' tapes in Woolworths.
Kate Bush - Never for Ever (1980)
Highlight: Breathing
I had real problems finding an Eighties album that really mattered to me, and even this one only just scrapes in. All the really good stuff -- i.e. my favourite album by X -- turned out to be late Seventies (Clash, Stranglers, Siouxsie) or early Nineties (Sugar, Carter, Miranda Sex Garden). This was the first one that sprang to mind, and although I've since thought of a couple of others, it's the one I'm sticking with; not only is it the first chart album I ever bought, but it's still tremendously evocative of teenage me (not always a bad thing). There's a lovely Baroque feel to it, all gilt and shadows and exotic places: I remember loving 'Egypt', with its marvellous movie-soundtrack crescendos, best, but I also had spells of 'The Wedding List' (violent women, yay!) and the raucous 'Violin' (the first pop song I ever heard that mentioned Paganini). 'Breathing' sticks in my head most, though, as a tremendously (and tremulously) evocative soundtrack to the whole Cold War / nuclear war nightmare that was looming large back then.
What I was actually listening to in the Eighties: what a decade! Started with Southend Record Library, Radio One and school trips (first exposure to punk; I remember someone bringing 'Holiday in Cambodia' and not being allowed to play it while there was a teacher in the room, and a geology trip to Swannage where Sian and I played 'Rat Trap' all night on the hostel jukebox, and were inexplicably not smothered by other residents). By the end of the Eighties I was living in London, had an income and was going to Brixton Academy gigs a couple of times a month. In between came three years at university, where everyone had Proper Music.
Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine - 101 Damnations (1991)
Highlight: 24 Minutes to Tulse Hill
I 'discovered' Carter at the end of the Eighties, supporting some band who weren't nearly as good. I adore this album -- how can it possibly be practically unavailable?! -- with its drum-machine beats and manufactured-sounding riffs, South London geography (from the brothels of Streatham to the taking of Peckham), cynically side-splitting (and clever) lyrics and serious themes (child abuse, setting tramps alight, pension fraud etc) treated with that wonderfully Nineties blend of social responsibility and hard-nosed realism. Yes, I'm afraid this album does also have 'Sheriff Fatman' on it. It may be Carter who are responsible for the parlous state of my knees: I certainly bounced a lot at their gigs.
What I was actually listening to in the Nineties: I started listening to a lot more classical music and opera, and lost touch for a few years with what was happening in terms of new releases. I don't seem to have missed much, though.
Garbage - Beautiful Garbage (2001)
Highlight: Silence is Golden
For a chart band they're bloody interesting, musically, all those key and time changes and so on: and I love Shirley Manson's voice, and the driving guitar on 'Silence is Golden', and the bouncy pop of 'Cherry Lips', and the power chords in 'Shut Your Mouth', and *bounce*, really.
Problem is, although this is one of my key Noughties albums, I haven't engaged with the album as a whole: I know a few tracks by heart and the rest, well, hardly at all. This is probably because I now listen to most music in digital portable format -- MP3s or Minidisks -- which makes it all too easy to skip the slower tunes when you need a pick-me-up. I've certainly listened to the whole album, on CD, quite a lot, but there are tracks I simply can't hear in my head at all -- not the case with any track on any of the other albums listed here.
What I actually listen to, these days: Current favourites are Shakira (I know, I know, but wonderfully bouncy ethno-pop); miscellaneous rock stuff, Franz Ferdinand / AFI / Jet / Strokes etc, mainly from the radio or Kazaa; last live band seen was the New York Dolls; last album bought, I think, was Rachid Taha (who played in Croydon and I missed him, waaaaah).
*or maybe not, as when I tried to post this from Werk yesterday I found that LJ has been blocked. Had thought it was, anyway, until a couple of weeks ago; may have abused the discovery that it wasn't.
swisstone and flyingsauce amongst many others: and the thought of picking an album from each of the last five decades (scary thought!) appealed.Naturally I got horribly bogged down in various bits of this exercise. Daft idea. Will be coming up with (shorter) posts on each decade, stamina permitting*. Meanwhile, this all feels horribly predictable.
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin (1969)
Highlight: Communication Breakdown
The first few Sixties albums that sprang to mind were all by Jefferson Airplane, but then I realised how horribly patchy they were: true, I love the blend of American folk-rock tradition and psychedelia, but most of the songs aren't actually very good.
Led Zep I, on the other hand: well, there are songs I like better than others, but Robert Plant's octave-spanning wail at the end of the guitar riff in 'Communication Breakdown' still sends me, every time. And the whole album is punchy and bluesy and full of energy.
I don't think I owned this album until very recently, but I've played several cassettes to death.
What I was actually listening to in the Sixties: that would've been (a) nursery rhymes, as performed on Radio 4, and (b) Glenn Miller (though come to think of it we didn't have a record player until the Seventies). I did not even hear of Woodstock until the 1980s, I suspect.
Patti Smith - Horses (1975)
Highlight: Gloria
I could do five (or fifty) Seventies albums -- definitely my Musical Era of Choice -- but this was my first choice and not even [insert your musical favourite here] could displace it. Wonderful Mapplethorpe cover; wonderful cover of Van Morrison's 'Gloria'; Smith at her punk-poetess best, with nasty visceral images and spidery guitar riffs in 'Land of a Thousand Dances'; proper rock stuff too, on 'Break It Up'; and bouncy frenetic punk-pop in 'Free Money'. Having seen Patti Smith play a wonderful set in Hackney a few years ago, I may never go to another of her shows, in case she breaks it.
What I was actually listening to in the Seventies: Abba, once my parents gave in and bought me a radio; Jefferson Airplane/Starship, after I discovered the record library; bad covers of bad disco, via the cheap 'chart music' tapes in Woolworths.
Kate Bush - Never for Ever (1980)
Highlight: Breathing
I had real problems finding an Eighties album that really mattered to me, and even this one only just scrapes in. All the really good stuff -- i.e. my favourite album by X -- turned out to be late Seventies (Clash, Stranglers, Siouxsie) or early Nineties (Sugar, Carter, Miranda Sex Garden). This was the first one that sprang to mind, and although I've since thought of a couple of others, it's the one I'm sticking with; not only is it the first chart album I ever bought, but it's still tremendously evocative of teenage me (not always a bad thing). There's a lovely Baroque feel to it, all gilt and shadows and exotic places: I remember loving 'Egypt', with its marvellous movie-soundtrack crescendos, best, but I also had spells of 'The Wedding List' (violent women, yay!) and the raucous 'Violin' (the first pop song I ever heard that mentioned Paganini). 'Breathing' sticks in my head most, though, as a tremendously (and tremulously) evocative soundtrack to the whole Cold War / nuclear war nightmare that was looming large back then.
What I was actually listening to in the Eighties: what a decade! Started with Southend Record Library, Radio One and school trips (first exposure to punk; I remember someone bringing 'Holiday in Cambodia' and not being allowed to play it while there was a teacher in the room, and a geology trip to Swannage where Sian and I played 'Rat Trap' all night on the hostel jukebox, and were inexplicably not smothered by other residents). By the end of the Eighties I was living in London, had an income and was going to Brixton Academy gigs a couple of times a month. In between came three years at university, where everyone had Proper Music.
Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine - 101 Damnations (1991)
Highlight: 24 Minutes to Tulse Hill
I 'discovered' Carter at the end of the Eighties, supporting some band who weren't nearly as good. I adore this album -- how can it possibly be practically unavailable?! -- with its drum-machine beats and manufactured-sounding riffs, South London geography (from the brothels of Streatham to the taking of Peckham), cynically side-splitting (and clever) lyrics and serious themes (child abuse, setting tramps alight, pension fraud etc) treated with that wonderfully Nineties blend of social responsibility and hard-nosed realism. Yes, I'm afraid this album does also have 'Sheriff Fatman' on it. It may be Carter who are responsible for the parlous state of my knees: I certainly bounced a lot at their gigs.
What I was actually listening to in the Nineties: I started listening to a lot more classical music and opera, and lost touch for a few years with what was happening in terms of new releases. I don't seem to have missed much, though.
Garbage - Beautiful Garbage (2001)
Highlight: Silence is Golden
For a chart band they're bloody interesting, musically, all those key and time changes and so on: and I love Shirley Manson's voice, and the driving guitar on 'Silence is Golden', and the bouncy pop of 'Cherry Lips', and the power chords in 'Shut Your Mouth', and *bounce*, really.
Problem is, although this is one of my key Noughties albums, I haven't engaged with the album as a whole: I know a few tracks by heart and the rest, well, hardly at all. This is probably because I now listen to most music in digital portable format -- MP3s or Minidisks -- which makes it all too easy to skip the slower tunes when you need a pick-me-up. I've certainly listened to the whole album, on CD, quite a lot, but there are tracks I simply can't hear in my head at all -- not the case with any track on any of the other albums listed here.
What I actually listen to, these days: Current favourites are Shakira (I know, I know, but wonderfully bouncy ethno-pop); miscellaneous rock stuff, Franz Ferdinand / AFI / Jet / Strokes etc, mainly from the radio or Kazaa; last live band seen was the New York Dolls; last album bought, I think, was Rachid Taha (who played in Croydon and I missed him, waaaaah).
*or maybe not, as when I tried to post this from Werk yesterday I found that LJ has been blocked. Had thought it was, anyway, until a couple of weeks ago; may have abused the discovery that it wasn't.
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Date: Monday, August 2nd, 2004 03:07 am (UTC)Horses - a damned good album, and Gloria is definitely fab (I adore the line "Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine"). In an episode of Chris Carter's "Millennium", once character lost her mind to the soundtrack of the entire length of Horses/Land of a thousand dances etc. It went very well...
And, of course, fond as I am of PJ Harvey, she owes Patti Smith everything.