The Greatest Albums of all time don’t change all that much in my book, one gets in, one goes out, but Presley and the Beatles tend to battle for second place and Hendrix always wins first place. In the end, there is no rock music as we know it without Hendrix and if that didn't’t make the album important enough, it was a pop music move at the time and remains a slice of history and a stab of pop.
It would be on my top 20 fave albums but not my top 10. And anyway, my the greatest remain constant and my faves change all the time, every day. So consider this a snapshot, no more.
1. Get Happy!! (1980) – Elvis Costello And The Attractions – This album will save your life… it saved mine. I had spent from my Dad’s death in 1973 straight through to 1980 on a downward spiral of terrifying proportions. I lost every single thing, family, country, money, self-esteem, future. I was a friendless broken wreck and had decided to kill myself once I’d heard the latest Costello album. If that album had been Spike instead of Get Happy!! I might be dead today. But I got lucky, it was his strangest stunningest album ever. Lyrically, I can’t think of an album I’d admire. And the drug rammed Costello lost in New Amsterdam. Needless to say I worshipped it to insane proportions and can claim that it absolutely saved my life.
2. Ready to Die (1994) – Notorious BIG – This brought rap music back home, back t the east Coast. A masterpiece rock opera telling the story of Biggies descent into hustling and suicide. But with humor, rhymes, beats and samples that would set off a change of musical miasmas still echoing to this very moment. Plus, did I mention the rhymes?. On a personal level: after a coupla years of listening to De La Soul I had lost interest in rap until this turned me around again.
3. Revenge For Hire (2006) – 20 songs in less than half an hour and included are two of the best songs of the noughts: “Leeloo” and “Colorado. But really,the entire album is a blast of fresh air culminating in the joyful “Fenway Lights”. The singer is great, the songwriting as good, the band tight, loud and drunk with youth.
4. Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993) – Has a band ever made a bigger leap between two albums? On the very next album, Blur would officially invent Brit Pop and instigate a stalled Brit Invasion. But this album was better. It was as though everything Albarn sang was the final word on the entire situation. From “For Tomorrow” to “Chemical” Damon was a 1990s Ray Davies, if not, indeed, Martin Amis, and the UK was finally recovered from Thatcher and waiting for Blair and New Labour. From this side of the Atlantic, Suede seemed very old fashioned all of a sudden.
5. With The Beatles ( 1963) – I was seven years old when this was released. In the past I have juggled between Rubber Soul and Revolver as my fave Beatles album, but as I’ve grown older I choose between this one and A Hard Day’s Night (British Edition, of course). Lennon’s album? “All I’ve Got To Do” plus three covers culminating in “Money” make it so. “I want to be free…” Lennon screamed and so we were all free.
6. Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man (1922 – 1925) – Louis Armstrong – In Chicago, with the Hot Five and Hot Seven, inventing the studio techniques that would be used for decades and the jazz forms used to this day. Just about perfect plus, get this, I dunno who programmed it, but this is better than the Complete version just because it flows so sweet.
7. The Monitor (2010) – Titus Andronicus – This happened too soon. Now Patrick releases great albums and I kinda shrug. Sure Local Business is something but it ISN’T THIS.
8. Conor Oberst (2008) – Conor Oberst – This is his GP, a trip to the south and a country folk dream of an album. I saw Conor twice on this tour and he was awesome both times. Call it On The Road.
9. Plastic Letters (1978) Blondie – Lester Bangs ravaged this album, but he was completely wrong. He mistook the “plastic” word, perhaps if they had called it Rubber Letters? A sci-fi jangled up pop tarted double sided masterpiece all ends up drowning in a sea of sound. Keep the beer.
10. In The Wee Small Hours (1955) – Frank Sinatra – Nelson Riddle conducted the orchestra and the first concept album was all heart break and tears,