Album #61: 3 (Melt) by Peter Gabriel

1.

Sound: Prog rock with various highlights

Mood: Mad to dancing to mourning

Important Songs: Intruder; Biko

Song You Must Hear: No Self Control

Quote: “I like you lying awake your bated breath charging the air”

      “I shoot into the light”

Notes: I love Peter Gabriel, but there is something special about this album.  The different portraits of insanity, and the results of insanity, and dance songs filling the middle.  There is so much to think about, so much to examine and so much to feel, no matter how uncomfortable it all is. 

Album #62: How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb by U2

1

Sound: Mid-80s U2

Mood: Preachy

Important Songs: Vertigo, Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own

Song You Must Hear: Love and Peace or Else

Quote: “Where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die.”

Notes: Bono had done a solo tour, but not to sing, rather to speak of the needs of Africa.  He had always been a bit religious and bleeding heart, but this was the ultimate.  So U2’s latest album is the most bleeding heart, and the most psychedelic of them all.  Just my style. 

Album #63: 12 Songs by Neil Diamond

1.     

Sound: Singer/Songwriter

Mood: Reflective, occasionally upbeat

Important Song: Delirious Love (with Brian Wilson)

Song You Must Hear: Hell Yeah

Quote: “Running in circles gunna get you nowhere.  Why you wanna go there?  Where’s it gunna lead?”

Notes: I’m a Neil Diamond fan for as long as I can remember.  But he drifted from his excellent songwriting of the 60s and 70s to be a campy figure for a while.  This album brings the old Neil Diamond back.  It is said that producer Rick Rubin (of Johnny Cash’s American Recordings fame) asked Neil to write songs for the album.  After about a month, Neil came back and said he’d written the songs.  Rubin asked, “How many?”  Neil said, “About a hundred.” Rubin replied, “Come back when you’ve written more.”  From that large selection of songs, they picked 12 that were the best.  It really sounds like it. 

Album # 64: Amadeus Soundtrack by Academy of St. Martins In the Field

1.       

Sound: Mozartish

Mood: Dramatic

Important Songs: Symphony 25; Serenade for Winds K.361, 3^rd movement

Song You Must Hear: Deis Irae

Notes: Although I had been introduced to classical music earlier, this is the album that made me love it.  I had the movie to give context to the music, but the music itself is so powerful, so moving.

Album #65: Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan

1.    

Sound: Folk rock

Mood: Jaunty

Important Songs: Like a Rolling Stone; Ballad of a Thin Man

Song You Must Hear: Highway 61 Revisited

Quotes: "The sun’s not yellow, it’s chicken.”

“Then they bring them to the factory where the heart-attack machine is strapped across their shoulders.”

Notes: This is a highly praised album, and I need not heap more upon it.  It is enough to say that it changed the music world and all the rest of the worlds around it. 

Album #66: Sabbath Offerings by Rockharbor Worship

1.     

Sound: Church Worship Band

Mood: Worship

Important Songs: Beauty of Your Peace, Be Near

Song You Must Hear: Reverence

Quote: “I’m falling on my knees, offering you all of me.”

Notes: Most worship groups don’t know what worship is.   They think their purpose is to entertain, or to make music that is easy to sing to. However, the purpose of worship music is to create a space where one’s spirit can meet God.  You don’t want it too fast or with too much intellect.  The Rockharbor worship band on this album knows what they are about. This is a powerful album for worship—simple, paced, spiritual, but they don’t force one into worship.  They just provide the opportunity. 

Album #67: No Compromise by Keith Green

1.      

Sound: Pounding piano

Mood: Heart-wrenching and joyful

Important Songs: Asleep In The Light, You!

Song You Must Hear: Make My Life A Prayer To You

Quote:  “After all the things that you have shown me I’d be a fool to let them slip away.”

Notes: This album, more than any other, changed my life.  It was my liturgy and the goal of my soul.  The driving piano pushed the message further into my heart.  This is not a worship album, but an album intended to restore a fallen heart back to Jesus. 

Album #68: Tigerlily by Natalie Merchant

1. 

Sound: Simple, small band

Mood: Grey

Important Songs: Carnival, Wonder, Jealousy

Song You Must Hear: San Andres Fault

Quote: “It's you I can't deny, It's you I can't defy, A depth so deep into my grief.”

Notes: This is Natalie Merchant’s first solo album after leaving 10,000 Maniacs, and it is brilliant.  There are just a few performers, a guitarist, a drummer.  But it is Natalie’s voice that just haunts this entire album.  Unforgettable. 

Album #69: Swamp Ophelia by The Indigo Girls

1.

Sound: 00’s female folk

Mood: Angry, sad

Important songs: Fugitive, This Train Revised

Song You Must Hear: Least Complicated

Quote: “I stood without clothes, danced in the sand, I was aching with freedom kissing the damned.”

Notes: The center of this album is consistent, excellently written and made folk, easy on the ears.  But the bookends of the album demand to be heard: Fugitive and This Train Revisited.  Fugitive is amazing, almost psychedelic folk.  This Train Revisited has a gospel sense with a rock drive.  Overall, however, this album is amazing. 

Album #70: Hail To The Thief by Radiohead

1

Sound: 00’s alternative; Radioheadish

Mood: Varied

Important songs: There, There;   2+2=5

Song You Must Hear: We Suck Young Blood

Quote: “Hypocrite, opportunist: Don’t infect me with your poison.  A bully in a china shop.”

Notes: Another album that causes me to be hypnotized.  But Radiohead so rocks.  I love their layers, their haunting lyrics, their hooks. 

Album #71: Outdoor Elvis by The Swirling Eddies

1.     

Sound: Garage band

Mood: Hilariously sarcastic

Important songs: Strange Days, Billy Graham

Song You Must Hear: Hide the Beer, the Pastor’s Here

Quote: “Coco, you seem awfully sad today… that’s more like calculated existential angst.”

“Be our friend, save us Outdoor Elvis; we have sinned, forgive us Outdoor Elvis… we might have to set a trap to bring him back…”

Notes: The best album of the genre of sarcastic Christian.  Usually such sarcastic Christians sound like bitter Republicans, but the Swirling Eddies (who is just a re-named Daniel Amos) make as much fun of themselves as anyone else.  And their typical target are money-grubbing televangelists (the chorus of “Attack of the Pulpit Masters” is: moneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoney(deepbreath)moneymoneymoney…”) which I greatly appreciate.  It is truly funny, and the songs are (usually) quite good.

Album (Extra): Eagles' Greatest Hits: 71-75

Sound: Southern California Country

Mood: Imploring

Important Songs: All of them

Song You Must Hear: Tequila Sunrise

Quotes: “It seems to me some fine things have been laid upon your table, but you always want the ones that you can’t get.”

Notes: These are some of the most famous songs ever.  Yet their country harmonies and excellent melodies make the album fit together as most compilations never do.  Listen to it again.  You’ll be glad you did.

Album #72: In the Fishtank 11 by Black Heart Procession and Solbakken

1.     

Sound: Rock

Mood: Hypnotic

Important songs: Dog Song; Nervous Persian

Song You Must Hear: Voiture En Rouge

Notes: A Dutch label named Konkurrent has an ongoing project in which they will take a band, or two, or thee and throw them in a room for two days and tell them to produce music together.  That pressure cooker of production makes some intense mixes.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it certainly worked for Black Heart Procession (one of my favorite bands) and Solbakken. The spookiness of BHP is toned down, but Solbakken adds a driving beat and some international tones to BHP’s somber melodies. 

Album #73: So by Peter Gabriel

1.  

Sound: A little bit of everything pop

Mood: Inconsistent

Important songs: Big Time, Don’t Give Up, Sledgehammer

Song You Must Hear: In Your Eyes

Quotes: “Long words.  Excellent words.  I can hear them now.”

   “And I pray to a big god as I kneel in the big church.”

Notes:  Gabriel explores every kind of uniqueness here, and difference is the mood of the album.  It is as if Gabriel was given a room full of music toys and he couldn’t decide which one, so he played with them all. And, somehow, every song is fantastic and the album, unbelievably, works as a whole. 

Album #74: Jars of Clay by Jars of Clay

1. 

Sound: Acoustic rock with mandolin

Mood: Depressive

Important Songs: Flood, Love Song for a Savior

Song You Must Hear: Liquid

Quotes: “Don't try to reach me, I'm already dead”

Notes: The most unified sound that Jars of Clay produced.  This is an amazing album.  Great to listen to in order to pull you out of depression.  Or keep you in it.  Whatever. 

Album #75: Madman Across The Water by Elton John

1.       

Sound: Acoustic piano singer/songwriter with strings

Mood: Melancholy

Important Songs: Levon, Tiny Dancer

Song You Must Hear:  Madman Across the Water

Quote: “Boredom’s a pastime that one soon acquires…”

Notes: Elton John is the king of the single, but his albums usually leave me cold because they are so much a collection of singles.  Madman is different in that the whole album has a feel, a sense of wholeness.  He is such a master of the piano that when he gives himself to a mood, as he does this album, it is a magnificent statement of that feeling. 

Album #76: Up by Peter Gabriel

1.      

Sound: Progressive electronic

Mood: Smooth with the occasional punch

Important Songs: More Than This

Song You Must Hear: Signal to Noise

Song You Must NOT Hear: Darkness (this one makes me jump)

Quotes: “The news that truly shocks is the empty empty page”

Notes: I didn’t even think of this album at first because I just play it with my other Peter Gabriel, until I realized that I find myself singing some of the songs so often.  Because it has Gabriel’s progressive, interesting music, but it (generally) has a smooth texture, it is perfect music for me to write to.  Gabriel has allowed himself to really grow as an artist and I see this as being the final product of years of musical exploration.

Album #77: Breakfast In America by Supertramp

1.    

Sound: Pop/Rock with a Wulitzer electric piano at the fore

Mood: At times lighthearted, at times angry

Important songs: The Logical Song, Goodbye Stranger, Take the Long Way Home

Song You Must Hear: Breakfast In America

Quotes: “They’ll run for cover when they discover everyone’s a nervous wreck now.”

“Don’t you look at my girlfriend—she’s the only one I got.”

“You gave me Coca-Cola.  You said it tasted good.  And you watch the television and it tells you that you should.”

Notes: Apart from it having some of the strongest singles of the late 70’s/early 80’s, Breakfast also has some of the cleverest lyrics.  They make you feel smart just because you can sing them. My best friend (who is now my wife) and I would sing these songs standing in long lines at Disneyland, much to the consternation of those around us.  Happy memories…

Album #78: Band of Joy by Robert Plant and Band of Joy

1.       

Sound: American Roots

Mood: Fun, light

Important Songs: Angel Dance, House of Cards

Song You Must Hear: Central Two O Nine

Quote:  “I heard the voice of Jesus say, ‘Satan your kingdom will come down.’”

Notes: It’s like O Brother with some psychadelia thrown in.  I’ve never heard Plant sound so… well, joyful.  The Band of Joy was the band Plant was a part of before Zeppelin, and it re-formed a number of times after that.  Their blues/folk/old-timey sound with rock influences is just fantastic. 

Album #79: Construction Time Again by Depeche Mode

Sound: Electronic 80’s pop

Mood: Preachy

Important Songs: Pipeline, Everything Counts

Song You Must Hear: Love In Itself

Quote: “Everybody’s waiting for judgment day so they could go, ‘Told you so’”

Notes:  I took a week to drive from So California to Portland to go to Bible school, angry at the injustices I saw in India.  I played this album over and over because it perfectly reflected my mood.  The chaotic pop also made it plenty interesting.  And I think I am in love with Martin Gore’s voice.