For his September Pulse! column on SoundStage! Xperience, music editor Joseph Taylor recommended ten iconic albums for new collectors of vinyl. I read that article with great interest, as Joe’s a walking musical encyclopedia who has likely forgotten more about music than I’ll ever know. Joe took an interesting approach in this piece, which was aimed at the 20-something crowd. “I’m going to lean towards records that are musically significant,” Joe wrote. “Some may be beautifully recorded, but my primary criterion for inclusion here is musical worth.”
Reading through his article, I’d say that Joe nailed it. Every record Joe recommends is important, musically significant, and a well-chosen example of its genre. That said, those records aren’t what I would have chosen.
Of course not. Music is so very personal that I doubt there are any two people in the world who would agree with each other’s choices. Which leaves it open for me to take my shot at the same exercise.
I figured I’d diverge from Joe’s methodology by dispensing with his musically significant criterion. I figured I’d just vibe it out. My approach would be to recommend records that I love, and that I think a 20-something might also enjoy. Further, I’m going to assume that my target reader has already picked up sound-quality chestnuts like Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, and maybe wants to delve a little deeper. Hopefully, I can provide some more oblique choices that could expose musical rabbit holes down which to explore.
Pretty simple, huh? But just after I’d settled on my angle, SoundStage! founder Doug Schneider, who’d been copied on my correspondence with Joe, hit me with a link to an article from Far Out magazine. This article identified the five albums only critics like, according to data science. In other words, albums that are critically acclaimed, yet rarely listened to. Regarding positions five and four—The Velvet Underground & Nico and LCD Soundsystem’s This Is Happening—I’d go along with the FOM folks. Don’t care for these records. But goddammit, the top three positions are personal favorites—records I’ve written about at length. I most likely would have picked a Talk Talk record, as well as Far Out’s #2, Brian Eno’s Another Green World. I probably wouldn’t have selected the top album, Trout Mask Replica, by Captain Beefheart. But you never know, especially given that I’ve written about it.
So, having read that Far Out article, I’m not gonna be as much of a pretentious dick as I might have been. I’ll take off my critic’s hat and shoot for some fun music: records that—hopefully—will have broad appeal. I’m only covering the first five on my list, and I’ll do the second five in my next installment of this column.
Led Zeppelin: Physical Graffiti
In my 20s, I had a girlfriend who was sophisticated and edgy, highly intelligent, but just psychopathic enough to make life really interesting. She looked down her nose at classic rock, but one night, watching the Led Zeppelin movie The Song Remains the Same, she was fascinated by the tightly shot closeups of Robert Plant’s impressive package. She was immediately enthralled and asked me to make her a Led Zep mix tape. I heavily dosed that tape with tracks from Physical Graffiti, as it’s the group’s most groove-oriented album. She loved the tape and kept it when we broke up. If there’s ever music that can reach out and grab recruits via its sheer sex appeal, this is it.
I think it’s fair to say that Physical Graffiti is the high-water mark in Led Zep’s catalog. It’s the band’s most coherent album: fully polished, while still retaining Zeppelin’s trademark blooze-soaked fury. There are the hits, such as they are—“Trampled Under Foot” and “Kashmir”—but there’s also huge depth, with contrasts such as “In My Time of Dying” and “Custard Pie.” In a nod to Joe’s musical-significance angle, Led Zeppelin is of great importance for its incorporation (or theft, more like) of blues into rock music.
The recent remasters of the Zeppelin catalog are excellent—no need to hunt through used-record bins for this gem.
Astor Piazzolla: Tango: Zero Hour
If you can dim the lights and listen to “Milonga del ángel” on a killer system without your eyes welling up, you have no soul. You could die from a broken heart to this music. It’s soulful, angry, sad, and lustful at varying moments. It’s massive, powerful, intimate music. There are times, when Piazzolla’s bandoneon duels with Fernando Suárez Paz’s violin, that you’ll want to fall in love, eat a bloody steak, destroy the world. It’s stunning music and it’s beautifully recorded.
Piazzolla was a prolific musician, and is best known for taking traditional tango and developing it, in the 1950s, into what became known as nuevo tango. This music transcends the focus on the actual tango dance. There’s a huge body of work by other nuevo tango artists, as well as numerous offshoots of the style, but to me, this one album stands alone, at the absolute summit of the style. I’ve listened to other tango albums by Piazzolla, and by other artists, but Tango: Zero Hour is the one that I return to—it’s the one I heard first, and it has ruined me.
Tango: Zero Hour is no longer in print, and to me it’s the album most in need of a high-quality reissue. That said, there are a good number of copies available on Discogs for reasonable prices. Don’t miss out on this one.
Miles Davis: A Tribute to Jack Johnson (aka Jack Johnson)
Is this jazz? I don’t think so. When you mention the name Miles Davis, most people think of jazz in general, and the album Kind of Blue in particular, which Joe quite rightly included in his list of extremely important records. But Jack Johnson has been my go-to Miles record ever since I first heard it, about 15 years ago. This recording is from Miles’s electric period, recorded in 1971, and it’s important to me because it’s a ragingly hot rock/jazz fusion album that doesn’t let up from start to finish.
You’ve got a young Billy Cobham laying down a straight-ahead drum beat that works as a solid foundation for an even-younger Michael Henderson on bass. The rhythm section needs consistency, because John McLaughlin just freaks out, playing the oddest, most dissonant guitar chords imaginable. The first time I heard this recording I thought the WAV file had the wrong title, as it sounded like a hard-rocking fusion track (which I guess it is), but then Miles came shrieking in and it all made sense.
There’s so much spontaneity on this record. It’s basically a bunch of jam sessions stitched together by producer Teo Macero. My favorite anecdote about the recording sessions is the part where Herbie Hancock happened to be in the building, so they herded him into the studio, dragged a cheap-ass keyboard out of the closet, hooked it up, and let him go.
The main reason why I love this record is because it sounds so fresh, so huge, and it sounds great when it’s played really, really loud. Being all-electric means that it works at volumes louder than you’d imagine unamplified acoustic instruments could play. This is an album that I reserve for when the house is empty and the neighbors are out.
I have the MoFi 33⅓-rpm version of this record—it’s magnificent and still available. And it’s reasonably priced.
The Tragically Hip: Fully Completely
This is my column, and I can choose what I want.
If you’re from Canada, this one’s a no-brainer: otherwise, YMMV. The Tragically Hip is Canadian royalty, a cross between Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, but north of the border and with maple syrup. Ostensibly a straight-ahead rock band, the Hip transcends that genre by way of intense emotional interplay between the musicians, who have been friends since high school, and a front man who’s equal parts poet laureate and court jester.
That’s Gord Downie, the poet, our captain, who died of brain cancer in 2017. But not before the Hip played a final, farewell-Gordie tour across Canada, with the last stop in Kingston, Ontario, the band’s home town. That final concert, performed when Downie was extremely ill, was televised across the country and watched live by over 11 million people. Keep in mind that Canada’s population was about 36 million at the time.
The Hip has always been a small-venue group, and the times I caught the band at a large arena I found myself feeling wistful, wishing that I could go back in time and catch them live at a bar. That makes Fully Completely the perfect choice for me, as it sounds like the band is playing in the room, for my benefit.
As I said, this is a straight-ahead rock album, but it’s very well produced and the sound quality is excellent. It’s the Hip’s high-water mark, both musically and lyrically. Fully Completely is pure genius—Downie tells stories like no other musician. If you’re going to sample a track to see if it’s for you, try “At the Hundredth Meridian,” or “Fifty-Mission Cap” if you’re a hockey fan.
I think Joseph Taylor would agree with my inclusion of this album, given that he’s also a huge fan. This album is still in production and readily available.
Van Halen: Van Halen
So, along with Physical Graffiti, I now have two 1970s rock albums in this list. If you don’t like it, open a new tab and go read one of those precious classical-music reviews over at Stereophile. Still here? Good.
I’ve raved about this album, about this incendiary slice of testosterone, on several occasions. I’ve mentioned it in multiple reviews, and I wrote about it in this column a few months ago. It’s no surprise, then, that I’m including it in this list, and I think it deserves a place for several reasons. First off, VH is a barnburner of a record. Eddie Van Halen could easily be considered the most influential guitar player since Jimi Hendrix. He ushered in a new style, a result of his blinding speed combined with two-handed hammer-ons and pull-offs. Head on over to YouTube and you’ll find numerous videos of young, aspiring guitarists covering “Eruption,” which features what is probably his most famous solo.
This is tuneful, infectious music. The album full of (admittedly, misogynistic) humor, excitement, and light-hearted aggression, and there isn’t a bad song on the record. I’m not going to get too deep into the music itself, as you can nip over to my earlier review for that.
It’s important to note that I’m only recommending the specific MoFi UltraDisc One-Step pressing. I know—it’s not cheap, but believe me, it’s worth it. This is a demonstration-quality record, one that will show what your system can do.
The next installment, coming to this space on December 15, will cover the final five. Visit often and invite your friends.
. . . Jason Thorpe
jasont@soundstagenetwork.com
