(Don’t hit the skip) Albums worth listening to the whole
thing
So in this day and age, people are spending more money on
their electronics and less on their music.
Sounds weird, but think about the fact that Beats Headphones sell for
around Two Hundred dollars, and most
people illegally download or just buy a
few songs from ITunes, or use Pandora, Last fm or any other internet listening
service.
Not that I am an old coot playing wax cylinders but back in my day I was paying Fourteen
dollars for a tape and listening to it on the shitty headphones that came with
my Walkman.( which wasn’t even a Walkman, cause it was made by Toshiba not
Sony) But the point is, people had to
love that shit in order to sell albums.
So that being said, I decided it was time for me to put
together my list of the ten greatest whole albums of all time. As I say often, this is my list, so there
will be discrepancies.
I decided on a strict criteria, of no greatest hits albums,
no soundtracks or compilations and no live albums. There are some great live albums, but most
of the truly good ones, are more like greatest hits albums.
So these are the albums that I can still listen to and not
skip a song. Which is important, because I eliminated some of the world’s
favorite Albums based on the fact that there are songs on it that are
skippable.
So this shit really has to have its work cut out for it.
10. The Marshall Mathers LP- Eminem
So I will say right away, this is the most recent album on
the list. This album needs to be on any list of great albums.
It starts right out with the announcement that by buying the
CD you just kissed Eminem’s ass and goes right into the song Kill You. If by that point you don’t realize how angry
Eminem is, and what the rest of the album is going to sound like, then you are
dumb.
I mean yeah the skits get a little old after a while,
especially the Ken Kaniff skit(which is just sort of gross) but for me I just
sit through it and enjoy every second of it.
Never mind the fact that The Real Slim Shady was a huge hit,
and Stan took off and got so big that Elton John even performed the song with
Eminem; the songs on this album are incredible and perfectly staggered between
being danceable and just plain jammable.
Marshall Mathers (the song)
is deep as fuck. Kim is so harsh and so angry, I mean Eminem is on the
verge of going emo. Then they redo a
classic and make Bitch Please 2 rock harder than the original. Criminal, starts
with that great dialogue that makes every hater feel like an ignorant ass.
Seriously maybe it just came out at the right time of my
life or who knows. I will tell you this much, there was not a lot of 2000’s era
rap that I listened to, but this was the shit. Lyrically it is deep and angsty;
I think every teenager in America should
get this as a present on their 15th birthday.
9. Nevermind – Nirvana
Ok, so I will be honest right from the get go, any Nirvana
album could only make the list. And, realistically I love the unplugged album
more than anything, but I took the live albums off the list so Nevermind got
onto the list.
There is not a song on this album that I would ever skip if
I heard it anywhere, and in order it all sounds perfect.
Do I need to even tell you about this album? By now most
people have seen the naked baby cover, and most people have heard Smells like
teen spirit.
But take a listen to the album, This is regarded by many as
the beginning of the Alternative period of music. For me it sure was what turned me onto it. But
what is crazy is how so non alternative sounding this is. Something in the Way easily sounds like a
late era Beatles track. Polly is as beautiful
as it is simple.
We can’t forget Come as You are, that fucking song just
takes a slow drive through your mind until it kicks you in the face. But that
is just a wake up call so you are ready for Breed and Lithium. Honestly I don’t care who you are if Lithium
doesn’t make you want to punch a fucking baby, then you aren’t listening to it
right.
Kurt Cobain was a genius, and I will honestly say that I
miss him. To me, I think Lady Gaga acts
like she wishes she was Kurt Cobain, and I don’t mind it, because it’s an
attitude thing and it’s a perception of the world that is missing on the radio
these days.
Seriously this shit just rocks through your veins, in
precisely the way you need it to.
8. Dookie – Green Day
The sellout album!
Yeah I said it, and I don’t mind it, I really don’t because
for anyone that was part of the whole Gilman Street scene, well this is how I
discovered it!
So if I lost you with that last line, then you owe it to
yourself to figure out what I was talking about.
Dookie is the first experience with anything remotely punk
that I ever had. I loved this tape,
which oddly was blue. (I never understood that)
The cover art was a crazy illustrated barrage of a million
things, all of which I didn’t quite understand at first; except for the monkey
in the corner holding a nice wad of shit.
Also, in case you missed it, there was a weird stuffed ernie doll on the
back.
I learned to love Green Day with the video for Longview, I wanted to hang out with Billie
Joe and watch tv with him. Other people
began to pile on when the video for Basket Case came out. That was fine and
dandy but I already had gotten the tape from the Warner music group catalog by
then. (does anybody else remember those fucking things? 10 tapes for a dollar, then 1 a month at
regular price)
The whole thing sounded fantastic, and honestly to me the
songs each got better as the tape went on.
Side 2, forget about it, that whole thing was incredible She, Sassafras
Roots, When I come Around, Coming Clean, Emenius Sleepus, In the End, FOD and
the secret song! That was sick.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, side 1 is just as great, but I
preferred side 2 much more, I don’t knowe what it was, but I loved the whole
damn thing I guess. So yeah, seriously,
go buy this immediately if you don’t own it. If you were a teen in the 90’s and
you don’t have this album already, then you deserve to be picked on…
7. Outlandos d’Amour - The
Police
Come on, as far as The Police are concerned, this is their
greatest masterpiece, again, my opinion, but come on, Roxanne is song 3 . Not only that it opens with Next to You that
has a tempo that feels like like 800bpm!
Then you get the smooth reggae sounding So Lonely, which
also has Sting’s crazy falsetto that no one can imitate.
This whole album has classics on it. (sadly most people only
know Roxanne) Born in the 50’s is actually a really cool coming of age song,
and Peanuts is a weird in a sort of “Rock Lobster” kind of way; which makes it
cool as hell. Can’t stand losing you is a beautiful suicidal rant towards some
un loving bitch, (and if a girl breaks up with you- this is the song to quote)
I don’t have a crazy attachment to this album like I do
other ones on the list. I mean Christ I
was Negative Four Years old when it came out
But I love it, I really do, the album is great and classic,
worth a listen and listen the whole way through seriously.
6. Rumours –Fleetwood Mac
Mom, if you are reading this,
Yes I have your
album, and no you can’t have it back,
Why?
Because 1. You don’t
even have a record Player and 2. You are too old to relate with this music
anymore, and from what I know of you, I doubt you ever did!!
Now that that personal rant is out of the way. Fucking
Rumours!
It starts with Second Hand News and then goes into Dreams,
then on and on through 9 more songs that are all classics.
Come on, you know you love Don’t Stop and Go Your own
Way then as you matured you got into The
Chain.
Personally my favorite cut from this album is Never Going
Back Again. That is a cool song and I
love Lindsay Buckingham’s voice, and the quaint pied piper sounding guitar part
really takes the cake.
This album is fucking serious. I mean First of all it sold
40 million fucking copies- 19 million in the United States alone. For the record if you don’t know how to count,
you would need 4 million people to line up their hands to get that high. 40 million, seriously that is literally every
person in Wisconsin, Michigan and the great state of New York.
Ok but that doesn’t mean anything right? Well 40 million
people or more aren’t usually wrong are they? ( No George Bush jokes intended,
but implied a little).
Fleetwood Mac weren’t young pups at this point, this was
their 11th album, so I mean they had honed their respective crafts
at this point and had all taken turns sleeping with each other that the tension
was gone and they could make a good album.
Ok, for me, it’s also weird, because if you have been playing along
at home, you know I don’t usually reference a lot of women singers.(this is
something that Woman of The House loves to point out to me) But I could listen to Stevie Nicks and
Christine McVie sing all day and realistically they are both pretty butt ugly
women, so that says a lot.
This is just seriously a classic and if you told me that you
would like to come hang out for an afternoon to listen to this album, I would
totally let you.
5. The Stranger –
Billy Joel
Come on, I know, it’s cliché, and I try to stay away from cliché
but this is a great album.
I think everyone
knows a song or two from this album, but if you become a die hard fan of the
album, then you know all the tracks.
I sit down at the keyboard often and imagine myself being as
cool as Billy Joel, and I always reach
for Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.
If there is any song of Billy Joel’s worth knowing it is that beautiful
Abbey Road inspired opus song that closes out side one.
Yeah most people don’t think of these songs when they think about
Billy Joel, but if you had to name his greatest album, this would be it. I mean, Vienna, Movin’ Out; sure they aren’t
Piano Man but they have more feeling than that.
Of course Just The Way You Are is great for swooning
ladies, Hell Shrek even knows that. But She’s always a woman comes in a close
second.
Wanna piss off your mom, then rock the hell out of Only The
Good Die Young, I mean come on, that is
perversion at it’s finest, who the hell tells a girl that losing her virginity
will make her life better, especially a good Catholic girl? (The answer to that
question is literally every man on earth!!)
Oh and the whistling, that is what defines the album for me.
The whistling on the title track is
awesome, I don’t know why, but that is one of the first things that I think of
when I think about the Stranger.
Maybe it’s different for everyone, but The whole album to me
is like the theme to some mob whacking a dude, and the whistling just freaks me
out in a good way.
4. Sports – Huey Lewis and The News
Dude dude dude, wait!
Before you consider all of my opinions bull shit, hear me
out on this one.
Huey Lewis and The News are hitmakers, seriously. This album had 5 top twenty songs on it. And there
are only 9 songs on the album, that means literally half this album is top 20
songs.
Also, it is a 7 times platinum album, sure nowhere near the
numbers of Fleetwood Mac, but that is still quite a lot. The only album that outsold
it in 1984 was Thriller by Michael Jackson. So not bad to come in second place
to the number 1 selling album of all time.
But beside the hit songs,(Heart of Rock N Roll, I Want a New
Drug, Heart and Soul, Walking on a Thin
Line and If This Is It) the rest of the album is awesome as fuck. Bad is Bad is
cool with its awesome harmonica solo, and the band in the background. Finally Found a Home sounds like it could be
by the Police. You Crack Me Up has a cool synth part that hooks you from the
get go, and then of course Honky Tonk Blues, which is a classic Hank Williams
song.
I saw this band live once, and it was the greatest concert
that I ever went to. I am not even joking, and they have dozens of other hits;
some of which are better known, but this is their best whole album.
Hell - Ray Parker Junior Liked the album so much that he
ripped it off to make his own crappy ghost song.
3. Weezer (The Blue Album) – Weezer
I know, you are getting tired of hearing about weezer, and I
totally understand, (not like you’d be the first person to break up with me
because of the obsession)
But this is a really
good album, and I don’t think I am alone in this opinion.
I saw a band outside of a bar before the Packers/Bears game
this year, and they played My Name is Jonas and broke into a little
undone. So, if Packers fans can enjoy
songs from this album, then so can you!!
My Name is Jonas opens the album and that little guitar lick
sounds so soothing but then the heart of the song starts up and the epileptics
in the room start falling like flies. No
One Else ruined the way that I viewed women for the rest of my life.
Of course Buddy Holly and Undone do something crazy to your
mind and you realize that this band means serious business. And the odd break up song The World Has
Turned and Left Me Here has made its way on to plenty of my mixtapes, (which
plenty of girls have thrown away)
But side 2 that was where it was at. Surf Wax America, is
the musical equivalency of two Eight Balls and a Newport. (That shit will get you fucked up!!) Say It Ain’t So, and if it wasn’t nerdy
enough, listen to In the Garage which references D and D the fucking X Men and
Kiss!
Then- Holiday which to me has a kick ass break down(not as
cool as the one on Surf Wax, but still cool. And then the album ends on the
opus that is Only in Dreams, which is long as Hell but worth every second of
it.
Seriously if you don’t consider this a great album then you
don’t know Cain from Abel. (Cain is older, but Abel was the first human to
die[that shit is deep])
The whole thing was produced by Ric Ocasek, he is one of the coolest guys around, oh and
yeah he was the lead singer in The Cars.
Seriously I had this album on tape, I still have that tape,
but it is so fucking worn out. I have had like seriously 5 different copies of
the CD also from wearing them out. To me this is incredible shit. Seriously
Incredible Shit
Listen……
2. Licensed to Ill –
Beastie Boys
Mike D. grabbed the
money M.C.A. snatched the gold
I grabbed two girlies
and a beer that's cold.
Do I need say more, can I just quote more lyrics?
D. pulled me over
said, "Hide your gold,
The girl is crafty
like ice is cold!"
The girl is crafty -
she knows all the moves
I started playing
records - she knew all the grooves
Righteous totally righteous.
This is an album that has meant so much to me throughout my life, and
weirdly I didn’t know about it until it was around 10 years old. The album came
out when I was 4, so I had to grow up a little before I was able to hear it.
I could seriously perform this whole album for you if you
asked me to. This was one of those party albums that I loved to party to, when
I was too young to party.
I once made my beloved Grandma June listen to this album for
a whole weekend. We drove to Southern Illinois and it was all we listened to,
just me and her only listening to Beastie Boys. Oh god that was a great weekend.
I might not even get to number 1 because I am spending so
much time listening to this album right now.
Forget Girls and Fight for your Right Yeah those are great songs, but Brass Monkey,
come on my son Hayden loves that song,
and he is only six. So, if you don’t
like this song then that means that a 6 year old is cooler than you. (You might
as well take a long walk off a short pier)
Ok but if you want facts, this was the first rap album to be
a number 1 album, it was Columbia records fastest selling debut album, and it
has sold over 9 million copies, that should be cool enough to shut you up for a
while.
The samples on the album are killer enough as well. Black
Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Kool and the Gang, War. This album introduced me to a
lot of cool shit, and I can’t listen to Led Zeppelin’s When the Levee Breaks
without spittin Rhymin & Stealin.
Ok seriously if you do not own this album contact me, I will
get you a copy. Not to mention I think they still sell it at Target for like 5
bucks (moms and dads, this would make a great stocking stuffer)
1. Bat Out Of Hell- Meat Loaf
34 million copies of this album have been sold. It still sells like 200, 000 copies a year. Seriously
The album at this point is 36 years old and still fucking sells. By the time
you have read this whole list 3 people have bought this album.
If you have read any of my previous posts, you know of my
weird love hate musical relationship with my father. (if not, then read some
old posts ) But I tell you what, I didn’t ask him, but I would put forth twenty
dollars that says my dad would agree with me that this is the greatest album of
all time.
Every song on this album is an epic rock opera within
itself. Seriously the songs on this album are so long that there are only 7
songs on this album. That’s it 7 fucking
songs.
Ok Paradise by The Dashboard Light is sung at every karaoke
bar and played at most weddings, (here is a tip too, when this song is on, if
the dj isn’t by his equipment, he is shitting.)
It is an anthem for so many people, and it is awesome. If you don’t know
it then you are Amish.
But besides that, Two out of Three Ain’t Bad, well ain’t
bad. And You Took The Words Right Out Of
My Mouth has one of the coolest spoken intros of all time (only to be out done
by Meat Loaf on Bat out of Hell 2) .
The cool thing about these songs is they were all written by
Jim Steinman, and the man is a musical genius. Some of the songs were from a
stage show that he wrote, and Meat Loaf performs the fuck out of them.
I seriously idolize Meat Loaf, I will never be able to sing
the way he does, the man has an incredible voice and range, but when I think of
the definition of a rock star this is seriously the album I think of, Meat in a
tuxedo just going nuts on a microphone and leaving my ears all tingly.
Look, you may not think that this is a great album but
seriously listen to it from beginning to end and you will find yourself
changed. These songs are like a
beautiful soundtrack to a life that you wish you had.
I don’t know what else to tell you other than to say, Meat
Loaf literally leaves his heart on the floor when he performs these songs, so
you owe it to him to go listen to them.
Ok, so there it is, a list that I will never do again, a
list that had no other options. That is my top ten. In case you are wondering about why some other
albums didn’t make the list I will give you a few things;
Abbey Road- does anyone listen to side 1, Octopus’ Garden
that song sucks
Thriller – I love Michael but The Lady in my life and Human
Nature and Baby Be Mine are garbage
OK Computer – as I
said before I have never been a huge Radiohead fan
Sgt Peppers- Again, I don’t care for Benefit of Mr. Kite or
64
So there you have it Ten albums that if you don’t own you
should own. And I mean that seriously, there are so many hipster lists that
tell you to listen to Pink Floyd and Velvet Underground or the Clash. Those are good bands with great albums, but
if you stick with these ten you will have no problems making friends.
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