Music To My Ears: Best Albums Lists

“[Lists] are absolutely subjective, utterly frustrating, always incomplete—and they cause more arguments than religion and politics. In other words, they’re a lot of fun.” —Steven Van Zandt

Steven Van Zandt, musician, songwriter, performer, arranger, record producer, actor, writer, human rights activist, and international radio DJ is a founding member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band and an original principal cast member of The Sopranos. The quote above comes from the Foreword he wrote for Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (Wenner Media 2005).

I love roaming through the pages of this book, seeing the album art, remembering the songs that were my favorites through the years. Joe Levy was the Deputy Managing Editor of Rolling Stone (RS) at that time and has long been a contributing editor for the magazine. In his “Editor’s Note” to the volume, he writes, “Our list of albums was selected by a blue-ribbon panel of experts and true fans, including singers, songwriters, musicians, producers, label execs, artist managers and critics, among others, who have shaped rock & roll in its first half-century.”

There’s a list of the 273 voters at the back of the book. Each was asked to choose and rank their 50 top albums of all time. The inclusions cover the genre front: country, blues, gospel, pop, soul, R&B, funk, hip-hop, acid-rock, heavy metal, punk and so on. You can have a lot of fun rambling through the rankings and arguing with friends (or yourself) about what should have been where.

Most people will not be surprised that Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles came in at the top of the RS list. Numero Uno. Wouldn’t have been my choice, but I’ll bet it would be for a lot of you. It’s album cover depicts several dozen celebrities and other images and was created by Jann Haworth and Peter Blake—they won the Grammy for Best Album Cover, Graphic Arts that year for their work on it.

Among my personal favorite singles of 1967 is Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” written by Otis Redding. It hit the top of the charts that year. No one tears up a song like Aretha.

Coming in at No. 500 in the RS survey is Aquemini by Outkast (LaFace 1998). This group blasted on the scene with an “explosive hip-hop sound that used live musicianship, social commentary and a heavy dose of deep funk.” This genre is not my thing, but if it’s yours, check out the title theme here.

“Best” lists are like beauty pageants—because we all bring our personal experiences to the stage, or listening device in this case, we are drawn to a diverse range of favorites. For me, blues, soul, R&B, gospel, and country-before-it-was-pop all formed the foundation of my music preferences—and it was those sounds that dictated a lot of what I’ve liked best through the years. Add in a sizzling guitar and a pounding tribal bass and I’m on my feet. I’d say most of the greats riffed off of those same early influences. To me it’s all “soul” music.

Most of us know what we like when it comes to music, books, film, or beauty contestants. We don’t really need the critics or the judges to tell us what’s “best” because our reactions depend on our personal emotional responses. Of course as we learn more about what goes into a sound, a story, a movie—as comparisons arise—we are often influenced by discoveries that add fresh nuances to what draws us back.

Ellen Willis (1941–2006), an American left-wing political essayist, journalist, activist, feminist, and pop music critic, was the first popular music critic for the New Yorker, between 1968 and 1975. In 2011 her daughter, Nona Willis Aronowitz, published a collection of her mother’s essays in Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music (2011). Her writings give us her candid thoughts on groups and musicians, songs and albums of her time and she makes no effort to candy-coat them. I found this collection to be a wonderful, fascinating resource as I continue to explore my personal diary of rock and roll memories.

In January of 1975, after constant hounding from fans, Willis wrote “The Best of ’74,” confirming in her introduction how subjective such lists are. It’s interesting to note that among her top ten for 1974 only two even make an appearance on the Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest: Eric Clapton’s 461 Ocean Boulevard (#405) and Gram Parsons’s Grieving Angel (#421). Take a listen below and see what you think.

461 Ocean Boulevard was Clapton’s come-back solo album after recovering from 3 years of heroin addiction. For the recording sessions, he used his Blackie Fender Stratocaster electric guitar, several Gibson ES-335s for the slide work, plus vintage Martin acoustics for his unplugged sound. The album opened with Clapton’s own arrangement of “Motherless Children,” a song originally written by Blind Lemon Jefferson. Willis wrote that his version of “Willie and the Hand Jive” was “particularly brilliant.”

Here’s “Love Hurts” from Parson’s Grieving Angel, a duet with Emmy Lou Harris. By comparison, RS brought 1974’s Court and Spark by Joni Mitchell in at 113th on their list, the first mention of any album from that year. It became the biggest record of her career and its single “Help Me” soared to a Top Ten spot. On other “best” or “top ten” lists for 1974, The Rolling Stones’ It’s Only Rock & Roll showed up (also on Willis’s list) along with Steely Dan’s Pretzel Logic and Jackson Brown’s Late For the Sky. Check out this Stone's performance--Scrawny Mick is OK and has amazing energy but, for me, its always been Keith Richards who burns up the stage! I’m up and dancing on the first note.

The thing about music is how easily it evokes our memories of what we were doing, who we were, when we first heard certain songs or albums. Just spend an evening checking out songs from each album mentioned here and think about what you were doing in 1974—even if you were only a twinkle in someone’s eye at the time—and you’ll immerse yourself in American history. It’s all in our music, the music of the people, all colors, all political spectrums. Our music can bring us together in ways that reach beyond our differences. The screaming strum of an electric guitar, Grand Master Flash’s signature scratch, a dazzling groove by drummer John Bonham, or the agile trill of Joni Mitchell—so many sounds, so many fabulous adventures flow through the dark and into our hearts. We don’t need a list to make it so.

I have another great story to share about one of Eric Clapton’s guitars, but it’ll have to wait for another post.