8. The Beach Boys - Sunflower

So in lieu of making a new top 25 albums list this year, I am going to finish writeups for the top 8 albums on my old list that I never finished. Despite kind of hating the old list I still consider the top 8 entries to be my top 8 albums ever, so I might as well finish em up.

So Sunflower. I have always considered 1970’s Sunflower to be the Beach Boys’ equivalent to Abbey Road - a contented, consummate end-of-the-60s masterpiece that tidily sums up everything that makes them great. Compared to the slipshod records that led up to it and the strange, harrowing works that would follow it, Sunflower is a warm and inviting piece of work by a band that had improbably managed to pull themselves together after main bandman Brian Wilson lost his faculties after SMiLE.

I have to emphasize that this was no small feat. Up to only a couple of years prior to Sunflower, Brian pretty much WAS the Beach Boys, at least creatively. Y’know Pet Sounds? Guy pretty much wrote, produced, and arranged that entire goddamn thing by himself. Losing Brian as a primary creative force was akin to the Who losing Pete Townshend, or the Beatles losing… well, everybody except Ringo. 

But as luck may have it, the rest of the Beach Boys were (mostly) a bunch of excessively talented young men who had simply not been given the chance to shine before Brian’s absence. Sure, they couldn’t put together a Pet Sounds, but so what? Sunflower is an inspired piece of teamwork, a lovely and surprisingly varied record that Brian alone couldn’t put together. Sure, Brian’s presence is still felt here - he’s got a lot of co-writing credits and was mostly responsible for “This Whole World” and “Cool Cool Water,” among others - but Sunflower was highlighted by notable contributions from lesser-known Beach Boys songwriters. It was the first Beach Boys album to have truly great Dennis Wilson tracks (“Forever” being the most gorgeous love song they ever recorded, likely??) and even some winners from some guy named Bruce Johnston (the goofy Broadway shuffle “Deidre” is possibly my favorite track on the record). 

Man I love this album. “All I Wanna Do” is an excellent foray psychedelia that features possibly Mike Love’s finest, most understated lead vocal. “Add Some Music To Your Day” is so corny but so pretty, and all SIX of them trade off lead vocals (except for Dennis for some reason)!! Even the ridiculous schmaltz of “At My Window” is gosh-darned adorable. Sure, Pet Sounds is the big knockout winner, but Sunflower is more of an honest-to-goodness Beach Boys record to me. It is everything I love about this band summed up in 36 sweet minutes.

And it was their lowest charting record, ever. Wow! Wow.

Track I’m linking to is the mostly-Carl written “Our Sweet Love,” which sums up the record pretty well I think. Unpretentious, unaffected beauty. Enjoy!

9. Big Star - #1 Record

I have written a whole lot about Big Star before, so I will try to keep my thoughts as succinct as possible here. I have too many things to say about them, so it will take some effort.

Simply put, my discovery of Big Star was maybe my most exciting musical discovery ever. I don’t remember how I first heard about them, but I know that I had no idea they were so critically beloved and well-known when I found #1 Record/Radio City hidden away in some Best Buy CD shelf. So hearing these records for the first time was a stunning, out-of-left-field experience. How had I never heard these songs before? Why weren’t “Feel” or “When My Baby’s Beside Me” well-worn FM radio standards? So strange, but so beautiful. I don’t think hearing a band for the first time will ever feel quite that special ever again, for me.

Any Big Star album could make this list, but #1 Record makes it ‘cause it’s so full of joy, so full of promise. It’s the sound of a bunch of guys playing nigh-perfect pop music with audible confidence, like they know they’ve got a huge hit on their hands. Which, of course, makes the whole affair a lot more bittersweet than it should be.

It’s also the only Big Star record with Chris Bell as an official member (he contributed a little to Radio City but didn’t get much credit for it). As much as I love Alex Chilton, he tends to get most of the credit for Big Star’s magnificence, which isn’t entirely true. Bell’s songs on here are just as good as Chilton’s, and one listen to the former’s posthumous solo release I Am The Cosmos make it clear that he was an exceptional talent. Bell and Chilton together complimented each other perfectly.

The track I’ve picked out, “Give Me Another Chance,” is a gorgeous Chilton ballad. The second side of #1 Record doesn’t get as much attention as the first, ‘cause it’s slower and doesn’t have “The Ballad Of El Goodo” or “In The Street” on it. But I love it so. “Give Me Another Chance” is one of Chilton’s best songs, I think.

10. Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings And Food

Falling in love with a record upon first listen is something that does not happen to me often, sadly. Even if I really, really like an album the first time I hear it, it’ll take some time for it to grow on me, to gain some serious affection. So hearing an album that I love immediately is a pretty rare, special thing.

More Songs About Buildings And Food is, for me, the most intense example of this trend. From the very first track (the anthemic gallop of “Thank You For Sending Me An Angel”), my reaction was along the lines of “ah! ah!! yes!!” And it just got better and better from there. My immediate reaction to More Songs was so powerful, in fact, that even now I tend to misremember it as being the first Talking Heads record I ever heard, as if I hadn’t had Remain In Light for almost two years by then. And it’s not like I even disliked Remain In Light - I really liked it! Same thing happened with Born To Run, actually; I loved it, but I didn’t really get into Springsteen until I heard Born In The USA a year and a half later (coincidentally). But I’m getting off topic here.

More Songs marks maybe my favorite marriage of art-school post-punk and honest-to-goodness dance pop. As strange as these songs can get, each one puts a serious emphasis on groove and rhythm, thanks (mostly) in part to Brian Eno’s production. Every song on here is eminently danceable, and makes it pretty clear that the Talking Heads were always destined to be a commercially popular band (their “Take Me To The River” cover was their first hit, after all). Not only does Eno give the whole record a sense of cohesion, but Tina Weymouth’s bass playing has never sounded better, and David Byrne’s beautifully nerve-wracked singing rises to new heights here. Who else could pull off the terrifying artist’s lament of “Artists Only” and the sultry cooing of “Take Me To The River” with equal conviction? Man. I haven’t heard a Talking Heads record I haven’t loved (maybe because I haven’t heard their last two records yet), but none of them hit me on a purely instinctive level with the same intensity as this one.

Song Sample: “The Good Thing.” I love every track on here, but I feel like “The Good Thing” is rarely ever singled out as a highlight, which is strange because it is (in my eyes) one of the most incredible tracks the Heads ever recorded. It starts off like a cutesy song that could’ve fit right in on their first record, then a strange sort of brainwashing chant (featuring lyrics like “As we economize, efficiency is multiplied”??) and then - apropos of NOTHING - closing with a stunning, disco-funk workout. All in 3 minutes!! It’s like a funkier Wire song, or something! Man, it’s the best.

11. Bruce Springsteen - Born In The USA

Another tough choice here - it was either Born To Run, or this. But I mostly picked this one because I feel like, in recent years at least, it tends to be disregarded a commercial pap in comparison to Springsteen’s 70s records and darker works like Nebraska. I remember when the AV Club put together a pretty decent primer on Bruce Springsteen a few years ago, they barely even mentioned Born In The USA, keeping it off their “Top 5 Essential Springsteen Albums” in favor of Tunnel Of Love for reasons I can’t even begin to explain.

Well, OK, no. Maybe I can. Born In The USA is a straight-up pop record. Never before had Bruce Springsteen crafted a set of songs so obviously geared towards mainstream radioplay, and the album’s enormous success (SEVEN top 10 singles, matching Michael Jackson’s record) pushed him into pop superstardom. This bothers some people, who view Springsteen’s mainstream success as some kind of sell-out compromise of his sound.

Thing is, though, is that these people also happen to be tin-eared infants. Because these songs are ALL GREAT. Born In The USA is poptastic glory from beginning to end - 12 tracks and not a dud among ‘em. The singles are obvious radio staples (“Dancing In The Dark,” “Cover Me,” “Glory Days,” the Reagan-hijacked title track), and they are indeed classics. But how ‘bout those album tracks? The adorable “Darlington County,” the indelible shuffle of “Workin On The Highway,” the anthemic majesty of “No Surrender,” or the Nebraska-turned-pop of “Downbound Train”? All could’ve been hits, easy. Springsteen coulda waited a decade to put out his next album, there were so so many hits.

The song I’ve posted here is “Bobby Jean,” another album track that I am SHOCKED was not released as a single. I mean, REALLY now. It is definitely one of my favorite Springsteen songs, one that manages to shove all the heartbreak and beauty of his best 70s stuff into a 3-minute pop song. That is a feat.

Oh, and it’s a live performance because I will make any excuse to post up a live Springsteen performance.

12. Pavement - Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

Quite possibly my favorite summer album. Every time I hear it, it is summertime.

Actually, the same could be said for Pavement’s entire output, at least for me. I have a tendency to immediately associate an album with whatever season I first heard it, and Pavement is perhaps the most notable victim of this, since I heard most of their records for the first time over the course of a few summers (with the exception of Wowee Zowee, which I first heard in the fall, but who cares). And Crooked Rain Crooked Rain is the encapsulation of all that.

It’s the record that made me fall in love with Pavement. Slanted And Enchanted was the first one I heard, and while I liked it a lot, it didn’t push me to seek out any more Pavement (just yet). But my reaction to Crooked Rain was immediate - it was warmer, more fully produced, better-sung, and full of some of Malkmus/Spiral Stairs’s finest songwriting. Has Pavement opened an album with a better song than “Silence Kit,” or ended it better than the gorgeous “Fillmore Jive”? And “Range Life” (with its all-too-apt Smashing Pumpkins half-diss) and and “Stop Breathin” and “Elevate Me Later” and “Cut Your Hair”, an honest-to-goodness kinda-sorta hit single! Man!

Wowee Zowee will always be a pretty close second Pavement album, but I think Crooked Rain will always be my favorite. It is the album that began my love affair with one of my favorite bands, and that means a whole lot. “Gold Soundz” is the song I am posting here because it is another one of those perfect summer songs.

I don’t know if it is obvious, but I had a ticket to see Pavement last week and I LOST IT. Not to mention that it was in Central Park and I wasn’t gonna be able to make it anyway. But still, listening to this record again makes me feel a lil wistful.

13. The Kinks - The Village Green Preservation Society

Since Jason decided to focus on some other Kinks album instead of this one, it looks like I will be forced to pick up his slack and write about it myself! Ugh Jason!!

Anyway. As corny as it might sound, I believe there are few songwriters who understand the human condition better than Ray Davies. His songs exude a feeling of warmth and understanding that I don’t get from many other songwriters, including many of my other favorites. Has any song evoked the feeling of losing an old friend better than “Do You Remember Walter”? Or the fickle nature of memory better than “Picture Book” and “People Take Pictures Of Each Other”? Even if Ray’s subjects are distinctly British, they are immediately relatable.

But what it really comes down to is that Village Green is a melodically brilliant album. 15 tracks and not a single one that isn’t wonderfully catchy and creative. While picking Village Green wasn’t a difficult choice, there are so many Kinks albums that I love dearly that just talking about one doesn’t feel like enough. This might not be the MOST representative Kinks album (there are no Dave Davies songs, after all), it’s still my favorite.

The sample track here is “Animal Farm”, my favorite song on the record featuring perhaps my favorite Ray Davies vocal performance. “Pastoral” and “beautiful” are not even fair descriptors.

14. The Ramones - Rocket To Russia

Honestly, I have very little to say about this record other than I love the Ramones and this is my favorite record of theirs. It’s kinda like what Tim was for the Replacements (produced by Tommy Ramone, coincidentally): a little cleaner and poppier, but not TOO poppy. The best compliment I can give this record is that it shows the band branching out without sounding like it. It just sounds like another great Ramones record. For example, the song I linked to here, “Here Today Gone Tomorrow,” is a ballad! Well OK, maybe not a “ballad” per se, but it’s slow, somber, and far and away the least aggressive track they had released up to that point. But it’s gorgeous! And better yet, nobody called them out for going “soft” or anything. (Not yet, at least.)

Anyway, yeah. Just an album’s worth of great noisy pop songs. I just watched End of The Century for the umpteenth time a few weeks ago and I believe it is my favorite rock documentary. But maybe I just need to see more.

15. U2 - Achtung Baby

U2 were an incredibly important band when it comes to my personal musical development, which can be a hard thing to admit nowadays what with Bono writing Spider-Man musicals and whathaveyou. But again, I feel it is necessary to be honest here.

Achtung Baby was the first album I ever cared about. That’s heavy, I think. Before U2 I was a semi-avid fan of the Offspring, Sugar Ray, and the musical Rent. U2 changed all that. Upon my first experience hearing Achtung Baby, countless seeds were sown - not only did it eventually lead me to the Beatles (they covered “Help” live before a performance of “Ultraviolet,” which pushed me to steal a bunch of Beatles CDs from my parents), but a laundry list of bands/albums I would come to love in the following years. Brian Eno (who co-produced this record), Talking Heads, Bowie’s Berlin trilogy, the Ramones, etc. etc. The list goes on. Achtung Baby was, for better or for worse, the beginning of my obsession with rock music.

As for the album itself? I still dig it. A few tracks haven’t aged particularly well for me (“The Fly” is not nearly as cool as I once thought) but there is a lot of greatness here. The big songs are still big (“One,” “Even Better Than The Real Thing”, etc etc) but I’ve come to really appreciate the album tracks that don’t get much love, particularly the lovely piano dirge “So Cruel” and the laid-back “Tryin To Throw Your Arms Around The World.” Not to mention the song I have posted here, “Ultraviolet (Light My Way),” one of U2’s most underrated emotional arena-rockers and a staple of my melodramatic 16-year-old listening habits. Hearing it now brings back inimitable flashes of me sitting alone in my basement room, on my bed, with only the bed-side light on. Very personal.

16. George Harrison - All Things Must Pass

I could feel guilty about including this one, considering that I already have a Beatles record coming up on this list and I don’t wanna look like a baby boomer fuddy-duddy. But I love this record so dearly that it just wouldn’t be right.

Let’s get blunt: All Things Must Pass is far and away my favorite Beatles solo record, and in my eyes is just as good (if not BETTER) than most actual Beatles albums. It’s kind of the inverse of John Lennon’s equally powerful Plastic Ono Band; whereas that record wallowed in despair, All Things Must Pass is probably one of the warmest and most joyful records I have ever heard. It actually feels like a sequel to Abbey Road, in the best possible way.

I know it’s technically a triple-record, but to be honest with you, I NEVER listen to the jams on the third disc. Ever. To me, All Things Must Pass is a nigh-perfect double album with some bonus jams tacked onto it. Kinda pointless, but fun to hear once in a while.

Either way, I first got All Things Must Pass as a birthday gift, RIGHT before I graduated from high school. So to me it’s the sound of freedom, of springtime good-times. I am linking to the title track here, because why not.

17. The Who - Who’s Next

This was absolutely going to be The Who Sell Out until I heard this record again on a whim and realized how much I love it. It’s a two-sided coin for me, really: if I want to hear the Who’s adventurous, humorous side, Sell Out is where it’s at. If I want to hear their best hard rockers mixed with their sweetest ballads, I go for Who’s Next. I guess the latter is just what I’m in the mood for right now.

Yeah, it’s a little overplayed on classic rock radio. Sure. That’s part of the reason I didn’t want to put it here; too predictable, too worn out. But man, I love all these songs so much, and two of my favorite tracks - the gorgeous ballads “The Song Is Over” and “Gettin In Tune” - aren’t really played on the radio much, so they’re all the better for it. This is the record where the Who started emphasizing the vocal interplay between Roger Daltrey/Pete Townshend - Roger’s the tough guy who belts out the anthemic choruses, while Pete’s the sweet sensitive dude who gets all the gentle parts. It’s a great schtick that sadly got a little tiresome as the decade wore on (mostly due to Roger singing EVERYTHING in that tough guy bravado), but it’s so well-utilized and fresh here. Only one Entwhistle song, but it’s “My Wife”! Oh man!

I have a deep affection for Who’s Next. Hearing it now just reminds me of my senior year of high school, deep in the midst of my classic rock phase. More than a few records from that period haven’t aged particularly well for me, but Who’s Next always sounds great.

The “Baba O’Riley” video above is a must-watch. It’s from The Kids Are Alright, one of my favorite rock movies ever, and single-handedly began my love affair with everything Pete Townshend. He is one of my all-time favorite performers, and this video is pretty solid evidence as to why. I mean, look at that guy! He’s great!!

AaaaH!!