Album you think EVERY forum member should own

DUH!!!

I totally forgot the most obvious choice...

Emitt Rhodes- Emitt Rhodes. It's the best Paul McCartney album ever made. I bet my right nut 95% of the people here would love this record.

 

Godz II

 

Karrin Allyson "In Blue".
#2 on the Billboard charts

 

Badfinger - WISH YOU WERE HERE

Jay

 

Ditto

 

Jesus of Cool--Nick Lowe

 

Is it a Long Island thing Jimbo?

Jesus of Cool - absolutely. Rockers rock - melodies are melodious - and the tounge in cheek lyrics will bring you back more often than the more popular followup "Labour of Lust". I still scour used lp bins for a decent copy (the US equivalent was titled "Pure Pop for Now People"). I don't think this is available on CD......

Excuse me - me and Marie's dog have to go to a Rollers show now (so it goes).

 

Good one yesman! It is the best Paul McCartney album ever made. I still have my old RCA vinyl but I think it's a little worn. Is there a half decent CD version available?

Thanks.

 

The best version on CD is the One Way Records release. It went out of print last year I think. The only version in print now is on an album called "Emitt Rhodes- Daisy-Fresh From Hawthorne, California (The Best of the Dunhill Years)" It's a best of record but contains the entire first record. It doesn't sound as good as the other version but this record never did sound good since it was Emitt that recorded it all with three mics and a Shure mixer, or so he says. These are usually all over ebay.

 

Don't expect a sonic masterpiece if you do.

Yeah it's a really good album but only if you're into Lee Perry's production style.

My vote for the best reggae album, apart from comps of Toots And the Maytals Leslie Kong tracks and The Harder They Come sountrack would have to be

Satta Massagana by The Abyssinians (on Heartbeat CD).

A wonderful but largely unknown album.


Oh, and every member should own at least one Specials compilation.

 

Personally, I would never presume to say that there is ANY album that every forum member *should* own.

My own collection would not be complete if it were lacking at least one version of Beethoven's 9th "Choral" Symphony, a stereo vinyl pressing of "Kind of Blue" by Miles Davis, Elvis Presley's 50s box set, the complete legitimate Beatles catalog and a nice 45 of "He Stopped Loving Her Today" by George Jones. But as for someone else ... who am I to say what someone else should own?

 

Jesus of Cool/Pure Pop For Now People is on CD.

 

Heart of the Congos

On the Perry:

It depends on what you mean by "sonic masterpiece." True it's not exactly what you might call "hi fidelity," but you have to ask in a case like this, "fidelity to what?" Perry wasn't out simply to capture the sound of musicians playing and singing in a given space, he created a space (one that could only exist due to the quirks of his machinery and his handling of it--and in his odd imagination) and the music exists in that. A lot of the affecting quality of his style comes from his ability to use, for aesthetic ends, deficits like the degradation that comes from bouncing tracks from one deck to another. So it's art made with "bad" sound. "Bad" becomes good sound, actually wonderful, moving, trance-inducing sound.

On "Satta Massagana:"

No quarrel there. Great record.

While we're at it lets add Burning Spear's "Marcus Garvey" and "Social Living;" Culture's "Two Sevens Clash;" Bunny Wailer's "Blackheart Man;" Peter Tosh's "Legalize It;" The Wailers "Concrete Jungle" and "Burning;" Bob Marley and the Wailers, "Live" and "Exodus" (the MoFi disk of this is a gem); and Augustus Pablo's "King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown."

Only the last of these is weird dubby soundscape stuff, the others are mostly straight roots reggae albums, but on most of these disks sound quality in the strictly Hi Fi sense is not always to be expected, nor is the remastering all that good ("Exodus" is an exception). I haven't heard the new remasters of the Tosh and the early Wailers Island disks, the old disks of Marley/Wailers on Island sound only passable to my ears. All of this only covers actual albums. Don't get me started on compilations....

Although for English ska, Specials, as you say, is not a bad place to start. I also agree with you about "The Harder they Come" and Toots and the Maytals: best collection for me is "Funky Kingston."

lschwart

 

"Kon Tiki" Cotton Mather
This could arguably be mistaken for the follow up to Abbey Road with a cameo appearance by Special Guest Star Bob Dylan on track 6 (on one of those rare days when he could really sing).

 

Welocme aboard Glass Onion! Man, that guy in Cotton Mather is a dead ringer for '66 Lennon on Kon Tiki....

Chris

 

Thanks Chris. Have you heard their latest "The Big Picture"? IMO it has fewer great tracks but some of the goodies are even better than the best of Kon Tiki. For example "40 Watt Solution" & "Baby Freeze Queen". As for the singer, better than being able to do Lennon so well, it's more than just an impression. More like he's picked up Lennon's instrument and made it his own without forgetting where it came from.

 

Arthur Alexander - Lonely Just Like Me or The Ultimate Arthur Alexander. His music is better known on versions by The Beatles, Elvis Presley and the Rolling Stones.

 

Ralph Myerz - "A SPECIAL EP" Electronic Muzak with catchy rhythms. It's cheap, too.

 

No particular reason, just some items for thought:

Tim Buckley - Greetings From L. A.
J. Geils Band - The Morning After
Wilko Johnson & The Solid Senders
Mickey Jupp - Juppanese
The Monkees - Pisces, Capricorn & Jones Ltd (correct?)
Michael Nesmith - Magnetic South, Loose Salute, Tantamount To Treason
Savoy Brown - Looking In, Street Corner Talking
Frank Zappa - Hot Rats, Overnight Sensation

 

The s/t album is the way to go. On vinyl, not CD, unless the remaster is very very good. The stock US vinyl was actually super nice. Kicks the **** of the Centenary (or whatever it's called) edition from EMI, which is one of the poorer sounding LPs I own.

Some of my faves:
Empty Glass is a good pick, but skip the gold, and go for the 1st press CD from W Germany with the target label. It's a flat xfer from either the master or a 2nd gen tape. Phenomenal sound, if you like a flat transfer. Master it to your liking! Then, use the $100 or more I just saved you all for bigger & better things.

Television s/t - Elektra CD. The LP sounds good, but clips a bunch from the drawn-out epic "Marquee Moon". A big no-no.

Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols - I have the US and a Brit reissue heavy vinyl. I don't much care about the sonics on this one.

Stones - Let It Bleed. Got an early W German London disc coming in from Australia soon along with some others I hope. The new abkco is very good.

Bill Evans Sunday At The Village Vanguard - XRCD is my fave for now. That will change soon!

John Coltrane - My Favorite Things (had an Atlantic reissue which is now among the missing) & A Love Supreme (I like my reel tape the best, just for nostalgia really. Actually sounds very close to the 20 bit mid-90s mastering).

Miles Davis - Miles Smiles. Excellent on the Mosaic LP box (Sony has the CD set). What a set that is. Every jazz fan should own it. I'd love to get the SACD someday.

Joni Mitchell - Blue. DCC of course...

Sonny Rollins - The Bridge. Classic 33 1/3.

Simon & Garfunkel - Bookends (MFSL kicks ass)

much too much to list......!

 

anyone who likes jellyfish should get the fanclub boxed set...pronto

 

Fresh Classic

I'll actually stick to the guidelines (for once) and recommend a single, readily-available album every rock-and-roller should own:

The Faces - GOOD BOYS WHEN THEY'RE ASLEEP: BEST OF (Rhino)

This is a proper, well mastered best-of from the Rod Stewart-era Faces (the "Mark II" version in Spinal Tap lingo). Stewart's solo career greatly eclipsed the success of The Faces, so nowadays the band is sadly discounted as a side project.

What's so terrific about this album is that it's stone classic rock, in the HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED/EXILE ON MAIN STREET/MUSIC FROM BIG PINK mode, yet except for the ubiquitous "Stay With Me" (which most people think is a Rod Stewart solo track), The Faces haven't been beat to death by radio. It'll actually sound fresh!

Most importantly, you get to hear Rod Stewart (whatever else you think of him, one of the greatest voices in rock history) in a pure rock setting, devoid of drum machines, synths, and power ballads. Listen to him sing (own) Dylan's "Wicked Messenger," or transform the ordinary "Debris" into something special with a few aching background vocals. And he could rock out better than any of his contemporaries; check out "Borstal Boys" or "Too Bad." The seventies rock vocalist icons -- from Plant to Elton to Daltrey to Tyler -- sound forced and affectated in comparison to Stewart's natural man rasp and roll.

And The Faces were a wonderful band: I sometimes think The Replacements and all those other "sloppy rulez" acts really wanted to be The Faces when they grew up. Their music reminds me of a redneck turning a mountain corner in his trusty pickup: lots of noise, jolts, and cargo hanging over the siderails, maybe a muffler bouncing off the pavement, but somehow it all manages to get where it's going in one piece.

 

You'll miss out on some great tracks if you only stick to the first album.............Stereotype, Ghost Town, Do Nothing etc etc.

 

Pink Floyd: Meddle
The Who: Who By Numbers
The Kinks: Village Green
Gene Clark: Clark w/ the Gosdin Bros.
Fountains of Wayne: Utopia Blvd.
Cheap Trick: Heaven Tonight
David Bowie: Diamond Dogs
U2: Achtung Baby
Radiohead: The Bends
Smashing Pumpkins: Siamese Twins
Weezer: Maladroit (best album of the year IMHO)
Cat Stevens: Foreigner
Gin Blossoms: New Miserable Experience
Elliot Smith: XO
Joe Jackson: Look Sharp
Oasis: Definitely Maybe


-Wes