The Hits Just Keep on Comin' (Part II)

In case you're joining us late, the idea was to make a list of the music that has changed my life. After much soul-searching, I arrived at a list of twenty albums. I posted the first ten last week, and now I unveil the final ten. Please remember that this is not a list of my favorite albums (though many would certainly make that list as well) but a chronological record of the records and how they influenced me. (Editor's Note: The albums listed at #11 and #12 should've come before #10 in the previous post. Deal.)

11. London Calling, The Clash
How do you begin to talk about an album like London Calling? Do we start with the Cold War anthem that is the title track? The relentless "Brand New Cadillac"? Or what about the picture of grown up rebellion offered in "Death or Glory"? I first came across this album ten years after it was released when Spin Magazine declared it the best record of the 1980's. My buddies and debated this into the ground, but the more I listened to this masterpiece, the less I could argue. I don't think there's a bad track on the entire record, but my favorite has always been "The Guns of Brixton." Lurking behind an incredibly smooth ska-influenced beat you find lyrics that make you wonder if maybe you should be a fighter instead of a lover:

When they kick out your front door, how ya gonna come?
With your hands on your head, or on the trigger of your gun?
When the law break in, how ya gonna go?
Shot down on the pavement, or waiting in death row?"

So you've got all that, plus the coolest album cover of all-time. What more could you ask for?

12. Led Zeppelin I, Led Zeppelin
My heart was broken for the first time when I was nineteen years old, and I turned to Led Zeppelin's first album for solace on a daily basis. We think of Zeppelin as rock and rollers first and foremost (Stairway to Heaven is probably the quintessential classic rock song of all time), but I'd argue this is a blues record. Not Muddy Waters/Robert Johnson/B.B. King blues, but blues nonetheless. With songs like "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You", "You Shook Me", "Dazed and Confused", "Communication Breakdown", and "I Can't Quit You", this album quickly became the soundtrack of a lost summer. For the first time in my life I had come across an album that spoke to me musically and lyrically, acknowledging my pain while assuring me that everything would be okay in the end. And, of course, it was.

13. Graceland, Paul Simon
When I was a senior in college, months away from earning an English degree, my life became just another novel waiting for interpretation. I snatched metaphors out of the clouds and talked about imagery as if it grew on trees. I couldn't have been more ready for an album like Paul Simon's Graceland, a collection of eleven stories beautifully told. But when I listen to this record now, almost fifteen years later, I think of friendship. I lived with seven other friends during that senior year, but there was one who often rubbed me the wrong way, whether it was his penchant for strumming his guitar deep into the night or his youthful tendency to offend people without realizing it. But he and I spent hours listening to this album together, and it changed our relationship forever. We wondered at the rhythmic voices of Ladysmith Black Mambazo and analyzed every lyric. I remember one lengthy discussion on a single couplet: She said, "Don't I know you from the cinematographer's party?" I said, "Who am I to blow against the wind?" In any analysis of any piece of literature, the conversation matters much more than the conclusion, and so it was with us. I count him as one of my closest friends, and I have Paul Simon to thank for it.

14. A Love Supreme, John Coltrane
It begins with a short, lilting phrase from Coltrane's tenor saxophone, giving the you the briefest clue that what follows will be extraordinary. This was John Coltrane's masterpiece, a work of pure spirituatlity expressed through music. Having left the addictions of heroin, alchohol, smoking, and sweets (yes, sweets) behind seven years earlier, Trane's newfound spirituality combined with his peaking musical skills to produce this landmark album. Though not as complex as some of his later work, this album asks a bit more of the listener than some of his previous (and simpler) works like "Giant Steps" and "My Favorite Things", and I found it a bit intimidating for the first few listens. Eventually, however, I embraced it, and it was the first jazz album that I truly loved.

15. Nevermind, Nirvana
Even now I'd have to say that "Smell Like Teen Spirit" is one of the coolest songs I've ever heard. Dripping with teen angst (I wasn't a teenager, but I had plenty of angst: degree, yes; job, no), the album has no weak spots as one guitar-driven track leads effortlessly into the next. When Kurt Cobain took his life in 1994, leaving dozens of songs unwritten, the music world lost a great talent.

16. Achtung Baby, U2
I wrote last week about my love of U2, and it was this album that cemented those feelings. After splitting a pizza with a friend on my 22nd birthday, we went directly to Tower Records and picked up this recently-released disc. I slipped it into my CD-player, and the opening chords of "Zoo Station" signalled a new U2. With frequently distorted guitar and vocals clealry influenced by the current industrial movement, the record contained several songs which sounded more abrasive than anything the band had previously recorded, but these were balanced by deeper tunes like "One" and the four tracks which close out the album. A great album, maybe their best.

17. Apocalypse 91: The Enemy Strikes Black, Public Enemy
It's not Fear of a Black Planet, but this disc was my first exposure to the P.E., so it makes the list. Push play, and here's what you hear: "The future holds nothing else but confrontation," which kind of sums the whole thing up. Chuck D's deep baritone, raging with anger and indignation, paired with the comic soprano of Flava Flav, the guy with the biggest pocket watch in the world, makes Public Enemy one of the most entertaining acts in hard core rap. In addition to his usual diatribes on racism, Chuck tackles issues like alcoholism in the black community (1 Million Bottlebags), Arizona's initial refusal to honor MLK Day (By the Time I Get to Arizona), and corporate America's exploitation of the innercity (Shut 'Em Down). This is the strength of Public Enemy: they get you bobbin' your head and thinking at the same time.

18. Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Red Hot Chili Peppers
The strength of the Chili Peppers? They get you bobbin' your head and make it clear that you don't have to think about anything except the bass- and vocal-driven funk that they lay down on almost every track. At times they make a whole lot of sense, like on the opening track, "The Power of Equality": Blackest anger, whitest fear/Can you hear me? Am I clear?/My name is peace this is my hour/Can I get just a little bit of power? Most of the time, though, your guess is as good as mine, like the entire next track, "If You Have to Ask". At times it seems like lead singer Anthony Kiedis simply uses his voice as a fourth instrument in the band, rendering the lyrics irrelevant except as an avenue through which he can provide rhythmic accompaniment to the guitar, drums, and dominant bass. Whatever he's doing, it works.

19. Rubber Soul, The Beatles
The White Album and Sgt. Peppers get all the hype, but I'd argue that Rubber Soul is the best album the Beatles ever produced. With tracks like Drive My Car, Norwegian Wood, Nowhere Man, Michelle, and In My Life, this record plays like a greatest hits collection. My wife -- who is a huge Beatles fan and even used this record as inspiration for the name of her website -- introduced me to this album when we first started dating, and it quickly became the soundtrack of our falling in love. It just seemed like it was always on. I was never much of a Beatles fan before we met, but she's definitely shown me the light.

20. Kind of Blue, Miles Davis
My step-brother lived with us for a while when he was in the fifth grade and I was in the sixth, and it was a tumultuous year to say the least. It wasn't until about twenty years later that we realized that we shared a great common bond -- a love of music. A few years ago he happened to be out here in California on my birthday, and he bought me this album as a gift. How could he have known that a) I didn't already have it, and b) I was itching to buy it? Who knows... Anyway, this is possibly the greatest jazz album of all-time (Miles and Coltrane -- together), and if it's not already in your collection, it should be. Follow the link above and buy it now. (I dare you to listen to "Freddie Freeloader" without loving it.) You won't be disappointed.

And so that's it, twenty songs that changed my life. Do yourself a favor and take a listen to one or two of them. It might not change your life, but it will certainly change your day, I promise.

Comments

[Phil]

Hey, you inspired me to do the same. Thanks!

[David]

I agree. This is quite inspiring. As fatherhood seems to have robbed me of much of the time I spent listening to music, it would be an interesting exercise to find the essence of what did obsess me for so long. A great post about the terrible threes, too. It doesn't end there...