Rolling Stone's Top 500 - Part Three

Albums 41-60, or someone make me a birthday cake that looks like the 'Let It Bleed' album cover, please.

Notes on previous albums: 1-20, 21-40
The whole dang list of where we’ve been and where we’re headed.

Day 20 - 1/8/21

Let It Bleed - The Rolling Stones (41)
This is not the Stones highest entry on the list but is absolutely the highpoint in their discog’ for me. There will never be enough said about the power in Merry Clayton’s delivery on “Gimme Shelter”. Encyclopedias should be written on the vocal crack alone. You know the one. I’m in love with the mandolin line on “Love in Vain”. I hope someone someday knows that the absurdity of “Live with Me” is how I’d prefer to be asked to move in. And I just generally think this album is a lot of fun even if you can’t always get what you want.

OK Computer - Radiohead (42)
Listened to this one while browsing the headlines during my lunch break and have to say it’s a pretty appropriate soundtrack for wondering:

a) when the world is going to end, and,
b) how jellyfish build walls of water to swim around the world.

Anyway. Still holding to my last Radiohead take that it’s much easier to appreciate them now that I don’t feel any pressure to do so.

Day 21 - 1/11/21

The Low End Theory - A Tribe Called Quest (43)
Today was feeling very much like a Monday before I put this on, so this is a note to self that putting this album on can fix a lot of things - including shitty Mondays. Have I gotten around to mentioning that Hanif Abdurraqib’s book Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest is a masterpiece yet? I don’t think so. Anyway. It is. It also fixes a lot of things.

Day 22 - 1/12/21

Illmatic - Nas (44)
I saw a headline earlier today (did not read the article yet because sometimes I like to let a concept roll around in my brain for a while before taking up space with the details) about how in the UK there are now members of law enforcement whose job it is to listen specifically to rap to find calls to violence and I know that there’s been a lot of ~discussion~ about what role music and pop culture play in glorifying violence, and maybe it’s naivety or maybe it’s having been desensitized but the thing that usually stops me in my tracks in rap music is the glorification of friendship.

“Represent”, here, largely feels like a rundown of people Nas wants to make sure we clap for. Where else in popular culture is it common to run through a roster of praise like it’s a grocery list? Where else is it standard to essentially say - “Hey! These people - I like these people!” and then just list out all the people you love? I know this is reductive - but I don’t think it’s insignificant.

Coming someday when I get my brain organized..commentary on how “Sunblind” from the Fleet Foxes’ album “Shore” is another example of this for some same, same, but different.

Sign O’ The Times - Prince (45)
I need to get better about thinking through what albums pair well with working, and timing things better which is a way of saying that listening to this in the background instead of actually listening listening felt like a disservice.

Day 22 - 1/13/21

Graceland - Paul Simon (46)
Again really frustrated by the fact that streaming services place such a priority on Deluxe albums when I almost never want the deluxe version… but despite the deluxe rage, by the end of this one I was in a better mood about it - particularly because of these lyrics about willful ignorance in “Crazy Love, Vol. II”:

Well, I have no opinion about that
And I have no opinion about me.
Somebody could walk into this room
And say, “Your life is on fire!
It’s all over the evening news!”

Day 23 - 1/14/21

Ramones - Ramones (47)
If you are trying to have a nice, relaxing lunch break… this is not the album to put on. If you are willing to abandon your nice, relaxing lunch break plans and have a good day instead, this’ll do just fine.

Day 24 - 1/29/21

Legend - Bob Marley and the Wailers (48)
My initial reaction to this album being included is that the inclusion of “Best of” collections seems sort of… like… cheating… somehow and sort of irritating. But then I put it on and was reminded it’s just about impossible to listen to Marley and be irritated. Which is, I’m realizing, probably why the main memories I have of this album are of it being the thing we’d listen to at the start of road trips in my childhood when we were always leaving well before the sun came up and being irritated would have been the move if it weren’t for Bob coming through with “Exodus”.

Aquemini - Outkast (49)
Note to self: figure out if the recording process for the harmonica breakdown in “Rosa Parks” was a joyous of an occasion as it sounds like it was - and if it’s a sample, figure out where from.

…okay, couldn’t wait - I ended up googling this almost immediately and the harmonica solo was played by Pastor Robert Hodo. Pastor Robert Hodo was a minister who served his church for more than 20 years before his passing in 2019, and whose moving obituary notes that his favorite interests included “listening to different genre of music and he adored Sade and especially Outkast.”

Pastor Robert Hodo was Andre Benjamin’s stepfather. Andre Benjamin is, of course, Andre 3000 of many claims to fame and especially Outkast.

Day 25 - 2/1/21

The Blueprint - JAY-Z (50)
Confession time. Prior to this moment, I hadn’t listened to an entire album of Shawn Carter content in one sitting that wasn’t:

a) Really a Beyonce album (see: The Carters’ Everything is Love album and please lie to me and tell me they might one day make a family Christmas album to thaw my cold and bitter heart), or,

b) That Danger Mouse masterpiece The Grey Album which is a mashup of the Jay-Z Black Album and The Beatles’ eponymous/White album. Get it? It’s an incredible piece of work that, for understandable copyright reasons, is hard to stream and is therefore one of the things I always revisit when I recharge my old high school ipod every year or two and go for a stroll down musical memory lane, or,

c) The Watch the Throne collaboration with Kanye- though honestly, this one is iffy on if I’ve actually ever really listened to it or if it was just on a lot in places I was drinking when it came out and that was a thing I still did.

This album is great. I assume, maybe, all Jay-Z albums are great and I just need to get around to actually listening to them. That said, I wonder how Jay-Z from the “Takeover” era would feel about the fact that Nas is sitting perched above him on this list.

Day 26 - 2/2/21

The Great Twenty-Eight - Chuck Berry (51)
I am again skeptical about compilation albums being included on this list, but similar to my half-hearted protest of Legend’s inclusion the actual listening overrides most of that skepticism. Instead, I’m thinking about how I recently watched “Back to the Future” for the first time and the thing that has stuck with me most is how much of a disservice the movie does to Chuck Berry.

The dance scene when Marty McFly plays “Johnny B Goode” and one of the band members on stage, implied to be Chuck Berry’s cousin, calls Chuck to have him listen to “the sound he’s been looking for” was likely meant lightly and as a tribute. But to make the historic role that Berry played in the creation of a genre’s signature sound the butt of a joke left a sour taste in my mouth. Proper attribution in music can be such a complicated issue, especially when it comes to acknowledging the profound impact of Black artists on the development of some of the most influential genres in American music. We doesn’t usually give the roses where they’re due; we’ve proven we’re capable of getting it wrong without throwing to throw time-traveling teenagers into the mix to swoop in and steal the flowers from the stage.

Station to Station - David Bowie (52)
This album unwinds like a Friday night (an unfortunate thing to find yourself daydreaming about when it’s a Tuesday afternoon, but I won’t hold the day I chose to press play against it). This came most clearly into focus with its penultimate track - “Stay” which explores the limits of communication and how hard it is to be earnest (always, but maybe particularly on on Friday nights) when he sings in the chorus:

“Stay.” - that’s what I meant to say.
Or do something.
But what I never say is - “Stay this time.”
I really meant to - so bad - this time.
’Cause you can never really tell
When somebody wants something you want too.

I’m realizing, now, that perhaps I don’t miss this kind of Friday night.

Day 27 - 2/4/21

Electric Ladyland - Jimi Hendrix (53)
I miss going to concerts most days but an extended guitar solo made me miss them so deep in my gut that for a moment I couldn’t breathe this morning. And yes, that sounds dramatic, but we’re talking about Jimi Light-A-Guitar-On-Fire-Just-To-Watch-It-Burn Hendrix here so dramatic seems in order and just because something sounds dramatic doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

Star Time - James Brown (54)
This is not, it turns out, what I would consider strictly an album. Star Time is a 294 minute compilation. According to Wikipedia, this means when it was initially released and CDs were still a thing it was a four disc box set. FOUR DISCS. 71 tracks. This really does seem like it’s stretching the limits of what should be allowable in this list. I didn’t do the math on how many listening hours this project could potentially take me but even if I had tried to come up with a ballpark estimate I wouldn’t have factored in that one of the “albums” would be a five hour James Brown box set….

And, at the end of it - I can’t say that five hours of James Brown really served anyone well. There were a lot of very good moments that all blurred into one long afternoon where I did keep checking how many more tracks there were between me and whatever album was next. May this be the last boxed set…

Day 28 - 2/5/21

The Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd (55)
This section of the list is really forcing me into the confessional booth when it comes to my listening history. This is the first time I’ve ever actually listened to this album all the way through and, yes, I’ve been wasting time. In high school I had a handful of friendships that I think were based on the fact that people assumed I had listened to a lot of Pink Floyd. I had a teacher who only ever saw me with these friends and once told me, after I turned in a paper that she approved of, that she was surprised. That I was smarter than I looked. I’m here to say that those friends who listened to a lot of Pink Floyd were actually geniuses. Luckily, they don’t need me to say that - they already knew.

The line “Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way. The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say..” got a genuine laugh out of me this morning.

Exile in Guyville - Liz Phair (56)
The opening verse of “Glory” gave me such a full-body, heebie-jeebie-induced cringe that I’m still shaking it off fifteen tracks later. We all know that guy. Hopefully we don’t all know that tongue. Visceral reactions aplenty - this is a loud and powerful album.

The Band - The Band (57)
I legitimately threw my arms in the air with joy when I opened up the tracking sheet and discovered I’d finally made it to an album by The Band. I am not a person who throws my arms in the air very often but this has been a very strange week and damn do I love the way Levon Helm’s voice feels like a whole universe to explore.

Led Zeppelin IV - Led Zeppelin (58)
Forgot to care about what the neighbors would think when I had to get up from the desk for a while to pretend concerts were a thing still and I was at one that actually gave you enough room to move around and dance without elbowing the person next to you in the face. Luckily most of the neighbors keep their blinds closed during the day even when I don’t bother so they’ll never know it happened and can’t pass judgement.

Talking Book - Stevie Wonder (59)
There is a moment at the 2 minute and 27 second mark in “Tuesday Heartbreak” where the way Wonder digs in to deliver the word “be” on another pass at the phrase “I want to be with you” sounds like he thinks that if he doesn’t get it out the right way this time it just might be the last thing he ever tries to say because it just might kill him to get it wrong. It sounds like he believes that his plea won’t be heard properly, won’t get the response he longs for, if he doesn’t get this one syllable out correctly. This is a really great album, but that is an extraordinary moment and if you don’t listen to anything else today I urge you to listen to that.

Day 29 - 2/6/21

Astral Weeks - Van Morrison (60)
At the end of his guest appearance on stage in the concert by The Band that would become the film The Last Waltz, Van Morrison, after giving a high-energy performance that involved a lot of running around and a surprising number of almost coordinated high-kicks… put the microphone back on the stand, paid no attention to the audience and walked off stage without looking back. He’d given it his all and was done and that feels like an appropriate ending to this section of the list.