Rolling Stone's Top 500 - Part Five
or, The Doors were just a bunch of jazz nerds and we probably all should be.
Hit Rewind: 1-20, 21-40, 41-60, 61-80
Day 40 - 3/1/2021
Beyoncé - Beyoncé (81)
"My aspiration in life would be to be happy.” is such a strong opening statement and a chilling thesis for an album that then proceeds to run through all the different ways that can be really damn hard.
Day 41 - 3/4/2021
There’s a Riot Goin’ On - Sly and the Family Stone (82)
Another day, another album, another time I accidentally made my neighbor witness an uncoordinated disco dance party during their lunch break because I forgot to close the blinds.
Dusty in Memphis - Dusty Springfield (83)
I admittedly don’t know much about Dusty Springfield, but I do know she sings like a woman who knows what she wants, even if what she wants is to tell you that she actually isn’t sure yet. On “Breakfast in Bed” she knows enough to tell you that she knows she’s not the one but is okay with that for the moment. There’s a strength in that, a person I used to want to be able to be. I’m not so sure anymore, but I know I wouldn’t be able to sing it like Dusty either way.
Back in Black - AC/DC (84)
There is a very weird dissonance in the experience of listening to the questions “What do you do for money, honey? How do you get your kicks?” while putting together a summary of a Colorado employment law. This afternoon I was forced to acknowledge that that sort of thing is how I make my money, but not at all how I get my kicks.
Plastic Ono Band - John Lennon (85)
I wasn’t emotionally prepared to hear “Isolation” on my walk this evening. I also wasn’t emotionally prepared to hear “Love”, but at least “Isolation” prepared me to be unprepared.
Day 42 - 3/9/2021
The Doors - The Doors (86)
Weeks and weeks ago now, someone sent me this excerpt of an interview that I’d saved to listen to until now because I knew I’d need an incentive to get this far in the list. In the interview, Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist for the Doors, talks about how the band was mostly a bunch of jazz nerds and breaks down how the solos in “Light My Fire” were built out of Coltrane and Bach. Manzarek explaining to Terri Gross how to get the introduction of the song right he had to “put my Bach back to work, put my Bach hat on,” brings me equal levels of joy as Morrison’s supremely bored-sounding delivery of lines that ask his partner to try and set his world ablaze. Imagine sounding so casual when you ask someone to burn it all down with you in a bed built on Coltrane. Imagine.
Day 43 - 3/10/2021
Bitches Brew - Miles Davis (87)
In yesterday’s listening, I mostly thought about how the instrumentalists in The Doors were a bunch of jazz nerds… Listening to Miles today, I think maybe we should all be a bunch of jazz nerds.
Hunky Dory - David Bowie (88)
This is another album on this list that I’m surprised and a bit embarrassed to admit that I’d never listened to in its entirety before. But, similar to the last Bowie album this list put in my path, I can tell you that there’s a line that I won’t be able to shake from my head. Bowie’s delivery of “Now hear this, Robert Zimmerman” on “Song for Bob Dylan” is going to be unshakeable and crawl up in the back of my mind every time I see a photo of Bob Dylan, which is unfortunate because that’ll be at least a couple times a day unless I take his portrait off my wall.
Day 44 - 3/11/2021
Baduizm - Erykah Badu (89)
I have largely avoided listening to Erykah Badu because I firmly believe she is too cool for me. There is the planet that Erykah Badu lives on and there is the planet that I live on and though some people can travel easily between both, some people like me feel insecure for even wanting to try. Listening to this today didn’t do much to dissuade me from this belief, except… The fact that “New Lifetime” is a six and a half minute meditation on what it means to have met the right person at the wrong time and to allow yourself to wonder what it might be like to get to meet them again at the right time in some other life gives me the feeling that maybe she and I have at least one thing in common.
After the Gold Rush - Neil Young (90)
Given that “After the Gold Rush” (song) is one of my absolute favorites, I have listened to After the Gold Rush (album) far too few times. Not going to compare Ol’ Shakey to breakfast foods again, but I will say that “After the Gold Rush” (song) is truly worth listening to over and over and over, and there are so many good cover versions with which to do this if you don’t want to just listen to Neil all day (but maybe try it?). I’ve had this as one of my “same song over and over” playlists for a while. Sharing it again now: after the gold rush(es)
Darkness On the Edge of Town - Bruce Springsteen (91)
My dad recently told me that he has been “trying to listen to Springsteen” but doesn’t really get it. My dad and I see eye to eye on a lot of things and I never really expected this to become the most contentious thing about our dynamic as I head into this new decade of my life, but I guess in the grand scheme of things this is a good problem to have. Hi Dad. I don’t get how you don’t get Springsteen. We’ll have to work on it.
Axis: Bold as Love - The Jimi Hendrix Experience (92)
While we’re tattling on my parents’ listening habits, a couple months back I was visiting my mom when she declared, out of the blue and in a snowstorm no less, that she’d “never understood the hype around Jimi Hendrix.” I feel I need to take this moment to declare that my parents are not villains. They are good people whom I love very much. But- they are apparently not where I got the guitar-solo-appreciation gene from; the one that makes me cock my head to the side like a dog being scratched behind the ear when the notes hit just right spot. Maybe that’s a recessive one?
Day 45 - 3/12/2021
Supa Dupa Fly - Missy Elliot (93)
Sometimes a really good album can do this weird time distortion thing where it makes you nostalgic for a thing that hasn’t even happened yet, and what I mean by that is today I was driving circles around my neighborhood and when “Izzy Izzy Ahh” came on I missed this upcoming summer so viscerally it almost felt like maybe I was actually driving with friends to float the river, windows down, music cranked. I hope that ends up being possible this summer because it wasn’t last year and I hope that this time next year I’m looking back at that exact moment with true nostalgia, not an imagined one.
Fun House - The Stooges (94)
Pretty sure The Stooges didn’t create their particular brand of punk just so that I could have the confidence to power through the rocky first half hour or so of trying to get a tricky technique down for hand rolling a pasta shape I’d never attempted before, but I can say that it was incredibly effective at doing so. Could not sustain The Stooges level energy for the four hours it took to get the pasta done and dusted, but it was a strong start.
Take Care - Drake (95)
Time for another confession. This is the first time I’ve ever listened to an entire Drake album. I really intended to cross this off the list a few years back on an airplane bound for Toronto because that seemed appropriate, but I.. just didn’t. And while I’ve got to say that 83 minutes is bordering on a too-long-runtime for an album, I’m willing to forgive it here. Because of the number of guests on this album and the amount of time they were given to shine, this felt more like a house party than overindulgent mirror-gazing.
(Also, glad I’m old enough now to recognize that “You and the music were the only things that I’d commit to” is not as romantic as it would have seemed to me a decade ago if I’d bothered to listen to this album when it initially dropped.)
Day 46 - 3/15/2021
Automatic For The People - R.E.M (96)
I know that this album is Big News in large part because of the pervasive oomph and lingering quality of “Everybody Hurts” but I think that narrative really overlooks the amount of absurd goofy joy that’s sprinkled throughout this album. I will not tell you that “Everybody Hurts” is not great because it is. It’s just not the point, at least not the whole one. The ad libs in the first 10 seconds of “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite”? Solid gold that meant I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face trying to imagine what it’s like to see that performed (for real or in a karaoke setting). The imitation of Elvis on “Hey baby” in “Man on the Moon”? Too good to count as a gimmick. And, yeah.. maybe there’s nothing expressly goofy in the loveliness that is “Nightswimming” but it’s still nothing but pure smiles.
Master of Puppets - Metallica (97)
To wake up today, I should have listened to this album or had two strong cups of tea, but I absolutely should not have done both. I’m now going to be apologizing to people on Zoom calls all day for the fact that my eye might be twitching and I might be a little.. too… awake.
Day 47 - 3/16/2021
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road - Lucinda Williams (98)
This is one of the ultimate albums for me. It is not entirely an exaggeration to say that this album once saved my life because it kept me awake while I drove for fourteen hours straight on three hours of sleep and a bag of biscuits. I’ve written about this album before, and though the birthday I was planning for when I wrote that has come and gone, I still stand by this:
Car Wheels is a masterclass in the range of human emotions. If you ever find yourself in a position where you need a reminder on how to feel broadly and deeply, it's the text I recommend. I listened to it, and nothing else, for 900 miles, and came out of the other side better for it. Its opening track is a lesson in how to articulate and get what you want. I listened to "Can't Let Go", because it was true, on repeat, until I realized it wasn't anymore and that I had let go a hundred miles back when the clouds cleared just outside of Memphis. "Joy" was the reminder that it's okay to be righteously angry; "Still I Long For Your Kiss", the reminder that you won't always be and that that's okay too. The album's near perfect closing song taught me that it's just fine to admit it when you're heartbroken but not beaten.
Lucinda forever.
Red - Taylor Swift (99)
Realized I hadn’t actually ever listened to this album all the way through because I would not have thought it was as long of an album as it is… Also realized I hadn’t thought about Snow Patrol as a band in a long time, and the fact that it never would have occurred to me that the Snow Patrol Guy and Taylor Swift had done a song together further emphasizes that I guess I have never listened to this album far enough to know that that was a thing. I hope those guys are doing well and no longer chasing cars, or if they are they’re also still making time to lay around and forget the world. All of this probably sounds snarky, but isn’t really, I promise. I’m legitimately surprised I’ve never listened to this one, because I don’t have much reason not to have. “And you’ve got your demons, and darling, they all look like me” is also a genuinely devastating line and that’s going to be rolling around in my head for a while.
Music from Big Pink - The Band (100)
All albums should end with “I Shall Be Released”. It is a legitimate tragedy that more albums do not end with “I Shall Be Released”. I’m glad though, that it wraps up this portion of the list.
100 albums down in about six months of listening. This is further than I thought I’d actually get, but makes it seem like there’s so much further to go now that it feels vaguely possible. Come too far to turn back, but a little more hesitant now that I’ve got an understanding of just how many hours 500 albums really is… The further down the list I get, though, the more varied and weird and wonderful the sequencing starts to feel. We’ve got stranger waters ahead.
As always, you can check out the full list here to see where we’ve been and where we’re headed. And - if you’ve got a favorite album of this bunch, I’d love to hear about it.