The Top 1,000 Albums Of My Lifetime

So several friends have now tagged me in this “post a great album cover” thingy that’s been doing the rounds on FB at the moment. I suppose I could just post a picture of the Dark Side of the Moon, tag a few people and move on. But music is too important to distill down to that level, and besides, I like to make my own rules, so I have…

I will be fifty this year. Even though many musical masterpieces were created before I was born, I have been fortunate enough to live through, in my opinion, the most creative and influential years in music, certainly in album form. I have therefore been through my entire collection and selected my top 20 albums form each year since I was born (1966), to compile a list of my top 1,000 albums of my lifetime.

I’ve had to impose a few arbitrary rules upon myself. No compilations, best of’s, greatest hits, re-releases or anniversary special editions, but I have included live albums, but for consistency, at year of release rather than year of recording.

As most of you know, I’m currently undergoing some very aggressive chemotherapy for advanced renal cell carcinoma and have been unable to work. Compiling this list, has given me some focus and a chance to revisit a lot of these great works. Despite the fact that I acquired most of the albums in the first 13 or so years retrospectively, when placed out in this order, they tell the story of my life. I can tell you where I bought each and every one of these albums and they all coincide with life events; births, deaths, marriages, holidays, locations, friends and emotions are all recalled when I scan this image of my life’s soundtrack.

Hopefully you can view the image in a large enough format for you to be able to determine each individual album, and if like me, you have a deep passion for music, you’ll recognise most of these images and they may put you in mind of a certain periods in your life too.

Compiling the list also highlighted the greatest peaks and troughs this in this music period. Between 1969 and 1973 I really struggled to fit in all the albums I wanted to. Whereas between 1986 and 1990 many albums made the cut that perhaps wouldn’t have in other years. Despite never again quite achieving the lofty peak of the early 70’s, there was still a surprising number of great albums to choose from in the 90’s 00’s and 10’s showing that there is always great music out here if you just go and look for it. Do not content yourself with the simple and easily digestible dirge from over commercial Saturday night TV karaoke contests, 

I don’t suppose there’s anybody else out there who also owns all 1,000 of these albums?

How will we ever replace Lemmy and Bowie?

I’m finding rock star deaths much harder to cope with these days.

I know we’ve all now developed a rather morose habit of clambering to our social media site of choice in order to solemnly announce to our circle of friends just how much more the dead artist in question really meant to us. As opposed to those mere casual fans now jumping on the grief band wagon just because they happen to have a “best of” compilation CD. But regardless of which of us actually has the most original Bowie vinyl to justify how upset we really are, this recent spate of rock legend demises is really hitting me hard, and I believe it’s hitting many others pretty hard too.

Although their deaths we not recent, I was unsurprised that I was so moved by the deaths of both John Lennon and George Harrison, the guys were Beatles FFS, it’s to be expected. However my grief at the loss of other rock stars has sometimes taken me by surprise. I’d always quite liked Nirvana, but the untimely and tragic death of Kurt Cobain left me reeling for some time at the sudden realization of the genius we had lost. However, possibly the hardest rock star death that I’ve ever had to come to terms was for a man who wasn’t even in a bloody band, yet I have never felt so robbed and cheated as I did when I learned of the death of John Peel.

If I’d been invited onto Desert Island Discs back in November (no reason why I would be), chances are that my selections would probably have overlooked both Motörhead and David Bowie, but the chasm they now seem to have left is both vast and profound. The sense of loss is easily and immediately explainable by the titanic contributions, ingenuity and passion both men bought to the music industry, but perhaps the sense of loss is further amplified by the nagging realization that we may never see their like again

The hitting comprehension that we no longer have the capacity to back fill the immense loss of musical talent we are currently suffering is adding to our sense of loss. I’ve seen loads of jocular Facebook posts pleading with Death for the chance to swap Lemmy or Bowie with Bieber, One Direction or [insert name of this week’s primetime Saturday night karaoke TV show winners here]. We seem to be hemorrhaging rock and pop icons and being left with strategically-groomed choreographed Muppets obeying the formulaic instructions of soulless media executives. No wonder we’re upset.

The easy solution for old farts like me is to wag the bigoted finger of blame at the unimaginative 13-year old girls downloading this dull dirge. I could then opt to take no further part in this music malarkey I once so loved and retreat to the familiar comfort of my neatly ordered gapless Zeppelin and Floyd collections, safe in the opinionated predisposition that modern music is dead. But the reality is that Justin Bieber and Simon Cowell are no more undermining the music industry now any more than The Bay City Rollers or Frank Farian were in my supposed golden age.

Great new music is still out there. Innovative original musicians are still learning their craft in their bedrooms, they’re making demo tapes (or whatever the equivalent of a C90 is these days), they’re forming bands and playing gigs in small clubs. The problem is that many of us have become too lazy to seek them out. We’ve stopped buying Melody Maker and the NME, we no longer bother to read about new bands we haven’t heard of and small gigs that hardly anyone went to. We just log on to Amazon and get told that because we bought Now That’s What I call Commercial Shite Vol. 67 we’d probably also want to buy a copy of Now That’s What I call Commercial Shite Vol. 68, because that’s what everyone else did and it’s far easier than making the effort of broadening our musical horizons.

Maybe the problem isn’t the decline of music, it’s the decline of music journalism. When we abandoned the 12” 33.3 rpm format we also abandoned the rich professional music journalism that informed our careful choices and new discoveries. Fortunately now we’ve realized the error of our ways and vinyl is back, but alas we no longer know what new records to buy, so the vinyl charts are packed with 40^th Anniversary Special Editions.

It would be nice to also see the resurgence of music journalism on new platforms like iTunes and Spotify (if hard-copy magazine are no longer viable), but until then we have to accept that John Peel is dead and that we’re just going to have to make more of an effort ourselves to discover the next Bowie and Lemmy.

Fleet Foxes: Helplessness Blues

All too often a critically acclaimed, platinum selling debut album deviously entices its creators into an overly ambitious follow-up that despite consuming a far greater budget and timeframe falls somewhat short of its predecessor.

Fleet Foxes’ much anticipated second album is indeed more ambitious than its critically acclaimed, platinum selling predecessor. It has, no doubt, been completed on a far greater budget, and although finally recorded relatively quickly, nonetheless had a generous gestation period. This begs the inevitable question, have Fleet Foxes managed to retain the captivating charm of their debut masterpiece in the midst of the inevitable distractions enabled by its ensuing commercial success?

Montezuma opens the new album and picks up pretty much where the band left off in 2008, cautiously adhering to their proven formula of ornate choral harmonies overlaying tranquil acoustic folk. Bedouin Dress adds some richer flavours to the established recipe with a middle-eastern infused fiddle and subtle mandolin undertones.

The title track itself showcases the stylishly matured lyrics that, when taken across the whole album, invoke the mystical that so neatly accompanies the bands persona and melodies, yet astutely manages to retain an incredulous sense of veracity and non-deluded awe.

The Cascades occupies the centre of the album and provides a short instrumental interlude with intricate layered guitars reminiscent of a Mike Oldfield segue.

The Shrine / An Argument at just over eight minutes is a mini epic that kicks off with the familiar acoustic picking and Robin Pecknold’s sumptuous vocals that so enthralled on the inaugural album. The six piece outfit build up a head of steam in the middle section before the stage is cleared to allow Robin to get overly precious about his green apples. Scrumping presumably deterred, the piece breaks into a free jazz cacophony invoking the recently departed spirit of Beefheart before gently winding down with the assistance of some honeyed strings.

So all in all in seems as though Fleet Foxes have pulled off the tricky task of following up on their initial success by appropriately employing the natural process of evolution. But its gradualism, not punctuated equilibrium that has set up a sumptuous second success that should bring beardy weirdy baroque pop back to its highest level of credibility since its sixties heyday.

Crispian’s Best Albums of 2010

It appears as though I haven’t written a single bloody album review all year. Personally, I blame my other blog which has taken up the majority of my spare time under my comfortable delusion that I was getting somewhere with it.

But despite not making the time to review my favourite albums from 2010, I have nonetheless still been buying and listening to a lot of new stuff this year. I have therefore sorted my iTunes library by year and creamed off my top 40 from 2010.

Feel free to disagree, but I'm pretty sure that I am in fact right…


40:
Duffy
Endlessly

39:
Jeff Beck
Emotion and Commotion

38:
The Hoosiers
The Illusion Of Safety

37:
The Script
Science and Faith

36:
Teenage Fanclub
Shadows

35:
Kings of Leon
Come Around Sundown

34:
Gorillaz
Plastic Beach

33:
Robert Plant
Band of Joy

32:
Eels
Tomorrow Morning

31:
MGMT
Congratulations

30:
Richard Thompson
Dream Attic

29:
Iron Maiden
The Final Frontier

28:
The National
High Violet

27:
Deer Hunter
Halcyon Digest

26:
Cyndi Lauper
Memphis Blues

25:
Sleigh Bells
Treats

24:
Leonard Cohen
Songs from the Road

23:
The Album Leaf
A Chorus of Storytellers

22:
Black Mountain
Wilderness Heart

21:
The Sudden Passion
Central Standard Time

20:
The Orb (featuring David Gilmour)
Metallic Spheres

19:
Peter Gabriel
Scratch My Back

18:
Edwyn Collins
Losing Sleep

17:
Joe Satriani
Black Swans

16:
Joe Bonamassa
Black Rock

15:
Plan B
The Defamation of Strickland Banks

14:
John Grant
The Queen of Denmark

13:
The Greenhornes
****

12:
Midlake
The Courage of Others

11:
K. T. Tunstall
Tiger Suit

10:
The Jim Jones Revue
Burning Your House Down

9:
Guitar Shorty
Bare Knuckle

8:
Paul Weller
Wake Up The Nation

7:
The Dead Weather
Sea Of Cowards

6:
Neil Young
Le Noise

5:
Bad Religion
The Dissent of Man

4:
Kula Shaker
Pilgrims Progress

3:
Grinderman
Grinderman 2

2:
The Black Keys
Brothers

1:
The Arcade Fire
The Suburbs

Top 100 Albums of the Noughties

After careful consideration, I have decided that these are the 100 best albums of the noughties.





100. The Killers:
Hot Fuss
2004

99. Alabama 3:
La Peste
2000

98. Iron Maiden:
A Matter of Life and Death
2006

97. Motörhead:
Kiss Of Death
2006

96. Beck:
Modern Guilt
2008

95. Gorillaz:
Gorillaz
2001

94. Goldfrapp:
Felt Mountain
2000

93. Razorlight:
Up All Night
2004

92. The Zutons:
Tired of Hanging Around
2006

91. Eminem:
The Marshall Mather LP
2000

90. Blur:
Think Tank
2003

89. AC/DC:
Black Ice
2008

88. Kings Of Leon:
Youth & Young Manhood
2003

87. Lily Allen:
Alright Still
2007

86. The Black Keys:
Thickfreakness
2003

85. The Arcade Fire:
Neon Bible
2007

84. Roger Waters:
Ca Ira
2005

83. Norah Jones:
Come Away With Me
2002

82. AC/DC:
Stiff Upper Lip
2000

81. Kula Shaker:
Strangefolk
2007

80. Coldplay:
Parachutes
2000

79. Bert Jansch:
The Black Swan
2006

78. George Harrison:
Brainwashed
2002

77. Greydon Square:
The Compton Effect
2008

76. Gorillaz:
Demon Days
2005

75. Kate Bush:
Aerial
2005

74. Black Mountain:
In The Future
2008

73. The Good, The Bad & The Queen:
The Good, The Bad & The Queen
2007

72. Iron Maiden:
Dance of Death
2003

71. Radiohead:
Amnesiac
2001

70. The Flaming Lips:
Yoshi Battles The Pink Robots
2002

69. R.E.M.:
Accelerate
2008

68. Bob Dylan:
Love & Theft
2001

67. Paul Weller:
As Is Now
2005

66. Arctic Monkeys:
Whatever People Say I Am I’m Not
2006

65. Bob Dylan:
Modern Times
2008

64. Duffy:
Rockferry
2008

63. Queens of the Stone Age:
Songs for the Deaf
2002

62. The Strokes:
Is This It
2001

61. The Low Anthem:
Oh My God Charlie Darwin
2009

60. Robert Plant & The Strange Sensation:
Mighty Rearranger
2005

59. Radiohead:
Kid A
2000

58. Muse:
Origin of Symmetry
2001

57. Elliott Smith:
Figure 8
2000

56. The Jeevas:
Cowboys and Indians
2003

55. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds:
Dig Lazarus Dig!
2008

54. Tool:
Lateralus
2001

53. Kings Of Leon:
Only By The Night
2008

52. Kings Of Leon:
Because of the Times
2007

51. The Libertines:
The Libertines
2004

50. Don Cavalli:
Cryland
2008

49. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss:
Raising Sand
2007

48. My Morning Jacket:
Z
2005

47. TV On The Radio:
Dear Science
2008

46. Muse:
Absolution
2003

45. Eels:
Hombre Lobo
2009

44. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds:
No More Shall We Part
2001

43. The White Stripes:
De Stijl
2000

42. The Arcade Fire:
Funeral
2004

41. Joe Bonamassa:
The Ballad of John Henry
2009

40. Wilco:
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
2002

39. The Black Keys:
Attack and Release
2008

38. Jarvis Cocker:
Further Complications
2009

37. Bon Iver:
For Emma Forever Ago
2008

36. Libertines:
Up The Bracket
2002

35. Kasabian:
Kasabian
2004

34. Roger Waters:
In The Flesh
2002

33. The Waterboys:
Book Of Lightning
2007

32. Jimmy Page & The Black Crowes:
Live At The Greek
2000

31. Them Crooked Vultures:
Them Crooked Vultures
2009

30. The Dead Weather:
Horehound
2009

29. PJ Harvey & John Parish:
A Woman, A Man Walked By
2009

28. Kasabian:
Empire
2006

27. The Beatles:
Love
2006

26. Pink Floyd:
Is There Anybody Out There?
2000

25. Kasabian:
West Ryder Lunatic Asylum
2009

24. JJ72:
JJ72
2000

23. Franz Ferdinand:
Franz Ferdinand
2004

22. Geldof:
Sex, Age & Death
2001

21. The Decemberists:
Picaresque
2005

20. David Gilmour:
Live in Gdansk
2008

19. The Zutons:
Who Killed The Zutons
2004

18. Grinderman:
Grinderman
2007

17. Patti Smith:
Twelve
2007

16. The White Stripes:
White Blood Cells
2001

15. The Decemberists:
The Crane Wife
2006

14. David Gilmour:
On An Island
2006

13. Kaiser Chiefs:
Employment
2005

12. Turin Brakes:
The Optimist LP
2001

11. Leonard Cohen:
Live in London
2009

10. Neil Young:
Chrome Dreams
2007

9. Led Zeppelin:
How The West Was Won
2003

8. Tom McCrae:
Tom McCrae
2000

7. The Raconteurs:
Broken Boy Soldiers
2006

6. Fleet Foxes:
Fleet Foxes
2008

5. PJ Harvey:
Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
2000

4. The Decemberists:
The Hazards of Love
2009

3. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds:
Abattoir Blues / The Lyre Of Orpheus
2004

2. The White Stripes:
Elephant
2003

1. The Raconteurs:
Consolers of the Lonely
2008