My Top 10 Albums: 1986

Another week, another list, another decade, welcome to 1986.  I decided to deviate from the path of the 7’s with my salute to one of the best years of the 80s.  The problem with the 80s is that there was no one iconic year for music.  There were changes and landmarks coming and going throughout the decade.  The shift of popular music was evolving rapidly and looking at this list seems to indicate the state of pop music as well as hip-hop, country, and metal.  The cold electro-new wave sound of the earlier part of the decade had largely gone away and more bands chose to incorporate synths into their sound as opposed to basing their entire act around them.  Bands like Talk Talk began to move away from their synth heavy roots, while other bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden began to incorporate those once forbidden sounds into their albums.

Like Brian Eno in 1977, the year largely belonged to Rick Rubin, who helped produce two certifiable rap landmarks with License to Ill and Raising Hell, and somehow finding a time to form his own record label and produce Slayer’s Reign in Blood.  I’d like to think Rubin and his diverse interests helped represent all the best of ‘86.  It was also a great year that featured the best solo albums from artists that had been around since the 60s. 

I wavered a bit as to which year to do my list for, but I settled on ‘86 for a few reasons.  The first was that I didn’t want to do 1987, as good of a year as it was, because that would mean I’d have to do 1997, 2007, etc.  When looking at my top 100 album list made a few years ago I saw 5 of these albums appeared on that list.  This means 1986 had more albums than 1977 and 1967 combined on my top 100 albums list, at least as of the last ranking.  Could this mean that 1986 was a better year than both of those iconic years combined?  Emphatically no, but it did speak to how top heavy this year was.

Unlike previous lists I cast a wider net in doing research for this, actually streaming a few albums I don’t own to get a better perspective.  Admittedly none of those streamed albums made this list but it did help to flesh out the picture of just what music was like in that year.  This is also the first year I’m highlighting that I was alive for, even if my appreciation for music was a little primitive at age 3.  There are some songs and albums here that I do have some nostalgic feelings for, videos I remember seeing as a child, and songs I just remember hearing before they were “oldies” or “classics”.  This first person experience will probably have a greater impact on my next top tens, whichever years I choose, but shows it’s first signs of influence here.  Anyways here’s a list of ten albums very few of you will agree with outside of the first five or so.
 

10. Lyle Lovett - Lyle Lovett

Since the overwhelming majority of music fans look at country as some weird redneck subculture that has it’s own set of criteria, lists, rankings, and clearly inbred fans, far too many have ignored some of the treasures contained therein.  1986 was easily the best year for country music in the decade and a trio of debut albums released that year help illustrate that point.  A lot has been written about Steve Earle’s Guitar Town and I’ll elaborate on another debut later, but Lyle Lovett’s album was probably the most off beat.  Although his debut certainly fits into the large blanket of country music it bears little resemblance to any of the auto-tuned party music you’ve probably had to suffer through.  Lovett was a bit of an eccentric who took his cues as much from Hank Williams as Benny Goodman.  His debut mixes some of his more straight forward singer-songwriter moments with a mix of blues, folk, jazz, and even a little old fashioned rock.  All of these influences Lovett would expand on in later albums, but the blueprint began here.  One of the best debut albums in all of country.
 

9. Queen - A Kind of Magic

I may be showing my personal preference a little bit by including Queen’s album from 1986, but the truth is this is fantastic stuff.  After their triumph of The Game, Queen embarked on murky territory with the Flash Gordon soundtrack, the uneven Hot Space, and the decent but lackluster The Works.  Following their Live Aid triumph, a rejuvenated Queen reconvened after exploring various solo projects.  They were also tapped to contribute songs to the new film Highlander, but unlike the Flash Gordon venture, they opted not to “score” the film.  Those songs, most notably “Princes of the Universe” and “Who Wants to Live Forever” are among their 80s highlights.  Roger Taylor, gave up his attempts to be a lead vocalist and contributes the hit title track.  The entire band collaborated on “One Vision” which although released as a stand-alone single the year before opens the album and points towards the more collaborative direction the band would use for their final two studio albums.  The resulting tour for this album would turn out to be their last, inspiring it’s own Live Magic album.
 

8. Randy Travis - Storms of Life

Randy Travis might be considered something of an alcoholic recluse nowadays, but when his debut came out in 1986 he was the best thing to happen to country music in what seemed like decades.  Like the best artists of country music’s past, he was as much of a story teller as a songwriter and each track here paints a vivid picture.  Truth be told, Travis only wrote two of the songs on this album, but his singing helped usher in the new traditionalist movement in country, thoroughly making these songs his own.  Travis updated the old sounds with modern production and for better or worse helped usher in the wave of multi-platinum slick country produced in the 90s.  In 1986 though the music just felt more honest, more relatable, and far less pandering to the masses.  Like Lovett, Travis would follow this up with an equally brilliant album in 1987, but it can’t quite replicate the immediacy of Storms of Life.
 

7. Iron Maiden - Somewhere in Time

In the 80s, Iron Maiden could scarcely do any wrong.  The one perhaps logical complaint they suffered was that by 1986 it was largely Maiden by numbers.  They had a winning formula and rode that to sold out arenas and platinum sales.  There were some attempts to break out on this album, notably by Bruce Dickinson, but his songs were rejected by Steve Harris for not being “Maiden enough”.  Some of these rejected ideas wound up as B-sides and some would go into his solo album debut a few years later.  Adrian Smith seems to have temporarily supplanted Steve Harris as the bands best writer here, particularly with the single “Wasted Years”.  Unlike Judas Priest who disastrously tried to incorporate synths into their sound on that same year’s Turbo, Maiden chose to use the keyboards more for texture and atmosphere, still relying on guitar, bass, and drums.  This is the first Maiden album I ever heard and for that reason it holds a littleextra significance.  I don’t think Maiden ever embraced their guitar harmonies more fully.  Smith and Murray are perfectly in synch here and they help to elevate often embarrassing choruses and lyrics with their stellar interplay.  This is simply another classic from a band in their prime.

6. Slayer - Reign in Blood

Every metal head on the planet owns this album, has heard it about a 100 times, and recognizes that although it might not be Slayer’s best, it is certainly their most iconic and important.  After a couple of under produced and primitive albums for Metal Blade the band signed with Rick Rubin’s new American record label where they finally matched their music to production values.  The result is a heavy album with some meat to it.  The drums are booming, and Dave Lombardo quickly earns his title as thrash metal’s best.  Jeff Hanneman’s lyrics are brutal, and Tom Arraya seems determined to sing at the tempo of the music which only adds to the chaotic energy of the album.  The whole thing is so short and fast that it doesn’t feel like there’s a wasted moment on here.  The only songs over 3 and half minutes are “Angel of Death” and “Raining Blood” which you may recognize as quite possibly the two best metal songs ever written.  The late Jeff Hanneman did the bulk of the writing here and it’s pure metal perfection.  It’s easy to look past this album for heavier, faster, more brutal, etc. but no thrash band ever put it together quite this perfectly before and probably since.

5. Peter Gabriel - So

And now for something completely different, Peter Gabriel’s So was rare moment when art and commerce came beautifully together.  Since his days in Genesis, Peter Gabriel was always venturing into new and exotic territory.  The marvel about So is that Gabriel’s musical experiments seem to have perfectly intersected with the pop culture of the day.  The album sounds weird, exotic, and ambitious yet extremely commercial.  Long time collaborator Tony Levin delivers some of the best, and most bizarre bass lines you’re likely to hear.  Gabriel’s reputation for being an innovative video artist really took hold here, and the video for “Sledgehammer” helped make this the monstrously successful album it was.  There are still some quieter experimental moments on here, but the singles help keep the album afloat.  It is top heavy to be sure, but in that case seems to represent 1986 better than any other album on this list.
 

4. Paul Simon - Graceland

A perfect compliment to Peter Gabriel’s world music meets pop, Paul Simon’s Graceland was THE album in 1986.  It resurrected Simon’s career after his brilliant Hearts and Bones album flopped dramatically.  It also introduced most of the Western world to South African music, and it’s still influencing bands to this day.  Simon was much more receptive to his collaborators here, and changed his songwriting style to suit his new recording partners.  The highlight is still “You Can Call Me Al” which is not only one of the catchiest songs of the 80s but perfectly blends everything great about this album, complete with a reversed bass line and pennywhistle solo.  The title track seems like it could have been right at home on Hearts and Bones, and “All Around the World” is more zydeco than mbaqanga.  Graceland like So broke new musical ground while also sounding very familiar and inviting. 
 

3. Run DMC - Raising Hell

It took a little over 3 minutes for Run DMC to blow every single rapper who came before them out of the water.  “Peter Piper” is still one of the all time greatest rap songs and the incredible interchanging flow that Reverend Run and Darryl Mac have is so perfectly in synch.  Rick Rubin was certainly on a roll here and he proceeded to put his mark on this album, particularly on the title track and their famous re-working of “Walk This Way”.  The beats are louder, the hooks catchier, and the whole thing flows so seamlessly together.  Run DMC were operating on another level here and as great as parts of their first two albums were, this one really elevated the duo to iconic status.  They were able to incorporate some of the best of hard rock elements while steering far clear of guitars of any kind for songs like “My Addidas”, “You Be ‘Illin” or “Is It Live?”  The latter of which ingeniously makes a song out of a throwaway interlude from LL Cool J.  There’s even a little human beat boxing on here for good measure.  This broke from the party rap traditions of the past and pointed to the edgier yet commercially viable form the music would take in subsequent years.  This is still the best rap album of the 80s.
 

2. Metallica - Master of Puppets

Slayer might have provided the definitive thrash album in 1986, but Metallica arguably delivered THE definitive metal album.  For most outsiders taking only a small cursory glance at metal music would recognize Master of Puppets as the high water mark.  Now for all those people who listen to metal on an almost exclusive basis, that matter is forever up for debate.  This was Metallica’s last album with Cliff Burton and his influence is noticeable, particularly his bass solo in “Orion”.  Dave Mustaine who had his own mini-triumph with Peace Sells that same year claimed to have written the riff for “Leper Messiah” which unofficially marked the end of his influence on early Metallica.  The fact that Mustaine and Megadeth were so far behind Metallica at this time is noticeable, as were the other thrash metal bands of the time who were still suffering through under produced independent EPs and debuts.  Metallica didn’t just write songs about Satan and murder, they stretched their lyrical aspirations to condemn war, macho posturing, substance abuse, mental illness, and of course false prophets.  Their song writing as well continued to evolve, giving rise to longer songs with more complex arrangements, which would peak on …And Justice For All.  This album also wins the unofficial title of album I’ve listened to the most from 1986, but not quite the best.

1. The Smiths - The Queen is Dead

The catalyst for my own top 500 album list came from a special issue by NME.  They offered their own top 500 and sitting at #1 was this Smiths album.  I’d gotten so used to seeing either Revolver or Sgt. Pepper’s top these sorts of lists that I was honestly surprised someone was claiming the best album of all time came out of the 80s.  Debate always seems to rage about the second best album from The Smiths.  For my money it’s their self titled debut, others would put Strangeways, some would cheat and consider Hatful of Hollow or Louder than Bombs actual albums.  Then there are the wrong people who seem to think Meat is Murder is their second best, but it’s nearly impossible to argue anything other than The Queen is Dead is their absolute best.  It starts out heavy and rocking, allowing a rare chance for the rhythm section to shine.  However they quickly run the gamut from catchy melodic pop “Frankly Mr. Shankly” to a tour-de-force weeping ballad “I Know It’s Over”.  Halfway through the album Marr and Morrissey seem to have summed up everything brilliant about their short but influential run.  “There is a Light That Never Goes Out” is another in the long running for potential best Smiths songs and “Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others” brilliantly closes out what is an absolute masterpiece.  This is two songwriters at their peak and a band perfectly in synch, even if they would soon self destruct.

My Top 10 Albums: 1977

Another week another decade.  Welcome to part two of my random top ten rankings of great years in music history.  Before I moved to Oakland I was having a conversation with a music loving friend of mine over a beer when we started debating the best year in music.  I opened with 1977, and spent the better part of the next hour supporting my point with reference after reference.  Admittedly there were a few great albums from 1967 that didn’t make that particular list, but this one was much more difficult.  So often were landmark albums, absolute masterpieces, essential records that I had to leave off because there were just too many other landmarks, masterpieces, and essential records from the same year.

I won’t make a huge justification for the albums left off, keep in mind there are no shortage of great albums not on this list.  1977 was the year of the punk explosion and that is reflected a bit with this list, but it was also a year that saw some great music from nearly all areas.  Several bands seemed to hit their stride in 1977, recording their greatest work.  For at least one artist on this list it was a year of a tremendous “comeback”, and well I don’t think my top three would be predictable by anyone except a select few.  For the record I didn’t include Saturday Night Fever because among other reasons as a soundtrack it featured multiple artists and songs previously released elsewhere.  I know it might be THE defining disco album and a perfect capsule of 1977’s music outside of punk, but it’s too much of a compilation to count for this.  As for the albums that I deemed worthy, start yer bitchin’ . . .

10. Brian Eno - Before and After Science

This album serves as something of a dual or triple, purpose.  Brian Eno recorded this over the course of two years while simultaneously working on other ambient projects, collaborating with David Bowie, and recording an album with Cluster.  Apparently 100 tracks were written for the album with only 10 making the final cut, and well Eno couldn’t have distilled a better album.  This would be Eno’s last “rock” album of the decade and marked the end of his first great period of prolific genius.  Eno was never more refined, and his musicians are as great as ever.  The second half of the album points to the more ambient work he would pursue for the next couple of years and contains “By This River” which is damn near the best song he ever recorded.  I’d take this album over Low, Heroes, The Idiot, Lust for Life and whatever other Berlin inspired experimental rock was going on at the time.

9. The Clash - The Clash (UK)

I’m not being some musical hipster by including the Clash’s UK debut, but any small amount of research will reveal that there were two different versions of this debut.  The important thing for this list is that they were released two years apart, and therefore the UK version is the only one that really counts for a 1977 list.  This was punk music at it’s best, even from their earliest days they seemed to be a band that had something to say, instead of just being pissed off about everything like many of their contemporaries.  They rallied against racism “White Riot”, American imperialism “I’m so Bored with the U.S.A.”, and England’s job market “Career Opportunities”.  It was punk at it’s most important, and the template that every subsequent band could only hope to emulate.

8. Steely Dan - Aja

I’m sure some of my friends would put my head on a pike for my “low” ranking of this album, but that’s more of a testament to how great 1977 was.  To me this is the best Steely Dan ever sounded on an album, and features some of the finest musicianship you're likely to hear in the context of a rock album.  The title track alone would go down as the greatest drum performance ever captured on record.  “Peg” is still the catchiest song Steely Dan ever put out, with those sweet Michael McDonald vocal harmonies and an iconic guitar solo.  There isn’t a wasted moment on the album and forever stands as the high water mark of one of the decade's most idiosyncratic duos.

7. Fleetwood Mac - Rumours

Rumours is the sound of dysfunction, filtered through cocaine, and mixed with some of the best songwriting of the decade.  Perhaps only Hotel California captures the rock music excess better in the mid-late 70s.  This album was born in dysfunction but miraculously was a triumph musically.  It sounds like a greatest hits album and nearly every song has become a classic.  “Second Hand News” is perhaps my favorite Buckingham song and that’s arguably the least known track on the album.  “The Chain”, “Go Your Own Way”, “You Make Loving Fun”, “Dreams”, and “Gold Dust Woman” are the rare overplayed radio hits that still sound great each and every time you listen to them. 

6. Muddy Waters - Hard Again

Before Jack White and Rick Rubin started digging up still living corpses to re-invigorate their career Johnny Winter hooked up with his idol Muddy Waters.  The album kicks off with a long standing Waters number, but given the exuberant and enthusiastic background wailing of Johnny Winter, “Mannish Boy” never sounded better.  The rest of the album takes a hard hitting blues approach to an album of timeless classics.  It was the best studio album Muddy Waters got to make, and one of the testaments of raw, uncut blues at it’s purest source.  This was the real deal, not some kids from England re-appropriating it.  Rarely did the blues legends get this opportunity to make a hard hitting album, but Muddy did, and the result is timeless perfection.

5. Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bullocks Here’s the Sex Pistols

There were no shortage of great punk albums made in 1977, and more still that got lumped into the same category by a loose association, but the be all and end all definitive punk album is, was, and forever will be the Sex Pistols' debut.  This was the original band that simply gave no fucks whatsoever.  They intentionally tried to piss off everyone they could including each other, label execs, TV show hosts, British royalty, and their own manager.  They were created to be provocative and push buttons but the monster grew out of control and imploded on itself shortly after their one triumphant shake up of the rock establishment.  This one album carried more weight than the majority of artists entire careers.  They were the poster children of the punk movement and delivered it in a chaotic, energetic, snarling, and abrasive manner.   

4. Elvis Costello - My Aim is True

Another in the long list of artists who made their debuts in 1977, Elvis Costello would never sound as primitive.  This was before he hooked up with his regular backing band The Attractions.  He had the energy of the punk artists but the music was decidedly more accessible and diverse.  Costello loved ballads, reggae, and country music and it all comes together in a brilliant debut which would get lumped into the punk/new wave category somewhat unfairly.  Along the way Costello showed that he might be the best lyricist since Dylan, and he followed up that initial promise with no less than five other masterpieces.  Later Costello would have a slicker sound and a little more polish and production values, but wouldn’t quite have the urgency of this debut, which contains some of the best songs he or anyone else would ever write.

3. Pink Floyd - Animals

At this point in the list we dispense with the predictable by music critic standards.  I’m going to go ahead and say that I think Animals is the best album Pink Floyd ever made.  Loosely structured around George Orwell’s Animal Farm and Roger Waters growing disillusion with music execs and the people he grew to distrust, it features three all time classics.  “Pigs (Three Different Ones)” might be the best song the band ever recorded, until you consider that “Dogs” might be better, or perhaps “Sheep” is their best song.  Debating the best song on this album is like debating what order to put their top three songs.  Unlike other Floyd albums that have been played to death by radio and  endless covers, the songs on Animals have largely been spared that fate.  As a result the album sounds fresh each and every listen, and only gets better to the point that I’d take it over Dark Side, Wish, or The Wall.  

2. Queen - News of the World

To be honest I’m surprised this isn’t my number one album.  True story this is the first album I ever purchased with my own money and it’s always held a special place in my heart.  Once you dispense with the dynamic duo of “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions” you get Roger Taylor’s answer to the punk craze with “Sheer Heart Attack”, a brilliant vocal venture from Brian May on “All Dead, All Dead”, and then the best song John Deacon ever wrote “Spread Your Wings”.  Roger Taylor’s vocal outing on “Fight From the Inside” contains his best riff and is perhaps second only to “Tenement Funster” as his best song.  It is Queen at the most diverse, and shows each of their members at their peak.  Everyone contributes at least two songs and it spans far beyond the anthems of the opening tracks.  “It’s Late” is another in the running for best Queen song, and “Who Needs You?” showed that Queen could indeed rock an island jam.  Despite the fact that three songs are song by people who aren’t Freddie Mercury, they’re all worth listening to, and Freddie has plenty of his own time to shine with “Get Down Make Love” and “My Melancholy Blues”.  To me this was the last of Queen’s first perfect 6 albums and showed the band at it’s most excessive yet still amazing.

1. Al Di Meola - Elegant Gypsy

When I was scrolling through my albums from 1977, this never seemed like a “77 album”.  You think about punk, new wave, or disco, Rumours, etc.  An instrumental fusion album seemed far out.  Sure this was also the year Weather Report released their landmark Heavy Weather album, but those seemed like just a blip in the radar of the overall year.  Elegant Gypsy was the first Al Di Meola album I purchased and the one I’ve listened to the most.  I’ve played the holy hell out of it, and it is simply perfection.  His playing is incredible and the songs are all tight and iconic.  He’s backed by some of the best musicians around but it never seems to lose sight of how amazing Di Meola was as a guitarist.  The final song “Elegant Gypsy Suite” is 9 minutes of jazz-rock epic glory.  Steve Gadd plays drums on it, and seems to have brought the same energy he had on “Aja”.  For pure leads though “Race With the Devil on a Spanish Highway” might just be the best guitar playing I’ve heard.  So I guess you can say this is the best album from arguably the best year in music history.  In other words you should probably listen to it right now.

My Top 10 Albums: 1967

Greetings from Oakland, California.  As many of you probably figured out by now, I live here, for those checking out this list because some random google search brought you here, welcome, please allow me to take your coat. 

Shortly after moving to the Bay Area I was putting music on my new 160gb iPod.  I realize that these iPods were discontinued so by new I mean “new to me”.  Anyways I was uploading the rather sexcellent Animals album, Animalism when long story short I had to decipher what the bonus tracks were on the particular edition I had.  Most of these songs were recorded under the similar but different group Eric Burdon and the Animals, and most of them were random hippy crap.  Based on the timeline these were recorded, they ranged form 1966-68 and all seemed to be a product of their time.  More than one song were about San Francisco and just seemed to comment on the scene going on there. 

This got me thinking about that time in music history.  1967 is to music what 1939 is to film.  A seminal year best known for several vital landmark works of art that have elevated the year to some sort of mystical time when all the stars aligned.  For a quick reference 1939 is when Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Stagecoach, and several other classic films were released.  As a result there has always been a special label to the music of 1967.  Not just in the Haight-Ashbury mystique of dirty gross hippies taking LSD, but that somehow the albums released during this year carried extra weight for carrying that date on it’s copyright.

Oakland is to San Francisco what the White Sox are to Cubs fans.  We deserve more recognition but have always managed to buried under our more glamorous neighbors.  Even if our neighbors live in a shitty city where parking is impossible and only people making 6 figures can afford the most basic studio.  Oakland’s music scene consisted of MC Hammer and a few other rappers you already forgot about, so we might have some street cred, but will never lack the household names of San Francisco’s Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Journey, and others.

So why exactly does this list exist?

Good question me.  My brother and I decided it was about time to update our top 100 album lists.  Unlike my film list, that I refuse to update more than once a decade, my album list is poised for a tweaking every couple of years, regardless of how much might have changed.  Thanks to NME and to a lesser extent Rolling Stone, I decided this time to make my top 100 a top 500.  So I’ve cast a much wider net than normal to research this particular list.  As an exercise of compartmentalizing, 1967 was a microcosm of my research.  Instead of randomly listening to 600 odd albums, I focused on one year, and listened to all the albums I had from that particular year.  Oh, did I mention I recently finished updating my record collection to not just be listed alphabetically but also chronologically?  I did, and I’m a nerd, but it made researching 1967 a hell of a lot more streamlined. 

Point is I dug head first into this legendary year, and was somewhat amazed to find out how damn hard it was to rank a top ten.  There were easily another 10 albums I would have loved to include on this list, and there are some downright masterpieces that aren’t being represented.  Ironically not a single band from San Francisco made my list, but there are no shortage of essentials included herein.  If I left out an album, it isn’t necessarily because I hate it, but I just liked ten albums more.  So at the request of absolutely no one, here’s my ten favorite albums from 1967.

10. The Rolling Stones - Between the Buttons

In 1968 the Stones would hire Jimmy Miller as producer and officially become “The Stones”.  In 1967 they were still trying to sound like the Beatles and occasionally doing a damn good job at it.  Between the Buttons was the last great album of their early era, and only a slight drop off from the masterpiece that was Aftermath.  Like that previous album this had differing US and UK versions.  For the sake of this list, I’m selecting the US release which features the classic singles “Let’s Spend the Night Together” and “Ruby Tuesday”.  The differing tracks from the UK version were released later in 1967 as part of the Flowers album, a quasi-compilation that also featured some of the UK Aftermath songs.  Between the Buttons showed the Stones trying to be popular and succeeding wildly.  Sure they became the world’s greatest rock band when they stopped giving a shit and did whatever the hell they felt like, but when it came to an arms race with their peers, the Stones were more than up to the challenge.

9. Phil Ochs - Pleasures of the Harbor

Phil Ochs might not be the household name that the rest of the artists on my list might be but don’t let that detract any from how great this album is.  It was Ochs fourth album, and saw him branch out to include Dixieland jazz as well as classical music with his own sarcastic brand of folk music.  Unlike nearly everyone else recording at the same time, Ochs resisted the urge to incorporate psychedelia into his brand of music.  The single “Outside of a Small Circle of Friends” is as witty, sarcastic, and catchy as any protest song from the decade.  Every other track is absolutely perfect, it’s an album that manages to make you think, feel, and somehow never seems to be too preachy.  P.S. I do realize this album cover was so much smaller than the rest, I apologize.

8. The Kinks - Something Else by the Kinks

Ok, you may have scrolled ahead, but I’ll tell you now, Forever Changes didn’t make the list.  I had it right about here until I realized that I was missing one of my all time favorite Kinks albums.  Face to Face might be the first great Kinks album, but if you asked anyone what their favorite track might be they’d probably scratch their head and answer something like “all of them”.  Something Else is well, something else.  This was the album where Dave Davies shined and contributed three songs to the album including a rare single “Death of a Clown”.  However the strength of this album is the opener “David Watts” and more importantly the closing number “Waterloo Sunset”.  I’m not exaggerating when I say “Waterloo Sunset” is the best song Ray Davies ever wrote and easily the best Kinks song.  I may never really know what the hell a “Harry Rag” is but that doesn’t matter, this is vintage Kinks firing on all cylinders.

7. Jimi Hendrix - Axis:  Bold as Love

This album was released December 1st in the UK and didn’t see the light of day in the US until early 1968.  For this reason I can hear your proverbial eye roll as you tell me this isn’t a real “1967” album.  For that reason just substitute Are You Experienced?, and shut up.  Hendrix improved by leaps and bounds with each of his releases.  Are you Experienced had some great songs but was limited by the conservative thinking of manager/producer Chas Chandler who seemed determined to make every song concise and radio friendly.  The obvious exception was “Third Stone from the Sun”, which Hendrix seems to take as a jumping off point here with the bizarre opener “EXP”.  His playing was better here, and he largely abandoned the fuzz of his debut to focus on cleaner and more soulful leads.  I will still argue that “Bold as Love” and “Little Wing” are the two best songs Hendrix ever wrote and the fact that they’re both on this album easily puts it over it’s predecessor.

6. The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour

For reasons I haven’t really figured out, I never considered this a proper album.  It is something of an anomaly.  It’s part soundtrack, but perhaps more oddly it is the only Beatles album that was superior in it’s US form.  The US version contained the UK EP but threw in a separate side of the singles “Strawberry Fields Forever”, “Penny Lane” and “All You Need is Love”, and well why isn’t it an album?  Since it’s The Beatles I’m tempted to put it at the top of my list, especially when you examine just how phenomenal some of these tracks are.  However it lacks the cohesive “album” feel that Sgt. Peppers, Abbey Road, or The White Album had.  It might be nitpicking, but when you’re discussing the greatest band in rock you have to measure their work on a different grading scale. 

5. Aretha Franklin - I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)

It might seem sacrilege to some of you, but nearly every time I listen to this album I skip right past “Respect”.  It’s an iconic song for sure, one she took right from Otis Redding and forever made her own, but to me it’s like listening to “Satisfaction” from the Stones.  Luckily for Aretha and all of us, every other song on the album is better, yeah you heard me.  It’s so easy to see Aretha as this institution that has had praise heaped on her for decades based solely on reputation.  This album is really the reason why she is an institution.  Sure Lady Soul helped cement her legacy, but this really is the finest soul record that was ever recorded, at least by a female vocalist.  Every song is outstanding, and she really brings it home with her rendition of “A Change is Gonna Come” which I’d like to think is a tribute to the late Sam Cooke.

4. The Doors - The Doors

Chronologically speaking, this is the “oldest” album on this list.  The Doors found a way to make their own way in music without sounding like anyone else but also avoiding a lot of boring wankery that plagued a lot of the other bands that followed in their wake.  I’ve had many a drunk conversation with Doors fans over whether or not this is their best album, and for the record I most certainly think it is.  Anyone who isn’t a fan of “The End” I highly recommend getting some medical grade THC and watching Apocalypse Now.  As for the rest of the album, this is the band at their most focused, unique, and vital.  I could probably listen to “The Crystal Ship” on repeat for the rest of my days and be a happy man.  Even their obligatory blues cover “Back Door Man” is so endearingly made their own that you can’t help but be taken in by everything Morrison, Kreiger, Manzarek, and Densmore were laying down.

3. Bob Dylan - John Wesley Harding

I’m not entirely sure it’s out of place to say Bob Dylan pulled masterpieces out of his ass in the 60s.  Dylan seemed like one of those musical geniuses who seemed to grow bored of his own abilities.  He was without question the best folk singer and songwriter of his generation, and he dove head first into his own unique noisy brand of rock and roll.  Following a lengthy for the time hiatus, he came back near the end of 1967 with an album that seemed at first glance to be a return to his roots but on closer inspection was just the start of another chapter.  The noisy electric rock of Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde were replaced by acoustic guitars, simple melodies, and dense, enigmatic lyrics.  Dylan didn’t dive head first into country music but dipped his toe enough to encourage a legion of Dylan worshipers to follow his lead.  “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest” is one of his greatest never heard of songs.  The title track as well as “All Along the Watchtower” help give the album a loose concept feel that make it seem like a unified concept album.  This is Dylan at his most accessible, and a perfect introduction to anyone who was curious to know what the big fuss is with that Robert Zimmerman guy.

2. Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground and Nico

At this point in time the number one album on my list would seem a foregone conclusion.  You may also take a quick second to double check the list and proceed with rampant complaints about which masterpiece I left off.  That said this album shouldn’t come as any surprise to anyone out there.  Damn near any other year this would have easily topped my list, but well you know what’s above it.  Lyrically this album blazed more trails than we’ll ever fully comprehend.  Musically it is a wonderful balance.  Half the album seems to lull you into a comfortable daze, the rest seems like the fever dreams of someone detoxing.  It is truly singular in the history of rock as well as the Velvet Underground.  They never would record with Nico again, Lou Reed would shortly sever their relationship with Andy Warhol, and their next album was ear piercing noise fest of obnoxiousness passed off as brilliant art.  The band would never be this unified, this trailblazing, this melodic, and this vital again.  Countless critics have praised this album to the high heavens, so really what more can I add?

1. The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

If this is surprising, then you’re fired.  Before people inexplicably decided Revolver was the best Beatles album, Sgt. Peppers was THE album to end all albums.  The one that launched the concept album craze, prompted countless acts to think about the total picture.  Albums were no long a collection of songs or singles, but a unified whole.  Since we’re talking about The Beatles here, every song on this album is better than every song anyone else ever wrote, but by measuring it against the other songs in their catalog, “She’s Leaving Home”, “A Day in the Life”, and “Lovely Rita” are all time classics.  Ringo laid down perhaps his greatest drumbeat in the “Sgt. Peppers (reprise)” and happens to offer some of his best vocals in “With a Little Help From My Friends”.  This is the album The Beatles delivered after retiring from touring, and their first unified studio album (US and UK versions were the same) showed just what could happen if the greatest band in the world were given free reign to make the greatest album the world had yet seen.