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The Impossible List

This is probably the hardest thing to do…ever…as a music lover! It’s not the fact that the list ever evolves that much because of new albums taking their place…the newest album on my list was made some 20 years ago…it’s just that I feel gutted about some albums that I have had to leave out. I like meeting new people…if they have a love of music I like them even more…and if they have a similar music taste then we are well on the way to a great friendship…with this in mind though I always get asked two awkward questions…”How did you get my phone number?” and “What’s your favourite album?”.

The problem is…I don’t know…even to this day what my favourite album is!!! I couldn’t even do a top 3 or 5…but after much deliberation…and soul searching…I think I have it down to 10…although I’m still not sure. My main problem comes from the fact that until recently I have always been more of a singles man…or i’ve preferred odd songs from an album instead of the album as a whole….an example in my world would be Loveless by My Bloody Valentine…quite a few of my friends have this album on a pedestal for absolute greatness…and granted ‘Only Shallow’ and ‘Soon’ are two of my favourite songs but as an album it’s not up there for me. That’s where music and opinion are perfect…i’d be totally amazed if I ever met anyone that would…say…have the exact same top choices as me…they might agree with some of them but their own list would be different. Well…here I go…can’t turn back now…here is my Impossible List!!!

The Doors – The Doors (Jan 1967)

Phew….an easy start for anyone who knows me…The Doors…my favourite band. Amazingly the first song I ever heard by them and still one of my favourites to this day…’Peace Frog’…isn’t on this album…but what did make up their debut album was an array of songs that blew my inexperienced musical brain to bits. ‘Break On Through (To The Other Side)’ and ‘Light My Fire’ were the songs i’d heard before on best of 60’s compilations but it was songs like ‘Soul Kitchen’, ‘Backdoor Man’ and the apocolyptic finale ‘The End’ that had me hooked. For me ‘The End’ is the best song that has ever been made…originally written about breaking up with his girlfriend Mary Werbelow…went on to be a 12 minute plus live rolling shamanic barnstormer…Morrison described his meaning of the verse “My only friend, the end” as “…people fear death even more than pain. It’s strange that they fear death. Life hurts a lot more than death. At the point of death, the pain is over. Yeah – I guess it is a friend”. Add to these songs the beautiful ‘The Crystal Ship’ again a love song about his first love Mary Werbelow and how he is struggling to let her go…I love Morrison’s vocals in this gorgeous song. Without a bass player The Doors were built around Ray Manzarek’s swirling Vox Continental Combo Organ and hypnotic Fender Rhodes PianoBass that took the place of the bass and legendary frontman Jim Morrison…The Doors had a somewhat unique sound of blues, pop, folk and psychedelia all rolled into one. Jim Morrison was one of rock’s darker heroes…and I think that’s what drew me towards him.

As The Doors started to get mainstream success you could see that it started to bother him and so started to shake things up…he was dangerous…he could look dangerous…and more importantly through his music…he could sound dangerous…the man was a poet and a performer in way that I had not seen or heard before. This was the first album that i could truly listen to from start to finish without getting bored with…to this day I still enjoy listening to it more than any album I have ever listened to…will always be my go to album if I need an emotional blanket.

Velvet Underground & Nico – Velvet Underground & Nico (Mar 1967)

If I thought that Jim Morrison’s poetry was artsy then nothing could prepare me for this album. The Velvet Undedrground had a peculiar way of getting under your skin just due to their weirdness and Lou’s amazing multi-facedness…just as he finishes beating you up with another pulsating, robotic, stone-cold rocker, he suddenly turns around and woos you with a ballad that’s oh so beautiful you’re ready to cry…before leading you away into the world of some crazy sexual perversion and distorted ideals. The man was a mystery, and his band members were mysterious too…this left them with an aura which makes its music so enthralling and involving. Nico, a German actress, model, and non-singer was brought in on Warhol’s insistence to sing lead vocals on a few of these songs. Her voice was deep and had a thick German accent, but she sounded so chilling and so dark that she fit the haunting moods of these songs perfectly. The songs she sang on ‘Femme Fatale’, ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’ and ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ were the more interesting additions to the album for me…her voice along with the music had me floating off to another world…like an out-of-body experience from the safety of my bedroom..unlike anything i’d ever heard. The stand out track for me had to be ‘Venus In Furs’…musically the song provokes a sense of foreboding…an inevitable doom…and an eventual demise. The drums reverberate like a tribal funeral procession. The twinkle of bells are just slightly out of our reach..and John Cale’s creaking viola squirms like a ghostly incantation. Then you have Lou Reed’s blank tone throughout the track that’s undoubtedly the most disturbing element while he’s describing the explosive and perverse pleasure Severin derives from the lady in furs’ torture. This was the Velvet Underground at their most shockingly creative and somewhat creepy best.

Stone Roses -Stone Roses (May 1989)

This is probably the best collection of pop songs ever on one album…everytime I listen to album opener ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ I get that feeling that something huge is about to happen…that rumbling bass line…the atmospheric guitar riff……add to that the hypnotic way Ian Brown beckons and calls to you.…It’s a stunningly epic opener!!! I must admit the first time I heard this I thought that the album probably wouldn’t be able to keep up the same pace…i was happily mistaken. Songs like ‘She Bangs The Drums’, ‘(Song for my) Sugar Spun Sister’ and ‘Bye Bye Badman’ are all perfect melodious sing along pop songs that you could even catch your mum singing to…although in our house that wasn’t necessarily a good thing…sorry Mum! The stand out songs on here were ‘Waterfall’, ‘Made Of Stone’ and ‘I Am The Resurrection’. I can’t remember the number of times I spent the last 8 minutes of many a night at the Arena in the early 90’s dancing to ‘I Am The Resurrection’…when i say dancing…erm…i probably mean swaying…usually arm in arm with a group of new best mates for the evening in true indie anthemic stylee. It is ‘Waterfall’ though that has always been my ultimate favourite Roses song…it’s beautiful …it’s a true musical masterpiece just like John Squire’s pollock-esque album front cover labelled ‘Bye Bye Badman’. In a time when rave and dance albums were starting to dominate the charts this album mixed together psychedelic pop with dance grooves in an incredibly accessible and powerful way that appealed both to rock and rave fans…lovers of hooks and beats…punks and people who actually welcomed 10-minute guitar solos. In fact…I can probably count on one hand the amount of people who have either never heard of The Stone Roses or don’t like the album…that can’t be bad!

Pixies – Doolittle (Apr 1989)

This was something completely new…loud…shouty even…but very very exciting. Although this album had a more commercialised gloss on it following on from the rough and ready sound of Surfer Rosa…to me as a floppy haired baggy boy…it was like being repeatedly battered by the school bully…in a nice way! Charles Thomson or Charles Michael Kitteridge Thomson IV or Frank Black or Black Francis….ah man hold onto your ego!!!…had a unique style of soft/loud singing style that had be rarely heard of in music…a trait that Kurt Cobain would go on to use to his advantage along with a host of grunge bands in the early 90s. I was left thinking “how could a singer just shout and scream on a song…and make it sound so good?”. The album has poppy tendencies but without taking away the raw depravity of the earlier Pixies sound. Songs like ‘Here Comes Your Man’ and ‘La La Love You’ makes the violent outbursts of ‘Tame’ and ‘There Goes My Gun’ seem that much more riotous by contrast.

The Pixies were a pop act…a noisy…strange…and aggressive one…but a pop act nonetheless…and this album was and still is an amazing mind blowing piece of musical history. The pure upbeat elation of opener ‘Debaser’ grips you from start to finish…never mind that Frank Black is bleating about the violence of an ancient Luis Buñuel film!!! It was this psychotic gibberish mixed with surfer rock hooks that has kept me in love with this album and band for so long. Trying to pick a song from this album as a favourite is difficult for me…but one just slightly edges out ‘Debaser’ for me and that is ‘Monkey Gone To Heaven’ probably because it was the first song that I ever heard by them and loved it almost immediately. My older brother had come back from Uni after his first term and had brought Doolittle back with him…’Monkey Gone To Heaven’ just happened to be playing when I walked in and asked “who’s this???”…he just smiled and said “Pixies….good arn’t they!” I prefer Doolittle to most albums because it finds the right balance between weirdness, abrasiveness and perfect pop sensibilities. Listening to Frank Black screaming his lungs out never ever gets old….juxtaposed with Kim Deal…especially on songs like ‘I Bleed’ is just the one of the best things you could ever hope to hear.

The Wedding Present – George Best (Oct 1987)

The album that made me the Indie boy I am today!!! The Wedding Present had such an effect on me as I was growing up…well…David Gedge’s lyrics mostly…helped me through the back end of my school years…held my hand through college…and pushed me kicking and screaming to University. Always seen in musical circles as second rate to The Smiths apart from John Peel’s…who championed the Leeds-based band from his Radio One rafters….and I for one was in whole-hearted agreement…The Wedding Present will always be streets ahead of The Smiths…mainly because I couldn’t relate to Morrissey…he was so arrogant and up himself whilst David Gedge was like an older brother telling me how it really was. The lyrics were such a massive reflection of life that provided comfort to many a lonely, unlucky in love listener…like myself at the time…”It’s such a beautiful evening/ would you like to go out?/ Oh pardon me for breathing”…it was like I was looking into a mirror. From the opening song on the album I felt like I was sat listening to that shy image of myself in song form talking to women that just didn’t give a monkies. That song was ‘Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft’…the opening lyrics “Oh why do you…catch my eye then turn away?…I thought we’d said…all the things we had to say”…draw you into a wonderful story full of sadness, wit and has catchy thrashing but not overpowering guitars….bonus. The next song to hit home is the hopeless romantic beauty that is ‘A Million Miles’…about that feeling you have when you are in love…not the “i think i’m in love“…the “can’t think because i’m in love“!!! With lines like “I can’t think of anything else /no matter how I try/ But you know, I can’t even remember the colour of her eyes/ And that’s why” David Gedge just made everything sound so real. My favourite quote by anyone describing the Weddoes has to be from that man John Peel…“The boy Gedge has written some of the best love songs of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Era. You may dispute this, but I’m right and you’re wrong!” The two real stars on this album though were ‘Give My Love To Kevin’ and ‘My Favourite Dress’…the latter is still my favourite Weddoes song…not by miles…but my favourite nonetheless as it contains Gedge’s philosophy in a nutshell…“Jealousy is an essential part of love/ the hurting here below and the emptiness above, oh”…What’s the line?…“it’s better to have lost in love than never to have loved at all?”…try telling that to David Gedge..here was a man who had seemingly lost in love and was being somewhat less than philosophical about it…I’ve needed this album…and this band so much…and although dare I say ‘Seamonsters’ is maybe a more perfectly finished album…George Best will always mean so much more for the emotion and memory that is entrapped within it’s sleeve.

The Charlatans – Between 10th & 11th (Mar 1992)

Some people maybe scratching their heads over this one…as maybe many a Charlatan loving fan might…with The Charlatans self-titled album having the majority of their barnstroming chart successes…closely followed by Telling Stories featuring indie nightclub floorfiller ‘One To Another’ and ‘North Country Boy’…but no..as albums go…Between 10th and 11th is more of a perfect from start to finish album. If Some Friendly was the younger baggier happy go lucky boy…then Between 10th and 11th was the moodier older brother.Too many bands out there strive to change from the album before and not be ‘boring’…longing for bands to challenge themselves..but I don’t think there’s any shame in figuring out what you’re good at and delivering that consistently…which is what I think The Charlatans did here…they built on Some Friendly’s strengths and avoided it’s weaknesses. The first single that I heard was ‘Weirdo’ which introduced itself with a crazed and somewhat haunting organ riff that was just amazing…with its electronic rhythm and guitarist Mark Collins’ snarling solo it was more direct…heavier…and darker than anything the band had done before. This was The Charlatans first album with Mark Collins who added a more rougher…bluesy sound than the outgoing guitarist Jon Baker who’s clean and careful sound did go along way to shaping their first album and set them on their way. ‘Ignition’ alternates sing along verses with an uplifting chorus…the brilliant, soaring ‘Page One’ is Between 10th and 11th‘s pop zenith, while the beautiful melancholy that is ‘Can’t Even Be Bothered’ drifts along peacefully until it’s crescendo of a chorus “I can’t even be bothered/ energy breaks me down”. ‘Tremelo Song’ was another single release and provided a glimpse of the types of clubs that the band were getting some of their inspiration from with the Orbital-like housey piano running through the entire song…complete with a Happy Mondays ‘Rave On’ type bassline on the chorus. The experimental ‘Subtitle’ with it’s nonsensical lyrics and orchestral ambience to the catchy guitar swagger of ‘Chewing Gum Weekend’ the album just works so well for me. It finishes with the soft, bouncy and quite hypnotic ‘(No One) Not Even the Rain’ and it’s a 43 minute 41 second journey that I don’t mind taking on a regular basis.

Ride- Going Blank Again (Released March 1992)

I don’t think that there is a better opening track to an album than “Leave Them All Behind”! I’d go on to say that I find it hard to find many better songs than this too….rumour has it that Alan McGee (Creation Records) went absolutely nuts when he first heard it, leaping out of his seat and jumping around like a demented gibbon. I loved Nowhere and many of their B-sides accompanying Ride’s debut album…but Going Blank Again just pips Between 10th and 11th for best 2nd album glory. People who were expecting Ride to throw out a darker version of Nowhere for their 2nd release were in for a shock…instead they produced something that was a bit ahead of it’s time…so much so that it can hold it’s head up high even today.

I was lucky enough to see them on their first tour of their new album and it was absolutely amazing…still one of the best gigs I have been to. Back to the album though and quite amazing 8m 17s that was ‘Leave Them All Behind’ that opened the album with a statement of intent…the hammond organ likened to The Who’s ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ pulsing in and out with the epic landslide of noise…it was like the band had lit the torch paper to something very special. If the opener was a legendary song full of polished noise then their second couldn’t have been more of a contrast. ‘Twisterella’ was a brilliant shiny guitar pop song in a similar vein to their earlier classic ‘Chelsea Girl’. ‘Not Fazed’, ‘Chrome Waves’ and ‘Time Of Her Time’…the latter is the closest that Ride come to giving us anything like Nowhere’s reverb…leant more on the bands’ inspiration from 60s pop bands than My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus and Mary Chain. This will always be a well listened to album in my house…not only because of the music but also because 1992 was a time when I opened myself up properly to music…I was at gigs nearly every week…as it seemed like every week a new “next big thing” was being released. Unfortunatly for Ride in a commercial sense Nirvana released Nevermind a few weeks later and the clamor for grunge started which was quickly followed by the explosion that was Britpop…man…I hate that word…nearly as much as some of the poor bands that were thrown together into the mixing pot of some…great artists…some mediocre…and some I think only got a record deal because they had a floppy fringe and could sing with an accent!!! Ride the band…although sounding and looking amazing…were not as media friendly as bands like Blur and Suede…with singles that were 8m long that most radio shows wouldn’t give them much air time…although…only the cool radio shows play them these days…isn’t that right @musicnostalgic?

Beck – Odelay (Jun 1996)

Usually when someone who has cornered a market so much disappears or in Kurt Cobain’s case kills himself/is murdered? It leaves a gap…out of this gap came a folk lovin’ hipster with a monotone drone that threw hip-hop beats together with demo tape melodies to create a musical masterpiece in Odelay. I was hooked on the surf bum riffs of ‘Loser’ from seeing the video on the chart show and his sketchy performance on ToTP with some old fella on a sitar a couple of years earlier..and I remember looking forward to this being released after hearing ‘Where It’s At!’ on the radio. What I find so good about this album is that Beck mixes a crazy amount of genres into it with the end result being a flowing and coherent work of musical art. From Jazz, Pop, Funk, Hip-Hop, Country, Rock, Industrial, Experimental and pure Noise he threw it together in one amazing package…there isn’t a song on the album that feels out of place. The album kicks off with the sublime and funny ‘Devils Haircut’ and then kicks off even more with the insanity of ‘Hotwax’ that is rich with ideas and a refined sense of imagery “Silver foxes looking for romance / In their chainsmoke Kansas flashdance ass pants” before settling down with the lazy and comfortable ‘Lord Only Knows’. In a time of quirky and hysterical videos…the singles ‘Where It’s At’ and ‘The New Pollution’ helped Beck cultivate a persona of a superfly nerd capable of somehow making himself look ridiculous…but also like the potential coolest white boy on the planet. The countryfied hip-hop beat and comical lyrics of ‘Sissyneck’ and the quite beautiful ‘Ramshackle’ make this album something special…probably for being different to anything else I had been listening to up to that point.

Joy Division – Substance (June 1988)

I just don’t get it when people say “I don’t like Joy Division…they are too depressing”…admittingly Closer is…and with good reason with the state of Ian Cutis’s mindstate at the time…but for me their songs before closer were inspirational…uplifting and in parts absolute genius. Most…if not all of these parts I mention are found in one place on Substance. This was a singles compilation album but flowed just as easily as a complete album should….and because every song was a single…every song was a classic Joy Division. This was the introduction to Joy Division that I had at my disposal…on tape..my dad told me to go away and listen to it…probably when he was watching Saturday Grandstand with some Rugby on the telly. If someone had never heard of Joy Division this is the introduction that I would have them listen to. From the very start with ‘Warsaw’ the aggressive punk opener snarls around getting in your face before ‘Digital’ grabs hold with it’s repetitive lyrics…striding drum beats and the unique bass lines…”Feel it closing in/ Feel it closing in/ Day in day out/ Day in day out”. It isn’t long before the bands’ core strength is realised between Peter Hook’s dominant bass sound…Stephen Morris’s metronome drum beats…Bernard Sumner’s clashing guitars and Ian Cutis’s sometimes cold…sometimes other worldly vocal delivery. Absolute classics on this album have to be ‘Transmission’, ‘She’s Lost Control’, ‘These Days’ and the truly amazing ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. Sumner and Hook restrict themselves to repeating their own variations of the main melody riff on keyboard and bass, respectively, while Ian Curtis delivers half-hearted stabs of guitar throughout. Add to that Morris’ ever-frenetic drum rhythms, the band sounds as if it has succumbed to solemnly accepting its fated demise…and it’s this quality that adds to their cult status on these songs. This song alone was released in 1980 when I was only 5 years old so never got to see them play live…I was very lucky indeed though to see Peter Hook and The Light at last years Shiiine On Weekender in Minehead where he played a selection of Joy Division songs and he was outstanding. It just showed me how emotive music can be…I felt myself welling up just being apart of the crowd…people around me were dancing with tears pouring down their cheeks…it was a massive collection of dancing grief…and of extreme happiness to be actually hearing music live that you probably thought you would never ever hear.

New Fast Automatic Daffodils – Pigeonhole (Nov 1990)

This was another of the bands that my brother brought back from University with him…on one side of a TDK 90…was Pigeonhole with the band name squashed into the top line or two of the cover. The New Fast Automatic Daffodils or New Fads for short were a kind of dancier Joy Division that had similar indie dancefloor rhythms that the Happy Mondays were experimenting with on Bummed. They were a little bit different though…they used repetitive artsy vocals alongside a groovier Peter Hook-like bass and loads of percussion. Songs like ‘Part 4’ float along with soporific ease that even The Orb took advantage of at a later date. The singles ‘Fishes Eyes’ and ‘Get Better’ were both different to the album versions which was a bit of a norm at the time…but were still excellent tracks…especially ‘Fishes Eyes’…with its talk of devils and…yes…you’ve guessed it…fish eyes! You can hear the bands musical inspirations in the heavily Gang of Four ladened ‘You Were Lying When You Said You Loved Me’ and the more funked up groovy ‘Penguins’ is likened to The Wedding Present. I have only recently got into Gang of Four thanks to a very special person…what an album Entertainment is by the way!!!… but as soon as I heard their album I could hear so much that had influenced the New Fads. The standout song on this album is their 3rd single off it…Big. The song isn’t one that is packed to the rafters with lyrics..to be honest it sounds more like the band sorted the music out and Andy Spearpoint jammed his vocal over it…but I love it..”The desert grows three miles a year…it just grows…and it just grows…I put my pain in a jar and it will be full tomorrow” add on to this it’s atmospheric melody…throbbing bass and multi-layered bongo percussion from Icarus Wilson-Wright it became their most loved song…by people who had heard of them. Bands that they have gone on to inspire themselves without getting any media thanks for it are bands like LCD Soundsystem and The Rapture…but that’s by the by…Pigeonhole still remains an album that if I put on from the start…will keep me enthralled and interested until it is finished.

Albums I left out!!!!

The main albums that just missed probably only missed out because the 10 I chose meant a bit more emotionally to me. The following albums were close…but as the saying goes..”slowly, slowly, catchy monkey”…no that’s not right…”close but no cigar”!!

The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

The Beta Band – 3 EPs

Inspiral Carpets – Life

Happy Mondays – Bummed

PJ Harvey – Dry

Gomez – Bring It On

As always…thanks for reading.


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