10. The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses
(Silvertone 1989, John Leckie)
The eighties had been one of the most incredible decades for British pop music, manchester had turned into the world centre for great singles. The Smiths seemed to release a new best record ever, every other week for seven years straight, but then they began to break up and Morrissey went solo, so suddenly Manchester wasn't looking so hot. However out of seemingly nowhere The Stone Roses arrived fully formed with one of the most remarkable, and joyous debut albums in music history. Considered by many to be the greatest British album of all time, I think that's a bit of a stretch, but I'd certainly have it in my top five Greatest British pop records of all time. While I'm most certainly not a fan of Ian Brown, and have never really been that into the Roses, to deny the power of their polished and powerful pop music would be infantile. The Stone Roses is a charming album, that begs to be loved, quite literally, the opening track and signature track I Wanna Be Adored bares it's soul to the world. This would be the template for the Roses success, big honest pop songs, that everyone from Aberdeen to Brighton could relate to, this was music for the people at it's finest.
It's perhaps fitting that five years later two brothers from Manchester owning a huge debt to Stone Roses would once again reinvent, honest, relateable, excapist pop music for the mases. Unfortunately they weren't half as interesting or half as creative as the Roses. What makes the Roses really special is how tight the band is, particularly the rhythm section. Alot is made of John Squire and his deftly layered guitar but the driving force behind the band was always Mani's bass lines and Reni subte drum work. The Stone Roses records always had the best grooves, unfortunately, fellow Manchester wanksters The Happy Mondays would butcher this approach and create the regretable "madchester" era, no wonder Morrissey left the country. Alot is made of the artistic merits of the album closers This Is The One and I Am The Resurrection but I always feel that people that harp on about these tracks are missing the point. I Am The Ressurrection maybe the epic, but when it comes to the Roses it's all about irresistable pop gems, just whack on Made Of Stone and drift away.
9. Purple Rain - Prince
(Warner Bros. 1984, Prince And The Revolution)
Now I originally had the ridiculously sublime Purple Rain slated for a top four finish, but I thought hard about it and I had to take it down a few notches. Now this may seem a little harsh because this album is complete and utter balls to the wall insane genius from the first moment but it has one detracting factor: It's soooo eighties, it's too eighties. Prince is an absolute transcending genius and he is arguably the eighties greatest superstar and certainly its most unique, but there is something about his music that sounds dated in 2009. Now don't get me wrong a Prince record never sounds bad, and Purple Rain never feels anything less than crazy, sexy, beautiful but it is distinctly defined within in its era and for that reason it finds itself in nineth and not fourth.
Anyway enough banter lets get down to the music, and as I hope you should know this album absolutely rocks. Prince obviously got bored just being a pop and R'n'B god and decided it was time to get the guitar out and on Let's Go Crazy he absolutely blows the roof of the record with his end solo. It's the perfect album opener, over the top of some strained synths, Prince raves like a crazy preacher/door to door sales men and he promises us the "after world" and he duly takes us there. This is pure escapism, life is tough, life is drab, so fuck it lets go crazy. That after all is what Purple Rain and Prince down is all about. It's immediately followed by two ludicriously perfect ballads in the form of Take Me With U and the ridiculous The Beautiful Ones, this is music to make women go weak at the knees. It's amazing that even at his most smultzy, even while wearing a purple jacket, tight trousers and a blouse, Prince effortless maintains his cool, the way he drops in subtle lines "If we get married....would that be cool?".
How could I conclude this little retrospective on Purple Rain without mention those two tracks. Come on you know the ones, and if you don't, you best head to youtube and itunes right now. Yes it's those two monsterous world conquering tracks. First the perfect slice of georgeous sexy odd pop When Doves Cry. A killer key board hook, and a quirky rhythmic arrangement, sets the base while Prince goes to town with his best lyrical performance;
"How could you just leave me standing,
Alone in a world so cold,
Maybe I'm just too demanding, maybe I'm just like my father too bold,
Maybe your just like my mother,
She's never satisfied,
Why do we scream at each other,
this is what it's like when Doves Cry".
And as if I needed to tell you the other track that you need to own, and I simply couldn't omit is the title track, Purple Rain itself. A track so overblown, so pompous, so ridiculous it couldn't help but be one of the greatest most emotive tracks of all time. It will always be one of the greatest visuals I've ever seen when at the superbowl Prince made it litterly made it rain purple rain. Okay so this is a hell of a long entry for our number nine album, but by all rights this album should be in the top three. It will always be hard for some to drop their preconceptions about Prince and about pop music in general but this is one of the those glorious sequined delights that at one time or another everyone should enjoy.
8. It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back - Public Enemy
(Def Jam 1988, The Bomb Squad)
So the award for the greatest album title of all time goes to...okay well that might be a bit too bold a statement, but when it comes to a statement of intent they don't come bigger than It Takes A Nation Of Billions To Hold Us Back. This was a group of angry young men, scratching the shit out of their records, while one of the greatest MCs of all time laid down some sick rhymes while one of hip hops great enigmas jumped around stage and erh...shoued "yeah boys". Well maybe Flavour Flav wasn't so great but Chuck D was a bonified legend. A man filled to brim with visercal social outrage and a message to spread. It's testiment to their genius that the insane bounce of along fun of the scychofrenic Bring The Noize could be so fun and yet carry such a high level of outrage and bile. Chuck D was bringing the race war to the people, he was uniting his brothers and sisters and bringing his brand of authentic hip hop to the mainstream. He was slamming everyone from "Radio stations I question there blackness, they call themselves Black we'll see if they play this" to the more familar targets of the heavy handed police force. Best of all he draws out the inequality in perception between Rock and Rap stars, Chuck was fed up of rappers having to commercialize their sound to be accepted and he was prepared to let everyone know "Roll with Rock Stars, we still never get accepted as".
This was rap that had a message, had a cause and best of all had some attitude. This is rap that was heavy, heavier than the heaviest metal. Listening today to Jay Z's Death On Auto-Tune and his calls for a rap revolution for "niggas" to stop singing cause their "T-Paining too much". This is exactly what he's talking about, when he tells "niggas to get violent" this is what he means, he wants raw primal aggresion, people who are making music for a reason not just to make bland interchangible hits. She Watch Channel Zero? is the albums clear highlight, as Chuck D and Flav rave over a monsterous Kerry King riff, and they are exploding with energy especially Flavour who delivers his best performance as he gloats about having a black quarter black in the superbowl. Before he slams bland consumerist culture as he decries those who sit at home watching garbage, as TV presents its image of "perfect women", and he demands you "go read a book or something". It's utterly thrilling and just as essential today as it was all those years ago. As celebrity culture, and women's magazines have us drifting away into a cultural abyss a track like She Watch Channel Zero? could not be more releveant. It Takes A Nation... is quite simply the most important hip hop record of all time.
7. Closer - Joy Division(Factory 1980, Martin Hannett)
It's a pretty bold statement but I'm gonna say it, Closer is Joy Division masterpeice. Now I'm sure there's a lot of people wearing unknown pleasures t-shirts whose face will be boiling over with anger upon reading those words, but it's true. Is it the better album? That's debateable, but this is Joy Division Magnum Opus, this is the real Joy Division, at their dark and brooding best. This was the final endnote to one of the most astonsishingly tragic stories in music history. The album is gloomy, sombre and sparse, yet it's fragile and beautiful and best of all it's highly danceable. Every once in a while you can tell everything you need to know about an album from it's opener, and this is certainly the case on Closer. The album opens with the staggering Atrocity Exhibition it's starts with a gorgeous rumbling drum line that hooks you instantly, before the guitars scratch away like unholy axe grinders against your cranium, until finally the solumn and soulful voice of Ian Curtis takes hold you and carries you through the sea of music abbrasiveness. It's a amazing arrangement, and as abbrasive as they come, Curtis warns you this record will be torture "For entertainment they watch his body twist, behind his eye's he says I still exist" before Curtis like some ghostly gatekeeper beckons you in "This is the way, step inside". It's a staggering opening gambit, come inside if you dare.
For those bold enough to step beyond the six minute opening slab of gloom rock, endless pleasure await. While no one will ever be putting Joy Division top of a technical musician's poll, the arrangements on Closer are staggering and challenging. Passover chugs like a car that can't quite click into gear, while Curtis croons georgeously and before an unsettling but beautiful guitar line kicks in. Every track has an intriguing flourish. The John Carpenter's sub sonic squelch of Hooky's creeping bassline on Colony, the killer keys on Isolation, or the suicidal Blondie guitar hook of Twenty Four Hours. The latter is a staggering track that kicks like a mule while Curtis voice booms as though he'd suddenly been turned up to eleven. Means To An End sticks out like sore thumb with it's death disco bublby baseline, it's positively thriling. However the albums ultimate highlight is The Eternal which sees Joy Division at their gloomiest, their scariest and their most beautiful, it's a huanting emotive epic and stands along side Atomsphere as a beautiful epic that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Sad, heartbreaking, frequently beautiful and occasionally fun, Closer is quite simply one of the greatest works ever created.
6. Remain In Light - Talking Heads
(Sire 1980, Brian Eno)
For some bizarre reason the Talking Heads seem to fly under the radar, they have fame and critical credibility, but there one of those bands that young people just don't listen to. It's strange as their so creative and influencial and their spirit of independence and creative that fits right in line with modern indie rock stars like Bloc Party, Passion Pit and Friendly Fires. So if we're to start our rock re-education it has to begin with the mind blowing Remain In Light. Listening back to it today your struck by just how different the Talking Heads were. There sound is so varied and distinct, they could fit effortless into any decade or scene, and in David Byrne they have one of the most unique and brilliant front men in rock and roll history. Remain In Light is an album that grabs your attentions suddenly, as David Byrne screams and coos to start the album before dropping into a frantic nerdy version of Nick Cave as he demands that you "Take A Look At These Hands". It's a captivating and different start, it's frantic and primal but its sung over a cleverly layered jaunty, rhymtic arrangement. The track Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) burbles, and squelches, it reaches out but it never loses the core groove, and from a mad rant, Bryne cools and it the track reduces to a hypnotic chant as "the beat goes on". It's an amazing how contemporary this track feels, and it's one of the most intriguing album openers I've ever heard.
Remain In Light will forever be remembered as the record that brought us the devine Once In A Life Time with it's aquatic feel, goregously lyricism and THAT video. Yes the sheer on screen presences of David Byrne has him competing with world renouned movie directors in best video polls. Remain In Light can best be described as a controlled frenzy, every second of the album, buzzes, skips and squeeks, it feels like a band just barely in control of their instruments, they feel like they could slip out of rhythem at any time, but instead they hold together to forge these glorious grooves. And it is the grooves that make this album great, while Bryne is throwing out superb lyrical jabs, and he warps your mind on Once In A Life Time, this is a record that demands you dance. It's about beautiful women and georgeous beats. Fast forward thirties years and NME would be proclaiming regular old indie bands genius for attempting such a fete. But back in 1980, Remain In Light captured the zietgiest, Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, Justice and dare I say even Radiohead, would go back to this record and mine it's bottomless delights. Remain In Light is one of the most important records of all time, and it's about time people started to treat the Talking Heads with the respect they deserve.
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