1001 Albums part 3

Before resuming my 1001 albums series, I’d like to add a few rules to all my subsequent posts. I said earlier that I pick albums by a random generator. I will still do that, but if the random generator points me to an album by an artist who also has an earlier uncommented-on album in the list, then I’d listen to and write about the earlier album (e.g. if it points to The Beatles “Revolver”, then I’d have to start with “With the Beatles…”). It’s just so much easier to talk about musicians’ discography in chronological order. Musicians excepted from this rule are Radiohead, Pavement, and Steely Dan, since I’ve already written about their later albums.

Furthermore, because life just likes to throw all kinds of burden to me, I wouldn’t be able to write about 4 or 5 albums weekly, so I’ll just write any number of selections at my own pace.

8. The Mama’s and the Papa’s - If You Can Believe Your Eyes & Ears

Are you kidding me?! Ugh. Sounds like some of The Beatles’ earlier songs, except kitschier. Music for barbershops. Next!

9. Radiohead – The Bends

Music for college dorms.

But in all seriousness this is one of the better Radiohead albums. The Bends is the one in which their songs are most easily remembered without sounding dumbed-down. It’s not as experimental as OK Computer, but see, I don’t consider that as a bad thing especially after being bombarded by three Radiohead albums this entire month. For whatever cockeyed logic, the random generator I’m using always leads me to Radiohead albums, and I may have grown weary of them right now. I’m still miffed by the boring Amnesiac (the previous one I heard), but yeah, The Bends is pretty good.

10. The Clash – The Clash

Now this is more like it. The Clash album that I heard was the UK edition; the US edition replaced some of the UK’s songs, and then altered the order of those retained. I haven’t read 1001 albums… write-up on The Clash, so I’ve yet to verify if this is the album it referred to. Changes will be made if I find out that it isn’t.

With all those pointless info out of the way, I have to say that this album rocks quite hard. The songs epitomize the punk: standing up to the system that treats people as insignificant nobodies. Joe Strummer, who sounds like a guy singing after shouting at a megaphone the whole day, may have a raspy voice of a very limited range, but it fits the riotous spirit of the album perfectly. It gets somewhat repetitive towards the end, though, so here’s hoping London Calling does better than this.