Phil Fox Rose

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August 07, 2003

My Fifteen Favorite Albums Ever

I’ve always refused to play this game because, after all, I typically have a few dozen different artists in rotation in my playlist at any one time and love stuff in virtually every genre. Top 100 maybe, but Top 10? Impossible. But I’ve recently come to the conclusion that much of my resistance is a form of phony elitism, as in “My tastes are too complex to reduce them to such a list.” I also know that I listen to some stuff because it’s “interesting” without actually enjoying it that much. So to defy those tendencies in myself, I set about constructing my Favorite Albums Ever list,¹ based on what I love and what I think is awesome, issues of intellectual merit and genre balance be damned. (Notice I didn’t say “best” albums; I said “favorite”. I will acknowledge at least that much post-modern insistence on the relativeness of taste.) In order to impose a little Sound Scan-style discipline on myself,² I looked at my play counts in iTunes to see what I actually listen to the most. Note these are not in order; that would definitely be going too far. So, here then, are my fifteen favorite records ever (as I see it right now, which will probably have changed by the time you read this):

• Sticky Fingers – the Stones – In their own ways, I like Exile on Main Street and (the relatively unpopular) Goat's Head Soup as much, and every Stones album has a couple of indispensable tracks, but for me Sticky Fingers is the cornerstone. It was the Stones album played at every party when I was a teenager, it had that naughty naughty zipper cover (which crotch I recently learned belongs to Warhol Factory member Corey Grant Tippin – thanks for the info, Bust.) It’s got the perfect fusion of blues, country, rock and sexy swagger that the Stones achieve at their best. There are so many amazing timeless tracks: Brown Sugar, Wild Horses, Can't You Hear Me Knocking, Bitch, Sister Morphine, Dead Flowers. (Of course you could get Hot Rocks 1964-1971 or Singles Collection: The London Years, greatest hits collection that focus on earlier classics and end around the time of Sticky Fingers, each including Brown Sugar and Wild Horses. But I’m not including greatest hits albums in this list; it’s a different experience, just hearing hit single after hit single. How can you just hear those two tracks again and again, and never hear the others like Sister Morphine and Bitch?)
• The Globe Sessions – Sheryl Crow – A masterwork of laid-back jams, beautiful, real and powerful. Like her first album, The Globe Sessions is named after the loose sessions that led up to it, a sign of where her values are. But this album takes it to a whole nother level. By far the best modern roots rock album, and without feeling derivative the way the wonderful Black Crowes often did. Each song is a jewel in its own way and they are fitted together very deliberately to create an amazing hour of music. There are a few hits on this album, but it is Crow’s least single-oriented album. That said, Anything But Down is her best song, and perhaps the best single of the 90s.
• Achtung Baby – U2 – For a few years there, U2 were interested in making the best and most interesting music they possibly could. Before and after that, they were and are trying to be the “Biggest Band in the World”. Most of U2’s catalog fails to move me, some I can’t stand listening to. But Achtung Baby and Zooropa are among my fave albums ever. I guess my like-meter for U2 material has a direct correlation to how much they are not trying to be popular. Also, in this middle period their guide into new sounds was none other than Brian Eno, whose influence is audible in the production, the sounds he adds and his influence on the members.
• Mezzanine – Massive Attack – The definitive album of trip hop. There are several distinct versions of the trip hop sound and Massive’s work is in the dub-based vein. It doesn’t have the pop accessibility of some, or the lo-fi aesthetic of DJ culture. (Mezzanine is a production masterwork.) The unlikely pairing of English alternative folk and electronic music made beautiful music in the 90s, though it never caught on in the States. Mezzanine is the greatest expression of this genre. Massive dates back to the 80s as a collective linked to Soul II Soul that also spawned — besides Tricky — Portishead, Smith & Mighty, and producers who crafted many of the other definitive electronic records (like Sneaker Pimps’ Becoming X and the mid-90s work by Madonna and Bjork). It’s hard to say whether trip hop would have happened without them. But their own records are uneven, probably reflecting the internal tensions and committee-style decision making. This one record, Mezzanine, finds them at the peak of their game, and teams them with one of the best of all British alt-folk singers, the Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Frazier. The result is a chillingly beautiful masterwork.
• For Your Pleasure – Roxy Music – the second, and best, Roxy album, and the last before Eno left the group. For me, this choice is the most rooted in personal nostalgia. While I do think it stands worthy in a top 10 list, its presence here is admittedly partly because Roxy Music was pivotal for me, and this album more than any other. As an early teen, I was blindsided by this lush, complex, and defiantly sexy sound. Half from Brian Ferry’s James Bondish presence, half from the experimental rock backing him, I was changed. I would lay in my room at night with headphones on listening to Roxy Music for hours. In Every Dreamhome A Heartache is simultaneously beautiful, silly, sexy, absurd, epic. It just dares you to not smile, and swoon. From there, I moved on to Bowie, the Velvet Underground and the rest of the glam and art rock worlds, and eventually Rocky Horror and punk. Speaking of Eno, he obviously figures heavily in my preferences, since he’s also behind the U2 entry, and I hate to not include his own Here Come the Warm Jets, which he put out soon after leaving Roxy Music and which is an awesome record, but truth be told it’s a challenge to listen to all the way through. I do on occasion, but more often I listen to several of its more lush tracks.
• Amnesiac / Kid A – Radiohead – first, in defense of combining the two albums: they are part of the same recording sessions. The Amnesiac material simply had a somewhat different tone and didn’t fit on the first album. I happen to have a less popular preference for the second release, Amnesiac, and would choose it if I could only pick one. Kid A was a wonderful shock for the many Radiohead fans and college radio listeners who had never heard ambient music before. But I trace my ambient music listening back to the 70s, so for me it was not a watershed event. Also, many of the trademark ambient sounds on Kid A were, if anything, perhaps a little too close to contemporary work by the likes of Aphex Twin, Autechre and Future Sound of London, which I was very familiar with. Nonetheless, these two albums are the best of 90s ambient because Radiohead brought a masterful level of songwriting to an often incoherent genre. Technically, Radiohead doesn’t do pure ambient, but combines it with drone-like strumming guitar soundscapes and structures it into songs. The result is a lot more listenable than most of the genre.
• Fumbling Towards Ecstasy – Sarah McLachlan – This album is so emotionally powerful and exquisite that I find it hard to listen to. If I’m feeling depressed and alone in the world, and want to wallow, not distract myself, this is the first choice. The combination of McLachlan’s beautiful emotive voice and clever songwriting with lush arrangements makes this album timeless and able to withstand unlimited listenings. And that’s beside the fact that it helped propel the female alt-folk scene into the mainstream.
• Gladiator soundtrack – Lisa Gerrard and Hans Zimmer – As much as I adore all the work of former Dead Can Dance cofounder Lisa Gerrard – I think she’s one of the best talents in music today – much of it is quite dark and ominous, great for the right mood, but not too often. In this album, though, her collaborator, the veteran film composer Hans Zimmer, fills the role previously manned not very well by Dead Can Dance partner Brendan Perry. That is, he adds melody and lightness and some coherence. While Perry drew from corny 70s Greg Lake-like prog rock, Zimmer brings more classical tones into the mix. Except for the “pop” closer duet with Enya, the entire work is without lyrics, instead just Gerrard’s lyric-less chanting. I would have liked more of her singing, but the result is timeless. But the point here is not what was wrong with Dead Can Dance, it’s what’s right with this album. A beautiful flowing magnificent work that takes you through a range of emotions and styles, with strong recurring themes, like any great film soundtrack – or for that matter classical work – it mixes Gerrard’s ominous chilling sounds and themes with Zimmer’s grandeur, taking you through tensions, then closures. Immensely satisfying.
• Portishead – Portishead – The second album by the “other” signature band of trip hop. (And the two bands are actually closely related: Portishead founder Geoff Barrow was an early Massive Attack collaborator.) Portishead’s first album, Dummy, helped define trip hop, adding sexy tragic singing that’s more reminiscent of cabaret than rock, and space-age retro sounds like theramin and early synths, to the beats and DJ mixing that had identified the genre, and slowing the beats down even more. But this second album, which came out three years later, is a more mature, better crafted, and actually much more bleak album. This is one of the most depressing records ever made, but done so beautifully that you are enraptured. (Have you noticed I like sad music?) Some music snobs complain about the poor sound quality of Portishead records, but that’s worse than silly. Lo-fi is part of the ethos. Barrow goes for a sound, not perfection. The result is electronic music that is entirely real and accessible.
• Rock and Roll Animal – Lou Reed – This live album should be credited more to the band behind Lou Reed. It stands as one of the most influential guitar albums in rock. The mixture of raw artistry and clever jamming makes it just as fresh on the thousandth listen. And it beautifully captures the sleazy decadence of glam better than any other record.
• Magnolia soundtrack – Aimee Mann – While technically a soundtrack, this is really an Aimee Mann record – ten of the thirteen tracks are hers – and it is her best. The former ‘Til Tuesday lead singer can be a tad cute sometimes, but this record contains four of the best songs ever written – Driving Sideways, You Do, Wise Up and Save Me – songs director Paul Thomas Anderson built the movie around. Their exquisite tragicness is moving and beautiful. I find it hard to listen to You Do or Wise Up without getting choked up. Every time. But I keep doing it.
• World Without Tears – Lucinda Williams – I immediately wanted to include this album, but thought long and hard about picking an older Williams album instead. Top x lists usually have one or two items that at the moment seemed important, but turn out to have been passing fancies. The bottom line is that a Lucinda Williams record would be on this list either way. I happen to think this new record is her best ever – recovering all the gritty power of her early work without losing the refinement she’d been leaning towards lately. Critics have said similar things. I can’t see why the passage of time would change that. But just in case, let me clear that any Lucinda Williams record will do fine. If you don’t know Williams’ sound, think roots rock like Sheryl Crow but leaning heavily to the country side of that genre’s country-blues mix. If you don’t like a twang, or if you don’t like a voice that breaks down beautifully from time to time, then this may not be your cup of tea. But if you do, no one does it better than Lucinda Williams.
• Dilate – Ani Difranco – My favorite Ani songs are scattered across all her albums, so it was tough to pick one, but if forced I’d have to pick Dilate, not for having the most faves but the best total effect. In fact it contains neither of my absolute favorites, Not A Pretty Girl or Little Plastic Castles. But this is Difranco at her aggressive folk best, lacking the later jazz and world music influences. Superhero and Napoleon stand out, but all the tracks are clever and moving.
• Don’t Ask Don’t Tell – Come – Imagine Neil Young’s electric guitar with far more complexity and precision combined with a female Bob Dylan. Just take my word for it: Thalia Zedek is awesome. All her work, under her own name and with Come is great, but this 1994 effort still stands as the best album.
• Willing To Wait – Melissa Ferrick – The best of the early 90s alt-singer/songwriters, Ferrick is still going strong, with a whole new and energetic following thanks to her coming out. But I still love this album best. Aggressive, cleanly produced, with the focus squarely on her intricate guitar playing and clever lyrics.

Honorable mention:
Moloko – More of a song band, but responsible for several of my favorite songs ever. They use a mix of electronics and lush orchestration to create something entirely new but with the soaring feel of classic disco. But what sets Moloko above the rest of the ambient pop fray is Roisen Murphy’s voice -- one of the most beautiful and intriguing in any genre. Add to that clever spiritual lyrics and I never get tired of Moloko, but there just isn’t one album that deserves to be in the above list. Their most coherent is their first, Do You Like My Tight Sweater? with Fun For Me and Where Is the What If the What Is in Why? But anthem Sing It Back is on I Am Not a Doctor; Pure Pleasure Seeker and The Time Is Now are on Things to Make and Do; and Familiar Feeling on their new album Statues reaches a new level of sophistication and may be their best song yet. When I’m in the mood, I just cycle through a dozen or so songs culled from half a dozen albums.

¹OK, try as I might, I couldn’t manage 10, so it’s fifteen.

²Before SoundScan, which tabulates purchases based on bar code scanning at the cash register, Billboard used to collect data from record store owners filling out paper questionnaires. Most record store owners, being old hippies, old jazzters, or new indie rock snobs, were unwilling to admit to themselves, let alone the world, how much of their income was coming from country and rap. When the SoundScan method took over, taking out the human middle step, lo and behold, country and rap rocketed up the charts.