1001 Album Club

The album is sometimes called a “soundtrack to schizophrenia” and a “visionary solo effort,” but became delegated to bargain bins shortly after its release in the spring of 1969. However, those who did hear it were instantly drawn into Spence’s inimitable sonic surrealism.

The Stooges soon gained a reputation for their wild, primitive live performances. Pop, especially, became known for his outrageous onstage behavior—smearing his bare chest with hamburger meat and peanut butter, cutting himself with shards of glass, and flashing his genitalia to the audience. Pop is sometimes credited with the invention or popularization of stage diving.

Walker wasn’t on the chart with his fourth album, but the result was probably his finest ’60s LP.  The over blown production and his subversive non commercial friend lyrics stand by a relatively stripped-down approach that works in way that is unexpected.   It’s hard to pinpoint what was or wasn’t engaging about this album…

In the decades since its original release, more than one writer has declared Fairport Convention’s Liege & Lief the definitive British folk-rock album. We are pleasantly surprised with this seminal Fairport Album.

MP3 Audio [36 MB]DownloadShow URL In the 1960s, Cohen lived on the Greek island Hydra with his girlfriend Marianne Ihlen, the woman depicted on the back cover of Songs from a Room. She has related how she helped him out of a depression by handing him his guitar, whereupon he began composing “Bird on the…

MP3 Audio [37 MB]DownloadShow URL In the Court of the Crimson King was the masterpiece that essentially launched progressive rock, which was the dominant genre in high-end British pop for the next seven years. Until The Dark Side of the Moon, it was the definitive prog-rock album. Also we find out what is really going…

Kinks frontman Ray Davies constructed the concept album as the soundtrack to a Granada Television play and developed the storyline with novelist Julian Mitchell; however, the television programme was cancelled and never produced. The rough plot revolved around Arthur Morgan, a carpet-layer, who was based on Ray and guitarist Dave Davies’ brother-in-law Arthur Anning. Come…

The Grateful Dead’s fourth title was likewise their first extended concert recording. Spread over two LPs, Live/Dead introduced all to the world to what it was like to experience a dead show for better or worst.

Hot Buttered Soul set the precedent for how soul would evolve into a funky groove.  It remains an seminal record that many would consider the starting point for “baby making music”.

After their breakout hit “get together” the Youngbloods moved to Northern California and started blending affective pop/rock melodies and lyrics with their good time jug band roots, the Youngbloods were instantly embraced by the already blossoming Bay Area music community, but they won’t be embraced by our group.

Considered one of the greatest English folk bands of the 1960’s  Fairport Convention drew upon traditional styles and combined them with contemporary sounds to great effect. News flash Rob doesn’t like folk music.

Few debut albums can boast as consistently solid an effort as the self-titled Chicago Transit Authority (1969). Although this was ultimately the septet’s first national exposure, the group was far from the proverbial “overnight sensation.” Does being the tightest band make you the best?  Let’s discuss.

By 1969, Tim Buckley seemed bored with traditional acoustic folk. Happy / Sad marked the beginning of Buckley’s experimental period, incorporating elements of jazz by way of Lee Underwood’s – guitar, keyboards & David Friedman’s vibraphone . Buckley also decided he wanted to take control of the songs and lyrics penning the entire album himself…

“Stand!” is the pinnacle of Sly & the Family Stone’s early work, a record that represents a culmination of the group’s musical vision and accomplishment.

“Cloud Nine” is an album that would become one of the defining early funk examples, with songs that not only took Motown in a new direction, but helped to shape the genre as well, but only on the first half. The second half shows the temptations right back in their comfort zone, and that is…

Rather than try to capture their legendary on-stage energy in a studio, MC5 opted to record their first album during a live concert at their home base, Detroit’s Grande Ballroom. From Brother J.C. Crawford’s rabble-rousing introduction to the final wash on feedback on “Starship,” Kick Out the Jams is one of the most powerfully energetic…

Recorded quickly during Led Zeppelin’s first American tours, Led Zeppelin II provided the blueprint for all the heavy metal bands that followed it. Since the group could only enter the studio for brief amounts of time, most of the songs that compose II are reworked blues and rock & roll standards. Some of the group…

The Band, the group’s second album, was a more deliberate and even more accomplished effort, partially because the players had become a more cohesive unit, and partially because guitarist Robbie Robertson. The arrangements were simultaneously loose and assured, giving the songs a timeless appeal, while the lyrics continued to paint portraits of 19th century rural…

Led Zeppelin had a fully formed, distinctive sound from the outset, as their eponymous debut illustrates. Taking the heavy, distorted electric blues of Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, and Cream to an extreme, Zeppelin created a majestic, powerful brand of guitar rock constructed around simple, memorable riffs and lumbering rhythms.

Without question, this follow-up to Quicksilver Messenger Service’s self-titled debut release is the most accurate in portraying the band on vinyl in the same light as the group’s critically and enthusiastically acclaimed live performances. The album is essentially centered around the extended reworkings of Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love?” and “Mona”. The group finds…

Upon first release, the Velvet Underground’s self-titled third album must have surprised their fans nearly as much as their first two albums shocked the few mainstream music fans who heard them. After testing the limits of how musically and thematically challenging rock could be on Velvet Underground & Nico and White Light/White Heat, this 1969…

After a 14-year absence from Memphis, Elvis Presley returned to cut what was certainly his greatest album. The fact that From Elvis in Memphis came out as well as it did is something of a surprise, in retrospect

Hoping to reinvigorate her career and boost her credibility, Springfield signed with Atlantic Records, Home of soul greatest Dusty idolized such as Aretha Franklin. Although she was well versed in R&B and soul songs, she had never released an entire album of R&B material. It was there in American Sound Studios that dusty create one…

Underrated in his own time Nick Drake had a resurgence after his passing at a young age. On this debut album Drake’s lyrics capture a subtle poetry of emotion while his singing is soft, articulate and sometimes haunting.