I’m kind of inventing my own category for this post. It was triggered by spinning a couple of albums on this list recently. These are records that I truly love and have for a lot of years, desert-island discs even, but I own nothing in else in the artist’s catalog, nor do I plan to. All of these artists made one record that really got under my skin and stayed in my constant rotation for however many years it’s been out in the world. I enjoy other records by all of the names on the list, some quite a lot, but I don’t seek them out often, if at all. When I want to hear one of these artists, I want to hear this record.
A few bands were ruled out because they have more than one can’t-live-without-it LPs, of course – no way I could put a Stones, or Beatles, or Dylan, or Lou, or Miles, or Nanci, etc. LP on the list. They have a handful each I’d run into a burning house to rescue. Trickier was eliminating the artists who, while I might love and have great respect for most or all of their catalog, have never made “the one” that I place above all others, tipping the balance from enjoyment to obsession. That list includes some heavy hitters like R.E.M., Neil Young, the Grateful Dead, Emmylou Harris, Bob Marley, and a several others.
I decided the artists on the list had to have released at least six records in their career, which, in music biz time, equates to about a decade or so. No one- or two-shot wonders like Television, David Lindley’s El-Rayo-X, or Rockpile. As much as I love their brief careers, that seems like a subject for a different list. And I wanted to include records that have stood the test of time. All of the LPs on this list have had a chance to fall off it over the course of many years, even decades, replaced by new favorites, but all of them have hung in and are as necessary as ever. A couple, like Taylor Swift’s Evermore and War on Drugs’ I Don’t Live Here Anymore, might make the list someday, but I haven’t lived with them long enough, I might still be distracted away from them someday by a newer, shinier bauble.
Once I had the list made, I noticed that half of the records on it are debuts. There’s just something about a band coming out of the gate with something unique, compelling, and unexpected that grabbed me then and still does now. I love surprises.
• Queen, Sheer Heart Attack (1974) – Sitting right between the ogre and fairy prog-metal bombast of Queen II and the overblown, million-overdubs sonic architecture of A Night at the Opera, Sheer Heart Attack is a transitional record between obscurity and world-conquering popularity. The band’s best batch of songs, played with a combination of massed vocal overlays, guitar hero pyrotechnics, and a sly sense of humor that is sorely missing from the rest of their catalog. Brian May will always have my vote as the greatest guitarist on a homemade instrument ever, largely due to this record.
EARWORM: "Flick of the Wrist" - The guitar, the vocals, the sass. Everything that makes the album great in one song.
• Supertramp, Crime of the Century (1974) – Another transitional album, made when Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson realized the unfocused folk-progressive music of their first two LPs was a commercial non-starter. The duo wrote some of the most indelible pop songs of the 70s for Crime (“School,” “Bloody Well Right,” “Dreamer”), but still managed to leave in some longer instrumental passages that reflected their progressive roots. The prog played a lesser role as the band got massively popular going forward, but it’s the ideal balance of their two creative impulses, the pop and the prog, on Crime that pulls me in over their other albums, every time.
EARWORM: "School" - The album opener and perfect statement of pop/prog intent for the record.
• Patti Smith, Horses (1975) – The debut, the shocker, the gut-punch. “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine,” the album’s opening line, let you know immediately something new and fearless was about to happen. Patti wrote (and brilliantly sang) a stunning batch of songs that blended her downtown NYC poetry with her love of rock music. Each side of the album includes one long, nearly free-form slice of poetry set to music, “Birdland” on side one, “Land” on the flip, that I’m never tempted to skip over. Patti would go from here to a long and fascinating career of exploration and occasional chart success, but nothing else matches the out-of-nowhere wonder of her debut.
EARWORM: "Redondo Beach" - A perfect, weird-ass, reggae influenced pop song. Only Patti, only here.
• Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes, I Don’t Want to Go Home (1976) – A Jersey shore early bandmate of Bruce Springsteen, John Lyon got a boost from his old pal in landing a record contract for his horn-based, rock & soul band. Bruce gave the Jukes their first single and loaned out Miami Steve and Clarence to play on the debut. I Don’t Want to Go Home is exactly what I want to hear from these guys - loose, funny, rollicking, bluesy and soulful. They would, of course, try to make some money over the course of their career and tried a lot of different approaches, sounds, producers, and lineups to try to hit the commercial sweet spot, with limited success. The debut is their purest statement of R&B good-times purpose, and by far the most joyful album in their catalog.
EARWORM: "I Don't Want to Go Home" - So many choices, but the opener sweeps me away every time.
• Garland Jeffreys, Ghost Writer (1977) – Lou Reed’s college buddy at Syracuse and friend to just about every significant studio musician in NYC, Garland’s mixed black/Puerto Rican heritage and tendency to write socially conscious lyrics made him a tough sell for the record labels. A tiny little hint of success with a single, “Wild in the Streets,” got him into Atlantic Studios for A&M records. The musicians he brought with him were the cream of the NYC crop. The Brecker brothers and David Sanborn on horns, David Spinozza on guitar, Rick Marotta and Steve Gadd on drums. Garland’s pals Dr. John and James Taylor pitched in, too. The resulting album is one of a kind - smooth, deeply grooving, with a slight hint of Caribbean and reggae rhythms. Ghost Writer, in addition to the astonishing title track, includes one of the greatest love songs to his native city ever written, “New York Skyline.”
EARWORM: "Ghost Writer" - Nearly six minutes of deeply soulful trance music.
• Steve Forbert, Alive on Arrival (1978) - There was a lot going on in ’78. I was living in Houston, huge albums were being released behind equally huge promotional campaigns. A year of big music, and yet I was totally captivated by this smaller-focus folkie guy on the local radio, blowing a harmonica and strumming an acoustic guitar. Steve sounded like a guy who could be busking on a local street corner, guitar case open for donations. He wrote terrifically catchy songs, full of life and wit, and sang them with a compelling reedy rasp. I was hooked by this album then and remain completely hooked today. Like so many other difficult-to-pigeonhole artists, his career has been one of records made in a wide variety of styles, hoping to catch the public’s ear and wallet, but the first one still shimmers with emotion and style.
EARWORM: "What Kinda Guy?" - Just one demonstration that this new songwriter was exceptionally gifted.
• The Roches (1979) – Three sisters from New Jersey, Maggie, Terre, and Suzzy (rhymes with fuzzy), who had the ability to sing harmony together like few other humans. Paul Simon was their early champion, hiring them to sing backup on There Goes Rhymin’ Simon, and helping them get their first record contract. For their debut, Warner Bros. put them in a studio with Robert Fripp of King Crimson producing, an odd choice on the face of it. Fripp kept the record beautifully spare in its arrangements and wisely mixed the stunning vocals front and center. The quirky brilliance of tracks like “Hammond Song,” “The Married Men,” and “Mr. Sellack” got The Roches rave reviews, but not enough sales to keep Warner from trying to change things up to commercialize (read: dilute) their sound going forward.
EARWORM: "We" - I tried to give you a sense of who they are, but they introduce themselves very effectively to kick off the album. They even make sure you get the spelling of their last name right.
• Sade, Diamond Life (1984) – I don’t think the music-buying public knew it was clamoring for a sultry lounge-jazz pop singer in ’84, but Sade’s first album was so compelling it went 4x platinum in the U.S. and made the top five on the pop, jazz, and R&B sales charts. Sade’s smoky, alluring voice, exotic good looks, and undeniably memorable songs were so potent that she (or her label, or her management) decided to make a career out of recording the same sound over and over again. There’s a fine line between the brilliant, jazzy mellowness of Diamond Life and the bland sameness she occasionally slipped into on subsequent records, and that line is the quality of the songs. Every track on this LP is a true diamond, all of her best compositions are here.
EARWORM: "Frankie's First Affair" - "Smooth Operator" sparked the initial buzz, but the album is full of equally wonderful songs like this one.
• Philip Glass, Songs from Liquid Days (1986) – Being a couple of like-minded creatives, minimalist classical composer Glass started this project by co-writing songs with David Byrne. The idea expanded, he brought in other masterful writers like Paul Simon, Laurie Anderson, and Suzanne Vega to create Glass’ one shot at an actual pop record. Singers like Byrne, Bernard Fowler, the Roche sisters, and Linda Ronstadt were added to make the somewhat obtuse lyrics work. Does it sound like something you’d be likely to hear on the radio? Nope, not at all. Does it sound like a bewitching mix of classical, opera, and pop music? Exactly, and I love every minute of it.
EARWORM: "Freezing" - Linda Ronstadt singing Suzanne Vega's lyrics, accompanied by the Kronos Quartet. A wild and wonderful genre mashup.
• Prince, Sign O’ the Times (1987) – I’ve always had a little trouble drawing a clear bead on Prince’s music. He was such an obsessive style-dabbler that his albums, to my ears, lack cohesion, despite so many of them containing a handful of brilliant individual tracks. Sign O’ the Times sounds totally focused, even though the tracks were written for a post-Revolution project he ultimately abandoned. From massive funk like “Housequake” to bright pop like “Play in the Sunshine,” everything just fits together. The playing is remarkable, the lyrics some of his best. He was such a master of the single I do, on occasion, stream Rhino’s 2001 The Very Best of Prince collection. But when I want to hear the full album brilliance of His Royal Purpleness, Sign is a no-brainer.
EARWORM: "Starfish and Coffee" - One of Prince's most joyfully ebullient pop songs.
• Robbie Robertson (1987) – Robbie left The Band partly because the substance abuse issues with his bandmates was making the songwriting and recording process frustrating. He was unhappy with the original lineup’s last album, Islands, and he was right to be, it was kind of a reputation tarnisher. After a decade of no Band activity, Robbie brought a new batch of songs to producer Daniel Lanois (U2, Peter Gabriel), looking for a moodier, more atmospheric version of his Americana roots music. The result is easily the finest solo album of Robbie’s career, standing alongside his former band’s best work. He was too restless to follow one creative direction moving forward, making the rest of his solo releases a hit-and-miss patchwork of soundtrack recordings and cultural explorations.
EARWORM: "Somewhere Down the Crazy River" - Spooky and funky. The musical equivalent of film noir.
• Jerry Garcia Band (1991) – Late career, post-diabetic coma Jerry. He was feeling healthy and upbeat for the first time in decades, had lost a significant amount of weight and given up several of his highly publicized vices. Most importantly, he had solidified the final, and very best, version of the Jerry Garcia Band, his Grateful Dead side-hustle that had existed with varying lineups since 1975. In addition to long-time members John Kahn (bass) and Melvin Seals (keyboards), church-choir backup vocalists Jackie LaBranch and Gloria Jones and drummer Dave Kemper had turned the JGB into the most amazing exploratory covers band ever. Jerry Garcia Band captures the group on an exceptional night at home in San Francisco. Everything they touched that night, from the Beatles to Dylan to Los Lobos to Smokey Robinson, became a laser-focused, stellar trip into the musical stratosphere. Jerry’s playing and singing is marvelous, the band displaying a sensitivity and responsiveness to wherever the leader wanted to go that was unmatched by any previous incarnation of the JGB. Less lysergically trippy, jazzier than the Dead, if a frame of reference is helpful.
EARWORM: "Dear Prudence" - Oh, the places you'll go. Nearly twelve minutes of improvisation on a Beatles theme without a wasted moment.
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