948 - John Martyn 'One World' (1977)

My Rating: 3.00 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): 54/--

Favourite Tracks: Small Hours, One World, Certain Surprise
Least-Favourite Tracks: Big Muff, Smiling Stranger

John Martyn could sing the assembly instructions to a piece of flat-pack furniture & still move most of us to tears… the man was blessed with one of the richest, most emotive, melodious voices in rock and yet (and I feel strangely-guilty for even saying this) I found this album a little disappointing. There are some patchy bits here and while Martyn’s voice does much to paper over the cracks, it’s not quite the masterwork I was expecting considering its almost-universal critical acclaim.

On the positive front, let’s start with that voice; slurred, anguished and honeyed, like some bizarre cocktail of Michael McDonald, Robert Wyatt & Mark Hollis, it can transform even the most ordinary lyric into something dripping with emotion. There’s not many who could sing a simple line like it’s “just a cold and lonely world, for some” (from One World) and have you snivelling into your hanky. Likewise, how many times have we heard singers trot out a ho-hum corny line like “I couldn’t love you more”, and yet when Martyn does it we somehow get the feeling that he really means it.

Like so many people blessed with great natural talent, Martyn did his level-best to squander his gifts & the lyrics here offer an intriguing perspective on his troubled & often contradictory personal life. Martyn undoubtedly had a gentle, introspective side and that ran at odds with his hard-living reputation (a fact clearly illustrated, according to bandmate Danny Thompson, by the fact he would play something incredibly beautiful, yet burp loudly at the end just in case you thought he was going soft). Similarly both sides of Martyn’s character feature here, from the delicate sentiments of ballads like Certain Surprise & One World to the personal demons of Big Muff & Dealer and in a sense made the album feel that much more authentic & heartfelt.

Musically, the songs sound like they evolved out of jam sessions & while this loosely-structured approach complements the slow, ambient compositions I didn’t think it worked that well for the up-tempo numbers like Big Muff & Smiling Stranger which end up sounding a little unfinished. Both kick off with promising Can-like grooves but dashed my hopes by not really going anywhere special with them. Where Can might slip in a guitar solo or two here we just get far too much vocal repetition and not nearly enough musical inventiveness. It’s frustrating - especially when tracks like One World & Small Hours remind you what a great guitarist John Martyn was.

Small Hours closes out the album & this is where the unstructured, jam-session approach really comes into its own. You can really lose yourself in the ethereal drift of Small Hours, its muffled heartbeat rhythm, the echoing guitar & synth swells, the whispered vocals, the geese squawking in the distance… wait a minute, geese? Well, apparently it was rather fittingly recorded outside in the countryside at night & such ambient sounds only enhance the atmosphere. Almost nine minutes long but I can’t say that I noticed.

Overall a good album, but I was rather expecting more.

951 - Duke Ellington & Johnny Hodges 'Back To Back' (1959)

My Rating: 3.14 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): --/--

Favourite Tracks: Loveless Love, Wabash Blues
Least-Favourite Tracks: St. Louis Blues

There’s been no shortage of regal epithets in the music world, though not all have been deserved. Artists like Queen and Prince have lived up to their royal aspirations, though others like King and Princess have proved to be nothing more than pretenders to the throne. (And don’t even get me started on “Lady” Gaga). Edward “Duke” Ellington, earning his moniker as a youth on account of his snappy dress-sense, belongs firmly in the first category, however it’s still something of a surprise to find this particular album in the Top 1000.

For starters, it’s not really fair to describe it as an Ellington album. The main players here are Johnny Hodges & Harry “Sweets” Edison while Ellington seems content to sit in the background. Make that very far in the background… could they not fit the piano in the studio or something? It’s so quietly recorded that it sounds as if he’s out in the hallway. It’s not a typical Ellington big band line-up either but a more intimate small combo setting. Moreover, there are no Ellington compositions here as all the songs are classic blues numbers from the pre-war era.

So what’s so special about a bunch of jazzers knocking out a load of old blues numbers? On the face of it, not a lot – however the more you listen to this album, the more you realise what an extraordinary job they make of it. In one sense, the blues offers a fairly limited scope for original improvisation yet the inventiveness & imagination shown in the soloing here is hugely impressive. I’ve always thought that good improvisation was all about playing the right note at the right time & that’s exactly what you find here. Moreover each performer has his own unique character and the more I listened to the interplay between these differing styles, the more enjoyable I found it.

I’ve read some criticism of Ellington’s playing on this album, suggesting that he was just going through the motions & didn’t put much into it. You only have to listen to his piano solos on Loveless Love, Wabash Blues or Basin Street Blues to realise what a load of cobblers that is. It is certainly a laidback, sometimes minimalist performance but his unusual chord inversions & the effortless ease with which his solo progressions dance around the melody were a highlight of this recording for me. Another standout performance comes courtesy of Harry “Sweets” Edison, a much-underrated player who somehow manages to play the blues with trumpet solos that have a smiling, winking, feel-good quality. Add in Johnny Hodges’ silky-smooth alto sax holding down the melodies & some fine guitar work from Les Spann & it’s pretty hard to fault the musicianship.

It’s also a very accessible album for people who might not typically listen to jazz. There are no tricky solos, the progressions are all simple blues (though admittedly more jazz-blues than blues-jazz) and it has a mellow, after-hours feel throughout. You can stick it on the next time the family come to dinner & it’ll breeze gently past without ruffling any feathers, but take time out to listen closer & you’ll find it has hidden depths.

955 - Jack Bruce 'Songs For A Tailor' (1969)

My Rating: 3.00 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: √

Chart Peak (UK/US): 6/55

Favourite Tracks: Rope Ladder To The Moon, He The Richmond
Least-Favourite Tracks: Boston Ball Game 1967, The Ministry Of Bag

Very 60s, this one. My first listen was as I cycled alongside the Grand Union canal & within a few minutes I was transported into some kitchen-sink drama; the industrial landscape around the half-finished Olympic stadium faded out into black & white & I half-expected a youthful Rita Tushingham to wave at me from one of the rusty iron bridges. It’s funny how the 60s, 70s, 80s and even 90s all have their own distinct signature sounds. Can’t think what the signature sound of the 00s will be though; perhaps an anonymous voice singing through Auto-tune accompanied by the shuffling noise of marketing men rubbing their clammy hands together & the distant rumble of Simon Cowell’s wallet dragging on the ground? But this album is almost the antithesis of today’s music – it’s unrefined, unpredictable and credits its listeners with having more intelligence than a goldfish – all of which makes it refreshingly enjoyable.

It kicks off with Never Tell Your Mother She’s Out Of Tune – all squawking horns & grimy distorted bass like a cross between Blood, Sweat & Tears, Spirit & some wacky incidental music from The Prisoner. The reviews I’d read referred to this album as ‘jazz-rock’ but I’d say ‘art-rock’ was a more accurate description. For me, jazz-rock conjures up images of Miles Davis in kooky shades or John Mclaughlin grappling a guitar with about 27 necks. I suppose I’m confusing jazz-rock with fusion but however you want to describe this record, it’s certainly more about rock than jazz.

I wasn’t all that familiar with Jack Bruce - I know Cream’s big hits of course but that didn’t prepare me for this album which grew on me the more it went on. Unusual chord progressions steer songs like Tickets To Waterfalls into odd directions, yet whenever it seems to be heading too far into the unconventional we get a delightfully melodic line to haul us back from the brink. Having spent my formative years listening to a lot of avant-garde material, I was especially taken with Rope Ladder To The Moon which with its dark acoustic guitars, melancholic scratchy cellos & angular vocal melodies seemed to have more in common with acts like the Art Bears than any conventional rock outfit.

Lyrically it’s rather a poetic album but that’s not to say it’s portentous or overblown; there’s some quasi-psychedelic quirkiness with lines like “The cook’s jumped in the river / The menu smells of feet” (from The Ministry Of Bag) but generally the words seem heartfelt and, to me at least, rather profound. Weird Of Hermiston has “Skies are no longer a comfort / Leaves turning black with the autumn / The corn is hung down with the heaviest weight that I’m feeling” while on He The Richmond Bruce sings “Yes my name it is written in the sand / And it can’t escape your sweeping hand”; worthy of Brian Wilson that one & a league above the standard flimsy pop/rock sentiments. (Having just researched a little further, I’ve discovered that the lyricist Pete Brown also penned the words for Cream’s hits & published poetry too so that explains a lot).

For all its inventiveness, the album doesn’t always hit the mark. Boston Ball Game 1967 is a bit of a mess, The Ministry Of Bag sounds musically like something dragged from the KPM archives & the jam-session second half of To Isengard drifts perilously close to Derek Smalls’ Jazz Odyssey. But I’d gladly listen to any of them on a 24 hour tape loop ahead of anything that Mr Cowell digs up during the rest of this decade.

958 - Tom Waits 'Small Change' (1976)

My Rating: 3.00 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: √

Chart Peak (UK/US): --/89

Favourite Tracks: Step Right Up, Invitation To The Blues, Can't Wait To Get Off Work
Least-Favourite Tracks: I Wish I Was In New Orleans, Pasties & A G-String

Like a butterfly that transforms into a caterpillar, Tom Waits has undergone a peculiarly topsy-turvy musical career. Back in the early 70s, he fluttered onto the scene all gentle, jazzy melodies & lightly-rasping voice but over the decades metamorphosed into a guttural, growling maniac, crawling ever-deeper into his own shadowy, discordant world.

To stretch my flimsy (and grossly over-written) metaphor to breaking point, this album then represents his 'pupal' stage; a kind of halfway point still rooted in jazz, yet edging ever-closer towards the experimental (a transition evidenced on The Piano Has Been Drinking). And that can be a bit of a problem - fans of early-era Waits often bemoan the overbearing gruffness of his vocals, fans of the later years run screaming from the room at the merest hint of jazz. I have some sympathy with both viewpoints. Listening to a tender ballad like I Wish I Was In New Orleans, part of me yearns for the older, softer vocals, rather than the Louis Armstrong-through-a-cracked-megaphone style we get here. On the other hand uptempo numbers like Step Right Up really come alive as he roars out emotive lines like "Christ, you don't know the meaning of heartbreak buddy!"

Ah yes, the words. Let's face it, if we were rating these albums solely on lyrics, this would be a perfect '5'. Like all of Tom Waits' albums, it's the lyrics here that stand towering over everything else. The music, good as it is, is often little more than a conduit for those astonishing words. In fact, Pasties & A G-String dispenses with the music altogether, its sole instrumental backing being a cheesy stripclub-style drumbeat while Waits rattles off gems like "I'm gettin' harder than chinese algebra-ssieres". Or on the title-track Small Change, where he abandons singing in favour of a spoken novelistic monologue over a lone 'Sam Spade' saxophone. And I'm not sure that anyone but Waits could get away with that 1950's Ellroy'esque hipster-speak either; tracks like The One That Got Away & Jitterbug Boy are crammed with outmoded phrases like 'deep six holiday', 'easy street' & countless nostalgic American references. (Visit the excellent Tom Waits Library for comprehensive annotations). Of course, purists might argue that the art of songwriting, like poetry, is condensing a great deal of meaning into very few words and in that sense, Waits is sometimes less a lyricist & more akin to an author who sets his stories to music. A kind of 'Charles Bukowski - The Musical' if you like.

As far as influences go, Waits has cited performers like Mose Allison & Ken Nordine & you can certainly hear that here in the wry humour, the clever puns & the whole hepcat word-jazz style. Where Waits elevates himself above those influences however is his ability to pen such poignant love songs. There's not many who could deliver a cliche-free ballad of such yearning emotion as Invitation To The Blues. I must have heard it a hundred times yet I still find myself wistfully wondering about the waitress who "looks like Rita Hayworth" & the "broken down jalopy of a man" she left behind.

It was an odd experience returning to this album because back in my younger days I played all my Tom Waits LP's to death (literally, in the case of The Heart Of Saturday Night, which is one of the few vinyl albums I did actually wear out). Small Change was never one of my favourites, not that it's a poor album, just that musically it's not as consistently good as many of his others. Quite why this one made it onto the Top 1000 ahead of those is a bit of a mystery (though perhaps the popularity of its opening track Tom Traubert's Blues has something to do with it). By Tom Waits standards then it's not a great album, but that still trumps the best that most have to offer.

961 - Aimee Mann 'Whatever' (1993)

My Rating: 3.23 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: √

Chart Peak (UK/US): 39/--

Favourite Tracks: Say Anything, 4th Of July, Could've Been Anyone
Least-Favourite Tracks: Jacob Marley's Chain [but only because the melody reminds me of Nik Kershaw's 'The Riddle'..]

I never judge a book by its cover. Well that's what I sanctimoniously think about myself but the truth is I must do precisely the opposite because otherwise I'd have heard this record a long time ago. I blame the album title; you see I didn't read it as Whatever - I took one look at the cover, saw a young blonde American woman & it became (cue Californian accent) 'Whateverrrrrrrrrrr'. Like most opinions forged from flimsy prejudices that one stuck so I really wasn't looking forward to hearing this album. But before the opening track was over I could feel my face stretching into something of a donkey head as I realised I'd got it all wrong; this was not the frivolous, piece of froth that I'd presumed - it's an accomplished rock record. Four minutes in & it already had more hooks & harmonies than you find in 40 minutes of most albums.

First surprise is that it's such a full-on production. I was expecting an oh-so earnest singer-songwriter backed solely with an acoustic guitar, but that's partly thanks to Allmusic who describe this album (here) as 'folk-tinged'. (Long afternoon down the pub was it lads? 'Folk-tinged', my arse) No, from the start this has a bold & confident feel; the production is excellent & is tailored to fit the mood of each song. That means we get an incredible variety of arrangements & instruments, from electronic samples & drum machines to strings & full orchestration; you get the impression that they just raided the studio stockroom & grabbed every single musical instrument they could lay their hands on.

What about Aimee Mann herself? As a singer she sounded a little like a cross between Chrissie Hynde & Alison Statton of the Young Marble Giants (remember them?). I wouldn't describe her voice as commanding & yet she has a remarkable ability to scythe through a wall of guitar noise. And even better, she sounds like she means every word she sings which is quite a rare commodity these days.

As a songwriter she also does an admirable job; everytime I thought a track was getting a little predictable, it'd suddenly spear off into an unexpected bridge, middle-8 or instrumental break. And it's a tuneful album; the vocal melodies & backing harmonies are always pleasing & the lyrics are intelligent & thought-provoking (especially when you read between the lines of songs such as I Could Hurt You Now).

And that's the best thing about doing this daft project; every so often you discover some good music that you never knew existed.

967 - Supertramp 'Crime Of The Century' (1974)

My Rating: 4.00 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: √

Chart Peak (UK/US): 4/38

Favourite Tracks: School, Bloody Well Right, Dreamer
Least-Favourite Tracks: If Everyone Was Listening

Older brothers don't have much going for them when you're 9 years old. You learn how to take a punch, how to run away fast (before getting punched) & how to eat a variety of pet foods, but did they really have any positive uses? Well actually, yes there was that one saving grace; their record collection. Back in the mid-70s when about all I had were some scratched-up, hand-me-down Disney soundtracks, an album of orchestral war movie themes & one David Essex LP (ahem), my big brother literally held the key to an exciting new world of music. Behind the locked doors of his LP cupboard were dozens of shiny new records & despite the threat of almost-certain death, I eventually buckled under the temptation & busted my way in, rather appropriately choosing Crime Of The Century as one of my first ill-gotten gains. For this particular 9 year old, music was never quite the same again.

Skip forward several decades & I'm sitting here listening to this album for the umpteenth time & it still sounds great. But I suppose I would say that, wouldn't I? I grew up listening to it, it's intertwined with all sorts of childhood memories, it's the first record in the Top 1000 I already owned, so while I'm desperately trying to be objective about it, the truth is how the hell can I be? Wait a minute though, I don't feel that way about that bloody David Essex LP so there must be more to it than just some nostalgic feelings.

From the opening bars of the first track School you know this is going to be something special. Wailing harmonica with rumbling ethereal bass notes in the background & as the intro builds we get spooky guitar effects, children's voices, what's that - an oboe in there too? Then we get that creepy kid's blood-curdling screech (which scared the crap out of me the very first time I heard it) & the whole thing kicks off. But this is not your typical verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure; like 10cc every 30 seconds the melody seems to change completely & yet somehow the whole thing hangs together perfectly. And that's just it, much of the artistry of this album is that it can take something so complicated & make it sound so simple & accessible.

It's not just the songwriting, the production & arrangements are also interesting & innovative. Subtle little touches are everywhere; the chorus of Bloody Well Right with the Wurlitzer electric piano panned over to one speaker & a hokey, out-of-tune upright piano in the other; the theremin (or saw) whistling away under the chorus of Hide In Your Shell; the strings, orchestration & even clanging bell on Asylum (I only recently noticed the cuckoo clock at the end - I've heard this album hundreds of times & I'm still discovering new things buried in the mix). But it's not like all this production trickery is there as some kind of gimmick, it's been deftly applied to enhance the meaning of the songs. Rudy starts off at the station boarding his 'train to nowhere' & the arrangement creates the impression of a train rattling ever-faster down the tracks. Yes I know that's nothing new, but with its sweeping strings & wah-wah guitar stabs, I've never heard it done better.

Lyrically the songs are rather impressionistic. There is a common thread with themes of madness & isolation but the precise meanings are left open to interpretation. To me it is clearly a concept album - the songs segue into each other taking us on a journey that starts out at School, progesses through teenage rebellion, adult mental breakdown & culminates with the album-closing Crime Of The Century. Exactly what that crime is, we're never really told - I've got my own idea though & I quite like it like that.

Back in 1974, it wasn't long before my big brother discovered that I'd made off with his LP. But strangely I didn't get the pulping I'd imagined. I think he may have secretly been rather proud that he was having such a strong influence on my musical tastes. More likely he was just relieved that he didn't have to hear that David Essex album again. Either way it's a shame he wasn't so understanding when I discovered his stash of 'jazz' mags...

976 - 10cc 'Original Soundtrack' (1975)

My Rating: 3.38 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): 4/15

Favourite Tracks: Blackmail, The Second Sitting For The Last Supper, I'm Not In Love
Least-Favourite Tracks: The Film Of My Love

According to the All-Time Top 1000 book this album is too clever for its own good, complaining that 'too many changes within a single track can be irritating' & 'sometimes it would be nice to have just one long lovely bit'. Yeah well maybe if you're the kind of person who marvels at the musical sophistication & intellectual lyricism of Whigfield's Saturday Night, but I found it a breath of fresh air. Sometimes it can feel a little like rock music has run out of ideas, after all there's only so much you can do with the same old blues progressions, 3-chord cycles & 'ooh baby' lyrics. But from the opening track Une Nuit a Paris you know that this is going to be different - conventional verse-chorus pop structure is abandoned in favour of an eclectic series of musical vignettes (I counted over 20 unique 'verses' in that song alone) that has more in common with the world of showtunes than pop. Yes it's complex, but that only serves to reward repeat listening & unravel deeper layers. And unlike a lot of mid-70s guff, this band doesn't take itself too seriously; there's none of that pompous overblown nonsense here - tongues are only ever taken out of cheeks in order to be stuck out & waggled at you.

I was also impressed by the technical sophistication throughout - I'm Not In Love would be tricky to create with today's samplers & digital recorders, never mind back in the days of tape loops & analogue studios. Then there's the musical proficiency - check out the venomous slide guitar solo in Blackmail or the frantic piano outro on Second Sitting For The Last Supper. Oh and did we mention the effortless stylistic about-turns, lyrical pastiches or genre changes? By the time you reach the album-closing The Film Of My Love, a mickey-taking cheesy ballad in the style of Renee & Renato, you realise that you've been on one hell of a journey - and that's what classic albums are all about, right?

983 - Stone Temple Pilots 'Core' (1992)

My Rating: 3.42 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): 27/3

Favourite Tracks: Sex Type Thing, Piece Of Pie, Plush
Least-Favourite Tracks: Where The River Goes

I wasn't looking forward to listening to this album; I'd never heard the band, I know nothing about grunge, all the reviews I'd read slagged the record AND I was nursing a hangover from hell. So I put this on expecting a relentless guitar thrash that would send my whisky headache off the scale but found myself pleasantly surprised - yes, there's no denying that it's heavy rock but it's also hook-laden, accessible and well, kind of tuneful. Like most others, Allmusic's review is not complimentary, branding the band as 'fifth rate Pearl Jam copyists' & the album as 'gormless post-grunge sludge' - as I said, I don't know anything about the grunge scene so I can only judge this record on its own merits & to me it sounds pretty good. Big bad drums & monster guitar riffs dominate but just when things start getting predictable, we get a melodic middle-8 or a twisted guitar break. Add in a vocalist with a rich gravelly timbre who can shift seamlessly to a powerful growl and some solid production values and you have a pretty decent album. Shame that they chose such a stupid band name though.

984 - Paul Simon 'Paul Simon' (1972)

My Rating: 3.45 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): 1/4

Favourite Tracks: Everything Put Together Falls Apart, Run That Body Down
Least-Favourite Tracks: Duncan

The album cover photo says it all; here's Paul Simon up close & personal, he peers shyly out from under his hood & there's a warm, glow over everything. Oh and most importantly he standing there on his own with no sign of the curly-haired guy. And that sums it up pretty well, for this is a richly melodic collection of songs that offers an intimate portrait of Simon the solo performer.

I was quite surprised by this album as there's quite a variety of musical styles from reggae to gipsy jazz and yet it all holds together as a complete & unified record. It's almost as if he set out to prove just what he could do once he was freed from the shackles of the 'Simon & Garfunkel' formula. The versatility & songcraft he demonstrates puts a lot of today's trendy singer-songwriters to shame - a song like Everything Put Together Falls Apart manages to be both complex & catchy at the same time and craps all over the bland balladeering of people like James Blunt & Daniel Powter. I also liked the deeply autobiographical nature of the lyrics - he sings about the minutiae of his own life & relationships and that makes the whole thing sound so sincere & heartfelt - especially compared to the contrived so that everyone-can-relate-to-it songs that dominate our airwaves these days.

986 - Curtis Mayfield 'Superfly' (1972)

My Rating: 3.89 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): 26/1

Favourite Tracks: Freddie's Dead, Pusherman
Least-Favourite Tracks: No Thing On Me

What's this doing propping up the tail end of the Top 1000? Surely one of the definitions of a good album is whether you can play it from start to finish without encountering one duff track & that's exactly what we have here.

This is seventies funk at its most supercool - driving rhythms & groovy basslines coupled with lush strings & slick brass. If this music hadn't been written for a movie in the first place, you can be sure that Tarantino would have grabbed it by now. But what elevates this beyond being just another solid funk record are Mayfield's incisive lyrics & stunning vocals; his singing is straightforward and yet so soulful. And I mean soulful in the sense that he is genuinely emotive & stirring - there are none of the vocal acrobatics & showboating that seem to define 'soulfulness' to a whole generation of X-factor-Mariah Carey-wannabees.

It does share many similarities with Isaac Hayes' Shaft soundtrack (which incidentally did come out a year before this) though what sets it apart for me are the brooding, streetwise & influential lyrics on songs like Pusherman ('I'm your momma, I'm your daddy / I'm that nigga in the alley / I'm your doctor, when in need / want some coke, have some weed').

It may have been penned as a movie soundtrack but this record works supremely well as an album in its own right. It's no surprise then that according to Wikipedia Superfly is also one of the only films ever to have been outgrossed by its soundtrack. Let's face it, if you don't like this one, you're as dead as Freddie.

992 - The Isley Brothers '3 + 3' (1973)

My Rating: 3.11 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: √

Chart Peak (UK/US): --/8

Favourite Tracks: That Lady Pt. 1 & 2, The Highways Of My Life
Least-Favourite Tracks: Listen To The Music

So I was lucky enough to see Prince on the opening night of his Dome concert-athon a few days ago & I was thinking what an original, innovative performer he was. That was until I stuck this album on. It kicks off with That Lady, all Ernie Isley & his bonkers rock guitar licks over a slick funk backing (hmmm, now where have I heard that recently?) Of course I'd heard the track many times before, but this was the first time I'd ever sat down & listened to it (full blast) & it was just stunning. The record closes with another accomplished Isleys' original composition Highways Of My Life and it made me wonder why they relied so much on rather pithy cover versions inbetween, because it just diluted the whole album. Apart from that there's really not a lot to complain about here though - it has crisp, clear production and strong musicianship & vocals and that makes it stand out compared to most of the top 1000 albums I've heard so far.

994 - Miles Davis 'Someday My Prince Will Come' (1961)

My Rating: 3.83 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): --/--

Favourite Tracks: Old Folks, Drad Dog
Least-Favourite Tracks: Teo

This album has scored pretty well in comparison to the others which may suggest some kind of pro-jazz bias on my part, though that really isn't the case. It's really more to do with the nature of a top 1000 list largely comprised of rock & pop; as Colin Larkin explains in the book's introduction "most jazz votes are from rock fans who like a bit of jazz". What that means is that the few jazz albums that make the list actually tend to be pretty good ones. And as it's all ranked according to public votes & jazz has a minority appeal, those good jazz albums are always going to be found in the lower levels of the chart.

As with every album so far, this was the first time I had listened to this LP. Like Davis' much-heralded (or should I say much-trumpeted? Errr no, maybe not) Kind Of Blue, this record has distinct crossover appeal; there's no difficult rhythms or dissonant solos, it's just a laidback & melodic jazz album that flows well from start to finish. As you'd expect, Davis is in fine form throughout, though I did feel that his muted trumpet was a little too high in the mix sometimes & could sound a little piercing. Pianist Wynton Kelly was the standout musican for me & I really wanted to hear a lot more of him than I got. I also felt that both Davis & John Coltrane missed the mark on Teo - neither soloist really seemed to complement what the rest of the band were playing & so the whole thing got a bit bogged down (which is a shame as the track had a lot of potential to really go somewhere special). Of course 'proper' jazz fans would shoot me down in flames for suggesting such a thing but luckily nobody but me is reading this so I can say anything I like. In short, if you like Kind Of Blue (and you're not a jazz snob) you'll like this album.

995 - David Bowie 'Diamond Dogs' (1974)

My Rating: 3.00 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): 1/5

Favourite Tracks: Rebel Rebel, Candidate
Least-Favourite Tracks: Rock 'n' Roll With Me, Big Brother

I used to play quite a lot of David Bowie in my younger days, though I haven't listened to any of his albums for years. These days I work with a couple of music producers who utterly hate Bowie - whenever he gets played at work, they sigh, tut & grimace with such venom that I began to question whether my spotty youthful self actually had terrible taste in music. So I approached this album with a certain trepidation, wondering if he really was as overrated as my colleagues suggest...

Sorry chaps, but I think you're wrong (and what a surprise that I should side with myself, eh?) This is the first time I have heard this album, but it feels a class above the other records I have listened to so far - in fact I don't really understand why it's ranked so low in this list. For a start, the production is powerful & innovative so it really jumps out of the speakers. The track segues & intros also worked very well & helped make the record a really cohesive work. Unlike Neil Young's largely-superfluous reprise of Rockin' In Free World (from previous LP in the list), the reprise of Sweet Thing sandwiching Candidate really added an extra dimension & helped build the intensity of the record. Like much of Bowie's output, the whole thing manages to be inventive & experimental, while still remaining accessible & mainstream. Perhaps by the high standards of his other works, this album was something of a disappointment - it's not chock-full of hits after all - though for me it was an engaging listen.