#86 When The Pawn ..... - Fiona Apple (1999)

 

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Review

Fiona Apple may have been grouped in with the other female singer/songwriters who dominated the pop charts in 1996 and 1997, but she stood out by virtue of her grand ambitions and considerable musical sophistication. Even though her 1996 debut Tidal occasionally was hampered by naiveté, it showcased a gifted young artist in the process of finding her voice. Even so, the artistic leap between Tidal and its long-awaited 1999 sequel When the Pawn Hits... is startling. It's evident that not only have Apple's ambitions grown, so has her confidence  few artists would open themselves up to the ridicule that comes with having a 90-word poem function as the full title, but that captures the fearless feeling of the record. Apple doesn't break from the jazzy pop of Tidal on Pawn, choosing instead to refine her sound and then expand its horizons. Although there are echoes of everything from Nina Simone to Aimee Mann on the record, it's not easy to spot specific influences, because this is truly an individual work. As a songwriter, she balances her words and melodies skillfully, no longer sounding self-conscious as she crafts highly personal, slightly cryptic songs that never sound precocious or insular. With producer Jon Brion, she created the ideal arrangements for these idiosyncratic songs, finding a multi-layered sound that's simultaneously elegant and carnival-esque. As a result, Pawn is immediately grabbing, and instead of fading upon further plays, it reveals more with each listen, whether it's a lyrical turn of phrase or an unexpected twist in the arrangement; what's more, Apple has made it as rich emotionally as it is musically. That's quite a feat for any album, but it's doubly impressive since it was only the second effort by a musician who was only 22 years old.

 

 

Tracks / Songwriting Credits / Time & Personal Rating:

 

1 On the Bound Apple 5:23 9

2 To Your Love Apple 3:40 10

3 Limp Apple 3:31 8

4 Love Ridden Apple 3:22 8

5 Paper Bag Apple 3:40 8

6 A Mistake Apple 4:58 10

7 Fast as You Can Apple 4:40 10

8 The Way Things Are Apple 4:18 8

9 Get Gone Apple 4:10 10

10 I Know Apple 4:57 9

 

ALBUM DISCOGRAPHY & Record Label:

 

1996 Tidal Clean Slate/Epic

1999 When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King... Clean Slate/Epic

2005 Extraordinary Machine Epic/Clean Slate

 

#85 Vauxhall & I - Morrissey (1994)

 

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Review

 

While it isn't a gutsy rock & roll record like Your Arsenal, Vauxhall and I is equally impressive. Filled with carefully constructed guitar pop gems, the album contains some of Morrissey's best material since the Smiths. Out of all of his solo albums, Vauxhall and I sounds the most like his former band, yet the textured, ringing guitar on this record is an extension of his past, not a replication of it thanks to another superb Steve Lillywhite production. In fact, with songs like "Now My Heart Is Full" and "Hold on to Your Friends," Morrissey sounds more comfortable and peaceful than he ever has. And "The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get," "Speedway," and "Spring-Heeled Jim" proved that he had not lost his vicious wit. Sadly, it would be another 10 years before he came up with another album approaching this standard of quality.

 

 

Tracks / Songwriting Credits / Time & Personal Rating:

 

1 Now My Heart Is Full Boorer, Morrissey 4:57 10

2 Spring-Heeled Jim Boorer, Morrissey 3:47 10

3 Billy Budd Morrissey, Whyte 2:09 7

4 Hold on to Your Friends Morrissey, Whyte 4:03 9

5 The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get Boorer, Morrissey 3:44 10

6 Why Don't You Find Out for Yourself Morrissey, Whyte 3:20 10

7 I Am Hated for Loving Morrissey, Whyte 3:41 8

8 Lifeguard Sleeping, Girl Drowning Boorer, Morrissey 3:42 8

9 Used to Be a Sweet Boy Morrissey, Whyte 2:49 9

10 The Lazy Sunbathers Morrissey 3:08 9

11 Speedway Boorer, Morrissey 4:30 10

 

 

ALBUM DISCOGRAPHY & Record Label:

 

1988 Viva Hate Sire

1990 Bona Drag (Compilation) Sire

1991 Kill Uncle Sire

1992 Your Arsenal Sire

1993 Beethoven Was Deaf [live] EMI

1994 Vauxhall and I Sire

1995 Southpaw Grammar Reprise

1997 Suedehead: The Best Of EMI

1997 Maladjusted Mercury

2004 You Are the Quarry Attack/Sanctuary

2005 Live at Earls Court Attack/Sanctuary

2006 Ringleader of the Tormentors Attack/Sanctuary

 

Fiona Apple's When the Pawn is absolutely superb! I love it to bits :) Glad to see it gain recognition by someone in the UK

#84 Station To Station - David Bowie (1976)

 

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Review

 

Taking the detached plastic soul of Young Americans (1975) to an elegant, robotic extreme, Station to Station is a transitional album that creates its own distinctive style. Abandoning any pretense of being a soulman, yet keeping rhythmic elements of soul, David Bowie positions himself as a cold, clinical crooner and explores a variety of styles. Everything from epic ballads and disco to synthesized avant pop is present on Station to Station, but what ties it together is Bowie's cocaine-induced paranoia and detached musical persona. At its heart, Station to Station is an avant-garde art-rock album, most explicitly on "TVC 15" and the epic sprawl of the title track, but also on the cool crooning of "Wild Is the Wind" and "Word on a Wing," as well as the disco stylings of "Golden Years." It's not an easy album to warm to, but its epic structure and clinical sound were an impressive, individualistic achievement, as well as a style that would prove enormously influential on post-punk.

 

 

Tracks / Songwriting Credits / Time & Personal Rating:

 

1 Station to Station Bowie 10:11 10

2 Golden Years Bowie 4:00 9

3 Word on a Wing Bowie 5:50 10

4 TVC 15 Bowie 5:31 8

5 Stay Bowie 6:13 8

6 Wild Is the Wind Tiomkin, Washington 6:00 10

 

ALBUM DISCOGRAPHY & Record Label:

 

Will appear on his last entry on my Top100 Albums chart.

 

 

 

 

#83 Parallel Lines - Blondie (1978)

 

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Review

 

Blondie turned to British pop producer Mike Chapman for their third album, on which they abandoned any pretensions to new wave legitimacy (just in time, given the decline of the new wave) and emerged as a pure pop band. But it wasn't just Chapman that made Parallel Lines Blondie's best album; it was the band's own songwriting, including Deborah Harry, Chris Stein, and James Destri's "Picture This," and Harry and Stein's "Heart of Glass," and Harry and new bass player Nigel Harrison's "One Way or Another," plus two contributions from nonbandmember Jack Lee, "Will Anything Happen?" and "Hanging on the Telephone." That was enough to give Blondie a number one on both sides of the Atlantic with "Heart of Glass" and three more U.K. hits, but what impresses is the album's depth and consistency  album tracks like "Fade Away and Radiate" and "Just Go Away" are as impressive as the songs pulled for singles. The result is state-of-the-art pop/rock circa 1978, with Harry's tough-girl glamour setting the pattern that would be exploited over the next decade by a host of successors led by Madonna.

 

 

Tracks / Songwriting Credits / Time & Personal Rating:

 

1 Hanging on the Telephone Lee 2:17 9

2 One Way or Another Harrison, Harry 3:31 10

3 Picture This Destri, Harry, Stein 2:53 10

4 Fade Away and Radiate Stein 3:57 9

5 Pretty Baby Harry, Stein 3:16 7

6 I Know But I Don't Know Infante 3:53 7

7 11:59 Destri 3:19 8

8 Will Anything Happen? Lee 2:55 8

9 Sunday Girl Stein 3:01 9

10 Heart of Glass Harry, Stein 3:45 10

11 Gonna Love You Too Mauldin, Petty, Sullivan 2:03 7

12 Just Go Away Harry 3:21 9

 

ALBUM DISCOGRAPHY & Record Label:

 

1976 Blondie Chrysalis

1977 Plastic Letters Chrysalis

1978 Parallel Lines Chrysalis

1979 Eat to the Beat Chrysalis

1980 Autoamerican Chrysalis

1981 The Best Of Chrysalis

1982 The Hunter Chrysalis

1993 Blonde & Beyond (Blondie/Deborah Harry) Chrysalis

1999 No Exit Beyond

1999 Atomic: The Very Best Of EMI

2002 Greatest Hits Capitol

2004 The Curse of Blondie Sanctuary

2004 Live by Request [bonus Tracks] Sanctuary

2005 Best Of: Sound & Vision (CD/DVD) Capitol

#82 Fat Of The Land - The Prodigy (1997)

 

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Review

 

Few albums were as eagerly anticipated as The Fat of the Land, the Prodigy's long-awaited follow-up to Music for the Jilted Generation. By the time of its release, the group had two number one British singles with "Firestarter" and "Breathe" and had begun to make inroads in America. The Fat of the Land was touted as the album that would bring electronica/techno to a wide American audience; in Britain, the group already had a staggeringly large following that was breathlessly awaiting the album. The Fat of the Land falls short of masterpiece status, but that isn't because it doesn't deliver. Instead, it delivers exactly what anyone would expect: intense hip-hop-derived rhythms, imaginatively reconstructed samples, and meaningless shouted lyrics from Keith Flint and Maxim. Half of the album does sound quite similar to "Firestarter," especially when Flint is singing. Still, Liam Howlett is an inventive producer, and he can make empty songs like "Smack My Bitch Up" and "Serial Thrilla" kick with a visceral power, but he is at his best on the funky hip-hop of "Diesel Power" (which is driven by an excellent Kool Keith rap) and "Funky $h!t," as well as the mind-bending neo-psychedelia of "Narayan" (featuring guest vocals by Crispian Mills of Kula Shaker) and the blood-curdling cover of L7's "Fuel My Fire," which features vocals by Republica's Saffron. All those guest vocalists mean something  Howlett is at his best when he's writing for himself or others, not his group's own vocalists. "Firestarter" and all of its rewrites capture the fire of the Prodigy at their peak, and the remaining songs have imagination that give the album weight. The Fat of the Land doesn't have quite enough depth or variety to qualify as a flat-out masterpiece, but what it does have to offer is damn good.

 

 

Tracks / Songwriting Credits / Time & Personal Rating:

 

1 Smack My Bitch Up Howlett, Kool Keith, Miller ... 5:42 8

2 Breathe Flint, Howlett, Maxim 5:35 10

3 Diesel Power Howlett, Kool Keith 4:17 9

4 Funky $h!t Howlett 5:16 8

5 Serial Thrilla Arran, Flint, Howlett, Skin 5:11 9

6 Mindfields Howlett 5:40 8

7 Narayan Howlett, Mills 9:05 8

8 Firestarter Deal, Dudley, Flint, Horn ... 4:40 10

9 Climbatize Howlett 6:36 9

10 Fuel My Fire James, Knight, Sparks, Walsh 4:19 9

 

ALBUM DISCOGRAPHY & Record Label:

 

1992 Experience XL/Elektra

1995 Music for the Jilted Generation XL/Mute

1997 The Fat of the Land XL Mute/Maverick/Warner Bros.

2004 Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned Maverick/XL

2005 Their Law: Singles 1990-2005 XL/Beggars Banquet

#81 Feeling Strangely Fine - Semisonic (1998)

 

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Review

 

US College rock's been done by everyone from literate romantics to heads-down bar bands to power-pop hooksmiths... but seldom by bands who can be all three--and score hit singles to boot. And in Semisonic's native Minneapolis, where the career of shambolic nearly-men The Replacements looms over the music scene like the dead (drunk) hand of history, the success part of the equation is even less likely. Against the odds, then, this trio's gleamingly produced second album not only hit the charts in the States, where wryly-observed anthem "Closing Time" was tailor-made for festival audiences, but in the UK, where the purring, Hall & Oates-ish "Secret Smile" seduced radio listeners who'd barely heard of musical kindred spirits The Posies and Fountains Of Wayne.

Beyond the singles, though, even album tracks here get the balance of bar-band crunch and pop kid swoon just right. Stuffed with Todd Rundgren/Big Star-style hooks and harmonies, Feeling Strangely Fine has a Wilco-like grasp of the joys of pop songs about pop in the compilation-cassette love story of "Singing In My Sleep" and the infectious self-deprecation of "This Will Be My Year". In a rare case of Minnesota guys finishing first, the latter's prediction even came true. Although the current heir to their thrown is Maroon 5 who I find are rather dull in comparison to Semisonic who split in 2003.

 

Tracks / Songwriting Credits / Time & Personal Rating:

 

1 Closing Time Wilson 4:35 10

2 Singing in My Sleep Wilson 4:30 8

3 Made to Last Wilson 5:02 8

4 Never You Mind Slichter, Wilson 4:23 9

5 Secret Smile Wilson 4:38 10

6 DND Wilson 4:13 9

7 Completely Pleased Wilson 3:17 7

8 This Will Be My Year Slichter 4:34 10

9 All Worked Out Wilson 2:52 8

10 California Wilson 5:26 9

11 She Spreads Her Wings Munson 3:09 9

12 Gone to the Movies Wilson 3:52 10

 

Tracks / Songwriting Credits / Time & Personal Rating:

 

1996 Great Divide MCA

1998 Feeling Strangely Fine MCA

2001 All About Chemistry MCA

Don;t have any of them so far, but have the Corrs' other album and that's not bad and I like Van Morrison.

Very diverse list-Great start with The Corrs!!!

Some great ones there so far, I've got the following:

 

#94 Rumours - Fleetwood Mac (1977)

#90 Imagine - John Lennon (1971)

#88 Band On The Run - Paul McCartney & Wings (1973)

#84 Station To Station - David Bowie (1976)

#83 Parallel Lines - Blondie (1978)

 

Will look out for the rest