Essential Albums (Part Two)
THE DISCUSSION CONTINUES...
Welcome back, friends! It's that time again, so let's get ready for episode two or TRAPPO., the podcast sensation that's sweeping the nation! Okay, so maybe things aren't going that great, but hey, somebody's listened to our first episode, and they've even let us know, so I consider that a success. The show is out there on all of your favorite podcast platforms, so you can listen to TRAPPO. wherever you please, and that's pretty cool. I'd like to thank the folks who have listened to our first episode thus far, and we do sincerely appreciate your tuning in. Now before we move on to part two of our "essential albums" discussion, allow me to recap the first five inductees in the TRAPPO. Essentials Can(n)on for your convenience.
- Hounds Of Love, Kate Bush (1985)
- The Harrow & The Harvest, Gillian Welch (2011)
- Thick As A Brick, Jethro Tull (1972)
- The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions, Seu Jorge (2005)
- Days Of Future Passed, The Moody Blues (1967)
What musical wonders await you in part two of our discussion, dear listener? Five more albums will be nominated. Will five more albums be inducted in the TRAPPO. Essentials Can(n)on? Only time will tell. You can listen below, or find us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or even Stitcher, if you're so inclined, so choose your own adventure and tune in however you like.
Calling "RED" by King Crimson an essential album is crazy. "Starless" is an amazing song, one of the band's best probably, but everything else on that album is completely forgettable. You call out "RED" as essential over literally any other King Crimson album? That's nuts. If I have an album that I consider essential, it would probably be "DR. Feelgood" by Motley Crue. It's a big sentimental thing for me, but "DR. Feelgood" was the first album I bought with my own allowance money, I listened to that CD so many times I thought I was going to wear it out like a record. I was a dumb kid and thought you could wear out CDs like records back then. Sue me. I begged my dad so much he finally bought tickets to see Crue in Denver in 1989. I was 13 years old sitting with my best friend and the band blew the doors off the place. I swear my ears were ringing for a week after that concert. It probably did permanent damage to my young ears, but it was worth it. Anyway, I'm not trying to give anybody a hard time, and I like most of your guys' picks (although I could never get into Kate Bush and I've never heard that Life Aquatic album) but "RED"? Come on, man.
ReplyDeleteI like the picks, really. I've heard almost all of them, and I'd agree that they deserve to be preserved for future generations. I also haven't heard Sue George's record, so I can't comment on it, but I do remember seeing The Life Aquatic movie and I don't really remember the music. An essential album for me is Machine Gun Etiquette by The Damned. Front to back, it's got an energy that can't be denied. Easily The Damned's best album.
ReplyDeleteYou guys are talking about how listening to certain albums gave you a new perspectives on how other people lived and stuff like that. I know what that's like, and music can expand your consciousness like nothing else. I remember listening to It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back by Public Enemy when I was 15 years old. My older brother loaned me his CD and told me I had to listen to it, so I did. I was a sheltered middle class white boy who went to a school that had a handful of black students, and I just didn't know anything about the black experience in America. We learned that slavery was bad in school, but that was over a hundred years ago, so it didn't seem like such a big deal to me. The civil war was over, the good guys won, what's the big problem? I had no idea. Beyond the absolutely astonishing musical foundation on this album, the lyrics just opened me up, giving me a glimpse into a world I never knew existed. There's frustration, fear and rage at a system that seems designed from the ground up to keep certain people as low as possible, and it's also a call to arms, telling people that we don't have to accept the status quo, that the only way things are ever going to change is if we make them change. Listening to It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back not only introduced me to Hip Hop, a musical genre that has been my constant companion ever since, but it made me see the world through somebody else's eyes, showing me the human experience from a different perspective, and that's an invaluable lesson that I will never forget.
ReplyDeleteMy essential record is Elvis Costello's GET HAPPY!! from 1980. There are twenty damn songs on that record, but none of them overstay their welcome. It's a lot different from his earlier stuff, with a lot of ska and soul influence, but that's what makes it such a unique beast. It's rightfully been hailed as one of his absolute best works, and it belongs on any list of the greatest albums of all time. Absolutely essential music.
ReplyDeleteThat Johnny Cash shit, that's some real pain right there. Hurt is a song that Trent Reznor wrote for Johnny Cash back in 1994, he just didn't know it yet. The whole album American 4 is a masterpiece. I heard that song in high school and I bought the album, and I wanted to hear more from this old country music dude and so I ended up listening to a lot of his older stuff because of that, and that led me to the whole Highwayman thing, and that led me to Waylon Jnnings and Willie Nelson, and that led me to the founders of country music like Hank Williams, and somehow I inadvertently became a country music fan. I hadn't planned on it, I wasn't ready for it, but one day while at a record store browsing through the used bins looking for a copy of Kris Kristofferson's "The Silver Tongued Devil And I" (which I found and you should absolutely listen to if you haven't already) when I realized I was a fucking country music fan.
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