I listen to some cruel amount of music. My passions and inflammations come and go. I only listen to Wombats for a week, Phoenix, Manic Street Preachers, Spoon czy Mumford Sons. Then it disappears, there is a new discovery. A few songs remain for the love of the band or the album, which I may come back to after years, maybe I'll hum or sing, when someone accidentally says a phrase from the text. There are exceptions, however. Few, multiple and single, but still they are. There are a couple of CDs, which I tortured, I pulled up and listened to the limit, but I can still let them go without a trace of embarrassment and listen to them with joy from start to finish. I would take these records with peace of mind to a deserted island. It would be done without tapping the coconut shells.
Worthy and unworthy
These CDs are:
1. Exile on Main St. – Rolling Stones
2. Highway 61 Revisited – Bob Dylan
3. Blue Train – John Coltrane
4. Is this it – Strokes
5. Plastic Ono Band – John Lennon
6. West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum – Kasabian
7. The Velvet Underground & Nico – Velvet Underground
The most listening of them, to the Stones and Strokes. However, I have the most confidence in the Kasabian album. I may like others, because you should like them? Because the music critics ordered? Who can really trust their own tastes… But it is a fact, that I just love the Kasabian album, which is not very appreciated by critics. Everything is in it, awesome lyrics, twisted compositions, pieces that break to the feet and express total blasiness and fatigue with life. I Like, simply.
In the context of forced obedience, I am comforted by the lack on the list, absolutely honored Beatles records. There are a few pieces of them, which i love (a large part of the white album, a bit of Revolver), but no plate, which I would play from start to finish. There are also no Pink Floyd I like, often listened to Tom Waits or even Tab Two. Only these caught, I listen to addiction. The addict can be trusted.
Produce or not?
At the moment I have doubts as to whether I should actually produce and describe "great drums", "Original bass line" etc.. I guess there is nothing for it. On the other hand, a command under the sign "or, because I like ", may be a bit too arrogant. Also, I'll spit out some subjectivity:
Exile On Main St. – Rolling Stones
I wrote about this album before. It captivates me. It's simple, bluesy, full of doomed energy. People, who are gearing up for the end of their careers, for the trip to prison, they hide in the south of France and record an album. Something beautiful. In addition, they attract an unusual group of above-standard musicians - suddenly a piano appears, trumpet, soulowe chórki... Stones ++, Stonesi extra version, Stonesi latest edition, which did not turn out to be the last. To album, which was recorded under the baton of Richards and feel, that once the band dared not to wonder what the audience would love. I recommend it very strongly. Oh, and practically no hits.
Highway 61 Revisited – Bob Dylan
I'll start with a criminal confession - I usually start listening to this album skipping the first "Like a Rolling Stone". In a word, I skip a piece, which every second music journalist considers rock the greatest in history. Maybe it is, but it seems detached from the rest of the album. Besides… how many such classics can be listened to?
I love the rest of the album. Dylan's writing abilities take some frivolous levels here. In addition, nothing on this album is boring. Just like from his other albums, I am happy to catch individual songs, so here I am happy to be offered by this bizarre kingdom of electric guitar, a glass-sounding piano and a howling harmonica. Zmęczony bard w wyprawie przez Stany Zjednoczone. In a word: live long, Zimmerman. Unlike Lennon, I believe in you strongly.
Blue Train – Coltrane
On your knees in front of Coltran! The greatest jazz musician of all time! And so on. Somehow, however, I don't listen to much of his other albums, and that way. To complete the picture of my lack of musical sophistication, I got this album through the "Polityka" collection. I took the risk of becoming cultured and bought myself four albums from the collection. Others get dusty, I tattoo this one. I will add, that it was love at first listening. First 37 seconds of the opening track changed me to jazz forever. I did not know, that simple, the phrase repeated with a slight modification, countered by two keystrokes on a piano can have such power. I was conquered. Listening to this record, in my performance, it is the proper waiting for this phrase to emerge from the sea of melodies and deluge of sounds, surprising me and once again I will wonder how this is possible, that this phrase is so perfectly suited to these different and strange terrains, that the band Coltrane ventures on this record. Moving from a little graphomania to total, I will tell, that this album teaches a person how various harmonies are in music and how a musician has an endless number of possibilities, reaching for the instrument. Amen.
Is this it – Strokes
2001 year. Pop and Robbie Williams reign supreme. All the rock sounds the same and suddenly there's a rock band like Velvet Underground, with a vocalist with the voice of Jim Morrison, tired rock faces and more blasé than the Stones. And how could it not impress the teenage author of this paean article?
Interestingly, I didn't fall in love with this album when it came out - then I only liked Last Nite, Someday i Hard to Explain, in short, what was to be liked. Falling in love took place a lot, much later. Quite recently. About two years ago. I decided to listen to it from start to finish and started to love it. melodious, blasé, not exaggerated in any place. Casablancas' tired voice, the world's simplest guitar sounds. Rock minimalism, spleen Baudelaira i cool Jamesa Deana. Just cool. For me, this album and the Strokesi on it (just watch any music video), is the definition of this phrase. And also the texts. „I wanna still your innocence/ To me, my life it does not make any sense.
Plastic Ono Band – John Lennon
Lennon dumps the Beatles, I wanna hold your hand and all Beatles happy-happy, feel good. Right out of primordial scream therapy, our passionate british hippie, she reaches for an acoustic guitar and blows her cavities out. Full openness and even exhibitionist exploring your emotions. Harakiri, perhaps mastered with the help of Yoko's Japanese partner. This is perhaps the only album, the way I do to listen just while sitting and doing nothing else. Situation, when nothing is done and you are sitting, they sound very deserted to me, hence the obvious choice.
For me, this album is more important than anything the Beatles have done before. Not musically, but… artistically. As the saying goes, Lennon established an observatory inside his own soul and examined it in a way, which only happens to the best poets and writers. Sorry, McCartney.
Velvet & Kasabian
Regarding Velvets, please refer to the previous article, and about Kasabian I produced at the beginning. In a word, thanks for your attention and best regards. I hope, that you didn't know something there and you might like it, when you're done, legally or not, download the album.
PS Plates, which did not catch on, and which I would probably take one day (which, moreover, makes the above-mentioned choices credible, under a delicate question mark).
Unplugged in New York – Nirvana
Blood Sugar Sex Magick – RHCP
Whatever People Say I Am, That is What I am Not – Arctic Monkeys
