Alright, let's start this ongoing thread. As seen from "music thread idea", the general idea is to post up somewhere between 1-3 albums from whichever year is posted, the year is chosen at random. Album cover, title, genre (riyl) description (ideally written by you) and why you think people should hear it. Something like that, but it's really free form. Keep this thread up for like a week or until it dies down. You can upload links of your albums or just wait until people request them. We should discuss too. Albums can be recognized classics you just want to reaffirm, total underground classics, local bands, lost gems, whatever you want, any genre. If someone takes one of your picks, just quote them and give your opinion and then hopefully add a unique choice.

Sometimes I'll post some first and sometimes I'll wait a bit.

First Up:

1974

I didn't think I had the music from before I was born sorted by year in my head, but apparently I did because the first thing I thought of was:


Shuggie Otis - Inspiration Information

I had heard of this when it was re-released in the '90s, but it wasn't until it was recommended in this thread viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29495 that I really listened (funny, I thought it was billy g who suggested it, but I see it was elephantstone; probably mixed up the memories since I got a bunch of the other things billy g recommended). Anyway, it's a nice record of psychedelic soul.

Great start shmoo. Inspiration Information is one of my favorite records of all time. Or I should at least say that Shuggie is one of my favorite artists. I realize the album for it's brilliance and it's probably still a 5-star record to me, but his previous release "Freedom Flight" is probably my favorite record of his - and a definite 5 star record for me. Regardless, I can't listen to this too much because then I just go into Shuggie mode and listen to him all week.

Lucio Battisti - Anima Latina

I don't particularly know the history of Lucio Battisti, though I gather that he was/is one of the more famous Italian pop stars of the past 4 decades. Regardless, this album got recommended to me by my buddy Zamboni last year, and I was taken at once by the cover art. From the color, the scene and the font, that cover reeks of one of the latest batch of new chillwave releases, or some IDM album from the late 90s. Good album art really helps bring me into the music, even if I'm just listening digitally. Luckily the music from the album overpowers even the impressive photo. This is forward thinking pop music that we could try to relate to what Bowie and Eno were doing at the time, T. Rex to a lesser extent, but probably falls more in line with what Robert Wyatt was attempting out on his own. Huge orchestral sounds, bird samples, chiming guitars, sexy female vocals, native sounding chants, flute. I mean this album has to have about as many different sounds on it as "Pet Sounds" and while it's never going to go down as an album that reaches those highs or that classic status, it nevertheless deserves the "forgotten classic" status that a cult of people have awarded it. Atmospheric, sunny, breezy. It's feel good pop music that isn't simple. It treads the line between complicated and straight-forward perfectly and is really one of the coolest pop records you can put on. Some will write it off as cheesy, some will be put off by it's experimentation, but those who begin to find something in it, will probably become obsessive. That's what it is really, an album to become obsessed with.

Fricke and Fickelscher have glorious intertwining guitars, sometimes psyche-pretty-spacey-delic and sometimes more straightforward rock. And music that while typifying its time sounds fresh and powerful today... and foundational to a lot of the instrumental post-rock of the last few years.

I was thinking about posting that! I need to give it a listen though, haven't in a year or so.

Oh lordy yes.

Gal Costa - Cantar - 1974



A beautiful Gal Costa record that isn't as crazy as her psychedelic recordings, but it more than makes up for it with some haunting arrangements by the likes of Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and Joao Donato. Gal sings some beautiful versions of tracks like Donato's "A Ra" (with extra lyrics by Caetano!), "Ate Quem Sabe", and "Flor De Maracuja", and Caetano's "Lua, Lua, Lua, Lua" and "Joia". Also with a nice version of "Barato Total", with a guest appearance by Gilberto Gil! Very nice stuff, and one of her best from the 70s.

http://rapidshare.com/files/248575298/GalCantar.rar

Sweet - Desolation Boulevard



aside from Ballroom Blitz, this is a GREAT fucking album.

http://www.mediafire.com/?jennnyw2wwm

Sweet (invariably referred to as The Sweet) was a British rock band that rose to worldwide fame in the 1970s as one of the most prominent glam rock acts, with the classic line-up of lead vocalist Brian Connolly, bass player Steve Priest, guitarist Andy Scott, and drummer Mick Tucker.

Sweet was formed in 1968 and achieved their first hit "Funny Funny" in 1971 after teaming up with songwriters Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman and record producer Phil Wainman. During 1971 and 1972, their musical style followed a marked progression from the Archies-like bubblegum style of "Funny Funny" to a Who influenced hard rock style supplemented by a striking use of high-pitched backing vocals. The band achieved notable success in the UK charts, with thirteen Top 20 hits during the 1970s alone, with "Block Buster!" (1973) topping the chart, followed by three consecutive number two hits in "Hell Raiser" (1973), "The Ballroom Blitz" (1973) and "Teenage Rampage" (1974). Their first self-written and produced single "Fox on the Run" (1975) also reached number two on the UK charts. From 1976 the success started a to decline and Sweet had their last Top 10 hit in 1978 with "Love is Like Oxygen". The year after, Connolly left the group to start a solo career and the remaining members continued as a threesome until they finally disbanded in 1981.

The New Favourites of Brinsley Schwarz

RIYL: Nick Lowe, The Band, Elvis Costello, Graham Parker
Their last album has some pretty great tunes, including the original version of "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding?". The Brinsleys' version is a lot more tongue-in-cheek and less angry than Elvis', but it's every bit as good in its own way. Looking at the tracklisting, there really isn't a single song on here that isn't completely satisfying as a stand-alone pop gem. It's not the very best B.S. album, except on some days.

Brian Eno - Taking Tiger Mountain (by Strategy)

RIYL: Brian Eno
Eno still in his pop phase, albeit a very skewed version of the form. A very dark-sounding album with lots of menacing, low-end (frequency-wise) synth sounds, strange percussion, and great guitar playing from Phil Manzanera and Chris Spedding. This could be the quintessential Eno album.

My obvious favorite:

The Residents - Meet The Residents
RIYL the way The Beatles skewered their own pop sound on songs like Wild Honey Pie, but feel like The Beatles should have gone even farther with the skewering.

I'm not really good at telling people why they should hear something, as I am realistic enough to know that most people--Obner or not--won't like this. Still, for their niche in the music world, this album is remarkably important. Sort of the way Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica should be heard by all serious music fans, even though most of them won't like it.

Never heard this, but this quote of yours:

REEELY makes me want to hear it.

Mike Oldfield :: Hergest Ridge

While trying to think of things to post for 74, and not take the obvious "Planet Waves" or KISS' debut, I remembered this record. I got it on vinyl shortly after my wife and I started dating in college. Found in a stack of records at a flea market, and obviously knew Oldfield from his hauntingly beautiful "Tubular Bells".

In 1973, Oldfield released the aforementioned "Tubular Bells" which garnered him much attention. It was also the first record released on Virgin, so obviously a momentous record. But it was his next record which solidified him. With the success of his debut, Oldfield retreated to the English countryside and recorded this record--which takes its name from the place he retreated to. It debuted at no.1 in the UK, and was only knocked off the no.1 by his own Tubular Bells.

Hergest Ridge features at one point 90 multi-tracked guitars to create an incredible sound. To me, this is better than "TB" because it builds off of what Oldfield was doing on that record and fleshes it out somewhat. I think the New Age moniker attached to his music is somewhat ill-informed because that genre conjures up images of rain sticks and really, really bad earth sounds over synthy interludes. Oldfield is dense, and you can definitely trace what he was creating to some of the popular ambient musicians today. Eno obviously is the king of the genre, but Oldfield definitely takes a run at it with this release. It feels organic (which could probably be attributed to all the instrumentation), and warm.

RIYL: early ambient, Eno's ambient, prog

Wow, everybody's kicked this off with a bunch of relatively obscure shit. I feel like I really have nothing to add, and this is probably one of my favorite years for music.

I mean it was totally a banner year: Neil Young - On the Beach, Richard & Linda Thompson - I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight, Brian Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets, King Crimson - Red & Starless and Bible Black, Kraftwerk - Autobahn, and Cluster - Zuckerzeit to name a few. These are all albums I swear by. And then you've got Parliament - Up for the Down Stroke, Robert Wyatt - Rock Bottom, Harmonia - Musik von Harmonia, Big Star - Radio City, Tangerine Dream -Phaedra, Tom Waits - The Heart of Saturday Night, Can - Soon Over Babaluma, Eno's Taking Tiger Mountain, and Sly & the Family Stone's underrated Small Talk. I know this thread isn't really for listing out a bunch of shit, but I really think most of these are pretty well known, at least among this crowd. I'm not sure if any of them need any kind of recommendation or write-up from me.

But... I guess I'll go with this one.


King Crimson - Starless and Bible Black

I think it's kind of unfortunate that this often gets overshadowed by other KC albums - Red, Court of the Crimson King, Lark's Tongues in Aspic and even Discipline - as I think it's at the very least their second-best (next to Red) if not actually their best. It's been said that KC represents both the best and worst aspects of prog - and while I'd argue that they never did anything I've heard that's a contender for "worst" - they certainly made some of the absolute best. I don't think you have to really be a fan or even be particularly tolerant of prog to like this album. This thing rocks, and it contains what I consider to be the greatest rock instrumental ever recorded, "Fracture":

(It's long, but you have to stay with it until the end.)

Great post dude.

Nice, Drinky. Was considering that myself.

A lot of my SECOND-favorite albums from some of my favorite artists came out this year. Another case in point:

John Cale - Fear
The opener/title cut teases you into thinking that the whole album is going to be along the lines of Paris, 1919, but then it grows into a raging rocker, not sounding much at all like what the rest of the album sounds like.
Actually, some of Cale's prettiest songs are on this record: "Buffalo Ballet", "You Know More Than I Know", and "Ship of Fools" among them. But then that title cut and "Gun" provide a couple of very rude counterpoints. And I mean that in the best possible way.
It's not the masterspiece of it's predecessor, Paris, 1919; but for most other artists, it would be the pinnacle of their career.

I don't know why I keep neglecting the Cale stuff, but I've been meaning to spend more time with Fear and Paris, 1919 for a long time now. (Vintage Violence is the only album of his that I own a legit copy of, and I've always liked it a lot.) I need to make this is a priority in 2011.

Fear is one of those albums that I guess I like but I never want to listen to.

This is really cool. Fits in nicely with me dipping back into '70s Brazilian music lately.

Re: King Crimson, Drinky is there any hope for someone who absolutely hates Prog? But I can't say that I've heard King Crimson outside of 21st Century Schizoid Man.

Re: Lucio
Yeah definitely. It actually works really well with the Gal Costa that Dalen posted (thanks Dale, didn't have that one!) back to back.

I'll post another 1 or 2 albums later today probably.

I would say of any of their albums apart from MAYBE Crimson King, this is the most accessible to those who hate prog.

not his best work by far, but

David Bowie - Diamond Dogs...

It depends on what things you hate about prog.

I mean you might not be able to tolerate that album I posted up there, but my recommendation would still be to give both of those 1974 albums a shot. They rock the most out of everything in KC's discography (aside from maybe the '90s stuff which I've never heard) and features their best line-up. If you still don't like those at all, maybe give Discipline a spin before giving up. It's almost more of a new wave album than a prog one.

You should probably avoid their first four albums for the time being. Maybe come back to them if you decide you like some of their other stuff.

Alright. I'm on the "drinky plan" to enjoy prog. I'm going with this and Discipline.