since Unkie's already broken the ice, here's the early draft of my list.

1. Wire - Pink Flag
2. Gang of Four - Entertainment!
3. Big Star - #1 Record
4. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
5. Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
6. Elvis Costello (& The Attractions) - This Year's Model
7. Richard & Linda Thompson - I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight
8. Steely Dan - The Royal Scam
9. Kraftwerk - Die Mensch-Maschine
10. Marvin Gaye - What's Going On

11. The Clash - London Calling
12. Miles Davis - Bitches' Brew
13. Warren Zevon - Excitable Boy
14. Stevie Wonder - Songs in the Key of Life
15. Syd Barrett - The Madcap Laughs
16. Grateful Dead - American Beauty
17. Bob Marley & The Wailers - Exodus
18. The Modern Lovers - The Modern Lovers
19. Talking Heads - Talking Heads '77
20. Can - Ege Bamyasi

21. David Bowie - Station to Station
22. Steely Dan - Aja
23. Public Image Ltd. - Metal Box
24. Nick Drake - Pink Moon
25. Kraftwerk - Trans Europa Express
26. Frank Zappa - Apostrophe
27. Ramones - Ramones
28. Grateful Dead - Workingman's Dead
29. Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon
30. Funkadelic - Maggot Brain

31. Television - Marquee Moon
32. David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
33. Elvis Costello - My Aim is True
34. NRBQ - At Yankee Stadium
35. Steely Dan - Countdown to Ecstasy
36. The Cure - Three Imaginary Boys
37. Lou Reed - Transformer
38. Wire - Chairs Missing
39. Bob Marley & The Wailers - Burnin'
40. Kraftwerk - Autobahn

41. Richard & Linda Thompson - Hokey Pokey
42. Stevie Wonder - Innervisions
43. Talking Heads - Fear of Music
44. Stiff Little Fingers - Inflammable Material
45. The Clash - The Clash (US Version)
46. Parliament - Mothership Connection
47. Pink Floyd - Meddle
48. John Williams - Star Wars OST
49. The Human League - Reproduction
50. Velvet Underground - Loaded

Unkie so glad you like John Prine!!!

rough draft of mine after going over my ratings, no order, for sake of reference

francoise hardy - la question
chico buarque - construcao
sly + family stone - there's a riot on goin on
can - future days
faust - so far
pink floyd - meddle
christodoulos halaris - tropic of virgo
dadawah - peace and love
alec r constadinos - romeo and juliet
townes van zandt - live at the old quarter
fela kuti - roforofo fight
wire - chairs missing
joy division - unknown pleasures
neil young - on the beach
gang of four - entertainment
stooges - fun house
eno - another green world
big star - 3rd
talking heads - fear of music
ennio morricone - maddalena ost
luciano cilio - dialoghi del presente
miles davis - on the corner
david bowie - station to station
exuma - s/t
pakeezah ost
comus - first utterance
nico - desertshore
pere ubu - modern dance
brigitte fontaine and areski belkacem - l'incendie
robert wyatt - rock bottom
gene macdaniels - headless heroes of the apocalypse
this heat - s/t
milton nascimento + los borges - cluba de esquina
keith hudson - flesh of my skin, blood of my blood
chrome - alien soundtracks
carla bley + paul haines - escalator over the hill
moroder - from here to eternity
the residents - eskimo
television - marquee moon
vainica doble - s/t
morita doji - a boy
neu! - neu!
carole laure - alibis
lucio battisti - anima latina
art ensemble of chicago - les stances a sophie
yamasuki - the wonderful and fabulous world of yamasuki
the fall - live at the witch trials
mingus - let my children hear music
kraftwerk - die mensch maschine
peggy lee - mirrors

Going through the rym list, starting off with 1970 and working upwards. A difficult feat but there's fuckall to do in the summer!

Curtis Mayfield- Curtis

The element of surprise is always higher when I dip into soul, simply because I have preconceived notions of how it sounds and to be honest, it is a very narrow notion. So when I hear something like this, how lush the arrangements are, how psychedelic it gets, how progressive the structure is, I become like a kid whose mom surprises him taking him to Mickey D’s, or Pedro’s boyfriend surprising him with a fat dick in his ass. Curtis’ sense of pacing is great here, knowing when he himself is overstaying his welcome and letting his musicians jam out. It becomes not so much call and response, but more of a release from density, adding to the album’s pleasant surprises around every corner. My only criticism would be the track "We the People", which although gives a nice stark contrast to its following track, seems to slow down the album's momentum a bit too much. I can only assume that is why he adds the mid jam-out session tho, to revive some of that magical energy. It somewhat works, but I can still see the bandages over the scrapes. Yet “Move on Up” is every bit as good as anything the Gayes and Browns have done in this decade and the jam out here is less of a cover up and more of it being icing on the cake, an utter delight. And as inspiring and uplifting as it is, I can’t help feeling an undercurrent of sadness, where the reality of such optimism is impossible in an oversaturated world. But that’s not what matters, this isn’t Equilibrium and there is no thought police, and life can be just if not even more worth living internally than externally, a nigga can dream can’t he? That’s what MLK jr did and look at him, look at him really.

I'll tease a bit, too. More soul!

Al Green - Let's Stay Together

My fav Al Green song is Let's Stay Together. Sometimes when the best song is the first song, the rest of the album seems kind of pointless. Like, put that shit in the middle or at the end. Give me something to wait for. Its like when the money shot is at the beginning of a porno. The rest of it could be solid stuff, but we've already climaxed... emotionally, so what's the point in watching the rest?

That said, the rest of Let's Stay Together ranges anywhere from above average to good soul music, so it isn't like the album sucks. It's quite good, actually. I just want to put the title track on repeat a few times and call it a day sometimes is all.

Yeah I dont like albums like that either, the majority at least. If I had a personal thing, it would be that the opener should sound like an opener and should never be the biggest hit song on the album. Which is why I never thought too much of Nevermind or Appetite for Destruction, they cum too quick. THe flipside to that I also dont like where they put their best song at the end of the album, so you have to wait impatiently. When it's on the 2nd-4th range tho, that's almost always the best.



Black Sabbath- Black Sabbath

Well I can see why the punk movement came about during the latter part of this decade because this shit is kinda inhuman. There is still an upward gaze towards the bands of this period as if they were high rising Greek statues at a museum . I feel like I could finish off Jonathan Richman’s beer, but couldn’t be 10 erected Quinn dicks within the vicinity of the bar Tony Iommi is at. If there is any leveled connection you have with the band, it is totally within your psyche as it pertains to the intensity of their music. This is not a criticism, just an observation. Saying that, this is an amazing debut, but I would have to give the upper edge to Paranoid which feels more focused and tighter. This album to me can seem meandering, overcrossing its maximum capacity of world class musicianship demonstration and ultimately taking away from the core of each song. Paranoid trims off some of that jam-prog fat and that is why it’s a better album. This is me looking through my rearview mirror tho, that kind of strutting was fashionable at the time and had I been there at the time, this would’ve been a whole dfferent revelation to me. However, there are still the timeless showstoppers you can’t escape like “N.I.B.” and “The Wizard”. And if “Black Sabbath” had been the only song the band ever made, that alone would still make them one of the greatest bands of all time.



Black Sabbath- Paranoid

Time can be unfriendly to some music. THrough the uprise of advertising, heavy radio rotation and stadium arousing, pop culture can take the greatest pop songs and strip the initial speciality they once had and turn it overwrought, stale and lifeless. Black Sabbath, as ingrained as some of their songs within culture as they have become, still seem to burst vividly even today. A part of that luster is because their penchant for writing infectious riffs were coaxed with expert musicianship, so while their riffs stay familiar, the supplementary playing that dances around them can seem afresh all the time. This happens to be one of those albums that every track is instantly absorbed and becomes apart of you because they are all written with an autonomy of their own. And the Sabbath sound is so unique unto themselves (still haven’t seen anyone sound quite like them), that everything ties together without consciously trying to do so. The Sabbath sound I feel is inimitable, what’s striking about it is how much negative space actually exists in between their playing and yet it still packs more much punch and pep as an air tight contemporary grindcore song. The resulting effect makes every note, every beat, every groove pummel forward separately and still miraculously in unison. Everything counts in Paranoid.

ledward, the title track isn't even the best thing on that album!!!! open up your ears, maaan...

hint: it is a bee gees cover. (-:

If any of you are into country you should listen to John Prine's self titled album and his other one called Sweet Revenge. He's pretty much the '70s hillbilly version of David Berman. I just finished with 1970 and came out with three 10/10 albums in After the Gold Rush, Exuma, and Loaded. This list is going to be tough.

I'll be listening to it again soon enough. Perhaps my reactions were... premature?

An album I've been jerking off here for a long time, but I hope it makes it onto the final list, so here's another push!



King Crimson's Red and In the Court of the Crimson King are codified classics, but Starless and Bible Black is their most experimental and ambitious set from their original late-60s/70s run, and as such is also the most divisive and debated amongst King Crimson fans and diehards. And it's not hard to hear why some may despise the album, either: certainly it's eccentricity is a point of contention, which is sort of implicit when half of the album's tracks are improvisations, but even the other songs shift in sounds and style at a moment's notice, and multiple times. I always try to sell the haters that its span, no matter how disjointed, is really that special something that makes S&BB such a fascinating album..."think of it as King Crimson's White Album!"

Starless and Bible Black certainly takes the cake for King Crimson's most fucked up album (in a good way, the bad sort of fucked up title would go to Cirkus). There's a few intersecting lines toed by KC's most adventurours and fruitful lineup throughout -the serene and the cerebral, chaos and constraint, between quaintness and confrontation - and from song to song (and even within the spans of those songs) those lines blur. It's disorienting, but in a marvelous way, perfectly executed by a band whose musical prowess is able to tie S&BB's many flavors and explorations into an aesthetic behemoth.

"The Great Deceiver" is at once a lean, coordinated strike and an sensory overload, w/ its caustic/kaleidiscopic intro and outro sonic barrages and sharp, stripped down verse passages; the album's (odd) lead single "The Night Watch" wraps all the band's previously wonky bardic-flavored-moments into a classy 4 minute package. SS&B also doubles as the 70's best live album, with live-improvisational cuts like "We'll Let You Know" (which should be soundtracking a Fantasia-like short with its explosive alchemy and comedic back-and-forth responses), tranquility-incarnate of "Trio," and the album's self-titled colossus. Sure, The Who were in their element bringing their studio material to the stage, but you'd be hard pressed to find another band who could create this sort of material from thin air.

King Crimson were among the avant-garde in the 70s, even if they unfortunately get bundled with the likes of ELP and some other wankers. Starless and Bible Black is the most compelling argument against conventional album craft the 70s has to offer.

I fear that your lack of expressed 'Fracture' love will result in King Ghidorah destroying us all.

I need to listen to Let's Stay Together again. And a couple other Al Green albums.

OK, this is probably my top 15:

Paul McCartney & Wings: Back To The Egg
Badfinger: No Dice
Big Star: #1 Record
Doris Troy: Doris Troy
Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice: Jesus Christ Superstar
Paul McCartney: Ram
Joe Jackson: Look Sharp
Big Star: Radio City
Creedence Clearwater Revival: Cosmo's Factory
George Harrison: All Things Must Pass
Bob Dylan: Blood On The Tracks
Michael Jackson: Off The Wall
Peter Frampton: Frampton Comes Alive
Paul McCartney & Wings: Band On The Run
Elvis Costello & The Attractions: Armed Forces

And these are the other albums which I feel confident will end up on the list, but these are in no particular order (and I'll still add another 8 to bring it up to 50).

Elvis Costello: My Aim Is True
Cheap Trick: At Budokan
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band: John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
Badfinger: Straight Up
George Harrison: George Harrison
Simon & Garfunkel: Bridge Over Troubled Water
The Who: Who's Next
Mary Hopkin: Earth Song/Ocean Song
Yoko Ono: Approximately Infinite Universe
Stevie Wonder: Innervisions
Elton John: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Ringo Starr: Ringo
Steve Miller Band: Fly Like An Eagle
Ramones: Rocket To Russia
Peter Frampton: I'm In You
Neil Young: After The Gold Rush
Denny Laine: Holly Days
Walter Egan: Not Shy
Stevie Wonder: Talking Book
Fleetwood Mac: Rumours
Bee Gees: 2 Years On
Pilot: Pilot
Paul Simon: There Goes Rhymin' Simon
The B-52s: The B-52s
Billy Joel: Turnstiles
Emmit Rhodes: Mirror
Nick Lowe: Pure Pop For Now People

And as I've mentioned elsewhere, if the Jackson Five Anthology is eligible it will almost certainly be on the list--come to think of it, it will probably land in the top 15.

dude wanta props on the props for Curtis, amazing record.

if our endeavour here could possibly give me opportunity to introduce ddders to only one album, i'd want it to be this...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-eDBAzskNg[/youtube]


there's also "A Handful of Beauty", which i think of as "Natural Elements'" bigger brother; it is just as amazing, but not nearly as accessible to the western ear not used to the sound of raga... whereas this is east/west fusion at its very finest and most accessible, imo; the tunes are so tight and extroverted, they're are almost like pop songs...