This week I’ve been listening to a lot of Neil Young. Today I realized something that I’ve known for years, but have never really taken in: my favorite Neil Young albums were all recorded back to back. Not only that, they were recorded within a 5 year time span. It got me thinking of other songwriters/bands in that upper echelon who created 5 near perfect albums in succession (I know, it’s a strange criteria, but this is how my mind works). These are my top 5:
The Beatles
Beatles For Sale
Help!
Rubber Soul
Revolver
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Bruce Springsteen
Born To Run
Darkness On The Edge of Town
The River
Nebraska
Born In The U.S.A.
Bob Dylan
The Times They Are A-Changin’
Another Side of Bob Dylan
Bringing It All Back Home
Highway 61 Revisited
Blonde On Blonde
Elvis Costello
My Aim Is True
This Year’s Model
Armed Forces
Get Happy!!
Trust
Neil Young
After The Goldrush
Harvest
On The Beach
Tonight’s The Night
Zuma
OK, music nerds, make your lists. They must be five near perfect albums released in back to back to back to back to back order. You don’t get to list Radiohead and skip over Amnesiac. Live albums can be excluded or included. EPs and rarities albums as well. However, if an album was studio recorded and available to the general public, it cannot be skipped over, your list must be 5 albums in succession and must be limited to the best 5 (of course John Wesley Harding is an amazing album, but not, in my opinion, as amazing as The Times They Are A-Changin’). Go.
5 comments:
This is hard. Especially after those picks.
U2: War (83); Under a Blood Red Sky (83); The Unforgettable Fire (84); Wide Awake in America (85); The Joshua Tree (87)
The Police (5 studio 78-83)
The Talking Heads: 77 (77); More Songs About Buildings and Food (78); Fear of Music (79); Remain in Light (80); Speaking in Tongues (82)
R.E.M.: Murmur (83); Reckoning (84); Fables OTR (85); Life's Rich Pageant (86); Document (87)
My only current gamble (even though I like Amnesiac):
Iron & Wine (if he squeaks by on EPs, a combo, and no hindsight - someday we may say these were all the same album): Creek Drank the Cradle (02); The Sea and the Rhythm (03); Our Endless Numbered Days (04); In the Reins (05 - with Calexico); Woman King (05)
My adolescent infatuations probably show here as much as my taste. I don't have these in heavy rotation, but I still think they're great. Amazing how many good artists didn't make it to five or laid a stinker on the way.
(Hi Kester. Long time lurker; you drew me out. Thanks for the blog)
Okay...let me see first I have to disagree on Dylan...Infidels is one of my favorites...oh how I love the White Album...and Elvis well it's hard to but I will give you Elvis now isn't that grand of me.
But your right on on Neil Young though I'm tempted to say that Everybody Knows This is Nowhere is close if not better then Tonight's the Night or On the Beach but still I dream I saw a silver space ship flying............
So......Let me see:
Elton John - Tumbleweed Connection
Madman Across the Water
Honky Chateau
Don't Shoot Me....
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Genesis:
Foxtrot
Selling England by the Pound
Lamb Lies Down
Trick of the Tail
Wind and the Wuthering
YES:
Fragile
Close to the Edge
Tales of a Topographic Ocean
Relayer
Going for the One
JONI MITCHELL:
Blue
For the Roses
Court and Spark
Hissing on Summer Lawns
Hejira
I'm processing many others but feel that no one maybe other then Frank Zappa has the body of work that could stand this.... scrutiny. What about okay
Kester, this is just too hard. You have truly out done yourself.
Wow, lots of good lists! I'm afraid my list has a rather broad interpretation of "near perfect," but here it goes:
Led Zeppelin: II,III,IV, Houses of the Holy, Physical Graffiti
Billy Joel: Turnstiles, The Stranger, 52nd Street, Glass Houses, Songs in the Attic
Wilco: A.M, Being There, Summerteeth, Mermaid Avenue, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
The Replacements: Let It Be, Tim, Pleased to Meet Me, Don't Tell a Soul, All Shook Down
Rolling Stones: Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street, Goats Head Soup
y'know, I'd guess in 150 years everybody's grandmother and granddaughter will still know Dylan and the Beatles and the Stones, but mine'll be entirely the property of dissertations and documentaries.
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