{"id":648,"date":"2009-03-12T07:53:22","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T13:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sidehike.net\/wp\/?p=648"},"modified":"2009-03-12T07:53:22","modified_gmt":"2009-03-12T13:53:22","slug":"my-personal-top-20-albums-11-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sidehike.net\/my-personal-top-20-albums-11-20\/","title":{"rendered":"My personal Top 20 albums (11-20)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my previous post<\/a> I gave you the first 10 of the 20 most influential albums in my life. Here’s the second half. (Remember, these aren’t in any particular order… it was hard enough narrowing it down, much less ranking them.)<\/p>\n

<\/a>\"\"11. Neil Young and Crazy Horse – Weld<\/a><\/strong>
\nAs a musician, one of the best things about Neil Young is that he can’t decide who the hell he is. One minute he’s giving you Harvest<\/em> (which almost made this list) and the next you’re getting Zuma<\/em> or Rust Never Sleeps<\/em>. When you’re just starting out on guitar and really suck, Needle and the Damage Done<\/em> is an unreasonable goal. But sweet jeebus, Weld<\/em> was like finding the freaking Rosetta Stone. Given a guitar that’s even halfway in tune, ANYBODY can sound good playing along with this live album. It was the 1991 equivalent of Guitar Hero. There’s so much noise and feedback and distortion that anybody can hide their suckage in the sonic flotsam and jetsam floating around their ears. (It comes as no surprise that Neil claims he ruined his hearing mixing this album<\/a>.) So yes, it’s a lot of noise. But it’s sweet, beautiful noise. There’s a difference between this and the heap piles of crap turned out by Sonic Youth (his opening act on the tour during which this album was recorded) — it’s that there’s still an underlying melody to the noise. <\/p>\n

Given this album, a dirty distorted guitar, three chords and the truth, any kid can be a rock god in his bedroom for the two hours between when he gets home from school and when his parents come home and make him “turn that racket down.”<\/p>\n

We got a thousand points of light
\nFor the homeless man
\nWe got a kinder, gentler, machine gun hand<\/p>\n

We got department stores and toilet paper
\nGot styrofoam boxes for the ozone layer
\nGot a man of the people sayin’ keep hope alive
\nGot fuel to burn, got roads to drive.<\/p>\n

Keep on rockin’ in the free world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>\"\"12. Pearl Jam – TEN<\/strong><\/a>
\nTo me, this is the perfect grunge era album. I know others would say Nirvana’s Nevermind<\/a>\"\" <\/em> should belong here, but quite frankly that’s a “Coke vs. Pepsi” argument — and while in the world of soft drinks the clear<\/em> answer is Coke (unless you’re a pinko commie Jeff Gordon loving yankee dimwit), in the case of those two albums it comes down to personal preference. My circle of friends much preferred Pearl Jam. You know those memories of your youth that are just like snapshots of your life, rather than full stories? Several of those moments in my life are punctuated by songs from this album. Evenflow<\/em> will always remind me of sitting in the front of Greg’s dad’s boat, skipping across the choppy water of Joe Pool Lake trying to get a former offensive lineman from Auburn up on skis. (That memory is made more vivid by the fact that it was one of the first times we were ever accompanied by actual girls in actual bathing suits.) Jeremy<\/em> will always remind me of a car full of teenagers awkwardly self-censoring the lyrics as “gnashed his teeth and bit the recess lady’s … NOSE!” in an attempt to escape the wrath of a disapproving parent. Alive<\/em> will always remind me of sitting in my friend Lee’s backyard and our duo doing a semi-impromtu “unplugged” gig to impress a couple cute girls from school … and their boyfriends, if I recall correctly. Anyway, the point is that it wouldn’t matter what Kurt Cobain did or didn’t do, in my mind he’ll always be playing second fiddle to Eddie and the boys.<\/p>\n

Clearly I remember
\nPickin’ on the boy
\nSeemed a harmless little FREAK
\nBut we unleashed a lion
\nGnashed his teeth
\nAnd bit the recess lady’s NOSE<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>\"\"13. The Beach Boys – Endless Summer<\/a><\/strong>
\nYes, it’s another compilation. And yes, it only contains pre-Pet Sounds
\n<\/em> material. However, my appreciation for good melodies and close harmonies can be traced back in no small part to this album. I don’t really remember listening to much "children’s music" when I was a kid. I’m sure I probably did to some extent, but I don’t remember much Sesame Street or Raffi or anything like that. I know I wore out my Snoopy vs. The Red Baron single (check out the video on YouTube<\/a>) on my Fisher-Price record player, but for the most part I remember a lot more "kid-safe" adult music. Driving around town in the back seat of Mom’s Monte Carlo we were usually pacified by the sounds of the Beach Boys or Neil Sedaka or motown hits. And the Beach Boys were my favorite. In fact, the earliest concert I remember attending was a post-game Beach Boys concert at Arlington Stadium. Even late into the elementary school years Greg Stone and I spent more than a few endless summer afternoons laying on the bedroom floor playing with Legos and singing along with the Wilsons, et al. We got to where we had specific parts. I’d usually go high and Greg would go low. If you ever hear new music that has Brian Wilson style harmonies, send it my way. Chances are good I’ll probably love it.<\/p>\n

Well I’m not braggin’ babe so don’t put me down
\nBut I’ve got the fastest set of wheels in town
\nWhen something comes up to me he don’t even try
\nCause if I had a set of wings man I know she could fly
\nShe’s my little deuce coupe
\nYou don’t know what I got<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\n
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14. Alabama – The Closer You Get<\/a> and Mountain Music<\/a> and My Home’s in Alabama<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh I’ll speak my Southern English just as natural as I please
\nI’m in the heart of Dixie, Dixie’s in the heart of me<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I can’t separate these three albums. They might as well be one triple album to me. My sister and I must have listened to these records a hundred thousand times growing up. The needle would hit the groove on the first side and we’d sing along and run around the living room in circles until we fell over or got sick. (Whichever came first.) But this isn’t just a nice piece of nostalgia to me. This may be overproduced pop country, but it’s still damn fine music.<\/p>\n

I think if this "work" thing doesn’t pan out I’m just going to start an Alabama cover band and hit the road. <\/p>\n

Whitetail buck deer munchin on clover, redtail hawk settin on a limb
\nChubby old groundhog, croakin bullfrog, free as the feelin in the wind
\nHome grown country girl
\nGonna give me a whirl
\nOn a tennessee saturday night
\nLucky as a seven
\nLivin’ in heaven
\nWith my dixieland delight<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>\"\"15. Johnny Cash – At Folsom Prison<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

I can’t imagine the stones it must’ve taken to make this concert happen. And I’ll never forget the chills I got the first time listened to the line “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.” Nor the second dose of chills I got a few listens later when I realized the cheers that line got from the inmates.<\/p>\n

Now I’m gonna shut up on this one and let other people speak.<\/p>\n

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I bet there’s rich folk eatin’ in a fancy dining car.
\nThey’re prob’ly drinkin’ coffee and smokin’ big cigars,
\nBut I know I had it comin’, I know I can’t be free,
\nBut those people keep a movin’, and that’s what tortures me. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>\"\"16. Weezer – “The Blue Album”<\/strong><\/a>
\nMy write-up for this album o’ geek anthems took me longer to write than most of the others on this list because I am listening to each of these albums as I write. Despite the fact that this is probably the shortest album on the list, it was hard to actually do the writing since every time I started to type I’d get the undeniable urge to pick up the guitar and strum along. This was one of about 4 CDs I copied to tape and ALWAYS had in the glove box of my little blue truck just in case the urge struck. Weezer sounded especially good on that sound system. Most of my high school garage bands could play this album — Say It Ain’t So<\/em> was a signature song for one of them. <\/p>\n

Thanks to My Name is Jonas<\/em> this album took on a new life for me my freshman year of college. An organization I was involved in had coffeehouse-style performances at their retreats and pretty much anybody who could play anything would get up on stage and do something. After a bit of pushing and prodding by friends I got up there and did a pretty killer solo acoustic version of the song. (Thanks in no small part to a high degree of audience participation.) That led into a Polyphonic Spree-eque performance of The Violent Femmes’ Blister in the Sun<\/em> wherein half the audience — 30-odd people (or 30 odd people, take your pick) rushed the stage and grabbed various instruments and “things to bang on” and played along. But a bunch of us bonded over Weezer. In high school a handful of us liked Weezer. Here I had found a crowd. Bless you, TmfH.<\/p>\n

I’ve got an electric guitar
\nI play my stupid songs
\nI write these stupid words
\nAnd I love every one
\nWaiting there for me
\nYes I do, I do<\/p>\n

In the garage
\nI feel safe
\nNo one cares about my ways
\nIn the garage
\nWhere I belong
\nNo one hears me sing this song
\nIn the garage
\nIn the garage <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>\"\"
\n17. Sloan – Navy Blues<\/strong><\/a>
\nIf you listened to most of your music on the radio I’m sure that this is probably the first band on my list that you had to stop and ask yourself if you’d even heard of them before. Well, if you’re a radio person, no, you probably haven’t. (They’re Canadian and they’re not Sarah McLachlan or Rush.) <\/p>\n

My parents were one of the first people in the neighborhood to ditch cable, and in 1998ish you could get this fantastic Canadian version of MTV that actually played music videos all the time. And these videos weren’t the garbage you’d see on TRL. Greg (once again) and I were playing cards or something late one night with that channel on the tv in the background and the following video came on the tube:<\/p>\n

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Unfortunately, we missed the tag at the very beginning of the intro that said the name of the band — and I NEEDED this album more than I had ever needed anything in my life up to that point. This was new and different. This was a full year before anyone had heard of the White Stripes. (And at least three years before White Blood Cells<\/em>.) This was a full five years before Jet debuted with Get Born<\/em>. Nobody had made shit like this since Bullitt<\/a>\"\" was still in theaters.<\/p>\n

And we had no clue who we had just seen. We just knew it was incredible. And all we had to go off of was the name on the drum kit: Andy Sabola. <\/p>\n

This was before Google could answer any question in the known universe. We had SOME ability to search the interwebs, but that name drew a complete blank everywhere we looked. You couldn’t find it at Blockbuster Music. You couldn’t find it at Forever Young. You couldn’t find it anywhere. <\/p>\n

As it turns out, Andy Sabola is the guy that Sloan’s drummer bought his used drum kit off of and he thought it would be funny to leave the name on there.<\/p>\n

It took us several months to track down this band. I eventually lucked into finding the CD at a store while looking for something else and thinking the album art looked kind of like the video I remembered.<\/p>\n

You may have noticed from the video (and if you haven’t watched it yet you should be ashamed of yourself), this band has a real knack for those elusive little buggers music critics like to call “pop hooks.” The whole album’s like that. It’s one hook after another, and they’re all just SO. DAMN. GOOD. Click through on the album or the link above to listen to a few of the other clips from the album. You’ll be glad you did.<\/p>\n

We’re still the same
\nAfter all these years
\nIt’s funny how you get a feel for it
\nWhen you finally lose your sense of fear<\/p>\n

When Iggy said it’s loose down on the street
\nLiving in the city
\nAnd everything went black ’cause it’s in my eyes
\nEverything denied<\/p>\n

Well, Kurt’s still cool and Angus rules
\nI’m gonna plug it in again <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>\"\"
\n18. Barenaked Ladies – Rock Spectacle<\/a><\/strong>
\nSpeaking of Canadians, I picked up this album because a girl I had a crush on in college said that if I liked Ben Folds I would probably like Barenaked Ladies. I do pretty much anything that smart, attractive women tell me to do, so of course I had to check them out. I had heard about them long before this, but never had the proper motivation to think of them as anything but a band that played fun, gimmicky songs like If I Had a Million Dollars<\/em>. So I popped in this CD and liked what I heard. Brian Wilson <\/em>hit most of the right chords with me: solidly crafted song, pop culture trivia, etc. But then the player got to track 5 — When I Fall<\/em> — and I was completely mesmerized. <\/p>\n

I was nearly driven to the loony bin trying to figure out the guitar intro. I immediately went straight to the internet, to utilize it for its originally intended purpose: looking up homemade guitar tabs. Unfortunately, nobody had cracked this one yet. The best I could find was some guy who basically just said, “It’s sorta in the key of E. Good luck.” Again, this is before the days of Google or YouTube, or artists doing anything like THIS on the internet:<\/p>\n