October 1986. I was on the Greek cyclade Naxos where I met a black English guy who was deejaying in a club in the main town. He was ranging his LPs as the season was over and he was about to go back to rainy England. Before he played a single for me. A song by a band from the whereabouts of Manchester I had never heard of. Called The Smiths, a name I instantly loved for its modest ubiquitousness. The song was called Panic but it took me at least seven or eight years before getting that title. From the beginning on I thought it was called after the chorus at the end, Hang the DJ. A two minutes and something pop song which didn't impress me much at first but which somehow stayed in memory. Which became a token song for nostalgia. I don't know how many times I asked deejays for this song. Usually because they only played music which didn't say anything to me about my life. Sometimes they played it (as they liked the song themselves but didn't realise why I asked for it), many times they didn't. This song starts the wonderful compilation of singles, b-sides and 12'' extra songs called The World Won't Listen (how could I not love that title) which came out in early 1987. Whatever Panic is about (e.g. riots in England and radio deejays who pass stupid songs on the public radio after Chernobyl has happened a couple of hours before), it has a feel of power which in the end becomes so totally overwhelming and irresistible (that kid's choir is angelic). As if changing the music could change the world. That's what I always liked most about Morrissey. He always incarnated the romantic side of revolution for me.

Three members of The Smiths were born in the same year I was born. I always thought of them as The Beatles of the 80s. My Beatles as that band was about the distant past. An in-between generation, not my parents who were into baroque music and thought that Beethoven was almost too modern for their taste. The Smiths were about feeling uncomfortable. About being unhappy with the world. You realise that the world is not ideal and you escape into music. They were a singles band. Preferring and excelling in the small format of seven and twelve inches. They were so prolific in their short life-time from 1984-87 that their genius could not be captured on albums. That's why I chose a compilation. Three of the best songs of The Queen Is Dead are featured. The autumnal flow heading towards calmer songs is perfect. Not like on these terrible singles compilations or the expanded American version Louder than Bombs which was released shortly after. Hatful of Hollow is almost as strong, probably more urgent in an adolescent universe. If you want the mature, grown-up Smiths The World Won't Listen is more like it though, I guess.

I wanted to offer you Oscillate Wildly, an instrumental worthy of its title. Unfortunately neither yousendit nor antville-files nor my ftp upload program works. Sorry folks. Maybe tomorrow.

Here is the overview of the series 40 years, 40 albums of which part XXXVI was this post.

P.S. I started a disappointing discussion (no surprise, really) on I Love Music by reposting the review there.

I hesitated to choose the third Eno album in this series (1973 may yield a 4th one though the second Roxy Music will be a tough contender) but I realised that what I like about Bowie's Low is its strong Eno touch on the mainly instrumental second atmospheric side. Eno on his own (plus guest musicians) in 1977 to my ears still sounds more adventurous and timeless than the dark and brooding Low. Which additionally hasn't got such a classy black and white cover.

Like Low Before and after Science has two totally different sides as the title already suggests. No. 1 is more rhythmic, no.2 is more like a soundscape. An album which stands in-between his earlier avant pop output and his later ambient releases. Two music worlds are juxtaposed and I find the result of this approach still as thrilling as in the late seventies when I listened to it for the first time. To be honest this is the only album I bought in that mostly dreadful decade for me which I still love today. Kiss, Manfred Mann's Earth Band, Supertramp, Pink Floyd, Alan Parsons, Genesis and Eloy were the bands I cherished in the first half of my teenage years. None of them stood the test of time. I can date back my obsession with music to the purchase of this Eno record which I bought in a record shop in Duisburg about 15 kilometers from my home town. I think I went there by bicycle after having read a review in Die Zeit which still is the only newspaper (a weekly) I read regularly.

It starts with the wonderful groovy piece No One Receiving. One of the greatest moments of Phil Collins. His reverberating drums give this track a light and almost ballet-like quality. A simple bassline dominates the song which is uncategorisable. Somewhere in between world, jazz, dance and pop. Weird and enchanting.

Backwater is even weirder. The piano is part of the rhythm section. Eno sings surreal lyrics about god knows what. The melody is in the singing, the instruments are following later. And then there is this handclapping. I hear some irony there and it sounds bloody good.

More bass wizardry on Kurt's Rejoinder which features Kurt Schwitters recitating one of his dada poems. Clever collaging.

On Energy Fools the Magician we enter soundscape land. Phil Collins hi-hat sounds like a triangle, Eno's "vibes" like a synthie, his keyboards like a piano, his chorus like a women background choir, Fred Frith's modified guitar (?) like a glockenspiel, only Percy Jones fretless bass sounds like a bass. Around 80 seconds in the bass seems to fall over like when you walk too fast and you lose the equilibrium. But then the music does not turn around, it goes on in its majestic calm way. Disappointed expectations. Altogether only two minutes but in those 125 seconds there is more happening than in the entire output of many musicians.

The next song seems to be the turning point. King Lead's Hat. An anagramm of Talking Heads with whom Eno worked later on, I think. More handclapping accompanies a trashy rhythm. This used to be my least favourite track on the album. It feels a little out of place here sandwiched in between two slow atmospheric pieces as it is very upbeat. When Robert Fripp's guitar solo comes just before the two minute mark my love for this song starts to grow though. This beautiful warm and fuzzy King Crimson sound is so perfect in small doses. Paul Rudolph provides some sudden bass chords which seem to act like a stopper but it goes on. Finally it all goes kind of electronic. Eno doing his "metallics". I hear the sound of champagne bubbles and I get very thirsty.

Side two shoots off (not really ;-)) with Here He Comes. As so often Eno offers us an earcatcher as the first song on a side. A languishing beautiful melody about a boy who "was seven feet high". After a minute the song intensifies itself by getting melancholic and even more beautiful when Eno holds his breath for a second and elongates the syllables by singing "coooomes" and then "bloohoohoohoo". What always astounds me about his voice that on one hand it has this totally asexual almost robotic tinge and then it can get so sentimental.

Julie with... ("her open blouse is gazing up into the empty sky") is the longest song on the album. Six minutes and twenty seconds starting slowly in a dreamy way. We are drifting on a calm sea. The first resolution (or dénouement) comes after two minutes. More drifting and a second resolution after four minutes. The gorgeous cruise resumes. I wish I had been there.

Piano time. A tiny theme. By this River is tenderness pure. The proof that beauty is simple. Eno's singing inevitably turns into humming. Words fail. The song was used in the German movie on RAF terrorism Die innere Sicherheit by Christian Petzold whenever the daughter of the terrorist couple left the doomed family to find herself. In Portugal on the beach for example. A young, innocent girl dreaming of a normal world outside of the hiding and the lying. It's a great film and an even greater song.

Through Hollow Lands is the track of this record that haunted me most in the late 70s. An instrumental which I taped in a loop on a C90 cassette. I listened to it for meditation purposes. Impossible to ever get bored by it. As there is hardly anything happening in it. No highs, no lows, just an incredible serenity. I never arrived to the point where my thoughts stopped. Patience has never been my stronghold.

Eno closes the album with Spider and I. Synthie plains going slightly towards the heavy. It's not bad but by far not the best on this stunning album. Which probably would be my island disc if I had to choose one Eno record. As it comprises the Eno before and after the accident. A watershed album with the watershed right in the middle.

Here is the overview of the series 40 years, 40 albums of which part XXXV was this post.

I have surprised myself again. This wonderful guitar album proves that there are still hidden treasures in my CD collection which needed to be rediscovered. The 40 years, 40 albums project fulfills its original purpose again.

The Feelies only released four records during their lifetime. This one, their second, was produced by REM's Peter Buck and is easily their most consistent and most accomplished effort.

Like another major American East coast indie band, I mean Yo La Tengo which must have been inspired by them, they come from New Jersey. Soundwise they point into the direction of Galaxie 500 and Luna (their drummer Stam Demeski was a member of the latter). Dreamy guitar pop with folkish roots. I hear something like the Velvet Underground tunes of around Loaded in a lighter, breezier way. There is also a West coast Paisley underground feel to the Feelies. More clear-sighted, juvenile and playful than psychedelic though. On The Good Earth we have wistful hymns which evoke the lost glories of youth, an amazing sense for melody coupled with tight drums grounding the music into mother earth. Glenn Mercer, the lead guitarist, has got the perfect unobtrusive voice providing an extra shyness and tenderness.

When I hear the dog barking in the beginning of When Company Comes I want to be there. Nature captured on record. Lovely is the word. Green pastures of bliss.

A forgotten gem of intricate simplicity going straight to the heart. If you like the sound of acoustic guitars this is for you. The last two songs should have been left off the record. They cannot sustain the quality of the first eight tracks. Still, almost thirty minutes of heaven are more than 99.9% of what all records offer. Have a taste of the opener On the Roof and tell me if you can resist. Or not.

Here is the overview of the series 40 years, 40 albums of which part XXXIV was this post.

This was my first full Sonic Youth album. Someone on ILM said that your favourite SY release usually is the first one you got exposed to. That is totally on the money concerning me. I knew them before though and had listened to some of their songs during my studies around 1987. I remember some improvised sounding distorted guitar music which had made them a kind of mythic band for me in 1992 when I was seriously getting into indie rock. After Dirty I slowly purchased most of their back catalogue and all new records coming out except NYC Ghosts & Flowers. I even got the four experimental SYR releases I never listen to. Nothing ever hit me as hard as Dirty.

Dirty was produced by Butch Vig who was the man responsible for a lot of the grunge sound when it got big. Among others he produced Nirvana's Nevermind, the Smashing Pumpkins Gish, many Gumball and Die Kreuzen records. Dirty is a rather untypical album for SY as many songs are quite short and to the point (Goo is similar but more pop). There are no songs in the Grateful Dead jamming vein which go on and on and often lose me after a while like on most other SY releases. Dirty is pretty hard rocking sophisticated guitar rock full of restrained power.

The album starts with 100% where SY make a bed of noisy guitars into which Thurston Moore's straight cool voice fits perfectly. The mood of the whole album is condensed into two and a half minutes of fierce ravage.

Swimsuit Issue starts with a stubborn, abrasive primitive "riff" underlined by the cymbals and almost halts in the last minute when they put on the brakes in full speed. Listen to Kim Gordon whose timbre changes totally from riot girrl delivery to pussy cat purr at the end when she says in her most dreamiest voice

On Theresa's Sound-world they weave a thick carpet of guitar noise after a slow harmonic start. Accelarating, decelarating back and accelerating again. And then finishing in calm beauty. How I love these silent-loud dynamics. I really like how varied the tracks are in themselves.

Drunken Butterfly is the perfect example of holding back the energy when Kim sings smoothly and plays this earth-shattering bass line. The eruption in noise is inevitable.

Shoot is a slow song building up with Kim singing in her sexy but determined voice. It only shoots off for a minute or so in the middle. The tension is never completely relieved.

Wish Fulfillment with Lee Ranaldo singing starts otherworldly and turns into a guitar wall fest with a weird end full of electronic effects. The tempo and volume changes make this album so dear to me.

Sugar Kane has got a great floating riff. The drums beat hard and the guitar effects are awesome. After four minutes it slacks off only to get back to the hard core. It's the longest song with almost 6 minutes but it never gets boring.

Orange Rolls, Angel's Spit is a typical Kim Gordon freak-out track where at times she sounds like a pig been slaughtered but there are these lala-lala-lala-lala background vocals which counterbalance her shrieking delivery perfectly. The guitars are running havoc in the beginning but everything is under control.

Youth against Fascism is accelerating slowly. The pounding bass and the squeaky guitar sounds are so huge. Tight as hell. Thurston kicks us in the ass.

Nic Fit is a one minute speed punk wonder. Thurston summarises this song fittingly when barking

The epic On the Strip sung by Kim Gordon follows. Sexy would be an understating epithet for her voice here. If God was a woman interested in propagation she would sound like this.

On the seemingly sweet Chapel Hill Thurston sings

and it morphs into a 200 miles per hour guitar chaos.

JC is an atmospheric, textured track where Kim speaks the lyrics. Post-rock in a The Gift way or something like that.

On Purr SY have the psychobilly blues. Back to the roots. Thurston admits

The album ends with the ballad Crème Brulée. Kim says these hilarious lines

and finishes with

Someone on this site interpreted the song nicely:

Dirty is Sonic Youth's White Album. It is all there. They had reached their creative peak.

No mp3 yet, everything is great. Tell me in the comments what you'd like me to upload if you are still with me.

Here is the overview of the series 40 years, 40 albums of which part XXXIII was this post.

It has been mentioned in the comments, 2002 was a great year for music. I wonder if it has to do with 9/11. As if historical watershed years catalyse the best in the auditory arts. The albums I liked most are all rather reserved and introspective. Antidotes to the political mess we got in. Often otherworldly (Beth Gibbons, Hayden, Low) and/or melancholically melodic (Montgolfier Brothers, Okkervil River, Tom Liwa). Jane Birkin set a counterpoint to the politics of a certain superpower by rearranging the Gainsbourg tunes she cannot get over with an Arabian orchestra (the first song Elisa sounds better than the original). Wilco and Suicide obviously deal with the new disorder of the world. Both albums are musically unoriginal but the mix of ingredients is very inventive and extremely listenable. American Supreme is my favourite dance album of 2002. I know that is a bit inappropriate but my body is stronger than my mind. Rev's cheap beats together with Vega's echoing animal voice are totally my bag.

Lambchop's album is like the antithesis to American Supreme (and my 2001 fave, Radiohead's timely nightmarish chef d'œuvre Amnesiac). Instead of an absolutely justified paranoia in the industrial wasteland we have the calm and warmth of a pastoral countryside landscape. It also sounds minimal but that is a delusion. Is a Woman is a masterpiece of understatement and the subtle use of instruments. One of the few albums which sound better if you listen to it on low volume. The three basic components are the piano, loads of different guitars and Kurt Wagner's raspy sprechgesang. He hardly ever breaks into falsetto and when he does like at the end of The New Cobweb Summer it is not embarrassing at all. Kurt was a friend of the late Richard Brautigan. And somehow his music emanates the same kind of innocence and fragility as Brautigan's lovely surreal books written from the perspective of a down to earth naïveté. With the open eyes of a child which is discovering this strange world without adult prejudices. This kind of puts the focus back on the simple things which matter. And go under in the media noise.

My favourite bit of the lyrics is at the end of the opener The Daily Growl:

By the way the bonus disc with three extra songs is gorgeous as well. A rare thing nowadays. Some people would call this album chill-out but that's totally off the mark. Heart-warming in chilly times, yes.

Here is the overview of the series 40 years, 40 albums of which part XXXII was this post.

A very close call, this one. The first Swell which is probably as good as 41. But I haven't the same personal relation to it. My first Cocteau Twins album Heaven or Las Vegas. Ethereal is the word which must have been invented for them.

I came late to the house of love. But when I arrived there I had to stay. It's a romantic place. A parallel world where everyone is blue, even the sky. Only the sun isn't. It is bright as hell. That's what is so phantastic about the house of love. It's warm in that house but the love is unrequited.

Hannah starts mysteriously. With metallic sounds of buzzing insects and something like a braking train. I hear a metronome. Measured time. Then the bass guitar comes in and the ringing rhythm guitar. Finally the lead guitar. The song explodes after a while but somehow it still keeps the tension. It does not blossom fully. At the end it segues into Shine On. Which is where the sun rises. The glorious, hymnic sound of the House of Love. They go for the sky there. And they reach it. Beatles and the Stones has some spoken word samples from Mick Jagger and John Lennon in the beginning and becomes pristinely bucolic after that.

A string arrangement which fits. Like on several songs on Nick Drake's first two albums. Shake and Crawl is total bliss. And it goes on with a very rhythmic piece called Hedonist.

What else can I say about this album which is not banal? Nothing. It shines in a glorious beauty. I am in love with Guy Chadwick's voice. It is masculine, sensitive, soothing, effeminate, yearning, everything you could ever want from a voice of a man. And the melodies. The jangly guitars. Enwrapping. Unearthly. Ripe. Doux.

They always make me think of the third Velvet Underground album. Like Lou Reed on that record Guy Chadwick mentions Jesus so many times that you start asking yourself if you missed something about him. Maybe I have to put it the other way. If the idea of Jesus could inspire this kind of music it surely is a good idea. Come to think of it he doesn't sing about Jesus all the time but the way he says that two syllable word totally grabs me. Probably this is because I never ever expected Jesus in rock music. And I found it a nice surprise to hear his name.

How come they never made it? No clue. Their melodies touch me more than most of the tunes of the Beatles. They should have been as big as the Smiths but Guy obviously lacked the lyrical wit and the sexual ambiguity of Morrissey.

The biggest fan of The House of Love on the internet is a Swede. Forests, lakes, moskitos, blue berries and sweet white bread. A good place as any to listen to the magical music of Guy Chadwick and mates. Here are the lyrics which I have culled from that site.

They have a new record out, Days Run Away. I haven't heard it yet. It's always nice to be in the position of looking forward to a House of Love album you have never listened to.

Here is the overview of the series 40 years, 40 albums of which part XXXI was this post.

This was an extremely difficult choice as in 2000 there were at least eight great albums which could have been on the top spot. The Go-Betweens charming reunion album The Friends of Rachel Worth, The Montgolfier Brothers intimate debut Seventeen Stars which has the most spell-binding songs, Johnny Cash's second last Solitary Man with a cover of Nick Cave's Mercy Seat that sends the chills down my spine, Lambchop's lush and soulful Nixon, Giant Sand's most accessible Chore of Enchantment which is a moving tribute to Howe Gelb's short-lived friend, the inspired National guitar player Rainer Ptacek, Godspeed's atmospheric and dynamic postrock apex Lift Your Skinny Fists... (the poll winner) and finally Yo La Tengo's mellow nightscape album And then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out.

Aimee Mann leads the pack as she released the most consistent and subtle album with her breakthrough Bachelor No. 2. When I listened to this CD for the first time I had this feeling that I had heard the music beforehand. The tunes are so classic, her voice is so perfect, this is an album which had slumbered in the subconsciousness of mankind. It's hard to explain. Like a platonic idea.

I said this before, Aimee Mann on this album sounds like I would have liked Joni Mitchell to have sounded in 2000. And she even looks like her! Her songs are sad and lyrically challenging. The melodies are simpler and more immediate than Joni's but they are still profound (whatever that means). Another parallel I found was the charismatic stage presence. On the live at St. Ann's Warehouse DVD (Larry Coryell's son Julian is doing some phantastic guitar wahwah work on there) from last year her in between song banter totally captivates me. She is a natural born performer. I more or less started weblogging with a post on a concert of hers in 2001 where she was rather shy and I am very much looking forward to see her again in Frankfurt in the Café Royal on July, 5th.

I think it is her voice that overwhelms me most. It is slightly nasal but crystally clear at the same time. Totally classy. She was raised in England, maybe this is the reason her intonation is so glistening. Blends are so much more fascinating than pure things. But of course her voice preserves a purity as well. God how was I disappointed when she said in an interview on the aforementioned DVD that one of the two covers she has played was Coldplay's The Scientist. What a rubbish song. What a rubbish band. I mean she comes close to kitsch sometimes but she never trespasses the border to nullity. Like Neil Young on Harvest she is always on the good side of sentimentality. Whereas that band with that singer without a voice who writes meaningless generic lyrics only produces zeroness. There is a natural law of bullshit here. The more succesful that band will become the more empty their music will be. The public will get exactly what they want. Strike out.

Back to Aimee. Why do I have the feeling that I have to defend her? To defend her mainstreamishness, the easiness of her music. It's this weird old prejudice of mine that pop music can't be any good. It doesn't help that the record companies didn't care for her. Her charm does not lie in the fact that she said a big f*ck u to those short-sighted dollar-oriented molochs. She goes her own way. She does her own thing. And on Bachelor No. 2 she succeeds. Most of the time at least. It's a record which should be savoured. An album which is prone to be killed by overplay. But if you listen to it once in a while it guards its charms. That's what worked for me in the last couple of years at least.

The teaser is Susan. A song which reminds me of Joni Mitchell's Amelia somehow. It's more upbeat though.

Here is the overview of the series 40 years, 40 albums of which part XXX was this post.

On his third solo album Brian Eno abducts the listener into a slower, a softer, a warmer, a better world. Fourteen miniatures are leading us to a magical place beyond space and time.

In January 1975 Brian Eno had had his road accident. He had been hit by a taxi and had to spent some time immobilised in hospital. This is when his brain took off and he probably created the most original music of his lifetime, a record oscillating between tuneful pop and floating ambient. Or floating pop and tuneful ambient.

After the lively avant pop of Here Come the Warm Jets which sounds like a Roxy Music record with Eno as the leader and the eccentric concept album Taking Tiger Mountain Eno changed direction. From fifth gear straight into reverse gear. This is also illustrated by his choice of musicians. Whereas on the frst two solo records basically the whole Roxy Music outfit minus Bryan Ferry was present, on Another Green World Roxy Music has left the building and several pieces are performed by different supergroups consisting of King Crimson's band leader Robert Fripp, Velvet Underground's ex-#2 John Cale, the Genesis drummer Phil Collins and Roxy Music's ex-#2, Mister Eno himself.

Another Green World comprises five songs and nine instrumentals. This ratio gets smoothed when you look at the playing times of the pieces: about 18 minutes with Eno singing and 23 minutes without his voice. But still the listener gets the feeling that the instrumental tracks are filling the gaps (in a perfect way) in between the songs. Eno's inoffensive, almost asexual, calm voice resonates for a long time. He sounds like an enlightened alien who has dropped from another star to show us that there is more to the world than we imagine.

In the first song, Sky Saw, Eno lays down his approach to lyrics:

There may be some meaning in them but it is unconscious. Eno uses the words to make the music sound better not to say something. Let's just believe him. As not listening to the lyrics does not take away the spell of the music.

I know my review should start now but I don't know any words which could do this album justice. Just listen to the first song with the great bass play by Percy Jones and Paul Rudolph and John Cale treating his viola badly near the end and buy the CD if you don't have it yet.

Here is the overview of the series 40 years, 40 albums of which part XXIX was this post.

In the course of revisiting my fave albums of 1975 I listened to Metal Machine Music again. And suddenly I hear bagpipes everywhere. Soaring and fading bagpipes. A symphony of Scottish folk music played in hell. And the sound of pinball machines. Somehow Lou Reed's exercise in guitar feedback reminds me of John Cage's concept piece 4'33'' (see also here and here). But whereas the listener is the only creative force on 4'33'', he is the assembler, the interpreter on MMM. Everyone can hear something different on MMM. MMM is a canvas for your brain. It is the proof that music is assembled in our mind. That there is no music except when we listen to it. That the world is our brainchild. Wasn't that the starting point for idealism? MMM is an I Ching oracle, a Rorschach blot, a succession of Tarot cards, a collection of tea leaves etc. It's your associations that matter. Lou Reed didn't give a shit about what he was doing there. He plugged in the guitar and waited for the feedback. He handed it over to the amplifier, to the machine.

The pauses in between the four movements are really quite unnerving. MMM refuses the idea of silence.

There is a German cellist touring the US with MMM in October. I like that idea of cello feedback.