The Rolling Stone top 500 albums

[dherblay]

Comfort food is making me uncomfortable. I rationalized the economy of my P. F. Chang's trip with the idea that I could stretch out my order of Kung Pao Chicken and Spicy Eggplant over several meals, and then proceeded to eat the entire thing

Comments

Re: I don't imagine my Friends list would be interested, so I'll post it here

[dherblay]

I'm not sure The Love Below is any more experimental than Speakerboxxx, actually. More eccentric, sure, but Big Boi is the one who plays with techno and gospel and Parliament and Prince; Dre mostly just does skits. The Love Below is also more misogynistic than Speakerboxxx, which threw all sorts of music-critic expectations out of whack. Speakerboxxx does have quite a few guest appearances on it. Mostly, they work -- "Last Call," with a cast of thousands, is one of my favorites -- and though the least memorable tracks are definitely some of the collaborations, the album doesn't really suffer from them. Of course, I would be remiss not to point out that I don't buy a lot of current records (the only hiphop albums over the last ten years I've bought new near their releases were OutKast albums), so I may not be the best judge. I may just think Speakerboxxx is a great album because I don't know anything better.

I think you may be lucky in your birthdate: being born in the lull after the baby boom means I grew up in an atmosphere of enforced nostalgia for things I didn't live through. If you liked music in my high school, you listened to Zeppelin or the Who or Pink Floyd or the Dead; if you didn't like music you listened to Billy Joel. I was shocked to get to college and learn that people had spent the eighties listening to music released in the eighties. It was an alien concept! I had never even heard of The Smiths. So I've never really been immersed in current music: the vast majority of what I listen to was old when I discovered it. Which is sort of sad. But I'll listen to great music without worrying about whether it's too old or too new or whatever. Which is sort of happy.

Let me take the easy questions first: the best Public Enemy album is definitely It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. Paid in Full is sparse. Rakim's delivery is pretty cold, and the backing is pretty much just scratching and a drum machine. It creates an inviting tension, but I wouldn't recommend it for novices. Of course, you're no novice, but it's still a very middle-80s record. Now, middle-80s rap -- Run-DMC, LL Cool J, the Beastie Boys -- is the rap I came up with, so it seems normal to me, but you would probably expect more complicated flows. Maybe you should start with the more accessible Run-DMC instead.

I love all the soul artists mentioned. I love Sly a little more than the rest, but I'm weird that way. If you can find Anthology by Sly, get that (or just download the component tracks). I think it's out of print, but its successor loses some key tracks and contains some not particularly interesting tracks from after Sly had completely broken down. If you're really shopping I'd get Al Green's Greatest Hits, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You by Aretha, and one of the Parliament best-ofs.

I'm not quite sure whether or not any of that will suit you. This is why I need a CD burner -- I could just send you 400 MP3s and see what you like! See, buying me technology benefits everyone!

Then again...

[cwx]

I bought plenty of albums in the 1990s, and they were all albums of the 90s. The problem is, they mostly sucked. In 2000 I bought Common's Like Water for Chocolate, a new album, but from there I started on my mad quest to relive the 90s the "right" way. I bought Sublime, but mostly I lost all faith in "rock," whatever that is, and turned completely towards hip-hop instead. Low End Theory is another album I bought in 2000, since I was only 10 when it came out, but more importantly, when I did start listening to music, I followed the radio WAY too much. I think the radio has gotten worse, but I've also become cynical after all the crap I bought.

So I love 90s music to a fault, but not necessarily the music I bought at the time! It is good that I'm not ashamed to like the music from my own youth, but it is amusing that I'm trying to recreate it.

I will admit that 80s rap really isn't my thing. Even though growing up I only heard the 90s commercial rap singles rather than the actual album tracks, which were more representative of the actual style, there was still a different motif at work in "old school" rap in both beats & rhymes. Also, I have to confess a bit of a bias for what I would call more "musical" beats.

But now, I would kinda like to get into the 70s. What the heck, huh? ;) Time to start romanticizing. I only wish my parents didn't have such a white record collection, they are no help at all in this soul thing!

Finally, you could always get on SoulSeek and we could swap some music or something. I don't know how much of a connection or how much of a hard drive you have, however. Not to mention my hard drive isn't exactly full of empty space right now (say what?).

Re: Then again...

[dherblay]

Unfortunately, while I have plenty of hard drive space, I'm still on dial-up.

Re: Then again...

[cwx]

Oooh, ouch! Then again, when I have to pay for the Internet myself and not along with 4 roommates, I'll be on dial-up too! D'oh.