First, let me say that my categories were obviously forced. I came up with a list of 20 albums and then I tried to force them into categories to split this into five digestible portions. In retrospect, I may have been better off just randomly providing them for your consumption so take them with a grain of salt.
In the final installment, it certainly made sense to group The Ramones and The Saints together and I think the other three inclusions have a lot of connections in terms of their sound.
As a general note on this whole venture, I obviously had to leave off some albums that deserve to be here every bit as much as the ones I have chosen. I also considered my likely readers. If I really had to make this list for general consumption it might consist of 18 Church albums and two Galaxie 500 albums. In the interest of diversity, I tried to dig deeper in my collection.
Ramones – Pleasant Dreams
The Ramones are rightfully associated with the advent of the punk movement so it’s easy for “Pleasant Dreams†to get lost in the shuffle of the 20+ year discography. This album is just pure fun. The songs aren’t about love or hate or life or death or world peace or laced with political statements, they’re just rock n’ roll. Even the tragedy detailed in “7-11†is offset by the exaggerated drama of the lyrics and music, and if that wasn’t enough, the lines, “Whatever happened to the radio, and where did all the fun songs go?†spells out the purpose of the song and the entire album. Lyrics celebrating the discovery of beer in the soda machine just serve to keep the party going. In typical fashion, this was the Ramones trying to get back to basics, remind people to stop taking themselves and music so seriously, and put their distinctive spin on what the pure advent of rock n’ roll in the 50s must have been like. I don’t think it’s possible to listen to this album and not feel good.
Interesting choices. With the Ramones craking out so many albums, it was a sure bet that one of them would earn the label ‘under-appreciated’.
Interesting take on David Byrne solo albums. The ones I have are pretty good, but they don’t make it into heavy rotation in the media devices.
Julian Cope’s World Shut Your Mouth was genius. I was in a band at the time and we looked to Julian and that era for inspiration. I saw Teardrop Explodes live shortly before their demise and they were amazing. While Echo and the Bunnymen got more press in the U.S. Teardrop Explodes were the real deal.
Regards,
D