love, ms. chooch

Go tell your friends I'm still a feminist but I won't be coming to your benefit.

[ms-chooch-blog]

Mojo magazine called these ”the trilogy of truly essential post-Beatles solo albums”. Although they were done as a group, they still had tons of creative energy as individuals that proved successful and a worthwhile listen.

433. George Harrison, All Things Must Pass*** Co-produced by Phil Spector (and his Wall of Sound). The is my favorite of the 3. I have always had a soft spot for softy George. Released as a triple album in 1970, his first solo work after the break-up of the Beatles just months earlier. It includes the hit singles "My Sweet Lord" and "What Is Life", as well as songs such as "Isn't It a Pity" and the title track that were ideas he had with the Beatles that never made the cut.

418. Paul McCartney and Wings, Band On The Run*** The title track shows that Paul didn’t need the other Beatles to make layered 2 in 1 songs. It is reminiscent of “A Day In The Life” and the second half of ‘Abbey Road’. But that is the real only highlight in this album for me.

23. John Lennon, Plastic Ono Band*** Of the 3 albums, this is my least favorite as a whole but has my favorite song of the 3, “Look at Me”. This was also co-produced Phil Spector. Raw sound with songs influenced by Lennon's  primal scream therapy he was into at the time. This is the album where he famously says “I don’t believe in Beatles, I just believe in me.” Highlights: “God” and “Look at Me”.

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302. Public Enemy, Fear of a Black Planet**** Chuck D has been telling us about the reality of black lives and police brutality and the power of black communities since 1988. It would serve us to listen the first time we hear from folks on their lived experiences and that we honor it as truth. I forget this. I’ve made mistakes. When I listen to this album, NWA, old Sly & the Family Stone, and Sam Cooke I am reminded that we’ve been being told the same things in different ways using music as a venue for these messages for decades. #FightThePower

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76. Prince and the Revolution, Purple Rain***** Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called a pandemic. In this pandemic you’re on your own. And if the elevator brings you down, listen to Prince. Be real, this album is why you like the movie. The music makes it and this is a perfect album. So many highlights and less blushing than yesterday’s selection. Also, you guys, remember when Prince did the soundtrack to the Michael Keaton Batman? That was a solid soundtrack, too! Listen to “Party Man”. Spotify thought it was a good followup to this album.

472. George Michael, Faith*** Oh look, more dirty pop! It’s like a whole genre. I totally remember listening to “I Want Your Sex” when I was like 7 because my mom had the soundtrack to Beverly Hills Cop 2 Soundtrack. This Soundtrack is also the source of my iob Seger hatred. But I digress! This is about Faith and its a good album.

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Damn, Marsha

163. Prince, 1999**** Perfect dirty, dirty pop music. We were way too young to be listening to this or any Prince album for sure. We had no idea (I didn’t anyway) how much dirty sexy talk was happening. Like so many albums from my childhood, a retrospective listen is hilariously shocking. In “Let’s Pretend We’re Married” (a highlight for sure) he sings ‘Look here Marsha, I'm not sayin' this just to be nasty. I sincerely wanna fuck the taste right outta your mouth’. Well, I’m blushing, aren’t you? Rock critic Bruno MacDonald said, ‘’Automatic’ is what Kraftwork would sound like if they exchanged their bicycles for loveless sex.”

174. Bob Dylan, Desire*** The album of song-story ballads featuring Emmylou Harris on a number of the tracks. And some are QUITE LONG and some are stinkers. “Hurricane”is a solid hit. But “Joey” is far too long and rambling. Highlight for me is: “Oh, Sister”.

180. The Rolling Stones, Now!*** their third American studio album. Very few original songs as was the norm but “Heart of Stone” is a Jagger/Richards gem.

471. Richard and Linda Thompson, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight*** English folk rock that is certainly a grower. Had a real lack of attention when released and no commercial success. Not your typical sad-sack song writing but bleak, biting, pessimistic picture of British society and poverty. Nick Drake style bummer-beauty. Many cover versions came later, notably by Elvis Costello the biggest music nerd fan of all. Highlights: ”The End of the Rainbow" and “Withered and Died” — some real pick-me-ups! The title track is a bit more up.

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irony is dead

476. Notorious BIG, Life after Death**** While Pac and Biggie were beefin I was busy listening to Wu Tang, Company Flow, and a lot of crusty punk. So I don’t have a lot of associated memories. This album was released 2 weeks after East Coast Biggie was shot and killed in LA. Not only did he die, but he brought irony with him. This album is the best possible way to talk mad shit on all your enemies from the grave. Highlights: there are many but “Hypnotize” and “Sky’s the Limit” are favs of mine. Spike Jonze directed the video for the latter where Biggie and Diddy are rich children and it is rad.

414. The Go- Go’s, Beauty and The Beat*** how California does New Wave. A few of them went to a Sex Pistols show and then started a band. And much like Sid Vicious they did not know how to play their instruments. My fav is “Our Lips are Sealed” co-written by Terry Hall of The Specials.

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426. Cheap Trick, Live at Budokan***

The best of the Cheap Trick albums in my experience. All Cheap Trick is dedicated to Nels Rosengren. And Jesse Jenny stands behind that. “This next one is the first song on our new album” is said before they break into “Surrender” but it is also the sample at the beginning of Beastie Boys’ Check Your Head so when you grow up with that and Propagandhi’s How to Clean Everything and not this album, your associations are all mixed up.

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Hey, Good Lookin

105. Ray Charles, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music*** When Charles had announced that he wanted to work on an album of country music in 1961, during a period of racial segregation and tension people were not down. This album's integration of soul and country challenged  racial barriers in pop music at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. But it became one of the best-selling albums recorded by a black musician of the time, as well as one of the best-selling country albums.

411. Eric Clapton, 461 Ocean Boulevard*** Clapton returns from heroin addiction with chill vibes on this Florida man album. His hit from this one was his cover of “I Shot the Sheriff”.

470. LL Cool J, Radio*** In March 1984, when NYU student Rick Rubin and promoter-manager Russell Simmons founded the then-independent Def Jam label, this 16 year old in Queens was creating demo tapes at his grandparents' house. Highlight: “Rock the Bells

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“As each generation goes on they take stuff from what has gone before.” -Noel Gallagher

371. Arctic Monkeys, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not Not*** the biggest thing in British music since Oasis by harnessing the power of the internet through our old pal MySpace and, basically, believing in themselves.

378. Oasis, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?*** the biggest thing in British music since The Beatles and The Stones invaded the US rock and roll scene and dominated it. Within a year this album went platinum 9 times over.

53. The Beatles, Meet the Beatles! ***** the biggest thing in British music and the most innovative song writing team of all time. A U.S. album with similar lineup as the U.K. ‘With the Beatles’. “This Boy” is my fav on this album.

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Unfettered. Idiomatic.

Alright. I was so cranky for a few days that I didn’t listen to anything on my list. But I finished writing this damn grant and fussing the budget and I’m back!

50. Little Richard, Here’s Little Richard***** When I was 11? I did a tap performance to “Rip It Up”. Listening to this album had me pulling out my old recital tapes and I’d absolutely share them with you all but they are shakier than the Blair Witch. For now, enjoy this photo of me in the outfit in which I performed it.

113. Joni Mitchell, Court and Spark**** are there any songwriters that can work in a word like ‘unfettered’ or ‘idiomatic’ into their songs? 1974 Joni Michell does on this cool jazzy situation. Highlights include the boogie woogie “Raised on a Robbery” featuring Robbie Robertson and her hit “Help Me” The song “Twisted” features Cheech & Chong(!?) 🎧

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252. JayZ, Blueprint This squarely NY album was released on 9/11. The Blueprint (his 6th) features soul-based sampling and production handled primarily by Kanye West, Just Blaze, and Bink, as well as Timbaland, Trackmasters, and Eminem. Highlight: “The Takeover”.

314. Lauryn Hill, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill***** 5 Grammys. Hill was just 23 when this album was released. I cannot imagine doing anything significant or even remotely interesting at 23. Highlight: “To Zion” is intensely intimate and I like “Lost Ones”.

424. Bruce Springsteen, The Rising*** Reunited with the E Street band for the first time since Born in the USA, the Boss makes a 9/11 album that isn’t sappy. It is an album about trauma and healing. “Nothing Man”.

500. OutKast, Aquemini*** Aquarius meets Gemini. Hip hop Southern boogie. Highlight: “Skew It on the Bar-B” featuring Raekwon.

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Only listen once.

Today we look at some of the underpinnings of punk. Wire's singer/guitarist Colin Newman said, “We’re the most famous band you’ve never heard of." 

Wire, Pink Flag****

Sonic Youth, Low, Ladytron, Henry Rollins, The Cure, Franz Ferdinand, and Minutemen have cited Wire as an influence.  Mike Watt said about Pink Flag "I don’t know what we would have sounded like if we didn’t hear it." The chorus of Ministry's "Thieves" was influenced by "Mr. Suit". REM covered "Strange" on previously reviewed 'Document'. The most well-known cover (to me anyway) is Minor Threat's "12XU" from Flex Your Head. A plagiarism case brought by Wire's music publisher over the completely shark bitten "Three Girl Rhumba" against Elastica's 1995 hit "Connection" resulted in an out-of-court settlement.

Suicide s/t* 2 dudes, 4 days, 7 songs = synth-punk ground breaker. I do mostly hate this album but I guess I can understand its importance, if only how important it is to freak people out.  The song "Frankie Teardrop" is a noisescape horror movie soundtrack that is over 10 minutes long. Writer Nick Hornby described it as something you would listen to only once. I quite agree. Although, it did absolutely influence others to create and cover.  Lydia Lunch covered it which would seem impossible but she pulled it off completely. Also, Bruce Springsteen stated that his song "State Trooper" from the album Nebraska was heavily influenced. Comedian Tom Scharpling had a call-in radio program called "The Frankie Teardrop Challenge". He challenged fans of the show to listen to the song on headphones as loudly as possible, at nighttime and while alone, in the most creatively terrifying situations that they can think of. Callers regularly phone in to recount their experiences attempting the challenge, with very few listeners completing all 10 minutes and 26 seconds of the song. Because it is literally a terrible idea. Also, the song "Ghost Rider" was covered by Rollins Band for The Crow soundtrack. And M.I.A. used the riff from “Ghost Rider” in “Born Free”.

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396. Roxy Music, For Your Pleasure*** Keyboardist Brian Eno's last album with Roxy Music . Abstract art rock; Eno's experimentalism and Ferry's romanticism gives it a charming dynamic. Highlight: ”Editions of You" and "Do the Strand."

429. Brian Eno, Another Green World** But why are there so many Brian Eno albums on this list. Here Come the Warm Jets is one thing but now it is time to move on. Trivia: Did you know that Brian Eno created the 6 second start-up music/sound of the Windows 95 operating system?

492. Eurythmics, Touch*** Is it Annie Lenox’s aesthetic I love or is it the music? Does it matter? Highlights: "Aqua" and “Here Comes the Rain Again”.

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Fuckery™️

451. Amy Winehouse, Back to Black *****  I absolutely wore this album out during a barstool heavy period spent at the Reef. I never took my makeup off but filled in the missing spots in my eyeliner in the morning and my earrings were at their biggest. I was a cutter, in love with cigarette smoking, and a big fan of leaving without saying goodbye. I was a sad mess and she was singing my song. This album is a magic combination of a fall down drunk Shangri-La fan, the Dap-Kings, Mark Ronson, and the specter of Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound. So many well deserved Grammys and the best f-word creation of all time. Fuckery™️

Speaking of Girl Groups…

422. The Ronettes, Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes**** Here’s one of the influences of that much loved Back to Black album.

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Oh well whatever nevermind.

The Summer before Jr. High, 1992, we said goodbye to basic cable (13 channels) & MTV became my whole life & I never went outside again. Once Jr. High began, I met a lot of grunge fan nerd kids in English class. We wore flannels around our waist & as sweatshirts, sometimes both together. My Doc Martens were navy blue 10 eye. We passed notes back and forth between classes that were very long and of very little substance. And most of the time they were just lyrics of entire songs from the following. We signed everything “Oh well, whatever, nevermind”.

255. Metallica s/t (the Black album)*** My first nice boyfriend would pass me notes with lyrics from this and all other Metallica albums with a little Megadeath here and there. If you look at them now it is unsettling without the context of, well, our obsession with music and bands. Metallica is not a super love note situation. But I thought it was cool and in no way scary. (Excerpt to follow.) And one time Mike Gleeson taught me how to play the intro of “Nothing Else Matters”. He said before you learn to play chords, work on open picking with this. It’s still the only thing I can do on a guitar.

209. Pearl Jam, Ten ***** 7th grade me is OB.SESSED. 40 year old me enjoys to revisit this album on occasion and it is still good. (Proof to follow from Hit Parader.) My mom probably hated this album more than any other I played from this era. It was the last song, “Release”. She loved to come in and say “oh my god release him alreadyyyy!” My second lovely boyfriend surprised me with a Pearl Jam photo book for our 6 month anniversary. But when he went to High School we had to break up.

326. The Cure, Disintegration***** It is not my favorite album by The Cure but it is their best one. This album is Mood for most of my adolescence and, honestly, right into my 20s. I shed real tears when I FINALLY saw them play in 2003. My favorites on this album as well as my list of my overall favorite songs: “Prayers for Rain” and “Fascination Street”.

362. Smashing Pumpkins, Siamese Dream **** There was also a months-long obsession with this album and with their first album ‘Gish’. The band were barely on speaking terms while making this album. And, sometimes that just works out super well! Highlight: “Cherub Rock” and “Silverfuck”.

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485. Pearl Jam, Vitalogy ** oh, Pearl Jam’s angry album. The band was imploding, Mike McCready went to rehab, they fired their drummer Dave Abbruzzese (probably because they got tired of trying to spell his last name), and the songs were just all over the place. Erratic almost punk songs with plenty of throwaways and weird experiments. Highlight: “Corduroy” Weirdest: “Bugs”.

467. Bruce Springsteen, Tunnel of Love*** The most 1987 looking cover ever. I mean, look at it 👆🏼And the title is tired as are many of the song titles. But its actually not bad!

466. Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head* Music Journalist Robert Christgau gave the album a one-star honorable mention saying, “let Green Eyes dump him for real and we'll see how long he hums in the void." I don’t know exactly what that means but I had nothing to say about this album.

455. Los Lobos, How Will the Wolf Survive? **** yaaasss some Norteño rockabilly fusion. Coming out of East LA. part Stray Cats and part Los Alegres de Terán. Los Lobos got its stardom from providing music including the title track from La Bamba and Colors. Super eclectic but cohesive and feels like home. Highlights: “Seranata Nortena” & “Corrido #1”.

444. War, The World is a Ghetto*** The best selling album of 1973. Another Southern CA band (with one Brit) that transcends genre and culture. Eric Burdon goes from full psychedelia with The Animals to a soul, funk, Latin, and a bit of psychedelia with War.

213. Rolling Stones, Tattoo You ** “Start Me Up” is a good track one / side one but most of the album is gratuitous sexism and not a great deal of creativity. Mick Jagger thinks its their most underrated album. 🤷🏻‍♀️

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415. Van Halen s/t***** if you have never done so, I highly recommend listening to David Lee Roth’s isolated vocal track from “Running with the Devil”. It’s going to change everything for you. I bet you didn’t even know there was a kazoo in there. Who uses a kazoo while singing about the devil?! But it works! The shoo be doo wops and kazoos and the showmanship is really top level true hair band of the 80s. All swagger. And I remember a time when Missy would to listen to “Ain’t Talkin Bout Love” on repeat when processing heartbreak. My favorite song is always “I’m the One”.

443. Cheap Trick, In Color*** I dedicate all Cheap Trick to Nels Rosengren forever.

461. Public Image Ltd., Second Edition aka Metal Box*** proto punk Dark Wave avant-garde is how I prefer John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten). This was initially released as a 3 record album in metal film canister which was cool but incredibly impractical— the records were hard to get out and could get nicked and damaged and each side was like only 10 minutes of music so you had to keep getting up to turn it over.

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346. De La Soul, 3 Feet High and Rising***** Fell to sample suits and is an album that is very hard to find now. Cannot stream or buy on iTunes- I had to order a CD! A lot of their singles and future albums were stripped of some cool sampling due to copyright legal action. I love De La Soul. My favorites are many! “Potholes in My Lawn” is the dopest use of a mouth harp of all time. “Plug Tuning”, “Jennifa”, “Eye Know” — so many creative samples and clever rhymes. Prince Paul and DLS bring back reworked skits from this album 15 years later on Handsome Boy Modeling School’s ‘White People’.

379. TLC, CrazySexyCool**** oh haven’t we grown up since the condom eye patches. Left Eye was lighting literal fires, and the trio would soon be filing for bankruptcy. But this album features their best songs and established them for the long haul. R&B now. “Waterfalls”, “Creep”, and a cover of Prince’s “If I was your Girlfriend.”

469. Fugees, The Score***** it’s a gd shame they all hate each other but we can feel secure in they will not reunite and create something bad or weird. In addition to a Roberta Flack cover that ensured Lauryn Hill would have a solo career, whip smart pop culture lyrics that manage to drop in ColecoVision and mountains of rhymes. Just look at this Lauryn Hill section of “The Beast”:

Conflicts with night sticks Illegal sales districts Hand-picked lunatics, keep poli-TRICK-cians rich Heretics push narcotics amidst its risks and frisks Cool cliques throw bricks but seldom hit targets Private-DIC sell hits, like porno-flicks do chicks The 666 cut W.I.C. like Newt Gingrich SUCKS DICK.

481. D’Angelo, Voodoo*** bedroom jams for the year 2000. Um, best remembered for his almost naked video of “How Does it Feel”. He’s so skinny and naked the whole iliac crest of his pelvis protrudes and 1.7 million straight women and gay men ran straight out to buy it.