50 Albums that changed the world

The reliably egregious Observer music monthly has gone listy again, and for once my blood isn't boiling...

I'm with Graham on this:

"For once, one of those list thingies that didn't have me swearing or throwing the publication to the floor. OK, I can think of a few omissions - Psychocandy for one - but this mostly had me nodding sagely. Which is how one should spend a Sunday afternoon. "

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1821230,00.html

I would pick Revolver over Sgt Pepper - maybe, but at least they have got the right Dylan LP for once.

Oh to be in England.

The passing of Syd Barrett sent me back to songs which could only have come out of England, or at least, the British Isles.

Barrett was one of the first people to avoid singing in some kind of quasi American mid Atlantic accent - I doubt that it even occurred to him to do so. This affectation was adopted by David Bowie and many others.

Those songs on Piper At The Gates of Dawn (before his mental state got the better of him) are impossibly English, and for me are far more 'psychedelic' than anything on Sgt Pepper (which was being recorded in the studio next door at the same time).

Syd Barrett's earlier songs had a childhood whimsy about them which stopped just short of being irritatingly twee (except maybe for Bike, with the mouse called Gerald, who hasn't got a house but he's a good mouse). It comes out of Lewis Carrol, and (obviously) The Wind In The Willows, and a weird old Arcadian dreaminess which sounds like nothing else in rock.

As he got more and more ill, the songs become increasingly hard to listen to, and I can't take much of the solo albums at all, they are just too deranged and broken.

Anyway, all this set me off on a playlist of quintessentially English tunes, sung by English voices and far removed from the American R&B which kicked things off in the first place. Hence we have the Only Ones, with Peter Perrett singing ever so nicely about heroin again, and Ian Dury, Nick Drake, Elvis Costello, Kate Bush, the Kinks, Small Faces, Shack, Bert Jansch, Fairport Convention, Linda Thompson, etc...

more suggestions are welcome!

Run to the hills children, the end is Nigh

More evidence of the creeping death of civilization and all that's good and pure and true:

There's a new Vodaphone advert doing the rounds on TV at the moment, featuring the Only Ones' 'Another Girl, Another Planet'. This has depressed me greatly...whenever a wonderful record is stuck on some grubby advert it is another reason to be miserable .

Ady pointed out the irony of this song, which is blatantly about heroin, being used to advertise a cell phone network. As he says, 'chatting is not at the top of your priorities when you are on heroin'.

Dance, critters! When I say dance!

Two of the best gigs I have ever been to were at the Adelphi club in Hull, featuring the Colorblind James Experience. These guys turned up on the Peel show, with their most 'famous' song, Considering a Move To Memphis (the full and glorious lyrics to which are found here.)

Colorblind James hisself was a heavy set gentleman who played vibes and sang, there was also guitar, bass, drums and horns - they were a kind of rootsy polka dance band, self proclaimed 'rowdy dancehall jive'. And they were unbelievable on both nights...this must have been in 1988 or 1989. At the second night, after the band shambled back for another encore I was shouting for a track called, 'Hey Bernadette', and they actually played it...the only time to this day that this has happened to me.

You're so beautiful, but you gotta die someday

Last weekend I was cooking, and I prepared myself a CD of short, loud, punkish songs to keep me on my toes while I was titting around with filo pastry and assorted other accoutrements of middle class foody-ism.

In amongst the Buzzcocks, Ramones, Big Black and Husker Du, I included a tune by Big Joe Turner called 'Roll 'Em Pete', which is just a fantastic rockin' boogie woogie barrelhouse blues...belted out by Joe, accompanied by his trusty sidekick Pete Johnson on the old Joanna. It rocks like a bastard, and Big Joe clearly gets so carried away by the whole thing (and, one suspects, he may have had two or three gin and juices during the session), that he sort of loses himself half way through the track, and when Pete's belting piano section tails out, all he is capable of is growling 'yes yes, yes yes, I KNOW! Well... Alright then!' over and over again. Pure rock n roll...