Milestone Albums According to the only that matters: YOU

Robert Anton Wilson · 2013-01-04T18:00:46-05:00

Sgt Pepper: Good milestone: Legitimised the LP as an art form like never before. Legitimised "pop" music is quality art and no just as disposable entertainment. Gave pop/rock music its lettre de noblesse and allowed to sit beside classical music and jazz while holding its head high. I guess some could argue that either The Clash or the Sex Pistols represent a milestone. To me that would represent a neutral milestone. Positive in that yes it is true that rock was starting to "corporatise" itself a little too much but negative in that the musical quality of the output was low taken into account the youth energy canalised herein, we ought to have gained more in my opinion. Punk was more of a social milestone than a music one for me as opposed to grunge in the 90's which did what punk intended to do musically but without truly changing society itself.. Thriller (Michael Jackson): Bad milestone: The rockers lost. Pop/rock music was in difficulty. The old dinosaurs couldn't make quality albums anymore and the new pop/rock artists were reinventing the wheel instead of going forward. Disco had made serious attacks on rock music but disco was not serious. It was disposable entertainment. Music that you put on to dance and have a good time but do not see as "art". Then Michael Jackson released Thriller and became the King of Pop. Rock was no longer the master, pop music was. Pop being defined as rock music that you can dance to ... oh! the horror! Of course teh treason was made worse by the fcat that the solo on Beat It was played by Eddie Van Halen. The typical argument against disco or dance music that it is crap music did not hold anymore because the album was very well produced and the music artfully played. This album broke the stranglehold of rock music (which was very weak by that time anyway) and opened the door to dance music, pop which eventually became rap, hip hop and ...... Oh! the Horror! Smells Like Teen Spirit: Good milestone: The return of the guitar. The realisation of what punk had attempted to do. The advent of affordable electronic instruments and synthesisers had opened a door to non talented musicians to produce hit songs with just a catchy line or a minimal boom-tchiki-boom beat (equivalent to what auto-tune has produced more recently). Grunge and the Seattle bands explosion brought some musicianship and testosterone back onto the charts. I mean even today's crooner are better than the 80's one (e.g. compare Michael Bubble to Rick Astley). OK Computer: Good milestone: Geeky, intellectual music can top the charts. I do not know exactly when the word "alternative" music was replaced by "indie" but the success of Radiohead and particularly the massive sales of OK Computer was instrumental to this. Before Radiohead, bands were either raw (Nirvana, Pearl Jam) or clean (U2, REM), Radiohead managed to keep the raw energy of grunge/rock bands and appeal to the guts while still providing musical food for thought and appeal to the brain also. I do debate whether Arcade Fire's Funeral can be considered as a milestone album. Argument for: it marked the return of the more standard song form so typical of the early Beatles/Beach Boys and even early Stones era while not sacrificing too much of the musical complexity that had been introduced to the top of the charts by Radiohead. Argument against: was that standard song form really ever absent of the charts which would mean that while Funeral is significant in the intensity of its success it would however not be a very significant indication of change in the overall picture, just a particularly good album of the time. All of these albums have one thing in common, while everybody expected a good album from these bands at that time (only in the case of Nirvana was it a debut album), no one expected that album and no one expected that level of success. I am still waiting for my next milestone album. Of course, I do not mean that there has been no milestone album since 1999, but since rock, my favorite style as you must have guessed by now, is no longer leading the ball, many of the milestone albums I just do not care for and therefore cannot comment on. I know that in recent years there has been important new emerging style such as trance, dub, hip-hop, posts-whatever for which there has to be some milestones albums but for me, they are not significant. Which albums represent significant milestones in the history of music according to YOU. According to you, not according to the critics.

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