Ranked highest by: madmaxsd, sugarhi, that.day, and Jharris79 (2nd of All Time)
"Yeah this album was inescapable sometime around '06-'07, and it's not hard to see why. In a time when so many bands were taking the previously more direct routes of emotive popish-y-punk songs, this album was so self-consciously grandstanding and BOMBASTIC (do you want me to repeat that last word) that it had the air of something new and important." --CryingGameDahlin
"This is a concept album where all the songs work outside of the concept, which I feel is somewhat rare, so yeah, this album is great" --hereforashortime
"So many awesome songs, and the recurring themes of sickness and death really hit home in some of these. " --Egophobia
There has been a recent tragedy in my family. A suicide. (I don't want to talk about it.) So I got to this album in my list, and I find that I don't really want to hear about how bleak existence can be. I find myself violently disagreeing with the sentiments expressed in this album, because I know what despair can lead to.
The music, the rock and roll, is amazing, which is why it's where it is on my list. The harmonies on the vocals blend seemlessly with the guitars. It would be the perfect album, one I'd be listening to a lot, if it wasn't so dark.
But I want to scream at MCR, sure, people can suck. Teenagers are scary. But there's beauty everywhere, just look out side the window. We've made it to the 21st century, and there's new cool stuff being invented every day. Whatever art you are into, movies, music, whatever, there's more amazing stuff being written and produced and sung and painted and performed every day, awesome stuff that didn't exist yesterday.
61. L.A. Woman
62. Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1
63. Secret Messages
64. Jazz
65. Agaetis Byrjun
66. Different Light
67. One Of These Nights
68. Watermark
69. 3:47 EST
70. An Evening With John Denver
71. Sun Structures
72. The Cars
73. Discovery
74. The Black Parade
75. A Day at the Races
Last edited by Listmeister on 07/13/2017 21:47; edited 1 time in total
BEA Ranks: 79th in 1980; 653rd of the 1980s; 4,064th of All Time
Ranked highest by boboradice (12th of All Time)
"I thought Hits was the only REO Speedwagon I needed. I was wrong--I need this one too." --Listmeister
"That middle ground between Zeppelin and the 80s hair metal bands." --gtroda
"If you were in high school in the early 80's, you had this album. May be a bit dated now, but this was certainly one of the soundtracks of that era." --Rufus
"1981 would mark the peak of arena rock -- corporate rock to the critic class. Between them, Hi Infidelity, Foreigner 4, Styx's Paradise Theater, and Journey's Escape sold approximately 30 million units. This November 1980 release kicked things off with a mix of power balladry and hard rock with pop sensibilities. It's always been easy to bash this style of music but I've never seen the point. The above bands were generally proficient musicians, fronted by very capable vocalists, and wrote songs that were just plain catchy. It's the height of snobbery to disparage them just because the "wrong" people bought their music. " --KGB
There is one album that I have bought more times than any other, worn out as tapes, scratched CD's, and so on. It's not a Beatles album, or anything in my Top 50. It's not even Hi Infidelity. It's crucial road trip music, it makes the miles fly by. It's this one:
We here at BEA tend to eschew Greatest Hits compilations, and as I have discovered the original albums that got compressed into the compilations, I have come over to this way of thinking, although I still make exceptions. Now, I have bought so many copies of the Hits, as opposed to Hi Infidelity, for two reasons. One, it's easier to find, or at least it was when I was buying tapes. My current copy (on CD) is one that I saw at a computer store that had a small music section. Second, it's almost as good. I mean, REO Speedwagon rocks (meaning, produces high energy rock-and-roll) no matter how you parse their material during their peak years (1978-1982ish). Three songs from Hi Infidelity, "Take It On the Run", "Don't Let It Go", and "Keep On Loving You" made the cut for Hits, but they could have put on three or four more. "Someone Tonight" should have been on it.
Every single song on Hi Infidelity is high energy. Guitars are going crazy. Kevin Cronin is singing his larynx off while at the same time making it sound effortless. Drums are pounding. Did I mention the guitars? they're going CRAZY!
Hits has three of those 80's phenomena, the Power Ballad. Each is great in its own right, (Can't Fight This Feeling is the all time mixtape champion), but they tend to slow down the pace of the album. Plus, being a compilation, there isn't as much thought given to flow. Hi Infidelity has Keep On Loving You as its only slow song. It's the second track, and you're still catching your breath from Don't Let Him Go when it starts, so it's a nice cool-down, and anyway, anything would sound slow after Don't Let Him Go.
60. Hi Infidelity
61. L.A. Woman
62. Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1
63. Secret Messages
64. Jazz
65. Agaetis Byrjun
66. Different Light
67. One Of These Nights
68. Watermark
69. 3:47 EST
BEA Ranks: 50th of 1969; 178th of 1960s; 1,984th of All Time
Ranked highest by: Gero (2nd of All Time)
"โBeyondโ and the gorgeous โGypsyโ elevate it to more than it really is." --subtleman22
[Question: What do you want to be the last album you hear before you die?]
"Definitely something by the Moody Blues. Probably On the Threshold of a Dream, maybe To Our Children's Children's Children ("I never thought I'd live to be 100...")." ---Listmeister
Key words for this album include: Childhood. Wonder. Eternity. It's the wonder of how timeless a child really is, despite the fact that one is not a child for very long. It's the wonder of timelessness from the perspective of a child. It's the timelessness of the wonders that we discover as children.
The Moody Blues did a lot of concept albums (more on that later) and this is their most interesting concept (even more interesting than the obvious Days of Future Passed). Even when it gets sad (such as in Gypsy) the reasons for sadness involve Wonder and Eternity.
Go into creative mode in Minecraft and just fly over your Minecraft world for awhile. That feeling your are feeling when you do that, this is the album form of that feeling. I'm not good at metaphors.
59. To Our Children's Children's Children
60. Hi Infidelity
61. L.A. Woman
62. Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1
63. Secret Messages
64. Jazz
65. Agaetis Byrjun
66. Different Light
67. One Of These Nights
68. Watermark
BEA Ranks: 55th of 1998; 488th of 1990s; 2,346th of All Time
Ranked highest by: Arturo-Jama, 6th of All Time
"power metal - really good, possibly my favorite blind guardian release " -- Lowkey
I have enough self-awareness to know that I am a nerd, and I always have been. Everything I get interested in (baseball, movies, geography, whatever) i would approach it in a completely nerdy way. This includes popular music, which, by definition, is music that a lot of people like, music that is cool. So how can you be nerdy about that?
I'll tell you how. I make lists. I am on quest to listen to every single song ever to make the Billboard Hot 100 list and its pre-1958 predecessors. And then I'm going to make a list of the best songs of each year based on an exhaustive survey of each year. So far, it's been a lot of fun.
So when I see an album called 'Nightfall in Middle-earth", I'm going to check it out. And boy, does the album deliver on its promise. For one thing, it has everything a good Heavy Metal album should have, the shredding guitars, wailing vocals, and an operatic quality in the harmonies. Interlaced with the musical tracks are bits of dialog emphasizing the medieval quality of the story they were trying to convey.
The music conveys all the emotions of war: Determination. Loyalty to king. Love of comrades. Despair, Frustration. Hatred of the enemy (who is unambiguously evil). And a longing for home. All of this framed in a story that takes place in middle earth.
I may lose some nerd credentials for saying this, but I never read the Silmarillion, the Tolkien novel upon which the album is based (which takes place centuries before Lord of the Rings). I thought about delaying this review until I had read it, but I didn't want this to be a review of the story. Without knowing the story, listening to this album, you get the feel of Middle Earth. Which is what the album promised, and what the album delivered.
If Peter Jackson ever decides to make a movie about it, he already has an awesome killer soundtrack to put to it.
58. To Our Children's Children's Children
59. Hi Infidelity
60. L.A. Woman
61. Nightfall in Middle-Earth
62. Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1
63. Secret Messages
64. Jazz
65. Agaetis Byrjun
66. Different Light
67. One Of These Nights
Last edited by Listmeister on 07/15/2017 23:19; edited 1 time in total
BEA Ranks: 55th of 1998; 488th of 1990s; 2,346th of All Time
Ranked highest by: Arturo-Jama, 6th of All Time
"power metal - really good, possibly my favorite blind guardian release " -- Lowkey
I have enough self-awareness to know that I am a nerd, and I always have been. Everything I get interested in (baseball, movies, geography, whatever) i would approach it in a completely nerdy way. Popular music, by definition, is music that a lot of people like, music that is cool, how can you be nerdy about that? I make lists. I am on quest to listen to every single song ever to make the Billboard Hot 100 list its pre-1958 predecessors. And then I'm going to make a list of the best songs of each year based on an exhaustive survey of each year. So far, it's been a lot of fun.
So when I see an album called 'Nightfall in Middle-earth", I'm going to check it out. And boy, does the album deliver on its promise. For one thing, it has everything a good Heavy Metal album should have, the shredding guitars, wailing vocals, and an operatic quality in the harmonies. Interlaced with the musical tracks are bits of dialog emphasizing the medieval quality of the story they were trying to convey.
The music conveys all the emotions of war: Determination. Loyalty to king. Love of comrades. Despair, Frustration. Hatred of the enemy (who is unambiguously evil). And a longing for home. All of this framed in a story that takes place in middle earth.
I may lose some nerd credentials for saying this, but I never read the Silmarillion, the Tolkien novel upon which the album is based (which takes place centuries before Lord of the Rings). I thought about delaying this review until I had read it, but I didn't want this to be a review of the story. Without knowing the story, listening to this album, you get the feel of Middle Earth. Which is what the album promised, and what the album delivered.
If Peter Jackson ever decides to make a movie about it, he already has an awesome killer soundtrack to put to it.
You're such a poser. lol. I've never read the Silmarillion. I tried in high school, but I had just enough colonies flowing though my veins to hate it & thought it was boring as hell. I think I made it about 100 pages in and forgot all about it until now. And I LOVED the Lord of the Rings books.
Anyways, kickass review, Listmeister!!! ๐
MercuryTurn your back on the pay-you-back last callProfile St. Louis
I get a kick out of the fact that I like you Listmeister as a person and a member, yet I literally have never seen you post about an album I like at all. Its beautiful, cuz we have next to no overlap of taste, yet don't hate each other. Mathematically I didn't know it was feasible to find someone I have as little crossover on all time fave albums.
Still, I will jump in and say something else when I see a post about an album I give even a 7/10 to in my mind.
Otherwise, you keep doing you, gangsterMeister! ๐๐
EDIT:
I overstated it. At the beginning you mentioned one of the top 20 greatest albums I've ever heard in London Calling. An album that can be said to have influenced my life more than maybe any other album. so bravo. Also Yoshima... you mentioned at the beginning is brilliant.
Also Sigur Ros is okay. Also Traveling Wilburys is okay by association to the greatest musician is the history of american music not named Miles Davis (they're equal in my mind). And I'm not talking about Orbison, Petty, or the ELO guy. _________________ -Ryan
I get a kick out of the fact that I like you Listmeister as a person and a member, yet I literally have never seen you post about an album I like at all. Its beautiful, cuz we have next to no overlap of taste, yet don't hate each other. Mathematically I didn't know it was feasible to find someone I have as little crossover on all time fave albums.
Still, I will jump in and say something else when I see a post about an album I give even a 7/10 to in my mind.
Thanks for reading anyway. I'm hoping that at some point I'll bring up an album you haven't heard, and talk you into giving it a listen. I looked through your top 100, and you're right, not a whole lot of overlap there. Meanwhile, I'll keep an eye on your "On this Date" diary. I love the concept of that one.
BEA ranks:
47th of 1978 (between Long Live Rock'n'Roll by Rainbow and Duck Stab! / Buster & Glen by the Residents)
453rd of 1970s (between Zeit by Tangerine Dream and Duck Stab!)
2,222nd of All Time (between Zeit and Good Morning Spider by Sparklehorse)
Ranked highest by sixhitterj (2nd of All Time)
"Not their strongest output, infact u can hear it unravelling." -- 5thbeatle
"They're straining to remain important if no longer relevant but they were still the Who. And Sister Disco, Had Enough and the title track stand with the rest of their classic cuts. " --jhuik
"I would have to say there are about five albums that "changed" my life. Not really sure what that means here, but to me it means they made me appreciate and start a life long love affair with music. ... [number 4: Who Are You] My favorite drummer who just happened to pass away at the time I bought it." --Mdemauri
From time to time I will catch a band's history on a video somewhere, and then I will go around consuming all of their albums. With the Who, I saw a video history and then read Pete Townsend's biography "Who I Am". So, I started listening to all the Who albums. I already loved Tommy and Who's Next, so I thought I'd start listen to surrounding albums. I went earlier and earlier, back to the beginning (The Who Sings My Generation). I particularly liked The Who Sell Out. Then I started going forward. After Who's Next , you had Quadrophenia.
I hope you will forgive the heresy, but Quadrophenia did nothing for me. It suffers from the double-album without two albums worth of material problem, I think, and it was a chore to go through. Maybe I just could never figure out what the story was supposed to be. Skipping the compilations Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy and Odds and Sods (which are excellent album titles), next was By the Numbers. That didn't do anything for me either. I was about to give up.
Which brings us to Who Are You . Each track was just really amazing Rock and Roll. "New Song" features Keith Moon's amazing drumwork, which we would soon be missing. "Had Enough" might be Jon Entwistle's answer to Townsends "I've Had Enough" from Quadrophenia. "905", also by Entwistle, is a fun little tune "Sister Disco" (this was 1978) is an attempted update of the Who's sound by adding a few disco-oid elements. It sort of works.
"Music Must Change" features staccato trumpets that was sound that I know I've before on an earlier Who album. "Trick of the Light", another Entwistle number, is another great rock song. "Guitar and Pen" is an interesting intellectual exercise that invites you to identify with the rock song writer, and it works as a cool piano-and-guitar rock song. "Love is Coming Down" is an easy-listening orchestral piece (with strings and everything).
"Who Are You" is just awesome. The wubba-wubba intro reminds you of the great intros from Who's Next. There's anger and passion and pounding drums and, paradoxically, great band harmonies as they chant in the background "Whooooooo are you? Who, who? Who, who?"
I had to drop it a bit because, for one thing, with the exception of the title track, it doesn't have quite the passion behind it that their earlier albums do. They just weren't hungry anymore. You may have noticed that a lot of my favorite moments were reminders of earlier great moments in their catalog. Besides, I just don't feel like I want to listen to it over and over again like I do with most of my top 100's. I have a vinyl copy (it's red!) but I probably won't spin it nearly as much as Tommy or Who's Next or Sell Out. I'll explain why later.
57. To Our Children's Children's Children
58. Hi Infidelity
59. L.A. Woman
60. Nightfall in Middle-Earth
61. Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1
62. Secret Messages
63. Jazz
64. Agaetis Byrjun
65. Different Light
66. One Of These Nights
67. Watermark
68. Who Are You
69. 3:47 EST
BEA Ranks:
23rd of 1981 (between Phil Collins' Face Value and ABBA's The Visitors)
246th of 1980s (between the Soft Boys' Underwater Moonlight and Judas Priest's British Steel)
1,496th of All Time (between Avril Lavigne's Let Go and British Steel)
Ranked highest by littleearthquake (Best Of All time)
"Bella Donna is a beautiful album. It deserves a whole lot more love than it gets. Her best work outside of Silver Spring." --Romanelli
"mystical and sexy,sexy,sexy...dig it all" --jojoexile
"I was really surprised by this one. It's a real grower. This is an extremely consistent and strong album. Some really good songs here. The title track, and, The highwayman, are excellent and the rest is fine too. It's a good album, certainly better than Fleetwood Mac's, Mirage, album the following year." --garycottier
Researching this, I discovered that there's a lot of love for this album, considering it's barely in the top 1500. (Only two higher than John Lennon's last, Double Fantasy and four higher than the aforementioned Fly Like an Eagle. Stevie Nicks's voice is enchanting, but it's hard to say why. It's alluring but not particularly sensuous (compare, for instance, her bandmate Christine McVie's). She can rock and wail when she wants to, but her voice doesn't have the hard edge of an Ann Wlson or Pat Benatar. It's not confrontational like P!nk's or Madonna's. It's not ethereal like Enya's or Loreena McKennitt's.
Now, all those statements about her voice, the opposite is also true. She could be sensuous or hard-edged or confrontational or ethereal depending on what the song needed.
We know it blends well with other voices. It's a big part of why Fleetwood Mac was such a huge success. She seems aware of this factor, there are two duets on the album. But from the first track, "Bella Donna" it's clear that she did not have to rely on a band or other voices. "Bella Donna" is just her voice, full-force and glorious, established on the first track of her first solo album. On "Kind of Woman" she sounds like ghost risen from the grave to deliver a warning.
"Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" is a duet with Tom Petty (of And The Heartbreakers), a classic rock staple since it first came out, and you can hear the pain in both voices. "Think About It" and "After the Glitter Fades" are well crafted country-ish tunes, the first a song of warning, and the second a song of sadness of faded glory.
The base line for "Edge of Seventeen (White Winged Dove)" is one of the most instantly recognizable in the history of rock-and-roll. You already know this song, I don't have to explain it to you. On "How Still My Love" she is soothing, almost maternal. "Outside the Rain" is where she gets ethereal. She waxes poetic on "The Highwayman".
In 1982, "Leather and Lace" was on the radio constantly. Or maybe I was just always listening for it. I love this song. It expresses the romance of the differences and similarities between women and men as they fall in love. She and He are fragile human beings, but they discover that they love each other, and they want to stay together forever. They are very different from each other, but they want to share their differences:
Lovers forever face to face,
My city, your mountain, stay with me, stay.
I need you to love me, I need you today.
Give to me your leather. Take from me my lace.
Competent singers can carry a tune. Good singers can communicate emotions through song. Great singers, like Stevie Nicks, can make you feel emotions through song.
56. To Our Children's Children's Children
57. Hi Infidelity
58. Bella Donna
59. L.A. Woman
60. Nightfall in Middle-Earth
61. Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1
62. Secret Messages
63. Jazz
64. Agaetis Byrjun
65. Different Light
66. One Of These Nights
BEA Ranks: 2nd of 2013; 14th of 2010s; 234th of All Time
Ranked highest by FB-TJ (Best Of All Time)
"Musical soundscapes which encourage multiple listens, making more sense as a album." --rlang36
"Loving the album more with each listen, i'll answer simply that the first disc has more songs that i love than the 2nd, but i definitely appreciate the atmospherics on the 2nd." --Paladisiac
"It always takes me a while to appreciate Arcade Fire's brilliance, but something strange happened to me with this album: I loved it immediately.... Reflektor isn't what you may expect from them, but I think that's a good thing. Anyway, great album, an awesome addition to a spectacular discography." --9999
I realized this album was something special in the spring of 2014, about six months after it came out. I had heard it when it was first released, and had a good first impression from it at the time. But six months later the song "Reflektor" was going through my head, and would not be dislodged. I realized I was craving the album, not the song.
Although this is a double album, it does not feel like a double album. There is so much going on, musically, that you do not have time to get bored. Arcade Fire is made up of six musicians who (according to Wikipedia) play some 50 instruments in this album (including a hurdy-gurdy, an Elephant's Trunk, and a gadulka). In addition, there are another 14 musicians credited on the album playing 21 instruments, not counting the FILMharmonic Orchestra Prague.
So, instrumentally, this is a very dense album. It's like Phil Spector's Wall of Sound, only classier. Each track is packed with instrumental layer upon layer, plus vocals and highly-praised lyrics. The tempo of disc 2 may be a bit slower than disc one, but it still has that multi-layered instrumental quality.
The last track is called 'Super-Symmetry'. It's listed as an eleven-minute song. It fades out at around 5 minutes, then slowly fades in, except all the instruments are being played backwards. What's that all about? Outside [the song], you find the connector: It's just a reflektor. And the reflektion is super-symmetry.
55. Reflektor
56. To Our Children's Children's Children
57. Hi Infidelity
58. Bella Donna
59. L.A. Woman
60. Nightfall in Middle-Earth
61. Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1
62. Secret Messages
63. Jazz
64. Agaetis Byrjun
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