No, of course you shouldn't feel "ashamed" about anything, but if you turned your list upside down it would be more the way mine would have turned out. The ones you put lower I would have put at the top and vice versa. We kind of have opposite tastes. Not all of course, I would have put Neil Young Joni Mitchell and Melanie and Nilsson way up high too, but a lot of your lower-ranked ones would have been in my top 10 probably.
Outside it is cold. New Year's Eve just passed. Just before that Christmas season came and went with little attendant joy. I'm 28, strapped for cash, and lonely more often than not. Many dreams and hopes have withered or blown away or become invisible or utterly forgotten about due to how far out of reach they seem.
In this environment I have tended to music which "gets me". I have been listening to a lot of The Cure's "Disintegration", The Go-Betweens "16 Lovers Lane", Burzum's "Filosofem", Mickey Newbury's "Looks Like Rain", etc. All albums which fit with the -10 degree weather. Albums which often specifically mention the coldness, whether inside or outside or both. The most upbeat albums I've been indulging in have been ones which are aggressively hateful. "Streetcleaner" by Godflesh, or Melvins' "Houdini", or "The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste" or or or...
This routine has fed a strange internal, circular situation where I feel bad and find something which shares the sentiment, then I go to work and take a break from music, then I cheer up a bit, and a bit later I go back to my music and I play more of what I was hearing before and I see the world yet again in the same gray way. It can be a problem.
No disrespect to those albums, they're all great, and beautiful, and for many people they are inspiring and actually may have the opposite effect. But, for me, it was cyclic mood issue.
Then, last night, on a whim, I put on Mos Def's 1999 classic "Black On Both Sides" and I started feeling good. Almost immediately I noticed a more positive vibe. I was just as cold, I was just as broke, no change in relationship status, yet my viewpoint was shifting, perspective was showing its colors. As the smile appeared, and as I puzzled how Yasiin Bey was so great at cheering me up, he dropped a line which made the whole experience crystal clear...
"So.. if Hip-Hop is about the people
and Hip-Hop won't get better until the people get better
then how do people get better?
Well, from my understanding people get better
when they start to understand that they are valuable
And they not valuable because they got a whole lot of money
or cause somebody think they sexy
but they valuable cause they been created by God
And God makes you valuable
And whether or not you recognize that value is one thing".
Now, I agree with that. Maybe not everyone will go along with that due to religious differences, or what have you. But for me that struck a chord in me. I remembered an in terview Bowie did where he mentioned that music or art can bring people down or pull people up. I also remembered a Lauryn Hill lyric along the lines of "Music is supposed to take us Higher", I started remembering all these things. And I was just overcome with joy and inspiration and a new respect for this album and artist.
------------
From there I listened to the whole album. And its a very positive album. That's not to say that the album doesn't deal with some serious, dark issues, cuz it does. But from that opening salvo of positive, clear-eyed reaffirmation of the value of life, Mos Def was able to tackle these issues with a transcendent perspective.
And this album and this experience got me thinking about what are other albums which imbue me with this positivity? I then decided to make this chart (below) of just my favorite albums that don't look at life from the ground, teary eyed and lost, but view it with joy in their hearts.
Obviously, this is a very subjective list of albums I am linking below, and some of my choices may make no sense to you. I understand "Pet Sounds" is actually a pretty sad record at its heart (at least that's what I'm told) but I hear an artist who is tackling love and loneliness with wonder and vitality and it makes me feel with it a certain awe at the beautiful aspects of existence.
"Astral Weeks" and "Karma" and "A Love Supreme" obviously fill me with a different shade of happiness and positivity than romantic bubblegum albums like "The 20/20 Experience", "Spice" or "ABC".
Here in Belgium it's just windy and raining, not cold at all.
Is that better or is that better 🙄
Anyway keep up doing what you do.
I'm again at a dead point in listening to the BEA top 2500 and listening to an incredibly depressing 1996 album by George Michael.
The last album that made me enormously happy was :
Seamonsters by The Wedding Present
for that same 1991 thread Tilly was mentioning.
MercuryTurn your back on the pay-you-back last callProfile St. Louis
What are some albums which are just jolts of inspiration and wondrous joy for you?
Also, anyone else reading this, I am looking for other albums which are just super positive (without being corny as fuck) or are just enriched with some sort of inspiring transcendence? _________________ -Ryan
Here in Belgium it's just windy and raining, not cold at all.
Is that better or is that better 🙄
Anyway keep up doing what you do.
I'm again at a dead point in listening to the BEA top 2500 and listening to an incredibly depressing 1996 album by George Michael.
The last album that made me enormously happy was :
Seamonsters by The Wedding Present
for that same 1991 thread Tilly was mentioning.
Unbelievably enough, I was writing my post which tooke 2 minutes while you were pushing submit on your post. We really are in lock step like Ferrell and John C. Reilly. lol.
I will check out that Wedding Present record.
I suppose the main place we aren't in lockstep is with regards to Hip Hop. I saw you liked Endtroducing... which is cool.
If you look at my chart of albums that inspiure or make me happy, you'll see a lot of Hip Hop. You probably won't love them, but Black On Both Sides, Below The Heavens, and Moment of Truth are some of the most inspiring records for me. Obviously, its not all sweetness and sunshine, there is still a lot of political stuff and hardship and the occasional street talk, but in general they imbue me with happiness. At least for stretches, as all of those albums are a bit too long. _________________ -Ryan
Here in Belgium it's just windy and raining, not cold at all.
Is that better or is that better 🙄
Anyway keep up doing what you do.
I'm again at a dead point in listening to the BEA top 2500 and listening to an incredibly depressing 1996 album by George Michael.
The last album that made me enormously happy was :
Seamonsters by The Wedding Present
for that same 1991 thread Tilly was mentioning.
Unbelievably enough, I was writing my post which tooke 2 minutes while you were pushing submit on your post. We really are in lock step like Ferrell and John C. Reilly. lol.
I will check out that Wedding Present record.
I suppose the main place we aren't in lockstep is with regards to Hip Hop. I saw you liked Endtroducing... which is cool.
If you look at my chart of albums that inspiure or make me happy, you'll see a lot of Hip Hop. You probably won't love them, but Black On Both Sides, Below The Heavens, and Moment of Truth are some of the most inspiring records for me. Obviously, its not all sweetness and sunshine, there is still a lot of political stuff and hardship and the occasional street talk, but in general they imbue me with happiness. At least for stretches, as all of those albums are a bit too long.
*sigh* Why is it that so many hip hop albums are too long? It's like they all suddenly felt the need to take up every single minute that the new (at the time) CD space afforded them in the early nineties, and it became tradition. I would make mix tapes just to splice out all those dumbass interludes & skits. Let's face it - most of them sucked ass and (at most) only needed to be heard once (if that.)
MercuryTurn your back on the pay-you-back last callProfile St. Louis
Here in Belgium it's just windy and raining, not cold at all.
Is that better or is that better 🙄
Anyway keep up doing what you do.
I'm again at a dead point in listening to the BEA top 2500 and listening to an incredibly depressing 1996 album by George Michael.
The last album that made me enormously happy was :
Seamonsters by The Wedding Present
for that same 1991 thread Tilly was mentioning.
Unbelievably enough, I was writing my post which tooke 2 minutes while you were pushing submit on your post. We really are in lock step like Ferrell and John C. Reilly. lol.
I will check out that Wedding Present record.
I suppose the main place we aren't in lockstep is with regards to Hip Hop. I saw you liked Endtroducing... which is cool.
If you look at my chart of albums that inspiure or make me happy, you'll see a lot of Hip Hop. You probably won't love them, but Black On Both Sides, Below The Heavens, and Moment of Truth are some of the most inspiring records for me. Obviously, its not all sweetness and sunshine, there is still a lot of political stuff and hardship and the occasional street talk, but in general they imbue me with happiness. At least for stretches, as all of those albums are a bit too long.
*sigh* Why is it that so many hip hop albums are too long? It's like they all suddenly felt the need to take up every single minute that the new (at the time) CD space afforded them in the early nineties, and it became tradition. I would make mix tapes just to splice out all those dumbass interludes & skits. Let's face it - most of them sucked ass and (at most) only needed to be heard once (if that.)
I know right?!? I’m not sure what the deal is with all that shit. I mean the widely considered greatest hip hop album of all time is Illmatic. That album is perfect, unblemished, and is like 38 minutes. I wish more records would follow its lead.
Skits and 20+ tracks is to hip hop what 5-10 minute drum solos or guitar wank fests were to classic blues-based rock. _________________ -Ryan
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