My discoveries per year - Music Diaries - Forums : Best Ever Albums

dihansse · 2016-04-10T12:28:28-04:00

Well! Here I would like to start with my own long term project taking advantage of the best BEA has to offer: overall charts from people who are as interested in music as I am. I already have year charts which are based on the albums I already own or know, but there are a lot of them which I haven't listened to yet and which might be worth discovering. I'd like to do this by going through the overall BEA top lists per year starting in 1963 which is both my year of birth and the year in which I personally think rock music started to become interesting. To keep it a bit varied I will skip through the years in five year periods, ie starting in 1963 then 1968 then 1973 all the way to 2013 and then back to 1964 and so on. Every year I will start with some stats of my personal chart in comparison to the overall year charts, both top 20 an top 50 and will start to listen to at least the top 20 albums I don't know and I'll hope to give some comments sometimes very short, sometimes a bit longer. I will also update my personal year charts accordingly. In principle I will use Apple Music to listen to the albums, which I suppose will cover most of the field. If a certain album isn't present in Apple Music, I'll have to skip it. I will try to listen to all the albums at least once and sometimes twice if I doubt, but I'll skip the really stupid ones (ex a Xmas compilation in 1963) and also other compilations, classical music, jazz and easy listening. This will be a long term project which means there might be times in which I will stop a bit of course because I don't want be stuck listining to albums of the same year all the time. However I suppose this will take at least a month per year. I will try to keep it up but please don't be mad if I give up (maybe already after the first year :lol: )

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And my last entry for 1976 albums:
- Turnstiles by Billy Joel (nr 42 on the overall BEA top chart of 1976): At first I wasn't even considering of putting this album in my personal top chart of 1976, but the best tracks appeared at the end: I'm a bit of a sucker of that song James which was also an Elton John song and also I've loved these Days was very good. So after all it's the bit cheesy slows which won the race here and not the rock songs.
- África Brasil by Jorge Ben (nr 43): I fairly liked this album but not enough to put it in my personal top chart.
- Night Moves by Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band (nr 44): again one of those classics I simply have to put in my top chart especially since one of my favorite songs ever, Mainstreet, appears on it.
- Return Of The Super Ape by The Upsetters (nr 45): fairly plain dub
- Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (nr 46 an the last album in the BEA top chart of 1976 which appears in the overall BEA top 2500): this is not the best album of Tom Petty and I didn't find any of the songs I like of him on it so this is a near miss.

And this concludes my journey into albums of 1976 which was overall a very good year in rock music and a bit the bridge year between the old music of the 1960/70's and the new exciting era to come with punk/New wave.
I also added many new albums to my 1976 personal chart: I started with 9 and I ended with 24 not especially because I didn't know the main tracks of most of those albums but more because I hadn't listened to them completely yet.

This is the final list of 1976 with at the start the BEA overall rank and after the BEA year rank and my rank before and after this listening session:

BEA Rank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before To My Rank after
856 A New World Record By Electric Light Orchestra 15 - To listen To 1
741 Rising By Rainbow 12 - To listen To 2
165 Ramones By Ramones 2 - 1 To 3
250 Boston By Boston 5 - To listen To 4
1459 Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap By AC/DC 30 - To listen To 5
1334 Year Of The Cat By Al Stewart 28 - 2 To 6
202 Hotel California By Eagles 4 - 3 To 7
753 A Day At The Races By Queen 13 - 4 To 8
2352 Night Moves By Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band 44 - To listen To 9
1207 The Royal Scam By Steely Dan 24 - To listen To 10
1687 Radio Ethiopia By Patti Smith Group 35 - To listen To 11
844 Jailbreak By Thin Lizzy 14 - To listen To 12
409 The Modern Lovers By The Modern Lovers 8 - To listen To 13
1497 Warren Zevon By Warren Zevon 33 - To listen To 14
136 Songs In The Key Of Life By Stevie Wonder 1 - 5 To 15
1124 Small Change By Tom Waits 21 - To listen To 16
178 Station To Station By David Bowie 3 - 6 To 17
1439 Presence By Led Zeppelin 29 - 7 To 18
956 Destroyer By Kiss 16 - To listen To 19
350 Desire By Bob Dylan 7 - To listen To 20
2310 Turnstiles By Billy Joel 42 - To listen To 21
1496 Fly Like An Eagle By Steve Miller Band 32 - To listen To 22
1100 Arrival By ABBA 20 - 8 To 23
4127 The Roaring Silence By Manfred Mann's Earth Band 71 - 9 To 24

The next year to listen to (after skipping another 5 years) is 1981.

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And this is the start of my discovery of 1981 albums, a bit of a strange year in BEA terms because I think this one of those years of which the top 5 is a bit peculiar to say the least and not everyone will really like it: Rush & King Crimson, Black Flag, Brian Eno & David Byrne & Kraftwerk: three genres which were not really mainstream at that time: old prog, new hardcore and experimental electro.

Here is the list of albums I will listen to (or already have) with at the start the BEA overall rank and after the BEA year rank and my personal rank before this listening session (or to listen):

BEA Rank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before
152 Moving Pictures By Rush 1 - Already listened
630 Discipline By King Crimson 2 - To listen
636 Damaged By Black Flag 3 - To listen
667 My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts By Brian Eno & David Byrne 4 - 16
678 Computer World By Kraftwerk 5 - To listen
714 Juju By Siouxsie And The Banshees 6 - 2
745 Faith By The Cure 7 - To listen
793 Ghost In The Machine By The Police 8 - 8
861 Dare By The Human League 9 - To listen
877 Time By Electric Light Orchestra 10 - To listen
882 Fire Of Love By The Gun Club 11 - 13
911 Heaven Up Here By Echo & The Bunnymen 12 - To listen
993 Greatest Hits By Queen 13 - Greatest Hits Excluded
1161 Deceit By This Heat 14 - To listen
1211 Killers By Iron Maiden 15 - 12
1290 Tattoo You By The Rolling Stones 16 - 7
1292 The Ascension By Glenn Branca 17 - To listen
1335 Fair Warning By Van Halen 18 - To listen
1340 Diary Of A Madman By Ozzy Osbourne 19 - Partly listened
1341 Escape By Journey 20 - To listen
1350 Youth Of America By Wipers 21 - 11
1448 Face Value By Phil Collins 22 - To listen
1568 Bella Donna By Stevie Nicks 23 - To listen
1658 The Visitors By ABBA 24 - To listen
1784 Movement By New Order 25 - 10
1931 Architecture And Morality By Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark 26 - To listen
1977 From The Lion's Mouth By The Sound 27 - To listen
2044 October By U2 28 - 3
2055 ...And Don't The Kids Just Love It By Television Personalities 29 - To listen
2080 East Side Story By Squeeze 30 - To listen
2085 Business As Usual By Men At Work 31 - To listen
2093 4 By Foreigner 32 - To listen
2100 Nightclubbing By Grace Jones 33 - To listen
2109 Paradise Theater By Styx 34 - To listen
2153 Duran Duran By Duran Duran 35 - To listen
2195 Dolmen Music By Meredith Monk 36 - To listen
2240 Tin Drum By Japan 37 - 14
2273 La Voce Del Padrone By Franco Battiato 38 - To listen
2332 Abacab By Genesis 39 - To listen
2402 Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret By Soft Cell 40 - To listen
2436 Beauty And The Beat By Go-Go's 41 - To listen
2476 Desire By Tuxedomoon 42 - To listen

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Here are my first contributions for the year 1981:
- Discipline by King Crimson (nr 2 on the overall BEA top chart of 1981): First I have to make a correction to my preface hereunder: this record is not a prog record but more a record in the spirit of My Life In the Bush of Ghosts, ie somewhat of a mixture between Talking Heads, Brian Eno and also minimal music by Steve Reich and Philip Glass. This album was not available on Apple Music so I listened to different live versions on Youtube which was not a bad thing to do because the comments under them learnt me a lot about the abundant time signature shifts on nearly all the tracks and especially at the last one which indeed takes a lot of discipline from Robert Fripp. But it all sounds wonderful and in the case of especially Thela Hun Ginjeet also very mesmerising. I was tempted to buy this album and maybe I will because I very much like it and don't know why it was so far under the radar for me until now.
- Damaged by Black Flag (nr 3): Rise Above is of course an anthem but I don't really like the rest of the album: a bit too uniform and sloganesque for me.
- Computer World by Kraftwerk (nr 5): I know most of the tracks of this album already but except for Autobahn I'm not really a fan of Kraftwerk.
- Faith by The Cure (nr 7): I'm a fan of the early work of The Cure and this is about their last of that period and to be honest one that was a bit overlooked by me. This while it contains one of my favorite tracks ever: Primary. It's a bit in the same mood as Seventeen Seconds but overall slower and moodier but it really works here.

The next album to listen to is Dare by The Human League.

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Some more:
- Dare by The Human League (nr 9 on the overall BEA top chart of 1981): All the main hits (except for Louise) are on this album which is again some greatest hits album. They're often put away as an easy pop band but I think they're much more than that, the voice of the Oakey and the songs themselves were really good. TIP: their first album Reproduction is not that great but have a listen to their cover of You've Lost That Loving Feeling from the Walker Brothers (which is called Morale...You've Lost That Loving): it's hauntingly beautiful!
- Time by Electric Light Orchestra (nr 10): sorry Listmeister but this must be one of the least good albums of ELO although there are still a few of those sprawling ELO tracks on it: Twilight and also a bit Yours Truly, 2095. And of course Hold On Tight and Here Is The News were great hits. But the rest of the album is in my opinion really not in the same league as the rest of the ELO legacy. But hey it's still ELO and also this album deserves its place in my top charts.
- Heaven Up Here by Echo & The Bunnymen (nr 12): maybe again an overlooked album by a great band but I nearly had all the songs of it via the Crystal Days Box Set. Standouts are A Promise and All My Colours. Again a top album by Echo & The Bunnymen.
- Deceit by This Heat (nr 14): supposed to be a must listen experimental album but I couldn't find a lot of interesting things in it.
- The Ascension by Glenn Branca (nr 17): also experimental but much more my taste: this is really the preface of the Sonic Youth sound and Lee Ranaldo is even one of the four guitar players. Some of the musical ideas and developments on this album are amazing.

The next album to listen to is Fair Warning by Van Halen.

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And more:
- Fair Warning by Van Halen (nr 18 on the overall BEA top chart of 1981): This album has nearly everything the first two albums of Van Halen have and which are favorites of mine. But what it doesn't have is really good tracks I enjoy listening to. In general they are not bad and especially Mean Street is even good and it's still the last fairly enjoyable Van Halen record before they really went astray so it isn't ranked very high but I couldn't resist entering it into my personal top chart.
- Diary Of A Madman by Ozzy Osbourne (nr 19): not to be compared with the best Sabbath but still good guitar playing and the songs are not too bad either. The title track is a bit over the top but still the best on this record.
- Escape by Journey (nr 20): to me flat fm rock and not my thing.
- Face Value by Phil Collins (nr 21): In the Air Tonight is a killer song and that drum part near the end is legendary but the rest of this album is completely not my thing.
- Bella Donna by Stevie Nicks (nr 22): Stevie Nicks is great with Fleetwood Mac but solo there's something missing: Edge Of Seventeen is the best song with its I Was Made For Lovin'-groove and also the duet with Tom Petty is not enough to save this record.

The next album to listen to is The Visitors, the last Abba album.

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A lot more albums of 1981:
- The Visitors by ABBA (nr 24 on the overall BEA top chart of 1981): on their last album Abba gained a bit a maturity but lost a lot of their freshness so this is certainly not their best one. Head Over Heels and When All Is Said and Done are still good songs and so are many others on this album but none of them is really up to their top performances on other albums. Still one for my personal top chart but not too high.
- Architecture And Morality by Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark (nr 26): some bands have great greatest hits but no great albums and OMD is certainly one of those. This album features 3 major hits: Souvenir, Joan of Arc and especially Maid Of Orleans, one of the greatest songs of the 80's but the rest of the album is just mediocre and dated. But these three songs make the album so I still want to put it in my personal chart.
- From The Lion's Mouth by The Sound (nr 27): and then there are artists of which greatest hits don't do justice to their individual albums like the Sound. I know this band mainly because of a live album but the whole of this album is just great with especially Sense of Purpose and New Dark Age/Hothouse as standouts.
- Nightclubbing by Grace Jones (nr 29): a good nighclubbing album and a lot of the tracks are good but overall maybe a bit too campy for my taste.
- ...And Don't The Kids Just Love It by Television Personalities (nr 30): this is a bit if a special one, this debut album of the TV Personalities: it's as lo-fi as can be both production wise as in the way the songs are delivered but most of them do stick however innocent sounding they may be. So an album definitely worth owning.
- East Side Story by Squeeze (nr 31): this album has one of their best songs overall: Is That Love? and also Tempted and Labeled with Love are top songs. In general a Squeeze album to my liking.

The next album to listen to is Business At Work of Down Under Men At Work.

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More albums of 1981 I listened to:
- Business As Usual by Men At Work (nr 32 on the overall BEA top chart of 1981): Who Can It Be Now? and Down Under are of course major and good hits
- 4 by Foreigner (nr 33): A bit like the former album: Urgent and Juke Box Hero are good hits but the rest is not up to that and I prefer their earlier albums anyway.
- Paradise Theater by Styx (nr 34): this album has some interesting tracks like Half-Penny, Two-Penny but overall it doesn't really satisfy for me.
- Duran Duran by Duran Duran (nr 35): this band was a hit machine at the time and this album features a few of them but not really my thing nor at that time nor now.
- Dolmen Music by Meredith Monk (nr 36): the least that I can say is that there are some interesting voices on this album and especially in the last long track there is a bit of minimal music in the compositions but overall it didn't really touch me this album.
- La Voce Del Padrone by Franco Battiato (nr 38 ): also not bad typic electronic flavored music typical of that era in the eighties but a bit too lightweight poppy for me.

The next album to listen to is Abacab by Genesis.

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This is my last contribution for the albums I listened to of 1981:
- Abacab by Genesis (nr 39): there is no single track on this album I like.
- Beauty And The Beat by Go-Go's (nr 40): and this album was much better than I thought. My opinion was that the Go-go's were a decent singles band so I was very surprised that all the tracks on this album with no exception were good to very good both because of the very nice harmonicas and the very good songs. We Got The Beat is the standout.
- Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret by Soft Cell (nr 41): People call this album sleazy but it is just a very good album with as the absolute highlights Tainted Love and especially Say Hello, Wave Goodbye. When you add this to the good Bedsitter and some other decent tracks this is certainly an album to include in my personal top chart.
- Desire by Tuxedomoon (nr 42): this album is a mixture between jazz, krautrock, experimental and new wave and in this respect it is certainly a noteworthy album and tracks like Incubus and In The Name of Talent are not bad but nowadays I suppose the novelty and experimental nature of this album has a bit worn off in my opinion and when taken everything together not really an album for my personal top chart.
- Talk Talk Talk by The Psychedelic Furs (nr 43 and the last album in the overal BEA top chart of 1981 with an overall BEA rank of better than 2500): I cheated a bit with this album because it was ranked slightly worse than 2500th before I listened to it but I like this album so much that I voted it up to a rank higher than 2500. I've got the Greatest Hits of this album and it's really surprising to me that I never got round to listen to the original albums of which this one should be their best. At least it has their best track by far: Pretty in Pink. And the rest of the album is also very good.

And this ends my journey into 1981, again a very good rock year where I also was able to add a whole bunch of new albums to my yearly top chart. The first place however is still taken by the debut album of a fantastic Belgian band I can recommend to everybody: TC Matic.

And here is the final list with at the start the BEA overall rank and after that the BEA year rank and then my personal rank before and after this listening session:
BEA Rank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before To My Rank after
16578 TC Matic By TC Matic 260 - 1 To 1
726 Juju By Siouxsie And The Banshees 6 - 2 To 2
2071 October By U2 30 - 3 To 3
751 Faith By The Cure 7 - To listen To 4
2925 Signals, Calls, And Marches by Mission Of Burma By Mission Of Burma 51 - 4 To 5
7077 Red Skies Over Paradise By Fischer-Z 135 - 5 To 7
1999 From The Lion's Mouth By The Sound 27 - To listen To 8
18473 's Nachts Kouder Dan Buiten By De Kreuners 272 - 6 To 9
1291 Tattoo You By The Rolling Stones 16 - 7 To 10
795 Ghost In The Machine By The Police 8 - 8 To 11
23013 Of Skins And Heart By The Church 321 - 9 To 12
921 Heaven Up Here By Echo & The Bunnymen 12 - To listen To 13
1737 Movement By New Order 25 - 10 To 14
1346 Youth Of America By Wipers 21 - 11 To 16
2083 East Side Story By Squeeze 31 - To listen To 17
2051 ...And Don't The Kids Just Love It By Television Personalities 29 - To listen To 18
2411 Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret By Soft Cell 41 - To listen To 19
1214 Killers By Iron Maiden 15 - 12 To 20
618 Discipline By King Crimson 2 - To listen To 21
1345 Diary Of A Madman By Ozzy Osbourne 20 - Partly listened To 22
1303 The Ascension By Glenn Branca 17 - To listen To 23
861 Dare By The Human League 9 - To listen To 24
881 Fire Of Love By The Gun Club 11 - 13 To 25
2274 Tin Drum By Japan 37 - 14 To 26
880 Time By Electric Light Orchestra 10 - To listen To 27
674 My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts By Brian Eno & David Byrne 4 - 16 To 28
1342 Fair Warning By Van Halen 19 - To listen To 29
1937 Architecture And Morality By Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark 26 - To listen To 30
2726 For Those About To Rock We Salute You By AC/DC 48 - 15 To 31
1662 The Visitors By ABBA 24 - To listen To 32

For the next year to discover I again skip 5 years to arrive in 1986.

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And here is already the start of a new journey which now takes me to the year 1986.

This is the list of albums to discover (or already listened to) with overall BEA rank better than 2500 with at the start the BEA overall rank and after that the BEA year rank and after that my personal rank before this listening session (or to listen):
BEA Rank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before
21 The Queen Is Dead By The Smiths 1 - 4
91 Master Of Puppets By Metallica 2 - 1
127 Graceland By Paul Simon 3 - 5
272 So By Peter Gabriel 4 - To listen
390 Skylarking By XTC 5 - To listen
395 Licensed To Ill By Beastie Boys 6 - To listen
414 Lifes Rich Pageant By R.E.M. 7 - 6
433 Reign In Blood By Slayer 8 - To listen
580 The Colour Of Spring By Talk Talk 9 - To listen
656 EVOL By Sonic Youth 10 - 10
711 Black Celebration By Depeche Mode 11 - To listen
753 Slippery When Wet By Bon Jovi 12 - To listen
890 Parade By Prince And The Revolution 13 - To listen
977 Raising Hell By Run-D.M.C. 14 - To listen
1171 Peace Sells... But Who's Buying? By Megadeth 15 - To listen
1269 True Blue By Madonna 16 - To listen
1335 Brotherhood By New Order 17 - To listen
1339 Invisible Touch By Genesis 18 - To listen
1364 Scoundrel Days By a-ha 19 - To listen
1573 Victorialand By Cocteau Twins 20 - To listen
1588 Atomizer By Big Black 21 - To listen
1642 World Of Echo By Arthur Russell 22 - To listen
1671 Somewhere In Time By Iron Maiden 23 - To listen
1740 Born Sandy Devotional By The Triffids 24 - 2
1836 Please By Pet Shop Boys 25 - To listen
1867 A Kind Of Magic By Queen 26 - To listen
1925 Crowded House By Crowded House 27 - To listen
1930 Infected By The The 28 - 13
1996 Your Funeral... My Trial By Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds 29 - To listen
2026 Strange Times By The Chameleons 30 - To listen
2035 King Of America By The Costello Show Featuring The Attractions And Confederates 31 - To listen
2041 In The Jungle Groove By James Brown 32 - To listen
2130 Standing On A Beach - The Singles By The Cure 33 - already listened
2196 Talking With The Taxman About Poetry By Billy Bragg 34 - To listen
2296 Live/1975-85 By Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band 35 - Already listened
2435 Control By Janet Jackson 36 - To listen

And I already listened to the first album I had to listen to:
- So by Peter Gabriel (nr 4 in the overall BEA top chart of 1986): of course I know this album already and even have grown a bit of resentment agains the main hits on this album, Sledgehammer and Big Time in which he is overdoing it a bit. But on the other hand there are still a few of those typical Peter Gabriel gems to be found on this album like Red Rain and In You Eyes. So this is still one of the (last) good Peter Gabriel albums.

The next album to listen to is Skylarking by XTC.

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Here is my second contribution for (many) albums of 1986 I listened to:
- Skylarking by XTC (nr 5 on the overall BEA top chart of 1986): it surprised me that, while this is suppose to be one of the better albums of XTC, I knew not a lot of the tracks on it (except for Grass of course). But it's on of their top albums after listening to it, especially the first half.
- Licensed To Ill by Beastie Boys (nr 6): Of course Fight For Your Right and No Sleep Till Brooklyn are powerful tracks but I have never really liked their music: I saw them at a festival around the time this album came out and I found them utterly boring.
- Reign In Blood by Slayer (nr 8 ): this is one of these albums: brimming with very short and spiky songs you should listen to it at a whole (which doesn't take long) and also really works as whole. This means that there are no real highlights but the album rocks and rolls as a mighty dragon which only stops at the final red thunderstorm of Raining Blood.
- The Colour Of Spring by Talk Talk (nr 9): this is another discovery of one of these latter great albums of Talk Talk with a fine rediscovery Life's What You Make it (which was a semi-hit in Belgium at the time) as a bonus.
- Black Celebration by Depeche Mode (nr 11): and this is another attempt of a post-synth band at trying to make darker music than they used to in the old days. But here Depeche Mode doesn't succeed. I liked their earlier albums but not this one or others of their latter period.
- Slippery When Wet by Bon Jovi (nr 12): this is a band every real music lover loves to hate and so was I especially upon listening to their hits. But actually a few songs on this album weren't too bad (ex Never Say Goodbye). But no after taking everything into account this album is after all not very good.
- Parade by Prince And The Revolution (nr 13): I've never been a fan of Prince songs like Kiss and there are many songs like this on this album. The only song which surprised me in a pleasant way and that I didn't even know was Christopher Tracey's Parade.
- Raising Hell by Run-D.M.C. (nr 14): not my thing.
- Peace Sells... But Who's Buying? by Megadeth (nr 15): in the quest for the best metal album of 1986 between Metallica (wooooooooow), Slayer (Wooow) and Megadeth, this album clearly loses. I like some of their latter albums but this one didn't appeal to me at all.
- True Blue by Madonna (nr 16): this is Madonna at her most lightweight poppy and not really my taste.
- Invisible Touch by Genesis (nr 17): again one of those Genesis/Phil Collins albums I don't like.
- Brotherhood by New Order (nr 18 ): I'm a guitar lover but of New Order I more like their synth-infested tracks as present on the second half of this album with of course Bizarre Love Triangle as THE highlight. The first half of the album didn't really rock but the second half synthed as hell.

The next album to listen to is Scoundrel Days by a-ha.