My discoveries per year

[dihansse]

So the next year (and the last year in my fourth cycle before I start the last one) is 2016. Since this is a very recent year there aren't a lot of album which have made it to the overall BEA top 2500 (my selection criterion) yet and since I think I have listened already to most of those albums that interested me I don't think I will discover a lot of new ones but one never knows.

This is the list of albums of 2016 to discover (with at the start the overall BEA year rank and after that the BEA year rank and my rank before this listening session (or to listen)):

BEA Rank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before
163 A Moon Shaped Pool By Radiohead 1 - 41
289 Blackstar By David Bowie 2 - 37
326 Blonde By Frank Ocean 3 - To listen
415 Teens Of Denial By Car Seat Headrest 4 - 22
646 Atrocity Exhibition By Danny Brown 5 - To listen
692 Skeleton Tree By Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds 6 - 42
698 22, A Million By Bon Iver 7 - To listen
956 We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your Service By A Tribe Called Quest 8 - To listen
981 Lemonade By Beyoncé 9 - To listen
1040 Untitled Unmastered. By Kendrick Lamar 10 - To listen
1259 MY WOMAN By Angel Olsen 11 - To listen
1277 The Life Of Pablo By Kanye West 12 - To listen
1287 Malibu By Anderson .Paak 13 - To listen
1313 Awaken My Love By Childish Gambino 14 - To listen
1425 Weezer (The White Album) By Weezer 15 - To listen
1572 Coloring Book By Chance The Rapper 16 - To listen
1647 Bottomless Pit By Death Grips 17 - To listen
1811 Nonagon Infinity By King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard 18 - 40
2001 Wildflower By The Avalanches 19 - To listen
2033 You Want It Darker By Leonard Cohen 20 - 35
2147 Run The Jewels 3 By Run The Jewels 21 - To listen

And I've already listened to the first albums to listen:
- Blonde by Frank Ocean (nr 3 on the overall BEA top chart of 2016): I fail to understand how an album like this can be ranked so high. I already don't like autotune but here it's used all over the album in the worst sense possible.
- Atrocity Exhibition by Danny Brown (nr 5): This is already a genre that I'm not really a fan of but this album is even worse: I just find the delivery and the voice of Danny Brown completely annoying.

The next album to listen to is 22, A Million by Bon Iver.

[dihansse]

Believe it or not but this is my last entry for the year 2016. I literally raced through this year to get it over with and finally there is only one album I decided to put in my top chart:
- 22, A Million by Bon Iver (nr 7 on the overall BEA top chart of 2016), We Got It From Here... Thank You 4 Your...lled Quest (nr 8 ), Lemonade by Beyoncé (nr 9), Untitled Unmastered. by Kendrick Lamar (nr 10) were all albums I don't really like.
- My Woman by Angel Olsen (nr 11): I fairly like the quirky way of singing and songwriting of Angel Olsen but generally not enough to like an album on an overall basis. I already liked Sister but I was nevertheless planning to leave it out of my personal top chart of 2016 until.... I heard the last track Pops I fell in love with. That strange piano motif just mesmerises me and make me just love this song. So I decided to integrate this album anyway in my personal top chart.
- The Life Of Pablo by Kanye West (nr 12), Malibu by Anderson .Paak (nr 13), "Awaken, My Love!" by Childish Gambino nr 14) and even Weezer (The White Album) by Weezer (nr 15), Coloring Book by Chance The Rapper (nr 16), Bottomless Pit by Death Grips (nr 17), Wildflower by The Avalanches (nr 19) and finally Run The Jewels 3 by Run The Jewels (nr 21 and the last 2016 album with an overall BEA rank better than 2500) were all not really my taste either.

Which is already the end of my listening session of 2016. I fairly liked this year but had already listened to all the albums I liked from that year before (ie in 2016).

And this is the final verdict of that year with at the start the BEA overall rank and then the BEA year rank and my personal rank before and after this listening session:

BEA Rank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before To My Rank after
10155 Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not By Dinosaur Jr. 135 - 1 To 1
5367 Hardwired... To Self-Destruct By Metallica 55 - 2 To 2
6597 Is The Is Are By DIIV 73 - 3 To 3
28482 Devil Music By The Men 581 - 4 To 4
22162 Patch The Sky By Bob Mould 383 - 5 To 5
32897 As We Make Our Way (Unknown Harbours) By Sophia 719 - 6 To 6
23850 Talk Tight By Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever 428 - 7 To 7
16402 Stranger Things By Yuck 260 - 8 To 8
36601 Headache By Male Bonding 847 - 9 To 9
35121 Damaged Good By Bettie Serveert 787 - 10 To 10
7714 Singing Saw By Kevin Morby 95 - 11 To 11
15197 Up To Anything By The Goon Sax 228 - 12 To 12
55390 Tonight's Music By The Moles 1641 - 13 To 13
63926 Say Yes! A Tribute To Elliott Smith By Various Artists 2040 - 14 To 14
41239 Going, Going... By The Wedding Present 1034 - 15 To 15
26821 Blind Spot By Lush 524 - 16 To 16
25460 Away By Okkervil River 470 - 17 To 17
20061 Head Carrier By Pixies 328 - 18 To 18
10130 Next Thing By Frankie Cosmos 134 - 19 To 19
4227 Revolution Radio By Green Day 40 - 20 To 20
2657 WORRY. By Jeff Rosenstock 24 - 21 To 21
415 Teens Of Denial By Car Seat Headrest 4 - 22 To 22
6605 Schmilco By Wilco 74 - 23 To 23
86257 Big Boat By Phish 2932 - 24 To 24
67357 Chapters By Nightman 2207 - 25 To 25
6299 Human Performance By Parquet Courts 67 - 26 To 26
69407 Pyjama Days By Bent Van Looy 2289 - 27 To 27
21270 Here By Teenage Fanclub 363 - 28 To 28
16056 Human Ceremony By Sunflower Bean 249 - 29 To 29
32874 57th & 9th By Sting 717 - 30 To 30
4066 The Getaway By Red Hot Chili Peppers 38 - 31 To 31
73602 Bait Is For Sissies By Kino Kimino 2463 - 32 To 32
73723 Here Be Monsters By Motorpsycho 2468 - 33 To 33
24991 No Burden By Lucy Dacus 454 - 34 To 34
2030 You Want It Darker By Leonard Cohen 20 - 35 To 35
58589 Tautou By Marble Sounds 1780 - 36 To 36
289 Blackstar By David Bowie 2 - 37 To 37
69100 Baskenland By El Yunque 2238 - 38 To 38
72299 Skydogs By The Sore Losers 2360 - 39 To 39
1805 Nonagon Infinity By King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard 18 - 40 To 40
162 A Moon Shaped Pool By Radiohead 1 - 41 To 41
691 Skeleton Tree By Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds 6 - 42 To 42
28565 Pretty Years By Cymbals Eat Guitars 585 - 43 To 43
1259 MY WOMAN By Angel Olsen 11 - To listen To 44

And this ends my journey into 2016 but also this the end of the fourth cycle of listening session of albums ranked better than 2500. I started at 1963 (my birth year) and each time took 5 year leaps to end at 2013, then went back to 1964 and ended in 2014, then 1965 to 2015 and as a fourth cycle 1966 to 2016.
So the next and last five year cycle will start in 1967 and will run until 2017 but first some statistics on what I already achieved:
Of the current BEA top 2500 (which has of course changed since I started this project)
- 107 albums were excluded because they are compilations or live albums
- 598 albums were already owned and liked by me before this project
- 152 albums were already owned but not really liked (ie not one of my year charts)
- 847 albums I still had to listen to for this project were listened to but weren't liked enough to put them in one of my year charts
- 390 albums I still had to listen to for this project were listened to and were liked enough to put them in one of my year charts
- 406 albums still have to be listened to for this project.

In general I have 2152 albums in one of my year charts of which 988 were part of the BEA top 2500 which means that 1164 albums I like are not part of the BEA 2500 canon.

So still a cycle to do which brings me back to 1967, a year for which I have only 7 albums in my year chart which is an absolute disgrace and I'm sure it will grow exponentially after this listening session.

[dihansse]

As promised this I'm going back to 1967 and I'm pleased that I'll have to listen to the following albums (or already listened) with at the start the BEA overall rank and then 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
5 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band By The Beatles 1 - 2
8 The Velvet Underground And Nico By The Velvet Underground And Nico 2 - 1
26 The Doors By The Doors 3 - 4
31 Are You Experienced By The Jimi Hendrix Experience 4 - To listen
68 Forever Changes By Love 5 - To listen
79 Magical Mystery Tour By The Beatles 6 - 3
149 The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn By Pink Floyd 7 - 6
178 Songs Of Leonard Cohen By Leonard Cohen 8 - To listen
212 Axis: Bold As Love By The Jimi Hendrix Experience 9 - To listen
221 Disraeli Gears By Cream 10 - 7
292 Strange Days By The Doors 11 - 5
334 Surrealistic Pillow By Jefferson Airplane 12 - To listen
361 Days Of Future Passed By The Moody Blues 13 - To listen
414 The Who Sell Out By The Who 14 - To listen
439 Safe As Milk By Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band 15 - To listen
461 Something Else By The Kinks By The Kinks 16 - To listen
474 I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You By Aretha Franklin 17 - To listen
615 Chelsea Girl By Nico 18 - To listen
842 Goodbye And Hello By Tim Buckley 19 - To listen
920 John Wesley Harding By Bob Dylan 20 - To listen
993 Younger Than Yesterday By The Byrds 21 - To listen
1116 Their Satanic Majesties Request By The Rolling Stones 22 - To listen
1197 The Parable Of Arable Land By The Red Crayola 23 - To listen
1241 Between The Buttons By The Rolling Stones 24 - To listen
1319 Buffalo Springfield Again By Buffalo Springfield 25 - To listen
1463 Smiley Smile By The Beach Boys 26 - To listen
1481 Absolutely Free By The Mothers of Invention 27 - To listen
1592 Moby Grape By Moby Grape 28 - To listen
1668 After Bathing At Baxter's By Jefferson Airplane 29 - To listen
1737 Wild Honey By The Beach Boys 30 - To listen
1749 Mr Fantasy By Traffic 31 - To listen
2036 Procol Harum By Procol Harum 33 - To listen
2111 Electric Music For The Mind And Body By Country Joe And The Fish 34 - To listen
2278 Easter Everywhere By 13th Floor Elevators 35 - To listen
2326 Born Under A Bad Sign By Albert King 36 - To listen
2329 Ewa Demarczyk śpiewa Piosenki Zygmunta Koniecznego By Ewa Demarczyk 37 - To listen
2344 Francis Albert Sinatra And Antonio Carlos Jobim By Frank Sinatra And Antonio Carlos Jobim 38 - To listen

This is typically a year in which I know most of these albums if not just because I know most of the tracks on them via Greatest Hits or Live albums (or simply from the radio) but have never really listened to the whole album (or in the case as ex Are You Experienced just haven't come round to integrate it in my personal year chart of 1967).

I'm really looking forward to further discover this year which is indeed one of the pivotal years in rock music.

[dihansse]

What really is striking in this great year in rock that many bands were very prolific meaning that they issued two albums in that year. So I will focus a bit on this and try to compare the two albums.

I can already start with two bands which already had a fixed status in my year list (so I didn't relisten to them now): the Beatles and The Doors.

The Beatles issued two albums, the classic unity Sergeant Peppers and maybe the complete opposite: the complete diversity of Magical Mystery Tour, not in the least because it was mainly a soundtrack. But that last one features a few of my absolute favorite Beatles tracks like Fool On The Hill, Hello Goodbye and All You Need is love (to name only a few). But still the overall quality of Sergeant Pepper's is so overwhelming that this album cannot but win this little contest. And I know I'm an outlyer but I still think Help! is their best album (but not of 1967).

The Doors is already a favorite band of mine. The first self titled albumboth contains Light My Fire (which for a long time in my youth was my favorite song) and The End so it can't do anything else than to win this little contest with their second album Strange Days (where Love Me Two Times stands out).

And then the albums I have listened to:
- and here I can again compare two album: Are You Experienced by The Jimi Hendrix Experience (nr 4 in the overall BEA top chart of 1967) and Axis: Bold As Love by The Jimi Hendrix Experience (nr 9): although the UK version of this album doesn't contain the "hits" of the US version this is still the far superior album: Foxey Lady, Manic Depression, Red House and Fire are great and also the rest if vintage Hendrix. This cannot be said for Axis. While it still contains fine tracks like Little Wing and Bold As Love, the album can't convince me as a whole. But it's still good enough to appear in my personal top chart of 1967
- Forever Changes by Love (nr 5): of course Alone Again Or is an absolute classic but the album disappointed a little, maybe because it's a bit too folky for my taste especially in songs like The Good Humor.. and Bummer In The Summer (what a title) but then the last track You Set The Scene saved the album so still an ok album for my personal top chart.
- Songs Of Leonard Cohen by Leonard Cohen (nr 8 ): and then this perfect gem of an album. In fact I was a bit surprised that there were so many tracks on this album I didn't know but they all are of the highest quality even for Leonard Cohen's standards. All the tracks without exception are in itself excellent poems of the highest standard (maybe he should have won the nobel prize for literature as well). Suzanne is one of the best songs ever and also So Long Marianne and Sisters Of Mercy are personal favorites but what surprises Master and Stranger Song are. I'm really in awe of this album which is one of the greatest ever made.
- and here is another contest now for Jefferson Airplane albums: the classic Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane (nr 12) and the not so classic After Bathing At Baxter's by Jefferson Airplane (nr 29) which was by many people regarded as self-indulgent and especially acid inspired noodling. And I think I have to agree. This latter album just doesn't possess great classics as Somebody To Love and White Rabbit which saved the first album (the rest of that album is not really special in my opinion) and contains indeed a lot of noodling although they're not too bad in that on the longest track Spayre Change. But anyway: the conclusion is that Surrealistic Pillow will be part of my top chart and After Bathing At Baxter's not.
- Days Of Future Passed by The Moody Blues (nr 13): it's clear that this is a very ambitious album in which they try to marry classical music with rock music. But to me this fails: I really have the impression that the classical sound is more Disney than Dvorak or Beethoven (just listen to the start of Lunch break and Evening) and it may be regarded as the first prog album but it already set the score completely: this album isn't without its phases of noodling. Of course Nights In White Satin remains a great track (maybe heard it a but too much in my youth though) and Tuesday Afternoon is not bad either, but that's to me not enough to save this album.

The next album to listen to is The Who Sell Out.

[dihansse]

And maybe another contest, the Who vs the Kinks, the first attempting to make its first foray into concept albums and the Kinks still sticking to just good songs but a little less focused on hit singles as they used to (although...):
- The Who Sell Out by The Who (nr 14 on the overall BEA top chart of 1967): there is one fantastic song to be found on this album: I can See For Miles, but also Armenia City In the Sky (I was a bit surprised that this was originally by The Who because I knew and loved the Bob Mould version first) an Mary Anne With The Shaky Hands are also great. But on the other hand there's plenty of plainly silly songs to be found on this album not in the least the add announcements inbetween the tracks.
- Something Else By The Kinks by The Kinks (nr 16) on the other hand is much better. Not only contains it one of the best songs ever, Waterloo Sunset, but it also has Death Of A Clown, David Watts and Two Sisters; and some more good tracks. This must be one of the better Kinks albums as a whole and certainly mentioned than the Who album which was a bit uneven.

The next album to listen to is Safe As Milk by Captain Beefheart.

[Repo]

[dihansse]

And again an obvious contest: Beefheart against Zappa.

Safe As Milk by Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band (nr 15 on the overall BEA top chart of 1967): in a way I like this wildly experimental album and Electricity and Zig Zag Wanderer are even good tracks but overall there aren't enough songs on this album which really appeal to put this album in my overall top chart of the year.
- Absolutely Free by The Mothers of Invention (nr 27): and then there is this album which is mainly about vegetables. It's also wildly experimental and it's musical influences are all over the place but compared with the Beefheart album there is one big difference: this album is just goofy. I like my albums funny, I like them witty... but I don't like them goofy and that what turns me off in many Zappa albums (except Sheik Yerbouti).

So Beefheart clearly wins here.

The next album to listen to is Aretha's best album.

[dihansse]

More albums I listened to of 1967:
- I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You ...a Franklin (nr 17 in the overall BEA top chart of 1967): One cannot have anything other than Respect for Aretha Franklin and if all the tracks were of the same quality of this one I would certainly include the album in my personal top chart. But not all the tracks are equally good so I won't.

And maybe another comparison: folk artists with a peculiar voice:
- Chelsea Girl by Nico (nr 18 ): on this pre-VU album Nico sounds like a medieval elf and although some of the tracks are not bad, this stands in the way of a good album
- Goodbye And Hello by Tim Buckley (nr 19): on this album Tim Buckley sounds like a medieval elf and although some of the tracks are not bad, this stands in the way of a good album
So to me this is a draw and none of the two albums have made it in my personal top chart of 1967

- John Wesley Harding by Bob Dylan (nr 20): of course All Along The Watchtower is a killer song and the album is not really bad, it is maybe a bit too country-ish for my taste
- Younger Than Yesterday by The Byrds (nr 21): this is one of those Byrds albums I really like and David Crosby is really at his top here. Of course especially the first track is great but in fact they all are.
- The Parable Of Arable Land by The Red C...iliar Ugly (nr 23): this album totally sucks and even if you're into psychedelia you can't deny the only goal of this album is to bore you to death.

Then there are some Stones albums to discuss.

[RoundTheBend]

[dihansse]