Best Blues/Country/Roots Rock/Americana Albums

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AfterHours



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  • Posted: 02/26/2018 02:16
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Recommendations welcome. For "My Criteria & Guide For Art" pages, go here: https://www.besteveralbums.com/phpBB2/v...hp?t=15503

Best Hard Rock & Metal Albums: https://www.besteveralbums.com/phpBB2/v...hp?t=20822
Best Pop Albums: https://www.besteveralbums.com/phpBB2/v...hp?t=19794
Best Best Hip Hop/R & B/Soul/Funk Albums: https://www.besteveralbums.com/phpBB2/v...hp?t=19805
Best Folk/Singer-Songwriter/Slowcore Albums: https://www.besteveralbums.com/phpBB2/v...hp?t=19838
Greatest Albums of All Time (Rock & Jazz): https://www.besteveralbums.com/phpBB2/v...hp?t=15276

BOLD = Recently added to the list
BOLD + ITALICS = Recently upgraded/downgraded by 0.1 or more

Best Blues/Country/Roots Rock/Americana Albums

9.5/10
Trout Mask Replica - Captain Beefheart (1969)

8.5/10
The River - Bruce Springsteen (1980)

8/10
Exile On Main Street - The Rolling Stones (1972)
Electric Ladyland - Jimi Hendrix (1968)
Are You Experienced? - Jimi Hendrix (1967) [Original 11-track "North American" edition]
Tonight's the Night - Neil Young (1975)
Safe as Milk - Captain Beefheart (1967)
There's a Star Above the Manger Tonight - Red Red Meat (1997)
Sticky Fingers - Rolling Stones (1971)
Blues For the New Millenium - Marcus Roberts (1997)
The Band - The Band (1969)
Everybody Knows This is Nowhere - Neil Young (1969)
The Charm of the Highway Strip - The Magnetic Fields (1998)

7.5/10
Mirror Man - Captain Beefheart (1967)
Orange - John Spencer Blues Explosion (1994)
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco (2002)
The Black Light - Calexico (1998)
The Firstborn is Dead - Nick Cave (1985)
Rust Never Sleeps - Neil Young (1979)
Frank's Wild Years - Tom Waits (1987)
Warren Zevon - Warren Zevon (1976)
Sackcloth 'n' Ashes - 16 Horsepower (1996)
Butch - Geraldine Fibbers (1997)
Late For the Sky - Jackson Browne (1974)
Our Mother the Mountain - Townes Van Zandt (1969)
Lost Works of Eunice Phelps - Maquiladora (1998)
Beggar's Banquet - Rolling Stones (1968)
Ritual of Hearts - Maquiladora (2002)
The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle - Bruce Springsteen (1973)

7/10
Harvest - Neil Young (1972)
Lick My Decals Off, Baby - Captain Beefheart (1970)
Led Zeppelin IV - Led Zeppelin (1971)
Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen (1975)
Music From Big Pink - The Band (1968)
Cosmo's Factory - Creedence Clearwater Revival (1970)
Led Zeppelin I - Led Zeppelin (1969)
Born in the USA - Bruce Springsteen (1984)
Damn The Torpedoes - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (1979)
On The Beach - Neil Young (1974)
Being There - Wilco (1998)
Pearl - Janis Joplin (1970)
Grievous Angel - Gram Parsons (1973)
Ice Cream For Crow - Captain Beefheart (1982)
Shiny Beast - Captain Beefheart (1978)
L.A. Woman - The Doors (1971)
Blacklisted - Neko Case (2002)
Let It Bleed - The Rolling Stones (1969)
The Gilded Palace of Sin - The Flying Burrito Bros (1969)
The Basement Tapes - Bob Dylan & The Band (1975)
12 Songs - Randy Newman (1970)
Old No. 1 - Guy Clark (1975)
Desperado - Eagles (1973)
After the Gold Rush - Neil Young (1970)
Sleeps With Angels - Neil Young (1994)
Hotel California - Eagles (1976)
Street Survivors - Lynyrd Skynyrd (1977)
March 16–20, 1992 - Uncle Tupelo (1992)
Red Headed Stranger - Willie Nelson (1975)
White Blood Cells - White Stripes (2001)
Red Dirt Girl - Emmylou Harris (2000)
Green River - Creedence Clearwater Revival (1969)
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (1976)
Johnny Comes Marching Home - The Del Lords (1986)
Strangers Almanac - Whiskeytown (1997)
Paradise And Lunch - Ry Cooder (1974)
The Trinity Sessions - Cowboy Junkies (1986)
Pontiac - Lyle Lovett (1988)
Gravity - Alejandro Escovedo (1992)
Second Helping - Lynyrd Skynyrd (1974)
Scarecrow - John Mellencamp (1975)
Flyin' Shoes - Townes Van Zandt (1978)
End of Amnesia - M. Ward (2001)
Days in the Wake - Palace Brothers (1994)
Every Picture Tells A Story - Rod Stewart (1971)
Beautiful Loser - Bob Seger (1975)
Give It Up - Bonnie Raitt (1972)

NOTE: 7/10 section is far from updated... Other sections are probably missing entries as well[/b][/b]


Last edited by AfterHours on 12/14/2019 06:34; edited 67 times in total
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Mercury
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  • #2
  • Posted: 02/26/2018 02:35
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Nice! Cool Thread.
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AfterHours



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  • #3
  • Posted: 02/26/2018 04:32
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Mercury wrote:
Nice! Cool Thread.


Thanks Smile

Still putting the list (and other genre-lists) together but hopefully these are useful to others in scaling the heights of various genres, finding connections between them, the evolution of rock from basics to more advanced and developed forms/confluences of genres, and in discovering the most amazing masterpieces (all of the above: if one hasn't done so already).
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Mercury
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  • #4
  • Posted: 02/26/2018 06:19
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AfterHours wrote:
Thanks Smile

Still putting the list (and other genre-lists) together but hopefully these are useful to others in scaling the heights of various genres, finding connections between them, the evolution of rock from basics to more advanced and developed forms/confluences of genres, and in discovering the most amazing masterpieces (all of the above: if one hasn't done so already).


Totally. I may not speak your exact language in terms of describing music, but anyone who places albums like The Band, YHF, Being There, (almost) anything Dylan, Rust In Oeace, and ESPECIALLY Grievous Angel will make me 1. Smile and 2. Perk up to anything else mentioned along with them as masterpieces.

Recently made a chart of Post-War blues albumsand so I perked up when BEA’s resident approachable intellectual mentioned the word “blues” in his diary. (That’s you by the way.) I have not heard a few of these and I assure you that their inclusion here has instantly placed them high on my queue.

Have you heard Fleetwood Mac’s “Then Play On”? In my eyes as far as LPs go it is the Blues and rock LP to end all LPs and I’d love to know your thoughts on it. Also curious your thoughts on other conceptually rich blues LPs (not comps) such as Chris Rea’s “Blue Guitars” (it’s something like 7 hours.... so....), Junior Kimbrough’s “Most Things Haven’t Worked Out”, or John Mayall’s live classic “The Turning Point”...

Really, as far as blues go I have been listening to next to nothing else the last 3 weeks.

Anyway, I’m a bit tipsy and hope there are not many typos. I love your insights and your charts and this is one I’ll be following closely.

Peace and love, brother!

Interested to hear your thoughts on these 2 charts (cuz I’m self-centered and the blues is life)....

60 Shades of the Deep Blues by Mercury

Post-War 'lectric Blues by Mercury

P.S. Peter Green is my hero these days. (He’s my avatar). And he’s the wiz kid behind the sublime guitar of early Fleetwood Mac, some John Mayal, some great solo albums (obviously), some Otis Spann and Muddy Eaters etc. basically he was batting 1000 up from 67-70. Adore him. Peter Green > every blues guitarist ever.
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Facetious



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  • #5
  • Posted: 02/26/2018 12:40
  • Post subject: Re: Greatest Blues/Country/Roots Rock/Americana Albums
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AfterHours wrote:
9.5/10
Trout Mask Replica - Captain Beefheart (1969)


Quote:
7/10
Lick My Decals Off, Baby - Captain Beefheart (1970)
Ice Cream For Crow - Captain Beefheart (1982)
Shiny Beast - Captain Beefheart (1978)


This doesn't make sense to me at all.

Also, where's Doc at the Radar Station? Don't tell me you think it's a 6/10 like Scaruffi.
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AfterHours



Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

  • #6
  • Posted: 02/27/2018 00:09
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Mercury wrote:
AfterHours wrote:
Thanks Smile

Still putting the list (and other genre-lists) together but hopefully these are useful to others in scaling the heights of various genres, finding connections between them, the evolution of rock from basics to more advanced and developed forms/confluences of genres, and in discovering the most amazing masterpieces (all of the above: if one hasn't done so already).


Totally. I may not speak your exact language in terms of describing music, but anyone who places albums like The Band, YHF, Being There, (almost) anything Dylan, Rust In Oeace, and ESPECIALLY Grievous Angel will make me 1. Smile and 2. Perk up to anything else mentioned along with them as masterpieces.

Recently made a chart of Post-War blues albumsand so I perked up when BEA’s resident approachable intellectual mentioned the word “blues” in his diary. (That’s you by the way.) I have not heard a few of these and I assure you that their inclusion here has instantly placed them high on my queue.

Have you heard Fleetwood Mac’s “Then Play On”? In my eyes as far as LPs go it is the Blues and rock LP to end all LPs and I’d love to know your thoughts on it. Also curious your thoughts on other conceptually rich blues LPs (not comps) such as Chris Rea’s “Blue Guitars” (it’s something like 7 hours.... so....), Junior Kimbrough’s “Most Things Haven’t Worked Out”, or John Mayall’s live classic “The Turning Point”...

Really, as far as blues go I have been listening to next to nothing else the last 3 weeks.

Anyway, I’m a bit tipsy and hope there are not many typos. I love your insights and your charts and this is one I’ll be following closely.

Peace and love, brother!

Interested to hear your thoughts on these 2 charts (cuz I’m self-centered and the blues is life)....

60 Shades of the Deep Blues by Mercury

Post-War 'lectric Blues by Mercury

P.S. Peter Green is my hero these days. (He’s my avatar). And he’s the wiz kid behind the sublime guitar of early Fleetwood Mac, some John Mayal, some great solo albums (obviously), some Otis Spann and Muddy Eaters etc. basically he was batting 1000 up from 67-70. Adore him. Peter Green > every blues guitarist ever.


Thanks man, glad you like it and are interested to check out the others Very Happy

Re: your Blues lists... Very impressive that you went through all these catalogues. I've heard most or all the famous songs and all of Robert Johnson, but there are probably plenty of songs on those albums/compilations that Ive never heard. As with any of the art forms I rate, whether it be Paintings, Films, Classical, Rock, or Jazz, it is very rare for its earliest incarnations to rate very highly on my lists because I generally prefer those forms when theyve been a bit more developed and less restricted creatively, emotionally and conceptually. That said, it is entirely possible Robert Johnson's compilation would make my albums lists if I included comps. And in his case, due to the circumstances, I may make an exception.

The full albums of Fleetwood Mac that Ive heard are Rumours, Tusk and self-titled. After that, just their remaining well-known songs/hits. I agree that Peter Green is truly great. End of the Game is extraordinary in my book, and his work with FM is essential to their musical character.
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AfterHours



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  • #7
  • Posted: 02/27/2018 00:19
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Facetious wrote:
AfterHours wrote:
9.5/10
Trout Mask Replica - Captain Beefheart (1969)


Quote:
7/10
Lick My Decals Off, Baby - Captain Beefheart (1970)
Ice Cream For Crow - Captain Beefheart (1982)
Shiny Beast - Captain Beefheart (1978)


This doesn't make sense to me at all.

Also, where's Doc at the Radar Station? Don't tell me you think it's a 6/10 like Scaruffi.


Re: TMR vs everything...

AfterHours wrote:
glynspsa wrote:
This is a great summation of trout mask in my humble opinion. Awesome write up.

AfterHours wrote:
sethmadsen wrote:
AfterHours wrote:
Amirkhosro wrote:
He wasn't just doodling on a piano though. The individual guitar and bass lines are beautiful and creative with well-defined structures.

He's definitely just doodling on the sax though =)))

There's a persistent myth going around that Beefheart composed the entire thing during 8 and a half hours on a piano. The myth was created by himself in a Rolling Stone interview. According to John French, each song's first piano sketches took a few hours to make, and then months to develop as the band practiced the music non-stop. Kinda sucks that he didn't tell this instead of "I made this all by myself in 8 and half hours" as a marketing strategy. Maybe he would've been much more popular if he wasn't so extremely egotistical. Still, the music's dope and fun to play despite whatever some hipster douchebags claim about how the secret to the meaning of life is hidden deep under its non-existent "indecipherable structure" which only unlocks itself to those with the best of ears. For fuck's sake, the guy's singing about going up to the mountain with his wife (which rhymes with life!) on a bunch of dirty-ass delta blues riffs. They should just straight up dickride Stockhausen or something for this kind of horseshit posturing.

Oh she does just like Sister Ray said.


But... But... and I mean this in the least pretentious/douchebaggery way possible: the album does become an extremely profound, even metaphysical, experience, the more one puts it together and becomes acclimated to its parts, and as a whole. This is primarily due to the following:

(1) Beefheart's vocals expand the temporal space of human psychology in relation to its environment -- never before expressed as such in Rock (and not approached to this degree in Jazz or Classical either) -- both by thoroughly dilating its sound with cries for help, animalistic screams/howls, and through a wild, endlessly varied and nuanced expressiveness that unlocks seemingly long-dormant, repressed psychology/forces of nature.

(2) The shape-shifting, extremely physical, tactile and surreal instrumentals/compositions are constantly expressing, both in unison and counter to his vocal expressions, the concept(s) of violent facial/body contortions and of influx/warping of spatial dimensions, his past enacting terrible delusions and scars upon him (farcical and serious) as he is acting them out/acting against this affliction, and these often become akin to "out-of-body" experiences, like he is exploding out of the confines of his skin to express something not possible otherwise.

(3) The endless variation of the music, and its constant flux of vocal and instrumental creativity, while also echoing, reminiscing on previous variations, seems to present an ever-expanding scope of all which came before, turning the whole album into like that of a massive stream-of-conscious.

(4) 1, 2, and 3 combined with the very deep conviction, blues and soul, fundamental to the work.

All of these factors combine to turn the work into an extraordinarily offbeat, insane, metaphysical experience, which expounds relentlessly and endlessly on the thoughts and expressions of a crazed, madman into a whole that is impossibly profound and powerful, of endless detours, an endless domino effect of its own insanity trying to break free from its own skin.


To what end?


The end of madness actually. In an ultimate dichotomy, it uses the craziest, most indecipherable constructions towards reverse ends. It pits one's own innate recognition of truths, of patterns, of palatability -- against compositions that go as far as possible to distort these things, while also still barely maintaining it just enough to be recognizable. It erects madness and nonsense into an ultimate in metaphysics, into a relentless venture for truth, the truth of one's life, of one's self, Beefheart himself as the surrogate and conveyance. Beefheart represents a state of mind relentlessly unraveling but also (impossibly) as a means to some final existential, ultimate truth. It is simultaneously the greatest satire in the history of art upon "profundity" while also perhaps its greatest exponent.

It represents the point in the history of art when the purposes of High Art (like that of Beethoven, Michelangelo, etc) and the "pointless" works of Modern Art (like that of Picasso, Duchamp, Warhol, Pollack) finally met on equal ground and created their supreme masterpiece in an impossible display of equivalence.


Thanks Smile


AfterHours wrote:
boyd94 wrote:
AfterHours wrote:
Going back to my original point, which was in partial, but respectful, contention with Amir's point about people proclaiming TMR's significance...

I will say that those not extensively familiar with Trout Mask Replica (and perhaps the history of painting too) are far less likely to agree with what I said. Most people consider the album a joke or mistake, but aren't familiar with it enough to recognize that it's, at the very least, a very profound, extremely elaborate and insightful, stunningly creative and intentional, joke or mistake. I would also say that the previous points I list (1-4) are prerequisites to illuminating this in its full glory, and that one should listen to it with those (especially 1 and 2) in mind at virtually all times, as they are virtually 100% prevalent, in varying guises, throughout. If successfully done (which is not too difficult once one has a basic acclimation to the work), the level of significance, its astounding emotional and conceptual depth, should become increasingly apparent until the work is completely overwhelming. And then the rest of what I said might make more sense, if it doesn't already.


I agree with everything you've said, but sometimes even the most undeniable interpretations fail to illicit an overwhelming experience. Whenever I get round to finally putting up my bloody chart I suspect it'll be in the top 20, a truly staggering piece of work, but I think the very nature of the work fixes it at a psychological distance to which I can never obtain in any authentic way. I can only ever pretend to identify with it completely.


I don't know... the conviction, soul, ferocity ... the colorless death but vibrant dilation of its blues, the depths of its depression, the pummeling, monotonous and depressing madness of its instrumentals and excursions, the skin-peeling, shape-shifting violence and pained fury ... is so tortured, so pained, such a "fission" of intense, spastic emotional outbursts running out of the protagonist's control ... like the horror of being held against one's will and electro-shocked, or tortured, or experimented upon and going through spasmodic, delusional, distressed reactions amidst the unconscionable betrayal and horror of the experience -- to varying degrees both scathingly farcical and dead serious -- and elicited from such an audacious variety of guises and angles ... that it could take 100+ listens to really come to grips with all of it and identify with it (though it certainly doesn't have to take that long). And maybe you never will, maybe it will happen soon, who knows... But I would just recommend continuing to return to it, and being open and observant to its music, even if you are blown away by it already in a distanced sort of way. Its depths never seem to end, it never gets old (providing one keeps listening to it "correctly" and not trying to hear pop music out of it or something...).


Re: Lick My Decals, Shiny Beast, Ice Cream for Crow... When I revisit them soon, I will double check my ratings but my replies on listology regarding this when you last asked about this still apply

Re: Doc at the Radar Station ... It's actually 5.5 ... ... plus 6/10, so 11.5/10 overall, therefore disqualified for my list!!! Mr. Green No, seriously though, I actually don't have it rated at all (undecided) but it does have a possibility at 7+ last I checked it out. We'll see... I tend to get more and more observant and discerning as I assimilate a work further, so Ill have to see what I think when I check it out again.
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Facetious



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  • #8
  • Posted: 02/27/2018 09:35
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What's the deal with the Eagles? I can't figure out what makes the two albums on your list deserving of a rating higher than 6.5.
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AfterHours



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  • #9
  • Posted: 02/27/2018 09:58
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Facetious wrote:
What's the deal with the Eagles? I can't figure out what makes the two albums on your list deserving of a rating higher than 6.5.


Both are beautifully sun-drenched, presenting (particularly in their slower songs, epitomized by Hotel California, Desperado...), wilting stories of nostalgia, of the wanderer, of the lonely souls wandering into the sunset never to be heard from again, or searching for existential truths, the myth of American folklore... They reinvigorate a bit of the sound of the dying sun and wilting flowers of Love's Forever Changes (albeit with Love, it's more dangerous, striking a more extraordinary middle point between beauty and death), though with more elegance and perhaps more class, majesty and poetry (with idiomatic, sparkling, expansive and lyrical guitar work, banjo, mandolin...). The country-rock/harder songs (especially in Desperado) are excitedly in the boogie tradition, while in Hotel California they have a more polished and honed (and probably Pop-Rock) quality... They are both the sound of California, its fading mythology represented in the stories of its protagonists. They are the sound of lonely and nostalgic hippies, distraught by drug addled death and revolutions lost, forging their way into sunsets as outcasts.
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  • Posted: 02/27/2018 10:58
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How about some assessment of works by female artists? Emmylou Harris (sans Gram), Lucinda Williams?
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