Ah, the Foo Fighters’ debut: grunge’s last gasp. Seattle heavyweights Alice in Chains and Soundgarden would release their last albums of the decade towards the end of 1995 and in 1996, respectively; both were largely unimpressive. Pearl Jam boycotted Ticketmaster and...
Every time I put on Tapestry, the energy of it hits me with a jolt. For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why it was so different from everything else, until I did some reading on it and realized that Carole King sings like a man. Well, I suppose I should...
If you ever want to look for music lists of the greatest this or that, there really is no shortage of them on the Internet. You’ll see a variety of different opinions, and while I certainly have my own sentiments, there is one subject where there is basically no...
It took me a pretty long time to really get into Achtung Baby. I was instantly drawn to “One” and “Mysterious Ways,” two of U2's most well-known songs, but I resisted the rest of the album because it just wasn’t inviting like The Joshua Tree (1987), the album that...
Although pretty much all of the Beatles’ work is extraordinary, Rubber Soul marked a definitive shift from writing simple pop songs to crafting great albums. There’s a mastery of mood on Rubber Soul that you just can’t find on any of their previous albums. If you’ll...
In 1994, the grunge explosion sputtered to a close in America as Nirvana was forced to disband and Pearl Jam boycotted Ticketmaster, and Britain responded by giving us Britpop, a much different and altogether more positive take on alternative rock. Oasis became the...
Aerosmith is often branded as America’s greatest rock & roll band, and while that may be disputed by many, there’s no question that if any band embodies sex, drugs and rock & roll, it’s Aerosmith. They took the sexual innuendos and depravities of their blues...
In my introduction to this list I mentioned that there was a cultural awakening during the ’60s and ’70s. It began with the Kennedy assassination on November 22, 1963, and while you may object to me pointing my finger at such a precise location in time, take a moment...
All Shook Down is the Replacements‘ final album, but it was the first Replacements album I ever heard because it was available at the library and Let It Be (1984) and Tim (1985), their most critically acclaimed works, were not. The Replacements’ albums have proven to...
As I have mentioned in previous entries, I hate the sound of ’80s music… which is why Murmur makes the list — it’s anti-’80s. That this album came out in 1983 sounding like this is nothing short of astonishing. There aren’t any synthesizers or drum machines, and its...