66.  Close To The Edge. (LP). Yes. 1972.

Side-long songs (the 18 min+ title track), lengthy soloing throughout and indecipherable lyrics are the ingredients for what must be the ultimate in Prog Rock albums. Yes had been at the forefront of the Prog movement for a couple of years. Their nearest rivals were Genesis and King Crimson.

Prog Rock was a music that sang about supernatural beings and fantasy rather than boy meets girl and matters of the heart. Yes combined their musical virtuosity (they teach Steve Howe guitar solos at the Barnsley College of Music) with tales of other-worldly happenings and fantastic dream-scapes. The cover art of 'Close To The Edge' is as near a depiction of what you will find inside the record sleeve as to render a listen to the record redundant, but it is a magnificent record. Chris Squire underpins proceedings with massive slabs of earth shattering bass, while Rick Wakeman plays multiple keyboards at once, adding Bach like toccata and fugue and Rachmaninoff inspired piano. All this is topped with the choirboy vocal of Jon Anderson, the unlikeliest front man in rock.

Don't ask what it all means. It means nothing and everything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCXEsysLfDQ

Siberian Khatru by Yes 

65.  Catch A Fire. (LP). Bob Marley & The Wailers. 1973.

Reggae music had been making regular appearances in the UK charts since the early 60s (Millie-My Boy Lollipop) and had even been adopted as 'our music' by the Skinhead' youth movement who copied the clothes and the dance moves of Reggae artists such as Desmond Dekker and Jimmy Cliff. However, it remained a niche music until 1973 when 'Catch A Fire' was released by Island records.

The Wailers had been around since the early 60s, changing labels several times before landing a contract with Island. It had been the practice of The Wailers to re-record their back catalogue for each label they signed to which is why 'Catch A Fire' contains a few songs from their past. It was decided to place Bob Marley to the forefront and call the band Bob Marley & The Wailers. The band went into the studio to record the album in the normal bass heavy reggae style, but producer and Island label boss Chris Blackwell decided it needed something a little extra to appeal to the white rock audience that was the Island labels stock in trade. Blackwell, without consulting the band added a synth track to the album, and when Bob and The Wailers heard about it they were not happy. However, the record proved a success with the white audience, who quickly embraced this new rockier sounding reggae. The Skinheads didn't like it and stuck with their 60s reggae, but for the world of rock a new star was born and in Bob Marley, the West Indies had produced their first and only global superstar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3UqvWk8-uw

Bob Marley - Stir it up

64. Raw Power. Iggy Pop & The Stooges. 1973.

An ever present time bomb strapped to the complacent torso of rock and roll. 'Raw Power' is an album that keeps on influencing generations of rock bands. Every other year, a band arrives on the scene looking to take no prisoners as did Iggy & The Stooges in 1973.

Iggy Pop had disbanded the original Stooges and was looking for a new direction, when in stepped David Bowie, hot from the success of 'Ziggy Stardust', who took Iggy into the studio with a revamped Stooges, to lay down some of the most influential music of the rock genre. For contractual reasons Bowie went uncredited but the record contains some of the rawest rock n roll ever recorded. 'Raw Power' was the heaviest of heavy metal and the punkiest of punk three years before punk was born. The Sex Pistols recorded versions of earlier songs such as 'I Wanna Be Your Dog' and 'No Fun' inspired by the wild, bestial Iggy Pop. Heavy metal as we now know it was born with bands like Metallica producing their own versions of the industrial strength noise that is 'Raw Power'. 'Raw Power' is an album that will continue to influence as long as young men take up guitars and form bands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDNzQ3CXspU

The Stooges - Search And Destroy

63.  Ziggy Stardust. (LP). David Bowie. June 1972.

The album, to give it its full title, 'The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars' really did seem to come from outerspace in the dark and dismal days that were the UK in 1972. Strikes, power-cuts, political unrest and IRA terrorism made Great Britain a cold and cheerless place to live. Then all of a sudden, from out of nowhere the androgynous vision of Bowie and his band, The Spiders from Mars, made their first Top of The Pops appearance promoting 'Starman' the single taken from the 'Ziggy Stardust' album. There they were, all dressed in silver and gold lamé catsuits, looking like visitors from another planet and singing about it too. "There's a Starman, waiting in the sky" promised Bowie and we allwanted to believed him.

'Ziggy Stardust' the album was like nothing we had heard before, true space age rock & roll, loud, sexy and mysterious. Bowie relied heavily on sideman and guitarist Mick Ronson to add balls to the songs on 'Ziggy Stardust'. 'Moonage Daydream' is rock n roll science fiction, Ronson providing interstellar guitar on the lengthy fade. 'Lady Stardust' is Bowie's tribute to that other androgynous rock star Marc Bolan and 'Suffragette City' is flat out rock music for the new age. The standout track is 'Rock and Roll Suicide' where Bowie sings of the futility of life as a rock and roller, both artist and fan. "Oh no love, you're not alone" he promises his audience, "You're wonderful; give me your hand", he implores his adoring fans as artist and fan feed off each other in perfect symbiosis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jg4ekLG9Zo

David Bowie - Rock n Roll Suicide

62.  Music Of My Mind. (LP) Stevie Wonder. March 1972.

By 1971/72 Stevie Wonder was in the midst of a change or direction. Freed from record company interference Wonder was able to shake off the cabaret artist that he had become and finally find himself as an artist. It took three albums to complete the transformation. The first was 71's 'Where I'm Coming From' which contained half and half of the old and new Stevie Wonder'. The process was completed by 'Talking Book', but it is the middle album of the three, 'Music Of My Mind' that shows the real transformation of 'Little Stevie Wonder' the boy genius into Stevie Wonder the man and musician.

It was the introduction of the Moog Synthesiser that allowed Wonder to find himself. At last he was able to record an album where he called all the shots because it was a true solo album, with Wonder playing all or most of the instruments himself. The result is a swirling, entranced dreamscape of electronic experimentation and new directions, half polished classics and weird shit. 'Keep on Running' is a lung bursting tryout for what would become 'Superstition' while 'Superwoman' is a ballad of almost unbelievable fragility. He never made another record as exotic or unrestrained as this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xxWBigyovY

Stevie Wonder - SuperWoman/Where Where You When I Needed You

61.  There's A Riot Going On. (LP). Sly & The Family Stone. 1971.

'There's A Riot Going On' is the most important funk album of all time, the masterpiece of the wild, wicked and whacky genius that is Sly Stone. It has provided ideas and inspiration for every funk act from Parliament to Earth, Wind & Fire ever since it first appeared in 1971. James Brown had stripped funk down to the bare essentials, but Sly Stone was to abandon the rock funk of his 60's recordings and produce a music that all duelling guitars and snaking horns coming together in a lithe mutation of funk.

'There's A Riot Going On' concerns itself, like so many other records of the time, with life in the urban, black America. Most other artists would make a record chronicling the horror, the protest and demands that black America was making for itself. Sly was different. Sly celebrated the whole damn mess by holding a mirror up to black America. Sly courted controversy by using the Stars & Stripes for the cover art, reminding the listener that America was a land of opportunity for all. There were complaints that the album didn't contain a titular track so to get around this Sly had the sleeves printed up with 'There's A Riot Going On' 0:00 mins among the track listing.

Sly was to stagger from one chaotic episode to another and was lost to music for a time through his over reliance on pharmaceutical stimulants. He was never again to match what he had achieved with 'There's A Riot Going On', more's the pity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVA_j0Ignws

Sly & The Family Stone- Just like A Baby

60.  Shaft (Sountrack LP). Isaac Hayes. Aug 1971.

The second appearance in our History of Popular Music for Isaac Hayes. 'Shaft' might not have existed were it not for the film of the same title. Before 'Shaft' crime thrillers were soundtracked by the orchestral music of band leaders like Roy Budd (Get Carter) and Elmer Bernstein (the Man With The Golden Arm).

'Shaft' was the first of what was to become known as 'blaxploitation' film. For the soundtrack they brought in Isaac Hayes to make a blck sounding soundtrack. Heavily wah-wahed guitar was played over the orchestra backing and a new musical form was born. Soon afterwards every crime thriller on film or TV would be sporting a plethora of wha-wha guitar. In 1972 Curtis Mayfield took the 'blaxploitation' genre to a higher level with his own soundtrack to the film 'Superfly' which was so well composed and arranged that it stands as a piece of music in its own right rather than just the soundtrack to a film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFvRvSxsW-I

Isaac Hayes: Shaft (High Quality)

59.  Get It On. T-Rex. July 1971.

By summer 71 Marc Bolan had ditched the drippy hippy, acoustic fairy, folkiness of Tyrannosaurus Rex, picked up an electric guitar, abridged the name to T-Rex and pioneered the nascent 'Glam Rock' scene. Tousle haired and wearing more make-up than his girl fans he appeared on Top Of The Pops, posing, pouting and preening into the camera and the girls loved it. So did some of the boys for that matter.

'Get It On' is raw, rampant rock'n'roll with nasty guitar and shitty drums. Bolan had discovered the dynamic commercial viability of mixing Cochran and Vincent with Donovan and The Hobbit, Biba with Oxfam and sense with sensibility. For a generation of lost flower children the combination was richly intoxicating. (Vox. 91)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XspsJACj8WY

T Rex - Get It On [totp]

58. Maggie May. Rod Stewart. 1971.

The abiding image that 'Maggie May' conjures up is of Rod and The Faces kicking footballs into the audience of Top Of The Pops, grinning wildly, fuelled up on 'Blue Nun' (so I am led to believe) while an embarrassed looking John Peel mimed the mandolin part (played on the record by Ray Jackson of Lindisfarne) while seated on a stool at the side of the stage.

'Maggie May' was one of those records that started out as the B/side of the single (a cover of Tim Hardin's 'Reason To Believe' was the original A/side). 'Maggie May' was a smash hit on both sides of the Atlantic, reaching #1 in the singles charts while the album from which it came, 'Every Picture Tells A Story', also made the #1 spot in both the UK and American charts. Not even The Beatles had managed a simultaneous UK/US single/album #1.

The tousle-haired Rod the Mod and side kick Ronnie Wood were to inspire a generation of 'lad bands', Johnny Thunders, Dogs D'Amour, The Quireboys and The Black Crowes all owe a nod to Rod and The Faces.

Rod Stewart - Maggie May - HQ Audio)))

57. What's Going On. (LP). Marvin Gaye. 1971.

With 'What's Going On' Marvin Gaye proved that black music could be something other than 'disposable'. Gaye had just recovered from a bad year (in 1970 his singing partner Tammi Terell had died from the brain tumour that had caused her collapse into Gaye's arms while the two were performing on stage in 1967), which many say led to Gaye's depression, drug abuse and withdrawal from performing. In some ways 'What's Going On' was a cathartic exercise for Gaye.
The songs on the album addressed many of societies ills covering topics as diverse as drug abuse, war, social unrest and ecology. The album itself was a brave step for Gaye as a musician. Heavily orchestrated, the album even boasted a song cycle, unheard of for a Motown album. What Gaye proves with 'What's Going On' is that black musicians could make a statement through music. They were something more than mere performers, they could now show that they were creative artists in their own right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_PxgSQ9Vf4

Marvin Gaye - Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)

56.  A History of Popular Music.

Paranoid. (LP). Black Sabbath. Sept 1970.

Black Sabbath are not the coolest band to admit to liking. To admit to owning the full Black Sabbath catalogue is tantamount to admitting having no musical taste. For some reason Black Sabbath never achieved the critical kudos of Led Zeppelin in later years. Yet, Black Sabbath can't be dismissed totally. Their second album, 1970's 'Paranoid' was a UK #1 knocking Simon & Garfunkel's 'Bridge Over Troubled Waters' album off the top spot for one week.

'Paranoid' boasted songs that covered such unsavoury topics as war, black magic, death and mental illness. Black Sabbath were the ultimate Black Metal band. Tony Iommi riffing furiously while a demented Ozzy Osbourne screams manically as the rest of the band lumbered home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8kYrIWu14E

Black Sabbath - Fairies Wears Boots

55.  A History of Popular Music.

Ladies of The Canyon. (LP). Joni Mitchell. May 1970.

'Ladies of The Canyon was Joni's third studio album. The album marks the point when Joni stopped being a folkie and started to write and record songs that transcended genre stereotyping. 'Ladies of The Canyon' includes 'Big Yellow Taxi', Joni's biggest hit record and 'Woodstock', a #11 hit in the US for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

Joni's song writing on 'Ladies of The Canyon' shows a maturity and sense of humour (her fit of giggles at the close of 'Big Yellow Taxi') covering subjects such as environmental issues, relationships and the general Zeitgeist. 'Woodstock' tried to capture the feel of the times but ended up being ironic given that Altamont and Kent State were to follow. 'Ladies of The Canyon is the record that paved the way for James Taylor, Carly Simon and Jackson Browne as members of the 'mellow set'.

Joni Mitchell - For Free

54.  Bitches Brew. (LP). Miles Davis. March 1970.

Miles recorded 'Bitches Brew' in order to prove his boast that he could put together a better electric band than that led by Hendrix (who had angered Davis by allegedly making out with Miles' wife). Miles gathered together a stellar cast of electric jazz musicians including Wayne Shorter (soprano sax), Bernie Muapin (bass clarinet). John McLaughlin (guitar), Chick Corea, Larry Young and Joe Zawinal (electric piano), Harvey Brookes and Dave Holland (bass), Jack DeJohnette and Lenny White Drums and Jim Riley (percussion).

Once in the studio Davis took away all the charts maps and compasses and set his assembley on a mystery tour to the outer limits of their musical ability. 'Pharaoh's Dance', 'Spanish Key', 'John McLaughlin', 'Miles Runs The Voodoo Down', 'Sanctuary' and 'Bitches Brew' itself are formless compositions that congregate around a theme and then wander off to wherever the muse takes them.

Essential listening in my humble opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hU6G6hmt2k

Miles Davis - Miles runs the voodoo down

53.  Hot Rats. (LP). Frank Zappa. Nov 1969.

'Hot Rats' is a record that I've lived with for 45 years now and I still rate it as a must have (or must hear) album. In late 69 Zappa had disbanded the original Mothers of Invention line up and set about recording his second solo album. His first solo album 'Lumpy Gravy', had failed to set the world alight, so his second solo effort had to do better. Zappa retained multi instumentalist Ian Underwood from the original Mothers and set about recording what was to be his most commercially successful album.

'Hot Rats' is a remarkable record, "a movie for the ears" claimed Zappa on the sleeve notes, mixing rock and jazz in equal measure. Zappa invited long time friend Captain Beefheart to provide Howlin' Wolf like vocal on the only track on the album to contain a lyric, 'Willie The Pimp'. Zappa's guitar playing is superb throughout. Sharp and considered with much use of the wah-wah pedal. Ian Underwood supply's one of the best sax solo's ever recorded on 'The Gumbo Variations', which also includes a virtuoso violin performance from Don 'Sugarcane' Harris. Elsewhere Jean Luc Ponty plays the violin intro to 'Willie The Pimp' and Zappa, with Underwood play such diverse instruments as Organus Maximus and octave bass.

Other musicians credited on 'Hot Rats' are Max Bennett-bass on all but 'Peaches En Regalia', Shuggy Otis-bass on 'Peaches En Regalia', Paul Humphry, Ron Selico and John Guerin-drums and Lowell George on uncredited rhythm guitar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKYGaEafv4g

Frank Zappa - Willie the Pimp

38. Highway 61 Revisited (LP). Bob Dylan. Aug 1965.

The first album to make the list, Highway 61 Revisited marks the most productive period for Dylan in the 60s. Tiring of his solo guitar Dylan employs a band on a full album for the first time. Previous album 'Bringing It All Back Home' had carried one side of electric music but 'Highway 61 Revisited' was entirely electric, from the opening shots of 'Like A Rolling Stone' to the final bars of epic 'Desolation Row', the album stands as a masterpiece of popular music.

'Ballad of A Thin Man' was Dylan's vicious swipe at the conformist, blinkered America that Dylan despised - "Something is happening here, but you don't know what it is. do you Mr Jones?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwtXRW-Aa_s

Bob Dylan - Ballad Of A Thin Man 

37.  In The Midnight Hour. Wilson Pickett. Aug 1965.

Intros rarely come better than the four bars punched out by guitarist Steve Cropper and the horn section before 'Wicked Pickett' takes the mic to intone what quickly became the soul anthem of the 60s. The song deploys a full arsenal of stylistic devices that would re-arm music over the next couple of years; a pumping bass line from Duck Dunn, Al Jackson's fat-back snare and Steve Cropper chopping at his telecaster while the horn section blew their memorable riff.

The first, and many believe, the best of the 'sock-it-to-me' soul stars, Wilson Pickett quickly became a major league live attraction, second only to James Brown as a crowd puller, by virtue of both his prowess as a highly charged soul shouter and his mega-macho stage presence. Pickett was the personification of the bad ass street dude. If he came along today he would be a rapper, with a vengeance, which is how he always sang.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_TBlzXU1_c

Wilson Pickett-In The Midnight Hour

Co-Writted By Pickett Original Issue ATLANTIC 2289 Soul from 1965 Peaks and bio:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_Pickett

YOUTUBE.COM

52.  The Band. (LP). The Band. Nov. 1969.

The Band's 1968 debut, 'Music From Big Pink' had recieved pre release plaudits from Eric Clapton and George Harrison, and their work with Bob Dylan (on his controversial 1966 world tour and the boot-legged 'Basement Tapes') had gained them respect. But by the time of their second album The Band were all things to all people. Their musical virtuosity was dazzling and while they could swing with abandon ('Rag Mama Rag', 'Up On Cripple Creek') they could tug at heart-strings too ('The Unfaithful Servant', 'Whispering Pines'). But best were their down home values, a John Ford vision of an America split by the generation gap, the turbulence of Viet Nam, a scorn for all that had gone before. While other rockstars railed against the Nixonian values of their parents, Robbie Robertson asked benignly "Wouldn't it be nice just to see the folks, listen once again to the stale old jokes?"

Robertson gave his audience an identity and the opportunity to appreciate what had passed. "Take what you need and leave the rest," sang Levon achingly on 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down', "but they should never have taken the very best!" He was singing about how the old south had been vanquished, but he could have been singing about the rough hewn beauty of The Band. (Vox Magazine. 1991).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg-ILjqbKT4

51.  Led Zeppelin II. (LP). Led Zeppelin. Oct 1969.

With album II Led Zeppelin established their territory. The foundations were laid by Bonham's Viking drumming and Jones' fluid & purposeful bass, which left room for Page's guitar pyrotechnics and Plant's anguished vocals. Cream had paved the way for guitar heroics and Hendrix had proved what could be accomplished, but 'Zep II' took heavy rock to infinity.

They were white boys who sang the blues with all the cocky authority of veterans, despite the rumours of venerable bluesmen who were in no position to sue the band for plagiarism. There were token nods to Tolkien and old-time rock n roll, but the message of 'Led Zeppelin II' was plain, to riff, riff and riff again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJi3DSROkJs

50.  Astral Weeks. (LP). Van Morrison. 1969.

Like fellow Irishman James Joyce with 'Ulysses', George Ivan Morrison wrote his masterpiece in exile, but imbued with a passion for home, in Morrison's case Belfast. 'Astral Weeks' is an album of reminisces for a Belfast of Morrison's childhood where he reflects on places, 'Cypress Avenue' and characters, 'Madame George'.

The album was recorded in two days with Morrison joined in the studio by members of The Modern Jazz Quartet. The album is one of rock musics most unclassifiable and majestic albums. Like Love's 'Forever Changes' and Nick Drake's 'Bryter Later', 'Astral Weeks is flawless and timeless. It is an album built on a relationship, side one being the 'before' and side two the 'after'. The album contains a wealth of diverse and diverting material but the centrepiece is the ten minute 'Madame George', a stream of consciousness piece that incorporates childhood memories, fantasy figures and real life locations. It takes a long time dying and the slow and haunting fade remains one of rock music's most elusive and enchanting moments.
'Astral Weeks' is an artefact that few other artists could ever have achieved and it is to Morrison's credit that today he can still conjure up the moods he so carefully captured 45 years ago on what many still believe to be one of the few truly indispensable rock albums. (Vox Magazine. 1991).

van morrison - madame george 

49.  Hot Buttered Soul. (LP). Isaac Hayes. 1969.

Stax Records first act when they broke away from Atlantic was to release 29 albums that had been sitting on the shelf at Atlantic. The albums covered a broad roster of talent and styles but none were as ground-breaking as Isaac Hayes' 'Hot Buttered Soul' album. Hayes and the new Bar-Kays (most of the old Bar-Kays had perished in the same plane crash that killed Otis Redding) had recorded an album which contained just 4 lengthy tracks, almost unprecedented for a soul act. Hayes wasn't the first soul act to release a lengthy album track, The Chambers Brothers 'Time Has Come Today' spanned one whole side of their album.

The tracks on 'Hot Buttered Soul' were notable for the arrangements that Hayes provided for each song. The 18 minute version of Jimmy Webb's 'By The Time I Get To Phoenix' had a full 8 minute spoken intro. delivered over a one note organ riff and a single cymbal stroke, where 'Mr Lurve Man' Hayes proclaims "I'm talkin' 'bout the power of lurve now/I'm gonna tell you what lurve can do." The album also boasted a 12 minute symphonic version of 'Walk On By' and a 10 minute jazz funk track called 'Hyperbolicsyllablicesquedalymistic' (try requesting that to your friendly local DJ).
The album was an influence on everyone from The Dells to Barry White, who would use the spoken intro on many of their own recordings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCzElCx_LK8

ISAAC HAYES - Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic