Proto-Punk at it´s finest: The Stooges – Fun House (1970)

The next album draftet via the random number generator.

 

Fun House was released in 1970 via Elektra Records by The Stooges.

 

This is a proto punk album. The guitars are heavy distorted, the riffs are pretty straight, raw and heavy. A special trademark used throughout the album ist the extensive use of expillers.

 

Examples:

– „Yes! Wuhuhu!“ in „Down on the streets“

– „Uh!“ And spoken „Look out!“ At the start of „loose“

– „Uh! Huh!“ in the title track

– The whole song „L.A. Blues“ which makes me think of an early version of Hellhammers „Triump of death“

 

Songs that fall out of the Proto Punk/Garage rock sheme are „Dirt“ which is a stoner song reminding me on Hendrix and the title track „Fun House“.

 

Easy that I have to say that this album rules supreme.

David Bowie – The rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust and the spiders from mars (1972)

The next 5 (or maybe 10) albums will be picked by random number generator.

Ziggy Stardust was an alter ego of David Bowie, his stage persona. His fifth album released in 1972 named „The rise and fall of ziggy stardust and the spiders from mars, telling Ziggy Stardust story. It was recorded from 7^th september 1971 to 4^th february 1972 in the Trident studios in London.

3 songs of the album were released as single: Starman, Rock n Roll suicide, Suffragette city. It is the first Bowie album with an appealing cover. Because it´s a concept album I will go through every song. 

5 years is a very depressed song going atmospheric with the strings and the piano. It´s about the end of the world in 5 years.

Soul love is about different kinds of love and the people ignore what will happen. Its very nice when the e-guitar inserts and intensify the music. In one part you have a pretty cool jazzsax.

Moonage daydream introduces Ziggy to the story and his destiny to become a rock n roll star. The solo in this song just sounds like crazy alarmsirens.

Starman is about Ziggys dream of an alien lifeform that will come and rescue the earth, but only if the people are cautious. The refrain of this is so fucking catchy, the end riff at the end is pure rock n roll.

It ain´t easy is a cover of a Ron Davies song about the problems to get a rock n roll star.

Lady stardust is the perfect transition from the a to b side and it´s about a fan who see Ziggy and his band playing but also be laughed at for wearing makeup.

Star starts with an adapted form of the intro of Pinball Wizard by „The Who“, it´s about Ziggys dream of becoming a rock star and the love and peace he will bring to the humanity.

Hang on to yourself describes how the band looses the groundedness,

Ziggy stardust is from the perspective of one of the band members and narrated how the sucess changes Ziggy who also dissolves the band without warning.

Suffragette city is an hommage to the beach boys and also to velvet underground, telling how Ziggy ignores the advices of his friends.

Rock n roll suicide embrace the whole musical mood of the album. It´s about Ziggys end as a broken star. And it ends much to abrupt, I was so shooked I had to listen to the album again.

The riffs, the cachyness of the album, the spacy sound and the diversity in the mood of the songs makes this album just perfect. Did I mention that I listen to it twice?

A short retrospect of the 50´s albums listen to

Wow, I am done with the 50´s albums!
Time for a little retrospect!

I learned that Jazz, what I have never heard before, can be pretty cool, as long it isn´t vocal jazz.

Rock n Roll isn´t enough on this list. It was the music of people stand up against racial segregation and said: „Doesn´t matter what your skin color is, as long as your music is cool!“ and came together. I think thats a big achievement.

Albums I owned: 1 Little Richard – Here´s Little Richard

Artis on this list from which I owned other albums: 2 Buddy Holy – The Collection

Ray Charles – The Collection

Albums I think shouldn´t be on this list: 11 (47,83%)

In The Wee Small Hours – Frank Sinatra

Songs For Swingin‘ Lovers – Frank Sinatra

Tragic Songs Of Life – The Louvin Brothers

Palo Congo – Sabu 

This is Fats Domino – Fats Domino

Dance Mania – Tito Puente

Lady in Satin – Billie Holiday

Live at Mister Kelly’s – Sarah Vaughan

George Gershwin Songbook – Ella Fitzgerald

Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs – Marty Robbins

The Genius of Ray Charles – Ray Charles 

Albums I think that should be included:
Chuck Berry – Chuck Berry is on top 

Eddie Cochran – Singing to my baby

Bo Diddley – Self titled debut

Bill Haley – Rock with Bill Haley and the Comets

Bill Haley – Shake, Rattle and Roll

Bill Halley – Rock around the Clock

Dave Brubeck Quartet – Time out (1959)

Recorded in the Columbia’s 30th Street Studio „Time out“ fuses the elements of cool jazz with west coast jazz. It´s mostly known for using jazz unusual time patterns like 9/8 and 5/4 and for being the first jazz album ever to recieve a platinum status.

On the album are 7 tracks in total, 3 on the A side (in the range from 5,24 – 7,22 minutes) and 4 on the B side (in the range from 4,16 – 5,24 minutes)

 

Wow. This album creates a high contrast to begin as it opens with the energetic „Blue rondo a la turk“, which also got a funny video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9GgmGLPbWU) and follow this up with the very calm „Strange meadow lake“. „Take five“ then is a very multifaceted song, „Three to get ready“ is pretty piano heavy.  

One sentence to describe this album: It´s so fucking strong

Ray Charles – The genius of ray charles (1959)

„The genius of Ray Charles“ released in 1959, is the sixth studio album by self-claimed genius Ray Charles. 

 

It marks a renunciation from the Soul sound Charles coined, going more to big band jazz and swing. 

On the first, the big band side, instruments contained are: Piano, trumpet (6x), trombone (4x), alto sax (2x), tenor sax (5x) and flute.

The first side is pretty intensive. You have songs like the opener „Let the good times roll“ which a pretty rocking, but you also have some slower, emotional but also intense tracks like „It had to be you“ or „When your lover is gone“. 

 

The second, the swing sidecontains: Piano, guitar, bass, drums, valve trombone, woodwinds and string section

The second side miss the intensity of the first side and concentrate more on emotions. I think this side is much weaker than the first

 

Because of my understanding of an album as a whole piece where all songs fit together, on both sides of the album I have to say, sorry Ray, this wasn´t a genius achievement. 

Miles Davis – Kind of Blue (1959)

„Kind of blue“ was recorded and released in 1959 by Columbia records. With 4 times platinum (4,000,000 sold copies) it´s the best selling jazz album ever. According to critics, it´s also the best jazz album. It´s one of the first modal jazz albums. 

 

Miles Davis plays on this album with a sextet. Instruments containing are: Trumpet, piano, sax, drums and bass. 

Compared to „Birth of the cool“ with it´s jouvenil spirit and it´s controlled chaos, „Kind of blue“ is much more mature, calm and grounded. The songs are slower and the instruments have more time express themselves and evolve during their lead parts. 

 

After a hard day of working this album might be the perfect recreation.

Marty Robbins – Gunfighter Ballads and trail songs (1959)

A country album released 1959 by Columbia. Instruments on are Guitar, Bass and Drums.

I would suppose some more action from an album with an name like that (especially with song like „Billy the kid“). The music is sagging, just caring from song to song. All the songs sounds very similiar, there is no dynamic on this album. This is mostly true for the A-Side.

The B-Side has some top songs:

„El paso“ is a pretty famous song from this album, it´s a bit more agile than the other songs, but that doesn´t change anything of the albums quality.

„The Master´s call“ is much more action charge than all of the songs on the A-Side together.

„Running gun“ shows Robbins need for speed (he was a NASCAR driver).

But hey yeah, you know, an album need to be good overall and not just have some good songs on one side, so this is not recommded.

Ella Fitzgerald – Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook (1958)

So this will be the third vocal jazz album in a row and not only that, it also is a 5 album set containig over 3 hours of songs, poor me.

Fuck I get the feeling that I´m beeing punished in an never ending repetition for something I must have done wrong. Man, I´m beeing tortured!

Hearing the two albums before and now this 5 discs make a total listening of nearly 5 hours of vocal jazz, this seems like a neverending nightmare!

I guess hell must be just like that, bond you on a chair and make you listen to vocal jazz eternaly.

What can I say to the music, trying to touch it ubiased? Ella have the weakest voice of the three ladies I listen to right now.

Avoid this! You can invest three hours better than this, do extra hours at work or loose money at a poker game.

Sarah Vaughan – Sarah Vaughan at Mister Kelly´s (1958)

Well this one´s not just an vocal jazz album, what would be enough reason to not like it, it´s also a live album what is even worse.

This album not only got the boring performance of a vocalist served by her slave instruments and a cheering drunken crowd or some other standard things you could have when you play live, it also show you how unprofessional Sarah was. Not only she´s forgotten the lyrics of „How High the Moon “ no, there was only an episode in „Willow Weep for Me „were shes stop singing while the instruments still playing and the song wasn´t finished.

Avoid this unprofessional piece of epic boredom.

Billy Holiday – Lady in Satin (1958)

„Lady in Satin“ is the last album released during the lifetime of Billy Holiday. strong voice female vocals

It cointains violin, cello, harp, flute, trumpet, trombone, piano, guitar, bass, and drums.

I must say she have a nice voice being representative for that time it just the „In the wee small hours“ album with a female vocalist instead of Sinatra (the music differs but the concept is the same). The whole album is just based on the vocals of Holiday, the instruments just serving her.

Because it would be logically inconsistent to critizice an album with the same frame conditions different I also say about this album that is boring as hell. Don´t listen to it, it makes you just waste your time.