100 Favorite Albums: Patti Smith – Horses

Tomorrow evening my wife and I will attend the fabulous Night Owl Record Show in SE Portland. Hundreds of vinyl enthusiasts will be pawing through crates and boxes looking for gems to add to their collection. We’ll be looking for (among other things) the decent copy of Patti Smith’s Horses that has eluded my wife and I for several years now. Sure, we could just pick one up on ebay for a fairly reasonable sum – but theres just something about the thrill of the hunt. The thought of pulling it out of a box, taking it home and dropping the needle and hearing it as it was meant to be heard.

Horses is - among other things – one of the best albums of the 70’s, as important as any album in terms of defining the punk movement, one of the greatest debut albums of all time and the definitive Patti Smith record. It also has the rare distinction of being one of those records that anyone with even a cursory interest in the history of American music should listen to.

Patti Smith was in my mind the first artist to successfully blend spoken poetry and rock music. Previous attempts were either vacuous or overwrought and pretentious (or in the case of The Doors: all three). In songs like “Free Money” and “Gloria” Smith’s rapid fire delivery has a primal quality that demands your attention. Its easy to forget how great of a singer she is. Her instrument is certainly unique and might be oft putting to people looking for something more conventional from female singers. Its her phrasing, tone and performance that make her great. Just like Bob Dylan.

This may not be the first post-modern rock record, but it is certainly one of the best - only inferior to Highway 61 and Born to Run in terms of rock pastiche. The reworking of “Gloria” that opens the album turns a bar band classic by Van Morrison's Them into a hymn of sexual and spiritual liberation. The “Land” suite on side two is a tremendous accomplishment that manages to stand up on repeat listens despite its length. This is simply as good as it gets when it comes to rock music. I eagerly await the day when I can listen to it as a complete work as it spins on my turntable.      

My week with Last FM

http://www.last.fm/user/Blake1984

I'm sure most people reading this have heard of the social media / music site called Last FM. I had always been meaning to check it out and finally took the plunge last week.

My favorite thing about the service is if you install a "scrobber" (I installed one with Media Monkey and its been great) literally every track you listen to is cataloged on your profile. This not only shows your friends what you've been listening to, it allows them to see charts and rankings of your favorite songs and artists. You can also integrate it with facebook, something I'm still figuring out how to use most effectively.

I was struck by how accurate my artist rankings on Last FM compare to how I would rank my favorite bands and artists in real life.



Elvis Costello, Steve Earle and Billy Bragg all have a few less plays than my bottom 4 so things switch around quite a bit. My only issue is that artists like Elvis Costello aren't grouped with "Elvis Costello and the Attractions" or "Elvis Costello and the Imposters" - if they were EC would be my 3rd favorite artist which is more accurate than just plain old Elvis Costello being #12 but #8 with the attractions. Guided By Voices may be a bit too high as well, since they have so many short songs its pretty easy to rack up a ton of plays.

I would definitely recommend last FM as a way of seeing what you're actually listening to on your PC. I guess the fact that most of its features only make since if you actually listen to a lot of music on your computer might be a turn off to some folks. Feel free to "friend" me if you use the service, I'm always interested to see what people are listening to.

100 Favorite Albums: Tom Waits - Bone Machine

With an artist like Tom Waits who has produced so many influential albums its easy for one to slip under the radar a bit. I listen to at least one Tom Waits album a week and most often its either Swordfishtrombones or Rain Dogs - or Small Change if I'm feeling loungey. Whenever I listen to Bone Machine though, I am reminded of its outright brilliance. After the Harry Partch experimentation of Tom's 80's releases Bone Machine finds him in a more bluesy and percussive mood. On the harder tracks there is a sense of swagger that reminds me of Heartattack and Vine. Lyrically the album is a collection of songs are either about death, murder or decay. In many ways I think its Tom's most spiritual album. I listened to it today for the first time in a long time and feel that it stands alongside his best work.

"Going Out West" is as good of a place to start as any