1001+ Albums: 60s Block 11

1001+ Albums:

60s Block 11

Are You Experienced?

   Artist: Jimi Hendrix

   Year: 1967

       Back to back to back great songs. Acid blues and electric rock full of fire and energy that never subsides, always grooving. It doesn't always feel like a cohesive whole though, more a collection of great songs that don't always flow together perfectly, which hold it back from greatness. Highlights are "Purple Haze", "The Wind Cries Mary", "Hey Joe", "Are You Experienced?", "Manic Depression", etc.

   Rating: A-

Beach Samba
   Artist: Astrud Gilberto
   Year: 1967

       What ever happened to the girl from Ipanema? Now all we've got is glorified elevator music, and weird big band circus numbers. this is almost exactly what I don't like in music, saved just slightly by Gilberto's unique voice.

   Rating: D+



Da Capo
   Artist: Love
   Year: 1967

       So sugary sweet it's almost childish. songs about orange skies and cotton candy, but what would you expect from a band called Love. When it's not sweet, its yelling and nonsensical, also like a child. I didn't like it much, in short.

   Rating: D+


Francis Albert Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim
   Artist: Frank Sinatra
   Year: 1967

       More of Sinatra's usual sap, now inflected with Bossa Nova style. Just don't really like this kind of music, too saccharine and sentimental for my taste. He sounds like he's still playing from the 50s, or even the 40s.

   Rating: C-


Electric Music for the Mind and Body
   Artist: Country Joe and the Fish
   Year: 1967

       A strange, chilled out, bluesy, psychedelic album. The kind of thing I feel like I'm supposed to drop acid with. Psychedelia has officially got its grip on the western audiences of the world. Sometimes hilarious in its bluntness about drugs, like whispering "LSD" at the end of a song.

   Rating: B


Sunshine Superman
   Artist: Donovan
   Year: 1967

       Folk rock at it's medieval tinged best. Donovan is a pretty damn good songwriter, and he can find a nice tune. Almost everything here is good, except maybe one or two spots where I thought it was a little overdone, too many instruments usually. That being said, most of it is great, especially "Season of the Witch", the standout track from the album.

   Rating: B+

1001+ Albums: 60s Block 10

1001+ Albums:

60s Block 10

Pet Sounds

   Artist: The Beach Boys

   Year: 1966

       The first album in a while I've listened to multiple times from this list. Each time I come to realize more its perfection. This is such a jump in musical and emotional depth since their last album on the 1001. That feeling of innocence is measured more alongside a feeling of longing hopefulness and a new found maturity. 

   Rating: A

The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators

   Artist: The 13th Floor Elevators

   Year: 1966

       The weird, warbling effect the electric jug makes might make this the most psychedelic psychedelic music I've heard. Rock n roll driven by howling hippies, psychedelic sounds, and lots of warbling. Supposedly one of the earliest instances of psychedelic music recorded, and a groundbreaking album for such genre. The music itself is pretty good too.

   Rating: B-

Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton

   Artist: John Myall's Blues Breakers

   Year: 1966

       If by blues breaking you mean a shake up of the genre with added influences, but not necessarily a genre breaking thing. Some good bluesy songs, pretty good overall, nothing that special however.

   Rating: C+

Wild is the Wind

   Artist: Nina Simone

   Year: 1966

       Soul and blues album sung by Nina Simone. Okay, sort of just not my thing. A collection of love songs with some topical racial stuff thrown in. As with lots of genres I'm initially less familiar with, it all tends to blend together a little. Also I'm not a huge fan of this type of singing. 

   Rating: C-

The Mamas and the Papas

   Artist: The Mamas and the Papas

   Year: 1966

       Better than the first one... I think. Still not my cup of tea, even if that tea is the same folky brand I tend to enjoy. I'm starting to find I like folk rock less than I do the traditional acoustic stuff, and that I even like that stuff less than I thought I did. Maybe I'm mostly just a Dylan fan. Nevertheless, if you liked If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears, you are probably gonna like this offering just as much. More of the same.

   Rating: C

Freak Out!

   Artist: The Mothers of Invention

   Year: 1966

       The strangest album so far, possibly the strangest I've ever heard. Lyrics that are intelligible, singing that is understandable, but still makes no sense. Different styles thrown into a blender with a bit of the ole insanity and this is the shake it makes. Frank Zappa is hilarious. The whole thing is kind of hilarious. The first straight up comedy album in the 1001. 

   Rating: C

1001+ Albums: 60s Block 9

1001+ Albums:

60s Block 9

Revolver

   Artist: The Beatles

   Year: 1966

       In contention, as half of their albums are, for their best. This one, however was the breakthrough. Essentially perfect, tying together disparate songs that somehow flow perfectly into each other and miraculously all fit into the same feeling, which is captured perfectly by the trippy cover art.

   Rating: A

Fifth Dimension

   Artist: The Byrds

   Year: 1966

       Pretty good, but I think I like Mr. Tambourine Man a little better. This has more psychedelic stuff going on, and thankfully as pretty much dispensed with that terrible affected accent that the singer had on the last album. "Eight Miles High" is the best thing here, and an all time classic track.

   Rating: B

Aftermath

   Artist: The Rolling Stones

   Year: 1966

       To be honest, I haven'y been too impressed with the Stones so far. This is mostly just misogyny and decent song construction, but far from what their reputation leads you to believe they are capable of.

   Rating: C

Face to Face

   Artist: The Kinks

   Year: 1966

       Packed with white hot/cool springtime/summertime vibes, spotted with multicolor, much like the albums very fitting cover art. It is also very English, apparently throughout it's runtime picking apart different aspects of British society. The sound is singular, one of the Kinks many immediately recognizable styles, sounding different from "Your Really Got Me" or "Strangers", but also remarkably Kink-y. I always love when an album creates a very specific, singular feeling.

   Rating: B+

The Yardbirds

   Artist: The Yardbirds

   Year: 1966

       A mixed set. "Over Under Sideways Down" is brilliant, "I Can't Make Your Way" is not. Most of the album teeters in between genuinely great and mediocre at best, sometimes within the space of a single song. Overall it gets that ever coveted and renowned placement of "just ok".

   Rating: C

1001+ Albums: 60s Block 8

1001+ Albums:

60s Block 8

Blonde On Blonde

   Artist: Bob Dylan

   Year: 1966

       Bob Dylan at the height of his powers, making the greatest album that he would in nearly a decade (and arguably his greatest ever). I like the way Al Kooper described it, "Nobody has ever captured the sound of 3 a.m. better...". I think that describes this album the best, the whimsical, "wild mercury" (Dylan's words) sound that seeps in and out throughout it.

   Rating: A

If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears

   Artist: The Mamas and the Papas

   Year: 1966

       Yes I can (believe my eyes and ears). It's just okay. Folk pop sung by a quartet. Don't have much to say about this one. California Dreamin' is a good song, the rest is like I said, just okay. Why are they in a bathtub?

   Rating: C

Black Monk Time

   Artist: The Monks

   Year: 1966

       Another protopunk challenger for the throne of earliest punk recording. This one is closer to the Velvet Underground than it is to the Sonics. It has the scratchy sound, but not quite the sheer force of Here Are The Sonics, at least on the outside. They are, however, more deranged than that band, lyrically, and overall sonically as well. It isn't as fast but it sounds more enraged, more demented. Lyrics like "I hate you with a passion baby?" and "Stop it stop it stop it I don't like it" are a far cry from the usual sweetness of popular music, and things like "Why do you kill all those kids in Vietnam?" is more blunt and charged than anything else going on at the time. Truth be told, it's mostly more fascinating than it is good, not to say it isn't any good though. But this is experimental territory, and it often comes of as just that: experiments. Frankly it's all a little insane, in a good way. Not just in the music, but the fact that this was 1966. I didn't think this happened for at least a couple of years (arguably the next, with the Velvet Underground and Nico). It sounds like 60s rock looking at the 60s from a social and political perspective and losing its mind. Other bands could keep their cool, sing about what they saw in a rousing and uplifting way. These guys, actual soldiers themselves, didn't seem to be able to cope as well, and it reflects in their sound and in their words. 

   Rating: B

Fred Neil

   Artist: Fred Neil

   Year: 1966

       A pleasant surprise, thoroughly enjoyable. As close to country as I tend to like (save the man in black), and even then it is definitely more folk than country. There is a slight feeling in his voice of that genre on some songs though, and it actually made those songs better for it. Interestingly also a touch of the psychedelic. 

   Rating: A-

Midnight Ride

   Artist: Paul Revere and the Raiders

   Year: 1966

       Another slightly punk-y album, not to the extent of the others I've talked about though. Other than that, it's fine. Nothing special.

   Rating: C

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme

   Artist: Simon and Garfunkel 

   Year: 1966

       A collection of folk and folk rock songs by two of the most prominent figures in the genres, and in 60s music in general. Some great tracks, like "Scarborough Fair/Canticle". Makes me want to re-watch the Graduate.

   Rating: B

1001+ Books: On the Road

1001+ Books:

#6 - On the Road

by: Jack Kerouac (1957)

       A book, at it's best, can be a window into the soul of another human being, another mind at work with ideas about the way things are and what not and all that goes on in the world to them. This is such a book, less a narrative, more a wild screaming road down out and through the great landscape of the world known as America, buzzing and zooming past characters and beats through the night hopped up on booze and tea and life! It's a generation definer, a snapshot in the history of the highways and routes and roots and wayward travelers in the time of freedom on the open road and wild abandon down life's ephemeral ways with reckless youth and infinite, spiraling life force that permeates throughout the text like the blooming headlights passing you in the dark of the American dream. Quite the ride, and that's what it is above most everything else: a ride, not a story. A life, not a linear line or a narrative structure.

       Dean Moriarty is not the protagonist of the book, but he is what the book is about, for lack of a better phrase or term. Dean is a rambunctious, crazy, and wild man who travels the American landscape with friends and strangers in the eternal pursuit of kicks. Getting his kicks is, for him, achieving the very American dream, as it were, and finding his moments and swathes of grace to enshroud himself in and breathe in with fire and vigor that the people around him can only hang onto and become hurtled along with him in his mad voyage. He is the touchstone of everything wild and careless and free in the world (or at least the USA) and he attracts people who want to be like him like flies on sugar, and repels others like oil on water. Some get him (it), others don't. Truman Capote didn't, deriding the book by calling it typing, not writing. I feel like I understand Dean. I'd like to be him. That's not to say I would like to be his friend, or even be around him. That's not my life, but reading this book makes me feel, however briefly, that I wish it were.

       So what's it about (the book)? It's about America, and the open road, and the burning youth and desire for freedom, and not much else. The story is told from the perspective of Sal, who is infatuated with Dean and tells his story in some kind of a crazy remembrance of himself and things that he felt and things that happened to him. He recounts his various adventures with Dean and other friends and lovers, relishing the times they had together traveling across the country there and back and all over again. It is a breathless, free roaming book full of little moments and unwavering momentum that never really breaks down. Nothing, and everything, seems to happen all the time, and it has the wild dash spirit of the characters lives. Apparently autobiographical, it is a keen insight into the mind of a madman, a man high on life, man!

       But what is it really about? It is about a certain lifestyle, and a certain kind of person that can simultaneously be a loathsome detriment and a kind of crazy beauty and purity, like fire that is so alive yet so dangerous to touch. It's about being totally free, and the consequences that come with freedom. Dean is free, but if you look at his life, and simply look into the future a few years, you see an accident waiting to happen, one that is inevitable. The book doesn't dwell on it too much, but there is certainly a feeling of things turning out badly for the lives of the people Dean touches. He leaves a line of bastard children across the States like a trail of abandoned eggs waiting to go bad or break to easily. He steals cars, and you have to think about the people who's cars are being stolen at some point. At one point he is confronted by his friends, he accuse him of being a user and a con man, only worried about his personal satisfaction and nothing else. Sal defends him, but in his heart he knows it's probably true. It's hard not to get wrapped up in the glory of Deans blaze, and you end up feeling life's pure excitement hit you like a lightning bolt when he is around. But he leaves a path of destruction, something he seems to be running from and never looking back at.

       It's a cultural touchstone, and a bonafide classic, as well as a divisive and polarizing one. You either have the patience for the never ending exuberance and wild prose Kerouac spills out, or you don't. I'm glad I do, because it made this a fascinating and powerfully raw and visceral work. Bonus points to Will Patton for being the perfect reader for this story, giving it an amazing life force and propulsion. I feel it may have been a difficult read without him doing great on the audiobook.

   Rating: A-

1001+ Books: Breakfast of Champions

1001+ Books:

#5 - Breakfast of Champions

by: Kurt Vonnegut

       Tip: don't listen to this book, it is clearly meant to be a visual experience as opposed to your straightforward narrative. The book is apparently littered with various hand drawn illustrations by Vonnegut, that have to be described (admittedly somewhat humorously) by the reader. Speaking of the reader, John Malkovich is simultaneously perfect for the reading of a Vonnegut book and an incredibly ill choice for the reading of any audiobook. He lisps, which is part of the charm, but also can be frustratingly hard to follow, especially with his jerky, disjointed, flowed together movement from one sentence to the next. Part of me feels I should try actually reading it, but there simply isn't the time with 1001 books to get through. Unfortunately my experience with the novel, in a car going down the interstate at sonically abundant speeds with a narrator who seems to be mildly impaired in some way or another, may unfairly lower the rating of it.

       Anyway, despite the slightly imperfect conditions to which I experienced the book, it was certainly interesting, but nowhere near the absolute genius of Slaughterhouse-Five. One thing is definitely is is hilarious. Vonnegut remains a master of satire, and his sensibility especially shines through with Malkovich's reading, which is, like i said, imperfect, yet well suited to the author. Vonnegut's observations of humanity, and his insane, funny ideas about the world are beautiful and frightening to behold. He frequently compares people to meat machines filling out their daily purposes, but also describes them as unwavering columns of light. The soul inside the machine. Race relations in America are rarely presented so honestly and unforgivingly as in this. Each character is immediately described as either black or white, and their genealogy is often detailed, like describing black characters as being descended from slaves.

       Overall, this is a solid book, but the experience I had with it could have been better I think. The ideas are provocative and inspire much thought, and the execution and presentation of the ideas is often perfect and incredibly humorous. Not quite the heights I know the author can reach, but enjoyable all the same.

   Rating: B

1001+ Books: Midnight's Children

1001+ Books:

#4 - Midnight's Children

by: Salman Rushdie (1981)

       This is a book to fall in love with, a book to enwrap yourself in, to be experienced, to be led along by the hand by into the twirling, fantastic world it creates with it's spiraling, whirling, and magical prose. It is a book of many things into one thing, a story of scale colossal and detail minute, which relishes in its telling and confounds in the same likeness as well. It is a story of India, and of one boys importance in the story, and his family, and the 1001 children of midnight, and a perforated sheet, and a lapis encrusted silver spittoon, and a nose and knees, knees and a nose, and love, and hate, and death, and hope, and magicians, and 500 year old whores, and smelly old boat men, and all the many other things that make up the wide world.

       Saleem Sinai, who was born on the stroke of midnight, at the exact moment of India's independence, is the narrator and ultimate focus of the novel. But the book goes far beyond him into his parents and grandparents histories, and also the history and prehistory of his country, mirroring each other throughout their developments in time. It is encompassing of many things, but overall it is about families and connections, and histories which leak throughout them. Immensely enjoyable in its characters and story, especially in its complete insight into said characters thoughts, feelings, and lives. A book as rich as India herself, and as colorful and alive as well. 

   Rating: A-