Category Archives: All Vinyl Apocalypse

1,111 greatest records you probably haven’t already heard

976. blue moon

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As the story goes, Bob Dylan hated us all by 1970 – his audience that is.  Which led to the four slabs of vinyl called Self Portrait in which he ambles through a weird mix of everything but the kind of music that was going to singlehandedly trigger a peoples revolution. Just ditties, sidetracks, half-assed Paul Simon and Gordon Lightfoot covers, and perhaps strangest of all, a take on Blue Moon that actually works. Because it genuinely does just sound like a lonely Jewish guy who got lost somewhere in the north country, and now he’s sitting in the dark, looking up at the second full moon in less than a month, crooning away.

Bob-Dylan-1970

977. family of man

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Because there had to be at least one Three Dog Night track on this list. Might as well go with a mostly forgotten, comparatively minor hit about how humanity just keeps destroying the planet, one city, one neighbourhood, one family at a time. Because much as the official hype might tell us that the early 1970s were all about your Led Zeppelins and Elton Johns and David Bowies, the airwaves would have been awfully bare without the hit machine who took their name from a pre-central heating turn of phrase for a very cold night.

ThreeDogNight

978. roll away the stone

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“A 1973 single from Mott the Hoople concerning the alleged resurrection of Jesus Christ. I think. I mean, that’s what it means to roll away the stone, isn’t it? To rise from the dead, roll away the boulder that’s sealing the exit from your tomb, and get back out there, redeem all humanity forever and ever, amen, and party, rejoice, turn more water into wine, shake a leg, maybe dance some rockabilly.  Not bad for a three minute pop song.” (Philip Random)

Mott-Live1973

 

979. “Remembering The Ancient”

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“It would probably be my favourite Yes album if they called it Tales From a Can of Worms instead of Topographic Oceans – this from old friend Motron who, like a stopped clock, isn’t always wrong. For me, it’s simple. I bought Tales From Topographic Oceans when I was fifteen immediately after seeing Yes live for the first time and having my mind (and soul) blown. And being a typically broke fifteen year old, I was stuck with it, the only new album I had for that summer. So I dove in, determined to love it whether I liked it or not. I ventured very deep indeed. So much so that it’s the two more difficult middle sides that engulfed me the most, even if I couldn’t have told you what any of it meant beyond EVERYTHING, and something to do with some ancient Hindu scriptures. This edit is something I felt compelled to put together back in the 1980s, trying to prove a point to a fellow DJ, failing.” (Philip Random)

(image source)

980. the finest kiss

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The Boo Radleys being one of those bands that never got the attention they deserved when they deserved to get it, which is to say, their early records when they were recklessly, beautifully fusing the weapons grade sonics of My Bloody Valentine and Dinosaur Jr with the sweet pop epiphanies of the Beach Boys, Love, The Beatles, Jimmy Webb even — The Finest Kiss (found on their second EP) being a fine an example of all that.

981. sugar n’ spikes

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“Captain Beefheart in general and Trout Mask Replica in particular remain my go-tos when I no longer really want to listen to music, but I still must. The 1960s were winding down. The revolution wasn’t coming any time soon. The war was still raging in Vietnam.  Somebody had to try something entirely different, else the whole culture would crumble. Enter the Captain and his producer, one Frank Zappa. Sugar n’ Spikes is as close as any of it got to what one might have called a single.” (Philip Random)

CaptainBeefheart+Zappa