“When AC/DC first hit my particular suburb, I was in my late teens and fully committed to the sinking ship that was known as Prog Rock, after which I grabbed some wreckage that washed me ashore on the island known as punk, new wave etc. Because hard rock, heavy metal, riff rock – that was for little kids as far as I was concerned. I was wrong, of course. Because jump ahead a decade, I’m almost thirty now and in no way measuring up to any of the adult expectations that anybody ever had for me (my parents, my teachers, myself even) and among many other unexpected diversions, I’m finally ready for the genius that is-was-will-always-be AC/DC. Honest, direct, maybe a little evil, always piledrivingly on the nose whether deliberately hellbound or, in the case of Downpayment Blues (from Powerage, the second last studio album of the Bon Scott era), just slacking off, drinking cheap swill, doing nothing with a vengeance. Or as somebody put it in Slacker (the movie) a few years later, ‘… withdrawing in disgust should never be confused with apathy.’ Words to live by.” (Philip Random)
150. ramble tamble
“As albums go, few from any era can top Creedence Clearwater Revival‘s 1970 monster Cosmo’s Factory, if only for the six charting singles. Let me say that again: six charting singles. That’s more than many successful bands get in a career. And then there’s Ramble Tamble (the best track on the album, maybe from their entire career) which wasn’t released as a single, because it was too long, too weird, a tough swampy rock song bookending an absolutely epic jam. In other words, this is me, twelve or thirteen, in my cousin’s bedroom, headphones on, getting sent, getting educated as to where music could go — that a song could be way more than just sticky sweet candy to get played on the radio between ads for soda pop and jeans. Welcome to my future.” (Philip Random)

151. Zoom
Zoom is about the future apparently (the 1973 album in question being called 1990), a trip to the moon to be specific, though men had already been walking the moon for four years by 1973, smacking golf balls around even. Either way, this is the Temptations (arguably the greatest all male vocal group ever) together with their producer Norman Whitfield boldly and beautifully going as far (and as long) as they ever would, indeed as far as man ever has, a thirteen minute trip, which if taken at the speed of light would actually get you past Mars. Not bad for a bunch of guys from the wrong side of the tracks, Detroit.

152. listen to the lion
“It’s true. Van Morrison‘s Listen To The Lion is exactly what you want to have playing when you finally emerge from a prolonged season in hell, a dark night of the soul, an entanglement in Chapel Perilous (choose your analogy). It won’t miraculously save you, make you whole again, but once you (and whichever gods and/or demons and/or friends and/or organizations may have stooped to redeem you) have done the heavy lifting, it’s there to welcome you, take your hand, tell you you’re not alone … and remind you that you’ve got a lion inside you that needs to roar, rage, tear righteously free at least some of the time, else it will tear you apart from within and love shall never come tumbling. In other words, you’ve just got to let it go sometimes. Your soul, that is. Believe in it and, if necessary, get to growling.” (Philip Random)

153. the power of love
“It’s obvious now, but for some reason (maybe the Christmas themed video confused me), it didn’t really strike me at the time that The Power of Love was about AIDS, the holocaust that was currently tearing through the world’s male homosexual population (and beyond). Indeed, Frankie Goes To Hollywood‘s Holly Johnson, who sang and co-wrote it, would soon be infected and, in the belief of the time, fated to a slow horrible death from the vampire that had got in the door. Of course, last I looked, Mr. Johnson is still alive as are many who were once doomed (all hail, medical science), which doesn’t in any way detract from the power of Power Of Love – one of those rare songs about that most complex of four letter words, that doesn’t diminish it, doesn’t whore it for cheap emotions, maybe sell some flowers and chocolates on Valentines Day. And I think it’s very much because of that vampire line at the beginning, the truth it nails, figurative and otherwise.” (Philip Random)

154. voodoo chile

There are two Voodoo Chiles on Jimi Hendrix‘s four-sided masterpiece Electric Ladyland, the second one (the Slight Return) being the one everybody’s heard perhaps too many times (even if it is full-on genius). But the first version which takes up the bulk of side one – that still sounds as fresh and immediate as the fifteen minutes or so in which it originally came to be. Stevie Winwood‘s the guy that dropped in to groove away on the Hammond organ in what amounted to pretty much a free jam. As for the rhythm section, that seems to have been the Experience’s Mitch Mitchell and Jefferson Airplane’s Jack Casady who just happened to be hanging around. It was that kind of scene, that kind of album.

