50 greatest albums

[Ken Gargett]

i know as much chance of agreement here as with the top sportsman (other than bradman) but thought it might be of interest.

noel mengel has been the courier mail's music writer for ages. seems switched on. this is his top 50 (well, 50-41 today) and i have no idea what is coming.

will try and remember to post the rest.

i figure as long as springsteen has the top five and may be a dylan or two and some stones and neil young to round out the top ten, i'll be happy.

Noel Mengel's updated top 50 rock'n'roll albums - 41 to 50

MY mission: to celebrate the 50th anniversary of rock'n'roll in 2005 by selecting the 50 greatest albums of the rock era.

It was one of the toughest tasks in my career as a music writer. And one of the most enjoyable.

To have the broadest possible reach, each artist was to have only one entry, with a few honourable exceptions like John Lennon in solo mode as well as with The Beatles. If I could have chosen 1000 I still wouldn't have been content.

The aim was to represent the rock'n'roll era, which meant leaving out some obvious contenders from the words of jazz (Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, Frank Sinatra) and country (George Jones, Ray Charles). The other brief was to represent the album as a piece of art, which meant the '50s didn't figure strongly because the rock album didn't begin to rise until the '60s. The '60s and '70s tend to dominate because that's when the art form was new, all blue sky.

On reflection, it was a good list, idiosyncratic and provocative in some ways, conservative in others. But what was I doing leaving out The Doors and The Byrds? I have made a few changes, dropping some records that of course are great but which the years since have shown are not quite in the league of The Doors, The Byrds' Mr Tambourine Man and The Triffids' Born Sandy Devotional.

Are there albums from younger artists deserving of a place? Of course many will think so. Certainly albums such as Ryan Adams's Heartbreaker, The Streets' Original Pirate Material and Sufjan Stevens's Illinois keep proving their worth as the years go by. Most years bring worthy new contenders.

It is a list that reflects my age, my taste, and my record collection. Of course, you will be able to nominate hundreds of albums also deserving a place. Me too.

50

THE BOATMAN'S CALL

Nick Cave (1997)

LIKE a number of the albums that feature in this 50, The Boatman's Call is out there in a world of its own, out of step with popular music yet far more resilient than many of the big sellers of its time. Nothing in popular music cuts through like honest emotions and Cave has never laid himself more open than he does in these tunes of doubt, regret, and lost love. This is music shorn of extravagant gestures. It is direct, almost hymnal. The album contains two of Cave's greatest songs, Into My Arms and People Ain't No Good. However, these two are all the better when heard as part of the whole album, which gently opens up to reveal Cave's masterpiece.

49

ELECTRIC WARRIOR

T Rex (1971)

POP music doesn't have to be disposable. In the end, Electric Warrior is even better than Marc Bolan suspected when he electrified his old hippie acoustic duo and aimed straight for the top of the pops, kick-starting glam rock in the process. Bolan takes gleeful delight at the absurdity of the pop adventure, delivering his cosmic psycho-babble with a theatrical shake of his flowing locks and a wiggle of his hips. The songs are simple, deliriously catchy, delivered with the same unpretentious verve that powered rock'n'roll in the '50s. You might not be able to write a thesis about Jeepster or Get It On, but anyone who doesn't come out the other end of this album thinking the world isn't such a bad place is a serious case indeed.

48

A NOD IS AS GOOD AS A WINK TO A BLIND HORSE

The Faces (1971)

ROD Stewart and Ron Wood, lately of the Jeff Beck Group, hooked up with three members of The Small Faces when their vocalist Stevie Marriott departed to form Humble Pie. The resulting group was one of the great live bands of the '70s or any other era, mixing early rock'n'roll, soul and folk influences. Bassist Ronnie Lane's songwriting contribution of classics such as Last Orders Please and Debris, delivered in heartbreaking vocal partnership with Stewart, was crucial. And the band rocked with fiercesome force on songs such as Stay With Me and That's All You Need. The myth has grown that The Faces were more interested in having a good time than making great music. Plainly, they could do both.

47

FUN HOUSE

The Stooges (1970)

THOSE who think punk started with the Sex Pistols haven't been looking too hard. Young people with electric guitars will always find a way to crank things up, as did this Detroit combo led by wild-eyed Iggy Pop. This, their second album, carried the flame of dirty, aggressive rock'n'roll into a new decade. Tension was everywhere, in their lives, in their nasty habits, in the studio - their producer, Don Gallucci, couldn't stand them - and it all boils over in their music and songs like TV Eye. But it wasn't a one-dimensional guitar frenzy, with lacerating, downbeat anthems like Dirt and the free-jazz sax adding to the white-noise chaos of LA Blues.

46

THE DOORS

The Doors (1967)

KEYBOARDIST, the late Ray Manzarek, always cheerily admitted that The Doors were happy to borrow from anywhere on the path to creating something original. The band's first hit, Break On Through , the opening track here, featured a bossa nova beat from drummer John Densmore mixed with a splash of Ray Charles's What'd I Say yet with Jim Morrison's Beats-inspired poetry and powerful voice the result is thrillingly original. Even when they cover a blues tune (Back Door Man) or Brecht/Weill (Alabama Song) it sounds like no one but The Doors. Light My Fire took Manzarek's jazz-inspired organ work to the top of the charts, and the album concludes with 11-minute epic The End, music that still sounds as sensual and dangerous as it did on release.

45

BORN SANDY DEVOTIONAL

The Triffids (1985)

DISTANCE gives clarity. So it was for songwriter David McComb and Perth band The Triffids, who joined Nick Cave and The Go-Betweens as Australians finding a welcoming response to their music in Europe. Few albums evoke Australia as vividly as this London-recorded epic, from the aerial shot of West Australian coastal town Mandurah on the cover to the sun-baked, desolate interiors suggested by the songs inside. McComb dug deep into his personal turmoil to create these songs of loss and despair, from the haunting The Seabirds to the anthemic Wide Open Road, and the band's atmospheric details complemented them perfectly. The price was high - McComb died in 1999 at 36 - but no one who fell under the spell of Born Sandy Devotional under-rates the scale of his achievement.

44

BOOKENDS

Simon and Garfunkel (1968)

SIMON and Garfunkel are often thought of today as easy-on-the-ear, even middle-of-the-road popsmiths, yet Bookends holds its own among the many classic albums of the era and rewards long-term listening just as much. And it's not just due to killer pop tunes like Mrs Robinson and A Hazy Shade of Winter either. The album begins with the delicate acoustic guitar of the Bookends Theme, explodes into colour with the ominous synthesisers and sound effects of Save the Life of My Child, then gives way to perhaps Paul Simon's greatest song, America, capturing the hope and despair of youth on a cinematic cross-country bus ride. And try convincing your record company to include a piece like Voices of Old People - just that - on an album in 2005 and see what happens.

43

NEVERMIND

Nirvana (1991)

KURT Cobain was a man in pain. He carried emotional problems from childhood - his parents divorced when he was eight - and became very inward as a person. Until he let it out in his music. The band's creative powerhouse was already struggling with drug and health problems when Nirvana toured Australia in 1991, just when the album turned the rock world on its ear by knocking Michael Jackson's Dangerous from No 1 on the US charts. The resulting pressures on Cobain had tragic results, but on Nevermind he channelled his demons into a cathartic roar from the heart. The sound may be buffed up for a wider audience, but from the opening high of Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nevermind still rocks with a conviction few have managed since Cobain's passing.

42

IT TAKES A NATION OF MILLIONS TO HOLD US BACK

Public Enemy (1988)

THE most important hip-hop band ever, with a sound - dense, funky, ferocious - as fresh today as it was on release. Nation of Millions was a huge leap for rap and popular music, yet it also carried on the social commentary of predecessors such as Marvin Gaye. It is blazing with ideas, with Flavor Flav's quickfire jokes contrasting with the political argument and revolutionary fervour of rapper Chuck D. "Bass! How low can you go? Death row. What a brother knows", Bring the House begins, communicating more with a couple of lines than most modern-day rappers - and rock bands - manage in an album. There is wit too, with tracks like Caught, Can I Get a Witness addressing the then-fledgling art of sampling, and Party For Your Right To Fight turning the advice of white rappers the Beastie Boys on its ear.

41

LIVE AT THE APOLLO

James Brown (1963)

BY this time Brown had some hits, but his reputation as one of the hottest performers in R&B had been earned through sheer hard work: 300 shows a year, with queues around the block wherever he played. He knew the best way to capture the excitement of his performance was with a live album, but he had to battle with his King Records label to do it. In the end, he funded the recording at Harlem's famed Apollo Theatre, the intimate hall where he made his New York breakthrough in 1959. Brown and his band had been playing five shows a day in a week-long engagement when the tapes rolled on October 24, 1962, as news was breaking that John Kennedy had ordered a blockade on Cuba. The result is one of the best-loved live albums ever made. Brown and his band are in smoking form, working up a feverish intensity through songs like I'll Go Crazy and Lost Someone punctuated with the screams and shouts of the audience which truly has to be heard to be believed. "We were the best," says Bobby Bennett of Brown's band the Famous Flames. "I'm not braggin' on us. I'm just telling the truth. It was like compiling a gift from God."

[canadianbeaver]

Like the way this list is going.

[davidsan]

James Brown, most sampled artist of all time.

Public Enemy still the best live performance of any group/band I've ever seen. Flava Flav is the best Hype Man in the Biz.

[Dimmers]

Michael Jordan!

[Jefferson]

Well, I see the guy did mention two of my favorite Bop albums.

I like much of the other stuff too, but if Marquee Moon doesn't make this list then I'll know this guy is a Philistine!

[Jefferson]

....and how about Aja, or Can't Buy a Thrill? Well?

[Jefferson]

....and what of Quadrophinia?

[Jefferson]

He made a good point vis a vis The Stooges, but should also add The New York Dolls and The Modern Lovers. ECT, ECT, ECT.....

And didn't Rocket from the Tombs predate the British guys?

[Jefferson]

He'll have to pick one or more Bowie albums too. This guy is really up against it here.

Okay, Ken, what do you think? I think he's already wasted a few shots on stuff that better albums could/should bump from the list.

[Ken Gargett]

it will have an aussie bent, i suspect, but only natural for an aussie journo writing for an aussie paper.

i think probably fair to see where he goes before too much criticism.

mind you, i've not even heard of half the stuff people suggesting.

as i said, as long as the top five are bruce, i'm fine with it.

[El Presidente]

The office here can tell my mood from the music I drive in on.

I have a $46K Jeep JK Diesel and a $5k Focal stereo system. Makes no sense.....welcome to my life

Public Enemy.....I am pumped. Going to be a tough day for the team.

Eminem/Nirvana/ACDC/Pixies/Offspring/Sex Pistols/ etal....same.

Supertramp, 10CC, Sleepwood Mack..they will know I will be passed out by 12pm.

Love my music

[Ken Gargett]

The office here can tell my mood from the music I drive in on.

I have a $46K Jeep JK Diesel and a $5k Focal stereo system. Makes no sense.....welcome to my life

Public Enemy.....I am pumped. Going to be a tough day for the team.

Eminem/Nirvana/ACDC/Pixies/Offspring/Sex Pistols/ etal....same.

Supertramp, 10CC, Sleepwood Mack..they will know I will be passed out by 12pm.

Love my music

dear walter mitty,

you forget that many of us drift through the soundtrack of your life on that deck. at least at chez swamp, you know you'll get bruce, dylan, neil young or if it is time to leave, william shatner.

on your deck last week you had a marathon lady gaga extravaganza. i tried to drill out my ears.

i have never heard any of those mentioned actually playing when i have been there. talk about one life for publication and one for reality!

i had no idea who/what the scissors sisters were until i was on your deck.

the shame, the horror...

[str8dog]

"Well you're built like a car, you got a hub cap diamond star halo. You're built like a car oh ya.

#49, I could listen to Bang a Gong all day!

... course I have a thing for a dude that can come up with a song title/lyric ... "Have you ever seen a woman coming out of New York City... with a frog in her hand?"

[Hemsworth]

I'm just satisfied to see Nick Cave on the list.

[Cohiba Stevie]

The office here can tell my mood from the music I drive in on.

I have a $46K Jeep JK Diesel and a $5k Focal stereo system. Makes no sense.....welcome to my life

Public Enemy.....I am pumped. Going to be a tough day for the team.

Eminem/Nirvana/ACDC/Pixies/Offspring/Sex Pistols/ etal....same.

Supertramp, 10CC, Sleepwood Mack..they will know I will be passed out by 12pm.

Love my music

Are you for real rob?!!!!!

our tastes in music are frightfully similar!

On the list: Nirvanas nevermind was a classic... In fact I think I might play it while having a RASCC after an exceptionally long and sh!tty day.

I will be interested in seeing the rest of the list.

Good post.

[GernBlansten]

Pixies

Strong! Way above the rim, Rob!

Which album of theirs do you favor?

[El Presidente]

Strong! Way above the rim, Rob!

Which album of theirs do you favor?

Can't go past Surfer Rosa although Doolittle is close behind.

[GernBlansten]

Can't go past Surfer Rosa although Doolittle is close behind.

Agreed! Still remember the first time I heard Surfer Rosa. I'll throw Come On Pilgrim on that list too: "Hey! Been tryin' to meet you....." Great live act too!!

Ken, it'll been fun to watch this list because of the Aussie slant. A different flavor from Rolling Stone's lists.

[kuma]

I think it is called "Road House Blues" the Doors

[El Presidente]

CONTINUE Noel Mengel's revised countdown of the top 50 albums of the rock era, following his places for 41 to 50, as revealed at couriermail.com.au on Monday.

40

Radiohead (1997)

PRE-MILLENNIUM tension, Radiohead-style. All that angst - their first exposure was through the self-loathing of Creep - came howling through the wires as they recorded in a 15th-century mansion near Bath. Titles such as Paranoid Android, Subterranean Homesick Alien and Karma Police summed up the nervy atmosphere. Yet there is great beauty too as Thom Yorke soars and sighs in vocal tracks often captured in first takes. And groovy guitars weren't completely out the window, with the electricity surging through the unleashed garage-psychedelia of Electioneering. The walls of that old mansion hadn't heard anything like OK Computer. Then again, neither had anywhere else.

39

SOMETHING ELSE

The Kinks (1967)

THE Kinks were one of the great quartet of '60s British bands and their records certainly stand the test of time alongside The Beatles, The Stones and The Who even if Something Else fell between the commercial cracks when it was released. Everyone knew The Kinks could rock (see All Day and All of the Night), but Something Else follows chief writer Ray Davies' more wistful muse, with gentle acoustic ballads No Return and End of the Season perched alongside perfect pop-psychedelia like Lazy Old Sun and Davies' finely observed social comment in David Watts All This. The album features perhaps The Kinks' greatest song, Waterloo Sunset. Something Else is a classic Brit-pop record, a quarter of a century before anyone applied the phrase to Blur and Oasis.

38

LIBERTY BELLE AND THE BLACK DIAMOND EXPRESS

The Go-Betweens (1986)

THERE is something that's hard to beat about a two-songwriter band when those two talents are in perfect alignment. If a song is to get on an album it has to be great. And such was the case for Brisbane-raised songwriters Robert Forster and Grant McLennan on their London-recorded fourth album where the band's darker, astringent edge is balanced with an almost giddy romanticism, not to mention some of the best pop-music lyrics this side of Bob Dylan. Aching, elegiac tunes like The Wrong Road and Apology Accepted nestle beside songs of intangible mystery (Twin Layers of Lightning) and spring-in-the-step infatuation (Head Full of Steam). As with all top-quality albums, there is something about Liberty Belle that is even greater than the sum of its handsome parts.

37

THE QUEEN IS DEAD

The Smiths (1986)

WORTH the price for the pleasure of reading Morrissey's lyrics on the cover alone. It finds him casting a perspicacious eye over a variety of topics including his special subject, the agonies of loneliness and rejection. Few songs have so exquisitely captured the anguish of the passage to adulthood as There is a Light That Never Goes Out ("In the darkened underpass/I thought Oh God, my chance has come at last/Then a strange fear gripped me and I just couldn't ask"). Guitarist Johnny Marr's music provides the perfect foil - from sprightly rock (Bigmouth Strikes Again) to acoustic melancholy (I Know It's Over) - which gives the album the impression of a carefully planned masterwork. But things rarely run so smoothly in the rock world. The band was worn to a frazzle from touring and hadn't even heard finished songs when they reported for duty. Marr had handed over a swiftly recorded demo of music to Morrissey on the Friday, and there was much relief on the Monday when he turned up at the studio and started singing some of his strongest melodies and one devastating lyric after another.

36

ROCKET TO RUSSIA

The Ramones (1977)

THE Ramones stripped rock'n'roll to its bare essentials: a couple of chords, a four-four beat, a fuzzed-up guitar, and catchy pop tunes played as fast they could manage. Others were working in a similar direction in pockets around the world but The Ramones laid a blueprint for punk - minus the class-angst of the British variety. By this third album, The Ramones had honed their style to a razor edge with a bunch of glorious '60s-inspired bubblegum classics such as Rockaway Beach and the hilarious Jan-and-Dean-go-punk of Sheena is a Punk Rocker, perhaps the greatest Ramones song of them all. There was even a '60s tune, all one minute and 55 seconds of Do You Wanna Dance, delivered in a way that Cliff Richard never imagined. Rocket To Russia perfects the band's sound, is a superior recording to their previous albums, and even tosses in a couple of slower tempos for variety. But not many!

35

REMAIN IN LIGHT

Talking Heads (1980)

TALKING HEADS emerged with the New York new wave at the time of Blondie and The Ramones but their art-school experimental streak, encouraged by producer Brian Eno, was soon pushing rock music in thrilling new directions. The injection of funk and African-inspired polyrhythms found perfect shape on their fourth album Remain In Light. The band - expanded to a nine-piece to reproduce the music's intricate detail on stage - set up an irresistible groove as David Byrne chants his disarming lyrics, such as "You may find yourself in a beautiful house/With a beautiful wife/And you may ask yourself/How did I get here?" Proof that bold, adventurous, original music need not live on the fringes, the album was also a major commercial success.

34

HARD AGAIN

Muddy Waters (1977)

WATERS' contribution to the blues (and to the millions of rock'n'rollers inspired by him) is incalculable, but after a decade of releasing patchy albums and aged 62, no-one expected him to again revisit the glories of the electric blues records he made in Chicago in the '50s. Then they heard Hard Again. With white Texan bluesman Johnny Winter as producer, Waters leads a top-flight band including James Cotton on harmonica and Pinetop Perkins on piano. The sound is raw and vital with an emphasis on "feel" rather than merely capturing a mistake-free version. Hear Waters gleefully shouting for soloists to step up as the band rips through takes - first takes, no doubt - of favourites from his catalogue such as Can't Be Satisfied and Jealous Hearted Man. For an introduction to the electric blues, look no further than the incredible workout on I'm a Man.

33

THE SONGS OF LEONARD COHEN

Leonard Cohen (1968)

COHEN had toiled long and hard on his craft as Canada's most widely respected young poet and novelist before he applied those skills to songwriting in the hope of a better-paying career. It shows in the diamond-hard writing that makes up his debut album, released when he was 34. It never for a second feels like the work of a beginner. Cohen was a man not easily satisfied, leading to numerous recording sessions, producers and version after version of the songs before finally arriving at the ones released here, timeless reports from the emotional frontline such as Suzanne and So Long Marianne, as influential on songwriters (and those damaged in love) today as they were in

1968.

32

LADY SOUL

Aretha Franklin (1968)

SIMPLY, pop performances don't come any better than Franklin's reading of (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman, an inspired meeting between the Queen of Soul and one of the greatest songwriting teams in Carole King and Gerry Goffin. They wrote the song for her around a title suggested by Franklin's producer, Jerry Wexler. The result is incandescent, even 37 years on. But all the material - including songs from Ray Charles and James Brown - is of equal quality with Franklin letting loose on Chain of Fools, one of her biggest hits, and Curtis Mayfield's civil rights anthem, People Get Ready. This was Franklin's third album and it offered incontestable evidence that singles-orientated soul could flourish in the age of the album, shining a light for the likes of Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder.

31

MR TAMBOURINE MAN

The Byrds (1965)

ONE of the greatest debut albums of all time and one that introduced hugely influential talents in David Crosby, Chris Hillman and songwriter/vocalists Jim (later Roger) McGuinn and Gene Clark. Apart from anything else their No 1 hit with Bob Dylan's title tune encouraged him to go electric. McGuinn's chiming 12-string Rickenbacker gave them an unmistakable sound, along with the delicious harmonising of some of the finest voices ever gathered in one band. There are four striking Dylan covers here but the writing of Clark in particular is his equal, from the heartbreaking tenderness of Here Without You to sublime rocker I Feel A Whole Lot Better.

[CigarB]

Rob blaring PE... the layers of the man just keep coming!

[asmith]

I like number 37, by The Smiths. I remember years ago reading this article by a sports writer in the lead up to the FA Cup final of 2001. It was between Arsenal and Liverpool it was a very in-depth article about both teams and their form took up the full page of the paper and the writer's conclusion was that Arsenal should win. However in the final sentence he added this, "However Morrissey, the lead singer from The Smiths, is an Arsenal support and I hate The Smiths, so therefore Liverpool should win."

I thought it was the funniest article, a journalist can offer a clear argument throughout then contradict it totally with something that has nothing to do with the subject matter.

[Bartolomeo]

Love me some Smiths/Morrissey

[bugman78629]

RUSH 2112................

[DrunkenMonkey]

RUSH 2112................

The best Rush album is Hemispheres. Someday this will be generally understood.