I love records.
Today is my 33 And A
Third birthday, so I wrote a list of my favorite 33.3 records that I own. And
then I became paralyzed with fear. This is not something “serious critics”
usually do. Mostly because nobody gives a shit and nobody asked and it’s bad,
boring copy. Also it leaves me vulnerable to criticism, and every “serious
critic” hates that more than ANYTHING. If you wanted to nitpick me and call me
names based on this list, you’d have several very good angles. I’d lie there
and take it and probably agree with you. I am not a serious critic.
But hey. I love
records. That’s the point. I’m not “right,” here. I’m not correct. These
records aren’t the only records ever or the only ones I enjoy or the most
essential blah blah blah of blah blah blah that you should blah blah. These are not "look at me and my records I have, consumerist brag, aren't I so great"? These are
just records I love that make me glad there’s such a thing as any record, and glad
there’s such a thing as these specific records, and glad I can have them and be
with them and listen to them and know them while I’m here being alive. I love
these records. I love them so much I put them all out on my kitchen floor and
took a picture of them for you. For our purposes, my kitchen floor is a kickass
laser field. I'm happy to show you my Kitchen’s Floor, but I
draw the line at allowing you to see my kitchen’s floor.
If there’s a great
record not on this list, I either don’t own it or I’m not as into it right now
as the records on this list, for whatever reason. My method for compiling this
was scientifically derived by looking at my records and thinking about them for
the bare minimum amount of time and then writing down my thoughts.
If I had to guess,
I’d say this has a 90% chance of boring the living breath out of you. Enjoy.
33.333333: Thee
Hydrogen Terrors – Terror, Diplomacy, and Public Relations
I love a third of
this album more than I’ve ever loved any third of any album ever. Another third
of it is pretty damn good, and the last third is a complete fucking mess. Over
three minutes of audio thank you’s? PRESSED ON VINYL? As much as I love the
complete horribleness of that idea, this assures I will never play side two of
this in my house ever ever EVER, even though “Plate In My Head” is in
contention for my favorite song of all time.
33: A Tribe Called
Quest – The Low End Theory
I was watching the
Tribe Called Quest documentary, and when they got to the part where they went
into the studio to make Low End Theory and they play Phife’s verse on
“Buggin’ Out”, I cried. So yeah, it’s on the list. It’s a rule I have. Any
album whose mere existence has made me cry tears of joy makes it on the list. Even
if 2XLPs are a pain to listen to and I don’t even have to play it because I
have every single moment memorized.
32. Lightning Bolt – Ride
The Skies
I’m just glad I have
this to work out to twice a winter. Also, if I was a major league baseball
player, “13 Monsters” would be my at-bat music. I love having a stock answer to
a question like that, something nobody will ever ask me unless they’re just
waiting to tell me their answer. I think about this pretty much every single
time I watch a baseball game, which is often.
31. Television – Marquee
Moon
The first time you
start listening to this it’s overdone and pretentious. The second time, when
you already know every note and you’re not all hung up on figuring out what you
think of it, it makes you slowly shake your head side to side with your eyes closed
like you’re on a porch swing in a Bonnie Raitt video.
30. Heavy Times – Dead
This is my favorite
album by a Chicago band since I moved here in 2001. Yes, including fucking
Wilco fucking Yankee Hotel fucking Foxtrot.
29. Comets on Fire – Comets
on Fire
Collector info bonus:
the metallic flakes from the gold spray paint get in the record’s grooves like
guaranteed dust, just FYI, so don’t pay any more than $50 for it.
28. Sam Prekop – Sam
Prekop
Okay, so you caught
me. I have a favorite sex record.
27. Les Rallizes
Denudes – Heavier Than A Death In The Family
Do I really listen to
this all the time? No, but when I do, I need to. I have a lot of records
in the category of autodestruct soundwall masochism rock, but this is the best
one, probably in existence.
26. The Monks – Black
Monk Time
More than any other
album on this list, nothing like this would have ever been made if it weren’t
for the fact that these particular guys made this particular thing.
25. Thin Lizzy – Jailbreak
If you’re not at
least mildly happy when somebody puts “The Boys Are Back In Town” on a jukebox,
you’re a communist.
24. Personal and the
Pizzas – Raw Pie
Stealing every riff
and melody the Stooges and Ramones ever came up with and making them all into
songs about pizza is an idea whose time has never not come. If you don’t “get”
the “joke”, I feel sorry for you (the joke is there is no joke and there’s
nothing to get and “the craft of songwriting” is at its best when it’s at its
easiest).
23. The Rolling
Stones – Flowers
Yes, my favorite
Stones album is an outtakes collection. It’s my body and I get to decide.
22. Alexander “Skip”
Spence – Oar
We all need a boo hoo
hoo album, and this is my boo hoo hoo oh wait what am I saying at least I’m not
going insane, I’m fine, I’m fine album.
21. Can – Delay
1968
Malcolm Mooney is the
Nikola Tesla of frontmanning.
20. Brian Eno – Here
Come The Warm Jets
So I wear lipstick
and women’s underwear when nobody’s looking, so what? I love this album because
you have no way of knowing if I’m kidding right now.
19. J.J. Cale – Naturally
If I put this on at a
barbecue and somebody was like “this is bumming me out,” I’d call the guys from
X-Files.
18. Richard Hell and
the Voidoids – Blank Generation
The marriage of
poetry and rock n’ roll has always been a rocky one, and it turns out the best
marriage counselor is Robert Quine.
17. R. Stevie Moore –
Glad Music
If “I Like To Stay
Home” had a logo, I’d get a tattoo of it.
16. Shoes – Black
Vinyl Shoes
What’s great about
this album is every single time you listen to it, you rediscover every single
song and go, “Oh yeah! This one! I love this one!”
15. Magic Sam Blues
Band – West Side Soul
Sometimes I like to
crank this on the weekend while I dump with the door open because it’s morning
time and I’m a grown man.
14. The Stooges – The
Stooges
If I had to choose a
favorite Stooges album, it’s this, but really Funhouse and Raw Power
are tied and I just put The Stooges The Stooges here because cut and
paste.
13. Young Marble
Giants – Colossal Youth
Once you tell
yourself the bass is not actually trying to be funky but instead is presenting
moments of bass funkiness as a kind of funky bass found sound, this is a
perfect album.
12. T. Rex – Electric
Warrior
I hope nobody’s reading
this hoping to be surprised by anything. Yes, I too do the shoulderhunchy
coketeeth dance to “Mambo Sun.” I will do it alone, in a crowd, wherever.
11. Thee Oh Sees – Help
Those eight notes
that open up “Enemy Destruct” are the very fuckest of yesses.
10. Love – Forever
Changes
You guys heard of
this one?
9. 13th
Floor Elevators – Easter Everywhere
This is just now
emerging as a go-to for me, and man oh man was it worth the wait.
8. The Congos – Heart
of the Congos
Little known secret:
the grooves on this are so deep that if you put this on while you’re doing
dishes, they’ll come alive and do themselves like in Fantasia.
7. Suicide – Second
Album
I like it more than
the classic first album because Frankie Teardrop is too much.
6. Guided By Voices –
Alien Lanes
Would it kill these
guys to put out some more reissues? How much longer must we all pay the price
for not being one of the five people that got Bee Thousand on vinyl?
5. The Kinks – The
Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society
I love it when an
album bites all the way into the runout grooves and you can put it on and get
something accomplished before flipping it over and also that whole time it’s
this.
4. Ramones – Ramones
I mean, come on. What
am I, an idiot?
3. The Troggs – Wild
Thing
Wading through the
two-song differences between US versus UK versions of LP’s in the 60’s is such
an exhausting waste of time they actually make me thankful for the invention of
the MP3. Mono vs. Stereo pressings I understand, because once stereo showed up
people were like “oh cool, we can finally put the drums on the side of Ben’s
car that’s shorted out,” so of course Mono is better (unless the Stereo pressing
is the rarer one), but debating UK versus US versions is a pain in the ass.
Still: I choose the US version of From Nowhere because “With A Girl Like
You” is the best song on the album, and maybe all time, so US version gets the
nod even if “The Jaguar and the Thunderbird” on the UK version is great and
underrated. Another bonus: I have the US version and not the UK version.
2. Television Personalities
– …And Don’t The Kids Just Love It
This is the perfect
album that is most perfect for me right now. It hits me right in the middle of
my right nowsies.
1. The Velvet
Underground – The Velvet Underground
I’m a third album
guy. Sometimes you walk over and take the needle off during “Murder Mystery”
and then stand there with the platter in your hand and stare out the window for
15 solid minutes, and sometimes you let it go all the way through “After Hours”
and then flip it over again before standing there and staring out the window
for 15 solid minutes. Really the best VU album is if you took this one and
replaced those last two tracks with “Oh Gin”, “Inside Your Heart”, and “Sweet
Jane”, but then the Velvets wouldn’t be the Velvets, and if there’s anything I
know in this world it’s that the Velvets MUST be the Velvets or else all hell
will break loose.
