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Friday, Sep 20 2019, 6AM
Number 666 in our best albums of all time countdown is Black Sabbath's "Black Sabbath, Vol. 4." this was Black Sabbath's fourth studio album (as you may have guessed), released in September, 1972. According to guitarist Tommy Iommi, the recording was plagued with problems, many due to substance abuse. In the studio, the band regularly had speaker boxes full of cocaine delivered. Oh, by the way, good morning and happy Friday!
Number 665. "Man in Black" was the 38th (Whew!) overall album by Johnny Cash, released on Columbia Records in 1971.
Number 664. The Pretenders' initial studio album debuted at number 1 on the UK Albums Chart in the week of its release and stayed there for four consecutive weeks. It also made the top 10 on the Billboard 200 and was certified Platinum during 1982 by the RIAA.
Number 663. The Smiths' fourth and final album is the only Smiths album to feature Morrissey playing an instrument. (Or, at least, the only album where he gets a credit.) Death of a Disco Dancer features the frontman playing piano.
Number 662 on our best all-time album countdown. Tusk is the 12th studio album by Fleetwood Mac, released as a double album on October 12th, 1979. During the recording of the album, Mick Fleetwood got a large pair of replica elephant tusks that he set up on either side of the console, which became known as "Tusk." Whenever the console wasn't working, the band would say, "Tusk is down, Tusk isn't working!"
According to Stevie Nicks, the tusks gave them inspiration. "Those 13 months working in that room were our journey up the sacred mountain to the sacred African percussion place where all the gods of music lived," she said.
Number 661. According to this laudatory review, this fifth album (2018) was Damon McMahon's "euphoric breakthrough.": pitchfork.com
Number 660. "In Colour" was English producer Jamie xx's full-length solo debut, composed during a five-year period while he was a member of the band The xx. His bandmate Romy Madley Croft is collaborating with him on this song, "Loud Places."
Number 659. This 2017 release was the third by electronic music duo Odesza. Watch a live performance from that year in the KEXP studio: www.youtube.com
Number 658. "Movement" was the debut studio album by New Order. It was released on November 13th, 1981. Joy Division's Ian Curtis had killed himself in May, 1980, and New Order was still finding its feet when this album came out.
Number 657. "Within and Without" was the first full-length album by Atlanta musician Ernest Greene (aka Washed Out).
Number 656. "Saturdays =Youth" was the fifth album by M83. The album was produced by Ken Thomas, known for his work with Sigur Rós, The Sugarcubes, Cocteau Twins, and Suede, with co-production by Ewan Pearson and M83 leader Anthony Gonzalez.: bit.ly
Number 655. "Zooropa" won the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album in 1994. Bono was incensed that the album wasn't nominated for Album of the Year. “I thought of Zooropa at the time as a work of genius,” said Bono in 2006. “I really thought our pop discipline was matching our experimentation and this was our Sgt. Pepper. I was a little wrong about that.”
Number 654. "Starfish," the fifth album by The Church, was the band's breakthrough album. It went gold in America and has remained their most commercially successful release. Watch the video for "Under the Milky Way": www.youtube.com
Number 653. This powerful album by Australian band Midnight Oil was released in August 1987. It addressed issues like labor injustice and reparations for indigenous peoples.: www.popmatters.com
Number 652. This 1976 release was the eight studio album by Bob Marley & The Wailers.
"After ... long years of cult-hero status, Rastaman Vibration brought Bob Marley and the Wailers chart success at last. ... It became the band’s first, and indeed only album to reach the US Top 10 and made similar inroads into the UK chart, where it reached No.15.": www.udiscovermusic.com
Number 651. "Blue Bell Knoll" was the fifth studio album by Cocteau Twins. "The vocal arrangements on Blue Bell Knoll allow Fraser’s vocal acrobatics to shine rather than simply hover in mystery, buried under a shroud of dense sound. Many of Fraser’s lyrics, she once explained, were simply words taken from foreign language dictionaries simply because she liked their sound. Barely decipherable most times, Fraser’s singing on Blue Bell Knoll actually features understandable lyrics at points...": consequenceofsound.net
Number 650. This was The Sunday's debut album, released in January, 1990. The album name is a reference to the band's hometown, Reading, Berkshire. This review calls it the first great album of the decade.: bit.ly
Number 649. "Building Nothing Out of Something," released in 2000, is a compilation album made up of non-album tracks from various points in the band's career.
Number 648. "Friday I'm in Love" helped "Wish" reach #1 on the UK charts. "Wish" was nominated for the 1992 Best Alternative Music Album Grammy award, but lost to "Bone Machine" by Tom Waits.
Number 647. "The Hurting" was the debut album for Tears for Fears. It came out on March 7, 1983 and peaked at No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart in its second week of release. The album was certified Gold by the BPI within three weeks of release, and reached Platinum status in January 1985.
Number 646. "Sheer Heart Attack" was recorded between July and September 1974 at four different studios. It was released in November of that year.: www.udiscovermusic.com
Number 645 in our listener all-time favorite album countdown. "The Trinity Session," the second album by Cowboy Junkies, came out in 1988. The music was recorded inside Toronto's Church of the Holy Trinity on November 27, 1987, with the band circled around a single microphone. To better persuade the officials of the historic church, the band claimed to be The Timmins Family Singers and said they were recording a Christmas special for radio.
Number 644. This was Eddie Vedder's debut solo album. Director Sean Penn hand-picked Vedder to provide the music for the film. "Into the Wild." Previously, Vedder had contributed two songs to the soundtrack for the 1995 film Dead Man Walking and a cover of the Beatles' "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" to the soundtrack for the 2001 film I Am Sam, both of which starred Penn.
Number 643. This was the second album by Elliott Smith and was released on July 21, 1995. Read the heartbreaking story of this album: www.udiscovermusic.com
Number 642. This was the fifth studio album by Mr. Vile and came out on April 9th, 2013. It was the first NOT to feature contributions from long-time collaborator and former bandmate Adam Granduciel. Read a glowing review: pitchfork.com
Number 641. "If Throwing Muses’ lengthy recording career is one with many peaks and few troughs, few would argue that their golden age was the Tanya Donelly years, her piercing, witchy vocals a perfectly eerie counterpoint to the feral roar and harsh, jagged guitars of her step-sister (and chief muse) Kristin Hersh." Read a BBC tribute to this great 1991 album: www.bbc.co.uk
Number 640. "Emperor Tomato Ketchup" is the fourth studio album by English-French rock band Stereolab. Released in 1996, it takes its name from the 1971 experimental film Tomato Kecchappu Kōtei (Emperor Tomato Ketchup) by Japanese author and director Shūji Terayama.
Number 638. The album "Superfuzz Bigmuff" was the debut EP by Seattle band Mudhoney and was released on October 20th, 1988. Here's Mudhoney atop The Space Needle: www.youtube.com
Number 637. This album by The English Beat was released in October, 1980: www.allmusic.com
Number 636. "Look Sharp" was the debut album by Joe Jackson. The cover, featuring a pair of white shoes, ranked number 22 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest album covers of all time
Number 635. "The Impossible Kid," out in 2016, was the seventh studio album by Rhymesayers artist Aesop Rock. Cat lovers everywhere relish "Kirby.": www.youtube.com
Number 634. "Tigermilk" was the 1996 debut album by Scottish musicians Belle and Sebastian. "Belle and Sebastian might never have formed had it not been for Murdoch’s bout with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which knocked the onetime marathon runner out of commission for about seven years beginning in the late '80s. During his illness, Murdoch would fiddle with the piano when he had the energy and sometimes ride buses around Glasgow, marveling at how regular people lived. His observations would inform many of the songs on 'Tigermilk'": bit.ly
Number 633. 2008's "Keep Your Eyes Ahead' was the fourth studio album from this Portland band. Here's the official video for this terrific song: www.youtube.com
Number 632. Ohh! This was Tom Petty's debut album, released in 1989. Read a track-by-track discussion of the songs on this classic album: www.billboard.com
Number 632 (continued). We couldn't play just one song from this album. It's fitting that "Free Fallin'" leads off the album, as Petty said its creation marked the moment it became clear there was a magical chemistry between himself and the album's producer, Jeff Lynne. The day after their first brief musical collaboration, the pair was goofing off on keyboard and guitar. A stray lyric fragment suggestion from Lynne quickly led into what became one of Petty's signature songs. "There’s not a day that goes by that someone doesn’t hum ‘Free Fallin” to me or I don’t hear it somewhere,” Petty told Rolling Stone years later. “But it was really only 30 minutes of my life.”
Number 631. It's clear that John isn't the only person who loves Pixies. "Bossanova" was their third studio album, released in 1990. Some have argued that this is the band's weakest album and compare it to an "A" student who gets a "B+": www.allmusic.com
Number 630. This album, recorded between December. 1979 and July, 1980 and released in November, 1980, was considered one of the first goth records.
Number 629. Out in 1992, "Sweet Oblivion" was the band's sixth studio album and was their best-selling release.
Number 628. Garbage's self-titled debut album came out in 1995. A 20th anniversary edition came out in (You guessed it!) 2015: consequenceofsound.net
Number 627. "Big Lizard in My Backyard" is the debut album by The Dead Milkmen, released by Restless Records in 1985. Here's an Allmusic review of the album: www.allmusic.com
Number 626. This was the debut album of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, released in 2005. "Clap Your Hands Say Yeah" was listed as one of the 50 most important recordings of the decade by National Public Radio's All Songs Considered. Watch a live performance at KEXP: www.youtube.com
Ahhh....the Friday song. Inspired? You can pre-donate right now to KEXP's Fall Drive that officially begins at 6:00 p.m. tonight: www.kexp.org
Number 625. Michael Kiwanuka's second studio album, "Love & Hate," was a nominee for the 2016 BBC Music Award for Album of the Year.: www.theguardian.com
Number 624. this eight studio album by KEXP favorites The National was just released on May 17th, 2019. It quickly leaped into this list of listener all-time best albums.
Number 623. Look at this picture of The Beatles (John's hat!) in this discussion of the 1967 psychedelic odyssey, "Magical Mystery Tour": www.rollingstone.com
Number 623 (continued). "All You Need Is Love" was written by John Lennon especially for Our World, the world's first televised satellite link-up between 25 countries worldwide. Its message perfectly encapsulated the optimistic mood of the Summer of Love, with a simplicity perfectly judged for their global audience.: www.beatlesbible.com
Number 622. This album, James' fifth, came out in 1993 and really caught the attention of the U.S. music and fans. " Perhaps it was the album cover artwork, which featured the band’s members sporting a variety of summer dresses, that initially drew attention.": consequenceofsound.net
Number 621. "Little Creatures," released in 1985 was the band's best-selling studio album. the terrific cover art was done by folk artist Howard Finster and was selected as album cover of the year by Rolling Stone.
Number 620. "Kala" was M.I.A.'s second album and came out in 2007. M.I.A. named the album after her mother and said her mother's struggles in life are a major theme of the recording.: www.rollingstone.com
Number 619. XTC's third studio album, released in 1979, was titled to reflect the big drum sound they developed for the album and the addition of a second guitarist (the "wires").
Number 618. This was the Boss' third studio album, released in 1975, and became a huge commercial success. One of the most emotional performances of this title song came at The Spectrum in Philadelphia on December 9, 1980, the night after John Lennon was shot and killed. Springsteen opened the show by saying, "If it wasn't for John Lennon, a lot of us would be some place much different tonight. It's a hard world that asks you to live with a lot of things that are unlivable. And it's hard to come out here and play tonight, but there's nothing else to do."
The band then launched into "Born To Run" in a kind of catharsis: Steve Van Zandt had tears in his eyes and Danny Federici hit his keyboard so hard he broke a key. Thirty-three songs later, Springsteen closed the concert with "Twist And Shout" in tribute to Lennon.
Number 617. "Black Love" was The Afghan Whigs' fifth album, produced by Greg Dulli, and released in March, 1996. In this interview, Dulli talks, twenty years later, about the album: bit.ly
Number 616. 1982's "Special Beat Service" was the third album by British ska band The Beat (The English Beat in the U.S.). "Sooner or later...
Your legs give way, you hit the ground..." Isn't this a wonderful song?
Number 615. This Australian band's second studio album came out in 2008, four years after their debut album.: consequenceofsound.net
Number 614. John just called this debut album by The Chemical Brothers "very influential and pretty important." It came out on June 26th, 1995. Its title is a reference to the duo's departure from their earlier name The Dust Brothers.
Number 613. "Rattle And Hum" (1988) was released as a companion 2-LP set to the Phil Joanou-directed film of the same name. The album highlighted live performances from U2's successful 1987-88 Joshua Tree tour as well as additional songs recorded at Sun Studios in Memphis.
Number 612. "69 Love Songs" was the sixth studio album from The Magnetic Fields and was released in September, 1999 (20 years ago!). The album was originally conceived as a music revue. Stephin Merritt was sitting in a gay piano bar in Manhattan, listening to the pianist's interpretations of Stephen Sondheim songs, when he decided he ought to get into theatre music because he felt he had an aptitude for it. "I decided I'd write one hundred love songs as a way of introducing myself to the world. Then I realized how long that would be. So I settled on sixty-nine."
Number 612 (continued). After all, there are sixty-nine songs on this album! (and, it comes in three volumes!)
Number 612 (continued, continued...) Yeah! Oh, Yeah! , there are three volumes!
Number 611. "Boys Don't Cry" was The Cure's first release in North America. It was released in 1980, but was composed of several tracks from the band's May 1979 debut album "Three Imaginary Boys" (which had yet to see a U.S. release) with material from the band's 1978-1979 era.
Number 610 - Believe it or not, Axl Rose wrote the lyrics for "Welcome to the Jungle" while visiting a friend in Seattle. In 1988, Rose told the magazine Hit Parade: "It's a big city, but at the same time, it's still a small city compared to L.A. .... It seemed a lot more rural up there. I just wrote how it looked to me. If someone comes to town and they want to find something, they can find whatever they want."