23 Jul 2023
1. Hank Williams: 40 Greatest Hits. I'm a bit picky when it comes to country & western, there's a lot of it I can't stand. But Hank Williams is a god. If you're into pop music and appreciate the art of the perfect 3-minute 3-chord song, Hank just banged them out one after the other after the other - before Elvis, before The Beatles. He was one of *the* great rhythm guitarists as well
2. The Velvet Underground: White Light/White Heat. Hard to say anything about this album that hasn't already been said. It's got Sister Ray on it, which imo is the single greatest rock & roll song ever recorded
3. Kraftwerk: Trans Europe Express. My second-favourite Kraftwerk album, I enjoy listening to the first one (the red traffic cone album) a little more, but this one probably had a greater impact on me overall, as it was my gateway drug to EDM
4. The Residents: Meet the Residents. Hoy shit, was I into The Residents. Even before I heard their music, I used to haunt the import record stores in town and pore over their shrink-wrapped covers. There was something about the graphics, the mysterious image, the fact that they performed incognito and nobody knew who they were, the sly sense of humour, it all just really grabbed me. The first album I bought was Duck Stab/Buster and Glen, I was primed for it to blow my mind, and it did, with is twisted bizarre pop and its sinister atmospheres. Then I collected all the others, up to the Commercial Album (I thought they lost their way a bit after 1980). I still love their work from the 1970s, but Meet the Residents is the one that's stayed with me, it's surprising and berserk and hilarious and terrifying and just a master class in how you can push musical boundaries to the edge of sanity while still remaining tuneful and even catchy
5. Throbbing Gristle: DOA. If the ethos of punk was that you don't have to have formal musical training to produce something interesting, then TG were the quintessential punk band. I guess in retrospect they were more like some sort of dadaist provocateur art project posing as a band than an actual band, but their first couple of albums still pack a legitimate musical punch. The first one, Second Annual Report, is amazing but it's a tough listen and you have to be in the mood for some punishment - squalling, blistering noise, mostly improvised live, that sounds like it was recorded on a dictaphone. But DOA has a more sophisticated approach to composition & sound (although it still has moments that will strip the paint off your walls if played loud), and it's a masterpiece. This album got me into drone, as well as pointing me in the direction of a bunch of other experimental UK artists - Nurse With Wound, Whitehouse, zoviet-france, Nocturnal Emissions, Cabaret Voltaire - that completely upended my ideas of what music could or should be