The Most Important Music Releases in Recent History. Maybe.
What sounds do you listen to? Whether you're into jazz or punk, country or hardcore, surely you want to hear the best of the best.
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die is a book designed to help you do just that, listing (you guessed it) 1001 best albums released between 1955 and 2005.
Editor Robert Dimery assembled this impressive gallery of album listings and information with help from music critics from all over the world. The result is not just a list - it's a really readable collection of info, photos, quotes and opinions on the bands we love and those we don't.
But choosing 1001 best albums is a hard ask - not everyone will agree with the choices. What got left out? There are obvious omissions (Check Your Head by the Beasties is just one). Who gets too many mentions? You'll see them - they'll differ depending on your tastes.
No matter what your personal list looks like this is a great book to browse. You'll definitely find old favourites and probably find new tunes to add to your playlist. It might even make you reconsider some sounds you thought you'd never listen to in your lifetime...
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More About the 1001
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Have Your Say!
A Perfect Score of 1001?
Albums Missing in Action
Have You Read This Book?
Random Album Featurettes
Rumours by Fleetwood Mac
Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols
Life's Too Good - The Sugarcubes
Surfer Rosa - Pixies
The Cars - The Cars
The Runaways - The Runaways
Fun House - The Stooges
Get The Book
If you can't find it at the local bookstore, then Amazon is the place for you. Or there's always the library of course, but this is the kind of book where you might want to scribble on your very own copy.
Also a great Christmas or birthday present for that person who has everything!
Also a great Christmas or birthday present for that person who has everything!
A Perfect Score of 1001?
Does this book make the grade?
Yep, it's pretty good!
sparklenz says:
I don't agree with all of Robert's choices but even so this is a great book and a fun list to browse. Yes, the list misses great things out. Yes, it includes Britney. But it still makes the grade.
No, it sucks!
Random Featurettes...
Below are a few picks from the 1001... more to come!
Rumours by Fleetwood Mac
This may be one of the best-selling albums of all time, but that's not why I like it. For me it's pure nostalgia - my parents used to play it when we went on long car journeys, so Rumours brings back all those good times. Great driving music! And thirty years on we still have that worn out old tape floating around somewhere!Fave tunes on this album are Dreams, Song Bird and Go Your Own Way.
Rumours is featured on page 384 of the book with an entry written by John Tobler. He picks Dreams, Don't Stop, Go Your Own Way, and You Make Loving Fun as key tracks.
curated content from YouTube
curated content from YouTube
Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols
Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious, Steve Jones, Paul Cook, manager Malcolm McClaren... Part band, part cultural weapon - you can't go past the Sex Pistols. It seems wrong and banal to featurette them in a Squidoo lens but I can't help it. This album firmly deserves its place on the list.Fave tracks... Anarchy In the UK, God Save The Queen, Pretty Vacant.
The 1001's feature on Never MInd The Bollocks can be found on page 394. Contributor Ali MacQueen picks Bodies, God Save The Queen, Problems, Anarchy In The UK, Pretty Vacant, and EMI as key tracks - a good 50% of the album.
curated content from YouTube
curated content from YouTube
Life's Too Good - The Sugarcubes
What is it with Iceland? For a tiny country they give the world a disproportionate amount of amazing music. The first time I heard the Sugarcubes I was fascinated - fun, quirky pop with Bjork's incredible voice soaring and twisting and growling.I have to admit that this album isn't as close to my heart as it used to be... But I still get occasional Sugarcube cravings that can only be cured by a listen to Life's Too Good.
As for faves I have often found myself humming Delicious Demon. And Birthday, of course.
curated content from YouTube
Surfer Rosa - Pixies
It's the usual old story - girl hears Gigantic on the radio, becomes instant Pixies fan. But pretty much any track from this Pixies album or any of their others would have had the same effect.
Surfer Rosa tracks that especially make me happy are Where Is My Mind, Bone Machine and Tony's Theme.
But don't stop at Surfer Rosa! Also sample the delights of the earlier Come On Pilgrim (delights include the great Cariboo, Nimrod's Son and Levitate Me).
And Doolittle - life would be lacking without hearing Debaser, Tame, Wave of Mutilation... and I have a real soft spot for Silver too.
Bossanova, Trompe Le Monde... both great albums as well. So much great music from the Pixies! Makes it nigh on impossible to choose just the one album.
curated content from YouTube
The Cars - The Cars
In that musical mire of adolescence when I still wasn't sure what music I liked, there was one certainty - The Cars were great. But as the eighties came and went and the nineties rolled in, it was somehow uncool to like The Cars. Luckily years later, cool or not, The Cars are still great! They remind me of summer, freedom and good times. And there's just something about Rik Ocasek's voice. Predictably I guess their bigger hits are closest to my heart. Fave track on this album would have to be Good Times Roll, while Just What I Needed comes in a close second, and of course My Best Friend's Girl is a classic. Later albums offer great tracks like Let's Go, Shake It Up and Tonight She Comes.You'll find The Cars featured on page 415 of the 1001. Contributor Jaime Welton picks Good Times Roll, My Best Friend's Girl, Just What I Needed, You're All I've Got Tonight, Bye Bye Love, and Moving In Stereo as key tracks on The Cars.
curated content from YouTube
curated content from YouTube
The Runaways - The Runaways
One band that fails to make the 1001 list (and whose most famous member doesn't get a mention either) is The Runaways. Yet this 70s all-girl rock band was the forerunner of many other great female bands and artists - so I have to add a tribute.Plus when I was younger I thought Joan Jett was the coolest woman ever (she is still amazing) so as she started out in The Runaways they definitely rate a mention in this lens!
My fave track, and maybe their most famous, is Cherry Bomb from their 1976 album The Runaways. Also great is I Love Playing With Fire.
This featurette is also a little nod to The Runaways movie currently in production, which is scheduled for release next year. Dakota Fanning will play one time lead singer of The Runaways Cherie Currie and Kristen Stewart (of Twilight fame) will play Joan. Fingers crossed that it will do the band justice.
The Runaways albums
The Runaways Documentary
Former bandmember Vicki Blue (now known as Victory Tischler-Blue) wrote and directed a 2004 documentary called Edgeplay: A Film About The Runaways.
It's great seeing so much footage of the band as they were then and as they are now, but there's hardly any of the band's music. Plus the recent interviews don't include Joan Jett... No present-day Joan and a lack of Runaways music guarantee a disappointing doco, sad to say.
But definitely worth a look for fans, and hopefully the upcoming 2010 movie will fill the music gaps.
It's great seeing so much footage of the band as they were then and as they are now, but there's hardly any of the band's music. Plus the recent interviews don't include Joan Jett... No present-day Joan and a lack of Runaways music guarantee a disappointing doco, sad to say.
But definitely worth a look for fans, and hopefully the upcoming 2010 movie will fill the music gaps.
This live footage is from Japanese tv (the band was big in Japan). And delicate minds be warned - Cherie wears her infamous corset outfit in this one :-)
curated content from YouTube
curated content from YouTube
Fun House - The Stooges
Think live performance, think extreme, think Iggy Pop. His bare chested exhibitionism and invasive crowd interaction took band frontsmanship to a new level in the 60s and 70s. But aside from inventing the stage dive, Iggy and his band The Stooges also made great music. Their hard, driving protopunk rock has not only stood the test of time but inspired many other bands (and more recently a few commercials too). So it is only fitting that Fun House holds a place in the 1001.All the tracks on this album are great but my personal faves here are Loose and Dirt.
You'll find Fun House on page 214 of 1001 Albums. Stevie Chick does the write-up, and rates Down On The Street, Loose, TV Eye, and Fun House as key tracks.
Fun House isn't the only great Stooges or Iggy album of course. Otherwise the world would be a sadder place without legendary tracks like I Wanna Be Your Dog, Lust For Life (famously used in the movie Trainspotting), Search And Destroy, and Passenger.
And speaking of Passenger, a movie of the same name is in production that spotlights Iggy and the Stooges' early days together. So sometime this year we'll see Elijah Wood playing Iggy Pop... I can't imagine how that'll work but hope to be pleasantly surprised.
curated content from YouTube
curated content from YouTube
Another 1001 Albums!
Well, another list anyway. There can always be more than one list...
UK media giant The Guardian published its own list of 1001 important albums, though there's obviously a bit of overlap between these albums and those included in the book. I see that the Spice Girls make it onto The Guardian's list, but all the other Missing In Action albums are still missing! Ah well. At least Mazzy Star made it onto this list with So Tonight That I Might See, which is fantastic. (By the way, their Among My Swan is great as well.)
- The Guardian's 1001 Albums To Hear Before You Die
- The Guardian's list...
- Albums The Guardian Had Left Out In The Cold...
- The Guardian asked readers which albums weren't on their list. Sounds like they got a lot of feedback! For your added viewing and listening pleasure here are the albums that Guardian readers thought were missing in action.
Have You Read This Book? Have Your Say.
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danielmccarthy
Apr 22, 2012 @ 10:16 pm | delete
- I didn't notice you mention Michael Jackson at all. If his book is worth anything, surely he must mention at least a couple of his albums, if not all!
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uneasywriter
Mar 27, 2012 @ 3:27 pm | delete
- Definitely a must read for any serious music fan or person in the business but, it's hard for me to agree with some of the choices of the author.
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sparklenz
Mar 29, 2012 @ 5:59 am | delete
- Hi there uneasywriter, I totally agree with you - if not with the author... not all the time anyway. What would you leave out? Or put in?
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Pastiche
Dec 17, 2009 @ 8:39 am | delete
- A MUSIC HEAD'S MUST READ. But, I have some reservations on the picks if Brit-neee is in there ... will check it out.
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sparklenz
Dec 17, 2009 @ 11:26 pm | delete
- Hi Pastiche, you're right it's definitely a must-read book for music heads! I think everyone will have reserverations on at least some of the picks. Turning the pages and thinking 'oh yes!' or 'oh no!' is part of the fun! And I have to say that yes, Miss Brit is there on page 852. The reasoning is that "although dismissed by most critics" she has one of the biggest selling debut albums of all time and singlehandedly reignited the cheesy dance music scene in the late nineties. Well the book uses slightly different terms but that's the gist. And she is good for a boogie I have to admit :-)
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