21. AC/DC - Back in Black

Another one that was added by Spotify in the interim, this classic rock staple was significantly easier to get into than the last album!

Amazingly, I've never listened to this album - I only knew the radio regulars from it. Frankly, I don't feel like I missed out. I've always been an appreciator of AC/DC, not a fan - and this album didn't turn me around.

As my stepfather would say, it's subtle like a brick. Every song, every screamed lyric is done at 85 MPH. No nuance at all. Booooring.

20. Khalifa Ould Eide & Dimi Mint Abba - Moorish Music From Mauritania

Well, after several years of ignoring this blog, I'm back! The first thing I did was to go back and see if Spotify added some of the albums I had to skip when I started this. Lo and behold, this was was on there.

This was not an easy return. I could get into the rhythm right away, but the vocals just sounded really indistinct. However, by the second listen, I really starting digging the was Eide's voice ebbs and flows as she improvises - it really swings!

Not one I'll go back to, but the song "Art's Plume" is killer.

19. Marian Anderson - Spirituals

When the first notes of this album began to play, a sense of dread filled me.  Of all the musical styles I love... opera isn't on it.  Having seen the song list, I was looking forward to hearing this.  Many of the songs I knew from versions done by some of my favorite artists, including Jerry Garcia, Pete Seeger, The Wayfaring Strangers and others.

But this was opera - and there were 30 songs on the album!

I gave it a chance, and within a few songs, I was really into it.  Her voice is rich and smokey, like a good porter, and works perfectly with with the subject matter - songs of religion and the pain of slavery.

I'm not sure this is something I'd listen to all the time, but I'm really glad I stuck with it.

18. Albert Ammons and Meade "Lux" Lewis - The First Day

When I first got into jazz via the Columbia Jazz Club (I may not have the name exactly right, but they would send you several jazz CDs each month), one of my favorites was Erroll Garner's "Concert by the Sea."  The boogie-woogie in this 1939 album reminded me a lot of that.

Fun fact I learned from the 1000 Recordings book - this was the first album released on the amazing Blue Note label.  Great rollicking energy in this album...

17. Los Amigos Invisibles - Arepa 3000: A Venezuelan Journey into Space

This album is an absolute blast!  Latin grooves mix with classic disco sounds for one big dance party.  Spacey, weird, funky songs blend together (I'm always a huge fan of songs segueing into each other)

My only quibble with this album?  Too damn long.  There's almost no way to sustain this type of fun for 66 minutes, so by the end, you're feeling "OK, I got it!"

Party on!

16. Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass - Whipped Cream & Other Delights

Shagadelic, baby!

Of course, I knew this album from its so-famous cover (and various cover knock-offs, one of which I've included below).

Perhaps it was revolutionary in its time, but it didn't really age well in my opinion.  It sounds like one big episode of The Dating Game.  Perhaps the most interesting thing is A Taste of Honey, which makes me want to hear the Beatles version.

15. The Almanac Singers - State of Arkansas

Years ago, when I lived in Cincinnati, I was doing some volunteer writing for a Holocaust organization.  The head of the group introduced me to the political cartoons of Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss.

It was a really eye-opener for me.  Courtesy of the wars of my lifetime, I had always been led to believe that the right was pro-war and the left was anti-war.  But these cartoons educated me to the fact that it was the LEFT that really wanted the U.S. to get involved in WWII, and the right wanted to stay out of it.

I was reminded of this when listening to the Almanac Singers 1941 recordings.  Admittedly, I had never heard of the Almanac Singers before this, but any group that includes Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger is worth checking out.

Most of the stuff on here is typical early folk music, with themes I was very familiar with from previous listening to Pete Seeger - unions good - bossman bad, etc.

But the mind-blowing song on here is Round and Around Hitler's Grave.  Over the music of a lilting children's nursery rhyme, the song hits the same themes as those Dr. Seuss cartoons I'd seen years earlier.  Definitely put a new perspective on early folk for me.