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In Which I Listen Through Rolling Stone's 500 Best Albums of all Time

Darn smoke making it untenable to take long walks.
#480 was The Weight of These Wings by Miranda Lambert. I was surprised by this one, I don't consider myself a Country Guy in the slightest but I really enjoyed this album.

I'm beginning to think that people who say they like "all music except for country and rap" are cheating themselves out of some really good experiences. The world can be so much bigger if you let it.
 
I wouldn't say I enjoy country or rap as genres so much as I enjoy particular artists and/or particular songs in those genres. So if I say "except country and rap" it just means I'm less likely to listen to those genres than others. All that really means, usually, is that I have to dig to find something that resonants. Anything by Kendrick is golden and I've listened to that first A$AP Rocky album umpteen times; George Strait's 80s and 90s output is still incredible, same for Randy Travis, Garth Brooks, and most of Reba's stuff. To say nothing of outlaw country and the kind of singer-songwriter stuff from the 60s and 70s: Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, etc. And Roy Orbison, insofar that Orbison is country at all.

When someone says "all music except for country and rap", I assume they're mostly saying "I don't listen to Toby Keith-style MAGA coded country and I don't listen to dolla-dolla-bills-yall gangsta rap" but there's a lot more to both genres than that, if you care to go look. It's the looking part that a lot of people don't bother with, perfectly content to just let algorithms determine exposure.
 
Yeah, I think for me it's that a lot of country has the same chord progression and similar vocal styling. Rap also has a lot of similar sounding artists and tracks. Numbers-wise there's more artists in rap and country that have a sound I'm not into and are similar, so a large portion of the genre is immediately out.

Pop music can get like this too, but usually there's a few unique parts of every track.

Folk and older country as 4-so noted is great.
 
Hip-hop (which I know pretty well) and country (which I don't really know much at all) both cover an astonishing amount of stylistic ground if you do some digging around. But I definitely get finding the generic "house style" of each genre to be a bit mind-numbing.
 
#479 was Selena's Amor Prohibido. Do you know Selena's story? It's really sad, she died way too young. Her music is really great, too. I think you'd like this album, oddly enough it almost has a anime OP quality to it. There's also a cover of a Pretenders song, which was surprising.
 
I don't know if I can really describe #478, Something Else by the Kinks
It's from the 1960s, so there's a heavy psychedelic influence, but it's got a lot of variety to it and a lot of different styles. If you like the Beatles and want something in a similar kind of flavor, I'd recommend this one to you.
 
David Watts is one of my favorite Kinks tracks.

The Kinks are kind of like The Beatles if they never left England. They sing a lot about how difficult life can be if you’re poor/lower class, but also how life is wonderful anyway. I’m a fan.
 
yeah dude! I don't have a lot of favorite bands that I'd want to dive through their whole discography of, but I wanted to listen to full albums of music, and so I decided this list of albums was as good as any. And it's been a good time!

#477 was Moanin’ in the Moonlight by Howlin' Wolf. This was very bluesy even by blues standards, but there's some really sick instrumentation in here, including some distortion effects that are wild to hear in a record from 1959.
 
#476 Kimono My House by Sparks. This one ruled. Just track after track of delightfully weird and catchy glam rock. Big and bombastic, I would recommend "This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us" from this album.
 
Sparks are awesome, and they're still going strong five decades later. There's a great Edgar Wright documentary about them (The Sparks Brothers) that's worth checking out.
 
#475 is Sheryl Crow's self-titled album. I have some familiarity with her work, since her singles have kind of migrated into retail-store friendly background music territory, but this album is really good with a surprising amount of bite to it! Lyrics like
Watch out sister, watch out brother
Watch our children while they kill each other
With a gun they bought at Walmart discount stores
Click to expand...
and
Was there no oil to excavate?
No riches in trade for the fate
Of every person who died in hate
Throw us a bone, you men of great
Click to expand...
definitely have an edge to them that you don't necessarily see in her more radio-friendly songs, which include the almost Bob Dylan-esque
He's got a daughter he calls Easter
She was born on a Tuesday night
I'm just wondering why I feel so all alone
Why I'm a stranger in my own life
Click to expand...

Something that I'm finding that is interesting is that when listening to music from Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf is that you can start to hear what might be their influences in other music. "Ordinary Morning" in particular feels very bluesy.
 
#474 is Big Star's #1 Record. I was actually looking forward to this one, since it's one of the albums cited in this Onion article that I maybe relate to a little bit too much.

And it's good! It's one of those ones that is apparently hugely influential, so you can listen to it and it brings to mind a lot of acts that would follow.
 
Alex said:
Something that I'm finding that is interesting is that when listening to music from Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf is that you can start to hear what might be their influences in other music. "Ordinary Morning" in particular feels very bluesy.
Click to expand...
This is great to read. I'm definitely seeing more recognition of the original black artists who were the foundation of music lately, but being able to hear it for yourself is a whole different experience. Very cool.

Alex said:
since it's one of the albums cited in this Onion article that I maybe relate to a little bit too much.
Click to expand...
Ha, as a child of parents 10+ years older than other parents in my grade, feeling this one too.
 
My parents had an age gap so I had a pretty big mix. My dad pretty much exclusively listened to blues, Muddy waters, B.B. King et al. My mom has always been more into pop, Bon Jovi, Sheryl Crow got a lot of play during car rides. The only concerts I ever remember them going to were Rolling Stones so I guess that is where they met in the middle.

My older brother is a good decade older than me so of course I liked whatever he liked up until I had cooler friends to influence me so I listened to a lot of they might be giants.
 
#473 was Daddy Yankee's Barrio Fino. I have a kind of hard time with reggaeton, the sound is definitely unique and it's even enjoyable to listen to, but I have such a hard time with understanding the words or even trying to interpret the feeling behind them that I didn't really get a lot from this. I imagine that as I go on and listen to other early 2000s hip hop and other reggaeton artists (Bad Bunny is in here I'm pretty sure) that it'll provide some more context to this album though.
 
#472 was Ctrl by SZSA. I am so happy to have women on this list. Female hip hop and R&B acts do seem to be somewhat rare, too. This was an enjoyable listen. If you like Kendrick Lamar, I think you will like this.
 
#471 was Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow. "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love" are classic rock mainstays, but the rest of the album is pretty good too.
 
#470 was 400 Degreez by Juvenile. If you don't like rap music, this won't be the album to change your mind on it I don't think, but the beats behind the music are some of the most inventive I've heard in a while, and the lyrics themselves are entertaining if not terribly deep. "Back That Azz Up" is a really fun song.
 
My album listening time and desire has been curtailed quite a bit by my kids going back to school and thusly my late night time being cut severely, so consider this project on hold, but not cancelled.

#469 was Clandestino by Manu Chao. This album was another one of those that I had literally never heard of, but this is really REALLY good. I've listened to this one a few times, it's a latin reggae mix with electronical instrumentation, and honestly like very little I've heard before.
 
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