I decided to do the Nine Albums thing that I saw on Facebook. You can do this for yourself by going to my9albums.com.
In fact, I could have picked 99 albums, but that wasn’t the assignment. I considered Blue by Miles Davis, Led Zeppelin’s first album, Who’s Next, Carole King’s Tapestry, Sweet Baby James by JT, The Supremes Sing Holland-Dozier-Holland, and Aja by Steely Dan.
I know most people just show the covers without comment. Maybe I’m just contrarian, but if I’m going to put thought into the selections, I need to explain myself.
Revolver: It had to be a chronologically middle Beatles album. Revolver won because the American album was good with 11 songs, but the UK version with those three Lennon songs is great. (They had been excised to prop up the US-only Yesterday and Today.) I was particularly fond of the last two songs back to back, played as loudly as possible when my parents weren’t home: Got To Get You Into My Life and Tomorrow Never Knows; For No One.
The Band: I heard the second album first. In my high school yearbook, alongside our high school band, was a pic of the four Canadians and the American because one of my best friends was the editor of said document. Up On Cripple Creek; Look Out Cleveland; King Harvest (Has Surely Come)
Saw Live!
Speaking In Tongues. I bought the Talking Heads’ album shortly before I saw the band at SPAC during the transformative Stop Making Sense tour. (I’ve since seen Lynn Mabry, who was backup singer for TH, sing backup for Sheila E,. along side of my niece Rebecca Jade.) I may have had one other TH album, but I filled in the gaps after that. I also have a few David Byrne solo albums. Burning Down The House; Making Flippy Floppy; This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody), which recalls a specific trip to Cooperstown in the 1990s.
Talking Book: It’s not my favorite Stevie album, but it is the beginning of an incredible run that culminated in Songs In The Key of Life. This is when Berry Gordy, out of necessity, started loosening the reins on some of Motown’s top artists. You Are the Sunshine of My Life; Superstition; I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever)
Still Crazy After All These Years: This Paul Simon collection became my college relationship breakup album, not just when it came out in 1975, but afterward. The title song represents 1981, when the ex and I saw Joni Mitchell in Philadelphia, a much better experience than seeing Joni in 1974 at SPAC, which was the beginning of our breakup. My Little Town is me retreating to Binghamton after that. I Do It for Our Love, specifically “the orange bled the blue,” is our first dreadful apartment. And it goes on from there.
Formerly of Genesis
(Melt): Peter Gabriel’s third album might be my island album. I got it in German for Christmas in 1980, in a cleverly packaged group of six albums that felt like an empty box. I Don’t Remember – oh, I remember a lot. Biko, which was the first time I really knew who the murdered South African activist was. Games Without Frontiers does NOT have the lyrics, “She’s so funky, yeah.”
Court and Spark. This Joni Mitchell album came out in 1974, which I’ve already alluded to. After that, I bought a lot of earlier Joni, including my favorite, Blue. Help Me reminds me of a 1975 rebound relationship that did not last. The Same Situation; Raised on Robbery.
We Shall Overcome: this live Pete Seeger album, recorded at Carnegie Hall in 1963, was actually my father’s album, but I played it a lot. It helped inform my social activism. I’ve seen Pete perform over two dozen times and met him once. Much later, I bought the CD, and I discovered the LP was about half the length. Keep Your Eyes on the Prize; Who Killed Norma Jean?; Tshotsholosa
Pet Sounds: I got this Beach Boys album from the Capitol Record Club because I didn’t opt out. I knew the band, of course, from the radio, songs full of references to surfing and cars; I didn’t relate. But I GOT this album. Interestingly, in the 1970s, I bought a retrospective Beach Boys album and decided I liked it. Now I have a 5-CD set of the band that I gave to a friend of mine, Donna, but got back after she died. Wouldn’t It Be Nice; Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder); God Only Knows.