Dumarest
Vaquero de Alta California
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2018
- Messages
- 15,721
- Reaction score
- 34,438
Just for the hell of it, in no particular order, let's make a list of the greatest albums of the 1970s. Feel free to add your own entries as well, but please include a sentence or two explaining why, as there's nothing more annoying than lists of "the hundred greatest whatevers" that just list names without explanation. No "greatest hits" or soundtrack compilations count as they are not actual artistic statements, although concert recordings such as Frampton Comes Alive! would be acceptable.
Voros, you know you want to add your own entries! I don't want to rank the records as I don't think you can really compare two great LPs and list them as "#1 best" and "#6 best": London Calling, Mothership Connection, Songs in the Key of Life, and Tapestry have virtually nothing in common aside from all being fantastic records by artists at the top of their game. (The reason I'm doing the 1970s is just because I've been listening to a lot of records from 1970-1977 lately.) For the first post, I'll list three records everyone should have on his or her shelf.
I'll start with Rumours, which contains eleven songs all thematically linked by romantic troubles or hopes, all wonderfully produced with a lot of attention to color and timbre. If you ever get a chance, play the whole thing with headphones on or place yourself in the middle of two good stereo speakers so you can hear how well it was mixed. They cared so much about the sound quality of the final product they actually had the label use a closer pressing plant to make the vinyl albums because the longer you leave the masters sitting, the more they can degrade before they get to the plant. Every song is a winner. It's also the album where Lindsey Buckingham felt comfortable enough as a member of the band to really take over and oversee the sound. His fingerprints can be found on every track.
Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs is almost like a mirror image to Rumours, inasmuch as it's dirty blues rock where Rumours is (mostly) more polished and attentive to detail, which is not to say Layla isn't also wonderfully produced; it's just aiming for a different, rawer sound and whereas the Fleetwood Mac album was recorded and overdubbed sporadically over the course of nearly a year (with tour dates in between recording dates), Eric Clapton and crew finished their double-LP in two weeks. Another difference is that Fleetwood Mac was a real band and "Derek and the Dominos" didn't even exist, just being a handful of Eric Clapton's musician friends. Finally, for another contrast, this record is all about romantic longing and Clapton's blues over being desperately in love with his friend's wife, rather than the destruction of close personal relationships.
Just to add a third album of emotional turmoil, Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years is a departure from his previous singer-songwriter fare as it's a collection of jazz-influenced pop songs of romantic disillusionment (albeit undercut by his usual cynical humor). It's got a really nice consistent sound to it. If you can only own one Paul Simon LP, this is the one I would get. I rank it over Graceland if only because he actually wrote all of this himself; Graceland, though still a great record, was largely written over tracks already created by South African musicians.
I'll start with Rumours, which contains eleven songs all thematically linked by romantic troubles or hopes, all wonderfully produced with a lot of attention to color and timbre. If you ever get a chance, play the whole thing with headphones on or place yourself in the middle of two good stereo speakers so you can hear how well it was mixed. They cared so much about the sound quality of the final product they actually had the label use a closer pressing plant to make the vinyl albums because the longer you leave the masters sitting, the more they can degrade before they get to the plant. Every song is a winner. It's also the album where Lindsey Buckingham felt comfortable enough as a member of the band to really take over and oversee the sound. His fingerprints can be found on every track.
Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs is almost like a mirror image to Rumours, inasmuch as it's dirty blues rock where Rumours is (mostly) more polished and attentive to detail, which is not to say Layla isn't also wonderfully produced; it's just aiming for a different, rawer sound and whereas the Fleetwood Mac album was recorded and overdubbed sporadically over the course of nearly a year (with tour dates in between recording dates), Eric Clapton and crew finished their double-LP in two weeks. Another difference is that Fleetwood Mac was a real band and "Derek and the Dominos" didn't even exist, just being a handful of Eric Clapton's musician friends. Finally, for another contrast, this record is all about romantic longing and Clapton's blues over being desperately in love with his friend's wife, rather than the destruction of close personal relationships.
Just to add a third album of emotional turmoil, Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years is a departure from his previous singer-songwriter fare as it's a collection of jazz-influenced pop songs of romantic disillusionment (albeit undercut by his usual cynical humor). It's got a really nice consistent sound to it. If you can only own one Paul Simon LP, this is the one I would get. I rank it over Graceland if only because he actually wrote all of this himself; Graceland, though still a great record, was largely written over tracks already created by South African musicians.
Last edited: