239. T. Rex | Electric Warrior (1971)

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Wikipedia Entry

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Tracks

1. Mambo Sun
2. Cosmic Dancer
3. Jeepster
4. Monolith
5. Lean Woman Blues
6. Get It On
7. Planet Queen
8. Girl
9. The Motivator
10. Life's a Gas
11. Rip Off

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Electric Warrior is a sultry album. The music is glam rock. For this album, that seems to mean pop songs with a hard rock edge. The lyrics are really neat. I don't know what it all means, but as snippets, they drip sexuality and attitude.

The music is slow and grinding and Marc Bolan's voice is seductive. This is nothing but the blues. However, the bluesmen were men in a man's world, but Marc Bolan's world is sexually ambiguous and anyone can play the role of seducer.

The album is fantastic. I never had much faith in glam rock and T. Rex was no exception, but I've come to adore the style. I like the sexuality and the sexual ambiguity implied by both the music and the art and the artists. That's the real attraction to this album. It's worth listening to and would make a fine addition to a collection. I think it also deserves to be on the 1001 Albums list since this is the strongest example of glam to appear.

All the songs on this album are excellent. The stand outs are Mambo Sun, Cosmic Sun, Jeepster, Monolith, Lean Woman Blues, Get It On, Planet Queen, Girl, The Motivator, Life's a Gas and Rip Off. Yes, that's all of them. Truly amazing stuff.

★★★★★★★★★★

200. The Stooges | Fun House (1970)

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Wikipedia Entry

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Tracks

1. Down on the Street
2. Loose
3. T.V. Eye
4. Dirt
5. 1970
6. Fun House
7. L.A. Blues

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Fun House is a ferocious album. The music is hard rock. The drums create a loud, repetitive and pulsating sound while the bass creates a meandering groove. The guitar wails away on top of it all, while Iggy Pop growls, screams, howls and coughs.

This is an amazing album—one of the best I've ever heard.  It's loud, aggressive and relentless and sounds great. (The problem with many proto-punk albums is the sound quality is poor. That's not the case here.)

The opening song is really intense and sets the tone for the rest of the album. Each subsequent song latches on the intensity of the previous one and never lets go. Listening to this album is quite an experience.

I'm quite surprised this album isn't more popular. Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple are known for their power. This album matches anything those three bands were doing at the time and takes it a step further. While those bands were always very conservative in their style and expression, this album is nothing but unbridled aggression and testosterone. I guess why they are considered proto-punk.

This album is definitely worth listening to and it's a must-have for serious collectors. It also certainly deserves to be on the 1001 Albums list. It's certainly an eye-opening preview of punk music.

All the songs are impressive. The ones I really liked are: Down on the Street, Loose, T.V. Eye, Dirt, 1970, Fun House and L. A. Blues. Yeah, that's right, that's all of them. 

★★★★★★★★★★

172. The Stooges | The Stooges (1969)

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Wikipedia Entry

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Tracks

1. 1969
2. I Wanna Be Your Dog
3. We Will Fall
4. No Fun
5. Real Cool Time
6. Ann
7. Not Right
8. Little Doll

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The Stooges is a raw album. The music is rock, but it's stripped down and simpler. The production is quite straightforward; put four musicians in a studio, record them playing and then cut an album. There are heavy, rocking songs, but there are a couple that are slow and droning. There's some good guitar fuzz on Little Doll. 

This album is certainly more reminiscent of the Sonics or the Monks, than, say, Led Zeppelin or the Beatles, both musically and lyrically. Musically, the album has its moments, but the songs are uneven. We Will Fall is the main problem. It's nothing like the other songs, it's smack dab in the middle of the album and it's uninteresting. The lyrics are just downright awful.

Despite We Will Fall, this album is interesting an shows that the Stooges have potential and that rock is also moving in another direction—a direction much different than the direction prog rock is going. Of course, appreciation for this kind of music will have to wait another few years.

This album might be worth listening to, but it's certainly not essential. There's a lot to like about this album. There's some interesting things going on musically, but it doesn't excite me.

I Wanna Be Your Dog is the best song on the album. Other stand outs are: 1969, No Fun, Real Cool Time and Little Doll.

★★★★★★★☆☆☆

158. MC5 | Kick Out the Jams (1969)

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Wikipedia Entry

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Tracks

1. Ramblin' Rose
2. Kick Out the Jams
3. Come Together
4. Rocket Reducer No. 62 (Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa)
5. Borderline
6. Motor City Is Burning
7. I Want You Right Now
8. Starship

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Kick Out the Jams is a wild album. The songs are loud and full of raw energy, the band is crude and obnoxious, and that's how it seems it's meant to be.

The music is completely anti-psychedelic although it still retains early rock and roll roots. This album certainly interprets the rebelliousness of rock and roll in a more serious and frightening way.

It's hard to say whether the MC5 are innovators of a new kind of music—they are on this 1001 Albums list of course. The Sonics and The Black Monks are mild compared to the MC5. However, the MC5 certainly are a portent of things to come.

I do like this album. It has a lot of energy and heart and soul, but there isn't much to it. Whereas all the psychedelic music might or might not be associated with college kids, this music is not. It is without a doubt music for the working class or the high school dropout.

The songs lack variety and there's only one speed—loud, fast and distorted. The more distinct songs are: Kick Out the Jams, Rock Reducer No. 62 (Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa), Motor City Is Burning and Starship.

★★★★★★★★☆☆

104. The Velvet Underground | White Light/White Heat (1967)

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Wikipedia Entry

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Tracks

1. White Light/White Heat
2. The Gift
3. Lady Godiva's Operation
4. Here She Comes Now
5. I Heard Her Call My Name
6. Sister Ray

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White Light/White Heat is a noisy album. There's a certain amount of normalcy in most of the songs, but at some point the songs veer off in a surreal direction. Either the music turns into fuzzy, screeching feedback or the lyrics become nightmarish.

This makes even the most psychedelic album seem like a collection of children's songs. This is like being trapped forever in a trip gone wrong. It's understandable that this album wasn't successful. I don't think it ever could. It's only possible for this album to be accepted after incremental imitations of are made of it.

I like this album a lot. Would I have liked this album in 1967? I can't imagine I would have. The first half of the album would have been tolerable, but the second half would had been unlistenable. It seems to have taken nearly ten years for this kind of music to be accepted and even then punk is a watered down form.

All the songs except for The Gift are worth listening to. The Gift was good the first time, but once I knew how it ends it became tiresome to listen to. Sister Ray is a masterpiece, but it's not "user-friendly".

★★★★★★★★★☆

91. The Velvet Underground | The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967)

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Wikipedia Entry

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1. Sunday Morning
2. I'm Waiting for the Man
3. Femme Fatale
4. Venus in Furs
5. Run Run Run
6. All Tomorrow's Parties
7. Heroin
8. There She Goes Again
9. I'll Be Your Mirror
10. The Black Angel's Death Song
11. European Son

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The Velvet Underground and Nico is a stark album. The songs evoke a dark exoticism. The music is either rumbling and manic or slow and droning. The guitar sound is reminiscent of an exposed nerve—raw, metallic, bright and painful.

The world that this album inhabits is not a nice, beautiful kind world. It's ugly, dark, twisted, lonely and painful. But, for all its brutality, it's honest.

It's a brilliant album, but it's so bleak that it'll bum you out if it's all you listen to. I don't think there have been any albums that have had such authentic songs and lyrics.  Most songs on other albums are sappy love songs, idealistic or fantastical so that they really don't infer the real world. The Who and Jack Elliott come close, but even Bob Dylan isn't able to capture reality so vividly.

The songs  establish a coherent mood that lasts the whole album. The real stand out songs are Sunday Morning, Venus in Furs, Run Run Run, All Tomorrow's Parties, Heroin, There She Goes Again and European Son.

★★★★★★★★★☆

65. The Monks | Black Monk Time (1966)

Wikipedia Entry

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Tracks

1. Monk Time
2. Shut Up
3. Boys Are Boys and Girls Are Choice
4. Higgle-Dy-Piggle-Dy
5. I Hate You
6. Oh, How to Do Now
7. Complication
8. We Do Wie Du
9. Drunken Maria
10. Love Came Tumblin' Down
11. Blast Off!
12. That's My Girl

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Black Monk Time is a crazy album. It is loud, fast and obnoxious which is exactly what it is trying to be. The drums and bass play a relentlessly repetitive beat, the organ and guitar make high-pitched noise over that, and the singer screams angst-ridden lyrics over all of it.

It's actually quite different and amazing because their style is unique. However, their songs are variations on a theme and the singer's voice can become irritating after a while.

I actually think this is a great album. It's definitely unpolished, but that makes it refreshing. It's certainly something everyone should listen to hear for themselves how progressive this band really was. Had they been able to get over to the US to tour I think they could have had an influence on music, but since they didn't they became an evolutionary dead-end. All the songs are worth listening to, but listening to the opening song, Monk Time, is enough to know what the rest of the album will sound like.  
★★★★★★★★☆☆

49. The Sonics | Here Are the Sonics (1965)

Wikipedia Entry

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Tracks

1. The Witch
2. Do You Love Me
3. Roll Over Beethoven
4. Boss Hoss
5. Dirty Robber
6. Have Love, Will Travel
7. Psycho
8. Money (That's What I Want)
9. Walkin' the Dog
10. Night Time Is the Right Time
11. Strychnine
12. Good Golly Miss Molly

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Here are the Sonics is a manic album. The Sonics have turned rock and roll on its head. The play loud and fast and they scream. Even the themes of their original songs are different from anything anyone's singing.

This kind of rock and roll isn't just raw, it's bloody. What the Beatles and the Rolling Stones are doing seems quaint in comparison.

It's too bad the sound quality sucks. It's all treble and no bass; it's like listening to the band through an aluminum tube.

This is an amazing album and is well worth listening to. They do good cover songs, but it's their originals that are superb. It could have been a game changer, but the Sonics seemed to have fallen off the earth after this. I guess they were ahead of their time.

The album might not seem very good at first. I did enjoy it the first time I heard it, but it took a while to really grow on me. The Witch, Do You Love Me, Boss Hoss, Have Love, Will Travel, Psycho, Money (That's What I Want), Walkin' the Dog, Strychnine and Good Golly Miss Molly are great songs.
★★★★★★★★☆☆