The Best Albums I've Never Heard

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I’m in the minority of human beings who consider Carlos Santana’s 1999 album Supernatural unappealing. While it sold over 30 million copies worldwide, won just about every Grammy possible, and has a lot of really good songs, there’s something about it that seems like a blatant cash grab. Even though Santana and industry mogul Clive Davis did team up to construct the album that became Supernatural, it outsold everyone’s expectations. It’s one of those sorry/not sorry scenarios. Radio’s welcoming embrace of Supernatural and its subsequent overplaying of Supernatural’s six successful singles deterred me from exploring Carlos Santana’s back catalog for decades. Abraxas, his 1970 album, is one such album and I’m glad I’ve gotten over my issues with Santana’s music.

Released on September 23, 1970 and produced by Fred Catero and Carolos Santana, Abraxas has sold over 5 million copies. Containing remarkable versions of “Black Magic Woman” and “Oye Como Va,” originally recorded by Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac and Tito Puente, respectively, Abraxas presents a classic sounding, accessible dive into latin-fusion rock. 

Upon each listen of Abraxas, what strikes me most is Carlos Santana’s unique guitar tone. He approaches the guitar with sustain and distortion while still being smooth and melodic. Like any guitar great, one only needs to hear two or three notes to know it’s him who’s playing. Greg Rolie offers lead vocals on a handful of songs, but his presence does not detract from Santana’s, who is center stage on each track. Not one, but two percussion players compliment Michael Shrieve’s drumming—the three appear as a massive rhythm machine and give the album a distinct latin vibe. 

Abraxas is a piece of the early fusion dialog that emerged in the late 1960‘s and eventually morphed into modern fusion by the 1980s. Fusion is traditionally thought of as the combination of rock and jazz. But with Santana, an unmistakable latin feel runs concurrently with rock and jazz. Latin tone, it seems, is more than just multiple percussion parts—it’s a vibe, a feel, and an instrumental philosophy. Take, for example, Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew. That album features twice the percussion players as Santana, but it sounds more like music from 50 years in the future than latin fusion. 

Abraxas is a welcome addition to my record collection. It has few flaws, if any. Its title intrigues me. Purportedly taken from Hermann Hesse’s Demian, the title refers to a demon from the Gnostic tradition. Abraxas is said to be a deity or demigod who embraces both good and evil and recognizes just one force in the universe. I liked this idea so much that I wrote a short story about it. Any album that can get me to write is a good album in my book.

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Bonus Link 1: Santana performing “Black Magic Woman” in 1970.

Bonus Link 2: My short story on the Reedsy blog – Abraxas.

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Pee Wee Herman introduced me to Sly and the Family Stone. During the first third of his 1981 stage show, Pee Wee Herman and Jelly Donuts performed a musical tribute to Sly Stone. If you remember it, Pee Wee’s hilarious and odd comedy special aired on HBO for most of the early 1980s. Pee Wee and the Jelly Donuts wove several Sly Stone songs together and performed them in caricature. As a kid, I remember thinking that the songs were catchy and fun. Fast forward to the late 90s and I picked up a Sly and the Family Stone anthology album that featured most of their singles and hits. As it would turn out, six of the eight tracks that comprise Stand! were also a part of that anthology. And, as it would turn out, many of the six songs on the anthology were cut-down single edits. So, in a lot of ways, I never really heard Stand! until recently, although I have been quite familiar with its songs. 

Released on May 3, 1969 and produced by Sly Stone, Stand! sold 500,000 copies in its first year and over three million copies total. It contains the ubiquitous singles “Stand!” and “Everyday People” as well as celebrated deep cuts “You Can Make It If You Try” and “Sing a Simple Song.” 

Stand! conveys the progressism of the 1960s. “Stand!” empowers listeners to stand up for what they believe to be right. “Everyday People” expresses the commonality of all people, in spite of color. “Don’t Call Me N*&&$#, Whitey” portrays racial tension felt both then and now. 

The legacy of Stand! seems to be its inspired performances. The guitar riff and other elements of “Sing a Simple Song” would go on to be covered or sampled on several dozen occassions. After his groundbreaking Bitches Brew double LP, Miles Davis recorded A Tribute to Jack Johnson, which, at times, sounds inspired by Stand!. The near 14 minute “Sex Machine,” which takes up most of the second side of Stand!, resonates boldly among its shorter adjacent tracks. 

I love the energy of Stand!, especially how it captures the band’s live sound. By 1969, rock music had become a staple on various television broadcasts. The few that are preserved on YouTube of Sly and the Family Stone from 1969 are pure gold. 

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Bonus: Sly and the Family Stone on TV in 1969

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Not far beneath the random silliness of We’re Only in It for the Money, there’s a salient message. As Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention perform their rather zany depictions of 60‘s counterculture, song by song, the sum amounts to a scathing rebuke of the Hippie movement. For Zappa, Hippiedom is complete sham—a tool for advancing self-interest that’s disguised by false community, faux spirituality, and lots and lots of drugs. We’re Only in It for the Money does more within its dense 39 minute romp than most artists accomplish in an entire career. It’s a reminder that Frank Zappa is a genre in and of himself and, in 1968, he made a remarkable album. 

Released on March 4, 1968 and produced by Frank Zappa, We’re Only in It for the Money peaked at number 30 on the Billboard 200 album chart. While the album sold a fraction of what Beggar’s Banquet by the Rolling Stones or the White Album by the Beatles sold, We’re Only in It for the Money dazzled critics with its razor sharp wit and insane production conventions. The album opens with an audio pastiche of Zappa’s whispers, variety of sounds, and the repeated phrase “Are you hung up?” Then, the record weaves in and out of several one to three minute songs before winding up to the six minute plus noise suite “The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny.”

Controversy is Zappa’s center of gravity. The intended album cover for We’re Only in It for the Money parodied Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in an uncomfortable way. If you hold the Pepper and Money covers side by side (and squint your eyes), you might think the covers are the same. A closer inspection shows Zappa’s subversion of and irreverence for the Beatles. Rather than being dressed in marching band uniforms, the Mothers of Invention are dressed in drag. Like Sgt. Pepper, the big bass drum in the center of the album cover has the title of the album, but here, it implies that the Beatles and their late 60s triptik through the counterculture were “only in it for the money.” Oddly, Jimi Hendrix is actually in the photo, but he is surrounded by so many cardboard cutouts that he looks like a cutout. The record label relegated the intended cover to the inside of the album out of fear of litigation. 

Zappa would go on to be a critic’s darling and all out innovator for the entirety of his career. His album Apostrophe would eventually be certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for selling over 500,000 copies. His talent attracted some of the best session/touring musicians imaginable, including guitar phenom Steve Vai, drumming greats Vinnie Colaluta and Terry Bozzio, and singer Ike Willis.

An album like We’re Only in It for the Money is difficult for me to listen to because I revere Sgt. Pepper and don’t take kindly to Zappa’s satire when it’s pointed at an album I love. But, satire aside, We’re Only in It for the Money is creative playground that’s fun to listen to. It lacks the beauty of Sgt. Pepper, and, at times, sounds like a band of Gru’s minions, but no one can colorably call Zappa’s genius into question. 

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For an album that only sold 30,000 copies during the year it was released, The Velvet Underground & Nico is a bit of an anomaly as influential albums go. When it debuted, The Velvet Underground & Nico was arguably too edgy to garner any airplay. But, as Brian Eno once said, “everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band.” In a way, Eno’s observation explains why so many aspects of indie rock can be traced to this very album. From the overused glockenspiel accompaniment heard in contemporary commercials (first heard on “Sunday Morning”) to the use background drones (heard all over the album in the form of John Cale’s viola), all that indie rock would ever become is contained in this single album. 

Released on March 12, 1967 and produced by Andy Warhol and Tom Wilson, The Velvet Underground & Nico is one of the first commercial albums to prominently feature graphic and overt references to drug abuse, sadism & masochism, and prostitution. Lyricist and singer Lou Reed was heavily influenced by edgy poets like William S. Buroughs and Raymond Chandler. In this respect, Andy Warhol’s contribution—as the person who paid for the recording sessions—was key. What record label would touch the Velvet Underground with a 10-foot pole? The music was edgy, too. John Cale’s strung his signature viola with guitar and mandolin strings for that never before heard death drone that appears throughout the album. 

The Velvet Underground & Nico sounds oddly modern for an album released in 1967. As the Beatles recorded Revolver and Sgt. Pepper with an at-the-time cutting edge 4 track tape machine, The Velvet Underground & Nico likely could not have been recorded with more than 4 tracks. Some studios were transitioning to 8 and 16 track systems in the late 60s, but the low recording cost ($3,000.00) leads me to believe the less-track option was used. Somewhere, a book of some kind reveals this mystery, but I haven’t found the information readily available on the internet. 

If you were to trace back the bare bones approach of Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago to its source, you’d end up at The Velvet Underground & Nico. The same can be said for just about any indie rock, lo-fi, or art rock recording. The album plays like the antithesis of convention, a giant, well-formed middle finger. The drums aren’t really played as much as hit now and again. The guitars carry much of the rhythm, which is strange because the album grooves well for having no acertainable rhythm section.

I’m embarrased that the first time I heard this album was just a few weeks ago. Lou Reed’s compositions are sharp, poignant, and challenging. Nico’s presence, which was at the insistance of Andy Warhol, is a divisive element in the Velvet Underground canon, but I rather like the tambre she brings to the three songs on which she sings lead. Few albums are both perfect and groundbreaking—this is one of them. 

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1966 was a good year for music. Revolver by the Beatles, Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys, Blonde on Blonde by Bob Dylan, and Aftermath by the Rolling Stones are just four of the incredible albums released in 1966. When selecting a 1966 album for this project, I found that I had heard just about all of the highly rate albums from that year. One record that had generally favorable reviews I had never heard:1 The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators by the 13th Floor Elevators. 

Released on October 17, 1966 and produced by Lelan Rogers, The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators is the first known use of the term “psychedelic” in an album title as to describe the music therein. “Psychedelic” means “relating to or denoting drugs (especially LSD) that produce hallucinations and apparent expansion of consciousness.”2

The opening guitar phrase of Psychedelic Sounds rings like a surf rock piece from the 1950s before decending into madness. The triplets on the ride cymbal and the ferociousness of the percussion set the mood for an album unlike anything heard before. The frantic mid-range of the electric jug adds a unique texture to the fray. “You gotta open up your mind and let everything come through,” as Roky Erikson sings in the second song, seems to the the overriding theme of Psychedelic Sounds. 

Psychedelic Sounds is one of the first acid rock albums. Acid rock is a sub-genre of music that expresses an interest in taking mind altering drugs and attempts to capture the experience of taking LSD. Acid rock would continue through the late 60s and early 70s as a formidable genre. Bands like Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape, and Iron Butterfly, while offering cleaner masters, are all predated by Psychedelic Sounds. It that way, it ranks as an important album. At times, one can hear sounds that likely influenced The Pixies and early R.E.M.

Psychedelic Sounds, while groundbreaking for historical and cultural purposes, leaves much to be desired in sonic quality. The album could benefit from a remix and re-mastering. In my view, there’s too much high midrange in the guitars and the album is difficult for me to listen to for extended listenings. But still, moments like “You’re Gonna Miss Me” and “Fire Engine” are unstoppable, unforgettable moments that have me tempting fate with repeated listenings, in spite of the harshness. That’s good rock ‘n roll for you.

B-

YearFeatured AlbumOther Notable Albums
1966The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators by the 13th Floor ElevatorsRevolver by the Beatles
Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys
Blonde on Blonde by Bob Dylan
Aftermath by the Rolling Stones
1965My Generation by The Who Rubber Soul by The Beatles
Bringing It All Back Home by Bob Dylan
1964Kinks by The KinksA Hard Day’s Night by The Beatles
Beatles for Sale by The Beatles
1 This ongoing chart will catalog the albums that I feature in this blog. I include my personal favorite albums under “Other Notable Albums.”

2 Psychedelic, New Oxford American Dictionary, Online Ed.

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The Who’s prodigious catalog of amazing music makes it easy to overlook the brilliance of their debut album, My Generation.1 When I think of The Who, my first thoughts go to Pete Townshend’s iconic guitar windmills, Keith Moon’s ferocious drumming, and Roger Daltrey’s epic vocal howls. My Generation reminds me that–before the grandeur of their 1970s stadium glory–The Who were the champions of the mod scene. Their performances of original songs and U.S. R&B classics, all captured on My Generation, were the soundtrack of many a mid-Sixties Austin Powers-esque party in the London swinger scene.

Released on December 3, 1965 and produced by Shel Talmy, My Generation shows off Pete Townshend’s songwriting, Keith Moon’s innovative drumming, John Entwistle’s melodic approach to low end, and Roger Daltrey’s vocal fire. It’s an all out tour-de-force—four creative energies creating something greater than themselves. “My Generation,” the album’s notable single, is nestled at the end of side one, surrounded by only three cover songs, two of which were penned by the enigmatic James Brown.  

For whatever reason, My Generation and its contemporaneous singles, “I Can’t Explain” and “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere,” found a special place in the mantle of mod culture. Mods were a special subculture of London that dressed well, listened to sophisticated music, took lots of amphetamines, and drove Vespa scooters. Their archenemies were the Rockers, who dressed in leather and drove tough motorcycles. The mods were likely drawn to Keith Moon’s flamboyant drumming and the band’s sophisticated harmonic core. 

My Generation is an album I regret not listening to sooner. It shows the heavy influence of American R&B on a rock band that would later go on to push the boundaries of the concept album and deliver quite a live show. But even on this first offering, The Who push to the outer limits of what had been done with music in 1965. Moon’s drumming is the heaviest yet seen anywhere up until that point. The closing song, “The Ox,” contains distorted guitar tones that predate and sound similar to Jimi Hendrix’s sound. 

The Who captured something remarkable with My Generation. Townshend’s songwriting and Moon’s drumming stand out as the most notable elements of the album. Yet Entwistle and Daltry deliver an elegance as well. The weakness of the album is “A Legal Matter,” which has Townshend singing lead vocals on a song bemoaning being married and the droll day to day life of raising children. The song seems out of place on an otherwise mod album. If the 1960s weren’t so single oriented, including the two singles that preceded My Generation in lieu of the album’s minor blemish would have improved the album for me.   

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Bonus: Live footage of “My Generation” from 1965. Note how awesome Keith Moon’s drumming is.

YearFeatured AlbumOther Notable Albums
1965My Generation by The Who Rubber Soul by The Beatles
Bringing It All Back Home by Bob Dylan
1964Kinks by The KinksA Hard Day’s Night by The Beatles
Beatles for Sale by The Beatles
1 This ongoing chart will catalog the albums that I feature in this blog. I include my personal favorite albums under “Other Notable Albums.”

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Kinks, by the Kinks, opens with a vocal that’s more distorted than the electric guitars that accompany it. The crunchiness of Ray Davies’ voice doesn’t come from it being sung through an amplifier or as a by-product of some studio trick. Rather, it’s distorted because he sings with monstrous, legendary intensity. That’s rock ‘n roll for you. Kinks gets my vote for the best album of 1964 that I’ve never heard (until now, of course).1

Released on October 2, 1964 and produced by Shel Talmy, Kinks showcases Ray Davies’ razor sharp songwriting and dazzling vocal prowess. “You Really Got Me” stands out as the obvious best track, but “So Mystifying” and “Stop Your Sobbing” show Davies’ writing potential. Like many albums of the era, most of the songs on Kinks are cover versions. “Too Much Monkey Business” and “Beautiful Delilah,” both originally performed and written by Chuck Berry, stand out as remarkable interpretations.

Kinks exemplifies the “Mersey Beat” or “Beat” sound. The Beatles popularized the Mersey sound in the prior year with their stand out albums, Please Please Me and With the Beatles. The Beat sound synthesized American rock ‘n roll, skiffle, and British pop music and features a strong back beat, (Hint: listen for the snare drum to hit on beats 2 and 4). Authentic Mersey records consist of live band performances with minimal overdubs. The personality of the players and the dynamics of the band are impossible to mask on these early rock ‘n roll recordings. 

And, therein lies the cool thing about music in 1964. The Zombies, Herman’s Hermits, the Animals, the Kinks, and the Beatles all played American rock ‘n roll covers. But each band performed the same songs so very differently. “Long Tall Sally,” a Little Richard song covered by both the Kinks and the Beatles, takes on a completely different life depending on who plays it.

Davies’ songwriting is the shining star of Kinks. His vocal performances and his brother’s approach to guitar are much more rambunctious than most other Beat bands–that’s one thing that makes Kinks such a fun album. The greatest weakness of Kinks is the lack of original songs, but that’s more a function of the times than a deficiency of the band. It wasn’t until A Hard Day’s Night by the Beatles (also released in 1964) that a rock band wrote every single song on a chart topping album. Kinks is a welcome addition to my music collection.

B+

Bonus: “You Really Got Me” (Live) + some awesome folk dancing

YearFeatured AlbumOther Notable Albums
1964Kinks by the KinksA Hard Day’s Night by the Beatles
Beatles for Sale by the Beatles
1 This ongoing chart will catalog the albums that I feature in this blog. I include my personal favorite albums under “Other Notable Albums.”