So far I have listened to the 58 greatest albums of all time according to Rolling Stone. I learned a lot. I enjoyed nearly all of it, even the ones that I was unfamiliar with. Even the ones that I thought I would not like. I understand all music a little better now. We’re all really the same after all.
Don’t get me wrong, I like #6 Nirvana Nevermind much much (much) more than Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys. I picked those two as a specific example to demonstrate one of the lessons. Allow yourself to change your mind. Allow yourself to say “Well, that was a dumb thing to plan to do”. Allow yourself to love yourself despite this admission. Allow yourself to love yourself because of this admission.
I had initially envisioned this project as something to expand my mind, expand my understanding of musical styles considered great that I just don’t really listen to. I thought that I might understand those genres better, might understand their fans and those artists more. Well, that turns out to be true. Specifically the top 50 as currently listed (more on that later as well) contains a good dose of hip hop. I have never been a big hip hop fan. I have barely nibbled around the periphery. But now I have listened to Dr. Dre and Beyonce and Outkast and Jay Z and D’Angelo and Notorious B.I.G. and Kanye West and others.
I have to admit I had always been, I guess, afraid of listening to hip hop, especially gangsta rap. I apologize in advance if I say something stupid or ignorant or wrong or that hurts anyone. I do. This is like discussing performing hand surgery. I don’t know much about that either, but I have taken things apart and fixed them. Similarly some of the music on the list I cannot live without. I’m looking at you Kind of Blue and Banana album and anything Radiohead. Maybe I can extrapolate from what I know to what I am unfamiliar with?
I am very white and my foray into anything even resembling hip hop pretty much has started and ended with the Beastie Boys, Eminem, and the album Fear of a Black Planet. Very very white, mea culpa. I have so many mixed emotions about this new music that I have been exposed to. I really like a lot of it. It is so catchy, it gets into your head. The rhymes just stick. The only album in that whole category that I did not like thus far was D’Angelo Voodoo. I can only come so far on this first quest. I reserve the right to love Voodoo someday. I also reserve the right to never listen to it again. But, I am glad I listened to it. I liked the Kanye album despite what I read about him. I still listen to Michael Jackson, but for some reason can’t really watch anything by Kevin Spacey.
Yes gangsta rap is tough. The subject matter is so dark. The language is so difficult for me to simply hear. The distinction between an “a” and an “e” only provides so much cover. I never lived the lyrics. I never will. But many have and many do. My main (re)learning is to not judge others, to not try to explain stuff I don’t understand, to listen more, to talk less. Is it harmful or helpful, or both? It really isn’t for me to answer. Enough on that. When I listen to “This Land” by Gary Clark Jr, a man that I bought tickets to see on back to back nights last summer and he sings “N-word run N-word run, go back where you come from” I cannot bring myself to sing those exact words. I doubt that I ever will be able to. Maybe I will, who knows. For now I sing “Bleeper run bleeper run, go back where you come from”. I don’t know if that is the right thing to do or if that makes the problems larger. I do know not listening to that album is not an option. The video is powerful. All I can say is I love him and that song and am a little sad he didn’t perform it either night that I saw him recently. Really Rolling Stone, he is not even on the list, not even number 487 or something? He needs to be.
OMG next lesson, there is no way to construct a list of anything that pleases everyone or possibly even completely pleases anyone. I’d drop eight of the top ten out of that rarified space (don’t worry Nirvana and Fleetwood Mac you are safe with me, after all I am making salmon stew as I type this in my a flannel shirt in Seattle and my daughter is somehow the reincarnation of Stevie Nicks, who is of course still alive, so I’ll likely never figure that out either).
Back to #6 Nevermind. According to wikipedia, which I consider to be accurate enough, Rolling Stone originally gave this masterpiece a measly three out of five star rating. But by the time they compiled and released their first money maker, I mean list, it magically became one of the twenty greatest albums of all time. They had to acknowledge the reality of the industry, of their listeners. They want to make money, that is what they do, there is nothing wrong with it. By now it is considered by Rolling Stone to be the sixth greatest album of all time, for what that is worth.
Pet Sounds is number two on their list. I listened to it in its entirety this morning. I had not planned to. I planned to save my single giant asterix for this album. I listened to it once before, trying to make myself appreciate it. It didn’t work then, but it sort of worked now. Miles (genius) helped me appreciate Jay-Z and some combination of those and others helped me figure out Pet Sounds. I appreciated it a bit more this time. I still plan to try beets every few years hoping that my taste buds will conform a little more to social norms. The only problem is that beets are gross.
