The Kinks – The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (1968)
Increasingly underrated as time has passed due to just how old and quaint a band like The Kinks is (particularly in this peak tea and biscuits mode), and because Ray Davies is kind of an awful man. But this album is still great and wouldn’t be out of place receiving my higher accolades. It’s good fun pop music with its own interesting, unique, always melodic sound, but with enough lyrical artistry and thematic poignancy to pack a deeper punch. It’s easy to feel discomforted by the slightly conservative bent of ‘woe is scary new stuff, let’s get back to idyllic old times’, but that is too simple a reading and the nature of the things being criticised is still relevant today. Davies is sardonically lampooning the fake and phony artifices on society and fame and capitalism, and delving into issues of depression, isolation and loneliness, and how the two obviously relate, a symbiotic relationship that sadly has only grown with time.
Highlights: Do You Remember Walter?, Last Of The Steam-Powered Trains, Starstruck, Phenomenal Cat, Wicked Annabella
Greatest Moment: Difficult to say, it’s an album of consistent pop pleasantry rather than peak moments, but for pure rock ‘n’ roll cred probably the intro to Wicked Annabella.
Pink Floyd – A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968)
The extent to which I love this perennially underappreciated early Pink Floyd effort can be measured by the two adored works it beat out for this sole available Pink Floyd bonus spot. I won’t reveal too much as further Top 52 representation is to come, but I am of course a Floyd super fan which is why this fan-favourite ‘standard’ pre-success effort sits on the bonus list alongside what for most artists are one of, or THE, defining albums of their careers. Ultimately, in the supreme Pink Floyd discography, depending on context, parameters and a given day’s mood, this album ranges from anywhere to 2nd or 7th (I consider that tier functionally equal…and 8 and 9 aren’t far away either). As for why? Every track is just so strange and unique. The band are flailing in the breeze trying to move on without Syd Barrett and that plays out on some subsequent weaker efforts. But somehow here there are just seven dated, low-fi, wildly varied gems. The album is at times spacey to avant-garde ambience, occasionally a wild racket, and on Rick Wright’s sublime pair, tenderly gorgeous. Then its all capped off with the most poignantly sad, bizarre and amazing final elegy from Syd.
Highlights: Let There Be More Light, Remember A Day, Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, Jugband Blues
Greatest Moment: The album’s opening few minutes generally, and seconds specifically. Let There Be More Light is as hidden a delirious gem of powerful psychedelic rock as exists anywhere, and that intro is the very first of what would be many iconic Waters basslines.
The Moody Blues – To Our Children’s Children’s Children (1969)
Deciding between this album and its two immediate 1968 predecessors was one of the toughest choices of any on this particular list. The Moody Blues are almost a victim of their own prolific consistency, at least through their run of seven consecutive huge albums from 1967 to 1972. Because they are all so good without ever quite reaching perfection due to the regimented conceptual nature of their albums (always invariably filled with some silly ditties and quaint filler), they always seem to fall short in the real serious conversations. But extent an album list to 200 and they appear as regularly as all the greatest acts of all time. In the end, this album’s unique case for representation is that although it lacks the monumental heights of its predecessors, it also lacks the extra-dated production and any sense of filler. Everything on this album is fantastic. Side A features as effective an extended reflection of the moonshot atmosphere of 1969 as anything I’ve heard. Side B is notionally the weaker side but shows a clear upgrade in the level of sophistication in their approach, as would take them forward. Every song is a potential single. Taken together, the whole is as satisfying a conceptual journey as they always provide, but without any missteps.
Highlights: Beyond, Out And In, Gypsy (Of A Strange And Distant Time), Watching And Waiting
Greatest Moment: The intro of Out And In is very close, but Watching And Waiting, start to finish, is almost unimaginably beautiful.
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band – Trout Mask Replica (1969)
Here is maybe the most divisive of all albums I’ll ever talk about. I was torn whether to include it, not so much on its qualities as despite its relatively unlistenable nature, its case its still air-tight, which I’ll come to. The problem is just what an irredeemably foul and abusive dude Don Van Vliet (Beefheart) himself was, and specifically the cult-like atmosphere surrounding this album. But in the end, especially considering the circumstances in which they were working, the dedicated efforts for which the constituent musicians remain rightly proud needs to be acknowledged. In particular this album represents the pinnacle of the work of one of rock’s most creative and dexterous guitarists, the modern blues master Bill Harkleroad (Zoot Horn Rollo). The efforts of drummer and arranger John “Drumbo” French are even more remarkable. French took the musically untrained and unwilling to learn Beefheart’s improvised at the piano compositions and transposed them note for note to music, arranged them for every instrument, and gave every player their part transposed and ready. The band then rehearsed with such dedication and precision that the whole album was recorded in virtually one live sitting. It is of course, total cacophonous madness, a kind of bizarre blues without melody or apparent consistent rhythm. It is famously adored by so many quarters, artistic figures left and right like Matt Groening and David Lynch, who have unlocked its secrets and call it their favourite album of all time. I admit to not having fully unlocked them all yet, and I’m deliberately trying to avoid singing its praises just because I’m told I should or because its weird. But as much as you definitely won’t enjoy it the first few times and probably not ever, there is a method to the madness and when the structures start to sneak through to your ears, it is astonishing to behold.
Highlights: Moonlight On Vermont, Ant Man Bee, The Blimp (Mousetrapreplica), Veteran’s Day Poppy
Greatest Moment: The riff of The Blimp, rather recognisably courtesy of producer and friend Zappa’s Mothers band.
Simon and Garfunkel – Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970)
As on the fringes as they’re supposed to be for any more hardcore rock fan, Simon & Garfunkel are of course as wonderful as they are culturally ubiquitous. All four of their classic albums are outstanding and while none quite have gotten beyond this level, for no real reason other than not quite having the innovative cutting edge in a competitive race, all are in the conversation. This, their final effort, produced amidst much strife and tension, lives beyond the rest partly because of that, but mainly because it reaches another plane yet of monstrous beauty. It is as varied and occasionally patchy as all others, but the greatest peaks of their entire career are virtually all here. This album reaches those greater heights by taking an existing sweetness of sound and poetry of Simon’s lyrics, and turning everything up to eleven. There are more orchestral moments, more dynamic electric payoffs, and more of Garfunkel’s unmatched solo voice.
Highlights: Bridge Over Troubled Water, El Condor Pasa (If I Could), Cecilia, The Boxer, The Only Living Boy In New York
Greatest Moment: Either of the emphatic reverberating snares of The Boxer or Only Living Boy could do it, but it obviously has to be the gigantic ending of the title track, where Garfunkel reaches a vocal heaven beyond comprehension.
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