'Get Rich or Die Tryin''

50 Cent got a $1 million recording contract from Dr. Dre all thanks to a mixtape. I always wondered what the impact is for one guy to "escape" the inner city life to super stardom and millions of dollars.

Curtis Jackson III had no future. He was born and raised in South Jamaica, Queens and his mother was a coke dealer (and apparently a lesbian, although I don't see how it affects anything more or less Jackson's future).

Jackson became a crack dealer himself and was infamously shot nine times. His life turned around after attending a correctional boot camp and adopted the nom de plume, 50 Cent.

Get Rich or Die Tryin' went six times platinum and his next album, The Massacre, went five times platinum. He's richer than almost anyone and the dead future that he was primed to accept has reversed. He'll probably never have to work again and his kids will never have to work. He's created a whole new life for himself and probably anyone he's associated with. Consider every kid that "escapes" the hood (sports, music, college) and how that impacts the lives of a dozen people, a dozen futures here and there.

Have you ever thought about it?

'Live at the Star Club, Hamburg'

It's slightly odd that a true American treasure's possible most lasting impact comes in a recording done across the Atlantic Ocean in Germany.

More odd, that maybe his lasting footnote is that he married his first cousin once removed and that she was 13 years old.

On the other hand, which is much easier to type, it's hard not to marvel at the legacy the man actually carries as an American artist and, maybe more importantly, as a Southern artist.

He was born in Concordia Parish in Louisiana where the family mortgaged the family farm in order to purchase a piano. His cousins were the excellent musicians Mickey Gilley and Jimmy Swaggart.

His family moved to Waxahachie to Southwest Bible Institute where he was ran out of town for doing a boogie woogie rendition of "My God is Real." Thus his unruly path down the near invention of the most famous genre in recorded music.

Lewis went to Memphis in 1956 and began recording for Sun Records. He'd later tour and record with Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash recreating the sound of rock and roll and country music.

Live at the Star Club, Hamburg was recorded in April 1964 two months after The Beatles "invaded" the United States in large part due to the influence of Lewis, Presley, Little Richard and American soul.  Ironically, Lewis captured the pure energy and libido of American culture in the city where The Beatles, like young Lee Lewises, popped a bunch of pills and played endless hours on many stages of Hamburg.

Live at the Star Club, Hamburg is considered one of the greatest live records of all time. There's little to argue about here.

'Neu! '75'

For all of you who are upset about no more Kraftwerk albums. It's basically two guys from Kraftwerk who had systematic differences in opinion of player, relatively speaking, boring electronic music. Some people can't ever bridge the differences.

'Go Girl Crazy!'

What I dislike the most about punk bands is that they are almost always manned by smart alecks. As much as the genre and its players reject the notion of conformity and the shallow veneer of popular music, punk musicians are no more sincere or real than their richer, more popular counterparts.

More often than not, you'll find more stage acts, nicknames, make-up, costumes and theatrics in punk rock than you'll find anywhere.

I don't know how sincere The Dictators were about the song "Master Race Rock" considering they might not be serious about anything, to the point that they're covering Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe."

Maybe all of this is irrelevant (it is) and it's more about the sound (it is) and attempting to find genuine feeling in these knuckleheads' music is folly. It'll just frustrate anyone.

The Dictators make this list because in 1975 they had set the stage for the punk explosion and the landscape of rock music being changed forever. Not only the music, but also their smart aleck attitudes.

'Yardbirds'

Yardbirds was the 1966 eponymous effort of one of the pre-eminent super groups without even knowing they were a supergroup.

Actually, they were a bunch of British kids playing black American blues music. This version of The Yardbirds featured Jeff Beck on lead guitar. Jimmy Page filled in on bass and eventually moved on to a second lead guitar and John Paul Jones was pulled in to play bass.

Yardbirds is known colloquially as "Roger the Engineer" due to the album cover featuring a drawing by guitarist Chris Dreja of recording engineer, Roger Cameron.

'Truth'

Yesterday, I wrote about Eric Clapton's album 461 Ocean Boulevard. I didn't think it was very good: Just overly polished, safe blues record done by one of the safest rock stars of all time.

He probably wanted to make something like Jeff Beck's Truth. Beck, a former Yardbird himself, released this as his first solo record and he had the honesty to know that between him and Rod Stewart, he wasn't going to provide the best in vocal performances. If you think you can't have enough of The Faces featuring Stewart, get this album. It's Stewart at his absolute peak (which was pretty high). It also has some awesome players like Jimmy Page, Nicky Hopkins, Ron Wood, Keith Moon, Micky Waller and John Paul Jones.

It's not totally unlike Clapton's album, just better. It's full of blues standards and even a rendition of the class "Greensleeves." It even includes a cover of "You Shook Me" months before Led Zeppelin would release their own -- and more famous -- version. Great album.

'Walking Wounded'

I don't know what to really say about a electronic dance duo that quit doing things together 15 years ago and who may or may not have been married. So I'll say very little.

It's catchy dance music. There's a lot of that in the world. 

'461 Ocean Boulevard'

For one of the 1,001 records I should listen to before I die, it's a pretty boring album, probably included because it's Eric Clapton's only solo record on the list and Clapton's apparently someone considered important.

There's probably not a more overrated musician -- although extremely good -- and certainly someone that I don't feel leads a group, or exerts himself as a solo artist very well. Meanwhile, Derek and the Dominoes, The Yardbirds, Blind Faith and Cream are all much more accomplished, polished and generally better.

461 Ocean Boulevard is a collection of blues standards, a Bob Marley cover, a couple of hippie callbacks and an album full of warbled lyrics. It was recorded with Clapton coming off of heroin and taking up alcohol instead. He wouldn't be right for another decade and by then he'd encounter another lifetime of heartbreak.

'Call of the Valley'

The greatest album of classical Indian music and you might not be able to find better mood music. I love finding instrumental albums like these to play as almost a score. Working, messing around the house or just in need of something that can provide some sort of tempo without interrupting with wild crescendoes, vocals or the typical ebb and flow of a traditional pop song.

Call of the Valley was a 1967 collaboration by famed Indian instrumentalists Hariprasad Chaurasia, Brij Bhushan Kabra and Shivkumar Sharma. None of them played the sitar or tabla as you might expect.

In fact, Kabra is a guitar player and Chaurasia plays a flute. It opened Indian music up to the international audience championed also by the usual suspects, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan.

It's actually a concept album as it follows a shepherd throughout his day in the Kashmir.

It also gets major props for a pretty cool album cover, too. The Indians generally do things a little cooler than most.

'3+3'

The truest definition of The Isley Brothers. This was the first album that included the original three -- Rudolph, Ronald and O'Kelly -- in addition to the youngest two -- Marvin and Ernie.

It also featured Isley brother-in-law Chris Jasper, a keyboardist who also played the Arp synthesizer, most notably used with a lot of success in the 1970s by Stevie Wonder. He was recording his magnum opus, Innervisions, at the very same time. In fact, the Isleys walked in on Lil' Stevie laying down "Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing."

3+3 is a fantastic album and certainly a must-have for anyone who loves R&B and soul in addition to anything from the 1970s. It's fresh and yet alarmingly classic. It features covers of "Summer Breeze" (better than Seals and Croft) and the Doobies' "Listen to the Music."

Not to be outdone, they covered themselves re-recording "Who's that Lady" as "That Lady Pt. 1 & 2." Nevertheless, can't encourage you enough to go get this album. Top to bottom, it's gold.

'Antichrist Superstar'

I can tell you the exact place and the precise context where I first learned about Marilyn Manson.

I was in first-period gym class, freshman year of high school on the top step of the basketball gym bleachers when a kid named Dusty (a noted drug dealer, who often brought his wares out in full view of everyone) brought in a copy of the EP Smells Like Children. On the cover, a ghoulish, grinning Manson greets an unknowing public.

A year later, Antichrist Superstar came out and it scared the shit out of every parent in the world. Mostly because Manson had zero qualms with pushing the so-called limits of decency and civil behavior as defined by those who do not blaspheme, obsess about sex or who are nihilistic.

The irony of Marilyn Manson, over his career, is that there's not a bigger cartoon character in rock music. His facade is so incredibly fake that it's not really funny.

However, the true rock star, the geeky Brian Warner, who may or may not be Paul from The Wonder Years,  is a pretty wild, disturbing guy with extreme destructive tendencies and a penchant for the macabre. Brian's the real weirdo. Manson's a money-making gimmick.

Despite not really liking the music, I take every opportunity to ready about Manson because he's pretty interesting and doesn't pretend to think that he's four parts KISS and one part Aleister Crowley.

He's been sued so many  times -- giving a girl cocaine, who later died in a car wreck, assault of journalists, ripping off ex-band mates, vandalizing hotel rooms -- it's easy to lose count. Along the way, he's collected a number items including a child's skeleton, Nazi memorabilia, items made of human skin and other ghastly artifacts.

Although a little John, he's also a lot of Paul. He's been sued a lot and fallen in love even more times. He's been engaged twice (Rose McGowan and Rachel Wood) and married once (Dita Von Teese). The nuptials with Von Teese deteriorated as Manson's alcohol intake became too overwhelming.

Marilyn Manson, our true modern rock star.

'Beautiful Freak'

Mark Oliver Everett is a man, a musician, that named his "band" Eels so its albums would be near his solo work (Everett) in the CD racks in stores. 

That's probably one of the more normal bullet points for Everett's life. 

His music, most notably those of Eels, is dark and very 1990s indie rock. It's very good and Beautiful Freak is an understated and often too-ignored chapter of the genre and time. 

Listening to it, you understand a lot of themes and lyrics when you understand exactly what Everett is going through. 

Everett is about to be 50 years old. A stalwart of indie rock in the 1990s and 2000s is nearly half a century old. Not that that means anything, it's just a bit telling as to how incredibly old we all are. 

His grandfather was Harold "Kid" Gore, the famed head basketball and football at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. 

Everett's father was Hugh Everett III. He was a renowned physicist and originator of the many words interpretation of quantum physics, which is highly complicated and I could never explain it even if I wanted to (he also believed in quantum suicide and quantum immortality, which is pretty fucked up). 

He died when he was 51 years old of heart failure, which means his ticker had had enough and just quit. His son was 18 years old at the time. Hugh's obesity, drinking and smoking were largely blamed for his rather premature death. His son had this to say: 

"I think about how angry I was that my dad didn't take better care of himself. How he never went to the doctor, let himself become grossly overweight, smoked three packs a day, drank like a fish and never exercised. But then I think about how his colleague mentioned that, days before dying, my dad had said he lived a good life and that he was satisfied. I realize that there is a certain value in my father's way of life. He ate, smoked and drank as he pleased, and one day he just suddenly and quickly died. Given some of the other choices I'd witnessed, it turns out that enjoying yourself and then dying quickly is not such a hard way to go." 

Considering he referred to death as a "way to go," makes me think less of Everett. Hugh requested that his ashes be thrown in the trash, a wish that was eventually fulfilled. His daughter (and Everett's sister) was a manic depressive and killed herself in 1996. She too wanted to be thrown in the trash. They believed they were "immortal." 

Finally, Everett's cousin was a stewardess on one of the planes that crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. Shit, if anyone has perspective and should be recording thoughtful rock albums, it's Everett. 

'C'est Chic' & 'Risqué'

I went in expecting a gigantic disco jerkoff, but instead got two pretty fun R&B albums with the bare minimum of schlock.

Chic is a pretty interesting band because it was started by Niles Rodgers and some friends. Over the years, the band is constructed by about 10 members and about 40 ex-members.

They had two gigantic albums at the end of the 1970s and it was promptly sampled by about every hip-hop act over the course of the next 30 years. They probably made more on royalties from sampling than they did selling records.

Now their music is played on Rush Limbaugh's radio show.