'Scott Walker 2' & 'Scott Walker 4'

One of the few artists from the 1,001 list that doesn’t rank No. 1 in a Google search. The governor of Wisconsin trumps him. 

Walker’s a weird and I don’t quite get the admiration that he gets. The documentary about the guy – 30^th Century Man -- gets real disappointing when you realize that he didn’t overdose on drugs or kill himself. Just a guy that wants to make music that no one wants to fund. All documentaries about musicians should end in death.

Walker’s style is, if nothing else, out of the box for the time he was making music, the 1960s. It’s orchestral vocal music that’s too odd for old people to like it and too conventional for young people to really like. So artists and writers like it. Because they will always like what others really don’t.

In all honesty, it’s not bad and if you can ignore the hype and unnecessary accolades it’s a worthwhile listen.

'Space Ritual'

Hawkwind still plays. In fact, in their 44^th year, they’re touring and actually playing in my city in the next couple of weeks. 

This makes Hawkwind weird. Why? Because A vast, vast majority of bands do not exist at age 44. And a vast, vast, vast number of those bands aren’t as relentlessly unpopular as Hawkwind.

Now, popularity is sorta bullshit because no one is necessarily to blame for unpopularity. Maybe there’s a cause, but if a band is OK with being unpopular than there’s nothing wrong with that.

Hawkwind is a remnant of the late-1960s early metal, prog- and hard rock scene especially anything coming from the United Kingdom from Black Sabbath to Deep Purple.

The one constant, and the only thing keeping it together is Dave Brook, the guitar player and vocalist who has been with the band for all 44 years.

As you might imagine, being around that long, you run through a number of bandmates. What makes Hawkwind unique is just how utterly unexceptional the 50+ former members of Hawkwind are. Included is one Lemmy Kilmister, the legendary bass player for Motörhead, who was roadie for them until joining in 1972 and quitting in 1975. The other notable member is Ginger Baker, who gigged with them in 1980.

Otherwise, it’s about 50 dudes so unspectacular that it’s amazing not to have had more success, all things considered.

'Bat Out of Hell'

Listening to Bat Out of Hell, it brings it far more questions than answers. 

 

Who is Meat Loaf? Why is he called Meat Loaf? Why does he look and sound the way he does? Why does he simultaneously annoy and please people? Does anyone realize he’s being a smartass? Why is he an actor? Why doesn’t he sing more? What would you call his music?

Truth is, Meat Loaf has sold a bunch of records without being altogether famous in two different decades, 15 years apart and somehow turned himself into someone immediately recognized due to a baked beef dish.

Meanwhile, he takes relatively small roles in movies without becoming an actor. Sorta how George described Kramer on Seinfeld: “His whole life is a fantasy camp. People should plunk down $2,000 to live like him for a week. Do nothing, fall ass-backwards into money, mooch food off your neighbors, and have sex without dating. That's a fantasy camp.”

Interestingly, Meat Loaf has cheated death on a number of occasions, flipping his car, having an airplane make an emergency landing, falling off a stage and breaking both legs, fainting on stage, getting hit on the head by a shot put and suffering from Wolff–Parkinson–White syndrome, which I won’t even try to explain.

'Connected'

Robert Christgau, famed music critic, said that this album is "so multifaceted that its functionality is fungible and forgettable."

See, even Christgau didn’t have anything to say about it.

'Reign in Blood'

Once considered the “heaviest album of ALL TIME.” As if ANYONE could know that. 

I like metal despite the fact that I hate most metal. Which doesn’t make sense. What I mean is that what metal that I deem good I really like to listen to and that includes only about 10 percent of all heavy metal.

I think metal’s one redeeming quality is – somewhat ironically – is the musicianship. It’s what bands in a lot of current metal groups don’t quite understand and why a lot of 1980s glam metal is severely underrated. Kids today think it’s about anger and disassociation with mainstream culture. At its purest, it’s about playing harder, faster and louder. It’s what Slayer and Metallica perfected in the 1980s.

However, the idea wasn’t just to be fast, but to play with the precision of a concert violinist. I’ve always argued that heavy metal has more roots in classical music (and punk, for that matter) than any other music genre.

Concerning nothing, Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman died recently. It was suspected that it was related to his suffering of necrotizing faciitis, a deep infection of the skin, which basically makes your flesh rot away. He claims to have gotten it from a spider bite.

A week later, we all learned Hanneman died to liver failure and had suffered from cirrhosis. He basically drank himself to death.

How metal.

'Screamadelica' & 'Vanishing Point'

Another installment of “1990s rock bands that I should’ve been listening to in the 1990s.” Two tremendous albums from a band that started in the heart of New Wave. 

Both their acid house and straight rock efforts are tremendous. Even the heavier sound of (due in part to hiring Gary Mounfield from the broken up Stone Roses) is only so low as the highs felt in the bubbly and danceable Screamadelica.

Vanishing Point

As a side note, the band was – like any group of artists from Scotland in the 1990s – heavy drug users and by the mid-1990s they were all heavy heroin addicts. 

In his feature on the band, James Brown reported that the band were arguing between Vietnamese, Chinese or Indian. When someone interjected with the idea of a hamburger, it was found out that the subject was not food, but heroin. 

Two must haves or any fan of 1990s rock music. The albums, not drugs.