'Harvest'

 Harvest put Neil Young on the map probably despite his best efforts. Although I truly feel sorry for public figures that put their privacy on the line in exchange for sharing their talents, it’s hard to understand Young playing in Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills and Nash and then releasing three relatively popular solo albums and not expecting some recognition.

Young was taken aback at the popularity that Harvest brought. It topped the Billboard 200 for two weeks. I guess since it’s impossible for me to have it both ways, I don’t comprehend someone else having it both ways.

Harvest came to fruition after Young appeared on The Johnny Cash Show (a show that concerned itself little with what was popular, but instead what Johnny Cash wanted to do inviting all sorts of country and folk acts), which also featured Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor. Afterwards, Young invited the duo to his barn studio to record.

Although probably his most popular album, I care little for Harvest. I think his hits – “Heart of Gold” and “Old Man” – are some of his most boring songs.

'Figure 8'

No lie, my wife went to high school with Elliot Smith. It was during the years he lived in Duncanville, Texas. She later worked for the local newspaper and when Smith was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song (“Miss Misery” from Good Will Hunting) and she wrote a story about him.

So, when he killed himself in 2003 I was absolutely heartbroken. At the time was digging deep into all of his material including the fantastic Figure 8.

I don’t know if it’s a perfect album, but it’s close. Certainly one of my favorites of all time. I felt that Smith met a healthy median between his lower-fi early albums, which are damn near whispered, and his love for melody along with arranging and adding piano and electric guitar. If Smith was ever happy, I don’t know that he was, it had to have been while recording this album.

'Gris Gris'

Mac Rebennack oozes New Orleans. It’s not easy a recording artist, who is known best as being some ambassador for a particular city. The Beatles and Liverpool come to mind, particularly because their early music mirrored the grind of the shipping port city.

Boston and Chicago don’t represent their city any more or less than Letters to Cleo or Kanye West.  Hip-hop artists tend to attach themselves with their city or region as more often than not they tend to live by the creed of the cold streets.

Rebennack is a different story. Before recording and releasing his debut album Gris Gris, Rebennack decided on the idea of going by a nom de plume. He decided on Dr. John thanks to a supposed voodoo holy man named Dr. John Montaine. Although he never intended to keep the moniker (instead attempting to get a bandmate to adopt it as his own) , it stuck and ever since you don’t think of Dr. John without thinking of New Orleans.

Certainly, there’s a lot of New Orleans in Gris Gris, which is actually a voodoo amulet often used as a contraceptive and brought over by the West African slaves and serving as an important item amid the New Orleans voodoo scene.

Oh, and tremendous album cover too.

'Phaedra' & 'Leftism'

I was set to present these two albums (neither are which are bad, by any means) only because they reminded me of each other only because they're both electronic music with sparse lyrics.

The two are actually very, very different (although I bet Leftfield played the hell out of Phaedra when they were growing up).

Phaedra from Tangerine Dream is a sequencer-driven prog album from the 1970s and, most notably, from Germany. I mean, who was doing weirder shit than the art-school Germans in the 1970s? No one, that's who.

Imagine Pink Floyd if they dumped all of the guitars, drums and bass ... and songs lasted 10 minutes a piece.

Leftism is 1990s British trip-hop. And it's very good. If you're the type to throw a party you probably would not go wrong with this album.

Two different albums, but both are brilliant examples of two important sub-genres of recorded music.

'Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols'

I think it is funny when “punks” make a really clean, melodic rock album. What’s less anarchic than recording an album for Virgin? 

Interestingly, Sid Vicious (the noted drug addict, who sometimes played bass guitar) is featured just on one song on the Sex Pistols’ only record. Former bassist Glen Matlock was asked to return, but once he wasn’t paid he laid down only one song. Guitarist Steve Jones played bass on every other track.

Say what you will about the vapid modern entertainment culture, but Vicious is a well-known “rock god” for basically dying. He’s famous for nothing.

'The Rolling Stones'

I think it’s noteworthy that The Rolling Stones’ first album, as it was released in the United Kingdom, features the five members photographed facing the same way looking to their right at the camera. 

No identifying copy on the album cover. Just a photo with the record company’s logo. And 60 years later those same visages are as recognizable as they probably weren’t when it was released in 1964. Still, there is a certain amount of vibrato in presenting yourself as such considering how new they were.

The Rolling Stones was recorded in five days in February 1964 right when The Beatles were invading the United States. When the album was released in America in May 1964, “England’s Newest Hit Makers” along with the band’s name was added. Don’t want to mix them up with the other English hit makers.

It’s a … perfect rock album. Full of R&B, blues and early rock covers. Mick Jagger’s voice is at home. It finds its happy place amid these songs of woe and want. All of it tips of the cap to Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. It might be as good as The Rolling Stones got. Or it could be argued.