I was going to wait until next week to revisit this but last night I realized I forgot "London Calling" (!) and when I saw a talkback from Racilla.Killah mentioning it this morning I couldn' t let it stand uncorrected.
I also appreciated the advice of Littletinyfish and Daniel and am making changes. I decided that Littletinyfish is right that these lists only have any meaning from a personal standpoint and so, while "What's Going On" and "Highway 61" and "America Eats Its Young" are brilliant records that I have adored at certain times, The Jam, The Smiths and Augustus Pablo have had a bigger impact on me and so those changes have been made.
The Stones have been cut mostly because while I think that certainly they're important to rock and roll and to me, I've come to realize that like the best R&B and reggae acts, The Stones were really a singles (or songs) band. They made great "albums" -- don't get me wrong (one thinks of "Let It Bleed," "Goats Head Soup," Sticky Fingers," "Exile," etc.) -- but no specific one has meant as much to me as its oeuvre as a whole, at least up to, say, 1978.
On the other hand I stand by "Revolver." As is the case for me in jazz, I often love transition records and to me, "Revolver" reflects the excitement of the beginning of experimentation and how the band parsed it into the existing music. And I love it as a pop record. If anything, I'd be tempted to also include the UK version of "Rubber Soul" before selecting the magesterial but rambling and disjointed "White Album."
I'm not sure yet how to accommodate the others that are simmering -- which I've narrowed (for now) down to two and then upped to three -- but I'll have to ruminate on it.
1) Bob Marley & the Wailers -- Survival
2) The Beatles -- Revolver (original UK version, which was chopped nearly in half in the US)
3) The Clash -- London Calling
4) The Clash (I'm partial to the American version of the green album,
but I'll allow it to share this space with the "real" UK version, which
was the original earth-shaker)
5) Sex Pistols -- Never Mind the Bollocks
6)
The Smiths -- Hatful of Hollow (which I'd include even though it wasn't
conceived as a "proper" album; it wasn't a greatest hits, though,
either)
7)
The Jam -- Sound Affects
8) Elvis Costello -- My Aim is True
9) Gang of Four -- Entertainment
10)
Augustus Pablo -- Original Rockers
Still simmering:
Placebo -- Without You I'm Nothing
The Specials
Bruce Springsteen -- Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (I know, everyone says the next one is better and most think the third one was better still, but there's a spark, an excitement and an amazing flow of verbiage on the first one.)
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
