Jim's Top 20 Albums of All Time (numbers 20 - 11)

#20

The Police – Regatta de Blanc (1979)

Some may prefer the more popular Synchronicity or the more cerebral Ghost in the Machine, but I’ve always liked Regatta de Blanc best. “Message in a Bottle” is still the best song Sting ever wrote and it’s always fun to hear it in its original, “non-acoustic” form. “Bring on the Night” and “Walking on the Moon” are two more of my favorite Police tunes, and the rest of the album just cranks along in a very dark mood. The song “On Any Other Day” first revealed the odd side of the Police; it’s the story of a man who finds out on his birthday that his wife is having an affair, his daughter ran away and that his son is gay. I guess it doesn’t sound funny in telling you about it – you just need to hear it for yourself. What makes this album so good is that The Police were still a "hungry band" at this point and Sting hadn’t yet become full of himself. 

#19

Brian Eno – Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1982)

Back in 1979, Brian Eno was heavily into “music as theory” and wanted to make a different kind of album. Over the next couple of years, he played around with tapes and loops until he was satisfied enough to release Ambient 1: Music for Airports. Minimalist in the extreme, the album consists mainly of tone layers over treated piano chords. This album was specifically designed not be listened to. It was meant to become part of the interior design itself, like the pictures on the walls or the color scheme of a room. You weren’t supposed to notice this album – Eno himself decreed that this album should be listened to at low volumes. And for what it is, it’s perfect – simple background noise. It takes the silence away, but doesn’t replace it with something worse. You can put this disc in “repeat” mode and listen to it for 8 hours straight without getting sick of it. Because it lacks definition. Like a ghost, this is music without form. It’s not for everyone, nor is it something you can pop in the CD player on a whim. You definitely have to be in the mood or have an occasion to listen to the CD. But that’s OK. Music for Airports is one of the few examples of someone questioning the very nature of music itself and in the end making something that’s neither pretentious (like John Cage) nor unlistenable (also like John Cage).

#18

Mazzy Star – So Tonight That I Might See (1993)

There’s so much to like about this album that I don’t even know where to begin!! Of course, there is the popular hit “Fade Into You” which kicks off the album and that just about everyone on the planet is familiar with. For reasons not important here, that song always makes me burst into tears. So Tonight That I Might See then sucks you into David Roback and Hope Sandoval’s lush world, which is heavily inspired by 1960’s psychedelic rock and the American southwest. However, the main difference between Mazzy Star one of their influences like The Doors is that Mazzy doesn’t suck, even though the album’s title track almost sounds as if it was recorded in 1968. This is an excellent mellow album for all the potheads and pill-poppers out there – the songs “Mary of Silence” and “Into Dust” were made for abusing chemicals. Mazzy is mellow to be sure and is also one of those bands that only seems right to play late into the night. And for what it is, it’s awesome.

#17

David Sylvian – Secrets of the Beehive (1987)

Following the breakup of Japan in 1982, David Sylvian embarked on his solo career with the dazzling album Brilliant Trees. A mixture of avant garde, modern jazz and Eastern mysticism, it won critical acclaim and healthy sales in the UK and Japan. Next came Gone to Earth which followed in Trees' “avant jazz” footsteps. After a couple of minor projects, he released his best album to date, Secrets of the Beehive. Never has Sylvian’s writing been better, as witnessed by the songs “Orpheus” and “On the Waterfront”:  “Down below on the wreck of the ship\I’ve a stronghold of pleasures I couldn’t regret\But the baggage is swallowed up by the tide\As Orpheus keeps to his promise and stays by my side”. While still jazzy at its core, Beehive loses most of Sylvian’s Asian influences in favor of Western string arrangements. In fact, even the album cover art – by Vaughn Oliver of 23 Envelope, who did most of the covers for 4AD Records back when that was a good label – signals Sylvian’s return to the West. Later on, Sylvian would team up with former King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp to explore music that can best be described as “electro-funk”. While it’s good stuff, it can never meet the high-water mark set by Beehive.    

#16

Emiliana Torrini – Love In The Time Of Science (1999)

This album is so good I just don't know where to start... so I guess I'll start with the lady herself. Emiliana Torrini is from Iceland. Her father is Italian, hence her Italian name. Her voice sounds a lot like Bjork. But her music - while at times similar to Bjork - is, at its core, nothing like Bjork's either. One might also say that this album sounds a lot like Portishead and\or Massive Attack, but then that analogy (while close) isn't a perfect fit either. This music - which was produced by, and features musical contributions from, Tears for Fears' Roland Orzabal - is a lush electronic cocoon that envelops you. Sure, there are happy tunes on this disc. I'm sure many a European college girl used "Unemployed In Summertime" as her theme song that year. But "the happy" is not what this album is about. It's sad and dark, but it doesn't hit you over the head about it. The theme of the album - love in a world too technical to believe in love anymore - floats like a specter through each and every track. This is also one of those rare albums where each and every sound on every track is exactly perfect; the beauty of it is that you won't really notice it until you've listened to the disc a few times. Tracks like "Baby Blue" and "To Be Free" are some of my favorite songs.  Ever.

#15

The Cure – Pornography (1982)

The Cure is a tricky band to pin down. They’ve had so many personnel shuffles and “eras” that it’s hard to pick just one album to represent their entire career. And the fact remains that there simply aren’t that many Cure albums that I like in their entirety. I like Faith a lot but for the most part, I've been content with Staring at the Sea for years. Pornography is a notable exception, however. Before Robert Smith became a warm fuzzy teddy bear, he was a cold, creepy man. While he was never quite “death rock”, in this phase The Cure certainly walked that line - very dark and very gloomy. “A Strange Day” remains my favorite Cure song ever, and the sheer despair of “The Figurehead” and the trippyness of “Pornography” only add to the thumbs-up. And let's not forget the angst of "100 Years"! Pornography was a great album because it can be played when you’re deathly depressed or very angry, but can also fit in any other time.  It’s also another great album to listen to in “enhanced mode”.

#14

Bryan Ferry – Boys and Girls (1985)

This album makes the list for several reasons. For starters, I have always been a huge Roxy Music and Bryan Ferry fan, but their albums usually don’t have enough legs to stand on their own. Aside from perhaps Avalon, this album is the one exception. Besides, this disc got me lots of play as a teenager! Bryan Ferry’s music was the 80’s suburban white teenager’s answer to Barry White. As smooth as silk, he’s the closest thing to Sinatra Britain ever came up with. Everyone has heard “Slave to Love” either due to radio play or from its inclusion in the 80’s hit move “9½ weeks”. That song is as good now as it was then. But there’s more – “Sensation” starts off the album, then the aforementioned “Slave to Love”, followed by “Don’t Stop The Dance”, “Wasteland”, “Windswept”, “The Chosen One”, “Valentine”, “Stone Woman”, and “Boys and Girls”. All-in-all an awesome album, though like most Bryan Ferry projects it starts getting thin towards the end. Bryan Ferry sometimes seems like the last of the True Romantics and it’s a shame that it doesn’t look like there’s anyone to take his place one day. In a world of Eminems and Kid Rocks, it’s reassuring that someone in the pop world not only knows how to dress himself, but can be romantic without being vulgar.

#13

The Cardigans – Gran Turismo (1998)

Nina Persson is one dark little girl. That’s the gimmick with The Cardigans. They have this nice, happy-sounding Britpop thing going, but if you stop and listen to the words, she’s saying really weird stuff. This album kicks off with the angst-ridden “Paralysed” - a nice song about being in love, confused and on a window ledge. The hit “Erase\Rewind” follows, then it’s on to “Explode”, a quasi-psychedelic tune about a friend “imploding or exploding”, Keith Richards-style: “You rely on\What you get high on\And you last just as long as it serves you”. There are several more dark tracks to like, but I will just finish with the song that was a monster smash in Europe – “My Favourite Game”, the video of which was banned by MTV in the USA due to it’s violent theme and ending (Nina gets into a very graphic car wreck at the end) . This song kicks ass and should be on everyone’s “tester CD” that you use to try out a new stereo. You can blast the speakers with this song. The whole damn album is a like taking a tour through Nina Persson’s tortured soul. But the music’s good, so it’s not a painful journey, like listening to Marilyn Manson. Too bad it looks like Gran Turismo will be the last Cardigans album (UPDATE: it's apparently not the last Cardigans album, but the new album is... interesting. Perhaps Gran Turismo will be the last *good* Cardigans album) 

#12

Duran Duran – Rio (1982)

Duran Duran have the distinction of being the only group to have two albums in my Top Twenty, and this album needs no introduction. Even my grandmother is familiar with “Rio”, “Hungry Like The Wolf” and maybe even “Save a Prayer”. “My Own Way” and “Hold Back the Rain” are perennial faves amongst Duran Duran fans. And “The Chauffeur” is one of my all-time fave Duran Duran tunes. Interestingly, this album has been released in about ten different versions. The initial US release on Harvest Records was exactly the same as the UK version. Not too long after its original pressing, Duran Duran became superstars in the US and Capitol re-released it, this time with the extended versions of “Hungry Like The Wolf” and “Hold Back The Rain” and a different version of the side 2 opener, “New Religion”. This is the version that 99% of people that owned this album back in the 80s had. The initial version of the CD came from Germany and had a rare mix of “My Own Way” that was actually a combination of the album version and the single version. It’s very hard to find now. By the time Capitol got around to pressing a domestic version of the CD – in the early days of CDs, domestic manufacturing capacity was limited and it was not uncommon for labels to sell imports as “American” versions – the album had returned to its Capitol version. It has since been re-released as an “enhanced CD”, with digitally re-mastered audio and 3 videos.     

 #11

Japan – Tin Drum (1981)

While Japan never really caught on in the States, they were huge in the UK. British brothers David and Steve Batt changed their last names to Sylvian and Jansen respectively and teamed up with Mick Karn and Richard Barbieri (and guitarist Rob Dean, who left the band before this album was made) to form Japan in the mid 1970s. Their first couple of albums were horrible attempts at glam rock, but by their 4th album, Gentlemen Take Polaroids, they had morphed into a spacey Roxy Music clone. On their final studio album Tin Drum they had fully succumbed to David’s fascination with all things Eastern, from the album cover featuring Chairman Mao to the biggest hit of their career, “Visions of China”. Although Japan’s smooth and clever form of art-pop will probably get lost in the annals of 20th century music, it must be said that they had a very singular sound. Mick Karn’s smooth fretless bass work and penchant for woodwind instruments blends in seamlessly with Steve Jansen’s Asian-tinged percussion. Richard Barbieri’s atmospheric synth work with a minimalist flair and David Sylvian’s rendition of an “even deeper” Bryan Ferry makes it all go down smoother than Ben and Jerry’s. As you might imagine, they were a huge influence on Duran Duran. Just look at the picture of David Sylvian on the album cover eating a bowl of rice (left). Nick Rhodes wanted to be this guy!

Jim's Top 20 Albums: 20 - 11  |  10 - 1  |  Honorable Mention