Our imaginary road trip with great music (see Part 1 here and Part 2 here and, finally, Part 3 Part 3) is almost done. The albums in this last part are modern, and, for lack of a better word, popular. Before anyone complains about the lack of albums by Arcade Fire, Mumford & Sons, or Taylor Swift, please remember my self-imposed criterion that a recording must have, without doubt, passed the test of time. The quasi-inverse also is true. Most people don't need to be pointed in the directions of Pet Sounds or Abbey Road, and so, I will not bother to do so.
11. Frank Sinatra: Where Are You?
If humans were like amoebas and multiplied by dividing, there would never be any need for songs about love and loss. As a human being, Frank Sinatra was decidedly a mixed bag. He was, to say the least, a failure at acting like an understanding and generous professional colleague. In 1958, he stated that rock and roll was "sung, played, and written for the most part by cretinous goons." He later was widely perceived as having threatened Sinéad O'Connor with actual bodily harm. As an artist, he was pretty much a one-issue voter: Cherchez la femme.
There's no shortage of Sinatra ballad albums to choose from. Far less well known than his other such efforts, Where Are You? makes the cut primarily because it strikes a welcome balance between bleak despair and superficial hipness. The recommended version is an exceptional remastered CD/"Super Audio CD" hybrid, made from the original monophonic master tapes. (Other versions are available for less money.)
Listen to the track "Where Are You?" here.
Buy Where Are You? here.
12. Sarah MacLachlan: Surfacing
If Sinatra's posture was, "I'm alone, so I think I'm going to go to a bar and get drunk," Sarah MacLachlan's posture might have been, "I'm alone, so I think I'm going to stay home and think about harming myself." Were that we were like amoebas, indeed.
While for Where Are You? arranger and conductor Gordon Jenkins relied upon a large engineering crew and dozens of highly skilled session musicians (mostly classical string-instrument players), most of Surfacing was recorded by two people with one microphone and lots of technology (other musicians' contributions were later dubbed in.)
The tone of Surfacing is introspective. Moreover, its pace is slower than glacial. Nevertheless, I don't think anyone can question its authenticity.
Listen to "Do What You Have To Do" here.
Buy Surfacing here.
13. David Gray: White Ladder
It might seem that Welsh singer-songwriter David Gray's breakthrough album White Ladder is so desolate, that after listening to it all the way through, you would want to slit your wrists. However, for some reason you don't; or, at least, I don't. Gray's raw voice and stripped-down arrangements are strangely consoling.
That said, it is undoubtedly wise to heed the warning buried in the liner note fine print, that consuming alcohol while listening to White Ladder is almost certain to result in your drunk-dialing old girlfriends.
Listen to "This Year's Love" here.
Buy White Ladder here.
14. Take 6: Take 6
Had Oscar Wilde lived into our Age of Lack of Faith, he might have characteristically quipped, "Drugs, alcohol, and bad romance are the Gateway Drugs to Christianity." We have for the most part inverted the balance previous centuries maintained in art between the demands of divine love and earthly love. Exceptions do exist, however. I don't know if Take 6 is indeed, as some have claimed, the best vocal band in the whole universe. But, at the moment, I can't think of a better.
Listen to "Mary" here.
Buy Take 6 here.
15. Brian Eno: Ambient 1: Music for Airports
In the mid-1970s, former Roxy Music synth player Brian Eno was stuck for many hours in the Cologne/Bonn Airport. The uninspiring sonic environment of that airport only seemed to increase the tension and anxiety of hurrying to make a connecting flight, or the ennui of an enforced long wait.
So, Eno set to thinking about tape-loop installations of quiet, calm, restful music to humanize such places. And a genre was born. In this way, we close the chronological and musical circle the start of which was the serene and calming chant album Exaudiam Eum….
Listen to Ambient 1: Music for Airports here.
Buy Ambient 1: Music for Airports here.
Thanks for reading! Some of these recordings I would not have investigated except for entries in my Stereophile magazine reader write-in music-list competitions. I urge you to read them all!
"Musical Cultural Literacy for Americans"
"Great Art Songs of the Rock Era"
Record producer John Marks is a columnist for Stereophile magazine.
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