65–61/100 — Every decade from the 60’s to the 90's

Joshua E. Field
Jul 24, 2017 · 10 min read

As we approach the half way mark I’m both excited and terrified as I venture into more and more classic territory. Some of these albums have been reviewed by much more accomplished writers than I, but I still throw my hat in the ring out of love for this music. Thanks for joining me on this adventure of discovery and rediscovery.


65 /100— Bruce Springsteen — Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978)

Darkness on the Edge of Town bridges the gap between the youthful exuberance of Born to Run and the duality of “party til you die” and “life is a devastatingly sad and painful thing” reality of The River. It’s got a lot of swagger (look at that cover photo!) and has one of Bruce Springsteen’s most sinister tracks, “Adam Raised a Cain,” which feels like a fist fight waiting to happen. There’s a hopeless nihilism to a lot of the lyrics and it adds to the weight of the album. The mournful ballad “Something in the Night” has this brutal verse:

You’re born with nothing
And better off that way
Soon as you’ve got something they send
Someone to try and take it away

Even the high energy “Candy’s Room,” which sounds like a cross between Patti Smith and Meatloaf has an underlying sadness as he embraces the delusion that the prostitute he’s in love with can actually be only his.

Side One ends with the saddest song of the bunch. “Racing in the Street” seems like it should be a testosterone fuelled rocker, but even his racing prowess can’t save a failing relationship and it ends with this line which could imply either be a hope for redemption, or a romanticized suicide:

Tonight my baby and me we’re gonna ride to the sea
And wash these sins off our hands

Darkness is the middle instalment of one of the great album trilogies ever produced, and Springsteen’s skills as a band leader are at their absolute peak. The slow burn of “Streets of Fire” has an extremely heavy backbeat, backed up by great organ work, and ripping guitar solo. And the title track, with its rolling verses, and wonderful piano hook, is a dynamic performance that brings the listener up and down and along for the ride. It’s wonderful.

This is from 2009, but it’s still a really great performance true to the original.

Bruce Springsteen is a great story teller, and the way he pairs music with his stories can be magnificent at times. Like Nebraska, this is a dark album with little hints of light. The last verse of “Darkness on the Edge of Town” has a man who’s lost everything standing tall and refusing to give up. The way Bruce tells it, it makes you feel like you could too.

Favourite Tracks: “Adam Raised a Cain”, “Streets of Fire”, “Racing in the Street”

Least Favourite Track: “Something in the Night”


64/100 — Pixies — Surfer Rosa (1988)

Yes, Surfer Rosa contains what is probably the Pixies most famous song, “Where is My Mind?”, but that’s not why it’s here on this list. This album is dark and dangerous and hilarious. “Bone Machine” opens the album with a catchy tune about infidelity and contains a reference to a priest trying to molest him. While there’s very little humorous about that, the language used is obviously attempting to make it funny. That’s super dark!

Despite it’s depressing themes, the energy and delivery transcends gloom. “Something Against You” is almost a primitive ska dance. “Broken Face” has the goofy falsetto voice cracks. “Gigantic”, helmed by bassist and female vocalist Kim Deal, is about interracial sex and voyeurism, and the bass line is catchy as hell. There’s also a little ditty called “Tony’s Theme” which is about a kid on a bicycle pretending he’s a super hero. Deal opens the song with, “This a song about a superhero named Tony. It’s called ‘Tony’s Theme’!” and it creates a sense of childish wonder and excitement. “I’m Amazed” opens with Kim telling a story about a perverted gym teacher who just kind of disappears from school one day without anyone talking about.

So you’re getting it. Dark stuff. Clearly I’m struggling to communicate why I love this album, but I do! It’s like when someone reads a transcript of a comedy act and says “that’s not funny” or “that’s horrible!” So much of humour and fun is conveyed in timing, in delivery. Here, it’s Steve Albini’s edgy production, combined with a “don’t give a damn” attitude, great musicianship, and hilarious delivery manages to take the sting off the darkness. It’s comes off as therapeutic rather than just wallowing.

I think by embracing painful experiences and laughing in their faces, the Pixies welcome us to face our own pain and move on. That’s a part of why I love this album. That and they have some really killer guitar solos and great bass tone.

Favourite Tracks: “Broken Face”, “Bone Machine”, “Where is My Mind?”

Least Favourite Track: “Cactus”


63/100 — Creedence Clearwater Revival — Green River (1969)

Creedence Clearwater Revival (one of the hardest band names to say quickly, ever) was created when a couple of California city boys fell in love with the blues and southern US culture and decided to try it. So then it’s pretty remarkable at how they totally crushed it and made it their own and became one of the greatest blues rock bands ever before they imploded, the brothers rarely speaking again.

Green River is a great example of their amazing musical interplay and the title track opens with one of those amazing guitar licks before one of my favourite backbeat rhythm sections kicks in to hold it down. Every little space between the lyrics has more great guitar moments. Lyrically it’s full of nostalgia for simpler times with “barefoot girls dancin’ in the moonlight” while the water flows steadily on. “Commotion” kicks it up a notch, criticizing the endless rush of modern life (“rushing to the treadmill, rushing to get home”) which leaves people feeling empty and unhappy, while at the same time embracing that high energy in their delivery.

“Tombstone Shadow” (that bassline!) and “Cross-Tie Walker” both embrace the same sort of delicious blues boogie that Dylan did on Bringing It All Back Home, and reworks classic blues tropes into a truly groovy tune. It also has the most hilariously repetitive guitar solo they’ve ever recorded…the rest of the take must have been really good — around the 2 minute mark if you’re interested. They don’t just appropriate the blues, they also cover the Nappy Brown R&B classic “The Nighttime is the Right Time” (made famous by Ray Charles). This blending of styles and influences into their own guitar heavy rock and roll melting pot is what I love about this band.

It’s not all rockers tho, “Wrote a Song For Everyone” and “Lodi” hit me in the feels every time. “Wrote a Song For Everyone” is about our protagonist writing a powerful protest song that the whole world responded to, but still being unable to talk to the person who matters most. The loneliness of the general which lacks the particular is rather striking. “Lodi” is another lonely song about hitting the road trying to make it big and ending up in prison due to bad choices and worse luck. It contains this wonderful verse:

If I only had a dollar
For ev´ry song I´ve sung
And ev´ry time I had to play
While people sat there drunk
You know, I´d catch the next train
Back to where I live

I love CCR. They are in many ways a perfect synthesis of all the old classic styles I love. I haven’t even talked about one of their biggest hits, “Bad Moon Rising” which also appears on the album. It has everything that makes this album great, voodoo blues imagery, great guitar, wonderful melodies, and John Fogerty’s powerful tenor and very unique pronunciation. They may not have come from the culture they reinterpreted, but they embraced it so fully that I almost didn’t believe it when I first found out. Their love comes through and it’s a wonderful thing.

This is totally lip-synched. But so was most “live TV” back then.

Favourite Tracks: “Green River”, “Bad Moon Rising”, “The Nighttime is the Right Time”

Least Favourite Track: “Sinister Purpose”


62/100 — Fugazi — Repeater (1990)

In the wake of Minor Threat’s demise, Ian Mackaye had a few smaller projects before finally forming Fugazi which became what is probably one of the most important post-hardcore bands ever. By continuing to pursue his DIY, high energy, punk rock roots, but moving in a more exploratory musical territory, MacKaye managed to change what punk could be forever.

Repeater is definitely one of the band’s creative peaks. Rather than opening with a barrage of vitriol, “Turnover” uses slow ambient swells to introduce a very cool bass and drum syncopation which crescendo to embrace MacKaye’s powerful voice which almost sounds like a preacher for the underground as he you to stop “lounging against your weapons” and take action. The title track steps up the energy with a frenetic jungle groove that could have been a chaotic transition in the middle of a Parliament/Funkadelic song. It’s really impressive. Somehow Fugazi manages to simultaneously fill every space with and explosion of noise, and fill the wall of noise with meaningful space. Sometimes the ringing silence is louder than any combustion (check those ringing snare hits out at the end of the track.)

Every track has this mad dance between the bass and the drums. They never quite line up but are always working in harmony, and when the guitars come in, they don’t join in as much as create more conflict. “Brendan #1” is a wonderful example of how adding this third voice of the guitar creates, by synergy, a fourth and larger voice. It’s in many ways the opposite of the Ramones’ singular attack, but it’s just as exciting and punk. “Greed” continues that trend by defying you to even find the down beat for the first forty seconds.

“Merchandise” is maybe the “catchiest” tune on the record and features the anthemic shout-along chorus, “We owe you nothing, you have no control,” and the equally inspiring bridge which repeats, “You are not what you own” over and over. Every song feels like it’s designed to break your complacency. “What a difference a little difference would make!” declares the slow burner “Blueprint.” “It’s just a matter of knowing when to say no or yes.” Taking down authority isn’t enough for MacKaye. “Styrofoam” declares that “We are all bigots, filled with hatred.” The problems aren’t just outside, they’re inside as well. That’s rare insight for the punk scene.

I didn’t discover Fugazi until my mid-20s and that’s a real shame. If I’d found them 10 years earlier I think it would have been life changing instead of just mindblowing. Fortunately I had bands like NoMeansNo to show me a more creative side of punk until I discovered these masters of deconstruction and motivation. MacKaye’s voice challenged and influenced a whole generation of punks, and continues to do the same for those who came to the party late, like me. Much better late than never.

Favourite Tracks: “Repeater”, “Merchandise”, “Styrofoam”

Least Favourite Track: “Two Beats Off”


61/100 — The Rolling Stones — Let It Bleed (1969)

From 1968 to 1972 the Rolling Stones released four albums which represents a huge chunk of their best music. Let It Bleed is the second album in this remarkable run, and is the logical progression from the fairly stripped down Beggar’s Banquet. There are a bunch of countrified songs here, from “Love in Vain” complete with slide guitar and lazy mandolin, to “Country Honk” which is a drunken campfire rendition (complete with fiddle) of their own massive hit “Honky Tonk Woman,” to the rocking honky tonk piano and guitar of the title track.

“Midnight Rambler,” with it’s slow acceleration, coal train steady roll, and howling harmonica, feels like it would be totally at home on a CCR album (that’s a good thing). It’s sinister shuffle and lyrics full of murder and deceit add an awesome energy as the band builds and builds to a massive crescendo before slowing it all down and bringing it back up again. It’s a wonderfully dynamic push and pull.

All these countrified blues and rock tunes are sandwiched between two wonderfully fleshed out and lushly arranged tracks which stand out in contrast. Album opener “Gimme Shelter” has these shimmeringly percussive tremolo guitars upon which a lonesome “Woo-ooo” is sung as more instruments (pianos, more guitars, bass, and drums) are layered on top. It creates a wonderful texture and energy. And the music is really at the forefront here as Mick Jagger’s voice is fairly back in the mix. By the end there are back up singers and more of that awesome harmonica I mentioned earlier.

And then there’s the best known track off, album closer “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” which opens with full on church choir and a 7.5 minute runtime that STILL made it onto the radio. It has a great hammond part, congas and maracas, and french horn! And it really gets going at the end in a full on “Hey Jude” sort of way. It’s groovy and ornate and still feels like it has that country rock heart somehow. It’s quite a feat.

The Stones show up with high energy, low hassle songs songs here and I love every moment of it. Each member of the band has great performances and I love the pared down vibe. This new brand of rock and roll that they’re beginning to perfect on Let It Bleed hints at even more greatness to come.

Favourite Tracks: “Gimme Shelter,” “Midnight Rambler,” “Let It Bleed”

Least Favourite Track: “You Got The Silver”

Joshua E. Field

Written by

Music Lover, Board Game Nerd, Hoopy Frood

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