1001 Albums: 0491 - 500 - Yes 500 Down!

I shaved my head. Right down to the skin. I'm not an outdoors guy, but I now have a ridiculous head tan line thing going that makes it look like my face was grafted onto my head. Lesson learned!

But that's not what this is about! This is about music, the 1001 Albums you should listen to before you die. I'm not dead yet, and I'm now basically half way through it. How has it been? Read the past posts lazy bones! Actually it's been surprisingly good. I've largely been ambivalent to most of the music, wonderfully surprised by many, and amazingly only flat out hated a few. That's not bad!

Here's the albums fleshing out the top 500. If this was the Rolling Stone Magazine list, I'd be done. As it is, I probably got at least another year of doing this.

Shit.



0491 Bauhaus – Mask - I was looking forward to this one since I think these are the guys who did that song Bela Lugosi's Dead. That songs not all that great, and it isn’t on this album. A song titled “X: The Man With X-Ray Eyes” is on this album, but it’s not that great either. It’s named after one of my favourite movies, and that movie is great. So basically, skip this album and get that X: The Man With X-Ray Eye movie since it’s awesome.



0492 Bobby Womack – The Poet - A pretty lame soul album. I fear that the 80’s is the decade where soul music goes into the shitter.



0493 Tom Tom Club – Tom Tom Club (1st Album) - The name of this band kind of sinks it since it's silly, but it’s surprisingly good! A peppy pop album with a taste of rap.



0494 Rush – Moving Pictures - Being Canadian means that I love Rush even though I’ve never bought one of their albums. It’s just the way it is. This one is great. They tone down the prog rock stuff and replace it with a near perfect album. The opening song Tom Sawyer is on the best opening songs on a record, period. PERIOD! Man, I love that song! It gives me chills and the rest of the album is just as good.



0495 ABBA – The Visitors - I’ve already mentioned that I was never much of an Abba fan, and that hasn’t really changed. I did enjoy this one though. It’s their final album, and there’s a seriousness to it that is much more appealing to me then their other albums.



0496 ABC – Lexicon of Love - A poppy album that again surprised me that I actually liked it. I typically don’t care for this type of stuff, but this was really well done with some pretty good songs.



0497 Prince – 1999 - Prince makes his debut with a dead solid album that featuring the title track and "Little Red Corvette" that will become big video hits when “Purple Rain” comes out. At least that’s when I first remember hearing about them. Prince simply didn’t exist until that point for me. Anyways, the rest of the album is just as good. Well done Prince!



0498 Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five – The Message - Raps big coming out party, The Message is a legendary song. The album though... meh. It’s mostly lame R&B, full on R&B as opposed to rap in The Message vein. That’s how it goes with the ground-breakers I guess.



0499 Elvis Costello – Imperial Bedroom - Elvis puts out a flat out mature album that’s full of pop perfection. I liked it though I found it not exceptionally memorable.



0500 The Cure – Pornography - The landmark 500th spot is filled by landmark goths The Cure with their landmark album Pornography! It was good, better then the previous one, and still not all that gothy and sad. That’s how it is with The Cure.

There it is. Sadly not a mind blowing group. The Rush album was awesome, but I had heard it before. I actually own it for Rock Band. The surprisingly good pop albums where alright but not entering into my regular rotation. Harumph. Oh well, let's see how the next 500 plus 1 go!