Close but No Cigar

Well, if anyone actually reads this thing regularly, they'd know that I just finished listing my favourite ten records of all time. For those of them who really give a shit, here's the list again:

1. OK Computer - Radiohead
2. ( ) - Sigur Ros
3. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco
4. Bitches Brew - Miles Davis
5. Abbey Road - The Beatles
6. Blood on the Tracks - Bob Dylan
7. Kid A - Radiohead
8. Strange Bird - Augie March
9. Mothership Connection - Parliament
10. Pink Moon - Nick Drake

Having put all that out on paper, so to speak, I thought I'd list a few of the records that I shortlisted, primarily as I felt guilty for not mentioning some of my favourite albums on a post listing my favourite albums. So it is with a mixture of congratulatory and apologetic glee I offer (In no real order - possibly alphabetic if I get anal retentive):

Air - Moon Safari: No one does ambient like this.
At The Drive-In - Relationship of Command: The best hard rock album of all time, hands down.
Beck - Odelay: A new kind of genius emerged when this appeared in 1996.
Belle and Sebastian - Tigermilk: 'She's Losing It' is the template for all pop music.
Bjork - Debut: Ditto Beck.
Blur - Think Tank: Everyone talks about Parklife and Gorillaz, but this is Blur's, and Damon Albarn's, watershed moment.
Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde: Just because of the front sleeve haircut.
Can - Tago Mago: Multinational, multicultural, totally mental, all awesome.
Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band - Safe as Milk: Everyone talks about Trount Mask Replica, but this is the classic.
David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars: The first and only glam rock record to stand the test of time.
David Bowie - Aladdin Sane: The perfect way to follow up Ziggy.
Doves - Lost Souls: Former dance trio create moody, Mancunian magic.
Elbow - Cast of Thousands: Mellow Radiohead. More sad, less angry, just as beautiful.
Frank Zappa - Hot Rats: Would be in just for the Beefheart vocal cut, but the other 59 minutes are equally awesome.
Happy Mondays - Pills'n'Thrills and Bellyaches: The 'Madchester' scene redefined rock'n'roll, and this defined Madchester.
Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced: The biggest and best hands of all time.
Led Zeppelin - III: Only in ahead of I and IV because of 'Bron-Y-Aur Stomp'.
Massive Attack - Blue Lines: Revolutionary in every conceivable way; still being copied 15 years later.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus: He rhymed 'Orpheus' with 'orifice'. Enough said.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - And No More Shall We Part: Sadness was never this stunning.
Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left: What 60s folk music was all about.
Peter Gabriel - So: The only person ever to make Worldbeat sound cool.
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here: Just overblown and pretentious enough.
Portishead - Dummy: Built on Massive Attack's foundations, and pumped it full of acid.
Pulp - Different Class: 'Common People' is the best angry bloke song ever.
Queens of the Stone Age - Rated (R): 'Feelgood Hit of the Summer' might just be the best SONG ever.
Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine: I stole their name, so I owe them. And it's amazing too.
Rufus Wainwright - Want Two: High camp and high drama will never dance this closely again.
Sigur Ros - Aegaetis Byrjun: Sheer. Icelandic. Maginificence.
Sly and The Family Stone - There's a Riot Goin' On: Funk and angry militant activism. One potent mix.
Sufjan Stevens - Come On! Feel the Illinoise!: It's totally unreal, it shouldn't work, but it SO does.
Super Furry Animals - Rings around the World: The best album by the band with the best name.
Television - Marquee Moon: All guitarists - actually, all humans - ahould hear this record.
The Arcade Fire - Funeral: Probably the best debut album since Bjork.
The Avalanches - Since I left You: Another Aussie entry, and redefined what Aussie music could mean to the world at large.
The Beatles - Revolver: The pefect balance between pop melodies and avant-garde. Brilliant.
The Beatles - Rubber Soul: The turning point for this most incredible band. A lot of people till haven't figured out what 'Norwegian Wood' is all about.
The Cure - Disintegration: Another fine entry into the pantheon of glum rock. However, it's the flashes of happy that make this a classic.
The Frames - For the Birds: Ireland's best ever (and I'm aware of where U2 come from), make their best ever.
The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow: For unashamedly poppy pop music, this is incredibly important and foot-tappy.
The Smiths - The Queen is Dead: I love Morrissey.
The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground and Nico: This must have pissed off a lot of people who though Sgt Peppers was controversial.
Tom Waits - Sworfishtrombones: Waits' Revolver. The midpoint and highpoint of an incredible career.
Tricky - Maxinquaye: Music at its most technicolour.
TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain: Probably too soon, but in time, this will be on every all-time list.
Wilco - A Ghost is Born: Hard to pay attention to after YHF, but nearly as good, and the good bits are probably better.

All time top ten - #6 - Blood on the Tracks

Any list of the greatest Bob Dylan records invariably lists ‘Highway 61 Revisited’ and ‘Blonde on Blonde’ over ‘Blood on the Tracks’. They’re the legendary Dylan records, lending an enigma that will never be decrypted. Moving from folk to rock and blues, confounding fans, and creating a new brand of rock that is still emulated today. People tend to forget ‘Blood on the Tracks’. It wasn’t the record that blazed a trail, or established a mythology. But it was the record that stands as the bridge between the Wunderkind of 1966 and the modern day elder statesman of music today. Poignant, earnest, heartfelt and intimate, this is as close as Dylan ever got to bearing his soul on a record. While still full to the brim with allegory and cryptic poetry, ‘Blood on the Tracks’ is an open window into the true Bob Dylan, a man dealing with a broken marriage, and as a result is forthright in its honesty, sadness (‘Simple Twist of Fate’), anger (‘Idiot Wind’) and hope (‘You’re a Big Girl Now’) in equal measure.
After being somewhat forgotten since his motorcycle accident in 1966, Dylan had made some lackluster music (Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid anyone?), and 1975 saw him returning somewhat to his roots. Dispensing with the amplification that made him (in)famous, it once again became about the words; the music merely a means of concentrating and focusing an emotion. While regressing somewhat to his acoustic heritage, this is not the record of the angst-ridden 24 year-old of 1966, but a worldly adult. His vocals were deeper, wiser and fuelled the lyrics with a life of their own, the music seems to have a greater awareness of the history they invoke when ‘Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts’ rollicks over a rockabilly rhythm section.
Whether it be the stunning ‘Tangled Up in Blue’ making life as a fugitive cool, or the sneering, furious ‘Idiot Wind’ (“you’re an eeeeidiot, babe”), ‘Blood on the Tracks’ is resolutely human, examining the flaws of both singer and subject. But it’s when Dylan just picks up a guitar and punches out ‘You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go’ which, at 2.55, is the shortest song on the record by a minute and a half, the listener is reminded how devastatingly effective a song can be without unnecessary instrumentation, particularly when written by a genius such as Mr. Zimmerman.
Dylan made a greater mark with other, earlier records, but it’s hard to argue that he made a better record.