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 - #5 - Abbey Road

It's the perennial question. Which Beatles record? Which of course raises innumerable other questions. Are they really the greatest band of all time, the modern day Mozarts? If you struggle to choose between, Abbey Road, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt Peppers and A Hard Day's Night, and you put Abbey Road at #5, should 6-9 be taken up by the others? John or Paul?
So first of all, yes, they're truly great. Mozarts? Maybe, only time will tell. the best ever? No. No-one ever will be. But they were great. And this (perhaps) is their greatest.
This was the record The Beatles truly recorded as a group of individuals. The final recording they made (Let it Be, while recorded earlier, was released in 1970 due to Phil Spector's production schedule), it was made at a point when the band were arely on speaking terms. As a result, it allowed the long-supressed talents of George Harrison to come screaming to the fore, with 'Something' and 'Here Comes the Sun' two of the most gorgeous arrangements the Beatles ever laid to vinyl.
Opening up the now utterly iconic cover, laden with 'Paul is really dead' clues, as many others were before it, side one doesn't reveal anything that significantly sets it apart from previous releases. There's the beautiful ballads, such as the aforementioned Harrison numbers, the children's song 'Octopus's Garden', the 7 minute long wig-out 'I Want You (She's so Heavy) and the slightly forward looking weird funk of 'Come Together'. Quality was never an issue, and it wasn't until side 2, when the 16 minute suite, made up of unfinished bits and pieces, blows all they had done before out of the water. Be it the startling 'Mean Mr Mustard', the melodic, floating 'Sun King', the achingly beautiful 'Golden Slumbers' or the hidden Beatles' classic, 'She Came in Through the Bathroom Window', and closing with 'Her Majesty', arguably music's first ever secret track, this was The Beatles: fractured, broken, dysfuntional, and yet still triumphant, powerful and magical.
A band as wonderful as The Beatles deserved a sensational swansong. It's hard to imagine a more glorious one than this.