50 Albums you must hear before you buy a house (10): 5-1

First of all a happy new year to all the loyal and less loyal readers of albumblog. I wish you all a lot of listening pleasure in the new year and hope that all your future discoveries may come true. Let’s give everybody a push in the right direction by presenting you the absolute best albums you should hear before you buy a house:

RKH:

1. Genesis – Selling England by the Pound (1973)
2. Beatles – Revolver (1966)
3. The Band – The Band (1969)
4. Radiohead – Kid A (2000)
5. Guided By Voices – Alien Lanes (1995)

GvZ:

1. Genesis – Selling England by the Pound (1973)
2. Velvet Underground – The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967)
3. Beatles – Revolver (1966)
4. The Band – The Band (1969)
5. Moody Blues – In Search of the Lost Chord (1968)

Although we witnessed two quite different lists in general from our music professors, it was already noticed last time that the similarities grew as we proceeded to the top of the lists. The absolute top perfectly demonstrates this trend, as 3 out of 5 albums are the same. Mister Hofmeijer starts with a surprise on #5, presenting his idol Robert Pollard and his band. This is of course a true landmark album as  something like playing 28 songs within 40 minutes using your own toilet as a studio was never performed again afterwards. Mister van Zwanendonk’s #5 was earlier to be found on #17 in his list, just like Kid A appeared earlier on #21 in the  first ones list.

The legendary brown album The Band from the Canadian rockers of the same name can be found on #4 and #3, and is best served on a dark Greek beach before some casual nightswimming, with only the stars above you to accompany the pure Americana sounds coming out of your speakers. Both professors also rate Revolver as the best of four listed Beatles albums, on #3 and #2. Lennon, McCartney as well as Harrison are maximally showing off their songwriting capabilities on this album, which makes the album so diverse and at the same time so homogenous concerning the quality of each song separately. An album that is totally ignored by mister Hofmeijer is The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967, added to the poll), runner-up in van Zwanendonk’s list. Let’s not mention the fact that the album was influential, that remark being both boring and redundant, but let’s say that this album is just loaded with brilliant songs.

Both lists are topped by Genesis‘ 1973 masterpiece Selling England by the Pound. I think there’s no explanation needed here if you’ve ever heard this. If you haven’t, just don’t buy a house. At least not one with its own lawn.

Leave a Reply