The First Ten

The First Ten

When I was eleven years old I ripped one of those Columbia House ads from a magazine (you know the ad, it advertised ten CDs for a penny) and spent a good two hours picking out which CDs (the paper itself was covered in titles on both sides, and you got to check ten of them) to get. At this time I did not own a CD player. I had saved relentlessly for a Walkman a year before or so and dubbed two of my dad's albums onto tape: Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced? and Cream's Strange Brew (which was in fact a greatest hits collection).

So my first ten CDs all came at once, in the biggest box I had probably ever received in the mail. If I could reach back from the future and guide the choosing hand of my eleven-year old self I would certainly make some changes, but for better or for worse, here's what they were:

Aerosmith: Get A Grip

For some reason at this age I was convinced that Aerosmith was the coolest band in the world. I think it was the song "Livin' On The Edge" from this album with its doomsday lyrics and insane length. I also liked to point out the line "if you can tell a wise man by the color of his skin, then mister you're a better man that I," apparently thinking that was the epitome of artistic social commentary. Unfortunately this album isn't very good. All the songs sound like Aerosmith 101 and where they attempt social commentary it falls quite flat. "Eat the Rich" is all about how much they hate rich people, which seems hypocritical at best for an uber-platinum-for-three-decades-straight arena rock band. Still, this album did introduce me to the word "psychedelic," when Steve Tyler yells "psychedelic sandwich!!!" on "Gotta Love It." I asked my dad what it meant and he showed me a heavily altered kaleidoscope picture of the Beatles.

Aerosmith: Pump

Like a lost puppy, I didn't know what to check next so I just checked two Aerosmith albums. This one is probably stronger than Get a Grip but I listened to it less, probably because the other one was newer. The only song I really remember from it is Janie's Got a Gun, which I dug hard because of the drum fills made to sound like thundering gunshots.

Eric Clapton: Timepieces

This is just a greatest hits album of Clapton's solo work and as such is mostly the sappy kind of "After Midnight," "Wonderful Tonight," "Cocaine" pop songs more than the acidic blues-rock he did with Cream. It did include "Layla," though, which up to that point I had only heard on the Unplugged album. I could barely believe they were the same song. I put the original on at least three different mixtapes that year.

Red Hot Chili Peppers: What Hits?I

Well. Time to get to the good stuff. I liked the Chili Peppers' name, and had heard "Give It Away" at some point and knew they were the shit. But I didn't realize to what extent. This is a best-of, but it focuses entirely on their 80's output with the sole exception of "Under The Bridge." At various times "Fight Like a Brave," "Knock Me Down," Taste the Pain," "Show Me Your Soul," and "Under The Bridge" became my favorite songs, and they all deserved it. Anyone who hasn't heard the eighties version of the Peppers is missing out bigtime. They had a wild energy of a flavor that no one else could touch, and that they couldn't possibly keep up into their late 30s, so they later dialed up the Keidis balladry and put the funk on hold. I recommend this album as a starter, then Mothers' Milk, and if you still feel like going from there the rest of their stuff is crazy ill too.

Jimi Hendrix: The Ultimate Experience

Yet another greatest hits package. I don't think I realized that was what I was getting at first, but when all four songs at the top were from Are You Experienced? I must have gotten wise. It also contained highlights from the other two Experience albums, as well as a bunch of unreleased stuff, the divine "Angel," and his two most famous live performances, "Wild Thing" (where he burns his guitar at the end) and "Star Spangled Banner." For some reason there is no Band of Gypsys material on this album. I was already a Hendrix fan but this made me a fanatic, and by the end of the year I had all the Experience albums, the Band of Gypsys concert, and a bunch of random posthumous crap to boot.

Michael Jackson: Thriller

I bought this one on the logic that the best-selling album of all time couldn't possibly be bad. Unfortunately, the first thing I noticed on it was the novelty of having Paul McCartney on a song ("The Girl Is Mine," as if you didn't know) and that was the song I first put on a mixtape. I had some friends over at my house and it came on and they looked at me like "Michael Jackson? Really?" and I got embarrassed and hid the album for years. I gave it a tenuous respect at arms'-length for a while, even putting "Thriller" (the song) on a mixtape or two, but it wasn't until late high school that it dawned on me what a dance-floor dynamite some of these songs were. By college I had realized that nothing, anywhere, ever, can light up a dancefloor like "Billie Jean," and my original copy still sits in my dusty CD collection, albeit missing the front of the jewel box.

Nas: Illmatic

To buy this album was totally out of character for me. I didn't really like rap (or thought I didn't) and wasn't allowed to get stuff with explicit lyrics labels. But this was a new release so the Columbia House pullout actually showed its cover as a featured album. The dark urban landscape and child's face juxtaposed on the cover was intriguing and bizarre to my young self, and the words "Nas" and "Illmatic" were different from any other words I'd ever heard, in a spellbinding way. I snuck it past my parents somehow, and listened to it only in headphones, and it engulfed me. It sounded absolutely unlike any rap music I had ever heard. At the time the national spotlight was all over Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube, criticizing them for making music that glorified violence and misogyny and turned them into a party. Illmatic's music was somewhere between melancholy and menacing, definitely not made with a dance party in mind. Nas's lyrics came "Straight out the fuckin dungeons of rap," and as vivid as his imagery was, it seemed real and immediate, not cartoonish like Snoop Dogg. Also, I got the distinct impression that Nas was not trying to glorify violence but rather to paint a picture. There was a strong theme of using poetry and art to rise above horrible conditions, and not just in terms of money but in terms of art itself. I really didn't fully appreciate this album at the time, partly because my ear wasn't attuned to complicated rap lyrics, and also because my lack of knowledge of the scene kept me from being able to find anything comparable (in terms of lyrics or production) until several years later. I only listened to it a few times that year, but it planted the seed and by the time I was fifteen or so I listened to underground hip hop almost exclusively. I've thought a lot in terms of top five lists and things like that over the years, and I'm pretty sure I would call this the greatest hip hop album ever recorded. Strangely it was almost pure coincidence that it was also the first one I ever owned.

Stone Free: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix

This tribute album featured wall-to-wall Hendrix covers by the likes of the Cure, PM Dawn, and Temple of the Dog. I didn't really like it and I sold it to a record store within a couple months of buying it. I might like it better if I heard it now, but I kind of doubt it.

I cannot for the life of me remember what the last two albums were. I'd love to say they were Hot Rats and Paul's Boutique, but I'd be lying.

Charanjit Singh: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat

I judged this one on its cover. Even if I hadn't even glanced at the back of the CD to notice it was recorded in 1982 with a Roland TR-808 (classic analog drum machine), TB-303 (classic analog bass synth), and Jupiter-8(classic analog polysynth) (a gear set for which I would gladly give an extra left arm if I'd been born with one), the title Ragas to a Disco Beat seemed a safe bet.

I was right. Although, in true raga form, the tunes consist of little more than a scale selection and then 5 minutes of noodling (and thus one track is not much different from the next), the sound and noodle quality are both fantastic. There was no MIDI implementation on these classic devices, but Roland allowed all their analog gear at the time to sync up without using MIDI, so the bassline, drums and arpeggios are always perfectly matched up to each other timing-wise. Thus this is basically an hour of a skilled musician jamming on a Jupiter-8 with rhythmic backup designed specifically for that synth. You won't get any of these tracks stuck in your head later, but while listening they are incredibly hypnotic for such basic stuff. I highly recommend it if it sounds interesting to you at all.

Slick Rick - The Art Of Storytelling

Most people know Slick Rick for his mid-to-late 80s hits like "La Di Da Di" and "Children's Story." The easy assumption to make is that a 1999 comeback album would be a halfhearted attempt to prolong his former glory, but that is far from the case. The only problem is that too many people made that assumption (or didn't even know it existed) and Rick hasn't put out an album since.Slick Rick's flow evolved a LOT between 1989 and 1999. Where he used to rap in a very fly but also very 80s old-school style, mostly in goofy storytelling form, now (1999) he is a punchline rapper with a cadence unlike anyone else I've heard. He packs his lines with internal rhymes and ends every line with a punchline. He became the type of rapper who almost never spits a syllable that doesn't rhyme with something else, but unlike most who try to do that, he does not sound like he's trying at all. He doesn't spit, he breathes. Sometimes he almost whispers, like he's so fly he doesn't even have to speak up to be heard. Often you get the feeling that Rick is really just humming to himself, except that his humming rhymes. The album is uneven, I'm sorry to say. Some of the less-than-inspired beats and guest appearances make it drag, and it could have used a bit of a trim. But the tracks that hit are among the smoothest slices of hip hop ever offered, and I think it's a shame so few have heard this shit. "Street Talkin'" with Big Boi and "Unify" with Snoop Dogg are good funky singles, but it's the solo tracks like "I Own America" and "Trapped In Me" and the few-and-far-between story tracks that really shine. Yes, Slick Rick still tells stories, and they are still hilarious. He still plays multiple characters right in the middle of his verses, letting their reactions rhyme with his quips effortlessly. "Who Rotten Em" is the story of a young slave to an Egyptian pharoah, who entertains the court with his amazing rhymes. "2 Way Street" is hilarious as Rick continuously almost hooks up with groupies before suddenly remembering he's married, and "Adults Only" is the funniest (and grossest) hip hop ode to anal sex I've ever heard with it's chorus "ain't no way to put it subtle when I want the butthole". For real, for just as much (well-deserved) praise is loaded on the 1980s version of Slick Rick, the nineties version deserves perhaps even more accolades, as one of the most clever, smooth, articulate mc's ever to dip the mic in drawn butter.

Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced

Before I had my own stereo, I saved up my allowance for a Walkman, and for probably a year or so I had only one tape: "Are You Experienced?" In fact it was a dubbed copy of my dad's tape, and the blank tape I used was so much longer than the album that there were over 15 minutes of silence at the end on each side. I probably used twice as many batteries just fast-forwarding so I could start it all over again. I don't know how many times I listened to it. Now, this is a rock album, more so than any other Hendrix album, but to me it will always be a headphone album. The hazes, confusions, depressions, waterfalls, sunsets, itching desires, jacks, clowns, the wind, it all sounds like inner space to me. The emotions touched on are all over the map and they are all raw: whether Hendrix is serenading his waterfall/rainbow, or lamenting that he can't tell the difference between love and confusion, he is always wearing his heart on his sleeve. Obviously this album will always be heralded mostly for Jimi's guitar work, but his singing is just as impressive, in my opinion. He is the greatest singer ever not to be that good of a singer, taking his limited voice to heights of expression that Bob Dylan could only dream of. And he's a poet too; check the laments of the curious alien sampling Earth for the first time on "Third Stone From the Sun", or the ethereal word-painting of "The Wind Cries Mary". And, yes, the guitar is jaw-droppingly awesome throughout. There's not a ton of shredding on "Are You Experienced," but the delayed blips and bloops of "May This Be Love", the reversed pick scrapes of the title track, the dreamy melodies of "Third Stone from the Sun" and the wah-wah/whammy meltdown at the end of "I Don't Live Today" say more with a few notes (they might not even *be* notes) than any other guitarist could say with hundreds. "Are You Experienced" is the greatest rock album ever recorded.

Outkast - Aquemini

"Aquemini" fills the air like the smoke from a fat charcoal grill, causing everything to shimmer behind it with heat. At this point Outkast (and Organized Noize) had the budget for some seriously overblown productions, but before they went the way of galactic space-funk with "Stankonia," they had a barbecue and got down. The instrumentation on here drips with deep dark soul sauce, from the organs and horns of "Return of the G" to the strummed guitars and harmonicas and foot-stomping of "Rosa Parks" to the ethereal percussion and slow-cooking poetry of "Aquemini", to the horn-section melancholy of "Spottieottiedopalicious," and the psychedelic guitar work on "Chonkyfire". The background singing is always beautiful and soulful, like on the feed-the-baby anthem "Slump," the melancholy "Return of the G," and the sublime "Art of Storytelling" which is probably Outkast's greatest song ever, matching Big Boi's parking lot pimping with Andre's tearjerking reminiscence on Sasha Thumper. Big Boi and Andre are both in fine form, spitting forever-quotable lines. The laid-back, never in a hurry production fits their flows perfectly, with Big Boi's fifty-million-syllables-in-a-bar stop and start style never sounding rushed or off-beat, and Andre able to spread his wings and throw (for example) thousands of monosyllable rhymes into one non-stop verse on the title track: "My mind warps and bends, floats the wind, count to ten, meet the twin, Andre Ben, welcome to the lion's den, original skin many men comprehend, I extend myself so you go out and tell a friend, sin all depends on what you believing in, faith is what you make it, that's the hardest shit since MC Ren, Alien can blend right on in with your kin, look again cause I swear I spot one every now and then, It's happenin' again wish I could tell you when, Andre this is Andre, ya'll just gon' have to make amends". Big Daddy Kane got nothin' on this. Anyone deprived enough to still have no Outkast in their collection, start here.

Mahavishnu Orchestra - Apocalypse

The differences are obvious between this and other (earlier) Mahavishnu albums: Jan Hammer and Billy Cobham are gone, Jean-Luc Ponty has arrived, George Martin (the fifth Beatle) produces, and it features the freakin' London Symphony Orchestra! Two orchestras at once, eh? Well it opens up pretty symphonically and traditionally until you realize the lead violin (Ponty) is playing through a wah-wah pedal. Then the band comes in and before you know it John McLaughlin is doing what he does best: shredding his natural ass off. It gets from point A to point B so smoothly I didn't even notice the transition from delicate finger-picked nylon strings to white-hot electric licks, but it happened somewhere. Then the funk kicks in. The album is good from start to finish, not their best album by any means (and I REALLY miss cobham and Hammer) but it's still interesting throughout. There's even an operatic song with vocals by the new female keyboard player! And having a full orchestra really amps up the epicness of the Mahavishnu sound, with grand gestures and microfunk rhythms alike being nailed by the string section. I think I even heard a choir passage or two, but I might have been tripping again.

Faith No More - Angel Dust

I first heard Faith No More on the hit "Epic," which sounded to me like a harder-rock, slightly evil Red Hot Chili Peppers song. I got "Angel Dust" as soon as the opportunity struck, even though "Epic" is from an earlier album. This is one of my favorite hard-rock albums. It blends heavy-metal guitars with funk bass, creepy lyrics and a lot of choruses that are as weird as they are catchy. Mike Patton's singing, as always, goes everywhere from deep metal growls to syrupy lounge leering, and this is probably the most listenable of all his projects, with the creepiness lurking somewhere in the background instead of bashing you over the head. I know that calling anything "the most listenable Mike Patton project" isn't really saying much, but trust me. "Midlife Crisis" is especially amazing, and its breakdown contains the same (at least I think) sample as the opening of the Beastie Boys' "Car Thief," a fabulous falling rhythmic sweep. "Be Aggressive" is weird as hell, with "I swallow, I swallow" repeated over and over again and a bunch of boy scouts spelling out the chorus like it's a flag-raising chant.