40. Curve, Cuckoo. Who’s angry? Toni Halliday is angry! Who can provide the proper backing for such fury? Dean Garcia and the rest of the band! Oh, so many times I listened to this over one stupid, stupid girl. It says everything you want to say to someone that you love and hate at the same time.
39. Simon And Garfunkel, Bridge Over Troubled Water. I just got into them in the last year or two, thanks to Kings Of Convenience showing that I could stand the occasional folk-ish thing. The title track and “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright” are perfect gems.
38. Miles Davis Quintet, Cookin’ With The Miles Davis Quintet. This album’s take on “My Funny Valentine” and Chet Baker’s duke it out regularly in my head.
37. Nine Inch Nails, Pretty Hate Machine. Trent Reznor has one song about a girl that done went and broke his heart. This album features the most variety on that theme. There’s something sort of electropunk about the whole thing, even if it was never as self-produced as it was made out to be by his hype machine. “Down It It” still gets me, even if later albums have the diminishing returns thing going on in the songwriting as his production gets more and more interesting.
36. John Coltrane, Giant Steps. Seth reminded me to go look at this incredible flash presentation of the title track. It perfectly shows how Coltrane develops his melodies for the listener on this album that runs neck-and-neck with My Favorite Things for placement on this list from his Atlantic years.
35. Portishead, Portishead. Sexy, dark, and cinematic. Spy jazz and hip hop have a baby. Beth Gibbons is the most beautiful songstress ever, even if you have no idea what she looks like. And yes, Billie Holiday is way up there on my list, but I can’t think of a fully-realized album that showed off her talents like this did for Gibbons. One of the best live shows I’ve seen, too.
34. Erasure, Chorus. Calculator sounds! Andy singing his heart out! “Love To Hate You,” which ranks up there as one of the gayest songs ever! It’ll do.
33. Global Communication, 76:14. Ambience meets melody in this late-night collection of tracks that engage your mind while letting you relax entirely. Drugs, bah. Don’t need ‘em.
32. Underworld, Beaucoup Fish. Hey, I’ve only managed to work two of their albums into this list. They’re my favorite band and this one has “Moaner” and “King Of Snake” on it, so…you know…it goes oonch quite well. Some great programming and track arrangement make this a “Start on Track One and let it play” record without ever hitting the skip button.
31. Sonny Rollins, Saxophone Colossus. This thing swings like Thor’s hammer, baby. Christina’s more of a Rollins fan than she is a Coltrane fan, and I’m a Coltrane fan more than a Rollins fan but we both are happy to admit that the other’s favorite saxamophone players play their saxamophones well. Sax-a-mo-phone!
