Thread: T. Moon's 1,000 recordings to hear before you die

49. Ray Barretto, Barretto Power (Latin, 1972) D

If you like bongos and saxaphone and stuff, check it out. It's pretty smooth. I don't dislike it.

I should give it more of a chance, but doing that requires several listens. Same with a lot of the music on here...you need to let it seep in to really know what you are going to think about it. That's hard. So I'm going the lazy route and giving this sucker a D after 2 listens. It's very musical, like Santana without the guitar.

50. Bela Bartok, Six String Quartets {Takac Quartet} (Classical, composed 1908-1938) C

Tom Moon decides that Bela Bartok is important enough to warrant three recordings in this list. That might be two recordings too many, but this is the one I would choose if you are including Bartok.

I'm not sure how many full-length CDs this is, I think it's 3. Maybe 2. Point is, it's a lot of string quartet. If you aren't into string quartets, this is not where I would start (I'd hit Dvorak, Stravinsky, Schubert, Borodin, or Beethoven to start). Having said all that, this is a rich offering.

51, 52. Bela Bartok, Concerto for Orchestra; Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta; Concerto No. 3 for Piano and Orchestra (Classical, composed sometime betwee 1910 and 1940) F

I don't get Tom Moon's passion for Bartok, at least not these recordings.

I like this recording of Bartok, below, playing his own composition.

53. Cecilia Bartoli, The Vivaldi Album (Operatic Singing, 1999) D+

Girl's got pipes. She sings pretty.

Someone left a comment on Tom Moon's blog that there's an improvement on the ground covered by Bartoli, the recording Venezia by Juliette Pochin. Listening to both recordings, I agree with the commentor. Here's a taste.

54. Count Basie and His Orchestra, Complete Decca Recordings (Jazz, ~1937) B

When my grandpa died, my dad wanted his Count Basie albums but his step-mom wouldn't let them go. I guess Basie was my grandpa's favorite musician of all time. I never listened to him until now.

The stuff is quite tasteful, I get it why he was a fan. It has great energy, is danceable, but also interesting, even quirky. It's like prog rock, of course before such a thing existed. Goes without saying these are consummate musicians.

I only met my paternal grandfather once or twice for a couple of days. At least I got to meet him. Never met my maternal grandfather.

55. Waldemar Bastos, Pretaluz (World - Portugal/Angola, 1998) D+

When Waldemar Bastos defected to Portugal from his native Angola during its civil war in the 1970s, he encountered music that was to change his life—fado, the heart-heavy "blues" of Portugal, in which love affairs end messily and fate is usually cursed. Incorporating bits of the fado sound with African folksong, Bastos then looked at what he'd left behind. His music, he once said, offers a "response to the fratricide in Angola, a simple message emphasizing the value of all life."

This is another track that isn't on Pretaluz but I wish it was so that I'd enjoy it more. (Obituary, chopped in half)



Someone should do some Portuguese/Angolan/Death Metal fusion type thing. I'd listen.

56. Batacumbele, Con un poco de songo (World / Cuba, 1981) D

One of my roommates at the AF Academy was a chicano dude who played trombone. He was into music. He was on band. This recording reminds me of the Tito Puente my homie used to listen to all the time. That might be because it's in Spanish. Is it in Spanish? I used to be fluent in Spanish years ago.



I guess I don't hear the goth influences in this music that so many claim to hear. Haha. I made that up. If there was ever a genre on the sphere of types of musical genres that was diametrically opposite the genre of 'emo', we have found it here.

57. Bauhaus, In the Flat Field (Rock, 1980) B+

...speaking of goth..

I'd give the recording a higher grade on the principle that since I've listened to it a bazillion times, it must be worth a high grade, but.... I can separate the subjective me and the objective me to some extent. I get that I like weird music that isn't "A" quality music. It would never stand the American Idol test of quality. My singers have weird voices that are off-putting to many listeners. The recording quality or choice of sounds are weird and sometimes harsh or jagged or punk-ish. So this is what I grew up listening to, and it's pretty much my favorite band if I was to be honest with myself. Either Bauhaus, Beatles, or Floyd.

Anyway, the first time I heard Double Dare (the opener on this recording) in my headphones as a 15 year old, my life changed. I was like...you can ******* do that? Just throw it out there like that? Scream "Iiiiiiiiiii-uh"? The band was heroin-clever in a way that I found immensely appealing. Looking back, it was probably related to the normal philosophical shifts and value-adoptions that happen to teenage boys. Or twisted ones like me, anyways.



Some of the tracks on this recording are lame, but the good ones are: Double Dare, In the Flat Field (wins the prize for most William Burroughs-esque lyrics), Stigmata Martyr, and St. Vitus Dance. Those are outstanding.

58. Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations" (Pop, 1966) A

I like Tom's write-up.

"Good Vibrations" sits alone between the two artistic skyscrapers of Brian Wilson's career—the 1966 Pet Sounds, for which this single was originally intended, and the even more experimental Smile, the "concept" work that he shelved after more than a year of work and god-only-knows-what inner turmoil. The episodic suite is an embarrassment of melodic riches. It's all singable, yet really hard to sing. It's catchy, but not in the same way "Surfin' USA" is catchy. Each new section scales a totally different mountain range. One minute we're doot-doot-doodling along a happy hokey surfer dude landscape, the next we're in the fjords, with cascading vocal lines raining down a Beethovenian homage to the glory of nature.

The legend: Beach Boys songwriter Wilson removed the song from Pet Sounds because he didn't think it was finished. When the album didn't immediately become a hit, he went back to "Good Vibrations" and spent several months (and over $50,000, a then-unheard-of sum for a single) shuttling between studios trying to catch all the fragmented magic he heard in his head. In all, Wilson used over 70 hours of tape to create the single, which lasts three minutes and thirty-five seconds. It's the most idiosyncratic of pop experiences, an almost disconnected bag of tricks held together by, of all things, the high-pitched theremin, an otherworldly-sounding electronic instrument that responds to hand motions. The single, which Wilson once described as a "pocket symphony," uses the squiggling trajectory of the theremin to represent positive vibrations in motion. . .

59. Beach Boys, Pet Sounds (Rock, 1966) A

One of Tom's better comments:

Sooner or later Brian Wilson had to grow up. Summer might last forever, but at some point slinging surf music was gonna get old. To grow as an artist, it seemed, he needed to get around "I Get Around." This carefully sculpted and lavishly arranged set of songs is Wilson's most "mature" music-making—and represents a high-water mark of pop craft in general. Pet Sounds is the California sunshine of the early Beach Boys as seen through darker lenses by people just old enough to remember when life really was carefree. Its characters have adult knowledge of the world's cruelties—they've been burned in love and are contending with what it means to be responsible. Bittersweetness creeps around the edges of the gliding harmonies and featherweight lead vocals. The Beach Boys' once purely exuberant melodies are now etched with poignant brushstrokes.

From the opening track, a vision of romantic bliss so idealized it has to be fantasy ("Wouldn't It Be Nice"), Pet Sounds travels the road between youthful hope and nostalgia—with brief detours for cautionary tales about drugs (the bonus track "Hang On to Your Ego") and meditations on the mysteries of life ("God Only Knows"). Though it's somewhat unified in terms of text, Pet Sounds is remarkably diverse in the orchestration department—virtually every track comes with its own set of instrumental touches, from the chiming bells of "Wouldn't It Be Nice" to the kettle drums that frame "Sloop John B."

Though Pet Sounds did have several charting singles ("Caroline No," "Wouldn't It Be Nice," "Sloop John B"), the record didn't get massive promotion from Capitol; incredibly, it took until 2000 for the album to reach the million-copies-sold plateau. Despite those figures, Pet Sounds (and the later single "Good Vibrations," which Wilson initially intended as part of this album) has influenced just about everyone who makes pop music.

It's also an illustration of the reciprocal nature of pop inspiration: Wilson cited the Beatles' Rubber Soul, released in December 1965, as a primary catalyst for Pet Sounds. In turn, Paul McCartney has said that he was deeply affected by Pet Sounds during the making of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. McCartney was once quoted as saying, "I figure no one is educated musically 'til they've heard Pet Sounds."

This song completely destroys me...I can't explain it, but I love it.

60. Billy Bean, The Trio: Rediscovered (jazz, 1961) ___

I'll come back to this one.

61. Beastie Boys, Paul's Boutique (hip-hop, 1989) B

See, I think Tom Moon is a bit like NTL and Pags here because it's a total elitist move to dis Licensed to Ill and use Paul's Boutique instead. Here's his excuse:

Paul's Boutique is notable for other reasons. It documents the Beastie Boys' substantial evolution as lyricists: Once known for chuckleheaded enthusiasms—their first hit was "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)," and their debut, Licensed to Ill, was dismissed in some quarters as "frat-rap"

Whatever dude.

I remember when my best friend Jeff got a contraband copy of the cassette from his older sister (we were in 3d or 4th grade then) and we listened to it non-stop for months it seemed. Like...it would play both sides, then play again, then play again, and again. And it was pure awesome.

I listen to it now...License to Ill is still pure awesome. I never really enjoyed Fight for your Right, it was a bit too banal, but the beats and inventiveness on the rest of the cuts...soooooo dope.

It took the Beasties a while before they released PB. I remember waiting a long-ass time, and giving up on them while moving on to other rap acts. When PB released, I never really dove in. I remember that Jeff told me that he thought PB might actually be better than LTI, but from the cuts I heard, it didn't grab me the same way.

So now I'm going back to it and really giving it a listen. After a few times, I can't say it surpasses LTI, but it's really damned good.

Chuck D of Public Enemy once said that after this album appeared in 1989, the unspoken consensus among the hip-hop elite was that the Beastie Boys, a trio of white rappers from Brooklyn, "had better beats" than just about anyone in the game.

He ain't lyin

62. - 67. The Beatles

Maybe you've heard about this most overrated of bands?

A Hard Day's Night (Rock, 1964) B-

Rubber Soul (Rock, 1965) A

Revolver (Rock, 1966) A

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Rock, 1967) A

White Album (Rock, 1968) A+

Abbey Road (Rock, 1969) A

The Beatles have many good songs and I feel blessed to live in a place in the universe where I could spend ages 10-12 listening to everything they did, over and over.

I gave White Album an A+ because when I think about it, it really shaped me as a person much more than the other albums. Some of the songs on that album really hit a nerve, like Long, Long, Long. Blackbird, Rocky Raccoon, man. All of them. Even the weird ass ones, because they taught me to give weird-ass music a chance. I guess that's not very objective, but there you have it.

Originally Posted by Hawgdriver

58. Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations" (Pop, 1966) A

I like Tom's write-up.

I came across this not too long ago - pretty cool:



(don't mean to muck up your thread...)

Paul's Boutique is probably a better album than Licensed to Ill, but I like Licensed to Ill more. Both are great though.

I think Pet Sounds is probably better than any Beatles album.

I prefer early Beatles to late Beatles. Revolver is a good middle ground, and my favorite.