1972

There's an album out there named after this years, but I don't know much about it.  I do know this year rules pretty hard, but maybe not as much as most of the 70s.  This year you will finally see the presence of a certain subgenre very close to my, and probably any readers' here's heart.  You know what I'm talking about...

10.  Roxy Music - Roxy Music
Most of the greatness of this album is that is it's the band's debut.  This is the first time the world gets to here ENO, and in my opinion it's his best work with this band.  Plus there's Phil Manzanera - one for the upper echelon of guitarists, caveman drummer Paul Thompson, rock's first oboist Andy Mackay, and that fucked up piece of pop culture Bryan Ferry.  As usual songs can be pretty meandering, but it's easy to forgive with rockers like the opening punch of "Remake/Remodel" and "Virginia Plain."  Roxy's unusual aesthetic is in full form beginning with the album cover with it's tacky sensuality highlighted on Ferry's tribute to his idol "2 H.B." and the style-defining "Ladytron."  Here is the band of the 80s for the seventies.  One look at a publicity photo and you know it's true.

9.  Nick Drake - Pink Moon
Sadly Nick Drake's final album would be his best.  Another one I don't need to talk about much.  It's just stunningly beautiful and of course as his revival came at the peak of music's almost fifteen year descent into the emotional, that is discussed most.  I would rather talk about his guitar playing.  Drake's playing is on par with other symphonic acoustic players like John Fahey, Leo Kotke, and naturally, Richard Thompson.  What sets him apart is his ability to match that with his lyrics  and vocals.  This album exemplifies his best talents with little else to detract from it.  Dig that picking on "Road."

8.  T. Rex - The Slider
Often considered Bolan's masterpiece, this album is bigger and brighter than its predecessors.  This  actually highlights Tony Visconti's genius more than Bolan's.  Still there is a lot  to love here.  The anti-technology tribute (?) "Metal Guru" is one of his greatest compositions and his long-heard knack for creating vague yet  intriguing  characters is at its best on "Telegram Sam."  It's a boisterous glam album made at the artist's peak, around the same time as  non-album single and greatest achievement "20th Century Boy."  Of course the Americans didn't get it, it was too good.  They wanted their hard rock complex and showy, nothing like "Buick Mackane," seemingly tailored for the US audience.  Even the softer stuff is heavy and fierce like "Rabbit Fighter."

7.  Big Star - #1 Record
Maybe not the first, but probably the most important under-appreciated power-pop record.  Rock star kid Alex Chilton puts  together a few other talented young musicians from Memphis and births a generation of imitators, most notably (or just noticeably) The Replacements and Wilco.  The only album featuring the tragic Chris Bell, his presence is one that defined the band for the rest of history with songs like the now-famous "In the Street," and the opening "Feel."  Unfortunately, Beatles-esque music was the last thing the mainstream wanted at the time, and critics' words were meant to be disregarded while the press slams bands like Led Zeppelin.  The upper-middle class kids became noticeably cynical in its lack of success.  It made subsequent work even better but drove nearly all the  band to an early grave.  At least we still have this document of their hopeful early youth with its beauty like "My Life Is Right," and "The Ballad of El Goodo."

6.  Faust - So Far
I was talking about Krautrock.  Following a strong debut, this German collective moves away  from musique concrète and into slightly more traditional territory.  Starting off  with one of their most  famous compositions "It's a Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl," the band's diverse talents meld together to form something that sets them apart from both their more avant-garde and accessible peers.  Odd pop like "...In The Spirit" and the original, instrumental "Picnic on a Frozen River," fit in place just as well as the nylon-string  beauty of "On The Way To Abamäe."  The group of unusually talented instrumentalists appears more focused here, set on making great music rather than something weird.  Still it is the perfect "weird German album," to initiate the curious, it's just much more than that too.  Faust, like most krautrock bands, possessed a rare sense  of  humor.  It is less evident here, but keepss this challenging listen fun.

5.  Todd Rundgren - Something/Anything?
An eclectic, unpredictable artist like Rundgren should not be able to make such a definitive album, but his ability to do so confirms his place as  one  of rock's greatest geniuses.  The double album, with each side having a completely different personality stands as one of the greatest albums (of very, very few) created by a single musician.  That is not even the case for the fourth side,  recorded live in the studio with a full band and featuring his remake of old band Nazz' "Hello It's Me," and the hilarious multi-generational tribute to high school filth "Piss Aaron."  Rundgren's nerdy humor is present throughout the album, even on the first side with his continuing debt to Laura Nyro with the hard rocking Motown of of "Wolfman Jac" and perfect opening track "I Saw The Light."  The second side is the weird one starting with his spoken audio nerd intro and the Zappa-esque "Breathless," and the heartbreaking "The Night The Carousel Brunt  Down."  Third is  the hard rock side with the auto life masterpiece "Little Red Lights" and the stacked acoustic guitars of "Couldn't I Just Tell You?"  Todd may be funny, but he's no joke.  This is something.

4.  Can - Ege Bamyasi
Sure most people who keep up with this were shocked to see Tago Mago missing last night.  Well, that's because despite it having much of their best work a lot of it is a waste of time.  The follow-up highlights Can's ability to play unanimes music on just one disc.  The funk and spiritual beauty are even  higher than before on songs like "One More Night," and the band's improvised drama is at its peak on  the likes of "Vitamin C."  "Sing Swan Song,"  is one of their prettiest and most songs revealing what the quintet really does best more more than most of what  can  be found on  their  proper releases.  From beginning  to end it is Can's most immediate work, with songs keeping shorter length without losing any of their loose, free-form quality that distinguished them from the more mechanical groups in krautrock, proto-punk, and progressive rock.

3.  NEU! - NEU!
The Düsseldorf duo of Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger creates a minimalist form of rock that is as loose and improvisational as it is mechanical.  Ideal for driving it was called "motorik" and proved to be very popular in their native land.  It proved even more popular with the next generation of musicians that understood that it  captures everything great about music.  The two needed only a few  notes and a lot of time to create infinite grooves out of the bare essence of music.  Songs like "Hallogallo" and "Negativland" make a lot  out of very little and the group's influence has been the true sign of an exceptional ever since this album's release.  In their brief career they would take this formula, expand it and contract it to great effect.  Simply transcendent.

2.  David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and  the Spiders from Mars
With cohorts Mick Ronson and, as always, Tony Visconti, Bowie brings glam rock to new heights on  this space opera.  It can get a little cheesy and emotional and even just unnecessarily weird, but that's David Bowie, and despite their drama "Five Years" and "Rock 'N' Roll Suicide" will always get you and it was David Bowie's duty  to have one album with both titles "Starman" and "Star."  "Moonage Daydream" has always been my favorite but they are all that strong particularly the perfect glam of "Hang Onto Yourself" with its hand claps and the soul of "It Ain't Easy."  This is the peak of Bowie's collaboration  with Mick Ronson and his guitar begs for the more that never really came, even after Bowie's work with other greats like Carlos Alomar and Adrien Belew.  Based on the fall of British born, new  Jersey-raised legend Vince Taylor it's the greatest work documenting rock and roll destruction, and who better  than self-torturer David Bowie to have made it?

1.  Yes - Close to the Edge
Prog's biggest band making an album/song based on Siddhartha should not  have turned out as well as it did.  However, this album is a religious experience.  Yes has its most famous and legendary lineup of Jon Anderson, Chris  Squire, Steve Howe, Bill Bruford,  and Rick Wakeman here and their playing here, especially Wakeman's is some of the best of their careers.  Discovering an album format they would do again on 1974's Relayer, the title track takes over the whole first side and builds in sound until it kicks you in the head.  Then it does it again when the vocals come in.  Simply, it fries your brain as you see the whole history of the universe and one's own spirit as it is beaten and dragged through the real world until it finally reaches the river of enlightenment.  Or something like  that seasons will pass you by,  at least for a little while.  After leaving you in shock, the second side gradually builds you up again on "And You And I" with Howe's guitar lulling the mind back to full attention for the sea mammal-like guitars at the end.  It's another mind-blowing song despite some weird lyrics.  Clearly  the weakest track, "Siberian Khartu" serves a very noble purpose of winding  down the listener after the previous 29 minutes, and is the only thing that could readjust a person after all that.  Bruford quit to join King Crimson afterward feeling that Yes could go no further.  He  may have been right.  One of the few albums I would describe as a religious experience.