This weekend has offered up one of those weird coincidences that come with true randomness.
Here we have a Beck song followed by a Ron Sexsmith song. The last time I’ve blogged about either of those artists was in November of 2017, when I posted a Beck song followed by a Sexsmith song. I won’t bother calculating the odds but they have to be pretty damn high.
I’m never disappointed when a Beck song pops up on Random Weekends. No matter the album or the track, it’s going to be interesting and entertaining.
‘Youthless’ is a cut from the 2008 album Modern Guilt, a record I’d rank near the middle of the pack of Beck’s discography. That still makes it better than most albums by most artists.
When I first perused the lineup of albums released in 1971 to prepare for this list, I immediately knew which would wind up at #1. Carole King’s Tapestry is one of the greatest albums of the 70s and one of the greatest of all time. It’s certainly the best album of 1971.
Recorded in January of that year and released in February, Tapestry would eventually sell more than 25 million copies worldwide and spend more than six years on the Billboard charts, second only to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. It took home Grammys for Album, Record and Song of the Year.
Not bad for the sophomore album by a woman who was told she was better off writing songs for other singers.
My #2 album of 1971 is one of The Rolling Stones’ best albums ever, Sticky Fingers. This was the third album in a run of four classics that stand up as one of the best all-time musical streaks. Between 1968 and 1972, The Stones reeled off Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street.
Ranking those four would be tough, but I can definitely make a case for Sticky Fingers as the best of them.
Imagine, John Lennon’s second solo album, is my third favorite album of 1971, which is a good indication of just how strong that year was for music.
This is the album that gave us ‘Imagine’ and ‘Jealous Guy,’ two of the best songs Lennon ever wrote, with or without The Beatles. It contains many other pleasures, including the country rock of ‘Crippled Inside,’ the hard rocking ‘Gimme Some Truth’ and one of the best pure pop songs of the era, ‘Oh Yoko.’ It also features one of the earliest, nastiest dis tracks in ‘How Do You Sleep?,’ aimed at former pal Paul McCartney.
Meet Me In Montauk 