Fiona Apple became one of my very favorite artists on the strength of one album, 1999’s When the Pawn… (that’s the commonly used title, anyway… the official title is a 92-word poem that appears on the album cover).
Apple’s 1996 debut, Tidal, made a fan of me. Her singing, writing and piano playing displayed a maturity well beyond her 19 years. But even featuring such great songs as ‘Shadowboxer,’ ‘Criminal‘ and ‘Never is a Promise,’ that album didn’t hint at the greatness to come.
More Elvis Costello?? I’m sure those of you tiring of the Elvis Costello weekends won’t welcome this mid-week appearance by Mr. MacManus. To hell with ya! I can’t list my favorite albums without giving a nod to 1982’s Imperial Bedroom.
But as I’ve written about the album extensively on this blog already, I won’t clutter the tubes with a further exploration of its greatness.
Instead, I’ll let Costello make that argument for me with ‘You Little Fool,’ the album’s penultimate track. This has long been a favorite of mine, both on this album and in Costello’s catalog in general.
This will seem like a weird comparison, but I look at Carole King’s 1971 Tapestry as the female Graceland. If the latter is the best album ever recorded by a solo male artist, this is the best album ever recorded by a solo woman. I guess you could say those two albums are the king and queen of my musical kingdom.
It feels odd to write that because it’s not as if I play Tapestry constantly. It’s probably been more than a year since I’ve given it a full listen. But if somebody stops going to church for awhile, that doesn’t mean they stop believing in God. And considering that music and movies are my only religion, maybe that’s as apt a metaphor as any.
Starting off the final week of my series on great albums, I arrive at a band that has released only five studio albums over 18 years… two of which were strong contenders for this list.
Counting Crows don’t get a whole lot of respect from critics and music snobs, for reasons I’ve never understood, but I’m a huge fan of their brand of literate, earthy pop rock. They borrow from Van Morrison, The Band, and R.E.M. but the product they whip up in their musical blender is distinctly their own.
The band exploded out of the gate in 1993 with ‘Mr. Jones,’ still the biggest hit they’ve ever had. That song appeared on their debut album, August and Everything After, a record that stands as one of the 90s’ best.
I admit, I’m not as familiar with The River in Reverse as I’d like to be. I guess that’s because half of it is a covers album and the other half is a collaboration with an artist I don’t know well.
But the few times I’ve listened to the record, I’ve always liked what I’ve heard. It’s funny… I’m bothered when I like an album too much to write it off but not enough to really learn it. Albums like this live in a musical purgatory.
