Continuing my countdown of favorite 1971 albums we arrive at my #5, Led Zeppelin’s IV (also known as Runes and Zoso).
This album boasts such iconic tracks as ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ ‘Black Dog,’ ‘Rock and Roll,’ ‘Going to California’ and ‘When the Levee Breaks.’ Plus today’s track, ‘Misty Mountain Hop,’ which is less well known but just as awesome.
The Random iTunes Fairy must be in a Hispanic mood this weekend. Today’s track is from the Mexican rap group Control Machete, and it’s in my music collection because it appeared in Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu’s 2001 film Amores Perros.
Amores Perros was Iñarritu’s first film, and though he would go on to win back-to-back Best Director Oscars 14 years later (for Birdman and The Revenant), it remains the best thing he’s ever done.
It was also the first film of one of my favorite actors, Gael Garcia Bernal, and one of the best films of that decade.
‘Don’t Bother’ is the lead single from Shakira’s 2005 album Oral Fixation Vol. 2, the English-language follow-up to Fijacion Oral, Vol 1 from early that same year. This was Shakira’s second English-language album.
With a few exception, I’ve always preferred Shakira’s Spanish-language work, and this song is a good example of why. The lyrics are just odd to the point of distraction.
The albums I’ve listed so far among my favorites of 1971 earned their spots on the strength of a few excellent songs. My #6 album, Cat Stevens’ Teaser and the Firecat, is excellent start to finish.
Sure, it has its highlight moments, including ‘The Wind,’ ‘Morning Has Broken,’ ‘Moonshadow,’ and ‘How Can I Tell You,’ one of the prettiest loves songs ever written. But ‘Rubylove,’ ‘If I Laugh,’ ‘Changes IV,’ ‘Tuesday’s Dead’ and ‘Peace Train’ are all worthy of high praise.
Elton John’s Madman Across the Water is my seventh favorite album of 1971, though it would be more accurate to say the first side of Madman Across the Water made the list. When ‘Tiny Dancer,’ ‘Levon’ and ‘Madman Across the Water’ are three of your first four songs, you can pretty much hang up your hat and call it a day.
The other tracks — ‘Razor Face,’ ‘Indian Sunset,’ ‘Holiday Inn,’ ‘Rotten Peaches,’ ‘All the Nasties’ and ‘Goodbye’ — are all solid, if not up to the level of the opening classics.
