Parv’s Top 100 Music Artists, Part 2: 75-51

69. Surfjan Stevens

stevensYears active: 2000s-10s

Genre: Chamber Pop, Folk

Five to start you off: “All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace!”, “All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands”, “Jacksonville”, “Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Stepmother!”, “Fourth of July”

Comment: The sight of Stevens finishing one place above Reed will probably have some shaking their heads, but I don’t think Reed ever made an album as good as Illinois (2005), another contender for “best album of the 00s”. I love the liberal use of banjo on songs like “Jacksonville” and “Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Stepmother!” even if the whole album is a bit bloated. The mostly acoustic, personal and intimate Seven Swans (2004) is probably more digestible in a single sitting, while Michigan (2003) is similar to Illinois: a bit of fat here and there, but the highs are very high. He got a bit arty and electronic on The Age of Adz (2010), raved about by hipsters at the time, but I think I was proved right for being sceptical in hindsight. Carrie & Lowell (2015) was a return to form, a shot of melodic melancholy about the passing of his mother which vies with Illinois for the title of his best album. Along with Kurt Vile and Kevin Barnes from Of Montreal, one of the best songwriters currently plying his trade.

68. Curtis Mayfield

mayfieldYears active: 1970s-90s

Genre: Soul, Funk

Five to start you off: “(Don’t Worry) If There’s a Hell Below We’re All Going to Go”, “Keep on Keeping On”, “Superfly”, “Pusherman”, “Right On for the Darkness”

Comment: Curtis Mayfield was hip-hop before there was hip-hop, tackling the same themes of prejudice, social justice, ghetto life, drugs, and so on, head on and explicitly. He started his solo career, after leaving The Impressions, with five stone-cold classics: Curtis (1970), the live album Curtis Live (1971), Roots (1971), the soundtrack to Superfly (1972), and Back to the World 9174). What marks Mayfield out is his sheer fearlessness of vision, not afraid to be confrontational. Here’s how Curtis starts:

Sisters, niggers, whities

Jews and the crackers

Don’t worry, if there’s hell below, we’re all gotta go

Things really get going on Superfly, especially “Pusherman”:

I’m your mama, I’m your daddy,
I’m that nigga in the alley.
I’m your doctor when in need.
Want some coke? Have some weed.
You know me, I’m your friend,
Your main boy, thick and thin.
I’m your pusherman.

About as good a song about a pernicious and exploitative drug culture as you’ll find, funky as hell too.  To be honest, I’ve not explored him much beyond the mid-70s, but what does it matter when he was as good as he was during his hot streak?

67. Blur

blurYears active: 1990s-10s

Genre: Britpop, Alt Rock

Five to start you off: “There’s No Other Way”, “End of a Century”, “Girls & Boys”, “Charmless Man”, “Out of Time”

Comment: I had to include Blur. Oasis might have had the swagger, but Blur always had the goods, and I don’t think there’s any band that define my teenage years more. They were good from the start, Leisure (1991) while not a great album has “There’s No Other Way”, a real 90s anthem. On Modern Life is Rubbish (1993), Damon Alburn tries to make himself a 90s Ray Davies offering character portraits such as “Colin Zeal and “Miss America”, and another good single in “For Tomorrow”. Then we get the full breakout of Britpop proper on Parklife (1994), whose title track with its video featuring Phil Daniels defines the era as much as anything else, two more great 90s anthems in “Boys and Girls” and “End of a Century”. The Great Escape (1995) finds Alburn back in Ray Davies mode on songs like “Stereotypes”, “Country House”, and “Charmless Man” with a bit of Nick Lowe / Elvis Costello guitar sound in the mix. Their U.S.-breakthrough album, Blur (1997) has more of a heavy alt. rock sort of sound on stuff like “Song 2” and “Beetlebum”. 13 (1999) got more indie (“Tender”, “Coffee & TV”), while Think Tank (2003), a personal favourite of mine, is sort of Blur’s version of Bowie’s Lodger, experimental and all over the place. I think “Out of Time” is one of their greatest singles. I pretty much had no time for The Magic Whip (2015), but their legacy is already written. It’s fair to say that I prefer them in their early-mid 90s Britpop mode than in their more American-orientated grungey spell or wank indie phase. Blur can stand as a continuum in a line of songwriters chronicling everyday British life: a tradition that would also include The Kinks, Ian Dury, and The Smiths.

66. Skip James

Skip+James+SkipJamesYears active: 1930s-60s

Genre: Delta Blues

Five to start you off: “Devil Got My Woman” (31), “22-20 Blues” (31), “Hard Times Killin’ Floor Blues” (66), “Washington D.C. Hospital Center Blues” (66), “Sickbed Blues” (68)

Comment: Like so many of the “lost” Delta Bluesmen of the 1930s, Skip James only had one recording session in 1931 (for Paramount) to make songs that sank without a trace as the Great Depression eviscerated the disposable incomes of would-be audiences. These ’31 recordings – notable for his idiosyncratic vocals, his intricate finger-picking guitar style, and brilliant piano work – would become legendary in collector circles, while James himself disappeared into obscurity. Then in the early 60s as part of the folk revival, a group of white boys, including John Fahey, “discovered” him in a hospital. So the story goes, they literally plucked him from the hospital and got him back performing (he was at Newport ’64) and into the studio. For years, I was reluctant to listen to those 60s recordings: I thought there would be something impure and inauthentic about them. I was always put off by the idea of these middle-class white kids hunting own these old black men, dragging them out of obscurity and sticking them in front of sycophantic crowds. Plus, I was committed to the hiss and crackle of the 30s originals. And this view does persist in some blues circles. But recently I’ve sat down with his 60s output and have come to the conclusion that, in many ways, it is better than his 30s work. Partly this is down to experience: James was in his 60s in the 1960s, old, ill, bitter, angry, disillusioned, and all that finds its way into the performances. Partly it is down to his falsetto vocals, pretty unique in Delta Blues, which somehow become an octave higher than when he was a younger man: his cousin has said that this is because he had testicular cancer which led to him having his testicles removed. Mythologizing aside, for my money, Today! (1966) is arguably the greatest blues album (as opposed to collected recordings or compilations) ever made. It is absolutely haunting from start to finish, a truly mesmerising record. He’s like a ghost back from another time and world to tell tales of hardship and injustice. What you get from these songs isn’t self-pity, but a resignation that there aren’t going to be any silver linings. This from “Washington D.C. Hospital Center Blues”

I met a little damsel

She promised me

That she would love me

And always be sweet

 

She found out I was a po’ man

And I thought I was a good man

She couldn’t understand, no

Of course, she leaves him soon after. James is just pure authenticity; he looks at the brutality of life full in the face, mortality, the existential void, and doesn’t shrink from any of it.

65. Squeeze

squeezeYears active: 1970s-10s

Genre: New Wave, Pop

Five to start you off: “Up the Junction”, “Slap & Tickle”, “Pulling Muscles (from the Shell)”, “If I Didn’t Love You”, “Tempted”

Comment: Remember when I said Madness were in the conversation for greatest British singles act since The Beatles? My pick might just be Squeeze. You don’t care about their albums, what you want is the compilation Singles: 45’s and Under (1982): twelve singles, all killer, no filler. There are times when Squeeze are so amazing that you wonder why they weren’t a bigger band. Insanely catchy tunes, intelligent lyrics, superb keyboards (from the smarmy-faced Jools Holland), and thumbing slap-bass (witness “Take Me I’m Yours” or “Slap & Tickle”). Their songbook is varied too: “Cool for Cats” seems to anticipate two-tone, “Tempted” is gospel-inspired, “If I Didn’t Love You” has the kind of incessant stabbing chorus that one might expect from Elvis Costello. Okay, let’s talk about those albums Argy Bargy (1980) is probably the best power pop album ever made and the Costello-produced East Side Story (1981) demonstrates a remarkable range from country (“Labelled with Love”) to soul (“In Quintessence”) to pure pop (“Piccadilly”). This is fun, unpretentious, intelligent pop music done to perfection. Squeeze might just be the most underrated band from the late 70s / early 80s.

64. Nick Lowe

Nick-Lowe-youngYears active: 1970s-10s

Genre: New Wave, Pop

Five to start you off:I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass”, “So It Goes”, “Nutted By Reality”, “Cracking Up”, “Switchboard Susan”

Comment: It seems appropriate to mention at this point that Elvis Costello is not making this list. I mention that because Lowe produced most of Costello’s best albums. But there’s something about Costello that never clicked with me, apart from “Pump It Up”, which is awesome. Nick Lowe, it seems to me, was cut from the same cloth: an eclectic pop and rock connoisseur unafraid to traverse different genres, but somehow he’s more “fun” and listenable. I have to give a mention to the film critic Mark Kermode here who mentioned Jesus of Cool (1978) [N.B. known as Pure Pop for Now People in the U.S.A.] as his “album of the week” every single week on his podcast for about three years. I finally caved in and listened and Kermode was right: just a blow-a-way awesome album, virtually no filler and about every genre imaginable all on one LP. Like Squeeze, in a way, Lowe was a specialist at instant-classic singles; just from that album consider: “I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass”, “So It Goes”, and “Nutted By Reality”. While Jesus of Cool is like a greatest hits package all on its own, and his best album, he followed it up with some other great stuff: Labour of Lust (1979) is more of the same with a slightly harder edge as seen on “Cracking Up” and the excellent “Switchboard Susan” – that’s also the album that contains probably his best known song, “Cruel to Be Kind”. Nick the Knife (1982) completes his early trilogy, and I wonder if he’s known as “the Knife” because, as a producer, he’s ruthless with cutting out anything extraneous. He drifted after that until the country-tinged The Impossible Bird (1994), a great return to form, which foreshadowed a late career bloom as a silver fox on The Convincer (2001) and At My Age (2007), two personal albums that could only have been made by an older man. For someone like me, who hates excess, superfluity, shows of virtuosity etc, and values economy, craftsmanship and strong song-writing, Nick Lowe is really where it is at. His songs are almost all in the two-three minute range, and on his best albums there’s not much that one would skip.

63. Sparks

sparksYears active: 1970s-10s

Genre: Glam Rock, Synth, , Art Pop

Five to start you off: “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us”, “Reinforcements”, “The Number One Song in Heaven”, “How Do I Get To Carnegie Hall?”, “Suburban Homeboy”

Comment: I once read somewhere that Sparks make music as imagined in the year 3000 somehow transported back to us now. You know in Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange when they go to the record store? I imagine that they are listening to Sparks. They have had three distinct career peaks: first in their totally bonkers over-the-top glam rock vein, as seen on Kimono My House (1974) and Propaganda (1974). Second, their embrace of synthpop in the late 70s, as on No. 1 in Heaven (1979). And third, their art pop games in the early 00s, as exemplified by Lil Beethoven (2002) and Hello Young Lovers (2006). Through all of those incarnations, the brothers Mael have had an ear for strong catchy melodies, and for incessant repetition. Somehow, however, their early 70s stuff has dated better than fellow glam weirdos like Roxy Music or Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel. Their synth stuff is more accessible and enjoyable than Gary Numan or Kraftwerk. And their recent arch, high-brow art pop experiments are studies in what one guy on RYM summed up well: “annoying brilliance”. And, I think, because of their generally satirical outlook, which brings a sense of fun to proceedings, they seem to get away with things that would be irritating in the hands of artists who take themselves more seriously. “Suburban Homeboy” is also probably the best ever putdown of posturing white middle-class hip-hop fans adopting its fashions and behaviours, I wonder what the ever-hilarious Tim Westwood made of it. I’ve talked a lot about authenticity so far on this list; in a way, Sparks are the opposite: they make “inauthentic” intellectual, often piss-taking music. But they’ve done that for so long and with such a singularity of purpose, that I think it does retain its own unique sense of authenticity. Didn’t think much of their recent collaboration with Franz Ferdinand though.

62. Bukka White

bukkaYears active: 1930s-70s

Genre: Delta Blues

Five to start you off: “Fixin’ to Die”, “Aberdeen Mississippi Blues”, “Shake ‘Em On Down”, “Po’ Boy”, “Parchman Farm Blues”

Comment: While I used words like “haunting” to describe Skip James and Blind Willie Johnson, Bukka White was cut from a different cloth. The phrase I’d use for him is more like “totally fucking kick ass”. The best demonstration would be this YouTube clip of him performing “Aberdeen Mississippi Blues” sometime in the mid-60s. Look at the way he just pounds on that big steel guitar. His style is raw, rhythmic blues played at a blistering pace – and you can hear his influence on, for example, Bob Dylan’s debut album Bob Dylan (1962) on which Bob gives us a punkish version of “Fixin’ to Die”. I’m not sure if anyone has used the guitar more as a percussion instrument than White, and the legacy of his rhythm-driven style can be heard in the guitar stylings of Jimmy Page (Led Zep would pay direct tribute on “Hats Off to (Roy) Harper”) and Keith Richards (who has said in interviews he learned a lot from White). “Shake ‘Em On Down” (1937) was captured while White was in jail at the Parchman Farm prison, apparently for shooting someone in the leg. It was produced by the legendary John Lomax whose pioneering field recordings for the Archive of Folk Culture at the U.S. Library of Congress are so often the only document that we have of the bluesmen of the 1930s. “Parchman Farm Blues”, recorded in 1940 shortly after his release, recounts White’s period serving hard time at that institution, and White’s tone and mood is notably darker and less carefree than in his earlier work. He’d been part of a chain gang working in brutal conditions, we probably shouldn’t be surprised that he was altered by the experience. Acoustic country blues fell out of favour in the 40s and 50s, as the more R&B-orientated electric and Chicago blues dominated, but – as with Skip James – he was “rediscovered” in the 60s and pressed into service by Fahey and co. His best stuff from that period is in the live performances that were captured (just look around YouTube). Unlike James, I don’t think he recorded any new masterpieces in the studio, but the albums he did make are well worth seeking out nonetheless.

61. Eric B. & Rakim

Eric_B__Rakim-thissongslaps.com_Years active: 1980s-90s

Genre: Hip-hop

Five to start you off: “Eric B. is President”, “It Ain’t No Joke”, “Microphone Fiend”, “Follow the Leader”, “Let the Rhyme Hit ‘Em”

Comment: Rakim invented 90s lyricism; he’s the chap who moved the needle from Run DMC’s “Peter Pepper” stuff to the complex internal multisyllabic rhymes that would take hip-hop to the next level. He did this over big echo-y beats, drums way up and to the fore in the mix, with tastefully minimalistic and sometimes witty samples (at a time when sampling was less of a staple in hip-hop production) providing a backdrop. Rakim’s influence can’t be overstated. Eric B? Well, it’s hard to know exactly what he did. You’d assume he was the producer right? But there’s some significant controversy around whether he actually produced anything. It seems like Eric B. was more a sort of manager, thug, and business associate (a sort of prototype Suge Knight), who did a bit of DJ scratching (some have claimed he didn’t even do that and was pretending to scratch in the videos!) and mainly paid others (often uncredited) to do the actual production and make the beats. Rakim has even said that he did a lot of the production himself on the early stuff, along with Marley Marl.  Later, the 45 King, the late Paul C and Large Professor are said to be the “real” producers. Eric B. himself has argued that he was the producer, but if you read what he actually says, he’s more like an executive producer putting the pieces in place. I think it’s not too difficult to read between the lines here: Eric B. was never in demand as a producer himself, and, after the duo split, having made his millions, he got out of music, ran Mike Tyson’s security operations, and opened a large chain of restaurants – well, he got “Paid in Full”. Whatever the case, at least in terms of concept, these guys set up the basic DJ and MC duo template, others would follow: Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Pete Rock and CL Smooth, Gang Starr, and so on. I don’t think the duo made a weak album: Paid in Full (1987), Follow the Leader (1988), Let the Rhythm Hit ‘Em (1990), Sweat the Technique (1992). A four-album discography and I wouldn’t give any of them less than a 4.5-star rating.   We need to talk about Rakim’s lyricism though, look at this from “I Ain’t No Joke”:

 

Even if it’s jazz or the quiet storm

I hook a beat up, convert it into hip-hop form

Write a rhyme in graffiti in every show you see me in

Deep concentration cause I’m no comedian

Jokers are wild if you wanna be tamed

I treat you like a child then you’re gonna be named

Another enemy, not even a friend of me

Cause you’ll get fried in the end when you pretend to be

Competing cause I just put your mind on pause

And I can beat you when you compare my rhyme with yours

I wake you up and as I stare in your face you seem stunned

Remember me, the one you got your idea from?

Note how “graffiti in”, coming in the middle of the line, is picked up by “seem me in” and then the pay off a line later: “comedian”. This technique, later standard for the Wu-Tang, Notorious BIG and Nas, is a world away from what other guys were doing in rap in 1987. But I don’t want to make the case purely on influence or them being trailblazers, it’s the albums themselves that are a great listen. Paid in Full and Follow the Leader especially have a cohesiveness often lacking in hip-hop, especially as longer skits became par for the course.

60. Minutemen

minutemen-Years active: 1980s

Genre: Punk, Post-Punk

Five to start you off: “Search”, “Little Man with a Gun in His Hand”, “99”, “Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing”, “History Lesson, Part II”,

Comment: True to their name, a lot of Minutemen’s songs clock in at less than a minute, taking the economism of Wire to its logical extreme by eschewing such things as guitar solos and choruses. There’s no two ways about it, these guys were awesome. They comprised childhood friends Mike Watt and D. Boon (who died in a car accident in 1985 signalling the end of the group) and drummer George Hurley. Their songs are intelligent, funny, extremely well played, melodic, and, more often than not, rock pretty hard. Most people will cite their third album, Double Nickle on The Dime (1984), as their masterpiece, and it is one (top five 80s, no question). But you shouldn’t sleep on anything in their back catalogue. The best way to get it all would be to get Double Nickle, their fourth 3-Way Tie (1985), and then all three volumes of the Post-Mersh compilations, the first volume collects their first two albums, The Punchline (1981) (which is a pretty lean 15 minutes!) and What Makes a Man Start Fires? (1983) (not much longer at 26 minutes), and the second and third collect various EPs from the band’s five year run. Pretty much all of it is essential. I’d actually start with What Makes a Man Start Fires? as probably the most accessible entry point. Their rhythm section (Watt on bass, Hurley on drums) is incredibly tight, and Boon’s guitar licks are often very funky. Very little fat on their records.  They wrote some great lyrics too:

Mr. Narrator

This is Bob Dylan to me

My story could be his songs

I’m his soldier child

 

Our band is scientist rock

But I was E. Bloom, Richard Hell

Joe Strummer and John Doe

Me and Mike Watt, playing guitar

 

Just a great band with too many great moments across their brief discography to mention here.