Category Archives: albums

Essential Remnants: #23. Richard and Linda Thompson, Shoot Out the Lights

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Every note, every vocal, every lick oozes with both pain and perfection. (LM) I saw them perform this at the Lone Star club on Fifth Avenue in NYC, back when they had that giant lizard on the roof. My favorite moment was going over to the bathroom and Richard and Linda were sharing a joint right there by the Asteroids machine, even though they were performing this acid bitter breakup album. But more importantly, these are monumental songs played perfectly. (PK)

Not On the Cover of Rolling Stone.

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Screen Shot 2013-07-02 at 1.55.34 PMAbout a year ago Rolling Stone updated their 500 greatest albums of all time list. You can read it here.

As the Essential Remnants Top 50 countdown reaches the midway point, I thought it would be interesting to list the albums that Rolling Stone honored that the Remnants have ignored (with a comment):

Little Richard, Here’s Little Richard: Not a single mention of Little Richard on any of our lists, which is surely an oversight.

Public Enemy, It Takes a Nation of Millions: Didn’t make the Top 50, but certainly qualifies.

John Coltrane, A Love Supreme: Everyone named one, different jazz album.

Bob Marley, Legend: Too big, too mainstream for the Remnants list.

The Band, The Band: We went with Big Pink. RS listed both.

Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon: Too monstrously popular to listen to anymore. Obviously of historical significance.

Love, Forever Changes: Not mentioned by us, but one of my favorite albums. This is Rolling Stone’s most idiosyncratic choice, since it isn’t historically significant or a big seller or representative of some genre. Nice!

The Beatles, Please Please Me: We have plenty of other Beatles. It’s all great.

Muddy Waters, Anthology: As a group we went for Howlin’ Wolf.

The Eagles, Hotel California: We went for Supershit 666 instead.

Carole King, Tapestry: Another hugely popular record it’s hard to hear fresh anymore.

Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home: Another obvious choice. We went with another obvious choice.

Joni Mitchell, Blue: We split the Joni vote between Court and Spark and Hejira, so she didn’t rank in the top 50.

Michael Jackson, Thriller: Yet another monster classic that didn’t need a mention.

Van Morrison, Astral Weeks: The obvious artsy choice from a giant. We had the more rocking Moondance in the running, but it didn’t quite make the cut.

Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run: Once again, RS goes with the obvious classic. We do have a Bruce on our list.

Nirvana, Nevermind: And yet again, the classic that’s been played a few million too many times.

Bob Dylan, Blood on the Tracks: Similarly classic, but though obvious still sounding fresh as the day it was released.

Miles Davis, Kind of Blue: More jazz. Not as great or as influential as A Love Supreme, but masterful and beloved.

Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On: Seems like there must have been a tabulation error. This was on our lists. The best album of a great singer and songwriter.

Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited: The Remnants didn’t go crazy over Dylan in their lists, but agreed on just one disk (not this one).

The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band: The most artsy elpee they made doesn’t need more recognition, though it certainly isn’t undeserved.