Twenty Albums of Inspiration Part Two
6.
U2 - Boy
Imagine, if you
will, a strange parallel universe, where U2 had not become the mega-selling
behemoths of rock which they are now.
Imagine if they’d only released this one album and sunk without trace,
like many of their contemporaries did. Imagine if a fiendishly difficult quiz
question was asking what was the name of the lead singer of one-hit wonders U2?
It seems impossible. U2 were always going to be successful; and therefore
subject to massive acclaim at the hands of the record buying public and
incredibly harsh judgements at the hands of the critics. They are such an easy
target that there’s not much point running through the list of ways to have a
pop at them. But if this had been the only record they’d ever made, would it
have all been different?
(I should say
that, at this point, in an wholly unfashionable way, that I have always loved
U2-right from this record through all the chest-beating and flag waving, wrap
round shades, Christianity and tax avoidance schemes. To this day, seeing them
live at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool when on the War tour, was one of
the best gigs that I have ever seen in my life. I therefore hold no truck at
all with the long line of here-today-gone-tomorrow, Johnny-come-lately,hipper-than-thou,London-centric,public-school
patronising fuckhead journalists who condescend to us with their opinions from
on high. I don’t care one jot if U2 are the most unfashionable band ever. I
like what they do.)
But this is
about “Boy” and I’d bet if this had been their only release then by now if
would be lauded as a total classic; a cult album; a forgotten gem and a bit of
buried treasure. Instead, it’s seen as yet just another U2 record and I’d think
that even people who class themselves as U2 fans wouldn’t necessarily class it
as their best record. For me though, and even given the hindsight of time and
rose-tinted glasses, it is an uplifting, joyous, ecstatic record. From those
very first echoed chords there’s something special about it. Listening to it
not as a “U2” record but just as a piece of music I can’t see how anyone would
not failed to be moved by it; even just a little bit. It’s timely to recall
that when this came out, it was so different and against the grain of
everything else. It was all post-punk, long coats, Factory and Joy Division
miserablism etc. Along turned up this bunch of Irish kids (and at that time U2
were just kids and not grizzled old rock stars) who came up with something that
wasn’t narcissistic, self-centred and introverted but something that was
life-affirming and inspirational. And all these years later, it still is. Just give it a listen and imagine you are in
a different universe. You’ll be surprised.
7. Blind Willie McTell-The Definitive Blind
Willie McTell
Whilst I
mentioned at the very top that because of a lack of albums released by blues
artists that many of them missed out, I can’t really exclude one of my all-time
musical heroes, the great Willie McTell. (I could really have comprised this
list with 19 blues artists and one Fall album; for me it would have been hard
just to pick 19 blues artists. But some of them only ever released one 78 and
those recordings are scattered across the internet and crop up, oddly enough,
on £1.99 blues compilations on the Hallmark label that you only ever see in
service stations and all-night garages.)
But this collection of Blind Willie
McTell tracks on 3 CDs is what may be termed the bees knees. It’s not the first
Blind Willie McTell record I ever had; that place is reserved for a 12 track
vinyl album released on Yazoo and for which I paid a fortune for a long time
ago. This collection has six times the number of tracks than that old record
and was cheaper as well. There is the old saying-“never mind the quality, feel
the width”-but every single track on this has deep, deep quality to its very core.
I don’t what’s
more of an inspiration to me; Blind Willie McTell’s life or his music. I guess
that you can’t really have one without the other. One fact about Willie McTell;
he was blind since birth yet carried a gun and managed to shoot dead at a distance
of twelve feet someone who was attempting to rob him. There’s loads of this
stuff but I’ll just write about the music and just one track. I could have
picked any of his songs; all of them touch me so deeply that a random selection
is good enough.
“Travelin Blues”
was recorded back in 1929 and is a thing of such wonder and beauty that mere
words cannot do it justice. There’s a lot of stuff about Robert Johnson being
the greatest blues guitarist ever but for me, the rolling, twisting, bubbling,
constantly looping notes that Willie McTell brings out are beyond comprehension.
I have a vague clue about how guitars are played but this is something else. I
have no idea how he managed to makes such sounds come out of a simple stringed
acoustic instrument-it’s like hearing an angel play. The fact that he manages
to sing at the same time just adds to the magic. It’s not some ordinary voice
as well; even though I have listened to this song hundreds of times it never
fails to give me goosebumps. Not figuratively but literally. The hairs on my
arms stand up. (If I had any on my head they would as well.)
8. Prefab Sprout-Jordan the Comeback
“If there ain’t
a heaven that holds you tonight, they never sang doo-wop in Harlem”
There’s no point
in writing countless words about this album- or indeed about this song.
I don’t believe
in a God or any higher power, but something was going on when Paddy McAloon
wrote and recorded this track.
It is the most
perfect song I think that I’ll ever hear.
It’s the last
song I ever want to hear.
9. Crass- Christ The Album
It’s a bit of a
switch from Prefab Sprout to Crass but one thing that Crass have in common with
a lot of the artists and therefore a lot of the albums on this list is their
single-mindedness in their craft and their art. To me, there is nothing worse
and nothing more false than any artist just going through the motions, just
putting out any old rubbish. Now, Crass’ music may have been rubbish-but their
devotion to what they did and the care that they put into everything speaks
volumes. Actually, I quite like Crass’ music; it may have never been the most sophisticated
racket but as rackets went it was pretty exciting.
What Crass did,
away from the music, was open everything up. They showed up punk for the hollow
shell and collection of smoke and mirrors that it really was; the same old
“showbiz”; record labels, management, tours, single, album, single, producer,
artist, consumer. They (unlike the rest of the school of 1976) actually showed
that it was possible to go out and do-it-yourself. Anything was possible. You
didn’t need to be anything “special” to make music or make any form of art. In
fact, it was better to do-it yourself than any other way. In spite of what may
be considered as trite sloganeering to
this day, I’ll still have Crass hammering away at the back of my mind when I’m
writing anything or listening to an item on the news or reading the paper or
looking at a politician on the TV; “fuck off you lying bastards.” That’s how Crass have inspired me; to be
inherently suspicious and paranoid.
Oh, they were
very funny as well.
10.
Bob Dylan-John Wesley Harding
It has to be
said that there’s just too much music out there. I can, at the click of a
touchpad, get hold of anything and everything that I could possibly want to
hear. I probably (almost certainly) have more music in the house than I will
ever have chance to hear more than once. I know that there a numerous tracks on
CDrs and cluttering up my hard drive that I’ve never played or listened to and
possibly never will. Being the wrong side of 50, I have to face facts that some
of these unlistened songs will outlive me. I know that’s a bit desperate but
quite true.
What’s all that
got to do with this Dylan album? Well, whenever I have got a bit bored of music
and can’t think of what to play (out of all these thousands of hours worth of
music), “John Wesley Harding” is the one touchstone that I can rely on. I was
going to write about how inspirational Dylan is and how for a long, long time
I’d dismissed him as a whiney-voiced, over-rated hippy but I’ll stick to this
record. Not just one track but the whole thing.
What’s so
special about this record is how that it can cut through all of the rest of the
music and in an aural sense, clear the palate. It’s also a measure of what I
now recognise as the genius of Dylan; bringing out such an unexpected, stripped
down record straight after the electric conversion and all the controversy that
it involved. This album is so very simple and basic that it initially appears
to be a bit soft; a bit folky and a bit singer-songwritery.
But it’s not and for the reasons above.
Turning from the electric phase to this, Dylan brought out the hardest, most
diamond-like record that he ever made.
And what does it
show me?
Just make it simple.
Say what you mean and mean what you say.
(Due to a lack of Dylan on YouTube you'll have to take my word for it.)
Part 3...Coming along nicely!
