Albums of 71

If you chart the quality of both music and film on a map starting roughly around 1967 and through the mid 70s, you'll end up with a lot of what I return to today. A bulk of what I listened to in high school all stemmed from this magical period. Given that we are now 50 years removed from 1971, it's hard not to anticipate doing one of these for every year at least until 79. 

1. Black Sabbath- Master of Reality

Henry Rollins said you can only trust yourself and the first six Black Sabbath albums. No more is this evident than on their third album. 

2. Marvin Gaye- What's Going On

The whole album is a meditation, a hymn, a prayer. In a time of Vietnam, Nixon, protests, and feminist activism, this album manages to sum the whole year up in a spiritual elegy and lay a path for what was to come. 

3. The Rolling Stones- Sticky Fingers

Sorry, Exile. Your older brother is just better. Beyond just Wild Horses, Can't You Hear Me Knocking and Dead Flowers, it has an essential component to what makes an album a classic- a great closing track. Let the airwaves flow. 

4. Can- Tago Mago

When Radiohead started getting experimental in the late 90s, this is the band that they felt like the most. Can's Vitamin C appeared in Inherent Vice much to my delight. I still feel this band is underrated. 

5. David Bowie- Hunky Dory 

If I were to make a list- I will someday- of my top 20 songs, Life On Mars? would be in the top 3. Hunky Dory is what I consider Bowie's first great album. 

6. Leonard Cohen- Songs of Love and Hate

The opener Avalanche is my favorite song of his. The sparseness of the album allows his poetic lyrics to fit snug into the melodies. I have to be in a certain mood to listen to his work. Like Nick Drake, I associate Songs of Love and Hate with Winter. 

7. Paul McCartney- Ram

The big 3 solo albums from the band were released within 2 years- All Thing Must Pass, Plastic Ono Band and this effort by Paul. Animosity and resentment colored both Paul and John's works as they traded barbs on songs. Despite this, there was still that momentum at the tail end that led into their solo work. 

8. John Lennon- Imagine

Yeah we've all heard the song countless times. Most recently in a cringe inducing rendition from A list celebs. 

These songs have John charting his emotional map at the time. His anger at Paul with How Do You Sleep?, the wistful Crippled Inside, Jealous Guy, the hard edged Gimme Some Truth, and the poppy Oh Yoko!

9. The Who- Who's Next

Not as theatrical as Tommy or Quadrophenia. Nor as tongue in cheek as The Who Sell Out. Who's Next arrives right between those pieces of the bands prime era. Bookended by two rebellious anthems, Baba O'Riley and Won't Get Fooled Again, the album's mid section is where the underplayed gems are. 

10. Pink Floyd- Meddle 

Echoes and One of These Days number among my favorite things they've done. The middle section isn't nearly as consistently strong as the opener and closer. It's almost a mini album in itself. A soft, folk flavored whisper from one end of sonic bliss to the other. 

11. Carole King- Tapestry

Singer/Songwriters of the 60s and 70s are a constant in the stuff I listen to. I came to Carole King's Tapestry late. What piqued my curiosity was that, like Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, it felt like a compilation album of her hits. Best listened to on rainy mornings. 

12. Genesis- Nursery Cryme 

My favorite cover out of all the albums here and another case where two monsters of a prog band's early catalog are collected: The Return of Giant Hogweed and The Musical Box. The band is commonly cleaved into two era: Gabriel and Collins. I've always been a Gabriel fan and this is his first great album with the band. Why don't you touch me? 

13. Van Der Graaf Generator- Pawn Hearts

Pawn Hearts wouldn't be the album I'd give to someone who hasn't heard of them. That would be Godbluff.

If I wanted to recommend a song to a newbie to the band, it would by Plague of the Lighthouse Keepers. 

14. Yes- Fragile

Are we seeing a reoccuring pattern? Like Sabbath, Zeppelin, Elton John, Bowie and Genesis, this was yet another beginning in a fertile period of creativity for a band. Fragile was the first album to feature the classic Yes lineup: Jon Anderson on vocal, Steve Howe on guitar, Chris Squire on bass and Rick Wakeman on keyboards. 

15. Led Zeppelin- IV

No Stairway! Denied! 

It's the song of theirs, along with Black Dog and Rock and Roll that wouldn't make my Zeppelin mixtape. They've just been overplayed to death. Even upon first listen, the mysticism that I appreciate about the band is better found on Houses of the Holy and Physical Graffiti. Still, cuts like Going to California and When the Levee Breaks are reason enough to recommend it. Even if the latter is a direct lift of the Memphis Minnie tune. I mean, come on it's Bonham.