As I’m new to the WAGM family, I thought I’d give you, my utterly intelligent and sexy readers, an idea of who I am by giving you mini blurbs on some of my favorite albums ever. This way you can understand where I, the marginally intelligent and sexy reviewer, might be coming from on the rest of my reviews going forward. I’m not going to even attempt to put these in some sort of order, as I’d be spending the rest of my life trying to make the musical equivalent of Sophie’s Choice, and to keep it to an even 10, I had to leave many albums out. However, I think this gives you a good cross-section of my tastes. Let’s begin… 

Cibo Matto – Viva! La Woman (1996): There are so many things to say about this album, I don’t even know where to begin. 2 Japanese girls, who moved to NYC, formed a band with an Italian name which roughly translates to “lover of food,” and created an album of songs using food as a metaphor for sex throughout the entire time (I’ll let you figure out what “Sugar Water” means, ’cause I know my take on it is quite dirty). Is the album pop, is it trip-hop, is it alternative, is it creepy? The answer is yes, yes, yes, and yes. Notable tracks: “Sugar Water,” “Apple,” “Know Your Chicken,” and “Theme,” which clocks in at almost 11 minutes, and will both bring you up, and calm you down. There’s even a cover of the classic “The Candy Man” on here that you wouldn’t even recognize. 

The Beatles – The Beatles (The White Album) (1968): I know, I know, pretty trite to include a Beatles album on here, and usually people go for the usual suspects like Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band or Abbey Road (which are also incredible records, and Abbey used to be my favorite), but this one just grabs me. It’s the album where the most variety is shown (proof: Birthday and Revolution 9 are on the same record? Really?). The tension that the Fab Four had at that time only helped to fuel the fire, so to speak. The ironic thing is that this is the album where they worked with each other the least, utilizing approximately 50 guest musicians in the process, including Eric Clapton on the classic “While My Guitar Gently Weeps;” and yet, this is the album they chose to self-title.

Notable tracks: “Revolutions 1 and 9″ (for different reasons), “While My Guitar…,” “Back in the USSR,” and too many more to mention here. 

They Might Be Giants – Flood (1990): To call TMBG quirky would be like calling Barack Obama the current President of the USA. It’s not a label, it’s just a fact. These guys have even gotten into making quirky children’s albums such as No! and Here Come The ABC’s! Early in their career, they released what I consider to be their masterpiece. 19 songs over 43 minutes that never leave you wondering if they can get weirder in their lyrical tone, or their musical style. Even as they proclaim “I’ve got a simple message and I’m leaving out all the whistles and bells,” there’s plenty of whistles and bells on this record to keep you bopping your head around. Notable tracks: “Birdhouse In Your Soul,” “Istanbul (Not Constantinople),” “Particle Man,” and the self-titled “They Might Be Giants.” 

XTC – Skylarking (1986): XTC had a very wide and changing career, starting off as a new-wave band in the late 70s, all the way to their most recent releases, one of which was dubbed as “orch-ustic.” In the mid-80’s, they got Todd Rundgren as a producer, and released their masterpiece, Skylarking. This isn’t a concept record, persay, but there’s different flows of ideas that happen on this record. “Summer’s Cauldron” flows into the song “Grass” (summer and grass, see?), “Ballet For A Rainy Day” flows into “1000 Umbrellas,” and “Dear God” flows into the song “Dying,” which flows into “Sacrifical Bonfire,” the last of which being more of a thematic flow. You may remember that the video for “Dear God,” was nominated for a few MTV Video Music Awards very early in the life of the VMA’s. Notable tracks: the ones I listed above. (Note: the original version of this album didn’t have “Dear God” on it, but had a track called “Mermaid Smiled.” Make sure you get the updated version. 

Gavin Bryars with Tom Waits– Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet (1993): This is the one that’s going to make most of you go “what?” Classical minimalism at its absolute best. Take a London hobo from the early 70s, record him singing a drinking song about Jesus, sample him, loop the sample for over 70 minutes, add an ever changing orchestra, and then let the demonically voiced Tom Waits duet with the bum for about the last 20 minutes of the composition, and here you are. The first time I was given a chance to hear this album, I said “c’mon, you’re kidding, right?” Nobody’s kidding here. If you’re a minimalism fan at all, and you don’t have this album, you’re missing out. You really are. The original 1971 recording of this piece was only one side of one vinyl album, approximately 25 minutes long. Tom Waits met Gavin Bryars at a party and said he’d lost his copy of said album, and wondered if Bryars could get him another one. The answer, for all intents and purposes, was “only if you do me a favor.” Hence, this recording was born. 

Joni Mitchell – Hejira (1976): To start, I’m an unabashed Joni apologist. I think she’s possibly the greatest female singer-songwriter of her generation, or any other. She also crosses the gender line as being one of the greatest singer-songwriters ever. Of course, everyone knows her 1974 hit single “Help Me,” but that’s only part of the story here. Joni’s career includes folk, pop, jazz, and orchestral genius. Hejira is a border album between the pop and jazz phases of her career. Hejira, or also spelled Hjira, refers to Muhammad and his followers escaping Mecca to the city of Medina, marking the first year on the Islamic Calendar. Joni uses this term to describe a cross-country driving trip across the United States that she had recently taken all by herself. As with all of her work, it is very confessional, very personal work; but it’s also very deft at still providing a third person point of view in some of the tracks. My favorite Joni song of all-time starts off this album, “Coyote,” about being a “prisoner of the white lines on the freeway.” The title track, “Hejira,” has some of the most intricate chord structures that Joni would ever put together, and some of the most personal lyrics she ever wrote. “Amelia” is a song about Amelia Earhart, and is said to be written “from one solo pilot to another.” 

Radiohead – OK Computer (1997): This really took the band that recorded the college-radio hit “Creep” and propelled them into absolute legendary status. It’s an album that is inspired by Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew without sounding like it. Thom Yorke once described that as wanting to build something up and then watch it fall apart, which he says is what they tried to do with OK Computer. While they claim it is not a concept record, it is hard not to hear a theme of how modern electronic life can drive one absolutely insane, even to the point of suicide. Take note of that last sentence, because this is anything but a happy album. And really, how good is an album when the band records it and realizes they can never do anything better in that genre so they decide to start switching up their style? OK Computer was the culmination of a 3-album arc that began with Pablo Honey and The Bends. They showed that they had completely matured from their initial releases. And after, decided they’d rather go in a more electronic rock direction with the albums Kid A and Amnesiac. Most of you will be familiar with the songs “Karma Police” and “No Surprises,” (the prettiest song ever about suicide) which are 2 of their best compositions ever, and possibly “Paranoid Android,” which goes in a few directions during it’s 6:23, evoking memories of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” without ever sounding like it. “Fitter Happier” is hardly even a song as much as it is a collection of buzz-phrases from the 90s spoken by a computer over a series of sounds that can only be described as eerie. It’s no wonder why OK Computer was once referred to as “the Dark Side of the Moon of its generation,” because it truly is.

George Michael – Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1 (1990): Do I have an affinity for this record because it was released around the time I was starting college? Sure, we all love our “college albums.” Do I have an affinity for this album just because it’s George Michael? I sure do. But here’s the thing, this is one hell of a mature record from a man who had made a career in fluff-pop and controversial sex songs up until this point. It was with Listen that George Michael said to hell with convention, and wrote completely from his heart. “Praying For Time” could be the best song he ever wrote, dealing with many social ills, and was a #1 hit despite not having a widely distributed video, which was unheard of in the year 1990. The album would be the first of 2 to contain a cover of a Stevie Wonder song, “They Won’t Go When I Go,” and GM accurately conveys the same emotion that Stevie did when he first recorded it back in 1974. And why just cover “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” when you can incorporate it into a new composition, “Waiting For That Day,” which Georgios Kyriacos Panayioutu does on this album (did you know that was his real name?). This album destroyed the notion of what George Michael was in Wham! and what was recorded on Faith, and classically set the tone for the rest of his career into a thoughtful songwriter, for which I think he is so truly underrated.

D’Angelo – Voodoo (2000): Where the hell has this guy been for 9 years? Seriously. He releases his stellar debut, Brown Sugar, and then comes out with an absolute masterpiece in Voodoo, and then just drops off the face of the Earth, getting into a car accident and getting kind of fat in the process. Voodoo is in a tight race with Andre 3000’s The Love Below from OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below as the best album that Prince never recorded. D’Angelo has never made it a secret that he’s very heavily inspired by Prince, and it couldn’t show anymore on this album, even including a song called “Chicken Grease,” a phrase that Prince himself used on the 1987 album Sign O The Times. When your album contains a video that is merely nothing more than your standing shirtless in front of a black screen singing your song, and it’s one of the best videos ever, you know you’ve got something special on your hands. Notable tracks include the wonderful cover of Roberta Flack’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” “Untitled (How Does It Feel),” for which the shirtless video was made, “Playa Playa,” “Devil’s Pie,” and the aforementioned “Chicken Grease.” And speaking of Prince… 

Prince – Sign O The Times (1987): Anyone who knows me has been waiting for this entry to pop up, so I figured I’d use it last to keep ‘em reading. If I’m a Joni Mitchell apologist, then I’m a downright worshipper of Prince. Well, let’s be clear about that, everything he did up until the late 90s. Since then, it’s been hit or miss, but while Purple Rain always gets the most accolades, it’s Sign O The Times that is truly his masterpiece. Much like The Beatles’ White Album, this sprawling 2-disc set shows the most variety of his career. Starting with the title-track, which is much like George Michael’s “Praying For Time,” in how it addresses problems in our society. Unfortunately, those ideas he brings up are still very much prevalent over 22 years after the album’s release. But the rest of the album doesn’t just work off of the “things are screwed up” concept. “Play In The Sunshine,” which follows “Sign,” is a playful song. “Housequake” is just downright funky. “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker” straddles the line between sexy and pensive in a way that nobody else could ever pull off. “It’s Gonna Be A Beautiful Night” is such an incredible song that it doesn’t even have a studio version, because it doesn’t need one. Heck, “U Got The Look” is a good song, and hit #2 on the charts, and it’s not even close to the best track on the record. My personal favorite is “If I Was Your Girlfriend,” a song both about sex and friendship that TLC covered, not taking into account that it was supposed to be sung by a man. Don’t believe me? Read the lyrics.