"Court and Spark," by Joni Mitchell

I think I’ve listened to this album for days. In fact, I listened to it again just this morning. Like most others, my introduction to this highly acclaimed 1974 album was through its two hit singles, “Help Me,” and “Free Man In Paris.” And while the hits remain classics, they aren’t even the best part of Joni Mitchell’s commercial zenith, Court and Spark.

Before “Help Me” bounced onto top 40 radio in the spring of that year, Joni Mitchell was best-known as the hippie chick who wrote hits for other artists, like “Both Sides Now,” for Judy Collins, and “Woodstock,” for Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young (and true story: Chelsea Clinton was named after Mitchell’s classic track, “Chelsea Morning,” from her 1969 album, Clouds). Mitchell’s albums up to that point were Joan Baez-influenced folk music, with Mitchell’s cold water vocals and alternately tuned acoustic guitar strumming, singing about mornings, ladies of the canyon, and feeling blue. But, never one to linger on any, one topic or sound, Mitchell craved fresh musical terrain. So with Court and Spark, she enlisted a world-class lineup of musicians to back her and embarked on an aural journey that was…Completely. Friggin’. Transcendent.

The album describes the excitement, hopes, insecurities, and doubts that come from budding romance or lack thereof. Court and Spark builds quietly, with the hushed and conversational title track that reveals the author’s timidity and self-doubt about a fleeting, romantic near miss: “It seems like he read my mind; he saw me mistrusting and still acting kind; he saw how I worry sometimes…I worry sometimes…” Next come the hit singles, followed by the heart of the album: a quintet of dead-on relationship songs that examine the human coupling ritual in startling detail and sometimes cringe-inducing scrutiny.

Mitchell encapsulates the emotional arc of this heartfelt, introspective, and stirring album with a line from “People’s Parties,” where she sings, “I wish I had more sense of humor, keeping all the sadness at bay - throwing the lightness on these things, and laughing it all away…laughing it all away…laughing it all away…” The album flows in said manner from beginning to end, moving from heartbreak to humor and ending on a surprisingly comedic note with a cover of “Twisted,” where Mitchell trades debauched lines with “Cheech” Marin and Tommy “Chong,” kicking around about just how mixed-up Mitchell might really be. But she’s far from mixed up, and as Q-Tip so aptly reminded us a few years back, “Joni Mitchell never lies.”

"Bryter Layter," by Nick Drake

“I never felt magic as crazy as this,” Nick Drake sang in “Northern Sky,” from Bryter Later, and the sentiment served as a perfect summation of this ethereal and magnificent album. With it’s unhinged flutes and wacka-wha guitars, the album could only have been made in the early seventies. It’s impact, however, transcends time. But so does Nick Drake, who released only three studio albums during his lifetime: the acoustic and relaxed debut, Five Leaves Left, in 1969, Bryter Later, in 1970, and the hallow and haunting, Pink Moon, in 1972. Pink Moon is perhaps the best known of the three, due to the title song made famous in the 2000 Volkswagen commercial, Five Leaves Left contains Drake’s best and most otherworldly song, “River Man,” and Bryter Later, which sounds the most dated, is, ironically, his very best.

Never known for his vocal prowess, on Bryter Later, Drake sings using his “head voice,” and his lyrics are playful and mind-bendingly imaginative, almost like he’s describing a series of dreams, sometimes placing himself in the middle of the action and sometimes off to the side, a distant, lonely observer. In “One Of These Things First,” Drake sings, “I could be here and now. I would be, I should be…but how?” Or on “Hazey Jane I,” he sings, “Do you feel like a remnant of something that’s passed? Do you find things are moving just a little too fast?” Drake describes perfectly those moments when you feel completely out of sync with everyone and everything around you.

Quiet and despondent in personality, Drake was known for crafting indelible, alternate-key pop tunes that linger long after the turntable stops spinning, and everything you’ve heard about Nick Drake, sonically, is represented on Bryter Layter: stirring tunes, deliciously morose lyrics, and Drake’s opaque, raspy vocal style. But conversely, the album also has an upbeat and cheerful side that hinted at personal optimism. In the liner notes for the Nick Drake boxed set, Fruit Tree, producer, Joe Boyd, lists Bryter Layter as “the one perfect album” they made. “When it was released, Boyd said it was a masterpiece, that it would make Nick Drake a star. But he was wrong; the album didn’t sell. And Nick Drake was crushed.”

This is the tragic part, because when measured against other trifle from 1970 that sold by the millions (e.g., “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head,” “Everything Is Beautiful” or “Julie, Do Ya Love Me?” to name but a few), it’s nothing less than criminal that Bryter Later went unnoticed by pop radio. Some suggest it was this failure that led Drake to create his bitter and terse final album. Others suggest it was the final blow that led to his untimely death.

But I like to imagine that Bryter Later held evidence that, in another context and in another set of circumstances, things may have turned out very differently for Drake. His music, often billed “depressing,” has been described as the progenitor to the likes of Jeff Buckley and Elliot Smith, but on Bryter Later, something different was in Drake’s tea. The songs on this album hinted at something unanticipated bubbling under Drake’s normally melancholy surface: hope.

"Blue," by Double

The sub-genre of smooth jazz hit new commercial peaks in the early 1980’s. A momentum fueled, no doubt, by 1970’s crossover artists like George Benson, Patti Austin, and Al Jarreau. Not only did smooth jazz proliferate to the point of newly established radio stations for the style, but smooth jazz artists also became regular fixtures on the pop charts in the early to mid 1980’s. Some of these artists established themselves widely and held an enduring shelf life in the pop world, like Sade (“Smooth Operator”) and Simply Red (“Holding Back the Years”), while others either quickly faded back to jazz-only stations, like Anita Baker ("Sweet Love") and Kenny G (Hmm, don't remember any of his songs), or disappeared entirely. Double is in the last category.

Mistakenly dubbed “a quartet” in the People Magazine review (due to the clever album cover pictured above, where the duo appears twice: get it? “Double?”), Double was actually a Swiss duo, consisting of vocalist and lead guitar player, Kurt Maloo, and Felix Haug on drums and keyboards. I first heard the duo’s top-20 hit, “Captain Of Her Heart,” in my freshman year of high school: it sounded so sophisticated and jet-set cool. In fact, there was nothing to not like about this classic single. Culled from this 1985 debut album, the song’s distinctive piano riff, melancholy lyric, and the casual, off-the-cuff vocal style of Kurt Maloo fit right in with the contemporary jazz/pop of that time, and it’s an enchanting little song - one of the most memorable of the era.

The remaining album is a surprising combination of 80’s synthesizers, light techno beats, jazz, and pop that still holds up remarkably well, over 20 years later. Although the up-tempo songs retain their mid-80’s appeal, the enduring strength of Blue is found in the slower, jazzier songs, like “Rangoon Moon,” and “Tomorrow,” which closes the album. “Tomorrow’s” clicky, shuffle-along drumbeat, lilting tenor saxophone, and meandering, lighter-than-air chorus floats out of your speakers like ether – a perfect finale for this tragically under-valued and long-forgotten album of the 80’s.

The follow-up single from the album, “Woman Of The World” sounded just as urbane and mysterious as “Captain,” and I love it to this day, but it just didn’t catch on. A stilted second album, Dou3le, followed two years later, but by then, everyone was walking like Egyptians, fighting for their rights to party, or freaking out about Michael Jackson’s so-so new album (Bad) with little patience for sifting through the duo’s often difficult and techno-heavy follow-up. After their follow-up effort failed, Double was dropped from their record label and spent the 90’s pursuing solo careers with little success. In 2004, Haug died of a heart attack, and in 2009, Maloo released a solo album, Summer Of Better Times, similar in style to Blue, just released in the U.S. in the summer of 2013.

"We Started Nothing," by The Ting Tings

My father set up a basketball hoop in our driveway in 1981, and we used to play a game on sunny summer afternoons called, “H-O-R-S-E,” where we’d take turns calling the shot, and each consecutive player would have to make the same shot or garner a letter. Miss enough shots to spell out “H-O-R-S-E” and you were out of the game. Last player without the H-O-R-S-E moniker won. What can I say? We made our own fun. At any rate, never an athlete, my favorite part of the game wasn’t so much the basketball, but the music that played on the radio in the background. 
In the late 70’s and early 80’s, this meant classic songs by Blondie (“Call Me”), Hall and Oats (“Kiss On My List”), The Go-Gos (“We Got The Beat”), Suzie Quatro (“Stumblin’ In”), and The Waitresses (“I Know What Boys Like”). And even though it was released just last year (2008), the Ting Ting’s, We Started Nothing, would have perfectly fit the mood of our H-O-R-S-E -playing, punk-pop playlist: pure, carbonated, audio joy.

The Ting Tings, formed in Britain in 2006 and consist of singer/guitarist Katie White and drummer Jules De Martino. Much of their debut album is reminiscent of Toni Basil’s ageless solitary pop smash, “Mickey,” with its cheerleader-esque game-time shouted choruses and bumping, thumping, marching band beats - and that’s not a criticism. Might I point out, here, that one must never underestimate the ripple effect of a one-hit-wonder. Basil’s “Mickey,” with it’s stuck-in-your-head chorus, “Oh Mickey, you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind, Hey Mickey!” not only inspired one of Weird Al’s best parodies (the "I Love Lucy"-themed, “Ricky”), but is arguably to blame for much of Gwen Stafani’s solo career (“Hollaback girl”) and to lesser effect, roughly half of Avril Lavigne’s song catalogue. And we’re alone now, so you can admit that you’ve always loved Basil’s #1 song from 1982, and you’re glad I mentioned it. 

The core of this album is made up of three bratty-fabulous songs, “That’s Not My Name,” “Shut Up And Let Me Go,” and “We Walk,” which is the “hit” from the record and deservedly so. The lyrics from all three songs sound like they are being recited from a grumpy teenage girl’s diary and are simply impossible to get out of your head. Throughout this ornery album, the melodies are accessible, quick-to-the-point, and catchy as hell. And I suspect the album title, We Started Nothing, refers to the fact that there’s nothing “new” or “groundbreaking” on the record. Seriously, every song seems to riff off some other pop song you know and love from the late 70’s / early 80’s...and that’s a wonderful thing. With a running time of less than 40 minutes, it might be easy to dismiss this album as retro, disposable pop, but from my perspective, it’s hard not to immediately fall in love with this endearing little record. Time will bear out which opinion is more accurate, but in the meantime, We Started Nothing will undoubtedly provide the ultimate carefree soundtrack to this summer.

"#1 Record," by Big Star

Everyone from Tom Petty to REM to Teenage Fan Club to Matthew Sweet to Fleet Foxes and still others claim to have been influenced by Big Star’s brand of classic power pop, and their influence is certainly palpable via popular music that arrived in its wake, but paradoxically, their albums sold merely handfuls of copies upon release – literally. So unless the dozen or so fans who purchased their early-mid seventies albums went on to become the above-mentioned artists, someone’s fudging a bit on their hipper-than-thou claim on this legendary underground band.

But it’s a rock-n-roll cliché, isn’t it? Artists who should’ve been huge, but never quite make it past a cult following: musicians like Nick Drake, Josh Rouse, or bands like Love and Big Star are but a few. So why did Big Star not quite hit the big time? Insider sources cite lackluster promotion from their record company. Others indicate it was just bad timing. But apparently there were the few fringe, ultra-cool (or ultra-lucky) rock aficionados, who discovered the group and passed along bootleg LPs, 8-tracks, and cassettes to friends and family, keeping alive the music of this jingle-jangle, rocking band.

My first exposure to Big Star was actually in 1988, when I heard my first REM song, the top-ten hit, “Stand,” that bears the heavy aforementioned influence. REM’s “Stand” is a sunny pop song, with brimming, jingle-jangle guitar, and a vocal style taken straight from the Big Star playbook. “Stand” was an amiable, whimsical, nonsense song for a high school kid like me to sing (e.g., “If wishes were trees, the trees would be falling, listen to reason, reason is calling…”), and REM was my first rock concert (The “Green Tour,” with shout-outs, here, to my friend Rachel, who drove us to the University of Iowa for the show).

And even though I never heard Number One Record when it was recorded in the 1970s, I might as well have, because when I hear it today, it takes me back to that decade, or at least what I remember of it. Fresh out of their teens themselves, Big Star (named after a now-defunct supermarket chain) opted for songs that described overcoming familiar, tried-and-true, far-out teenage obstacles. Name the teen trepidation, and Big Star sings about it on Number One Record. You know, like the dumb adults “who tell you that they know…they'll zip you up and dress you down and stand you in a row.” Ugh! I hate when adults do that. My favorite angry, teen irritant moment on the album is the adolescent tirade, “Don’t Lie To Me.” A sentiment doesn’t get simpler than that. Or what about annoying dads, as described in the staggering, “Thirteen,” dads who need to be told to “get off my back” or need to be educated on “…what we said about 'Paint It Black’.”

Ah, the turmoil of teenage life. But there are plenty of songs for grown-ups, as well, including the joyous, “When My Baby’s Beside Me,” and the reflective, “My Life Is Right.” Songwriters, Chris Bell and Alex Chilton, wrote these songs at a time in rock music when it was en vogue for musicians to feature pseudo-religious lyrics in their songs and have hits with them. Artists as varied as The Doobie Brothers (“Jesus Is Just Alright”) and George Harrison (“My Sweet Lord”) were selling millions of copies of love songs to God, and in this same era, the soundtrack to the Broadway musical, Godspell, had a top 40 pop hit with, “Day By Day” (and remember, Jesus Christ, Superstar?”). Similarly on “Try Again,” Bell writes, “Lord I've been trying to be what I should, Lord I've been trying to do what I could, but each time it gets a little harder, I feel the pain, but I'll try again.” Religious or not, it’s “little engine that could” message resonates. The most brilliant, spiritual moment of the album, however, is the ethereal hymn of assurance, “Watch The Sunrise.” It’s understated and sincere guitar hook is met with hopeful lyrics and one of the most exquisite vocal harmonies in rock-and-roll.

And while I was not one of the groovy few who heard it on release, Number One Record resides on my current list of the “Ten Greatest Rock Albums Of All Time.” And thanks to That 70’s Show, almost everybody's familiar with the Cheap Trick version of Big Star’s “In The Street,” that served as the show’s theme for eight hilarious seasons. The producers of the show said that the song was, for them, the epitome of the sprawling, stressed-out, uninhibited spirit of the Seventies. And I have to admit, it’s hard not to look for my packed-away 1970's lava lamp to plug in when I listen to this enduring album.

"Between The Lines," by Janis Ian

Janis Ian stumbled onto the scene in 1965 as a fourteen year-old wunderkind, writing and performing “Society’s Child,” a then scandalous song about a white schoolgirl falling in love with a black schoolboy. The song reached number 14 on the pop charts in spite of being banned by most radio stations across the country, with one radio station reportedly being burned down after a DJ dared play it. Janis Ian, who has had songs rendered by musicians as varied as Bette Midler, Amy Grant, and John Mellencamp, may be more known today from pop culture references than from her gorgeous, meticulous, and often controversial poetry songs. In 2004, a character in the teen comedy, Mean Girls, was named after Ian: an outcast, “Goth,” high school girl. I wondered if the kids even knew how hip was that name-check...

In fact, Ian’s number 3 hit from 1975 and the quintessential teen-angst song, “At Seventeen,” is from the album, Between The Lines, one of most heartbreaking and beautiful albums of that wacked-out and wonderful decade. And in the 1970’s when America was reeling from Vietnam, Watergate, and the disillusionment of the hippie generation, that’s saying a lot. In truth, the album feels like 1975, with its faded yellow-brown cover and somber tones that saunter into your ears and linger forever. But despite being a perfect reflection of that moment in time, the album still sounds fresh today, like it might have been recorded last winter.

Borrowing elements from folk, pop, rock, classical, and even Broadway, Between The Lines paints a diverse musical landscape filled with sketches of isolation, fury, and redemption (sorry kids, joy sold separately). The album boomerangs between world-weary wisdom and youthful naïveté, at times asserting a voice of independence and strength and at other moments quiet desperation. Ian opens the album with the quintessential pick-up line from the “Me Decade:” “Would you like to learn to sing?” the singer asks, “Would you like to sing my song? Would you like to learn to love me best of all?” Not asking much, right?

The album features one sorrowful rumination after another on lost love (“In The Winter”), failed dreams (“Bright Lights And Promises”), and heartbreaking regret (“Water Colors”). Yet, in Ian’s tortured world, heartbreak never sounded so engaging. Ian draws you in. In fact, as a listener, one feels compelled to participate and to even enjoy the misery; the songs are that amazing. In fact, Ian’s brilliant writing on this album reveals a knack for breathing life into tear-stained journal entries - turning them into pop music poetry. In fact, with the success of Between The Lines, Ian essentially handed-out careers to decades of artists after her (you’re welcome, Tori and Alanis).

But I’ve always wondered why Ian chose the title, Between The Lines. “Between the lines” usually refers to subtle word messages, dancing around the topic when you’re afraid to come right out and say what you mean. But there’s nothing passive about these lyrics; they grab you by the lapels, look you in the eye, and demand your rapt attention. In fact, Ian’s beautiful melodies and imaginative, sometimes startlingly honest songs illustrate how truly sublime pop music can be.

"Stardust," by Willie Nelson

Willie Nelson spent the 1960’s writing hits for other country superstars, including two of his best known songs in the same year, 1961: “Hello Walls,” a number one hit for Faron Young, and “Crazy,” a top ten hit for Patsy Cline. Yet, solo success was elusive. But finally in 1975, derailed and tired of trying to fit the trends du jour, Willie Nelson decided to just be himself: he stopped cutting his hair, he exchanged his cowboy boots for running shoes, and he released the semi-autobiographic album, Red-Headed Stranger. The world’s love affair with everything Willie hasn’t stopped since. So many hits from so many albums followed: “Blue Eyes Cryin’ In The Rain,” “Good Hearted Woman,” “On The Road Again,” “Always On My Mind,” etc., but it’s 1978’s out-of-nowhere album, Stardust, that remains the perennial fan favorite.

Stardust is an album of pop-standards, and Nelson approached this concept well before doing so became a music business inevitability. Today, it’s practically a right-of-passage for middle-aged singers past their “sell by” date to record a series of albums covering “The Great American Songbook.” This proliferation of nostalgia has a long history: Carly Simon (1981’s Torch), Linda Rondstadt (1984’s What’s New?), and Sinead O’Connor (1992’s Am I Not Your Girl?). More recently, Rod Stewart and Barry Manilow have both made late careers of repackaging pop memories, and in spite of its greatness, Willie Nelson’s Stardust is, arguably, to blame.

But here’s how it happened: in the wake of his mid-70’s country crossover success, Nelson felt moved to pay tribute to the songs that inspired his own work. His record company understandably resisted the idea, as their star had finally found a commercially viable country niche, so why mess with a winning blueprint? But Nelson prevailed, choosing homage over formula, and Stardust went on to become one of the most successful country albums of all time, selling millions of copies and spending a decade on the charts.

And what’s so great about Stardust is its sheer testament to music as a shared language – his interpretations defy categorization. They’re not country, but they’re not pop, either. On Stardust, they’re simply Willie Nelson songs. In fact, when technology allowed musicians to easily “sample” other artist’s work in the early 90’s, it was controversial. But I never understood the contention. Musicians had been referencing the past from the beginning of recorded song. You can’t listen to a Simon and Garfunkel album, for example, without hearing echoes of the Everly Brothers, and what rock album released post 1969 doesn’t illustrate clear references to the Beatles? Hasn’t “new” music always been informed by what’s come before? Nelson’s Stardust illustrates this time-honored tradition of musicians inspiring musicians…and we listeners reap the benefits.

The Stardust album opens with a mystery: “Sometimes I wonder why I spend the lonely nights dreaming of a song.” And Nelson spends the rest of the album answering this question: for the love of the music. With Stardust, Nelson blends country, jazz, and pop into an unidentifiable new sound never heard before or since. Always just ahead or just behind the beat, Nelson’s vocal makes one thing clear, while the songs may be familiar, it’s Willie’s house we’re in. And the album sequencing is perfect; creating a patchwork mood for the album that never lingers on one emotion for long. Stardust bounces from the quiet contemplation of “September Song” to the giddy skip-and-step of “Sunny Side Of The Street” and then back again.

In space, stardust is a tiny granule of terrestrial matter that existed before the earth was formed: a dust grain that condensed from cooling gases of prehistoric stars. Essentially, stardust is an artifact of what came before, but is now gone. And the songs Nelson picked for this album seem to follow this motif, longing for what is no more: longing for home (“Georgia On My Mind,” “Moonlight In Vermont”), longing for connection (“All Of Me,”), or longing for lost love (“Unchained Melody,” “September Song,” and of course, the title track).

And the longing is what keeps me coming back to Stardust over thirty years later. In fact, this album regularly finds its way on my playlist during quiet weekend afternoons with my partner, when I’m feeling nostalgic about the farm, or when I’m thinking of those I’ve loved and lost along the way. The songs somehow bring everything and everyone back as if they'd never been gone, or as Nelson sings, “the melody haunts my reverie, and I am once again with you.”