The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill - Lauryn Hill

We have cheated a number of times in choosing this week's classic album. It's Friday night for a start. We also went through a number of 'random' selections before finding an album we wanted to listen to. Nirvana, the Velvet Underground and Nick Cave were not appropriate for this balmy Canberra evening where the beers are flowing and there is still the promise of the weekend. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is perfect.

Lauryn Hill's first solo album is a deep, slow-burning, hip hop record. It's low-key but intense - the lyrics and themes are deeply personal - exploring race, love, women and faith. Hill's rapping rivals anyone in the game but it's her singing that sets her apart. It's smooth, subtle and soulful. She switches seamlessly from rapping to singing throughout the album, harmonising with herself and riffing off her own melodies.

B offers his analysis - "It sounds like she was smoking a lot of weed". Well yes, she was hanging out in Jamaica with Bob Marley's son and the family of Marleys. Hill was pregnant when she was writing this album - the creativity and moving influence of this time of her life is borne out in the songs.  She mixes reggae, r&b and soul influences, producing a ground-breaking hip hop album that challenged and defeated the misogynistic genre.

The massive hit was Doo Wop (That Thing). This is the song you want your little girls to listen to. It's Aretha Franklin's modern day Respect. Make your boys listen too for that matter. This album was huge because it appealed to everyone. And if you find someone who claims to like hip hop without respecting this album, then kick them in the shins. Ex-Factor is the killer break up song that Kelly Clarkson wishes she could get close to.

Despite being a brilliant album that easily stacks up 15 years down the track, at 70 minutes in length, it does start to fade towards the end, particularly the appalling Nothing Even Matters with D'Angelo. Nonetheless, Everything is Everything kicks in towards the end and keeps the faith. The film clip of  New York as a giant record is a revelation.

It is only fitting that Kanye ends our post tonight with some sadly honest lines about Hill in his song Champion - "Lauryn Hill says her heart was in Zion. I wish her heart still was in rhyming. Cos who the kids gonna listen to huh? I guess me if it isn't you". Yep, nicest way to say that since this very brilliant album, Lauryn Hill has stepped off the reservation.

'68 Comeback Special - Elvis Presley

If we could only take one album between us on a desert island, this would be it. No ifs, no buts. Elvis' black leather suit comeback album is the perfect mix of rockin', croonin' and swagger. We love the stand-up version, but it's the sit-down version that makes us lose our shit.

After a decade long contract with the big movie studios, Elvis had to be reintroduced to the public to prove that he was still cool. The stand-up special is an OTT, musical stage play of his most popular numbers. Famously, during a break in rehearsals, the producers saw Elvis jamming with his band in the break-out room and were blown away. The low-key 'sit-down' show was born and was released as the B-side. Thank goodness, because it is stripped-back, raw and perfect. Elvis jamming and joking around with his bandmates. Just singing and letting loose.

They play fragments of songs, they play songs twice, they start songs and Elvis forgets the words, they shift seamlessly from one song to another (When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again into Blue Christmas is fabulous). And it's the most wonderful recording ever made.  That's Alright Mama is simply gold. The second time they play Lawdy Miss Clawdy is spine tingling - the first wailing note that Elvis sings is a pants-wetting moment. The greatest single bar in popular music. If we could travel to any point in the history of the earth, it would be this.

The stories and banter between songs are hilarious. Elvis talks about being banned from moving his hips during gigs. He reflects on the changes to music since he last performed live. "I like a lot of the new groups, the Beatles, the Byrds...". he's reflective, he's very funny, he's shy and he's commanding. All at the same time.

It's easy to get blown away by Elvis' voice and hear nothing else. But every member of the band is a genius (even if some of them tell bad jokes). Scotty Moore's guitar is subtle and exquisite. And DJ Fontana is playing drums on a guitar case. A goddamn guitar case. And have we mentioned the leather suit???

The second time they play Trying to Get to You is amazing, with Elvis throwing everything at it. The most beautiful moment is when the song draws to a close and the band pleads with Elvis "one more time, one more time" and he tears into the chorus with no regard for his vocal chords.

The set on the version we have closes with If I Can Dream, a poignant, optimistic rip-roaring plea for hope. "While I can think, while I can talk, while I can stand, while I can walk, while I can dream, please let me dream". Lennon's Imagine is weak compared to this.

Our friend Elvio introduced us to this record and he has our eternal gratitude. If you only know Elvis from the ballads like Love Me Tender, you need to buy this record. If you're a living, breathing human being, you need to buy this record. And if you're a bloke, accept that you're wife will never be as attracted to you as she is to Elvis (but if it's any comfort, the man sure as shit went downhill from here...). This is not just the peak of Elvis, this is the peak of music.

Definitely Maybe - Oasis

I'm surprised it's taken us this long to get to Oasis. Of B's favourite bands of his long-haired and awkward youth (we now only have You Am I and Ryan Adams to go - stay tuned).

Oasis's first album, Definitely Maybe marked the resurgence of British rock'n'roll and spoilt rock stars.  Oasis had swagger before Kanye even knew what the word meant. We could probably dedicate a blog to "quotes of Noel". For a band that took itself so seriously, the best thing about Definitely Maybe is the sense of fun. Rock and Roll Star is a balls-out rock and roll song about wanting to be a balls-out rock and roller. I loved playing this song on guitar, turning up my 15-watt amp and wailing "toniiiight, I'm a rock and roll star" (along with, I'm sure,  hundreds of thousands of adolescent indie boys).

Shakermaker is kind of fun, kind of cheesy and kind of forgettable. Surprisingly, it was the second single from the album.

Live Forever is the sort of anthemic ballad for which Oasis became famous and which multiplied their fan base by the millions. It's a great song, but I can't help but think that it pales in comparison to later songs like Wonderwall and Champagne Supernova. And I will be honest and say that while Noel is a brilliant songwriter, his lyrics are naff. "Maybe I don't really want to know how your garden grows, cos I just want to fly."

The riff in Columbia is thrilling. The best live show I've seen Oasis perform was at the Livid festival in Melbourne. It was so freakin energised and this song was a highlight. Listen to the beat and imagine yourself jumping up and down in a mosh with a thousand pasty brit-pop fans. (Ok, that image does not sound as awesome as it was...) Speaking of naff, the backdrop for the stage was a black banner with the word "EXIST" written in massive white letters. Umm, ok, thanks Oasis. Will do.

Supersonic. First single they ever released. It grabs every other rock song written in the 1990s by the collar and punches them in the face. Our friend Karin is painting 100 stories about people's favourite songs. My story was about Supersonic, so read it and see the painting here.

Cigarettes and Alcohol is brilliantly funky and fun. Noel was accused of stealing the riff from Get It On by T-Rex. Agreed, it is pretty similar, but who cares? He took the riff, dressed it in some skinny jeans, stuck a cigarette in its mouth and poured a shot of Jack down its throat. Job well done.

Digsy's Dinner is the band playing around, still to great effect. It's most famous for the opening line: "what a life it would be if you would come to mine for tea, I'll pick you up at half past three and we'll have lasagne." The Beatles comparison always bemused me - Oasis were a rocking great band, but Noel sits a few rungs below John and Paul in the songwriter stakes.

Slide Away almost sounds like a grunge song, which is odd because Oasis billed themselves as the antithesis of grunge, the dominant sound of the time. It shifts from the minor-key verse into the major chorus though, and the morose, grungy, mood is dismissed by the uplifting brit-pop chorus.

The album closes with Married With Children, a throw-away song (with some brilliant lead guitar work)  that still sounds excellent. My favourite line is "I hate the books you read and all your friends, your music's shite it keeps me up all night."

I spent many years thinking about which of Definitely Maybe or (What's the Story) Morning Glory (also in the basket) was my favourite Oasis album. I usually came down on the side of Definitely Maybe because the sound is much more raw. On the verge of becoming one of the biggest bands in the world, Oasis sounded like a bunch of lads rocking out in their Mum's garage. I dearly love this album for sentimental reasons. It might not be the greatest album, however it's pretty fucking good.

Sorry, you can't write about Oasis without swearing.

Abbey Road - The Beatles

It had to happen at some point. There are twenty-five goddamn Beatles' albums in the basket. And so as last week's post was my love letter to Tom Waits (and if you haven't bought his new album, Bad As Me, shame on you), it's B's turn to carry on like a pork chop about Lennon and McCartney this week. I accept the songs are good but god I hate The Beatles.

Taking the laptop from L, I point out that The Beatles only released 13 albums (four are in the basket). Considering all were written in a seven-year period, I consider this to be the richest period of artistic creation in the history of humanity.

Writing about Abbey Road is like reviewing the Bible. Fortunately, we have the cojones to do so. (Incidentally, our review of the Bible would consist of five words - "could do with an edit").

Come Together is one of those Beatles songs which is so omniscient you forget how brilliant it is. It doesn't sound like any other Beatles song - it's all drums and percussions and funk. It wears its jeans so tight it needs to do the fly up with pliers and would be (re: is) cool in any era.

There's not much to say about Something, except that it's perfect. It has never been bested. Period. Until you hear Here Comes the Sun. It's a Harrison one-two knockout punch that leaves you lying on the canvas, bruised and breathless.

This album is the most polished of all Beatles releases. The songs in themselves are pure, breathtaking genius. But the production polishes them up until they are flawless diamonds. It verges on over-production, but never crosses the line, with harmonies and string sent in just at the right moment to rocket the songs into the stratosphere.

I reckon if someone challenged God to write a pop song, he would write Oh Darling. The piano riff is textbook 50s-Jerry-Lee Lewis-Little Richard rock and roll, but the plaintive plea of the chorus is sung with such raw passion it sounds like it's tearing McCartney's vocal chords to shreds.

As all readers would know, after Because, side two is seamless, with each song segueing into the next. This is not easily done, particularly considering Lennon and McCartney had stopped writing together. McCartney and George Martin took the fragments of unfinished songs and melded them into an incredible medley. Some of these songs fully formed would have been the pinnacle of another songwriter's career, but for The Beatles, they are the leftovers spooned onto a plate and microwaved to make a meal.

The album is McCartney's from this point on. You Never Give Me Your Money starts with a quintessential McCartney minor key, brooding, melody describing his boredom with daily life and then jumps into a rocking anthem about the thrill of escape when "one sweet dream came true today".

My favourite song on the album is She Came in Through the Bathroom Window. The bassline is funky and the verses are exhilarating. McCartney is wonderfully skilful at capturing suburban mundanity with lines like "Sunday's on the phone to Monday, Tuesday's on the phone to me."

The climax is all four Beatles singing "boy, you're going to carry that weight a long time"; it sounds like the encore to the best concert you never went to. Brilliantly, it reverts back to You Never Give Me You Your Money and then segues into The End, which sounds like a victory lap, with the band throwing flowers into the crowd.

There's really no way to describe Abbey Road and do it justice. Put it on and let it take your breath away. And with Queen Elizabeth in town, enjoy the final line of "I want to tell her that I love her a lot, but I gotta get a belly full of wine, Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl and someday I'm gonna make her mine."

Even L admits that she doesn't mind the album by the end, although she does note that my hyperbole-filled post has failed to mention Octopus's Garden....

Closing Time - Tom Waits

I've been waiting patiently for this album to be pulled out of the basket. Tom Waits' first album from 1973, Closing Time, is my favourite. It was before he shredded his vocal chords so it's very accessible, however, it still has the tragic, romantic and lonesome themes of the rest of his canon.

Even though Waits was in his early twenties when this was released, you'd believe he was an old man sitting drunk at the bar. Similar to Bruce Springsteen, Waits sings stories of people - their fears, hopes and dreams.

Sadly, B doesn't find Waits' voice on his later albums - described as being "soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car" - as seductive as I do so this album is played more than his other work at our house. It is also one of 'our' albums, which together with the aforementioned Springsteen reference should provide you with adequate forewarning, dear reader, of the painful mush to come in this post.

Early in our 'courting days' B & I took a 'sick day' and just hung out. Martha Wainwright was being interviewed on triple j about her favourite songs and she played I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You. We both listened gobsmacked by the beauty of the song; the clarity of Waits' voice and the vivid picture it painted in our minds. We were both pretending not to be in love with one another but knowing damn well where it was headed.

Martha of course, played Martha next. Alone in our imaginations, we speculated about forty years down the track when our relationship - which hadn't really started - hadn't actually worked out, as an old Tom Frost wonders what might have been with Martha. In order to avoid this fate, B would argue I stuck my claws in at this very point and haven't let up...

Martha is the best song on the album. But before you can feel sorry for the fool, there is plenty of male bravado. Old Shoes (& Pictures Postcards) is the cocky goodbye to a lover - "farewell to the girl with the sun in her eyes, I'm gonna kiss you and then I'll be gone". It's followed up by Midnight Lullaby which epitomises the mood of this album. You need to listen to it in a smokey club, with velvet drapes, nursing your joys or your sorrows over a whiskey at 2am.

The album veers from blues to swing. Virginia Avenue is Tom serenading the tired hooker who frequents the bar. The swing is particularly joyous on Ice Cream Man. Sung with a wink, it's a song that sparkles of show tunes.

Tom Waits music has remained interesting, challenging and brilliant since this debut. Waits is probably the most popular singer to be labelled a cult artist. A bit like Charles Bukowski whose poetry remains immensely popular too. Unlike most things 'cult' he is still releasing albums worth buying almost forty years later.

If you need to be introduced to Waits (and find his gravelly voice grating), then grab a copy of Closing Time. There are a few different women on this album and no doubt Waits loves them all and doesn't mean to break their hearts. But he does. And god he makes bloody beautiful music about it. And to finish off your evening, treat yourself by having a listening to Springsteen covering the best song ever written, Tom Waits' Jersey Girl.

Is This It - The Strokes

Is This It, the Strokes first, and best, album from 2001. The title track perfectly captures the disappointed nonchalance mood of the album. Who can be bothered including a question mark.

The second track, The Modern Age, was a floor-filler at indie kid parties. It's like the slacker protagonist of the first song finishes work at his shop assistant job, heads out with his friends and after a few drinks, finally feels alive for the first time that day. Crack a beer and turn this up loud and you'll understand.

The hyperbole that accompanied the release of this album was preposterous. It was like it was the first good rock and roll album to be released in five years. NME wet its pants and hailed the Strokes as the 'saviours' of rock and roll (considering Foo Fighters and U2 were dominating with MOR rock at the time, maybe it was fair...). All the hype turned me off at the time and it took a few months of constantly hearing it at parties, barbecues and bars before I finally gave in and bought it. It might not have been the only good rock and roll album released in five years, but it was undoubtedly the best.

The brilliance of the album is that while all the songs sound kind of the same - as if the Strokes only had one effect on their guitars and mic - each of them is still fresh, brilliant and exciting. Today as much as ten years ago (cue panic attack upon realisation that ten years have passed since we first heard this album). We all knew that it was faux-garage rock (because there was no room in the Strokes' parents garages amongst the Mercedes), but the simplicity of the songs and the production gives the album a rawness which feels like authenticity and sincerity.

The worst thing about the hype is that the Strokes became their image. They were the coolest band in the world, and they thought to be cool they had to nonchalant. I saw them at the Big Day Out and they sucked. It wasn't that they were bad, it was that they were so affected. They came onto stage, played theirs songs without moving or speaking, their faces completely expressionless. To play a song as exciting as like Last Nite without moving or expressing any emotion was a crime against the song. Sacrificing their music for their image is part of the reason their subsequent albums have been half-baked and mediocre. Some great songs, no doubt. But if there's only two good songs on the album, don't bother releasing it.

But back to their pinnacle - hot damn Last Nite is a good song. It's cruel though, because it makes you want to dance and there's no way to dance with dignity to that song. Put it on, let your limbs go and you'll know what we mean.

There's such a coherent mood to this album, rocking out while singing "baby, I feel so down, but I don't know why." The cavalier attitude towards the disappointment of modern life is wonderful and uplifting.

New York City Cops is our favourite song. It's degenerate and incendiary, with one of the most seditious sing-a-long choruses ever written. It was initially left off the American release of the album - after September 11, singing that New York City cops ain't so smart was not acceptable. September 11 had some strange impacts on music - the Strokes broke the big time with an album that didn't include its best song; Shihad changed its name to Pacifier and lost most of its fans; while Bruce Springsteen was inspired to make his best album in almost twenty years.

Trying Your Luck is the only weak moment on the album. Skip. Take It Or Leave It is a great closer though. Take it or leave it. No one cares.

The weather's warming up, so invite your friends over for a barbecue, make a Dry Manhattan (2 parts Bourbon; 1 part dry vermouth; dash of bitters; stir over ice; strain and serve with olives) and don't be afraid to put on an album that's ten years old because it's still the perfect rock and roll soundtrack.

Pearl - Janis Joplin

This is the album we both wanted for tonight. There have been too many morose men and not enough crazy women in our Martini Saturdays.  We made smokey martinis with Hendricks, Coal Ila scotch and a twist of lemon. Then we sat outside and smoked a cigar. Janis Joplin's Pearl takes us a million miles away from home.

It's impossible to passively listen to Janis; she demands you participate. For us, this participation involves frantically swaying around with our eyes closed like hippy lunatics. Not knowing a lot of the lyrics doesn't stop us too from doing our best interpretation of Janis wailing. We sing along in a shrill falsetto to Cry Baby, even though it completely ruins the song. We don't think Janis would have minded, even if the dogs of the neighbourhood do.

Full Title Boogie are a brilliant rhythm and blues band; energetic, boppy and emotive. But it's Janis' vocals that kick the songs on Pearl into the stratosphere. She wails and moans, screams and cries and veers from joy to anger to love to laughter. She was the first true rock chick and I don't think you can name another woman that goes close to her. They're all a bit too calculating in their rock chic.

This album is polished despite not being finished. Buried Alive in the Blues is a rocking, balls out, rhythm and blues track. It assumes a degree of pathos when we read that the reason it is instrumental is because Janis died before she could record the vocals. 

Me and Bobby McGee feels different to the rest of the album. It's pure, tremendous country, inciting women the world over to sing karaoke. It was written by Kris Kristofferson who is not in the basket. Perhaps he should be.

It sounds like Janis is having a grand old time with her first and only cut of Mercedes Benz. The giggle at the end of the song is my favourite part of the album. My mum introduced me to Janis with this song and I have belted it out with her countless times. Janis should be prescribed to strengthen any mother-daughter relationship going through teen angst.

The last two songs, Trust Me and Get It While You Can are impassioned pleas to seek love and comfort. Janis' voice is raw by this point, as if she banged out all the vocals in one sitting.  She completely throws herself at every song, the energy of the performance exhilarating. If we could time travel to any point in history, we'd choose one of her gigs. Perhaps the ones where she isn't too intoxicated.

Pearl is a revelation on every listen. Soft or loud. At a party or on a quiet Saturday afternoon. Feeling good is easy when you listen to this album. It is such a pity that Janis joined so many other artists who self-destruct so tragically young.

The Good Son - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Released in 1990, The Good Son is the sixth album of Australia's favourite rock god, Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds.

The opening track, Foi Na Cruz (translated It Was On The Cross) is based on a Brazilian hymn. It is evocative, sounding like a hundred drunk and lonely sailors singing with their arms around each other, finding comfort only in the promise of salvation offered by Jesus. This album is where the Bad Seeds became a full theatrical production, evolving from a rhythm section into an orchestra. Interestingly, it's one of the smaller incarnations of the band, with only four members in addition to Cave. The orchestral arrangements lend themselves to a much bigger band, as found on the subsequent albums.

L came to Nick Cave quite late, embarrassingly only paying attention to him when he sang with Kylie Minogue (shame.). She finally got it in 2001 with No More Shall We Part. Her theory is that her teenage angst soundtrack needed more of a dance beat or distorted guitar. Tea Party, Tool, Limp Bizkit... (for what use is a blog if you can't confess your shame to the world?).

The father-son duet of The Weeping Song is extraordinary. The question and answer lyrics are compelling, sad and elegant; for example, "Father, why are all the children weeping? They are merely crying son. O, are they merely crying father? Yes, the true weeping is yet to come."

The Ship Song is one of the most perfect, romantic songs of all time. It's a harbinger of the beautiful ballads Cave would perfect in albums like The Boatman's Call. None, however, have ever matched The Ship Song.

The Witness Song is pure anarchic gospel. It evokes an image of an antichrist church, filled with a choir clad in black robes and a congregation of demonic, crazed followers. What amazed me about Cave when I first heard his music was the theatre of this songs. Songs like The Witness Song are three act musicals with a narrative arc, character development and a shocking twist to end.

To describe Cave as a songwriter is an injustice. Cave is a dramatist, who constructs a dark, disturbing and enthralling world. Each of his albums tells its own story. The Good Son is about longing, disappointment and shame. The title character epitomises the paradox Cave illustrates on this album - humans following their desires can destroy themselves, their family and any chance of fulfilment in the process.

This is not the last time we'll pull a Cave album out of the basket. We look forward to lengthy debates about which is his best.

Slim Shady LP - Eminem

Classic Album Martini Saturday was a disaster and for that I blame Eminem. And Dylan who suggested putting his breakthrough late nineties album, the Slim Shady LP, into the basket.

It was probably a mistake to cook dinner while we listened to it rather than focus completely on the twenty-track unrelenting album. My two-part dessert was an eight-part disaster and, gee, I was angry. I don't buy into the argument that listening to angry music will lead to you committing violent acts, however, last night I could have smacked someone in the head with a frying pan. For that, I hold the Slim Shady LP partly responsible.

While neither of us are serious Eminem fans, like most of the western world, we enjoy and respect his music and rhymes. While he's just as famous for the controversy he generates, there is no doubt about the genius of his lyrical acrobatics. My Name Is is a great introductory track. Eminem's high pitch voice and piss-take lyrics are hilarious - "I can't work out which Spice Girl I want to impregnate" (for the record, we'd choose Scary) and Dre's beat is easy to bop along to.

Dr Dre's influence kicks in more obviously in Guilty Conscience. Should Eddie rob the store? Should Stan rape the young girl? Should Grady shoot his cheating wife? After a while the conscience, Dre, gives up. The irony of Dre being the reasonable voice in the room is wonderful. Even better is that not only did Eminem get the godfather of gangsta rap to mentor and produce him, he pokes fun at Dre and mocks him for being soft. And this highlights the sophistication of Eminem's message - on this record he's reminding the hip hop community that white kids could also be poor, downtrodden and ignored. Eminem gave white kids someone other than Trent Reznor to empathise with.

While I understand Slim Shady is an alter-ego and the angry misogynistic lyrics shouldn't be taken literally, Eminem still pushes it beyond the bounds of acceptability and listening to some tracks is an uncomfortable experience. 97' Bonnie & Clyde is Eminem rapping to his daughter about killing her mother and disposing of her body. There is a lightness to the beat despite the sinister theme that makes it all the more harder to listen to.

"Da-da made a nice bed for mommy at the bottom of the lake

Here, you wanna help da-da tie a rope around this rock? (yeah!)

We'll tie it to her footsie then we'll roll her off the dock

Ready now, here we go, on the count of three..."

This is probably the first and last time that the Slim Shady LP will get spun in our house. We had to listen to some of his later work to remind ourselves of why we really do like Eminem. And some of it is truly brilliant. I saw 8 Mile in a cinema in the US. When Lose Yourself began towards the end of the film the entire cinema of white and black kids was heaving. Eminem's performance was inspiring and powerful (although we're all still traumatised by that sex scene). (Btw, youtube is full of videos of white kids doing renditions of Lose Yourself, including Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber. Dear oh dear). 

I think Eminem is a pretty impressive artist and I think he is an important artist. I just don't find listening to his albums particularly enjoyable. But I know he doesn't give a fuck and that's fine too. 

Rage Against The Machine - Rage Against The Machine

A quiet Saturday evening in Canberra and we pull RATM's self-titled first album from 1992 out of the basket. Not sure martinis are going to cut it.

Bombtrack is a killer opener. The chromatic bass line with the cheeky trill before Zach puts the mic to his mouth and grunts "uhh". The album kicks off with a punch to your guts and there is absolutely no reprieve for the next forty minutes. Bombtrack, like many of the songs on their album, is about power and standing up to it. Threatening the suits, the soldiers and the capitalists with the chant, "burn burn, yes you're going to burn." If there's one word to describe Rage, it's incendiary.

Killing in the Name has a riff that grabs you by the neck and yanks you out of your seat. This is the anthem of our generation, much more than Smells Like Teen Spirt. The Leongatha disco went off when this song came on in between S Club 7 and 5ive. DJs drop this at dance festivals and people go nuts. And it's only become more popular since its release. Eight years later, when my little brother went through the rite of passage of the Leongatha disco, this was still the final song of the night.

After missing seeing Rage live first time around, we caught them at the Big Day Out in 2009 when they reformed. Holy crap it was hectic. The mosh didn't stop, even 80 metres back. We felt a little bit odd, as professionals in their late twenties, jumping up and down screaming "fuck you I won't do what you tell me". Then we looked around and realised that we were surrounded by professionals in their late twenties, all screaming "fuck you I won't do what you tell me". It was electrifying, tens of thousands of people releasing a beast that had been caged since Rage went into hiatus.

The brilliance of Rage is their combination of funk, hip hop and heavy metal. This album created a new genre, with bands like Korn and Linkin Park trying to replicate their sound (and failing miserably). Rage blurred the line between mosh pits and dance floors and awakened the political consciousness of a generation. Take the Power Back has a sawing riff and an insistent chorus, challenging the audience with every line.

The combination of Tom Morello's guitar and Zach's rapping is one of the all-time great music collaborations, both astonishingly and uniquely talented. Neither has been able to reach such heights with other collaborators. And let's not forget the rhythm section, with Commerford's bass delivering the funk.

Settle for Nothing is more of your classic 90s hard rock song. Aggressive riffs and hostile lyrics. But Bullet in Your Head gets your head bopping ludicrously along again.

Wake Up is a riot in a song, accusing the government, police and media of being complicit in keeping power in the hands of a few and eliminating those who stand up to it. Both MLK jr and Malcolm X "turned the power to the have nots. And then came the shot".

There may be bands around today who are as bold, political and aggressive as Rage, but none that reach the mainstream in the way that Rage did. Rage indicted the military, the police and the US Government, accusing all of wanton and intentional brutality. And they got played on FM radio and sold millions of records. The expectation to venerate authority extends all the way into popular music these days; it's unimaginable that a popular band could get away with likening US soldiers to the Ku Klux Klan.

This album is exhausting, exhilarating and inspiring. We won't pretend that Rage will return to regular rotation on our stereo - by the end of the album we feel, frankly, a little bit violated. We are part of the machine now after all!

Mezzanine - Massive Attack

Massive Attack, along with their one time band member, Tricky and Portishead, created the genre 'trip-hop". They may not like the term, but you don't get much say over how people see you anyway. To me, nothing says 1990s Britain more than trip-hop. Brit Pop can probably argue for this title as well, however the dark, funky, laconic beats were more unique than anything a brat with a guitar produced over the same period. Let's just remember the genre for these three artists, not for the fourteen hundred "Chill Out" compilation albums they spawned.

Angel is such a kicker of an opening track. When Zoey Bartlet goes missing at the end of the 4th series of the West Wing, Angel is the haunting, frightening song that provides the perfect soundtrack of foreboding. Characters anxiously hurry around but are flat-footed and impotent. Angel is a slow song, but feels urgent. It chases you and it's only a matter of time before something goes wrong. To be honest, I feel like this about the whole album. Angel encapsulates a frightening beauty that is often uncomfortable.

It's a pity then, that I read the liner notes. "Fanx." Really? Radiohead, The Clash, Prada, Mad Professor and Michel Gondry all get fanxed. I try and forget my ridicule and return to the 'moody mood'.

Indeed, Risingmoon continues the angry mood. However, Teardrop, the third, famous track, is a burst of sweet relief with Elizabeth Fraser's angelic voice. Although it has a sad, depressing undercurrent, it is simply a beautiful song. The filmclip takes its place as a late night Rage favourite. It's a pity we all just think of House now.

The Indian folk tones of Inertia Creeps, along with the thumping beat makes me want to dance slowly in the candle light. Instead I pour another glass of shiraz. It's about as close to drugs as I will venture.

Mezzanine's dark, crawling synths, dirty guitars and hip-hop beats are hypnotic. I sing the defiant lyrics of Dissolved Girl. "Feels like something, that I've done before, I could fake it, but I still want more".

Man Next Door and (Exchange) are weaker songs but they are still essential in bringing Mezzanine all together. Group Four is final highlight as the male and female voices combine. It represents the album perfectly. Massive Attack's earlier albums, Blue Lines and Protection were lighter. Mezzanine is bittersweet; a juxtaposition of light beauty and death.

The album was released in 1998 and was apparently available for download a month before the album's official release. I think Metallica were suing people about the internet ruining music soon after. Coming back to Mezzanine over a decade later, it more than stacks up to a reflective, sombre and cold Saturday night.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco

It's B's birthday this week so he gets to choose. Unsurprisingly, he picks his favourite album of all time, Wilco's 2001 album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

This album is a masterpiece from the first jangling, drunken mishmash that begins I Am Trying To Break Your Heart. This year is the tenth anniversary of my relationship with this album. And like a woman with whom you've spent ten years, even though I've experienced it a hundred times, familiarity breeds understanding of her idiosyncrasies and sweet spots. There's no such thing as flaws in something you know so well - even the quirks are part of the wonder.

I love I Am Trying To Break Your Heart. It was the song that introduced me to this album. Before this, I was a minor Wilco fan. But one Saturday afternoon, driving home from the shoe shop where I worked, Phil Jamieson was a guest on Richard Kingsmill's 'Freewheelin' program. The program allowed musicians to come in and play some of their favourite songs over the course of an hour. Phil played I Am Trying to Break Your Heart and it sent electricity up my spine. I bought the album the next day and we've been happy together ever since.

There are moments of breathtaking brillance on this album. The simplicity of Radio Cure is misleading. A single tapping drumbeat, repeated lyrics, Jeff Tweedy singing laconically; this song lulls you into hypnosis, building into a climax so subtly that you don't even realise it's coming until it hits you. And then it lasts for just two lines. Most pop artists who came up with a great melody then proceed to slap you in the face of it, writing the rest of the song to fill the gap between the chorus, which they repeat ad nauseum. The genius of Jeff Tweedy is that he understands the value of understatement.

In praising Abbey Road, someone described The Studio as the fifth band member of The Beatles. And so it is with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Like the small and seemingly inconsequential brushstrokes in the background of a painting, the feedback, sound effects and random noises all play their part in constructing a complete, intricate whole. Watching the documentary on the making of this album, you realise how painstaking and thought-through every random noise on this album is. In one scene, the band stand behind the console and argue about the tone and length of the feedback at the end of the first track.

This album has been called the Kid A of the alt-country genre. Before you think this is some kind arty album, however, you get to Heavy Metal Drummer and I'm the Man Who Loves You. Quintessential country pop songs that fit seamlessly into the flow of the album. I can't think of an album which is a more complete piece of art.

Pot Kettle Black is a highlight. A rocking song with driving beat; but the vocal melody is so soft-spoken that you don't realise how much your head is bopping along. Poor Places is achingly beautiful, the pinnacle of the romance on this album. It's an expression of self-loathing, disappointment, longing and love.

To paraphrase the final song, I've got reservations about so many things but not about Wilco. If I was being sent to a desert island and could only take ten friends, this album would one of them.

Rumours - Fleetwood Mac

A travelling circus of three close friends has joined us for the weekend. Fleetwood Mac’s seminal 1977 album, Rumours seems apt. Not because this group of friends mirrors the marriage-adultery-break-up-drug-fuelled-ludicrous-behaviour drama of this album but because there is also a shared history of beauty, joy and yes, drama.

Rumours is Fleetwood Mac’s 11^th album (yes, 11^th! But only 2^nd with the band's finest line-up after Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined). It has sold 40 million copies worldwide. It’s easy to see why. Every song is familiar and popular.

Second Hand News is a fun opener, setting the tone for a rocking album. It evokes images of middle-aged chubby housewives dancing around the lounge room, swigging stubbies of West Coast Coolers and singing along, drawing in all their hatred and disappointment for their middle-aged chubby husbands and building it up till they can let it all out, wailing Go Your Own Way across the rooftops of the suburbs.

The opening line to this song, “loving you isn’t the right thing to do”, might be the pivotal lyric. The abiding mood of the album is of either loving the wrong person or not loving the right person.

The conversation as we listen to Go Your Own Way goes downhill very quickly. According to rumours, Stevie Nicks had cocaine administered straight up an unconventional orifice, thereby, in the words of our erudite friend, ‘going her own way’.

  

Wander the streets of your suburb on any given Saturday night and Don’t Stop will be blaring out from a 50^th birthday party. Walk straight in, join the group dancing in a circle, put your arm around whoever’s next to you and sing at the top of your lungs. They’ll assume you’re one the nephew’s/niece’s girlfriends/boyfriends and welcome you like the prodigal son.

By the time Songbird comes on, we defy you not to think, “holy crap, this album is just one great song after another.” One of our guests, J, plans to walk down the aisle to Songbird. If her boyfriend ever proposes to her. And if he doesn’t, this is not a bad song to listen to alone, feeling sorry for yourself.  “I wish you all the love in the world. But most of all, I wish it for myself”.

The women wrote most of the good songs on the album and they are some of the best pop songs ever written. B officially retracts his long-standing claim that women have not made a substantial contribution to popular music.

You Make Loving Fun is one of our favourite songs on the album, despite its vomit-inducing title and “I do believe in miracles” chorus. It’s got one of the grooviest keyboard riffs of the 1970s and the harmonized coda makes the words of the title sound so sincere and catchy that we can’t help but feel happy.

Rumours is a perfect album for a gathering with friends. Everyone loves it (and rightfully so). The album spans generations. Your mum loves it, your aunties love it even more and your dad can’t stop himself from dancing to it. Admit it, you love it too.

Nashville Skyline - Bob Dylan

After a week's hiatus, we're revisiting 1969 again this time from a perspective across the Atlantic. Bob Dylan's so-called country album, Nashville Skyline.

It starts with a haunting, lonesome version of his "Girl from North Country", sung with Johnny Cash. It takes the playful courting of the original and turns it into a ballad of loss and longing. L starts to wish into her martini we were listening to Johnny Cash's Live At Folsom Prison instead.

But what the hell is Johnny writing about on the liner notes? "This man can rhyme the tick of time. The edge of pain, the what of sane." The hyperbole wasn't just Cash. The Rolling Stone review of the time includes comparisons to Kafka, Jean-Paul Sartre and Jean-Luc Godard.

Nashville Skyline Rag is an instrumental ragtime piece, moving into the boppy To Be Alone With You. One reason we love this album is that it sounds like Bob and his musos having fun. This album is perfect to relax and just listen to. It's not rocking, it's not challenging, it's just a bunch of great tunes. There are no statements. All the songs are about girls. We love protest music as much as the next white, middle-class, young professional. But all great art is about girls. Period. 

And the love songs are beautiful, even with Bob's bloody annoying voice. Lay Lady Lay is like a sombre plea for somebody to stay in your bed. Tonight I'll be Staying Here with You is Bob's best song. It's the song every girl wants her man to play for her. This has been on many a mix tape.

So if you're looking for an album while you pour your lady a drink and try to seduce her, this is it. Bear in mind though, your charm, or the drink, better work fast because you've got a little over 25 minutes until the finale Tonight I'll be Staying Here with You helps you seal the deal.

Let It Bleed - The Rolling Stones

B returned home today armed with duty free Hendricks gin so tonight's martinis were particularly sensational. And wouldn't Keith Richards be happy with us. Again we break our rules, pulling out albums from the basket until we find one that suits our mood. Let It Bleed, the Stones' eighth album from 1969, is perfect. 

The liner notes state in capitals, "THIS RECORD SHOULD BE PLAYED LOUD". Roger that. 

It's worth thinking about the time this album was released. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated the year before; Nixon had just become POTUS; Woodstock was held; there were massive protests about the Vietnam War, gay rights and Soviet aggression. Apparently Delia Smith was an unknown food writer when she contributed the cake to this album cover. The Rolling Stone magazine review at the time marked this album as the end of the sixties. "Gimmie Shelter is a song about fear; it probably serves better than anything written this year as a passageway straight into the next few years." 

The party was well and truly over. Although it was only just beginning for Keith, who "drifted into heroin" around this time. The British Government had a program where you could register with National Health "as a being a herion addict and then you got pure little heroin pills, with a little phial of distilled water to shoot it up with". His autobiography is one of the best books of the decade - bursting with the most ridiculous stories. And because he only took "pure, pure, pure" stuff, he remembers it all. 

Honky Tonk Women. According to Keith "it's one of those tracks you knew was a number one hit before you finished the motherfucker". The well-known version was released a single, but it's the country version that appears on the album - Country Honk. Jackson instead of Memphis. Let It Bleed was the Stones at their whisky-soaked blues best. They were pulling in the the opposite direction of the self-involved and contrived prog rock of some of their counterparts - stripping back their rhythm and blues till it was raw.

The title track, Let It Bleed is sexy, dirty blues. We understand that the Stones were rock'n'roll sex fiends, but did Mick have to drawl "you can cream on me"? On You Got the Silver Keith takes the vocals (to share the workload, he explains in his book). It's an earnest 12-bar blues number, demonstrating that Keith is the equal of any bluesman of the century.

B grew up listening to his dad playing the Stones: when we were kids, my sister, brother and I loved You Can't Always Get What You Want. It was a common request on road trips with us forming a choir for the opening. I loved this song when I was eight. I love it now I'm thirty. I will love it when I'm sixty. What begins as plaintive wail of resignation turns into a fatalistic celebration. It's joyous recognition that in spite of the shortcomings and limitations of life, what we have can not only be enough, it can be everything we need.

How many bands peak eight albums into their career? Ok, the early albums were mainly covers, but we can't think of a modern band that has even released eight albums. This is the second album in the four album run that is considered the Stones' finest period. The three others, Beggar's Banquet; Sticky Fingers; and Exile on Mainstreet are all in the basket so don't worry, there is plenty more Stones hyperbole and Keith quotes to come.

Nebraska - Bruce Springsteen

I've defied our random basket rules and decided that my favourite winter's night alone album is this week's classic album. Bruce Springsteen released Nebraska in the year I was born, 1982. Bruce (because we're on first name terms), has been one of the most important men in my life for some time. Thankfully, my father and my husband agree. My mother and most other women I know disagree. Bruce is not the Boss, he is a demi-god. Finding another Bruce lover is like expanding a secret chapter. It's unhealthy I know.

While Born to Run is the most classic of Bruce albums, Nebraska is where my heart is. Nebraska is a hauntingly beautiful album. Recorded on a four track in a bedroom away from the E Street Band, it's nothing but vocal, guitar and harmonica.

Nebraska is dark. The title track opens the album with a serial killer. Nebraska is full of hard people with hard lives. Bruce embodies characters and their struggle. Love is mostly on the periphery.

Atlantic City is the most well-known song from the album and it epitomises the struggle and beauty of Bruce's worlds. "Put your make-up on, fix your hair up pretty and meet me tonight in Atlantic City". There is the fantasy, the romanticism. "Now I been lookin' for a job but it's hard to find. Down here its just winners and losers and don't get caught on the wrong side of that line." And there is the struggle.

Highway Patrolman is honest and raw. "I got a brother named Franky. And Franky ain't no good.... Man turns his back on family well he just ain't no good". The brilliance of Bruce as a songwriter is that in two minutes he makes you mourn for Franky.

Despite the stillness of the album, there is a desperate urgency to Johnny 99. The song starts with a high pitch wail. Every character on This album is no good. Done no good. But they don't mean it.

In the still of the night State Trooper sounds like it's chasing you. The closing shrill scream jolts you awake again. The devil is still snapping at your heels in My Father's House. You want to escape the pessimism, the sadness, the disappointment but it won't let go. I'm not sure I want it to.

Top 5 Songs for When the Other Half is Away

For the next two weeks we're apart for Classic Album Martini Saturday as B is travelling o/s for work.  Be warned. I am home alone and I am woman. Cue show tunes, bad singing and ridiculous dancing. Here are my top 5 songs for when my other half is away.

1. Crazy in Love - Beyonce feat Jay-Z. Honestly, I can't think of a better pop song. The horns, the voice, the hook, and it's all topped off by Hova. This white public servant is a long way from Brooklyn...

2. One - A Chorus Line. Ah the gold and glitter, the high kicks, the leotards, the synthesizer. Songs from this musical could make up the rest of the top 5, including Dance Ten Looks Three. I should have had my "tits and ass" done as well and shipped off to make my name on Broadway.

3. Similar Features - Melissa Etheridge. The opening track from Ethridge's debut album is haunting, heartbreaking and sexy. This is the woman I sing loudly along with while hanging out the washing. And drinking gin.

4. Son of a Gun - Janet Jackson feat Missy Elliot. Ok so I'm cheating by combining these two fine ladies, however this is such a killer song. And why can't I spend my top 5 fantasizing about boys who do me wrong? Get the hell out of my house!

5. Glory Box - Portishead. When I'm done dancing around the coffee table like a silly teenage girl, I finally fall into the couch, pull out a book and savour the beautiful sounds of Portishead. Beth Gibbons' voice never fails to help me just slow down, be quiet and be just a little less aggressive.

And now for the other side. 

Music I listen to when the companion isn’t home falls into three categories: Songs From My Youth; Songs She Hates; and Songs I’m Ashamed I Like.

1. Leash – Pearl Jam. Leash is from my youth. With their second album Pearl Jam went from being a band I liked to a band I spent most of my time with. Leash has everything I love about Pearl Jam. A driving riff that makes me jump around the living room and a kicking chorus: “drop the leash, get out of my fucking face”. 

2.     I’m Only Sleeping – the Beatles. The next three songs fall into the Songs She Hates category. My favourite Beatles album is Abbey Road, but L kind of likes that one so I save Revolver for when she’s not at home. I’m Only Sleeping has it all. Twee lyrics, sappy harmonies, syrupy melodies. Sweet, sweet pop music.

3.     Lost! – Coldplay. My guiltiest pleasure is Coldplay. I know there’s so much about them that should annoy me (and does annoy the companion), but I still love them. I think Viva La Vida is their most accomplished album and Lost! is a straight-out uplifting anthem. The percussion takes a good song and sends it into the stratosphere. I know some of the lyrics are lame, but hey, it’s Coldplay.

4.     Bye Bye Badman – the Stone Roses. I’m not sure why she doesn’t like the Stone Roses. But I do. This song is about getting revenge on a bully (I assume) and has a damn catchy chorus. This will grow on her, wait and see.

5. So Much Love to Give – DJ Falcon. Firmly in the Songs I’m Ashamed to Like category. I mainly listen to these in the solitude of jogging. I hope no one ever sees the ‘most played’ list on my ipod. This would be up there, as would These Words by Natasha Bedingfield and Sweet Escape by Gwen Stefani/Akon. I have nothing to say in my defence.

Silent Alarm - Bloc Party

Our basket clearly isn't a fan of older albums. This week it's Bloc Party's debut album from 2005. An album we loved at the time and have returned to sporadically. And each time we've had the same reaction - oh wow, this is still a great album.

Like Eating Glass is a kicking opening track. All drums and bass. And then Kele comes over the top, shouting "it's so cold in this house". It doesn't sound like a song that's been constructed, it sounds like four musicians running at you in a full frontal assault. Saw them at Splendour a few years ago. They opened with Like Eating Glass - one of the most intense and exiting openings to a concert I've ever seen. 

There is a sense of urgency to this album, an aggressive energy. This is protest music. Not in the acoustic guitar, whiney sense. More of the take to the streets, light cars on fire and smash in shop windows sense. 

One of the most exciting moments of the album comes in Positive Tension. The repetition of "why'd you have to get so hysterical" over the building drum and bass lines, then the climax of Kele shouting "so fucken useless". We defy you not to shout along with him. 

Banquet is just as fresh, brilliant and shocking as it was on the first listen six years ago. This was the track that had so many of us saying "who the hell are Bloc Party?!" The pumping drum beat and duelling, syncopated guitars. Makes you pump your fist in the air and slap your leg with the other hand.

This album doesn't let up. Even Blue Light, which starts moody and slowly builds into another thumping bridge.  She's Hearing Voices joins the exclusive club of songs with lyrics that everyone mis-hears. "white girl, pretty girl" is, apparently "red pill, blue pill". 

This Modern Love is the best track on the album. "Do you want to come over and kill some time? Throw your arms around me." It was 2005 and we fell in love to Bloc Party.

For some reason, at the time of its release, this album was compared to Franz Ferdinand. Huh? And it was pipped by Antony and the Johnsons for the Mercury Music Prize. Lame.

So Here We Are is a sweeping beautiful song and probably should be the final track. But no, there are three more songs to come! It's the first time this album goes down a notch, but even for a moody ballad, it has a full on drum beat and a triumphant, screaming coda.

Admittedly, by track 13, it feels a bit long and maybe even repetitive. Even though we've listened to this album hundreds of times this is probably only the fourth time we've heard Compliments. Not a bad song but by this point we felt pretty done.

This album is energetic and demanding. It's serious and angry. And it's just as strong as it was when it was released. Bloc Party could release this album today and it would be huge and relevant. This is not music to sit back and enjoy. This is music to make you think and act.

Pump - Aerosmith

Our cousin insisted we put Aerosmith's 1989 album Pump into the basket. We were dubious having been a little too young for the long-haired 80s (unless it was Janet Jackson). But soon after we found the album at a record fair for $12 and it was clear that it was meant to be. While we're familiar with the singles, we're embarrassed to have discovered how good this album is thirty years late.

Aerosmith is Sex. Rock. Gold.

Hair rock. Cock rock. Whatever you want to call it. This period isn't seen as one of the high points of 20th century music art. Overblown. Insubstantial. Maybe so. But play this on a Saturday night, do a shot of Jack with a beer chaser and have a real good time. And if listening to this album doesn't put your lady in the mood, ditch her and find a new one.

Young Lust breaks into your dad's liquor cabinet, smokes your weed and hits on your sister. The rocking opening track is followed up by F.I.N.E. Fucked up. Insecure. Neurotic. Emotional. Sounds like a mantra for today's emos. If only they wrote songs as good.

Love In An Elevator. The film clip is outrageous. Katy Perry and Lady Gaga have a lot to learn. The orgasmic screams of Steve Tyler are however, a little disconcerting. Janie's Got a Gun is still a tremendous, beautiful and haunting song.

Don't Get Mad, Get Even starts with a didgeridoo. Yes, that's right. It then proceeds into a swampy, southern rock verse before launching into a gigantic chorus, replete with screeching lead guitars, layered vocals and key changes. Sadly, the didgeridoo fails to make another appearance.

The final track, What it Takes is a great song. It's a soaring, catchy epic. Aerosmith may not have invented this genre of pop music, but this song demonstrates they sure as hell mastered it, maybe even perfected it. Go back and revisit their 1973 song Dream On. Eminem and even Glee recognise the brilliance.

There are barely any liner notes on the album sleeve - Aerosmith weren't interested in getting to know you or explaining themselves to you. You like this on the first listen or you don't. They're not the sort of band who sticks around to see sunrise or cook you breakfast.

While we love Radiohead and Wilco, this album reminds us of what rock is all about. Girls. And Sex. Preferably the later with the former. And getting drunk. Actually, probably best if all three are combined. There is no way you can look at Aerosmith, Steve Tyler, Joe Perry, the album artwork, or any of their clips without thinking about sex. Next week we promise to not to mention sex. It's getting uncomfortable for all of us.

Little Earthquakes - Tori Amos

One of us has a confession: I only discovered Tori Amos through 100% Hits Volume 11. Thankfully, this led me to seek out more than her smash hit Cornflake Girl, and find her brilliant debut album from 1992, Little Earthquakes.

Many people feel they owe Tori Amos a lot. The internet is full of 'Tori saved my life blogs'. Everyone thinks Tori is speaking to them which is demonstrative of the power of music - to heal; to comfort; to reassure yourself you are not alone.

It is easy to over analyse the seriousness of the lyrics, which cover religion, love, rape, sex. But Tori goes from morbid to biting wit - from the opening track Crucify, "got enough guilt to start my own religion" to Silent All These Years (which has some of the best lines) "so you found a girl who thinks really deep thoughts. What's so amazing about really deep thoughts? Boy you best pray that I bleed real soon. How's that thought for you?"

The production on Little Earthquakes is moody and dense. Not dissimilar to other rock albums of the time. It's not chick pop, it's not sweet. Listening to it after some years, and remembering it as an album whose principal audience was emotive girls, it's surprisingly aggressive. Tori Amos might be a chick with a great voice and a piano, but you wouldn't want to mess with her. Crucify and Precious Things are all thumping percussion, with the chorus of the latter closing with a savage, animal scream. Of course, there are the achingly beautiful piano ballads like Winter but, returning to this album, it's the force of the songs that strikes you.

Being at parties with adolescent girls who loved Tori Amos, this was their music. It was very clear that they felt boys weren't able to understand or be a part of it. Which is ok. Being a teenage girl is tough. But it was also a pity because these are really good songs and we could all find something in them. It's easy to hear why this album meant so much to so many girls. There are few coming of age albums which speak to girls with such brutal and confronting honesty. From Precious Things - "those Christian boys, so you can make me cum that doesn't make you Jesus."And from Girl - "she's been everyone else's girl maybe one day she'll be her own".

And then comes China. Which is a terrible song. Seriously it sounds like Celine Dion. But not as good.

Me and A Gun is still very uncomfortable to listen to. Nothing but her voice and her story which is heartbreaking. But it is also full of hope and resilience. "Me and a gun and a man on my back but I haven't seen Barbados so I must get our of this".

The uncomfortable silence then builds into the power of the final and title track Little Earthquakes. The drums and full reverb choir evoke images of Polynesian warriors preparing for a battle to defend their island (well, it does for us...). Tori was probably going more for a personal empowerment sort of vibe, but hey, it works.

This album is dark and evocative, but it's also light and fun. Amos has a broad imagination. Her lyrics are clever, witty, astonishing, shocking. This album more than stacks up twenty years down the track. All teenage girls and boys should still be listening to Tori Amos.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - Kanye West

The basket throws up a controversial album this week. Kanye West's fifth album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which is not yet a year old. Is it too early to call this album a classic? No bloody way.

After a hiatus that was too long, this album was highly anticipated. But it surpassed all expectations and then some. It even fulfilled Kanye's own hyperbole (which is no small thing). In the weeks following its release, we started most conversations with "have you heard Kanye's new album yet?" When someone answered in the affirmative, it was like finding a fellow believer, because no one who had heard it thought it was anything less than brilliant and groundbreaking. For those who hadn't, they immediately received orders to buy it on threat of excommunication.

MBDTF is an album of killer one-liners, killer beats and killer songs. And to give credit where it's due, in the same way we couldn't have had Obama without Bush, we couldn't have MBDTF without 808s and Heartbreaks. While it was widely viewed as an ill-conceived travesty, the production he experimented with on that album enabled him to create the most sophisticated hip-hop compositions of his career (and perhaps of the genre) on MBDTF. No one has made a hip hop album like this before. These songs weren't written, they were crafted. Painstakingly. And its not just that the songs are intricate, they are provocative, original and have a development arc which is rare in pop music. This could be hip hop's Kid A (and thank god, because the genre needs someone to push it forward).

Beyond the production, Kanye's themes are more interesting than any other rapper. He is knowing, arrogant, cunning and much smarter than you give him credit for (and when he stepped off the reservation at the MTV video awards, we all seemed to lose sight of the key point - he was right). Hip hop is often provocative, but it's less often compelling. Kanye turns a spotlight on misogynism in rap music. He's not so obvious as to rap about misogynism in rap music, but he turns it up to 11 in what becomes almost a brutal, disturbing satire (watch the clip for Monster for an example).

This is a complete event album, musically and thematically. Everything on the album is over the top. All of the Lights begins with a beautiful one minute violin introduction, overwhelmed by a choral entrance that leads into a pumping beat and a sing-a-long, reverb-filled chorus. He has constructed a song with the sole purpose of blowing you away. (And don't watch the film clip if your eyes are feeling sensitive).

Which brings us to Monster, possibly the highlight of the album, with an unusual but brilliant chorus (which will translate incredibly to a live performance). Hip hop is more competitive than any other genre, with rappers trying to outdo one another with better rhymes and better flow. Nicky Minaj comes in after Kanye and Jay-Z and shits all over them. The film clip is incredible and a great feminist outrage. But view it as the statement that it is and he gets away with it. Just.

Track 8 Devil in a New Dress is practically an interlude. Although it's an outstanding track, you find yourself having a break after the sonic assaults of Monster, Power and All of the Lights. Then the album starts all over again with a single, repeated piano note. Even the Neptunes are listening to the start of Runaway and saying "wow, that's austere". Runaway is brutally honest and sad, expressing all of Kanye's self-loathing with the warning "run away from me, baby". (Although coming in at 9:07 minutes, the journey sure does drag on).

Two songs later is Blame Game, a heart wrenching take on two people in a relationship turning on each other. Hip hop does a lot of emotions, but heart wrenching is rare. The Chris Rock coda is strange, offensive and fascinating. And it leads into the glorious, joyous dance anthem of Lost in the World. A hundred listens later and the lyrics remain unclear but that doesn't stop us singing along (and playing drums on the steering wheel if we're driving).

What makes Kanye stand out from most rappers is that he's self-aware and self-critical. Not in an angry Eminem way, but in a way that acknowledges his disappointment in himself. But he is also hysterically funny - "I sent this girl a picture of my dick. I don't know what it is with females. But I'm not too good at that shit". 

Kanye doesn't write raps and find a beat to pair them with - he constructs songs. Glorious, challenging songs that we will be listening in twenty years. And he pairs them with bold, stylish and relevant videos. Sure, he may not have the best flow or technique out there but he is a complete artist in a way that other, better, rappers are not. This album is a throw-down to everyone else in the game, and if there's anyone out there who can match it with Kanye, they are yet to show themselves.

Transformer - Lou Reed

Here's an image you didn't ask for or want: we put on our skinny black jeans and sexy danced in the lounge room to Vicious, the opening track of Lou Reed's seminal album Transformer from 1972.

This is a wacky album. It's theatrical, but grungy. Like some kind of musical about homeless crackpots on the streets of a dead American city. Suppose that what's you get when you put Lou Reed and David Bowie together. Transformer has glorious, momentous songs. But the overwhelming impression is of Reed creating show tunes - about the theatre of the lives he has witnessed. Reed is an observer. This album has more of a pop sensibility than the Velvet Underground. The songs are not as loose, not the creative ambitious mess that some of the Velvet's best work was. Perhaps Bowie had a role in the neat song construction. 

The only wedding you should hear Perfect Day at is a junky's. Perfect Day is a majestic waltz. A dichotomous song - orchestral and overwrought but about simple, impoverished, troubled love. It is sinister, beautiful and malicious. It may be a song about love but it's not a love song. It's about raw, bad-for-each-other love. A relationship that brings out the worst in you.

Walk on the Wild Side. What a song. From the very beginning it has depth to its sound created by the electric bass and double bass playing the same riff at the same time. "But she never lost her head, even when she was giving head." Such a good line that we can  forgive Reed for rhyming head with head.

Satellite of Love sounds like a saccharine pop song, but it drips with derision for hollow human achievement. Forget progress - the smallness of human life and love on earth is more than enough. The coda with Reed's tinny vocals, the simple percussion and Bowie's soaring falsetto (layered about fifty times over itself into a massive choir of Bowies - what a wonderful thought!) is one of the most exciting, triumphant moments of pop music. Satellite of Love was written for the Velvet Underground. Thank god he recorded it again with Bowie.

Transformer is an incredible album. Lou Reed has inspired countless boys to form bands. His influence is immense. Transformer made him a superstar. (Which is why it is so devastating to see this. A great song completely and utterly decimated. Lou Reed, Bono, Bowie, the woman from M People, Tom Jones, and others carpet bomb a village. It could almost be a funny as a satire except it is a BBC promotion from 1997. Shame.) If you watch that clip, don't leave it as the final taste in your mouth. Do a shot of whiskey and listen to Walk on the Wild Side one more time.