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The Music Industry’s Most-Loved Albums Of All Time, Part 33

This is part 33 of an ongoing series where the kind folk of the music business reveal their favourite album of all time.

Ask people in the music industry the seemingly simple and straightforward question, “What is your favourite album of all time?” and you’ll find that it’s not always easy. After all, my industry peers listen to hundreds of albums a month – thousands of songs during that time. Because the question isn’t the best album of all time – the one that’s made them the most money in sales – but the one release they personally can’t live without, that one title they have two copies of in several formats, in case one breaks. It’s also about that album that for them has the best back stories and the one that has the most meaning in their lives.

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Adam Seyum, Music Connection Magazine
Chain Reaction, Cuban Link

Simply, I can relate. Whether I’m in the mood for lyrics, feeling good or just looking for words to re-strengthen my spirit, Cuban’s music is a mixture of raw, passionate, lyrical prowess coupled with wisdom and street sensibility. Cuban was the protégé of the late, great Big Pun from the Terror Squad, hailing from the Bronx, New York. This album features hard-hitting production from Swizz Beatz and Eminem’s producer Mr. Porter; as well as, vocals from D-Block’s Jadakiss, R&B singer Avant, the songstress Mya, and the Reggaeton favorite, Don Omar. This 17 track album can play from top to bottom without skipping one track. Authentic, brilliant, and mature are the three words that best describe this over-looked, under appreciated release.

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Ron Plant, Big Daddy Said blog
Back In Black, AC/DC

It’s got lots of memories attached to it for me, it was the soundtrack to a lot of parties back in the day.

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Stuart Henderson, Producer & Writer, 90th Parallel Productions
Hejira, Joni Mitchell

An album about movement – “hejira” is a variant of the Arabic word referring to a journey to a better place – this is Mitchell’s most restless, most contemplative record, written and recorded at a time marked by personal turmoil. It is the musical equivalent of gazing thoughtfully out of the window of a tired old train as it hurtles through some uncertain landscape, a wise traveller whispering in your ear. Hejira is an album to lose yourself in, to travel through. Indeed, this record on a drizzly afternoon is one of the most intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually rewarding journeys I can name.

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Alex J. MacPherson, Verb Magazine
Exile On Main St., The Rolling Stones

Its eighteen tracks encapsulate everything I love about rock and roll: the hedonism, the excess, the haziness, the impending sense of doom. Four decades later, it still sounds ragged and raw. Dangerous, even. Mick’s primal howl is buried deep in the mix, a melting pot of slashing guitars and quavering organs and throbbing horns cobbled together in Keith’s basement in the summer of 1971. And the songs are astonishing. Drugs. Gambling. Drink. Fame. Fortune. Despair. It’s all here, on full display, with nothing left behind. The Stones would make more great albums. But they would never again make anything resembling Exile On Main St. I have never heard a better rock and roll record. I doubt I ever will.

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Peter Kearns, Snob’s Music
Let It Be, The Replacements

Personal, ramshackle, catchy, with clever lyrics. It’s fuckin’ perfect from start to finish.

Pat Benatar And Neil Giraldo on their Rock ‘N’ Roll Marriage

Every relationship has an origin story. For Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo, it all goes back to the moment in the late 1970s when Benatar signed a recording deal with Chrysalis Records — who immediately fired everyone in her band but the bass player.

“They brought in all these top studio guys and all the guys that were in New York, the big guys,” Benatar tells NPR’s Scott Simon. “And we were in auditions for all the other musicians and they said, ‘Neil Giraldo’s here.’

“He didn’t even bring a guitar with him; he was so ridiculous. He’s putting on someone else’s guitar, and I turned around and I was like, ‘Oh my god.’ I didn’t know what to do. I was completely smitten. And I just leaned over to my manager at the time and I said, ‘I don’t even care if he can play. He’s in the band.'”

Benatar and Giraldo joined Simon to retrace their steps over more than 35 years as a music-business power couple. Hear their conversation here.

Emma Lord on The Competition Of Female Singers In Nashville

Emma Lord moved to Nashville to pursue her songwriting dreams. After a few months, she came to this conclusion:

It’s a harsh reality that you really only understand when you are in Nashville: you are a dime a dozen. There are a hundred thousand girls there who look just like you, who sing just like you, who write songs just as well as you do. In Nashville, it isn’t always about who has the most talent because everybody there has talent. It’s about who perseveres, who shows up, who happens to be in the right places at the right times and doesn’t get discouraged by rejection – or worse than rejection, nothing happening at all.

Via Bustle

Jerry Lee Lewis on His Piano Playing

These fingers speak for themselves—they have a brain. They always hit the right notes, too. It just happens. That’s the way it is. Sometimes I still throw my boot up on the keyboard and play with my heel. It’s very important to hit the right notes. I did it first when I was young. I figured it would be good for business. Playing rock ’n’ roll the way I do takes a lot out of a person. But it don’t bother me. I’m used to it. Sometimes I sit up on top of the piano and play with both my feet, looking at the keys the other way. I hit the right notes then, too.
— Jerry Lee Lewis in The Wall Street Journal

Morrissey reviews the latest singles back in 1984

Back in October 1984, Morrissey did a feature with British music magazine Smash Hits where he reviewed some popular singles at the time. You can check out the whole thing below to see his reviews of Siouxsie, Duran Duran, XTC, Ultravox and more. It’s a shame artists today wouldn’t do this, for fear of insulting or offending a fellow musician. Even the littlest arguments on Twitter between, say, Jack White and The Black Keys, end in apologies.

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28 Businesses Who Created Signs For The Win

Check out these 28 businesses who knew how to make people laugh, and likely got the business…

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Via: Pinterest, BuzzFeed, Funny Signs, Twenty Two Words</em>

Jimmy Iovine on the marriage of music and tech: ‘The meek are not inheriting the Earth’

Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine talked about how he sees the technology and music industries working together. While accepting an SFTB Award, Iovine gave a cool and interesting speech.

“These are times that call upon us to be visionary and to be daring. These days, the meek are not inheriting the Earth. That’s why Dr. Dre and I both believe we need to intelligently merge the worlds of technology and the liberal arts.

“The great artists of music have always innovated and boldly changed the game, but the industry itself has not. Too often, the music business allowed third-party companies to innovate for us – and that simply does not work any more. We must face the fact that our delivery and distribution systems are too sterile and not compelling enough for a new generation of young people who love music in their own way.

“And if we don’t fix the distribution of music, we run the risk of music being sent out into the world in such an uninspired way that music loses its value – and not just its financial value, but even worse, its emotional value too – and therefore its position as arguably the most dominant art form going forward. Ladies and gentleman, the time has come for the music business itself to innovate.”

Ringo Starr’s Isolated Vocals For The Beatles “Octopus’s Garden”

“Octopus’s Garden” from The Beatles’ 1969 album Abbey Road was the second song Ringo has ever written. George Harrison says “It’s lovely. The song gets very deep into your consciousness…because it’s so peaceful. I suppose Ringo is writing cosmic songs these days without even realising it.”

Paul McCartney’s Wings “Band On The Run” Isolated Bass and Drums

Wings’ “Band On The Run” album was recorded at the EMI studios in Lagos, Nigeria after Paul McCartney decided he wanted to try recording in a more exotic place and get away from some of the media blitz happening in the UK and also securing himself complete artistic freedom. There was a bump in the road, though, when lead guitarist Henry McCollough and drummer Denny Seiwell left the band. Paul and band members Linda McCartney and Denny Laine decided to carry on just the same, with Paul taking on drum and lead guitar as well as bass.

http://youtu.be/3x_r06YfkB8

Johnny Cash’s Isolated Vocal for “Ring Of Fire”

Written by June Carter Cash and Merle Kilgore and popularized by Johnny Cash, “Ring of Fire” appears on Cash’s 1963 album, Ring of Fire: The Best of Johnny Cash. The song was originally recorded by June’s sister, Anita Carter, on her Mercury Records album Folk Songs Old and New (1963) as “(Love’s) Ring of Fire”. “Ring of Fire” ranked No. 4 on CMT’s 100 Greatest Songs in Country Music in 2003 and #87 on Rolling Stone’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

The song was recorded on March 25, 1963, and became the biggest hit of Johnny Cash’s career, staying at number one on the charts for seven weeks. It was certified Gold on January 21, 2010 by the R.I.A.A. and has also sold over 1.2 million digital downloads.

Although “Ring of Fire” sounds somewhat ominous, the term refers to falling in love – which is what June Carter was experiencing with Johnny Cash at the time. Some sources claim that Carter had seen the phrase “Love is like a burning ring of fire,” underlined in one of her uncle A. P. Carter’s Elizabethan books of poetry. She worked with Kilgore on writing a song inspired by this phrase as she had seen her uncle do in the past. She had written: “There is no way to be in that kind of hell, no way to extinguish a flame that burns, burns, burns”.

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That Eric Alper
6-time nominee for Publicist of the Year during Canadian Music Week, a 16-time JUNO Award winner overseeing PR campaigns, and have also been truly honoured to work with some of the biggest and most important artists of our time.

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