190n120: 30 Years of Music with Adam Johnson...Episode Twenty-Eight: "The best way to predict the future is to create it"

88. Bad Brains - Bad Brains (1982)

The best band out of Washington, D.C. during the late seventies boom was undoubtedly the Bad Brains. They brought musicality to the aggression of punk supported by unparalleled energy.

Besides picking up the 'Best Live Band in the World' sash the Stooges left behind, the Bad Brains also brought a social conscience to the violence-prone slam floor. They're mad about social policy, but you will lose your mind when they drop a beat on you along with their manifesto.


Recommended Listening: Sailin' On, Attitude, Banned In D.C., Jah Calling, Supertouch/Shitfit, Fearless Vampire Killers, Right Brigade


87. Moondog - More Moondog (1956)

I went on a sort of weird music walkabout for a few years during college, and of all my discoveries, I am most endeared by Moondog. A free spirit since birth but blind since 16, everything is music to this gentlemen, and why not? The more accessible compositions are sublime; but it's the collage material that makes it for me.

The Viking of 6th Avenue made the world a much better, stranger place.

Recommended Listening: Duet: Queen Elizabeth Whistle and Bamboo Pipe, Hardshoe Malone, Tugboat Toccata, Autumn, Seven Beat Suite, All Is Loneliness, Moondog Monologue


86. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1993)

Before I found Funkadelic or really got into Curtis Mayfield and James Brown, I'm sorry to say this was the hardest, funkiest shit I could find. And I grew to like it, too.

Frusciante plays the hell out of that guitar; and the rhythm section brings it every second of the way.
The compositional scope of this album is also unparalleled in the band's catalog; it's like they used up all their good ideas.
And Anthony Kiedis could probably be replaced by a Casio playing his "vocal melodies" and the album would be improved thrice fold.

Recommended Listening: The Power of Equality, Breaking the Girl, Mellowship Slinky In B Major, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Under the Bridge, Sir Psycho Sexy


85. The Cure - Seventeen Seconds (1980)

I do not care for the Cure. I think Robert Smith's talent is fine, he just does not make anything I want to enjoy. Except this album. Sparse, dark, icey, interesting...

But seriously, if every Cure album were at least similar to Seventeen Seconds, or enjoyed as much freedom of composition, I would probably be a Cure fan.
But, lo, I am not.

But seriously, this album made me think twice.

Recommended Listening: Play For Today, Three, A Forest, M, Seventeen Seconds


84. The Doors - Morrison Hotel (1970)

My favorite Doors record, though not as good as their eponymous debut (nothing they did ever was).

Robbie Kreiger simply slays with that SG, and Dunsmore carries the band with grace and swing. I could give or take some of Manzerik's decisions, but overall his arrangements aren't as distracting as The Soft Parade (1969).
Oh, and the singer sings.


Recommended Listening: Roadhouse Blues, Waiting For the Sun, Peace Frog, Ship of Fools, Land Ho!, Maggie M'Gill