// 1969 King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King

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In the Court of the Crimson King (an observation by King Crimson) is the 1969 debut album by the British progressive rock group King Crimson. The album reached No.3 on the British charts. It continues to be a classic and has been a tremendous influence on other artists. The album is certified gold in the United States.

The album generally considered by many the launching point of progressive rock where blues-oriented rock is completely abandoned in favour of more jazz and European symphonic elements incorporated. The Who's Pete Townshend was quoted as calling the album "an uncanny masterpiece".

The album was remastered and re-released on vinyl and CD several times during the 1980s and 1990s. The original master tapes were finally located in a Virgin Records storage vault in 2003, leading to a much improved remastered version released in 2004.

1971 Serge Gainsbourg - Histoire De Melody Nelson

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Histoire de Melody Nelson is a 1971 concept album by controversial French songwriter Serge Gainsbourg. The Lolita-esque pseudo-autobiographical plot involves the middle-aged Gainsbourg unintentionally colliding his 26-horsepower 1910 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost into teenage nymphet Melody Nelson's bicycle, and the subsequent seduction and romance that ensues. Histoire de Melody Nelson is considered by many critics and fans to be Gainsbourg's most influential and accomplished album.

At just under twenty-eight minutes, the short running time and the stylistic consistency and similarity throughout the album gives it qualities more in line with an EP or an extended musical piece with a number of movements. Histoire de Melody Nelson‘s mix of freewheeling guitar, funk style bass guitar, near spoken word vocal delivery, and lush, deep orchestrated string and choral arrangements by Jean-Claude Vannier[1] have proven to be highly influential amongst later francophone and anglophone musical performers including the French band Air, David Holmes, Pulp's Jarvis Cocker, Portishead, and Beck, whose 2002 track "Paper Tiger" from Sea Change is extremely close to the distinctive Histoire de Melody Nelson sound.

After the release of the album, a music video was made for each song, and released all together as "Melody" a short musical.

Jean-Claude Vannier performed the album live at London's Barbican on October 21st 2006 with guest vocalists Jarvis Cocker, Badly Drawn Boy, The Bad Seeds’ Mick Harvey and lead singer from Super Furry Animals, Gruff Rhys. Vannier performed the album in its entirety alongside Vannier's solo album L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches.

Publicity for the Barbican concert revealed that the musicians used for the album were Dougie Wright, Big Jim Sullivan, Herbie Flowers and Vic Flick who all joined Vannier for the concert.

1. "Melody" – 7:32
2. "Ballade de Melody Nelson" – 2:00
3. "Valse de Melody" – 1:31
4. "Ah ! Melody" – 1:47
5. "L'hôtel particulier" – 4:05
6. "En Melody" – 3:25
7. "Cargo Culte" – 7:37

// 1959 Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out

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Time Out is a 1959 album by The Dave Brubeck Quartet, based upon the use of time signatures that were unusual for jazz (mainly waltz or double-waltz time, but also 9/8, 14/4, and most famously 5/4).

Although the album was intended as an experiment (Columbia president Goddard Lieberson was willing to chance releasing it) and received negative reviews by critics upon its release, it became one of the best-known and biggest-selling jazz albums, reaching number two in the U.S. Billboard "Pop Albums" chart, and produced one single — Paul Desmond's "Take Five" — that reached number five in the Billboard "Adult Contemporary" chart.

In 2005, it was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.

// 1997 Bill Hicks - Arizona Bay

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Arizona Bay is an album by comedian Bill Hicks, posthumously released in 1997 through Rykodisc. It was released alongside Rant in E-Minor, marking three years since his death. The album's title refers to the hope that Los Angeles will one day fall into the ocean due to a major earthquake. Hicks, perhaps in jest, contends that the world will be better off in L.A.'s absence:

“

Ahhh, it's gone, it's gone, it's gone...All the shitty shows are gone, all the idiots screaming in the fucking wind are dead, I love it...leaving nothing but a cool, beautiful serenity called Arizona Bay. That's right, when L.A. falls in the fucking ocean and is flushed away, all it will leave is Arizona Bay.

”

1. "Goodbye You Lizard Scum" – 3:52
2. "Step on the Gas (L.A. Riots)" – 4:50
3. "Hooligans" – 4:20
4. "Officer Nigger Hater" – 5:27
5. "As Long as We're Talking Shelf Life (Kennedy)" – 5:00
6. "Elephant Is Dead (Bush)" – 1:57
7. "Me & Saddam" – 3:10
8. "Bullies of the World" – 1:22
9. "Shane's Song" – 2:03
10. "Dinosaurs in the Bible" – 5:45
11. "Living God" – 1:05
12. "Marketing & Advertising" – 4:38
13. "Don't Talk for Me" – 1:40
14. "Clam Lappers & Sonic the Hedgehog" – 3:02
15. "She's Got a Broken Heart" – 1:09
16. "Pussywhipped Satan" – 4:40
17. "L.A. Falls" – 3:54
18. "Elvis" – 8:05

// 1973 Genesis - Selling England by the Pound

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Selling England by the Pound is the fifth studio album by the progressive rock band Genesis and was recorded and released in 1973. It followed Foxtrot and was the band's commercial peak with Peter Gabriel, hitting # 3 in the UK. The album would eventually go gold in the US in 1990.

The album cover is a painting by Betty Swanwick called The Dream. The original painting did not feature a lawn mower; the band had Swanwick add it later as an allusion to the song "I Know What I Like."

Track listing

All songs credited to Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett and Mike Rutherford

1. "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight" – 8:04
2. "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" – 4:07
3. "Firth of Fifth" – 9:35
4. "More Fool Me" – 3:10
5. "The Battle of Epping Forest" – 11:49
6. "After the Ordeal" - 4:13
7. "The Cinema Show" – 11:06
8. "Aisle of Plenty" – 1:32

// 1980 Joy Division - Closer

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Closer is a 1980 album by Joy Division. It was the band's second and final album, after Unknown Pleasures. It is considered an important album in the post-punk movement. The album was originally scheduled to be released on May 8, 1980, but ended up arriving in stores in July, shortly after lead singer Ian Curtis' suicide. The record was originally released on the Factory Records label as a 12" LP and reached #6 on the UK Albums Chart.

Closer, produced by Martin Hannett, has a sound which is both lusher and more sombre than Unknown Pleasures, with more use of synthesizers and studio effects. Many of its songs have a despairing, funereal feel, and its cover art appears to reflect this, although it was chosen by Peter Saville before he had heard any of the music; both the photo and the bleakness of the music and lyrics amplified the already strong mystique surrounding the album after Curtis's suicide.

The opening track, "Atrocity Exhibition", shares its name with The Atrocity Exhibition by J.G. Ballard, a book that Curtis read and loved, but only after writing the bulk of the song. It was ranked 10th on Pitchfork Media's Top 100 Albums of the 1980s, 72nd on NME's 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. Music site Digital Dream Door placed it #30 on their list of the '100 Greatest Alternative Albums'^[1].In 2003, the album was ranked number 157 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

This album, along with Unknown Pleasures and Still has been remastered and was released September 17, 2007 (2007-09-17). As with Unknown Pleasures and Still, the remaster comes packaged with a bonus live disc, recorded at the University of London.

The album cover was designed by Martyn Atkins and Peter Saville, with photography from Bernard Pierre Wolff. The photograph on the cover is of the Appiani family tomb in the Cimitero Monumentale di Staglieno in Genoa, Italy, by Demetrio Paernio.

// 1965 Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited

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Highway 61 Revisited is Bob Dylan's sixth studio album, released in 1965 by Columbia Records. It is Dylan's first album to be recorded entirely with a full rock band, after he experimented with the approach on half of Bringing It All Back Home. It is commonly tagged as documenting the "angry young man" period in Dylan's career, in-between the playfulness of its surrounding albums; many of the songs on Highway 61 are of an accusatory nature and feature rough, loud takes.

Featuring hits and concert staples such as "Like a Rolling Stone", "Desolation Row", and "Ballad of a Thin Man", it is also generally considered to be among the artist's best and most influential efforts. Dylan himself commented, "I'm not gonna be able to make a record better than that one... Highway 61 is just too good. There's a lot of stuff on there that I would listen to!"^[1]

The album peaked at #3 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart and #4 in the UK, while "Like a Rolling Stone" reached #2 on the US Pop Singles chart and #4 in the UK, also receiving the accolade of being placed #1 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The album itself was ranked #4 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

// 1962 James Brown - Live At The Apollo

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Live at the Apollo was recorded on the night of October 24, 1962 at Brown's own expense. His label, King Records, originally opposed releasing the album, believing that a live album featuring no new songs would not be profitable. The label finally relented under pressure from Brown and his manager Bud Hobgood. (It was disagreements such as this that moved Brown to begin recording for Smash Records the following year in violation of his contract with King.^[1]) To King's surprise, Live at the Apollo was an amazingly rapid seller. It spent 66 weeks on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart, peaking at #2. Many record stores, especially in the southeast U. S., found themselves unable to keep up with the demand for the product, eventually ordering several cases at a time. R&B disc jockeys often would play side 1 in its entirety, pausing (usually to insert commercials) only to return to play side 2 in full as well. The side break occurred in the middle of the long track "Lost Someone".

In 2003, the album was ranked number 24 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2004, it was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.

Brown went on to record several more albums at the Apollo over the course of his career, including 1968's Live at the Apollo, Vol. II (King), 1971's Revolution of the Mind: Recorded Live at the Apollo, Vol. III (Polydor) and Live at the Apollo 1995 (Scotti Bros.).

Although not credited on the album cover or label, Brown's vocal group, The Famous Flames (Bobby Byrd, Bobby Bennett, and Lloyd Stallworth), played an important co- starring role in Live at the Apollo.

// 1996 Failure - Fantastic Planet

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Failure was an influential American rock band (often also classified as alternative rock and/or space rock) that was active from 1990 to 1997, during which they recorded and released three critically-acclaimed albums. They are often compared to other hard rock bands from that time that were similarly labeled as "alternative", such as Nirvana, Soundgarden, or Bush, but are distinguished by their meticulous attention to textural sonic detail, inventive use of guitar effects and signal processing, and the overall expansive sound design of their later albums. Although mainstream success narrowly eluded them, they still have many dedicated fans, many of whom are fellow musicians and peers within the music industry.

Fantastic Planet is the third and final studio album by the American rock band Failure.

Track listing

1. "Saturday Saviour" – 4:27
2. "Sergeant Politeness" – 4:05
3. "Segue 1" - 1:56
4. "Smoking Umbrellas" – 3:58
5. "Pillowhead" - 2:11
6. "Blank" – 5:38
7. "Segue 2" - 1:19
8. "Dirty Blue Balloons" – 4:23
9. "Solaris" – 3:43
10. "Pitiful" – 4:45
11. "Leo" – 3:05
12. "Segue 3" - 2:13
13. "The Nurse Who Loved Me" – 4:25
14. "Another Space Song" – 5:10
15. "Stuck On You" – 4:28
16. "Heliotropic" – 6:14
17. "Daylight" – 6:00

// 1973 Tom Waits - Closing Time

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Closing Time is the debut album of Tom Waits, released in 1973 (see 1973 in music) on Asylum Records.

Contrary to some belief, the song "Ice Cream Man" is a Waits original, not a cover of the John Brim blues standard of the same title. Waits' version, however, was covered in 1993 by Screamin' Jay Hawkins for his album Black Music For White People.

A cover version of "Ol' '55" was later a hit for The Eagles, who recorded it for their 1974 album On the Border.

The song "Midnight Lullaby" borrows its opening line from the English nursery rhyme "Sing a Song of Sixpence".

Track listing

All tracks written by Tom Waits.

1. "Ol' '55" – 3:58
2. "I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You" – 3:54
3. "Virginia Avenue" – 3:10
4. "Old Shoes (& Picture Postcards)" – 3:40
5. "Midnight Lullaby" – 3:26
6. "Martha" – 4:30
7. "Rosie" – 4:03
8. "Lonely" – 3:12
9. "Ice Cream Man" – 3:05
10. "Little Trip to Heaven (On the Wings of Your Love)" – 3:38
11. "Grapefruit Moon" – 4:50
12. "Closing Time" (instrumental) – 4:20

// 1974 Brian Eno - Here Come The Warm Jets

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Here Come the Warm Jets is the first solo album by Brian Eno (although credited simply as "Eno"), recorded in a few weeks shortly after he left Roxy Music.

The album's musical styles range from aggressive garage rock ("Blank Frank") to serene Beach Boys-style reverie ("On Some Faraway Beach"). Eno enlisted a large number of guest musicians to play on the album, including three members of Roxy Music, guitarist Robert Fripp and bassist John Wetton of King Crimson and members of Hawkwind and the Pink Fairies. One of the most notable performances from these guests is the cacophonous three-minute-long guitar solo by Fripp on the song "Baby's On Fire".

"Warm jets" is used by Eno to describe the distorted guitar in the title track, which evokes the sound of a jet engine.[1] Eno himself claims that he often chooses words for their sound.

The album provided Eno with modest success in the UK album charts, and would in fact be his only album to chart for the remainder of the 1970s apart from 1978's Music for Airports.

In 2003, the album was ranked number 436 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.