The Rewind Button: Seven Album Wrap-up

Posted on 2013/01/122013/01/12 by Jason Hensel

The Rewind Button is a group blogging project that I’m participating in. We’re taking on Rolling Stone‘s Top 40 albums of all time and writing our own reviews of them.

I tried for many months to avoid writing a multi-album post. I wanted to focus each entry on an individual artist or band. However, I’ve learned a lot about myself and music during this project. Primarily, I don’t enjoy writing about music that much. I mentioned that in a previous Rewind Button entry, and here at the end, upon reflection, my feeling still holds true. That means for a lot of these albums, I struggled to write about them. Perhaps I tried to make the reviews harder than they needed to be. The reviews I enjoyed writing the most were the ones that I let the words tumble out of my head, unconscious of where my thoughts were going.

Maybe I do, then, enjoy writing about music if I can do it the same way I listen to albums. That is, totally immersed in feeling. In the end, I’m happy that I took part in this project, and I’m grateful for the invitation to do so. I’ve discovered other blogs and writers that are now saved in my bookmarks, and I’ve listened to some albums that I had never heard before that I now love (Stevie Wonder) and ones that I can’t stand (Joni Mitchell). It’s been a fun project, and I’m finishing it with these final seven albums.

The Band — Music From Big Pink

The song “The Weight” is a staple at karaoke spots in these parts. It’s an okay song, and it’s the only original song on this album that I liked. The other song, “Long Black Veil” is a cover song, and The Band does a good version of it. Overall, though, I found this album uninspiring. It’s not one that I will listen to again.

David Bowie — The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars

Bowie rarely fails me. I appreciate that he pushes himself and the art of music, and Ziggy Stardust is a winner for me. In our current age of singles and quick hits, it’s refreshing to go back in time and listen to an album that told a story, that provided a narrative to the music, that tried to show there was more you could do with rock music. This a top 20 album for me.

Carole King — Tapestry

Carole King is one of the world’s greatest songwriters. Tapestry, though, was just an okay album for me. I had never heard it before, and I kept seeing it on best-albums-of-all-time lists, so I was curious about what made it so great. And as with several albums on this list, I found it not that great. Perhaps at the time it was groundbreaking or inspiring or something. Now, however, I find it pedestrian.

The Eagles — Hotel California

The Eagles are my dad’s favorite band, so I grew up listening to their albums. Hearing this one again took me back to the late 1970s, sitting in my dad’s apartment patiently waiting for this album to finish so I could listen to KISS. Today, I notice The Eagles’ influence in my music, and that’s a good thing, because the band were solid songwriters in both lyrics and hooks. That’s something I work on emulating in my writing.

Muddy Waters — The Anthology

Muddy Waters is a great blues artist, and I found myself liking this album more than I imagined I would. For those who write or edit for a living, The Anthology is great background music for working. The blues’ rhythm and repeating of lines lulls one into a calm state where focus and imagination reside side by side.

The Beatles — Please Please Me

It’s no secret that I love The Beatles. Please Please Me, while not my favorite, still stands far and above many of the other albums on this list. Please please let me listen to it over anything that Van Morrison or Joni Mitchell ever puts out. How this album arrived at No. 39 and not higher is a mystery to me. It deserves higher, and in my personal list, it is.

Love — Forever Changes

This is a great, strong finish for the top 40 list. I had forgotten how much I enjoy this album. You can definitely hear the late 1960s vibe, but I also detect elements of punk, post-punk, and balls-out rock. I’ll have to remember to listen to this album more often, because it’s inspiring and a good-time experience, which is exactly what music should be.

Please visit these other blogs participating in The Rewind Button project:

Betty Livin

Musicqwest

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The Rewind Button: Let It Bleed

Posted on 2012/12/202012/12/20 by Jason Hensel

The Rewind Button is a group blogging project that I’m participating in. We’re taking on Rolling Stone‘s Top 40 albums of all time and writing our own reviews of them.

Let It Bleed Pie

Preparation time: 1 year
Cooking time: 1 month

Ingredients:

1 oz. of vanilla
3 tbsp of clove
4 cups of sugar
1 dash of cayenne pepper
5 eggs (include the yolks)
6 cups of flour
3 cups of water
2 cups of blackberries
Salt and black pepper to taste

Put the flour and eggs in a large bowl and stir it until the mixture becomes solid. Slowly, like you’re recovering from a hangover, add one cup of water and the clove to the mixture as you continue stirring. Set aside for at least 12 months. After enough time, add the other two cups of water to the mixture, along with the sugar, cayenne, vanilla, and blackberries. Mix it fast with angst and the feeling of impending old age until solid as a rock. Take the harden piece out of the bowl and place in a large pie pan like you would crawl into bed with a beautiful man or woman and put it in the oven for one month at a temperature of 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Be careful when removing it from the oven, as the pie will be hot to the touch and will burn your mouth if eaten directly from the pan. Wise cooks take the pie from the pan and leave it on a plate near an open window where the scent of blackberries and clove whoosh throughout the neighborhood, causing men and women to stop what they’re doing and follow the scent to your door like a band of merry men traversing across a great land sampling every thing they sense . Once enough people are in your house wanting a taste of the pie, slice it proportionality and serve with red wine, or if you’re in a festive mood, Champagne, because surely all this time spent making this pie warrants more than a common libation. Raise your slices and glasses to the Moon Goddess and thank her for the bountiful nourishment, and remember your belly will always fill as full as it needs to be. There should be no leftovers.

Please visit these other blogs participating in The Rewind Button project:

Betty Livin

Love As A Verb

Life Doesn’t Have to Suck

Renée Sylvestre-Williams

Sara Bynoe

Musicqwest
Be a River With Me

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The Rewind Button: Led Zeppelin

Posted on 2012/11/082012/11/09 by Jason Hensel

The Rewind Button is a group blogging project that I’m participating in. We’re taking on Rolling Stone‘s Top 40 albums of all time and writing our own reviews of them.

I listen to the album first before reading anything about it. Often, I don’t even read anything about the album, because I want to experience listening to the music as someone did before the Internet made infinite knowledge available. Led Zeppelin is another album in which I don’t care to know about its production, writing, or reception. I slip on my headphones, turn the volume up 100 percent, and let the songs soak through me.

“Good Times Bad Times” and “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” are killer opening songs, with “Babe…” being one of my all-time favorite Zeppelin songs. I could listen to it on repeat forever. It’s sluggy with a streak of classical clarity guiding its melody.

Then we get to “Dazed and Confused,” and I’m reminded of Everything is a Remix, Part 1. It was through this video that I learned how much Zeppelin ripped off other artists for some of their biggest hits. Remixing other artists, appropriating their work and making it your own is a practice I’m on the fence about. Part of me wants to believe that creativity stems from true originality. The other part of me knows that nothing is really new, even if you think it is. With a song like “Dazed and Confused,” I’m in the camp of not approving its downright thievery. Go ahead and quote Eliot to me. It’s still theft. Zeppelin just didn’t remix it enough to make it their own. (By the way, “Babe…” is a cover and properly attributed as such, unlike “Dazed…”)

Moving on. “Communication Breakdown” is another all-time, original, Zeppelin favorite of mine. If I could just listen to “Good Times Bad Times,” “Babe I’m Gonna to Leave You”, and “Communication Breakdown,” I’d be totally happy with this album and rank it much higher on Rolling Stone‘s list. Adding the other songs on there weighs it down, placing it exactly where it should be on the list.

Please visit these other blogs participating in The Rewind Button project:

Betty Livin

Love As A Verb

Life Doesn’t Have to Suck

Renée Sylvestre-Williams

Sara Bynoe

Musicqwest
Be a River With Me

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The Rewind Button: Live at the Apollo

Posted on 2012/10/112012/10/14 by Jason Hensel

The Rewind Button is a group blogging project that I’m participating in. We’re taking on Rolling Stone‘s Top 40 albums of all time and writing our own reviews of them.

I hesitated in reviewing this album. It’s not that I don’t enjoy James Brown or live recordings. But neither one of them woo me that much. I could carry on life just fine without having ever heard Brown or a live performance set on vinyl.

I feel this way because I prefer to see an artist live than hear a recording of any show. And for James Brown, nothing could capture the experience of seeing him perform in person. Or so I’ve been told. I listen to this album, and I can tell that, yes, he was the über showman. Still, it doesn’t get under my feet and make me want to dance. It doesn’t get in my shoulders and make them want to sway. It doesn’t get into my mind and make me want to check out more of Brown’s material.

“Night Train” is the closest I get to moving to any of the music. I do find myself tapping my right foot and enjoying the upbeat bluesy melody.

Live at the Apollo is an okay album. It’s one that I won’t purposely listen to again, but it’s fine background music for a party.

Please visit these other blogs participating in The Rewind Button project:

Betty Livin

Love As A Verb

Life Doesn’t Have to Suck

Renée Sylvestre-Williams

Sara Bynoe

Musicqwest
Be a River With Me

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The Rewind Button: The Complete Recordings

Posted on 2012/08/28 by Jason Hensel

The Rewind Button is a group blogging project that I’m participating in. We’re taking on Rolling Stone‘s Top 40 albums of all time and writing our own reviews of them.

Looking back, here’s what I know for sure
Looking in the past, here’s what I know for sure
It was Dallas, Texas, the place for recording
Looking back, that’s what I know for sure

The recording building was up for destroying
Yeah, the recording building was up for destroying
That is until its life was saved by a church
And nothing was down for destroying

Ya know, we must embrace history
I tell ya, we must embrace history
But we must embrace the essence more
Or we’ll lose all sense of history

These recordings capture rock’s soul
Yeah, these songs capture rock’s soul
Without them we’d have no one to roll with
Yeah, these songs capture rock’s soul

So, when you’re listening to them at night
Yeah, when you’re up late listening at night
Remember Johnson’s voice running from evil
And you won’t have to be afraid of the night

Please visit these other blogs participating in The Rewind Button project:

Betty Livin

Love As A Verb

Life Doesn’t Have to Suck

Renée Sylvestre-Williams

Sara Bynoe

Musicqwest
Be a River With Me

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The Rewind Button: The Great Twenty-Eight

Posted on 2012/08/20 by Jason Hensel

The Rewind Button is a group blogging project that I’m participating in. We’re taking on Rolling Stone‘s Top 40 albums of all time and writing our own reviews of them.

I used to think I wanted to write professionally about music. The Rewind Button project helped me discover that I don’t want to do that. I’m enjoying this; however, I prefer listening to music rather than deconstructing it. The Great Twenty-Eight by Chuck Berry is a perfect example of this feeling.

Listening to this album makes me want to dance. It’s fun, and my foot can’t stop tapping. Sure, some of the songs have the same beat, but I don’t care, because its energy overwhelms any stagnation. The piano trills, that stand-up bass, those blues-based chord progressions…this is rock-in-roll to me. This album should be in the top 10 of Rolling Stone‘s list.

We’re halfway through our list, and I’m not going to stop reviewing the albums. But I am going to stop beating myself up for not offering an intellectual discussion of the albums. Some of these don’t warrant that. Some of them are pure emotion. The Great Twenty-Eight is one of those.

Please visit these other blogs participating in The Rewind Button project:

Betty Livin

Love As A Verb

Life Doesn’t Have to Suck

Renée Sylvestre-Williams

Sara Bynoe

Musicqwest
Be a River With Me

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The Rewind Button: Exile on Main St.

Posted on 2012/04/262012/05/01 by Jason Hensel

The Rewind Button is a group blogging project that I’m participating in. We’re taking on Rolling Stone‘s Top 40 albums of all time and writing our own reviews of them. There will be a new album and review each Thursday.

Since the Rolling Stones are masters at creating music based on influences, I thought I’d do the same for my review this week. I asked friends on Facebook and Twitter to send me adjectives to describe Exile on Main St., and I took those words and crafted my own short review. I packaged it all on Storify.

Please visit these other blogs participating in The Rewind Button project:

Betty Livin

Love As A Verb

Life Doesn’t Have to Suck

Grad Student By Day

Renée Sylvestre-Williams

Sara Bynoe

La Belle Vie
Musicqwest
Zachary Stevenson
1throne: King of the Internets
Be a River With Me

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