Published by Guardian Books 2011 ISBN: 978 085265 2800 Version 1.0 Copyright © Guardian News and Media 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Guardian Books. Edited by Tim Jonze. Designed by Suzanne Lemon. The Guardian iPad edition The Guardian iPad edition showcases our comprehensive international reporting, thoughtful commentary, award-winning sports journalism and unique approach to coverage of culture, science and technology. The newspaper completely re- imagined for iPad with stunning full-screen photojournalism and cartoons - it downloads within a minute via Wi-Fi for a complete reading experience even when you don’t have a signal. GUARDIAN SHORTS bring you the very best of our journalism, comment and analysis, from breaking news to the season’s sports and culture. Contents Introduction Pre 1950s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Introduction H ow do you choose your favourite album? Reading through this selection of pieces in which Guardian writers eulogise about the records that mean the most to them, it seems the answer is: you don’t, they choose you. That, certainly, was the case for Jon Wilde, whose moving piece on Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings opens this book. Consumed with grief following his mother’s death and his brother’s suicide, Jon had all but given up on music before Armstrong’s swing took hold, dragging him from the darkness and back into the light. It was also the case for Hadley Freeman, who happily admits she planned to write about Daft Punk but found herself jumping around her bedroom singing along to Madonna’s Like a Prayer whenever she tried. It was most definitely the case for me, too. No matter how many days I spent daydreaming to Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter or spinning the Velvet Underground’s hushed third album, I ended up falling in love most of all with a bunch of arty Canadians who sang string-drenched hymns about explicit gay sex. That’s the power of music for you (the penultimate entry in this book reveals who I’m on about). In these 30 stories you will, of course, come across some wonderful writing about music. Laura Barton delicately describes Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, an album whose songs “don’t so much play as wrap themselves around your legs, get stuck beneath your fingernails”. Katharine Viner salutes the Smiths and explains how “Morrissey beats a path to your head, but it’s Marr who carries the words to your heart.” Kitty Empire, meanwhile, attacks from the opposite end of the spectrum, comparing the guitar solos of AC/DC to “endless streams of ejaculate” in her appreciation of the “preposterous, drongoid record” that is AC/DC’s Back in Black. What makes these paeans to pop stand out most, however, is the way they detail not just why but how we first fall in love with records. I love that Pink Floyd’s Dark Side helped bring Simon Hattenstone closer to his father after they had suffered a major falling out. It’s touching to read how Kieran Yates used Erykah Badu’s Mama’s Gun as a map to help her understand the journey from teenage girl to young woman. And Dafydd Goff unfurls a fantastic childhood tale in which he finds himself questioning his strict religious upbringing after being exposed to sleazy tales from the Sunset Strip (courtesy of Guns N’ Roses and their Appetite for Destruction). Because these pieces are so personal, they’re not to be taken as a comprehensive list of the “best” albums ever made. And thank God for that. We’ve read enough bland critical lists discussing the merit of Revolver or Pet Sounds. Rather, these records reflect the individual writer’s tastes and are all the better for their wanton subjectivity. Naturally, the majority are from the 80s onwards – childhood and those impressionable teenage years are the ones in which we forge the strongest bonds with music. But it’s not a science, and not everyone falls in love with an album for the same reasons, or at the same time. That’s the beauty of these pieces, and the reason they all have a different story to tell. Who knows, maybe you’ll find your own favourite album through reading this book … Pre 1950s The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings by Louis Armstrong With his life falling apart around him, Jon Wilde had all but given up on music. Then he heard the sounds of Louis Armstrong and was pulled back from the brink … E ven though Louis Armstrong ultimately changed my life, I came to jazz late and not without a fight. As a teenager in the late 70s, I had my work cut out keeping up with the weekly welter of “catchy” post-punk releases, not to mention determining the artists between Little Richard and the Clash who were worth my time and pocket money. Jazz, meanwhile, seemed like a vast ocean swarming with thousands of esoteric riddles I could never hope to solve. Down the years I accumulated the jazz albums (Kind of Blue, A Love Supreme etc) that eventually find their way into most self-respecting record collections, but I can’t say I played them often. In any meaningful way, the door leading to jazz enlightenment remained firmly shut to me. In 1992, somewhat jaded with meat-and-two-spuds rock music, I stumbled across a budget-priced box set of Armstrong’s Hot Fives and Hot Sevens in a New York record store. Listening to it upon my return to the UK, I was instantly transfixed – yet it would be a good while before I discovered just how profoundly the music of Louis Armstrong could affect and shape me. Recorded between 1925 and 1928, the tracks that make up the Hot Fives and Hot Sevens are rightly considered among the most important and influential in 20th-century American music. They mark the point when Armstrong jettisoned the traditional collective improvisation of New Orleans-style jazz and almost single-handedly transformed the music from a group art into a medium for the pioneering soloist. The most famous song of these sessions is Satchmo’s version of King Oliver’s West End Blues. But there’s an argument to be made for Potato Head Blues being the great man’s most groundbreaking work. Recorded in May 1927 with his peerless Hot Seven ensemble, it’s significant mainly for Armstrong’s cornet solo following the banjo break. A feat of thrilling, high-wire improvisation, this is the moment when Louis first swings, really swings, elevates jazz to a true art form, and holds the world in thrall. The seeds of everything truly revolutionary that followed in rhythm & blues, rock’n’roll and soul music is embodied in this 44-second solo. You don’t need to read around the subject. You only need to listen to draw a straight line from Armstrong to Louis Jordan’s Tympany Five to Fats Domino, Elvis and everything beyond. Such is the crazed purity of Satch’s trumpet sound that it’s easy to forget just how wide-ranging was the influence of his untrained vocal style. Once compared to “a piece of sandpaper calling to its mate”, it made for unconventional beauty but still served as a model for Bing Crosby, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sinatra and countless other masters of the craft. One listen to the imperishable Heebie Jeebies pretty much nails that argument.