The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show - Prater's Creek Gazette

"The Double Album" Continued From page 6

Husker Du 15.Being There - Wilco Released Oct.29 1996 The band throws off it’s alt-country yokes and channels the Brian Wilson Beach Boys along with Ian Hunter.

16.Zen Arcade - Husker Du Released in 1984. Running time 70 minutes. This album took hardcore punk to heights never imagined by fans of this genre of music. The songwriter/singers Bob Mould (guitar) and Grant Hart (drums) really let go with this their third album. The songs showed the folk and blues facets of Husker Du.

Zen Arcade had a major influence on later platinum selling bands such as Green Day and Nirvana.

17.Double Nickels On A Dime - The Minutemen Released in 1984. Running time 82:01.one of my favorite albums ever. The band The Minutemen had heard that SST record labelmates were about to release a double album (Zen Arcade) and they couldn’t be beat to the punch. They quickly added songs to the single album they were working on and released this masterpiece with “Take that Huskers!” written in the liner notes.

This album further shows the trio’s Beat influence along with a great Captain Beefheart influence.

18.Trout Mask Replica - Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band Released in 1969. Running time 78:5 Produced by Frank Zappa, this is the funniest, weirdest record of all time. When I bought it, my friends in the dorm thought I had lost my mind. They were really worried about me. Songs such as “Neon Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band Meate Dream of an Ocatafish”, “Hair Bake Pie”, “Pachuco Cadaver”, “My Human Gets Me Blues”, “Orange Claw Hammer”, and “Hobo Chang Ba” sound as if Salvador Dali had been black and grown up in Mississippi. This album has got the voodoo. I once had a roommate who painted the claw on his hammer orange, and proudly used it on the job site. On “The Blimp” the Captain went down the street and called the studio on the phone and sang the lyrics into the phone onto the tape. I drove the black folk crazy singing these songs when I worked at the dining hall on campus. There is still a black dude, thirty years later, when he sees me once or twice around the town, he’ll yell “It’s the Blimp, it’s the blimp!”. Ken Lynn and Mark Armstrong, this one is for y’all.

18.Bean Blossom - Bill Monroe Heck, I had to break my own rule about live double albums just so I could get a bluegrass album on this list! I don’t know of any studio double albums by a country or bluegrass artist.

This album was released in 1973, and contains performances by Bill and The Bluegrass Boys, Lester Flatt, Jim & Jesse, Jimmy Martin and others. Considered the greatest live bluegrass album of all time. This album was huge. Everybody had it. So Doggone it, it makes the list!

19.The River - Bruce Springsteen and The E-Street Band Released Oct 10, 1980 Running time 82:58fore, I just couldn’t get a handle on Bruce, his music sounded like carnival music. Then I had a Yankee girlfriend who was a big Bruce fan. I started getting into this album, and all the previous releases.

This album has more of a stripped down, rock and roll; sound compared to the first four Beat poet / Dylanesque / Roy Orbison operettas.

There is not a throwaway song on any of the four sides. When that girlfriend would put on side 4 of this record, with its songs of the disillusionment and hopelessness of love, I knew it was time to get out of that apartment.

20.…And Justice For All - Metallica Released in 1988. Running time 65:10. This is picked by many to be the greatest modern metal album, despite its weird production. This is the first album recorded after fan-favorite, bassist, Cliff Burton had died. It continues the progressive song structures of Ride The Lightning, and Master of Puppets. Justice’s songs are so complicated and have such odd time signatures that the band said they were difficult to do live. Well I saw this tour, pressed up against the stage barrier in Greenville Memorial Auditorium, and these songs were great live. And the performances of the songs at the second Woodstock are some of the greatest moments ever in rock.

The band seems to be showing off at times; being complicated just to show how phenomenal the band could play. When they get to galloping on the opener, “Blackened”, they rule the world and they know.

Justice also spawned an unlikely top ten hit in “One” and one of the most popular videos of that year.

The album has a boxy sound to it. And any trace of bass guitar is undetectable. The kick drums have a clicking sound due to drummer Lars Ulrich taping two New Zealand 50-cent coins to his bass drums. And the guitars have the midrange dialed completely out for the nastiest sound on any of their albums.

In the song “To Live Is To Die” (title, and spoken lyrics courtesy of the late Cliff Burton) after the BRUTAL riff they’re working, at the 5 minute mark, they hit those harmony guitars, and the rhythm does a kind of “Wish You Were Here” thing. It’s one of the most melodic beautiful things ever recorded. Stands toe to toe with the greatest classical, bluegrass harmony picking, or even Duane and Dickie twinning.

As with Masters of Puppets, this band could have made a career off of their little classical gut string guitar intros!

With the next album, the black Metallica, the band started recording more simple compositional songs that could easily be reproduced in big arenas.

Honorable Mentions: The Wall-Pink Floyd released 1979

Ummagumma-Pink Floyd

The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway–Genesis released 1974

Hey! Look up at the list. It’s far too cool to list these three prog-rock albums! But they were great double albums. I gotta admit, I took many trips without leaving the farm listening to these three albums on the headphones. Especially, Genesis’ “Lamb”, the last album Peter Gabriel recorded with the band.

I had more fun writing this article. Only one of the above selections were originally put out as a CD, Wilco’s Being There. Most of these albums I bought as albums, or eight tracks, way back when. Eat A Peach, Layla, and Exile On Main St. all made the transition in my collection from eight track, to album, and now to CD. I didn’t have the Metallica album on CD and it was driving me crazy wanting to hear it, so I had to order form the local record store. And I’m blasting it right now. “Nothing can save us! Justice is Lost! Justice is gone!”