American Songs, Day 8 - "Rockaway Beach," The Ramones

"Chewin' out a rhythm on my bubble gum..."  Is there anything more American than that?

American Songs, Day 7 - "High Water Rising (for Charley Patton)," Bob Dylan

From the magnificent album "Love and Theft," released on September 11, 2001.

High water risin', six inches 'bove my head
Coffins droppin' in the street
Like balloons made out of lead
Water pourin' into Vicksburg, don't know what I'm goin' to do
"Don't reach out for me," she said
"Can't you see I'm drownin' too?"
It's rough out there
High water everywhere

American Songs, Day 6 - "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road," Lucinda Williams

I can remember the details of my grandmother’s house (mother’s side) as if I had walked through it yesterday. Located in Sutter, at the foot of the Sutter Buttes, the house was built shortly after World War II. Grandma lived there until 1973, when a break-in spooked her (and everyone else), and she moved to Sacramento to be closer to the rest of the family.

You walked in the front door, and you immediately found yourself in what passed for the “family room.” That’s where the TV was, as well as a couch and a couple of chairs (I recall a recliner that was pretty comfortable). Just off of that room was one of the bedrooms – the one that included a swamp cooler. Like Sacramento, Sutter is very hot in the summer, but unlike Sacramento, the legendary “delta breezes” that result in so many pleasant summer evenings are almost entirely absent. In the summer of 1972, my dad, brothers and I spent a memorable evening there (“memorable” for all the wrong reasons) where the low temperature was 93 degrees (the high had been 117).

Past the family room was the dining room. You walked past a china cabinet (which was painted pink, but now resides in its restored glory at my parents’ house), and as soon as you went by, the cabinet began to shake, to the point where at any moment you expected one of the plates or cups to fall out onto the floor. There was also a bedroom attached to this room.

Next was the kitchen, not large but definitely one from which a lot of delicious food originated. My grandma was a great cook, and to this day I’m not sure I’ve ever tasted better fried chicken gravy. No one would make a claim that it was good for you, but damn it was good.

And then you walked through a small corridor, to which the bathroom was attached. The less said about the bathroom, the better. The shower was so small that you could injure your elbows just washing yourself, and the plumbing system…as I said, the less said the better.

And finally, there was a small room at the back of the house that had to be an add-on. There was a bed there, but what I remember most about this room was discovering an old stack of TIME Magazines from 1960, and spending the good portion of a day reading about the 1960 Presidential election. Very cool stuff.

The room my brothers and I slept in was the middle bedroom, and given the weather conditions you almost always had to sleep with the window open. Next to that side of the house was an unpaved road, and most evenings there would be steady traffic – although I’m not sure where those cars were going. But crystal clear in my mind is the sound that you would hear as you lay in the bed, usually too warm to sleep but hoping that sleep would eventually come.

The sound of car wheels on a gravel road.

American Songs, Day 5 - "In My Room," The Beach Boys

This probably isn't the most obvious choice for a Beach Boys song, but it always resonated with me.  Gary Usher, who co-wrote the song with Brian Wilson, has been quoted as saying, "Brian was always saying that his room was his whole world."  I doubt that I'm the only kid who felt the same way when he was growing up.

American Songs, Day 4 - "Winter in America," Gil Scott-Heron

The late Gil Scott-Heron was a tragic figure, but more importantly, a great artist who was well ahead of his time.  Listening to his early to mid-1970s work today leaves the listener almost breathless - while Scott-Heron was addressing the social issues of the day, the lessons he sought to teach can be applied just as effectively today.

"Winter in America" is by no means a happy song; it is a song about unrealized potential.  The fact that Scott-Heron points out the flaws in this country does not means that he hates this country - just that he thinks it could be much better.

It's a song of great pain, a song with numerous lyrics that could be quoted.  But I think this is my favorite verse:

The Constitution

A noble piece of paper

With free society

Struggled but it died in vain

And now Democracy is ragtime on the corner

Hoping for some rain

Looks like it's hoping

Hoping for some rain

Not a happy song.  But a great song.  And a song that gives the lie to the notion that great art can't make an effective political statement.

American Songs, Day 3 - "Lookin' Out My Back Door"

I've got absolutely no hesitation in calling Creedence Clearwater Revival the greatest American rock 'n roll band of all time.  But what sometimes gets lost in consideration of their work is how dark much of it was.  Sure, they're tunes that will absolutely get you running out on the dance floor, but give a close listen sometime to the lyrics of "Bad Moon Rising" or "Green River."

No such worries with "Lookin' Out My Back Door."  Just John Fogerty, sitting out on the back porch, listenin' to Buck Owens, on a "dinosaur Victrola."  I can see him now...

American Songs, Day 2 - "Across the Border," Bruce Springsteen

For what are we
Without hope in our hearts
That someday we'll drink from God's blessed waters

And eat the fruit from the vine
I know that love and fortune will be mine
Somewhere across the border

American Songs, Day 1

Including today, there are 65 days until Election Day. 65 days when we will, no doubt, be subjected to a level of venom that is enough to make even the most die-hard political junkie wish they could close their eyes and make it all go away.
So for the next 65 days, this will be my effort to provide a little bit of alternative programming (I'm "cross posting" this on my Facebook page as well as here on the blog). "American Songs" - a song each day, one that is either about American, makes a statement about America, or just evokes America. Some of them will tell a positive tale, others will not. On some songs I may comment on their meaning; on others I will let the message speak for itself. Overall, I'm confident in saying that together, these 65 songs have more wisdom to offer than this year's presidential candidates.
The project begins with Brad Paisley's "Welcome to the Future," a song that I've loved since the first time I heard it.

Olympic Golf

On the face of it, there may not be a sport less suited to "the Olympic ideal" than golf.  But that ideal - the "purity" of amateur athletes competing against each other in a non-political world that only exists in some parallel universe - is long gone, so there was reason enough to suspend one's disbelief and see how things turned out.

Let's start with the bad news - some of the world's very best players decided not to participate, including major champions Jordan Speith, Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy.  Not a great start.  A couple of other things hard to overcome: the fact that you can turn on a 4-round golf tournament featuring the world's best players just about every weekend, and the fact that the great tournaments - the Majors, and the handful of other famous tournaments - are played on great golf courses with tradition.  Hard to do when you've adopted the same format, and are playing on a brand new golf course that no one has ever seen (even with notable course architect Gil Hanse having built the course).

But you know what?  Things turned out OK.  The gold and silver went to Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson, both major champions that can easily lay a claim to being one of the best players in the world.  And the bronze was awarded to Matt Kuchar, a great player who is also one of the most popular players on the PGA tour.

What turned the pendulum towards the "aye" side of whether golf should continue to be an Olympic sport was the decorum of the medalists - clearly, they wanted to be there, and the looks on their faces as they examined their medals was something special.  I can't help but think that the famous players who decided to stay home, for whatever reason - might be wistfully wondering what might have been.

10th Blogiversary

Ten years ago today, I started this here blog called "Stuff Running 'Round My Head."  It wasn't called that at first.  At first it was "Apropos of Nothing," which I think I still like better - but there were too many other blogs with the same name.

- 3225 posts
- 159,768 page views
- Most popular post: "Fast Dance Songs for Your Wedding," posted July 21, 2008, with 6,929 page views

I've written about sports, music, TV, music, politics, and a lot of stuff that just popped into my head at some given moment.

I used to post a lot more often than I do now, but the posts today are better than they used to be - or so I like to think.

Will I still be doing it 10 years from now?  I hope so.

"Hotel California," Eagles (1976)

I remember exactly what I was doing the night I bought Hotel California.  It was in December 1976, probably about a week after the album was released.  I’d gotten my driver’s license on the day before Thanksgiving, and if memory serves, that December night was one of the first times I’d driven the family car (1972 Chevrolet Kingswood Estate Station Wagon – a classic!) by myself.  My eventual destination was a meeting at the McDonald’s where I worked, a monthly meeting where the crew was invited to come in and air grievances (on a confidential basis) with the store manager – a meeting with the unlikely name of “crew rap.”  But on the way, I couldn’t resist a trip to Tower Records, where I picked up the album.  I can remember one of my crewmates, seeing the Tower Records bag, asking me what I’d bought, and being less than impressed when I showed her – or at least that was my impression.

Things like this are impossible to predict, but in retrospect it was probably inevitable that Hotel California would be a blockbuster.  Thanks to their Greatest Hits album, the Eagles had been riding high on the charts for well over a year, and given how long the new album was taking to record, one couldn’t help but think that they were determined to erase the perception that they were a singles band.  A great singles band, mind you, but a singles band nonetheless.  Guitarist Bernie Leadon was gone, and Joe Walsh was now an Eagle –I clearly remember most of my friends wondering how that was going to work.  But with the potential of a triple-electric guitar attack on the songs where Frey was playing the instrument, the stage was certainly set for a new kind of Eagles.

“…We knew we were heading down a long and twisted corridor and just stayed with it.  Songs from the dark side – the Eagles take a look at the seamy underbelly of L.A. – the flip side of fame and failure, love and money.” – Glenn Frey

Frey is spot on about the darkness; it certainly isn’t a fun album.  There are times when I respect Hotel California a lot more than I actively enjoy it, and there are also times when I wonder if what the Eagles were really doing on the record was celebrating the darkness and the decadence that ultimately brought them down – wallowing in it, even.  As a humanistic commentary of the times, this verse from “Life in the Fast Lane”…

They knew all the right people, they took all the right pills

They threw outrageous parties, they paid heavenly bills

There were lines on the mirror, lines on her face

She pretended not to notice, she was caught up in the race

…certainly doesn’t hold a candle to Jackson Browne’s “Running on Empty,” released about a year later:

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels

I don’t know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels

Look around for the friends that I used to turn to, to pull me through

Looking into their eyes I see them running too

But there’s no questioning that the album is a musical triumph, particularly the songs with Don Henley singing lead.  By Hotel California he had clearly usurped the late Glenn Frey as the band’s strongest artistic force, and the qualitative difference in their work is never clearer than when listening to the album’s first two cuts – the title cut, which justifiably holds a place in the pantheon of classic Seventies songs, and “New Kid in Town,” a pleasant Frey ditty that never threatens to be anything more than that.  Also on Side One are the aforementioned “Life in the Fast Lane,” which if nothing else sounds really good when turned up loud in the car, and “Wasted Time,” a great song (and vocal from Henley), even if Frey’s description of it (in the liner notes for The Very Best of Eagles) as a “Philly-soul torch song…something like Thom Bell” are somewhat inexplicable.  The strongest songs on Side Two – “Victim of Love” and “The Last Resort” – are also Henley’s, although the contributions from Joe Walsh (“Pretty Maids All in a Row”) and Randy Meisner (“Try and Love Again”) aren’t bad (even if they feel somewhat out of place).

Given the quality of the album and the massive commercial success it enjoyed, it may seem strange that Hotel California didn’t even make a dent in the Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll.  Strange, that is, until you take into consideration that the Eagles were arrogant assholes (which they generally admitted as they grew older) who delighted in making fun of rock critics and rock criticism, and disparaging the type of music (Punk, New Wave) that was especially attractive to the critics of that time.  At one point, they even got into a ridiculous feud with Rolling Stone Magazine, which was “resolved” in a softball game in the Spring of 1978 (a game won easily by the Eagles’ team).  Thus, it seems likely that the band’s poor critical standing was at least in part due to the heap of scorn the band had dumped for years on the critical establishment.  Be that as it may, there’s no doubt that there are few albums in history that tell the story of their times as well as Hotel California does.  If you want to know what 1977 felt like, just listen to Hotel California.

The Cars (1978)

My introduction to The Cars came during a late Summer concert in August 1978, when they were the opening act on a concert bill that also included Thin Lizzy, Journey, and the Marshall Tucker Band (wrap your head around that combination for a moment).  It’s a safe bet that no one was there that day to see The Cars (and I admit, I was there to see Journey), so it wasn’t as if you could hear much of what they were singing and playing.  But I liked the few snippets that did slip through the aural haze, and put their debut album on my mental list of records to buy.

1978 may have been the height of what came to be called “New Wave,” but The Cars is a difficult record to classify.  I wouldn’t argue too strongly with the New Wave moniker, but there’s also an art-rock element (the band’s producer, Roy Thomas Baker, also manned the boards for Queen, among others) and it’s not much of a stretch just to call them a fairly straightforward rock band.  The tag line they used in the advertising for their debut, “Top down music for a hard top world,” fits as well as anything else you could come up with.

With the benefit of almost three decades to give it some thought, I’m not entirely sure that their debut record is The Cars’ best (one could also make an argument for “Heartbeat City,” and although I’m in the minority I was always a big fan of “Panorama”), but there’s little doubt that Side 1 of the debut is the strongest side they ever produced.  “Good Times Roll” gets things off to a strong start, but is quickly eclipsed by the twin masterpieces, “My Best Friend’s Girl” and “Just What I Needed.”  After a glimpse of just how odd the band could sound with “I’m in Touch With Your World,” the side closes out with one of their fastest songs, “Don’t Cha Stop.”

It’s on Side Two that the band explores their arty side a bit more, particularly on the album’s closers, “Moving in Stereo” and “All Mixed Up.”  But even then, there’s much more of a propulsive beat than you would normally hear from what might normally be classified as an art-band.

It’s also worth noting that Ric Ocasek, the main auteur behind the group, may have been the least likely looking rock star of that (or any) era – although that didn’t stop him from landing Paulina Porizkova).  But the band also had its teen heartthrob, in the form of the late Benjamin Orr.  The two traded lead vocals, and even today it’s difficult (at least for me) to tell the two apart.

Christgau: B+.  “Ric Ocasek writes catchy, hardheaded-to-coldhearted songs eased by wryly rhapsodic touches, the playing is tight and tough, and it all sounds wonderful on the radio.  But though on a cut-by-cut basis Roy Thomas Baker’s production adds as much as it distracts, here’s hoping the records get rawer.  That accentuated detachment may feel like a Roxy Music move in the first flush of studio infatuation, but schlock it up a little and this band really turn into an American Queen.”

Better late than never: ranking the Oscar films

With last weekend’s viewing of “The Revenant,” I’m completely caught up (at long last) with last year’s Oscar nominees for Best Picture.  This is the post where I (perhaps foolishly) rank the films, but at the outset I have to say that I really did like all of them – as different as they were.

8. Bridge of Spies.  Hey, someone had to come in last place, right?  And as I alluded to above, an 8^th place showing in this group isn’t that bad.  As one might expect from a film directed by Steven Spielberg, there is impeccable craftsmanship on display, and the true-life story is intriguing and suspenseful (not to mention educational).  The film does an outstanding job of creating the atmosphere of late 1950s/early 1960s Berlin, and as the character around which the story revolves, Mark Rylance is outstanding – he clearly deserved his Oscar.

7. The Martian.  When I think of “popcorn movie,” The Martian is what comes to mind.  Yes, it was dumb that it was nominated in the Comedy category at the Golden Globes, but didn’t everybody already think that the Golden Globes were dumb? (although to be fair, the film did have its fair share of amusing moments).  Nearly every part of this adventure story works well – the scenes on Mars as Matt Damon figures things out (and in some cases makes them up as he goes along); the scenes at NASA; the scenes at JPL.  If there was a weak link, it was the scenes on the spacecraft that ultimately rescues Damon, but even those had their moments – especially when the crew first finds out that he’s still alive.

6. Spotlight.  I don’t begrudge it its Oscar win at all.  Saw it for the second time over the weekend, and it holds up well.  And it does a great job of showing the critical role that investigatory journalism can play in modern society, when it is done well.  The ensemble is spot on, and a great example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

5. Mad Max: Fury Road.  It’s still a bit of a miracle to me that a Mad Max movie was nominated for Best Picture.  I’m not sure it’s better than 1982’s “The Road Warrior,” but so what?  Tom Hardy is great in the title role, but he plays second fiddle to the amazing Charlize Theron, who one could argue is the real hero of the movie.  And yes, the stunts are amazing – and real.

4. The Revenant.  I had heard so much about this movie – heard the bear jokes, read the stories debating whether DiCaprio’s demonstration of endurance actually represented great acting, etc. – that I really wasn’t sure what I would think upon actually watching it.  But now that I’ve finally seen it, I wish I hadn’t waited so long and really wish that I’d made the trek to the theater to see it on the big screen.  The Revenant is a visual masterpiece, plain and simple.  And yes, the story is brutal and somewhat simplistic, but it fits very well into the tradition of great Westerns.  It is most definitely not going to be for everyone, but it worked just fine for me.

3. Brooklyn.  Many of the reviews that I read called Brooklyn “old-fashioned,” but if that’s the case, you can sign me up for as much old-fashioned as you can deliver.  The story is simple, but the emotional power is undeniable.  Saorise Ronan is wonderful is Eilis, but there really isn’t a weak link in the entire cast (with special kudos to Emory Cohen and the seemingly omnipresent Domnhall Gleason).  And it’s hard to imagine the bravery that it took for those who came to America in those years, even when there was little to keep them bound at home.  What makes Eilis’ story particularly poignant is that she clearly loves her homes on both sides of the ocean, and loves her family.  Her decision at the end is not one without consequences, and it takes a toll on her even as we celebrate her making what we believe to be the right choice.

2. Room.  Calling Room a powerful movie doesn’t begin to do it justice.  “Searing” is probably a better word to describe it, or “harrowing” even though that’s about ten times too obvious.  The poster for the movie features the line “Love knows no boundaries,” which sounds sappy but also is a reasonable description of the relationship between Joy “Ma” Newsome (Brie Larson, who won the Oscar and is a good bet to win more) and her 5-year old son Jack.  The circumstances of their existence are stark: Joy was kidnapped when she was 17, and has been imprisoned for 7 years in a small backyard shed that would barely be enough space for a pet dog.  Her kidnapper (“Old Nick”) has raped her on a regular basis since her abduction, resulting in the birth of Jack, who based on Joy’s careful nurturing believes that only what is in “Room” is real.  As Jack turns 5 his curiosity grows, and eventually Joy decides (after Old Nick informs her that he’s lost his job and is running out of money) that it’s time to take a chance at escape.  The attempt is successful, but that’s not where the challenges end.  And with regard to the story, I’ll just stop there.  Room is a great film.  In addition to Larson I have to mention the young Jacob Tremblay, who pulls off one of the best and most realistic performances by a child that I’ve ever seen in a movie – right up there with Mary Badham in “To Kill a Mockingbird.”  Also, Joan Allen is wonderful as always as the grandmother, and William H. Macy is very effective in a brief appearance as Joy’s father – a man who has been damaged by what happened to his daughter, perhaps beyond the point of repair.

Which leaves our champion…drum roll, please…

1. The Big Short.  One of my favorite movies of the past decade – one that I’ve already watched more than a dozen times, to the point where it’s become a joke with my family – is “Margin Call,” which condenses the story of the 2008 economic meltdown into one night at a major investment firm.  Written by, and the first film directed by J.C. Chandor, Margin Call features an A-list cast that includes Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Simon Baker, Stanley Tucci and Demi Moore.  Each successive scene ratchets up the tension, and by the end you’re wrung out even if you don’t entirely understand all of the financial aspects of what you’ve just seen.

The Big Short is the perfect companion piece to Margin Call, as it takes an entirely different approach to essentially telling the same story.  At the director’s helm is Adam McKay, veteran of Will Ferrell comedies like the two Anchorman movies, Talladega Nights, and Step Brothers.  It’s probably not the first name that would come to mind when thinking about the best fit for this kind of material, but even though on paper the combination might not make sense, on the screen it works perfectly.  The humor that McKay brings to the proceedings serves to deepen the dramatic impact of the serious moments, and frankly some of what happened during that period was so f*cking stupid that the most effective thing that an artist can do is just make fun of it.  And what may be the funniest scenes of the movie – those moments when the film steps back from the narrative and allows people like Margot Robbie (in a bubble bath, no less), Anthony Bourdain and Selena Gomez to explain various complicated financial concepts – really do make it easier to understand what is going on the rest of the time.

There isn’t a weak link in the cast, though after a second viewing I continue to be surprised that Christian Bale nabbed the only Oscar nomination – I would have gone with either Steve Carell or Ryan Gosling, who both brought a greater depth to their characters (although with Gosling’s character, “depth” may not be the best word, as he’s clearly as much a sleazebag as the worst of the financial gurus who got people into this mess in the first place).  The supporting cast (including a bearded and almost unrecognizable Brad Pitt) is pitch perfect, and there really isn’t anything bad that I can think of to say about the film.

And there you have it.

"The Blasters" (1981)

If you sit down and think about the albums that came out in 1981, "The Blasters" is probably not going to be one that comes immediately to mind.  The record sounded out of place back then - solid, basic rock 'n roll, two guitars, bass, piano, drums - but it probably would have sounded out of place in any era, except maybe 1957-58.  But on the other hand, you could argue that Blasters music is timeless music, because there will always be a place for great rock 'n roll, no matter what the trends of the day might say.

They shared (at least at first) a label with X, another band from Los Angeles.  The fact that those two bands could even be considered part of the same broad genre of music is a testament as to why rock is such a glorious medium - a big tent where, at least in theory, everyone can find a home.

If there was any justice in the world, The Blasters would have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a long time ago, but since we know there isn't we're left to wonder at the miracle of a band that produced in little more than three years a body of work - this album, "Non-Fiction," and "Hard Line" - that can stand proudly with the best of that decade.  And they're still out there, playing shows and making a go of it.  They're in it because for them, it's a way of life.

There are five great cover songs on the album, but as good as they are (and "I Love You So," "I'm Shakin'," and "Stop the Clock" are all amazing) they can't stand a candle to the Dave Alvin originals. When you listen to songs like "Border Radio," "American Music," "This is It," and especially "No Other Girl," what immediately becomes evident is that Alvin is a great songwriter - as tight and concise as these songs are, they tell stories.  Just consider this snippet from "No Other Girl," which I'd argue is their masterpiece:

Waitin' in and all night cafe

Drunk half out of my mind

Down to my last cigarette

Tryin' to kill some time

I don't know why I do it

Spend a day at another girl's place

She knew that when I open the door

She could see by the look on my face

Waitin' for me, she's waitin' for me

No other girl could take it

Another girl'd just give in

Another girl'd throw me out on the street

No other girl would take me back again

But the lyrics are only part of the story.  You need to listen closely to the interplay between Dave and Phil Alvin's guitars, the way the bass and drums propel it all (with some particularly well-timed cymbal crashes), the sheer perfection of the boogie-woogie piano, and the terrific vocal from Phil Alvin - that too tells the story of The Blasters.

There were some pretty great records released in 1981, including one in particular from their Slash label-mate - but there's little doubt that "The Blasters" was one of the best.

"Candy Apple Grey," Husker Du (1986)

Around the time that Prince was rewriting the history of rock 'n roll in Minneapolis, there was another band from that town doing everything they could to become, at the very least, a footnote.

Husker Du is probably one of the best examples of what Robert Christgau called "semi-popular music." Whether you called them post-punk, alternative, hardcore or something else, they were never going to top the charts - their music was just too loud and too rough, for lack of a better term.

"Candy Apple Grey" was their best selling album, their major label debut, and the highest it got on the charts was #140. All you really have to do to figure out why that was the case is to listen to the album's first song, "Crystal." It's a sonic explosion with what sounds like a wall of guitars, and then Bob Mould starts singing, and he sounds a bit like Joy Division's Ian Curtis after gargling with broken glass. You weren't going to find anybody humming this one.

If the album had been comprised entirely of Mould songs, it might have been too much to take, given his intensity level. Drummer Grant Hart's songs, while equally loud and (for the most part) unhappy, are more melodic and strike a balance that makes the record, at least to these ears, their best.

One thing's for sure - it definitely sounds great turned up real loud on a rainy day.

"Purple Rain," Prince and the Revolution (1984)

The greatness of "Purple Rain" was evident upon the very first listen.  Prince had made some excellent albums before its release in 1984; "Dirty Mind," "Controversy" and "1999" were all landmarks in their own right.  But nothing (well, maybe "Little Red Corvette") could prepare you for what you heard on "Purple Rain."

It's a little thing, and it comes on what few people (if any) would claim is the best song on the album, but there's a moment on "Take Me With U," the second song on Side One, which stuck with me the first time I heard it and still resonates today.  Towards the end of the song, Prince tells the object of his affection (presumably, Apollonia), "You're sheer perfection," and in the background you hear a softly spoken "thank you."  I'm not sure why that one moment has stuck with me for 32 years, but it was right then and there that I knew that the record which was playing was a masterpiece.

And make no bones about it - this isn't just a great record.  This is one of the greatest records in the history of Rock 'n Roll, Pop, Soul, R&B, any moniker you want to give it.  I was almost afraid to write about "Purple Rain," because something this great is almost intimidating.  When art as glorious as "Purple Rain" enters the world, it's difficult to even wrap your head around it - the history of rock 'n roll is filled with miraculous moments, but when one album is comprised of one miracle after another, it's a bit scary.  And you can only shake your head in wonder.

Prince would make great albums again, and continue to be one of the most vital artists of his generation.  But as great as he and his work was, he never produced a work that was better than "Purple Rain."  And that's OK, because a record as great as "Purple Rain" deserves to have its place on the mountaintop.