Dave’s Music Database Hall of Fame: Album Inductees (Aug. 2019)

Originally posted 8/22/2019. January 22, 2019 marked the 10-year anniversary of the DMDB blog. To honor that, Dave’s Music Database announced its own Hall of Fame. This month marks the third batch of album inductees. These are the top ten best-rated albums of all time (with at least 20 ratings from various sources including All Music Guide, Amazon, CD Universe, New Musical Express, Q Magazine, Rolling Stone, and USA Today. (Click here for a full list of sources.) Two of them were previously inducted – Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, – leaving eight inductees in this round. See the full list of album inductees here.

Beach Boys Pet Sounds (1966) Inducted August 2019 as a “Top Rated Album.”

“In everything written about this album, ‘genius’ and ‘masterpiece’ are two words that invariably appear.” SP “The former is applied to the album’s creator and spiritual avatar, Brian Wilson,” SP who humbly “set out to construct the greatest pop record ever made.” SP By general accounts, he succeeded; it is “a pop milestone” SP “considered by many to be one of the most influential albums ever.” SM “This is more than just an album by a great American band; it’s THE great American pop album.” CDU Read more.

Derek & the Dominos Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (1970) Inducted August 2019 as a “Top Rated Album.”

Eric Clapton was a superstar by 1970 when he formed the supergroup Derek & the Dominos with fellow guitarist Duane Allman and members of Delaney & Bonnie, with whom he’d just toured. This was their only studio recording, but it proved to be “one of the few blues-based classic rock albums which avoids dull predictability or Led Zep-ish testosterone riffs.” PK It gave Clapton “his greatest album” AMG and made for “one of the all-time classic dual-guitar albums.” VH1 Read more.

Bob Dylan Highway 61 Revisited (1965) Inducted August 2019 as a “Top Rated Album.”

This is “Dylan’s most relentless and flawless album,” TL but also his “most accessible.” NO It “changed the face of popular music, and serves as proof of his legendary status as one of the true masters of both words and music.” NO In hiring a full rock band, “powered by Mike Bloomfield’s slashing guitar lines and Al Kooper’s bracing, rudimentary organ,” TL “Dylan didn’t abandon folk music; he just hauled it forward a few centuries. Out went acoustic hymns of protest, in came a whirlwind of images – mad, random, yet cruelly precise.” BL Read more.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience Are You Experienced? (1967) Inducted August 2019 as a “Top Rated Album.”

This is “one of the quintessential statements of psychedelic rock” NRR and “one of the most groundbreaking guitar albums of the rock era.” NRR Hendrix “expanded the sonic possibilities of the electric guitar” TL “radical new techniques in feedback and distortion” RV and other things “no one ever dreamed about trying.” DV The songs “sound as revolutionary and as far beyond category today as they did the day they were recorded.” TL Read more.

Velvet Underground & Nico Velvet Underground & Nico (1967) Inducted August 2019 as a “Top Rated Album.”

While it took ten years for VU’s debut to crack six figures, AMG there’s a classic line from producer Brian Eno that “everyone who bought one…started a band.” JD This is “chapter one of alternative rock” BL and made VU “the poster children of the avant-garde;” TL they “proved that rock, too, can be art.” RV “Glam, punk, new wave, goth, noise, and nearly every other left-of-center rock movement owes an audible debt to this set.” AMG Read more.

The Who Who’s Next (1971) Inducted August 2019 as a “Top Rated Album.”

Many consider this “the Who’s crowning achievement.” MU It “set a hard rock standard that even its creators struggled to emulate.” CD Lead singer Roger “Daltrey fully comes into his own,” EK Pete Townshend’s guitar playing “alternates between delicate acoustic picking and earthshaking riffing,” SM and dummer Keith Moon and bassist John Entwistle play as if theirs “were lead and/or melody instruments.” EK “You essentially have four lead players…In the hands of any other musicians it would have repeatedly collapsed into chaos.” EK Read more.

Stevie Wonder Innervisions (1973) Inducted August 2019 as a “Top Rated Album.”

Innervisions stands as Stevie Wonder’s masterpiece.” RV It is “the summit of the wunderkind’s blend of funk-addled synth-pop and socially conscious lyrics.” UT “Introspective, melancholy, sassy and uplifting, it transcends all notions of soul as schmaltz.” WR It is “by far his most political work” RV with “songs addressing drugs, spirituality, political ethics, the unnecessary perils of urban life, and what looked to be the failure of the ‘60s dream.” AMG Read more.

Neil Young After the Gold Rush (1970) Inducted August 2019 as a “Top Rated Album.”

Young had already been a member of the highly-influential Buffalo Springfield and worked with Crosby, Stills & Nash on the blockbuster Déjà Vu album when this, his third solo album, was released. This collection of “country-folk love songs” AMG “represents the morning after the mayhem, both personal and cultural – the sound of Young waking up with a post-‘60s hangover, catching his breath, and trying to sort through the wreckage.” TL Read more.

The Grammy Hall of Fame’s Newest Inductees

image from hayspost.com

In 1973, the Recording Academy (more widely known as the Grammys) established a Hall of Fame to, as it says on their website, “honor recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance that are at least 25 years old.” 40 years later, nearly 1000 albums and songs have been inducted (see the full list here). Here are this year’s inductees: Albums:

• Chicago Chicago Transit Authority (1969)
• Creedence Clearwater Revival Cosmo’s Factory (1970)
• Miles Davis Relaxin’ (1958)
• George Harrison All Things Must Pass (1970)
• Kris Kristofferson Kristofferson (1970)
• U2 The Joshua Tree (1987)
• Doc Watson Doc Watson (1964)
• Neil Young After the Gold Rush (1970)
• Various Artists Mary Poppins (soundtrack, 1964)
• Various Artists Woodstock (soundtrack, 1970)

The Joshua Tree and After the Gold Rush ranked in the DMDB’s Top 100 Albums of All Time already. All Things Must Pass, Cosmo’s Factory, Mary Poppins, Woodstock, and Chicago Transit Authority all ranked in the top 1000.

Songs:

• Louis Armstrong “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” (1938)
• James Brown “Get Up – I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine” (1970)
• Hoagy Carmichael & His Orchestra “Georgia on My Mind” (1930)
• Sam Cooke “Wonderful World” (1960)
• Creedence Clearwater Revival “Fortunate Son” (1969)
• The Drifters “Under the Boardwalk” (1964)
• Robert Johnson “Sweet Home Chicago” (1937)
• B.B. King “3 O’Clock Blues” (1952)
• Charlie Parker “Yardbird Suite” (1946)
• Dolly Parton “Jolene” (1973)
• The Rolling Stones “Honky Tonk Women” (1969)
• Run-D.M.C. with Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler & Joe Perry “Walk This Way” (1986)
• Gil Scott-Heron “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” (1970)
• Sugarhill Gang “Rapper’s Delight” (1979)
• Sister Rosetta Tharpe “Strange Things Happening Every Day” (1945)
• B.J. Thomas “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” (1969)
• War “Low Rider” (1975)

Six of the songs were already listed in the DMDB’s Top 1000 of All-Time: “Honky Tonk Women,” “Walk This Way,” “Rapper’s Delight,” “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head,” “Fortunate Son,” and “Under the Boardwalk.” “Honky Tonk Women” also ranks as one of the Top 100 Songs of the Rock Era.

Honky Tonk Women

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Resources and Related Links:

• Grammy Hall of Fame
• NBC Southern California Grammy Hall of Fame: 27 New Recordings Inducted by Alysia Gray Painter (12/3/13)

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Neil Young “Southern Man” released on After the Gold Rush

Southern Man Neil Young

Writer(s): Neil Young (see lyrics here) Released: August 31, 1970 (on After the Gold Rush) First Charted: -- Peak: 3 CL, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 17.5 video, 20.41 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Canadian singer/songwriter was one of the founders of the folk-rock group Buffalo Springfield after moving to Los Angeles in the 1960s. He followed their brief run with a solo career in 1968. After two albums, he reunited with Stephen Stills, his bandmate in Buffalo Springfield, for the chart-topping, multi-platinum 1970 album Déjà Vu by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Before year’s end, Young was back with his third solo album, After the Gold Rush, a platinum, top-five album. One of the album’s highlights was “Southern Man.” “Its Crazy Horse-style loping tempo and Young’s burning guitar lines made ‘Southern Man’ an instant live favorite.” TC “As with many of his apocalyptic tales, this is filled with images of burning estates and a society in flames.” TC The lyrics “describe the racism towards blacks in the American South…Young tells the story of a white man (symbolically the entire white South) and how he mistreated his slaves. Young pleadingly asks when the South will make amends for the fortunes built through slavery.” WK The song gained a new level of attention when the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynrd wrote “Sweet Home Alabama” in response to the song, as well as Young’s “Alabama” from his 1972 album Harvest. The band took offense at what they saw as Young’s accusation that the entire South for to blame for American slavery. Young responded by saying he was a fan of the song and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Young also said that in regards to his “Alabama” song, the criticism was deserved because Young was “condescending and accusatory.” WK Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Neil Young TC Toby Creswell (2005). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time. Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York, NY. Page 385. WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 4/24/2024.

Neil Young released After the Gold Rush

After the Gold Rush Neil Young

Released: August 31, 1970 Peak: 8 US, 7 UK, 5 CN, 13 AU, 12 DF Sales (in millions): 2.5 US, 0.6 UK, 5.5 world (includes US and UK) Genre: classic rock

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts. Tell Me Why After the Gold Rush (6 CL) Only Love Can Break Your Heart (9/19/70, 33 BB, 20 CB, 32 GR, 14 HR, 11 CL, 16 CN) Southern Man (3 CL, 1 DF) Till the Morning Comes Oh, Lonesome Me Don’t Let It Bring You Down (21 CL) Birds When You Dance You Can Really Love (3/13/71, 93 BB, 93 CB, 59 HR, 16 CL, 54 CN) Believe in You (49 CL) Cripple Creek Ferry Total Running Time: 33:32

Rating: 4.541 out of 5.00 (average of 28 ratings) Quotable: “While Young has had a long and storied career filled with multiple near-perfect albums, this one stands above the rest as his absolute masterpiece.” – Consequence of Sound Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

Young’s Background Given the already diverse discography of “Canadian-born, California-based rock troubadour Neil Young” TM at this point in his career, it was anyone’s guess what he would deliver for his third solo album. He’d already made three albums with the hugely influential group Buffalo Springfield. He then released a folk-and-country oriented solo album, and the “brain-shredding guitar powerhouse” TL Everybody Knows This is Nowhere. Those two albums already made it clear that Young viewed “albums as explorations of distinct moods.” TM Then he joined forces with the already successful Crosby, Stills & Nash the blockbuster album, Déjà Vu. The two cuts he contributed to that album (“Helpless” and “Country Girl”) “returned him to the folk and country styles he had pursued before delving into the hard rock of Everybody Knows.” AM They also set the course for After the Gold Rush, an album in which he “laid claim to the field of sensitive singer-songwriters” RV by crafting a collection of “country-folk love songs.” AM The Players and the Recording After working with CSNY, Young “regrouped with his regularly backing band, Crazy Horse, which was comprised of guitarist Danny Whitten, bassist Billy Talbot, and drummer Ralph Molina. He also recruited the then-unknown 17-year-old guitarist-pianist Nils Lofgren in an effort to move away from the hard-rock sound of his previous solo released, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.” TB Young “set up a basic studio in the basement of his new home in the Topanga Canyon hills of Los Angeles, which he soundproofed with lead and pine milled from the trees in his backyard. A modest collection of gear included a Scully 8-track, a small mixer, and a handful of mikes.” TB The songs were “inspired largely by the Dean Stockwell-Herb Berman screenplay that gave the album its title.” TB How Gold Rush Was Received The album “matched the tenor of the times in 1970.” AM It struck a chord “with the disillusion felt by many after the death of the 1960s dream.” TB It “is full to the brim with classic songs of heartbreak and mystery.” CQ Its “dark yet hopeful tone” AM “represents the morning after the mayhem, both personal and cultural – the sound of Young waking up with a post-‘60s hangover, catching his breath, and trying to sort through the wreckage.” TL The album “presents Young at his most diverse, with brooding folk songs followed by rabid rock howls.” TM “The 11 songs embrace the truth of loss that comes after the magic, after the bum-rush of serotonin and possibilities, after you realize the holes inside haven’t been plugged, that the overflow of emotion you poured in ran right out.” PM Its Legacy “After the Gold Rush was not immediately universally recognized as a brilliant album, but over the years, even initial naysayers have changed their mind.” CQ It has come to be regarded as “one of the definitive singer/songwriter albums” AM and it established Young “as one of the most influential songwriters of his generation.” TB “Along with Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, After the Gold Rush is one of the greatest break-up records ever made regardless of intention.” PM The album “hits the sweet spot between his ‘popular’ work and his ‘difficult’ work.” EK “Much of what Young has done throughout his career…can be found crystallized right here.” EK “It’s brilliant all the way through.” JA “While Young has had a long and storied career filled with multiple near-perfect albums, this one stands above the rest as his absolute masterpiece” CQ and “his best solo album.” CQ The Songs Here are thoughts on the individual songs from the album. “Tell Me Why” The opening cut, Tell Me Why, is one of Young’s “quaint little questioning songs…that are the aural equivalent of needlepoint samplers.” TM “After the Gold Rush” The “subdued” EK and “otherworldly title track” CQ “laments the destruction of the earth” RV serving up “apocalyptic doom-saying juxtaposed with delicate piano.” EK It “evokes perfectly the circa-1970 shift between the naiveté of the hippie dream and the paranoia that would come to strike even deeper.” EK It is “a mystical ballad that featured some of Young’s most imaginative lyrics and became one of his most memorable songs.” AM “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” The “poignant” CQ “homespun Only Love Can Break Your Heart” is “one of Young’s most beautiful tracks” RV marked by “his distinctively off-center whine warns of the perils of new love.” RV “Southern Man” Young “balances masterful hard rockers…with beautiful acoustic songs.” DBW In regards to the former, Southern Man was one of the album’s “few real rockers,” AM showing a talent for tackling “political issues with angry, cranked-up guitars.” RV With “unsparing protest lyrics typical of Phil Ochs” AM the song “attacked the racism inherent in Southern culture of the day.” RV This is “arguably Young’s all-time most harrowing performance.” TM “Cripple Creek Ferry” and “Till the Morning Comes” “Much like Bob Dylan, Neil Young has a not-conventionally-attractive voice, and both of them have an ability to write the kind of indelible melodies that make their songs pop even when the singer’s larynx falls short.” EK Throughout the album “the arrangements are simple, with none of Young’s earlier studio trickery or multi-part mini-symphonies. He ends each side with brief piano-led melodies you wish would go on longer” DBW such as with Till the Morning Comes and “the twangy folk of Cripple Creek Ferry.” CQ “Oh Lomesome Me” “Young’s own perverse appreciation for roots music, which he’s returned to again and again throughout his career, is on display as he transforms Don Gibson’s jaunty 1958 country classic Oh Lonesome Me into the moper’s lament that it probably always was under the surface.” EK “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” “Only Neil Young could have written the chilling” TL but “catuiously optimistic Don’t Let It Bring You Down” TB and “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” “much less both on the same album.” TL “Birds” After the Gold Rush “emphasizes delicate acoustic warbling with a dark hue; ''Birds'' just might be his loveliest song.” EW’12

Resources and Related Links: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Neil Young AM AllMusic.com review by William Ruhlmann JA John Alroy, Wilson & Alroy’s Record Reviews CQ Consequence.net (9/12/2022). “The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time” EK Eric Klinger, PopMatters’ Counterbalance series (2010-2012) JM Jason Mendelsohn, PopMatters’ Counterbalance series (2010-2012) EW’12 Entertainment Weekly (9/27/2012). “Top 100 Albums” TM Tom Moon (2008). 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. Workman Publishing Company, Inc.: New York, NY. Page 885-6. PM PasteMagazine.com (6/3/2024). “The 300 Greatest Albums of All Time” RV The Review (Oct./Nov. 2001). “The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time” by Clarke Speicher TB Thunder Bay (2005). Albums: The Stories Behind 50 Years of Great Recordings. Thunder Bay Press; San Diego, CA. Page 133. TL Time Magazine (11/13/2006). “All-TIME 100 Albums” by Josh Tyrangiel and Alan Light DBW David Bertrand Wilson, Wilson & Alroy’s Record Reviews Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 8/31/2012; last updated 8/26/2024.