Have you ever seen social media posts where a person is challenging another person to post an album for, let us say, 30 consecutive days? No explanations or comments, just the album covers. These challenges are chain letters in a modernized form. Challenge accepted and will be completed? Not quite. An average person typically publish 3-4 posts and then falls short. Maybe these kind of challenges, to a lesser extent, activates the brain's reward center. Or could it be that nowadays our attention span is way shorter and our endurance more limited. Under all circumstances, it’s not possible to rank more than 10 objects, read more here (opens in a new window). I like to make lists. And, I like to yap about lists. I challenged two friends to make a "10 Albums I Can't Live Without" list. No social media nonsense, just pen and paper. It’s hard to summarize 50 years of music listening, including changes in music taste and aesthetic preferences. Which selection criteria should be used? Then it came to me. The selection criteria must be the albums that I have played the most and still finds brilliant. It's been a long and winding road. To paraphrase the quote "I can tell you how I got from Deep Purple to Howling Wolf in just 25 moves" from "High Fidelity" by Nick Hornby, I can say: "I can tell you how I got from Slade to gothic country in just 25 moves". Some important milestones: Black Sabbath, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave and Johnny Cash. Some of their albums made it to the list. Only one gothic country album succeeded, "Built with Bones” by Christian Williams. A deserving seventh place.
The number one album I can't live without is Vol. 4 by Black Sabbath. All killers, no fillers. From the opening song “Wheels of Confusion” to the closing song ”Under the Sun”. The album cover is sublime in black and orange with singer, band name and album title, vertically and horizontally. And when you opened the vinyl gatefold sleeve: concert photos of the band members and, the centre spread: a concert photo of the full band. Some emerging fans seriously discuss which lineup was the best. Unbelievable. If this is even a discussion then we are in trouble as a species. Everybody knows that after Sabotage it was downhill. I never saw them in their haydays, but I came close in 1977. The touring schedules in those days were insane. After completing the album "Technical Ecstasy" they went on tour from October 1976 to February 1977 in the US, followed by a European tour in Mars-April 1977. Black Sabbath were supposed to play at Konserthuset, Stockholm on April 26th, 1977. I was eager as a diehard fan could be. Unfortunately, it got cancelled as well as the remaining concerts on the tour (Oslo, London and Helsinki). At the time, the rumour was that the singer was not fit for purpose. Ozzy Osbourne had checked himself into Stafford County Asylum (St. George's Hospital) north of Birmingham before the tour. I don’t know if this stay had anything to do with it or if they were just exhausted. Anyway, it took nearly 20 years until we (the original lineup) finally met. It was at Stockholm Globe Arena, Stockholm on July 3, 2005. Black Sabbath were older and chastened, but still managed to put on a good show. Vol. 4 is the album I can't live without when all is said and done.
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"When all is said and done"
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