Masterpieces

In 2005 (or was it 2006?) I went to see Sufjan Stevens at the Royal Festival Hall (or was it the Barbican?). He was touring the album 'Illinois' and it was a glorious, memorable gig, one of the best I can remember. The support act was also great, a woman who sauntered out diffidently, said she was in the backing band and was going to play a few songs - I particularly liked the one called 'Marry Me, John' - she was St Vincent, who is now an acclaimed star in her own right, perhaps even more so than Sufjan Stevens. They're both acts of pure class, and they share something else, which I wonder if they talked about on that tour - a stillness, composure, a lack of emoting and grandstanding which could be off-putting to many fans of modern music who are used to  really feeling it when the singers really mean it, man.

But in both cases, the songs lack nothing in emotional depth. Particularly when it comes to Sufjan Stevens' latest album, 'Carrie and Lowell', one of the most quietly devastating albums ever recorded - a sparse, fluff-free coruscating memorial to his recently deceased mother.

'Illinois' was a glorious, eclectic album, with big brassy adventures, rich arrangements and vast ambition; 'Carrie and Lowell' by comparison is tiny - it captures the mood of two of 'Illinois''s most quiet and renowned tracks 'John Wayne Gacy' and 'Casimir Pulaski Day' and carries that through the whole record.

It struck me - they're both, in their own way, masterpieces. Maybe. 'Carrie and Lowell' has the feel of an album which will be seen as such. Reviews have been universally grand and deservedly so, in my opinion. Indeed, it would be the best reviewed record for a long time were its scores not trumped by those for Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp a Butterfly'. If you look at Metacritic, it's rare for two albums to be met with such universal approval, to be acknowledged as masterpieces so rapidly.

Masterpiece ... a word I'm tossing around ... a word that always gets tossed around in music criticism. But if there are "masterpieces" in popular music, which I firmly believe there are, what are they, and why?

This is a fun thing to consider, ever so slightly different, but more satisfying, than simply "what is a great album". Some great albums, I've come to realise, aren't masterpieces. I wouldn't say vice versa is possible, though ... (actually, i think there is one, as you'll see later ...)

I've done "Greatest Albums" on this blog before, but it was never a list I was happy with. I'm not going to rate anything now, but I am going to make a few lists considering what might be masterpieces, what might fall short etc.

Perhaps I'll make these lists

1. Things which are, in my view, flat out major masterpieces
2. Things which might well be masterpieces, they're just not quite my type of thing or, to be honest, I haven't listened to enough yet (even if I've listened to them 10 times straight through, sometimes that's not enough)
3. Minor league, personal masterpieces, albums which I really think are pretty faultless, but I appreciate that's personal taste and they won't be viewed as such by others, and they're not likely to change the world any time soon
4. Things which, taking a tough line, though they're great, they might be influential, they might have several great songs and new sounds on, aren't quite masterpieces
5. Things which regularly get called masterpieces but I really strongly don't think they are

None of this will be close to comprehensive, it's just for fun, lazungenulmen.

Firstly, going back to my starting point, I thought about how impressive it is that Sufjan Stevens may well have come up with two masterpieces, and that they are both so different in sound, conception, scale ... then I thought about how vastly different the recent Sufjan Stevens and Kendrick Lamar albums are, one so sparse, so modest, so single-minded, so contained, the other so close to bloated, so long, so vast in ambition, so teetering on the edge of outstaying its welcome. But, you know, I think the critics are right in both cases. On my first listen to 'To Pimp a Butterfly' I was a bit annoyed and didn't get the hype, the second, already I was picking out tracks I liked, beginning to discern the flow, finding getting through its hour-plus less of a trial, the third was pretty much a pleasure without taint. OK, only three full listens so far, it might not be my place to call it a masterpiece yet ... but if it's being said, I'm not disagreeing. I prefer my hip-hop either more rockist, either literally or in spirit, whereas 'To Pimp a Butterfly' is, both in sound and spirit, steeped in jazz, and that might always be a hindrance to my listening to it over and over again. Still, 'To Pimp a Butterfly' is still calling me back to listen to it ... I might just be forever hooked next time, we'll see.

That's just the way sometimes. Some albums you can listen to, you can admire, you can even love for a while, but it won't keep calling you back year after year, because it's just not quite your medicine.

So, probably the albums in the top list are mainly ones which are both acknowledged marvels and also just my kind of thing. Surprisingly few ...

One can afford to be fairly strict when using the word masterpiece when it comes to albums. Albums are brilliant, magical things. Gosh, a song is hard enough, but to create a masterpiece of an album? A collection of between, say, 6 and 20 songs without a weak moment, which cohere and complement each other, which tell lots of stories and one story, which hold the interest, sounds and ideas which haven't been heard before, which create their own universe, which bear repeating for years to come, which never jar, never bore ... I think that's harder than almost anything else in the whole world of the arts, quite frankly ...

Some great albums are wonderful happy accidents - 'Otis Blue', say, or 'Grievous Angel' by Gram Parsons (happy perhaps the wrong adjective). They're great to listen to, they have meaning and influence, but, you know, they're rush jobs, they're collections of parts - a few covers here, a few out-takes there, I don't think masterpiece is quite the right word for these. I'm not saying a masterpiece needs years in the making, but I do somehow feel there needs to be intention, of authorship. Otherwise we might as well include Greatest Hits.

Perhaps there's no more to say by way of explanation and the categories speak for themselves. ... well, something else to say. Especially when I was younger, much less so now, my way into music was rock critics and list books and people telling me what to like and me heeding it. That's the way for a lot of people but I'm sure it was the way for me more than most. But I wasn't entirely divorced from my own taste. I would buy and listen to many albums I'd been told were masterpieces and I can still remember my varying reactions - the instant sheer understanding and acknowledgment sometimes, the slight uncertainty amidst the general enjoyment the next, the gritted teeth attempt to believe in what I'd been told sometimes, and occasionally the sheer "fuck off, you're kidding me, this is mediocre". Sometimes, the initial reaction has been diluted and hidden away, and rightly so, because albums, even shitty albums, deserve more than just one listen if you're going to pontificate on them, and sometimes, my first instinct, either way, was way off the mark. But those first reactions are worth something too. I still remember the first time I heard 'Astral Weeks' and truly felt like I was hearing something magical, and the first time I heard 'Pet Sounds' and pretended to myself that that's what I was hearing ...

Another thing about pop music ... by the very name, its interaction with its environment matters. There can be no debate about this, cos it's pop music. So, I suppose, a magnificent work that has never been heard can't be a masterpiece. In 2015, there are no lost classics. Gosh, that's blazingly obvious, isn't it ... sorry, I'm patronising you ...

Oh, and one more important thing to say. There are big masterpieces and small masterpieces. It makes sense that it's harder to make a big masterpiece, as more can go wrong. You can't keep up the pace of a 100m for a Marathon. You can't. That's a reductive and silly way to put it, but I hope you get the gist. But, if you choose to make a "big" album, in length or concept, it's your fault if you don't carry it through. "Flawed masterpieces", if you can really see their flaws, they're just not masterpieces, they're over-ambitious mistakes. I'm strict but fair about this. Will you see Blonde on Blonde here? Will you see The White Album? Not on my watch ... not that those albums haven't given me great joy ...

... perhaps, also, the term masterpiece lends itself more to a certain kind of artist - are a band, a collection of individuals, however united, or a pop group, or a big commercial act, as likely to be able create a masterpiece, something so focused, as one serious-minded individual with a devoted but not vast fanbase?

I should say that, inevitably, as I started doing it, I tried to cover more bases, listen to more stuff, try not to miss anything out, it's completely inevitable and ultimately unsatisfactory. So i just want to reiterate again I'm not trying to make this a definitive list ... hopefully I've missed lots of really obvious ones to prove this.

Anyway, I could go on and on with "just one more thing"s.

OK, then, here we go.

I'll comment on particulars occasionally, but hopefully most things will be self-explanatory.

1. Things which are, in my view, flat out major masterpieces

• Blue - Joni Mitchell
• Astral Weeks - Van Morrison
• The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars - David Bowie
• Searching for the Young Soul Rebels - Dexys Midnight Runners
• If You're Feeling Sinister - Belle and Sebastian
• Carrie and Lowell - Sufjan Stevens
• It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back - Public Enemy
• The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill - Lauryn Hill
• The Holy Bible - Manic Street Preachers
• OK Computer - Radiohead
• Have One on Me - Joanna Newsom

People might reasonably ask if some of the 2 hours/18 tracks of this couldn't be pruned ... is there one rule for this, one rule for others. Well, the fact that it is 2 hours does, of course, mean that it is less often listened to all the way through than some others, but I don't think it lacks an arc, or drops in quality. If you do have the time for it, this rewards the time.

• Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco
• The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses
• London Calling - The Clash
• Time Out of Mind - Bob Dylan
• The Velvet Underground and Nico - The Velvert Underground and Nico
• Funeral - Arcade Fire
• The Times They Are a Changin' - Bob Dylan
• Definitely Maybe - Oasis

Just about. Shakermaker almost costs it ...

• Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space - Spiritualized
• Tapestry - Carole King
• Darkness on the Edge of Town - Bruce Springsteen
• Pink Moon - Nick Drake
• Heartbreaker - Ryan Adams
• Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits

An odd choice, for sure, but I think of this album, and really think, of its type, they got it absolutely spot on.

• Songs of Leonard Cohen - Leonard Cohen
• Rumours - Fleetwood Mac
• To Pimp a Butterfly - Kendrick Lamar
• The ArchAndroid - Janelle Monae
• Revolver - The Beatles
• Blur - Blur

I think I'd been thinking that there was no Blur masterpiece, that their albums never quite got it all the way through, but when i think about 'Blur', i rather think there isn't a single track I'd remove, or that isn't memorable or interesting, and I think this sums up the era better than almost anything else.

• Songs in the Key of Life - Stevie Wonder

I thought at length about this, and decided that the songs I don't love on this album, well, it's not that they're not great songs that increase the richness of the album, it's purely personal, so not reason to not see it as a masterpiece - the fact that I personally don't love As, Pastime Paradise, Joy Inside My Tears, Isn't She Lovely, Another Star, well, that's my problem, it's not like they're, in any way, "filler"

• The Ramones - The Ramones
• A Christmas Gift For You - Phil Spector
• 69 Love Songs - Magnetic Fields

Perhaps this is the one masterpiece that isn't also a great album ...

• Abbey Road - The Beatles

This was one I vacillated over - depends what one thinks of the silly songs on the album. Well, they're part of something bigger and they're the best silly songs I've ever heard. And silly songs were such a big part of the Beatles, it's not some random assault on the ears, it's part of what made them great. Abbey Road really does work as a whole album, doesn't it?

• Debut - Bjork

I'm recently converted to this. Not that I didn't know the songs, and I've never been a huge fan of Bjork, but I listened to it all the way through, and it was obvious that it was a masterpiece.

• The Band - The Band
• Exodus - Bob Marley

If there's going to be one Bob Marley album, this is surely the best. Maybe it's disingenuous of me to proclaim it a masterpiece. But its substance, influence and craftsmanship is undeniable. 

• The Crane Wife - The Decemberists

I just upgraded it, almost grudgingly. I mean, it's pretty masterful

• Sound of Silver - LCD Soundsystem

It's stunning centrepieces almost unbalance it, but not quite. 
 
2. Things which might well be masterpieces, they're just not quite my type of thing or, to be honest, I haven't listened to enough yet.

I have, at minimum, listened to all these albums all the way through at some point. I'm not going to include anything I haven't listened to all the way through, anywhere

• Dummy - Portishead
• In the Aeroplane Over the Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel
• Graceland - Paul Simon
• Let England Shake - PJ Harvey
• Yeezus - Kanye West

This album is tight, tighter than I realised. It's certainly the album I've heard by him closest to perfection. 

• Illmatic - Nas
• Appetite for Destruction - Guns N' Roses
• The Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd
• In Utero - Nirvana
• Back to Black - Amy Winehouse
• Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - Arctic Monkeys
• Songs for the Deaf - Queens of the Stone Age
• Trans-Europe Express - Kraftwerk
• The Hissing of Summer Lawns - Joni Mitchell
• Endtroducing - DJ Shadow
• Dog Man Star - Suede
• Demon Days - Gorillaz
• Kind of Blue - Miles Davis

Anything jazz can go here, really. I've listened to A Kind of Blue a bit, at least.

• Are You Experienced? - Jimi Hendrix

Hendrix is just a gap in my understanding of popular music. It's not that I don't like him, not even that I never listen to him, I just never really get into it, I never feel it

• Led Zeppelin IV ...

As above, although this is a band I have a more active disregard for

• Back in Black - AC/DC
• 3 Feet High and Rising - De La Soul
• Loveless - My Bloody Valentine
• Daydream Nation - Sonic Youth

With the two above, it's hard for me to get a grip - my taste is song-based, rather than sound-based, so I never quite get know what part of the influential noise I'm meant to fall in love with. A lot of "indie" fans think these two are the best things that ever happened, I hear a fraction of what it's all about, it's not like I don't enjoy a tuneful drone, but ... unfortunately, there are few albums acclaimed for their sonic adventurism that I hear and don't set off a voice in my head going ... "more tunes! ... and more words! I love words and tunes!"

• Remain in Light - Talking Heads
• Marquee Moon - Television
• Since I Left You - Avalanches

I remember buying this when it came out, listening it, thinking it was a masterpiece, and never really wanting to listen to it again.

• Mezzanine - Massive Attack
• Tom Waits

I just don't feel qualified to say ... apart from Closing Time, I haven't enjoyed a Tom Waits album all the way through. He just got toooo mucch goin' on for me to fully accept one album ...

3. Minor league, personal masterpieces, albums which I really think are pretty faultless, but I appreciate that's personal taste and they won't be viewed as such by others

• The Sophtware Slump = Grandaddy
• The World Won't End - Pernice Brothers
• Nashville - Josh Rouse
• I am Shelby Lynne - Shelby Lynne
• The Trials of Van Occupanther - Midlake
• Songs for Beginners - Graham Nash
• Odessey and Oracle - Zombies
• Wild Wood - Paul Weller
• Phantom Power - Super Furry Animals

Perhaps all the Furries albums are just short of being masterpieces, that's almost the point of the band. Perhaps Mwng is their masterpiece. But, to me, Phantom Power is their best album, 9.6 out of 10 whereas others are 9.5. The band fall outside all these five categories I've provided really.

• American Interior - Gruff Rhys
• More Adventurous - Rilo Kiley
• Grand Prix - Teenage Fanclub
• The Hour of the Bewilderbeast - Badly Drawn Boy
• Summerteeth - Wilco

This one doesn't get talked about as one of their greatest but, for me, it's one of the finest sounding albums I've ever heard, the songs are so dark and beautiful, I think it's more even than A Ghost is Born and Being There and in its way far more potent than the later albums. You could say Wilco (the album) is a masterpiece of ... self-definition and containment ... without being an actual great album

• Free All Angels -  Ash
• Lapalco - Brendan Benson

4. Things which, taking a tough line, though they're great, they might be influential, they might have several great songs and new sounds on, aren't quite masterpieces 

This category could go on and on really. It's all those great great albums which somehow aren't quite perfect

•  Pet Sounds - Beach Boys
• Thriller - Michael Jackson
• Music from Big Pink - The Band
• The Queen is Dead - The Smiths
• Enter the Wu-Tang - Wu-Tang Clan
• Exile on Main Street - Rolling Stones

I've always thought 'Exile on Main Street' was the closest the Stones got to a masterpiece, but i think i like the idea, and the feel, of it more than the actual collection of songs. I've been listening to their other classic albums lately, which I'd rather dismissed (I've always thought of them as more of a band of great songs) ... and I think I'd stick with the judgement that there isn't quite a masterpiece in there. 'Sticky Fingers' and 'Let it Bleed' are close ...

• Grace - Jeff Buckley

This is truly one of my favourite albums, but I think circumstance and meaning has made it so, to an extent. It is just a little uneven, it could have been better. Not that that matters.

• Bringing it All Back Home - Bob Dylan
• Forever Changes - Love
• Moondance - Van Morrison
• Parklife - Blur
• Let it Be - The Replacements
• Low - David Bowie
• Screamadelica - Primal Scream
• Nevermind -  Nirvana
• Rubber Soul - The Beatles
• Merriweather Post Pavilion - Animal Collective
• My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - Kanye West
• Rubber Soul - The Beatles
• Ys - Joanna Newsom
• Parallel Lines - Blondie
• The Soft Bulletin - Flaming Lips
• Hunky Dory - David Bowie
• The Bends - Radiohead
• Nixon - Lambchop
• The Crane Wife -  The Decemberists
• Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City
• The Seldom Seen Kid - Elbow

All Elbow's albums are excellent, none of them are quite masterpieces

• After the Goldrush - Neil Young
• The Boatman's Call - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
• Want One - Rufus Wainwright

Somehow, it's the very existence of Want Two which makes Want One not a masterpiece

• Blonde on Blonde - Bob Dylan
• The White Album - The Beatles
• Innervisions - Stevie Wonder
• Talking Book - Stevie Wonder
• Doolittle - The Pixies
• The Blueprint - Jay Z 
• Fear of a Black Planet - Public Enemy
• Deja Vu - Crosby Stills Nash and Young
• St Vincent - St Vincent
• Benji - Sun Kil Moon

Almost carries itself like a masterpiece, it's so coherent, and so true, and the tunes are surprisingly memorable ... maybe just needs a couple more outstanding songs

• The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan

5. Things which regularly get called masterpieces but I really strongly don't think they are

• What's Going On - Marvin Gaye
• Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - Beatles

Does this need any explanation? It doesn't really, does it?

• Sign o' The Times - Prince
• Channel Orange - Frank Ocean
• Otis Blue - Otis Redding
• Never Mind the Bollocks - The Sex Pistols
• Beyonce - Beyonce 

It's got all the hallmarks of a masterpiece, it's just really quite boring

• Is This It - The Strokes
• The College Dropout - Kanye West
• A Different Class - Pulp
• Deserter's Songs - Mercury Rev
• Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen
• In Rainbows - Radiohead 
• Smile - Beach Boys
• Hounds of Love - Kate Bush
• Court and Spark - Joni Mitchell
• Don't Stand Me Down - Dexys Midnight Runners
• The Suburbs - Arcade Fire
• Smile - The Beach Boys
• On the Beach - Neil Young
• Highway 61 Revisited - Bob Dylan
• Songs for Swingin' Lovers - Frank Sinatra
• Trout Mask Replica - Captain Beefheart
• Pacific Ocean Blue - Dennis Wilson
• No Other - Gene Clark
• Anything by The Who

It's not that I hate The Who, like I hate The Doors or U2. Their best songs are awesome, really tremendously awesome. What it is ... and I'm reminded of this by another entertaining Pete Townshend interview in this month's Uncut, is the disconnect between how clever and important he says it is, all the ideas in the music, and what it actually sounds like. It's a similar thing with Noel Gallagher. Really, The Who and Oasis are quite a good comparison, though Noel Gallagher never had the pretensions, or has claimed not to. The singers, great as they are in their own way, limit forever what the band can be, and the songwriter isn't deft enough with words to transcend it. So, to me, for all the big ideas and for all the fact that I've only listened to one or two in entirety, I simple can't imagine any Who album could be a masterpiece.

• Slanted and Enchanted - Pavement
• Nebraska - Bruce Springsteen

Utterly subjective in my preference for Darkness on the Edge of Town over this. My reasoning? It's too samey, too boring ... which is an accusation that could superficially be levelled at several of the albums I have called masterpieces...

• Liege and Lief - Fairport Convention
• Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfunkel

OK, that should do it. It's an interesting idea to consider, isn't it? Even for the very greats of popular music, it's hard to consider them having more than one masterpiece, isn't it?
In some ways, it doesn't matter that much - bands like The National and The Jam, acts like Diana Ross, Chuck Berry and Madness aren't here at all, but they've got more great songs than most of these listed. But it does make you realise how rare it is to find a work that is wholly satisfying. Long may people keep trying.