25. Elvis Presley - Elvis is Back! (1960)

1. Make Me Know It
2. Fever
3. Girl Of My Best Friend
4. I Will Be Home Again
5. Dirty Dirty Feeling
6. Thrill Of Your Love
7. Soldier Boy
8. Such A Night
9. It Feels So Right
10. Girl Next Door
11. Like A Baby
12. Reconsider Baby

This guy again? Oh great....

I can't even go two albums in this decade without running into this asshole. Anyway, Elvis was back from 2 years in the Army, where he was drafted during peacetime in a government conspiracy to destroy rock music or something. That may not seem that long now, but back in the 50s you were expected at least two albums a year, so this probably felt like Chinese Democracy-levels of waiting.

Unfortunately those two years didn't improve Elvis any. Although his voice has improved a bit since the debut album, the material hasn't much. Where his first album was a thrown together mess of country and rock, the songs on this album consistently fall into a bland rock-esque middle of the road pop category. It rocks in a couple places, but not very hard at all, and certainly nothing that inspires more than a passing interest. Unfortunately, this album falls into what is often called the nadir of rock music, a period that lasted from the late 50s to the early 60s. Many of the leading stars in the first generation of rock were incapacitated in some way: Elvis was drafted, Little Richard had (temporarily) quit the business to become a preacher, Chuck Berry was arrested for transporting a minor across state lines, Jerry Lee Lewis was embroiled in a scandal in which he married his 13 year old first cousin, and Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper were all killed in a plane crash. Not a very rockin' time. Aside from surf rock groups, the majority of popular music was made up of excessively bland pop music that had the energy of a dead fish.

This album is no exception. Although there are a couple of numbers that have a flicker of life in them, most of this album is largely forgettable early 60s pop. 'Fever' is an interesting jazzy-type number, but it's also a near carbon copy of the Peggy Lee version, so I can't praise it all that much. 'Such A Night' is easily the best song on the album, with Elvis turning in a spirited (and rather sexual!) vocal. He does an okay job with the material he's given, it's just that the material sucks. And the instrumentation is awash in those annoying 1950s-style backing singers. There's nothing really groundbreaking or indeed noteworthy about this album, and I thoroughly resent its placing in this list when a Chuck Berry album could've easily covered for it. 5/10

24. Joan Baez - Joan Baez (1960)

1. Silver Dagger
2. East Virginia
3. Fare Thee Well (Or Then Thousand Miles)
4. House Of The Rising Sun
5. All My Trials
6. Wildwood Flower
7. Donna Donna
8. John Riley
9. Rake and Rambling Boy
10. Little Moses
11. Mary Hamilton
12. Henry Martin
13. El Preso Numero Nueve

Welcome to the sixties! Spark up a joint, drop some acid, burn your draft card, get sprayed with a fire hose, kill a commie or two, we're in for one turbulent (and far, far more interesting) decade. And what better way to start than Joan Baez? She's the archetype for the cliche female folk singer singing about Problems!

Ain't no Problems on this album, though (At least, nothing from the 20th century). The songs are all ancient folk ballads, complete with lost love and a forlorn demeanor. What a miserable time the past must have been. One can tell that the Beatles/Dylan wave of self-expression hadn't quite hit: these are all interpretations of other people's stories, and Joan changes personality and even gender to suit the song.

Musically, this album is as simple as you'd expect. Nothing but acoustic guitars and singing throughout. Baez's voice is definitely strong enough to carry the album, and displays a surprising amount of control for her debut album. Her high notes command attention, and frankly I haven't heard that much vibrato on a person's voice since that one time I saw Dream Theater in concert (He's called James LaBrie because he's cheesy as hell).

Other than that, there's not all that much to say. The song choices are pretty decent overall, especially 'House of the Rising Sun' which is just as powerful (if not more so) than the Animals version, even without all the bells and whistles. None of the songs are noticeably bad. There's great stuff on here, but the general sound of this album has been covered so many times by so many artists it's impossible to review without bias creeping in. 8/10

23. Dave Brubeck Quartet -Time Out (1959)

1. Blue Rondo A La Turk
2. Strange Meadow Lark
3. Take Five
4. Three To Get Ready
5. Kathy's Waltz
6. Everybody's Jumpin'
7. Pick Up Sticks


Ah, nothing like reading Finnegans Wake while listening to some nice intellectual jazz.....wait a minute, crossover success!?! I can't listen to this shit!! It's got the stench of the unwashed masses all over it!

Anyhow, this album does sound a fair bit different from the jazz I've reviewed so far. As the record title indicates, time signatures are the main focus of this thing. Jazz had labored under 4/4 for far too long, and Dave Brubeck sought to change that with a host of wacky time signatures (9/8? What the hell is that?). Apparently this pissed off a bunch of jazz purists, proving that they're even easier to anger than indie fans.

All those different time signatures give this record a more diverse sound than you would normally associate with 1950s jazz. 'Blue Rondo A La Turk' was influenced by Turkish folk music, and it sounds pretty swingin', even though it turns into a more conventional jazz piece partway through. The intro just might be my favorite spot on the record. Why can't we use 9/8 more often? According to Wikipedia, this part sounds very similar to some battle music in Final Fantasy 7. I am so very glad they've got the truly important things in mind over there.

'Take Five' is recognizable from the first piano notes onward. It's one of the few jazz pieces to actually hit the top 40 and not immediately remind one of the dentist's office. There's even a drum solo that doesn't bore me! Any song that can pull both of those off has got to be extremely well written, and it's no surprise that this is one of the most well known jazz songs ever.

The rest of the album isn't quite as strikingly innovate, but still pleasant. 'Strange Meadow Lark' is as pretty as it sounds, and there's a part in 'Kathy's Waltz' where the piano sounds exactly like the melody of 'All My Loving' by the Beatles. The piano is great all across the album, now that I think about it.

So, how do the 1950s end? Not exactly with a bang, but perhaps a slightly smaller explosion. Not brain-meltingly innovative and flawless, but pretty unique and very listenable. There are much worse ways to end a decade!

22. Marty Robbins - Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs (1959)

1. Big Iron
2. Cool Water
3. Billy The Kid
4. Hundred And Sixty Acres
5. They're Hanging Me Tonight
6. Strawberry Roan
7. El Paso
8. In The Valley
9. Master's Call
10. Running Gun
11. Little Green Valley
12. Utah Carol


Music to have gunfights by, most assuredly. This album came out during an era where westerns made up approximately 95% percent of all television, and that's definitely reflected in the subject matter. I'm pretty sure all of these songs were reenacted through Gunsmoke episodes at some point. It's another country album, but once again flying in the face of my flagrant blue state bias against country it's not terrible! In fact, it's a lot like the Louvin Brothers album I reviewed here but with a good deal more cheeriness and pop flair. In fact, 'El Paso' was the first #1 hit of the 60s on the Billboard charts!

This record is pretty much how I imagine all those old 50s westerns would've been like. All exaggerated characters and gunfights breaking out every 20 minutes. Much like Tragic Songs of Life, stories about desperation and jealousy abound. Particularly amusing is 'The Master's Call', a tale of a man who turns to religion after God almost nukes the bastard with lightning (this must be the Old Testament God here). Sure, it may be a tad kitschy and overwrought, but look at the cover of this thing!

The production is a lot more polished than I like my country records to be, complete with oh-so-50s backing vocals (I can't wait to get rid of those, though I have to admit they work well here), but these songs are all well played and the lyrics are generally interesting enough to make you pay close attention most of the time. Sure, it can drag on a bit, but what 50s album doesn't? I'd take this over Elvis any day. 8/10

21. Miles Davis - Kind of Blue (1959)

1. So What
2. Freddie the Freeloader
3. Blue in Green
4. All Blues
5. Flamenco Sketches


Another Miles Davis album! And it's better than Birth of the Cool! In fact, it's one of the Most High Revered Jazz Albums Of All Time not to mention the best selling one. I can't go around giving this a 6 like I did the last one, or else I'll get shot by that guy who teaches history of "jazz" at UCSC.

You can definitely tell that a lot of time has passed between this and Birth of the Cool (about 10 years, in fact!). While that album is made up of really structured 3 minute songs, this album is long and meandering. Rather than giving the musicians a score or chord progressions to improvise around, Miles just stuck them with a list of scales to play. Also, he apparently wrote (as much as you can write these sort of songs) them mere hours before they were performed. I guess when you're Miles Davis and you have Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley and Coltrane playing with you, you can get away with that sort of thing.

This album is about as ethereal as the 50s got. It's very reminiscent of Brilliant Corners, the way the songs sort of float around dreamily, with only small bits of string tying them together. It's a lot more melodic than that album, even though most of the songs are sparse and simplistic. The solos are all extremely well done, naturally. I mean, look who played on this album! Miles Davis does not fuck around. This is probably the perfect album to play after a long hard day of work. 9/10

20. Ray Charles - The Genius of Ray Charles (1959)

1. Let The Good Times Roll
2. It Had To Be You
3. Alexander's Ragtime Band
4. Two Years Of Torture
5. When Your Lover Has Gone
6. Deed I Do
7. Just For A Thrill
8. You Won't Let Me Go
9. Tell Me You'll Wait For Me
10. Don't Let The Sun Catch You Cryin'
11. Am I Blue
12. Come Rain Or Come Shine

You can tell that Ray Charles got to name his own albums, because the word "genius" pops up about 50 times. One thing working in the music industry does not teach artists is modesty. Except for that one part in 'Fuck wit Dre Day (And Everybody's Celebratin')' where Dr. Dre says "gap teeth in your mouth so my dick's got to fit". I never quite got that lyric, unless he thinks Eazy-E is going to be intimidated by him having a small dick. I mean, I realize the rap game was pretty different in 1992, but


I have to admit, this is definitely my favorite Jamie Foxx alb


Finally, some soul on this list! On the surface, this album sounds like the 20,000 other vocal jazz pop albums, this album has a clear difference in that this man got pipes. After listening to album after album of pleasant sounding but fairly straight laced rendition, this album came as nothing but a relief. Ray Charles sings the hell out of every song on here, particularly the exciting opening numbers. If 'Let The Good Time Roll' doesn't make you want to go out and party, I have sincere doubts about your possessing a soul.

One of the cool things about this album is that it's the first on the list to actually change up the format of the album! While side A consists of more jazzy uptempo tunes, the B side has a bunch of slow ballads. Not exactly the most groundbreaking stuff by our standards, sure, but this is 1959! This was an era where Frankie Avalon was the hottest new talent, so you can't exactly expect innovations in the field of albums when there were communists to be fought.

Though the orchestration sounds pretty much the same as it does in all these other albums, Ray Charles' soulful voice made it that much more listenable. I have to admit, so far on this list black people are kicking our asses. Step it up, white people!

While this album wasn't exactly mind-blowing, in my heart I'm giving it a ten simply for not being Ella fucking Fitzgerald. 8/10

19. Ella Fitzgerald - Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook (1959

1. Ambulatory Suite
2. Prelude
3. Sam And Delilah
4. But Not For Me
5. My One And Only
6. Let's Call The Whole Thing Off
7. I've Got Beginner's Luck
8. Oh Lady Be Good
9. Nice Work If You Can Get It
10. Things Are Looking Up
11. Just Another Rumba
12. How Long Has This Been Going On
13. It's Wonderful
14. Man I Love
15. That Certain Feeling
16. By Strauss
17. Someone To Watch Over Me
18. Real American Folk Song Is A Rag
19. Who Cares
20. Looking For A Boy
21. They All Laughed
22. My Cousin In Milwaukee
23. Somebody From Somewhere
24. Foggy Day
25. Clap Yo' Hands
26. For You For Me For Evermore
27. Stiff Upper Lip
28. Boy Wanted
29. Strike Up The Band
30. Soon
31. I've Got A Crush On You
32. Bidin' My Time
33. Aren't You Kind Of Glad We Did
34. Of Thee I Sing
35. Half Of It Dearie Blues
36. I Was Doing All Right
37. He Loves And She Loves
38. Love Is Sweeping The Country
39. Treat Me Rough
40. Love Is Here To Stay
41. Slap That Bass
42. Isn't It A Pity
43. Shall We Dance
44. Love Walked In
45. You've Got What Gets Me
46. They Can't Take That Away From Me
47. Embraceable You
48. I Can't Be Bothered Now
49. Boy What Love Has Done To Me
50. Fascinating Rhythm
51. Funny Face
52. Lorelei
53. Oh So Nice
54. Let's Kiss And Make Up
55. I Got Rhythm
56. Somebody Loves Me
57. Cheerful Little Earful


Curse you Ella Fitzgerald, you came oh so deliciously close to derailing my blog, as well as my stable way of life. This album turned me from a diligent updating man into an alcoholic wreck, a mere shell of my former self. Just look at the track list! I can't imagine buying this thing in 1959. It must've taken up like 6 LPs! It's 3 hours long, for Chrissakes!

I'm not even sure how to start off reviewing this album. It's....consistent? Sure, there were a few duds, but when you're dealing with a monolithic set of 57 songs they all seem to get dragged together into one well orchestrated muddle. After listening to all these vocal jazz albums I've got to be a certified expert of 30s-40s pop music (Aren't I supposed to be in the 50s??).

Naturally, since there's so many of these songs they're about all sorts of topics. Most of them are about romance, obviously, but some of these songs are just strange, like 'Cousin from Milwaukee' and the nice bit of cheerio-jolly-good-pip-pip British stereotyping of 'Stiff Upper Lip'. I was particularly amused by 'Treat Me Rough', a swingin' 1930s ode to BDSM (well, almost).

At the end of the day, this album is just too unlistenably vast to give a truly fair review. Ella sings the songs well, though I expected a bit more sass coming off that Sarah Vaughan album. And I do have to give her credit for the scope of this project. Unfortunately, the scope was so vast that this album is rather a chore to get through. 5/10