1)Creedence Clearwater Revival, Creedence Clearwater Revival: I generally lumped most non- Willy & The Poorboys CCR albums into a big ball of average, interchangeable quality in the past; it was my mistake to think that all six of the 1968-70 albums were more or less equally beloved by others, as well. Looking around, the debut is probably the least acclaimed of the six; there aren’t even that many early reviews of it available, anyway. Revisiting it, I’d also have to say it’s the weakest of the six–“I Put A Spell On You” and “Suzie Q” are classics, sure, but they’re totems and I’ve heard them well enough over the years, and the purpose of these relistens is really to find great lost deep cuts that I missed the first time around, which leaves me with…”Walk On The Water,” which sure was nice and dark. Can’t believe I forgot it. The rest of this? “Ninety Nine And A Half” and “Gloomy” both start out with these guitar vamps that sound like they’re going to develop into classic songs and then go nowhere all that interesting, and Fogerty’s originals were nothing special either–he’d have to improve as they were going along. So yeah, the opening statement by one of America’s Great Bands, is…kind of a mediocre album! Am I the only one hearing it?

2)Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bayou Country: One of the least endearing things about CCR’s glory days is that they put out six albums in 29 months. It must have been something to do with the music business these days needing bands to rush out product that the best parts of the first album and this second one weren’t combined into a better overall album; which means, sadly, that my opinion of this album has dropped a ways, too. (Not to fear: I’m relistening to Green River right now, and it’s improved, so this will have a happy ending.) Again, the two big hits are totems–sure, I love “Born On The Bayou” and “Proud Mary,” but we’ve all heard ‘em. The rediscoveries, I s’pose, are “Bootleg,” which I call “Bootleg Bootleg,” and the funny cover of “Good Golly Miss Molly,” funny because it’s amusingly overblown. Unfortunately, that pretty much leaves the two lengthy songs, “Keep On Chooglin” and “Graveyard Train,” and, I can’t hold this in any longer–they both suck and are boring. Sorry, but if I wanted to hear a piddling guitar line like the one in “Graveyard Train” I’d listen to Nick Cave’s “Say Goodbye To The Little Girl Tree” and if I wanted to listen to “Keep On Chooglin,” I’d listen to “Bootleg Bootleg.” And they’re damn near half the album! Gngngng. Stick to a compilation, or something?

3)The Ramones, Road To Ruin: “She’s The One” is wonderful–speedy power pop galore. “Needles And Pins” continues the Ramones tradition of adorable covers. “I Wanna Be Sedated,” well we all like that one, don’t we? I mean, it’s their MOST FAMOUS SONG, at least in terms of how many times I’ve heard it outside of the album! Aside from that…well, I did see most reviews praise “Don’t Come Close” and bash “Questioningly,” and I felt the opposite. Then there’s all the three chord punk rockers which are…well, at this point, I’m finding them mostly unmemorable, interchangeable and rewritten from other songs. That’s why this album’s reputation baffles me–it’s supposed to be somehow different from the first three, and I’m frankly not hearing it–for example, I had no idea “Don’t Come Close” was supposed to be a “country” song. So yeah, I barely even cared for half the album. That means that the Ramones have two albums I really like (debut and End Of The Century), one that’s gotten better (Leave Home) and two that have gotten worse (this and Rocket To Russia.) I guess that means I like them more than I don’t.

4)Talking Heads, Talking Heads: 77: I never got into this one much besides “The Book I Read” and “Psycho Killer,” and this time around all I really cared for were those two songs and maybe the cutesy album opener and closer, “Pulled Up.” Maybe “First Week/Last Week…Carefree” if I were feeling really nice. The culprit? Too many songs sound the same and are forgettable as a result–in particular, the band’s guitar tones badly needed some diversifying. I was listening closely, too. I agree they were breaking ground in 1977 doing music like this, and you could tell they were intelligent, but they’d make deeper albums in the future, for sure–and yeah, they really needed Eno, too. Most reviews of this are positive but I’m not getting the impression many people besides the AMG reviewer (Erlewine?) adore it, so let’s move on.

5)Todd Rundgren, Runt: The Ballad Of Todd Rundgren: It’s almost all soft-rock piano ballads, which is probably why I forgot every note of it shortly after listening to it maybe a decade ago–his piano ballads are nice, but God damn if they don’t all sound exactly the same, and how many times can you recycle the “Hey Jude” rhythm, anyway? “Be Nice To Me,” “The Range War,” “Wailing Wall,” and “Boat One The Charles” started to all stick out after awhile, but it took like seven or eight listens to even begin being able to tell these songs apart,from each other, let alone all the other piano mush he did on A Wizard, A True Star and Something/Anything? which I had the good sense to hear first. This gets a mediocre rating.

6)Electric Light Orchestra, On The Third Day: I remembered “Oh No Not Susan” because of this waily thing Jeff Lynne does with his voice in it, which he’d recycle on later albums. That’s still a good song. So are “Ma-Ma-Ma Belle” and “Showdown,” two great songs I shouldn’t have forgotten at all, but did. “Dreaming Of 4000” and “Daybreaker” are good enough to push this up into “okay” status, but you can flush the terrible Beatles imitation “Bluebird Is Dead” down the toilet, and I’m well aware that “terrible Beatles imitation” is what all of this band’s detractors think of them. Lynne’s light-prog excursions on the album aren’t very good either, and certainly the Who did “Hall Of The Mountain King” better. This gets an okay rating and was obviously a warmup for a similar, but better, album– Eldorado.

7)Sparks, Kimono My House: I suppose it’s gotten to the point where I can at least respect this album okay, if only for all the energy put into it–it has a LOT more guitar than I remember, and it’s such a whirlwind that I can finally understand how Sparks were originally lumped in with “glam,” which made no sense to me before. “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us” is better than I remembered it, though “Amateur Hour” was always the REAL highlight, and then there’s “Talent Is An Asset,” which bops along in an amusingly annoying manner. “Equator” can at least be compared to XTC’s “Complicated Game” or something in the sense that it’s so annoying vocally that you sort of feel like showing it to people so they can point and gawk at it. There’s a couple passable tunes in the middle too, so bump my rating up to “passable.” However, there’s NO chance I’m going to ever consider this a masterpiece, or relisten to it a second time in the future–I just wanted clarification as to why so many other Babblers thought so, or used to think so.

8)Jefferson Airplane, After Bathing At Baxter’s: I used to hate this album, and yet it’s for the wrong reasons–I misremembered this album as being a load of Zappa-type noise, which mostly just applies to “A Small Package Of Value WilL Come To Shortly.” Reading reviews at the time told me that any acclaim this album came by had to do with people considering it to be a REAL “acid trip” of an album, or the “MOST” acid-rock album, not pop rock flavored with psychedelia. Well, gimme the latter for sure. No, what the band actually does here is take songs that SEEM like they’re going to be beautiful, and then butcher them into unlistenability, stuff like “Watch Her Ride” or “Martha” come to mind. If I had to point to a culprit, it’s that apparently Paul Kantner was starting to take over the band, and Marty Balin was being pushed into the background, only writing one or two songs here, which is why Surrealistic Pillow–pretty much the beginning and the end of all things Jefferson for me at this point–is so much better. “Rejoyce” has kind of a creepy Grace Slick deathy mood to it which I liked, and the album closer “Won’t You Try/Saturday Afternoon” succeeds in not ruining a really good melody, so there’s that. Screw “Spare Chaynge,” though–it’s a clear bore. A historic album, I suppose, but I still don’t like it much at all.

9)Neil Young, Tonight’s The Night: One review of this album–Pitchfork, I think–claimed that most people go into it nowadays reading all the press about the album that claims that it’s one of the most depressing and raw albums in rock and roll history, when it really sounds like an album of lovable knuckleheads getting drunk or high and sort of enjoying themselves? I guess that makes some sense–regardless, I really love “Borrowed Tune,” “Tired Eyes,” “Albuquerque,” and “New Mama,” even though the first one rips off “Lady Jane” (which I didn’t realize was in the friggin’ lyrics!) and the last one is an obvious After The Gold Rush pastiche…but beautiful Neil Young ballads are easy to come by. Yeah, it’s recorded and produced in a very raw manner, but I never found it much different than other Neil albums, which could have just as easily been recorded under such sad circumstances. Oh, and the two title tracks are good too.

10)Blue Oyster Cult, Tyranny And Mutation: Never got this one before and I dont’ get it now. It’s a shame, this is from their glory years. All I really like is “”