Top 5, it's getting serious now brah...
5. Bruce Springsteen – Born To Run (1975) – With Born To Run, Springsteen released his magum opus, the album that he seemed to have been put on this earth to make. It was supposedly a long, long time in the making, but by God was it worth it. Thunder Road, the opening track, set standards impossibly high for not only the rest of the album to follow, but also for the rest of rock music; Thunder Road is, in my opinion, the best rock song of all time. It’s testament to Springsteen’s ability, then, that he does actually manage to follow the best opener of all time with a string of worthy contenders for his own best rock song of all time; the title track is now deservedly legendary, Jungleland is one of the best epics ever written, Backstreets captured the hearts and minds of hundreds of thousands of youths at the time, and then there’s Meeting Across The River. Probably one of the 20 or so ‘perfect’ songs I’ve ever heard, Meeting Across The River sees Springsteen managing to do in three minutes and a couple of hundred words, what countless other artists haven’t achieved with multiple albums and reams of lyric sheets. Born To Run’s only failing is its quality; nothing Springsteen can do now could ever follow it for me, and it really does remain the pinnacle of his career, and almost all of rock music.
4. Bob Dylan – Blood On The Tracks (1975) – Wow, 1975 was a great year. Not only was the greatest rock album of all time released, but we saw the greatest folk album of all time come out as well. Here he is, the daddy of all singer-songwriters. The debate over Dylan’s best album is a fair one; Freewheelin’, Highway 61, Blonde on Blonde, Bringing It All Back Home and Desire could all qualify, but it was when I heard Blood On The Tracks that Dylan really, really clicked for me like I’d always hoped that he would. It’s the greatest break up album of all time, but it also features some of Dylan’s best music to go along with his predictably perfect lyrics. Simple Twist Of Fate is a fantastic, mellow meditation on a missed opportunity, Idiot Wind is one of the most damning numbers I’ve ever heard, and If You See Her Say Hello has one of the most relatable lines in music ever (‘She might think that I’ve forgotten her, don’t tell her it isn’t so’) and genuinely every moment on the album is perfectly judged, and perfectly executed. For the many that don’t understand the love that Dylan gets from all corners, I was like you before I heard this album. It really did change my outlook on music after I heard it, and it’s only really been bettered for me by, well, four other albums.
3. John Mayer – Continuum (2006) – Okay, how to explain myself here? John Mayer is renowned for being one of the biggest douchebags in music, and I’ve seen countless people swear off of his music because of his activities in the press involving certain actresses. But those people are missing out on one of the best singers and songwriters of our generation, and who I’d say was also undoubtedly the best guitarist since SRV. On Continuum, Mayer abandoned the bubblegum pop of his earlier work which was, admittedly, not anything to write home about, in favour of the bluesy stylings which he’d hinted at for so long. And thank God that he did; after two solid releases, Continuum saw Mayer finally making the album that we all knew he had in him; refined, perfected, restrained and, most pleasingly of all, genuinely bluesy. There’s so much to admire on Continuum that it’s easy to forget that it’s an album made by, well, John Mayer, writer of Your Body Is A Wonderland. Every solo here is magical and expertly judged, every drumbeat or bassline used to perfectly complement Mayer’s guitar parts, and even the lyrics are pretty darn good. For his next album, Battle Studies, Mayer reflected on the fact that when recording Continuum, he’d been a perfectionist, redoing everything until it was just right. Whilst Battle Studies is a great album too, and feels much freer than Continuum, this perfectionist side really seems to have been the thing that Mayer needed to go from ‘pretty good’ to ‘best in his class.’ And with Continuum, he’s gone pretty much unbeaten ever since.
Final update coming at some point this weekend...