1 Nick Drake, Bryter Layter, (Island, 1970)
3 The Band, The Band
(Capitol, 1969)
4 Gene Clark, No Other , (Asylum, 1974)
5 Nick Drake, Five Leaves Left , (Island, 1969)
6 The Beatles, A Hard Day's Night
(Parlophone, 1964)
7 Curtis Mayfield, Curtis , (Buddah, 1970)
8 Todd Rundgren
A Wizard, A True Star
(Bearsville, 1973)
Meatloaf got him to produce Bat Out Of Hell, Liv Tyler thought he was her dad for a while, and he made one of prog-rock's most reviled albums (1975's Initiation). The other Todd Rundgren, one of pop's most eccentric, experimental masterminds, exists beneath the bland terror of these facts, clandestine to the world. A Wizard... is the Rundgren obsessive's Rundgren album, his most complex work. Songs? They're in here somewhere, overlapping in a chaotic acid soup of guitar pyrotechnics, soul medleys, and spitting amplifiers - beautiful, baffling snatches which vanish into a lysergic black hole sooner than they've arrived, resembling the indecipherable thoughts which line the conscience of a day. A Wizard... is like being bombarded with three unmissable conversations whilst your TV, radio and dishwasher all do their stuff in the background.
9 George Harrison
All Things Must Pass
(Apple, 1970)
10 Todd Rundgren
Something/Anything?
(Bearsville, 1972)
To hear Something/Anything? - one of the purest, prettiest and most complete albums ever made - is to understand why Todd Rundgren elected to follow it with his sprawling scream-of-consciousness concept LP, A Wizard, A True Star, in 1973. Over four equally astonishing sides, Rundgren - monster of rock, romantic balladeer and gadget-obsessed nerd all rolled into one - exhausts the possibilities of the conventional pop format via blue-eyed schmaltz (Cold Morning Light), power-pop (Couldn't I Just Tell You), white soul (Hello It's Me), and crotch-rock (Wolfman Jack). Imagine an enormous bag of life-affirming sweets which never make you sick. With three sides created entirely alone by Rundgren, Something/ Anything? is Pet Sounds' prodigal offspring, a DIY bedroom opera all about love and the infinite potential of the eight-track tape recorder.
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