Other Voices, The Doors (no Jim Morrison), 1971

Holy crap, this is god-awful.

“You gotta try everything once/ you better take out some insur-ance”??

“I’m Horny, I’m Stoned” has a tiny bit of the Morrisonian humor.

Sticky Fingers, The Rolling Stones, 1971

Until now I had never listened to this entire album. It's surprisingly good, in fact great (though no Exile). Back in 1971, the zipper cover and the whole macho image turned me off.

You can see the Stones starting to work out the musical ideas they’d take further and dirtier in Exile. The inhabiting of American musical forms like country, blues and soul, not just imitating them or paying tribute to them.

Let me dispose of the songs I don't like first. I could quite happily never hear "Brown Sugar" again. Sexist, racist trash with predictable chords. "You Gotta Move" is just an OK imitation of Southern blues.

I like all the rest of the songs. For all these years, I thought "Bitch" was about a woman... just read the lyrics and realized it's about a heroine called heroin. Surprise, surprise, on an album with "Sister Morphine" and a “needle and a spoon” in "Dead Flowers" and a “head full of snow” in "Moonlight Mile." What woman could compete with heroin and cocaine in their affections?

"Wild Horses" (sometimes a horse is just a horse). I liked it then, as everyone did then. I liked it because of the sentimentality and the minor key vocals. Now, it more than holds up. I like it because of the subtlety, how you can have mixed feelings about someone but still want to be with them.

"I Got the Blues" is a great Memphis soul song.

"Moonlight Mile" is another great song and a perfect ending. Also a road song.

The Flying Burrito Bros., The Flying Burrito Brothers, 1971

No Gram Parsons and precious little inspiration.

Electric Warrior, T. Rex, 1971

Not much to say about this album other than IT IS PERFECT. It observes unity of sound, tone and feeling. And quote some lyrics:

You got the blues in your shoes and your stockings

There's very little that's ever said
All of which I understand

"I Hear You Knocking", Dave Edmunds (single), 1971

In 1971, this was revivalism, and Edmunds channels his voice through some strange filter, to make it sound like it’s an old radio broadcast. Even the lyrics self-consciously mention 1952 and Chuck Berry. On the radio of that day, this stood out like a welcome sore thumb. John Lennon famously liked this single. and why wouldn’t he.

Sparks, Sparks, 1971 (orig. released as Halfnelson by Halfnelson)

Only good in tiny sparks. It has all the thought you expect from Sparks but not the tight pop songs.

Every Picture Tells a Story, Rod Stewart, 1971

Surprise, surprise. I didn’t even want to include Stewart in the corpus. The surprise is not only can I listen to this album without cringing, I like it.

Man, this is a great album. All the crap he did later ("Stay with Me," "Hot Legs," et too many cetera) had retrospectively colored my opinion toward the negative. Funny how that happens.

Every Picture is full of energy, unforced emotion and wit. The acoustic (twelve-string? help me, musos) in the title track is given its own generous space in the mix. When I was fourteen “the women I’ve known I wouldn’t let tie my shoes/they wouldn’t give you the time of day” resonated with me.