“Without music, life would be a mistake” – Friedrich Neitzsche
This installment of Seriously Good Music is provided by a man of many parts from Jamaica. A one- time national stunt kite champion, record producer and husband of a singer songwriter, as well as a believer in active crossovers, DSP, DIY, true PWM amplification, you can’t have enough current or power, dipole line sources, big ribbons, and Ripole subwoofers.
To pick a mere 5 albums. This would be an impossible task to pick 5 albums per genre… How to choose? This is an audiophile blog, so one might choose for quality of the recording, but I won’t. I will pick for joy – the sheer pleasure of each. This could easily have been any of several hundred albums that give me immense pleasure to listen to, but here are 5:
“Caravanserai” – Santana (1972)
The most exotic and adventurous of the seminal Santana albums, “Caravanserai” sounds like nothing else on earth – as astonishing an experience now as it was when I first heard it in the early 70’s on a JBL Paragon (an equally exotic and adventurous loudspeaker system!).
“Johann Sebastien Bach: Brandenburg Concertos” – Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood (1985)
This is quite simply beautiful. The music, the recording, the tonality of the period instruments and the performance are sublime.
“Heavy Weather” – Weather Report (1977)
The album that cemented Jaco Pastorius as the most exciting bass player of his generation, “Heavy Weather” marked a turning point for Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter, establishing Weather Report as the definitive popular crossover Jazz phenomenon of the decade.
“Hail To The Thief” – Radiohead (2003)
Radiohead are perhaps the most inventive and unique band in the alternative genre. “Hail to the Thief” is a masterpiece.
“Mujeres” – Silvio Rodríguez (1978)
The revolutionary troubador of Latin America, a prolific singer-songwriter of consistent brilliance and poetic subtlety, Silvio Rodriguez personifies the Nueva Trova movement of post-revolution Cuba.
I would have picked very differently for new music (last couple years) and very differently for audiophile quality (only the Brandenburgs would qualify there). Also, I could literally have picked any of another 300-400 albums for this. (Joseph, you’ll certainly have the opportunity 🙂 – wcvb)
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