#615 Gene Vinent and his Blue Caps - Blue Jean Bop

I loved Vincent's second album, and the first one delivers many of the same thrills. This album lacks the menace that made his self-titled followup to exhilarating, and the overall tone is smoother and sweeter, but there's still an edge: notes hit harder than they needed to be, words sneered out when lesser singers would have smiled, and the whole thing lit up by some jigsaw guitar work.

Doing some research reveals the key to these two albums' greatness, especially relative to other similar records of the time. Unlike, say, Elvis, who used session musicians to fill out his early records, The Blue Caps were a band out playing shows night in and night out, and this was them slamming their set down in the studio. The result is a surplus of that energy that makes this era of rock and roll so incandescent. Vincent and his Caps remain the best act out of the era that I've found so far, and while its followup is a stronger, tighter outing, this is likewise simply essential 4.5/5

#614 Battles - Dross Glop

A lurching, murky Night of the Living Dead nightmare of a remix album.

Every song is drained bloodless, rendered uncannily detuned, dragging dubby footsteps, repeating unliving patterns in morbid parody of its previous existence. Where Gloss Drop was made lively by unexpected moves and spontaneous production, its evil twin is all sociopathic menace, all cold efficiency, made up of the same parts, but with no light behind the eyes 1.5/5

#613 VA - The First Rock and Roll Record

Just go get it.

If you have any interest in the history of rock and roll, in where it came from and how it inched into being rock and roll, this is the best crash course there is. Get this triple album compilation epic, like rightnow. Unless you are a one-in-a-million obsessive who has heard ever album ever, with massive Ghost-World level tendrils through old rock vinyl, you'll learn a lot and have a lot of fun doing it.

This collection starts off in the 20's and winds its way forward towards the 50's, playing songs from folk, blues, country, jazz, R&B and countless subslices in between in chronological order, spiraling closer and closer to its core of "Rock and Roll", whipping past its various spokes in turn, pieces sliding into place.

It serves to exemplify how knotty that question of "what was the first rock and roll record?" really is, and its an interesting activity in its own right, asking as each song comes on whether that's "rock and roll", and why and why not, the why slowly becoming easier to answer as time moves forward, the why not getting harder and harder to justify. Heck, there's even some interesting bits of hip hop history hidden in there, as you hear elements that rap songs call back to (Kanye's sampling I've Got a Woman, Outkast's references to 60 Minute Man) and elements that would define the style (Ella Mae Morse And Freddie Slack's House Of Blue Lights practically raps its delivery, and even drops a "homey" in there).

The sounds are too diverse do describe in much more detail, spanning 3 packed discs and 3+ decades as they do, but bears repeating that this is no dry aural textbook but a damn fun listen. The songs hop and swoon and swing and croon and bop and even rock, most sounding dusty and classy and timeless for good measure. One of the best, most interesting finds of this whole project, one I'll return to again and again 5/5

#612 Guana Batz - Held Down to Vinyl...At Last

First-wave British psychobilly, with all of the punk rock intact. Gone are The Meteors' Sci-Fi trappings and mock-horror stylings: this is just nasty, sneering punk done up with fast bass and guitars to give it that retro edge. Here it reads as more of a gimmick, a way to stand out as a punk band, than an actual homage to rockabilly roots. You won't feel a love an reverence for rocks burgeoning rebellious streak, just a twist on punk ugliness. As punk, its fine, but nothing special 2.5/5

#611 Kitchen's Floor - Looking Forward to Nothing

Australia is just dripping with scuzzy, couldntgiveafuck punk these days. Megaphone overblown, overloud, repetitive doomy droners with this propulsive pump and strange, stoned glimmer of hope straight out of Wavves. Jagged guitars reverbing to forever, songlength organ notes, and yet, strangely light somehow. A good trick, one that I'll bet works even better live 3.5/5

#610 Bob Dylan - Bringing it All Back Home

Bob Dylan, romping and stomping, not yet drunk on his own legend, just going for it, singing like he might never get another chance and like this chance will last forever with a backing band that's got a million years to spend in the studio but they're gonna use the first take anyway, unhurried at making this rather fast song, unworried about these rather heavy words, just stumbling along with a great lifelong urgency.

This is less mindblowing than Highway 61's endless expanses, less heartfelt than Blood on the Tracks, but this is the blueprint, this is the house that the highway and the tracks and the Nashville Skyline itself all pour from. This is the house Bringing it all Back Home calls home.

Which is to say that it is seminal, pure Bob Dylan, pure unlistenable yowling, pure guitar jangle and slide and twang, straddling genius and madness and nonsense, and a strange timeless soul; more so than any of his albums, that singular moment soul 4/5

#609 Blind Lemon Jefferson - Blind Lemon Jefferson

This is old blues. Old as dust blues, dust blowing off of a creaky record player old, Jefferson's trembling wails rising from dust-covered timeline floorboards.

The emotion carries, less in word than in feeling, in the jaunty, jumbled plucks offset by that endless wail. Minimal and elemental, pre-band, pre-rock, dang, pre-jazz, damn near pre-music somehow, harkening back to a place that stepped out of time.

You'll need a real specific setting to want to put this record on, but if you find that time and place you best not be without it 4/5