#147: Dreams To Remember: The Otis Redding Anthology- Otis Redding

Listened to: MP3

Let me start by saying this is an impressively comprehensive album. It has basically every Otis Redding track you could want. Let me continue by saying it is pissing me off how much Rolling Stone has a hard on for Otis Redding, that they’d include this album, and rank it so high, when Otis’ great studio album, Otis Blue and his first compilation album, The Dock Of The Bay, are both on this list. Two compilation albums, really? As much as I love “Hard To Handle”, and I do, there’s no need for this to be ranked so highly, nor to be on this list. I’m ok with some greatest hits, if they’re culturally significant, but for the love of god, Otis Redding could have farted on record, and Rolling Stone would have put it on this list. I really like Jeff Buckley, possibly as much as RS likes Otis, probably more. But his only album that deserves Top 500 status is Grace. I accept that. RS, time to do the same with Otis.

If you really want to get to know Otis Redding’s music, sure, this is a good starting place, but if you want the 500 Greatest Albums Ever Recorded, skip over this and listen to…

Would Replace With: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco

Yep, an original album (not a compilation, yeah, original albums can be good too) by a band who was ignored by this list, and an album whose cultural impact is uncountable in the realm of college indie ass-clowns. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is Wilco’s finest album, one of the best albums of it’s decade, the predecessor to the In Rainbows digital revolution (released independently, streamed for free online), and the subject of the fantastic film “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart”, which is also, in my opinion, the best track on the album. I still don’t know what “I’m an American aquarium drinker” means, but I love it. I’m not big on the indie music scene, but I do really like this album, and every track sums up what this decade in underground rock music was. Here you truly have a relevant time capsule, not some fossil that needs a lot less praise than it gets (I’m sorry, but one compilation is sufficient for all but obsessive, and has no place on this list). Seriously, skip the 90000000000000000000000th Otis anthology, and go to something actually significant to the American musical culture, (Otis was relevant, that album is not) Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

-Mike

Tomorrow is #286: Los Angeles by X