Mendelsohn: The Beastie Boy’s Paul’s Boutique marks only the fifth hip-hop album we’ve encountered on the Great List thus far. Each hip-hop record has had its own personality but none of them compare to the wacked-out sensibilities that went into making the Beasties’ 1989 magnum opus. This record wasn’t political like Public Enemy, it wasn’t grounded in the same humor as De La Soul, and where Dr. Dre and N.W.A were pushing tales of socioeconomic hardships and violence, the Beastie Boys were mining non sequiturs like outer space prospectors riding a technicolor patchwork space ship built by the mad scientist production team of the Dust Brothers.

In 1988, Rakim may or may not have been the greatest MC in rap—Big Daddy Kane was mining similar rhythmic territory, Chuck D’s subject matter was more throat-grabby, Erick Sermon and Kool Moe Dee were funnier, etc.—but he certainly had people’s attention. Following their auspicious 1987 debut album Paid In Full, Eric B. & Rakim released Follow the Leader in 1988 to general acclaim and eternal appearances on Best Of lists. Writing in the New York Times, Peter Watrous named Follow his “Rap Album of the Week” and summed up Rakim’s achievement, “He will vary rhythms, pushing and pulling against the beat to highlight his lyrics.”

Hey Ocean! is a rare kind of band: one with a devout, unwavering following, a surprising bit of mainstream notoriety, and yet—despite all this—remain underdogs, only just now breaking out into the mainstream with their new album IS.

Yet let’s rewind the clocks: the group—which has been active since 2002 and features Ashleigh Ball on vocals, David Beckingham on lead guitar, and Ball’s friend since childhood David Vertesi on bass—has been working on its unique, optimistic brand of indie-pop for some time, its debut album Stop Looking Like Music having come out all the way back in 2006. Their music videos were clever, they toured constantly, and by the time 2010 came around, a surprising thing happened: Ball works as an actress in her spare time, doing a lot of voice work for kids shows and straight-to-DVD family franchise films. In 2010, she started doing the voices of Applejack and Rainbow Dash in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic—a show that has taken on a gigantic life of its own, which, as it happens, has lead the band to grow exponentially this past year.

Klinger: In the two-plus years we’ve been embarked on this fool’s crusade to discuss the most acclaimed albums of all-time (as compiled by the mathmagician over at the aptly named and highly addictive Acclaimed Music website), we’ve covered more than a few break-up albums, those wrenching chronicles of love gone wrong and valiant attempts to pick up the pieces in the aftermath. I’m pretty sure, though, that Simon & Garfunkel’s 1970 blockbuster Bridge Over Troubled Water is our first LP that focuses primarily on the break-up of a professional relationship—and certainly the only one to do so before the split is even officially announced. But references to Paul and Art’s impending dissolution are scattered all throughout the record in one form or another.

Like a lot of people, I’ve headed back into Bridge Over Troubled Water on those occasions when romance goes pear-shaped, so maybe that’s why it took me a while to realize that so much of it was based on a different kind of loss. But it’s also such a big-sounding album, with its lush orchestrations and slick production, that it’s easy to lose sight of the intimacy that’s at its core.

“So you’ll write an article that will make me sound pretentious and arty, and you know what?  I’m pretentious and arty. And I’m proud of it”.
—David Thomas of Pere Ubu

There are very few negative adjectives more brutally crippling than “pretentious”. Very few can whittle away any pleasure from that description, and it’s often the kiss of death word when analyzing anyone’s artistic work. Think about it. What sort of images does that word conjure up when you hear it? Since music is such a large part of this site, we’ll attack it from that angle. To me, I usually conclude it’s probably something totally devoid of anything fun, first and foremost. Long and meandering songs that don’t really go anywhere, full of lame sociopolitical/interpersonal messages that are of importance to no one except the creator. Something Robert Christgau would definitely drool over. Nothing you could really play in the presence of other people in the fear they would waste no time asking “What’s this shit?”