Controversial
30. John Lennon & Yoko Ono: ‘Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins’ "Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins" is a noise music album released by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1968. The result of an all-night session of musical experimentation in Lennon's home studio at Kenwood, John and Yoko's debut album is known not only for its avant garde content, but also for its cover. The album's title came from the couple's feeling that they were "two innocents, lost in a world gone mad", and because after making the recording, the two consummated their relationship for the first time.
The recording consists largely of tape loops, playing while Lennon tries out different instruments (piano, organ, drums) and sound effects (including reverb, delay and distortion), changes tapes and plays other recordings, and converses with Ono, who vocalises ad-lib in response to the sounds. Lennon's longtime friend Peter Shotton remembered later in his memoir (The Beatles, Lennon and Me) that many of the loops were made by Lennon and himself, in the days before the recording. Lennon recorded directly to two-track stereo, but much of the source material was monophonic.
The couple used a time-delay camera to take nude photographs of themselves, for the album's cover; the front showed them frontally nude, while the rear showed them from behind. (The photos were taken not at Kenwood, but at Ringo Starr's basement apartment at Montagu Square, where Lennon and Ono stayed later that year.) The cover provoked an outrage, prompting distributors to sell the album in a plain brown wrapper. Copies of the album were impounded as obscene in several jurisdictions (including 30,000 copies in New Jersey). Lennon wryly commented that the uproar seemed to have less to do with the explicit nudity, and more to do with the fact that the pair were rather unattractive (and the photo unflattering; Lennon described it later as a picture of "two slightly overweight ex-junkies". Nevertheless, the taboo-breaking album cover was perhaps the first time that a male celebrity of any consequence had exposed himself so thoroughly to the public.
As a courtesy to people who are offened by male genitalia, I am posting the 'brown paper' version of the album cover.
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Weirdest
30. CocoRosie: 'Noah's Ark' Sometimes, money can be an issue with small band releases. Never has been more evident than with this issue by CocoRosie. Apparently, this is some three-way action between unicorns, with the first one obviously gacking up. Now I am really grossed out.
Sisters Bianca and Sierra Casady, known as CocoRosie, came on the scene with the 2004 release of La Maison de Mon Reve, an eclectic mix of pared-down beats and vocals that spawned multiple comparisons of the duo to chanteuses of yesteryear on psychedelics. Their sophomore effort, Noah's Ark, with melodic piano and simple electro beats, similarly conjures images of smoky dens filled with mythical creatures and includes guest appearances by fellow genre-defying musicans, Antony and Devendra Banhart.
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Worst
30. Jermaine Jackson – ‘My Name Is Jermaine’ Love the bell bottoms- they aren't coming back are they?
(Released in 1976) Jermaine was a member of the original Jackson 5. In 1975, when they changed labels from Motown to CBS and were forced to rename the band The Jacksons, Jermaine, who was married to Hazle Gordy, daughter of the Jackson 5's Motown manager, left the Jackons to start a solo career. He was replaced by Randy Jackson in The Jacksons. He had some success as a solo artist and officially rejoined The Jacksons in 1984, alongside his solo career, making it a sextet of Jackson brothers until their final split in 1990.
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Best
30. Iron Maiden – ‘Number of the Beast’ - The Number of the Beast is a heavy metal album released in 1982 by Iron Maiden on EMI in the UK and originally Harvest Records/Capitol Records in the U.S. (now on Sanctuary Records/Columbia Records). IGN named it the third greatest Heavy Metal album of all time. Metal-Rules.com named this the second greatest heavy metal album of all time. The album is also a part of EMI's "Albums That Shaped Rock History" series. This was the band's third studio album and debut of vocalist Bruce Dickinson in Iron Maiden.
Of all the songs in the album, "The Number of the Beast," "Run to the Hills" and "Hallowed Be Thy Name" remain on the set lists of nearly all of the band's concert tours, with the latter two often used to close a show. All three songs have been released as singles in various forms.
Iron Maiden's mascot, Eddie, (the cartoon skeleton pictured on the cover with a devil-like creature) is a perennial fixture in the band's sci-fi and horror-influenced album cover art, as well as in live shows. Eddie was drawn by Derek Riggs until 1992, although there have been various incarnations by numerous artists including Melvyn Grant. Eddie is also featured in a first-person shooter video game from the band, Ed Hunter, as well as numerous books, graphic comics and band-related merchandise.
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