Controversial
35. Serge Gainsbourg: ‘Histoire De Melodie Nelson’ Who? What? And an image of a underage girl with no top? Yeah, that will sell your music.Histoire de Melody Nelson is a 1971 concept album by controversial French songwriter Serge Gainsbourg. The Lolita-esque pseudo-autobiographical plot involves the middle-aged Gainsbourg unintentionally colliding his 26-horsepower 1910 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost into teenage nymphet Melody Nelson's bicycle, and the subsequent seduction and romance that ensues. Histoire de Melody Nelson is considered by many critics and fans to be Gainsbourg's most influential and accomplished album.
At just under twenty-eight minutes, the short running time and the stylistic consistency and similarity throughout the album gives it qualities more in line with an EP or an extended musical piece with a number of movements. Histoire de Melody Nelson‘s mix of freewheeling guitar, funk style bass guitar, near spoken word vocal delivery, and lush, deep orchestrated string and choral arrangements by Jean-Claude Vannier have proven to be highly influential amongst later francophone and anglophone musical performers including the French band Air, David Holmes, Pulp's Jarvis Cocker, Portishead, and Beck, whose 2002 track "Paper Tiger" from Sea Change is extremely close to the distinctive Histoire de Melody Nelson sound.
Oh, now that explains it all, the guy was a perv.
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Weird
35. Gerhard Polt: 'Leberkas Hawaii' Gerhard Polt (born May 7, 1942 in Munich) is a Bavarian writer, filmmaker, actor and satirical cabaret artist. Gerhard Polt often performs using Bavarian dialect. His main topics are Bavarian people, culture and politics. His performances in Munich theaters, which he started in 1976, are very popular. 1979 he became known to a wider audience in Germany by his TV-comedy-series “Fast wia im richtigen Leben” (Almost like in real life). In the following years, he was writer and actor in the movies “Kehraus” (1983), “Man spricht deutsh” (1987), “Germanikus” (2004), and writer and director of “Herr Ober!” (1992).
I'll have his head on a platter- errrr...wait there it is....obviously album cover design was not one of his strong suits.
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Worst
35. Butthole Surfers – ‘Brown Reason To Live’- Love the band name and I would think that is more of a controversial cover than worst (I have seen worse) Nonetheless, here it is at #35 on Gigwise's list. Hmmm I wonder if Gibby posed for the cover.
Butthole Surfers is the debut studio EP by American punk band Butthole Surfers, released in July 1983. It is also known as Brown Reason to Live and Pee Pee the Sailor (see "Title controversy"). All songs were written and produced by the Butthole Surfers. The album was originally released on Alternative Tentacles. Butthole Surfers and 1984's Live PCPPEP were reissued as the Butthole Surfers/Live PCPPEP CD on Latino Buggerveil in 2003. The 12-inch vinyl version is still available from Alternative Tentacles, and is listed as Brown Reason to Live.
The Surfers introduced themselves to the world with seven songs full of throbbing bass, crashing drums, and heavily distorted guitar topped off with largely nonsensical, barely intelligible lyrics, alternately sung by lead vocalist Gibby Haynes and guitarist Paul Leary. Haynes also plays saxophone on some tracks. Unlike later Surfers albums, no electronic instrumentation is present.
Though this EP is also known as Brown Reason to Live and Pee Pee the Sailor, Butthole Surfers is its official title. First, "Butthole Surfers" were the only words to appear on the front cover of its original release. Furthermore, Latino Buggerveil's 2003 reissue of the EP, together with 1984's Live PCPPEP on a single CD, is titled Butthole Surfers/Live PCPPEP. Perhaps most importantly, it is listed as Butthole Surfers in the "Discography" section of the band's official website.
That said, Brown Reason to Live has a strong claim to title rights, and many fans refer to it by that name. The 12-inch vinyl edition was, and still is, sold as Brown Reason to Live through original label Alternative Tentacles, but it is unclear if it was initially released as such. Also, though the words "Brown Reason to Live" did not appear on the original album's packaging, they were included below the band's name on later Alternative Tentacles printings (see image).[3] Finally, Latino Buggerveil's reissue of this album is listed as Brown Reason to Live (together with Live PCPPEP) on iTunes.
(alternate cover)As for Pee Pee the Sailor, the album has never been officially released or marketed under that name. That title is derived from Alternative Tentacles' vinyl editions, which include a cartoon of a Popeye-esque character with buttocks for a face printed on the record's center label, and the words "Pee Pee the Sailor" written next to it. This cartoon is in addition to the label's humorous suggestion that listeners play the record at 69 RPM.
Gotta love the names, whatever it may be called.
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Best
35. David Bowie: ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars’ - Finally, a cover I can relate to and have in my collection. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is a 1972 concept album by English rock musician David Bowie. It peaked at number five in the United Kingdom and number 75 in the United States on the Billboard Music Charts. A concert film of the same name directed by D.A. Pennebaker was released in 1973. The location of the cover has since taken on legendary status with Bowie fans (similar to that of Abbey Road for Beatles’ followers).
The album presents the story, albeit vaguely, of "Ziggy Stardust," the human representative of an alien being who is hoping to present humanity with a message of hope in the last five years of its existence. Ziggy Stardust is the definitive rock star: sexually promiscuous, wild in drug intake and with a message, ultimately, of peace and love; but he is destroyed both by his own excesses of drugs and sex, and by the fans he inspired. The real-life inspiration for Ziggy was chiefly Vince Taylor. Bowie claimed that the name came from a tailor's shop in London called Ziggy's.
Bowie later told Rolling Stone it was "one of the few Christian names I could find beginning with the letter 'Z'." "Stardust" comes from one of Bowie's labelmates, a country singer named Norman Carl Odam, The Legendary Stardust Cowboy. Bowie covered a Legendary Stardust Cowboy song, "I Took a Trip (On a Gemini Spaceship)" thirty years later on Heathen.
A great addition to any LP collection, this, to me, was Bowie's crowning acheivement.
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