Best Albums of All Time

I hinted in my last video about Best Albums of All Time. No - not best songs, but particularly best albums, from the days when albums used to be a thing. I generally don't post click bait Top-14-Best-Things-Everrr but the comment I made had me thinking a bit - what albums have had an effect on me over the course of my life, and what albums have stood the test of time, what are the ones I would play through right now? Let's find out, in my most favourite listenable order!

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1. Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon - 1973 ^{Phase 2} No surprise here, this has been with me since I found it in the late 80's. Only album I have put all songs to fingerstyle. I would still listen to this album once a month, sometimes more.

2. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here - 1975 ^{Phase 2} Also no surprise, I discovered this album at the same time as Dark Side of the Moon. Not much more to say, I also listen to this album once a month. Great album.

3. Fleetwood Mac - Rumours - 1977 ^{Phase 1} Every song stands on its own. Not a concept album like the previous two, but they all link together in such a great way. Well crafted, great album, my dad had me listening to it the moment it came out. Musically this album was very formative.

4. Ween - The Mollusk - 1997 ^{Phase 3} I was put onto this by a friend when it came out, and I couldn't stop listening to it. Another concept album, and another album where each and every song stands on its own. Some dark themes in there, all very progressive rock. Caution - coarse language. Fun fact - the cover was created by Storm Thorgerson, who did a lot of art work for Pink Floyd.

5. Jeff Wayne - War of the Worlds - 1978 ^{Phase 1} Another concept album, imagine that! A science fiction rock opera with recurring motifs and such varied characters. I loved the LP art - I would stare at those pictures as a kid while listening, I felt closer to "being a part of a story" through that music and art than any movie had ever done.

6. ELO - ELO's Greatest Hits - 1979 ^{Phase 1} A collection of great songs, it was my dad that put this music in my head. Wonderful collection of Rock and Electronic perfect for my early teens. Strange that they released a "best of" so early on, there were several albums with great songs after this one. I like all the songs on this album, but it is missing "Don't Bring me Down" - that should have been there!

7. The Presidents of the United States of America - The Presidents of the United States of America - 1995 ^{Phase 3} My wife and I would play this loudly while imbibing a few beverages. It fit perfectly in those early marriage years, just fun and catchy music.

8. Meatloaf - Bat out of Hell - 1977 ^{Phase 1} Just classic rock. Another album my dad put into my head. Lots of emotion, lots of meaning. Each song great listening.

9. Tame Impala - Lonerism - 2012 ^{Phase 3} A band from my home town, this is a great fusion of old school psychedelic rock, catchy pop rock, and interesting synth sounds. One or two songs are a little too far out there for me, but this is an album I can listen to from start to finish anytime. Interestingly, this is the "newest" album on my list, and yet it has an old school sound.

10. Metallica - And Justice for All - 1988 ^{Phase 2} This dropped at the exact time I was ready for this. I didn't like hard heavy metal, but this more pop/rock flavour of heavy metal really worked for me. Full of political commentary which gelled with me at the time, these days not so much. But I could still sing you each song.

11. Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction - 1987 ^{Phase 2} As above, this was released at the right time in my life. One or two songs don't work for me quite as much as the rest, but its relentless beat, and like the above, political and personal commentary, just clicked for me at the time.

12. Jagged Little Pill - Alanis Morissette - 1995 ^{Phase 3} My fondness for this album comes mostly via my wife. Well crafted, razor sharp lyrics - anger abounds - but tempered with the occasional sweeter side.

13. Iron Maiden - Powerslave - 1984 ^{Phase 2} Discovered during the time I was enjoying the heavier side of music. Has a bit of a concept feel to it with its nod to ancient Egypt, the last two songs on the album I can still listen to all day.

14. America - History: America's Greatest Hits - 1975 ^{Phase 1} Another album my dad forced into my brain. Some great songs.

15. Ottmar Liebert - Nouveau Flamenco - 1990 ^{Phase 3} A quirky/wonderful instrumental album that was on constant repeat in a café where my wife and I often had tea and cake.  We had pretty much memorised the whole album before we asked what it was and bought it for ourselves.

16. U2 - The Joshua Tree - 1987 ^{Phase 2} Probably the only album in my list here that is a celebrated "best album of all time" that got so much airplay I bought the album because it was just really good. Side one is a standout, side two doesn't standout but is quite good.

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So I noticed that these albums came into my life over 3 broad periods of time:

• Phase 1 - 5 albums - the 70's stuff my dad caused me to fall in love with when I was young;
• Phase 2 - 6 albums - the stuff I found myself in my late teenage years when I was music focused;
• Phase 3 - 5 albums - the albums I discovered from my 20's until now.

There are a few albums I have not listed on purpose, all great albums, but they exhaust me. Like Pink Floyd The Wall and The Final Cut. There should be at least one Beatles album there, but I find Beatles Albums are always a mixed bag - half brilliant songs, and half don't work for me. Even their greatest hits albums aren't 100% keepers. Same with Queen and Led Zeppelin. Pink Floyd Meddle was a close call, but I only really listen to two of the 5 songs. I was close to putting Midnight Oil Beds are Burning on the list, again, another album at just the right time for my musical sensibilities at the time, but I couldn't listen to the whole album.

👍 JAW

Nut

Quite a while ago, I noticed a bit of a buzz in my main classical guitar, the Esteve 1GR-11. I was quite convinced it was in the body, some wire or something from the pickup. It was very mild, on the D string, and only when I plucked really hard. I occasionally shook it, wiggled wires around when I changed strings, but it was not getting better, in fact it was slowly getting worse!

Test strip of paper and new nut
- will need some filing

When I recorded my most recent song, it was kinda bad, and was also now on the A string. So I really took to it properly this time, torch and mirror in the body and all.  I just couldn't see it.  In desperation I asked my wife - "where do you think this buzz is coming from? She immediately said "it's on the fretboard."

Yer what? No way! But, she was right. And to prove it to myself, I slipped a small square of paper, folded onto itself once, under the string on the nut.  And, with the few thou of extra distance to the fretboard, buzz went away.

It makes sense! The guitar was set up from the factory with nice low action at the nut and the saddle. But after years of tuning, dragging the rough wound string through the nut slot, of course it was going to wear material away.

No problem.  I ordered a bunch of bone nuts, you can get them from AliExpress pre-cut to almost the right size. And in they came. Now I just have to sit down with some sandpaper and a flat edge and slowly file it into place...

What's happening June 2022

I haven't taken any action on the custom guitar neck yet - but I the guitar in pieces ready to go, I need to make a nut. I wish I took the existing neck off before I ordered it, I was sure the fretboard had overhang, but it does not. Means the end of the neck won't butt up against the guitar. Not ideal, but it will still fit. Lesson is - take your neck off for a looksee before your order a custom one!

I posted my response to Paul Davids' "Never Going Back Agai"n challenge, wow that was hard. My final playthrough is not *superb* but that's okay. I'm pertty happy overall with the video I made, it is instructive but short, has comedy elements - it is one of my better talking videos to date. It's good practise to make videos like that, a useful skill to have in this day and age. I'd love to have a media room in my house - all my videos are full of cars going by, kids talking/watching TV in the background, dogs barking - and the lighting is never right. I need a friend who lives nearby with a studio!

I reckon https://youtu.be/v_J51pHPcSI?start=41 is quintessential proof I am Ocker - Paul Hogan would be proud. I also posted The Mii Channel Theme, it's good fun 👍

What's happening May 2022

My custom guitar neck came in! I won't talk about it too much because I am putting together a video about it. Suffice to say, so far so good! The nut dimension is spot on to my specification, the construction and finish is good. People will argue about the fingerboard radius and neck profile ad infinitum, I didn't specify it, I wanted to see what they would come up with. It has a modest fingerboard radius, and a C type neck profile, I may attempt to measure them later. First step will be to make a nut for it, I'll report back on how I go!

Here's a primer photo, straight out of the box, needs a bit of oil to bring out the fretboard colour.

Custom Telecaster neck.

Meanwhile, I am ready to record "Never Going Back Again" but I will post it as some sort of response to Paul's challenge. Did I also mention that I have learnt the Nintendo Wii Mii Channel Theme? That was kinda another challenge. A self imposed challenge I guess. Man it is quirky and fun. I need to record that too. It's a shame I'm in the process of doing a bathroom renovation in my house, where does the time go!?!

Was never going to try that again...but Paul Davids made me

Paul Davids is such a likeable guy.  Good musician, guitarist, video producer - he has a knack for how many words are too many - and are too few.  I've been watching him for years, right back to when he was in his old house...yeah, he started his youtube channel 4 years after me...  He has a quirky accent to boot.

Anyway, he talked about Never Going Back Again, the fantastic (Fleetwood Mac) Lindsey Buckingham fingerstyle piece. From one of the best albums of all time, "Rumours".  It's a complicated piece, and I'd meddled with it decades ago, but never really bothered to properly learn it.  It's one of those pieces that is already completely full, there's no room to add the melody on top - although Kelly Valleau did with a slightly modified tuning.

I haven't felt the need to learn something complete rote for a long time.  But Paul Davids put out a challenge, so I am learning it completely from the sheet.  Paul was nice enough to include tab portions on his video which I bashed into musescore, now it's just play play play until it gets into your head.  It is within my capabilities, and I can play all the phrases.  But there a big problem, which he did point out, and I also experienced while arranging and learning "The Great Gig in the Sky"...you have to hold strange bar chords for long times.

Now you can only really hold constant bar chords for a few minutes at a time, which isn't really enough time to get the Travis picking polyrhythm funky chord positions that the song is into your noggin.

The end result I had with "The Great Gig in the Sky" is play it every time you pick up the guitar, after a few months it will go in.  Luckily this song is repetition of the same and similar phrases, so there is less to learn and you can go through the whole thing more then once in a sitting.

So it shouldn't take me months 👍

$AUD142 experiment

It could be the Covid-19 talking (I'm nearly over it) but with the time at home in isolation I thought, measured, played, thought some more and rashly laid down $AUD(2022)142 for a very custom telecaster neck.  As previously discussed, 42mm necks on electric guitars don't suit my classical guitar mindset and I'm not at a point where I want them to. But because telecasters/copies are a standard design (thanks Leo!) you can get necks off the internet left right and centre. But every one of them a 42mm nut...

"Big Lou" in the US makes really wide necks for teles and strats, good on him! Good price, $100USD but shipping is more than half the price again!

Now since I live near Asia...well, relatively speaking...and Asia makes, well, most everything, I did an experiment on Aliexpress.  I asked around with the fender neck copiers who could make a 48mm nut neck.  (That's your 1 7/8" nut, so the same as a wide acoustic, but smaller than a classical.  With the fat strings on a classical 48mm feels like a good compromise.) One store didn't get back, one said "can't make" and another said "yes".

I have found in the past that you get amazing stuff out of China for the price. They really know what they are doing and do it in massive volumes.  Sure you get junk but you know when it is going to be junk. How about a custom guitar neck? Hmm. My engineering mind tells me the main cutting is done on some sort of CNC machine, so with a fixed program they can churn out hundreds at a time.  But if they don't have the program for something a bit different, how will they go?

 "Detailed" Custom Telecaster neck specification...

The person I dealt with was extremely responsive and friendly and very forthcoming. But alas, I have found even asking for something off the shelf can be difficult with the cultural and language difficulties. So I carefully worded what I was after, and even drew an annotated picture.  They said "48mm is not standard, are you sure?" - so they were paying attention, that is a good sign. The price went up each time I asked for something non-standard (48mm nut, ebony fingerboard) but I went ahead and paid my $142AUD and now I wait 50 days for it to be built - then they will take a photo before sending it!

What did I order? So Telecaster style, finished neck in maple, matt finish, ebony fretboard with no inlays - but side markings at 5, 7, 12, 17, 19 - and most importantly the 48mm nut width.  So yes, it will look a bit like a classical neck!

Let's see what happens, I'll report back later!

Neck nut sizes

The size of the nut on the neck of your guitar pretty much sets the "width" of your neck.  Because I started out on classical guitars, typically 50-52mm (1 15/16" -2") that's what was burnt into my brain. When I was given an electric, at 42mm (1 5/8") I played that with a flatpick, but never really got into it.  In the 90's I bought a Maton acoustic, at 44.5mm (1 3/4") I adapted and played fingerstyle on it for a decade.  But as my fingerstyle grew more complex, I found the neck too narrow and restricting for fingerstyle.  I would play my classical and find it easier, but I struggled to go back to the floppy nylon strings.

I tried a crossover nylon in the 2000's with a nut width of 48mm (1 7/8") and I liked it for a year or two, but once I was re-accustomed to nylon strings I went back to a classical at 52mm (2") nut. Full circle, done.

Now I have a new electric, at 43mm (1 11/16"), yeah, that's really cramped for fingerstyle for me.

Playing solo - I would stick with the classical.  However, when I play in a band that has keyboard, multiple vocals, drums and bass, the classical is lost - it sits too close in sound with the keyboard and the vocals.  Acoustic strummed with a pick fits in nicely because it is super-bright, but I want to do more than strum cowboy chords!

Important distinction: Acoustic with pick (or fingernails) - very bright.  Classical with fingernails, mellow with only a hint of sparkly bright coming through the fingernails.

Another important distinction: Acoustic - tough hard fretting.  Classical - lighter touch fretting, on par with electric guitar fretting.

So to get the electric to fingerstyle playable in a band setting I think I will change the neck over to around 48mm (1 7/8") at the nut.  (Remembering that steel string trebles are nice'n'skinny not like classical, so I don't think you need the full 50-52mm.)

Alternatively, put the classical through a super brightening pedal effect.

I'll get back to experimenting :-)

Guitar	Nut Width     Metric	Nut Width Imperial
Telecaster copy	43mm	1 11/16"
Maton Acoustic	44.5mm	1 3/4"
Crossover Yamaha Nylon	48mm	1 7/8"
Esteve Classical	52mm	2"