The 50 Greatest Beatles Songs.

There isn't much I can say about the Beatles that hasn't already been said, so I won't even try.

Here's a list of their best songs.

1. Strawberry Fields Forever (A-Single, 1967). Pop-Art in the most literal (& successful) sense—a place in which pop music & artistic ambitions meet together in a decidedly unreal field in a childhood reminiscence-turned-daydream. While first & foremost a John Lennon masterpiece, all of the Beatles get a chance to shine—Lennon's alluring vocal & vision, Paul McCartney's soft Mellotron playing & bass underpinning, George Harrison's scribbly guitar fills across the sprawl, & Ringo Starr's heavy, fill-fulled drumming—all of which is further embellished by producer George Martin (the REAL "Fifth Beatle") strings & horns. By the time the song fades away & comes back in its surprising, backwards coda, Art seems to win the day, but only because the Pop set it up so perfectly. For one brief, shining moment in the months leading up to Sgt. Pepper, all of the Beatles' contradictions are resolved in a very real way—in a song where nothing is real.

2. I Want To Hold Your Hand (A-Single, 1963). The Song That Introduced The Beatles To The World. After 4 major singles—the self-centered "Love Me Do" & "Please Please Me," followed by "From Me to You," & then the more external "She Loves You"—they came up with this, "I Want to Hold Your Hand," writing to a still-unknown American audience by shattering the wall between performer & listener in a gesture of innocence that held far greater implications. "Hey Jude" may have been bigger & "She Loves You" may have been better, but "I Want To Hold Your Hand" captures the spirit of Beatles' initial promise like no other—a rock & roll version of JFK's inaugural speech, arriving just in time to lift the spirits of a nation still stunned by his recent assassination. Plus, Bob Dylan misheard it as a drug song & started to think about getting his own band together...

3. Yesterday (Help!, 1965). The most covered song in the history of recorded music. When McCartney first crafted it (substituting "scrambled eggs" for the still-unknown titular word), he spent the next little while playing it for friends, unconvinced that he had actually written it. For "Yesterday" is the rare song that seems to have appeared all but fully-sprung, instantly familiar in a way that was nearly obvious, but ultimately singular. Millions of songs have been written about breakups, but few have put it so simply or elegantly as "Yesterday"—a tale of love being transferred from a person to a memory. It is also the first real "solo" "Beatles" song, with McCartney playing it on an acoustic guitar backed by Martin's strings. Presumably for this reason, it remained a title track in their home country, but America knew better & released it as a Beatles single, where it became a major #1 hit.

4. Hey Jude (A-Single, 1968). The biggest hit of the Beatles career. Slated as a single from the moment it was written, "Hey Jude" has become so overplayed that it's easy to lose sight of what a great song it is. Lennon once reckoned it his partner's greatest song—& even made a few touches of his own, such as telling McCartney to leave the meaningless but effective line "The movement you need is on your shoulder." Rarely has The Beatles as an interacting band been so fully on display which, Lennon's incompetent bass-playing aside (you can hear him say "bloody hell" at one point), cashed in on their exuberance & charisma. & then of course, there's the famous "Nah-Nah-Nah" chorus (running a minute longer than the song itself), which would cement the song's legend & marks the point at which the Beatles found their way back from the diamond sky of psychedelic rock.

5. A Day In The Life (Sgt. Pepper, 1967). The pinnacle of their most towering achievement, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Rarely had the Lennon/McCartney partnership at the heart of The Beatles been on such display, as Lennon's haunting folk dirge gives way to McCartney's carefree pop morning narrative, held together by Martin's storming strings on one side & an effective dreamlike reverie on the other, as gestating chord changes lower the song until it finally lands back into Lennon's now-hurried fragment. An apocalyptic crescendo of strings follows, before scurrying up into dead silence, broken by all four Beatles hitting all of the strings on four separate pianos. As some like to tell it, it's the most accomplished work ever produced by the Beatles—& by extension, rock & roll music itself.

6. Something (Abbey Road, 1969). The second-most-covered Beatles song, & George Harrison's masterpiece. Unconsciously borrowing a phrase from then-Apple artist James Taylor's "Something in the Way She Moves," Harrison spun his best-known Beatles song, a stately appreciation of love & affection. Once seen as "the eager younger brother" of the Beatles, by this point he had more than blossomed into his own, & with songs such as this, was quickly rivaling the songcraft of Lennon & McCartney. Tellingly, the song became the only Harrison song to be released on a single in the UK, as its sly mix of ballad verses & a rocking bridge were held together by Harrison's searing guitar work. As McCartney has noted, it would become a favorite of Frank Sinatra, who called it his "favorite Lennon/McCartney song."

7. In My Life (Rubber Soul, 1965). If you ever wondered if John Lennon was an old soul, look no further than this song. Although he was only about 25 when he wrote it, "In My Life" is one of pop music's finest ruminations on life, love, & loss—at once tentative & searching, while also serious & resolute. The way in which the song resolves on the singer's lover only helps it to come into focus & land smoothly, anchoring the entire performance with an earnestness that belies Lennon's usually-tough persona. Throw in Martin's harpsichord rendition of a Bach fugue (sped up to match the song's pitch) as a break, & you have a song that unites past, present, & future in its music just as much as its lyrics.

8. She Loves You (A-Single, 1963). The Song That Launched The First Wave of Beatlemania. Before "She Loves You," The Beatles were a lucky band with one number-one song ("From Me To You"); after "She Loves You," they were the most famous people in England, had played for the Royal Family, & were primed to take on the world. They also did some legendary phrase-making as "Yeah, yeah, yeah" became the rallying cry of rock fans everywhere. But it's the smaller things—the clever double-rhymes in the verses, the drum roll that sets up the excitement of the refrain, the chiming lead guitar that plays cat-&-mouse with the melody—that make it effortlessly combine into as big of a thrill as would be heard in '60s pop music. Even if "I Want To Hold Your Hand" would become the more iconic song internationally, this is the song that made everything possible in the first place—& it packs the cooler rush.

9. Let It Be (A-Single, 1970). The Swan Song. The closest The Beatles ever came to gospel was this, written at a time when the band was fracturing beyond repair & inspired by a real-life dream McCartney had of his mother, Mary. Much of The Beatles' finest music had an uncanny ability to mirror the feeling of the time in which it was released in the 1960s, & 1970's "Let It Be" was no different—providing a spiritual comedown for what had been an often fast & tumultuous decade. Meanwhile, the song itself was one of the most beautiful the group would ever record, effortlessly blending a confessional ballad with Harrison's hard-rock solo, which in turns leads to everything being stripped down for the final verse. Like The Beatles themselves, it wasn't just a song—it was an epic.

10. Come Together (Abbey Road, 1969). Perhaps the finest example of The Beatles' late-period ability to make hard rock music on their own terms, "Come Together" has become one of their most-enduring anthems. Built around Lennon's stream-of-conscious lyrics & McCartney's slippery bassline, the song worked not just as a record but as an idea—come together—that some say was conceived as a presidential campaign theme song for Timothy Leary. & at the top of it all are those eerily prophetic two words that summed the chaos of the late-'60s with one of rock's greatest tragedies a little over a decade later: Shoot me.

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11. Penny Lane (A-Single, 1967). The flipside of "Strawberry Fields" (both literally & figuratively), in the form of McCartney's boyhood memories, which become more & more surreal with every listen—& though she feels as if she's in a play, she is anyway.

12. Can't Buy Me Love (A-Single, 1964). The crown jewel of A Hard Day's Night mature Beatlemania sound's contagious joy; also the first song in history to be #1 simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic.

13. All You Need Is Love (A-Single, 1967). Beginning with the French national anthem & ending with a reprise of "She Loves You," an advance thesis on the hope of the '60s, laid out with a singular logic that felt as essential then as it seems dated now.

14. While My Guitar Gently Weeps ("The White Album," 1968). The meditative Beatle's heaviest meditation—with an uncredited assist on weeping guitar by God (good buddy Eric Clapton).

15. Tomorrow Never Knows (Revolver, 1966). The most radical song of The Beatles' career, which marked the beginning of the modern '60s in backwards tape loops & epic voices paraphrasing The Book of the Dead from on high (spiritually & chemically).

16. Help! (Single, 1965). The title track of their second film & the song that kept Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" from reaching #1—& yet, there's an astonishing amount of sound & confession that rushes by in its two minutes, all centered around Lennon's central plea, which epitomized what he would later dub his "Fat Elvis" period.

17. Here Comes The Sun (Abbey Road, 1969). An invocation of optimism conceived, written, & recorded just as The Beatles could hardly speak to each other—but you'd never know it from the sound.

18. Norwegian Wood (Rubber Soul, 1965). Featuring rock's first sitar, it was such a breakthrough in artsy production & deadpan mood that it was easy to miss the punchline at the end where the singer burns down the girl's house.

19. Revolution (B-Single, 1968). The central founding document of Lennon's radicalism that would define the rest of his career, some two decades before it was infamously licensed to sell sneakers.

20. I Saw Her Standing There (Please Please Me, 1963). Introduced to most Americans as the flipside to "I Want To Hold Your Hand," this was an early masterpiece of the early Beatles' sound & vision, as McCartney's earnest enthusiasm ("She was just 17...") was balanced by Lennon's sly wit ("...you know what I mean").

21. Ticket to Ride (A-Single, 1965). A plodding, almost uncommercial song that helped signal the change from light pop to heavier rock, held in place by Starr's off-kiltered yet on-point drumming.

22. Eleanor Rigby (Revolver, 1966). McCartney full immersion into classical music & themes—a tale of a spinster who "wears a face that she keeps in a jar by the door" & received McCartney's sharpest set of lyrics to date.

23. I Feel Fine (A-Single, 1964). A perfect single to cap a perfect year &—with the buzzing feedback that kicks it off—The Beatles' first step into experimentalism.

24. Yellow Submarine (Revolver, 1966). The best "Ringo song" in The Beatles' catalog because it's fun like a novelty, charming like a children's song, & a natural #1 hit (in the UK, at least).

25. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (Sgt. Pepper, 1967). Lennon's psychedelic period in full-blossom, & for many, the most quintessential acid-rocker of them all.

26. A Hard Day's Night (A-Single, 1964). Spinning one of Ringo's signature expressions into a pop song, the group simultaneously provided the perfect exciting counterpart to their first feature film.

27. Here, There, & Everywhere (Revolver, 1966). McCartney balladry at its finest—sophisticated, mature, earnest.

28. I Am The Walrus (B-Single, 1967). Lennon's farthest, darkest, & final fully-psychedelic masterpiece is one of his finest—& weirdest—rockers, as haunting strings bend & bow for confounding yet perfect abstract lines like "Corporation T-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday."

29. Eight Days A Week (Beatles For Sale, 1964). Hailed by some as their most beautiful pop song, Lennon apparently hated it & refused to allow it to be issued as a single in the UK; their loss is our gain, as it hit #1 for two weeks on the US charts in early 1965.

30. Please Please Me (A-Single, 1963). Their first #1 hit (on 2 out of 3 of the UK music charts—unfortunately the third would become the official one) & the most shrewdly-disguised argument for oral sex in rock & roll history.

31. You Never Give Me Your Money (Abbey Road, 1969). One bookend of Abbey Road's "long medley," this caught McCartney at his best—crafting songs like a patchwork quilt of ideas, holding them together with good humor & sincerity.

32. All My Loving (With The Beatles, 1963). With its infectious walking bassline & sophisticated modulations, one of the earliest signs of The Beatles' hidden potential as songwriters; is it any wonder they chose it as the first song they performed on The Ed Sullivan Show?

33. Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite! (Sgt. Pepper, 1967). Lennon gets high, crawls into a circus poster, & asks Martin for a circus sound so real that you could smell the sawdust. Mission accomplished.

34. Taxman (Revolver, 1966). Harrison's sardonic wit comes to the core of this, his first (& only) album-starter; although it's Harrison's show, McCartney nearly steals it from him with that front-&-center bassline & his startling, sizzling lead guitar solo.

35. Happiness Is A Warm Gun ("The White Album," 1968). Proof that "The White Album" was more than just a preview of their solo careers—here was a working band making sure that Lennon's disparate song pieces flowed together naturally, effortlessly, & somehow, logically.

36. Nowhere Man (Rubber Soul, 1965). Taking a cue from Dylan, Lennon writes a "finger-pointing" song of his own, helping to etch the "us vs. them" line that would define the counterculture.

37. I've Just Seen A Face (Help!, 1965). One of the finest from McCartney's sudden burst of songwriting towards the end of the Help! project (& surely would've been included in the film if completed earlier), but best known to American audiences as the lead cut off of the US Rubber Soul.

38. Blackbird ("The White Album," 1968). I recently learned that McCartney's stark ballad was to show solidarity with the American Civil Rights movement, but its beauty transcends any one specific purpose or inspiration.

39. Rain (B-Single, 1966). The flipside of "Paperback Writer" that is generally held in higher esteem, in part from the freshness guaranteed by its obscurity & in part from its innovation—featuring the first backwards tape in rock (upon first hearing the technique by accident, Lennon reportedly wanted to release the entire song backwards before compromising with just having it at the coda).

40. We Can Work It Out (A-Single, 1965). An invocation of good-natured compromise, just on the brink of when the '60s would become an all-or-nothing game.

41. Back In The U.S.S.R. ("The White Album," 1968). The greatest Beach Boys parody ever executed—& rock's smartest song about the Soviet Union.

42. Drive My Car (Rubber Soul, 1965). The original rocking kickoff to what is generally considered the "mellow & folky" Beatles album.

43. I'll Be Back (A Hard Day's Night, 1964). The closer of The Beatles' first album of entirely self-composed songs & a stunner, charting the course towards the following year's Rubber Soul.

44. I'm Only Sleeping (Revolver, 1966). A lovely, lazy shuffle celebrating the wonders of falling asleep—with a little help from production values & a newfound psychedelic perspective.

45. Get Back (A-Single, 1969). A raucous two-chord wonder about life, home, & transvestitism.

46. Got To Get You Into My Life (Revolver, 1966). The Beatles' exuberance makes the jump into psychedelic rock in seven words or less: "I was alone, I took a ride..."

47. Lady Madonna (A-Single, 1968). McCartney's ode to motherhood wrapped in a Fats Domino sound so infectious, the Fat Man himself enjoyed his final Top 100 hit with a cover of it.

48. If I Fell (A Hard Day's Night, 1964). The stellar 3-part harmonies of "This Boy," applied to a song that was actually worth listening to.

49. Paperback Writer (A-Single, 1966). A study in production values built around a song that was so trivial even Lennon & Harrison can be heard singing "Frere Jacques" over the last verse.

50. Across The Universe (Let It Be, 1969). Lennon's cryptic beauty centered around an even more cryptic refrain "Jai guru deva om," which roughly translates to "glory to the shining remover of darkness."

The 50 Greatest American Albums.

Nowhere is America freer than in its music.

Over the centuries, songs have passed between the races, over the terrains, through the social levels, & around on phonograph records. Like the finest American artifacts, authenticity falls flat as a vastly more complex melting pot of people, ideas, & songs take shape. But what are the finest examples America has to offer of this? I've seen lists of the best rock albums, pop albums, soul albums, jazz albums, blues albums, etc., but rarely one that went by country of origin, as opposed to style or genre. But what are the greatest American albums of all-time? 

What follows is my humble attempt to answer just that. I tried to keep it as "free" as I could—my only restrictions being that it had to be music (i.e., no spoken word), commercial (i.e., no field recordings), & in its "best" representation (hence for things like Armstrong's Hot Fives & Sevens & Elvis's Sun recordings, I tried to find the most definitive modern issue). The rest was totally open. So here's a list of rock, pop, R&B, soul, rap, country, folk, gospel, blues, cajun, & more.

If American music is a temple to freedom, these 50 artifacts laid its foundation.

1. The Anthology of American Folk Music, Various Artists [Edited by Harry Smith].

The years between 1926-1932 were a watershed in American History, a time between the wars in which many of the hallmarks of modern America took place—the Jazz Age crashed into the Depression, Henry Ford introduced (& sold over 4 million of) the Model A, the Great Flood wreaked havoc on the Mississippi, Lindbergh flew solo across the Atlantic, talking motion pictures were introduced, & FDR was elected.

But amongst all of this forward-looking culture was a group of people collectively looking back—to the 19th century, to the old country, to an old way of life that once was, could've been, or never was. Thanks to then-recent advances in recording technology (i.e., the electric microphone, among other things), "folk" music was being recorded commercially for the first time. &, to virtually everyone's surprise, it sold. Pretty damn well. This was in part because a large number of people buying these records didn't own record players, but got them anyway as a token of their culture.

There was old mountain ballads, country blues, rural spirituals, reels, two-steps, waltzes, archaic shape-note singers, unintelligible cajun tunes, love songs, jail songs, work songs, drinking songs, comedy songs, protest songs, preaching songs—& many several at once. For modern ears today, there are many simply weird songs—country & field hollers with surreal lyrics that came down from generation to generation, changing slightly with each new telling. The coo-coo is a pretty bird, she warbles, as she flies; but she never, hollers coo-coo, 'til the Fourth of July.

Thousands of these records were made, & then forgotten about, cut off by World War II as a relic of old times gone by. Then, in 1952, folklorist Harry Smith took his own collection of 78 RPM folk records & created the Anthology of American Folk Music, three double-record sets of 84 folk songs, meticulously & lovingly arranged: The first volume, Ballads, were American versions of old European ballads, placed in order & brought up-to-date by the inclusion of more recent event songs about the McKinley assassination, the Titanic, & Stagger Lee; the second volume, Social Music, was one disc of dance music followed by one disc of religious music; the third volume, Songs, was two discs of music that couldn't be easily classified any which way. Some of the collection's most enduring songs—Clarence Ashley's "The Coo-Coo," Bascom Lamar Lunsford's "I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground," & Rabbit Brown's "James Alley Blues"—come from this volume.

Smith saw this music as a true American melting pot & was careful not to put any of the performers' race or genre on the set's liner notes, creating a veiled country in which someone's race & social standing could be as free as the music coming out of a 78 record.

The album became the founding document of the early-'60s folk boom, as kids like Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, & Roger McGuinn pored over copies, trying to figure out tunings, words, & meaning, incorporating much of it into their own modern American rock sound.

Because, if there's anything that the seemingly backward-looking music of the Anthology of American Folk Music shows us, it's that the finest American music stands at a crossroads—reaching deep into the past, while simultaneously charting the way towards the future.

2. Louis Armstrong: The Complete Hot Five & Hot Seven Recordings.

This is where music in America became American music. The sound achieved by Louis Armstrong's original Hot Five may not have invented jazz, but it perfected the sound.  Specifically, the triple lead parts of Armstrong's trumpet, Kid Ory's trombone, & Johnny Dodds's clarinet kept the sound cooking with an orderly chaos, instruments weaving in & out of each other, in a way that somehow felt at once orderly & improvised. Throw in Armstrong's charismatic vocals & you have a music that bears the fruit of extensive expertise, but casually knocked off in late-night sessions where almost anything could happen—& did. There was the groundbreaking scatting of "Heebie Jeebies," the virtuosity of "West End Blues," the beauty of "St. James' Infirmary"—& countless more, all classics in their own right & all in the versions that would solidify them as jazz standards in the decades to come. If America is truly the cradle of freedom, this is the first music to rock the cradle.

3. Sunrise, Elvis Presley.

At less than 20 songs of originally-released material, this is one of the cornerstones of American music. Like Louis Armstrong, Elvis didn't invent the music so much as he mastered it & perfected it as an art form for others to follow.  If Elvis is the biggest figure in America's biggest music, it's striking how small these founding documents are. At the center of the Sun recordings are 10 perfect sides—5 R&B songs backed by 5 country sides—that combined run less than 25 minutes. But with tunes like "That's All Right," "Good Rockin' Tonight," & "Mystery Train," this is about as rich as music gets, as you hear so many conflicting elements—blues & country, electric & acoustic, rural & urban, black & white—impossibly & effortlessly united by ELVIS. The most comprehensive collection of this music is the inexplicably out-of-print Sunrise, which has all of the masters, as well as at least one alternate take of each song, as well as early demos & live recordings, many of which were unreleased at the time. But if you ever need confirmation of the King of Rock & Roll's genius, just put on the first disc of masters & hear the music once again for the first time. & what a rush it is.

4. Lady in Satin, Billie Holiday.

The most controversial album by America's greatest singer, Lady in Satin has long divided its audiences & critics—& for obvious reasons.  Holiday was far past her prime by the time she made these records & it shows in every gravely twist of every nuanced word. But Holiday's chief innovation to popular music was to bring the emotion of the song to the forefront, not simply singing the song but performing it, akin to how an actor might read their lines. Songs like "I'm a Fool for You," "You've Changed," & "I'll Be Around" aren't just heard but felt—often devastating torch ballads handpicked by Lady Day herself. Everyone from Frank Sinatra & Elvis on down has been influenced by her in one way or another, & this, her final masterwork, plays just like it sounds: A world-weary master standing at the end of a long road. It is also, not coincidentally, the work that she felt was the finest of her career.

5. Songs for Swingin' Lovers!, Frank Sinatra.

There are two sides of America, & Sinatra caught them both—& in a row, at that. There is the late-night, failed & lonely, what-coulda-been lament that he captured in his first full-length album, In the Wee Small Hours, & there is the bright-&-shiny exuberance of his follow-up, Songs for Swinging Lovers! From the opening "You Make Me Feel So Young" through timeless classics like Gershwin's "Love Is Here to Stay" & Porter's "I've Got You Under My Skin," the music is as joyful as In the Wee Small Hours was stark. Sinatra's vocals—bold, blunt, offhanded, cocky, charming—were at the height of their power & conductor Nelson Riddle gave him perhaps the finest canvas he would ever grace in his long career. For it is Sinatra's voice that drives the album, a seemingly effortless extension of his personality & style. I mean, no matter who they are, everybody likes at least one Sinatra song. It would be almost un-American not to.

6. Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan.

From the gunshot drum-hit opening "Like a Rolling Stone" through the surreal, winding finale of "Desolation Row," this is easily the most influential American album of the rock & roll era, & arguably the finest (really only Pet Sounds could challenge it). It was Dylan's first fully-electric album, released around the time he was plugging in at the Newport Folk Festival, & it captured the thrill & fury of his music—an endlessly fascinating sprawl of abstract poetry set to shambling garage rock that few would ever top, including Dylan himself. "Like a Rolling Stone" has since been voted the Greatest Rock & Roll Song of All-Time by Rolling Stone (natch!), but that's just the tip of the iceberg, as even ballads like "It Takes a Lot To Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" & "Ballad of a Thin Man" show that Dylan could be just as terminal even when things were slowed down. So, how does it feel? Pretty damn epic.

7. Never No Lament: The Blanton-Webster Band, Duke Ellington.

If Louis Armstrong was jazz music's heart—all spirit & joy—Duke Ellington was its mind—measured, considered, accomplished. Like Bloom's reckoning of Dante & Shakespeare, Armstrong & Ellington divide the jazz world, & between them, there is no third. These are the finest fruit of jazz's finest composer. They cover what is generally considered the finest period of Ellington's ever-fluctuating big band, named for bassist Jimmy Blanton & tenor saxophonist Ben Webster, in the period in which they overlapped between 1940-1942. It is, then, big band music perfected, with "Jack the Bear," "Ko Ko," "Cotton Tail," & Ellington's signature "Take the A Train." Like Armstrong's Hot Fives & Sevens, all are classics in their own right, & all refuse to be anything other than timeless.

8. Thriller, Michael Jackson.

It used to be that rock was rock & pop was pop.  Not so after Michael Jackson came along.  Arriving just as rock & roll's central narrative was splintering at the seams, spinning into classic R&B, dance-floor funk, rap recitations, heavy metal guitars, & a thousand more subcategories of subcategories, Jackson did something unimaginable: He brought them all together in one place, Thriller, which still stands as the greatest-selling album of all-time.  The songs of Thriller have become so ubiquitous that it's hard to hear how great (& innovative) they truly are—the cool funk of "Billie Jean," the street-smarts of "Beat It," the B-movie extravaganza of the title track.  There is not a dull moment in the pack, & to be sure, it became the template for countless other performers, with varying levels of success.  But Thriller stands above them all.

9. Precious Lord: Recordings of the Great Gospel Songs of Thomas A. Dorsey, Various Artists.

Thomas A. Dorsey began his career as blues singer Georgia Tom, scoring a major hit in 1928 with the innuendo-filled "Tight Like That." Four years later, upon learning of the death of his wife & unborn child, & wrote "Precious Lord, Take My Hand." In true gospel style, he was a man reborn, & in time would become "the father of black gospel music." Fast-forward some 40 years & you have this album, a two-LP set in which Dorsey leads a band playing his signature hits with the cream of the gospel singing crop bringing them to life. There's rocking gospel (Alex Bradford's "It's a Highway to Heaven"), tight vocal groups (the Dixie Hummingbirds' "Hide Me in Thy Bosom"), & slow, meditative spirituals (Marion Williams on the title track). It's arguably America's finest gospel album—a standing further cemented by its presence in the Library of Congress's inaugural class of the National Recording Registry.

10. King of the Delta Blues Singers, Robert Johnson.

Did Robert Johnson actually sell his soul to the Devil in exchange for his amazing blues musicianship?  We'll probably never know, but that doesn't matter—American myth has always proven greater than American truth, probably because it's always bigger. For, when you listen to mini-epics ("songs" feels like too tame of a word) like "Cross Road Blues," "Ramblin' on My Mind," "Stones in My Passway," & "Hell Hound on My Trail," it sure as hell sounds like a deal has been made with Satan (& bragged about in "Me & the Devil Blues"). This was music on a dark road that never ended, where any hope was sacrificed by pain, terror, & regret. Is it any wonder that everyone ever since (including Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, & Eric Clapton, among scores more) couldn't get enough of it?

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11. Sings the Cole Porter Songbook, Ella Fitzgerald. In terms of range, pitch, & elocution, Ella Fitzgerald was probably the finest singer America has ever produced. & in terms of a songwriter working independently (as opposed to a music/lyricist pair), Cole Porter was probably the finest songwriter America ever produced. Put them together here, & with results like "Night & Day," "I Get a Kick Out of You," & "I've Got You Under My Skin," you have the American pop in its Platonic form.

12. At Folsom Prison, Johnny Cash. If America could talk, it might have a voice like Johnny Cash's. Loud, forceful, & fearless, yet also able to spin a joke & tall-tale. When Cash recorded this, he met his match in the inmates of the California prison—indeed, just listen to the wild screams that follow his stone-cold "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die." 

13. I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, Aretha Franklin. Lady Soul hit the ground running with this, her debut album for Atlantic Records. Songs like the title track & "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man," pushed the fervor of the sacred into the bedroom of the secular creating a sound. Throw in the timeless love-as-political anthem "Respect," & you have a record that is at once masterful & timeless.

14. A Love Supreme, John Coltrane. Jazz as a sermon, meticulously conceived by one of its masters. It is somehow ethereal & focused, divine & rooted, & high-concept but easily accessible. The sound of Coltrane's horn is perfectly complemented by his combo's deft touch—& the result arguably beats rock's "concept album" by a few years.

15. Pet Sounds, The Beach Boys. The finest LP by an American pop group of all-time, which perfected the rock album & inspired Sgt. Pepper, among countless other things. From the transcendent "Wouldn't It Be Nice" through the Caribbean folktale "Sloop John B." & the divine grace of "God Only Knows," few would ever top it.

16. Live at the Apollo, James Brown. Nobody would finance a live album for James Brown, so he paid for it himself. & thank God that he did. The result is the finest live album in rock, with the Godfather of Soul earning his title with every strut, grunt, & plea. The extended "Lost Someone" is rightfully praised, but I love how he suddenly breaks into "Please, Please, Please" at the drop of a hat.

17. Bing: His Legendary Years, 1941-1957, Bing Crosby. Four discs of the most influential vocalist in American history, who changed everything by plugging in a microphone & turning the belting-to-the-back-of-the-theater sound of the acoustic age into the quiet, sexy croon of the electric age. Songs like "Swinging on a Star" would make his legend, but it was his original version of "White Christmas" that remains the biggest-selling recording of all-time.

18. Live at Carnegie Hall, Judy Garland. Take one legend at her height, put her in Carnegie Hall in front of adoring fans, & record the whole thing. The result is a best-selling & Grammy Award-winning hit, which is considered by many to be the finest night of American entertainment ever captured.

19. Kind of Blue, Miles Davis. Miles Davis assembled one of the finest quintets in jazz history (including John Coltrane, Julian "Cannonball" Adderly, & Bill Evans, among others) & produced this, an uncompromised, meditative album of beautiful solitude & blissful rumination. It also just happens to be the best-selling jazz album of all-time.

20. 40 Greatest Hits, Hank Williams. In 1949, Hank Williams became the first country singer to get 6 encores at the Grand Ole Opry; four years later, he was banned from the institution & dead at 29. This set contains the father of modern country music, its finest (& wittiest) songwriter, & a haunted performer all wrapped up in one, represented by signatures like "Move It Over," "Lovesick Blues," & "Your Cheatin' Heart."

21. What's Going on, Marvin Gaye. Motown's biggest-selling album turned on, tuned in, & dropped out—then surfaced with a sermon cloaked in a concept album. At first Motown refused to release it; when they finally relented, it became their best-selling LP—eyes looking towards heaven, but soul weary as hell.

22. The Best of Muddy Waters. A crib sheet to the master of the electric blues, & some of the most influential music ever waxed. "Rollin' Stone" alone would in time lend itself to rock's finest song, most enduring band, & definitive magazine. Meanwhile, classics like "I'm Your Hoochie-Coochie Man" & "I Just Want to Make Love to You" are stone-cold standards of the modern blues.

23. Dust Bowl Ballads, Woody Guthrie. A State of the Union, c. 1935, as told by a folk-poet chronicling the apocalypse. This was singer-songwriter music in its rawest (& finest) form, with all of the grit & grime of the Oklahoma plains. "The Great Dust Storm" best told the tale, but it's "I Ain't Got No Home" & Dusty Old Dust" that have become the classics. It was an album with sullen faces here, gallows humor there, & dust everywhere else.

24. The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The portrait of the artist as a young folksinger, which all but doubles as a greatest hits of Dylan's early period. On his first album comprised (almost entirely) of original material, he would make his legend on "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," "Masters of War," & the Civil Rights anthem "Blowin' in the Wind," which he claims to have written in 10 minutes.

25. Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen. With the swagger of Elvis, the imagery of Dylan, & the dense soundscapes modeled on Phil Spector (plus a tip of the hat to Roy Orbison), rock & roll's prodigal son gets one last chance to make it real—& on tunes like "Thunder Road" & the title track—gets it.

* * *

26. The Complete Savoy & Dial Master Takes, Charlie Parker. Jazz broken apart & reassembled as bop, by the man who would define the sound; the future starts here.

27. Lady Day: The Master Takes & Singles, Billie Holiday. Hear Holiday go full blossom from a featured performer to a vocal legend, like the gardenia that adorned her hair.

28. Are You Experienced, Jimi Hendrix. Rock's finest debut & guitar's greatest genius takes acid (& music) as far as it can go in 1967.

29. Oklahoma!, Original Cast Recording. The first modern musical soundtrack—& as some like to tell it, the finest ever.

30. It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back, Public Enemy. Rap music's Sgt. Pepper is never badder than bad cuz a brother is madder than mad at the fact it's corrupt like a senator...

31. Time Out!, Dave Brubeck. A rare time when the popular audience was ahead of the critics, recognizing the exploration of odd time signatures in clever songs that never tire.

32. Where Did You Sleep Last Night?, Lead Belly. With the title track, grunge-tested & folklorist-approved—& for my money, the finest history of rock & roll you will ever hear.

33. Mingus Ah Um, Charles Mingus. A survey of African American music as led by jazz's most visionary bassist.

34. The Early Years, Bert Williams. The most famous American you've never heard of—an African American blackface performer who helped invent pop music (while perfecting deadpan humor).

35. Elvis' Golden Hits, Elvis Presley. "Hound Dog," "Heartbreak Hotel," "Don't Be Cruel," & all the rest of his peak, just before the Army came & stole his crown.

36. West Side Story, Original Soundtrack Recording. Romeo & Juliet recast as a pop opera in New York City's Puerto Rican & American gangs singing—yet somehow it all works.

37. The Essential Jimmie Rodgers. "The Singing Brakeman" founds country music as we know it with a wink & a strum—& that signature high yodel.

38. Live at Carnegie Hall, Benny Goodman. Jazz goes uptown in the music's coming-out party, led by its greatest white innovator.

39. The Great Twenty-Eight, Chuck Berry. With "Maybellene," "Roll Over Beethoven," & "Johnny B. Goode"—the finest telling of the American Dream I've ever heard.

40. Nevermind, Nirvana. Punk breaks, thanks to a Seattle trio led by a loser who used to live under a bridge & a little ditty called "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

41. Will the Circle Be Unbroken, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. A history of country music as told by some of its masters—& the kids they inspired—in a triple-LP set that lives up to its title.

42. Like a Prayer, Madonna. Is there a dancefloor in the church or a church in the dancefloor? Either way, the answer is the Queen of Pop's masterpiece.

43. Live at Regal, B.B. King. Electric blues finest album, led off by "Every Day I Have the Blues," but crescendoing with "How Blue Can You Get?"

44. Red-Headed Stranger, Willie Nelson. A quiet song-cycle about a murderous preacher that all but solidified the '70s "outlaw" country sound.

45. Porgy & Bess, Original Cast Recording. Two New York Jews dream of life in the South, where the livin' is easy...

46. The Ramones. 1-2-3-4! As in: 1 sound, 2 minutes, 3 chords, 4 sick bubblegum singers posing as brothers—& inventing punk.

47. Star Wars Soundtrack, John Williams. Voted the finest film soundtrack of all-time by the American Film Institute, & who's to argue with them? The LP that launched a thousand ringtones.

48. In the Wee Small Hours, Frank Sinatra. The Voice's other side—melancholy, looking into an empty glass, & crooning "One for My Baby (& One for The Road)."

49. Cajun Dance Party: Fais Do-Do, Various Artists. Included for Amede Adroin's 6 Columbia songs (canjun's earliest commercial recordings), buttressed by other early masters.

50. Let Me Sing & I'm Happy, Al Jolson. America's most popular singer of the first half the 20th Century shows off his charisma in these tunes taken from his earliest talkies.