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First, let me say the recent prize for Kendrick Lamar is a game-changer. If I am not mistaken, it is the first PFM awarded for a pop album, and the first for a lyric-based work (i.e., not counting opera or classical vocal pieces as lyrical per se).
It really blurs the boundaries between music and poetry and spoken word like Dylan's winning the Nobel Prize for literature.
I am still digesting the Lamar album--my thought is that it is brilliant and hits you with a sledgehammer. It's not "pretty," but then a lot of art has earthy or profane elements.
What stands out to me is that it achieves greatness in the musical elements, the narrative structure, the poetry and rhymes, and it's authentic. The latter shouldn't be the only reason it won, but all great art should speak some truth about where it's coming from, IMO.
With that in mind, what other albums could one suggest? They shouldn't just be GREAT albums, but they should have all the above elements and be game-changers in their genre.
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04-26-2018 03:39 PM
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Here are a couple of thoughts off the top of my head:
Bob Dylan--there are quite a few possibilities--Highway 61 Revisited or the extremely personal and affecting Blood on the Tracks, a personal favorite. Now that's how you make art out of sadness.
David Bowie's Blackstar--has any musician, at least since Beethoven, ever made so profound a statement about their own impending demise?
Rolling Stones--Exile on Main Street--yes it's just rock'n'roll, but it is really RNR boiled down to its decadent essence. A bit of a sloppy record, but true to life.
OK, we have to include the Beatles. Probably Sgt. Peppers, though not their best album (that would be Revolver), and not really "authentic" in any way, shape or form, but influential?? Let me count the ways...entire generations of musical acts would not exist if not for this album.
I would love to throw Frank Zappa in the mix--to be honest, he never had a perfect album in the sense of the ones above. Overnite Sensation is my favorite by a long-shot, but it's not ambitious intellectually. Joe's Garage might be his most cohesive statement, though musically it's not on a par with many of his other works.
Miles Davis--Ornette won a Pulitzer but not Miles. I would list both Kind of Blue and Bitches Brew as gamechangers and worthy of the prize.
Duke Ellington--never won a Pulitzer either despite writing orchestral-quality works for much of his later career. I'm going to say Live at Newport (1956) is the absolute apex of his group and THE BEST live big band recording ever made. To be honest I'm not so familiar with his longer suites--Black Brown and Beige for instance--but musically it doesn't get any better than Live at Newport.
Louis Armstrong--The Complete Hot 5 and Hot 7 Recordings maybe?
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Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick
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Can't forget about country.
Johnny Cash's Live at Folsum Prison is the goalpost here. "I just wanna tell ya that this show is being recorded for an album release on Columbia Records and you can't say 'hell' or 'shit' or anything like that." Yep, that's right Johnny!
Willie Nelson's Red-Headed Stranger is maybe the most coherent country vision of its day.
Maybe Merle Haggard's I'm a Lonesome Fugitive? Kris Kristofferson's eponymous 1970 album?
And here's some from the ladies:
Emmylou Harris--Red Dirt Girl--her voice has never sounded more emotional or personal than here.
Lucinda Williams--Car Wheels on a Gravel Road--absolute poetry set to music.
Gillian Welch--Time the Revelator--another poet of the prairie.
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OK here's my rough scoring system...
1-3 in each category, 3 being the highest:
Musical quality
Lyrical or intellectual content, i.e., the ideas behind the music
Authenticity
Influence
So for instance I would score Blood on the Tracks as 3-3-3-2, Sgt Pepper's 3-2-1-3, Miles' Bitches Brew 3-3-2-3, etc. Most everything I've listed would hit at least a 9.
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Hmmm, I forgot about Joni Mitchell. Big omission. She could've won for either Blue--her most authentic and personal album--or Court and Spark, the pinnacle of her melody writing and sound.
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Hmmm, will have to think on that...
Originally Posted by newsense
Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick
I think JT's best, most coherent album is Aqualung. (My personal favorite is Minstrel in the Gallery.) Not sure they meet all the criteria I outlined above, but all their early albums are highly enjoyable.
I don't know that the intellectual content of this is on a par with Bob Dylan or even Johnny Cash in his own way, but I could be convinced I guess.
They (JT) already won a Heavy Metal Grammy, what more do they want?
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Stolen from Wikipedia... Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
In 1965, the jury unanimously decided that no major work was worthy of the Pulitzer Prize. In lieu they recommended a special citation be given to Duke Ellington in recognition of the body of his work, but the Pulitzer Board refused and therefore no award was given that year.[3] Ellington responded: "Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be too famous too young." (He was then sixty-seven years old.)[4] Despite this joke, Nat Hentoff reported that when he spoke to Ellington about the subject, he was "angrier than I'd ever seen him before," and Ellington said, "I'm hardly surprised that my kind of music is still without, let us say, official honor at home. Most Americans still take it for granted that European-based music—classical music, if you will—is the only really respectable kind."[5]
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I didn't know that story. Sad. Originally Posted by Papawooly
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Hawkwind's Space Ritual
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Dark Side of the Moon and Abbey Road come to mind.
The greatest event that was captured by album is this. Other events followed but none surpassed.
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As far as Dylan albums go, Blonde on Blonde would be my call.
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AC/DC's Powerage. It has the best lyrics in rocknroll. The music is not bad either
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Läther
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For me this album and the follow up, Ghost Reveries changed everything.
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rightly or wrongly, i considered pulitzer as literary
first thing that jumped to mind was
dylans blood on the tracks!!
but he got a nobel, for stuff like that, so...
cheers
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Well there's a Pulitzer for literature and one for music. The PFM was virtually always awarded to instrumental music, with the exception of the occasional operatic or choral works. Originally Posted by neatomic
Much as I love some of the above albums, I don't think they have the heft or emotional depth of Dylan's Blood on the Tracks for instance. I mean Blonde on Blonde has some great songs, but Dylan is so removed from them...many of them are kind of fantastic images. On Blood he is so naked it's scary. There's an immediacy and intimacy that's just not there on Blonde.
As far as Pink Floyd, I have literally worn out a Dark Side record. However...I don't know that the narrative is as coherent or meaningful as other works discussed above. Alienation? There might be a better case for Wish You Were Here because it addresses the sad history of Syd Barrett more directly than Dark Side. The Wall is also a more literary/cinematic work, though personally I don't like about half of it because it's trite and has been played to death.
I am not familiar with Opeth. Will give it a listen.
Laether is brilliant but not really an integrated work IMO. More of a collage or collection of ideas. I really think Zappa could have gotten a Pulitzer for his orchestral music--it's so unique. I don't think most of the albums captured the essence of his instrumental music (with the caveat I haven't listened to them in awhile), except for maybe Uncle Meat.
Harrison's Bangladesh concert was historic--I haven't given it a listen in a long time--I think one could make more of a case for All Things Must Pass as Pulitzer-worthy, at least the non-jam tracks (which bore me to tears), as a bold, personal artistic statement. It's certainly better than any album done by the other Beatles after the breakup.
AC/DC...well, they are very direct, and some might say rock poets in their own way.
The Pulitzer winners including Kendrick (and Nobel winner Dylan) all have a very serious intent, which I think counts for something. A lot of bands want to rock and have a good time, sometimes with great instrumentals and very clever lyrics, but in the end it's just fun. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
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Leonard Cohen--Songs of Leonard Cohen--another strong contender. Poetry masquerading as folk music.
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Marvin Gaye- What's Going On
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It's hard for me to approach an annual award without considering all relevant work from the same year. All forms of music is a pretty large category to suggest any random work is worthy of the award.
Just to pick the best single jazz album from 1959 would cause a riot.
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I think Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme which was Simon and Garfunkel's 3rd album should be added to the list.
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Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
I like how you think.
Bangladesh was a very important event in a social-global sense. Leonard Cohen was a well published poet who added the realm of music to his works, which was brilliant. His voice, sparse spoken lines, the droning singing, and the beautiful backup singers and musicians pushed his poetry into history.
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Robert Calvert and Michael Moorcock with Hawkwind. Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
Poetry masquerading as rock music!
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Vulfpeck. The silent album.
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I know little about this prize but briefly read about it. It's supposed to be for a composition (as in a single composition) - so an "album" of songs wouldn't apply.
Given that standard I would also vote for Thick As A Brick.
Unless I'm missing something, it seems that Pulitzer broke their standard here. Desperation for cultural relevance?
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