#305: Alive!, KISS Seeing a great live concert is transcendental. I just saw Lady Gaga, Ms. A Star Is Born This Way herself, and every second of the how was quite literally spectacular. Gaga wore cement shoes and played a piano made of vines. She sang her #1 milquetoast hit…

#304: Just As I Am, Bill Withers On this album cover, Bill Withers holds a lunch box looking open and cheerful. There’s something so sweet about his smile that you almost don’t notice the factory lights just behind him, and the fact that he’s carrying a heavy load. RS quotes…

#303: The Definitive Collection, ABBA First of all, a moment of silence for 3Oh!3’s Want, which belongs right here. Some fast ABBA facts: They were the first group to win the Eurovision song contest with “Waterloo.” They were all married and divorced to each other (Agnetha to Bjorn, Anni-Frid to…

#302: Tonight’s the Night, Neil Young Neil Young is taking up a lot of space on the RS 500 list — six albums total. In fact we JUST saw him at #296, Rust Never Sleeps. Lucky for him, I’m hopelessly biased. After recording Harvest, #72, “Everybody was hoping I’d turn…

#301: New York Dolls, New York Dolls There were dirt roads in the town where I grew up. You couldn’t walk anywhere; you needed a car. One summer, I volunteered on a horse farm. It was what you would call “rural America,” which is why when I discovered the New…

#300: Come On Over, Shania Twain This is a milestone record: Not only is it the best-selling studio album by a solo female artist (according to Guinness World Records), it marks me officially being done with 3/5 of the Rolling Stone Top 500 Albums of All Time List. Who has…

#299: Live at the Regal, B.B. King The Wikipedia page for this record quotes a Chicago Tribune article, where B.B. calls this day the day “everything came together.” You can tell how on fire he is just by the reaction of the crowd. In “How Blue Can You Get,” a…

#298: Full Moon Fever, Tom Petty Constantly hitting milestones. This is the final Tom Petty album on the RS 500 list, and I’ll miss him. ELO’s Jeff Lynne helped Petty write and produce this record, his solo debut. I’ve joked before about Petty being petty and not crediting the Heartbreakers…

Review #297: So, Peter Gabriel The RS blurb mentions that Peter Gabriel had a 1982 “hit” called “Shock the Monkey,” which I kind of refuse to believe exists. They fail to mention that that Peter Gabriel was a founding member of freaking Genesis. In fact, I wrote in my note…