Zane Lowe is an unbearably smug son of a turd and if you disagree with that statement then you’ll probably disagree with most of this article. Ever since the days when he was sitting on a badly green-screened couch, chumming up to the Foo Fighters, Lowe has maintained the air of a man whose every musical opinion is based not on a love of music, but on a love of his own opinions on music.
The Smug-Meister-General of BBC Radio 1’s musical output has a long-running tradition of forcing his opinions down the throats of his listeners by choosing a series of “Masterpiece” albums to play, in their entirety, during his show. Thankfully this only happens once a year.
However, things are different this time.
If Zane Lowe thinks that he can force his idea of what makes a musical classic down our throats then we’re going to do the same thing to our readers, hopefully making you realise that this kind of behaviour isn’t okay. We might strap you all down and force the sounds of The Sugababes’ classic “Hole In The Head” into you, or we might just leave a link and some impassioned words from our writers.
We’ll see how we feel.
For those of you who still care about what the people who employ Chris Moyles think, the Radio 1 press person wrote these words to accompany the email:
Each show will include interviews with the artists and others involved in the making of the album, giving a fascinating insight into the stories behind the songs. Zane also takes a look at how each album since its release has influenced other artists with contributors including?Coldplay?s Chris Martin, Blink 182 and Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner.
Chris Martin?! BLINK 182?! ALEX TURNER?! Why, Radio 1, with these leviathans of popular music, you are truly spoiling us but what does the Git-In-Chief have to say about his little collection?
“It gets harder?every year to pick them, but this year’s four?albums each hold a special place in the record collections of many, whilst at the at the same time influencing on many of today’s most successful and brilliant artists.”
It gets harder because you’re trying so hard to look like you know music Zane. The identity of the albums that Lowe has chosen (by committee) isn’t a secret but we genuinely couldn’t care less what they are so you’ll have to look elsewhere for them. Sorry chumps.
Anyway, taking a leaf out of Lowe’s Big Book of Self-Importance, we’ve come up with a list of our ‘masterpiece’ albums. No committee, no real thought. Everybody in the hecklerspray bedsit got the chance to pick one. It’s only fair.
Dare – The Human League
Mof Gimmers: Synthpop was always a ludicrous (gloriously so) genre, which showcased a retrofuturism hatched up in bedsits and motorway cafes by young men with dreadful haircuts and worse clothes. Then, Phil Oakey & Co. realised that they were sitting on something that was plain futuristic and went about making one of the finest, weirdest pop albums ever made. While ‘Don’t You Want Me’ is standard wedding fodder, it’s still a bona fide masterpiece. Backed by the catchier-than-mumps ‘Love Action’, the fierce ‘Sound Of The Crowd’ and the thunderous ‘Do Or Die’, ‘Dare’ is just about the most perfect pop-art LP ever made.
Check Your Head – Beastie Boys
Si Sharp: ?Paul’s Boutique? may have seen them at their lyrical peak, but 1992’s Check Your Head is the grooviest hip-hop album of all time.
Lungs – Florence & The Machine
Joanna Bolouri: Original, beautiful, quirky and downright genius. An album that could bring back longing and joy?to an otherwise dead heart.
Beat Me – Electric Eel Shock
Kris Silver: An album that perfectly sums up this band of Japanese outsiders, fusing pop, punk, metal and comedy to make a collection of riotous, yet still catchy, and often funny songs about everything from politics to fishing.
We Are The Pipettes – The Pipettes
Robin Darke: Failing to invigorate the market with a reinvention of the traditional 60s girl group, this album breathes a modern interpretation into a staple of Motown history; catchy, feminism-infused and highly underrated. Get them before they turn eurodance and shi…oh.
Mr Beast – Mogwai
Michael Park: Mogwai have been producing exceptional album after exceptional album right back to 1997’s ‘Young Team’ but this attempt from 2006 is one of their most accessible. Rolling crescendoes and haunting lulls, what’s not to like?
Actually – The Pet Shop Boys
Sophie Hall: It’s the one with ‘What Have I Done to Deserve This?’ on it – a song which would upgrade ‘Disappointing second Hear’say Album’ to ‘Best contribution to sound in the universe’ in a mere moment.
Hootenanny – The Replacements
Lauren Mullineaux: It might not be their finest album, but it captures a band on the brink of unappreciated greatness and showed the self-deprecating maturity of Westerberg’s lyrics. ?Besides the man is a genius.
Second Toughest In The Infants – Underworld
Matthew Laidlow: Comprising multiple styles from lounge to drum & bass, progressive electro to full-on acid, Second Toughest In The Infants is an album that sounds as fresh today as when it first came out, especially when coupled with the rambling, confusing lyrics of Karl Hyde.
Get them all on one, big Spotify playlist so that you can impress people at parties.
So there you have it, readers. Nine classic albums from the furthest reaches of musical taste (and decency), all delivered to you without the need for a three hour retrospective starring Chris Martin and Alex Turner.
You might not like all of the albums on our list but do feel free to tell us your ‘masterpiece’ albums in the comments. Or slag off Zane Lowe. It’s really up to you.
Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or face dire consequences or ‘Like’ us on Facebook or BUY ONE OF OUR T-SHIRTS OR WE’LL KILL EVERYONE YOU LOVE… & your little dog too!
Roy says
I can honestly say that I don’t think I would ever tire of punching Zane Lowe in the face.
Also, I wish to contribute my personal favourite album of all time as another example of a “Masterpiece” album which is not a huge pile of wank ; Kate Bush’s 1985 magnum opus, “Hounds of Love”.
The first side of the album is a wonderful collection of pop songs, united by pounding drum beats and musings on different forms of love: parental love (Cloudbusting), romantic love (Running Up That Hill) and, everyone’s favourite, sex (the stunning title track). The second side is a different beast altogether, a concept piece called “The Ninth Wave”, documenting the plight of a woman drifting at sea, desperately trying to stay awake as she awaits rescue. Generally regarded as Bush’s greatest work, it’s a truly brilliant record.
Mof Gimmers says
Great choice Roy! Her first LP is really great too! You should try new act Saint Saviour for a (kinda) similar Kate Bush vibe (like that’s not been said before).
Lauren Mullineaux says
I totally almost picked a Mogwai album thus proving that their entire back catalogue is a work of genius. Can we do masterbands next time and just have Mogwai nine times?
Peter Sharples says
Kimono My House. Sparks. That is all.
Paul Fuzz says
Edan – Beauty & The Beat
The readers of NME.com are currently voting for their favourite album of the last 15 years. As I write this, Placebo’s Without You I’m Nothing is at Number 1. This would be be quite reasonable, were it not for the existence of ALL OTHER ALBUMS RECORDED IN THE LAST 15 YEARS.
One of the albums that is at the very least slightly better than Placebo’s Without You I’m Nothing is Edan’s Beauty & The Beat LP, from 2005. A steaming psychedelic stew of 60s acid-rock, gut-bucket funk, and golden-age hip-hop in the Ultramagnetic MCs style, Beauty & The Beat is not a perfect album, but it is by some distance the most convincing marriage of fuzzed psychedelia and old school hip-hop achieved by any artist, and I include De La’s classic 3 Feet High & Rising and Justin Warfield’s excellent My Field Trip To Planet 9 in that analysis.
Thanks for listening. Wu Tang Forever.