I have a theory that twelve is the best number of tracks for an album. The Never Mind the Bollocks review beneath this on the blog has encouraged me to start a series related to that idea. It, after all, has twelve tracks and is a rather good record. So here are eleven more, Bollocks will appear again later during the countdown. Ten is also good, plenty of classic albums with five on a side, (perhaps an idea for a later series further down the line). But even is definitely better than odd. Stone Roses, Are You Experienced, Rumours, Ziggy and Hunky Dory are perfectly great records to anyone's ears, but they're slightly hamstrung by only having eleven tracks. Perfectly good for a football team, not quite right for an album. The Kick Inside has thirteen which in itself make it highly questionable. The Ramones and The Clash being authentically Punk and therefore prizing value for money have fourteen but I'm not sure I'm willing to spend an inordinate amount of time hunting down twelve more for a third series. Eight is also good, see Horses, Marquee Moon and Born to Run.
But I'd still stick with the affirmation that twelve is best so there are twelve of these over the next week and a half. Loosely arranged in a descending chart going from #12 to my own Number One and also my favourite record of all which is perhaps why I have such a thing about the number. Starting with Elliott Smith and probably his greatest album and certainly the one that hurts the most, 1997's Either/Or. The man anyhow was a genius, and is still not widely enough recognised as such, at least in my eyes.
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