Count Five: Blue Rodeo Round Up the Best Double Albums

Posted on Nov 19th 2009 6:00PM by Steve McLean
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Blue Rodeo's 12th studio effort, 'The Things We Left Behind,' is the roots-rockers first non-live double album in their 25-year career. In addition to being released digitally and on CD, it's also available on vinyl with a gatefold. The reason for that is because Blue Rodeo's two leaders, Greg Keelor and Jim Cuddy, have been vinyl junkies since they were kids.

Now the Canadian icons are revealing to Spinner the double LPs from their youth that left the most lasting impressions.

1. Bob Dylan, 'Blonde On Blonde' (1966)

"'Blonde On Blonde' changed so much about me," says Keelor. "The hairstyle and the jacket with the scarf with the collar up has been 40 years of my life because of that album cover. What I also loved about it were all the [studio] pictures on the inside. I would just dream of being in a studio like that. I thought it was such an amazing place to be. It just seemed like a magic land to me. I could sit there and look at those pictures forever."

2. The Jimi Hendrix Experience, 'Electric Ladyland' (1968)

"Even though I didn't get as freaked out, 'Electric Ladyland' had a huge influence on me," Keelor says. "It had the same sort of pictures on the inside that took you inside the studio and the process of making the record. I also loved the photo that when you opened it up you got Hendrix in full psychedelia. But all the pictures on the inside seemed like magic land again. Being able to visit that world seemed pretty precious at the time."

3. Stevie Wonder, 'Songs in the Key of Life' (1976)

"I love that record," Cuddy says. "I think it's a beautiful, fantastic record. Stevie Wonder had a chain of five or six records that were just startling, in talking about inner vision and fulfilling his final finale. And then to top it all off with a double record of that quality showed just stunning creativity."

4. The Beatles, 'The Beatles' (1968)

"I remember getting the Beatles' 'White Album' and being so thrilled that it was a double record, because it was so easy to digest a single Beatles record," offers Cuddy. "It also came out after 'Magical Mystery Tour,' which was the first sort of disappointment for Beatle kids. It kind of petered out and wasn't a full record. I remember everything about it ('The White Album'). I remember the four pictures. I remember the poster. I remember the Apple logo. I remember that there were crazy songs on it. I don't remember being disturbed by how strange some of the songs were."

5. The Clash, 'London Calling' (1979)

"That's a great one," says Keelor. "That record was sort of amazing because they didn't seem like they should be able to do that," adds Cuddy. "They didn't seem like they were that great, musician-wise, and yet they made a fantastic sounding record."

That said, the pair were less impressed with the Clash's triple-album follow-up 'Sandinista!' "That had lots of filler -- lots," says Cuddy, with major emphasis on that last word. "That was a triple record that should have been a single."

"It was a triple record and it was punk idiocy that they thought that record was getting them out of their contract," snarks Keelor. "They thought that that fulfilled the three albums that were remaining in their contract. That's so cute."