Harry Nilsson

The oft-overlooked singer/songwriter/genius interpreter dropped this ace in 1971. Screaming along to "Jump Into the Fire" is about as much cathartic fun as a person can handle in one night and "Without You" is about as much operatic sentimentalism as a normal person should be able to handle in a lifetime. "Coconut" will be your child's favorite song forever.

Even before Harry Nilsson scored a hit, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, in 1968,
proclaimed the Brooklyn-born, L.A.-based songwriter as their favorite American singer.
This was shortly after the Monkees recorded his cute and cleverly nasty "Cuddly Toy" but
before Three Dog Night reached the Top Ten in 1969 with a cover of his lyrically despairing
"One," which Aimee Mann and others have subsequently rendered evergreen. A... More >

In which the whimsy and vocal pyrotechnics of Aerial Ballet and Pandemonium Shadow Show (now cunningly collapsed into a disc called Aerial Pandemonium Ballet) are apotheosized under the direction of popmeister Richard Perry. The bathrobed recluse who shows his unshaven face on the cover (his well-stocked fridge is on the back) veers from kitsch fantasy both romantic ("Without You") and comic ("Coconut") to terrified evocations of everyday existence (the cockeyed antemeridian triptych--"Gotta Get Up," "Driving Along," and "Early in the Morning"--that kicks off side one). The two-and-a-half years since his last real LP, Harry, have been worth it--if only every artist could learn to mark time until a good one was ready. (Grade - A)