At the beginning of the year, I made a list of albums from artists who say they're going to put something out. Although still mostly unfulfilled (Beak actually put a record out this year, so with Beth Gibbon's solo album, that's two-thirds of the way to a Portishead album), I stand by my petulant demands. However, this is a slightly different list. These are albums that can't possibly happen, mostly due to death and the logistical issues that creates. While I’m close to manifesting a fourth Portishead album and consistently badgering The Cure and Dresden Dolls to deliver on those albums I know are near completion, I figured I'd waste my time—and yours—pontificating on albums that no amount of badgering surviving members of these groups is going to do anything. Still, it's fun to imagine. Clearly, we are in the shit timeline that results in a failed reality TV star winning the presidency twice (calling it now) and ends in a nuclear exchange between Russia and America. Who knows what went wrong in the past, and at what point we got knocked onto this horrifying Back to the Future Part II-esque alternate timeline? Who knows what these alternate timelines are, where, at the very least, these albums exist?
To be fair, I’m riffing off Hard Times here with their stellar piece "We Rank the Top 14 Joy Division Albums Because We're From a Cooler Timeline," which is equally hilarious and heartbreaking. Still, it got me thinking...what if? What if Ian Curtis just decided not to listen to The Idiot that night or not to watch Stroszek? Granted, we might need to go earlier and have him not cheat on his wife or millions of years back and step on that butterfly so that his brain chemistry doesn't result in epilepsy. Whatever tweak in the fabric of spacetime it would take to make him not unalive himself. Now granted, we wouldn't have New Order, which I suppose I should be grateful for in this timeline, but I can't help but wonder if we would still get those songs largely unchanged but instead have Ian's tortured croon on top of it. What would "Blue Monday" sound like with Ian singing? Or would he nix the song altogether? We'll never know. But really, all I want is one more album. The third album that likely would've had "Ceremony" on it and most of the songs on "Movement." It likely wouldn't have had "Dead Souls" or "Atmosphere" on it, but a bratty music columnist can dream. There's also a third, even worse timeline, where the remaining members allow Bono to fill Ian's position as lead singer (I'm not making this up—Google it) and continue on. But hell, maybe that timeline wouldn't be so bad either 'cause at least U2 wouldn't exist.
Even if Kurt didn’t try to scratch that itch in the back of his throat with a loaded shotgun barrel, I’m not entirely certain we’d ever get this album. His relationship with Dave and Krist had practically disintegrated, and he'd been outspoken, privately and publicly, about how he didn't want to work with them anymore. Some major spacetime finagling would have to occur to ensure that Kurt would remain intact and on good terms with the rest of the band for a fourth album to happen. I think it's there. Even in its mostly unfinished form, I would argue that "You Know You're Right" is Nirvana's best song, and I wish I could hear what the rest of that album sounds like. I’ve read interviews where Dave regrets never getting to make Nirvana’s double album. It may not have been this fourth one, but a fourth one was there somewhere. Knowing Dave's damn near inexhaustible music battery, this timeline might still include Foo Fighters, which may be a good or bad thing, depending on which album you stopped giving a shit. The correct answer is the fifth one, by the way.
At least six different versions of this album exist, and practically all the songs are available in various stages of completion, so it's not like we don't have an idea of what this album would sound like, but we certainly don’t have this album proper. Honestly, this album may not have been any good at all, listening to the songs that remain. Who’s to say Hendrix’s booze and pill-raddled ass would've congealed it, and studio trickerafied it into anything holding a candle to Electric Ladyland? He might have, and it upsets me that we'll never know. At the very least, I wish we could have the finished version of "Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)." Also, if Jimi hadn't overdosed on vomit, there's a chance that the third or fourth electric fusion era Miles Davis album features him blazing away (again, Google it). I'm honestly more depressed that we'll never hear the versions of "Jack Johnson" or "On the Corner" with Hendrix on guitar, rather than that unfinished fourth album. On the other hand, maybe Doug Stanhope is right. Maybe this timeline is better because it's the one where a 70-ish-year-old Hendrix is not playing with Elton John at the Super Bowl or some horseshit. The multiverse giveth and taketh away.
There are many of you—perhaps a vast majority—that would not only prefer not to live in the timeline where this album exists but possibly another timeline where one of the hedonistic bastards died sometime after the sixth album (if not earlier), thus cementing an even more legendary and mysterious oeuvre. 1979's "In Through The Out Door" doesn't really have a lot of cheerleaders, and no one in their right mind is going to fly a flag for the '80s output of The Rolling Stones and The Who. Still, I'm curious. I'm not sure if I want to live in this timeline, but I definitely wanna just take a peak and snag the ninth album from these rock juggernauts. Again, practically every Zeppelin Album Ranked List puts their last one last. Personally, I’m fascinated by Jones and Plant’s creative dominance on the last record since Page and Bonham were drowning in booze and heroin for most of the production. Every dinosaur rock band in the ‘70s made the same misstep in the ‘80s by trying to add some gratuitous synthesizer and pretend to be new wave to stay relevant. Only Paul McCartney succeeded with the peerless classic “Temporary Secretary.” The rest failed. Maybe Led Zeppelin could’ve weathered the ‘80s synthesizer storm because they had a master mariner at the helm with John Paul Jones, who was not only a world-class pianist and composer but also an early adopter of all the fun innovations in technology. Also, rather than outright rejecting it or feeling insecure and feigning disinterest, Zeppelin tried their hand at punk with the leftover track "Wearing and Tearing" from those sessions. Maybe something cool was left in the tank before Bonzo choked on a swimming pool's worth of vodka. Or, it would've been cringier than Neil Young’s Trans.
