Carole King "Tapestry" [1971]

We all should be in total agreement that any recording artist giving Barry Manilow the idea to make the jump from the Brill Building to center stage deserves to be savaged within an inch of his (in this case, her) life. Disagree? I dare you to listen to "Tapestry" again -- you know you still have a copy somewhere -- and tell me anything holds up other than that Carole King had one nasty head cold throughout the time of her recording it. Oh, and maybe that she had a way with exploiting the misery of things like getting divorced to serve as a good AM radio intro to the latest Ringo Starr single. And while one may have issues with singers who recorded King's songs such as Aretha Franklin, the musical accompaniment of "Tapestry" is as shallow, tepid and gross as a kiddie pool at a Palm Springs motel. Even worse, her hippie-cum-materialist sentiment provides the perfect insight into the naturist-turned-corporatist "development" of a majority of baby boomers from the 60s to the 80s. Thus, a strong case can be made that the "greed is good" Reagan-era revolution can be traced back to this very record and its 25 million units sold. Apparently, all it took was one piano-plunking hack to not only undo the "all you need is love" aesthetic after about two short years, but to also usher in a nasty infestation of ivory-tinkler band leaders that only ended a decade and a half later, once Billy Joel finally imploded.