Why is Tommy Roe’s Tommy’s 22 Big Ones on my best 1,000 albums ever list?
Come on everybody, it’ll get you feeling dizzy.
What does Tommy Roe’s Tommy’s 22 Big Ones mean to me? What does it make me feel? Why is it exciting or compelling?
The funny thing about Tommy Roe’s iconic “Dizzy” for me is that it sounds less familiar to me than the cheese-tastic (and great) version of the song performed by The Royal Blue on Ultra-Lounge: On the Rocks (#955 on the best 1,000 albums ever).
Roe’s version is a perfect 1960s pop song, with a dash of psychedelic flavor, a sprinkle of counterculture, but at its roots it’s simply an expertly constructed pop rock song. And the strings are the icing on the cake.
Side note: some years after the release of “Dizzy,” you can imagine a young artist and producer named Andre Romelle Young, who would later go by the name of Dr. Dre, listening to “Dizzy” and taking its wildly bombastic use of strings to heart.
Unless you’re in the Baby Boomer generation or older, “Everybody” is a song that hardly anyone knows about in 2022. But it’s an incredible pop gem from 1963 that should get the adulation it deserves.
Quick shout out to the song title of “Jam Up and Jelly Tight,” which is kind of flabbergastingly awesome. Really fun and catchy tune as well.
I absolutely love the wild organ on “Sweet Pea.”
And I feel like “Sweet Pea” had to have influence on later generations of pop artists. “Jerk It Out” from Caesars, off of Love For The Streets (#459 of best 1,000 albums ever), comes to mind, for one.
This album also sounds like
Early Tommy Roe sounds very Buddy Holly-esque, after which Tommy develops his own distinctive ‘60s voice and sound.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective take on what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.
Some stats & info about Tommy Roe – Tommy’s 22 Big Ones
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Pop Music, Bubblegum Pop, Rock Music
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4.5 out of 5 stars
- When was Tommy’s 22 Big Ones released?
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #837 out of 1,000