6. Herbie HancockMagic Windows

I love Herbie Hancock. This is another one I got from my dad. That 70s jazz-fusion era, a lot of people think it’s really corny. But I love it – incredibly virtuosic playing, squeezed into pop music structures? That’s my whole shit. And ‘Everybody’s Broke’ is such a great funk song, with the character of the tax collector who’s gonna come and repossess your Cadillac. It’s also got ‘Magic Number’ on there, this weird, sort-of bossanova/funk track, with crazy synth. Herbie’s solos are insane. Clipping does a ton of analogue synth stuff, and Herbie’s a pioneer in how to use sci-fi-sounding, glitchy stuff in really musical ways. This album’s another outlier – it’s not Future Shock, it’s not his synthy, 80s pop stuff, and it’s definitely not one of his jazz albums; it’s right in the middle, Herbie figuring out how to bridge those two sounds. He’s been doing it forever, and he’s played with everybody and done everything you can do as a piano player. I love people in that position who really take advantage of that and just continue experimenting. And this album feels like very much an experiment, kind of unfinished. It would never be a “masterwork” or one of the ones that goes down in history. But there’s so much going on, so many ideas, and it feels really exciting. Herbie being so unafraid to just try things and put them out there… I just really admire that about him.