Wednesday, July 26, 2017

The Top 24 Greatest Albums Made by Tokin' Women

NPR has released a list of The Top 150 Greatest Albums Made by Women, and the righteous group includes many Tokin' Women.

Missy Elliott came in at #5. The rapper reportedly told reporters at a 2005 press conference in Jamaica, "What's up everyone? Sorry if I sound kind of weird, but I just had a Jamaican brownie - some of you might know what I'm talking 'bout."

Also in the top 10 are the Tokin' Trio Patti Smith (#7), Janis Joplin (#8), and Amy Winehouse (#9). (Click on their names to get their connections to cannabis.)

Madonna had two albums on the list, at #13 & #63. The World's Most Successful Female Musician Ever (if you count money as the measure), Madonna grabbed headlines away from her fellow Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees in 2008 by using her acceptance speech to reveal she took ecstasy and smoked grass on her way to the top.

High Times cover girl Ani DiFranco comes in at #25, and Alanis Morisette, who's #29, told the magazine in 2010, "As an artist, there's a sweet jump-starting quality to [marijuana] for me." Queen Latifah, whose new movie Girl's Trip includes pot smoking, is at #33 and at #44 are the Wilson Sisters of Heart. Finishing the top 50 is Hole, featuring Courtney Love.
 
Jazz great Sarah Vaughan, at #51, was still enjoying marijuana in 1989, when a Jazz Fest organizer in Cleveland followed the scent of marijuana smoke to Vaughan's dressing room, where the star was also enjoying a glass of brandy.  She then walked onstage and gave a magnificent performance.

At #53 is Linda Ronstadt; #60 is Chrissie Hynde and at #67 is Sinead O'Connor.

These follow, Tokin' Women all:

#82 Laura Nyro
#90 Barbra Streisand
#94 Sheryl Crow
#116 Macy Gray
#117 Joan Jett
#125 Fiona Apple
#130 Teena Marie

Finally, of #140 NPR writes, "Norah Jones's distinctive voice, laced with a mellow smoke that might have originated at either the cabaret or honky-tonk, was immediately a force to contend with." When Blender magazine asked her in 2007 if she smoked pot, Jones's answer was, "Of course." Asked, "Ever get high with your buddy Willie Nelson?" she responded, "I'm not going near Willie's weed!" 

Coming in at a well deserved #1 is Joni Mitchell's Blue. Mitchell famously said, "Grass, it sits you on your ass." That may be true (at times) but it seems the women on this list didn't let that stop them.

Probably there are more women on the list who toke. I mean, Beyoncé and Jay-Z's first child had a marijuana strain named after her in LA dispensaries on the day she was born. Gwen Stefani's lyrics and videos are pretty trippy. Carly Simon's been implicated in a recent biography of she, Mitchell and Carole King—who hasn't admitted but when Stephen Colbert interviewed her, he brought out his Tapestry album (#10 on the list), and demonstrated how people in the 70s used to clean pot on the double cover. And I don't know about Alicia Keys but it was at one of her concerts where the fictional character Steve Carell played on "The Office" got stoned.


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