249. Deep Purple - Made In Japan (1972)
















Track Listing

1. Highway Star
2. Child In Time
3. Smoke On The Water
4. Mule
5. Strange Kind Of Woman
6. Lazy
7. Space Truckin'

Review

For some reason which escapes me Deep Purple were big in Japan... then again who isn't? So off they went to Tokyo and Osaka and recorded a live album in the land of the rising sun. And the result is probably their best album to date. There are however some snags here, firstly they are sounding a bit too much like a hair band, some solos are almost to Europe/Scorpions level. You really can't blame them though, as they were creating the style as they went along.

Another problem I have with the album is the fact that some songs and very particularly Space Truckin' are streched a bit beyong they capacity... Space Truckin' almost hits 20 minutes here at 19.54! After a while it's just a bit too much, the album is already long enough although it sounds surprisingly short due to the quality of most of it.

Still if you get this album you really don't need anything else by Purple... you get Child In Time, Smoke On The Water and Highway Star played as well as they ever were, and this is the only place you can get them together if you are, like me, a hater of Best Of collections. Deep Purple are heavier and more cahotic here than anywhere before and for them this is nothing but a good thing. Definitely a must for any metal library, so get it at Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Highway Star
2. Child In Time
3. Smoke On The Water
4. Space Truckin' (still very good but just too long)

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Made in Japan is a live album by British hard rock band Deep Purple, released in December 1972. The album was recorded over three nights in August earlier that year. The tracks on the album mostly come from their studio effort, Machine Head. The three concerts recorded were later released as "Live in Japan" 3-CD box set. According to the liner notes for that set, unlike many live albums, there are no overdubs or studio additions to the original album. Recorded live during 15-17 August 1972 in Osaka and Tokyo, Japan.

Highway Star live in Denmark:

248. Slade - Slayed? (1972)




















Track Listing

1. How D'you Ride
2. Whole World's Goin' Crazee
3. Look At Last Nite
4. I Won't Let It 'Appen Agen
5. Move Over
6. Gudbuy T'Jane
7. Gudbuy Gudbuy
8. Mama Weer All Crazee Now
9. I Don' Mind
10. Let The Good Times Roll/Feel So Fine

Review

You can tell that the label of Glam Rock is nearly meaningless when Slade is in the same bracket as T-Rex, Roxy Music, Brian Eno and David Bowie. Slade was basically doing Glam music which would be accessible to the darts player down at the pub in the East End. This was very much what Glam was not about, it was about shocking both musically and visually... Slade is shocking in a very different way.

Firstly you have the song titles, they are just plain stupid, whoever thought that misspelling as a gimmick was a great idea should be shot. Secondly their lyrics are just plain stupid. They do have some merit however and that is their trademark stomp. You can better appreciate it in the Janis Joplin cover, Move Over. Of course they use that stomp more often than not for puerile and underdeveloped tunes... this was what made them successful.

I can only say that Slade are to Glam like Status Quo are to Rock, shit. Again I repeat that they have some infectious quality to their music but only when listened to at the most superficial of levels, if you start paying attention you just get disappointed. Get it at Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Move over
2. I Won't Let It 'Appen Agen
3. Gudbuy T'Jane
4. Mama Weer All Crazee Now

Final Grade

6/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia, the first two lines just go to show how smart the Gallaghers are:

NME journalist and music critic Eddie Shum and Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher have both been quoted as saying the band were "Fundamentally more important to the development of music than Radiohead". While Slade's attempts at cracking the United States market were largely unsuccessful, they left their mark on a several US bands who cite Slade as an influence. KISS bassist Gene Simmons readily admits that his band's early songwriting ethos and stage performance style was influenced by Slade. In his book "KISS and Make-Up," Simmons writes on page 85, "the one we kept returning to was Slade," and "we liked the way they connected with the crowd, and the way they wrote anthems... we wanted that same energy, that same irresistible simplicity. but we wanted it American-style." Tom Petersson of Cheap Trick has said that his band went to see Slade perform, and that they used "every cheap trick in the book", thus inadvertently coining his group's name. Quiet Riot had a U.S. hit with their cover of Cum on Feel the Noize.

The original band's memory was kept alive by comedians Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, who respectfully sent up the band in a number of what the band called 'hysterically accurate' 'Slade in residence' and 'Slade on holiday' sketches in their The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer TV show in the early 1990s - these are available on DVD.

Slade are most associated with the Black Country in Britain's West Midlands, although the band's members came from Devon, Staffordshire, and the Black Country towns Walsall and Wolverhampton.

Harry Shearer has claimed that he based the band Spinal Tap, from This is Spinal Tap, on Slade. However, it is widely known and confirmed that the band in the film was based on numerous UK "heavy metal" and "glam" bands including Slade, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and T. Rex and most certainly, Saxon. While doing research for the film, Shearer and his fellow writers and cast-mates interviewed a number of 70s Rock stalwarts requesting their greatest "road stories". At one point in the film, Spinal Tap is listed on a marquee as playing second billing to a Puppet Show. Noddy Holder tells a similar story regarding Slade's "low phase" in his autobiography. This very funny moment in "This Is Spinal Tap" may very well be a page from Slade's true history. It is worth noting that Slade always have had a wonderful sense of humour about their success (or lack thereof, depending upon the decade) and have always been honest and apt to parody themselves.

Gudbuy T'Jane... how exactly are these guys glam? :



Where are they now:

247. Curtis Mayfield - Superfly (1972)
















Track Listing

1. Little Child Runnin' Wild
2. Pusherman
3. Freddie's Dead
4. Junkie Chase [Instrumental]
5. Give Me Your Love (Love Song)
6. Eddie You Should Know Better
7. No Thing on Me (Cocaine Song)
8. Think [Instrumental]
9. Superfly

Review

After all I was not deported! April Fools... I could never be deported as both Portugal and the UK are EU... all those other things about huts, telegraph poles and carriages of no horse drawn are all true however!

Here's another quality blaxplotiation soundtrack for you people. Curtis Mayfield makes a really nice album which is frankly much more subversive than the film it refers to. The whole album is an exercise in social criticism of the state of black society in the US.

That said the album didn't grab my attention all that much, there are some extremely pretty arrangements here, but there is none of the raw power of Shaft for example and it doesn't reach the poetic and critical heights of What's Going On. Still it is a worthy addition to any library of funk/R&B/soul of the early 70's.

Curtis is first and foremost a stupendous arranger, his lyrics are sometimes his downfall however, coming across as far to simplistic in parts. For a soundtrack it is, however, surprisingly cohesive because of the genious of the instrumentation so it is something you should check out but I wouldn't take with me to a desert island. Get it at Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Pusherman
2. Think
3. Freddie's Dead
4. Superfly

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

Superfly, along with Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, was one of the pioneering soul concept albums, with its then-unique socially aware lyrics about poverty and drug abuse making the album stand out. The film and the soundtrack may be perceived as dissonant, since the Superfly film holds rather ambiguous - some will say sympathetic - views on drug dealers, whereas Curtis Mayfield's position is far more critical.

Like What's Going On, the album was a surprise hit that record executives felt had little chance at significant sales. Due to its success, Mayfield was tapped for several film soundtracks over the course of the decade.

In 2003 the TV network VH1 named Superfly the 63rd greatest album of all time. Track number two, "Pusherman", has been selected among The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll .

In 2003, the album was ranked number 69 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Youtube user-made video for Pusherman, not bad and at least has the original version of the song:

Hi people,

Unfortunately this was the last post of the blog, what better way to finish it than with Neil Young's Harvest.

I am moving indefintely to Portugal where there is no internet as we still live in huts. I am taking my gramophone with me so I can have the children in the city wind it and maybe I will introduce some of the less fortunate to the likes of Velvet Underground and The Stooges.

There is some hope that Lisbon will have electricity and telegraph lines in about 10 years so Internet will be just a small step away when Prime-Minister Socrates' great 20 year plan comes to fruition!

Unfortunately immigration has caught up with me and you will all be deprived of the blog. Blame the opressive regime of the UK.

246. Neil Young - Harvest (1972)
















Track Listing

1. Out On The Weekend
2. Harvest
3. Man Needs A Maid
4. Heart Of Gold
5. Are You Ready For The Country
6. Old Man
7. There's A World
8. Alabama
9. Needle And The Damage Done
10. Words (Between The Lines Of Age)

Review

It is very hard, if not impossible, for me to decide which is my favourite Neil Young album, but this one is definetly up there. Maybe it is because it was the Neil Young album I grew up with seeing as it was his most popular album and the one my father owned. I also know it is sometimes derided as an inferior album in the context of Young's production, but I really love it.

Some people claim that it is over produced in parts and that it is misogenistic, particularly Man Needs A Maid can be accused of both. Still I appreciate the ridiculousness of its orchestral arrangement and its portrayal of whay might seem like a small minded and trivial subject but which is one that very man who has lived alone can identify with. Is it misogenistic or is it a statement of man's lack of capability of living without a woman, man's uselessness really. The orchestral arrangement is actually propelling this simple statement to the level of grandeur that post-relationship depression gives to even the smallest of issues.

Few artists manage to be as deep and beautiful as Young and this album has all of that plus some really catchy songs. Heart of Gold was, of course, a huge hit but if you think of it as a progession from Man Needs A Maid it makes all the more sense. Needle and The Damage Done is another amazing gem of an anti-drug song sung by a man who has seen his bright friend fade away because of heroin... and some people said it glorified drug-taking.

Neil is an absolute genius, and the music here is as strong as ever, there is much less of a rock feel but the tunes played on the harmonica are some of the best use the instrument was ever put to. Just fucking sublime. Get it from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Heart Of Gold
2. Needle And The Damage Done
3. Old Man
4. Alabama

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

n 1998 Q magazine readers voted Harvest the 64th greatest album of all time. In 1996, 2000 and 2005, Chart's polled readers to determine the 50 greatest Canadian albums of all time; Harvest placed second in all three polls (losing the top spot to Joni Mitchell's Blue in 2000, and to Sloan's Twice Removed in the other two polls). In 2003, Rolling Stone named Harvest the 78th greatest album of all time.

According to a Rolling Stone interview, Young had wanted the album sleeve to biodegrade after the shrink-wrap was broken, but was overruled by the record company on the basis of expense and the possible product loss due to shipping accidents.

Heart of Gold in 1971 before the album came out: