163. Fairport Convention - Unhalfbricking (1969)




















Track Listing

1. Genesis hall
2. Si tu dois partir
3. Autopsy
4. A Sailor's life
5. Cajun woman
6. Who knows where the time goes?
7. Percy's song
8. Million dollar bash

Review

This is a great folk-pop-rock-jazz album. Fairport Convention are moving more towards the folksy than they did in previous albums not on this list and the mix is truly great. They sound a bit like a mix between The Band and Pentangle, stranded in the middle of the Atlantic somewhere.

The traditional alternative folksy fare is here, three Dylan covers, traditional songs, a perfect folk voice in Sandy Denny. However there are other elements and the use of guitars is great. Also, unlike folk purists they are thankfully not attempting to recapture any thing of a "British purity", they are attempting to bring folk one step further. Of course this means mainly anglo-folk of the States and Britain but even then one of the Dylan covers is translated into French.

Fairport are true originals with truly beautiful tracks, not just techincally accomplished but also very effective and catchy. You will catch yourself singing Si Tu Dois Partir in no time. So if you like late 60's folk this is essential listening, put it next to Nick Drake and Pentangle on your shelf. Buy it at Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. A Sailor's Life
2. Si Tu Dois Partir
3. Who Knows Where Time Goes
4. Genesis Hall

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

June Tabor completely murders A Sailor's Life for our enjoyment:



Bitch!

From Wikipedia:

Unhalfbricking was produced by Joe Boyd, who had signed Fairport Convention to his Witchseason roster of artists. He provided them with access to a trove of unrecorded songs written by Bob Dylan (another key influence of Denny's) that were held at the offices of Dylan's British publishers, Feldman's. The band selected "Percy's Song" (an outtake from The Times They Are A-Changin'), the John Wesley Harding song "Dear Landlord" (which didn't make it onto the final album), the Basement Tape composition "Million Dollar Bash," and the Bringing It All Back Home outtake "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" which they translated into French. Their version of "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" (now known as "Si Tu Dois Partir") would provide them with their only British hit single. Denny brought two key compositions to Unhalfbricking: "Autopsy" and her most famous song, "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" and also suggested that the band try the traditional song "A Sailor's Life". This 11-minute epic, featuring a guest appearance by fiddler Dave Swarbrick, would be the album's stand-out song and provide a template for British folk rock.

The title Unhalfbricking is a meaningless invention by one of the band members. The striking sleeve design featured neither title nor band name - rather like The Beatles' Abbey Road of the same year - but simply a portrait of Denny's parents, Neil & Edna Denny, standing outside the family home in Wimbledon, south London, with the band distantly visible through the garden fence.

162. Chicago - Chicago Transit Authority (1969)



















Track Listing

1. Introduction
2. Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is
3. Beginnings
4. Questions 67 And 68
5. Listen
6. Poem 58
7. Free Form Guitar
8. South California Purples
9. I'm A Man
10. Prologue
11. Someday
12. Liberation

Review

Pretentious wankathon is the first thing that pops to your mind when trying to describe this album, but it is actually more complex than that, and I'll try to do it justice.

I must admit a weakness for Crappy Adult Oriented Rock, and Chicago are one of the pioneering exponents of that great genre... Peter Cetera went on to do the glorious Glory Of Love for the equally glorious Karate Kid II soundtrack, and this is where he is coming from.

Actually some tracks are quite good here, and in fact the album starts quite well, and for the first 3 tracks you are quite surprised and then Questions kicks in as a mix of Peter Cetera and old-fashined quizz show brass strains fill your ears, and you think "That's more like it!".

It's not only at the beggining that Chicago challenge your ideas however, and in Free Form Guitar there's a lovely 7 minutes of distortion which will make you grit your teeth in pain, as there is no particular artfullness to it. All you can think is that this inherently cheesy band is trying to be avantgarde and failing miserably... The album gets better towards the end, and some of the best tracks are the rockier stuff that comes after Free Form... well, it could even be Chris De Burgh, as anything is pleasant after Free Form.

You also have to smirk at the references to I Am The Walrus or Jimi Hendrix in a couple of tracks, seemingly there to remind you of all the stuff you could be listening to that is much better than this.

Buy it at Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. I'm A Man (WHO WILL FIGHT FOR YOUR HONOOOOUR!)
2. Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is
3. Prologue
4. Beginnings

Final Grade

6/10

Trivia

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is:



Released in April 1969, The Chicago Transit Authority proved to be an immediate hit, reaching #17 in the US and #9 in the UK. While critical reaction was also strong, the album initially failed to produce any hit singles, with the group seen as an album-oriented collective. In 1970 and 1971, "Does Anybody Know What Time It Is?" (#7), "Beginnings" (#7) and "Questions 67 And 68" (#71/#24 re-release) would all prove to be belated hits. Buoyed by the success of their later albums, the album stayed on the charts for a then-record 171 weeks, and was certified gold (and later platinum and double platinum).

161. Tim Buckley - Happy Sad (1969)




















Track Listing

1. Strange Feeling
2. Buzzin' Fly
3. Love From Room 109 At The Islander
4. Dream Letter
5. Gypsy Woman
6. Sing A Song For You

Review

Still slightly ill, thanks for all the get better comments! Assholes.

Grandfather of whiny boys comes back with another oxymoronic title, after Goodbye and Hello reviewed here earlier. Yes, he is whiny, his album titles are shit and he is slightly annoying, but he makes good music, or at least some good music.

In this album Buckley goes much more Jazzy than before, this isn't a shift for better or worse, just a shift. In fact I prefer Goodbye and Hello to this album but they both end up being quite good. This album is basically fucked by Gypsy Woman which is too long and self-indulging for its own good.

While Love From Room 109 is almost as long as Gypsy Woman it is much better lyrically and musically and ends up being one of the best tracks in the album. In the end it is a very pretty album, with some good writing and a guy who is sounding like Fred Neil a lot, only a bit more whiny. Buy it from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Dream Letter
2. Love From Room 109 At The Islander
3. Strange Feelin'
4. Buzzin Fly

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

To all you Goths out there here's the original Song To The Siren... not in the album I know, but there's nothing from it on youtube and this song isn't on any album on the list... live at the Monkees!:



From Wikipedia:

In 1968, Buckley recorded the jazzy Happy Sad, which was released the following year, and alienated a large portion of his prior audience. Dissatisfied with playing the same old material continuously, and disenchanted with the music business that he felt was restraining him from producing new material, he began to weave in new songs into his performances, featuring a more stripped down sound from his heavily orchestrated first two albums, and introducing a vibraphone player into his band. However, this attempted rejuvenation was a failure; becoming largely based on improvisation, his performances were less accessible to the audiences who saw him as a folk-rock poster boy. However, despite the relative criticisms that his performances were to receive, Happy Sad became Tim's highest charting album ever, peaking at #81.

160. Sly & The Family Stone - Stand! (1969)




















Track Listing

1. Stand!
2. Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey
3. I Want To Take You Higher
4. Somebody's Watching You
5. Sing A Simple Song
6. Everyday People
7. Sex Machine
8. You Can Make It If You Try

Review

A very funky album indeed. This is the first post for a few days, as I had to make a lightning trip to Portugal over the weekend. So, back to the daily grind with 12 hours of trip on me and a terrible flu, so excuse me if this isn't as long a review as most others.

Like the Temptations, Sly & The Family Stone are also pioneering Funk. Sly + Family are much more of an all funk group than the Temptations - obviously - and this album is full of Funky classics, like Stand!, I Want To Take You Higher and Everyday People. It is only marred by Sex Machine, a 13 minute instrumental which breaks the rhythm terribly.

Buy the fucker, but better funk would be done in the future. Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Everyday People
2. I Want To Take You Higher
3. Stand!
4. You Can Make It If You Try

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

An amazing live version of I Want To Take You Higher, live at Woodstock, probably one of the best performances in the whole of Woodstock:



From Wikipedia:

* The success of Stand! secured Sly & the Family Stone a gig at the Woodstock Music and Art Festival, which became on of the most iconic music festivals of the rock and roll era. The Family Stone's set, performed at three o' clock in the morning on August 16, 1969, included "Everyday People", "Music Lover", and much of the rest of the band's repertoire. "Music Lover" contains a repeating lyric of "wanna take you higher" (which was expanded into "I Want to Take You Higher" for Stand!), and Sly Stone used the lyric to create a chant, interspersed with an inspirational dialogue, which resulted in the thousands of festival goers all chanting "higher!" along with Sly. Many music critics, as well as the members of the band itself, see the Woodstock performance as the zenith of the band's performance career.

* Stand! is among the most sampled recordings in popular music history; late 20th century hip hop producers were particularly fond of sampling Gregg Errico's drum lines from "Sing a Simple Song" and "You Can Make It If You Try", and either looping the tracks or chopping them up and using the drum sounds. The drums from these two tracks can be found on literally hundreds of hip-hop and contemporary R&B songs, by artists such as LL Cool J, The Jungle Brothers, Digital Underground, Ice Cube, TLC, Jodeci, and many more.

159. The Temptations - Cloud Nine (1969)





















Track Listing


1. Cloud 9
2. I Heard It Through The Grapevine
3. Runaway Child Running Wild
4. Love Is A Hurtin' Thing
5. Hey Girl (I Like Your Style)
6. Why Did She Have To Leave Me (Why Did She Have To Go)
7. I Need Your Lovin'
8. Don't Let Him Take Your Love From Me
9. I Gotta Find A Way (To Get You Back)
10. Gonna Keep On Tryin' Till I Win Your Love

Review

The Temptations go funk! At least for a bit of this album. In fact this is a perfect case study on the transition from R&B to Funk in the late 60's. And for the Funky bit, this is a great album. The rest of the album doesn't really reach the heights of the first three tracks, but it's not bad.

The Temptations take a page out of the Sly & Family Stone songbook for the first three amazing tracks here. And then disappointingly they return to traditional Temptations fare for the rest of the album. But particularly Cloud Nine and Runaway Child, Running Wild must have made many a Temptations fan scratch their head in puzzlement.

It is extremely unfortunate that although perfectly good R&B, the rest of the album does not come anywhere near the greatness of the first three tracks. And it is in this that you can see The Temptations experimenting and the transition into funk, which would be pushed further by Sly & the Family and would create the template for a lot of music in the coming decade, from Barry White to Stevie Wonder.

Buy it for the first three tracks at Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Runaway Child, Runnign Wild
2. Cloud Nine
3. Heard It Through The Grape Vine
4. I Gotta Find A Way (To Get You Back)

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

Funky!



From Wikipedia:

While Williams, Whitfield, and Williams' then-wife Ann Cain were standing outside of the Casino Royale nightclub in Motown's home city of Detroit during the summer of 1968, Williams suggested that Whitfield might try to produce something like Sly & the Family Stone's "Dance to the Music" for their next single. The Temptations had been successful with romantic ballads such as "My Girl" and midtempo numbers such as "(I Know) I'm Losing You", but Williams, taking Gamble's advice, felt that it was time to update the group's sound. "Man, I don't want to be bothered with that shit," remarked Whitfield, who regarded the Family Stone sound as a "passing fancy".

158. MC5 - Kick Out The Jams (1969)



















Track Listing

1. Ramblin' Rose
2. Kick Out The Jams
3. Come Together
4. Rocket Reducer No 62
5. Borderline
6. Motor City Is Burning
7. I Want You Right Now
8. Starship

Review

Something is seriously ahead of its time here. This is very close to punk indeed, and it is not hard to see why this became so influential. When a song starts with the spoken line "Kick Out The Jams, Motherfuckers!" something is not very 1969.

What is great about this album is it's sheer energy, the sheer violence of it. It's an album that makes you feel like either driving very fast, shooting some people or just getting a baseball bat a taking it to the police or something. The feeling of violent revolution is prevasive in the album, not so much from the lyrics but definitely from the spoken intros and the music itself, the apocalyptic derranged feel of it is infectious.

This must have been really shocking in 69, but it is also very impressive, it is not clean in the least, it is just energetic although very technically accomplished. They are all good players but it's really their attitude which puts this album lightyears ahead of its time. If you are into punk, this is definitely a band to put side by side with the Stooges as great proto-punk.

You need this album, you might like it or not, but it is an important one to listen to, the seed of Punk is here, evolved several degrees from The Monks in 1965, so get it now either by streaming it from Napster or buying it from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Kick Out The Jams
2. Rocket Reducer No 62
3. Starship
4. Come Together

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

Kick Out The Jams, Beat Club 1972, dig his Whitefro:



While "Ramblin' Rose" and "Motor City is Burning" open with inflammatory rhetoric, it was the opening line to the title track that stirred up the most controversy. Rob Tyner shouted, "And right now it's time to... KICK OUT THE JAMS, MOTHERFUCKER!" before the opening riffs. Elektra's executives were offended by the line and had preferred to edit it out of the album, however the band and manager John Sinclair adamantly opposed this. Instead, two versions were released, with the uncensored version sold behind record counters.

Making matters worse, Hudsons' department store refused to carry the album. Tensions between the band and the chain got to the point where the department stores refused to carry any album from the Elektra label after the MC5 took out a full-page ad that, according to Danny Fields, "was just a picture of Rob Tyner, and the only copy was 'Fuck Hudson's' And it had the Elektra logo. To end the conflict, Elektra dropped the MC5 from their record label.

In the end, the album is considered a vital step in the evolution towards punk. The album, along with fellow Detroit band the Stooges' first two albums, was so ahead of its time that it could not be classified under any genre until after the punk movement traced its lineage back to it. Now on CD, the remastered live version is kept in its original uncensored state.

Kick Out the Jams has also been taken to be a slogan of the 1960s ethos of revolution and liberation, an incitement to "kick out" restrictions in various forms. This is myth and fiction, however; the truth is more prosaic. To quote MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer from his interview with Caroline Boucher in Disc & Music Echo, 8 August, 1970:

"People said 'oh wow, kick out the jams means break down restrictions' etc., and it made good copy, but when we wrote it we didn't have that in mind. We first used the phrase when we were the house band at a ballroom in Detroit, and we played there every week with another band from the area.

"We got in the habit, being the sort of punks we are, of screaming at them to get off the stage, to kick out the jams, meaning stop jamming. We were saying it all the time and it became a sort of esoteric phrase. Now, I think people can get what they like out of it; that's one of the good things about rock and roll."

The line was reinterpreted in the Illuminatus! trilogy as a secret message of mockery from the Illuminati to their former allies, the Justified Ancients of Mummu, or JAMs. From there, the expression -- and samples of the MC5 -- were used by the English band, The JAMs, in their tracks "All You Need Is Love" and (as The KLF) "What Time Is Love?" (The White Room album version).

157. Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin II (1969)




















Track Listing

1. Whole Lotta Love
2. What Is And What Should Never Be
3. Lemon Song
4. Thank You
5. Heartbreaker
6. Livin' Lovin' Maid (She's Just a Woman)
7. Ramble On
8. Moby Dick
9. Bring It On Home

Review

More Led Zeppelin! And even though there aren't as many well known tracks in these one, it is in no way a worse album. In fact it is possibly more consistent in terms of quality than the previous one.

This is really a big tribute to Zeppelin's skills as this album was done in a very short time in between brakes in touring. Maybe the stress helped the band because it sure as hell doesn't feel rushed.

Unless by rushed you mean rockin'! Of course the lyrics are simplistic and the references to Tolkien in Ramble On make you grin, but that doesn't really matter, you don't listen to Led Zeppelin for the message, you do it for the perfect guitar riffs and the sheer energy of it. However there are quite as many perfect riffs as in the previous album, and they are definitely sticking with a winning formula and not deviating much from the first album.

Hey, even my girlfriend is becoming a Zephead... listen to it, all the cool kids do it! Buy it at Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Whole Lotta Love
2. Ramble On
3. Moby Dick
4. Thank You


Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

Whole Lotta Love:



Wikipedia:

Led Zeppelin II largely writes the blueprint for 1970s hard rock. Blues-derived songs like "Whole Lotta Love", "Heartbreaker", "The Lemon Song" and "Bring It on Home" are now standards of the genre, where the guitar-based riff (rather than vocal chorus or verses) defines the song and provides the key hook. Such arrangements and emphases were at the time atypical in popular music. As such, the album is generally considered to be very influential on the development of rock music, being an early forerunner of heavy metal, and inspiring a host of other rock bands such as Deep Purple, Van Halen and Guns 'n' Roses.

Led Zeppelin II also experimented with other musical styles and approaches, as on the alternately soft-and-loud "What Is And What Should Never Be" and "Ramble On" (which featured Page's acoustic guitar), or the pop-influenced ballad "Thank You". With its mysterious atmospherics, "Ramble On" helped develop hard rock's association with fantasy themes, which had partly derived from the psychedelic rock of two to three years before, but also from lyricist Robert Plant's personal interest in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien. This direction would later culminate on Led Zeppelin's untitled fourth album (and countless subsequent groups would later carry the influence to further extremes). Conversely, the instrumental "Moby Dick" features an extended drum solo by John Bonham, which would later be extended to a half-hour or more in live Led Zeppelin concert performances.

156. The Band - The Band (1969)




















Track Listing

1. Across The Great Divide
2. Rag Mama Rag
3. Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
4. When You Awake
5. Up On Cripple Creek
6. Whispering Pines
7. Jemima Surrender
8. Rockin' Chair
9. Lookout Cleveland
10. Jawbone
11. Unfaithful Servant
12. King Harvest (Has Surely Come)

Review

The Band, by The Band... After Music From Big Pink, The Band kept on developing their exploration of American traditional sounds with a twist, and this album is a great example of that. It's peppered with Americana, from the lyrics to the Banjos and Harmonicas which mix with electronic organs and electric guitars like they were always meant to be a part of the songs.

There is one problem with this album, but it has nothing to to with The Band. The problem is how influential The Band were and who they influenced, and sometimes there are whiffs of what would later be AOR, or Adult Oriented Rock, and stuff like the Eagles, which is a problem, but not The Band's fault at all. This is a great album.

The Band are true originals in their search for the roots of American music without compromising with country, folk or bluegrass purists, much in the same way they former band mate Bob Dylan had done, and their music is infectious and just a lot of fun. Get it from Napster or buy it from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
2. Up On Cripple Creek
3. King Harvest (Has Surely Come)
4. Look Out Cleveland

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, you can also look on Youtube for the Johnny Cash and Joan Baez covers:



Wikipedia:

The Band peaked at #9 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart. In 2000, it recharted on Billboard's Internet Albums chart, peaking at #10. The singles "Rag Mama Rag" and "Up on Cripple Creek" peaked on the Pop Singles chart at #57 and #25 respectively.

In 1998 Q magazine readers voted The Band the 76th greatest album of all time. In 2003, the album was ranked number 45 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

According to the liner notes to the 2000 reissue of "The Band" by Rob Bowman, the album, "The Band", has been viewed as a concept album, with the songs focusing on peoples, places and traditions associated with an older version of Americana.

The Cripple Creek Theatre Company in New Orleans, LA is named after the song "Up on Cripple Creek".

155. Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin (1969)




















Track Listing

1. Good Times Bad Times
2. Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
3. You Shook Me
4. Dazed And Confused
5. Your Time Is Gonna Come
6. Black Mountain Side
7. Communication Breakdown
8. I Can't Quit You Baby
9. How Many More Times


Review

Yipeee! I like Zeppelins! And I love them in led, although the flying capabilites are severely impaired. This is a great album and we all know that, moving on.

Led Zeppelin are not the most ethical band in the world, and if I have an issue with this album is the fact that they didn't credit a lot of people who actually wrote the songs they cover here, which seems a little disrespectful to their blues roots. This has nothing to do with what you hear in the album however, and what you hear is a bunch of Brits rocking out like no one else before, and they do it near perfection here.

There is a lot of Blues influence, and with Page fresh from the Yardbirds this is not surprising. The versions here are superb however, creating the template to all Heavy Rock to come, to greater of smaller degrees of goodness. Plant's voice has launched a thousand crappier imitations in all the Heavy Metal bands in the world, but his voice manages not to be annoying. And the playing is just beautiful, Page is a genius, doing a good effort at imitating Hendrix, and although he never quite manages it, the cleanness and catchiness of his riffs are such that they cover his technical inferiority to Jimi. If you mixed Hendrix and Townshend from the Who you might just get Page, and that is a good thing. Just the stuff in Babe I'm Gonna Leave You, the Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon-like guitars in Dazed and Confused and Communication Breakdown would make this one of the best guitar albums in the world.

Page, my boy, if you are reading this, which I'm sure you are, I loves you. And could I please take a look at your Crowleyana collection? plskthankx. xxxx (I wanna have like a million of your babies)

Oh just buy it, from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Babe I'm Gonna Leave YOu
2. Communication Breakdown
3. Dazed And Confused
4. Good Times, Bad Times

Final Grade

10/10 (Call me, Jimmy)

Trivia

Kirk/Spock to the sound of Babe I'm Gonna Leave You :



From Wikipedia:

While the album received generally positive reviews, some derided it, most famously John Mendelsohn of Rolling Stone magazine, who savaged the band for stealing music, mimicking black artists, and showing off. This marked the beginning of a long rift between the band and the magazine. Led Zeppelin rejected later requests for interviews and cover stories with the magazine as their level of success escalated.

Led Zeppelin's famous album cover met an interesting protest when, at a February 28, 1970 gig in Copenhagen, the band was billed as "The Nobs" as the result of a threat of legal action from aristocrat Eva von Zeppelin (relative of the namesake creator of the Zeppelin aircraft), who, upon seeing the logo of the Hindenburg crashing in flames, threatened to have the show pulled off the air.

154. Quicksilver Messenger Service - Happy Trails (1969)




















Track Listing

1. Who Do You Love
2. When You Love
3. Where You Love
4. How Do You Love
5. Which Do You Love
6. Who Do You Love
7. Mona
8. Maiden Of The Cancer Moon
9. Calvary
10. Happy Trails

Review

This album is jammin'. Well, just imagine a big jam psychadelic session and this is what you get, but imagine a good one because this is quite a good album, although it does seem to fall into the realm of wankery from time to time.

The first half of the album, the Who Do You Love suite is definitely the strongest part of this, and the one where all members shine the most. It starts with the theme track and in the next four tracks all members do their solo bits in the jam and in the end it goes back to the ensemble Who Do You Love. It is quite amazing technically, and quite good in musical terms.

The second half of the album, with the extended Calvary, is technically as good as the first half, but it is also a little bit more show off-y and self-serving than the first half, which doesn't make it as good. After a while you start thinking, yeah, I know you can play already! Give me some music!

All in all, however, if you like really extended jams in the Grateful Dead tradition this is the album for you. If not, it's alright, I'm not a big fan myself, but I recognise the prowess. So buy it from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Who Do You Love
2. Where You Love
3. When You Love
4. Mona

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

Here's Mona! In a harder version than in the album:



From Wikipedia:

"Happy Trails" consists mainly of a performance cover of Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love?" spread out over nearly 20 minutes. The song was divided into several parts ("What Do You Love," "How Do You Love," "Where Do You Love," etc.) in order to recoup a greater share of royalty payments.

A heavy beat, extended instrumental section and the spiralling guitar work of John Cipollina drive the album to greatness, as the jam quiets, is reduced to drums and sound effects, then explodes into the finale.

The second half of the album is comprised of an almost continuous suite. Beginning with another Bo Diddley song ("Mona"), guitarist Gary Duncan's Maiden of the Cancer Moon follows and the album closes with the atmospheric Calvary, which manifested itself during a studio acid trip. As a coda, the band sing the theme tune to cowboy TV show Roy Rogers, which lends its title to the album. Fans of rock trivia may be interested to note that this whimsical tune also appears on Van Halen's Diver Down.

In 2003, the album was ranked number 189 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time

153. The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground (1969)




















Track Listing

1. Candy Says
2. What Goes On
3. Some Kinda Love
4. Pale Blue Eyes
5. Jesus
6. Beginning To See The Light
7. I'm Set Free
8. That's The Story Of My Life
9. The Murder Mystery
10. After Hours

Review

For those who care, I'm reviewing the Closet Mix, Lou's original mix which is what you find on Napster as well, so there!

Ahh The Velvet Undeground, what a change from fucking Elvis. This is Velvet's least demanding album until now but it is in no way worse than the previous ones. Cale has left the band, and with him some vanguardism but the lyrical and musical quality of Lou Reed is still here. And in more than any other Velvet album you can really identify Lou's hand here.

It is a mellower, less noisy album, which isn't to say that it doesn't rock, it does so in a number of tracks, such as Beginning To See The Light. The softer touch, although absent form White Light/ White Heat suits VU, this was marked in the album with Nico and the other album with Nico (they were in most tracks off Chelsea Girl).

So something which can't be said about a lot of VU's output, this is a nice album. But the concerns with the underworld are still here, in Candy Says for example, a touching track about a transvestite and so is the crazy experimentation, in Murder Mystery, where two narratives are played at the same time one in the left and the other on the right speaker. Generally it is a beautiful album, and one very much worth listening to. Stream from Napster or buy from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. What Goes On
2. Candy Says
3. Pale Blue Eyes
4. Beginning To Se The Light

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

Antony and the Johnssons cover Candy Says:


From Wikipedia:

The record was produced by the band themselves, and issued simultaneously in two mixes: one done by sound engineer Val Valentin, and one by Lou Reed, dubbed the 'closet mix' by guitarist Sterling Morrison. He thought it sounded flat, as if recorded in a closet. The two can easily be told apart by the use of entirely different takes for "Some Kinda Love". Subsequent domestic and foreign re-issues of the record dither between the two mixes; the CD issues have always used the Valentin mix. The Reed mix can be found on the 1995 box set Peel Slowly and See. In 2003, the album was ranked number 314 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

152. Elvis Presley - From Elvis in Memphis (1969)





















Track Listing

1. Wearin' That Loved On Look
2. Only The Strong Survive
3. I'll Hold You In My Heart (Till I Can Hold You In My Arms)
4. Long Black Limousine
5. It Keeps Right On Hurtin'
6. I'm Movin' On
7. Power Of My Love
8. Gentle On My Mind
9. After Loving You
10. True Love Travels On A Gravel Road
11. Any Day Now
12. In The Ghetto

Review

I really deeply dislike Elvis, and this album is no exception. It is probably one of the worst albums in the whole list up until now. Most songs are misses and just plain boring, repetitive affairs. The boom-chicka-boom stuff really isn't cutting it anymore in 1969.

There is one song which is above par here, and that is In The Ghetto, which is a great political track, without getting over propagandistic. A couple of other songs are also not bad, but 5 tracks out of a 12 track album does not an album make. Most of it is just plain crappy rehashed uninnovative middle of the road white trash crap.

Although the arrangements in most of the tracks are not bad they do not manage to save the tracks from their drearyness. It is just so boring that I actually dreaded putting this album on in the days before this review. I really hate it, sorry. Buy it if you must from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. In The Ghetto
2. Any Day Now
3. Only The Strong Survive
4. Power Of My Love

Final Grade

4/10

Trivia

In The Ghetto:

151. Dusty Springfield - Dusty In Memphis (1969)




















Track Listing

1. Just A Little Lovin'
2. So Much Love
3. Son Of A Preacher Man
4. I Don't Want To Hear It Anymore
5. Don't Forget About Me
6. Breakfast In Bed
7. Just One Smile
8. The Windmills Of Your Mind
9. In The Land Of Make Believe
10. No Easy Way Down
11. I Can't Make It Alone

Review

Dusty goes away from her physical roots but into her musical roots in this album, so Dusty goes to Memphis and makes a soul album. She's no Aretha but she is pretty good herself, and this album, although it doesn't stand out as a whole, has some tracks which are absolutely amazing.

Chief among the tracks that make this album great is Son Of A Preacher Man, made famous again in the 90's by its use in Pulp Fiction. Tt is a pretty great track irrespective of Uma Thurman associations. Unfortunately not all tracks are like this, but fortunately none of them is bad or boring, she is a pretty great performer, and her backing is pretty amazing throughout.

That said there are not particular "misses" in the album, but there are some track which don't particularly stand out, and when you compare it to albums by someone like Aretha Franklin it is frankly inferior, but definitely good enough to merit a place in this list. So listen to it either through Napster or by buying it from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Son Of A Preacher Man
2. Windmills Of Your Mind
3. Don't Forget About Me
4. Breakfast in Bed

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

Son Of A Preacher Man:



Harder, More, are just two of a number of crap safe-words in the world of BDSM.

150. Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left (1969)





















Track Listing

1. Time Has Told Me
2. River Man
3. Three Hours
4. Day Is Done
5. Way To Blue
6. Cello Song
7. Thoughts Of Mary Jane
8. Man In A Shed
9. Fruit Tree
10. Saturday Sun

Review

Ok, this is an album which is definitely on my top 10, if not top 5 albums of all time, it is as close to perfection as an album is possible to get. Everything is just right, form Drake's voice and lyrics, to the amazing guitar playing and the heart-breaking orchestration...

This is not a chirpy album at all, in fact it is permeated by this sense of depression but never falling into excess like Tim Buckley for example. It is just composed of deceptively simple songs which are innefably beautiful... and that is probably the defining word of this album, beauty. It isn't gritty or raw, but it is beautiful and actually pretty innovative as well. Again it's an album that folk purist would have disliked at the time. It is folk, but the jazz influence is much more pronounced than even in Pentangle, particularly in Saturday Son which sounds almost like something that Nina Simone might have performed. If I can compare it to any other album before it in style it would have to be Nico's Chelsea Girl, but it is unique enought that not even that comparison fits it.

Another thing about this album is just how intemporal it feels, there is no way you could tell that this album is 37 years old, it sounds as fresh today as it ever did. It did not date one iota since it was made... it is a truly majestic work of art and something that you owe yourself to listen to if you haven't already, form it's beautiful strings to the beautiful lyrics there is nothing that you can point your finger at in this album. Stream it from Napster or buy it from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

Sophie's fucking choice.

1. Way To Blue
2. 'Cello Song
3. Saturday Son
4. River Man

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

No videos of him of course, as he died unknown, but here's a slide show of pictures of him to the sound of River Man:



From Wikipedia:

Drake began recording his debut album Five Leaves Left during the spring of 1969, with Boyd assuming the role of producer. The sessions took place in Sound Techniques studio, London, during days when Drake would skip lectures to travel by train to the capital. Boyd was inspired by John Simon's production of Leonard Cohen's first album, and was keen that Drake's voice would be recorded in a similar "close and intimate" style, "with no shiny pop reverb". He also sought to feature a similar string arrangement to Simon's, "without overwhelming...or sounding cheesy".

To provide backing, Boyd enlisted various members of the London folk rock scene, including Fairport Convention guitarist Richard Thompson, and Pentangle bassist Danny Thompson. John Wood was recruited as engineer, with Richard Hewson drafted to provide the string arrangements. However, initial recordings didn't go well. The sessions were irregular and rushed, taking place during studio downtime borrowed from Fairport Convention's production of their Unhalfbricking album. Tension arose between artist and producer as to the direction the album should take – Boyd was an advocate of George Martins 'using the studio as an instrument' approach, while Drake's preference was for a more 'organic' and 'pure' sound. Biographer Tervor Dann has observed that Drake sounds "tight and anxious" on bootleg recordings taken from these sessions, and notes a number of unsuccessful attempts at instrumentation.

Both Boyd and Drake were unhappy with Hewson's contributions, and Drake suggested using his college friend Robert Kirby as a replacement. Boyd was sceptical at taking on a music student without recording experience, but he was impressed by Drake's uncharacteristic forthcoming, and agreed to a trial. Kirby had previously presented Drake with some arrangements for his songs, and went on to provided the spare chamber music quartet score associated with the sound of the final album.

Confident of the album's sucess, Drake ended his studies at Cambridge just nine months before graduation, and in autumn 1969 moved to London to concentrate on songwriting. His father remembered "writing him long letters, pointing out the disadvantages of going away from Cambridge...a degree was a safety net, if you manage to get a degree, at least you have something to fall back on. His reply to that was that a safety net was the one thing he did not want." Drake spent his first few months in the capital drifting from place to place, occasionally staying at his sister's Kensington flat, but more usually sleeping on friend's sofas and floors. Eventually he moved into a ground floor bedsit in Belsize Park, paid for by Witchseason .

Post-production difficulties led to the release being delayed by several months, and the album was poorly marketed and supported when it finally arrived. Reviews in the music press were few and lukewarm. In July Melody Maker referred to the album as "poetic" and "interesting", NME wrote in October that there was "not nearly enough variety to make it entertaining". He was reportedly unhappy with the inlay sleeve, which printed songs in the wrong running order and reproduced verses omitted from the recorded versions. Drake's disappointment with the final result is reflected in an interview comment by his sister Gabrielle: "He was very secretive. I knew he was making an album but I didn't know what stage of completion it was at until he walked into my room and said, "There you are." He threw it on to the bed and walked out!'"

149. Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed (1969)





















Track Listing

1. Gimme Shelter
2. Love In Vain
3. Country Honk
4. Live With Me
5. Let It Bleed
6. Midnight Rambler
7. You Got The Silver
8. Monkey Man
9. You Can’t Always Get What You Want

Review

Well the Stones are definitely at the height of their career here. After the amazing Beggar's Banquet, Let It Bleed is almost as good. In particular Let It Bleed is bookended by two of the best Rolling Stones tracks ever put to record. Really.

The middle of the album is good, solid, Rolling Stones, bluesy music, with particular highlights in Monkey Man and Let It Bleed. But nothing beats both the sound and the innovation of the first and last track. Gimme Shelter is a quasi-apocaliptic rock-fest contagious in it's fierceness, and You Can't Always Get What You Want is sublime, starting with something you'd never expect from a Stones album, a heavenly choir, and gradually developing to Rock Anthem greatness. The Beatles claimed that the Stones stole You Can't Always Get What You Want from Hey Jude. The difference is Hey Jude is crap.

I've never been a big Stones fan, and the Beatles were definitely superior as a band, this is not to say that the Stones did not produce some amazing output, and seeing as the Beatles were dying they definitely were posed to inherit the mantle in the pop world. Stream it from Napster or buy it from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. You Can't Always Get What You Want
2. Gimme Shelter
3. Monkey Man
4. Let It Bleed

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

Gimme Shelter, album version is better because of backup singers, but hey:



From Wikipedia:

Although they had begun the recording of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" in November 1968, before Beggars Banquet had been released, recording for Let It Bleed began in earnest in February 1969 and would continue sporadically until November. Brian Jones performs on two tracks, "Midnight Rambler" (although his part is inaudible) and "You Got The Silver;" his replacement Mick Taylor also plays on two tracks, "Country Honk" and "Live With Me." Keith Richards, who had already shared vocal duties with Mick Jagger on a handful of songs ("Connection", "Something Happened To Me Yesterday" and "Salt Of The Earth"), sang his first solo lead vocal on a Rolling Stones recording with "You Got the Silver."

During 1968, Richards had been hanging out in London with Gram Parsons, who had left The Byrds on the eve of their departure for a tour in the Republic of South Africa. By all accounts, Parsons had significant impact on Richards' taste in country music, and perhaps as a result of his influence, the band recorded a true honky-tonk song, "Country Honk," a more uptempo and rock and roll version of which would appear as their next single, "Honky Tonk Women." The LP track featured fiddle player Byron Berline, who worked with Parsons frequently throughout the latter's career. Parsons frequently took credit for the arrangement of "Country Honk", although both Jagger and Richards have stated that it was actually the original arrangement of the song as written and conceived while vacationing in Brazil in late 1968. In any event, Parsons had recently introduced the group to his cache of traditional country records and was at least indirectly responsible for this sea change. The singer's own cover, released on the 1976 rarities compilation Sleepless Nights features a slightly different set of lyrics and yet another arrangement that combines elements of both Stones versions.

Recorded under trying circumstance owing to the band having reached the final impasse with Jones, the album has been called a great summing up of the dark underbelly of the 1960s, its seamy side touched upon very rarely in the pop music of the decade. In addition to being one of their all-time classics, Bleed is the second of the Stones' run of four studio LPs that are generally regarded as among their greatest achievements artistically, equalled only by the best of their great 45s from that decade. The other three albums are Beggars Banquet (1968), Sticky Fingers (1971), and Exile on Main Street (1972).

Released in December, Let It Bleed reached #1 in the UK (temporarily knocking The Beatles' Abbey Road out of the top slot) and #3 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart in the US, where it eventually went double platinum. The album was also critically well-received.

In 1998 Q magazine readers voted Let It Bleed the 69th greatest album of all time, while in 2000 the same magazine placed it at number 28 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2002, it was listed as number 32 on the List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2003, the TV network VH1 placed Let It Bleed at number 24 on their best album survey.