245. Steely Dan - Can't Buy A Thrill (1972)
















Track Listing

1. Do It Again
2. Dirty Work
3. Kings
4. Midnight Cruiser
5. Only A Fool Would Say That
6. Reelin' In The Years
7. Fire In The Hole
8. Brooklyn (Owes The Charmer Under Me)
9. Change Of The Guard
10. Turn That Heartbeat Over Again

Review

Steely Dan gives us a strangely appealing mix of Adult Oriented Rock and Jazz in this album. It is appealing because it soon gets under your skin and you start humming the tunes, and strange because although it seems very accessible at first listen you do eventually start noticing pretty intricacies to the music.

Good examples of intricate work in this album include the first track with it's electronic sitar and cheap yamaha organ with theramin solo or the second track with it's almost Morphine-like brass. Even Fire In The Hole has really interesting piano work. In all tracks, really, you can find something which kicks the tracks that essential notch above the comercial AOR bar.

The lyrics are also pretty fascinating, and Steely manage to make an album which is at the same time both easy to get in to and rewarding to listen to repeatedly, which really is something that most pop acts aim to do and fail miserably at. This is a near perfect collection of tracks and even if is not your style of music, it really deserves an effort on your part. Get it from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Do It Again
2. Fire In The Hole
3. Dirty Work
2. Reelin' In The Years

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Produced by Katz and recorded by Roger Nichols at ABC Studios, their debut album, Can't Buy A Thrill, was released in 1972 and made an immediate impression with the hit singles "Do It Again", the Palmer-sung "Dirty Work" (later covered by Max Merritt), and "Reelin' In The Years." Both "Do It Again" and "Reelin' In The Years" hit the Top Ten on the Billboard singles chart. All three tunes soon became staples of FM radio. "Reelin' In The Years" also features an acclaimed guitar solo by Elliott Randall.

Because of Fagen's reluctance to sing live, David Palmer handled most of the vocal duties on stage. During the first tour, it became apparent to Katz and Becker that Palmer's interpretation of the material wasn't having the same impact, and eventually convinced Fagen that he was the one who best conveyed the attitude and meaning of the songs. Palmer quietly left the group during the recording of the second album, soon hooking up with Carole King, with whom he wrote the 1974 #1 hit, "Jazzman."

Do It Again:

Hi people, I'm in Portugal right now trying to solve marriage burocracies, yes ladies I am engaged... weep!

I'll be back in Manchester updating on the 30th. So, see you then!

244. Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath Vol. 4 (1972)

















Track Listing

1. Wheels of Confusion/The Straightener
2. Tomorrow's Dream
3. Changes
4. FX
5. Supernaut
6. Snowblind
7. Cornucopia
8. Laguna Sunrise
9. St. Vitus Dance
10. Under the Sun/Every Day Comes and Goes

Review

Oh gods... this is supposedly the last Black Sabbath album before they go shit, clearly they are already daubing some manure on themselves by this time. After their amazing first two albums there is a forgetable third and this fourth... well it really isn't that good. There's some more classic Sabbath, yes, some songs could easily have belonged to better albums, but then you get something like Changes and you think, "Why? God! Why?".

The songwriting is still shit, Ozzie has all the writing talent of a consumptive slab of granite on a bike, falling off a cliff. His lyrics are obvious, puerile and just plain stupid... this can of course be offset by some great music! Which in most cases it isn't, sometimes the simple fact of rocking makes it more palatable to listen to badly rhymed lyrics, but even the rock seems to be missing here... Changes again is an example of this, it just doesn't work to have crappy Black Sabath lyrics on a ballad! And then they go and dig it up more recently to make a duet with Kelly Osbourne and Ozzie? What the hell were they thinking? I'd pay to see Kelly do Iron Man or War Pigs or even Paranoid... not Changes, of all crimes against humanity.

So this is definitely the beggining of the slippery slope, it isn't that bad but it doesn't live up to their better work, from here its all the way down... get it from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Wheels Of Confusion
2. Snowblind
3. Laguna Sunrise
4. Supernaut

Final Grade

6/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

It was originally to be titled Snowblind, the name of a track on the album which was a reference to cocaine use. The record company feared a backlash, particularly in America, so the title was altered. The song "Snowblind" had to be re-recorded because in the original Ozzy yelled the word "cocaine" after each verse (he can still be heard whispering "cocaine" in the final version, and he often screamed "cocaine" during live performances of the song, as he does in their Reunion) live album. In the sleevenotes of the album Black Sabbath gave their thanks to "the great COKE-Cola Company", this being a humoristic and drug-related paraphrase on the Coca Cola-company.

hahaha that so funny!


The History of Balck Sabbath in Viyl covers with Wheels Of Confusion as the soundtrack:

243. Big Star - #1 Record (1972)

















Track Listing

1. Feel
2. Ballad of el Goodo
3. In the Street
4. Thirteen
5. Don't Lie to Me
6. India Song
7. When My Baby's Beside Me
8. My Life Is Right
9. Give Me Another Chance
10. Try Again
11. Watch the Sunrise
12. St 100/6

Review

Ahh, a nice little album of near perfectly crafted pop-rock. Unfortunately this wasn't very popular at the time it came out so it was pretty much under the radar until quite a bit later when people like REM started listing them as influences. And you can tell, it doesn't sound that particularly modern, but there are plenty of elements here which would be picked up by later bands and so its influence is unarguable.

This album is probably best known by the general public as the album which has the original version of the That 70's Show opening titles in the track In The Street. There is, however, a lot more to be found here and with the exception of a couple of tracks like Don't Lie To Me which sounds almost like something out of Slade it is a pretty nifty album.

The song Thirteen is particularly affecting as a portrayal of early teen love. The production in the album is also really good with the sounds of the individual instruments coming out very cleanly. In the end it is a lovely album with some very, very strong tracks which make the few misses completely excusable. So get it from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Thirteen
2. The Ballad of El Goodo
3. In The Street
4. Feel

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

It was released in 1972 by Memphis-based Ardent Records. Though many critics praised the album's elegant vocal harmonies and refined songcraft (frequently drawing comparisons to the British Invasion groups of the 1960s, including The Beatles, The Kinks and The Who), #1 Record fared quite dismally in terms of commercial success. In 2003, the album was ranked number 438 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

The singles released from the album were "When My Baby's Beside Me" and "Don't Lie To Me". The B-side of the former included a version of "In The Street" which until 2005 was only available on the single. It's now included on the 20 Greats from the Golden Decade of Power Pop compilation CD.

Thirteen for all you Harry Potter fans out there... or ignore the video:

242. Deep Purple - Machine Head (1972)

















Track Listing

1. Highway Star
2. Maybe I'm A Leo
3. Pictures Of Home
4. Never Before
5. Smoke On The Water
6. Lazy
7. Space Truckin'

Review

This is an album which has lost a lot with time, not because of the quality of the album itself but the way in which it was appropriated. I am sure that in 1972 this would have been something else, but after decades of Smoke On The Water it becomes little more than a parody of itself. Not only that but even other good tracks here like Highway Star have so many things that were later taken up by hair bands in the 80's that it just becomes funny.

Of course the album itself is impressive if you go back to 1972 in a time machine,and it is still a lot of fun to listen to today, it has a lot of kitsch value indeed, and when Smoke On The Water comes on it's always a highlight, but then you get lyrics like those in Space Truckin' and you can't help but smirk. Maybe they were just simpler times when we weren't all jaded and cynical.

So there is a lot of fun to be had here, but also a lot of embarrasment it is nearly impossible to take this seriously, and that is also a measure of how influential the album was. Nonetheless In Rock was the better album, maybe because it wasn't so influential... give me Child In Time over Smoke on The Water anyday. Get it from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Smoke On The Water
2. Highway Star
3. Lazy
4. Never Before

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Smoke on the Water" was included on Machine Head, which was released in early 1972, but was not released as a single until nearly a year later (the band has said that they did not expect the song to be a hit); the single would reach #4 on the Billboard pop single chart in the U.S. in the summer of 1973, and propel the album to the top 10. Live performance of the tune, featuring extended interplay between Blackmore's guitar and Jon Lord's Hammond organ would become a centerpiece of Deep Purple's live shows, and a version of the song from the live album Made in Japan became a minor hit on its own later in 1973.

The principal song-writers understandably included the song within their subsequent solo endeavours after Deep Purple split up. Ian Gillan in particular performed a jazz-influnced version in early solo concerts. The band Gillan adopted a feedback-soaked approach, courtesy of Gillan guitarist Bernie Torme.The song was also featured live by Ritchie Blackmore's post-Deep Purple band Rainbow during their tours 1981-83, and again after Rainbow were resurrected briefly in the mid 1990's.

During Ian Gillan's stint with Black Sabbath in 1983, they performed "Smoke on the Water" as a regular repertoire number on encores during their only tour together.

The song is commonly the first song learned by many beginner guitarists, but Blackmore himself has demonstrated that most who attempt to play it do so improperly. This power chord-driven variation on the main recognisable riff is not difficult and consequently is constantly played by learners. In fact, the song is so popular, that one famous guitar store in Denmark Street, London, used to sport a sign on the wall reading "If auditioning a guitar, please refrain from playing 'Smoke on the Water,' as this is causing our staff mental torture." In the book The Log by Craig Charles, one of the items in the list of things never to do before reaching the age of thirty is learning the riff from 'Smoke on the Water'.

Smoke On The Water:

241. Randy Newman - Sail Away (1972)

















Track Listing

1. Sail Away
2. Lonely At The Top
3. He Gives Us All His Love
4. Last Night I Had A Dream
5. Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear
6. Old Man
7. Political Science
8. Burn On
9. Memo To My Son
10. Dayton, Ohio - 1903
11. You Can Leave Your Hat On
12. God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)

Review

Ok, I know a lot of people have problems with Randy's narrative style of songwriting and his slightly nasaly voice. But by golly this is a great album. No one was doing this at the time, taking very american sounds through the use of the piano and putting little stories in character to them. It ends up being a collection of tales more than anything, but not necessarily narrative tales, Sail Away for example if a song sung from the point of view of a slave trader as a plug to Africans about how great it is to be an American, it's almost a jingle.

Then you go on through the album and there are varying degrees of subtelty, Political Science for example has the most brilliant title when applied to the song, but it hits more like a sledgehammer, not much subtelty here, but that's what makes it great satire in this case. A lot of the tracks here are ambiguous in their meaning, but when it comes to really important themes like nuclear war Newman doesn't feel the need to be subtle.

Not all is funny here, Simon Smith is bitter sweet and Old Man is intensely depressive. There is an overall feeling of longing to the better days, the ragtime piano, the invocation of Dayton, Ohio in 1903 and circus performers like Simon Smith and The Amazing Dancing Bear, still this always done tongue-in-cheek, like Dolly parton said "The good old days, when times were bad". The title song doesn't let you forget how bad they were. So this is an album that is more than anything multi-layered. The compositions are amazingly simple and beautiful while the lyrics are some of the best and least pretentious in the history of music. Get it from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Political Science
2. Sail Away
3. Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear
4. God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)

Final Grade

10/10 (wow, three in a row!)

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Newman is noted for his practice of writing lyrics from the perspective of a "character" far removed from Newman's own biography, often utilizing the literary device of an unreliable narrator. For example, the 1972 song "Sail Away" is written as slave trader's sales pitch to attract slaves, while the narrator of "Political Science" is a U.S. nationalist who complains of worldwide ingratitude toward America and proposes a brutally ironic final solution ("Let's drop the big one").

We really need three videos here, so here we go.

Simon Smith by The Muppets! :



Political Science at the Whistle Test, brilliant:



Last but not least, Randy Newman parody on Family Guy!:

240. David Bowie - Hunky Dory (1971)
















Track Listing

1. Changes
2. Oh! You Pretty Things
3. Eight Line Poem
4. Life on Mars?
5. Kooks
6. Quicksand
7. Fill Your Heart
8. Andy Warhol
9. Song for Bob Dylan
10. Queen Bitch
11. The Bewlay Brothers

Review

This is the first of many albums by David Bowie to show up on this list, and what a great thing that is. Bowie has two amazing period in his life and each was marked by 3 albums. The first period starts with Hunky Dory, goes on to Ziggy Stardust and ends with Aladdin Sane. The second period are his Berlin albums, these were Station To Station, Low and Heroes. From the first period this one is my favourite album, although all of them are pretty near perfection.

Hunky Dory is a unique album which mixes what would be glam with folk elements and a lot of experimental stuff. People already knew Bowie's love of strange sounds when he released his hit single Space Oddity in 1969, but here he really lets lose whith all kinds of strange instrumentation and sounds, listen to the beginning of Andy Warhol or the end of Bewlay Brothers. Everyone seemed to suppose Bowie was a one hit wonder, they thought the same of Beck with Loser and Radiohead with Creep, but those are stories of the future! Hunky Dory came out and it was no hit, it needed Ziggy to bring it to attention. In the end it became a collection which has some of Bowie's most famous songs like Changes and the amazing Life On Mars.

It really shouldn't work as an album, there is such diversity here that this should have been a very hit and miss affair. Still, no song here is beneath brilliant and they are all united by a very Bowie sense of style. This makes an album where there is very little formal unity still feel like one piece , a complete whole which only leaves you wanting more. Everyone has their favourite years in music and mine would have to be 1971 to 1974 because of precious gems like this and like Electric Warrior reviewed yesterday as well as the surprises to come, from Roxy Music and Brian Eno to Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon or Lou Reed's Transformer. This is a brilliant album which doesn't deserve to live in the shadow of Ziggy Stardust. A tribute to Bowie's icons which sets out the influences which would shape the brilliant career to come. Buy it at Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

This is like a box of Quality Street:

1. Life On Mars
2. Andy Warhol
3. Bewlay Brothers
4. Changes

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In 1998 Q magazine readers voted Hunky Dory the 43rd greatest album of all time, while in 2000 the same magazine placed it at number 16 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2003, the album was ranked number 107 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In the same year, the
TV network VH1 placed it at number 47.

Quicksand starts with the following lines:

"I'm closer to the Golden Dawn, immersed in Crowley's uniform of imagery "

Crowley FTW !!!!!111!!!

Directed by Mick Rock, a "Promo" for Life On Mars, imagine yourself in 1971 and this comes onto your screen, WTF?:

239. T-Rex - Electric Warrior (1971)
















Track Listing

1. Mambo Sun
2. Cosmic Dancer
3. Jeepster
4. Monolith
5. Lean Woman Blues
6. Get It On
7. Planet Queen
8. Girl
9. Motivator
10. Life's A Gas
11. Rip Off

Review

Ahhh! Now we're getting somewhere, if you know me personally you are probably aware of my love for good glam - Bowie, T-Rex, Roxy Music, Brain Eno etc. This excludes stuff like Slade and Gary Glitter I am afraid. It is actually quite hard to imagine what would have gone through people's minds when they first heard this or when they first saw Bolan or Ziggy-Bowie on TV.

Here we have the first shock of proportions similar to Elvis flaunting his crotch while, unlike him, actually making some pretty amazing music. Bolan revels in kitschiness in this album, he revels in making a bit of fun music which is also incredibly innovative, fun and beautiful. If something comes out of this album it is exactly the sense of fun, of a guy doing what he wants, flaunting his ambiguous sexuality and his little pet sounds like someone who really doesn't care.

Bolan was tapping into a new generation of people, and his music was most definitely for a generation which was already removed from the hippies, particularly in the UK, who were more cynical about life but also had a greater sense of fun and style. This album is stylish and fun, it plays with conceptions about music and really is a founding stone of glam. Of course you can say many of the lyrics here are gibberish, but they sound so cool, "you've got the universe reclining in your hair" means absolutely nothing but it sounds great. There is definitely an exchange of content for style here, nothing could be further from the Dylans of yesteryear, still it is just as good in its absolute unpretentiousness to make anything more than music to have fun to, while still being able to give you something more.

Few other albums so concerned with fun would bother to put an arrangement for fugelhorn on Girl or mix strings with guitar feedback on Rip Off, or start Monolith with what sounds like LP scratching and keep a lot of the studio sounds in. Truly unique and wonderful. Get it on Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Cosmic Dancer
2. Planet Queen
3. Girl
4. Rip Off

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

One of the best-known songs on the record is "Get It On", whose title was changed in the United States to "Bang a Gong (Get It On)" (as there was another hit song at the time called "Get It On" by the group Chase). This was T. Rex's biggest single and their only U.S. hit (#10). The track is followed by "Girl", which is separated from the rest of the album by an unusual flugelhorn arrangement. Elsewhere is "Cosmic Dancer", an acoustic-based song propelled by producer Tony Visconti's string arrangements. This track features over the opening credits of the film Billy Elliot.

Also present on the album are Flo & Eddie, whose background vocals are most prevalent on the track "Monolith", but also feature on "Mambo Sun" and "Get It On".

Girl:

238. Harry Nilsson - Nilsson Schmilsson (1971)

















Track Listing

1. Gotta Get Up
2. Driving Along
3. Early In The Morning
4. Moonbeam Song
5. Down
6. Without You
7. Coconut
8. Let The Good Times Roll
9. Jump Into The Fire
10. I'll Never Leave You

Review

There is something deeply strange with an album when different songs can remind you of the first song from the Buffy musical episode Once More With Feeling (Gotta Get Up), Mariah Carey (Without You), crappy novelty music (Coconut), I Fought The Law by The Clash (Jump Into The Fire) and even Rufus Wainwright (Moonbeam Song and particularly I'll Never Leave You).

In that sense there is something really interesting about this album, albeit slightly schizoid. In the end it is too eclectic for its own good, it gets lost in its own variety. Nilsson is also not a particularly good lyricist or singer, actually the song where he sings better is the dreadful Without You, one of the lamest yet infectious songs in the whole 1001 albums list.

The album has some quite good tracks and some you really wouldn't expect from the man who popularised Without You; Jump Into The Fire is a very capable rocker for example. Nilsson was dogged with accusations of being Beatles light, but The Beatles were never this lost in an album, and a lot of the songs here would surely rate as the worse work of the Beatles. Octopus' Garden sounds like Keats next to Coconut for example, with its racial sterotyping accents, which only works as the end theme to Reservoir Dogs because Tarantino recognises its crappiness. This is an album which deservedly won its place in the bargain bin at any music shop, but not without its redeeming qualities. Get it form Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. I'll Never Leave You
2. Jump Into The Fire
3. Gotta Get Up
4. Moonbeam Song

Final Grade

6/10

Trivia

Nilsson Schmilsson yielded three very stylistically different hit singles. The first was a cover of Badfinger's song "Without You" (by Pete Ham and Tom Evans), featuring a highly emotional arrangement and soaring vocals to match, a performance that was rewarded with Nilsson's second Grammy Award.

The second single was "Coconut", a novelty calypso number featuring three characters (the narrator, the sister, and the doctor) all sung in different voices by Nilsson. The song is best remembered for its chorus lyric, "Put de lime in de coconut, and drink 'em both up." Cocunut was featured in Episode 81 (October 25, 1973) of the Flip Wilson Show. The song has since been featured in many other films, commercials, and even an episode of The Simpsons and one of Chalk Zone. It was also used in a comedy skit on The Muppet Show, which featured Kermit the Frog in a hospital bed. Most recently it has been heard in a television commercial for Coca-Cola with Lime. The song was also used at the end credits in the Quentin Tarantino film Reservoir Dogs.

The third single, "Jump into the Fire", was raucous, screaming rock and roll, including a drum solo by Derek and the Dominos' Jim Gordon and a bass detuning by Herbie Flowers. The song was famously used during the May 11, 1980, scenes in the film Goodfellas.

If you thought I was exagerating about racial stereotyping in Coconut watch the video for it:

237. John Prine - John Prine (1971)

















Track Listing

1. Illegal Smile
2. Spanish Pipedream
3. Hello in There
4. Sam Stone
5. Paradise
6. Pretty Good
7. Your Flag Decal Won't Get You into Heaven Anymore
8. Far from Me
9. Angel from Montgomery
10. Quiet Man
11. Donald and Lydia
12. Six O'Clock News
13. Flashback Blues

Review

Yesterday when I said that the next three albums were unremarkable I was lying. I really was, well I didn't know I was lying then but I do now. John Prine really improves with repeated listenings and it has won me over now. Try to imagine Dylan, now try to imagine he had a much funnier sense of humour and that he was playing straight country, or at least countrier music. Then you get Prine.

Prine's music isn't as good as Dylan's, a lot of it sounds like formulaic Country, but the lyrics are some of the best I've ever heard, at times funny and at other times heart-wrenching. While Illegal Smile and Your Flag Decal Won't Get You into Heaven Anymore are two of the funniest tracks here, Hello In There and Sam Stone are of an almost unbearable saddness.

What is particularly remarkable about Prine is how he uses a very conservative music style to sing the most un-conservative lyrics. OF course his music has been apropriated by the country status-quo, misinterpreted and murdered but if you are smart you'll get him, and he's brilliant. Get him from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Your Flag Decal Won't Get You into Heaven Anymore
2. Hello In There
3. Sam Stone
4. Illegal Smile

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia


From Wikipedia:

He and friend Steve Goodman had each been stars in the Chicago folk scene before being "discovered" by Kris Kristofferson. The album included his signature songs "Illegal Smile", "Sam Stone", and the environmentalist newgrass standard "Paradise". The album also included "Hello In There," a song about aging that was later covered by numerous artists. The album received many positive reviews, and some hailed Prine as "the next Dylan." Bob Dylan himself appeared unannounced at one of Prine's first New York City club appearances, anonymously backing him on harmonica.

Your Flag Decal Won't Get You into Heaven Anymore, it's still so relevant:

236. Gene Clark - White Light (1971)


















Track Listing

1. The Virgin
2. With Tomorrow
3. White Light
4. Because Of You
5. One In A Hundred
6. Spanish Guitar
7. Where My Love Lies Asleep
8. Tears Of Rage
9. 1975

Review

Gene Clark of Byrds fame starts what is unfortunately a string of unexceptional albums on this list for the next three days. That is not to say that there are not things which are really worthy from these albums, none of them is a disaster. This one is a very good singer/songwriter album actually, but again there is nothing which really gets you.

My biggest gripe with this album is that very little here demonstrates much originality, a lot of it has been done by Dylan, by former Byrds colleagues and by The Band. These are all very good influences to have, of course, but they are also very hard to beat. Gene makes a perfectly good album here, just not that new.

There is no reinvention of the singer/songwriter medium, there is a guitar, a bit of harmonica, occasional folksy/country arrangements which derive from his love of country already present towards the end of the Byrds. This album ends up being a culmination of all these influences, good but not enough for a truly great album. Tears of Rage form example, a Band cover is expertly done but it brings little new to the song, it is a very pretty album, however, most tracks are quite soothing and the title sure fits the album. You can get it form Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. The Virgin
2. One In A Hundred
3. For A Spanish Guitar
4. Tears Of Rage

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

It received universal critical acclaim, upon its release, but only achieved commercial success in the Netherlands where rock critics also voted it album of the year. It is considered by many to be Clark's magnum opus, although, like all of his post Byrds' records, it did very poorly on the US charts.

Clark's backing band on the album included bassist Chris Ethridge of the Flying Burrito Brothers, pianist Ben Sidran of the Steve Miller Band, organist Michael Utley, and drummer Gary Mallaber also of the Steve Miller Band.


Nothing on Gene Clark on Youtube from thise era, so here a documentary about Byrds:

235. Flamin' Groovies - Teenage Head (1971)
















Track Listing

1. High Flyin' Baby
2. City Lights
3. Have You Seen My Baby
4. Yesterday's Numbers
5. Teenage Head
6. 32 20
7. Evil Hearted Ada
8. Doctor Boogie
9. Whiskey Woman

Review

Here's another great discovery. The Flamin' Groovies make an album of retro-rock with a very modern slant with their Teenage Head. A lot of the tracks here sound like something from the late 50's, early 60's, but there is something about the delivery which almost brings it closer to punk than their roots. The voice snarls through the songs, the production is inspired and the variety of tracks is truly impressive.

There have been many comparisons between this album and the Stones' Sticky Fingers, but frankly, they are very different albums and the comparison is not fair to either of them. There is also a blues tinge here but it is a much less straight forward record, it has the snarls of punk more than those that Mick is famous for. You might probably like this if you like Sticky Fingers, but they are very different albums. There is no Wild Horses here and there is no Evil-Hearted Ada in the Stones.

This ends up sounding very modern in the same way that modern bands do retro music, it is deeply rooted in classical Rock and Roll while having a style that is very unique to itself. There are some highlights here, title track is brilliant as is the gentler Whiskey Woman and Evil-Hearted Ada sounds like something by one of my favourite Portuguese performers, The Legendary Tiger Man (be sure to check him out). So you really need to listen to this, it is a lot of fun, it's hard and funny and exhilirating music, get it at Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Teenage Head
2. Whiskey Woman
3. Evil-Hearted Ada
4. Yesterday's Numbers

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In 1971 Roy Loney left the Flamin Groovies, and was replaced by singer and guitarist Chris Wilson, who, along with Jordan, began to move the group in a more overtly power-pop direction. Between 1971 and 1976, very little was heard of the group except their 1972 anti-drug song "Slow Death". In 1976, they teamed up with British producer Dave Edmunds, and recorded an album entitled Shake Some Action. This LP and the following effort, Now, are good examples of their somewhat self-conscious attempt to revive the sound of the classic mid-'60s pop groups; the song "Shake Some Action" is perhaps their best-known and most emblematic recording. As Cyril Jordan told an interviewer, "The time that we were personifying had died in America years before. We were trying to put it into a capsule." The Groovies continued in the same style until the early 1980s.

No Flamin' Groovies on Youtube, so I'll do some Propaganda for my country and give you a video for Fuck Christmas I Got The Blues by The Legendary Tiger Man (very NSFW):

234. Faces - A Nod Is As Good As A Wink ... To A Blind Horse (1971)
















Track Listing

1. Miss Judy's Farm
2. You're So Rude
3. Love Lived Here
4. Last Orders Please
5. Stay With Me
6. Debris
7. Memphis
8. Too Bad
9. That's All You Need

Review

By now you all know about my shameful appreciation of Rod Stewart. Unfortunately this album doesn't live up to his solo albums. This is actually strange, if anything the Faces, previously Small Faces should offset his cornyness. However no song here is as memorable as any from Gasoline Alley or Every Picture Tells A Story.

This is not to say that the album is Bee Gees Trafalgar bad. Actually it is pretty good, but it really doesn't assert itself. Nothing about it is particularly wrong, the playing is good, the lyrics are good if a bit laddish, vocals aren't bad if you don't mind Rod, somehow, however nothing jumps at you particularly while listening to this. It sounds like rejects from Rod solo albums with more of an electric slant.

Well, John Peel loved them so there must be something here... but I can't see it. It is quite pleasant and inoffensive, you never scream "God this is shit!", sometimes you actually like some of the tracks after they've become familiar... so buy it from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Love Lives Here
2. Stay With Me
3. That's All You Need
4. Miss Judy's Farm

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

With the addition of Rod Stewart (5'8") and Ron Wood (5'9") the "small" part of the original band name was dropped, and they continued as the Faces. Still, their first album was released in the U.S. under the name "Small Faces" due to a "mistake" by their record company.

In celebration of International Women's Day, yesterday, Stay With Me:

233. Fela Ransome-Kuti And The Africa '70 With Ginger Baker - Live! (1971)
















Track Listing

1. Let's Start
2. Black Man's Cry
3. Ye Ye De Smell
4. Egbe Mi O (Carry Me I Want To Die)

Review

This is a pretty fun album, Ginger Baker of Cream joins Nigerian Fela Kuti in four tracks of pretty superbly ryhthmical music. And it is really rhythm that this album is all about. There is definitely a big African element to this album, which is also one of the first albums of what would become Afrobeat. It is pretty infectious music, mixing elements of traditional African music, particualarly in some drumming that you could really see happening in the villages of Nigeria with jazzier and rockier elements.

This album is therefore something completely original, it seems to mix the Funk of James Brown with an even more primal element of rythm and fun. Fela Kuti's singing is infectious even if you can't understand what he is singing about, although he makes some introductions in English to each track.

Funk is great, and new destillations of it are always a good thing. The contribution of Ginger Baker is also pretty apparent, his drumming is great and you can tell he has done his homework in terms of African music, he really gets into it. It is actually a very different direction from Cream, but one which suits Baker really well. In the end the album will make your body move, and towards the end, when the people join Kuti in an harmonic sing-a-long this album really comes into its own. Buy it from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Egbe Mi O (Carry Me I Want To Die)
2. Ye Ye De Smell

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The American Black Power movement influenced Fela's political views. He was also a supporter of Pan-Africanism and socialism (although in a 1982 documentary he can clearly be seen rejecting both capitalism and socialism in favour of a third way that he described as Africanism), and called for a united, democratic African republic. He was a fierce supporter of human rights, and many of his songs are direct attacks against dictatorships, specifically the militaristic governments of Nigeria in the 1970s and 1980s. He was also a social commentator, and criticized his fellow Africans (especially the upper class) for betraying traditional African culture. The African culture he believed in also included having many wives (polygyny) and the Kalakuta Republic was formed in part as a polygamist colony. Though not part of African culture, it should be noted though that Fela was very open when it came to sex, as he portrayed in some of his songs, like "Open and Close." He also expressed views that could be considered sexist, such as describing women as mattresses.

Fela Kuti Documentary:

232. Janis Joplin - Pearl (1971)
















Track Listing

1. Move Over
2. Cry Baby
3. Woman Left Lonely
4. Half Moon
5. Buried Alive In The Blues
6. My Baby
7. Me And Bobby McGee
8. Mercedes Benz
9. Trust Me
10. Get It While You Can

Review

Janis Joplin was simply amazing. We've had another one of her albums here, with the Cheap Thrills album, as a part of Big Brother And The Holding Company. No other white person could ever match her as a blues singer, Janis' voice, with it's mix of raw power and damage due to alcohol and drug abuse makes her the perfect vehicle for Blues music.

Pearl is her unfortunately posthumous album, and the one which would make her the star she is now, unfortunately she didn't live long enough to see the recognition she was due and this album is a sad reminder of that. No where is this more poingnant than in Buried Alive In The Blues, which was left as an instrumental track because she never got to record it. Theo whole album is a statement on how emotive she could be, and what a range of emotions, it goes from the bitter Me And Bobby McGee to the funny Mercedes Benz.

In the end she was a tragic character, but few have shone so bright. She deserves to be up there with Hendrix and Nick Drake as an example of sadly wasted talent. These artists become such reverential icons because they never had the chance to do wrong. And Joplin did no less than perfect in this album, all tracks are beautiful here, her voice is actually better than in Cheap Thrills even though the tracks are following a more pop format. Still an indespensable addition ot anyone's library. Buy it at Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Mercedes Benz
2. Me And Bobby McGee
3. Cry Baby
4. Buried Alive In The Blues

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album has a more polished feel than the albums she recorded with Big Brother and the Holding Company and the Kozmic Blues Band due to the expertise of producer Paul A. Rothchild and her new backing musicians. Rothchild was best known as the producer of The Doors, and worked well with Joplin. Together they were able to craft an album that showcased her extraordinary vocal talents. The Full Tilt Boogie Band were the musicians who accompanied her on the famous Festival Express in the summer of 1970, and many of the songs on this album were introduced on the concert stage in Canada.

Pearl features the hits "Me and Bobby McGee," written by Kris Kristofferson, her lover at the time, and "Move Over," which she penned herself. Joplin sings on all of the tracks except for "Buried Alive in the Blues," which remained an instrumental because Janis never got a chance to add her vocals. The recording sessions extended from early September to early October 1970.

A remastered edition of Pearl with extra tracks was released August 31, 1999.

In 2003, the album was ranked number 122 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Cry baby:

231. Funkadelic - Maggot Brain (1971)
















Track Listing

1. Maggot Brain
2. Can You Get to That
3. Hit It and Quit It
4. You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks
5. Super Stupid
6. Back in Our Minds
7. Wars of Armageddon

Review

Funk to the rescue, we needed some funk after these thoughtful, slightly depressing singer/songwriters. Still, the first track here doesn't really make you cheery, it is a sad, 10 minute guitar solo, which is also one of the best guitar tracks ever done. The guitar cries through the track like a person in pain, George Clinton famously asked the guitarist to play it like his mother had just died, and he did.

This is probably the most heterogeneous album on the list until now, it goes from great Hendrix like guitar solos to traditional funk, to some rockier Hendrix-like numbers and in the end to a sound collage. All of it is really well done, but it doesn't really feel cohesive as an album.

The first track here is at a level of sublime that all that follows it is just not as good, even if Super Stupid is a great track. This is not to say other tracks aren't great, but they really don't live up to the transcendental quality of the first one. It is really hard to start an album with the best track, if you've seen High Fidelity you know that the first one has to be catchy but not the best. After the amazing title track the album is never able to kick it up a notch, and even through it is a superb album it loses points for it. Still, you can get it at Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Maggot Brain
2. Super Stupid
3. Can You Get To That
4. You and Your Folks, Me And My Folks

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

On The title Track:

According to legend, George Clinton, out of his mind on LSD, told Eddie Hazel to play the first half of the song like his mother had just died, and still other version say that he told Hazel to play the second half as if he had found out she was alive. The result was the 10-minute guitar solo for which Hazel is most fondly remembered by many music critics and fans. Though several other musicians began the track playing, Clinton soon realized the power of Hazel's solo and faded them out so that the focus would be on Hazel's guitar. The entire track was recorded in one take. The solo is played in a pentatonic minor scale in the key of E over another guitar track of four simple arpeggios. Hazel's solo was played through a fuzzbox and a wah pedal, some sections of the song utilize a delay effect.

Seven years later, Michael Hampton (Eddie Hazel's replacement as lead guitarist) performed his own interpretation of the song in 1978. That cut was included in a bonus EP-vinyl that was distributed with Funkadelic album, One Nation Under a Groove. The cut is also included in most CD editions of the album.

This song has very few lyrics, spoken only at the beginning of the song before Hazel's solo takes off. The concept of "Maggot Brain" is, however, very important in understanding P Funk mythology. The original source of the song is commonly thought to have been inspired by the grief and confusion of George Clinton, after having discovered his older brother's body (after a lethal drug overdose) when decomposition had already set in. On another level, "maggot brain" could refer to Eddie Hazel's drug-riddled brain. In the grand scheme of things, Maggot Brain is a mode of being, thinking and existing, in which one transcends the troubles of Earthly existence by revelling in the freedom of funk. The brief spoken word introduction to the song tells us that "Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time, for y'all have knocked her up. I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe - I was not offended, for I knew I had to rise above it all, or drown in my own shit."


Maggot Brain (this time with Michael Hampton instead of Eddie Hazel, but still perfect):