414. Buzzcocks - Another Music In A Different Kitchen (1978)

















Track Listing

1. Fast Cars
2. No Reply
3. You Tear Me Up
4. Get On Our Own
5. Love Battery
6. Sixteen
7. I Don't Mind
8. Fiction Romance
9. Autonomy
10. I Need
11. Moving Away From The Pulsebeat

Review

This is an amazing piece of punk music. By this time in the championship Punk is dying but there are some pretty amazing bands who have managed to keep it going with the requisite changes to make it still attractive after the novelty value of stuff like the Sex Pistols died out.

The Buzzcocks hailing from sunny Manchester are definitely one of those bands. Manchester is not all palm trees, coconuts and fine white sand beaches, it also has a pretty good music scene which is really starting to show itself at around this time. We already had Magazine, whose main member, Howard Devoto was a previous member of the Buzzcocks (a name which always brings to mind vibrators) and his ghost is pretty much hovering over this whole album, his name is there on the credits of three tracks here but he certainly had an influence on a lot more.

This is pretty great music, because it doesn't simply stick to the punk ideals of crap musicianship and anger, it is actually extremely well executed, with some interest in experimentation and the lyrics are at times downright romantic. There is a definite lean towards pop here, but just a lean, just enough not to make it Blondie or anywhere near that. An essential album.

Track Highlights

1. Autonomy
2. Fast Cars
3. Moving Away From The Pulsebeat
4. I Don't Mind

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The band was formed in 1975 by guitarist/singer Pete Shelley (real name Peter McNeish) and singer Howard Devoto (real name Howard Trafford), both students at Bolton Institute of Technology (now the University of Bolton). They shared common interests in electronic music, the idiosyncratic work of British musician Brian Eno, and American protopunk groups like The Stooges and The Velvet Underground. In late 1975, Shelley and Devoto recruited a drummer and formed an embryonic version of Buzzcocks that never performed and which dissolved after a number of rehearsals.

Good people

Autonomy:

413. Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978)
















Track Listing

1. Thank You For Sending Me An Angel
2. With Our Love
3. Good Things
4. Warning Sign
5. Girls Want To Be With The Girls
6. Found A Job
7. Artists Only
8. I'm Not In Love
9. Stay Hungry
10. Take Me To The River
11. Big Country

Review

So, the Talking Heads grew up in a year and replaced Jon Bon Jovi's first cousin as a producer for Brian Eno. This can only make their album exponentially better than 77 right? Well... yes and no. So we don't end on a bum note let's go with the cons first:

More Songs is not as original or inventive as 77, it doesn't sound as fresh because it has their previous album as an antecedent. It is also not so wildly inventive with new types of music that the Heads wanted to just put outside, in the end it is a less immediately exciting album.

On the other hand the Talking Heads are a much tighter band here, the control over their instruments has vastly improved in a year, with particular emphasis for the rhythm section, the bass work is particularly good. The band just sounds overall tighter, more focused and as a result the album sounds more cohesive than their previous effort. This is a double-edged sword, the good and the bad here are intimately related, what makes this album better than 77 is ultimately what makes it worse. The chaotic feeling of discovery is more absent because the band is more focused. The lyrics continue as great as ever and this is a fucking amazing album on all accounts, but it just is, on balance, slightly worse than 77 which was perfect.

Track Highlights

1. Warning Sign
2. Take Me To The River
3. The Good Thing
4. Artists Only

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

Concerning the album's title:

When we were making this album I remembered this stupid discussion we had about titles for the last album," Tina smirked. "At that time I said, 'What are we gonna call an album that's just about buildings and food?' And Chris said, 'You call it more songs about buildings and food'.

-David Byrne

Ever listened to Warning Sign on WEED?

412. Thin Lizzy - Live And Dangerous (1978)
















Track Listing

1. Jailbreak
2. Emerald
3. Southbound
4. Rosalie
5. Dancing in the moonlight
6. Massacre
7. Still in love with you
8. Johnny the fox meets Jimmy the weed
9. Cowboy song
10. The boys are back in town
11. Don't believe a word
12. Warriors
13. Are you ready
14. Suicide
15. Sha La La
16. Baby drives me crazy
17. The rocker

Review

Rock out with your cock out! Here's Thin Lizzy... giving us some Spinal Tappy music, this is an unfortunate precedent to all kinds of hair bands in the 80's but it is fortunately better than most of those. This is no Europe or Scorpions or Motley Crue, there is actually some quality to this album.

Unfortunately this is really not my type of music, I can listen to it and after a while start appreciating some of the talent behind it, but this is a pretty long double album, at over 75 minutes, and it just gets old fast.

This type of hard rock always brings smirks to my face, it sounds a bit silly the musical talent is there but is at times bordering on the edge of musical masturbation in a way that is never as interesting as similar onanisms committed by Prog. So yeah it is pretty good for its style, but I just don't like the style, although Boys Are Back in Town is always fun.

Track Highlights

1. Boys Are Back In Town
2. Jailbreak
3. Cowboy Song
4. The Rocker

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Although the finished album contains overdubbing, it is claimed that it is "75% live". It is nevertheless commonly considered one of the best live rock albums of all time. It was also the last album to feature Brian Robertson who went on to form Wild Horses with ex-Rainbow bassman Jimmy Bain.

On this album, the band segues immediately from "Cowboy Song" into "The Boys Are Back in Town," on the line "a cowboy's life is the life for me".

The version of "Still In Love With You" is considered by many to be the ultimate Thin Lizzy recording.

Boys Are Back In Town:

411. Throbbing Gristle - D.O.A. The Third And Final Report (1978)
















Track Listing

1. IBM
2. Hit By A Rock
3. United
4. Valley Of The Shadow Of Death
5. Dead On Arrival
6. Weeping
7. Hamburger Lady
8. Hometime
9. Ab/7a
10. E-Coli
11. Death Threats
12. Walls Of Sound
13. Blood On The Floor

Review

Well, this was interesting, if not totally pleasant. Don't get me wrong it is more pleasant than some of the stuff we've had here, but it is really not something that you want to have blasting out of your speakers. It sounds much more like something that you would expect at an art installation than an actual album.

There are some pretty original things here, the use of samples is innovative, even if a bit dull at times, there are also some clever musical games, that quickly lose their shine.

That's one thing about this album, it is clever, some times it isn't as clever as it thinks it is... so it fails there and it fails in eliciting any kind of emotion after you get over the unpleasantness. It soon becomes quite boring when you have found out all there is to find out here. An interesting experiment, but not a good album. Sorry to all Throbbing Gristle lovers.

Track Highlights

1. Weeping
2. Hamburger Lady
3. Hit By a Rock
4. AB/7A

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Vinyl Notes:

"A few words about this record: for various reasons we have decided to include a solo track by each of the four individual group members. We think you may find this illuminating [...] Explanatory details about individual tracks are as follows:

"Side One: "I.B.M. was inspired by a found cassette sent to us by Mark Eyles. "Hit by a Rock" was recorded at Highbury Roadhouse, London in September 1977. "Valley of the Shadow of Death" was recorded and arranged by Peter Christopherson. "Dead on Arrival" was recorded live at A.T.C., Goldsmiths College, London in May 1978. "Weeping" uses four types of acoustic violin through a space-echo played and arranged by Genesis P-Orridge, the lyrics are co-written by Genesis P-Orridge and Ewa Zajac.

"Side Two: "Hamburger Lady" was inpired by a section of a letter from Dr. Al Ackerman of Portland, Oregon, U.S.A. reproduced elsewhere on this sleeve. "Hometime" was played, recorded and arranged by Cosey Fanni Tutti. "Death Threats" was taken unaltered off our telephone answering machine. "Walls of Sound" was recorded live at five locations during the last year. "Blood on the Floor" was recorded live at Highbury Roundhouse, London in September 1977.

Hamburger Lady...with flashing text on the fucking video, just to annoy the shit out of all of yous:

410. Funkadelic - One Nation Under A Groove (1978)
















Track Listing

1. One nation under a groove
2. Groovallegiance
3. Who says a funk band can't play rock
4. Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis enema squad
5. Into you
6. Cholly (Funk getting ready to roll)

Review

Funkadelic's back with another pretty fun album, I've always been more of a fan of Parliament than Funkadelic really, and this album is not changing my opinion, this is no Mothership Connection, but it is still pretty nifty and funky.

Most of the tracks are really good here, with the single exception of Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis which just sounds a bit too gratuitous in its scatological lyrics, but that taint (see what I did there?) is compensated by some other pretty amazing tracks. Particular highlights are the title track and Who says a funk band can't play rock, both of which are pretty excellent.

In the end if you like funk and are out of Parliament albums this is definitely one to get, it is fun, makes you tap your feet along, dance around while being quite political at the same time, and this is really all you want or can demand of Funk. Get it.

Track Highlights

1. One Nation Under A Groove
2. Who says a funk band can't play rock
3. Groovallegiance
4. Cholly (Funk getting ready to roll)

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

One Nation Under a Groove was Funkadelic's most commercially successful album, and one of its most critically lauded; it is widely considered one of the best funk albums of all time, and one of the most influential albums of the late 1970s. It was the first album to include keyboardist and frequent songwriter Walter "Junie" Morrison. The album also marks the pinnacle of Michael Hampton's development as a guitarist as he matured from a seventeen-year old prodigy to a disciplined master of the instrument.

One Nation Under a Groove is a very loose concept album (as are most of Funkadelic's), essentially declaring the power of Funk (see P Funk mythology) to do two interconnected things: become an open-minded, happy and goal oriented person, and dance well. This is the power of Funk stated in less clear terms on previous albums (Free Your Mind... And Your Ass Will Follow).

One Nation Under a Groove, part I, look for the rest of it on youtube:

409. Bruce Springsteen - Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978)

















Track Listing

1. Badlands
2. Adam Raised A Cain
3. Something In The Night
4. Candy's Room
5. Racing In The Street
6. Promised Land
7. Factory
8. Streets Of Fire
9. Prove It All Night
10. Darkness On The Edge Of Town

Review

Well I don't understand myself, but I have been fucking loving Bruce Springsteen. It really shouldn't be my kind of thing but it is. But then I start seeing parallels to the type of things I like, Adam Raised A Cain sounds like Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, for example, trust me it does. But I don't really need parallels to anything else to say that Springsteen makes some pretty amazing music.

His previous album on the list, Born To Run, was a huge epic thing, later spoofed by Meat Loaf on Bat Out Of Hell, but it was a quality album. Here Springsteen tones it down a notch and goes to a darker place inside himself, the songs are still beautiful and imbued with an inner strength that is hard to beat, but they are not blindingly flashy like in Born To Run, this is definitely a more intimate affair.

Bruce keeps exploring his lyrical universe of the industrial working class and its desire for escapism, be that escapist by the means of cars or passion, and again cars and girls are pretty much what this is all about, but unlike in Born To Run it all goes to shit here, but no one ever managed to make so many great songs with such lyrical depth about just two, not particularly deep, things. He must really love them.

Track Highlights

1. Candy's Room
2. Badlands
3. Darkness on the Edge of Town
4. Adam Raised a Cain

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Darkness on the Edge of Town. Sales were not as high as Born to Run, but the album still did better than was expected. The extroverted optimism which was a hallmark of Born to Run was absent with a vengeance from Darkness on the Edge of Town. With its haunting themes of regret, failure and dashed hopes, many Springsteen aficionados consider this to be his finest album.

In terms of the original LP's sequencing, Springsteen continued his "four corners" approach from Born to Run, as the songs beginning each side ("Badlands" and "The Promised Land") were martial rallying cries to overcome circumstances, while the songs ending each side ("Racing in the Street", "Darkness on the Edge of Town") were sad dirges of circumstances overcoming all hope.


Candy's Room:

408. Magazine - Real Life (1978)
















Track Listing

1. Definitive Gaze
2. My Tulpa
3. Shot By Both Sides
4. Recoil
5. Burst
6. Motorcade
7. The Great Beautician In The Sky
8. The Light Pours Out Of Me
9. Parade

Review

This album is together with the one we just had yesterday, Public Image, and Talking Head's 77 considered one of the first proper post-punk albums. If you are wondering what post punk is, it isn't just what came after punk, it is punk played and composed by people who are truly talented. Yeah, raw is good and all but after a while songs about sniffing glue based on one chord start to get old.

This is possibly the reason why punk was really a phenomenon of the year 1977. It didn't last much more than that, but it did leave its imprint. Magazine is coming out of a seminal punk band from right here in Manchester, the Buzzcocks, we will have more on them later. Devoto, ex-member of the Buzzcocks and Barry Adamson future member of Visage and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds originating in idyllic Moss Side, made Magazine and this album.

This album is a truly impressive merger of what you might improperly call art-school rock with punk, hey it even has influences of Kraftwerk, immediately apparent in the first track. Then it goes from strength to strength, reaching it's apex in Great Beautician in the Sky, which reminds me profoundly of Goldfrapp in the Felt Mountain era. There are no duds here, the whole thing is a masterpiece and it is surprisingly accessible, the lyrics aren't pretentious, the music is interesting there is nothing wrong with this. It might take you a couple of listen throughs to appreciate it fully but you will still have fun with those. Top-drawer!

Track Highlights

1. The Great Beautician in the Sky
2. My Tulpa
3. Motorcade
4. Shot By Both Sides

Final Grade

10/10 Manchester Represent!

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Magazine's music continues to be an influence in modern music today. While having roots in the punk and new-wave movements, Magazine combined elements of avant-garde and pop. Radiohead in particular draws on the lyrical style of the group, and have performed "Shot By Both Sides" in concert. What's more, Radiohead's 1995 single "Just", with its ascending guitar hook, bears a passing resemblance to "Shot By Both Sides".

The Great Beautician in the Sky:

407. Public Image Ltd. - Public Image (a.k.a. First Issue) (1978)
















Track Listing

1. Theme
2. Religion 1
3. Religion 2
4. Annalisa
5. Public Image
6. Low Life
7. Attack
8. Fodderstompf

Review

So the Sex Pistols are dead, good riddance, no one needed them, except for McLaren's pocket. Now Johnny Rotten moved his interest to a more avant-garde area with PiL and what a good thing he did too. This album is light years away from the Pistols, it is interesting, innovative, fun and pretty great.

Of course the album has its problems, Rotten's philosophising in the second track are actually painful in how adolescent they feel. I was like that myself, when I was 15, writing angry bad poetry with more than obvious meaning and poor rhyming. Oh well, that vocal track is followed by a not bad track with the same lyrics together with music, which hide the amateurish quality of the poetry.

Then there are a couple of really amazing highlights to this album, the first is the famous title track, which sounds like completely developed post-punk and the other one is the last track Fodderstompf, which sounds more like the 90's than the 70's in it's electronic dance feel with some pretty funny lyrics which might sound annoying at first but soon sink in... to the point that my wife has spent the last couple of days singing 'I only wanted to be loved'. Two Thumbs up.

Track Highlights

1. Fodderstompf
2. Public Image
3. Theme
4. Annalisa

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

First Issue is described by critics of that time, and even by some of the band members, as a mostly effortless recording, because of the pressure given by the record company. Though most of the songs resemble to some extent the familiar punk sound of the Sex Pistols, it also explored experimental genres, such as dub music and Krautrock. Despite its contemporary criticism, First Issue was well received by the fans of Public Image Ltd. and seen in hindsight to have been a ground-breaking and artistically successful work.

In March 2005, Q magazine placed the song "Public Image" at number 45 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. In this article, it was also claimed that the album had been used by psychiatrists in the treatment of depressive patients to show them that they were not alone

Public Image:

406. The Residents - Duck Stab / Buster and Glen (1978)

















Track Listing

1. Constantinople
2. Sinister Exaggerator
3. Booker Tease
4. Blue Rosebuds
5. Laughing Song
6. Bach Is Dead
7. Elvis and His Boss
8. Lizard Lady
9. Semolina
10. Birthday Boy
11. Weight Lifting Lula
12. Krafty Cheese
13. Hello Skinny
14. Electrocutioner

Review

Well this is strange, yet compelling piece. The Residents sound like nothing else really, a bit like Sparks on acid, it just sounds grotesque, disturbing, insane and funny all at the same time. And their musical capacities are also quite good. It's electronic and creepy and the vocals are pretty disturbing with their free-association lyrics, but behind it all is a sense of fun... it reminds me a lot of Joker, the Batman villain, this should be the type of music he likes.

Part of the fascination with The Residents comes from them as a band, no one knows who they are, they always show up in costumes and never give interviews and all of that makes for a pretty fascinating product. They are however, much more than that, they use influences from music from the past 50 years, like Elvis, Booker T. and twist everything to their nightmarish needs.

This makes for fascinating, if uncomfortable listening. Yet, while you feel uncomfortable you also feel like listening to it again, in some kind of musical masochism. This is just great, it is definitely original and it just works. Even the weird cartoonish voices. Recommended.

Track Highlights

1. Birthday Boy
2. Elvis And His Boss
3. Semolina
4. Hello Skinny

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Much of the speculation about the members' true identities swirls around their management team, known as "The Cryptic Corporation." Cryptic was formed by Jay Clem (Born 1947), Homer Flynn (born April 1945), Hardy W. Fox (born 1945), and John Kennedy in 1976, all of whom denied having been band members. (Clem and Kennedy left the Corporation in 1982.) The Residents themselves don't grant interviews, though Flynn and Fox have occasionally commented to the media. Nolan Cook, who has been working with the band recently, denied in an interview that Fox and Flynn are the Residents, saying that he has come across such rumors, and they are completely false.

William Poundstone, author of the Big Secrets books, claimed Flynn and possibly Fox are likely members of The Residents, probably the group leaders; this is probably the most widespread belief among the group's fans. A subset of that belief is that Flynn is the lyricist (a conclusion buttressed by the fact that his voice bears an uncanny resemblance to that of the Singing Resident) and that Fox writes the music. In addition BMI's online database of the performance rights organization [of which the Residents and their publishing company, Pale Pachyderm Publishing (Warner-Chappell), have been members for their entire careers], lists Flynn and Fox as the composers of all original Residents songs. This includes those songs written pre-1974 (the "Residents Unincorporated" years), the year Cryptic formed. However, many have pointed out that a songwriter can copyright a song under any name he/she chooses; the person named in the copyright assignment receives all royalties and legal requests and other information for the song, which, if Flynn and Fox are merely trusted managers who both handle the Residents' business and protect their identities, makes them the logical choice to be assigned the copyrights.

Cryptic openly admits the group's artwork is done by Flynn (among others), under various names that, put together, become Pornographics, but the pseudonym is rarely spelled the same way twice (examples: Porno Graphics, Pore No Graphix, Pore-Know Graphics); and that Fox is the "sound engineer" — meaning that he is the main producer, engineer, master, and editor of all their recordings. (Since 1976, the Residents' recordings have all listed their producer as "The Cryptic Corporation," presumably meaning Fox in particular.) Many other rumors have come and gone over the years, including the idea that the band members are physically disfigured; that 60s psychedelic band Cromagnon shared members with the band; and that the band members are in fact The Beatles in disguise.

Interview with the Residents... well with Penn from Penn & Teller talking for the residents:

405. Big Star - Third/Sister Lovers (1978)

















Track Listing

1. Kizza Me
2. Thank You Friends
3. Big Black Car
4. Jesus Christ
5. Femme Fatale
6. O, Dana
7. Holocaust
8. Kangaroo
9. Stroke It Noel
10. For You
11. You Can't Have Me
12. Nightime
13. Blue Moon
14. Take Care
15. Nature Boy
16. Till The End Of The Day
17. Dream Lover
18. Downs
19. Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

Review

Big Star are crumbling, they aren't caring that much about the music anymore, they are not giving a fuck about making a big splash with their last album, and so they produce a work of greatness, better than any of their earlier albums.

This is a truly amazing work, it runs the gamut from the exulting like Thank You Friends to the wrist-slashing like Holocaust, and all of it done perfectly. The fact that they are letting go in this album actually makes it sound like a very up to date thing, the songs sound timeless, I know this is a term bandied about but it is true, this album could have been done 10 years earlier in 1968 or thirty years later in 2008.

Some tracks stand the test of time better than others of course, but it is also nice to see the band tipping their hat to their influences with some truly beautiful covers of Velvet Underground, Nat King Cole and The Kinks in here. And the you have the arrangements which are equally brilliant, with strings floating above many of the tracks ethereally.

Track Highlights

1. Holocaust
2. Nature Boy
3. Take Care
4. Femme Fatale

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Third takes the original Big Star sound and abstracts it, with synthesizers, strings and saxophones emerging from the mix. The album deals with bitterness, loneliness and emotional devastation, but does so in a way that retains some elements of pop music, as on "Thank You Friends," which features female backing vocals reminiscent of those found on Elvis Presley recordings of the late '60s. "Kanga Roo" and "Holocaust" have often been compared to some of the raw recordings of Yoko Ono and John Lennon. "You Can't Have Me" is akin to a deconstructed song by the Who, and the halting ballad "Dream Lover" contains the famous line about "Beale Street green." Although many critics regard Radio City as the definitive Big Star album, Third is perhaps the most innovative album the group ever recorded, and influenced many subsequent bands, including Primal Scream and His Name Is Alive. In addition, the album contains what are arguably Alex Chilton's finest vocal performances.

It was listed in David Keenan's "The Best Albums Ever...Honest" by the Scottish newspaper The Sunday Herald. In 2003, the album was ranked number 456 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

It was ranked #1 at the Top 30 most heartbreak albums by NME.

Some one's making a Doc about Big Star:

404. The Adverts - Crossing the Red Sea with the Adverts (1978)
















Track Listing

1. One Chord Wonders
2. Bored Teenagers
3. New Church
4. One the Roof
5. New Boys
6. Gary Gilmore's Eyes
7. Bombsite Boy
8. No Time to Be 21
9. Safety in Numbers
10. New Day Dawns
11. Drowning Men
12. On Wheels
13. Great British Mistake

Review

This is a great album, the version I am reviewing is only one of the many versions walking around, and this track listing is the one I heard. This is some pretty interesting Punk music, it is at the same time as aggressive as the most aggressive punk, but also strangely more melodic.

It is all based around a really fat guitar sound, which is actually quite melodic in an almost Eno-like Warm Jets way. You know it sounds like warm jets... much like the title song of that Eno album, but it is of course done with a very punk sensibility.

It is perhaps this melodic quality of The Adverts that makes them sound at the same time quite novel and retro, there is almost an element of psychedelia here, it is punk that really transports you to another state of mind. On The Roof has something of the Country Joe And The Fish at the beginning and then moves somewhere near to the 13th Floor Elevators. But it is definitely punk, very very good stuff.

Track Highlights

1. Gary Gilmore's Eyes
2. One Chord Wonders
3. Bored Teenagers
4. On The Roof

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Their first gig was to support Generation X on January 15, 1977 at The Roxy in London; their last was at Slough College on October 27, 1979. "Gary Gilmore's Eyes" reached the UK Top 40 in August 1977. The band are heavily featured in John Robb's book "Punk Rock". After the band split up in 1980, T.V. Smith continued with Tim Cross forming as TV Smith's Explorers, then Cheap, and finally from the 1990s to date performing as a solo artist.


Gary Gilmore's Eyes:

403. Joe Ely - Honky Tonk Masquerade (1978)














Track Listing

1. Cornbread moon
2. Because of the wind
3. Boxcars
4. Jericho (your walls must come tumbling down)
5. Tonight I think I'm gonna go downtown
6. Honky tonk masquerade
7. I'll be your fool
8. Fingernails
9. West texas waltz
10. Honky tonkin'

Review

I am sorry the picture is so small today, but the album has been reissued with another album and therefore the cover on the CD is the two album covers side by side. So getting this by itself was more of a problem than usual.

Administrative concerns aside, this is a kind of blahish album. Yes, it is quite good country music, and that is a find in itself, now it does innovate quite a bit, using a lot of things that would not be that common in Country, it has a definite pop/rock influence to it, but in the end it does not use its innovation for anything tremendously interesting.

The album is good however, and the song writing is witty and well paced, in the best tradition of country. The music is quite good with a special nod to Fingernails and Cornbread Moon for that, but it really doesn't impress tremendously. The album should have been freer, Joe Ely should have blown up the Country music establishment a lot more than he did... but this was hard enough on the Nashville assholes for him never to be as successful as he deserves.

Track Highlights

1. Fingernails
2. Cornbread Moon
3. West Texas Waltz
4. Boxcars

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Ely's second album has been highly regarded by critics around the world. It was included in the 2005 book, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Writer Steve Pond places the album at number 40 on Rolling Stone's list of "50 Essential Albums of the 70s", calling it "the decade's most sure-footed country-rock collaboration". Pond places the album in the same class as such 1970s "country landmarks" as Guy Clark's Old No. 1, Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger, and Terry Allen's Lubbock (On Everything). In addition, New Zealand critic Fred Muller places the album on his list of the top ten "best albums of the rock era.

Fingernails... it doesn't make much sense if he isn't playing the piano... but hey:

402. The Jam - All Mod Cons (1978)
















Track Listing

1. All Mod Cons
2. To Be Someone (Didn't We Have A Nice Time)
3. Mr Clean
4. David Watts
5. English Rose
6. In The Crowd
7. Billy Hunt
8. It's Too Bad
9. Fly
10. Place I Love
11. 'A' Bomb In Wardour Street
12. Down In The Tube Station At Midnight

Review

I never had much time for The Jam and other Paul Weller projects, still... I really liked this. Sometimes there's stuff that you are not too impressed with and never gave much time too, but this project forces me to give time to this stuff, occasionally paying out.

This is not to say I have no problems with the album. Yes, I can see that they like the Kinks, that they seem to have some pretension to update The Kinks for the Punk era... doing a cover of David Watts is quite good, but why steal Johnny Thunder to do In The Crowd? It is just an obvious rip-off, I don't have the actual album with me as I am streaming it from Napster, but does anyone know if the thing credits The Kinks on that track? Because the book says only Weller on that track... which is bollocks

That said there are some tracks which are to the lyrical level of Ray Davies and a particular highlight is the last track here, which is so grimy, depressing and yet true that it is hard not to be affected by it. Actually this is an album that gets better towards the end. Despite that little rant, hats off to The Jam, because this is a nifty album.

Track Highlights

1. Down In The Tube Station At Midnight
2. 'A' Bomb In Wardour Street
3. David Watts
4. It's Too Bad

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Strong undercurrents of British 1960s pop influences, particularly The Kinks, run throughout the album. Most obvious is the cover of The Kinks' "David Watts", an album track off their 1967 album Something Else By The Kinks.

Many of the songs touched on socio-political topics. "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" was one of the band's most successful chart hits to date, peaking at #15 on the UK charts, their biggest hit since "All Around the World", a non-LP single released between the band's first and second albums.

The song "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" is a first-person narrative of a young man who walks into a tube station (known as a subway in North America) on the way home to his wife, and is beaten to death by far right thugs. The lyrics reflect the tense atmosphere in late 1970s Great Britain, and the increase of violence related to the punk subculture and rise of racist skinheads.

Down In The Tube Station At Midnight, great lyrics:

401. Elvis Costello - This Year's Model (1978)
















Track Listing

1. No Action
2. This Year's Girl
3. Beat
4. Pump It Up
5. Little Triggers
6. You Belong To Me
7. Hand In Hand
8. I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea
9. Lip Service
10. Living In Paradise
11. Lipstick Vogue
12. Night Rally

Review

From second 3 of this album you can tell that it is a much more professional affair than My Aim Is True. Strangely enough, even with the cleaner production it is also the punkier of the two albums.

The Attractions who make the début as Costello's backing band here are much more of a rock band than the previous one, Elvis' delivery is also angrier. Adding to this a smaller reliance on 50's rock and you get a much different album.

I was not that impressed with My Aim is True, but I must say that this was a better kettle of fish. I am still not overwhelmed by Elvis but that might still come, but I can say that I really did enjoy this album. His lyrics are funny and angry, his music is not a carbon-copy of anything else at this time and his Buddy Holly image is completely out of tune with 1978. Good.

Track Highlights

1. (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea
2. No Action
3. Night Rally
4. Lipstick Vogue

Final Grade

8.5/10

(I don't usually do fractions, but I feel forced here, It is a better album than My Aim Is True, but it doesn't really merit a 9 i.e. inclusion in my MP3 player)

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

It was voted the best album of the year in The Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics poll. In 2000, Q magazine placed This Year's Model at number 82 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 1987, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it number 11 on its list of the best albums of the period 1967-1987. In 2003, the album was ranked number 98 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea:

400. The Only Ones - The Only Ones (1978)
















Track Listing

1. Whole Of The Law
2. Another Girl Another Planet
3. Breaking Down
4. City Of Fun
5. Beast
6. Creature Of Doom
7. It's The Truth
8. Language Problem
9. No Peace For The Wicked
10. Immortal Story

Review

This is an album which sounds surprisingly timeless, it is one of those rare things, which actually sounds as much part of an earlier age, its own age and today. There are of course their obvious influences of Velvet Underground and Lou Reed and Nico as well as the whole punk scene. But then there are the bands that they have influenced, like the Libertines for example or the Replacements, Blur, Nirvana. The list is endless.

Then they are unknown enough for you not to be saturated with their tracks, making it all fresh to listen to. And it is all great. Actually you turn it on and just the first three tracks would be enough to make this album a keeper.

But then it goes on and the 4th song is also quite good... and all the other ones as well. And suddenly you realise this is a pretty great album, it is punk with a post-punk sensibility, by people who can play their instruments, write their songs, make great arrangements and produce their own fucking album. And how many punk albums have you heard with a nice little Saxophone at the beginning?


Too bad the whole thing would later explode in a cloud of heroin dust.

Track Highlights

1. Another Girl, Another Planet
2. The Whole Of The Law
3. Breaking Down
4. No Peace For The Wicked

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Their musical proficiency distinguished them from most of their peers, although their dominant drug-related lyrical themes, on songs such as "Another Girl, Another Planet," and "The Big Sleep," fit in with the Zeitgeist of the era on both sides of the Atlantic. Perrett and Kellie caught the eye of Johnny Thunders, founding member of the New York Dolls and the Heartbreakers, and worked as sidemen on his solo debut album, So Alone, notably appearing together on the classic "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory". However, drug addiction, particularly heroin use, derailed their career, and singer/guitarist/songwriter Perrett has only sporadically been heard from since, though he resurfaced in the mid 1990s with the album, Woke Up Sticky.

Another Girl, Another Planet:

399. Pere Ubu - Dub Housing (1978)
















Track Listing

1. Navvy
2. On The Surface
3. Dub Housing
4. Caligari's Mirror
5. Thriller
6. I Will Wait
7. Drinkin' Wine Spo Dee O Dee
8. Ubu Dance Party
9. Blow Daddy O
10. Codex

Review

Well after the Modern Dance, just some days ago this didn't sound exactly as fresh, but it didn't sound any worse as well. It is probably a bit more accessible, although I have seen conflicting reports, some saying it is a harder-going album than Modern Dance and some the opposite. I frankly find it much more accessible. For that exact reason it isn't as experimental.

That said it is still a pretty nifty album, the vocals are totally insane, the playing is at a much, much higher level than most punk going on at the time, and the lyrics are equally genius.

Pere Ubu are quickly becoming one of my favourite bands on the basis of these two albums, and my friend Adam has told me that their new stuff is not half bad either. I might just have to check it out, if I ever have time with this fucking project hanging around my neck. And question of the day: What DO you do with a drunken sailor?

Track Highlights

1. Caligari's Mirror
2. Navvy
3. Codex
4. Ubu Dance Party

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The title is an allusion to rows of identical public housing units, rather than an implication that the content is dub music. The photograph on the cover shows the apartment building on Prospect Avenue near downtown Cleveland in which members of the band lived when this album was recorded.

No video for this album on youtube but you get a video of Breath by Pere Ubu, what a freak:

398. Elis Regina - Vento De Maio (1978 or is it 1983!)
















Track Listing

1. Vento De Maio
2. Sai Dessa
3. Tiro Ao Alvaro
4. So Deus E Quem Sabe
5. O Que Foi Feito Devera
6. Nova Estacao
7. Saudade Eterna
8. Outro Cais
9. Rebento
10. O Trem Azul
11. O Medo De Amar E O Medo De Ser Livre
12. Se Eu Quiser Falar Com Deus
13. Aprendendo a Jogar

Review

What the hell is wrong with the people that make this list?! This album is not from 1978, it's from 1983. Also, it's a posthumous compilation, a COMPILATION, YOU HEAR! And lastly it is definitely not the best Elis Regina album out there! You would think that they would at least google the fucking albums they put up on the list.

The tremendous ignorance of Brazilian music has been shown here before with the choice of Astrud Gilberto's Beach Samba, one of her worst albums and this is not much better. As is natural this is a very uneven affair. There are great tracks here and to be frank I've always been a big lover of Regina who has one of the best and more unique voices in Brazilian music. But why this unrepresentative album?

There are plenty of good songs to like here, a special nod goes to Tiro ao Alvaro which is particularly fun if you understand Portuguese, as the title itself is a pun and the whole song is written in a kind of funny dialect, presumably of Italian immigrants to Brazil. But I am still too miffed about this album, some great songs by a great musician, but a very hit and miss album. If you want to get anything worthy you would do better with Aquarela Do Brasil (1969) or Elis & Tom (1974).

Track Highlights

1. Tiro Ao Alvaro
2. Se Eu Quiser Falar Com Deus
3. Sai Dessa
4. Saudade Eterna

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In the late '60s and early '70s, Elis Regina helped to popularize the work of the tropicalia movement, recording songs by musicians such as Gilberto Gil. Her 1974 collaboration with Antonio Carlos Jobim, Elis & Tom, is often cited as one of the greatest bossa nova albums of all time. She also recorded songs by Milton Nascimento, João Bosco, Aldir Blanc, Chico Buarque, Jorge Ben, Baden Powell, Caetano Veloso and Rita Lee. She possessed an exciting voice and superb intonation, and excelled at up-tempo numbers and ballads under the banner of Brazilian Popular Music Música Popular Brasileira. Her nicknames were "furacão" ("hurricane") and "pimentinha" ("little pepper").

When Elis Regina succumbed to an accidental drug-alcohol-tranquilizers overdose in 1982, at the age of 37, she had recorded dozens of top-selling records in her career. Elis Regina has sold over 80 million albums.

Tiro Ao Alvaro, with some video about dogs... yes indeed:



And now my favourite Elis Regina song live in Portugal in 1978!! Actually this year! Romaria:

397. Blondie - Parallel Lines (1978)

















Track Listing

1. Hanging On The Telephone
2. One Way Or Another
3. Picture This
4. Fade Away And Radiate
5. Pretty Baby
6. I Know But I Don't Know
7. 11.59
8. Will Anything Happen
9. Sunday Girl
10. Heart Of Glass
11. I'm Gonna Love You Too
12. Just Go Away

Review

No matter what you think of Blondie this album is such a sea change in music and on what is on this list that it is definitely a worthy addition to it. And I quite like it. Well let's be honest I love it, I'm a sucker for this, what I can only call bubblegum punk.

This is equal parts Bubblegum pop and punk,in the end it is something quite different from what came before but quite similar to stuff which would come later. This is the birth of the New Wave as we would know it in the 80's which are just around the corner. And frankly for a child of the 80's like me that is a good thing.

This album is fun, it is little else, but fun is quite enough for me. Although I also have to admit that some of the playing is quite good. A big not to the guest participation of Fripp playing guitar in Fade Away And Radiate. King Crimson's guitarist and Blondie isn't really the most obvious of mixes but it does work.

Oh hell, just enjoy this, don't try to analyse it, it is quite vacuous, again prefiguring the following decade, but the punk influences are there patent in the instruments more than the delivery or lyrics but definitely there. So big thumbs up to Blondie.

Track Highlights

1. Hanging On The Telephone
2. Sunday Girl
3. Heart Of Glass
4. Fade Away And Radiate

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In Euclidian geometry, parallel lines are unique in that they don't connect: most, if not all, of the songs in this album are about two people who can't connect in some fashion, usually romantically. Although the inner sleeve for the record features what appears to be lyrics for a song called "Parallel Lines", and even though it is the album title, no such song exists. "Parallel Lines" was a poem written by Deborah Harry, but it was never set to music.

Hanging On The Telephone:

396. Kraftwerk - Die Mensch-Maschine (The Man-Machine) (1978)
















Track Listing

1. Die Roboter
2. Spacelab
3. Metropolis
4. Modell
5. Neonlicht
6. Die Mensch-Maschine

Review

As I had stated earlier with Trans-Europa Express I am diverting slightly from the list by reviewing the original version of the album instead of the one for Anglo consumption. That said this was one of the first tapes that I had as a child. I think I was born geekish and the electronic sounds as well as the words of the music fascinated me to no end by the age of 9. There were robots, space labs, neon lights... the version I had was the English one, but no problem. It fascinated me.

Now it still does, it is a sound of a future that never happened and never will happen. It sounds like a future where, much like you can see in the cover, the USSR would have taken over, still a possibility in 78. So I find this album to be a fascinating exercise in alternate history really. And this has always fascinated me.

But then this future did happen in a way, the music here has been so widely influential that it is hard not to see strains of this album, the most popular of all Kraftwerkisms, in most electric music to follow, from whatever musical genre. This is perfect production attached to genius musicianship and some of the most brilliant minimalism, linked to one of the best concepts for an album ever and one of the greatest cover artworks. So there.

Track Highlights

1. Metropolis
2. Modell
3. Spacelab
4. Neonlicht

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

This album, and Karl Klefisch's cover design in particular (which featured photography by Günther Fröhling), led some critics to accuse the band of experimenting with fascist or totalitarian imagery. The use of red and various Russian phrases, with a design based on the work of Soviet artist El Lissitzky, actually suggests an attempt to reference a broader spectrum of pre-war Socialist and Constructivist art. Nonetheless, Kraftwerk's choice certainly struck some sour chords in cold-war Europe.

Communist imagery of the inter-war period of the twentieth century used limited production techniques (hampered by limited supply of inks and primitive printing processes) and so they ended up with a distinct, orange/red, black and white colour scheme with sharp lines and blocky shapes. This technique gave a cold, brash and brassy look to the work. Combined with the agitprop messages of socialistic eastern bloc countries, the imagery had power to it. Accordingly, some viewed Kraftwerk's choice of art as incendiary; but to a German writing music it evoked exactly the cold/hard/machine-like monotony that their very music conjures. In this regard, there was nothing totalitarian in it to Kraftwerk – it was merely a post-modern reference to imagery that supported the music's modernist aesthetic.

Modell: