343. Patti Smith - Horses (1975)
















Track Listing

1. Gloria
2. Redondo Beach
3. Birdland
4. Free Money
5. Kimberly
6. Break It Up
7. Land
8. Elegie

Review

What a great run of albums we have been having lately, Horses is no exception. Known as one of the closes relatives of Punk in the proto-punk era. That is actually not a fair assessment of the album. It is far too literate and unique to be put squarely in the Punk or proto-punk field. The Stooges or The Dictators are much more what I would associate with punk. Actually I see much more of a line between Patti Smith and punk influenced pop groups like Blondie.

This is an amazing album which is very much only equal to itself but you can see how influential it was, particularly with female singers. The similarities with P. J. Harvey are sometimes staggering, there weren't many female singers with the kind of attitude presented in Horses at the time. The best female lyricist was Joni Mitchell who was coming from a much more folk-rockish background. This form of literate harder rock was really unprecedented with this kind of quality.

Horses is an indispensable album for anyone interested in the mid to late 70's music and its evolution. At the moment in 1975 it was shining alone as a beacon for things to come. So you really need to get this if you haven't already.

Track Highlights

1. Gloria
2. Land
3. Free Money
4. Redondo Beach

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

While Horses's commercial success was modest – it peaked at #47 on the U.S. Pop Albums chart – its impact has been far greater.

Smith has been called an early pioneer of punk rock. Allmusic's William Ruhlman said that it "isn't hard to make the case for Patti Smith as a punk rock progenitor based on Horses", while PopMatters' David Antrobus chose Horses as his favorite album and considered it a life-changing classic. Michael Stipe bought the album as a high school student and says it "tore my limbs off and put them back on in a whole different order." Morrissey and Johnny Marr shared an appreciation for the record, and one of their early compositions for The Smiths, "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle", is a reworking of "Kimberly".

Horses frequently appears on lists of the greatest rock albums. Mojo Magazine named the album the tenth greatest of all time in 1995. In 2001, VH1 named Horses the 28th greatest album of all time. In 2003, the album was ranked number 44 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

An episode of Millennium, "The Time Is Now", would later use the song "Land" in a bizarre "music video" sequence depicting a character's descent into madness.

In the Toy Machine skateboard video "Good and Evil", Johnny Layton used the song "Free Money" in his part.

Scottish musician K.T. Tunstall has said that her song, "Suddenly I See" was inspired by the cover of this album.

Gloria:

342. Bob Dylan - Blood On The Tracks (1975)
















Track Listing

1. Tangled Up In Blue
2. Simple Twist Of Fate
3. You're A Big Girl Now
4. Idiot Wind
5. You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
6. Meet Me In The Morning
7. Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts
8. If You See Her, Say Hello
9. Shelter From The Storm
10. Buckets Of Rain

Review

Oh the lovely Bob Dylan, I can understand people who are irritated by his voice, and therefore have difficulty in appreciating him. But if you have gotten used to it or even quite like it, like myself, there is very little that you can fault in this album. This is the Dylan we all know and love and this album is up there with Blonde On Blonde as one of his all time best albums.

Every single song here is as near to perfection as humanely possible. There is a marked return to Dylan's folksier days and as an album of pain and separation it feels comfortable and right to go back to his roots.

This is Dylan very much at his best and for that simple reason this is and will always be an indispensable album. It is as good as his mid-60's songs, but there is a pain and tenderness here which isn't present as much in those albums. There is actually a quest for beauty in all the pain, for some comfort and this makes it probably the best break-up album of all time. Good for Dylan, and good for all of us.

Track Highlights

1. Shelter From The Storm
2. Simple Twist Of Fate
3. Idiot wind
4. Tangled Up In Blue

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album, which followed several years of lukewarm reception for Dylan's work, was greeted respectably by fans and critics. In the years following its release, it has come to be regarded as one of his very best albums - making it quite common for subsequent records to be labeled his "best since Blood on the Tracks." It is also commonly seen as a standard for confessional singer-songwriter albums, though Dylan has denied that the songs are autobiographical, his son Jakob Dylan has stated: "The songs are my parents talking." Most of the lyrics on the album revolve around heartache, anger, and loneliness.

The tackiest video imaginable for Shelter From The Storm, how can someone have such poor taste?:

341. Neil Young - Tonight's The Night (1975)

















Track Listing

1. Tonight's The Night
2. Speakin' Out
3. World On A String
4. Borrowed Tune
5. Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown
6. Mellow My Mind
7. Roll Another Number (For The Road)
8. Albuquerque
9. New Mama
10. Look Out Joe
11. Tired Eyes
12. Tonight's The Night

Review

When On The Beach came out in 74 this album had already been recorded. When you listen to On The Beach the contrast with Young's previous albums is pretty big, but Tonight's The Night is the real transitional album which was only put out in 75 for reasons better known to the fucking record companies.

Young seems to have decided to do exactly the opposite of Harvest, his most successful album. There is not ornate prettiness here, Young stripped both the music and his voice down to the essentials while keeping his lyrical talent unscathed.

Ypung gives us a pared down version of his music, he isn't that worried about being a bit out of tune but with getting back to a "purer" sense of music and melody. This ends up being a great album, even if it isn't as immediate as his previous works, it puts On The Beach in its context and gives us a rounder picture of one of the best musicians of the 20th century. Young is making a much more bluesy, and on occasion even country influenced album here, and this has very much to do with the paring down of music to its essentials, an interesting experiment which also manages to make a great album.

Track Highlights

1. Tonight's The Night
2. Lookout Joe
3. Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown
3. Borrowed Tune

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Dark, heartfelt, and raw, Tonight's the Night was recorded in 1973 but initially rejected by Young's record company (a running theme in Young's career) as the second uncommercial release in a row and an unacceptable follow-up to his popular breakthrough, Harvest, and too stark a contrast with Young's work with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

Young's album was a startlingly direct expression of grief: Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten and Young's friend and roadie Bruce Berry had both died of drug overdoses in the months before the songs were written. The title track mentions Bruce Berry by name, while Whitten's guitar and vocal work highlight "Come On Baby, Let's Go Downtown", recorded live in 1970. (The song would later appear, in a different take, on a live album from the same concerts, Live at the Fillmore East.)

Lynyrd Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant was known for frequently appearing with a black shirt on, with this album cover pictured.

Tonight's The Night:

340. Rahul Dev Burman - Shalimar (1975)






















Track Listing

1.Title Music
2.One Two Cha Cha Cha
3. Hum Bewafa Hargiz Na Thay
4. Countess Caper (Music)
5. Naag Devta
6. Aaina Wohi Rehta Hai
7. Baby Let's Dance Together
8. Romantic Theme (Music)
9. Mrea Pyar Shalimar
10. Hum Bewafa Hargiz Na Thay (Happy)

Review

The book listing actually has this together with College girl, a much inferior album which is only included because apparently the only version of the album you can get has College Girl stuck to it. This is a lie and so I've focused only on Shalimar. However everywhere on the internet it is said that Shalimar actually came out in 1978, if so this album is in completely the wrong place. And if you want a good example of a great Bollywood album this is actually a great example of it.

Not only is it great music for the most part but it is very representative of the genre, not only do you have Rahul Dev Burman doing all the tracks you also get the great luminaries of the interpretation like Mohammed Rafi, Asha Bhosle and Lata Mangeshkar. This makes for a great album which although it is a pastiche of western genres is completely infused by a Bollywood sensibility which gives it its particular charm.

Even if you are not a fun of Bollywood music, just the first track will make you think twce about the artistry involved in the songs, yes much of it is Ennio Morricone inspired, but what is wrong with that, so is Goldfrapp for fuck's sake. So if you have even a mild interest in Bollywood this is an album to get.

Track Highlights

1. Title Music
2. Baby Let's Dance Together
3. One Two Cha Cha Cha
4. Romantic Theme

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Shalimar was a Hindi movie released in 1978. Its English version known as Raiders of Shalimar was released in USA. The movie starred Dharmendra, Zeenat Aman, Premnath, Aruna Irani and American actors Rex Harrison, John Saxon and Sylvia Miles in supporting roles. Jayamalini does a dance number in the film.



Hum Bewafa Hargiz Na Thay:

339. Tom Waits - Nighthawks At The Diner (1975)
















Track Listing

1. Opening Intro
2. Emotional Weather Report
3. Intro
4. On a Foggy Night
5. Intro
6. Eggs and Sausage (In a Cadillac with Susan Michelson)
7. Intro
8. Better off Without a Wife
9. Nighthawk Postcards
10. Intro
11. Warm Beer and Cold Women
12. Intro
13. Putnam County
14. Spare Parts I (A Nocturnal Emission)
15. Nobody
16. Intro
17. Big Joe and Phantom 309
18. Spare Parts II and Closing

Review

If you ever need an album for a night in with yourself and a bottle of bourbon or a poker night, or a pretty decadent dinner party, this is definitely the perfect album. Tom Waits has a little kind of live show on this album, it is all artificial of course, it is actually recorded in a studio with an audience, but it does work surprisingly well.

Waits is very funny throughout and the ambience of a smoke filled dive works to perfection with the themes that go all the way from depression to masturbation, while always giving you a little smirk.

This is one of those rare thing called a perfect album. No matter what oyu think of the artificiality of it, it works tremendously well and few other albums are as evocative as this amazing piece of art. Tom Waits is a genius and I am looking forward to reviewing plenty of his other albums here.So get this today! Really.

Track Highlights

1. Better Off Without A Wife
2. Warm Beer And Cold Women
3. Eggs And Sausage ( In A Cadillac With Susan)
4. Nighthawk Postcards (From Easy Street)

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The name is inspired by a 1942 painting by American Edward Hopper that is titled Nighthawks but commonly called Nighthawks at the Diner.

The album was recorded "live" in the studio, in front of a small invited audience. This gives the record a distinct charm as Waits spends time telling stories, jokes and explaining the stories behind his songs through seven separate introductions.

Skip to 5.36 for Better Off Without A Wife: