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: