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: