Released 3rd December 1965
MY GENERATION
The Who
MY GENERATION
The Who
What is it with these iconic British bands of the sixties and the blues? What makes middle class English white boys want to be poor old southern American black men. In fairness to The Who I suspect that Townshend was no Peter Green and his heart wasn't really in it. The blues is only one of the styles they try out here as they take a chuck-everything-at-it-and-see-what-sticks approach. And another thing, how many bleedin' versions of this album does Spotify need? There's a 30-track version, Remastered mono version and deluxe edition. For the record I listened to the mono version, I'm a purist see? and it's the shortest.
The Who are probably the blueprint for the archetypal four piece guitar rock band - mercurial guitarist, prettyboy singer, dull bassist and mad drummer. Apart from the blues, they play around with psychedelia ('The Good's Gone'), beat pop ('La-La-La-Lies', 'The Kids Are Alright') and Dylan-esque droning ('Much Too Much'). The worst example of embarrassing blues is a toss up between 'Please, Please, Please', with Daltrey doing his best Robert Johnson and 'I'm A Man' where he adopts a voice which verges on sounding like he's throwing up.
Obviously 'My Generation' is a standout, mainly because it has a lot of unusual features, from Daltrey's weird stutter (why?), through Entwistle's twiddly bass breaks and Moon's chaotic drumming near the end - almost designed so that the only logical thing to do would be to smash up your instruments. 'It's Not True' sounds like a forerunner of 'I'm A Boy'. Some weird lyrics too. "I haven't got eleven kids, I weren't born in Baghdad, I'm not half-Chinese either, And I didn't kill my dad". So that's all good then.
The opening and closing notes of 'A Legal Matter' certainly informed some of Johnny Marr's work twenty years later, and I've always got time for rhymes like: "Kitchen furnishings and houses; Maternity clothes and baby's trousers" - you have to pronounce it "trousis". The last track is the intriguingly titled 'The Ox', in which Keith Moon hammers away at his drum kit and they elicit some bovine sounds from their guitars - could be Townshend or Entwistle - I can't tell. Session musician Nicky Hopkins provides some pretty impressive piano work too.
Look at the picture on the cover. They certainly look the part and Entwistle's Union Jack jacket is the business. Maybe he wasn't dull.
https://andysrockodysseys.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-who-hope-i-die.html
Out in the Street
I Don't Mind
The Good's Gone
La-La-La-Lies
Much Too Much
My Generation
The Kids Are Alright
Please, Please, Please
It's Not True
I'm a Man
A Legal Matter
The Ox
I Don't Mind
The Good's Gone
La-La-La-Lies
Much Too Much
My Generation
The Kids Are Alright
Please, Please, Please
It's Not True
I'm a Man
A Legal Matter
The Ox
Released 3rd December 1965
RUBBER SOUL
The Beatles
Wonky picture on the cover and a moderately wonky album inside. This seems to me to mark a clear step forward for the Beatles, almost completely abandoning now any vestiges of Merseybeat. And here's a funny thing, Wikipedia categorizes the genre as 'Folk Rock'. Hardly. Let's not lose sight of the fact that this is only 2 and a half years on from their debut. I wasn't there, I don't know, but this must have been so completely different from anything else available at the time. The mix of musical styles is broad and there is a tendency to stick completely unexpected sections either in the middle or at the end of songs. Take 'Girl' which has an overwhelming sense of world-weariness but ends with a Greek balalaika part (and what are those sharp intakes of breath all about?).
And 'In My Life' possibly the outstanding track on an outstanding album, we get the whole baroque piano/harpsichord thing supplied by George Martin. It works completely, but you suspect it shouldn't.
Before I started listening to this on an almost constant loop for the past week, I often had 'Drive My Car' and Hendrix's 'Crosstown Traffic' confused in my mind. Not sure why and it's probably just me, I'm quite suggestible so any song that mimics motor cars could easily confuse me.
The Harrison songs 'Think For Yourself' and 'If I Needed Someone' have a west coast feel to them, easy and breezy, but they aren't as inventive as something like the dreamy, woozy 'Nowhere Man' or as well crafted as 'Norwegian Wood' Of course
Ringo has to have his turn at the mic. No show without Punch. The C&W 'What Goes On' even gets him a writing credit too, but it's the weakest song on the album.
Lennon and McCartney prove they can still do pop too with 'Run For Your Life', 'You Won't See Me' and 'The Word'. This also includes 'Michelle', which I'm in two minds about, there's no need for singing in French after all.
https://andysrockodysseys.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-beatles-please-please-let-it-be-me.html
Drive My Car
Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
You Won't See Me
Nowhere Man
Think For Yourself
The Word
Michelle
What Goes On
Girl
I'm Looking Through You
In My Life
Wait
If I Needed Someone
Run For Your Life
Released 4th December 1965
DECEMBER'S CHILDREN (AND EVERYBODY'S)
The Rolling Stones
This is a US release and that means yet more cobbling together of tracks from previous UK releases. In fact the purpose of the Rolling Stones early US albums seems to be largely as a vehicle for following up on singles successes, so included on here for the first time is 'Get Off Of My Cloud' along with a whole load of re-released padding. About half is also Jagger/Richards compositions, and they still veer away from the bluesy end of the spectrum with their own creations. But 'As Tears Go By' counts as a bina fide classic, with Jagger managing to give the impression that he's close to tears by modulating his characteristic vocal quaver.
This album is pretty much contemporary with Rubber Soul, and 'As Tears Go By' gives anything on that a run for its money. Listened to objectively, 'Get Off Of My Cloud' seems like it's been thrown together in about 5 minutes, but I have a sneaking suspicion there's a lot of craft behind the seemingly shambolic call-and-response nature of it all. 'I'm Free' is better known to me for the cover version by the Soup Dragons. The production continues to suggest they favoured the bottom of a well as a recording studio and nothing breaks the 3 minute barrier, which is not a complaint.
We get a couple more live songs, 'Route 66' and 'I'm Moving On', with attendant screams. I'm always ready to defend the right of teenage girls to lose their wits about a bunch of pretty boys but they could be playing anything for all the notice that's being taken, and the Stones weren't all that pretty anyway. Dangerous? That's a different matter. Cover art features a rat's eye view of our boys.
https://andysrockodysseys.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-rolling-stones-out-of-control.html
She Said Yeah
Talkin' About You
You Better Move On
Look What You've Done
The Singer Not The Song
Route 66
Get Off Of My Cloud
I'm Free
As Tears Go By
Gotta Get Away
Blue Turns To Grey
I'm Moving On
JOHN LENNON/PLASTIC ONO BAND
John Lennon
These days everyone must be categorized, because it's too hard and time-consuming to learn about an individual's merits and judge them on it. Hence we are all split into convenient groups according to our age with simple to understand characteristics. Baby Boomers are leeching off the rest of us, Millennials have the attention span of a gnat, Generation Y are on their uppers. Well I'm firmly in Generation X (surprised and grateful that we made it past 18 without being incinerated in a nuclear firestorm), so I grew up in the 70's and 80's and it means that at my most impressionable age, we were taught that John was The Baddie and Paul was The Goodie (Well, not exactly taught, more received wisdom. My dad didn't sit me down at 13, give me copies of 'Yesterday' and 'I Am The Walrus' and say "Son. Do I have to explain to you what to do with these?"). My point is that my judgement is colored to this day and I am naturally negatively disposed towards John Lennon. It's important because I have problems with some of his most iconic songs, such as 'Love' on this album. There's a triteness to the lyrics that I really struggle with, but I can see that whereas I think they border on sixth-form poetry, a more forgiving mind might say that they are simple and pure. It also means that the first thought that springs into my head on hearing 'Mother' is "Does it really have to be all about you John?". He's fresh out of incomplete primal scream therapy and it seems he's using this album to dot the i's and cross the t's, especially on the throat-ripping 'Mother' and 'Well Well Well'.
However I did listen to Yoko's companion piece to this (well, half of it) and in comparison he's a model of restraint. 'Mother' sets the agenda out fairly clearly, rejection by Mum, abandonment by Dad, and he continues the theme in 'Isolation', just expanding it to the rest of the world. I was first introduced to 'Working Class Hero' via the Tin Machine cover, which, though I like it, doesn't really do justice to the original. I was compelled to check if Johnny Cash had ever covered it. It seems right up his street (he didn't, but he should have). 'God' is very reminiscent of that old standard 'Love Letters' and does seem to be a love letter to himself, confirming that he's right to reject everything that has shaped him up to now. Despite the Beatles breakup, everything is quite incestuous. Phil Spector, fresh off producing All Things Must Pass, sprinkles the fairy dust on this, Ringo does the drumming and Preston puts in a shift on the piano on 'God'.
So Lennon wasn't tired of the people around him so much as tired of the strictures of being in the Beatles. Probably. I think we know he really did have issues with Paul at the time. The production is very...solid. There's a chunkiness about it, especially on the great 'I Found Out' with it's buzzily distorted overriding bassline. Often on the album the piano sounds like you've got your head pressed against the lid. It's a good, even great album, but like I explained, I have irrational issues. Oh, one last thing, why does Cookie Monster turn up on 'Hold On? It's a nice cameo, but seems incongruous.
https://andysrockodysseys.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-solo-beatles.html
https://andysrockodysseys.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-solo-beatles.html
Mother
Hold On
I Found Out
Working Class Hero
Isolation
Remember
Love
Well Well Well
Look At Me
God
My Mummy's Dead
Released 18th December 1970
T-REX
T-Rex
As fey and mannered as you might expect. Bolan and, I assume, Mickey Finn look weirdly alien on the cover. Like they have white-face clown make-up on without any of the additional colouring. There's a fair amount of the de-riguer high fantasy elements in the songs, Steve Peregrin Took might have left by now, but the hobbityness remains.
The Children of Rarn
Jewel
The Visit
Childe
The Time of Love is Now
Diamond Meadows
Root of Star
Beltane Walk
Is It Love?
One Inch Rock
Summer Deep
Seagull Woman
Suneye
The Wizard
The Children of Rarn (Reprise)
ELITE HOTEL
Emmylou Harris
It took me a moment to remember that 'Here, There and Everywhere' is not an original Emmylou Harris song but a Lennon and McCartney composition. It's a candidate for the list of covers that are better than the original, and the Beatles' version is no slouch. It sets her apart from being just another solo female country singer - but then they are all unique in their own ways - as does her version of 'Jambalaya (On The Bayou)' which I just discovered is a Hank Williams song.
Amarillo
Together Again
Feelin' Single, Seein' Double
Sin City
One of These Days
Till I Gain Control Again
Here, There and Everywhere
Ooh Las Vegas
Sweet Dreams
Jambalaya (On The Bayou)
Satan's Jewel Crown
Wheels
You're Running Wild
Cajun Born
FLASH GORDON ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK
Queen
I owned the single version of Flash. One of the first singles I bought I think. Probably along with B.A. Robertson's 'To Be Or Not To Be'. I got it from a shortlived Tamworth record store called Rocket (or was it Rock-It?) Records located in the Upper Gungate shopping arcade. It was loud in there and I would have been a soft-voiced 13 year old, so the assistant had to bend his head so I could shout in his ear to ask for it. It wouldn't have been helped by the thick curtain of hair falling down across his ear. The single, of course, has snatches of the atrocious dialogue from the film. "Flash! I love you. But we only have 14 hours left to save the earth" and "Flash Gordon approaching", "Vot do you mean? Flash Gordon approaching."
It's become my custom to include movie soundtracks and watch the accompanying film. No great hardship in this case - a movie so preposterous that it's impossible to not derive pleasure on some level from it. I will say this for it. It has a strong look. There was no skimping on the production values. Probably what you'd expect from Dino De Laurentis and there's obviously a little Italian movie-making in-joke in the naming of Princess Aura's pet dwarf 'Fellini'.
There are some casting triumphs too. This may have been Brian Blessed's best known movie role and provided him with a quick route to a spontaneous round of applause for the rest of his career by simply booming "Gordon's alive?" (it is a question, not a statement), but you can't deny he's a good fit. He's up against Timothy Dalton doing a Men-In-Tights turn as Prince Barin. It's kind of like a RADA-off between them as they enunciate and declaim to each other as if the struggles of the planet Mongo are part of Shakespeare's history play cycle.
When this first came out, the most notable thing about it to me was the appearance of Blue-Peter-Duncan-Dares as an Arborian boy going through the coming-of-age ceremony, which involved sticking your arm into the Tree Stump of Death in the hope that the gribbly scorpion thing inside didn't give you a nasty sting and leave a bit of green goo on your arm. Pete made a wrong choice and has to be dispatched by Barin to avoid the oncoming madness. Also in Barin's retinue is a criminally underused Richard O'Brien, who manages to hoodwink the rather dim Flash into thinking he was rescuing him when in fact he was just luring him up to take his turn on the tree stump.
Of course with a movie like this, it's easy to pick holes in the Swiss cheese of a plot, but I would point out that despite Earth (pronounced "Uurth") being an insignificant planetary backwater (it always is) they do seem to have heard of Richard Wagner's Wedding March on Mongo, unless we are being asked to believe in some kind of convergent musical evolution going on between the two planets (I know, I know - they're all basically human anyway, so why get hung up on a piece of music?).
Puzzlingly, the end credits indicate that there was a specially recruited 'Zarkov Brain Drain Sequence Director'. Since it's pretty much a rip-off of the "No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die" scene from Goldfinger it doesn't suggest it required a particular directorial vision to pull it off. Probably they just mean the flashbacks to his life, including images of Hitler that prompt Peter Wyngarde's Klytus character to note "That one showed promise".
The soundtrack album itself is all of Queen's own work, but it's not really typical of them. They didn't stretch themselves lyrically, we all know all the words of the title track after all. However, here's an interesting thing, it's quite reminiscent of Vangelis' Chariots Of Fire music, but that came after in 1981. The action sequences tend to bring in some characteristic May rock guitar and it suddenly becomes recognizably Queen.
https://andysrockodysseys.blogspot.com/2019/07/queen.html
Queen
I owned the single version of Flash. One of the first singles I bought I think. Probably along with B.A. Robertson's 'To Be Or Not To Be'. I got it from a shortlived Tamworth record store called Rocket (or was it Rock-It?) Records located in the Upper Gungate shopping arcade. It was loud in there and I would have been a soft-voiced 13 year old, so the assistant had to bend his head so I could shout in his ear to ask for it. It wouldn't have been helped by the thick curtain of hair falling down across his ear. The single, of course, has snatches of the atrocious dialogue from the film. "Flash! I love you. But we only have 14 hours left to save the earth" and "Flash Gordon approaching", "Vot do you mean? Flash Gordon approaching."
It's become my custom to include movie soundtracks and watch the accompanying film. No great hardship in this case - a movie so preposterous that it's impossible to not derive pleasure on some level from it. I will say this for it. It has a strong look. There was no skimping on the production values. Probably what you'd expect from Dino De Laurentis and there's obviously a little Italian movie-making in-joke in the naming of Princess Aura's pet dwarf 'Fellini'.
There are some casting triumphs too. This may have been Brian Blessed's best known movie role and provided him with a quick route to a spontaneous round of applause for the rest of his career by simply booming "Gordon's alive?" (it is a question, not a statement), but you can't deny he's a good fit. He's up against Timothy Dalton doing a Men-In-Tights turn as Prince Barin. It's kind of like a RADA-off between them as they enunciate and declaim to each other as if the struggles of the planet Mongo are part of Shakespeare's history play cycle.
When this first came out, the most notable thing about it to me was the appearance of Blue-Peter-Duncan-Dares as an Arborian boy going through the coming-of-age ceremony, which involved sticking your arm into the Tree Stump of Death in the hope that the gribbly scorpion thing inside didn't give you a nasty sting and leave a bit of green goo on your arm. Pete made a wrong choice and has to be dispatched by Barin to avoid the oncoming madness. Also in Barin's retinue is a criminally underused Richard O'Brien, who manages to hoodwink the rather dim Flash into thinking he was rescuing him when in fact he was just luring him up to take his turn on the tree stump.
Of course with a movie like this, it's easy to pick holes in the Swiss cheese of a plot, but I would point out that despite Earth (pronounced "Uurth") being an insignificant planetary backwater (it always is) they do seem to have heard of Richard Wagner's Wedding March on Mongo, unless we are being asked to believe in some kind of convergent musical evolution going on between the two planets (I know, I know - they're all basically human anyway, so why get hung up on a piece of music?).
Puzzlingly, the end credits indicate that there was a specially recruited 'Zarkov Brain Drain Sequence Director'. Since it's pretty much a rip-off of the "No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die" scene from Goldfinger it doesn't suggest it required a particular directorial vision to pull it off. Probably they just mean the flashbacks to his life, including images of Hitler that prompt Peter Wyngarde's Klytus character to note "That one showed promise".
The soundtrack album itself is all of Queen's own work, but it's not really typical of them. They didn't stretch themselves lyrically, we all know all the words of the title track after all. However, here's an interesting thing, it's quite reminiscent of Vangelis' Chariots Of Fire music, but that came after in 1981. The action sequences tend to bring in some characteristic May rock guitar and it suddenly becomes recognizably Queen.
https://andysrockodysseys.blogspot.com/2019/07/queen.html
Flash's Theme
In The Space Capsule (The Love Theme)
Ming's Theme (In The Court Of Ming The Merciless)
The Ring (Hypnotic Seduction Of Dale)
Football Fight
In The Death Cell (Love Theme Reprise)
Execution Of Flash
The Kiss (Aura Resurrects Flash)
Arboria (Planet Of The Tree Men)
Escape From The Swamp
Flash To The Rescue
Vultan's Theme (Attack Of The Hawk Men)
Battle Theme
The Wedding March
Marriage Of Dale And Ming (And Flash Approaching)
Crash Dive On Mingo City
Flash's Theme Reprise
The Hero
SANDINISTA!
The Clash
Too long, too daunting and too many ideas.That's what I thought initially, but eventually I listened to it properly. A triple album is a risky proposition because it screams lack of quality control but the Clash seem to have pulled it off...mostly. It could be trimmed I think and possibly there is a single album in here that would challenge London Calling.
The Magnificent Seven starts it all. "It's fuckin' long innit' interjects Strummer near the end, well, quite so and a bit repetitive too. 'Hitsville U.K. starts with a 'Town Like Malice' bass intro but immediately becomes a happy clappy style duet between Mick Jones and girlfriend Ellen Foley. Is that a Glockenspiel or Xylophone? It's a grower certainly, but what were the hardcore Clash fans thinking when they heard it. There's plenty of dub and ska to go round. They dabble with what I can only describe as Industrial Salsa on 'Ivan Meets G.I. Joe', the sirens and other sound effects in the background are a little distracting. 'Something About England' brings us right up to date, anxiety about immigration and Class War in general. The bass loop on 'The Crooked Beat' is reminiscent of The Beat's take on 'Tears Of A Clown'.
They use a REALLY irritating (but effective) percussion effect on 'One More Dub', sort of like Headon is playing a copper drum with a brush. Their willingness to experiment across styles is undiminished in 'Rebel Waltz' (well..., a waltz), 'Look Here' (Brian Setzer style jazz-rock), Lightning Strikes (hefty funk), steel band calypso (Let's Go Crazy), gospel ('The Sound Of Sinners') and even find time for a touch of punk (their take on the Equals 'Police On My Back'); but they are clearly most interested in reggae and its related genres and mash that up with everything too. 'Washington Bullets' amounts to the title track and shows they have retained their political bite.I quite liked the Irish tinged 'Lose This Skin' sung and written by Tymon Dogg who sounds like Toyah without the lisp.
Ultimately there IS too much here and sides 5 and 6 seems to be in the nature of what we now call a 'bonus disc' being as it is mainly riffs on existing songs, including Mensworth Hill, which takes backmasking a tad too far with 'Something About England'. Not really listenable. 'Career Opportunities' from the debut album is resurrected but sung by Luke and Ben Gallagher, a couple of kiddies belonging to keyboard player Mickey Gallagher. It's kind of cute but pointless and slightly overindulgent.
https://andysrockodysseys.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-clash.html
The Magnificent Seven
Hitsville UK
Junco Partner
Ivan Meets G.I. Joe
The Leader
Something About England
Rebel Waltz
Look Here
The Crooked Beat
Somebody Got Murdered
One More Time
One More Dub
Lightning Strikes (Not Once, But Twice)
Up In Heaven (Not Only Here)
Corner Soul
Let's Go Crazy
If Music Could Talk
The Sound Of Sinners
Police On My Back
Midnight Log
The Equaliser
The Call Up
Washington Bullets
Broadway
Lose This Skin
Charlie Don't Surf
Mensforth Hill
Junkie Slip
Kingston Advice
The Street Parade
Version City
Living In Fame
Silicone On Sapphire
Version Pardner
Career Opportunities
Shepherd's Delight
STAND IN THE FIRE
Recorded: August 1980
Warren Zevon
Here's a fun game to play with your mates when you are down the boozer and 4 pints into the evening. Think of a word that has only ever been used once in a popular song. If someone can think of another song that uses the same word, you lose. My banker for this would be 'brucellosis' which turns up in Zevon's 'Play It All Night Long', but I'd like to think that if I discovered that someone else had managed to shoehorn it into a song, I'd be happy to take my forfeit and would immediately seek it out.
'Play It All Night Long' doesn't even feature on the original release of this, but is one of a number of bonus tracks released on a remastered version in 2007. In fact these four tracks were almost the highlight of the album for me, which is saying something because this is a dark joy from start to finish.
In an earlier post I suggested that Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull was the Medieval Court Jester of Rock (or at least he thinks so), if so then Zevon must be something like the Bill Hicks. His songs are darkly funny. Take 'Play it...' for example, your have to wonder whether he thinks Neil Young rather soft-pedaled in his attack on Alabama and so decided he was really going to go for the jugular. There's incest, PTSD, drinking to oblivion, elderly incontinence and dementia - "sweat, piss, jizz and blood" indeed (oh, and the cattle have the obscurely named disease). But he also somehow seems to communicate a grudging admiration of the stoic acceptance and the will to keep going on "we'll get by somehow". There's also 'Excitable Boy', where a psychopathic youth follows a trail of destruction ending in rape and murder, while everyone shrugs their shoulders and puts it down to him just being an "Excitable Boy". And there's pretty much more of the same on 'Poor Poor Pitiful Me' where, of course, it's all the fault of the women.
The version of 'Werewolves Of London' on this features some adaptations, with some of the action being displaced to California and cameo appearances from Brian De Palma mutilating the little old ladies, James Taylor being sought by the lycanthrope and Jackson Browne with a perfect heart. I never heard the 'R' at the start of "Rah-hoooo!" on the howls before now either.
But there is light as well, usually around the redemptive power of music. So 'Mohammed's Radio' tells of how a night-time radio station lifts people out of the daily grind and bonus track 'Johnny Strikes Up The Band' is simply a joyous celebration of dancing to rock and roll.
Band Bantz: 'Hasten Down The Wind' is the last bonus track and Zevon explains how he was in bad place when he wrote it, but is now glad to be alive. During the song he asks for the house lights to be raised so he can see his friends. It's a touching moment during a great song.
Heckles And Coughs: He asks what they want to hear just before 'Johnny Strikes Up The Band'. Whether they actually asked for it is unclear. This was recorded in The Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood. It feels intimate and closes with a chant from the audience of "Zevon, Zevon, Zevon, Zevon"
Next Track Off The Rank: Go Back Home - Steven Stills. Spotify places Zevon alongside the likes of CSN&Y, Little Feat and Jackson Browne, so clearly he's pigeonholed as a 'California' artist.
https://andysrockodysseys.blogspot.com/2018/07/classic-live-albums-part-6.html
Stand In The Fire
Jeannie Needs A Shooter
Excitable Boy
Mohammed's Radio
Werewolves Of London
Lawyers, Guns And Money
The Sin
Poor Poor Pitiful Me
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
Bo Diddley's A Gunslinger
Bonus Tracks
Johnny Strikes Up The Band
Play It All Night Long
Frank And Jesse James
Hasten Down The Wind
ARC OF A DIVER
Steve Winwood
There was a time when I became very keen on Steve Winwood. His Back In The High Life album came at a turning point in my life. I was interested enough to invest in that and 'Talking Back To The Night', but I never ventured this far back. To be honest, it's accomplished but undemanding stuff all the way through all three albums. Wikipedia damns with faint praise regarding the success of 'While You See A Chance' by saying it was successful in 'establishing him as a viable solo act. Everyone like him was in the wilderness around 1980 as punk and new wave had supposedly swept the old guard away so I guess the fact he was back in the charts was an achievement of sorts.
While You See a Chance
Arc of a Diver
Second-Hand Woman
Slowdown Sundown
Spanish Dancer
Night Train
Dust
FINE YOUNG CANNIBALS
Fine Young Cannibals
Shove that mute down your trumpet. This is a pretty accomplished debut, led off by the really rather fabulous Johnny Come Home, but the real attraction of the FYC was the rubber-bandiness of Andy Cox's guitar playing legs. Surely he didn't do it in the studio too?
Johnny Come Home
Couldn't Care More
Don't Ask Me to Choose
Funny How Love Is
Suspicious Minds
Blue
Move to Work
On a Promise
Time Isn't Kind
Like a Stranger
Released 21st December 2010
ALL YOU NEED IS NOW
Duran Duran
In the words of the immortal Jilted John "'Ere we go two, three four". I've done my penance and I'm finally on my last Duran Duran album. However it looks like the guys are going to set me one more test before they set me free.
In the words of the immortal Jilted John "'Ere we go two, three four". I've done my penance and I'm finally on my last Duran Duran album. However it looks like the guys are going to set me one more test before they set me free.
The title track comes first and is a mix of discordant sound effects and Simon Le Bon's, by now well-documented, discordant voice. The thing is, underneath it all is a fairly classic DD song. 'Blame The Machines' might be an attempt at Kraftwerk-style industrial-electro pop, with it's lyrical themes and overall sound, but if so, it isn't a patch on the German row-boats, far too chaotic.
One thing I will say for this is that they seem to be happy to jump on the eighties nostalgia bandwagon, Some of the songs are very much a throwback to that sound, 'Being Followed' is a case in point. 'Leave A Light On' is a 'Save A Prayer'-like slowy. 'Safe (In The Heat Of The Moment)' is funk-ee. There's a female vocal rap (that sound s a little bit like Kelis on 'Milkshake') at the start before Simon chips in and it all comes tumbling down. 'Girl Panic!' is straight-down-the-line classic Duran Duran and therefore one of the best things on here.'A Diamond In The Mind' is a presumably artistic piece with full string arrangement that lasts 1:18. No idea of its purpose.
In an act of barefaced literalism, 'The Man Who Stole A Leopard' seems to be about a human male who illegally procured a spotted big cat. It ends with a news report to that effect.'Other People's Lives' drives along quite nicely. It approaches' Iggy Pop's 'Passengers' at one point and is pretty enjoyable. Great chorus. 'Mediterranea' is yet another go at capturing the essence of 'Save A Prayer'. Finally, FINALLY, Simon gets round to writing an autobiographical song 'Too Bad You're So Beautiful' That IS what it's about right? They stick in another typical early style song with 'Runway Runaway', another unnecessary intrumental interlude with 'Return to Now' and then finish with the maudlin 'Before the Rain'. I may never listen to Duran Duran again.
https://andysrockodysseys.blogspot.com/2014/11/duran-duran-as-easy-as-nuclear-war.html
All You Need Is Now
Blame the Machines
Being Followed
Leave a Light On
Safe (In the Heat of the Moment)
Girl Panic!
The Man Who Stole a Leopard
Runway Runaway
Before the Rain
McCARTNEY III
Paul McCartney
So the rationale behind this being a completion of the McCartney trilogy is that he recorded at home and played all the instruments on I and II and since he does the same here it forms a set. That sort of makes sense, but you don't get the impression that he planned it that way back in 1970 (and he did much the same on some of the intervening albums too). You could also think that they are linked by being recorded amid turbulent times. McCartney I followed the Beatles break-up and McCartney II was in the midst of the dissolution of Wings. The approach taken to McCartney III has been dictated by Coronavirus although his explanation has tended toward that he was just mucking around at home and the album kind of emerged.
Whatever the reasons, it's something of a corker. He may be reaching back to his work as The Fireman, he's happy enough to play around with beats and slightly trancy repeated lyrics, as in the eight and a half minute 'Deep Deep Feeling' and 'Deep Down'
He's also happy to go right back to the kind of stuff he was doing in the mid-sixties when he was in a band. 'Lavatory Lil' sounds like a Beatles song in every sense. While 'Women and Wives' resembles a latter day Johnny Cash song.
The falsetto on songs like 'The Kiss Of Venus' exposes his age a little, but it doesn't detract and when he goes into it in the chorus of the ultra-catchy 'Find My Way' it seems perfectly right.
Looking back, Egypt Station now seems a little underwhelming in comparison and this suggests that Macca really is best left to his own devices.
https://andysrockodysseys.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-solo-beatles.html
Long Tailed Winter Bird
Find My Way
Pretty Boys
Women and Wives
Lavatory Lil
Deep Deep Feeling
Slidin'
The Kiss of Venus
Seize the Day
Deep Down
Winter Bird / When Winter Comes
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