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The Great Album Diaries

Listening to the greatest albums ever made one day at a time….

The Great Album Diaries: Week 34

The second entry this month and this enforced time off is really getting put to good use. This week has seen us listen to some absolute classics and one that is just plain crackers. Here’s how it went…

Week 34

January 18th 2021

Bob Marley & The Wailers

Natty Dread

After listening to – and loving – “Catch A Fire” and the almighty “Exodus” in Weeks 20 and 25 respectively, here we have the third album to feature on these pages from Diary favourites Bob Marley & The Wailers and it’s safe to say it’s another belter.

Released in 1974 this is The Wailers’ seventh album and the first one recorded without original members Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, with many fans acknowledging this record as the bridge between the “rebel music” of their early sound and the “International Reggae” that followed, whilst appearing here for the first time are backing singers “The I-Threes” or Bobs “Three Little Birds” as they would come to be known.

The album takes its name from a term used to describe a member of the Rastafari community, taking the word “natty” meaning “natural” and the style of dreadlocks which have formed naturally without the use of combing, brushing or styling.

Despite every song being written by Bob, he actually gave away all writing credits to friends and family, partly as a means of avoiding any contractual restrictions in a dispute with his publishing company Cayman Music, and also to provide some lasting help to his loved ones.

One of the main beneficiaries of this was a childhood friend of Bobs by the name of Vincent Ford who ran a soup kitchen in Kingston.

He was credited as writing one of Bob’s most famous songs in “No Woman, No Cry” which ensured he was able to carry on with his efforts for many years and the studio version of the song appears here.

Of course the version the whole world has grown to love is the far superior live version which was recorded at London’s Lyceum a year later but nevertheless this original recording still retains its charm, with Bob’s refrain sometimes misunderstood outside of Jamaica to mean “If there is no woman then there is no reason to cry”, when he actually means “No woman, don’t cry.”

As we’ve come to expect with Bob’s albums whilst writing these Diaries the songs are a mix of politics, protest, religion, love, sex, music and skanking and there’s no change here with the likes of “Lively Up Yourself”, “So Jah Seh” and title track “Natty Dread” reaffirming Bob’s increasing devotion to his Rastafari religion.

He shows off his seduction skills with “Bend Down Low” and “Am-A-Do” whilst he is in full protest mood with “Talkin Blues” , “Revolution” and “Rebel Music”.

Perhaps the most prophetic song on here and one I was listening to for the very first time is “Them Belly Full(But We Hungry) which is a warning to governments everywhere against allowing a nations poor to go hungry.

Contining the lyric “A hungry mob is an angry mob” it certainly struck a chord with me and everything we have been seeing in the news during these dark times.

The standout track and a new favourite from an album which is yet another masterpiece from Robert Nesta Marley.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Them Belly Full(But We Hungry)

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Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

The Boatman’s Call

Nick Cave and his old band The Birthday Party have the somewhat dubious honour of being the – so far only – recipient of a one-star rating on these pages all the way back in Week 4 with their album “Junkyard” so its safe to say I was hoping for some kind of improvement when this one popped up earlier this week.

Formed in 1983 just a year after The Birthday Party thankfully called it a day, this is the tenth studio album from Aussie Nick and his Melbourne bandmates The Bad Seeds, and was released in 1997.

Hailed as a departure away from their usual Post-Punk sound, this record is entirely piano-based, leaning towards a more intimate, sombre-feel with Cave singing solo over a sparse arrangement of very few instruments.

With a collection of deeply personal songs, Cave’s baritone voice is a perfect accompaniment to the minimalist sound of the band and I have to say I loved every single second of it.

It opens with the beautifully melancholic “Into My Arms”, a love ballad/spiritual prayer which Cave has said was written around the time of the breakup from his first wife, Brazilian journalist Viviane Carneiro and subsequent relationship with singer PJ Harvey.

Nick actually played this song at the funeral of his old friend and INXS frontman Michael Hutchence in 1997 but requested that all cameras be turned off during his performance.

After opening the album with such a song you could be forgiven for thinking he may have peaked too soon but I can assure you each song that follows is as strong as the previous.

Songs like “Where Do We Go But Nowhere?” and “People Ain’t No Good” continue the theme of lost love whilst “West Country Girl”, “Black Hair” and “Green Eyes” are again a tribute to his new found love PJ Harvey.

The latter in particular, with its spoken word vocal, reminded me of Leonard Cohen and it contains a line from “Sonnet 18” from French Renaissance poet Louise Labè, “Kiss me, rekiss me, & kiss me again”.

Reading about the type of album this is there could be an assumption that such songs could sound morose or mushy when in fact they are nothing short of stunning.

Its poignancy and honesty earned it unanimous critical acclaim upon its release and its easy to see why.

I’ve read that this is easily the most accessible of all Nick Cave’s work and if that’s the case I’m delighted this was the second of his I got to listen to during these Diaries because it could not have sounded more different from that dreaded first one.

A surprising new favourite.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Into My Arms

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Echo & The Bunnymen

Ocean Rain

We had the pleasure of listening to The Bunnymen and their debut album “Crocodiles” all the way back in Week 5 and I was made up to see this one show its face this week. An album regarded by many – including myself – to be the bands best work.

Released in May 1984, this is the fourth album from Ian McCulloch & Co. and was recorded mainly in Paris although a lot of Mac’s vocals were completed at Amazon Studios right here in their hometown of Liverpool, and also Crescent Studios in Bath.

That picturesque album cover of the band in a rowing boat was taken inside Carnglaze Caverns in Cornwall and author Chris Adams described it in his 2002 book about the band as “a perfect visual representation of arguably the Bunnymen’s finest album.”

After previous album “Porcupine” wasn’t as well received as had been hoped, the band wanted a more grandiose sound for this record, so with the help of a 35-piece orchestra they set about making this which according to guitarist Will Sergeant was “…something conceptual with lush orchestration, something with a twist. It’s all pretty dark.”

I still get shivers when those strings kick-in on opening song “Silver”, then again in the crescendo to “Thorn Of Crowns”.

Its the second half of this album that still means the world to me though.

The haunting gothic masterpiece “Killing Moon” is often credited with being the bands greatest song and McCulloch being McCulloch has gone one better than that by saying “When I sing “The Killing Moon”, I know there isn’t a band in the world who’s got a song anywhere near that.”

The lyrics to the song apparently came to him one night in a dream and when asked about it in 2015 said, “I love it all the more because I didn’t pore over it for days on end. One morning, I just sat bolt upright in bed with this line in my head: ‘Fate up against your will. Through the thick and thin. He will wait until you give yourself to him.’ You don’t dream things like that and remember them. That’s why I’ve always half credited the lyric to God. It’s never happened before or since.” 

Speaking of lyrics, I don’t know where he got the inspiration from for “Seven Seas” but the obscurity of them all and talk of “kissing tortoise shells” and “painting the whole world blue” coupled with those uplifting chimes makes it one of my favourite Bunnymen songs and it still sounds great whenever they play it live all these years later.

Which leads me nicely onto the albums finale…

For me if ever one song summed up one band then it would have to be the title track and closing song on this record.

The imagery it paints of darkness, ships sailing to sadder shores, heavy storms and blackest thoughts conjures up everything I associate with them.

Add to that a soaring finale and those strings reaching an almighty climax paired with Mac’s impassioned pleas and you will understand why it’s my all-time favourite of theirs.

In fact I was lucky enough to witness them play this album in full at The Echo Arena way back in 2008 when they were accompanied by the RLPO and to see them perform this version of it was an honour in itself.

Which reminds me, next time I see you, remind me to tell you all about how me and our Tony managed to blag our way into the bands aftershow party that night with a little help from Miles Kane and ended up sitting at a table with none other than Mac himself.

And Kev Seed.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Ocean Rain

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The Prodigy

Music For The Jilted Generation

Here we have the second album from The Prodigy to feature on these pages after the magnificent “Fat Of The Land” way back in Week 11 and this time we go back a further three years to its 1994 predecessor “Music For The Jilted Generation”.

Its an album which was deemed by many to be a protest record in response to the corruption of the UK Rave Scene which was thought to be heading towards mainstream status and also as direct repose to the recently announced Criminal Justice & Public Order Act which was put forward to parliament by then Home Secretary, Tory Michael Howard.

A primary factor of this was to criminalise Raves and Free Parties, most notably “Section 63-67” which defined any gathering of 20 or more people where “music” included sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats.

Despite numerous protests held in the capital from literally tens of thousands of people, the Bill was passed without any opposition from the then Shadow Home Secretary, namely a young Tony Blair.

Liam Howlett’s poetic response to all this was the sonic protest of a tune, three songs into this record. Just one line was needed to sum it all up:

“Fuck ’em, and Their Law”

The inner artwork to this album also featured a drawing commissioned by the band from artist Les Edwards depicting a young male rebel figure protecting a rave from an impending attack of riot police, accompanied by a quote from the band themselves which read, “How can the government stop young people having a good time? Fight this bollocks.” 

Also here is the single “Voodoo People” which is still a massive favourite of mine and its a song that NME’s Dele Fadele described as “Rave Cultures black magic ritual, with The Prodigy as The Witchdoctor of course.”

We also have the vocal debut from band newcomer Maxim Reality on the single “Poison” which was marked as the bands first foray into Hip-Hop, whilst “One Love” was made as a direct result from criticism the band were receiving from certain DJs claiming they themselves had gone too mainstream and had sold out.

For me though the highlight of this album has to be “No Good(Start The Dance)” – which samples the 1987 song “You’re No Good For Me” by Kelly Charles – and its mainly for sentimental reasons.

Shortly after the songs release, we were on a school camping trip to a place called Villard-De-Lans in France and the campsites welcoming French host decided to throw a little soiree of sorts for his young English guests, namely a gang of 15 year old scallies from Liverpool.

Midway through the evening my good mate Kenno decided he’d had enough of our hosts choice of French folk music and somehow managed to get his Prodigy tape blasting out of the campsite speakers which went down an absolute treat as you can imagine.

Great memories of a great song from yet another great album.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: No Good(Start The Dance)

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Laibach

Opus Dei

Hahahaha this one is mental!!!

We’ve been doing these Diaries on and off for the best part of five years now and it has to be said that this is possibly the most batshit crazy album I’ve listened to during that whole period.

You know what though….it was alright to be fair!

Do you know anything about Laibach? Didn’t think so. Well let me tell you a little bit about them before we get onto this album.

Formed in Slovenia (then a part of Yugoslavia) in 1980 they take their name from the German name for Slovenian capital Ljubljana in a slight reference to the Nazi occupation there during World War II.

Originally banned and censored in Socialist Yugoslavia due to their parodies and portrayal of Militarism and Totalitarianism, it was only after Slovenia became independent in 1991 that the band were viewed as a cultural icon, gaining the type of following that they had already received of sorts in the rest of Europe due to international touring.

This is their third album, released in 1987 and its success in the rest of Europe mainly through exposure via MTV enabled the band to embark on its first ever worldwide tour.

It contains not one but two covers of the Opus hit “Life Is Live”, one in German called “Leben heißt Leben” and one in English. It also happens to have a German cover of Queens’ “One Vison” called “Geburt einer Nation” which translates as “Birth of a Nation” and it really is as mad as it sounds.

Musically I’d describe them as thumping, bombastic military marches, and even “The Great Seal” has lyrics taken from Winston Churchill’s “We shall fight them on the beaches” speech and has been called “The National Anthem of NSK State”

“What is the NSK State?” I hear you ask?

Well that is the Neue Slowenische Kunst which translates as “New Slovenian Art” a political art collective formed in 1984 that these lads are at the head of, well the musical wing of it anyway.

I was surprised at how easy this was to listen to, probably because I was trying to read all about them at the same time which always helps.

Don’t get me wrong I probably won’t go near it ever again but do you know what, I’ve heard a lot worse.

My Rating: ☆☆☆

Listen To: Geburt einer Nation

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Thats if for another really enjoyable week and its great to be back listening to some fantastic music. I hope you are enjoying them as much as I am. Don’t forget to click on anything highlighted in blue to watch or listen to any of the links posted.

The Great Album Diaries (Week 33 AKA Lockdown II: Back In The Habit)

Week 33

11th January 2021

Has it really been almost a year since the last entry? Another lockdown means another chance to get stuck into the Playlist and some great music. Here’s how the first – and hopefully not last – entry of 2021 panned out….

Johnny Cash

At San Quentin

(Legacy Edition)

“Hello, I’m Johnny Cash…”

Ironic isn’t it that here we are in the middle of another incarceration and the first album that pops up is this – the second of the great man’s live albums recorded in a prison.

Hot on the heels of his enormously successful 1968 album “Live At Folsom Prison”, this was recorded on February 24th 1969 at San Quentin State Prison, Marin County California and was even filmed for UK audiences by Granada Television.

As opposed to the eleven songs on the albums original tracklist, this Legacy Edition from 2006 contains thirty one songs including different versions of some, outtakes of others, and even a few performances from June Carter and Carl Perkins.

This then is widely considered to be the definitive version of which to listen to and it comes in at just under two and a half hours.

Sadly this is the first album Johnny recorded without his good friend and long-time lead guitarist Luther Perkins, who was tragically killed several months earlier as a result of a house fire started by a lit cigarette as he slept in his armchair and Johnny pays tribute to his much-loved bandmate during this performance.

There’s a handful of Johnny’s most well-known songs on offer here including his 1956 ode to newly-married life “I Walk The Line” which he wrote as a vow to his first wife Vivian shortly after they tied the knot.

Cash famously hums throughout the song in between verses in order to reach the desired key-change and it was during this very performance that we see the now iconic image of him giving the middle-finger in an angry looking gesture towards the British film crew after they repeatedly ignore his request to stop blocking the prisoners view.

Although it has since been claimed by photographer Jim Marshall that he in fact asked Johnny to express what he thought of the prison authorities during the show, which led to the famous image.

The song has since gone on to be one of the most recognisable in music history and in 2014 was named by Rolling Stone Magazine as “The Greatest Country Song Of All Time”.

Alongside the albums title track “San Quentin” which Cash wrote especially for this performance, there is also another song being performed live by him for the first time in his career and its a cover of Shel Silverstein’s “A Boy Named Sue” which was only included in the set list at the very last minute.

Such is the spontaneity of the songs performance, Johnny performed it with a lyric sheet placed in front of him and his band improvised with a sparse, rough accompaniment.

Johnny was surprised at how well the song was received during the show and decided that was to be the lead single on the album and not the intended one – “San Quentin”.

It ended up being one of his biggest hits and won him “Best Country Male Vocal” at that years Grammy Awards.

For me, the main endearing quality about this whole record is not the songs themselves but the whole immersive feeling of it being a gig recorded in a prison in front of 1000 raucous inmates and just like it’s predecessor “Live At Folsom Prison” you get a sense from his on-stage banter in between songs that he really feels at home amongst them and that feeling is certainly reciprocated right back at him.

Johnny has never sounded as raw or as good as he does on this record.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: A Boy Named Sue

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MGMT

Oracular Spectacular

Summer 2008. The last year of my twenties. Working in a bed shop in Birkenhead. Countless Lost Weekends spent in Bumper, Lago and The Magnet. Fernando Torres making us all question our sexuality. Then lo and behold, my wife Emma and I finding out she was pregnant with our James!

Personally, this album was the soundtrack to that whole period and I can honestly say it brings me nothing but good memories whenever I hear any of the songs featured on it.

Originally calling themselves “The Management”, MGMT were formed in 2002 by two college mates, Ben Goldwasser and Andrew Van Wyngarden during their Freshman year at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, and Oracular Spectacular is their debut release.

After experimenting with Rock and then Electronica they finally found their own sound which Paco Alvarez of Spin Magazine called “shape-shifting psychedelic pop”.

Incidentally, take a look at this early performance from them at Uni doing a cover of the Talking Heads classic “This Must Be The Place”. As equally raw as it is endearing.

The album opens with their self-proclaimed mission statement of a single in “Time To Pretend” and if you want my opinion then you would be hard pressed to find a better 1st song on a debut album that decade.

Mocking the cocaine/prostitutes/choking-on-vomit cliche lifestyle of becoming a Rock Star, the song was widely praised by critics everywhere and whilst it only hit No.35 in the UK Charts, it was still named “2nd Best Song Of The 2000’s” by NME. (Beyonce “Crazy In Love” was No.1 in case you were wondering. It is a belter to be fair.)

Personally I will forever associate it as the soundtrack to that years Creamfields video and one of the greatest weekends of my life. Take a look HERE and feel the pain of nostalgia kick in whilst looking at those crowds of shiny, happy people.

Another favourite is the catchy “Electric Feel” which was allegedly the first song the duo wrote that contained lyrics and according to Andrew is “…about a woman who comes from the Amazonian rainforest that has the power to shock people with the electricity that is running through her vains. She could be an alien or part-eel or something.”

Finally we have another gem in the albums third and final single “Kids” with its now instantly recognisable intro and insanely horrific accompanying VIDEO.

It was named “Best Single of 2008” by NME and was then sampled magnificently by one third of the Swedish House Mafia, Sebastian Ingrosso for his 2009 single Kidsos.

There’s those pangs of nostalgia again.

The one minor issue I have with this album is I feel the second half of it tails off slightly compared to the more enjoyable first half, although it is still a lot of fun to listen to even after all these years.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Time To Pretend

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David Bowie

“Heroes”

Following on from “Scary Monsters” in Week 7 and “Aladdin Sane” in Week 20, here we have the third Bowie album to appear in these Diaries and we had the pleasure of listening to it just a couple of days after the fifth anniversary of his death on 10th January 2016.

Released in October 1977, this is Bowie’s 12th studio album and the second in what would become known as his “Berlin Trilogy”, having released “Low” in January of that same year, although this is the only one of the three that was recorded entirely in Germany.

As with “Low” it was once again a collaboration with Brian Eno and produced by Tony Visconti whilst they were joined this time by King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp who joined the fold after an invitation by Eno.

The front cover is a shot taken by Japanese photographer Masayoshi Sukita and was inspired by the painting “Roquairol” by German artist Erich Heckel (see also the front cover of Iggy Pop’s “The Idiot” for the same reason).

The famous Hansa Studios where it was recorded was a former concert hall that was used as a ballroom by Gestapo officers during World War II and was situated about 500 yards from the Berlin Wall.

When asked how this situation affected the recording process, producer Visconti said, “Every afternoon I’d sit down at a desk and see three Russian Red Guards looking at us with binoculars, with their Sten guns over their shoulders, and the barbed wire, and I knew that there were mines buried in that wall, and that atmosphere was so provocative and so stimulating and so frightening that the band played with so much energy”

Album opener “Beauty And The Beast” has been suggested by some to be about Bowie’s mood swings whilst in the throes of his cocaine addiction and living in L.A between 75-76, and Robert Fripps guitar work on the song was apparently done in one single take on his immediate arrival into the studio. How’s that for making a first impression!

“Joe The Lion” is a stomping Krautrock-influenced song inspired by performance artist Chris Burden and its here where Fripp’s talent really comes to the fore.

If that wasn’t enough then what follows next has surely cemented Fripps place in Rock and Roll history.

By simply sitting at different positions in the room to alter the pitch of his feedback, he allowed his guitar to create that unusual sustained sound we hear throughout one of my favourite songs of all time.

With a nod to the song “Hero” by German Krautrock band Neu! and influenced musically by the Velvet Underground’s “I’m Waiting For The Man”, the title track of this album was originally just meant to be an instrumental number (of which there are several on Side B of this record) until Bowie looked out of the Hansa Studios window one day and seen Tony Visconti and his then-girlfriend, backing singer Antonia Maass kissing “…by the wall”.

Eno has gone on record to say that musically he always felt the song had a heroic sound to it even before Bowie approached him with the lyrics, whilst Bowie explained that the song is about “Facing reality and standing up to it…finding joyness in life.”

Whilst it wasn’t a massive hit on its release it has since gone on to become one of Bowie’s signature tunes and NME recently voted it the “15th Greatest Song Of All Time” with David Buckley calling it “Perhaps pop’s definitive statement of the potential triumph of the human spirit over adversity.”

Another favourite of mine is the largely instrumental track “V2-Schneider” which Bowie wrote as a tribute to Kraftwerk co-founder Florien Schneider who were a massive influence to him throughout his whole stay in Germany.

The title is also a reference to the V-2 ballistic missile which was first developed by the Germans during World War II but whose design and engineers ended up playing a major role in the American Space Programme.

If I was pushed to pick one then its quite possible I would have this album as my favourite one of Bowie’s although that can change on an almost daily basis but listening to this again in all its glory has made me appreciate just how good it is.

A long-forgotten favourite.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Heroes

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The Who

Live At Leeds

Extended Edition

The second Live Album in this weeks entry and its one widely regarded as The Greatest Live Album of All Time. Yes, it’s none other than The Who’s “Live At Leeds”, recorded at Leeds University and released in 1970. A gig so revered they erected a Blue Plaque at the venue to commemorate it happening there.

Originally containing a meagre six tracks, I was fortunate to be listening to the 1995 Extended Edition which stretches to fourteen and personally this is the version I urge you to dive into because trust me you will not be disappointed.

The song introductions and on-stage joking amongst the band in between songs really add to the feel of the album and make it a more enjoyable listen than the original release.

Sandwiched in between their 1969 “Tommy” album and “Who’s Next” which came out in ’71 this captures the band in what many fans class as their true golden period, and writing a retrospective review for All Music, Bruce Eder said, “There is certainly no better record of how this band was a volcano of violence on-stage, teetering on the edge of chaos but never blowing apart.

The majority of the bands hits up until this point are included here and speaking as a fan of the band you will never hear them sound better than right here on this album.

The likes of “I Can’t Explain”, “Substitute” and “Happy Jack” are included in the set list alongside a handful of covers including Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” and Johnny Kidd’s “Shakin’ All Over” and Keith Moon’s drumming in particular is at times simply breathtaking, especially on the mid-section of “A Quick One While He’s Away”.

I was lucky enough to catch The Who in Manchester a year or so before John Entwistle died from a cocaine-induced heart attack in the arms of a stripper in a Las Vegas Hotel Suite (I mean if you are gonna go, go in style!) so I can say I have had the honour of watching the greatest bass player of all time play the greatest bass solo of all time in “My Generation”.

But…

What I would give to have been amongst that crowd in Leeds to witness that mad bastard Keith Moon at work behind a drum kit. What a fella.

Another cover here is the Mose Allison track “Young Man Blues” which Pete Townshend has gone on record saying was one of the main inspirations behind said classic “My Generation” and that also gets the Live treatment here in the form of a fifteen minute medley involving “See Me, Feel Me”, “Sparks” and “Naked Eye” with Pete’s Gibson SG Special (according to Who biographer Dave Marsh) “….so molten with energy at times it resembles the heavy metal of Deep Purple and the atomic blues of Led Zeppelin absolutely non-stop Hard Rock.

It all draws to a conclusion with an 8-minute extended version of “Magic Bus” that includes Roger Daltrey on harmonica and all four members jamming right to the very end.

History in the making and – according to “The Daily Telegraph”, “The Independent”, “The BBC”, “Q Magazine” and “Rolling Stone Magazine” – has never been bettered.

A must own.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: My Generation

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Kanye West

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Way back at the beginning of these Diaires in Week 3 I had my reservations about listening to Kanye and his “Late Registration” album, and despite having to admit it was a very, very good album to listen to, I still thought he was “The Biggest Divvy On The Planet” – albeit a supremely talented one.

In the years that have past since then he has done absolutely nothing to change my opinion of him although he most definitely has some contenders to knock him off his lofty perch, in fact he would be lucky to make a Champions League spot in the current climate. I’m looking at you Matt Hancock you little twerp.

Released in 2010, this is the fifth album from Kanye and it was recorded during his self-imposed exile in Oahu, Hawaii after a period of controversy in his life, namely the end of his relationship with model Amber Rose and then his storming of the stage at the 2009 VMA’s during Taylor Swifts acceptance speech whilst collecting her award for “Best Female Video”.

To help with the recording of this album Kanye roped in a who’s-who of the Music Industry to produce and collaborate on it which seen the likes of Mike Dean, RZA, Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z, Rick Ross, and Rihanna performing alongside Elton John, Bon Iver and John Legend to name but a few.

The running theme of the album is the failed idealism of The American Dream, consumer culture, sex, race, celebrity and everything that goes with it when your name is Kanye West.

It opens with “Dark Fantasy” and Nicki Minaj narrating a reworking of Cinderella in an English accent before a sample of Mike Oldfields “In High Places” takes over and gets us underway.

Samples play a huge part throughout this album and they are used to great effect in “POWER” with that now unmistakable intro sampling “Afromerica” by Continent No.6 and even our old mate Robert Fripp (see above) and his band King Crimson get a look-in with their track “21st Century Schizoid Man” being the premise for the whole song.

“All Of The Lights” was called the “sleb-studded centrepiece” of the album by NME, with its grandiose production and none other than Elton John on piano it tells a story of a parolee hoping to be reunited with his estranged daughter despite a restraining order put in place by the child’s mother, with Kitty Empire of The Guardian calling it “The album’s most magnificent high, that backs up operatic levels of sound with great drama.”

It was also one of the songs that Jordan Henderson and his team chose as part of their trophy presentation when Liverpool Football Club became Premier League Champions at the end of the 2019/20 season. (I had to get it in somewhere.)

“Devil In A New Dress” features a cameo by Rick Ross and a beautiful use of Smokey Robinsons version of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” whilst Kanye touches on love, lust and religion whilst speaking of the women that have wronged him in the past.

The highlight for me has to be the 9-minute piano-driven epic that is “Runaway” which was allegedly inspired by Taylor Swift and what happened at the VMA’s and whilst it isn’t a full blown apology, Kanye wrote on his Twitter account on its release that he had “Written a beautiful song for her”.

Self-reflective and admitting to us and the world that at times he can be a “douchebag”, the song can be interpreted as a take on his relationship with a girl, the media or society in general and one critic labelled it, “An agonizing portrait of a man trying to exit the black hole of his own implacable ego”.

The album went on to win “Best Rap Album” at the 2012 Grammys but remarkably, in what seemed like a monumental snub, it wasn’t even nominated for “Best Album” despite it being hailed by almost everyone in the industry as Kanye’s career-defining work.

It has since gone triple-platinum, shifting over three million copies in the US alone, whilst Spotify announced in November 2020 that the whole album had been streamed one billion times on their site.

Make that one billion and one. Cracking album.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Runaway

Listen Here

Thats it for another week. Thanks for reading and hopefully you find something to listen to that you’ll enjoy. Don’t forget to click on anything highlighted in blue to watch or listen to any of the links.

The Great Album Diaries (Special Coronavirus Lockdown Edition AKA Week 32)

So here we are in what can only be described as the most surreal, strangest of times in mine or indeed any of our lives, and whilst we should never underestimate the seriousness of what we are all going through it’s important to remember that it will pass and we will get back to normality someday soon.

In the meantime then, what better way to pass some time in our newly-enforced hiatus than to get re-acquainted with each other and some of the greatest music ever made.

Have a read, have a listen, wash your hands, look after each other….

Week 32

23rd March 2020

Derek And The Dominos

Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs


After making no less than three previous appearances on these pages in various guises – with The Yardbirds, Cream, and a solo album – here we have yet another entry from the legendary Eric Clapton and the sole studio album from his Tran-Atlantic Blues outfit Derek & The Dominos.

Released in November 1970, this is a Double LP containing several of Eric’s most well-known songs, including that all too familiar title-track which we will speak about shortly.

After becoming frustrated with the excessive fan-worship he was receiving in Cream and then later Blind Faith, Clapton decided to head out on the road with American Soul Revue act Delaney & Bonnie and Friends in an attempt to enjoy life in a band without the spotlight on himself.

It was whilst on tour across Europe that he teamed up with fellow Delaney & Bonnie members Bobby Whitlock (keyboards), Carl Radle (bass), and Jim Gordon (drums) and were invited by George Harrison to play on his iconic “All Things Must Pass” album. It was during these sessions that Derek & The Dominos became a band.

The story goes that it was during their first gig together that the stage announcer mis-heard their original name of Eric & The Dynamos and coined the now famous moniker but Clapton has denied this saying he tried to keep an air of anonymity around the band and as such it was a purposefully misleading band name.

After a period of writing the main bulk of the album at Clapton’s UK home in Surrey, the band flew out to Criteria Studios in Miami to record and it was here that all four band members started to use heroin more frequently after experimenting with it during the “All Things Must Pass” sessions, with Eric later admitting, “We were staying in this hotel on the beach, and whatever drug you wanted, you could get it at the newsstand. The girl would just take your orders.”

It was during the Criteria sessions that producer Tom Dowd brought the Dominos to watch an Allman Brothers concert and it was here that Eric would invite Nashville-born guitarist Duane Allman into the fold where the two would form an instant bond with each other with Clapton later calling Allman “The musical brother I never had but I wished I did.”

A mixture of original songs and some old Blues covers, the running theme of the album is one of hopeless unrequited love due to Eric’s infatuation with his friend George Harrison’s then-wife Pattie Boyd.

It’s all well and good being able to sing the Blues but listening to the songs featured here you get the feel of a man who is living and breathing the Blues through his music.

You can hear the pain and longing coming from Clapton’s very soul in the classic “Bell Bottomed Blues” – which he wrote after Boyd requested he bring her back a pair of sought after blue jeans from America – and also on “Anyday” where he implores, “If you believed in me like I believe in you we could have a love so true.”

Which leads us to that monumental title-track and it’s one which was voted No.27 in Rolling Stones “500 Greatest Songs Of All Time”.

Originally written as a ballad with Clapton declaring his love for the then Mrs. Harrison, “Layla” was transformed after Duane Allman came up with that now legendary signature riff.

As well as Pattie Boyd, the song was also inspired by a love story which originated in 7th Century Arabia and later appeared in the form of “The Story of Layla & Majnun” which was written by 12th Century Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi, a copy of which Clapton was given by a friend.

Telling the story of a young man who falls so hopelessly in love with a girl he can not marry that it drives him insane, Clapton identified with it so much that he used it as the basis to the track we now all recognise as the true shining moment in his career.

Recorded in two parts, the songs second movement or “piano exit” as it’s known was only added onto the track after Clapton heard Jim Gordon playing it after they had recorded the main parts of the song.

It has since been claimed that it was actually Gordon’s ex-girlfriend, composer Rita Coolidge, that came up with the part although she has never been credited for it.

Whoever it was, they can certainly be proud of turning what would have been an already brilliant Rock song into one of the most beautiful endings to any song in Rock history, and while were at it, who can forget its appearance throughout the final moments of Goodfellas when Jimmy & Henry’s associates are turning up in bin wagons and frozen solid in meat trucks.

Anyway, after going their separate ways the band suffered from tragedy in every way shape or form with Duane Allman dying in a motorcycle accident in 1971 aged just 24 years old and Carl Radle dying in 1980 from a drug and alcohol induced kidney infection at the age of 37.

Even more tragedy followed with Clapton’s four year old son Conor dying in March 1991 after falling out of a 53rd floor window of a New York City apartment, whilst Jim Gordon is currently serving life imprisonment as the result of brutally killing his mother in 1983 after suffering from an undiagnosed form of psychotic schizophrenia.

Although he did play the drums on “Apache” so it’s not all bad!

This then is the one and only studio album from “Derek” and the last word I feel should belong to Pattie Boyd, without whom this song or even album as a whole would probably have never happened, (and as we all know, she did eventually marry Eric, with George Harrison even attending their wedding!).

“I think that Eric was amazingly raw at the time… He’s such an incredible musician that he’s able to put his emotions into music in such a way that the audience can feel it instinctively. It goes right through you.”

A must own.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Layla

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The Grateful Dead

American Beauty

“Lately, it occurs to me, what a long strange trip it’s been.”

FUN FACT: The Grateful Dead were the offical sponsors to the 1992 Lithuanian Olympic Basketball Team!

These lads are a band I’ve only ever heard good things about and yet believe it or not this album is actually the very first time I’ve ever listened to any of their stuff, so it’s safe to say I was looking forward to giving it a once-over when it popped up on the playlist on Wed – or as it was known officially in our house – “Day Two of Lockdown”.

Formed in Palo Alto, California in 1965, The Grateful Dead consisted of founding members Jerry Garcia on lead guitar and vocals, Bob Weir (rhythm guitar and vocals), Ron ”Pigpen” McKernan (keyboards, harmonica and vocals), Phil Lesh (bass and vocals) and Bill Kreutzmann on drums.

Two years later they added a second drummer in Mickey Hart and he was joined by lyricist Robert Hunter.

They became one of the main acts associated with the Counterculture movement that sprung out of San Francisco in the late 1960’s and this particular record is their fifth studio album, released in 1970.

Famous for the spaced out sound of improvisational jams at their gigs, the country-tinged folk-rock of this record was a departure from the more psychedelic rock of their first three albums, and it was released just four short months after its predecessor “Workingman’s Dead”, which is where the move towards a more “Americana” sound began in essence.

Usually led by the songwriting duo of Garcia and Hunter, this was the first time that a bulk of material from the rest of the band made up most of the album and it’s the Phil Lesh-penned “Box Of Rain” that gets us under way here.

You can certainly pick up on the influence Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young had on the band during this period as the vocal harmonies present on this track are reminiscent of something on their “Deja Vu” album.

Lesh commented later that he wanted to write a song he could sing to his terminally ill father and as soon as it was complete he rushed to his bedside to recite it to him as he lay dying from cancer.

“Friend Of The Devil” is apparently written about the bands womanising road manager Rock Scully and the scrapes he would get himself into, whilst “Sugar Magnolia” was written by Bob Weir about his girlfriend at the time.

One of The Grateful Dead’s most famous tracks – and the standout song on this album – is the beautiful “Ripple” and I was hearing it for the first time here whilst I was in the middle of doing some work in the garden. For a few moments with this playing in my earphones and the sun on my face, I forgot all about what was happening in the news and the world was a better place for it. It’s certainly a new favourite of mine.

Another of the bands most famous songs – and yet another one I had never heard – is album closer “Truckin” which is all about life on the road and was inspired by a drugs raid in the bands hotel room in New Orleans earlier that same year.

In 1997 the song was recognized as a National Treasure by the United States Library of Congress whilst the album itself was named by Rolling Stone as No.258 in their “500 Greatest Albums” list.

Personally I’d like to give this record another few listens as I feel it’s one I could grow to love. It has been labelled by some as the bands masterpiece and whilst I really enjoyed the songs mentioned I think it fell a little short on the rest of it.

We shall see. One to go back to.

Incidentally, the Lithuanians won a bronze medal. Good for them.

My Rating: ☆☆☆

Listen To: Ripple

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Supergrass

I Should Coco

Oh to be sixteen again.

I felt a warm pang of nostalgia float over me as this old favourite began playing on Thursday morning.

May 1995. Stan Collymore is on the verge of signing for Liverpool. GCSE’s are done and dusted. School’s out forever and one of the hottest summers on record is spent listening to what seems like the freshest collection of bands for a whole generation. For some of them – the good ones anyway – their music would be fondly remembered by all of us who lived and breathed it on a daily basis, so as I headed out on my early morning run I couldnt wait to get re-acquainted with Gaz, Mick and Danny for a listen of their debut album.

Formed in Oxford in 1993 and originally calling themselves Theodore Supergrass, the band were heavily influenced by The Buzzcocks, The Jam, Madness and The Kinks and released their debut single “Caught By The Fuzz” a year later.

It appears here in all it’s glory and is based on singer Gaz Coombes real-life arrest and caution for possession of cannabis at the age of fifteen.

Speaking about it in 2004 Gaz commented, “It wasn’t trying to be a real statement, but at the time we knew that it was a big deal. Kids all around England were getting nicked for having a bit of hash on them. In Oxford that kind of thing happened quite a lot. It’s all true so it was easy to write. It was a funny experience – not too funny at the time ’cause I was only 15 and shitting myself. The song has that disturbing energy. It’s comparable to your heart racing. The adrenaline rush you get when your mum walks into the police station is similar to the energy of the song.”

Three more singles followed shortly after in “Mansize Rooster” “Lose It” and “Lenny” (which all appear here) but it wasn’t until the release of their hugely successful fifth single that things really took off for these three likeable lads.

It may have been played to death by now, some twenty five (really?) years later but if ever a song epitomised the innocence of youthful optimism and British youth culture in general during this period then surely “Alright” wins hands down and hearing it properly again here for the first time in a long time it’s easy to remember just how good it sounded back then too.

It helped shift sales of this album past the million mark with half of those coming in the UK alone where it got to No1 in the Album Charts.

At the same time it also became the most successful debut release on Parlophone Records since The Beatles “Please Please Me” some thirty years earlier. Not bad at all.

Personally though, what I like most about this record is not the singles we all know and love but the hidden gems also contained on it.

“Strange Ones” and “I’d Like To Know” are both about the weird and wonderful inhabitants of Cowley Road in Oxford and speaking about both tracks Mick said, “There’s a few people who are just really out there. There’s a lot of people around Oxford who are real spliffheads and that, who go and lie down in Port Meadow, but I’m not really sure about them. I’m not really sure that they’re individuals: they’re part of a much larger thing.”

The standout song for me has to be “Sofa Of My Lethargy”, a song slightly more laidback and trippier than the rest of the album and it was apparently all recorded in just one take in Mick’s living room when trying to rush through the final tracks for it’s completion.

Maybe it’s the hammond organ, or maybe its the guitar solo it contains that reminds me of Peter Green’s in “Albatross” but something about it will forever remind me of summer.

Simpler times. An old favourite rediscovered thanks to these Diaries.

I can’t believe we finished talking about 1995 without mentioning it was the last time Everton won a trophy….oh.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Sofa Of My Lethargy

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Van Halen

1984

What an album cover that is!

It was designed by graphic artist Margo Nahas and its image of a cigarette smoking cherub is supposed to depict the transition of purity into mischief, which could be used as a metaphor for what happened to a lot of wholesome Pop Music-loving American kids after buying this album on the back of its biggest hit.

That’s right, after we spent Thursday evening with the rest of the country on our doorsteps saluting our heroes of the NHS with an emotional, fully deserved round of applause, I ran back inside and had this long forgotten old favourite blasting over the kitchen – much to the annoyance of my daughter Caitlin who stormed downstairs and asked me to keep the noise down!

Taking its name from the year it was released, it’s Van Halen’s sixth and most commercially successful album containing one of the biggest songs of the decade and a collection of 80’s Heavy Rock at its absolute finest.

I still have the copy of this album my uncle Ian gave me when I was around 11 or 12 after he made me a mixtape which just so happened to have “Jump” by Van Halen included on it – and after the opening title track on this record which is just a short, Tangerine Dream-sounding keyboard instrumental, we are hit with that monumental intro from Eddie Van Halens Oberheim synthesizer and the song that catapulted the band into the mainstream (much to the dismay of their keyboard-hating hardcore fans).

After unsuccessfully bouncing ideas around with his bandmates and producer Ted Templemen at the start of the decade about introducing a more electronic sound into their music, Eddie Van Halen decided to build his own studio situated in the backyard of his home in Los Angeles.

He named it “5150” which is LA Police Code for “Escaped Mental Patient” and it was here that the majority of this album was conceived. Forging a compromise between the keyboard-heavy new sound Eddie wanted for the band and the more intense guitar-driven rock that they were known for.

After hearing the music for an unfinished demo, singer Dave Lee Roth remembered a news story from the night before about a man threatening to commit suicide by jumping from a high building. He commented that one of the many onlookers there would probably have got bored and shouted, “Go ahead and jump!”

He decided against writing a song about suicide but instead made it about an invitation to “jump” into love.

It reached No.1 on the US Billboard 100, becoming by far the bands biggest selling hit, was ranked No.15 on VH1’s “100 Greatest Songs of The 80’s” and was even inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the “500 Songs That Shaped Rock And Roll”.

Despite this being the bands only No1 single, 1984 also spawned three other Top 20 Hits in “Panama” – named after a car called Panama Express which Dave Lee Roth seen racing in Las Vegas, “I’ll Wait”, which is another keyboard-heavy song co-written with Doobie Brother Michael McDonald, and everyone’s MTV favourite “Hot For Teacher” which unsurprisingly came under scrutiny from the Parent Music Resource Centre who protested that the video and the songs lyrics were too sexually suggestive.

As for the rest of the album, I had completely forgotten just how good the likes of “Top Jimmy” and “Drop Dead Legs” were as it must be a good fifteen years since I last listened to it in its entirety and it was pleasure getting to know them again.

1984 got to No.2 on the US Album Chart where it stayed for five weeks behind Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album (which if you remember included that famous Eddie Van Halen guitar solo on “Beat It”) and speaking to Rolling Stone magazine a few years later, producer Ted Templemen said, “It’s  real obvious to me why 1984 won Van Halen a broader and larger audience – Eddie Van Halen discovered the synthesizer.”

I for one am thankful he did.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Jump

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Daft Punk

Discovery

Is this my favourite Electronic album of all time? It may just well be….

After spending the best part of Saturday morning having my brain wrecked from various Maths puzzles being sent over WhatsApp to get us all through the day (really, Day 5 and this is what it’s come to?) I was relieved to see this stone cold “Great” finally show itself on these pages.

After speaking about their 1997 debut “Homework” way back in Week 17 of these Diaries, it’s taken around the same amount of time Thomas and Guy-Man had between actually making these albums than it has been for us to write about them in here.

Released in 2001, almost four long-awaited years after its predecessor, mesdames et messieurs I give you the truly magnifique “Discovery” from Daft Punk.

After they finished their Daftendirekt Tour at the end of 1997 the duo started work on what would eventually be this album at the beginning of 1998 and over the course of the next two years set out to make a record that would reflect their childhood spent growing up in the decade between 1975 and 1985 and the Discovery of their musical tastes.

The title is also a play on words and can be read as “Disco” “Very” with one of the tracks that appears on it given a faux-Latin name of “Veridis Quo” or “Very Disco”. Clever, oui?

The duo intended to create a playful, open and honest attitude towards listening to records in the way a child has no agenda or analysis whenever it hears a song playing whilst at the same time keeping a focus on song structure using more musical instruments and sampling of songs from that decade mentioned above.

This was in contrast to the bands previous effort which had a raw, clubbier feel to it and one which was noted by Thomas when he said, “Homework was a way to say to the rock kids, like, ‘Electronic music is cool’. Discovery was the opposite, of saying to the electronic kids, ‘Rock is cool, you know? You can like that.”

It was during the lead up to this albums release that the duo famously took on the personas of two robots claiming, We did not choose to become robots. There was an accident in our studio. We were working on our sampler, and at exactly 9:09 am on September 9, 1999, it exploded. When we regained consciousness, we discovered that we had become robots.”

In reality it stemmed from an initial shyness and reluctance to show their real selves to the media which then grew into a feeling of being an average guy with a superpower that their fans ran with and as such became an iconic look for them just as say, makeup was for KISS.

The album opens with a song featuring the late, great Romanthony on guest vocals – remember his House classic Hold On – and when all is said and done it is quiet simply one of the greatest dance songs ever.

Whenever I have been on any dancefloor in the world be it a club or a festival, if “One More Time” comes on you can guarantee it will still take the roof off, nearly twenty years after its release. Now that is the mark of a legendary dance record.

In fact only recently it was voted “The Greatest Dance Record Of All Time” by readers of Mixmag Magazine. Personally I’d have it as No.2 behind “Music Sounds Better With You” by Stardust but that’s just my opinion. Although Thomas from Daft Punk was one half of Stardust so I’m sure he won’t mind!

All of the songs used on this album were featured in the Anime movie “Interstellar 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem” which was a collaboration between the band and one of their childhood heroes the Japanese Mangaka, Leiji Matasumoto and as such all of the videos for each single released were taken from said movie.

Using a sample of “Cola Bottle Baby” by Edwin Birdsong, the duo gave us the futuristic, funky, “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”, which was itself sampled of course by Kanye West in 2007 for his track “Stronger”.

What was interesting at the time were the number of homemade videos to accompany “HBFS” which appeared online and went viral such as Daft Hands or Daft Bodies and they are probably more memorable than the songs actual video with some 90 Million Views between them on YouTube alone!

Another personal favourite is the single “Digital Love” which samples George Duke’s “I Love You More” to great effect and any Supertramp fans out there surely cannot help but fall in love with that Wurtlitzer piano solo on the bridge. I clearly remember it being one of the early things I loved about this album when I listened to it for the first time back in the day.

Another favourite of mine and possibly my pick of the bunch is near the end of the album and it’s the song “Face To Face” which was co-produced with another of the bands musical heroes in US House & Garage producer Todd Edwards who also sings lead vocals on the track after Thomas & Guy-Man asked him to “Make it sound like Foreigner”.

Todd would again team up with The Robots some twelve years later and perform with them on “Fragments Of Time” for their 2013 album “Random Access Memories”, but that’s a conversation we can have at another date.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Face To Face

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That’s it for this week’s entry. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to click on any of the links highlighted in blue to hear or watch any of the media mentioned.

Also click on any of the albums mentioned above to give them a listen should you wish to do so.

I hope you find something in amongst them to make these hours go a little quicker whilst we are all going through this together. X

The Great Album Diaries (Week 31)

Welcome back to Week 31 and before I head up to Anfield to watch The Champions-Elect take on some mid-table team from Manchester I thought I’d fill you in as to what we’ve been listening to this week….

Week 31

13th January 2020

Suede

Sci-Fi Lullabies

Did you know Ricky Gervais used to manage Suede before they got famous?

Me neither!

Suede are a band that I never really appreciated when they were at the peak of their powers in the mid Nineties and it was only their excellent singles such as “Animal Nitrate”, “Trash” and “Beautiful Ones” that I was only really familiar with.

Reading up on them I was made aware of the fact that they were one of the first acts from that period who would back up their aforementioned singles with a strong catalogue of B-Sides and we have a collection of them right here on this compilation album released in 1997.

They were formed in London in 1989 after singer/songwriter Brett Anderson and his then girlfriend Justine Frischmann (later of Elastica) placed an ad in NME which caught the eye of guitarist Bernard Butler.

Their lineup was then completed by the recruitment of drummer Simon Gilbert, and bass player Mat Osman – older brother of TV’s Richard Osman (Tall chap? Glasses? That fella off Pointless? That’s the one!).

With his dandy androgynous poise and sneering glam theatrics, the obvious comparisons to Morrissey and Bowie were inevitable yet fully justified as Brett Anderson pulled it of emphatically and Suede’s rise to the the top followed their first three albums.

By the mid-late Nineties they were classed as one of the “Big Four” acts alongside Oasis, Blur & Pulp in what lazily became known as the “Britpop” era – a term every band involved in that period hates!

This then is a collection of most of the bands B-Sides that were released during this period of major success and such is the strength of the material on offer here that this record has often been deemed good enough to be named as Suede’s “fourth” album in it’s own right.

Writing for All Music, Stephen Erlwine said this record is, “as strong as any of their albums…absolutely essential material, confirming the group’s status as one of the ’90s’ greatest bands.”

Whilst The Independant labelled it, “The Greatest B-Sides album ever made.”

It is a double album consisting of 27 tracks and at over two hours long I was worried it would get a bit samey and repetitive but in reality I couldnt be further from the truth.

Considering I didn’t know any of the songs on offer here I have to say I’ve not had this off since I first played it on Monday morning and it’s certainly grown on me.

Songs like “Whipsnade”, “He’s Dead”, “Young Men” and my favourite “Killing Of A Flash Boy” have made this album a satisfying new favourite and I’m looking forward to hearing what the rest of Brett and the lads have to offer as and when we get around to it.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Killing Of A Flash Boy

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Sly & The Family Stone

There’s A Riot Going On

“My only weapon is my pen and the frame of mind I’m in…”

When you spend your day off work lying on the couch watching videos of Sly Stone on Soul Train then you know it’s a day well spent!

When this popped up on The Playlist on Thursday I couldnt help but smile as I just knew I would love every single second of what I was about to dive into.

That’s right it’s the First Funk Family of San Francisco, Sly & The Family Stone.

Formed in 1966 they were the first band in America to have both male and female members in a racially integrated lineup and were pioneers in the “Psychedelic Soul” sound that emerged at the end of that decade.

After previously releasing four hugely popular and influential albums, plus a show stealing 4am (yes 4am) performance at Woodstock in 1969 (please…if you do anything today just watch THIS), here we have 1971’s “There’s A Riot Going On”.

No doubt influenced by “The Death of The Sixties”, political assassinations, police brutality, and the decline of the civil rights movement, coupled with Sly’s now infamous penchent for cocaine and PCP (Angel Dust) during this time, this record takes on an altogether darker, denser, murkier sound than the positive vibes of their previous efforts.

So where we had The Family imploring us to get up and “Dance To The Music” a few years earlier, here we have opening number “Luv ‘N’ Haight” and Sly telling us, “Feel so good inside myself don’t need to move”.

Whilst in “Spaced Cowboy” he assures us “Everything I like is nice, that’s why I try to have it twice.”

The title track is just four seconds of total silence with Sly saying the reason for that being is that there should be no riots, whilst the title itself comes as a repost to Marvin Gaye and his legendary album “What’s Going On?” which was released just six months earlier.

The most famous song here and also the bands biggest hit is “Family Affair” which features the legendary Billy Preston on keyboards and Bobby Womack on rhythm guitar and as one reviewer so eloquently put it, “It’s as if the musicians on this record walked into the oldest studio, with instruments left from years ago, and never bothered to clean the thin layer of film off of them before they began recording.

The real testament to this album is that even through the murkiness, the genius of Sly Stone still shines through and it was named at an impressive 99th place in Rolling Stones “500 Greatest Albums Of All Time”.

As the saying goes,“There was soul music before Sly’s, there was soul music after Sly’s, but there was no soul music like Sly‘s.”

A must own.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Family Affair

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Talking Heads

More Songs About Buildings And Food

What a week this is shaping up to be!

From 1978 it’s the second album from the indomitable Talking Heads and also their third entry into these Diaries following their debut “Talking Heads:77” from Week 8 and Live Album “Stop Making Sense” in Week 22.

For the production of this record, the band roped in the innovative-yet-slightly-mad Brian Eno for the first of his three album collaboration with them and he is the man who would give their sound that all too familiar danceable groove that we have since grown to love.

He achieved this by putting more emphasis on the rhythm section of Tina Weymouth on bass and Chris Frantz on drums whilst at the same time keeping the limelight focused on David Byrnes nervous vocal delivery

Speaking to Creem Magazine in 1979, Tina took full credit (or blame!) for the albums terrible title, saying, When we were making this album I remembered this stupid discussion we had about titles for the last album. 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.

The front cover was designed by the late American artist Jimmy De Sana, based on an idea by David Byrne and consists of 529 individual close-up Polaroid photographs of the band laid out in a photomosaic.

This is probably my least favourite of all Talking Heads albums but that’s not to say it doesnt have its moments. In fact that’s more of a compliment to the rest of their back catalogue as opposed to a slight against this record.

Songs like “Thank You For Sending Me An Angel”, “Stay Hungry” and “The Big Country” are all personal favourites of mine but by far the standout track on here is their superb cover of the Al Green classic “Take Me To The River”.

It gave the band their first Top 30 hit and years later David Byrne commented, “Coincidence or conspiracy? There were at least four cover versions of this song out at the same time: Foghat, Bryan Ferry, Levon Hulme and us. More money for Mr Green’s full gospel tabernacle church, I suppose. A song that combines teenage lust with baptism. Not equates, you understand, but throws them in the same stew, at least. A potent blend. All praise the mighty spurtin’ Jesus.”

Whilst we’re on the subject – did you see that footage of Bobby Firmino getting baptised in a swimming pool the other day whilst Alisson Becker was standing next to him crying his eyes out?

Bit mental that wasnt it?

Anyway, the Talking Heads version – in my opinion – is one of the best cover versions of all time, and if you dont believe me then watch this live version taken from the “Stop Making Sense” Concert.

If only to watch David in that legendary massive suit of his!

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Take Me To The River

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Leonard Cohen

Songs From A Room

To my detriment I have to admit I have never listened to a Leonard Cohen record and one of the main reasons we started this whole journey nigh on four years ago now was to give myself an opportunity to sample the delights of enigmatic artists like Mr. Cohen here for the first time.

So here, from 1969 we have the second album by the man Bob Dylan once called “The number one songwriter of our time”.

Originally recording began in Hollywood with David Crosby of Crosby, Stills & Nash due to produce it but after the first few sessions it was deemed by Leonard to be a fruitless exercise so the whole process was moved to Nashville, Tennessee where legendary producer Bob Johnston who had previously worked with Dylan, Johnny Cash and Simon & Garfunkel took up the mantle.

Lets rewind a few years here and go back to September 1960 when Leonard bought a house on the Greek island of Hydra with $1,500 which he had inherited from his grandmother. He lived here with Norwegian Marianne Ihlen whom he had a seven-year relationship with and who would be his muse for several songs throughout a career that spanned six decades.

One day whilst staring out of a window of this house, Marianne noticed several birds perched on a newly installed telephone wire and remarked how much they looked like musical notes.

In an effort to lift him out of his depression, she handed Leonard his guitar and suggested to him that he write a song about it.

The finished result was “Bird On A Wire”, the opening track on this album and the song that would open Leonard’s shows for the majority of his career.

Also featured here is “Seems So Long Ago, Nancy” which Leonard later admitted was based on a promiscuous woman he had grown up with back home in his native Montreal, saying, I think that the world throws up certain kinds of figures. Another twenty years later she would have been just like you know, the hippest girl on the block. But twenty years before she was – there was no reference to her, so in a certain way she was doomed.

Reading up on this album it seems the general consensus is that this record is bookended by superior material and that the albums Leonard released either side of this are a more rewarding listen.

I’ll certainly look forward to the day either of them pop up on here as I can honestly say this was a joy to listen to. Just stripped back, simple country-tinged folk songs from an artist I’ve disregarded for far too long.

Before I finish I have to tell you about Marianne and Leonard’s heartbreaking demise within months of each other.

In 2016 Marianne passed away from Leukaemia just three months and 9 days before Leonard died in his sleep aged 82 following a fall at his home.

In a farwell letter read out at her funeral, Leonard wrote:

“Dearest Marianne,

I’m just a little behind you, close enough to take your hand. This old body has given up, just as yours has too.

I’ve never forgotten your love and your beauty. But you know that. I don’t have to say any more. Safe travels old friend. See you down the road. Endless love and gratitude.

your Leonard,”

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Bird On A Wire

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The Dictators

Go Girl Crazy!

What an album cover that is!

As you can see from his jacket, that man is none other than “Handsome Dick Manitoba” – the roadie, occasional front man, mascot and self-styled “Secret Weapon” for New York’s Proto-Punk pioneers The Dictators and this is their debut album from 1975.

A commercial flop on its release, this record is now considered one of the major starting points for America’s Punk movement and has been called “a blueprint for bad-taste, humour and defiance”, although admittedly these lads are a band I was hearing here for the first time.

There’s a couple of half-decent covers here with Sonny & Cher’s “I Got You Babe” and the Surf-Rock anthem “California Sun” all appearing on Side A, and they do a good job of easing you in to the sound and humour of a band you can tell are having the time of their lives making this record.

All the while played with tongue firmly in cheek, they reference the excesses of drink, cars, girls, and even wrestling gets the odd mention(Manitoba plays his character out like a cross between a Vegas-era Elvis and Hulk Hogan!).

That’s not to say they cant play because they sound as good as anything that came out of New York around that period such as The Ramones or New York Dolls.

The band themselves never really got the breaks that their efforts deserved and after a couple of albums broke up in 1978, although there have been numerous incarnations and reunion/comeback gigs since then.

Their influence though cannot be underestimated and Punk Magazine founders John Holmstrom and Legs McNeil said it was after listening to this album that they decided to start their fanzine.

That in turn became the first magazine to regular feature what was happening in CBGB’s and the burgeoning music scene which was blossoming in and around New York at that time.

Great album this. Easy to get into, immensely enjoyable and a lot of fun to listen to. A new favourite.

Incidentally, Handsome Dick is still going strong and apparently has a successful Podcast online called YOU DONT KNOW DICK.

Good for him.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Two Tub Man

Listen Here

The Libertines

The Libertines

From the Punk of Mid-Seventies New York we head to the Garage-Rock revival of Mid-Noughties London and the self-titled second album from a band once labelled, “The most important band of their generation”, a title my brother in law Nicky would no doubt wholeheartedly agree with.

Released in August 2004 it came just two years after their much-heralded debut “Up The Bracket” although considering everything that occurred in between these two albums it’s a miracle it was even made at all.

What with Pete’s much-publicised battle with crack and heroin, numerous break-ups (and make-ups!), cancelled gigs and most famously Pete breaking into Carl Barât’s flat ending up in a six month jail sentence (later reduced to two months).

The front cover of this very album is a photograph taken at an emotional reunion now known as “The Freedom Gig” the band played at The Tap’n’Tin Pub in Chatham, Kent in October 2003 on the same day Pete was released from Wandsworth Prison.

Incidentally it was Carl who was waiting at the gates of the prison waiting to greet Pete on his release.

Later that year the band would go on to play three consecutive sold-out gigs at the London Forum, with each night ending with stage invasions by fans.

These gigs were later named amongst the “Best 100 Gigs Of All Time” by Q Magazine.

Their new manager during this period was none other than Alan McGee of Creation Records who would later call The Libertines, “The most extreme band I’ve ever worked with.”

Some going when you think who else he has managed!

Just like their debut, this album was produced by Mick Jones of The Clash and it’s content is a reflection of Pete and Carl’s love/hate/love relationship, opening with autobiographical lead single “Can’t Stand Me Now”, with Pete imploring “Have we enough to keep it together?

The beautifully melancholic “Music When The Lights Go Out” has Pete reflecting on a friendship and a love that is still flickering yet has them reflecting on how nothing lasts forever and how they “…no longer hear the music.”

The album ends on a similar theme with second single “What Became Of The Likely Lads” and Carl asking his comrade “What became of the dreams we had?”

Sadly yet inevitably, they disbanded that same year. A year which also included Pete being arrested for carrying a blade after legging it from a Buddhist Monastery in Thailand whilst in another failed attempt at rehab.

Carl formed Dirty Pretty Things, Pete had Babyshambles and despite a couple of reunion gigs later on down the line, it was never ever going to be the same as those first two incendiary albums.

This record went on to become one of NME’s Albums of 2004 and was later named at No. 99 in their list of “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”.

It’s been far too long since I listened to this in it’s entirety and rediscovering again here made me appreciate just how good it really is.

A true modern classic and another must own.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Music When The Lights Go Out

Listen Here

That’s it for another week. Thanks for reading and dont forget to click on anything highlighted in blue to listen to every album featured or watch some vids relating to each album.

I hope you find something new to enjoy.

The Great Album Diaries (Week 30)

Welcome to a brand new year and it’s a week in two parts for our latest entry – before and after Xmas – and since we last spoke Jurgen’s Reds have become Champions Of The World and are still flying at the top of the league.

The flipside to that is five more years of a Conservative government and World War III on the horizon.

Swings and roundabouts I suppose, here’s this weeks albums….

Week 30 (Part I)

9th December 2019

Otis Redding

Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul

Following our perfect 5 Star review of Otis Redding’s iconic “Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay” album way back in Week 19, here we have a chance to see if this earlier release can live upto the lofty expections I had for it when it appeared on The Playlist on Monday morning.

Released in 1965 just two short years before his tragic death in a plane crash, this is the third studio album from the great man and it has even been labelled in the past, “The Greatest Ever Studio Recorded Soul LP”.

Containing a mixture of cover versions and original songs that were later made famous by other artists, Otis is again backed by the legendary Stax house band Booker T & The M.G’s and in amongst those covers are three songs from his friend Sam Cooke who was shot and killed 6 months earlier – “Shake”, Wonderful World”, and the Civil Rights anthem, “A Change Is Gonna Come”.

Also included are solid versions of The Temptations “My Girl” and The Rolling Stones “(I Can’t Get No)Satisfaction” both of which hold their own when standing next to their original counterparts.

In fact, Redding’s version of The Stones classic is so plausible that one journalist was convinced it was his version that was the original and Mick and Keith had covered it as a tribute to Otis!

For me though it’s the three tracks penned by Otis himself that make this album what it is. Opening track “Ole Man Trouble”, emotional ballad “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” (featuring Isaac Hayes on piano) and my personal favourite, “Respect”.

Later a 1967 hit for Aretha Franklin, the stories told by both versions of “Respect” have a different flavour, and whilst Redding’s take is a plea from a desperate man, who will give his woman anything she wants, Aretha’s version is a declaration from a strong, confident woman, who knows that she has everything her man wants. She never does him wrong, and demands his “Respect”.
The inspiration for the song came from drummer Al Jackson in response to Otis complaining after a hard tour. Jackson reportedly said: “What are you griping about? You’re on the road all the time. All you can look for is a little respect when you come home.”

I never knew this song was an Otis Redding original and to hear it here in all its glory was the icing on the cake for what is another perfect album from the late, great Mr. Redding.

Respect indeed.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Respect

Listen Here

This Mortal Coil

Blood

Formed in 1983 by Ivo Watts-Russell, the man in charge of UK Indie Label 4AD Records, This Mortal Coil were a collective supergroup of sorts featuring various artists, vocalists and musicians signed to his label and it was a band I was hearing here for the very first time.

Reading up on them, I discovered that they took their name from a line uttered by John Cleese in Monty Pythons famous “Dead Parrot Sketch”, so they already had me onside and wanting to hear what they were all about.

Released in 1991, “Blood” is their third and final studio album and with a whopping 21 tracks to get through it did take me a few listens to fully appreciate just how good this “Dream-Pop” outfit could actually sound once you gave them a chance.

A lot of the songs are either atmospheric instrumentals or minimal tracks with a guest female vocalist. One of them being none other than House Music Legend and Honorary Scouser Alison Limerick, who sings on “Andialu”, “Natures Way” and “Bitter”, and at first it was a bit surreal hearing her voice set to music so different to what you would normally associate with her (“Where Love Lives” anyone?) but it definitely worked for me and was a major plus point.

There’s even a half-decent cover of Syd Barrett’s “Late Night” which features vocals from the late Caroline Crawley.

However for me it’s the musical arrangements that stood out where this record is concerned and several of the more orchestral-heavy tracks are quite simply some of the most beautiful pieces of music you could ever wish to hear.

As for Ivo, well sadly he suffered a nervous breakdown 3 years after this record was released but thankfully recovered enough to sell his share in 4AD Records and moved to Santa Fe where he still lives today.

I certainly hope we will be listening to some of their earlier stuff someday soon because if this record is anything to go by then we will enjoy digging a little deeper where This Mortal Coil are concerned.

A surprising new favourite.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Listen To: The Lacemaker

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The Beatles

Please Please Me

Friday morning.

Friday the 13th.

The day we were all dreading.

The Tories had romped to an overwhelming Election Victory and I like everyone else I know was crestfallen at what we had witnessed the night before.

It was with a heavy heart then that I pressed Shuffle on The Playlist hoping and praying for something – anything – to put a smile on my face.

Up popped the greatest set of lads of all time and for half an hour at least everything was ok in the world again.

Released in 1963, it’s the debut album from The Beatles and it contains some of the most famous, well-known, and important songs ever recorded.

Just listen to Paul’s intro to “I Saw Her Standing There”.

With that impassioned “One, Two, Three, FOUR!”, it’s as if he’s counting in the whole of The Sixties and it never fails to send a shiver down my spine.

After the overwhelming success of their first two singles “Love Me Do” and “Please Please Me”(both of which appear here), the band and their producer George Martin were under enormous pressure to rush out a full album of songs to capitalise on their rising popularity.

“I asked them what they had which we could record quickly, and the answer was their stage act,. It was a straightforward performance of their stage repertoire – a broadcast, more or less.” Martin said.

Having established that the Cavern Club was unsuitable for live recording purposes,they booked a session at EMI in London and recorded live there instead.
Therefore, at 10:00am on Monday, 11th February 1963, The Beatles began working their way through their live set song by song, the number of takes varying on each, and finished at 10:45pm – less than 13 hours later – capturing in essence an authentic representation of the band’s Cavern Club-era sound, finishing with a cover of “Twist And Shout” that was purposely left until the end as to protect John Lennon’s voice as he was suffering from a particularly bad cold on the day itself.

George Martin feared Lennon’s throat wouldn’t be able to take the voice shredding vocal that he managed to give in just one single take at the end of the session.

Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn later wrote, There can scarcely have been 585 more productive minutes in the history of recorded music“.

It went straight to the top of the UK Album Charts where it stayed for an unprecedented 30 weeks before being replaced by its follow-up album “With The Beatles”.

They were only just getting started.

Back to the present day and later on this Friday afternoon Jurgen Klopp lived up to his reputation as the soundest fella in the land by signing a contract extension and hereby giving us all something to cheer about when we needed it most.

Danke Shön Jurgs.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Twist And Shout

Listen Here

Week 30 (Part II)

6th January 2020

The Clash

Combat Rock

“This is a public service announcement….with guitars!”

Having already spoken about their 1977 debut release way back in Week 17 of these pages, we now fast forward five years to May 1982 for a bit of “Combat Rock” – the fifth and penultimate album from The Clash, and also the last one to feature all four main members of the band.

After releasing a double album (“London Calling”) and a triple album (“Sandinista!”) previous to this record, the band debated whether or not to make this another multi-disc release with Mick Jones in particular favouring the more lengthier versions of the songs he had mixed himself.

Eventually after some internal wrangling it was decided by the band that it was to be edited down from a 77 minute double album to the 46 minute single album we end up with here.

Thankfully though it does contain some of the bands finest ever moments.

Inspired by the bands distaste of U.S Foreign Policy, an American society in moral decline and the fallout from the Vietnam War, notably Francis Ford Coppola’s epic “Apocalypse Now”, and Scorcese’s “Taxi Driver”, a majority of the album has – according to band biographer Pat Gilbert “….a trippy, foreboding feel, saturated in a colonial melancholia and sadness.

“Sean Flynn” for example is all about the photojournalist son of Errol Flynn who disappeared as he was covering the Vietnam war in 1970, whilst a personal favourite of mine, “Straight To Hell” is a Joe Strummer classic, about the children fathered by American soldiers to Vietnamese mothers and abandoned at birth.

The same song also talks about the closing down of steel mills in Northern England and the alienation of non-English speaking immigrants who arrive at these shores.

The intro to this was sampled in 2007 by British rapper M.I.A for her song “Paper Planes” which deals with her own problems obtaining a visa to work in the US, satirising American perceptions of immigrants from Third World nations.

There’s no doubting the two shining lights on this record though, not only two of the bands best efforts but in my opinion two of the best songs of all time.

Firstly “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” which was written and recorded by Mick and was widely thought to be about his impending departure from the band.

Another theory was that it was about his tempestuous relationship with American singer Ellen Foley (she sang backing vocals on “Bat Out Of Hell” – No, I didn’t know that either!) although Mick himself later denied all knowledge of this, saying, “It wasn’t about anybody specific and it wasn’t pre-empting my leaving The Clash. It was just a good rockin’ song, our attempt at writing a classic … When we were just playing, that was the kind of thing we used to like to play.

Years later it went on to become the only UK Number One for the band when it was released to accompany a Levis commercial in 1991, and was one of the first singles I ever bought (but we’ve already spoken about that in the past haven’t we).

It also featured prominently in the first season of “Stranger Things” giving the song an altogether more spooky twist to it whenever I hear it now!

Finally how can we speak about this album without mentioning the dance-punk classic that appears here?

It was during this period that drummer Topper Headon had submerged into his heroin and cocaine habit and what was originally occasional drug usage now became an addiction that was costing him £100 per day and undermining his health.

This drug problem would be the factor that would later push his bandmates to fire him from The Clash, following the release of this very album.

Which makes it all the more impressive that it was none other than Topper himself that was the man behind one of the bands truly great songs written and recorded around the depths of his darkest moments.

Based on a piano riff he had been toying with, Topper found himself in the studio without his three bandmates and proceeded to lay down all the guitar parts, drums and bass thus recording the majority of the songs musical instrumentation all by himself.

Upon hearing the tune, Joe Strumer locked himself in the studio’s toilets and later emerged clutching the lyrics to the song we now all know and love.

Inspired by the ban on Western music in Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the songs gives us a fictitious account of an Arab Kings failed attempt to stop his subjects listening to Rock music and them rising up in protest to “Rock The Casbah”.

Years later the song was chosen by Armed Forces Radio to be the first song broadcast on the service covering the area during Operation Desert Storm and rumour has it that Strummer wept when he heard that the phrase “Rock the Casbah” was written on an American bomb that was to be detonated on Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War.

A sad irony then that I was getting back into this album just as it looks to be happening all over again over there.

I love this record and I’m made up to have rediscovered it all over again thanks to these Diaries.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Rock The Casbah

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Simon And Garfunkel

Bridge Over Troubled Water

After listening to Paul Simon’s self-titled solo album way back in Week 6 of these Diaries, here we are blessed to have a crack at an album regarded by many as one of THE greatest ever recorded.

Released fifty years ago this very month it’s the fifth and final album by Folk-Rock legends Simon & Garfunkel and some people have even said this is the record The Beatles should have made as their swansong as opposed to “Let It Be” which was released the same year.

Containing no less than four hit singles and also some of their most famous numbers, it has the audacity to open with that unbelievable title-track, a song which is probably regarded as the duo’s signature tune.

Inspired by singer Claude Jeter’s line,“I’ll be your bridge over deep water if you trust in me” in the 1958 Gospel song “Mary Don’t You Weep”, Paul Simon composed the song on piano specifically to suit his partner’s vocals, telling Art to sing it “The white choirboys way”.

It went on to achieve Number One on both sides of the Atlantic, selling over six million copies in the process, whilst becoming one of the most covered songs of the twentieth century. It was also placed at a very repectable Number 48 on Rolling Stones “500 Greatest Songs Of All Time”.

So how does the rest of the album manage to follow on from all of that?

Well for starters we have Paul Simon’s English adaption of one of Peru’s most famous songs in “El Cóndor Pasa(If I Could)”, followed by the enormously catchy “Cecilia” which despite being all about an untrustworthy lover, takes its name from St. Cecilia – the Patron Saint of Music.

Let’s not even mention that awful cover Suggs did back in the Nineties.

Another personal favourite of mine is “Keep The Customer Satisfied”, which in contrast to its happy, upbeat tempo, was written by Paul Simon out of frustration with life on the road and the constant touring that comes with the price of success.

Finally we have another classic in “The Boxer” – a song written by Paul at a time when he felt he was being unfairly criticized from all corners.

It starts off as autobiographical, taking inspiration from The Bible, and the issues of poverty and the lonelines of living in New York City before the final verse switches to the third-person and paints us an image of an old boxer who, “….carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down or cut him till he cried out, “I am leaving, I am leaving but the fighter still remains.”
On 3 June 2016 at his concert in Berkeley, California, Paul Simon stopped singing part way through this song, to announce in one sentence, “I’m sorry to tell you this way but Muhammad Ali passed away this evening.”

He then carried on into the third verse we mentioned above to a stunned audience.

What a song. What an album.

Faultless.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Bridge Over Troubled Water

Listen Here

Beastie Boys

Hello Nasty

The final album in this week’s entry and it’s an album that The Guardian labelled “The perfect party soundtrack by the perfect party band.” on its release in July 1998.

Yes that’s right, following on from their appearance in Week 15 with “Paul’s Boutique” (still their best work if you ask me) here we have the second entry for New York’s finest, the Beastie Boys.

The title of the album was allegedly inspired by the receptionist of their NY-based publicity firm Nasty Little Man who would answer the phone with the greeting “Hello, Nasty”.

This record also marks the debut of new band member and DMC World Champion Mix Master Mike on the turntables with one critic hailing his addition to the line-up as “An absolute masterstroke….creating a sound that recalls the electronic funk of the early 80’s teamed with the absurdist wit that has become the trademark of Beastie Boys lyrics.”

Songs like album-opener “Super Disco Breakin”, “The Move” and “Remote Control” get the party underway whilst fans of Fatboy Slim will recognise “Body Movin” which he remixed to great effect on the songs release and in fact it was his version which accompanied the video when it hit the charts.

The standout track on here is the futuristic-funky “Intergalactic” and who can forget the now-legendary Japanese inspired video for the song that featured a giant body-popping robot battling a giant octopus whilst the Beastie Boys rap through the streets of Tokyo dressed as Japanese construction workers?

Personally at 22 tracks long I’d say this album could have been cut down to be a really great album and even though I would say the laidback “I Dont Know” and funky “Unite” are also definite highlights, the whole thing just sort of tails off near the end and is somewhat of an anti-climax.

Still, immensely enjoyable all the same.

“Ravers of the world….UNITE!”

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Intergalactic

Listen Here

That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading. Don’t forget to click on anything highlighted in blue to listen or watch the links attached.

I hope you find something new that you enjoy.

The Great Album Diaries (Week 29)

Welcome back to another enjoyable week of listening to some of the finest music ever made.

Here’s how this week shaped up….

Week 29

December 2nd 2019

The Cribs

The New Fellas

Following on from listening to their superb “Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever” back in Week 26, here we have its 2005 predecessor. It’s the second album from Wakefield’s Jarman Brothers AKA The Cribs.

Produced by Edwyn Collins (you remember him? He was in Orange Juice in the 80’s and also released “A Girl Like You” in 1995), the album was scheduled to have been written whilst the band were on a sabbatical after touring their debut album.

According to Collins, “They had definite ideas what they wanted the record to sound like…They had this work ethic, there was nothing spoiled about them – they were proper indie; everything done on a shoe-string and they just got on with it….they were tremendous.”

Typically of these lads though, they decided they still wanted to tour and took to posting their phone numbers and email addresses all over the internet, vowing to play anywhere for fuel money and free ale. It was these kind of antics that was key in their success, as it helped grow a loyal, passionate fanbase that followed the band up and down the country.

Although not as polished as the last album of theirs I listened to, it does have its moments – “Haunted” for example was recorded on a whim on Scarborough beach after the band heard a recording of Steve Martin playing a ukulele duet also recorded on a beach.

The highlight is opening tune “Hey Scenesters!” which the lads wrote after playing Brixton Windmill and noticing a large section of the crowd were just young kids only in attendance because they thought it made them look cool.

The song was even voted 3rd Best Song Of The Year in a Poll carried out by NME later that year.

Its certainly an enjoyable listen and like I’ve mentioned previously on these pages, it’s easy to see why they were being labelled as the UKs answer to The Strokes around this time.

Good little album this. It’s definitely worth a listen and one to go back to I reckon.

My Rating: ☆☆☆

Listen To: Hey Scenesters!

Listen Here

The Drifters

Stand By Me(The Very Best Of)

A 2015 Greatest Hits album featuring a truly terrible cover of a song made famous by one of their (many) ex-members.

Whilst reading up on these lads it came to my attention that they’ve had more band members over the years than Everton have had managers, with no less than SIXTY vocalists laying claim to have been in The Drifters at one point or another.

You could question if it’s even the same band that was formed in the early part of the 1950’s and I’d say they have more in common with Triggers’ Broom than with any other comparable act in music.

It got me wondering just who or what defines The Real Drifters?

Well it appears they had three golden periods in their duration together – the 1950’s when Clyde McPhetter first formed his all-male vocal group at the request of Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertugan, even though he was only with them for a year.

After selling his share in the band to their manager George Treadwell, he set the wheels in motion for every future member to be paid a pittance due to the agreement signed in that original deal which no doubt explains the revolving door-type of comings and goings down the years.

One of these members was the late, great Ben E. King, who lasted an impressive 2 years before achieving greater success as a solo artist. Namely with the title track of this very album.

Into the Sixties and a second era of success followed with a couple of hits featured here including “Save The Last Dance For Me” and “Up On The Roof”, sung by lead vocalist Rudy Lewis.

Rudy was also due to perform on “Under The Boardwalk” but the night before that particular recording session – May 20th 1964 – he was found dead in his hotel room after suffering from a suspected heroin overdose aged just 27 years old, thus making him one of the earliest members of the infamous “27 Club”.

The Drifters show had to carry on however and poor Rudy wasn’t even cold when he was replaced the very next day by Johnny Moore who would go on to become one of the bands principle lead singers, performing on the likes of “Saturday Night At The Movies” and “Come On Over To My Place”.

As they entered their third period of success – a renaissance of sorts in the mid Seventies after relocating to England from the US – a handful of hits followed – “Kissing In The Back Row Of The Movies”, “There Goes My First Love”, and “You’re More Than A Number In My Little Red Book” to name but a few.

Basically every song you can expect to hear in Smokie Moe’s or Tess Rileys on a Sunday afternoon!

On a personal note I remember every single one of these songs being played in our house as a kid as an album similar to this was in amongst my mum and dads record collection.

Despite this album bringing back some happy childhood memories, I can’t say its one I would go back to, although admittedly it was an enjoyable listen.

Good, but not really for me.

My Rating: ☆☆☆

Listen To: Saturday Night At The Movies

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Cyndi Lauper

She’s So Unusual

OK hands up how many of you knew that “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” is actually a cover version?

Nope, me neither, and that’s not even the most shocking thing I learned about a song on this album (more about that later).

Released in 1983, this is the debut album from New Yorks Cynthia Ann Stephanie Lauper and I was actually surprised at how much I enjoyed this perfect hybrid of 80s Pop/Punk/New Wave.

Successful both commercially and critically, it ensured Cyndi was the first female artist in history to have a debut album with four Top 5 hits on the US Billboard Hot 100 and cemented her place as a geniune icon of the MTV generation which was still in its infancy (she actually won the inaugural Best Female Video at the 1984 VMA’s).

As we touched on earlier, the first of those singles was in fact a cover of 1979 track by American singer Robert Hazard.

Naturally I had to have a listen of the original version to see what it was like and it reminds me a little of Elvis Costello or even XTC, but nothing like Cyndi’s version at all.

A little unimpressed by what she deemed were some slightly misogynistic lyrics she flipped it on its head and turned it into a “feminist empowerment anthem of solidarity and celebration”, getting to No.1 in ten different countries whilst hitting No.2 in both the US and UK Charts (kept off the top spot by Van Halen’s “Jump” in case you were wondering).

There’s also another couple of solid cover versions here – opening track “Money Changes Everything” was originally by a New Wave band called The Brains and I absolutely loved their original version when I listened to it this week for the first time.

Also “When You Were Mine” which was written and recorded by Prince and actually appears on his 1980 album “Dirty Mind”.

Cyndi purposely chose not to alter the lyrics on the Prince cover so it gives the listener the sense that she is actually singing about a bisexual love triangle.

Another single released off here was the highly controversial “She Bop” which ended up on the “Filthy Fifteen” list by the Parents Music Resource Centre(PRMC) and was one of the first songs that eventually led to us seeing Parental Advisory Stickers on certain albums that we still see today.

Dealing with the subject matter of female masturbation, Cyndi said she wanted younger kids to innocently think the song was about dancing and to understand the real meaning as they got older. It could receive airplay as she never directly stated in the song what the real meaning was, although she did later admit to Howard Stern that she recorded the vocals to the song whilst totally nude.

For me though the best track on here is arguably Cyndi’s finest moment as a songwriter and it’s a song that very nearly didn’t make it onto the album at all.

In the final stages of recording, Cyndi and co-writer Rob Hyman decided they needed one more song so sat down at a piano and came up with the beautifully 80’s love song, “Time After Time”.

The name of the song came after a TV Guide was left open and Cyndi noticed the 1979 Sci-Fi movie of the same name. It was supposed to be the lead single off the album but she was concerned that releasing a ballad as a debut single would define her as an artist and went for the far more “Fun” option instead.

This then was the 2nd single and it eventually earned Cyndi her first UK No.1.

I enjoyed this record far more than I thought I would and it definitely lives up to its billing as a “Pop Classic”.

Great album.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Time After Time

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Beck

Mutations

When this popped up on The Playlist on Friday I have to say I was really looking forward to getting stuck into it. I’ve dipped in and out of Beck’s music down the years and always found myself enjoying it.

Released in 1998, this is the follow-up album to the fantastic “Odelay” that came out two years earlier.

For this record Beck drafted in producer Nigel Godrich who was fresh from working on Radiohead’s masterpiece “OK Computer” and there is a plethora of various musical styles on here ranging from Psychedelic Folk to Alternative Country and even Bossa Nova as opposed to the more Funk and Hip-Hop-Sample inspired sound of his previous efforts.

It’s an altogether more sombre sound on here and I’ll be honest on first listen I did not like it one bit, but given the chance I slowly came around to Becks way of thinking.

Songs like “Nobody’s Fault But My Own”, “Static” and “Bottle of Blues” were the first ones to draw me into the album and slowly but surely I found myself getting into it, with the hidden track “Diamond Bollocks” being the standout song as it reminded me of something that wouldn’t sound out of place on The Beatles “White Album” in all its psychedelic-cut-and-paste scattiness.

Whilst this wasn’t as commercially successful as “Odelay” it was still highly regarded by critics and even won a Grammy for “Best Alternative Music Album” that same year.

Whilst I still prefer “Odelay”, this is definitely a grower. Give it a chance and you will be rewarded.

My Rating: ☆☆☆

Listen To: Diamond Bollocks

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Supertramp

Crime Of The Century

The first Supertramp album I ever heard in it’s entirety was a vinyl copy of their 1980 “Live In Paris” album that my uncle Ian gave me when I was about 13/14 which in fact I still possess to this day.

A handful of songs from that old favourite of mine appear here on this, the bands third studio album, which was released in 1974.

Formed in London in 1969 by songwriters Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies – originally calling themselves “Daddy” – and funded financially by Dutch millionaire Sam August Miesegaes, Supertramp were labelled as a Prog Rock band but I’ve always felt they had a more Pop-orientated sound which was a lot more radio-friendly than say the likes of Pink Floyd or even Gabriel-era Genesis.

After passing away in 1972, the dedication on the back of this record is simply “To Sam” in tribute to their Dutch friend, without whom there would have been no Supertramp.

This is the first album of theirs to feature future staple members Dougie Thomson on bass, Bob Siebenberg on drums and John Helliwell on sax and woodwind.

This lineup would remain in place for the next ten years as the band hit their commercial peak with the 1979 classic “Breakfast In America”.

This is also the first Supertramp record to feature that famous Wurlitzer piano sound that became synonymous with the band in those years and the first song Roger ever wrote on that instrument – their first UK Top 20 hit “Dreamer” – appears here in all its glory.

Despite the positive vibe to this song, the album itself has a running theme of loneliness and mental stability, and although the band have refuted claims in the past that this is a concept album, they have pointed out that the character featured in the song “Rudy” is central to the whole feel of the record.

Rick even purposely linked the opening track “School” to a line in the following song “Bloody Well Right” that states, “So you think your schooling is phoney.” to accentuate that theory even further, with the songs “Asylum” and “If Everyone Was Listening”, knitting the whole record together.

“Hide In Your Shell” is a particular favourite of mine and it’s one of the more personal songs on here, with Roger stating, I was 23 when I wrote that song, confused about life and like a lot of people are at that age, trying to hide my insecurities. I’ve always been able to express my innermost feelings more openly in song and “Hide in Your Shell” came to me at a time when I was feeling very lonely – lonely both in life and within the band – with no one who shared my spiritual quest.”

The title track and album finale is a fitting way to end proceedings and it’s the song where – according to drummer Bob Seibenberg – the band hit their artistic peak on the album.

Certainly the most “Prog” sounding track on here, it no doubt played a part in Rolling Stone magazine naming this record the 25th “Greatest Prog Rock Album Ever ” whilst way back in 1987 it was named on that years World Critic List as the 10th “Greatest Album Of All Time”.

An old favourite this and another must own.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Dreamer

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Lauryn Hill

The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill

A favourite of my wife Emma’s, but a new one on me, from 1998 here we have the debut – and so far only solo album from ex-Fugees member Lauryn Hill.

After her tumultuous romantic relationship with Wyclef Jean led to the split of their band in 1997, Lauryn became involved with Rohan Marley (son of Bob) and became pregnant with the first of their five children together.

It was during this period of her pregnancy that she became inspired to embark on her solo career, later claiming, “When some women are pregnant, their hair and their nails grow, but for me it was my mind and ability to create. I had the desire to write in a capacity that I hadn’t done in a while. I don’t know if it’s a hormonal or emotional thing … I was very in touch with my feelings at the time … every time I got hurt, every time I was disappointed, every time I learned, I just wrote a song.”

What we end up with is yet another one of the coolest sounding records I’ve had the pleasure of listening to since we started these Diaries with a fine blend of Neo Soul, Gospel, Hip-Hop and Reggae making it one of the easiest albums to get into right from the very first listen.

A lot of Lauryn’s lyrics here focus on her impending motherhood, love, reminiscing over past relationships both good and bad, whilst also drawing inspiration from various chapters of The Bible that she drew comfort from during this same period.

Several songs are alleged digs at her ex-bandmates – namely “Lost Ones” , “Superstar” , “Ex-Factor” and “Forgive Them Father” but for me the standout tracks are probably also the most well known.

Debut single “Doo Wop(That Thing)” became the first debut from any artist to go straight to the top of the US Billboard Hot 100 on its release and was an instant hit all over the world, winning 2 Grammys in the process the following year.

Whilst not as successful as her first single, “Ex-Factor” remains Hill’s biggest UK chart hit to date, reaching No.4 in December ’98.

For me the track that defines this album is the third and final single to be released off it and it features a then unknown 19 year old John Legend on piano(credited here as his birth name John Stephens).

“Everything Is Everything”, which Lauryn wrote about the struggles and injustices facing the youth of inner-city America, from both black and white communities, could possibly be seen as a response to a false rumor that she had made a racist comment on MTV.

When asked about this rumour by Howard Stern on his show she told him, How can I possibly be a racist? My music is universal. And I believe in God. If I believe in God, then I have to love all of God’s creations. There can be no segregation.”

One of the most successful female albums of all time – winning a total of 5 Grammys – this record constantly appears in the upper echelons of the many “Greatest Albums” lists you are ever likely to come across.

After hearing it for the first time here, it’s not hard to understand why.

A surprising new favourite.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Everything Is Everything

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That’s it for another week. Thanks for reading. Please click on any of the links featured and I hope you find something new that you love. Here’s to next time….

The Great Album Diaries (Week 28)

Back again for the 2nd time in as many weeks and I’ve been lucky enough to listen to some of the best music ever made for this weeks entry.

Here’s how it went….

Week 28

25th November 2019

Bruce Springsteen

Tunnel of Love

If the rumours are to be believed that The Boss is finally playing Liverpool for the first time in his career on his forthcoming tour then I think it’s high time we all started polishing up on our knowledge of his back catalogue before he walks out onstage at Anfield next summer don’t you?

And what better way to do that than getting stuck into one of his lesser known albums. His eighth release and the criminally underrated 1988 follow up to the worldwide smash that was “Born In The USA”.

After receiving critical acclaim and global adulation following that 1985 game changer, Bruce was trying to come to terms with his long overdue meteoric rise as a true superstar and the success that “Born In The USA” gave him.

If his fans were expecting another “Heartland-Rock” album full of social commentary and anti-establishment anthems of discontent then they were to be disappointed because what we have here is a man in turmoil, pouring his heart and soul out to the listener as his first marriage to American actress Julianne Phillips was on the brink of collapse, culminating in a divorce a year after this record was released.

Just as his previous album had a theme of mistrust in the government, broken promises and suspicion of those in office, here Bruce gives us unromantic songs of love gone wrong, the internal demons of a marriage nearing its end and a man suffering an identity crisis.

Despite it’s obviously 80’s production sound – drum machines and synths in abundance as opposed to his usual E Street Band comrades – Bruce gives us some of his most introspective, Bluesy, sincere lyrics to date.

Album opener “Ain’t Got You” sees him in the mood for Rock-A-Billy and in contrast to the upbeat rhythm of the song the lyrics are of a man that has all the riches in the world but is still lonely without his love.

Brilliant Disguise” gives us an insight into a man who feels that his wife has become a stranger to him and the jealousy and confusion it causes when two people wear masks to hide their true feelings towards one another.

The video to this song was shot in one take and is just Springsteen singing live into a hidden microphone as he stares into the camera. His eyes tell the whole story as it slowly zooms in closer and closer to his face. As honest and as raw as it comes.

For me though, I would have to say the title track of “Tunnel Of Love” is my personal favourite on the whole album. Using the fairground ride as a metaphor for marriage, Bruce tells us the ride has 3 elements – the man, the woman, and everything they’re scared of. He tells us to hold on tight because although it seems simple at first it can be unpredictable and become easy to lose each other on the ride. So there you have it kids, listen to Bruce. Bruce knows the score.

I am so happy to have discovered this album through these pages as it’s only his more popular albums I’ve ever really listened to and I have to say it’s one of THE great albums we have talked about on here that I had never listened to in its entirety before.

Here’s hoping he Rocks The Kop next summer (at our Title-winning party, obviously!)

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Tunnel of Love

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Raekwon

Only Built 4 Cuban Linx

Following on from GZA in Week 9, and Method Man in Week 17, here we have a third member of Wu-Tang Clan to feature on these pages.

It’s none other than Raekwon and his critically acclaimed debut solo release from 1995.

Just like those previous two albums, this one is also produced by Wu-Tang’s de-facto leader RZA and as you would expect samples plenty of dialogue from old gangster and kung-fu movies. Most notably John Woo’s 1984 film “The Killer” and Woo was so honoured by this he asked for no royalties from the album sales as a thank you, with he and RZA eventually becoming good friends not long after.

It takes its name from the Cuban-Link gold chains Raekwon and his friends would wear, and is a concept album of sorts, featuring several of Raekwons Wu-Tang bandmates, but mainly Ghostface Killah.

According to RZA, The theme of the album is two guys that had enough of the negative life and was ready to move on, but had one more sting to pull off. They’re tired of doing what they doing, but they’re trying to make this last quarter million. That’s a lot of money in the streets. We gonna retire and see our grandbabies and get our lives together.”

Personally I struggled to get my head around this record at first and it took several listens for me to appreciate just how good it is.

“Ice Cream” is probably the most famous track on here although admittedly it was a new one on me, and if you listen very carefully you can even hear a snippet of Eddie Murphy’s shout of “THE ICE CREAM MAN IS COMING!” from “Delirious”.

I don’t know about you but I’m a sucker for any Hip-Hop song that uses samples from obscure soul tunes and that’s why for me, “Criminology” is my favourite song on here.

Using the horn section from Black Ivorys long forgotten “I Keep Asking You Questions” from 1971, this was the song where the penny dropped for me that it was worth going back to and giving it another go. The little bit of dialogue from Scarface at the beginning also gets a thumbs up from me.

In the years since its release this record has been recognized as one of the greatest and most influential Hip-Hop albums of all time with AllMusic’s Steve Huey commenting, “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx takes a few listens to reveal the full scope of its lyrical complexities, but it’s immensely rewarding in the end.”

Couldn’t agree more. A definite grower and one to go back to.

My Rating: ☆☆☆

Listen To: Criminology

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Jackie Wilson

20 Greatest Hits

What. A. Voice.

My first memory of any Jackie Wilson song is that famous clay-animation video that accompanied the reissue of “Reet Petite” that got to No.1 in the UK and stayed there for four weeks in December 1986. It even claimed the coveted Christmas Number One for that year along the way, beating The Housemartins “Caravan Of Love” to the top spot.

Co-written by the legendary Berry Gordy, “Reet Petit” was originally released in August 1957 and the success of that particular song helped Gordy fund the launch of Motown Records.

More importantly, it’s the first track we have the pleasure of listening to on this, a compilation album released in 2002.

Born in Detroit, Michigan in 1934, Jackie would go on to become one of the most influential artists of all time, with his livewire stage presence, impeccable dress sense, killer dance moves and that voice, he was given the nickname Mr. Entertainment, with the likes of James Brown, Michael Jackson and even Elvis citing him as someone they all looked up to.

On meeting for the first time the two hit it off straight away and became instant friends, with Elvis even joking about the comparisons people made about the pair of them. Asked what he thought about Jackie being called “The Black Elvis Presley”, he replied, “Well I guess that makes me The White Jackie Wilson!”

A notorious womaniser and drinker, Jackie would always munch on salt tablets and drink gallons of water before each show, meaning he would sweat profusely whilst on stage. His reason for this bizarre ritual?

“The chicks love it.”

Unbeknown to him this would undoubtedly have caused hypertension or high blood pressure which no doubt contributed to him having a massive heart attack on stage in 1975 whilst filming Dick Clark’s Rock And Roll Revue.

He was resuscitated but slipped into a coma where he tragically remained for nine whole years before passing away in January 1984, aged just 49.

This then is the perfect record for anybody wanting to hear one of the finest Soul singers of all time belting out some of his most famous hits.

Backed by the legendary Funk Brothers, who would end up playing on over 100 of Motowns famous songs, Jackie gives us everything from Rock and Roll, Doo-Wop and Ballads and I have to say it’s one of the most enjoyable albums I’ve ever listened to.

Alongside the first song already mentioned, you will definitely know “I Get The Sweetest Feeling” and the magical “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher And Higher” but for me the real plus point of listening to this for the first time was the discovery of a whole host of wonderful songs by a truly wonderful showman.

A must own.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher And Higher

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Curtis Mayfield’s Impressions

People Get Ready (The Best Of)

Carrying on the Soul theme here we have yet another compilation album. Released in 2004 it’s The Best of Curtis Mayfield’s Impressions.

I had the pleasure of listening to this on Wednesday whilst trying to avoid the hordes of golf-club wielding Napoli fans that were in town for the game. I wonder why they were carrying golf-clubs? Maybe they were on their way to Ghetto-Golf and had gotten lost. Who knows?

Anyway, several years before Curtis gave us the super-funky “Superfly”, he was singing sweet soul music alongside fellow band members Sam Gooden and Fred Cash, and what we have here is a collection of 40 songs – some of them the kind of love songs you would expect to hear from any male vocal group of that era, (“I’m The One Who Loves You” and “Talking About My Baby”) and some which were adopted by the Civil Rights Movement that was happening all over America in the early sixties.

The 1966 Northern Soul classic “Can’t Satisfy” appears here and it’s a song that sounds so much like The Isley Brothers, “This Old Heart Of Mine” which was also released that year, that Curtis was actually sued by Motown and had to credit Holland-Dozier-Holland as co-writers of the track.

One of the first black artists to write songs with a social conscience, the name Curtis Mayfield will forever be mentioned when it comes to the important and influential musical figures of that or any other decade.

Songs like “Keep Pushing On”, “We’re A Winner” and the impeccable “People Get Ready” quickly became Black Pride anthems on their release and rightly so. They still sound as great today as they must have done all those years ago.

The idea for “We’re A Winner” came to Curtis one night in a dream and he urges the listener to be strong in the face of adversity, stay positive, refrain from any kind of self-pity and acknowledge your self-worth.

“People Get Ready” is probably The Impressions most well-known song, not just by the original version featured here but also by the interpretation used by Bob Marley And The Wailers on their legendary “One Love/People Get Ready”.

The Impressions version was named by Martin Luther King Jnr as the Unofficial Anthem of The Civil Rights Movement and more recently Rolling Stone Magazine named it the 24th Greatest Song Of All Time, whilst Mojo Magazine placed it at an even more impressive No.10.

As I said earlier, with a collection of no less than 40 songs, I was afraid I’d get bored of this album halfway through but I have to say it was another really enjoyable listen from a band I knew hardly anything about and is definitely worth another listen at least.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Listen To: People Get Ready

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Radiohead

Kid A

I said back in Week 24 after we listened to “OK Computer” that I couldn’t wait to get stuck into another Radiohead album and here we have a chance to see how its supposedly even colder, weirder, younger sibling sounds.

Released in the year 2000, just 3 years after its majestical predecessor, “Kid A” is a record I’ve heard so much about but stopped short of listening to until we had a chance to dissect it together right here on these pages.

“Kid A” is the bands fourth album yet it’s a record so far removed from their original sound that it divided both fans and critics alike.

Ever the innovator, Thom Yorke decided he was fed up of the plethora of guitar bands trying too hard to sound like his band so endeavoured taking them in a whole new musical direction.

It was also one of the first albums in music history to use the power of the internet as its main marketing tool with no singles or promotional videos being released other than via online streaming sites.

It undoubtedly worked as it it reached Platinum sales in the UK within its first week of release and was the bands first US Number One album, winning a second successive Grammy in the process.

Album opener “Everything In Its Right Place” was written by Thom whilst in the midst of suffering from depression and burnout following the “OK Computer” Tour and it gives us a hint of what the rest of the album is about to throw at us.

Synthesizers, subtle electronic beats and distorted and warped lyrics from Thom give us a glimpse into a dystopian otherworldly future.

This is also visible by the bleak artwork on the album cover designed by Stanley Donwood inspired by the melting Polar ice caps and the Kosovan War.

Inspired by a technique used by David Byrne of Talking Heads, the lyrics to a lot of the songs are just snippets and phrases brought into the recording process and chosen sporadically as and when they were deemed suitable to fit whatever mood the song was taking.

As a result of this, Thom insisted the lyrics not be printed anywhere amongst the albums artwork as he wanted them to be viewed as merely parts of a collage and not to be solely focused on as to veer attention away from the song as a whole.

For example, the refrain from “How To Disappear Completely”, was inspired by R.E.M singer Michael Stipe who advised Thom to relieve tour stress by repeating to himself, “I’m not here, this isn’t happening”, and the line “Try the best you can, the best you can is good enough” from “Optimistic” is an assurance from Thom’s partner that she would say to him when he would be frustrated during the process of writing the album.

Using influencers from Electronic music, Krautrock, Jazz and even Classical music, “Kid A” was described in some quarters on its release as “pretentious” and “deliberately obscure” but I can honestly say I have lost count of the number of times I have listened to this since I first played it on Thursday evening, and each and every time I have been rewarded with something new to enjoy about it.

Every now and again you come across an album where its imperative to listen to it as a whole body of work rather than cherry picking just your favourite songs. An album that takes you on a journey from its opening number to its grand finale – “Dark Side of The Moon” , “Abbey Road” or “The La’s” debut instantly spring to mind here.

Personally I would have “Kid A” in this bracket now, I enjoyed it that much.

Listen to it loud, wearing headphones. Then listen to it again.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Morning Bell

Listen Here

Just the five this week (blame Radiohead!) but I hope you give some or all of the albums mentioned above a quick listen by clicking in the link under each piece, and just like I have, I hope you find something new that you love.

Thanks for reading.

The Great Album Diaries (Week 27)

Welcome back to what hopefully will be the resurrection of a journey we’ve been on for far too long.

This week I’ve been lucky enough to listen to some of the greatest music ever made, here’s how it went….

18th November 2019

Baaba Maal

Djam Leelii

Here we have an album that, had it not been for these Diaries I would never in a million years have even considered listening to, but having gave it a chance I can honestly say its one of the most enjoyable albums I’ve had the pleasure of hearing since we began our journey.

Baaba Maal is an artist I had actually heard of but admittedly knew absolutely nothing about so it was time to read up a little on our new Senegalese friend and this, his debut album from 1984.

Born in Podor on the Senegal River in 1953, Baaba was taught to play a number of instruments by both his mother and the legendary blind guitarist Mansour Seck who was a friend of Baaba and his family. He later studied music at the University of Dakar before eventually earning himself a scholarship to L’Ecole Des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Once he was settled in Paris, Baaba invited Seck and two other musicians over to join him where they formed the band known as “Dande Lenol” or “The People’s Voice”, and this album is the result of those first couple of years together.

Singing in his native language of Pulaar, the most commonly spoken language of the Fula people that live either side of the Senegal River where Baaba grew up, what we get is a beautifully hypnotic album consisting of what appears to be a jamming session between two unbelivable acoustic guitarists with the added bonus of a few electric guitar licks akin to some of the fills on Paul Simon’s legendary Graceland album which I’m a massive fan of.

I didn’t have the foggiest idea what Baaba and Mansour were singing about but the music they were playing was so uplifting and positive that it didn’t matter one bit.

I honestly cannot speak highly enough of this album. It’s one of the best surprises to have come out of The Playlist since we started and I’d like to put on record that Baaba Maal is now officially my second favourite person to come out of Senegal after Sadio Manè.

A surprising new favourite.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Muudo Hormo

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Richard & Linda Thompson

Shoot Out The Lights

Regular readers of these Diaries, or the ones with good memories at least, will recall us listening to the English Folk outfit Fairport Convention and their 1969 album “Liege And Leaf” way back in Week 12, and if we’re totally honest it wasn’t the most enjoyable of listens, so when I found out that a founding member of that group is none other than our man here Richard Thompson, then it’s safe to say I wasn’t expecting much from this either.

Released in 1982, this is Richards sixth and final collaboration with his then wife Linda, and is thought by many to be his best work.

Its a shame then that it was recorded when the married couple’s relationship was on the verge of breaking point and in fact, by the time the album was released their marriage was all but over.

Just one look at the song titles on here and you would be forgiven for thinking that the songs were all written in the midst of their domestic unease when in fact they were mostly written a couple of years prior to this when they were getting along just fine.

Songs like “Don’t Renege On Our Love”, “Man In Need” and “Did She Jump Or Was She Pushed” give a sense of a warring couple pushing on til the bitter end and Linda’s vocals in particular have a slightly melancholic feel to them.

The couple share lead vocal duties on here, taking it in turns on each song but if I’m totally honest I much preferred the songs that Richard gave his voice to as opposed to when his ex-missus took the lead.

His voice reminded me of a cross between Mark Knopfler and David Byrne and it was certainly a lot more enjoyable than the Fairport Convention record we mentioned earlier.

The highlight for me was the album’s title track “Shoot Out The Lights”, a song I was hearing for the first time here but one which in 2005, Q Magazine name No.99 in “The 100 Greatest Ever Guitar Tracks”, with one critic calling it , “A meditation on love and loss in which passion, beauty and heady joy can still be found in defeat.”

One to go back to I reckon.

My Rating: ☆☆☆

Listen To: Shoot Out The Lights

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Buddy Holly & The Crickets

Buddy Holly Lives

A Greatest Hits album from one of THE Greats and you would be hard pushed to find anything greater.

The first encounter I had with Buddy Holly’s music – albeit a parody song- was watching the “Oil” episode of The Young Ones in which Ronnie Golden’s portrayal of Buddy hanging upside down in the house having survived his plane crash decides to compose a song based on his diet of various insects he’s had to eat whilst stuck there all those years.

Looking back it is in pretty poor taste but the style in which “Coo Coo Daddy Long Legs” was played kind of ensured I’ve been a Buddy Holly fan of sorts from a very early age.

Released in February 1978, a full nineteen years after Buddy’s tragic death, this collection of 20 of his Greatest Hits eventually climbed to the top of the UK album charts where it stayed for three weeks.

If ever the term “All Killer and No Filler” was made for an album then this is surely it and it appeared at No.92 in Rolling Stone Magazines “500 Greatest Albums Of All Time”.

It opens with Buddy’s 1957 debut single “That’ll Be The Day”, a song inspired by John Wayne and an often repeated line his character uses in his 1956 movie The Searchers. It was also the first song ever recorded by a little known skiffle group from Liverpool called The Quarrymen (I wonder what happened to them?)

Another gem here, and possibly Buddy’s signature tune is the fantastic “Peggy Sue”, named after Peggy Sue Gerron, the future wife of Crickets drummer Jerry Allison.

Originally called “Cindy Lou” after Buddy’s niece, the song title was changed as a favour to Jerry after he and his then girlfriend had temporarily split up. It ended up becoming one of the most famous songs in Rock and Roll History and in 1999 was included on a list of “100 Most Important American Musical Works Of The 20th Century”.

Sitting alongside this collection of bona fide toe-tappers are a handful of perfectly arranged orchestral songs, such as “It Really Doesnt Matter Anymore” and “Raining In My Heart”, which were released together as a posthumous single shortly after Buddy’s tragic death in February 1959 aged just 22.

The A-Side was specifically written for Buddy Holly by Paul Anka and he actually donated all of his composer royalties from “It Really Doesnt Matter Anymore” to Buddys widow Maria.

Which leads me to my favourite song on this whole album and one of the most romantic songs of all time – the achingly beautiful “True Love Ways”.

On the 20th June 1958, just five hours into their first ever date together, sitting at Table No.53 in PJ Clarkes Restaurant in New York, Buddy pulled out a rose and proposed there and then to Maria. They were married two months later and this song was a wedding gift to his new bride.

Tragically there were married for just six short months before Buddys life was cruelly cut short in a plane crash which also claimed the lives of singers Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper.

On the 29th April 2011, Maria unveiled a never-before-seen photograph of the couple, kissing on their wedding day and that very photo now sits proudly above Table No.53 in PJ Clarkes, New York. Or to give it it’s new name “The True Love Ways Table”

This album is a must own for any music fan especially anybody wanting to discover the music of one of Rock and Rolls most important figures.

Iconic.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: True Love Ways

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Spiritualized

Let It Come Down

The fourth album this week and it’s from a band I only really started listening to after we spoke about their debut release “Laser Guided Melodies” way back in Week 9 of these Diaries.

I said back then I was looking forward to hearing more of their stuff and I certainly wasnt disappointed with it. In fact, I’d go as far to say that the last album Jason Pierce released as Spiritualized, “And Nothing Hurt” was my favourite record of 2018. It really is that good.

This then is from a few years earlier – 2001 to be exact – although it actually took Pierce a full four years to write, record, produce and release, as he is Spiritualized’s one constant sole member.

Also, not being blessed with the ability to read music – Jason devised all of the orchestral parts for the album by singing them into a portable tape recorder, adapting those parts to a piano, then helping the various musicians turn them into their specific parts to play on the record.

Unbelievably he had to utilise 115 different musicians in the recording process and the end product is an album full of soaring, uplifting gospel-like songs with choirs and orchestras incorporating the famous Wall of Sound technique made famous by the legendary Phil Spector and at times it seems like the ambition behind it all is almost overwhelming the fragile, heartfelt vocals of Jason himself. Almost.

There is also a couple of heavier uptempo songs to break it up along the way, album opener “On Fire”, “Do It All Over Again” (a personal favourite) and also “Twelve Steps”.

The highlight for me though is the 10 minute epic “Won’t Get To Heaven(The State I’m In)” which features all of the qualities I’ve mentioned above and is the song that probably sums up the whole of this album. Give it a listen you will not be disappointed.

Another favourite.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Won’t Get To Heaven(The State I’m In)

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Aphex Twin

Drukqs

Every now and then we stumble across an album that is a slog. Hard work. A chore. On first listen that is exactly how I felt about this 2001 Double Album from Richard James AKA electronica pioneer extraordinaire, Aphex Twin.

Born in Limerick, Ireland, but raised in Cornwall, Richard made his name in the 90’s as a part of that whole Ambient sub-genre of Dance that included the likes of The Orb and Future Sound Of London or if we want to get really pretentious about it all – I.D.M or Intelligent Dance Music.

I’m also aware that he was famous for making some well-known chillout albums back in the day and at the start of this century he was named by The Guardian as, “The most inventive and influential figure in contemporary dance music.”

With all that in mind I was hopeful then of “Drukqs” becoming another new favourite. What I didn’t know is that between his first few albums and this one, Richard James was also well know for a genre of Dance Music called “Drill N Bass” which really is as bad as it sounds. Trust me on this.

Experimenting with elements of Drum N Bass, Techno, Jungle and Breakbeat, what you get is a kind of parody genre of dance music that is intentionally impossible to dance to, and this is what makes up the majority of this effort from our friend Aphex.

The album itself is a result of a lost mp3 player whilst on a flight to Scotland that contained over 200 unreleased bits of material that Richard decided to release to avoid any online leaks of his unfinished works.

On first listen my immediate thought was, “You shouldn’t have bothered lad!”, but there are a couple of songs that definitely grew on me here and what I will say is that it could have been a really good Ambient record if it was just those tracks edited down onto one album.

Tracks like album opener “Jynwaythek” and “Hy A Scullyas Lyf Adhagrow” have an almost delicate music-box type of sound to them or even a sound akin to Japanese Gagku music, whilst “Nanou2” is a perfectly subdued album finale.

Meanwhile the sublime “Avril 14th” has been compared to the works of French composer and pianist Erick Satie and it’s a song that has been streamed over 100 million times on Spotify. That’s nearly 3 times more than any other track by Aphex Twin, and Fact Magazine once described it as, “A butterfly-fragile float of piano-calm.”

It was by far the standout track for me as the majority of the rest of the album, with it’s truly awful experimentation and what can only be described as gobbledegook song titles, were some of the most uncomfortable listens I’ve ever had to sit through and quite frankly they had my nerves gone!

Hit and miss. And then some.

My Rating: ☆☆

Listen To: Avril 14th

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Santana

Abraxas

The last album in this weeks entry and it’s one that I fondly remember finding in amongst my Dads old vinyl collection of Status Quo and Slade records way back when I was a kid, and let’s be honest, what young lad wouldn’t be curious as to what exotic, mystical sounds lay beneath that album cover?

Alan Partidge Voice “Ooh bit of nipple!”

Formed in San Francisco in 1966 by the supremely talented Mexican-American guitarist and songwriter Carlos Santana, this is the 1970 follow up to their eponymous debut which was released 12 months earlier.

It takes its name from a line in “Demian”, the 1919 book by German author Hermann Hesse that reads, We stood before it and began to freeze inside from the exertion. We questioned the painting, berated it, made love to it, prayed to it: We called it mother, called it whore and slut, called it our beloved, called it Abraxas.”

Those words are even quoted on albums back cover.

Never mind the back though, how about that for a piece of artwork on the front? Painted in 1961 by the German-French artist Mati Klarwein after he moved to New York, it’s called “Annunciation” and was spotted in a magazine by Carlos who asked if it could be used as the cover art for his forthcoming album. It’s now widely recognised as one of the truly great album covers in music.

Looking at it now, it’s hard to imagine it being anything other than that because when you listen to what’s inside, the music and the artwork sit perfectly next to each other. The band at their absolute peak, each song an ideal companion to what follows or precedes it. “Abraxas” just slithers along with a combination of Latin-Rock, Blues, Jazz, Samba rhythms, deep basslines and trippy guitar solos.

There’s a handful of covers, namely Peter Greens Fleetwood Mac’s “Black Magic Woman” segued into Gabor Sazbo’s “Gypsy Queen”, followed by the funky Latin anthem that is “Oye Como Va” made famous by the legend that is Tito Puente in the early sixties (regular readers may remember us speaking about him way back in Week 15 of these pages) a version of which appears in the trick shot scene in the Al Pacino film Carlitos Way.

Probably the most famous track on here is “Samba Pa Ti” which is now instantly recognizable from its appearance in numerous adverts for Marks & Spencers a few years ago.

Incident At Nashabur” is another personal favourite but for me the standout track on this record will always be the majestical “Hope You’re Feeling Better”, written by the bands lead singer and keyboard player Gregg Rolie who later went on to form the band Journey.

If you’ve never heard this song before then please watch this live version from 1970 and witness a band at the very top of their game and the great man Carlos as cool as ever looking like a cross between Graeme Souness and Eric Clapton!

Some album this. A long forgotten old favourite.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Hope You’re Feeling Better

Listen Here

That’s all we have for this week. You can click on the link under each album to listen to them in their entirety. I hope you find something you love. Thanks for reading and hopefully we can carry this on next week.

The Great Album Diaries (Week 26)

Hello again and since the last time we spoke we’ve seen Jurgen’s Reds get off to a flyer and also lost a true musical legend. Whilst all this has been going on I’ve been listening to some of the best music ever made. Here’s how it went….

Week 26

12th August 2018

Bossanova

Pixies

Sunday afternoon, the first day of the footy season was upon us and this was the soundtrack for my walk up to Anfield to witness Jurgens Reds put 4 past the not-so-Happy Hammers to go top of the league.

Pixies are a band I’ve only ever heard good things about but personally never managed to listen to any of their stuff, so I was looking forward to seeing what this had in store for me and I had high hopes of it becoming a new favourite of mine.

Formed in Boston, Massachusetts in 1986, Pixies got their name after guitarist Joey Santiago flicked through a dictionary and took a shine to the word and especially it’s definition – “mischievous little elves”.

They’re widely regarded as one of the most influential Alternative Rock bands of all time with the likes of Blur, Nirvana, Radiohead and Weezer all citing them as an influence.

Released in August 1990, this is the third album from the band and according to some critics it’s weaker than their previous two efforts. If that’s the case then I can’t wait until we have to give them a listen because this particular record was everything I was hoping for.

Singer/songwriter Black Francis (later to be known as the solo singer/songwriter Frank Black) and his band give us a collection of songs crammed full of fuzzy guitars with loads of reverb and it was easier to get into than I was expecting.

The band have always enjoyed more success in Europe and in the UK especially, as oppposed to the moderate sales they achieved in their homeland and apparantly the lead single off here, “Velouria” was a bit of a “Madchester” anthem back in the day, although admittedly I’d never heard it until now.

The next song on the album, “Allison” is a quirky little tune dedicated to the Jazz artist Mose Allison but sadly, despite my best efforts, I just couldn’t think of any lyrics to adopt it as a song for LFCs new Brazilian No.1. Watch this space!

My favourite song on this album though would have to be the superb “Dig For Fire”, and it’s a track that Black Francis said was his homage to David Byrne and Talking Heads. It’s easy to see where he’s coming from with that shout. Have a listen to it and you could well imagine this could have been written by the great man himself.

This album and that song in particular is one I’ve since listened to a good few times this week and it gets better with every listen.

BOSSanova even.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Dig For Fire

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The Cribs

Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever

There was a period during the latter part of the last decade when you couldn’t get away from The Cribs. Whether it was one or all of the band appearing regularly on the likes of Soccer AM or Never Mind The Buzzcocks, or hearing any one of their tunes appearing in shows such as The Inbetweeners, they were everywhere.

Formed in 2001 in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, The Cribs are twins Gary and Ryan Jarman, and their younger brother Ross. This is the likable trio’s 2007 third album, and their first major-label release after signing for Warner Bros a few months previous.

In their early days they were touted as a British equivalent to The Strokes and I can certainly hear similarities here to Julian Casablancas and his boys whilst at the same time capturing the zeitgeist of the Indie scene in this country in much the same way as The Libertines, Maximo Park or Franz Ferdinand also did around this time, and it was actually FF’s main protagonist Alex Kapranos who produced this very album.

Songs like “Our Bovine Public”, “Girls Like Mystery”, “I’m A Realist”, and the fantastic “Man’s Needs” have become synonymous with that era and are seen by many as “Lo-Fi Anthems”.

There’s even an appearance on here by Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo who recites one of his spoken-word poems over the three brothers playing the song “Be Safe”. One of many highlights on an album I hadn’t listened to in a very long time.

Personally, this is the first album I ever heard by The Cribs. I was introduced to it (and them) by my good friend Carl Kav when we worked together in a bed shop back in 2007.

We had free reign of the CD player in the shop and took turns over what we listened to. One of the only few positives we had from working in that Godforsaken town called Birkenhead.

Good times.

Great album, this. A modern classic.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Men’s Needs

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Tina Turner

Private Dancer

Whenever I hear a Tina Turner song it does nothing but remind me of being a kid in family parties and watching my ma and my aunties giving it loads to “Simply The Best” at the end of the night. I’ve never been a fan and in all honesty I wasn’t particularly looking forward to giving this a listen.

Yet only a few hours previous to writing these words, the world lost another female musical icon, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. It made me realise we should appreciate these legends whilst they’re still with us. Tina will be 79 years old this November so hopefully she can stick around for a few years yet.

This album was Tina’s fifth solo release after her escape from Ike Turner and their stormy – often violent- relationship, and it marked a turnaround in fortunes and what has since been labelled “The Greatest Comeback In Music History”.

After achieving only minor success as a solo artist prior to this albums release, by the end of 1984 she had managed to win a handful of Grammys, achieved her first US No.1, and had cemented her place as one of the biggest selling artists on the planet.

She is still to this day the artist that has sold more concert tickets than anyone, ever!

Reading up on this album I was surprised to learn that the title track on here was actually written by none other than Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits. He even recorded a version of it but wasn’t happy with the end result insisting that its theme of a prostitute disillusioned with her line of work wasn’t suitable for a male vocalist. Ever the perfectionist, he apparently hated Tina’s version aswell, calling Jeff Becks guitar solo, “The second worst solo in history….”.

I wonder what he thinks is the first one?

There’s also a couple of slightly iffy covers on here, namely the David Bowie track “1984” and a slowed-down ballad version of The Beatles classic “Help!” which I’ve disliked since I was a kid and still do to this day.

Arguably the most well known of all the songs on here is “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” and it was this single that done the business for Tina at that years Grammy Awards, winning “Record Of The Year”, “Song Of The Year” and “Best Female Pop Vocal”.

It’s a song that has become synonymous with her down the years but believe it or not we may never have had the pleasure of it, if a certain Cliff Richard had taken the song when offered it a few years earlier by British songwriting duo Terry Britten and Graham Lyle.

Doesnt bare thinking about does it?

Donna Summer was also keen on it at one point but never ended up doing anything with it, but 80’s Eurovision skirt-rippers Bucks Fizz DID actually record a version of it. I had to have a listen on Spotify didnt I? Yes, it really is as bad as you can imagine.

My favourite song on here though would have to be Tina’s truly rasping cover of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together”, recorded with – and produced by – Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh of Heaven 17.

In my opinion you would be hard-pushed to find a better opening minute by any female singer ever. Have a listen to it on headphones and if it doesn’t make the hairs on your neck stand up you are dead inside!

Hit and miss this album I’m afraid. Sorry Mum.

My Rating: ☆☆☆

Listen To: Let’s Stay Together

Listen Here

Bo Diddley

Go Bo Diddley

“Bo….you don’t know Diddley!”

Anyone else remember that Nike advert years ago with Ian Rush in? Just me then? Sound.

Released in July 1959, this is the second album from a fella who is quite simply one of the most important and influential musicians of all time.

From Elvis, to The Beatles and The Stones, all the way to The Clash and Elvis Costello, they’ve all named this man here as a major influence on their sound, and I think it says it all that his nickname is “The Originator”.

Born in McCoomb, Mississippi in 1929, Ellis Otha Bates as he was christened, didn’t actually begin playing the guitar until the age of 18 when he was inspired by the great John Lee Hooker.

The origins of his stage name are somewhat unclear, with some saying he chose it after the “Diddley Bow”, a homemade single-stringed instrument played mainly on the farms of the Deep South, whilst other stories say it was actually the name he was known by whilst he was a young Golden Gloves boxer.

On first listen I was surprised that I didn’t know a single song on this record. Considering it contains some of the most famous Blues/Rock and Roll songs ever recorded I thought I may have knew at least one. Although the intro on “The Clock Strikes Twelve” is arguably the greatest and most copied Blues riff of all time!

I have to say though, I found this album one of the most enjoyable and coolest sounding records I’ve listened to in ages. The obvious connection is The Rolling Stones and one song in particular “You Don’t Love Me” with Billy Boy Arnold on harmonica reminded me of their version of “Not Fade Away”, but to be honest, any of the songs on here could be held up alongside any of the The Stones early recordings, you can tell just how much of an influence Bo was on Jagger and Co.

Diddley went on to record a total of 24 studio albums and collaborated with numerous artists in a career spanning over 50 years before suffering from heart failure in 2008, aged 79. He even played a pawnbroker in the Eddie Murphy film, “Trading Places”.

I did not know that!

Cracking album this. I hope a few more of his are on The Playlist soon.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Listen To: You Don’t Love Me

Listen Here

John Lennon

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band

Spookily, on the day that John’s killer Mark Chapman was denied parole from prison for the tenth time, this was the album that The Playlist randomly selected for us to listen to!

You may remember us listening to John’s “Imagine” album way back in Week 20 of these Diaries, and here we have the 1970 predecessor to that particular record, and John’s first proper solo album after the demise of The Beatles.

Recorded at both Abbey Road and also John’s Tittenhurst home in Ascot, it was simultaneously released alongside Yoko’s solo album of the same name, recorded at the same time, using the same studios and musicians . Even the covers are near enough identical, with the only difference being the couple swapping places in the photo on their respective albums.

Unfortunately thats where the similarites end I’m afraid. I curiously had a little listen to Yoko’s effort previous to writing these words – purely for research purposes you understand- and whilst I love dear old Mrs. L, it has to be said that she is absolutely round the fucking twist and I can’t believe how anyone would willingly want to listen to it. Whether it’s “Art” or “Avant-Garde” or whatever it may be, just take my word for it and steer clear!

Anyway, I digress, it’s John’s album we’re here to talk about and as I stated in Week 20, this my favourite of all his solo work. I feel it catches him at his most vulnerable yet honest period of his life.

It was during this period that both he and Yoko were partaking in a form of trauma-based psychotherapy known as Primal Therapy under the guidance of American psychotherapist Arthur Janov based on his “Primal Sream” book, whereby the patient was supposed to rid himself or herself of any suppressed childhood traumas by screaming to ease the pain.

Speaking about this period of John’s life, Janov later said, The level of his pain was enormous … He was almost completely nonfunctional. He couldn’t leave the house, he could hardly leave his room. … This was someone the whole world adored, and it didn’t change a thing. At the centre of all that fame and wealth and adulation was just a lonely little kid“.

John uses some of these techniques on this album, none more so than on the closing bars of the first song, the painfully honest, “Mother”, in which he sings about the loss of both of his parents.

John’s dad Alf abandoned him as a toddler and his mother Julia left him to be raised by his Aunt Mimi at her home on Menlove Avenue. Julia was later hit by a car and killed by an off duty police officer as she was crossing the road just around the corner from Mimi’s house. Even more tragic is that it was just around the time she and John – who was now 17 – were becoming close again. It’s John’s repeated screaming of the line “Mama don’t go, Daddy come home” at the end of this track that still sends a shiver down the spine after all these years.

Compare this to the final track on here, “My Mummys Dead” which is John singing in a flat, monotone voice in an almost emotionless state that makes it probably the most uncomfortable song to listen to on the whole album.

One of the bitterest tracks on here, and another favourite of mine is “Working Class Hero”, a political song about the difference in social classes and someone being born into the working classes having to conform to the ideologies of the middle classes in order to progress in life.

Lennon takes a dig at anyone who dares to become a part of the system before finally admitting to the listener that the song is in fact a mea culper and a criticism of himself, with the line, “If you want to be a hero then just follow me”, admitting to us his guilt.

From the bleakness of that song to the beautiful simplicity that is “Love”. With Phil Spector on piano, and Johns delicate vocals its the song that my wife Emma walked down the aisle to on our wedding day nearly five years ago so for obvious reasons holds a special place in both our hearts.

After the anger, grief and bitterness of a lot of this record, the penultimate song on here finds Lennon in a reflective philosophical mood with “God”.

He lists all kinds of various entities and celebrities that he tells us he no longer believes in, from Jesus to Elvis, Buddha to Beatles, before accepting that “The Dream” that he and so many of his peers lived for in the Sixties was indeed “Over” and it was time to move on to pastures new.

Nine months later he wrote “Imagine”.

Yep, this is definitely my favourite of all John’s solo albums. In my opinion it’s his finest hour.

A must own.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Mother

Listen Here

Van Morrison

Moondance

Not been a bad week this has it!

It seems like a lifetime ago that we had the pleasure of listening to Van’s iconic “Astral Weeks” album way back in only the second week of these Diaries, and we’re blessed to be able to give the 1970 follow up to that masterpiece the once over, here.

Frustrated by the lack of commercial success of “Astral Weeks”, Van and his wife relocated to Woodstock, New York as he strived to create a more accessible, radio-friendly sound for his next release.

After quitting drugs during this period because they stopped his productivity, Van used his music and his songs to talk about natural wonders and also the cosmic wonder of the universe as his way of getting high.

None more so than the first song on here, “And It Stoned Me”, which he based on an actual childhood event in his life when, as a 12 year old kid in Ireland he took a drink from a stream and it’s total purity stopped him in his tracks, giving him a moment of utter quietude.

In the song, Van compares this moment to the first time he listened to one of his heroes, the legendary American Jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton and it’s since become a favourite amongst his many legions of fans – myself included.

The most well known song on here will undoubtedly be the Jazz-infused title-track and Van singing about an Autumnal romance. On writing it he later stated that he wanted to write a “Sophisticated song that Frank Sinatra would be able to sing.”, yet strangely, it wasn’t actually released as a single until 1977, a full seven and a half years after its appearance here. It’s this song more than any other that Van has played live at all of his gigs.

Another favourite is “Caravan”, which is all about the joys of lazing around with someone you love whilst listening to the radio and spontaneously finding a song you both really dig. Although if you want to see the ultimate version of this tune then go on to YouTube and treat yourself to him performing it live with The Band on the Scorsese directed concert film “The Last Waltz”, if only for Van’s maroon jumpsuit and his attempt at a high-kick. He’s never looked or sounded better.

Go ‘ed Van!

For me though the best song on here, and quite possibly my favourite Van song of all time is “Into The Mystic”, which wouldn’t have sounded out of place if it had appeared on “Astral Weeks”. It’s actual meaning has been left open to interpretation due to Vans use of homophones in his lyrics. When asked about it he explained, “Originally I wrote it as ‘Into the Misty’. But later I thought that it had something of an ethereal feeling to it so I called it ‘Into the Mystic’. That song is kind of funny because when it came time to send the lyrics into Warner Bros, I couldn’t figure out what to send them. Because really the song has two sets of lyrics. For example, there’s ‘I was born before the wind’ and ‘I was borne before the wind’, and also ‘Also younger than the son, Ere the bonny boat was one’ and ‘All so younger than the son, Ere the bonny boat was won’ … I guess the song is just about being part of the universe.”

The songs final refrain of “Too late to stop now…” has become synonymous with Vans live shows, and it later became the title of his 1974 Live album. I’m sure we’ll be talking about that one in the not too distant future.

As for this album?

“Turn it up….Cos you know….It’s got soul”

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Into The Mystic

Listen Here

Run DMC

Raising Hell

The last album of this week’s entry and it’s from one of the most iconic and influential acts of the 1980’s.

Run DMC were formed in Queens, New York in 1981 by Joseph Simmons (DJ Run), Darryll McDaniels (DMC) and Jason Mizell (Jam Master Jay) and this is their breakthrough third album released in 1986.

Following on from their appearance at Live Aid in 1985 – in which they were the only Hip-Hop act to appear on the whole bill – they teamed up with legendary Def Jam producer Rick Rubin who incorporated more Rock influenced samples into their sound, namely the intro to The Knacks “My Sharona” on the single ” It’s Tricky” that they used without the band’s permission and were later sued by them as a result.

Blazing a trail for the rest of Hip-Hop to follow was the success they had with the single “My Adidas” which led to the first ever endorsement deal between a music act and a sportswear company, being paid a whopping 1.6 million dollars by the brand with the three stripes.

Speaking about it to MTV years later, DMC said, It was a song that was about our sneakers, but it was bigger than just talking about how many pairs of sneakers we had. It came from the place of people would look at the b-boys, the b-girls and go, ‘Oh, those are the people that cause all the problems in here.’ And, ‘Those young people are nothing but troublemakers and those young people don’t know nothing.’ So they was judging the book by its cover, without seeing what was inside of it.”

On influencing a whole new culture of sportswear being worn casually by kids on the street, Run said, There were guys that wore Kangol hats and sneakers with no shoestrings. It was a very street thing to wear, extremely rough. They couldn’t wear shoelaces in jail and we took it as a fashion statement. The reason they couldn’t have shoelaces in jail was because they might hang themselves. That’s why DMC says ‘My Adidas only bring good news and they are not used as felon shoes.”

Undoubtedly the most famous song on this album can only be the fantastic Rock/Rap crossover featuring a duet with Aerosmith and a now legendary cover of their song “Walk This Way” including one of the most iconic videos of all time for the MTV Generation.

The idea for the collaboration stemmed from Rick Rubin playing a copy of the Aerosmith album “Toys In The Attic” in the studio and Run DMC freestyling over it. At the time they didn’t even know who Aerosmith were and it was down to Rubin – a massive Rock fan – to explain who it was.

The rest is history and not only did the end result catapult Run DMC into mainstream stardom it also revitalised the career of Aerosmith whose members had been battling drug and alcohol addictions.

A true era-defining album this. Another must own.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Listen To: Walk This Way

Listen Here

Thats it for another week. Thanks for reading. To listen to any of the albums listed just click on the link under each entry. I hope you find something new that you love.

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