1986 - Clive's Top Albums of Every Year Challenge

August 15, 2022 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music

Over what will likely be the next few years I’m going to be ranking and reviewing the top 5 albums - plus a fair few extras - according to users on rateyourmusic.com (think IMDB for music) from every year from 1960 to the present. If you want to know more, I wrote an introduction to the ‘challenge’ here. You can also read all the other entries I’ve written so far by heading to the lovely index page here.

The top 1986 headlines aren’t particularly positive I’m afraid: the Soviet nuclear reactor at Chernobyl exploded spreading radioactive material across much of Europe and the Space Shuttle Challenger also exploded 73 seconds after launching, killing all seven astronauts on board.

But onto more positive things, here’s rateyourmusic.com users’ top 5 albums of 1986:

#1 The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
#2 Metallica - Master of Puppets
#3 Slayer - Reign in Blood
#4 Astor Piazzolla and The New Tango Quintet: Tango: Zero Hour / Nuevo Tango: Hora Zero
#5 Iron Maiden - Somewhere in Time

As is customary, I’ll also grab some from further down the list

#6 Candlemass - Epicus Doomicus Metallicus
#7 XTC - Skylarking
#8 Talk Talk - The Colour of Spring
#9 Sonic Youth - EVOL

#12 Peter Gabriel - So
#14 Paul Simon - Graceland
#28 Siouxsie & the Banshees - Tinderbox

Finally, to add more female artists to the equation, I’ll be grabbing anything from 1986 from NPR’s list of the best albums of all time by female artists, as well as the same list as voted on by their readers. This year we’ve just got the one album to add:

Janet Jackson - Control

13 reviews to do then, off we go.

Somewhere in Time is the sixth studio album by English heavy metal band Iron Maiden. It was released on 29 September 1986 in the United Kingdom by EMI Records and in the United States by Capitol Records. It was the band's first album to feature guitar synthesisers. Since its release, Somewhere in Time has been certified platinum by the RIAA, having sold over one million copies in the US. - Wikipedia

Ah, another Iron Maiden release. Unfortunately, they remain that one band regularly appearing in these top 5s that I just can’t get into. Entertaining enough, and I can appreciate why others would like it, but I’m just not feeling it y’know. This one feels a little, dare I say it, poppier. I preferred some of their earlier releases, but this still has plenty of rock-solid riffs, guitar solos, and howling vocals.

Song Picks: Deja Vu

6.5/10

12. Epicus Doomicus Metallicus

Candlemass

Epicus Doomicus Metallicus is the debut album of the Swedish doom metal band Candlemass. It was released June 10, 1986 on Black Dragon Records. On its release, the album had a significantly different sound than other European heavy metal bands of the time, because of their use of operatic vocals mixed over slow and heavy guitar riffs. The album did not sell well on its initial release, which led to the group being dropped from the label during the same year. Since then, the album has been re-issued in several different formats. - Wikipedia

I’m getting a definite Black Sabbath vibe from Mats Björkman’s riffs on Epicus Doomicus Metallicus, they’re slow, methodical and powerful. Indeed they’re easily some of the most crushing I’ve ever heard. Messiah Marcolin’s vocals are operatic, and he’s less prone to high pitched wails than many of his contemporaries. The whole thing is a change of pace from the thrash-metal of Slayer and Metallica.

I’m generally a little biased against music that is too operatic, finding it rather hard to get into. The fact I very much enjoyed this is testament to how good it is, and though it was never going to become a favourite, I can absolutely appreciate why they’re as highly thought of as they are.

Song Picks: Demons Gate, Crystal Ball

8/10

Control is the third studio album by American singer Janet Jackson, released on February 4, 1986, by A&M Records. Her collaborations with the songwriters and record producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis resulted in an unconventional sound: a fusion of rhythm and blues, rap vocals, funk, disco, and synthesized percussion that established Jackson, Jam and Lewis as the leading innovators of contemporary R&B. The album became Jackson's commercial breakthrough and enabled her to transition into the popular music market, with Control becoming one of the foremost albums of the 1980s and contemporary music. - Wikipedia

Control contrasts nicely to many other pop albums by female artists in the 80s, such as those by Whitney Houston or Cyndi Lauper, in that it often has more of a focus on percussive power and energy than balladry. Tracks aren’t saturated with instruments blasting evocative chord structures, but instead have a sense of space, one which allows the cataclysmic drums to take centre stage. The album is more about funk and groove than it is about melody, and it sets Jackson apart from her contemporaries in way that is refreshing. While others blasted us with powerful vocals, Jackson blasts us with programmed, gated drums and funky bass grooves. It also features some superb guitar solos, which is a good way to my heart.

Song Picks: Control, You Can Be Mine, Principle of Pleasure

8.5/10

Skylarking is the ninth studio album by the English rock band XTC, released 27 October 1986 on Virgin Records. Produced by American musician Todd Rundgren, it is a loose concept album about a nonspecific cycle, such as a day, a year, the seasons, or a life. The title refers to a type of bird (skylark), as well as the Royal Navy term "skylarking", which means "fooling around". It became one of XTC's best-known albums and is generally regarded as their finest work. - Wikipedia

Andy Partridge’s ability to write a tune is evident from the opening Summer Cauldron (a song about a baby in the womb about to enter the world) and Grass (a song about ‘fumbling’ about on some grass). Recording was plagued with tension between Partridge and producer Todd Rundgren, the former apparently saying he wanted to embed an axe in the latter’s head at one point. The tension is somewhat audible, with the band and Partridge’s vocal sounding quite distant from each other. It’s that detached sound that gives the album a very unique feel though. A lot of these tracks would be a little kitschy (I’m looking at you That’s Really Super, Supergirl) if it weren’t for Rundgren’s grey production adding some darkness to Partridge’s ice-lolly coloured melodies, though the curveball lyrics help too. If you want a nerdier take on 80s pop, then you can’t go wrong with Skylarking.

Song Picks: Summer’s Cauldron, Season Cycle, That’s Really Super, Supergirl

8.5/10

9. Tinderbox

**Siouxsie & the Banshees**

Tinderbox is the seventh studio album by English rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees. It was released on 21 April 1986 by Wonderland and Polydor Records in the United Kingdom and by Geffen Records in the United States. It was the band's first full-length effort recorded with then-new guitarist John Valentine Carruthers; Carruthers had previously only added a few parts on the 1984 EP The Thorn. The first recording sessions for the album took place at Hansa by the Wall in Berlin in May 1985. - Wikipedia

As with 1981’s Juju, which I loved, Siouxsie Sioux’s vocals are in a class of their own, while the fact the guitars have stepped back a little bit gives the whole thing a slightly more ethereal feel. Tinderbox is one of those albums that is hard to get a grapple of, with the single Cities in Dust (about Pompeii) providing one of the album’s firmer emotional handholds with its great chorus. Tinderbox is the perfect mix of intrigue and accessibility.

Song Picks: Cities in Dust

9/10

Master of Puppets is the third studio album by the American heavy metal band Metallica, released on March 3, 1986, by Elektra Records. Recorded in Denmark at Sweet Silence Studios with producer Flemming Rasmussen, it was the band's last album to feature bassist Cliff Burton, who died in a bus accident in Sweden during the album's promotional tour. - Wikipedia

Widely regarded as one of the most influential thrash metal albums of all time, it incrementally improves on Ride the Lightning in pretty much every way, and that was already a very good album. The riffs are punchier, the whole thing feels more cohesive, and while Ride the Lightning felt more cerebral than visceral, Master of Puppets, although still leaning towards the former, hits a lot harder in terms of its production and riffs than its predecessor. Anyway, enough comparing, Master of Puppets is a truly great album in a genre that I have to confess to knowing little about. Hetfield’s vocals don’t have much range, but they do manage to add weight to the already heavy riffs here, and when he does crack out a more melodic part - such as on the excellent title track - it hits.

I’ve been a critic of Lars Ulrich over the years, largely because when I saw the band at Rock Im Park in Germany many years ago he was consistently well ahead of the beat, and even on these cleaner recordings he seems in a bigger rush than the rest of the band to me, denying the tracks some of the percussive power a more ‘relaxed’ drummer might have given them, which is a shame.

Nevertheless, Master of Puppets is marvellous. I find people are often too quick to call something heavy, but this absolutely qualifies. It sounds like a massive meteorite hurtling through Earth’s atmosphere.

Song Picks: Master of Puppets, The Thing That Should Not Be, Damage Inc

9/10

Reign in Blood is the third studio album by American thrash metal band Slayer, released on October 7, 1986, by Def Jam Recordings. The album was the band's first collaboration with producer Rick Rubin, whose input helped the band's sound evolve. The release date of the album was delayed because of concerns regarding the lyrical subject matter of the opening track "Angel of Death", which refers to Josef Mengele and describes acts such as human experimentation that he committed at the Auschwitz concentration camp. The band's members stated that they did not condone Nazism and were merely interested in the subject. - Wikipedia

Rick Rubin is now synonymous with the loudness wars, but his production here is perfect. Reign In Blood hits harder than Metallica’s Master of Puppets, and that’s going somewhere. This is real thrash metal, no-nonsense melodic acoustic breakdowns here, just pedal-to-the-metal blistering riffs, powerhouse drumming and Araya’s vocals roaring like an angry lion. I kid of course, melodic breakdowns are fine. Reign In Blood though wants nothing to do with them and thinks they’re a bootless errand. Reign In Blood is clearly keen not to waste your time, hence why it is only 28 minutes long, and not a second is wasted.

Song Picks: Altar of Sacrifice, Jesus Saves, Postmortem

9/10

The Colour of Spring is the third studio album by English band Talk Talk, released in February 1986. Musically, The Colour of Spring was a major step away from the synthesised pop of early Talk Talk, with a greater focus on guitars, pianos, and organs on such songs as "Life's What You Make It", "Living in Another World" and "Give It Up". It had a sound described by the band as much more organic than their earlier records, with the improvisation that was to dominate on their later works already apparent in the recording process. - Wikipedia

Is there a more sumptuous piece of 80s production than the opening Happiness is Easy? I think not. Webb’s bass groove, the variaphone and Hollis’ vocals all blend together to create something that is like audible honey. Hell, this whole thing is some gorgeous, sophisticated desert, like a fine tiramisu. Everything is tastefully done, and has had a lot of thought, but it at no point feels sterile. The Colour of Spring is one of those albums I’d not heard of at all that I’m really happy this challenge has introduced me to.

Song Picks: Happiness is Easy, I Don’t Believe in You, Life is What You Make It, Time it’s Time

9/10

Tango: Zero Hour (Nuevo Tango: Hora Zero in Spanish) is an album by Ástor Piazzolla and his Quinteto Nuevo Tango (in English: New Tango Quintet, often loosely referred to as his second quintet). It was released in September 1986 on American Clavé, and re-released on Pangaea Records in 1988. - Wikipedia

Piazzolla considered this his greatest album, and it appropriately marks zero hour for my adventure into any sort of tango music. Zero Hour is glorious, it rings with an energy and intricacy that never loses its feeling of rawness. I’d like to say it sounds like a dusty Spanish town on a hot day, where people have their windows open talking to each other across the street, but that would be incorrect. Zero Hour sounds like a couple dancing as that street interchangeably loudly and quietly collapses around them, until there’s nothing left but them in a desert of dust and rubble. If that sounds dramatic, just wait until you’ve heard this hauntingly beautiful record.

Song Pick: Concierto Para Quinteto

9/10

So is the fifth studio album by English singer-songwriter Peter Gabriel, released on 19 May 1986 by Charisma Records. After working on the soundtrack to the film Birdy (1984), producer Daniel Lanois was invited to remain at Gabriel's Somerset home during 1985 to work on his next solo project. Initial sessions for So consisted of Gabriel, Lanois and guitarist David Rhodes, although these grew to include a number of percussionists. Often considered his best and most accessible album, So was an immediate commercial success and transformed Gabriel from a cult artist into a mainstream star, becoming his best-selling solo release. - Wikipedia

So opens with Red Rain, a typically epic and 80s sounding Gabriel track, and one of my favourites. Though I think the live version from Secret World Live is superior to the version here, largely because I prefer Manu Katche’s drumming on the live track to the drumming here, it’s still a really powerful way to open the album. The album continues in a pretty forceful vein: gated drums, synths, and an exaggerated sense of drama helping bring a really 80s feel to the record. Sledgehammer is one of Gabriel’s most famous songs, and it brilliantly demonstrates his nous for huge sounding production (with backing choirs and a synthesised shakuhachi flute in this case) and playful melodies. Kate Bush features on the angelic Don’t Give Up, and excels in production perhaps a little less experimental than that on her own songs. In Your Eyes, ‘inspired by an African tradition of ambiguity in song between romantic love and love of God’ according to Gabriel, received a new lease of life when it played a prominent role in a scene in Say Anything…, starring John Cusack, is another one of the album’s famous tracks. A perfect love song that escapes its rather cheesy lyrical theme through yet more monumental production (this time including a clear African influence, including a great part in Wolof by Youssou N'Dour) and melodies to die for.

So is another 80s classic, from the man who had a knack for distilling the musical ideas of the decade (at least in pop) into songs that were catchy, huge, and interesting. Some say the album leans too much into the time, and feels dated now. I disagree, it’s a product of the 80s, and it wears that on its sleeve like a badge of honour.

Song Picks: In Your Eyes, Red Rain, Sledgehammer, Don’t Give Up, That Voice Again

9/10

EVOL is the third full-length studio album by the American alternative rock band Sonic Youth. Released in May 1986, EVOL was Sonic Youth’s first album on SST Records, and also the first album to feature then-new drummer Steve Shelley who had just replaced Bob Bert. In retrospective reviews, critics cite EVOL as marking Sonic Youth’s transition from their no wave roots toward a greater pop sensibility, while bassist Kim Gordon has referred to it as the band’s “goth record.” - Wikipedia

The first in what will be plenty of Sonic Youth albums appearing on these lists in the upcoming years is a paranoid and dark album of guitar chord drones and vocals that sound resigned to the ether. On Shadow of a Doubt Gordon whispers hauntingly over the plucked guitar part, before the other vocalists back her ever more paranoid screams during the chorus (if you can call it that). The fact the band has three distinct vocalists (bassist Kim Gordon and guitarists Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore) adds to the album’s anarchy. EVOL can be a challenging listen, particularly for those prone to anxiety among us. There’s a deep unease to a lot of the guitar work, Starpower features a superb riff that is both unsettling and enjoyable, while In the Kingdom #19 switches between a head-bopping riff and what sounds like an air raid (reminiscent of Hendrix’s version of the Star Spangled Banner) in a way that only Sonic Youth could make work. On Death to our Friends the guitar sounds so dissonant it’s as if it’s been found in an attic and never tuned.

EVOL is a dark chaos which has begun transforming itself into something resembling songs. It’s a masterful subversion of established genres to create something that sounds so punk, that you can’t call it punk at all.

Song Picks: Starpower; Shadow of a Doubt; Secret Girl; Madonna, Sean and Me

9/10

The Queen Is Dead is the third studio album by English rock band the Smiths. Released on 16 June 1986 in the United Kingdom by Rough Trade Records, and on 23 June 1986 in the US by Sire Records, it spent 22 weeks on the UK Albums Chart, peaking at number two. It also peaked at number 70 on the US Billboard 200, and was certified Gold by the RIAA in late 1990.

In 2020, Rolling Stone ranked The Queen Is Dead 113th on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In its 2013 list, the NME named The Queen Is Dead the greatest album of all time. - Wikipedia

I had a feeling as I listened to other albums by the Smiths that this one would end up being my favourite, and it is. The Queen is Dead does away with some of the consistency issues of previous albums (though I very much like them all) and is packed front to back with everything that makes the Smiths great. Johnny Marr’s riffs power things along at pace, and occasionally even add a dramatic sense of urgency to things, such as on the opening title track’s second half. Morrissey is at his melodic best, I’ve talked about his style being almost operatic, and here its singularity is coupled with memorable melody after memorable melody. The album also contains some of his best lyrics, ‘I’ve got the 21st century breathing down my neck’ being just one example of the many great lines on this record. Love him or hate him, these are some of the most memorable vocal performances of the 80s.

The drums and bass are on point too, aided by the album’s sleek production, no doubt as much the work of Stephen Street (who produced Meat is Murder) at the mixing desk, as it was that of Marr and Morrissey who are credited as producers here.

The Queen is Dead is one of the 80s’ best bands at their absolute peak, and its effect on all ‘indie’ music since can’t be understated, something made evident by the fact that the NME - who typically loves that genre - named it the best album of all time in 2013.

Song Picks: The Queen is Dead, There is a Light That Never Goes Out, Bigmouth Strikes Again

9.5/10

Graceland is the seventh solo studio album by the American singer-songwriter Paul Simon. It was produced by Simon, engineered by Roy Halee and released on August 25, 1986, by Warner Bros. Records. In the early 1980s, Simon's relationship with his former musical partner Art Garfunkel had deteriorated, his marriage to actress Carrie Fisher had collapsed, and his previous record, Hearts and Bones (1983), had been a commercial failure. In 1984, after a period of depression, Simon became fascinated by a bootleg cassette of mbaqanga, South African street music. He and Halee visited Johannesburg, where they spent two weeks recording with South African musicians. Further recordings were held in the United States, with guest musicians including Linda Ronstadt, the Everly Brothers, Louisiana band Good Rockin' Dopsie and the Twisters, and Los Angeles band Los Lobos. - Wikipedia

Objective reviews don’t exist - particularly not when I’m writing them - but this is an album that it’s particularly hard for me to look at with any distance. If I had to name one album that was the biggest part of my childhood, it’d be Graceland. My Mum had the tape, and I remember listening to it repeatedly on our drive to and from school every day in our old Volvo. It’s an album I know every word to, every nuance, and where the end of one song immediately means the intro to the next starts playing in my head. It’s been a factor of so much of my life that it doesn’t take me back to any specific part of it, but instead feels like the musical equivalent of the teddy bear I was given at birth. That guy still sits on my sofa by the way.

The idea of blending western music with South-African music sounds like some sort of gimmick, but Simon and his multiple collaborators here absolutely pull it off. This is a glorious blending of musical styles, one that soaks up another culture, rather than tokenises it, a beautiful testament to the artistry in diversity. It’s the musical equivalent of living in another country and adopting its culture rather than taking a tour bus, looking at the highlights, and returning with a head full of stereotypes. Throw into the mix fact that this is some of Simon’s best lyrical and melodic work since Simon & Garfunkel, delivered with a cadence like honey, and you get an album that is just a pure, effervescent joy. I don’t think an album has to be perfect to get a 10, but Graceland is.

P.S I think the title track is one of the most finely crafted songs of all time.

And she said, "losing love
Is like a window in your heart
Everybody sees you're blown apart
Everybody sees the wind blow"

Song Picks: Graceland, I Know What I Know, Gumboots, Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes, You Can Call Me Al,

10/10

1982 - Clive's Top Albums of Every Year Challenge

December 09, 2021 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music

It’s time to musically tackle 1982, the year the space shuttle Columbia made its first mission, Steven Spielberg’s E.T. and the Commodore 64 was released, the Falklands War happened, and Ingrid Bergman died.

We’re here for the music though right? Well, here’s what rateyourmusic.com’s users rate as their top 5 albums of 1982:

#1 The Cure - Pornography
#2 Kate Bush - The Dreaming
#3 Michael Jackson - Thriller
#4 Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast
#5 Dead Kennedys - Plastic Surgery Disasters

I’m also grabbing this lot from further down the list:

#6 Glenn Gould - The Goldberg Variations
#9 Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska
#13 The Fall - Hex Enduction Hour
#18 Hiroshi Yoshimura - Wave Notation 1: Music for Nine Post Cards

And we’ve also got an extra album from NPR’s best albums by female artists list (Kate Bush’s Dreaming is also on that list, but we already have it above):

Laurie Anderson - Big Science (#80 in NPR’s 150 Best Albums Made by Women)

10 albums, let’s go.

10. The Number of the Beast

Iron Maiden

The English heavy metal outfit’s third album was their last with drummer Clive Burr and first with vocalist Bruce Dickinson.

At this point it’s all a bit of a blur, but I assume I’ve talked about how I’m not a massive fan of the kind of howly, heavy rock that Iron Maiden are famous for, and I’m definitely not a fan of their cover art, this one being partricularly bad. That said, I’ve enjoyed my listens of The Number of the Beast with tracks like Children of the Damned being thoroughly daft and enjoyable. There’s no doubt that Dave Murray knows how to write powerful guitar riffs and ripping solos (see The Prisoner) and that Dickinson’s howled vocals add the required drama to proceedings, it just hasn’t got me past my prejudice towards the genre - something others have managed more effectively.

Song Picks: Children of the Damned

6/10

9. Plastic Surgery Disasters

Dead Kennedys

The Dead Kennedy's second album is lead singer Jello Biafra's favourite and sees them expand further into the high speed hardcore chaos that made Holiday in Cambodia such a great track.

East Bay Ray's guitar riffs are so frantic one imagines his left hand must be a blur while he's playing them, while Biafra’s vocals give off the vibe of someone imminently about to fall off a cliff frantically blurting out as much as they can before they do. Lyrically it’s a mix of political and social commentary, with Biafra’s battling against social norms being as present as ever.

You could certainly critiscise Plastic Surgery Disasters for being samey, and the songs do seem to blend into one a bit, but if you’re after fast songs ranting about a whole range of topics in a relentlessly energetic manner, look no further.

Song Pick: Government Flu

7/10

Kate Bush’s fourth album is often considered her most experimental, and it’s easy to see why. The poppy melodies of her other releases haven’t disappeared entirely, but they are much less frequent and replaced with a playful creativity.

The Dreaming’s tracks feature Kate Bush duetting with herself regularly, in fact - as on the superb Suspended in Gaffa - she’s often singing in four or more distinct styles. Combined with the rhythmic and often staccato instrumentation this creates a really unique sound, and one that I’d struggle to find anything comparable to even today. Bush has herself called the album ‘mad’, and indeed it is. There’s a feeling of freedom to the way the compositions skitter from melody to melody, instrument to instrument and section to section, in a way that is largely unpredictable and unvonventional.

I’m in no doubt that many will find this album a bit too challenging, it’s not as immediately gripping as 1978’s The Kick Inside for example, and there’s not all that much to latch onto or even remember particularly, but to those who give it time this is a really rewarding album that you’re unlikely ever to get bored of.

The Dreaming cements Kate Bush as not only someone who can write great songs - we already knew that from previous entries to these lists - but someone who is completely unafraid to be herself. Bush was already pretty singular before The Dreaming, with its release she became one of the most remarkable artists to grace our airwaves.

Song Picks: Suspended in Gaffa, Sat in Your Lap

8.5/10

The Fall’s fourth album is described by the lead singer, Mark E. Smith, as a satirical stand against "bland bastards like Elvis Costello and Spandau Ballet ... [and] all that shit", and features his standard abrasive vocal style and lyrics rooted in ‘kitchen sink realism’, a movement from the 50s and 60s in the arts that saw protagonists disollusioned with life and living in cramped working-class conditions, portraying a harsh and more realistic style than the art that had come before it. The album was mainly recorded in a disused cinema in Hertfordshire.

The album starts with the fantastically brash The Classical, which unfortunately drops the ‘N’ word within the first few lines, something that was not uncommon at the time. Mark E. Smith has claimed he’s singing as if it’s not him saying it - believable considering his lyrics are often built up of random outbursts coming from seemingly different people - but it’s still problematic as is explored in much more depth than I have room to here. That aside though, the song demonstrates the band’s ability to create an infectiously ramshackle sound - with the melody often coming from the guitars rather than Smith’s vocals, which snarl and grate in a way that’s so brash you can’t help but love them.

Jawbone and the Air-Rifle is another superb track with a guitar riff that you can imagine people bouncing around to aggressively in 80s clubs, Smith’s vocals carry more of a melody this time, something he’s more than capable of doing, while still never loosing that razor sharp edge he has. The track feels entirely unconventional, while also remaining very accessible. It sounds like a band playing in a room far too small for them, so the drums pound over everything else, while the guitars bounce off the grime on the walls and Smith has to thin his voice to make himself heard. It’s a rough, perfectly British mess that’s punker than punk itself. Hex Induction Hour’s remaining tracks are probably less memorable, and certainly less dance-able and infectious, but they’re still the musical equivalent of showing your teeth to the system.

Song Picks: The Classical, Jawbone and the Air-Rifle

8.5/10

The English band’s fourth album wasn’t well received critically, though it was their most succesfull up to that point commercially. It has since garnered plenty of critical acclaim, and is seen as an important album in the development of gothic rock. It was their final album with Simon Gallup, whose departure meant that all of the band’s following albums had a poppier, and lighter feel. This one is very dark though, and was written and recorded during what songwriter and vocalist Rober Smith called “an extremely stressful and self-destructive period”.

The Cure have always been the masters of atmosphere and it doesn’t take long to realise this album is no different, with the opening One Hundred Years’ guitar part sounding positively massive, with so much reverb put on it that you’d be forgiven for thinking you’ve fallen into a cave, “One and one we die one after the other” Smith sings as the guitar echoes this with suitably doomed notes. The Hanging Garden is a great example of the uptempo but downbeat thing that The Cure do so well, as the song chugs along at a fair clip while Smith sings lines like “Fall, fall, fall, fall out of the sky / Cover my face as the animals die” in a manner that suggests he’s had enough. But it’s not all doom and gloom… no, actually it is, every minute of Pornography is unapologetically devoid of hope. It’s a dip into the mind of someone at their lowest point, and yet in all the gloom and sadness, Smith’s melodies still fly. On the title track which closes the album, Smith is practically screaming as the drums march ominously on one side and a doom synth plays like a church organ signifying the end of time in the other, then it all cuts to black. Smith has cited this as the album that turned things around for him personally, and I see that cut at the end as the moment he’s got so low, that the only way is up, a flicker of hope that ignites a fire.

Song Picks: The Hanging Garden, One Hundred Years, Siamese Twins

9/10

Laurie Anderson’s debut is comprised of a selection of highlights from her eight-hour production United States Live - a performance piece in which music was only one element.

Big Science is avant-garde and hard to define. It’s electronic, but more concerned with soundscapes to back Anderson’s spoken word vocals than songs in the traditional sense. Having said that there are still melodies and hooks in there, often provided by other vocalists, as on the eerie title track, which brilliantly conveys the expansion of humankind in the following verse. Here Anderson cleverly turns direction giving on its head, referencing buildings that will be built rather than ones that are/were there:

Well just take a right where they're going to build that new shopping mall
Go straight past where they're going to put in the freeway
Take a left at what's going to be the new sports center
And keep going until you hit the place where
They're thinking of building that drive-in bank

O Superman, which became a surprise hit in the UK after John Peel championed it, is the album’s centrepiece and - in my opinion - masterpiece. Repeated ‘Ha’s’ in two different notes create the song’s spartan musical backdrop as Anderson talks enigmatically, and breaks into eerie melodies as she sings ‘here come the planes’. Originally inspired by the Iran hostage crisis in 1979 - the one depicted in the hit film Argo - it resonates far beyond that calmly presenting the fall of the world into some Orwellian nightmare:

'Cause when love is gone, there's always justice
And when justice is gone, there's always force
And when force is gone, there's always Mom.

Anderson begins to sing more after this song, and the album’s second half shines because of it. There’s a sense that Anderson has freed herself of self-consciousness as she bursts into a gentle, melodic flame.

Big Science is a bit like a 50 minute meditation session, but where instead of ‘scanning’ your body and feeling present, you follow Anderson’s soothing voice into an infinitely interesting and timeless void. It’s a kind of less on the nose, more beautiful 1984 in musical form. One of the most creative albums of the decade.

Song Picks: O Superman, Example #22, Let X=X

9/10

Springsteen’s sixth studio album is made up of songs that were initially intended to be demos that the E-Street band would flesh out, but he decided to release them as they were. It was recorded using just two SM57s and a 4-track recorder, as many a nerdy, wannabe sound engineer forum poster will tell you. Springsteen’s decision to keep the whole thing raw was a stroke of genius, and has played no small impact in the album being one of his most well regarded. Due to the sombre nature of the record, Springsteen never toured it.

Nebraska’s songs are about murderers, working class people, corrupt cops, or Springsteen’s childhood. He’s always been an exceptional storyteller, and when his songs are reduced to simple melodies, sparse acoustic guitar and harmonica arrangements and his voice, it’s his ability to get into the head of his subjects and portray their stories that makes this album shine so brightly. Bruce’s vocals are low and sombre, with none of the energy of Born to Run for example. There’s a resigned longing to all the songs, as if the songs’ subjects are always hoping for more, though they know they’ll never get it.

Such dark and intimate stories are presented here with no frills beside an atmospheric reverb. The lack of backup from a band makes the whole thing more intimate, you’re there with The Boss as he tells his stories. As Pitchfork’s review states, and indeed Bruce himself, Nebraska is as much about the presentation as the content. It was written in the environment it was recorded, and the songs would have lost something when taken out of that context. Nebraska is the perfect document of a moment when Bruce Springsteen sat down in his rented house in New Jersey, and unbeknownst to himself, wrote one of the most touching acoustic albums of all time.

Song Picks: Nebraska, Mansion on the Hill

9/10

3. Music for Nine Postcards

Hiroshi Yoshimura

Yoshimura’s debut album was initially intended to be played in the Hara Museum for Contemporary Art building, but was given a wider release after it garnered interest from the visitors. The album uses only a Fender Rhodes (a type of electric piano) and a piano. In the liner notes Yoshimura stated that he was inspired by “the movements of clouds, the shade of a tree in summertime, the sound of rain, the snow in a town." The album was only released in Japan in 1982, and was not given a release outside the country until 2017, when it was picked up by the Empire of Signs label and re-issued. It’s re-release was highly critically acclaimed.

Music for Nine Postcards is minimalistic, letting each note echo into your ears, it’s sad and yet hopeful, it sparkles and hums. A triumph in minimalism it sounds well ahead of its time, and could just as well have come out this year. The whistful twinkles of Clouds, the almost childish simplicity, but sheer beauty of the melody on Blink, and the quiet euphoria of Dance PM are just samples of the treat that you’re in for if you listen to this gem. The latter is perhaps my favourite album of the track, with certain notes being just out of time enough to feel real, natural, unprogrammed, and human - whilst maintaining a level of repetition that leaves me in a gentle trance. Dance PM is everything this album does so well. Unassuming, simple, really moving and bloody gorgeous from start to finish. Music for Nine Postcards has gently weaved its way into my heart, and I can’t see it ever leaving again. In a decade of excess, it hums along quietly and patiently, waiting for everyone to notice just how damn pretty it is.

Song Picks: Blink, Dance PM,

9/10

I’ve talked about Michael Jackson’s problematic nature in a previous review (1979’s Off the Wall), and how I think the evidence is pretty strong following numerous documentaries on the subject that he did indeed abuse children and that that has undoubtedly tainted his legacy and music, but also - more importantly - caused a lot of children and families unfathomable pain and trauma. Nevertheless, I’m going to talk about the music here, which is completely sublime.

The term is overused but I’ve no reservations in calling Michael Jackson a musical genius, something which is displayed here where he’s at the peak of his powers. Quincy Jones’ production is superb, with crystal clear instrumentation, and instrumental flourishes filling every space in a way that doesn’t feel overblown, but infectious and tasteful. On the all-time-classic opener Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ , that sublime guitar and bass groove are accompanied not only by Jackson’s sublime vocals - effortlessly going from gritty to smooth and always bang in tune - but also an endless array of instrumental touches; that brass shake echoing the bass and guitar line, the synth taps, I could go on. It’s a dance masterpiece, running through your blood and into your heart.

I’ve always been less of a fan of Jackson’s slower songs, but even those are great here, and he conjures up one of his most memorable melodies in the smooth The Girl is Mine where his vocals work surprisingly well with Paul McCartney’s, while Human Nature is another example of Jones’ knack of accentuating Jackson’s vocals by following them with perfect little guitar jingles, with a skittering, superb synth part that appears twice where most artists would hang an entire song on it.

The mid-album trio of Thriller, Beat It and Billie Jean are quite probably the best successive trio of songs on any album ever and Thriller and Billie Jean are undoubtedly two of the greatest pop songs of all time. The former combining gothic and pop in a way that hasn’t really been equalled before or since - those brass stabs, wolf howls, and that groove and narration by Vincent Price creating an atmosphere that’s so brilliant, that despite the fact I’ve hard it countless times, I still whoop whenever it comes on. Billie Jean features what I think is my favourite bass line ever, one which Quincy Jones apparently didn’t like and was only persuaded to use when Jackson told him it ‘made him want to dance’. I guess even the greats are wrong sometimes. The way the song starts with just the drums, before that bass line comes in, those little trumpet hums in the pre-chorus, Jackson’s imperious vocal performance, and that perfect chorus combine to make a song that’ll forever grace a list of my favourites. Hell, I’ve heard it 5,555,423 times, but yet here I am dancing around in my office chair to it, every nerve in my body revitalised. Billie Jean is a freaking beacon of life and energy smashing through your weary flesh.

Oh and I’ve not even mentioned Van Halen’s stupendous solo on Beat It have I? This album is just chock full of brilliance, so apologies if I’ve missed the odd bit.

I can totally understand those who don’t listen to Thriller, but I’m here to review the music rather than its creators, and I don’t think anyone can argue against the fact that this is one of the finest pop albums of all time.

Song Picks: Wanna Be Startin’ Something, Billie Jean, Beat It, Thriller

9.5/10

Classical pianist Glenn Gould initially recorded his interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations (BWV 988) in 1955, which sold very well for a classical album and very much launched Gould’s career. He re-recorded the variations in 1981 and died a year later in 1982, when this recording was released. Pitchfork have written an excellent comparison between the two here, but as this is an article about 1982 I’ll be focusing on the latter recording, which had sold over 2 million copies by the year 2000.

As Wikipedia states, Goldberg Variations (BWV 988) “is a musical composition for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, it is named after Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who may also have been the first performer of the work.”

I’ve always enjoyed listening to solo piano performances - Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert is one of my favourite live recordings of all time - but this one definitely stands out among the crowd. Gould’s virtuoisic skill eminantes from all 30 variations here, with a confident, sturdy style full of beautiful flurries. This interpretation of the Variations sounds autumnal, you can almost imagine the leaves of trees falling in time with Gould’s intricate key presses. The Goldberg Variations is a truly sumptuous piano recording, it makes for great background listening while working, but it shines when you lie down, close your eyes, and submit yourself to its joyful, hopeful music, where Gould weaves delicate worlds of piano notes seemingly effortlessly. There’s something magical about being completely transfixed by just one instrument, and that’s absolutely the case here. The Goldberg Variations is magic.

10/10

1970s - Mop-Up and Albums of the Decade List

May 27, 2021 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music

As promised, before we move onto the 80s, here’s a 70s roundup article, with a whole heap of albums that I didn’t get round to in the individual year lists followed by my best of decade rankings.

Where have you plucked this lot from you ask? Well I added anything that I hadn’t covered already that: is rated in the top 50 of the 1970s on rateyourmusic.com, placed highly on the Pitchfork best of the 70s list, and a few from some female only best-of lists across the internet. Here’s the 13 that are thrown into the mixer for this 70s round-up special, listed alongside the year they were released.

The Velvet Underground - Loaded (1970)
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band - John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970)
Funkadelic - Maggot Brain (1971)
Dolly Parton - Coat of Many Colours (1971)
Janis Joplin - Pearl (1971)
Sly and the Family Stone - There’s a Riot Going On (1971)
Leonard Cohen - Songs of Love and Hate (1971)
Novos Baianos - Acabou Chorare (1972)
Aretha Franklin - Amazing Grace (1972)
Yes - Fragile (1972)
Labelle - Nightbirds (1974)
Heart - Dreamboat Annie (1976)
Buzzcocks - Singles Going Steady (1979)

Let’s rank this lot, and then we’ll see if any of them make it into my best of decade list!

The first hard rock band fronted by women, Heart, was led by sisters Nancy and Ann Wilson. Their debut album, Dreamboat Annie, includes the band’s hits Magic Man and Crazy on You.

It’s refreshing to hear female vocals over the top of the rocking instrumentals on display here, and the whole thing has a very polished sound. I’ve never been the biggest fan of hard rock, it feels like one of those genres that hasn’t aged all that well to me, but there’s plenty to enjoy here. The guitar riffs underpin the vocals perfectly, Crazy on You being a particularly great example of this, the vocals have great range and thankfully avoid that high pitched squeal that was all the rage in 70s heard-rock. The album has a great flow to it, ending with a nice reprise of the title track, and there’s some really beautiful moments such as Soul of the Sea, which has a fabulously Fleetwood Mac feel about it. The Wilsons’ vocals create a dreamy, ethereal feel that makes this record stand out amongst others in the genre.

Dreamboat Annie is a very enjoyable listen, and of course important as the first women led hard rock recording. As with most hard rock, it leans a bit too much into cheese at points, particularly with (Love Me like Music) I’ll be Your Song, and the production is a little uninspiring, but there’s plenty here to make it a very worthwhile listen.

Song Picks: Magic Man, Soul of the Sea

7/10

12. Coat of Many Colours (1971)

Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton’s eighth album is generally regarded as her best, appearing both in in the Time and Rolling Stone best albums of all time lists. Parton has said that the album’s title track is the best song she’s ever written.

Coat of Many Colours is straight up country, so if that’s not your bag then you’re not going to get on with this. I can’t claim to be the biggest country fan, but when done well I do enjoy it in smaller doses. This album is a delight generally, Parton’s jolly melodies soar over the plodding country arrangements. The title track is pretty much the perfect country song, a touching tale of a mother’s love. Traveling Man is perhaps the album’s other highlight, a twangy guitar rock ‘n’ roller that’s as American as the Grand Canyon. The record continues in a similar vein, with pleasant country song after pleasant country song showcasing Parton’s considerable talent for a melody, and production that really makes them shine.

The grass is always green with Dolly in your ear, but sometimes, as in the final two tracks, it gets a little too green. The ‘la,la,la’s’ of the final track catapulting things a little too far into ‘cheese’ for example.

Song Picks: Coat of Many Colours, Traveling Man,

7.5/10

labelle nightbirds.jpg — 11. Nightbirds (1974)

Labelle

All female vocal group Labelle’s fourth album was their most successful to date, and features their biggest hit, the often covered Lady Marmalade. The album is generally regarded as one of the greatest combinations of poppy r&b with funk and soul. Rolling Stone listed it as the 274th greatest album in their all time top 500 list.

The opener is probably more famous to my generation for the cover by 90s band All Saints, but Labelle’s version of Lady Marmalade trounces that one. That groovy bass riff, the gentle cowbell, the iconic vocals and melodies, it’s a pop gem, and a perfect meld of all the group’s influences into something truly unique.

LaBelle, Hendryx and Dash’s vocals work together brilliantly, with songs like It Took a Long Time being a great demonstration of that, but any of the lively tracks here would serve to make the point. Nightbirds glows with infectious songwriting, Allen Pouissant’s production - which is as comfortable as a warm sofa - and vocals as perfect and soulful as any of the decade. Oh and Hector Seda’s bass playing is some of the most underrated I’ve heard.

“It’s just an all-girl band, dealing with the facts and the pain”

Song Picks: Lady Marmalade, All Girl Band, What Can I Do For You, Somebody Somewhere

8.5/10

10. Songs of Love and Hate (1971)

Leonard Cohen

Cohen’s third album was the only one to make Rollling Stone’s best 500 albums of all time list, and placed at #74 in Pitchfork’s best of the 70s list. It’s here though because it’s rated at number #38 for the 1970s on rateyourmusic.com. Cohen himself spoke rather negatively of the album two years after its release:

"I suppose you could call it gimmicky if you were feeling uncharitable towards me. I have certainly felt uncharitable towards me from time to time over that record, and regretted many things. It was over-produced and over elaborated...an experiment that failed."

Right from the the opening murmurs of Avalanche it’s clear we’re in for a dark ride, as Cohen’s vocals sing his usual poetics over the top of a dark, syncopated guitar line in a timbre even more tired than usual. Though I love the sparse nature of Cohen’s debut, I disagree that this is overproduced and I feel Bob Johnston’s production additions, generally consisting of murmuring strings, flesh out the songs nicely. I think that Cohen’s more passionate vocal performances, such as his intense growl on Diamonds in the Mine, would have worked less well without Johnston’s production touches.

As usual with Cohen, the whole thing is gorgeously poetic, and he’s undoubtedly one of the best lyricists we’ve ever had, something his hummed - and occasionally growled - delivery really emphasises. It doesn’t floor me as much as his debut, but it’s as majestic and bewitching as you’d expect, with a depth as mysterious as the Mariana Trench.

Song picks: Avalanche, Last Year’s Man, Diamonds in the Mine

8.5/10

Fragile Yes.jpg — 9. Fragile (1971)

Yes

Yes’ first album with keyboardist Rick Wakeman features only four group compositions due to time and budget constraints at the time, the remaining five tracks are solo pieces, one from each member.

Those 5 solo pieces demonstrate just how much talent the band contained, and it’s remarkable that 5 such individually creative people could work together in a way that created something that was actually surprisingly modest. Opener Roundabout is a Yes favourite, and a great demonstration of their ability to create progressive music that is accessible despite it’s penchant for tons of different sections and time signatures. All the solo contributions are welcome breaks from the more lofty band recordings, but it’s Steve Howe’s Mood for a Day that’s a particular highlight, a beautiful instrumental acoustic guitar piece that twitters like exotic birds in the Sun.

Fragile doesn’t feel as important or weighty as the later Closer to the Edge, but there’s a real charm in its surprising sprinkles of simplicity, and the closing track, Heart of Sunshine, is a perfect segue to the aforementioned album, with Anderson’s belted out vocal foreshadowing his vocal style on a lot of its songs.

Song Picks: Roundabout, Mood for a Day, Heart of Sunrise

8.5/10

Aretha Franklin.jpg — 8. Amazing Grace (1972)

Aretha Franklin

Amazing Grace, Franklin’s 1972 live album, was recorded at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, with Reverend James Cleveland and the Southern California Community Choir accompanying her. It remains Franklin’s best-selling album, and the best-selling live gospel album of all time.

One of the finest vocal performances ever committed to tape, Aretha’s every word seems to soar like a beam to the heavens. The backing choir provide the bed for Aretha to bounce off, and bounce she does, providing quite probably the decade’s most energetic and iconic vocal performance. It’s warbling and over-sung at points, things I’m not generally a fan of, but here it sounds like Aretha’s soul exploding with joy, and that is quite the thing.

I’m not even remotely religious, I don’t think there’s anything waiting for us after death or that there’s any meaning to our lives beyond those for a spider or a mouse, but I don’t think you need need that kind of belief to enjoy this. There’s a undeniable sense of history, soul and weight to the whole thing that doesn’t require any faith in its subject matter for it to affect you rather deeply. That said, you definitely have to be in the mood for it!

Song Picks: Mary, Don’t You Weep; How I Got Over, Amazing Grace

8.5/10

7. Buzzcocks (1979)

Singles Going Steady

As a compilation, it’s debatable as to whether this belongs here, but Pitchfork named it the 16th best album of the 70s so I’m including it. Singles Going Steady was intended as an introduction to the band for an American audience, where it was the band’s first album released. It was eventually released in the UK in 1981, after it became a successful import. The album features the band’s 8 singles from 1977 up until Singles Going Steady’s release followed by the B-sides to each of those singles in chronological order.

Put simply, Singles Going Steady is a trip, destination Bangertown. As Jason Heller of Pitchfork puts it, it’s "a paragon of songwriting about the pain and joy of love that stands as one of the most endearing, intimate, and impeccably crafted batch of earworms in either the love-song or punk-rock realm". It’s hard to disagree. The record shows Buzzcocks for what they were, one of the best singles bands we’ve ever had, and certainly the best pop-punk singles band to ever grace our ears.

Song Picks: Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve),

9/10

Janis Joplin - Pearl.jpg — 6. Pearl (1971)

Janis Joplin

Joplin’s second solo studio album was released three months after her death due to an accidental heroin overdose. It was the final album released that she directly participated in, and was recorded with her final touring band. Paul A. Rothchild, who also produced The Doors, was given production duties here, and creates Joplin’s most polished sounding record. Rolling Stone ranked it 112th on their best albums of all time list.

Pearl is a magnificent display of what a vocal talent Joplin was. Her trademark raspiness extends to both her powerful (My Baby), and more delicate vocals (Me and Bobby McGee). She’s one of those rare vocalists where her tone, timbre and character mean that pretty much everything she sings has a gorgeous, intangible soul to it. The acapella Mercedes Benz is a perfect example of this. There’s not many vocalists who could carry an acapella performance so perfectly, and the fact it was the last song she ever recorded makes it all the more poignant. Joplin was due to record the vocals to Buried Alive in the Blues on the day of her death, and the instrumental, backing track sound feels like a hole in the middle of the album, a touching reminder that Joplin passed away during its creation.

Rothchild’s production and Joplin’s band back her perfectly, keeping the emphasis on her otherworldly vocals, while providing enough interest and edge to make sure things never get stale. Joplin was an incomparable talent, and Pearl is a beautiful goodbye. There’s no doubt she would have gone on to record a whole host of amazing records, but this is certainly a powerful one to finish with.

Song Picks: Move Over, Mercedes Benz, Cry Baby

9/10

plastic ono.jpg — **5. John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970)**

**John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band**

John Lennon’s debut solo album was released at the same time as his wife’s album, titled in the same way, Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band. Heavily influenced by Lennon’s recent primal scream therapy, it focuses largely on Lennon’s personal problems, including those from his upbringing.

Songs on John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band are incredibly simple, rarely featuring more than three chords and a few instruments, and often have a repetitive, almost trancelike quality to them. There’s a clean honesty to all the material here, and it’s one of those albums that is perfectly encapsulated by the cover. It sounds like the musical equivalent of what might go through your head if you were to sit under the peacefulness of a tree and meditate on your life. There’s beautifully quiet moments such as the piano led Love, and rockier - more Beatles-esque - moments like the fabulously gritty sounding Well, Well, Well - where the primal scream therapy influence becomes evident in Lennon’s unrestrained screams - but the common thread that holds the whole thing together is a wonderful sense of spontaneity and freedom. This is something particularly evident in the penultimate track God, where Lennon lets go of everything, even the Beatles.

Song Picks: Love; Well, Well, Well; God

9/10

Maggot Brain.JPG — 4. Maggot Brain (1971)

Funkadelic

Funkadelic’s third album was ranked the 14th best album of the 1970s by Pitchfork, and is the last to feature the band’s original lineup.

The album opens with the title track, a 10 minute guitar solo by Eddie Hazel, and the album’s most famous song. The band’s leader George Clinton was apparently high on LSD and asked Hazel to play as if his mother had just died The rest, as they say, is history. There’s no doubt in my mind that Maggot Brain is the finest guitar solo of all time, backed only by the odd sound effect and an arpeggiated guitar (apparently there was more playing along, but Clinton faded them out in the mix to keep the focus on Hazel’s guitar), Hazel delivers a stratospheric solo that says more than a lot of albums, books and people without saying a single word. It soars with its Jimi Hendrix inspired fuzz and wah effects, reverbed to sound as if they’re coming from some hole in the ground. I can’t remember the last time I was so completely floored by a song, it skitters and roars, howls and screeches, all in melodies that seem to stop the passing of time. It is, as one critic puts it, “an emotional apocalypse of sound,” and it might just be my favourite song of the 70s.

The rest of the album could never compete with something as stupendously powerful as that opening track, but it doesn’t fall all that far behind. Featuring a slightly more conventional psychedelic funk the band proceed to entertain the hell out of whoever is listening with some of the funkiest riffs in town (Hit It and Quit), bass lines that could make a gravestone groove (You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks) and yet another Eddie Hazel masterclass on the musical steamroller Super Stupid.

Quite honestly, I’m struggling to think of a more consistently entertaining 36 minutes of music in the entire decade.

Song Picks: Maggot Brain; Super Stupid; Hit it and Quit It; You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks

9.5/10

3. There’s a Riot Going On (1971)

Sly & the Family Stone

The soul and funk band’s fifth album was named as the 4th best album of the 70s by Pitchfork and it’s title is an answer to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, released six months earlier. Regularly cited as one of the most influential albums of all time, it’s recording process was by all accounts a huge mess, with Sly Stone fraying to drug abuse, and the band falling apart around him.

You can practically smell the marijuana, hear the cocaine snorts, and feel the mental fog emanating from all 12 of the album’s tracks, where the drum machines sound as if they’ve been used because they’re the only thing that couldn’t succumb to the drugs flying around, and would thus be able to hold the band together somewhat. The band plays loose and hazey, but this is hands down the funkiest album I’ve ever heard. Every track grooves with a crackled genius, Sly’s vocals often sounding so laid back it’s no surprise that he recorded some of them lying on a bed with a wireless microphone. The album lays out the cold, dark truth about America, both lyrically and sonically, but it does so in a way that’s soulful and enjoyable in a manner completely devoid of kitsch and cheese. There’s a Riot Going On is an album where I have real trouble picking my favourite tacks, everything fits the mood, everything is perfect.

9.5/10

2. Loaded (1970)

The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground’s fourth album was the final album recorded featuring founding member Lou Reed, who left before it was released. By the band’s next release, Squeeze in 1973, all but Doug Yule had left and thus this is often considered the ‘last’ album by the band. The album’s title alludes to the fact that they were asked by their record label (Atlantic) to produce an album ‘loaded with hits,’ a request which leads to this being the band’s most accessible release. Reed wasn’t pleased with the album on release, unhappy with the incorrect songwriting credits and the edits that had been made to the album’s song and running order without his consent. Nevertheless, the album is very much regarded as one of the 70’s best, with Pitchfork ranking it at #14 for the decade.

Loaded is a gem of enjoyable melodies, breezy productions, and a vibe not unlike peak 60s Dylan. Below that thoroughly enjoyable exterior, lies some incredibly intelligent songwriting. With hits like ‘Who Loves the Sun’ conveying a flat pessimism, which contrasts with both its poppy melodies and instrumentals as well as other pop songs of the time. The album’s other hit, Sweet Jane, is a bona-fide banger, with a sing-along chorus and engaging verses featuring evocative lyrics, again with more than a hint of Dylan to their delivery.

Loaded is the result of asking an incredibly talented band to make pop hits against their will. It’s catchy, easy-breezy and brilliant, and yet hides an intriguing bitter sarcasm at its core. Sometimes the true test of a band’s mettle is how well they can tread paths that have already been trodden. In the case of the Velvet Underground the answer is fabulously, creating a record that works both as a collection of pop hits, but that still has the band’s stamp of ingenuity, wit and intellect all over it. Sometimes pushy, money driven record labels genuinely lead to masterpieces.

“Oh, all the poets they studied rules of verse
And those ladies, they rolled their eyes”

9.5/10

acabou chorare.jpg — 1. Acabou Chorare (1972)

Nocos Baianos

We’ve had quite a lot of Brazilian music from the 70s on this list, and it’s all been a delight, so I’m delighted to be able to throw another one in. Voted as #49 of the 70s by rateyourmusic users and coming in at #1 on a list of the best Brazilian albums by Rolling Stone in 2007, Acabou Charare (No More Crying in English) is Novos Baianos’ second studio album.

Listening to some Brazilian music is always a refreshing change from the mainly Western music in these lists. I suspect once this challenge is complete I’ll look at doing some sort of ‘best albums from each country’ challenge to widen my horizons a bit in that regard.

Acabou Chorare is an absolute delight, the energetic hit Brasil Pandeiro and fan favourite Preta Pretinha start the album off perfectly. The former demonstrates the band’s flawless combining of male and female vocals, gorgeous, jolly guitar riffs, and melodies to make even the coldest of hearts sing. The latter is musical honey, Moreira’s vocals are so effortless, calm and tuneful and they blend with the samba of the nylon guitar like the ingredients of some timeless meal. The energetic guitar solo skitters and sparkles like a thousand butterflies in the blue sky, one of the prettiest songs of the 70s. I’m trying to keep these reviews shorter, but rest assured the album is littered with such brilliance, Swing de Campo Grande and the title track are some further highlights.

Acabou Chorare is an album that I think I’ll be turning to to lift my mood whenever I need it, along with some of the other Brazilian greats of the decade. Acabou Chorare is the musical Sun, an album of such positive energy and life that I cried the first time I heard it. As the Arial font of an e-mail blurred to some strange splodged painting, I felt the kind of joy of discovery that has been so hard to come by in the groundhog day lockdown shroud.

Song Picks: Brasil Pandeiro, Preta Pretinha, Swing de Campo Grande

10/10

1970s - Best of the Decade

And now, having reviewed over 130 albums from the 1970s, it’s time to rank my favourites of the decade. I’m upping the list from 25 (as in the 60s) to 30, as it was just too hard to cut it to 25. Here goes:

#1 Stevie Wonder - Songs in the Key of Life
#2 Miles Davis - Bitches Brew
#3 Pink Floyd - The Wall
#4 Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks
#5 Novos Baianos - Acabou Chorare

#6 Pink Floyd - Animals
#7 Miles Davis - Get Up With It
#8 Jorge Ben - A Tábua de Esmeralda
#9 Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
#10 Bob Marley and the Wailers - Exodus

#11 Joni Mitchell - Hejira
#12 Joni Mitchell - Hissing of Summer Lawns
#13 Milton Nascimento & Lo Borges - Clube Da Esquina
#14 Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
#15 Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
#16 David Bowie - Low
#17 Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
#18 Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water
#19 Yes - Close to the Edge
#20 Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run

#21 Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols
#22 David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
#23 Pink Floyd - Meddle
#24 The Velvet Underground - Loaded
#25 The Clash - London Calling
#26 Sly & the Family Stone - There’s a Riot Going On
#27 Stevie Wonder - Innervisions
#28 Joni Mitchell - Blue
#29 The Stooges - Raw Power
#30 Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti

What a decade it’s been. The artist of the decade award has to go to Pink Floyd, with no less than five records in the end of decade top 30 list, something that I’m not sure will be beaten for the remainder of this challenge. Joni Mitchell comes in second with three records on the list, with an honourable mention to Miles Davis who got two entries into the top ten.

And so it’s time to get back in our time machine, and move to the decade of shoulder pads, neon colours, and oversized jumpers, the 80s. See you there.

2020 - Clive's Top Albums of Every Year Challenge

January 18, 2021 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music

While I decide on my favourite album from every year in the past in this challenge, I’m also going to keep track of my favourite albums in years as I live them. This will be done a little differently to my other lists, mainly in that there’ll be more albums and less writing, but I’ll still review and include the top 10 albums according to rateyourmusic.com’s users for at least some consistency. I’ll also be sure to include any of the most critically well received albums, by grabbing the top rated albums from albumoftheyear.org; any that come high in my favourite online music reviewers’ estimations that aren’t already included; as well as, of course, anything else that I’ve enjoyed. Essentially, we should have a pretty solid list of what’s had the most buzz in 2020, both from critics’ and more general listeners’ perspectives.

Well 2020 was a year wasn’t it? But let’s not talk about all that, let’s focus on the music. So before we go onto the full list, here’s what our lovely rateyourmusic.com users rated as their top 10 albums of 2020:

#1 The Microphones - Microphones in 2020
#2 Ichiko Aoba - WIndswept Adan
#3 Fiona Apple - Fetch the Bolt Cutters
#4 Clipping - Visions of Bodies Being Burned
#5 Jessie Ware - What’s Your Pleasure?
#6 DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ - Charmed
#7 Moor Mother & Billy Woods - Brass
#8 Run the Jewels - RTJ4
#9 Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin Kynsi
#10 Charli XCX - How I’m Feeling Now

Those ten will be thrown into the mixer with 27 others. Let’s see who comes out the victor shall we?

What'sPleasure.jpg — 37. What’s Your Pleasure?

Jessie Ware

Undeniably well written and produced, and with plenty of catchy songs. It just didn’t feel exciting enough to keep me interested for its over 50 minute duration, often losing my attention by the final third.

Song Picks: Soul Control

6.5/10

Perhaps a little twee, but this is refreshingly positive, vocal led electronic music to warm the soul.

SP: What If, Ring, Free

7/10

Visionsofbodiesbiengburned — 35. Visions of Bodies Being Burned

clipping.

Clipping’s follow up and second part to 2019’s There Existed an Addiction to Blood creates another memorable horrorscape, which at times is more clever than affecting. You’ll be kept on your toes for the album’s 52 minute length, which features some truly memorable, at times cataclysmic moments (that pounding percussion on Something Underneath for example), but at times its doors are so meticulously crafted and complex it can be hard to work out how to get in.

Song Pick: Say the Name, Something Underneath

7/10

**34. Charmed**

**DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ**

A three hour trip through a gently euphoric land of colourful sweets and sherbet. At times unflinchingly cheesy and repetitive, but always charming. A chilled trance hug that’ll help replace that sad mist with a happier, yet equally unclear one.

Song PIcks: Pool Party, I Want You 2 Know, How Did You Know?, Charmed Life

7/10

Fleet Foxes’ fourth album is as pleasant and calming as the lapping of the sea on your toes at the beach. It blends into the background among some of the year’s other releases as it’s not the most memorable record, but there is an inescapable warmth to the sound and songwriting here.

Song Picks - Wading in the Waist-High Water, I’m Not My Season, Quiet Air/Gioia

7/10

The Strokes are back with their most enjoyable record for a while. Those warm fuzzy vocals, those catchy melodies, that breezy guitar sound. It’s all had a bit of a 2020 refresh, but the early 2000s soul is still there.

Song Picks: The Adults are Talking, Brooklyn Bridge To Chorus, Bad Decisions, Not the Same Anymore

7.5/10

The New Zealand extreme metal band’s sixth album is technically astounding, has so many time signatures you’ll find yourself in a perpetual state of confusion, and roars like a beast having a rather intense fit. It growls, it pounds, it thunders, but it never breaks, walking off again at the end of this spectacular 60 minute display unharmed, as if that earth-shattering display was simply in its DNA. It’s as challenging and full on as that description sounds though, so not for the faint hearted.

Song Picks - Stare into Death and be Still, Drawn into the Next Void , Dissolved Orders

7.5/10

Nicolas Jaar’s livelier side project continues to walk the tightrope between danceable and intriguing, never quite falling off to either side. Infectiously inventive.

Song Pick: Fantasy, You (forever)

7.5/10

saint cloud.jpg — 29. Saint Cloud

Waxahatchee

Waxahatchee’s fourth album already feels like a country and folk classic, an album with a beautiful, polished sheen. Nothing is done which doesn’t aid the song. Things are kept simple, straight and honest, and it’s fitting that an album about recovering from alcoholism should leave you feeling so emotionally cleansed. Nigh on impossible as it would have been, I just wish the latter half lived up to the first.

Song Picks - Oxbow, Can’t Do Much, Fire

7.5/10

The debut album by Canadian Micah Visser is an album he himself has said is about “growing up, moving on, and everything that happens in between”. The lyrics are simple and relatable and musically it’s full of thick synth lines with the attitude of distorted guitars. These are songs you can imagine playing as university students stand arm in arm in the middle of the dance-floor, eight £1 pints down, singing their lungs out, staring at the lights in the ceiling.

Song Picks : Keeping Up, Dear Megan, Your List, Making Peace with Suburbia

8/10

Rapper Billy Woods and activist/poet Moor Mother combine to create a dark, mysterious record that floats outside of definition. Rumbling along like a lost woolly mammoth the pairs’ words and sounds conjure up an image of a lost past.

Song Picks: Furies, The Blues Remembers Everything

8/10

The Swedish electronic duo have created quite probably the year’s most euphoric release. There’s nothing all that new here, but it’s a brilliant distillation of hand raising synth lines, electronic music tropes and melodic dreams, seemingly hoovering any negativity from your body like a despondency Dyson.

Song Picks: Portland, Attic, Arresten

8/10

FutureNostalgia — 25. Future Nostalgia

Dua Lipa

As the title suggests, this is a very current take on nostalgic genres such as disco, funk, synth-pop etc. Dua Lipa focuses on catchy songs about ‘dancing and having fun and being free and being in love’ while also making sure the whole thing has a cohesive feel. Needless to say, she’s succeeded, the sound palette is varied enough to keep it interesting while still sounding like a neat package. It’s rammed with bangers, and for its 37 minute duration you do indeed feel rather free.

Song Picks: Don’t Start Now, Cool, Physical, Love Again, Boys Will Be Boys

8/10

Un Canto por Mexico.jpg — 24. Un canto por México Vol. 1

Natalia Lafourcade

You sure as hell can’t fly to Mexico this year, but this gets you stupendously close. Lafourcade’s collection of covers and new versions of her older songs shines with all the joy and beauty of the sun on a cobbled Mexican street; bursting with life, melody and history.

Song Picks - Veracruz, Y No Vivo por Vivir , Mi Tiearra Veracruzana, Cucurrucucu Paloma

8/10

Mac Miller died two years ago as the result of an accidental drugs overdose in 2018. Circles was being worked on at the time. Posthumously completed and released by Miller’s producer, Jon Brion, the album is tastefully done, with perfectly subtle production to match Mac Miller’s relaxed sound. With a voice as smooth as polished marble, it’s the perfect lazy Sunday listen. A quietly sad and introspective goodbye from a true talent.

Song Picks - Circles, Blue World, Good News

8/10

Japanese folk singer-songwriter Ichiko Aoba’s seventh album ebbs and flows, flickers and enchants. The vocals hum like angels and the dense instrumentation sparkles as clearly and crisply as a mountain stream. Windswept Adan is rather hard to put into words, and the picture on the cover does it as much justice as anything. It’s a journey through a mysterious underwater world, where your exhalation becomes more than the exiting of oxygen, but the temporary glitter of a passed moment.

Song Picks: Dawn in the Adan, Sagu Palm’s Song

8/10

It’s difficult to call something so lo-fi a ‘wall of sound’ but within it’s limited frequency range Im Wald is a relentless storm by the Swiss one man band determined to make a racket. 2 hours in length, it sucks you into its ‘landscape of Winter’ with a sound that ceases to become a load of instruments playing as loudly as possible and seamlessly becomes one mass of emotionally affecting noise. Im Wald is an unforgettable ambient black metal experience, one that screams so loud it cleans your soul.

Song Picks - Uber den Baumen, Stimmen im Wald

8/10

setmyheartonfire — 20. Set My Heart on Fire Immediately

Perfume Genius

Perfume Genius’ fifth album feels both humongous - thanks to the engrossing depth of the production - and intimate - thanks to Hadreas’ wavering, delicate vocals - a combination that at times is so beautiful it somewhat buries the significant substance contained underneath. Set My Heart on Fire Immediately is the musical equivalent of a flowing and captivating interpretive dance.

Song Picks - Whole Life, Nothing at All, Some Dream

8/10

Named after his daughter’s favourite word, Suddenly is the first album to feature Dan Snaith’s vocals on every track. It’s danceable and yet relaxing, and surprisingly introspective. Snaith’s knack for hooks and melody is here in spades, and his vocals add a great intimacy to the songs. The production, as you’d expect, is as smooth as the finest silk.

Song Picks: Sunny’s Time, Home, Like I loved You

8/10

18. Alfredo

Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemis

Freddie Gibbs and the Alchemist combine to create a 35 minute gem packed with bars so quick it’s hard to understand what’s said, but it hardly matters when the flow and rhythm are this good. The production is as slick as an ice-rink, combining with the syrupy smooth raps to create one of the year’s most immediately enjoyable albums.

Song Picks - God is Perfect, 1985, Something to Rap About

8/10

oranssipazuzu — 17. Mestarin Kynsi

Oranssi Pazuzu

The Finnish black-metal band’s fifth album is a dark journey into the belly of a giant orc. Atmospheric, gritty, doomed, and utterly disgusting, it growls with the anger of someone dying a prolonged and pointless death.

Song Pick: Ilmestys

8/10

purplemoonlightpages — 16. Purple Moonlight Pages

R.A.P. Ferreira

Rory Allan Philip Ferreira works with Jefferson Park Boys to create an intricate jazz fuelled hip-hop album. Segal, Carmack and Parvizi’s perfect productions are old-school in their sound, but very much new-school in their alluring complexity. Ferreira’s raps lack the urgency common in the genre, but it’s refreshing to listen to someone behind the beat, someone relaxed, someone not pushing for the mainstream but happy to drift along in a tributary.

Song Picks - LAUNDRY, GREENS, CYCLES, RO TALK

8/10

Swift’s eighth album, and first of two in 2020, is a gentle, constantly catchy, and just rather gorgeous step into storytelling for an artist that has tended to be autobiographical. Lyrically, she’s able to paint with fine brushstrokes, while her pictures are framed by a singular ability to craft endlessly pleasant melodies. A little one note perhaps, but what a lovely note.

Song Picks - Exile, the last great American dynasty, August, this is me trying, epiphany

8/10

Charli XCX’s fourth album, recorded during lockdown, is a serotonin coated glitch wave of pop-gems. Immediately accessible, and yet sparkling with abstract intrigue. A party of a record in a year without parties.

Song Picks - forever, claws, detonate, anthems, c2.0

8.5/10

A Hero's Death — 13. A Hero’s Death

Fontaines D.C.

The fast paced punk of their debut has largely gone, repalced by dreamier, slower and more atmospheric tracks filled out by a massive sounding distorted guitar. Sometimes this humongous sounding production adds a layer of mystery to a beautifully simple song - such as on Oh Such a Spring - other times it makes the whole thing explode through your headphones as in Televised Mind. Catchy and angry, it feels endlessly important.

Song Picks: I Don’t Belong, Oh What a Spring, Televised Mind

8.5/10

The Big Thief lead vocalist and guitarist’s sixth solo album is a record so delicate that it feels like it might crumble under my attempt to describe it, much like a dried leaf will break with the slightest touch. In a year where hugs have been hard to come by, Lenker provides one in the most beautiful musical form, with melodies and acoustic guitar lines as soothing and comforting as a warm fire.

Song Picks: two reverse, anything, half return, dragon eyes

8.5/10

roughnrowdyways — 11. Rough and Rowdy Ways

Bob Dylan

Dylan’s 39th album is probably his best since 1997’s Time Out of Mind. Perfecting the quietly growled vocal he’s had on his last few albums, he weaves lyrics as engaging as any he’s written for some time - and which are the best on any record this year - while backed perfectly by minimalistic and pretty instrumental melodies that never distract the attention from his meticulous poetics. The 17 minute closer, Murder Most Foul, is the year’s best song in my books, and one of the most affecting things Dylan has ever written.

Song Picks - Murder Most Foul, I Contain Multitudes, My Own Version of You, I’ve Made up my Mind to Give Myself to You

8.5/10

Blackis — 10. (Untitled) Black Is

Sault

The mysterious British collective’s third album is their first of two 2020 releases. They don’t interact with the press or on social media, and it’s pretty hard to find out who they are, other than that Inflo produces them. Released a month after George Floyd’s murder, (Untitled) Black Is seems to have been recorded entirely in response. This is music of the resistance, and not the burst of anger Rage Against the Machine variety, but the kind that is always there, simmering beneath the surface. Mixing disco and r&b with the more vintage sounds of blues and soul, all 56 minutes of this album sound timely and yet timeless, classic and yet modern, accessible and yet labyrinthine.

Song Picks: Hard Life, Wildfires, Monsters, Miracles, Pray Up

8.5/10

Run the Jewel’s fourth album is potent mix of raps that flow like gnarled treacle, with lyrics as serrated and sharp as a rambo knife and beats like a bulldozer smashing through a wall (and not the polystyrene type, Boris). A non-stop march of irresistible, infectious anger.

Song Picks - yankee and the brave, ooh lala, holy clamafuck, JU$T, a few words for the firing squad

8.5/10

ewomeninmusicpt3 — 8. Women in Music Pt. III

HAIM

Haim’s third album is another collection of 70s inspired pop gems. The three sisters incorporate new genres, while never losing their characteristic approachable catchiness. Women in Music Pt. III is the kind of album I imagine anyone would like. It’s not at all challenging, but it holds up to deep listens due to its creative production, infectious melodies, and grainy warmth. It’s 2020’s best comfort record.

Song Picks: The Steps, I Know Alone, 3am, I Don’t Wanna

8.5/10

heaventopatorturedmind — 7. Heaven to a Tortured Mind

Yves Tumor

Experimental electronic artist Yves Tumor’s fourth album perfectly mixes the vintage with the modern. It’s concise and yet expansive, soaking up every genre on earth and spitting out the complex mess of what results into surprisingly digestable songs. Heaven to a Tortured mind seems to sparkle in a separate universe, refusing to be defined. Like the superstars of old, Yves Tumor is ploughing his own path, creating a sound completely his own. Quite the achievement in 2020.

Song Picks: Gospel for a New Century, Kerosene

8.5/10

Marling’s other albums, for one reason or another, have always passed me by. Songs for our Daughter however grabbed me immediately. There’s a wonderful depth to her vocals, lyrics and the production. It feels like the album of a woman who’s found herself, and that’s a pretty remarkable thing to listen to. One of the year’s most confident efforts, her delicate vibrato seemingly opening a door right into her soul, which she’s happy to lay out on the floor in one of the best minimalist folk albums for quite some time.

Song Picks - Alexandra, Hold Down, Fortune, For You

8.5/10

Phoebe Bridger’s second album is a journey of melancholoy, delicate, and reverb-drenched beauty. Occasionally exploding to anger from its general sadness, it’s a triumph of affecting and unforgettable songwriting. A musical version of that introspective night you spent alone in the corner of your room on the verge of tears, before waking up the following day with a paralysing numbness to the world.

Song Picks: Garden Song, Kyoto, Halloween, Chinese Satellite, Moon Song, Graceland Too

9/10

The Japanese-British songwriter’s debut sounds like the result of someone throwing nu metal, 2000’s and 90s pop, and a whole host of other genres into a raging cyclone. It opens with quite probably the year’s most cataclysmic pop track, Dynasty, which is followed not long after by the best nu metal track I’ve heard for ages, STFU, with a riff that sounds like a mountain coming to life. Endlessly creative and completely unpredictable, SAWAYAMA is surely the birth of our next pop superstar.

Song Picks: Dynasty, STFU, Paradisin’, Bad Friend

9/10

Fetch the Bolt Cutters is an album of creative confidence, one where Fiona has rarely stopped herself and gone, ‘nah, this sounds like a bad idea,’ but rather followed a song’s path to completion, regardless of how unconventional and odd it might sound to begin with. What results is the rarest of beasts, an album as unique as herself, using music that has come before only as smatterings of influence, while never turning them into a template. Put simply, it’s groundbreaking.

Song Picks: Fetch the Bolt Cutters, Under the Table, Drumset, On I Go

9/10

We needed Melee in 2020. With no live performances since March we needed an album that got pretty close to doing the impossible, bringing the energy of a live show onto a record. Soitsiadis’ vocals are endless body-tensed screams - where it sounds as if his voice could crack on any one, never to work again. Grissom’s lead guitar screeches and flutters like his strings are unable to sit still, and Macinski’s bass marches along as Jacob Hanlon’s drumming flurries and thrashes at breakneck speed like an out of control tornado. In Bolivia, it’s not uncommon to end up driving on what seems like a normal straight road that is actually more than twice as high as the highest mountain peak in the UK, you only notice the marvel of what you’ve just experienced when you get back to sea level and can breathe again. On Melee, there’s so little let-up that this absolute typhoon of energy almost feels normal, until it ends and you return to ‘sea level’ and immediately feel less alive, before impulsively starting the record again, in an addictive need for the energy it provides. In a year where I needed a kick up the arse to break the endless monotony, Dogleg’s debut provided just that, and what a marvel it is.

Song Picks: Kawasaki Backflip, Fox, Headfirst

9.5/10

Elverum returns under his the Microphones moniker for the first time in 17 years in a characteristically experimental effort. A 44 minute song comprised of just two chords, it hums with a delicate beauty. Elverum breezes over lines like “The thing I just realised / For probably the millionth time / That walking with my knees trembling / Is the true state of all things” as if they weren’t bloody gorgeous, setting out his stall and struggle with a mumbled bluntness that’s infinitely refreshing. It breaks the fourth wall in such a way as to make you part of the experience of its creation, and to experience this while listening to the end product puts you into a weird state of timelessness. Then, as your guard drops in this void, you realise someone with Phil Elverum’s platform and success is just as lost as your are, and that you’ll probably both remain just as lost forever, and though you don’t know each other and never will, he feels like your brother. And you sit and stare at the ceiling as the song weaves from that double tracked acoustic guitar to the heavily distorted segments and back out like a boat navigating a sporadic storm, and you realise once again “for probably the millionth time” that you’re just an insignificant piece of sand in a massive universe that doesn’t mean anything, and everything you make will one day be lost, and everything you’ve made will one day be forgotten as if it never existed in the first place. And weirdly this thought makes you smile, because there’s a melancholy freedom in realising “for probably the millionth time” the futility of it all. And you go downstairs and you hug someone in your household. And suddenly their aura feels stronger as you realise, again “for probably the millionth time”, that all that really matters is each other, and that there’s no end, and that sure your search for meaning will never bear fruit, but some fruit will drop from the branches regardless if you just look around once in a while. And then finally, you realise how cheesy that all sounds, but you couldn’t care less. The Microphones in 2020 is 2020’s masterpiece.

9.5/10

1977 - Clive's Top Albums of Every Year Challenge

December 18, 2020 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music

In what will likely be my final post of 2020 (don’t panic, I’ll very much be carrying on with this cahllenge into 2021 and beyond) we’re going to take a look at 1977. The year the nuclear-proliferation pact, curbing the spread of nuclear weapons was signed by 15 countries, Star Wars hit theatres for the first time, and British Public sector trade unions including firefighters undertook a strike for wage increases.

As usual, here’s what rateyourmusic.com’s users rate as the year’s top 5 albums, using their fancy new algorithm which seems to give a little less credence to how many reviews an album has, meaning less reviewed releases have a better chance of coming high up the lists.

#1 Pink Floyd - Animals
#2 David Bowie - Low
#3 Television - Marquee Moon
#4 Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
#5 David Bowie - “Heroes”

So returns from Pink Floyd and Bowie and first time entries from Television and Fleetwood Mac. Bowie achieves the rarest of things by managing to release two albums in one year that make it onto the list. As usual, five just isn’t enough, so I’m grabbing a few from further down to compete for the coveted title for 1977, including a shameless dip quite far down to grab an old favourite.

#6 Trans Europa Express
#7 Fela Kuti - Zombie
#8 Wire - Pink Flag
#11 Bob Marley & the Wailers - Exodus
#12 Brian Eno - Before and After Science
#25 Martha Argerich - 24 Préludes, Op. 28
#85 Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols

Plenty of artists we’ve not had before there, so let’s get these 12 albums reviewed and see who comes out the victor. I know I’ve said this a few times already, but this is absolutely a contender for one of the strongest years we’ve had yet.

Trans-europaexpress — 12. Trans Europa Express

Kraftwerk

Kraftwerk’s sixth album ‘saw the group refine their melodic electronic style, with a focus on sequenced rhythms, minimalism, and occasionally manipulated vocals. The themes include celebrations of the titular European railway service and Europe as a whole, and meditations on the disparities between reality and appearance.’ (Wikipedia). Their Previous album, Radio-Activity, had been their first entirely electronic one, moving away from their earlier krautrock style. Trans-Europa Express is regularly seen as a massively influential album on modern music, and was in fact called ‘the most important pop album of the last 40 years’ by the LA times.

Europa Endloss (Europe Endless in English) is a simple, dreamy song about the band travelling across Europe by train. It’s lyrics are simple and repetitive just like the electronic musical backing. The electronic percussion and synths lull you into a beautiful and yet musically primitive sleep. The simplicity of many of the arrangements was likely born out of how early this was in the development of electronic music, but it is also part of the album’s charm, lending it a slightly post-apocalypitc and industrial feel that is only added to by haunting vocals on songs such as Spiegelsall (Hall of Mirrors in English). “Even the biggest stars, don’t like themselves in the mirror” the vocals say in German repeatedly, with a reverb large enough to make it sound like an observation from god.

The songs on Trans- Europa express tend to hinge on a repeated vocal line and simple synth melody and drum beat. The title track is a great example. ‘Trans-Europa Express’ is repeated regularly through some sort of Vocoder to turn the vocals to mercury, and the skittering electronic drum beat is repeated throughout the six and a half minute track, while the synths fill the gaps with large, almost organ-like chords. It’s another strangely haunting piece, like an abandoned factory with the machinery left on. The beginnings of many electronic genres are here, and the influence Kraftwerk had is undisputable. The record has certainly aged, and its sounds are particularly primitive when compared to all the fancy stuff we can do now with electronic music. But it has aged gracefully, thanks to the musicality and atmosphere at its core, and it’s simplicity really is rather beautiful.

Song Picks: Europa Endloss, Spiegelsaal, Franz Schubert, Endloss

8/10

Chopin’s 24 Preludes, Op.28 were first published 1839, and contained 24 short piano pieces, one in each major and minor key. A Polish virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era, Chopin apparently never performed more than 4 of the 24 pieces in a single performance, and there is still debate as to whether they were intended to be played in order, or indeed written as 24 separate pieces to use as possible introductions to other works, as Preludes generally were. The fact that Chopin ordered the songs using the circle of fifths rather than simply moving up the keys in semitones suggests to me that he had thought about the ordering a little too much for the pieces to be designed for consuming independently however. The 24 Preludes, Op.28 have been recorded and performed by a whole heap of pianists, but it’s Martha Argerich’s version, released in 1977 that makes it onto these lists.

Martha Argerich is an Argentine-Swiss concert pianist, and widely regarded as one of the greatest pianists of all time. Born in 1941 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she began playing the piano aged 3, eventually moving to Europe in 1955 and later gaining Swiss citizenship. Despite her incredible talent and rather impressive list of accolades (see her Wikipedia page here), Argerich has generally shied away from the spotlight, which would explain why this is the first I’ve heard of her.

Argerich’s performance here is masterful. Though I can’t claim to have heard these pieces played by anyone else, it’s hard to imagine them being performed more beautifully than they are here. Argerich can put dizzyingly fast lines together in a way that still feels very human, while making them sound just as effortless as the slower pieces. Those slower pieces have a delicate wonder to them, like the notes from some sunken ship resurfacing as bubbles on the ocean’s surface. There’s a whole world to get lost in here, and Argerich’s mastery of the instrument coupled with Chopin’s gorgeous compositions has absolutely become one of the piano albums I’ll point people to when they ask for my favourites, sitting proudly alongside with Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert.

8.5/10

Fela Kuti’s second album to make it onto these lists caused quite a stir. Hugely popular in his home country of Nigeria, the record angered the government there, which it criticised heavily. It angered them so much that they attacked his commune, murdering his mother by throwing her out of a window, severely beating Fela Kuti, burning the entire commune and destroying his studio and master tapes. Though the re-issue added an additional two tracks, I’ll be reviewing the original 25 minute 1977 release here, which featured just two tracks.

The album opens with the title track, a scathing attack on the Nigerian military, describing them all as zombies who just follow orders without thinking, “Zombie no go think, unless you tell am to think”. The sound is similar to the one on Expensive Shit, but perhaps larger. We’ve got a whole host of driving percussion, a scatty strummed electric guitar, and the two talking saxophones that form the centrepiece of Kuti’s afrobeat sound. Once Kuti starts chanting his political lyrics, it’s not hard to see why he had such a big impact in his home country. The music draws you in with its infinite danceability, and soon has you chanting its simple and yet astute political message along with him.

The second and final track Mr Follow Follow has a similar message, “Some dey follow follow, dem close dem eye”, but is a little calmer in it’s instrumentation, with the bass, guitar and saxes laying down an irresistibly smooth groove like the light-hearted march of a cartoon army. Fela preaches about how everyone follows instructions without questioning them by closing their ears, eyes and ‘sense’. A master of setting a theme or mood before introducing any lyrics, it takes Kuti around 7 minutes to start singing here again, and by the time he does, you’re so entranced by the groove that you’ll agree to anything he says, thankfully his message is one that we could all do with hearing.

Zombie is musically and thematically cohesive, an album that is incredibly enjoyable in itself, but which becomes even more remarkable when you know the context of its recording. It’s difficult to imagine how Kuti feels about the album that inadvertently led to the death of his own mother, but to me, this is a perfect example of the power of music to unite, to spread a message by both being accessible and revolutionary.

Song Picks: Zombie, Mr Follow Follow

8.5/10

The English band’s debut album was received well critically, but didn’t sell well. Widely seen as one of the most influential albums of the 70s, its footprints can be seen on many hardcore, punk and alternative albums since. The record features 21 songs over its 35 minute duration, focusing on short, punchy songs that get to the point quickly and never outstay their welcome.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned a lot of times how big a fan of Guided by Voices I am, I’ve always loved their immediacy, how their songs seem to be captured at the point of inspiration, rather than when they’ve been thought out endlessly in the studio, and there’s something attractively raw about that to me. Pink Flag gives me the same vibes. Many of these songs could quite easily have been turned into 3 minute radio hits, but they’d have lost something. There’s a real magic to the rawness here.

With so many songs to talk about, it’d be folly to try and cover them all, so I’ll just talk about some of my highlights. Here goes. Ex Lion Tamer seems to have single-handedly invented Brit-pop, well before that genre was to dominate the charts. The chorus is as catchy as a song about sitting in front of your TV waiting for things to change could be, an anthem for the procrastinator. Lowdown is a great example of how great Colin Newman’s vocals sound when he throws caution to the wind, while Brazil’s guitar sound is so filthy you feel as if you’re being dragged backwards through a rubbish dump. So Obvious features the kind of major chord riff that could have easily been turned into a rock classic, but was instead seemingly played into a washing machine for 50 seconds, recorded, and then left there. Surgeon’s Girl features the lines “Said you weren't a tuna fish, put in a tin / They're very big, ha-ha” while Straight Line includes another fabulous riff that gets played for 44 glorious seconds and is then cut short. Mr Suit is the perfect anti-establishment punk song, something it achieves in only 1:25 seconds with a chorus that says ‘fuck the system’ like no other, “no, no, no, no Mr Suit”. On the grungy Strange, the band decide to play for a whole 4 minutes, with a riff so fuzzy and brilliant that you feel like you’ve just stuck your head straight into the world’s warmest tube amp. The lyrics are simple but performed by Newman in a way that makes them bounce against the guitar riff gloriously. The album’s final two track end things in a blaze of glory, Gimme Love is so drawled you can barely understand what’s being said and 1 2 X U is the ultimate bounce around punk song, but with drums that sound so thin it’s like they’re being played on a load of plastic cups, and guitars that are so loud they’ve gone full circle and ended up quiet again. Chaos.

In a genre that often gets repetitive, Pink Flag is an outstanding album that’s unpredictable, inspired, has the attention span of a gnat, and is completely brilliant.

Song Picks: Strange, Ex Lion Tamer, Lowdown, So Obvious, Gimme Lov

9/10

Beforeandafterscience — 8. Before and after Science

Brian Eno

It’s been quite the decade for Brian Eno, both in terms of his own albums and his contributions to those of others, and his fifth release is another remarkable one. As usual, a whole host of musicians collaborated with Eno on the album’s material, and the it also includes Eno’s final examples of rock music, before he was to head in a more ambient direction. Notably, over 100 songs were written for the album with only 10 making the cut.

Once again, Eno’s lyrics are more about a mood than meaning, which is clear on the opening No One Receiving, where they paint a bleak, industrial picture perfectly backed by the machine-like and yet gently funky backing of the plethora of percussion driven along by the song’s ever-present guitar riff. It’s another perfect example of Eno’ ability to create a world very much his own, something that he was to excel at in his later solo ambient recordings. Backwater displays Eno’s perhaps underrated ability for simple and infectious melody, sounding like Eno’s interpretation of a light hearted sailor’s song. Once again the synths and instrumental create a musical palette that’s both unique and infinitely interesting. Eno’s emphasis on the sound of words rather than their meaning is further explored on the enigmatic Kurt’s Rejoinder, inspired Kurt Schwitters, a prominent figure in the dada movement, which you can read more about here. We see Eno’s ambient work begin to creep in on the eerie and beautiful Energy Folls the Magician and the opening side ends with King’s Lead Hat, a song inspired by the Talking Heads, who Eno would go on to produce multiple albums of, and who’s name the title of the song is an anagram of. For me, it’s one of the album’s highlights, with it’s bopping bass line and drums, topped with an irresistibly catchy melody performed in Eno’s characteristic style. It’s a track that screams ‘fun’, and fills me with joy whenever it comes on.

Side two takes a more introspective turn, with Here He Comes setting the tone nicely with its slightly withdrawn and mumbled vocal backed by some gorgeous lead guitar work. It’s a late night drive kind of a song, sparkling gently like the stars as you exit the air pollution of the city. The gorgeous, twinkling guitar work continues on Julie With… and the gentle night-time ride continues until the album’s end with Spider and I, a song that makes you feel like you’re floating into the most beautiful cosmos, with nothing but your best friend in company.

Before and After Science is very much an album of two halves. The first half perhaps more perfectly encapsulating what Eno had been trying to do with rock music than any of his previous work, and the second half beautifully slides us into his more ambient catalogue. It’s a perfectly documented turning point.

Song Picks: No One Receiving, King’s Lead Hat, Here He Comes, Spider and I

9/10

Bowie’s twelfth album and second of 1977 continues in similar vein to Low, which we’ll get to later in this list. The middle album of Bowie’s ‘Berlin Trilogy’, Heroes was the only one actually recorded in Berlin. Bowie rejoined Tony Visconti and Brian Eno, who he’d worked with on Low, and much of the other personnel remained the same, with the notable addition of Robert Fripp on guitar. The majority of the tracks were recorded spontaneously in the studio and, perhaps most remarkably, Bowie had no lyrics written before he started recording. It continues the theme of having the opening side dedicated to to more conventional songs, with the second side being given over to predominantly instrumental tracks. It was commercially successful, and the most well received of Bowie’s ‘Berlin Trilogy’ initially, though Low is now largely seen as his masterpiece.

The album comes storming out the gates with that familiar insdustrial sound on Bowie recordings since Station to Station, including the brutal machine-like drum sound, which pounds along as the rest of the musicians bounce energetically and Bowie’s lyrics remain largely impenetrable. It combines haunting and dancy in a way that only Bowie can. On the following track Joe the Lion, a tribute to Chris Burden, Fripp’s influence becomes obvious, his riff is another corker, making this one of Bowie’s best rock songs in my books. Fripp effortlessly switches between riffs and solos as Bowie’s howls create another cataclysmic song to lead us into the more gentle Heroes. There are songs that become so famous that they become very much their own thing, and can sometimes stick out when listening to an album purely because of how much more familiar you are with them than the rest of the record. Heroes could easily be such a song, and yet it fits in seamlessly, yes I’ve heard it 3000 times more than any of the other songs here, but this very much feels like the song’s home. Fripp’s guitarwork is yet again what raises the piece from great to amazing, adding in endless depth and texture to a song that could easily have become boring with its simplicity. Bowie’s vocal performance is singular, metallic, and brilliantly unrestrained, getting more shouty as the song progresses, and as Visconti moved the mic further and further away from Bowie. The song tells of a doomed relationship, enjoying it “just for one day” inspired by an affair that producer Tony Visconti was having at the time. Sons of the Silent Age is essentially about ‘average Joes’ living lives that Bowie clearly thinks are rather boring. The first side closes with Blackout, a return to the dancy, industrial sound of the opening track.

The largely instrumental second side is dominated by the three tracks that flow into each other at its core, Sense of Doubt, Moss Garden and Neuköln, the former has a similar dark, haunting and desolate atmosphere to the instrumental tracks on Low, perhaps with some added menace, while Moss Garden is beautifully relaxing, apparently written to recreate the feeling of sitting in some moss gardens in Japan. It makes me want to go and do that immediately. Neuköln brings us back to a slightly darker mood, and features Bowie on saxophone before we finish with Secret Life of Arabia, a warm disco inspired tune, topped with a dusky vocal.

I find Heroes quite hard to separate from Low, and I give the edge to Low purely because it was more groundbreaking, while Heroes was very much a continuation of what Low had started. I think Heroes does everything just as well, there’s just a little less of that intangible magic there that I can’t explain. It may simply be because I listened to Low first.

Song Picks: Beauty and the Beast, Joe the Lion, Heroes, Moss Garden

9/10

Marqueemoon — 6. Marquee Moon

Television

Television’s debut landed to widespread critical acclaim. The band had grown in prominence following their residence at the Lower Manhattan Club and Brian Eno, who seems to have his fingerprints on so much music of the 1970s, produced the band’s first four demos in 1974. The band were eventually signed to Elektra Records, who released their debut.

I’ve mentioned a few times now how one of my favourite things about this listening challenge is discovering an album that seems to invent a genre out of nowhere, this is especially remarkable when that genre is one that played such a big part in my own youth, the 2000s indie-rock revolution of The Libertines, The Strokes et al. Marquee Moon, to me, is the birth of that movement, as well as so many more closer to its date of release.

The album opens with See No Evil, a song propelled by a snake-like guitar riff in one channel accompanied by a basic off-beat chord riff in the other channel. This is all backed by some great jazz inspired, and yet straight, drumming and a vocal that cuts right through the mix with a high frequency, nasal quality that forces you to pay attention to the lyrics. Lyrics that, in this case, are about knowing one is being controlled by desires, and yet seeing the beauty in those desires. It’s the perfect indie-rock song, catapulting the album onto the scene with a number that’s both accessible and revolutionary.

Televison stand apart from other acts of the period for their mix of genres. There’s elements of punk rock, particularly in Tom Verlaine’s deliberately unrestrained vocal, of jazz in Billy Ficca’s intricate drumming, and of a combination of rock and jazz in the guitars, which use more interesting chords in one song than Status Quo probably did in their entire career. It’s a remarkable meld of musicality that’s progressive not for the sake of being progressive but because the sound created is so damn enjoyable. There’s a breeziness to it, an irresistible energetic Sunday morning feeling, a feeling that all is right with the world while music like this is being created.

The album is full of great moments. Among them the great off-kilter guitar work on Friction, which gives Mac DeMarco a run for his money - indeed the competing guitar solos throughout the song belong to the album’s many highlights. The great title track is another one, an 11 minute jam which was apparently the first take, and the engineer initially thought was a rehearsal, testament to just how well well these musicians gel, it sounds perfect. A perfect mix of instrumental intrigue, interspersed vocals, and lyrics that keep you engaged. Not least the majestic closing couplet:

I was listening
Listening to the rain
I was hearing
Hearing something else

By the time you reach the closing track Torn Curtain, which contains perhaps the album’s most affecting chorus and a cracking guitar solo by Tom Verlaine, you’re left feeling like you’ve been blessed by something completely fresh sounding, a refreshing musical shower under a mountain waterfall.

Song Picks: See No Evil, Marquee Moon, Torn Curtain

9/10

5. Never Mind the Bollocks Here’s the Sex Pistols

The Sex Pistols

The band had already been banned from playing in various parts of Britain and fired from two record labels by the time their only album was released by Virgin Records, and the controversy didn’t end there. The title meant many stores refused to stock it and some charts refused to display its name. Regardless, and probably because of this, it debuted at number 1 on the UK album charts. If you were to somehow measure which albums have influenced the most music since their release, I suspect Never Mind the Bollocks… would end up near the top. Sure we’d had punk before, notably with Ramones in 1976, but it had never been this chaotic, this free, this simple and giving this few fucks.

The album opens with Holidays in the Sun which explodes into motion following the marching bass drum and an explosive riff from Steve Jones on guitar (he also plays bass on most of the album). It’s important to note that the Sex Pistols achieved their sound not by using some sort of amp designed for distortion, oh no, they turned up the gain and volume so high on a predominantly clean amp so that it lead to the distorted racket they’re famous for today. Rotten’s lead vocals are pretty much the birth of the kind of half-sung half-shouted, theatrical vocal that became common on the punk scene after this album was released. It’s sneering, loud, bursting with a cocky attitude, and just generally bloody fabulous. The song also shows their often underrated ability to come up with a catchy hook.

Bodies, the only song to feature Sid Vicious, has a chorus that is so jubilantly cathartic it juxtaposes with the fact the song tackles abortion in such a head on and unflinching way that it appalled many people at the time. It’s probably the heaviest, most gut punching song on the record.

God Save the Queen is obviously monstrous too. Rotten shouting “God Save the Queen - fascist regime!!” and sarcastically belting out “we love our queen!” is quite probably the single most influential punk song of all time, along with the equally boisterous Anarchy UK later on, which a generation of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 fans (me included) have seared into their brains. It’s these two songs which perhaps influence in a foundational way, 50% of my own music. The Sex Pistols taught me to shout my head off, to make my thoughts heard, and to not care whatever anyone else thought. The Sex Pistols taught me freedom

Never Mind the Bollocks… says “We’re the Sex Pistols, and this is what we sound like. Deal with it.” and it’s the best statement of individuality, not caring what anyone thinks, and freedom that there’s probably ever been.

Holidays in the Sun, Bodies, God Save the Queen, Anarchy UK

9.5/10

Bowie’s 11th album is the first of his so called ‘Berlin Trilogy’. A trio of albums produced by Tony Visconti on which Bowie collaborated with Brian Eno. Though recorded after Bowie’s move to West Berlin following the drug addiction that had been apparent throughout the recording of his previous album, the album was actually mostly recorded in France. Low divided critics on release, and received little promotion. Nowadays though, it’s pretty hard to find any greatest album of all time list without Low near the top.

The album delves further into the electronic approach toyed with on Station to Station and is also probably Bowie’s least vocal album, with it’s entire second side featuring instrumentals, and the opening side featuring songs that don’t have much singing either.

Speed of Life bursts into an infectious guitar riff backed by synths and a distinctive punchy drum sound achieved by Visconti using a Eventide H910 harmoniser. It’s a relatively simple electronic track that puts Bowie’s knack for catchy melodies perfectly into an electronic context. Carlos Alomar’s serpentine lead guitar opens up Breaking Glass, on which we have our first Bowie vocal, which sparsely calls to the listener in three short verses over the top of a buzzing bass line, more gated drums, and the aforementioned guitar part that very much makes the song. It’s only on Sound and Vision that we reach our first Bowie ‘hit’. One of my very favourite Bowie songs, it’s once again lifted by a brilliant lead guitar part, this time by Ricky Gardiner, in what has to be one of the simplest and catchiest riffs ever written. Bowie’s vocals speak of an isolation in his blue house, or as Bowie puts it, “I was going through dreadful times. It was wanting to be put in a little cold room with omnipotent blue on the walls and blinds on the windows.” Bowie duets with himself, one version singing in his characteristic melodic tone, the other mumbling with a vocal that has been saturated so much it sounds like your own conscience. It’s a masterpiece of infectious mystery, and perhaps the closest song to what we had on Station to Station.

Always Crashing in the Same Car is a humble song about always making the same mistakes and never learning from them. The vocal performance is a resigned mumble, the guitars a fatalistic hum, and the synths try to break through the wall of sound like a sparkle of that good habit you should probably start cultivating. Be My Wife, the album’s second single is thought to be a final plea to his wife at the time to save their crumbling marriage, they divorced in 1980. It’s a classic, catchy Bowie number that’s followed expertly by first side’s closing track, A Career in a New Town. A song that contains some of the most heartbreaking harmonica ever cut to tape, like a cry for help from someone curled up on the floor.

As mentioned earlier, the album’s second side features purely instrumentals which open with the haunting, chilling Warszawa, a song that brings to mind a post-apocalytpic hell-scape of a city with empty houses, broken windows, crumbling walls, and faded dreams. Art Decade and Weeping Wall create similarly cold atmospheres. The latter hinting at some warmth with a percussive xylophone part that has a lovely intimacy to it. The synth melodies, however, are crushing. We finish with the masterpiece Subterraneans, its layers of synths like ages of man lost to the wind, which closes out a side of music that is as transcendental as anything I’ve heard in this challenge so far. We’ve already learnt that Brian Eno and David Bowie both made some of the best music of the 70s, but here they combine to create something untouchable, a desolate landscape of destroyed beauty, from which a flowering phoenix rises. Astounding.

Song Picks: Sound & Vision, Speed of Life, Subterraneans, A New Career in a New Town,

9.5/10

The band’s 11th studio album was famously recorded during a tough time for the band members’ personal lives. To summarise the atmosphere in which it was recorded, Christine (keyboard player and vocalist) and John McVie (bass guitarist) had divorced having been together for eight years and were strictly not talking to each other except for matters of music. Vocalists Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham were in a rather intense on/off relationship that led to lots of heated arguments and drummer Mick Fleetwood had just discovered that his wife and mother of his two children - who was not in the band - had had an affair with his best friend. Essentially, Rumours is the work of a band not really getting on, but making it work for the sake of getting some music out.

Anyway, onto the music, which is glorious. Second Hand News opens the album and very much sets the tone, you’d be forgiven for thinking the song is a happy one based on the sing-along melody and marching bass and drums. However, listen in to the lyrics and it’s clear that this is about a breakup between Nicks and Cunningham, who seems to be singing their thoughts at each other, and it’s that tension which makes this song, and the whole album, so great. Dreams was written by Nicks in a room built for Sly Stone while some more technical things were being done to the album - mixing I presume. Apparently she entered the studio and said “I’ve just written the most amazing song”. That song was Dreams, a perfect breakup song to Buckingham. The acoustic Never Coming Back Again is Buckingham’s response, where his vocals soar beautifully over the picked guitar that is so clear it sounds like it’s being plucked by diamonds. Don’t Stop moves onto the McVie’s divorce, written by Christine McVie and sung by her and Buckingham. It’s a song about moving on, plodding on intently with a straightforward bouncing bass and drum part which the other instruments embelish perfectly. It’s another fabulous pop song before we arrive at the most perfect of pop songs, Go Your Own Way, which, though infinitely overplayed, retains its initial magic when listened in the context of the album. The first side is closed by Songbird, a song that is a completely timeless, beautifully performed, and delicate meditation on love. Has there ever been a more perfect chorus than:

And the songbirds keep singing
Like they know the score
And I love you, I love you, I love you
Like never before

I think not.

I’m finding it rather difficult to not continually use the word perfect in this review, but I’m going to have to use it again here. The Chain perfectly opens the second side with an opening acoustic guitar part as recognisable as anything ever recorded. The song is once again a melodic masterpiece, and the famous finale has to be one of my very favourites featuring a guitar solo that threatens to escape the realm of sound and turn into some swirling snake, I just wish it wasn’t faded out so quickly. I’ll stop gushing now, but the final four tracks of the album, though perhaps less iconic, are still generally pop gems, though I’ve never enjoyed Oh Daddy as much as the rest.

Rumours is an album that I’ve always liked, but never loved, perhaps because all my experiences of it were of other people playing it to me and telling me I had to love it. It often takes listening to an album by myself for me to fully feel it, and that was the case here. I can confirm I’ve been completely wrong to not to absolutely adore it up to now, Rumours is probably the most perfect pop record ever recorded, certainly up to this point in the challenge. Out of endless tension within the band flowered the most brilliant, affecting, and just downright enjoyable record.

Song Picks: Songbird, Second Hand News, The Chain, Never Going Back Again

9.5/10

Exodus is Bob Marley’s ninth album, and was recorded in London after he was exiled from Jamaica following an assassination attempt on him there. Often seen as Bob’s masterpiece, it’s the album that features most heavily on Legend, the Bob Marley greatest hits collection released in 1984. Bunny Wailer and Pete Tosh had left by this point, so this has more of a solo Bob Marley feel to it, though he continued to use the Wailers name on his records. Time magazine named Exodus the best album of the 20th century.

It opens with Natural Mystic where we hear Marley’s reggae stabs and Carlton Barrett’s bass walk fade in gently. It’s a groove that cuts right to your soul, very much like the ‘natural mystic' Marley sings about. There’s a touching tiredness to Marley’s vocal, and his ability to weave a catchy melody and sing it beautifully is as good as ever. So Much Things to Say gets characteristically political, and while referring to specific events it’s essentially about his tiredness of those in power with ‘so much to say,’ while they remain ignorant to what matters. Guiltiness talks of those same people, this time focusing on how many they’ve stood on to get to the top, and how they will one day get their comeuppance, “Woe to the downpressors / They will eat the bread of sorrow”. Marley’s backing singers add a wonderful depth to the melodies on the track, which are once again gorgeous and impossible to resist.

Exodus, one of Marley’s most famous compositions, closes out the political first side of the album, and is one of the most remarkable pieces of music ever recorded. Over seven and a half minutes of music are built over only one chord, with a perfect sense of the march of millions symbolised by the walking bass lines, swirling guitar parts and the odd stab of brass. It’s the march from slavery to freedom of an entire people in musical format, and it’s glorious.

Side two gets much less political and opens with Jammin’, a song which is essentially about having a good time, and the gorgeous Waitin’ In Vain, a personal Bob favourite, which is about waiting for love while not knowing if it’ll work out. The Wailers create a sumptuous bed of music, with Junior Marvin’s warm guitar playing feeling like a hug as Marley spins a web of melodies. I’ve gone on and on about Marley’s vocal ability in a previous review, but it’s particularly evident on this song, where he often provides his own backing vocals, and everything just sounds perfect. Turn Your Lights Down Low is Bob’s Sexual Healing and the album’s two closing tracks Three Little Birds and One Love/People Get Ready are perhaps his most famous of all. The former preaches positivity in the face of adversity and is bursting with so much sunshine it’s a wonder it doesn’t burn to ashes every device that plays it. The latter is another masterpiece preaching togetherness, ‘Let’s get together and feel alright’. As that chorus fills your head, you’re left wondering why something so simple is so difficult.

Exodus is Bob’s mainstream masterpiece, the pinnacle of both his political songwriting as well as his songs of love and acceptance. It shines and preaches in equal measure, and it fills your very soul with an unparalleled humanity.

Song Picks: Waitin’ In Vain, Three Little Birds, One Love/People Get Ready

10/10

Pink Floyd’s tenth album focuses on the socio-political conditions in the UK in the 1970s and continues their liking for long songs, with only 5 of them over its 41 minute duration. The band released no singles from the album, but it was commercially and critically well received. Very much a concept album, the concept is best described by the album’s Wikipedia page:

Loosely based on George Orwell's political fable Animal Farm, the album's lyrics describe various classes in society as different kinds of animals: the predatory dogs, the despotic ruthless pigs, and the "mindless and unquestioning herd" of sheep. Whereas the novella focuses on Stalinism, the album is a critique of capitalism and differs again in that the sheep eventually rise up to overpower the dogs. The album was developed from a collection of unrelated songs into a concept which, in the words of author Glenn Povey, "described the apparent social and moral decay of society, likening the human condition to that of mere animals".

The album is bookended by two short pieces, Pigs on the Wing part 1 and 2, love songs written by Roger Waters for his wife at the time. They’re simple acoustic compositions, with the same melodies and pretty lyrics. They provide a certain contrast to the 3 longer, denser songs that make up the meat of the album.

The first of those longer songs is Dogs, a 17 minute masterpiece about the trying to find your place in world that is essentially ‘dog eat dog’, where those dogs are businessmen, perhaps most darkly summed up by David Gilmour in the second verse:

You gotta keep one eye looking over your shoulder
You know, it's going to get harder, and harder, and harder
As you get older
Yeah, and in the end you'll pack up and fly down south
Hide your head in the sand
Just another sad old man
All alone and dying of cancer

Featuring numerous instrumental breaks that get darker as the song goes on, the piece is also yet another testament to David Gilmour’s majestic guitar playing. His first solo on the song is quite unforgettable. Roger Waters’ final verse couldn’t be more perfect, performed with a detached anger:

Who was born in a house full of pain
Who was trained not to spit in the fan
Who was told what to do by the man
Who was broken by trained personnel
Who was fitted with collar and chain
Who was given a pat on the back
Who was breaking away from the pack
Who was only a stranger at home
Who was ground down in the end
Who was found dead on the phone
Who was dragged down by the stone
Who was dragged down by the stone

Having critiqued capitalism, Pink Floyd moves onto politics in Pigs (Three Different Ones), which tells the story of people caring more about holding onto power than helping those they are there to serve. The catchy repeated line of ‘haha, charade you are’ is endlessly powerful, laughing in their faces as a picture of greed, gluttony and corruption is built up over a soundtrack that includes a whole host of pig noises clearly meant to represent the waffle these frauds are coming out with. It’s a powerful, angry and atmospheric piece of music that crushes the political façade like a giant tank dressed in a clown costume.

Finally, introduced by some gorgeous electric piano and a rumbling, approaching bass line, we enter the last of the epics, Sheep, a song about those that blindly follow commands without question:

What do you get for pretending the danger’s not real.
Meek and obedient you follow the leader
Down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel.

Sheep packs a punch, finishing this pessimistic look at society with a perfect crescendo of guitars and drums that echo off into the distance, replacing the dark synths that dominated the song earlier, before we enter the aforementioned dreamy Pigs on the Wing (Part II)

Animals is a pretty spectacular look at the dark parts of the society and systems we have built. which is just as relevant today as it was in 1977. It broods, preaches and dazzles in equal measure, and it might just be my favourite Pink Floyd album.

Song Picks: All of them

10/10

1968 - Clive's Top 5 Albums of Every Year Challenge

July 03, 2020 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge

Over what will likely be the next few years I’m going to be ranking and reviewing the top 5 albums according to users on rateyourmusic.com (think IMDB for music) from every year from 1960 to the present. If you want to know more, I wrote an introduction to the ‘challenge’ here. You can also read all the other entries I’ve written so far by heading to the lovely index page here.

So we’ve made it to the penultimate year of the 60s, and if I continue this relentless pace of posting one every two weeks I should be finished some time in August 2022. Realistically though, I won’t be able to, and it won’t be finished until some time after that. Anyway, 1968, here’s some of the year’s most famous events: Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, Tommie Smith and John Carlos performed the Black power salute in silent protest at the Mexico Olympics, Apollo 8 became the first spacecraft to orbit the moon and Boeing introduced the first 747 ‘Jumbo Jet’.

Musically, these were the top 5 albums released according to rateyourmusic.com’s users:

#1 The Beatles - The Beatles (The White Album)
#2 The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland
#3 The Velvet Underground - White Light/White Heat
#4 The Zombies - Odessey and Oracle
#5 Van Morrison - Astral Weeks

So, we’ve seen the top three before on these lists but we’ve got a couple of newbies to the challenge bolstering up the top 5. Because I’m a masochist and like to give myself work, I’ve also spotted these 5 albums from further down the list which look intriguing:

#6 The Kinks - The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society
#7 The Rolling Stones - Beggars Banquet
#9 Aretha Franklin - Lady Soul
#11 Pink Floyd - A Saucerful of Secrets
#13 Simon & Garfunkel - Bookends

And well would you look at that? We’ve got ten albums to get through again. It’s as if I like nice round numbers isn’t it? Let’s get cracking, here’s my ranking and thoughts on the above.

odessey and oracle.jpg — 10. Odessey and Oracle

The Zombies

The Zombies’ second album, Odyssey and Oracle, wasn’t much of a success initially (and the band split up pretty soon after its release because of this) but has gained acclaim as the years have gone on. Partially recorded at Abbey Road Studios, their music bears a significant resemblance to that of Abbey Road’s most famous artists, the Beatles. There’s also more than a hint of the Beach Boys in their harmonies.

It’s easy to see how this album has gained so much acclaim, although a little puzzling as to why it didn’t initially. Odeyssey and Oracle is full of wonderfully catchy songs featuring varied instrumentation, slick production and harmonies that engulf you like a warm bath. The psychedelic nature of the album only ever serves to keep things interesting, and never leads the whole thing off the rails. The lyrics are surprisingly dark at times, something which is cleverly hidden by the comforting melodies that contain them.

Odyssey and Oracle is one of those albums you’ll swear you’ve heard before, it’s timelessly well written songs jogging memories that don’t exist, reminding you of unexplained gaps in your memory of things that should have happened, but didn’t. How could a song be this good and yet have had so little airplay? How come this hasn’t been part of my life sooner? I don’t have the answer to these questions, but I do know your musical life is about to improve should you allow this pop gem to enter it.

Song Picks: Care of Cell 44, Maybe After He’s Gone, Beechwood Park, Changes

8/10

LadySoul — 9. Lady Soul

Aretha Franklin

Aretha’s twelfth album is another vocal delight. Now, I spent most of my review of 1967’s I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You raving about Aretha’s amazing vocals, so I’ll spare you the superlatives here. Let’s just say her voice is as timeless and demanding of attention as ever, there doesn’t see to be a note in existence she can’t hit the bullseye on, and although she can get a little warbly for my tastes, it’s never completely gratuitous.

Again, Aretha’s original compositions sit effortlessly beside covers of classics such as People Get Ready and Money Won’t Change You. (You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman was written for, rather than by, Aretha Franklin, but it’s hard to imagine anyone else doing the song justice. The bombastic way she sings ‘You make me feeeeeel’ multiple ways before soulfully pouring out ‘like a natural woman’ is one of those great moments of recorded musical history where you can’t help but stop in your tracks and listen.

I’d say this is a stronger album than I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You purely because the band adds a little more, the opening track Chain of Fools is testament to this. An infectious bass and drum groove and some funktacular guitar work complement Aretha’s vocals perfectly, creating my favourite song on the album.

Song Picks: Chain of Fools, (You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman

8/10

VillageGreen — 8. The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society

The Kinks

Well, that’s probably the longest album name we’ve had on the challenge so far. I’m going to give the album a short review as revenge, take that. This is the Kinks’ sixth studio album and their final one featuring all the original members as the bassist left following this album.

The album is sometimes referred to as a concept album about English life, in fact music-critic Stephen Erlewine described it as a ‘concept album lamenting the passing of old-fashioned English traditions.’ The reality however is that Ray Davies, the group’s lead singer and songwriter, did not compose the songs to fit a preset idea or concept. It just happened to be that he was scribbling a lot about these themes in the preceding two years when the album’s material was written.

Let’s cut to the chase, I love this thing. It’s such a merry affair and feels like sitting outside on a fine summer’s day, beer in hand, chilling. Sitting by the Riverside sums the whole album up perfectly with the line ‘Sitting there just drinking wine and looking at the view’.

Oh, and it has a song on it called The Phenomenal Cat, which has to be a contender for the greatest song title of all time. It also starts with the flute and features a prominent tambourine as Davies sings about this phenomenal cat, has there ever been a breezier song? It’s all filled with a cheerful creativity that nicely shows what this album is all about.

A jolly collection of simple, unassuming songs about day-to-day life that have production and instrumentation varied enough to keep it engaging throughout. I’ve talked before about how hard it is to create a genuinely happy album without it being cheesy, and the Kinks have absolutely nailed it here. Put this on, and even if it’s rainy and wet outside, it’ll feel like the sun’s come out. Magic.

Song picks: Last of the Steam-Powered Trains, Picture Book, Starstruck, All of my Friends Were There

8/10

BeggarsBanquet — 7. Beggars Banquet

The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones’ last album before Brian Jones was kicked out the band later drowned in his swimming pool following struggles with drug addiction, Beggars Banquet sees the band getting more instrumental experimental and is a notable step up from their previous work for me.

Sympathy for the Devil features brilliant syncopated drum patterns spread across the stereo field that create a really unique drum fuelled, energetic atmosphere, which the piano and Jagger’s strained vocals perfectly complement. It’s one of those rare moments in music where everything just clicks, and is both really inventive and catchy at the same time. Factory Girl features a similarly innovative use of percussion.

Street Fighting Man, a song about riots, is a good example of Mick Jagger’s fierce and growling vocal throughout this album. A song recorded mainly on acoustic instruments (unusual for such a ‘heavy’ song), it has a really unique sense of space to it. Dear Doctor displays Mick Jagger’s often underrated ability to howl out a tune, bang in tune, and Salt of the Earth finishes the album with a heartfelt celebration of the working-class.

Beggars Banquet sees The Rolling Stones really hitting form. The songwriting has got more interesting and consistent, and the production is both cleaner and more full of ideas. It’s an album that’s a real pleasure to listen to, both fun and engaging, and featuring one of the year’s most captivating vocal performances.

Song Picks: Sympathy for the Devil, Street Fighting Man, Dear Doctor, Factory Girl

8.5/10

WhiteLight — 6. White Light / White Heat

The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground’s second album ditches pretty much all the accessibility of their debut which means we’re left with a 40 minute assault on the ears in the spirit of the aforementioned album’s more challenging tracks. Initially I didn’t really enjoy this all that much and found it too challenging but now, although I still don’t like it anywhere near as much as their debut, I’ve come to enjoy the creative chaos of it. I think it’s best to think of it as rock’s version of Free Jazz. An album written with complete freedom, with minimal concern for structure, melody etc.

Inevitably this means the album would go on the ‘difficult listening’ shelf, but it’s also rather rewarding when you stop trying to force it to fit your ideas of what an album and music should be.

The simplest song here is the gorgeously relaxed Here She Comes Now where Lou sings about a topic unknown (though some suggest it’s his guitar) in a remarkably out of breath manner for a song so vocally simple. The opener White Light/White Heat describes the effect of methamphetamine in much the way Heroin described the effects of its titular drug on their previous album. They’re the two most accessible songs on the album, which includes such weird delights as the instrumental, dark, mini-audiobook The Gift, the stoned, gently psychedelic Lady Godiva’s Operation and the suitably thrashing mess I Heard Her Call My Name.

Most challenging though, is closing track Sister Ray, a 17-minute noise-rock marvel that perfectly finishes this tumultuous, seemingly stream-of-consciousness record. Apparently the producer Tom Wilson walked out half-way through the recording because he was so shocked by the utter noisy chaos unfolding before him. Recorded in one take with warts and all left in, the song is a remarkable recording of a moment of unadulterated musical freedom. The drums march along uniformly while all the other instruments dart off in different directions trying to create as much, and as punishing a sound as possible, as the piece threatens to burst at the seams and explode, emphatically destroying your ear-drums. Lou Reed has talked about the topic of the song and stated, “I like to think of ‘Sister Ray’ as a transvestite smack dealer. The situation is a bunch of drag queens taking some sailors home with them, shooting up on smack and having this orgy when the police appear.” Something he describes as a ‘scene of total debauchery and decay.’ Just like that scene, the song is a complete and utter filthy mess, but if you just sit back and relax your innate resistance to its punishing dissonance, you’ll find yourself escaping reality for 17 minutes, swept away by it’s anarchy.

White Light / White Heat is a challenging album, and you’d struggle to call it an enjoyable listen in the traditional sense, but hidden in it’s jumbled spontaneity is something magic, a frenzied manifestation of a mind with no boundaries.

Song Picks: Sister Ray, White Light/White Heat, Here She Comes Now

8.5/10

Their fourth studio album is a concept album about life from childhood to old age, although this is only true of the first side, and the second side features mainly unused songs from The Graduate soundtrack, and Mrs Robinson, which was of course used.

I was immediately struck by how modern this sounded, Save the Life of My Child features some of the first synths I’ve heard so far in this challenge and the rowdy heavily reverbed ambient crowd wouldn’t be out of place on a recording today. The song has a strangely sinister tone, one that I absolutely wasn’t expecting, and it’s a great opening to the more experimental nature of this album. It the story of a bunch of people frantically trying to stop a child committing suicide by jumping off something.

America is perhaps my highlight on the album, and is a prime display of Paul Simon’s great lyrics and the duo’s melodic skill. It’s the story of Paul Simon and girlfriend Kathy’s trip around America, while contemplating the meaning of the American dream. The songs starts with some sumptuous low-key humming and each verse ends with a melody like a crackling, heart-warming fire, ‘.... to look for America’ they sing, as the image builds of a whole country of people looking for a country, which seems to disappear the harder they search.

Overs explores the point of a relationship where both parties know it’s over, but are too afraid to say that out loud. A similar topic to that of Dangling Conversation from 1966’s Sage, Rosemary & Thyme. This one has a remarkably more light-hearted feel, which juxtaposes nicely with the sad and resigned lyrics, ending perfectly with the verse:

How long can I delay?
We're just a habit
Like saccharin
And I'm habitually feelin' kinda blue
But each time I try on the thought of leaving you
I stop...
Stop and think it over

Voices of Old People is just that. The voices of old people as recorded by Garfunkel at United Home for Aged Hebrews and the California Home for the Aged at Reseda. It’s a touching and intimate break in the music which precedes the lovely Old Friends, an image of two old men sat on the bench together as the world goes by. Bookends (Reprise) marks the end of the concept part of the album as we move to the more ‘poppy’ part of the album. The highlight of which is undoubtedly the famous Mrs Robinson, a song with the most infectious of choruses, and which actually has little to do with the film, having been written before it’s inclusion. The album is also notable for the fact that it barely has any lines that rhyme, something pretty rare in the rock album world.

Bookends is definitely Simon & Garfunkel’s most experimental album, and my favourite up to now (we still have their classic and final album Bridge Over Troubled Water to come in 1970 though which could change that). It’s an album that perfectly demonstrates Simon’s lyrical skill, has some impressively clean and progressive production (particularly on that second track), and is just and album that begs for you to dig a little deeper. I’d have liked the concept nature to extend beyond the first half, but it still works well regardless.

Song Picks: Save the Life of My Child, America, Mrs Robinson

8.5/10

Pink Floyd’s second album is very much a transitional album. David Gilmour (who is so crucial Pink Floyd’s sound in the upcoming years) was joining, Syd Barrett was leaving. Gilmour contributed on all but 2 songs, while Barrett appeared on 3. Gilmour was initially brought in to cover for Syd Barrett’s ‘eccentricities’ such as when he was completely unresponsive on stage, but it was soon clear this was unworkable and Syd left the band. Notably, the band’s drummer, Nick Mason, states this is his favourite Pink Floyd album.

A Saucerful of Secrets very much feels like the birth of the Pink Floyd who would go on to record classic albums like The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here. Less psychedelic, and more spacey. Often cited as being a very diverse album because all members of the band contributed songwriting to the album, I actually feel that this is a more cohesive record than their debut (which was mostly written by Barrett). There’s an otherworldly, dreamy atmosphere to the whole thing perfectly encapsulated in the so-fragile-it-would-combust-if-you-touched-it See-Saw. The amount of additional instruments used to create a whole universe of sound is quite remarkable, and unlike anything I’ve heard up to this point in this challenge. I felt like I was being sucked into the world’s most gentle black hole, emerging on the other side to a whole new glorious sky of stars, planets and gentle explosions in the distance. Perhaps the most notable evidence of this ‘soundscape building’ is the epic title track, a 12 minute odyssey into the slightly ominous unknown. The piece is in 4 parts, and there are various theories as to what they represent. My favourite theory is that the four parts are all different sections of a battle ( the theory goes something like part 1: set-up, part 2: the battle itself, part 3: the view of the dead, part 4: the mourning of the dead). The piece works like a charm as a musical representation of a space battle, and by the time you get to the gorgeous final part Celestial Voices (which is a piece dominated by beautifully evocative organ chords, heavily reverbed as if reaching all corners of the universe) you’re there with all your space-being friends, feeling a kind of beautiful sadness at all the non-existent space-beings that have died. It’s quite magical.

Other parts of the album are perhaps a little repetitive and ‘floaty’ for the lack of a better word. It’s hard to get a grip on some of the songs as they seem to hover just out of reach. The whole thing feels very dreamy, which can make it feel like it lacks substance. To me though, the ethereal nature of it, mixed in with the more concrete riff-led tracks like Corporal Clegg is what makes the album what it is.

The final track Jugband Blues, which is Barrett’s last composition for the band is a tearful goodbye from a troubled soul. He sings of his detachment, before releasing the last verse over a gorgeous chord sequence, seemingly floating off into space never to be seen again.

And the sea isn’t green
And I love the Queen
And what exactly is a dream?
And what exactly is a joke?

Song Picks: A Saucerful of Secrets, See-Saw, Jugband Blues

8.5/10

The Beatles, more commonly known as ‘The White Album’ is the Beatles’ ninth album and by far their longest coming in at a whopping 1 hour and 33 minutes long. ‘Now, it can’t possibly all be good if it’s that long can it?’ I hear you say. Well, actually I’d argue that all of it is at least ‘good’ with a lot of it significantly better than that, and as a package it’s rather extraordinary, actually. The fact is though, you’re unlikely to find people agreeing on which songs are the best on this album, or indeed which ones should have been left off to cut down the obscene running length. There’s 30 songs on this thing, yes 30. Thus I’m not really going to go into song detail too much as I’ll be here all day, and I’d quite like to finish this challenge sometime before 2040.

Most of the album’s material was written from March to April while the band was on a meditation course in India, and the album has the feel of a bunch of material written really quickly. It reminds me of a challenge I do every February called FAWM (February Album Writing Month) where the challenge is to write, record, and upload 14 songs for everyone else doing the challenge to hear in the month of February. This time constraint leads to less of a critical mindset, there’s no time for writer’s block, and thus you end up following through with ideas you might otherwise think are stupid. Usually, in my case at least, this leads to a bunch of pretty varied songs, some fitting simplistic styles to make them quicker to write, others just a bit mad, weird experiments that very occasionally pay off. The White Album to me sounds a bit like what would result if the Beatles did an elongated version of this challenge. Some of the material is very simple, some of it’s a bit mad, quite a lot of it is pretty special, but all of the 30 songs are just that, songs. With the exception of the psychedelic and haunting Revolution 9 there’s no interludes or longform experimental instrumentals. Not that there’s any problem with those of course, it’s just rare for an album of this length not to contain significantly more. There’s plenty of experimentation within the songs however, and you’ll notice as you listen just how many of the ideas put forward in this album have become entire subgenres. Quite the achievement.

It’s a weird one is this record. I think the Beatles have absolutely created albums that are more cohesive (e.g. Sgt Peppers). The fact is though, The Beatles has a special atmosphere to it, like you’re sitting in on some of the world’s finest songwriters spontaneously recording some ideas, and the fact that it’s just so bloody long means you’re always discovering something new. Despite its simplicity, it’s length means you never quite feel like you’ve got to the bottom of it, and that makes it an album with probably unmatched longevity in their catalogue.

In many ways, this album encapsulates to me the joy of songwriting. There aren’t many albums of this length that can entertain for their entire duration and never feel like a slog, The Beatles absolutely achieves that, in fact it goes beyond that, it’s never less than a lot of fun. 1 hour and 33 minutes of it.

Song Picks: Back In The USSR; Blackbird; Helter Skelter; Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da; Revolution 1

9/10

I mean it’s hard enough getting through this monstrous double-album due to its 77 minute running time, reviewing something so expansive is even more difficult, but having just reviewed ‘The White Album’, this should be a walk in the park ey?

Electric Ladyland is Hendrix’s third and final album before his untimely death in 1970 after an overdose on sleeping pills. It’s also the only one of his albums he produced, and thus can certainly be considered the purest, most unfiltered distillation of what he was trying to achieve musically. His past two albums were already ground-breaking but this behemoth of an album pushed things yet further and features in my eyes, some of the best psychedelic rock ever recorded. Actually, scrap that, the best psychedelic rock ever recorded.

Obviously we’ve got the ‘hits’ here such as his mesmeric cover of Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower, which Dylan himself has appraised as the definitive version. Dylan had already brought the splendid lyrics to life in his version on 1968’s John Wesley Harding but Hendrix made the song larger than life, an explosion of lyrical imagery, a memorable display of bombastic, busy drum playing, and above all, some of the most iconic guitar soloing ever recorded. Simply put, he turned it from a brilliant song into a masterpiece. Other hits include the irresistible Crosstown Traffic where the guitar appears more like a bunch of distorted backing vocalists than a guitar, with a riff that has to be one of the most infectious things ever written. Besides that we’ve also got the incomparable guitar wizardry of Voodoo Child (Slight Return). A song which starts with that famous, quacky intro, which soon turns into a riff that could plough through mountains, planets, hell, even time itself. That transition is one of my favourite moments on any album. The song is only elevated further by one of Hendrix’s finest vocal performances, it’s perfect closing track to the album. While we’re talking about vocals, it’s interesting to note that Hendrix was never particularly confident about them, and insisted on recording behind a screen when singing.

But, that’s enough about the shorter, more instantly gratifying songs on the album, let’s talk about the record’s two sweeping epics. The first one we come across is the 15-minute psychedelic trip Voodoo Chile which features drummer Mitch Mitchell at his absolute best, flurrying around the kit like a tropical storm, building up into a hurricane of fills that seem to take off into the stratosphere. The guitar improvisation is superb too and proof to me that Hendrix is rock guitar’s answer to the jazz genius of Coltrane etc. Hendrix wanted to create the feel of an ‘informal club jam’ (Wikipedia), and thus got everyone in the studio to record some background shouting etc, which is used throughout the track. The crescendos benefit from Winwood’s organ part, adding further creatively scattered notes to Hendrix’s virtuosic soloing. I think it’s quite impossible to listen to the piece and not be absolutely blown away by it’s spontaneously in-the-moment brilliance. Hendrix’s longest song is also perhaps the definitive display of how at one he was with the guitar, whatever he thought, he could do. The second epic 1983… (A Merman I Should Turn to Be) is more of a mood piece, but one that again displays Hendrix’s ability to sing the most beautiful melodies with his guitar. I particularly love Hendrix’s bass work on the track too (Redding didn’t contribute bass to this one) which has a spaced out chattering quality to it. The guitar melodies that bookend the track are as stratospheric as they are beautiful.

Electric Ladyland is an unfiltered look into the mind of one of rock’s greatest innovators, a final, colossally beautiful goodbye from someone who - although he was a massive influence on what was to come - has yet to be overtaken as a guitarist.

Song Picks: Crosstown Traffic, Voodoo Child (Slight Return), Voodoo Chile, All Along the Watchtower

9.5/10

Now, to understand how Astral Weeks, Van Morrison’s second album, came to be, I think it’s important to know about how the recording sessions operated. Essentially, Morrison sat behind a screen with his acoustic guitar and played as the band improvised around him. This band was essentially a jazz one led by Richard Davis (he played bass on Eric Dolphy’s Out to Lunch) who was accompanied by guitarist Jay Berliner (who had previously worked with our man Charles Mingus), Warren Smith Jr on percussion, and Connie Kay on drums. It’s this Davis led quartet that makes the album just as much as Morrison does.

Berliner said of the recordings, "We were used to playing to charts, but Van just played us the songs on his guitar and then told us to go ahead and play exactly what we felt." Kay said similar, “we more or less just sat there and jammed.” It’s this freedom that gives the album its unique sound. Lyrically, it’s not particularly coherent, but more a set of gorgeous images and spontaneous ideas flung into the air, much like the instrumentation that accompanies it. Put quite simply, I think it’s a unique combination of the jazz that has blessed these lists and the poetic melodies that have started to appear since the mid-60s.

Throughout the album, Morrison’s voice is beautifully melodic, his guitar playing simple and smooth like butter, and his lyrics seemingly magical:

And you know you gotta go
On that train from Dublin up to Sandy Row
Throwing pennies at the bridges down below
And the rain, hail, sleet, and snow

Combine this with a band that seems to know exactly what Morrison is going to do at every turn, and has the ability to throw the most delightfully colourful musical paint to fill in Van Morrison’s meditatively ‘present’ performances, and you have what is, in my opinion, one the greatest and most unique albums of all time. On that note, I think Madame George, some of the lyrics to which I posted above, is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever recorded.

In terms of some closing words to this review, I think my original rateyourmusic.com review of this album summed it up rather well, so I’ll finish with that:

‘Well this is just completely singular isn't it? I can't think of anything remotely similar. Free-form jazzy country folk. There's no structure, it just ebbs and flows along as Van Morrison spins melodies over the top, weaving a tapestry that floats somewhere in the realm of the images created in our minds while reading a book, intangible and yet beautiful. An album that flies, and forces you to fly along with it.’

Song Picks: Astral Weeks, Sweet Thing, Cyprus Avenue, Madame George

10/10

1965 - Clive's Top 5 Albums of Every Year Challenge

May 24, 2020 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music

Here we are, slap-bang in the middle of the 60s. But what happened in 1965? Well, Ed White became the first American to conduct a space walk, Muhammad Ali knocked out Sonny Liston to keep the heavyweight title he gained in 1964, Malcolm X was assassinated, and Martin Luther King led his famous civil-rights march to Selma leading to Johnson eventually singing the Voting Rights Act. In Britain Winston Churchill died and the 70 mph national speed limit was introduced.

And here are the top five albums of the year as rated by our lovely rateyourmusic.com users:

#1 John Coltrane - A Love Supreme
#2 Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
#3 The Beatles - Rubber Soul
#4 Bob Dylan - Bringing It All Back Home
#5 Otis Redding - Otis Blue

Coltrane’s back, and we’ve got two Dylan albums?? Count me in. We also see a return from The Beatles and Otis Redding’s first and only appearance. As usual I’ve had a look a little further down the list and spotted a few others that intrigue me:

#6 Vince Guaraldi - A Charlie Brown Christmas
#7 Nina Simone - Pastel Blues
#9 Jackson C. Frank - Jackson C. Frank
#20 The Sonics - Here Are The Sonics

Yes, you read right, I’m going to review a Christmas album. Anyway I’ve been an idiot and set myself the rather large task of reviewing nine this time, so I’d best get started. Here’s my thoughts and ranking of the above nine albums.

Here Are the Sonics is an album that I’ve often heard mentioned as an influence among some of my favourite punk bands but have never got round to listening to.

The first thing you’ll notice is just how terrible it sounds. I mean, it sounds like someone got a tape, smashed it with a mallet, converted it to a low-quality mp3, then uploaded it to youtube before downloading it again on the lowest quality setting. But this isn’t going for any sound quality awards, this is garage-rock, man. This is from an era before you could afford to have decent studio equipment in your house, and so if you didn’t record in a studio, it was likely to sound like the band had been shrunk to the size of borrowers and were playing in a tin can, underwater.

Anyway enough of that, what makes this album is the energy. Lead singer Gerry Roslie has a powerful voice and does that 50s/60s ‘waaaaaauuuuuu’ thing with a fantastic grittiness, and at least 5 times every song in a way that is fun and will bring a smile to the most angry of faces. Mainly covers with a couple of originals thrown in, this is a fun set of songs performed with infectious, charming energy, and I can see why it was so influential. It’s the first album I’ve heard in this challenge that has a really punk attitude, an attitude of ‘here we are, this is what we do, deal with it’. I feel most of the people they influenced improved on what they do here, but it’s remarkable to hear the birth of a more DIY sound and the punk attitude I’ve mentioned. Here are The Sonics! is probably more important than it is great, but a worthy listen nonetheless.

Song Pick: The Witch, Strychnine

7/10

‘Err, Clive, have you gone mad? It’s May and you’re reviewing a Christmas album??’ Yes I am. There’ll be no seasonal discrimination here. Christmas or not, this deserves a review.

A Charlie Brown Christmas is the soundtrack to the film of the same name, which despite being a massive Peanuts fan, I still haven’t seen.

So, once I’d got past the weirdness of listening to a Christmas album while it’s sunny and warm outside and I haven’t been able to see family for months, I began to realise just how much I’ve been missing in not making this a regular part of the Christmas rotation. You should listen to it now too, it makes you feel like a maverick. Find it, press play and scream, “screw you society and your silly calendar, I’ll do what I want, when I want, thanks!!” and maybe throw a chair out the window for good measure.

Silliness aside, this is actually a super relaxing album, so throwing a chair out to it would be nigh on impossible; the gentle jazz will make you put that chair right back down and sit on it in a contemplative manner. It feels like the Christmas equivalent of 1664’s Getz/Gilberto, a musical substitute to meditation.

Guaraldi is a jazz pianist, and these are jazz renditions of various Christmas classics, with a children’s choir sprinkled on top now and again to really up that Christmassy feel. It’s more charming than George Clooney and the band has a wonderful relaxed vibe to it that is just perfect for these songs. Fred Marshall’s double bass feels like it’s giving you a hug with it’s big, heavy, gently rumbling notes. Jerry Granelli’s drumming is so laid back, it’s easy to forget it’s even there at points, and Guaraldi’s piano solos are like the stars twinkling on Christmas eve, as he gently pads his way up and down the keys like a musical cat walking on the piano. I prefer the jazz instrumentals to the tracks with kids singing carols, but there’s not enough of the latter to ever make it annoying, at least not for me. This one will definitely be getting a spin at Christmas this year.

Song Picks: O Tannenbaum, What Child is This, Linus and Lucy, Greensleaves

7/10

Rubber Soul is The Beatles’ sixth studio album and the production has taken a notable step up since A Hard Day’s Night from 1964’s list.

This is the first time The Beatles had an extended time in the studio without other commitments to distract them, and it shows. There’s a bigger soundscape to the recording, more space for all the instruments to shine in and just a general feel that more time has gone into the songs. This generally works in its favour, but also loses it that slightly rougher, more raw edge that A Hard Day’s Night had. Lyrically this is more interesting, though still far from their peak, and there’s catchy choruses a-plenty as you’d expect.

The album opens with 3 great songs, the simple and catchy Drive My Car, the majestic Norwegian Wood featuring a great appearance on the sitar and probably the album’s best lyrics, and You Won’t See Me, a song where the improved production is particularly noticeable, and that features some great, fun, backing vocals that add thickness to the otherwise sparse sound. Where I struggle is with the album’s middle section, where songs blend into one a little too much. They’re all enjoyable enough, but perhaps too breezy and simple to be all that memorable. I’m Looking Through You is the exception here; it’s irresistible chorus melody followed by a punchy guitar part making it stand out from the crowd. The closer, Run For Your Life is another example of what The Beatles do best: an infectious sing-along melody with a bouncy rhythm section and some cheery guitar solos.

A happy, summery album full of catchy and enjoyable songs but that isn’t quite interesting enough to maintain my attention during an attentive listen. There’s better to come from this lot.

Song Picks: Drive My Car, Norwegian Wood, I’m Looking Through You

7/10

Nina Simone’s Pastel Blues is largely famous for the epic 10 minute rendition of the traditional Sinnerman that closes the album, but although that is undoubtedly the highlight, there’s plenty else to enjoy here.

These are all live performances, featuring generally sparse arrangements which really prove that Nina Simone is one of the most interesting vocalists we’ve ever had. She’s certainly one of my favourites. Her voice has a deep sadness to it, and yet also a roughness, an anger. Not to mention the fact it’s probably one of the most powerful voices I’ve ever heard. I mean I imagine if she sang the vocal tour-de-force Be My Husband at a shed, that shed would fall down under the sheer ferocity of her voice. The track features nothing but her vocals and some barebones percussion, and it’s spectacular; an inspirational display of how much interest can be created with the right vocal. It’s quite unthinkable that Nina had initially wanted to become a concert pianist and only started to sing because some clubs she played at asked her to.

Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out and the beautiful End of the Line show her talent for softer pieces, with a more traditional arrangement, creating a richer instrumental backing, but never taking the focus of Simone’s voice. Tell Me More and More and Then Some shows her often underrated piano skills. She’s got a lovely deft, but quick touch on the keys that provides the perfect accompaniment in the gaps between her vocal lines. It’s another highlight, showing the remarkable dynamic range in both her piano playing and singing.

But let’s talk about the star attraction, Sinnerman. The track starts with a simple, rhythmical piano part, but Simone’s vocals, a delicately footstepping bassline and some hi-hat tapping quickly join the fold and we’re away. The song tells of a man running from God’s judgement of the sins he’s committed. The song has a frantic, rumbling energy to it, perfectly capturing the feel of someone running to endless places in a hope to hide from an all-seeing God. It’s impossible not to get pulled in, and by the time Simone bashes out a few frantic chords on the piano and screams ‘power’ for the last time (she screams it a lot) as the band comes in for a final crescendo, you’re left feeling rather out of breath. It’s a masterful performance, a powerful releasing of every ounce of emotion inside her, which makes whatever you listen to afterwards seem a little inadequate and fake somehow.

Song picks: Be My Husband, Tell Me More and More and Then Some, Sinnerman

8/10

Otis Blue is Otis Redding’s third album and features mainly covers of soul hits with three originals.

The album opens with the original Ole Man Trouble and it’s clear as soon as Otis starts singing that his voice is magnificent, gritty, rich and timeless. If the highest quality, most complex tasting honey could sing, this is what it’d sound like. The way he can switch from powerful, to tuneful and soft, to both (somehow) is magical. There’s plenty else here to keep you entertained beyond some of the best vocals you’re ever likely to hear here however. For a start, the originals all show Otis’ considerable songwriting skill, Respect (later to become a signature song for Aretha Franklin) in particular is an absolute banger, made as much by Otis’ desperate, gritty cries for ‘respect!’ as it is by the horns that punctuate every chorus. The final original, I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (to Stop Now), shows Otis’ softer side. A beautifully simple love song where Otis’ gentle croons turn to a powerful, desperate growl by the end of the song.

As for the covers, Otis and the band completely make them their own, even Can’t Get No Satisfaction has a level of vocalised frustration to it that makes it stand on its own besides The Rolling Stones’ version, though that is perhaps the least convincing one. Highlights for me include the superb Down in the Valley, the fabulously uplifting Wonderful World and the groovy as all hell Rock Me Baby where Otis spends three and half minutes asking desperately to be ‘rocked’ in a manner that I don’t think anyone would be able to refuse.

Otis didn’t make many more albums, he tragically died in a plane crash in 1967. This is generally regarded as his best and it feels like an essential capturing of one of the best singers we’ve ever had, at the peak of his powers. It’s also the kind of album I think anyone would enjoy.

Song Picks: Ole Man Trouble, Respect, Down In The Valley, Rock Me Baby

9/10

Jackson C. Frank’s story is a sad one. This is his first and only album and he was unable to maintain his career due to a variety of mental health problems and addictions. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, and after struggles with depression, Frank ended up homeless in New York and died of pneumonia in 1999 aged 56.

Jackson C. Frank is entirely composed of Jackson’s vocal and guitar with nothing else added, and was produced by Paul Simon. Yes, that one. Apparently, Frank was so nervous he had to have screens all around him in the studio and the whole thing was recorded in just three and a half hours.

His voice has a perfect dark sounding reverb, helping give his hollow, low voice a powerful atmosphere. The guitar switches from simple chords to more complex picking and is reminiscent of Bob Dylan in many ways, although Simon’s production makes it sound much heavier.

Each song feels important here, and there’s a power to Jackson’s performances, particularly the vocals, that makes this sound like a lost classic somehow. As well as songs about being sad (e.g. the excellent Blues Run The Game) there’s political content here that’s just as powerful as some of the stuff Dylan was recording in the previous two years. Don’t Look Back urges us to keep looking out for corruption and injustice:

So don’t look back
Over your shoulder
Keep your eye on freedom shore
‘Cause you know
The brave men with you
Also pay the wages of war

He sings these words at the top of his voice, with a simple, loud guitar part that sounds like it’s close to unravelling. It’s a truly powerful piece. Milk & Honey was later covered by Nick Drake, and seems to foreshadow Jackson’s life. ‘I think I’ll be moving on’ he sings over a lovely picked guitar melody. Move on he did, but only to more sadness. My Name Is Carnival is my personal favourite, and has the strongest lyrics on here in my opinion. Frank spins a web of imagery over its six verses, all ending with the word ‘carnival’, perhaps my favourite is the penultimate:

The fat woman frowns at screaming frightened clowns that move enchanted
And the shadow lie and waits outside your iron gates with one wish granted
Colours fall, throw the ball, play the game of Carnival

This album proves Frank to be an expert songwriter, one who crafts melancholy, heavy melodies, can accompany these with a whole host of great lyrics, and perform the whole lot with a remarkable presentness, as if nothing else in the world mattered at that very moment.

‘Just like anything, to sing is a state of mind’ Jackson sings on the lovely closing track Just Like Anything. He’s clearly in that state of mind here, and it’s one of music’s saddest stories that he was never captured in it again.

Song Picks: Blues Run The Game, Don’t Look Back, My Name Is Carnival, Just Like Anything

9/10

Bob’s back. Bringing It All Back Home is his fifth album, and the first after he famously ‘went electric’, one night in 1966 having ‘JUDAS!!’ shouted at him at a gig at the Free Trade Concert Hall in Manchester. Yep, the one in England. A lot of Dylan’s folk fans had decided he’d sold out and no longer wrote music that spoke to them. I can see why they might think the latter, if they were following entirely for his direct political output then that had now very much disappeared (although this particular album is more political than often claimed in my view), replaced by an abstract poetry which, absolutely has less obvious meaning, but is in my humble opinion the best lyrical period of any artist, ever. The complaint that he’d ‘sold out’ I still don’t understand. Yes, he was using an electric guitar like a lot of the popular bands of the day (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones etc), but this sounded like no one else out there. An energetic mix of jazz like improvisation and loudly performed poetry.

The album opens with Subterranean Homesick Blues, Dylan’s first song to break the top 40 in the US (it got into the top 10 in England) and the emphatic announcement that electric Dylan had very much arrived. Often described (probably hyperbolically) as the song that invented both rap and music videos (you’ll no doubt have seen the below video, which originally featured in the documentary Don’t Look Back) it’s a patchwork blanket of anti-establishment imagery, inspired very much by Allen Ginsberg and the beats. Dylan’s social commentary is still alive and well here, as shown by this verse:

Oh, get sick, get well, hang around a ink well
Hang bail, hard to tell if anything is gonna sell
Try hard, get barred, get back, ride rail
Get jailed, jump bail, join the Army if you fail

By the time the song finishes with my favourite lyrical section you’ve had so many crazy images running through your head that it feels like you’ve taken some strange pill:

Better jump down a manhole light yourself a candle
Don't wear sandals try to avoid the scandals
Don't want to be a bum, you better chew gum
The pump don't work 'cause the vandals took the handles.

We haven’t got time to try and dissect every song here, try being the important word there. This is an album where every song is a goldmine of images and ideas, most of which I don’t understand, because I’m not sure all of it can be understood, but that’s what makes it kind of magical. Any meaning is always hovering just out of reach. And hell, I think sometimes people get bogged down with everything having to have a meaning. Sometimes a painting can just be beautiful, a view majestic, a piano solo pretty and inventive, even if there’s no obvious meaning attached. I’m not sure why it’s any different with words, and to me reading pretty much any Dylan lyric from the magical trio of albums Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde is proof of this. The meaning may float tantalisingly out of reach, but there’s no doubt what you’re reading is fabulous, fresh, spectacular, and when the lyrics come alive in the songs, well, it’s heaven.

Honestly, I could write a paragraph about all these songs but I’ll spare you that and talk about a couple more highlight moments.

Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream is an absurd piece about Dylan discovering America before Columbus. It’s a prime display of Dylan’s humour and endless imagination, but perhaps what I love most about it is the start of the song. Dylan starts the first verse ‘I was riding on the Mayflower when I thought I spied some land, I yelled for Captain Arab, I have you understand’ before bursting into laughter along with the rest of the band (who were supposed to have come in). ‘Ok take 2’, Bob says after they’ve caught their breath again, and the band and Dylan proceed to nail it on the second take. It’s a perfect capturing of the way these songs were recorded, mostly within three or so takes, with the rest of the band never having heard them before, and with Dylan frantically jumping from instrument to instrument in between takes giving people ideas for the next one. Take three would often sound like a completely different song from take one. Dylan never sat still, the band never performed it the same way twice, and that’s how everything sounds so immediate. Like the lightning in a bottle of a first performance being captured before repetition has allowed it to escape.

Mr Tambourine Man is probably the most famous song on this album (The Byrds’ cover of it went to number 1), and starts off the acoustic half of the album. It’s a song that I’m not even going to bother to try to describe, I’m just going to plonk the final verse here:

And take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow

If I had to pick a favourite Dylan verse, it might just be that. My favourite performances of the song didn’t come until The Rolling Thunder tour in the 70s however, when Dylan’s rusty, cloudy vocal adds a wonderful added layer of mystery. One such performance features at the start of Michael Scorcese’s excellent Rolling Thunder Revue documentary about that tour.

Dylan’s band haven’t quite hit the peak of the ‘thin mercury sound’ they perfected on the next two albums, and ‘Maggie’s Farm’ remains one of the few songs of this era where I’m not that big on Dylan’s vocal, and that’s what holds this back compared to the other two I mention, but, as I’m about to explain, those are two of my favourite albums ever, so that’s not saying much.

Song Picks: Mr Tambourine Man, Subterranean Homesick Blues, She Belongs To Me, Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream

9.5/10

Widely regarded as Coltrane’s masterpiece, and indeed one of the greatest albums of all time, A Love Supreme was recorded in one session with Coltrane leading the quartet of Mccoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums.

A Love Supreme portrays, in a jazz format, the story of Coltrane’s spiritual awakening. Although there are dissonant sections, it’s not an album I’d describe as challenging as such. Coltrane is not playing in an aggressive or boundary pushing way, it feels like he’s just sat back and let whatever is in him come out, without forcing anything. Don’t get me wrong, the saxophone playing here is still sublime, it’s just effortlessly sublime. This is a recording of a master of his art, at the peak of his talents (we’ve had a few of those this year haven’t we?).

But, although it’s Coltrane’s playing that lifts this to the realms of magic, the rest of the band deserve a mention too for creating the perfect companion to Coltrane’s saxophone awakening. Part II: Resolution is a great example, Tyner effortlessly switches between stabbing at chords and twinkling over notes while Elvin Jones creates a flurry of noise on the drums that somehow keeps a perfect beat, providing a perfect and engaging introduction before Coltrane weaves his saxophone magic. Elvin’s work on Part I: Acknowledgement is notable too, with him creating an almost tribal sounding beat of effortless complexity, there’s so much going on, and it happens at such a pace that it has to go down as one of my jazz drumming highlights. Tyner once again shows his prowess of combining chord stabs and twinkling in his majestic solo on Part III: Pursuance, where he plays at such pace and with such accuracy and feeling it’s truly remarkable. When Coltrane finally comes in and Jones is busy creating yet another masterfully complex and rapid beat, you’re left wondering if you’re actually listening to four humans, or indeed some crazy talented aliens sent down from outer space.

I don’t think you have to know much about the spiritual background to the composition of this album to enjoy it. If you sit back it’ll take you places, wonderful, wonderful places. It’s an album I have no hesitation in calling ‘beautiful’, and it’s certainly one of my very favourite jazz albums.

Song Picks: Part I: Acknowledgement, Part III: Pursuance

9.5/10

5de9704b9bd8773ddbcb1de962f62386.1000x1000x1.jpg — 1. Highway 61 Revisited

Bob Dylan

Highway 61 Revisited is my favourite album of all-time. 10/10

I was going to leave it there, but I won’t leave you hanging like that, so I’ll write a bit about why I like it so much. This is Dylan’s sixth studio album, which is, with the exception of the 11 minute closing track Desolation Row, entirely electric.

I always like the following quote from Bruce Springsteen about Dylan and feel it sums up this album rather well (emphasis mine):

‘The first time I heard Bob Dylan, I was in the car with my mother listening to WMCA, and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody'd kicked open the door to your mind ... The way that Elvis freed your body, Dylan freed your mind, and showed us that because the music was physical did not mean it was anti-intellect. He had the vision and talent to make a pop song so that it contained the whole world. He invented a new way a pop singer could sound, broke through the limitations of what a recording could achieve, and he changed the face of rock'n'roll for ever and ever’

That snare shot that ‘sounded like somebody’d kicked open the door to your mind’ opens the album, and perhaps its most famous song, Like A Rolling Stone, bold, brash announcement that what Dylan called ‘that thin, that wild mercury sound’ had arrived. Once that famous snare hits what follows is a magical soundscape of skipping piano, floating organ, shimmering tambourine and the bass and electric guitar holding it all together. To me it’s a sound of instant joy. Whenever I get new pair of headphones or set of speakers, this is the first song I blast out at full volume. I remember at a good friend of mine’s stag do (Josh Keighley for you podcast listeners) we were renting out a house and on arrival, in one of the massive rooms, I found this massive stereo system. There was no auxiliary input. I scrambled through the CD collection hoping for something, and to my utter joy I found this album. I put it on, cranked it up, and just laid there on the wooden floor, floating up into the dreamland that Dylan and his band create on that majestic opening track. Yeah, I’m great fun at parties.

Besides that opening track, which I suspect is my most listened to song ever, this album is jam packed with energetic poetry backed by a band on top form. Tombstone Blues has a great ramshackle feel to it where it sounds as though it’ll fall apart at any moment, but never does. It Takes A Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry fills me with an insatiable urge to start skipping around, Paul Griffith’s piano again proving to be one of the under-appreciated stars of this album. From a Buick 6 is missing Griffiths, but it’s made up for by a bouncing, friendly bass part which juxtaposes nicely with Dylan’s thin, harsh vocal.

Ballad of a Thin Man has perhaps the album’s best lyrics and vocal performance, and also feels significantly darker and more ominous than the rest of the album. Although no one’s ever got to the bottom of who the ‘Mr Jones’ mentioned in the song is, Dylan used to say ‘this is a song about people who ask me questions’ when performing it live, which suggests it’s about someone who interviewed him, something broached in the biopic I’m Not There. Whoever it is, Dylan wasn’t much of a fan, and spends the song’s six-minute duration tearing them down, singing emphatically every time the ‘chorus’ comes round:

And you know something is happening
But ya' don't know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?

Griffiths is back with incomparable, bouncy piano parts that make Queen Jane Approximately and Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues, not just poetic marvels that sew a tapestry of words in your mind, but ones that do so with an irresistible spring in their step. Highway 61 Revisited is sandwiched between these too and features the prominent use of a tin-whistle, again giving the piece the feel of a train chugging along that is prominent for the majority of this album. Dylan’s humour is particularly on point here as he blends a crazy cast of characters and situations, all linked by the titular highway:

Well Mack the Finger said to Louie the King
I got forty red, white and blue shoestrings
And a thousand telephones that don’t ring
Do you know where I can get rid of these things?

And Louie the King said "Let me think for a minute son"
And he said "Yes, I think it can be easily done
Just take everything down to Highway 61

A thousand telephones that don’t ring? Where does he think of this stuff. Fabulous.

The album closes with the acoustic Desolation Row, where Dylan’s guitar and harmonica are accompanied only by a bass and Charlie McCoy’s fabulously light-hearted sounding lead guitar. It’s an eleven and a half minute masterpiece that shows Dylan at his absolute lyrical peak. The performance is captivating. I mean the piece has no chorus and has the same melody for every verse of it’s epic duration, but you’re never bored, and as Dylan sings his last verse you’re left wondering if you’ll ever hear something quite so beautifully evocative ever again.

Highway 61 Revisited is a masterpiece, it’s my favourite set of lyrics ever committed to an album, and it’s backed by instrumental performances that feel immediate, affecting, and free as a hummingbird. I’ll stop gushing now, but this thing is glorious and it makes me smile just knowing it exists.

Song Picks: Like a Rolling Stone, It Takes a Lot To Laugh It Takes a Train to Cry, Desolation Row, Ballad of a Thin Man

10/10

1964 - Clive's Top 5 Albums of Every Year Challenge

May 15, 2020 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music

Well, we’re moving along nicely through the 60’s and we’ve now landed in 1964, so what happened outside of music? Well Khrushchev fell from power in Russia, President Johnson was re-elected as president of the USA after completing what would have been the final year of JFK’s term. Race riots broke out in Harlem and other US cities, Harold Wilson won the election in the UK as leader of the Labour party and the world’s first lung transplant occurred. And now that’s out the way, as usual, we’ll get to the music. Here’s what rateyourmusic.com users rate as their top 5 albums of 1964:

#1 Eric Dolphy - Out to Lunch
#2 Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto - Getz / Gilberto
#3 Charles Mingus - Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mings, Mingus
#4 The Beatles - A Hard Day’s Night
#5 Herbie Hancock - Empyrean Isles

We’ve got our first Beatles entry, our first bossa-nova album and the return of the one and only Charles Mingus. On looking further down the list there’s two Dylan albums which I absolutely can’t pass up this opportunity to talk about, as well as an album by blues legend Muddy Waters, an artist I’ve always wanted to listen to. I’ll add them all to the pile too:

#6 Bob Dylan - The Times They Are A-Changin’
#11 Bob Dylan - Another Side of Bob Dylan
#15 Muddy Waters - Folk Singer

Once again we’ve got eight to get through. Strap yourselves in. Actually, just sit down, seatbelts are probably excessive for this. Here’s my thoughts and ranking of the above:

The Beatles’ third album and their first appearance on this list, A Hard Day’s Night features songs from the soundtrack to the film of the same name, and is the first to feature entirely original compositions.

A Hard Day’s Night is a testament to the fact that The Beatles really were the masters of coming up with a catchy melody. If this album was a balloon and catchy melodies were air, it would explode with a bang at a similar volume to that of a sonic boom. In terms of hits, we’ve got the title track as well as Can’t Buy Me Love (factually inaccurate, I’ve bought loads of things I love) but everything around them is just as catchy and fun.

I generally find The Beatles’ vocals a little bland and thus I prefer their later albums where they get more experimental lyrically and instrumentally, but there’s no doubt that this is a very strong set of simple, catchy pop songs. At times they’re a little too simple, particularly lyrically, but there’s a level of charm to the whole thing created by the simple vibrant guitars (particularly George Harrison’s 12-string Rickenbacker) and the well performed harmonies that alleviates this problem somewhat.

A Hard Day’s Night has a certain level of rawness that I appreciate too, the mix isn’t quite as clean as it is later in their career. The bass and guitars have a level of mud that makes the vocals stand out a little more, and it just gives the whole thing a lovely happy-go-lucky feel, and a slightly, dare I say it, punky edge. A 30 minute, 60’s pop, sugar rush.

Song Picks: A Hard Day’s Night, Can’t Buy Me Love, I Should Have Known Better,

7.5/10

EmpyreanIsles — 7. Empyrean Isles

Herbie Hancock

Jazz pianist Herbie Hancock’s fourth album and his first to make it onto these lists, like Out to Lunch (which we’ll get to soon) and many others we’ve heard previously, features Freddie Hubbard on cornet, who along with Hancock, is very much the star of the show.

On the opener One Finger Snap Hancock’s characteristic light, quick touch is evident as his right hand dances up and down the piano like a grasshopper with 73 legs. It’s a style completely different to Thelonius Monk’s, with more notes, less space and less rhythmic interest. Things tend to sound like scales played delicately but quickly with a wonderful precision and with accents providing the variation and interest. It’s a style I rather like. Hubbard is on characteristically fine form here too and the two work very well together. On the dreamy Oliloqui Valley Hancock comps twinkly chords beautifully as Hubbard’s cornet creates a musical painting of colourful dots across a canvas held together by Ron Carter’s rock solid bass and Tony Williams’ enigmatic drum flurries. Carter’s soulful bass solo towards the end of the track is also noteworthy.

Cantaloupe Island, a jazz standard nowadays, features a wonderful piano line from Hancock and Hubbard is perhaps on his finest form of the whole album here, accentuating the piano’s rolling chords delicately, but with plenty of feeling, like the vocals to Hancock’s instrumental bedding. The way Hancock manages to keep the song’s core line going while soloing around it is incredibly impressive, and it took me a while to realise there weren’t two pianists playing.

The 14 minute closer The Egg is perhaps the most experimental piece here, with less of a central theme. Hubbard weaves in and out of Williams’ drum whirlwind which seems to get more and more ferocious as the song goes on. Hancock is remarkably quiet in the first half of the track, but makes the most of it when he is in the limelight, chatting sparkly melodies and ideas to the rest of the band to respond to. Things go eerily quiet in the middle, as the band seemingly go to sleep, Carter’s rumbling bass gently waking everyone up out of their slumber. Hancock wakes with some of the finest piano playing on the album, with a timeless solo, evoking the night sky turning to dawn as a forest begins to wake, insects skittering about their morning routines.

Empyrean Isles is just a really solid jazz album, featuring a quartet that works beautifully together playing some really memorable compositions, and you can’t ask for much more than that.

Song Picks: Cantaloupe Island, Oliloqui Valley

8/10

FolkSinger — 6. Folk Singer

Muddy Waters

So, I got a new set of headphones through the post the other day, which will likely be the last in my embarrassingly large collection for a while, because I absolutely love them. Fittingly, the first album I listened to on them was this one, and indeed it was the first time I’d heard it. Within the first few chords and words of the opening track My Home Is In The Delta I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. It sounded so crisp, so deep, so wide, so bloody alive. I had a massive smile on my face that I struggled to remove for quite some time.

It turns out, it wasn’t entirely my headphones; this is just an absolute masterpiece in acoustic recording. That reverb on Muddy’s voice and the instruments is so good I’d say it’s the darn finest reverb I’ve ever heard. Enough about the production quality, what’s the actual music like you say? Ah, yes. Well, luckily, it’s pretty damn good too.

First of all, despite the title (which was chosen due to the popularity of folk at the time), this is very much a blues album, and a wonderfully bare-bones one at that. Waters plays acoustic guitar and sings, backed by Willie Dixon on bass (he’s also to thank for the brilliant production), Clifton James on drums and Buddy Guy on another acoustic guitar. The arrangements leave plenty of space for Muddy’s fabulously dynamic, deep and soulful vocals and the guitar playing has that wonderful blues groove that everyone loves, right?

On that last point I have to confess I have a bit of a bias towards the blues, it always brings me nostalgia for a time when I used to spend my summers at a blues festival near my Dad’s in Switzerland. The blues has always had a cosy predictability to it, something I don’t generally like in music, but that the blues manage to get away with.

Talking of predictability, once you’ve heard the opening track, you’ve pretty much heard them all here. I suspect a large amount of them are in the same key even but it hardly matters. Muddy’s vocal performance is so full of character, and so beautifully recorded that you feel like you’re sat in on a historic moment, a fly on the wall to one of the most influential blues musicians out there. The repetition is comforting, a warm hug in dark times, a 3-point shooter using the same graceful technique to hit the net time after time.

Song Picks: My Home Is In The Delta, The Same Thing, You Gonna Need My Help

8/10

This may be Dolphy’s first appearance on these lists as a bandleader but we’ve heard plenty from him before, he’s just been stealthily avoiding the limelight. He appeared on Coltrane’s 1961 releases Africa/Brass and Ole Coltrane as well as Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz from the same year. Incidentally, he also appears on Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus (yep, that’s what it’s actually called) from this year. Unfortunately, he died later on in 1964, of a reported diabetic coma, so this, sadly, is the last we’ll hear from him as a bandleader.

Out to Lunch is generally regarded as an avant-garde jazz classic, but what does this philistine who knows nothing about jazz think about it? Well, let’s find out. I love the name and the cover, so that’s a good start.

The opening track Hat and Beard refers to our man Thelonious Monk from the last post (1963) and opens with a bass and brass walk with a childish fun to it. The xylophone only serves to increase this fun as it comes in playing the exact same line, which plays throughout the song in one form or another. The song sounds a bit like everyone taking it in turns to practice a very specific sequence of notes while the rest of the band mucks about trying to distract them. It’s interesting, slightly mystical sounding, has a strange amount of parallels to ambient music, and is quite unlike any jazz I’ve heard so far. Kudos.

Something , Sweet Something Tender interestingly mixes a rather jolly saxophone part with an ominous bass part, combining to create an opening with a strange tension to it. Again, the piece sounds very much like play, sparse play though, the kind of play where someone is lurking around the corner about to abduct you. Actually it’s probably not that dark, but it does sound like something that could be playing as a mildly scary, slightly uncoordinated monster wakes up in the woods of a fairytale, distracted by every falling leaf as he stumbles on looking for the hero.

Gazzelloni is probably my favourite, with Dolphy’s flute playing being both impressive and playful (there’s that word again). I mean it’s out of control, ‘you can’t put a leash on this baby!!’ he screams as he unleashes a flutey wall of noise that sounds like a bunch of comedic birds twittering at each other. Only Freddie Hubbard’s trumpet manages to shut him up, answering in an equally joyful, if slightly less reckless manner. It all combines to create a piece that’s happier than an un-budgeted trip to the sweet shop, and as manic as a kid shortly after consuming all said purchased sweets.

I’m not going to go into the other two tracks in detail, they’re creative, dazzling, confusing and fun just like those I’ve already struggled to describe. This is an album that shows Dolphy’s considerable skill as a multi-instrumentalist (he plays flute, clarinet and saxophone at various points) as well as as a bandleader. It can’t be easy holding something as experimental as this together. This is not an easy listen, and after my first few listens I was left a little confused. The more familiar it’s gentle madness got though, the more it grew on me, and I can now firmly say I’m a fan. I can’t help but feel it’s a little too challenging, and perhaps more inventive than it is a joy to listen to at times, but I can’t deny its fun, its vivacity, its creativity. It must have been one hell of a lunch.

Song Pick: Hat and Beard, Gazzelloni,

8/10

MingusMingus — 4. Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus

Charles Mingus

Just look at that album title would you!! No one but Charles Mingus would have the audacity to just repeat his surname five times and call that an album title. What a man. Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus which I’m just going to refer to as Mingus x5 from here on for obvious reasons, is essentially a greatest hits album. Now before you scream at me, “Clive, you’ve already given the classic Out to Lunch a measly 8/10 and now you’re telling me a greatest hits collection is an album, who do you think you are? Alan Partridge?”, just hear me out. This is Charles Mingus, he wouldn’t just slap a load of previous recordings together and release that, oh no, he’s re-recorded them, reworked them a little in places, renamed them, and also added a cover of Mood Indigo for good measure.

Now, with the exception of Hora Decibutus, which is a new version of E’s Flat Ah’s Flat Too from Blues & Roots, and Mood Indigo I’ve not heard any of the original versions of these songs so they’re all new to me.

The opener II B.S. reminds me why I fell in love with Mingus in the first place. Catchy brass lines, stomping bass and saxophone flurries building up to a chaotic crescendo of smashed cymbals and shouting, before breaking back down again. As always with Mingus, there’s plenty to latch onto, and it makes you want to tap your feet.

Then, to prove that he’s far from a one trick pony, comes IX Love, a song of dissonant tenderness. The brass instruments are reminiscent of The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, creating a kind of uneasy carpet for the rest of the music to sit on. The sax plays off this beautifully, with a more straightforward minor scale feel to it, it’s all a little uneasy, but nevertheless memorable.

Celia is probably my favourite track here, which starts with a sweet, cloudy saxophone line before Mingus’ bass takes us for a walk through a night-time scene of alto-sax shrieks and a hug of tubas accompanying us on this mystical journey. The tension builds with some stabs towards the end before the bass and drums leave space for a majestic conversation between a whole host of saxophones up there in the trees, as you lay on the grass and look up at the stars.

The Mood Indigo cover is performed with similar aplomb and then Better Get Hit In Yo’ Soul comes up and again reminds you just how well Mingus crafts a rowdy and yet catchy number. This one sounds like a party that’s got out of hand but no one cares. What? Tony’s gone and knocked over the grandfather clock?? Susan’s had a few too many and smashed your entire glass cabinet? Marlon’s accidentally set fire to all your cigars and you’re all stumbling about in the Cuban smoke wondering what’s going on???

Who cares, man? This’ll make a great story.

Theme for Lester Young is perhaps the album’s least interesting track but thankfully Hora Decubitus ensures we finish on a high. Mingus x5 is a pretty great place to start for anyone wanting to check out just why Mingus is a bloody genius. It features him at his most energetic and his most tender, and although it’s not as cohesive as some of his other work (Tijuana Moods and The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady spring to mind), the fact it was all recorded in the same sessions means it doesn’t feel as disjointed as your usual greatest hits collection.

Mingus doesn’t make the top 5 again on any future rateyourmusic.com list, though I’ll probably be checking out his 1972 album Let My Children Hear Music when we make it to that year, as I’ve heard plenty of great things about it. But for now, this seems like a good way to say goodbye to the cigar smoking genius. A collection of his best material, performed emphatically well. Cheers Charles.

Song Picks: Celia, Better get Hit In Yo’ Soul, II B.S

8.5/10

AChangin — 3. The Times They Are A-Changin’

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan’s third album, and the first to feature entirely original compositions was to be his last with an intensely political message.

I remember I heard the title track in the cinema during the opening of Watchmen, well before I was particularly into Dylan. I remember thinking at the time that the it had such an urgency, such a sense of grandeur, and such an all encompassing sound that was remarkable for a song featuring only vocals, an acoustic guitar and a harmonica. The thing sounded huge. Obviously the cinema sound-system played a part in that, but I still feel like that about the song. It’s colossal. It’s a shame the rest of the film didn’t live up to that opening, which is still one of my most memorable musical moments in cinema.

This is both Dylan’s most and last political album. The humour of his debut has gone, there’s no breezy love songs anymore, this is just a set of stark, brilliantly observed songs about the fraught environment that Dylan was surrounded by in the 60’s.

The title track The Times They Are A-Changin’, which was deliberately written as an anthem for the change of the time, succeeds in doing just that. It’s prophetically performed, brilliantly written, and one of the most impactful songs I’ve ever heard. A real favourite.

Other highlights on this album include With God on Our Side, where over 7 minutes Bob tells how various opposing countries and ideas have claimed to have god on their side, and that if this is true god’s supported a whole manner of ills such as genocide and death. Dylan ends the song prophetically with the line: ‘If God’s on our side, then he’ll stop the next war’.

One Too Many Mornings is a rare moment of respite from the political preaching, and besides the title track, is my favourite song from the album. The line ‘and I’m one too many mornings, and a thousand miles behind’ that is repeated throughout the song is one of my very favourites, and delivered with the relatable resignation of never being where one wants to be.

When the Ship Comes In and The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll are two other examples of Dylan at his political best, the former with a sense of drama that mirrors The Times They Are A-Changin’.

There’s a lack of humour to this album for sure, and its political message can get overbearing, but there’s no doubt it contains some of the finest political songs ever written, and they’re sung, as ever, with an urgency and importance that Dylan never failed to bring across. It’s not quite as consistently engaging as Freewheelin’, and a bit more one-note, but it’s still rather special.

Song Picks: The Times They Are A-Changin’, One Too Many Mornings, With God On Our Side, When The Ship Comes In

8.5/10

Getz/Gilberto is a bossa nova album by American saxophonist Stan Getz and Brazilian guitarist João Gilberto. It also features Antonio Carlos Jobim on the piano who had a big hand in composing most of the tracks but obviously wasn’t deemed important enough to get his name on the album title, or perhaps two slashes is just one too many slashes? Who knows.

As mentioned in my review of Charles Mingus’ Tijuana Moods way back in 1961 I’m a big fan of two musical cultures coming together, and I’m delighted to say that this is another instance of it working really well. Considered as the album that popularised bossa nova around the world, Getz/Gilberto was a commercial as well as a critical success back in 1964. It’s opening track The Girl from Ipanema (Garota de Ipanema in Portuguese) is a song you’ve no doubt heard of, and is probably the most well known bossa nova song worldwide.

I’m not going to hide my feelings until the end of this review; this album is an absolute delight. Joao Gilberto’s nylon string guitar playing is as smooth and simple as butter (it’s just milk innit), and his singing has such a quiet, relaxing, contemplative feel to it that it’s hard not to get whisked away. Stan Getz’s saxophone playing may not have the technical prowess of someone like Coltrane but my, does it have feeling. That thing hums and sings in his hands, it expresses so much with so little, and is easily some of my favourite saxophone playing. I mean just listen to Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars), the song starts with one of Astrud Gilberto’s appearances, she also stars on Girl from Ipanema, as she sings of quiet nights and stars in a beautifully evocative way, again in a similarly un-showy and relaxed manner to Joao Gilberto’s vocals. Shortly after the words ‘oh how lovely’ float from her lips, in comes Getz with a short saxophone lick that took me straight to the promised land, a moment of pure magic.

Listening to all 33 minutes of this has got to be one of the most relaxing experiences anyone can have. I mean yoga, meditation and all that just seems redundant now that I’ve discovered this. I feel like I’m taking off, slowly rising over the Earth, zooming out on all the troubles of the world, before being planted back gently to wherever I’m sitting as the final saxophone note of Vivo Sonhando plays. This is a masterpiece in understatedness, every note is effective, nothing is overdone, and it all works together to create one of the prettiest things I’ve ever heard. It’s really hard to create a happy and relaxed sounding album that doesn’t sound painfully cheesy, and even less easy for one to include the saxophone so extensively (a famously cheesy instrument thanks to the 80s). Sometimes it’s not about pushing boundaries, but about mastering your craft so much that you can make something masterful sound as if you could play it while asleep. An absolute triumph.

Song Picks: Girl from Ipanema, Corcovado,

9.5/10

Dylan’s fourth album still has nothing but his voice, acoustic guitar and harmonica on it, but don’t let that fool you, Bob has taken a very new direction here. Gone are the political songs, replaced by a set of introspective, at times surreal, songs performed with a particular lack of vocal restraint.

Another Side of Dylan is a lyrical turning point, and the glorious birth of the more abstract poetry that would fill the rest of his 60’s albums. Lyrically, this is some of his strongest work in my opinion, and they are very much a main part as to why this is such a fascinating and underrated album. I think Dylan’s vocals are perhaps at their most testing here, he pushes them to where they perhaps shouldn’t go, but they have a more delicate feel to them. Gone is the invincible and prophetic Dylan of The Times They Are A-Changin’, he’s been replaced by a more poetic, introspective, and fragile version.

Chimes of Freedom is a case in point, a masterpiece in my eyes. Go and listen to it, I implore you. I’d say just read the lyrics, but you’d miss out on a truly captivating vocal performance and the wonderful melody that ends every verse. Here’s a section for you to read in the meantime:

Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail
The sky cracked it's poems in naked wonder
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leavin' only bells of lightning and it's thunder
Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
And the poet and the painter far behind his rightful time
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

The imagery created is fabulous, and the Rimbaud influences are evident (a poet Dylan was reading plenty of at this time and a massive influence on his lyrical style). This is where Dylan turns from a folk musician, to a singing poet. From someone who points a finger at things that exist, to someone who creates things that don’t.

To Ramona is another personal favourite of mine and another lyrical masterpiece which again shows Dylan’s uncanny ability to captivate without the need for a chorus. The verses end with a familiar, powerfully performed melody and before you know it, you’re hooked into yet another world of word mastery.

Dylan’s humour is evident here too in I Shall Be Free No 10 and particularly in Motorpsycho Nightmare where you can hear Dylan cracking himself up, his story getting more and more ludicrous as he decides the way to appease a farmer whose daughter he’s just been caught in bed with is to tell him he looks like Fidel Castro. This is the 60’s, in America. Bad idea.

Here’s some lyrics from the underrated gem My Back Pages:

A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

I mean just read that! I’m not sure what it means, but it’s amazing. Which is pretty much how I’d sum up Dylan’s lyrics from this point forward. Sure, his lyrics were easier to decipher before, but they’re now full of mystery, full of imagery, full of stardust, like a magical dream that floats in your memory as you wake up, unable to grasp it again.

I’ve not even mentioned the famous It Ain’t Me Babe? which closes out this album, there’s just too much to talk about.

Another Side of Bob Dylan is one of Dylan’s more challenging albums, but one that is well worth the effort. Give it a few spins, let those slightly erratic vocals become more normal and then sit back and focus on the words, you won’t regret it.

I have to be honest, I didn’t think Dylan was going to take the title for 1964 when I started listening to these and Getz/Gilberto had it in the bag right up until earlier today. Then I listened to this again, and the fact that I’ve been listening to this thing for 10 years and still find new bits of magic every time is pretty spectacular. It’s unfair to compare an album that’s been a part of your life for so long to one you’ve heard for the first time a week or so ago, but this just pipped it to the post.

9.5/10

Film Review: Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

September 07, 2018 by Clive in Reviews, Films

For better or for worse I know pretty much what I'm going to get with a Marvel film nowadays. I went into Ant Man and the Wasp expecting a good sequel with Paul Rudd being charmingly funny and relaxed against some pretty big odds, Michael Peña being consistently hilarious like in the first movie, and all of this to be wrapped in a plot that was a bit predictable but still entertaining.

That's exactly what I got. I was in need of some escapism when I went to watch this and it provided that pretty much perfectly. Michael Peña continues to be probably my favourite Marvel side character and has an ability to somehow be funny constantly but without that getting annoying, a rare skill indeed. I like that they use him relatively sparingly and usually at the perfect time, so the writing and direction deserves some credit on that front. Evangeline Lilly's palpable chemistry (as Wasp) with Paul Rudd deserves a mention too.

My main complaint, if I'm going to critique this fairly straightforward superhero film, is that it probably tried to squeeze a few too many story-lines into its duration. Did we really need the Ghost story-line AND the gangster story-line along with the main thrust of getting back Hope's mother from the quantum realm? I don't think so. It felt like the film threw in a character too many for the sake of a future Marvel film to me.

I'd love this kind of budget to get thrown into something more ambitious and novel, but nonetheless I couldn't help but like the film for all the above, it was as I expected, but that was still a lot of fun.

7/10

Film Review: Game Night (2018)

August 13, 2018 by Clive in Films, Reviews

Directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, Game Night is an action-comedy (some have said dark comedy, I'd disagree) which follows a group of our lead couple's (Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams - who steals the show) friends as they participate in a murder mystery game-night. Things get turned upside down when a real mystery happens simultaneously. It becomes unclear what is the game, and what is real.

I'm reviewing this mainly as a comedy. Although it does have some twists along the way these are more there to make you laugh than to keep you guessing what might happen next. As a comedy it works pretty well, it's pacey, entertaining and there are plenty of laughs to be had.

However, I'd say the jokes miss as much as they hit and the film overused certain jokes which were not that funny to begin with. I found the 'stupid-guy' character particularly annoying and one-dimensional, and the ending used a few of the clichés I'd hoped Hollywood might have left behind.

Overall I like the idea of the premise and there's plenty of fun to be had here. I just feel it might have worked better as a psychological thriller with comedy elements, or indeed as a much darker comedy. As it is it's just a decent comedy, nothing more, nothing less.

6 Clive Watches Ghibli: Part 7 (2013-2014)

July 04, 2018 by Clive in Films

It's finally here, the final part of my Ghibli retrospective (you can find the other parts over on our index page). There's only two films left to cover and not a Miyazaki in sight. Let's crack on.

The_Tale_of_Princess_Kaguya_princess_Kaguya_animated_movies-152403.jpg!d.jpg — The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013)

Isao Takahata's 2013 swansong before his death earlier this year is undoubtedly one of his, and Studio Ghibli's, best films. Based on the 10th century Japanese story The Bamboo Cutter it follows a bamboo cutter who finds a mysterious baby that appears inside a bamboo shoot. Discovering quickly that she grows more rapidly than normal humans, he believes her to be divine royalty and sees to it that she lives as such. He is aided in this quest by the lavish gifts that also magically appear in the bamboo he cuts.

The Tale of Princess Kaguya is a soaring coming of age tale that's themes are remarkably down to earth behind its mystical exterior. Growing up, going your own way, how life becomes more complicated as we get older, the corruptive influence of money and how it hurts to let go of our children when they grow up are all central themes to the film and are delivered in a way that feels universal despite the very Japanese feel to the film. The animation is more experimental (it's Takahata after all) and I probably like it less than the more traditional Ghibli style although I can't deny it's beautiful and I do feel it suits this older, more classic story. I think the film drags a little in the middle (I feel like closer to two hours would have been the sweet spot) but it's so ripe with beauty and observations about life that I consider it in the upper echelons of Ghibli's catalogue. The final scenes are absolutely stunning too.

8/10

Hiromasa Yonebayashi's second Studio Ghibli film (his first was Whispers of the Heart) is based on Juan G. Robinson's novel of the same name. Anna suffers an asthma attack at school and worried by her declining health and anxiety her foster parents send her to live with the foster-mother's relatives, who live in a seaside town where the air is clearer. Anna soon meets Marnie in an abandoned seaside mansion nearby, and it becomes clear pretty quickly that Marnie is not from the present. To me, it had similarities to something like Tom's Midnight Garden where the protagonist can meet people who live in the same place but in other time periods. As things go on Marnie and Anna's relationship deepens and secrets begin to unfold.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film to begin with and found Anna's highly anxious character very interesting, relatable, and full of depth. However I didn't find the reveal as rewarding as a lot of people seem to as I predicted it fairly early on, to say any more would be to spoil it. Nevertheless, this is a well put together film about family, anxiety, the past, and belonging. It's gorgeously animated and perhaps one of the more emotional Ghibli films, thanks partly to a very pretty soundtrack. I didn't connect with it as deeply as some have, but I can certainly appreciate it's beauty.

7/10

And so that's it. Two more films to throw into the Ghibli mixer and see how the final rankings pop out. I suspect these will change over time (some already have since the last post), especially when I rewatch the more meaty, harder to digest ones. But for now, here's how I'd rank them with the final two additions in bold italics:

1. Princess Mononoke

2. My Neighbour Totoro

3. Grave of the Fireflies

4. Kiki's Delivery Service

5. Spirited Away

6. The Tale of Princess Kaguya

7. Howl's Moving Castle

8. Laputa: Castle in the Sky

9. The Wind Rises

10. Arrietty

11. Whisper of the Heart

12. Only Yesterday

13. From Up on Poppy Hill

14. When Marnie Was There

15. Porco Rosso

16. The Cat Returns

17. Ponyo

18. My Neighbours the Yamadas

19. Pom Poko

20. Tales from Earthsea

Wow. What an amazing set of films, it is perhaps only the last two or three that I didn't enjoy all that much (although they were still very much serviceable). The top three are masterpieces in my eyes. I've been continually blown away, surprised and believe this little adventure is the birth of a love of anime. Next, I shall be watching all the top 100 ranked anime films at random (over many years no doubt) and posting reviews over on the YouTube channel. At least that's the current plan. Should any of these crop up I shall watch them again, and my rankings will no doubt change, though I seriously doubt Princess Mononoke will be taken from the top spot.

Thanks for reading this little series and stay classy y'all!

Clive :)