As no doubt you will know James Dean Bradfield is the lead vocalist and lead guitarist for the Manic Street Preachers. Interestingly he contributes little if any of the lyrics despite delivering with an incredible passion that would make you think they were personal. I happen to think he is an outstanding talent and this is one of two solo releases (the other I don't know except it is a soundtrack).
Anyway continuing with the Western Theme to tie in with the forthcoming release of Springsteen's album I thought it was a good time to revisit this lp. It is an excellent record in which JDB not only writes the majority of the material but plays all the instruments, albeit augmented here and there.
The album is very melodic and a bit more "poppy" in sound than the manic street preachers, there is not a bad track on it and it will appeal not only to Manics fans.
ps I have taken the opportunity to sneak in the Shirley Bassey and Kylie Tracks as I will have nowhere else to put them!
This 1993 album is an absolute stunning piece of work by Jackson Browne but probably overlooked somewhat because of the classic albums Late For The Sky, For Everyman, The Pretender and Running On Empty. To my mind I'm Alive is the equal of that great body of work.
Lucky for us and pity for Jackson but it follows a down period in his personal life which always leads him to those wonderful songs of love, sorrow, regret and maybe a wee piece of redemption. It certainly came at the time as quite a departure from the political albums which immediately preceded it.
The opener and title track "I'm Alive" sets the scene and tone of the album both musically and lyrically- "now I'm rolling down California 5/with your laughter in my head/gonna have to block it out somehow to survive/cos those dreams are dead, but I'm alive".
There are many great tracks on the album but the real high water mark is the stunning Sky Blue and Black. In one track he pulls together love, longing, regret and hope for redemption. It is an absolute classic.
Key tracks
I'm Alive
My Problem Is You
Too Many Angels
Sky Blue and Black
Two of Me, Tow Of You
It may again seem a strange choice to select an album by one of the best known and most iconic figures in popular music as a Forgotten Album Friday selection. However despite a couple of cracking singles and accompanying outstanding videos this 1999 album sneaked out with very little notice. I suspect that in part it was a backlash to the immediately preceding "drum n bass" effort earthling. To be fair the latter does have a cracking cover and with hindsight a couple of good tracks:
Hours has it all though.
The singles from the album are exceptional and stand up with most of Bowie's catalogue and to my ears a lot of the material harks back to Hunky Dory in style. Seven especially would have fitted somewhere between Quicksand and Bewlay Brothers quite nicely.
The album release saw Bowie playing some TV gigs, notably at the Beeb and these hinted at what could have been a great tour much in the same way as a Scary Monsters Tour would have been superb.
Key tracks:
Seven - below from the storytellers DVD
Thursdays Child - a fantastic video
The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell
Survive
If you are suffering from overload of prime time karaoke from The Voice and the like this is the place to restore your faith in quality music.
In looking up the information on this album I came across the following great Rolling Stone Reviews from 1984:
The Waterboys’ chunk of British big-guitar rock has a very familiar ring. There
are resonant echoes of the Bunnymen in singer Mike Scott’s tremulous wail and
the martial slice of his massed acoustic guitars, along with hints of fellow
Scotsmen Big Country’s Highland swirl and enough studio reverb to swallow U2.
What distinguishes ‘A Pagan Place’ - the Waterboys’ first full-length U.S.
release - is the unique, exhilarating force of its rock & roll heart. Like a
punk bursting into Van Morrison’s mystic with six strings blazing, Scott (head
Waterboy and the album’s producer) has made a kind of black-leather-jacket
version of ‘Astral Weeks’. The raging guitars of “Rags” and eager gallop of
“Church Not Made with Hands,” with its bursts of Gabriel like trumpet, explode
the folkie purity of his melodies and frank introspection of his lyrics into
epic blasts of what he aptly calls, in another song, “The Big
Music”.
Often, that sound is composed of a lot of little things that add
up brilliantly. In ‘All the Things She Gave Me,’ Scott heightens the
funeral-pyre image of a failed love affair with a pained, questioning vocal,
brooding acoustic guitars and a rousing chorus glowing with an R&B flame.
The title song, powered by guitars in locomotive drive and hopeful trumpet
flourishes, sounds like an impatient prayer. Even the ambitious naiveté of ‘Red
Army Blues,’ in which the rites of passage of a young Russian soldier in World
War 2 are detoured by Stalinist cruelty, is effectively dramatised by the band,
whose sad, gray march evokes a tired legion crossing the bleak Siberian
steppes.
The gripping quality of Scott’s expansive big-music gestures is
wondrous enough. That he pulls it off with a defiant acoustic purity - no
synthesizers, by God! - is reason to cheer. Contrary to their name, the
Waterboys already qualify for a spot on the new-rock A team.
When Marianne Faithfull released her comeback album, "Broken English", in 1979, it was widely received by the buying public and critically acclaimed as a "masterpiece". She followed that up in 1981 with "Dangerous Acquaintences" which, though not quite on the par of "Broken English", was deemed an excellent piece of music and a natural follow-up to "Broken English".
Then, in 1983, Marianne released "A Child's Adventure". Of the same musical vein and mold as "Broken English" and "Dangerous Acquaintences" these three albums are often referred to as her "Trilogy". After "A Child's Adventure", Marianne has changed musical directions several times. "A Child's Adventure" is another excellent piece of work from Marianne Faithfull.
It starts off with "Times Square", a true MF classic. The bluesy "The Blue Millionaire" is somewhat of a departure for Marianne, at least up to that point, and gives credence to Marianne as a great musical stylist. "Falling From Grace" is an excellent autobiograpical song about her drug problems/bust. The poignant "Morning Come" and "Ashes In My Hand" shows, once again, the depth of her musical range and style. "Running For Our Lives" is another MF classic and is in close running with "Times Square" as my personal favorite from the CD. Marianne Faithfull is a uniquely gifted and talented artist and song stylist.
One listen to "A Child's Adventure" and the other albums that make up her "Trilogy", and you will see for yourself. The music of Marianne Faithfull is a wonderfully diverse tapestry of folk, pop, rock, punk, show tunes, and cabaret. This one may not be "Broken English", but it is Marianne. Excellent music from a truly great artist!
Key Tracks:
Times Square
Falling From Grace
Running For Our Lives
Sorry for the lack of meaningful updates but hopefully this great lp from Dave Edmunds gets me back into the way of things!
The lp is pretty much what you would expect from Dave Edmunds with some classic rockers together with some new material notably from future producer Nick Lowe. Backed by Rockpile the playing and production are exemplary and there really is not a bad track on the lp.
The first of four cracking lp's on the Swan Song label the standout tracks are:
I Knew The Bride
Crawling From The Wreckage
Back To School Days
Get Out Of Denver
As Broooce has dusted off an overlooked gem from his Darkness sessions, Rendezvous, it is time to remind ourselves of the first official release of this track, and the album On The Line.
This is the second album of Gary US Bonds that Springsteen was involved with, Dedication preceding it, and this time Springsteen provides most of the songs and shares production duties with Miami Steve Van Zandt. The album is basically Gary US Bonds and the E Street band and well worth seeking out.
The album has a much more soulful feel to it and there are several standout tracks including Rendezvous,
Out Of Work and a cracking version of Soul Deep.
Songs for Drella (1990) remains a highlight in both Cale and Reed's lengthy careers- it forms part of Reed's strongest trilogy of albums since the Velvets demise (the others being New York, 1988 & Magic&Loss, 1992) Reed & Cale had infamously fallen out when in The Velvet Underground & had not worked together since- this collaboration, along with Moe Tucker's contribution to New York, would lead to the VU temporarily reforming (the resulting live album containing some wonderful takes on classics like Beginning to See the Light & Femme Fatale).
Songs for Drella is one based around a limited musical soundscape (Reed on Vocals/Guitar; Cale on keyboards/vocals/viola) & one that has a sense of improvisation. It was a work primarily written for performance- like Tom Waits recent Alice/Blood Money setz- so perhaps some of the songs are more theatrical than melodic; but I like the whole journey around a fictional take on Warhol's life from people who were once close to him...(the final track on New York leads here...)
The tracks with Cale on lead vocals stand out- Style It Takes (wonderfully performed on Fragments for a Rainy Season),Trouble with Classicists (great guitar from Reed), A Dream & (especially) Forever Changed stand out. Reed also gets to sing some great songs- the amusing Smalltown, the ethos of Work (up there with There is No Time), the spleen-venting I Believe (Valerie Solanis surfacing...) & especially the touching Hello It's Me- which shows that its possible to continue discourse with the dead: "I know it's late in coming but it's the only way I know/Hello it's me- goodnight Andy.../Goodbye Andy"-
Universitry days and Lone Justice / Maria McKee provide the happiest of memories, of a new friendhip which would prove to be the longest lasting, a great gig in the QMU whetre Maria and the boys provide a blsitering set with a great cover of Sweet Jane.
A couple of years on and Maria chucks the band and release a superb solo album which is really an extension of the sound and sensibility of Lone Justic, horridly overproduced by Mitchell Froom.....who was everwhere at the time. Great songs though and very much overlooked....great amazon review here:
This album did not change the world. This album did not change my life; it is unlikely to change yours... but you may feel empathy, you may feel heartsick, you may feel like you've been put through an emotional grider, you may feel giddy at the anthemic swoops of 'Panic Beach', you may sense the fragility portrayed by the singer. This is not an album that is best judged by 30 second clips or one straight listen. Take time to get to know it, let it into your soul. 'I've Forgotten...' is a nice reversal of the more common cry from a lover who feels their partner has lost passion - here it is the singer that has lost the feeling... "Oh honey please don't cry, I'm sorry and ashamed" is a pitiful admission that more of us can relate to than would admit. 'To Miss Someone' is lyrically along the lines of 10cc's 'I'm Not In Love' but admits more vulnerability, and has been covered by Feargal Sharkey (Maria wrote his UK number one, too). The next track was covered by The Dixie Chicks, but try not to let that put you off, a cry from the lonely and rejected - "I'm smothered by this emptiness". 'Nobody's Child', co-written by Robbie Robertson puts in an appearance before the glorious epic of struggling performers that is 'Panic Beach'. The album then falls away to merely very good until the exquisite love song, 'Breathe'..."I was scared when you came into my room, the walls became the sea, your voice was the moon"... pause to visualise it. The album originally ended with a Richard Thompson number to which Maria's voice is well-suited, but in the days of adding tracks to make you buy the CD format 'Drinkin' In My Sunday Dress' was added; very good as such added tracks go, but programme your CD player to move it to the middle of the album! This a great album from a singer-songwriter who seemed to be at the peak of her powers, although if you like your music loud try a later album.
Later Show Me Heaven and A Good Heart was written about The Heartbreakers Benmomt Tench who quickly replies with You Little Thief, both classic singles performed by Mr F Sharkey....and soon Ricky Ross was intoning that Maria was a Real Gone Kid!
Key Tracks
I've Forgotten What It Was In You (That Put The Need In Me)
Am I The Only One (Who's Ever Felt This Way?)
Panic Beach
Has He Got A Friend For Me?
By way of background The Go-Betweens were an indie rock band formed in Brisbane, Australia in 1977 by singer-songwriters and guitarists, Robert Forster and Grant McLennan. I think they were in Gl;asgow for a while and maybe recorded there, hopefully someone will let me know. They were later joined by Lindy Morrison on drums, Robert Vickers on bass guitar and Amanda Brown on violin, oboe, guitar, and backing vocals, before disbanding in late 1989.
Forster and McLennan reformed the band in 2000 with a new line-up, but sadly McLennan died on 6 May 2006 of a heart attack and The Go-Betweens disbanded again.
Robert Foster has several excellent solo albums but I think his work with the Go-Betweens was where he was at his peak.
16 Lovers Lane is one of the finest alternative pop albums of the mid 80's and as good a set of ten songs put on disc by any group in the late 80's/early 90's. The two songwriters, McLennan and Forster, are in absolute top form, balancing guardedly optimistic upbeat numbers with poetic, soul-searching ballads and duets. The central theme throughout the record deals with the unspoken complexities of growing older with love and friendship, and the sometimes poignant contradictions between melancholic regret and hopefulness for the future.
What also makes this album different from its predecessors is the ease with which it all seems to come together. On the surface, the songs all seem simple and effortless, but there is a more complex sound once you get into the album. Like Cosmic Rough Riders, Lloyd Cole, Aztec Camera they take simple elements of acoustic guitars and major chords and weave them into something so rich.
An under-appreciated band.
A great pop album.
Key tracks
Love Goes On
Love Is A Sign
Streets Of Your Town
Dive for your memory
Was There Anything I Could Do
Ropddy Frame was of course more or less Aztec Camera however in 1998 for some reason he decided to drop the Aztec Camera band name probably because of the poor showing of the Frestonia lp, and this was his first solo album. You will probably have heard the lead track / single Reason for Living which is one of my favouritre Roddy / Aztec camera tracks.
The production on the album is fairly familiar if you like the sound of Aztec Camera with a clean sound typical of his work. The album kicks off with a great track "Back To The One" which sets the tone for an album full of great songs . The North Star, Hymn To Grace, River of Brightness and Bigger, Brighter, Better are all just great Roddy Frame songs.
"Bigger, Brighter, Better" shines with its irresistible hook vand positive lyrics. "Autumn Flower" begins with a piano then carries on with a hypnotic bass line. "Reason For Living" lifts off with the opening bars of Springsteen's "Born To Run" before driving towards a climatic chorus and, finally, "Hymn To Grace" closes the album with the now familiar acoustic farewell. Roddy Frame is in superb form through this album and if you were an aztec Camera fan and this sneaked bye you I would thoroughly recommend this lp.
Key tracks
Reason For Living
North Star
Bigger, Brighter, Better
Back To The One
Hymn To Grace
I am note sure how familiar you will be with Iris DeMent and I think her albums might be a wee bit of an acquired taste, no matter she is an excellent songwriter and performer who got great acclaim for her first two albums Infamous Angel and the Grammy nominated My Life, both of which are pretty firmly in the Country end of Americana.
Both of those albums I would highly recommend.
For her third album Iris went for a bigger sound and moved slightly away from her focus on personal relationships and living in a small town and its values to look outwards dealing with big issues like corporate greed, Vietnam, child abuse and poverty. The album is much bigger in its sound as well with an almost rock feel and pace to the album at times.
The key track on this album is without doubt the superb Wasteland of The Free which is a protest song up there with the very best of them where Iris sears through her damming indictment of businessmen, politicians and the negative influences on youth. John Jennings who you may know through his work with mary Chapin Carpenter is on outstanding form omn this track. Another cracker is the title track which features nice guitar work from Mark Knopfler.
Elsewhere Iris does not lose her touch of connecting with simple emotional songs and her quiet personal faith on songs like When My Morning Comes Around and I'll Take My Sorrow Straight.
Ryan Adams can be a musical genius and his work with his first band Whiskeytown is well worth seeking out. Pneumonia was recorded in 1998 but was not released until 2001 due to some legal hoo ha with the record label and possibly some of the band members. The album is more of a solo Ryan Adams album although he has said in a number of interviews that the album would never be released if he had anything to do with it. Fortunately it was released and seems to have softened his views on the album in recent times.
While Pneumonia may not achieve the classic status of the band's best album Strangers Almanac (1996), it comes close. The songs bounce from the horn-laden "The Ballad of Carol Lynn" to the orchestral sound of "Under Your Breath," a song that would be equally at home on Adams' solo album, Heartbreaker.
The album is produced by Ethan Johns, who produced the early Ryan Solo albums amongst many other things and as you would expect he gives this album a much more polished sound that the earlier Whiskeytown albums.
This album was released in 1988 by which time Steve's career seemed in a bit of a hiatus and he had not had a release for about 6years. As a result this fine album was pretty much overlooked on its release which is a great shame as it contains some of his finest work.
I don't know much about the band that play on the album but the production is by Gary W Tallent and he had obviously picked up a few tips while working on the Springsteen sessions as the album sounds fantastic and the sometimes fairly sparse sound of Forbert is fleshed out with a fuller band sound. Tallent does not opt for dropping in fellow E Street Band members on the record and I think that is a good thing. Only two cameos - Nils Lofgren plays guitar on Wait A Little Longer and former E Streeter Ernest "Boom" Carter adds a bit of percussion to Don't Tell Me.
From the wonderfully optimistic opener "Running On Love", to the rockin' urgency of "Don't Tell Me (I Know)", the nostalgia of "I Blinked Once", to the bleak border tale of "Mexico", to the pop sounds of "On The Streets Of This Town" and "Perfect Stranger", to the perfectly-placed penultimate cut "Wait A Little Longer", to the nice closer "Search Your Heart" -- this is Forbert's finest hour, from start to finish.
Key tracks
Running On Love
On The Streets of This Town
Wait A Little Longer
I think that Counting Crows were a bit of a victim of their own success....how do you follow Mr. Jones....well with a cover of Big Yellow Tax I suppose, albeit several years down the line. There is much more to this band than the Hits compilation - and much more so than a cover of a Joni Mitchell song.
Counting Crow's "August and Everything After" is a brilliant debut album. The opening song "Round Here" sets the tone for the entire album, fantastic lyrical story-telling songs accompanied by great hooks and melodies.
While there is no there is no denying that "Mr. Jones" is a catchy pop song, there is way more to this album than that. This is an album of love and loss, of regret and of reaching for a better place. Duritz lyrics are superb and the band create a great sound-track for him. Its a bit like Van Morrison's vision of what he could achieve withe Caledonia Soul Orchestra. Duritz sounds weary a lot of the time on this record....but you have the feeling throughout than things are going to work out fine.
Essential tracks:
Round Here:
Mr. Jones:
Anna Begins:
Rain King:
A Murder of One:
Side note: my friend Michael and I saw the band on this Tour. Barrowlands I think, 6 November 1994. Michael will know for sure! Great gig though.
This is an album that I am amazed is not regarded as a classic. I think that the Hothouse Flowers suffered from never quite being one thing or the other, not a folk rock band, not a stadium rock band and not quite a band with an underground following like, say, World Party.
This is the third album from the band and was released in 1993 by which time the band were struggling to make any sort of impact and the slightly curious choice of Stewart Levine as Producer (Commodores, Simply Red) made you wonder where on earth they were headed....fear not though as the band produced a set of brilliantly produced, well crafted songs with a beautiful sound which mixed celtic themes with an atmospheric background.
Comparison with U2 and Waterboys cannot of course be avoided but I think this album in particular sees the band creating a sound of their own.
The key tracks are:
This is It (your soul) - one of my all time favourites
An Emotional Time
Thing Of beauty
Isn't It Amazing
Stand Beside Me
There is not a bad track on this album.....seek it out you will not be dissapointed.
I wanted to elect one of the Southside Johnny albums for the Forgotten Album Friday slot but simply could not choose between the first three albums which are all classics - albeit for different reasons.
Southside is of course associated to a great extent with Springsteen and the Boss has appeared on stage with him and on his records frequently over the years.
The first album "I Don't Want To Go Home" is a tour de force of Southside Johnny and The Jukes style of upbeat tracks with a horn driven RnB sound. Rolling Stone called this album the best album no one has ever heard. Produced by Steve Van Zandt the album features some cracking cover versions plus some Springsteen and van Zandt originals. You Mean So Much to Me has a cracking duet with Ronnie Spector.
Key tracks :
The Fever
I Don't want To Go Home
You Mean So Much To Me
The second album " This Time It's For Real" features in the main van Zandt compositions and 3 Springsteen / van Zandt compositions which in fairness are little more than Springsteen leftovers tidied up by van Zandt. Nonetheless that band and particularly the horns are in superb form throughout this album and guests spots from the Drifters and The Coasters lend some vocal class to proceedings.
Key tracks:
This Time It's For Real
Love On The Wrong Side Of Town
When You dance
In the words of Michael Jackson(!!!) as far as Hearts of Stone goes - This Is it!! A stunning album with writing producing and playing which is just about on par with anything the Boss himself has produced. The title track is performed with incredible passion both by Southside and the band. The album was released only a couple of months after Darkness and they are very similar album using the "4 corners" approach that Springsteen used when sequencing both Darkness and Born To Run. van Zandt brings his best songs to this album and there is literally not a weak track on it.
Key Tacks:
Hearts of Stone
Trapped again
The Light Don't Shine
I was reminded of the brilliance of this album, thanks to a post by Radio Nowhere.
This album is a real pre-cursor, I think, to Justin Curries solo album. Not only that I think this is as good as anything Del Amitri produced, and yet it bombed! Right at the time they were needing some commercial success.
Can You Do Me Good was a real step forward for the band both in the quality of material and the feel of the record. The production gives the album a really good modern sound, using loops, drum machines and assorted effects as a counterpoint to the bands rock edge.
Curries lyrics as ever are caustic, witty and observant. I found this great listener review on amazon:
The songs gradually grow on you and plant themselves in your head. The opener, "Just before you Leave" carries on where "Cry to be Found" left off - shimmering strings and wonderful vocals from Justin Currie, it's a peach of a song and is how songs really should be - soulful, heartfelt and, hey! call me a traditionalist, tuneful.
There are some great songs which follow on - "Buttons on My Clothes" could be perceived as just another "oh no, she's gone and left me" kinda song but a real sense of loss is portrayed in the song and, if there was any justice in this world, it would be a number one single...but we all know that ain't ever gonna happen.
"Wash Her Away"'s riff is as rough as the sentiments in the song. "Out Falls the Past" is simple and brilliant. And as for the closer, "Just Getting By", it's another example of the Dels knack of writing a song which can tug at your heart strings and make you feel good about life all at the same time. Justin's vocals on this song alone are worth the price of the album. Yes, Robbie would kill for this song!
This album can do you a great deal of good!
Key tracks:
Drunk In A Band
Just Before You Leave
Buttons On My Clothes
Just Getting Bye
I hope anyone popping by here will know quite a bit about former Bible lead man Boo Hewerdine and his solo work and also his collaborations with many different folky artists. This album is probably less known and Boo collaborates with Darden Smith Austin, Texas, an altogether grittier country artist.
Cut live in fourteen days with a group of musicians which included guitarist Sonny Landreth of John Hiatt's Goners – Evidence is a brilliant mix of British folky pop and Americana. It works. Evidence is probably my favourite Boo track and he really pushes himself hitting the words of disappointment and betrayal as if he reall was in the middle of these emotions. The same can be said for the desire that drips from Smith's roughshod drawl on "All I Want (Is Everything),".
Again an album which focuses on lost love, betrayal and regret. It is probably a bit of a dark album but an absolute favourite of mine. If you are a fan of either artist check this out!
Evidenceeeeeee!!
http://www.boohewerdine.org/mp3/56k/Evidence.mp3
Key tracks:
Evidence
All I Wants Is Everything
Remind Me (A Little of You)
Who, What, Where and Why?
Not my normal kind of thing, I suppose, but I have always been a huge Who fan and a great admirer of Pete Townsend.
This album was release, I think between the Who's Face Dances and It's Hard. It is completely different than those albums with much more of an 80's pop / synth feel to it. Throughout the album Pete is clearly very introspected especially on the absolute key track The Sea Refuses No River.
This is far from Pete's best work....but that is not always the point!!
The eagle eared among you may spot the future Big Country Rhythm section of Mark Breziki and Tony Butler in brilliant form throughout this album.
Key tracks
The Sea Refuses No River
Slit Skirts
Somebody Saved Me
Face Dances Pt.2
.jpg)
