January 2021 Anniversaries
THE SECOND ALBUM
The Spencer Davis Group
The rather obviously titled album will be a bit of a feature of this January 2021 post. Beside this we will be hearing from 'ZZ Top's First Album', 'Chicago III' and Public Image Ltd's 'Album'.
I obviously am familiar with The Spencer Davis Group's hits, and 'Keep On Running' is here, but I was surprised to see a cover of 'Georgia On My Mind' in the track listing. I had them down as a fairly straightforward sixties pop combo named as if they are a tedious jazz ensemble, but they buck the general trend by being much more soulful than many of their blues-obsessed British counterparts. Stevie Winwood cropped up on the last day of 2020 with the 30th anniversary of Arc Of A Diver and you can see he remained true to his roots on those eighties solo albums.
Look Away
Keep on Running
This Hammer
Georgia On My Mind
Please do Something
Let Me Down Easy
Strong Love
I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water
Since I Met You Baby
You Must Believe Me
Hey Darling
Watch Your Step
SOUNDS OF SILENCE
Simon and Garfunkel
S&G's early discography is a bit of a mess. Some of these songs have already appeared on The Paul Simon Songbook, the UK release had Homeward Bound at the start of side 2, but it's clearly the US version on Spotify and the title track was on their debut too (with the pluralizing 's').
It's a bit of a cheek to complain about such an accomplished and enjoyable album however. 'The Sound Of Silence' is billed as 'Electric Version', which it might be, but only barely. I still get brought up short every time by the opening lines of 'Leaves That Are Green' which were pinched by Billy Bragg for A New England.
The Sound of Silence
Leaves That Are Green
Blessed
Kathy's Song
Somewhere They Can't Find Me
Anji
Richard Cory
A Most Peculiar Man
April Come She Will
We've Got a Groovy Thing Goin'
I Am a Rock
Released 11th January 1971
CHICAGO III
Chicago
Well, so many surprises here, not least that Chicago date back to 1967 when in my mind they are firmly placed in the late seventies as the ultimate MOR power balladeers. Secondly, what an extraordinary mish-mash of styles they've got sprawling across this double album. They sound more like an experimental jazz than long-haired crooners sporting the flared jean. It's not for me, and there is no excuse for a drum solo track on a studio album, they are barely acceptable on a live offering and only then if you are John Bonham or Keith Moon.
Album naming is not Chicago's strong suit, as of 2019 they are up to Chicago XXXVII: Chicago Christmas, but Wikipedia only lists 25 albums in total.
Sing a Mean Tune Kid
Loneliness Is Just a Word
What Else Can I Say
I Don't Want Your Money
Travel Suite
Flight 602
Motorboat to Mars
Free
Free Country
At the Sunrise
Happy 'Cause I'm Going Home
Mother
Lowdown
An Hour in the Shower
A Hard Risin' Morning Without Breakfast
Off to Work
Fallin' Out
Dreamin' Home
Morning Blues Again
Elegy
When All the Laughter Dies in Sorrow
Canon
Once Upon a Time...
Progress?
The Approaching Storm
Man vs. Man: The End
PEARL
Janis Joplin
Doctor Who trivia! David Tennant's version of the Doctor claimed that his long brown overcoat was given to him by Janis Joplin, which as a throwaway reference sort of confirms that the 10th Doctor really probably was the best.
This is a posthumous release, 3 months after she died. It sounds great today, not aged one bit, however we must assume that the use of Mercedes Benz for a commercial for the car company in 1995 induced some in-coffin rotation. It's a beaut of a cover photo too.
Move Over
Cry Baby
A Woman Left Lonely
Half Moon
Buried Alive in the Blues
My Baby
Me and Bobby McGee
Mercedes Benz
Trust Me
Get It While You Can
ZZ TOP'S FIRST ALBUM
ZZ TOP
Nobody goes into the rock and roll business expecting to do one album and then disappearing without trace, so it's kind of surprising that more don't go for this debut naming strategy. It's recognizably ZZ Top, if a little bluesier and mellower to their MTV era. It's also recognizably straight from the same heritage of Lynyrd Skynyrd, 'Old Man' is like Freebird II. There's also a track called 'Squank', which might be about the same thing as Genesis's 'Squonk', it's sort of along the same lines of being about some kind of malicious entity. 'Brown Sugar' is not 'Brown Sugar'.
(Somebody Else Been) Shaking Your Tree
Brown Sugar
Squank
Goin' Down to Mexico
Old Man
Neighbor, Neighbor
Certified Blues
Bedroom Thang
Just Got Back from Baby's
Backdoor Love Affair
DESIRE
Bob Dylan
I'm keen to portray myself as a Bob-sceptic, but you'd be hard pressed to find a lot to fault on this one. The opening tracks on both sides, 'Hurricane' and 'Joey' are epic story songs and there's a real energy to everything here. He has Emmylou on backing vocals too. Maybe 'Oh, Sister' owes something to his erstwhile Band-mates?
Hurricane
Isis
Mozambique
One More Cup of Coffee
Oh, Sister
Joey
Romance in Durango
Black Diamond Bay
Sara
Isis
Mozambique
One More Cup of Coffee
Oh, Sister
Joey
Romance in Durango
Black Diamond Bay
Sara
Released 6th January 1975
FRAMPTON COMES ALIVE!
Recorded Jan-Feb 1976
Peter Frampton
I included this almost out of a sense of duty. It's almost a by-word for the quintessential live rock album and sold by the truckload in the US. Wikipedia alleges 8 million Stateside and 11 million worldwide. Sure enough, it's fine. Enjoyable, well performed and with a few quirks that mark it out from the herd (ho ho), but it's hardly exceptional. A straightforward mid-seventies rock performance. BBC film critic Mark Kermode, in speculating what movie will win the Best Picture oscar this year, has a theory that, it's often the movie that the voting members of the academy dislike the least that wins. That logic might apply to this. It's a good rock-out which will offend no-one. Maybe people just added it to their collection so that they had a live album by a reasonably well established rock star in their collection.
Of course the thing that really sets it apart is his use of this new-fangled 'talk box' thing on 'Show Me The Way' and, with much tedious messing about on the final track, 'Do You Feel Like We Do'. It made him look like he was being force fed because he was hunger strike. There's also 'Baby I Love Your Way' which was mashed up with Lynyrd Skynyrd's Freebird by Will To Power (spooky, as Lynyrd Skynyrd are the very next live band in this particular queue). I never liked their version of the song because
1. it's drippy as hell and
2. they give up making the effort halfway through and just sing "la-di-da".
I'm not mad keen on Frampton's original either.
The opening track, 'Something's Happening' reminded me of the BBC Saturday afternoon sportsfest, Grandstand theme tune, slowed down to about half pace mind you. It's been driving me mad because I am sure there was a proper, really rather good chart song with the same tune, but for once I simply can't place it, nor find a Google search strategy that will take me to it. Never pass up a Tap reference, that's my motto, so is '(I'll Give You) Money' a reply song? There is also a rather underpowered rendition of 'Jumping Jack Flash'. The Stones knew they had a surefire winner on their hands and it benefits nothing from being messed about with and given a bluesy makeover. He clearly suffers a Jesus-complex judging by the cover, or perhaps The Darkness's Justin Hawkins managed to circumvent the time-space continuum somehow? I've seen him perform, playing second guitar banana to Bowie in the rain in 1987.
Band Bantz: "We'd like to get a little bit funky now. This one's called Doobie Wah" Are you sure Pete? Not Doobie Brothers rip off? And there's simply no excuse for introducing anything as 'an oldie but a goodie'.
Heckles and Coughs: The paying public are trusted with helping out on 'All I Want To Be (Is By Your Side)', but only on the bracketed part. They do provide some much needed 'atmosphere'.
https://andysrockodysseys.blogspot.com/2018/03/classic-live-albums-part-4-1974-1976.html
Something's Happening
Doobie Wah
Doobie Wah
Show Me The Way
It's A Plain Shame
All I Want To Be (Is By Your Side)
Wind Of Change
Baby I Love Your Way
I Wanna Go To The Sun
Penny For Your Thoughts
(I'll Give You) Money
Shine On
Jumpin' Jack Flash
Lines On My Face
Do You Feel Like We Do
STATION TO STATION
David Bowie
Only 6 tracks? That bodes well. It suggests artiness and a bit of weirdness. Just what you want from DB. It also features TVC15 - about which more later. I was expecting something a lot more avant-garde from this album, and I guess it is, but it is also absolutely classic Bowie. I think he must have been in a bit of a transition from his soul dabblings to the Berlin years. What that means is that I think he actually hits a little peak with this one. The title track starts with a steam train running through your head (if you're wearing headphones) before he starts his tale of the Thin White Duke. Station To Station soon settles into a great song that really drives along.
Then the rather magnificent 'Golden Years'. It has a real Stevie Wonder 'Superstitious' guitar riff, offset by finger snaps and claps and Bowie's full vocal range, from murmured backing vocals to falsetto breakouts. There's even a bit of whistling, which I always love. It's lyrically puzzling though, why would you "run for the shadows" in the "golden years"? We finish side one with 'Word On A Wing' which is as close as Dave has come to a ballad so far. He's a little bit histrionic on it, but what do you expect?
Firstly an apology, I HAD to include this video for TVC15 but it does feature someone at the start whom many people would rather forget. I can't find a version on YouTube without him, so I beg forgiveness. However the rest of it is pure TV gold. It features Top Of The Pops dance troupe Ruby Flipper who turned into a kind of stop-gap between Pan's People and Legs and Co. BBC execs obviously eventually decided that a bunch of pretty girls wiggling their derrieres was what the viewing public wanted. They were notable because they included a number of male dancers and took a slightly more, ahem, experimental approach. Their interpretation of the song is, well, different. It is either choreographer Flick Colby's finest hour or she just told the fellas to do what the hell they wanted. Either way it is so absurd that it emerges on the other side as inspirational. If nothing else they clearly 'got' Bowie at the time. As for the song, it was a hit (TOTP didn't put just anyone on you know) but is probably not that well known. I think it's great.
'Stay' features some Chic/Nile Rogers influences in the underlying guitar riffs and their is an extended groove out with funky guitar to the fade. We finish with 'Wild Is The Wind' which I think prefigures some of his later work such as 'China Girl', but maybe I'm reading too much into it. It has that kind of David Arnold/Bond Theme feel to it. It goes on a bit too long if I'm honest, but he did have a lot of vinyl to fill.
https://andysrockodysseys.blogspot.com/2014/08/david-bowie-eponymous-to-next-day.html
Station to Station
Golden Years
Word on a Wing
TVC 15
Stay
Wild Is the Wind
ALBUM
Public Image Ltd
To this point, Johnny Rotten had occasionally troubled the charts with stuff like 'This Is Not A Love Song', but he took us by surprise when he released 'Rise' as a single. It was still recognisably him, but it was a lot more complex and textured than what the casual listener might have expected from him. He hadn't given up on his 1977 manifesto though. "Anger is an energy!" he shrills.
The worst thing about the album is Lydon himself, the music is fine, a kind of polished eighties industrial sound, but the vocals and delivery become mannered in the end. He's always been conscious of how he presents himself, that's probably why he gave the band that name, but it must be hard work being publicly obnoxious for 45 years now.
F.F.F.
Rise
Fishing
Round
Bags
Home
Ease
1916
Motörhead
No, don't let the picture deceive you, I haven't turned into a right wing military fantasist troll, although I daresay this offering by Lemmy and co has some appeal to that constituency. Lemmy is fretting about the waste of life in WWI so he croaks out a kind of ballad of a dying young soldier on the title track. Elsewhere it's Motörhead business as usual including bit of back-masking on 'Nightmare/The Dreamtime'.
"I make love to mountain lions!" screams the warty one in the opening line of 'I'm So Bad (Baby I Don't Care)', so if you're into high-stakes bestiality this might be the album for you.
The One to Sing the Blues
I'm So Bad (Baby I Don't Care)
No Voices in the Sky
Going to Brazil
Nightmare / The Dreamtime
Love Me Forever
Angel City
Make My Day
R.A.M.O.N.E.S.
Shut You Down
1916
THE SOUL CAGES
Sting
THE SOUL CAGES (1991)
I got to the end of this and noticed that the final track, 'When the Angels Fall', bears more than a passing resemblance to his old mates' Dire Straits 'Brothers in Arms', maybe it's Knopfler returning the favour I thought and got onto Wikipedia. As it turn out it isn't the headbanded one, but the entry did reveal to me that this is a concept album.
Now I did spot the shippy theme in the opening Island of Souls (and was pleasantly surprised to hear some Northumbrian Pipes) and 'The Soul Cages' itself, but did not realise it was all part of a narrative about a kid called Billy from a family of dockyard riveters. His latest album (which I haven't ever listened to) is on the same theme so he clearly has a b. in his b. about the subject.
On listening to 'All This Time', I finally nailed something that I think has always annoyed me about it, there are sections which sound like another piece of music and I now reckon it must be Trumpet Voluntary. Maybe it's intentional? 'Mad About You' has a gong finish, so it can't be all bad. Jeremiah Blues (Part I) - with no trace of Part II to come later mind - has moments when it all seems to fall apart before picking up again. 'Why Should I Lie to You' is a bit dull but is enlivened at the end by some fun little yipping noises. 'Saint Agnes and The Burning Train' has a misleadingly interesting title, it's just a well executed but non-distinctive bit of Spanish guitar.
I haven't focused on the covers for Sting so far, on the first two the art department seemed to believe that his handsome map was enough to sell millions of copies. This one has a simple picture of a ship under construction. Makes a nice change.
https://andysrockodysseys.blogspot.com/2014/03/sting-from-turtles-to-ship.html
Island of Souls
All This Time
Mad About You
Jeremiah Blues (Part 1)
Why Should I Cry for You
Saint Agnes and the Burning Train
The Wild Wild Sea
The Soul Cages
When the Angels Fall
Released 23rd January 2006
WHATEVER PEOPLE SAY I AM, THAT'S WHAT I'M NOT
The Arctic Monkeys
Blimey, is it really 15 years since David Cameron pretended that this was one of 8 records he'd take to a desert island? Did they really think they could pull that one off? It makes you wonder what a prospective PM. For the record, Sir Keir Starmer, who currently occupies the equivalent position in 2021 chose Out On The Floor by Dobie Gray, Beethoven's 6th Symphony, Welcome To My World by Jim Reeves (which gets him my vote), Falling and Laughing by Orange Juice, Oh Happy Day by The Edwin Hawkins Singers, Three Lions by Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds, Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 and Bridge Over Troubled Water by Artists for Grenfell. Clearly some are influenced by the need to appear a caring and in-touch politician - frankly Three Lions might eventually have me doing laps of the island gibbering like a baboon, but his choices don't come near to Cameron's crass spin-doctoring.
Anyway, it's not really about them anyway. This is all spiky and wordy. Many of the titles would make Morrissey proud, but 'Mardy Bum' has to be the best. They've come a long way in the last 15 years and their last album 'Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino' is something of a masterpiece.
The View from the Afternoon
I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor
Fake Tales of San Francisco
Dancing Shoes
You Probably Couldn't See for the Lights but You Were Staring Straight at Me
Still Take You Home
Riot Van
Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured
Mardy Bum
Perhaps Vampires Is a Bit Strong But...
When the Sun Goes Down
From the Ritz to the Rubble
A Certain Romance
BLACKSTAR (2016)
David Bowie
David Bowie
I was going to wait. I thought, there's plenty of time, it's just another album to add to the existing post, he seems to be back to regular recording. Then the news came out this morning. I still thought about waiting, give me time to digest, get on with other artists, do a proper job. But music is about how it makes you feel, what it means and, certainly for me, how it associates with memories. So it makes sense to listen to this now and write about it. His final offering. It doesn't matter if I love it, hate it or think it's somewhere in the middle, Bowie is the ultimate rock artist. More than just a musician, everything he's done is interesting (well - Tin Machine II is the exception that proves the rule).
For me doing the original post was a massive undertaking. I'm not a Bowie fan. I only listened to most of his albums for the first time a year and a half ago and haven't listened to many of them since, but he was undoubtedly the most fun to do. Inventive, absurd, a soundtrack to my lifetime, even if I didn't realize it as I was going along. You can't help feeling that even this last release and his subsequent departure was some kind of artistic gesture too. Before release there was speculation that the rise of Islamic terrorism was a theme, but now he leaves us confused about whether, in fact, it's all about his illness and inevitable death. I bet he'd be delighted at the ambiguity.
I'm happy to report that the opening title track is genuinely great and immediately grabs you. His kind of treble chanted lyric is fragile and assertive at once, much like 'Where Are We Now?'. 'Tis A Pity She Was A Whore' has a classic Bowie vocal, sung as if through gritted teeth against a cacophony of instruments that somehow resolves itself into a tune. If you listen to the lyrics of Lazarus now then it's easy to see what he was singing about, "scars that can't be seen", "nothing left to lose", "I'll be free like that bluebird". Of course he could put out a song so openly about oncoming death because he'd spent a lifetime putting out elliptical lyrics, he hid the illness in plain sight. There is some distinctly dingy guitar work on 'Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)'. He references 'A Clockwork Orange' on 'Girl Loves Me'. Research tells me that he also uses Polari slang in the lyrics.The outro to the languid, sax-heavy 'Dollar Days' is simply, a repeated "I'm trying to; I'm dying to". Could he have made it any plainer? The only other thing he could have done was walk across a zebra crossing barefoot. Finally, 'I Can't Give Everything Away', gentle electro pop now laden down with meaning.
The news reports today said he had an 18-month battle with cancer and people often object to the word 'battle' in that context, but I wouldn't mind betting that he hung on grimly until this had been safely released on his birthday on Friday as planned. Heroic.
https://andysrockodysseys.blogspot.com/2014/08/david-bowie-eponymous-to-next-day.html
Blackstar
Tis a Pity She Was a Whore
Lazarus
Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)
Girl Loves Me
Dollar Days
I Can't Give Everything Away