June 2021 Anniversaries
A KIND OF MAGIC
Queen
QueenFor some reason this slipped under my radar when I was putting together the Queen album list. I was about to leap from The Works to The Miracle but when I saw 'One Vision' wasn't on the latter I paused. I knew that had to be coming up soon and so I found A Kind Of Magic in the nick of time. It may not have been any great loss if I had missed it.
I poo-pooed the idea that 'Another One Bites The Dust' employed back-masking of any kind and yet 'One Vision' which starts this clearly has something being run backwards at the start of the song. Whatever enthusiast updated the Wikipedia entry for the song asserts that it's "God works in mysterious ways... mysterious ways...". It's a strong start, but the middle of the song is a mess, pulling in squealing guitars and rapid beats that hark back to Radio Ga Ga. We all thought the final "fried chicken!" was amusing and quirky back then. It feels a bit forced now.
The title track is familiar enough. Utterly radio-friendly and so, tending toward being very bland indeed. Same goes for 'Friends Will Be Friends'. 'One Year Of Love' isn't much better, a plodding, anthemic power ballad. 'Pain Is So Close To Pleasure' is heavily motown influenced and Mercury gives the falsetto another outing.
One thing I guess I must be grateful for is that this isn't billed as the Highlander soundtrack album, although a few of the songs were used in the movie. If it had been I might have convinced myself to sit through that again. Highlander came out in my first term at Sunderland Polytechnic and was the first movie I remember being shown at the Sunderland ABC (£1 entry, but bear in mind that most of the clientele would be well-oiled from the ample hostelries on Wearside, especially for those late-Saturday night horror double bills). However I did not see Highlander in the cinema and the honour of the first film I saw there probably goes to Arnold Schwarzenegger's 'Raw Deal', or perhaps '9½ Weeks'?. Most of side two of the album features songs used in Highlander including the rather ponderous 'Who Wants To Live Forever', mainly sung by May but Mercury chips in a bit. 'Gimme The Prize' features some dialogue from the film as well as an AC-DC 'Thunderstruck' style guitar twiddly intro but is otherwise a rather boring hard rock ramble. The album closes with the film's theme tune 'Princes Of The Universe', which only serves to remind me of Dolph Lundgren's He-Man movie, which I did see at the Sunderland ABC and is a much better film in every possible way.
This feels like Queen are falling between two stools. They'd been commissioned to do the film soundtrack and so combined those songs with a few others, which aren't really up to snuff anyway. It's certainly not unlistenable, but it ain't great either. The artwork looks like it was tendered out to a design agency who might have been cutting edge in 1986, but only looks horribly dated now. It also gives the impression that their self image of their physiques was a little off the mark.
One Vision
A Kind Of Magic
One Year Of Love
Pain Is So Close To Pleasure
Friends Will Be Friends
Who Wants To Live Forever
Gimme The Prize
Don't Lose Your Head
Princes Of The Universe
POSES
Rufus Wainwright
Well, I like his dad, but having listened to this, I'm not keen on him. His voice doesn't do it for me, even though there are echoes of Loudon to be heard, it's all rather waily and whiny.
Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk
Greek Song
Poses
Shadows
California
The Tower of Learning
Grey Gardens
Rebel Prince
The Consort
One Man Guy
Evil Angel
In a Graveyard
Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk (reprise)
SOMEWHERE IN ENGLAND
George Harrison
One thing about George is plain. He wears his heart on his sleeve with his songs. All the way back to 'Taxman' he hasn't been afraid to air his own personal gripes in song. At this point he's reportedly quite disgruntled with the whole industry and presents his complaints front and centre in 'Blood From A Clone'. "They don't have time for the music, they want the blood from a clone" sings he. Well quite. Are you listening Simon Cowell?. It's also quite indicative of how prescient and on the money Harrison is in general. 'Save The World' may express it's sentiments fairly simplistically, but as a song it is pretty much as relevant today as it was in 1981. Maybe that isn't saying much really and just tells us that we were, and remain, incapable of making the changes that he thinks are needed.
Since I do these chronologically it's no revelation that this is the first ex-Beatle release since Lennon's death, and they all get behind his tribute 'All Those Years Ago', with Ringo on drums (across the whole album in fact) and Paul, Linda and Denny Laine on backing vocal. It's a fitting salute as it captures just a hint of Lennon's spikiness, and it's a good, catchy song too. For the rest, it feels like he's marking time a little. 'Teardrops' is a nice piece of cheerful disco, but there is much that is not particularly memorable. I give you two versions of the artwork. The rather good cover with him superimposed with a map of Great Britain was initially replaced by the rather poor one taken at the Tate Gallery. The original cover was eventually reinstated on reissue.
Blood From A Clone
Unconsciousness Rules
Life Itself
All Those Years Ago
Baltimore Oriole
Teardrops
That Which I Have Lost
Writing's On The Wall
Hong Kong Blues
Save The World
INVISIBLE TOUCH
Genesis
Genesis complete the transition from prog rock pioneers to chart whores and estrange the people who showed faith in them in the early days. But you cannot deny that this is jam-packed with immediately catchy earworms. Also, if I'm honest, Collins sings pretty well on this too. There's also some fairly dark stuff too, which we'll come to in due course. The title track, which opens the album was a US number one, although only number 15 in the UK. The only time I've seen them live was in support of this album, at Wembley, although we were about as far away from the stage as it is possible to be. By then they were not really interested in doing anything pre-1978, but they did do 'In The Cage'. Since Collins had to sing, they also employed drummer Chester Thompson, which was fine, but they couldn't resist the opportunity that doubling up on skinsmen meant they could indulge in lengthy drum solos. Tedious. Collins was pretty good at playing the crowd, as you'd expect, and I have generally good memories of it.
"Going down like a Monkey"? Let's move on. 'Land of Confusion' had that Spitting Image video and I think it's a great song actually. Norwegian band Katzenjammer did an interesting cover of it fairly recently. A bit confused by Phil's assertion that "My generation will put it right" since even in 1986, they were considered a bit over the hill. 'In Too Deep' is a well executed, I'm-feeling-sad ballad. Now, 'Anything She Does' has an intro that is pure gameshow music. Sounds like we're about to be treated to Lennie Bennett's Lucky Ladders or something. It does settle into a catchy popsong - and it's surprising this never made it as a single release, they released virtually everything else. It has some clanky sounding synth - very eighties. Given the general poppy, upbeat feel of most of the LP, the long track, 'Domino' is a bit incongruous. I think it's good, although it does seem like an only partially successful attempt to create something akin to their older stuff, but all that stuff about "the beautiful River of Blood" and "their bodies dissolve and I am alone" seems a bit extreme for the new, family-friendly Genesis.
More maundering from Phil on 'Throwing It All Away', it reminds me a bit of Stevie Winwood's 'Back In The High Life' which was out about the same time. Finally 'the instrumental 'The Brazilian' (it didn't have THAT meaning in 1986), which I like, especially the crashing cymbals (or electronic approximation thereof). Looks like they've given up on interesting album covers.
Invisible Touch
Tonight, Tonight, Tonight
Land of Confusion
In Too Deep
Anything She Does
Domino"
Part One – In the Glow of the Night
Part Two – The Last Domino
Throwing It All Away
The Brazilian
BEAUTIFUL NOISE
Neil Diamond
Stentorian. That's the word for Diamond's voice. I looked it up. Robbie Robertson gets a hefty producer credit splashed across the album cover, possibly Diamond was being regarded as a poor man's Elvis with the jumpsuits and all, so maybe Robertson conferred a bit of credibility. It's good though. Of course it is. Diamond is no slouch and he has some great songs to back him up.
Beautiful Noise
Stargazer
Lady Oh
Don't Think... Feel
Surviving the Life
If You Know What I Mean
Street Life
Home Is a Wounded Heart
Jungletime
Signs
Dry Your Eyes
THE INVISIBLE BAND
Travis
In an uncharacteristic display of conscientiousness I've downloaded a book from Audible about the making of Kid A by Radiohead (This Isn't Happening by Steven Hyden) to help me with some background on Thom Yorke and co. The author is clearly an obsessive, why else would you write an entire book about one album when I struggle for 500 words? One thing he suggests is that Travis (and Coldplay) picked up Radiohead's ball and ran off with it, becoming global megastars (to some degree or other) while Radiohead became rather niche and 'difficult'. But really, Travis are nothing like Radiohead (or Coldplay) because they seem like fun and aren't afraid to make popular catchy music that they are happy to revisit whenever they appear in front of their fans.
Sing
Dear Diary
Side
Pipe Dreams
Flowers in the Window
The Cage
Safe
Follow the Light
Last Train
Afterglow
Indefinitely
The Humpty Dumpty Love Song
TARKUS
Emerson, Lake and Palmer
It's the story of a giant mechanoid armadillo Kaiju that is born from a volcano and runs riot fighting other mechanoid Kaiju. I guess. Side one is all Tarkus. Side 2 is various bits and bobs which get quite dark at times ('The Only Way (Hymn)'). The closing Prog rockabilly of 'Are You Ready Eddy?' all falls apart halfway through, presumably when Emerson gets the knives into his piano.
Tarkus
Eruption
Stones of Years
Iconoclast
Mass
Manticore
Battlefield
Aquatarkus
Jeremy Bender
Bitches Crystal
The Only Way (Hymn)
Infinite Space (Conclusion)
A Time and a Place
Are You Ready, Eddy?
DURAN DURAN
Duran Duran
Were you Spandau or Duran Duran? Of course for me, being then, as now, of the male persuasion, the question is academic, both bands were to be sneered at for being a bunch of effete poseurs. However, would I consider doing a trawl through Spandau Ballet's back catalogue? No I would not. Duran Duran could be a lot less interesting than I am hoping but they seem to encapsulate that period in British music most accurately. Duran Duran were more popular with the girls at my school I think, but that may have been in part due to proximity to Birmingham. I remember Mandy Plant did a rather good pencil drawing of the band in Mr Stubbs' art class (or was it Mrs Dodds?).
Anyway, first up is 'Girls On Film', famous for having a rude and sexist video that would put Robin Thicke to shame. It starts with the sound of camera shutters and gives us our first taste of Le Bon's rather one-note delivery. His vocal style WILL be a problem for me throughout, I think he's a rotten singer and hasn't improved with age. 'Planet Earth' was the first single (I think) and is possibly notable for the line "Like some new romantic looking for the TV sound". DD didn't coin the phrase did they? The interweb is not helpful on the origin of the 'New Romantic' label. It was HUGE when it came out, nowadays is seems like a fairly workmanlike pop song.
'Anyone Out There' was a forgotten pleasure. Catchy (or repetitive - depending on your point of view) and with some superb twangy bass-work. Bass lines are a bit of a Duran Duran strength. Since all of the members were called Taylor apart from Le Bon and Rhodes, I've had to look at Wikipedia to work out who did what, so the bassman was John of that ilk. 'To The Shore' is a bit dull (well very dull actually) and Le Bon drones it out. 'Careless Memories' has the exact same synth backing to Ultravox's 'All Stood Still' which according to my research was released 1 month before this album. It's OK though, upbeat and with a nice chaotic ending of cascading synth and screaming guitar.
'Night Boat' is not to Cairo, but at least it reminds me of the excellent lyric "It's just gone noon, half past monsoon". It features sugary synths and more bass thunks. 'Friends of Mine' borrows heavily from 'Love Is The Drug'. Lyrically it's quite interesting though "Georgie Davies is coming out, no more heroes we twist and shout". Did 'coming out' have the same meaning in 1981? - somehow I doubt it, but I could be wrong. 'Tel Aviv' is an instrumental, just about, Le Bon makes some noises in the background. Not sure what they are trying to achieve, but let's not forget, this is a debut album, so any band would be trying to find their way at this point.
The rest are only on the Deluxe Edition. 'Late Bar' seems to be what you would expect, all about spending time in a grotty bar. The middle eight wanders about listlessy before it returns to the "la la la late bar la la la la la la" bits. More of the same in 'Khanada' but with even more impenetrable lyrics. Le Bon tries to do a David Sylvian I think. Some sitar noodlings near the end. Next, an extremely ill-advised cover of Bowie's 'Fame'. Le Bon's delivery is too clipped and, frankly they're not up to the job. Nasty. Finally 'Faster Than Light'. Fairly standard DD fare but Le Bon goes very high at the end of some lines.
What to say about the cover art? A bunch of effete poseurs. Le Bon is wearing an ascot for God's sake.
Girls on Film
Planet Earth
Anyone Out There
To the Shore
Careless Memories
Night Boat
Sound of Thunder
Friends of Mine
Tel Aviv
Late Bar
Khanada
Fame
Faster Than Light
THE QUEEN IS DEAD
The Smiths
Amusing musings on violence and death with the Jangle-o-matic turned up to 11. The Daily Mail ragging title had the desired effect at the time too. Moz is at his acerbic peak from start to finish. Love the frantic wah-wah pedal on the title track, but I've gained most pleasure over several listens from 'Frankly, Mr Shankly' in which Morrissey seems so pleased with the rhyme, he just can't stop splurting out "Sssshankleeee", and piles on the archly funny rhyming couplets.
The biggies on here are 'Bigmouth Strikes Again', 'The Boy With The Thorn In His Side', "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' and 'Some Girls Are Bigger That Others'. As I began to think about the lyrics to Bigmouth in earnest (I do actually think about this stuff before writing it down y'know) I kind of assumed it was about domestic violence ("Sweetness I was only joking when I said I'd like to smash every tooth in your head") but Wiki-disillusioner suggests it's more introspective and is about Morrissey feeling sorry for himself because he's so misunderstood - which is why he sees himself as a modern Joan Of Arc. That weird backing vocal, which elevates the song to another level, is actually Morrissey speeded up.
'The Boy...' is actually quite disappointing when listened to in the context of the whole album, seeming a bit bland and inoffensive compared to everything else. 'There Is A Light...' is Morrissey returning to his shy, low self-esteem and unlucky in love comfort zone, and has that great hesitant flute backing. And 'Some Girls...'? You probably shouldn't try to read too much into it, I suspect that the rhyme of mothers and others just appealed to him.Wedged in between all these on side 2, 'Vicar In a Tutu' is a jolly gallop and really does seem to be about a cross-dressing cleric. Easily my favourite so far and only one more to go too.
The Queen Is Dead
Frankly, Mr Shankly
I Know It's Over
Never Had No One Ever
Cemetery Gates
Bigmouth Strikes Again
The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
Vicar In A Tutu
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others
BON IVER
Bon Iver
Usually when I pick albums to cover as an anniversary I look for artists that broadly fall into the 'Classic Rock' area. Bon Iver had ghosted across my radar but I didn't really know what to expect. Maybe they were something like Bon Scott or Bon Jovi? Anyway, I'm glad they took the risk. We're in solid 6Music territory here, but it's different, instrospective and interesting. Sort of Fleet Foxes with added floatiness. I shall investigate further.
Perth
Minnesota, WI
Holocene
Towers
Michicant
Hinnom, TX
Wash.
Calgary
Lisbon, OH
Beth/Res
BLUE
Joni Mitchell
Plenty of publicity around today for this 50th anniversary. It sits behind only What's Going On and Pet Sounds in Rolling Stone's top 500 albums of all time. I'll avoid any trite observations. This one needs attention and time to understand it properly.
All I Want
My Old Man
Little Green
Carey
Blue
California
This Flight Tonight
River
A Case of You
The Last Time I Saw Richard
ELECTRIC LANDLADY
Kirsty MacColl
Did Kirsty MacColl actually have a polyphonic voice or is it just layered on the mixing desk? Wikipedia thinks that early pressings of the Hendrix album has the title misprinted on the label, which inspired MacColl to take it for this. I'm a bit doubtful, it's just a fairly obvious humourous switcheroo isn't it?
Bit hits here are the 'Walking Down Madison' which is an early success of fusion of pop with hip-hop and 'My Affair', with plenty of the latin influence she embraced later with 'In These Shoes'. 'Children Of The Revolution' isn't *that* one.
Walking Down Madison
All I Ever Wanted
Children of the Revolution
Halloween
My Affair
Lying Down
He Never Mentioned Love
We'll Never Pass This Way Again
The Hardest Word
Maybe It's Imaginary
My Way Home
The One and Only
NO SLEEP TIL HAMMERSMITH
Recorded:1980 and 28-30th March 1981
Motörhead
No mucking around, Lemmy's bass buzz starts straight up and he begins howling his way through 'Ace Of Spades', a song that defies any criticism for it's sheer brain-haemorrhaging excitement. Like quite a lot of Motörhead's songs the lyrics are pretty much a list of gasped out phrases. At the time of recording Lemmy was about 35, an age when many professional sportsmen are, if not at their peak, then certainly in their prime. Lemmy is too, but being a warty leather-clad rock and roll warrior takes it's toll on your vocal cords and your respiratory system.
However, they are relentless. You could say they're one-dimensional, but then you'd be missing the point. Motörhead are a hammer and everything looks like a nail to them. Mind you, they don't really try to stray too far from what they know, so it's all about life on the road, motorbikes and hard living. Don't come here for relationship advice.
Side 2 begins with 'Ace Of Spades - Reprise'. Oh sorry, it says 'Overkill' here on the track listing but it's essentially the same song, at least at first. 'Capricorn' is possibly the most measured and thoughtful of everything on the album, which is to say it goes at a slightly slower pace and has what might be called a 'guitar break' in the middle.
The original issue ends with their eponymous song. Yet another headlong roar of guitars, drums and throat nodules. The 'Deluxe Edition' has loads more including outtakes of pretty much every track on the original record. Oh, and did I mention that the whole thing is amazing?
Band Bantz: Lemmy dedicates a lot of songs to various groups and people. 'Iron Horse' is for the "Angels", and '(We Are) The Roadcrew' is for...well you can guess. In a rare attack of clear enunciation, he pronounces the middle 'b' when announcing 'Bomber'. 'Capricorn' is "a love song that I wrote for myself"
Heckles and Coughs: Well y'know, the audiences probably can't even hear themselves think, so speech is unlikely to be possible. Despite the album title all the tracks were recorded in Leeds and Newcastle and Hammersmith was not even a date on the tour (according to Wikipedia at least).
Next Track Off The Rank: Hush by Deep Purple. Which perfectly illustrates how a nice idea can eventually just get out of hand.
Ace Of Spades
Stay Clean
Metropolis
The Hammer
Iron Horse
No Class
Overkill
(We Are) The Roadcrew
Capricorn
Bomber
Motorhead
TRUE BLUE
Madonna
The voice is roughening up a little and she starts off with the fairly hard-hitting 'Papa Don't Preach'. Songs about teen pregnancies are not an obvious choice for a globe-dominating artist, although it does fit Madonna's profile reasonably well. In the video she has acquired an urchin-cut and a French onion-seller's shirt. The dirty rat who has knocked her up looks like a cut-price, grease smeared Orlando Bloom and the titular 'Papa' is a Noo Yoik Italian stereotype with pot belly and singlet; last seen squealing on Tony Soprano to the fibbies. It's intercut with Madge strutting about, thrusting out her boobs and looking about as un-up-the-duff as you can get. Obviously Pops embraces our wayward heroine at the end.
I'd pretty much forgotten the video for 'Open Your Heart' where Madge cavorts in a peep show before running off with the small boy who's been trying to get in. Her outfit in the booth is a kind of weaponized one-piece basque affair with the first outing for the trademark pointy nips. The boy is NOT a young Leonardo Di Caprio, although you could have fooled me. The odd thing is that the song doesn't really reflect the images, it's more like she just hung the video she wanted to do on the next single.
The filler is sparse on this one, but 'White Heat' counts. I assumed that the Cagney dialogue at the start and halfway through came from 'Angels With Dirty Faces', but it's much simpler than that, it's from, you guessed it, 'White Heat'. It's the only aspect that is interesting about a repetitive song. 'Live To Tell' is a touch too contained for me, like she's trying too hard to be controlled and serious. 'Where's The Party' is a horrible raucous chant. But, as Tarantino correctly asserts, 'True Blue' is a genuine sweet love song with a pretty cheesy video to match. I think my favourite on this is 'La Isla Bonita' although the misheard lyric "Young girl with eyes like potatoes" distracts me every time. Not worth looking at the video. Madonna flouncing about in a flamenco dress with a Spanish guitarist with girly hair. It fizzles out at the end. 'Jimmy Jimmy' and 'Love Makes The World Go Round' are nothing to write home about. There is enough quality to render it a great album by any standard though and she still takes a good photo.
Papa Don't Preach
Open Your Heart
White Heat
Live To Tell
Where's The Party
True Blue
La Isla Bonita
Jimmy Jimmy
Love Makes The World Go Round
REVENGE
Eurythmics
Fairly indisputably their commercial peak, and justifiably too. The strident opening 'Missionary Man' fuses rock, soul, electro, gospel and blues into one satisfying whole. And then they follow it immediately with 'Thorn In My Side' and 'When Tomorrow Comes'. Lennox's voice is bell-like and forceful throughout this, no doubt enhanced a little by the production, and the overall feel is of a big league act with a new set of songs designed for stadium rock, although I don't think they ever really tried to take that route in the end. The downside is that sometimes verges on the sterile. They certainly kicked back against that kind of thing when they followed up with Savage.
There are exceptions to the overall Big Sound, 'The Miracle Of Love' is a warm and sensitive masterpiece and it has a lovely little spangly coda at the end too. There's something of Alison Moyet's delivery style in 'The Last Time' and 'Let's Go' has some very Yazoo-ish buzzy synths going on too. But Eurythmics apples are falling a long way from the experimental electronica tree here and it's a rock/pop album above all else. My biggest problem? I can't shake Hugh Laurie talking about getting his "Rewengay" in Blackadder.
Missionary Man
Thorn In My Side
When Tomorrow Comes
The Last Time
The Miracle Of Love
Let's Go!
Take Your Pain Away
A Little Of You
In This Town
I Remember You
BACK IN THE HIGH LIFE
Steve Winwood
A fond memory of my first year at Sunderland Polytechnic with this one. Winwood's album had just the right balance of old-school cool and soulful hipness for when I was desperately trying to redefine myself. It's a cracker too, with Chaka Khan giving it some on 'Higher Love' and the title track breathing some much needed optimism into me as I considered the black mould growing on our student house bathroom wall.
Higher Love
Take It as It Comes
Freedom Overspill
Back in the High Life Again
The Finer Things
Wake Me Up on Judgment Day
Split Decision
My Love's Leavin'