SURVIVOR
Destiny's Child
How ignorant am I? I didn't realize that they started out as a four piece and this was their first as a trio, when Michelle Williams came in. The post-group fates of the three members serves as an object lesson in the vagaries of celebrity. Beyonce now effectively rules the world, Kelly Rowland had one great single with Nelly and Michelle Williams ended up on Strictly, where she didn't get very far because the great British public can be a bit funny about American stars coming over here and infiltrating our light entertainment institutions.
This is the peak of the precursor to all that. Independent Women, Bootylicious and Survivor can be guaranteed to be heard on a radio station near you in the next few days. I quite enjoyed their take on the Bee Gees 'Emotion' too. However, dare I say thay there are not that many tunes but quite a lot of very complicated gospel harmonizing?
Independent Women Part I
Survivor
Bootylicious
Nasty Girl
Fancy
Apple Pie à la Mode
Sexy Daddy
Independent Women Part II
Happy Face
Emotion
Dangerously in Love
Brown Eyes"
The Story of Beauty
Gospel Medley
Outro (DC-3) Thank You
EYES OPEN
Snow Patrol
I'm a bit of a fan and this is probably their best album. I like to think they are the thinking man's Coldplay and Gary Lightbody can do an arena anthem like 'Chasing Cars' with the best of them. For me the standout on this though is the collaboration with Martha Wainwright, 'Set Fire To The Third Bar' where her and Lightbody's voices merge perfectly.
You're All I Have
Hands Open
Chasing Cars
Shut Your Eyes
It's Beginning to Get to Me
You Could Be Happy
Make This Go On Forever
Set the Fire to the Third Bar
Headlights on Dark Roads
Open Your Eyes
The Finish Line
A MOON SHAPED POOL
Radiohead
Are Radiohead actually playing us all for fools? Have we fallen hook-line-and-sinker in their lunar configured pond for the idea that they are serious and important and intelligent, when in fact they just produce a load of impenetrable noodlings around Thom Yorke's whine? This is probably a valid conclusion if you've only listened to this 2 or 3 times like I have, but Radiohead are one of those bands that repay the effort you put in. They're probably the Moby Dick of rock (I haven't read Melville's masterpiece but I understand you come out of it transformed once you've slogged through it).
Burn the Witch
Daydreaming
Decks Dark
Desert Island Disk
Ful Stop
Glass Eyes
Identikit
The Numbers
Present Tense
Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief
True Love Waits
Released 10th May 1981
COMPUTER WORLD
Kraftwerk
If you listen to this, then you are immediately transported back to the white heat of the early eighties microchip revolution, with your ZX Spectrums, BBC Micros and Dragon 64s. This provided the soundtrack to all that and is as pure a concept album as you'll ever hear. Who cares that Computer Love was ripped off by Coldplay? Not even they could ruin it.
Computer World
Pocket Calculator
Numbers
Computer World 2
Computer Love
Home Computer
It's More Fun to Compute
LOOK INTO THE EYEBALL
David Byrne
Ooh. it seems to be getting tough at the moment to engage with the David Byrne canon. That could be an indication of him being in the artistic doldrums at the turn of the century (it could also be more to do with me currently trying to keep my finger in a number of diverse pies), but I'm not entirely convinced that's true. This is as varied as everything that has gone before and it's brilliantly executed, but there's a but coming and I think it's just that it's quite conventional. Byrne seems to be doing gentle pastiches of a number of musical styles, so 'Smile' is clearly influenced by The Beatles 'Michelle', you feel like he's going to give us his take on Barry White when you hear the intro to 'Neighbourhood' and 'Walk On Water' might be his collaboration with Burt Bacharach.
Listen to it a lot though (and I have) and you begin to see some of the usual Byrne character emerging. The single release from this was 'Like Humans Do' which I barely remember (the early 2000's are probably the point where the whole concept of 'singles' started to go into decline), but it's almost like a simple child's lullaby. 'The Moment Of Conception' has a bouncy boingy beat that reminds you of 'Hey Ya' by Outkast.
So perhaps you can see that I was a little underwhelmed, but I can't put my finger on why. It's that state of uninspiring competence that the best artists are sometimes capable of, which, if you are mainlining their entire back catalogue, can easily look like a failure.
U.B. Jesus
The Revolution
The Great Intoxication
Like Humans Do
Broken Things
The Accident
Decsonocido Soy
Neighborhood
Smile
The Moment Of Conception
Walk On Water
Everyone's In Love With You
SMALL FACES
Small Faces
This took me on a little voyage of discovery as I realized that I had never really got the relationship between the Small Faces and the Faces quite straight in my head. It's fairly clear that both bands would have featured on quite a lot of Pete Frame's Rock Family Trees, but basically Marriott buggered off to form Humble Pie so the rest threw their lot in with Rod and Ronnie and they dropped their smalls. Quite a canny move in retrospect, although the two newcomers made a longer career out of it. Kenney Jones later spent a good portion of his life not being as good as Keith Moon and in later years talents as diverse as Bill Wyman, Glen Matlock and Mick Hucknall have been on the payroll.
There are bits of this that struck me as being way ahead of their time, particularly 'You Need Loving', which is pure Led Zep (although they might just have been behind the times instead).
One more surprise, it was produced by Kenny Lynch, who in my mind was one of those old-school entertainers who was always hanging out on the golf course with Tarby and Brucie and not a cutting edge early British blues-rock producer.
Shake
Come on Children
You Better Believe It
It's Too Late
One Night Stand
Whatcha Gonna Do About It
Sorry She's Mine
Own Up Time
You Need Loving
Don't Stop What You're Doing
E Too D
Sha-La-La-La-Lee
REVEAL
REM
This is one of those albums that I ended up listening to quite a lot. It's funny with REM's later output that they still got a reasonable amount of airplay for their singles and so 'All The Way To Reno - You're Gonna Be A Star' and 'Imitation Of Life' come as pleasant surprises as songs that you know and like but had forgotten existed. However it's probably fair to say that by now REM had ascended to the upper echelons of the rock aristocracy and were viewed as slightly less interesting as a result. Bill Berry left before 'Up' and the frequency of releases had let up considerably. That's a shame because this album still shows flashes of the quality and interest of what went before.
'All The Way To Reno' has a languid, glassy guitar line and some lovely little quirky snatches of sound.In fact the whole thing is pretty diverse, even within some of the songs, 'She Just Wants To Be' starts off like a folk ballad but has a much heftier chorus. Of course that's not always a good thing, 'Saturn Return' is pretty tedious and pushes Stipe's aging vocal range in places and the next song 'Beat A Drum' ain't much better. Fortunately it picks up again with the terrific 'Imitation Of Life'. REM at their best. Mind you, the verbal mangling and half rhymes involved in the lines "You want the greatest thing; The greatest thing since bread came sliced; You've got it all, you've got it sized" feels slightly forced. However it is something of a rose in a clump of fairly thorny songs, 'Summer Turns to High', 'Chorus And the Ring' nor 'I'll Take The Rain' are very inspiring. It finishes with 'Beachball' which comes on as a piece of cheesy lounge jazz, but still fails to excite.
It's revealing (nothing on here is done by accident, at least that's what I tell myself) that the artwork is not discussed in the Wikipedia entry, which may be because it is SO BLOODY DULL. Yet again!
The Lifting
I've Been High
All the Way to Reno (You're Gonna Be a Star)
She Just Wants to Be
Disappear
Saturn Return
Beat a Drum
Imitation of Life
Summer Turns to High
Chorus and the Ring
I'll Take the Rain
Beachball
CARPENTERS
The Carpenters
'The Tan Album'. Prince and The Beatles can rest easy. At least no-one calls it The Beige Album. But it was the early 1970's. Everything was slightly off-white. It was considered classy. Obviously The Carpenters skillfuly walk that fine line between bland and sounding-so-easy-because-it's-actually-extremely-difficult. They never did anything memorable when Richard got his hands on the microphone though. Karen's voice was always unbelievably rich and smooth and the hits of 'Rainy Days and Mondays', 'For All We Know 'and 'Superstar' all remind you of how far beyond most vocalists she was. All these kids singing from the back of their throats or down their noses and not finishing their words who make a lving in the pop industry today could learn a thing or two.
Rainy Days and Mondays
Saturday
Let Me Be the One
(A Place To) Hideaway
For All We Know
Superstar
Druscilla Penny
One Love
Knowing When to Leave/Make It Easy on Yourself/(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me/I'll Never Fall in Love Again/Walk on By/Do You Know the Way to San Jose (Bacharach/David Medley)
Sometimes
RELICS
Pink Floyd
If I'm free between 10:30 and 11:00 on a weekday morning, I take my coffee break and have a go at Ken Bruce's Popmaster quiz on Radio 2. About a week ago the contestant (John) had the temerity to question Ken about the answer to the question of 'What was Pink Floyd's next top 10 UK single after See Emily Play'. The punter had offered 'Arnold Layne', but got it wrong because 1. That came before and 2. It didn't reach the top 10. Twitter was alight with the kind of opprobrium only it can provide for poor old John, who should've accepted his fate gracefully. (I'll tell you the correct answer at the end, in case you want to guess it)
'Arnold Layne' and 'See Emily Play' are both on this which was cobbled together by EMI from various bits and pieces because the Floyd feet were dragging on the Meddle recordings and they wanted to get something out. So you also get a few b-sides some album tracks and a the previously unreleased 'Biding My Time'. Standout is 'The Nile Song' from the soundtrack to the film 'More' which wouldn't sound out of place on a Foo Fighters album.
The answer to the Popmaster question? Floyd had to wait twelve and a half years for their next UK top 10 hit, which was 'Another Brick In The Wall Part II' in December 1979.
Arnold Layne
Interstellar Overdrive
See Emily Play
Remember a Day
Paint Box
Julia Dream
Careful with That Axe, Eugene
Cirrus Minor
The Nile Song
Biding My Time
Bike
ANORAKNOPHOBIA
Marillion
Whenever Iisten to Hogarthian Marillion I become more convinced that I was right to jump ship with the piscine one. Hogarth always seems rather incidental to the whole proposition, whereas Fish was central. Maybe that was the problem and why they had to go their separate ways (it's probably a well-documented fact actually). At times they come alarmingly close to PIL or, God forbid, U2 on this.
However, I do think the title and artwork are unexpectedly fun. Not a jester or chameleon in sight.
Between You and Me
Quartz
Map of the World
When I Meet God
The Fruit of the Wild Rose
Separated Out
This Is the 21st Century
If My Heart Were a Ball It Would Roll Uphill
RAM
Paul and Linda McCartney
In which the ex-Beatles start acting like a load of Beatles fans and start looking for hidden meaning in everything. Paul's trying to extricate himself from the whole sorry mess through the courts while he was recording this and so John thinks that the songs 'Too Many People' and 'Dear Boy' are all about him (not true in the case of 'Dear Boy' and partially true in the case of 'Too Many People' - according to McCartney). Mind you, I think we established with Plastic Ono Band that Lennon thought most things were about him at the time. Meanwhile George and Ringo supposedly perceived a slight in '3 Legs'. Plus there's a couple of coupling beetles on the back cover which is interpreted as a statement that Paul is being screwed by the others. Not a bunch of happy bunnies. And it's a shame, because this is a great and varied album that bears up to plenty of repeat listens. You can see that John might have thought what he did about 'Too Many People' as it seems quite a Lennon-esque song. 'Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey' is probably held up as the best thing on the album. One of those mish-mashes of two or three songs that Paul had successfully executed before with his old band. It should be annoying with the changes of style from Paul's soft vocal to start, through the harsher faux megaphone and through to the trumpet/Noel Coward Admiral Halsey section, but it's actually all very satisfying, soothing and enjoyable. It's got a kind of timeless, nostalgic quality to it and is, admittedly, extremely Beatlesy. You get the impression that McCartney enjoys playing with various forms. 'Smile Away' is superficially a standard blues-based glam rocker, that T-Rex or the Bay City Rollers wouldn't have sniffed at, but there's a clever lyrical edge.
'Monkberry Moon Delight' had me climbing the walls for a while, because I knew the intro reminded me strongly of a sports theme tune. Eventually I nailed it, it's Rugby Special. A piece called 'Spinball' by Paddy Kingsland, who appears to have been one of those unsung geniuses who were locked in the basement of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and produced all kinds of weird, wonderful and absolutely cutting edge musical themes. Here's the clip. It's not all that close to Monkberry to be honest, but they share a bit of DNA.
Anyway, 'Monkberry Moon Delight' is an absolute stormer of a song that not even Linda's backing vocal can damage. It has to be said that Linda's contribution is limited, and she's not much of a singer, but oddly McCartney often turns this into a virtue in itself, even if this means pushing her back a little farther in the mix. She's flat as a pancake on 'Long Haired Lady' and yet it sort of works. From this I conclude two things. Firstly, McCartney is showing evidence of his genius and secondly, the monsieur did truly love the mademoiselle. Having never seen the album cover until now I was a bit surprised at it. I had always assumed Ram alluded to an interpretation around aggression and force, rather than...a male sheep. But I guess there is a double meaning and Paul and Linda were enjoying the rustic life on High Park Farm in Kintyre and celebrated in 'Heart Of The Country', so it's not as odd as it first seems.
Too Many People
3 Legs
Ram On
Dear Boy
Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
Smile Away
Heart Of The Country
Monkberry Moon Delight
Eat At Home
Long Haired Lady
Ram On (Reprise)
The Back Seat Of My Car
EAST SIDE STORY
Squeeze
Well you live and learn. I wasn't aware that Paul Carrack was even ever in the band, let alone sang the lead vocal on 'Tempted'. Difford and Tilbrook were sometimes touted as the new Lennon and McCartney and they try hard to ring the musical changes here with the lightly orchestral 'Vanity Fair' and the rockabilly of 'Messed Around' but they really hit their stride with the aforementioned post-punk literacy of 'Tempted', 'Is That Love' and 'Labelled With Love'
In Quintessence
Someone Else's Heart
Tempted
Piccadilly
There's No Tomorrow
Heaven
Woman's World
Is That Love
F-Hole
Labelled With Love
Someone Else's Bell
Mumbo Jumbo
Vanity Fair
Messed Around
PET SOUNDS
The Beach Boys
Rolling Stones top 500 albums of all time has this at number 2. Only beaten by Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On'. I'm going to be rash and suggest that, all things considered, I'm not sure I really get it. 'God Only Knows' is sublime, and it has a coherence and accessibility that was probably unheard of at the time, but when I was growing up, the Beach Boys seemed somewhat inauthentic, with their silly name, stripey shirts and poppy songs. The artwork puts me off as well. Looks like a knock-off compilation you might buy off one of those standing rotating racks in Woolies.
Still, what do I know? Brian Wilson is a genius I'm told and this is effectively a Wilson solo album. I'm happy to be a philistine on this one.
Wouldn't It Be Nice
You Still Believe in Me
That's Not Me
Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)
I'm Waiting for the Day
Let's Go Away for Awhile
Sloop John B
God Only Knows
I Know There's an Answer
Here Today
I Just Wasn't Made for These Times
Pet Sounds
Caroline, No
WARREN ZEVON
Warren Zevon
This is effectively his debut after the misfiring false start of Wanted Dead Or Alive' 7 years earlier, in which case it must rank of one of the best debut rock albums of all time. The real joy of Warren Zevon is his storytelling ability. Nearly all his songs fit the definition of a ballad. The sense of place and time is tangible. He hits the target on the very first track with 'Frank And Jesse James'. Zevon's voice is suited to sorrow and tragedy so there's a sense of hopelessness about the brothers' quest for justice as outlaw underdogs. "Keep on riding riding riding" he urges, but you know its not going to be a happy ending - it rarely is in a Zevon song.
The gallows humor is is in place too. 'Poor, Poor Pitiful Me' tells of a guy who claims to be miserable because he's always being pestered by girls, the implication being that he might well be the pesterer in stead. At a push you might say Zevon was writing songs about incels in 1975. It's one of a string of classics that really don't belong on an album from so early in a career, along with 'Mohammed's Radio', the chaotically crashing 'I'll Sleep When I'm Dead' and the magnificent (and possibly my favourite Zevon song of all) 'Desperados Under The Eaves'. However, if you look at the personnel he'd managed to gather around him for this, he'd clearly been building a reputation in Los Angeles in those band-leading years since the first album. There's Jackson Browne, Lindsey Buckingham, Phil Everley, Glen Frey, Don Henley, Stevie Nicks and Bonnie Raitt all knocking around in the background. On top of that Linda Ronstadt took the breakup song 'Hasten Down The Wind' and made it her own.
And yes, as stated there is 'Desperados Under The Eaves'. A masterclass in unconventional songwriting with understated strong emotion running through it. It leaves me wrung out when I listen to it. A man at the end of his tether sitting in a hotel in a trance may not sound like a good basis for a song, but you'll rarely hear better.
Frank And Jesse James
Mama Couldn't Be Persuaded
Backs Turned Looking Down The Path
Hasten Down The Wind
Poor Poor Pitiful Me
The French Inhaler
Mohammed's Radio
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
Carmelita
Join Me In LA
Desperados Under The Eaves
Released: 19th May 1986
Peter Gabriel
I touched on the cult of the mid-eighties uber-producers during the Solo Beatles odyssey in relation to McCartney releasing Press To Play, co-produced with Hugh Padgham a few months after this. Well Gabriel goes with the godfather of them all, Daniel Lanois, and it does lead to a similar effect of making the album something of a Lanois project as well as a Gabriel one. Lanois' style is to give everything an open, airy sound, so the lack of intensity that Gabriel was known for was noticeable and it's tempting to see So as a sell-out attempt to break into the mainstream. He did too, but I reckon he did it on his own terms with great songs underpinning it all, so the Lanois touch is complementary rather than smothering. 'That Voice Again' and 'In Your Eyes' in particular have Lanois' fingerprints all over them. Very much of their time. Any hint of 'World Music' is relegated to the outro of 'In Your Eyes'
.
As I've gone through so far, I can guarantee that once each album-proper has completed on Spotify, the next track it selects, which is always a Gabriel one, will be 'Sledgehammer'. I have mixed feelings. I'm not sure it's as interesting as any of his other well known songs and it's success must owe quite a lot to the video. It really has the feel of a 'lead single', possibly pushed for by the record company. But I might be wrong, I have no evidence to support the idea.
The other singles are a different story, he followed it with my nomination for best Gabriel song, 'Don't Give Up', dueting with the lovely Kate and standing on a hilltop in a close embrace with here while she comforts him in the video. I love the ending to the song, that kind of low key beat just fading off into the distance once everything that needs to be said, has been said.
There's a sort of absent-mindedness about 'Don't Give Up' and some of the other songs too. 'Mercy Street' and 'Red Rain' feel like Pete's rather detached from it all, even when he's presumably having a breakdown, but that contributes to making the record great, he doesn't seem to feel the need to over-emote in order to present the songs. He'd get nowhere on the X-Factor.
Maybe 'Big Time' is the exception, and a much better upbeat offering than 'Sledgehammer' with it's pokey-bassline and urgent vocal. It owes something to David Byrne and Talking Heads (latterly of this parish). Surely that's a collaboration that is long overdue?
He throws in 'We Do What We're Told (Miligram's 37), effectively an instrumental, and a reminder to any newcomers that might have been lured in by the singles that he can be a little odd at times. The cassette and CD has the Laurie Anderson collaboration 'This Is The Picture (Excellent Birds)' just to drive the point home.
For the cover art, Pete has decided it's finally time to join the human race. And one last thing, did anyone ever consider offering him a throat lozenge?
Red Rain
Sledgehammer
Don't Give Up
That Voice Again
In Your Eyes
Mercy Street
Big Time
We Do What We're Told
This Is The Picture (Excellent Birds)
THE FOX
Elton John
By now Elton has so much output to his name that he seems to be reaching for themes to explore in the songs, but he starts conventionally enough with a typical piano chug in 'Breaking Down Barriers' and then a slower pop-blues of 'Heart In The Right Place'. But then we get 'Just Like Belgium', which starts like an account of a weekend break in Bruges but soon calls on some less savoury reminiscences of bar brawls and brothels. It's all a little bewildering, but an engaging enough song nevertheless.
He seems to be getting political with 'Fascist Faces' but the lyrics are so oblique it's hard to get the message. "When you're turtle-esque, I'm a hare's breadth", sounds like it might be clever, but I fear it's just a load of old gobbledigook.
Then, he sticks a kind of classical/love song suite in the middle - 'Carla/Etude - Fanfare - Chloe'. It's pleasant enough, but it strengthens the impression that he simply has no vision at all for the album as a whole. He continues as the king of the unimaginative title with 'Elton's Song', a tale of unrequited love and the final, title track strains metaphors to breaking point.
His output had better perk up soon, he's been tough going so far, but mainly due to the lack of cohesion that this album typifies.
https://andysrockodysseys.blogspot.com/2020/08/elton-john.html
Breaking Down Barriers
Heart in the Right Place
Just Like Belgium
Nobody Wins
Fascist Faces
Carla/Etude
Fanfare
Chloe
Heels of the Wind
Elton's Song
The Fox
CHANGESONEBOWIE
David Bowie
A rare mention for a compilation, but when it comes to a 'Best of', then this must have been the real deal at the time. Just the very best have been cherry picked from his singles output to date, although Diamond Dogs doesn't quite match the unparalleled status of the rest of the tracks, you don't hear it on the radio very often these days.
Quite a confident move to include the ONE in the title too. No doubt in his mind that there would be a volume two of worthy songs at some point in the future.
Space Oddity
John, I'm Only Dancing
Changes
Ziggy Stardust
Suffragette City
The Jean Genie
Diamond Dogs
Rebel Rebel
Young Americans
Fame
Golden Years
ANTHEM
Toyah
First of all, Toyah were a band, not a solo act. I think I knew this at the back of my mind, but it still seems a little odd. I think we all knew that she wasn't your average punkette and there was quite a lot of theatricality going on as well. She might be described as being part of a triumvirate of stridently singing women who had discovered the joys of the farther reaches of the hair colouring product spectrum, along with Siouxsie and Hazel O'Connor.
Also, the other thing you couldn't quite get your head around was what on earth she was doing with prog ubermensch Robert Fripp (although this predates their marriage). However, 35 years down the line and they're still together and brightening all our Sunday lunches on YouTube.
Her look and delivery was punk, but the content here is a bit more complex than that, so maybe the link to Fripp isn't so surprising. The artwork is more Maiden than Buzzcocks too.
I Want to Be Free
Obsolete
Pop Star
Elocution Lesson
Jungles of Jupiter
I Am
It's a Mystery
Masai Boy
Marionette
Demolition Men
We Are
FUNDAMENTAL
Pet Shop Boys
This has a 'none more black' cover - almost, the pair of them can just be seen. I love this album. It starts with 'Psychological' which is Kraftwerk with an English sensibility. Neil Tennant's lyrics are off the wall and delivered in a way that manages to be deadpan and yet full of hidden meaning at the same time. Then we get 'The Sodom and Gomorrah Show', an exultant high tempo song that bears no small resemblance to their own version of 'Where the Streets Have No Name'. 'I Made My Excuses And Left' - a phrase redolent of News of the World vice exposes of the past is a touching account of walking in on a perceived infidelity and maintains the lyrical excellence ('awkward as an elephant'). 'Minimal' is good fun with it's spelling-bee chorus.
Now, 'Numb'. This was released in the summer of 2006. At the time J's mum had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and, although she and I didn't know it at the time, only had a couple of months left. In the middle of that, my Dad died suddenly on holiday in France. Numb was being played fairly regularly on the radio at the time and summed up perfectly how we both felt. (take away all the madness, take away all the pain....for a little while I want to be numb). It was actually written by queen of the power ballad, Diane Warren and you've got to love a kettle drum.
Not sure what 'Luna Park' is all about but I like it all the same. 'I'm With Stupid', I think, is about a relationship which, to the onlooker at least is based on looks alone and 'Casanova in Hell' seems to be the tale of an older man who is rejected/fails to perform and so takes his revenge in print. All the tracks are great but the closer, 'Integral' sees the PSBs in full pomp, all layered vocals and crashing synth sounds. 'Sterile, Immaculate, Rational, Perfect' indeed.
Psychological
The Sodom and Gomorrah Show
I Made My Excuses and Left
Minimal
Numb
God Willing
Luna Park
I'm with Stupid
Casanova in Hell
Twentieth Century
Indefinite Leave to Remain
Integral
RUMOR AND SIGH
Richard Thompson
Probably his best, but he had a magnificent run of albums between 1988 and 1995, so it's a close run thing between this, Amnesia and Mirror Blue. It's got '1952 Vincent Black Lightning', a song I always like to bracket with 'Bat Out of Hell' and 'Leader of the Pack' as the ultimate shag-bike-death songs.
But it's the width of the quality, the bubbling over of ideas and the sheer energy that puts this above so much else. I could pick out 'Read About Love', 'Feel So Good', 'Backlash Love Affair', 'Don't Sit On My Jimmy Shands', 'Mother Knows Best', 'God Loves a Drunk' and 'Psycho Street', but that's pretty much the whole album anyway, and the rest are just as good.
Read About Love
I Feel So Good
I Misunderstood
Grey Walls
You Dream Too Much
Why Must I Plead
1952 Vincent Black Lightning
Backlash Love Affair
Mystery Wind
Don't Sit on My Jimmy Shands
Keep Your Distance
Mother Knows Best
God Loves a Drunk
Psycho Street
EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY
Rod Stewart
Rod aligns with my old pal Elton in many ways, in that he is more of a 'turn' than a proper rock star. His silly hair, laddish ways and seeming delusions about his general sex-appeal were always a bit of a turn-off, possibly compounded by our next door neighbour for many years as I was growing up being the dead spit of him. It did seem to be an intentional attempt to be a Rod lookey-likey. His wife used to babysit us occasionally, but she was no Britt Ekland.
But in fairness this is rodnificent and mandolintastic. REM nicked a few ideas from 'Maggie May' for 'Losing My Religion' and it's a fine version of '(Find A) Reason To Believe'. All of the Faces are present somewhere, and are all together on '(I Know) I'm Losing You' but Ronnie continues as his right hand man. 'Maggie May' incorporates the unlisted short lutey thing 'Henry' on the version on Spotify, which is not really part of the song at all.
Every Picture Tells a Story
Seems Like a Long Time
That's All Right / Amazing Grace
Tomorrow Is a Long Time
Henry
Maggie May
Mandolin Wind
(I Know) I'm Losing You
(Find a) Reason to Believe
THE FINAL
Wham!
I'm getting soft. A second compilation in the same month. To be honest, I never realized when I picked it, I assumed it was, well, their Final album. It isn't even that, 'Songs From the Edge Of Heaven' came after and contributes a couple of sore thumbs to this with the unfamiliar 'Battlestations' and 'Where Did Your Heart Go'. George's 'Different Corner makes the cut too (Ridgeley has a co-writing credit)
You can't deny they did chart pop very well indeed, but their debut, 'Wham Rap (Enjoy What You Do)' suggested they had grittier political ambitions, "DHSS!" is the refrain.
Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do)
Young Guns (Go for It!)
Bad Boys#
Club Tropicana
Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go
Careless Whisper
Freedom
Last Christmas
Everything She Wants
I'm Your Man
Blue (Armed with Love)
A Different Corner
Battlestations
Where Did Your Heart Go?
The Edge of Heaven
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