Ladies (I know there’s not many here) and Gentlemen (there are some here) – I give you –
HENRY COW – Unrest
I bought the 1st album “The Henry Cow Legend” on the basis of seeing them supporting Principal Edwards Magic theatre in March 1973. I though they were extraordinary. What parts of this music are composed, what is improvised? An aesthetic that drives much of my musical appreciation to this day.
Anyway I missed the 2nd album, I’d left the UK to be a hippie traveler in Europe, and when I got back to NZ later that year the record stores weren’t exactly groaning with piles of HC albums.
Then recently I heard their second album, “Unrest”. It is truly fabulous. This track “Half Asleep Half Awake” exemplifies what I love about them. A peculiarly English piano intro, reminiscent of the piano intro to the Bonzos’ “Rawlinson End”, followed by a piece of chamber music which seems to have no precedent in terms of musical style or reference. Possibly an English version of Frank Zappa’s instrumentals such as Uncle Meat.
>>>>>>>>
My favourite Henry Cow album – politics hadn’t overtaken the music at this point (although I do like all of their music – I am one of the two or three odd fellows who bought the complete set of ReR boxes…)
They look lovely on the shelf with all the lettering visible don’t they?
Oho! Foxy, I’m sure there was a third owner hereabouts…
Duran Duran – Rio.
They got nothing but sneering disdain from me back then (something that didn’t seem to discourage them, strangely) but a recent-ish reappraisal reveals my mistake.
Who are you and what have you done with HP, you fiend?
Dude welcome to the 1980s.
Rio is in my top 10 albums ever released in that decade.
A nice mix of understanding the zeitgeist and the recent past as it was then.
I’ve tried moving back and forth in their catalogue, and occasionally give Seven a spin, but nothing else gets it as right as this. Not too keen on The Bon’s glottal stylings, but everything else is a rush. That yacht-babe vibe, the Smash Hits optimism of a bunch of kids looking good and feeling great – this is what pop is all about. Plus, tunes!
I know what you mean, Girls On Film and Planet Earth are the only ones off the first album worth hearing again, I bought Is There Something I Should Know the week it came out (the start of a slippery slope), and then it all went pear-shaped until Ordinary World (which they didn’t write).
I bought Rio and Too-Rye-Ay (on cassette – none more 80s) at the same time. Not a bad day, that.
Paper Gods is a cracking tune
More listenable than I expected!
Woah… Faint praise, dude
Should be flashed on the cover of the album.
“More listenable than I expected!” – Colin Harper
Black Sabbath’s first four albums. SBS I already knew-ish from a long time ago. Cracking stuff. I’ve always been so-so with Hawkwind, a bit cosmic Status Quo, but the Steven Wilson ‘Warrior On The Edge Of Time’ remix box is very good, and so I checked out a other albums of that/their era, aside from Space Ritual the only other album of theirs that I know well.
Roger Waters – Radio KAOS
Waters’ worst album, reputedly. Very 80s sounding and gimmicky, like a rock star past his prime trying to reinvent himself as a Robert Palmer or Mark Knopfler type, reputedly. A bonkers narrative concept that’s all over the place and makes The Wall seem coherent, reputedly. Sounded dated about two weeks after it came out, reputedly. The undisputed loser in the Floyd vs Waters war of 1987, reputedly.
Imagine my surprise after buying it recently on a whim, to discover its… Well, not genius, but perfectly, servicably good. OK it sounds very much of its time, but time has been kind to that 80s sound (synths and gated snares really activate my Proustian senses). And the concept may be bonkers, but, hey, it’s Roger Waters… What do you expect? Say what you want about the man but (1) he has defiantly stuck to his anti-war shtick (to his own detriment, as his recent controversy has highlighted) and (2) he knows how to create a 40 minute cohesive song-suite that doesn’t outstay its welcome.
The tunes are decent as well, with a fair few of those genius lyrical touches he is so good at.
I’ve listened to the album a good 9 or 10 times now, and I’ve found myself growing an immense fondness for it.
…reputedly…
Bob Dylan’s entire catalogue – or most of it anyway.
My Dylan journey:
Greatest Hits – tick
Blood On The Tracks – tick
Blonde On Blonde – nah, I’m happy with just Greatest Hits and Blood On The Tracks.
Until a few years ago – Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 renewed interest, and now most of the album’s are shelved and periodically enjoyed.
Still don’t like Blonde On Blonde though …
Have you tried Freewheelin’? I mean, the album, not the cycling option? That’s especially magical, for some reason.
I spend a lot of time these days with Steve Miller’s Fly Like and Eagle and Joe Walsh’s But Seriously Folks, having spent most of my record shop days filing them in the second hand racks. It’s not them, it’s me.
I have a mile wide soft spot for Fly Like an Eagle and Book of Dreams. If pushed I’d prefer Miller’s early albums, but these two are like a big velour blanket on a cold winter’s night.
I like earlier Walsh/James Gang stuff but have never heard BSF. It was still a staple of cutout bins in the late 80s/early 90s when I was doing most of my vinyl trawling.
Not an album, but a single. Over the past decade or so I’ve come to believe that Boys of Summer is the greatest single released in the 80s, and is easily the greatest thing Don Henley ever did (even though the tune was written by Mike Campbell from the Heartbreakers – may be a clue). I can only name one or two other solo Henley tracks and I have no desire to explore any of his albums.
Have you heard The Heart of the Matter (another single)? A slowing, but also co-written with Mike Campbell, who I think is something of an all round genius. One of the best break-up songs there is.
One of the very few tunes I could never imagine myself tiring of. Something magical about the mix of song, vocal, production. Never cared for The Eagles or any of his other gear.
Currently rehearsing it in my covers band and i’m driving the other guys a bit spare cos I can hear it but it’s not quite ‘it’ but I can’t find what the ‘it’ really is as it’s such a wistful concoction.