What does it sound like?:

You’ve got to hand it to the Cheap Trick lads. Three out of the four original members are still banging out Rock albums, full of new original material, in their mid seventies. Robin Zander’s scream hasn’t lost a single decibel, Tom Petersson’s bass continues to pulsate with virility, and Rick Nielsson’s lead guitar scorches with the exuberance of a teenager. Only the drummer has been replaced, by Nielsson’s son and he’s now fifty-five. Zander’s son also helps out on guitar. All Washed Up is their twenty-first studio album, the title referencing their fifth, All Shook Up released in 1980, and it’s as good as anything they’ve done.

Cheap Trick have a happy knack of blending melody with raw aggression, old fashioned rock ‘n’ roll showmanship with the menace, and brain-melting metal with the youthful degeneracy. There is good reason they were revered by nineties grunge acts such as Nirvana. They are a little less irresponsible these days and pace themselves a little more, leaning towards the power-pop end of their sound and away from hard-rock. However, they have never taken themselves very seriously and have always had a charming line in self deprecation. » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Black And Blue was a minor detour for The Rolling Stones on their quest to find out what Rock sounded like when it grew up, a quest they’d embarked upon in 1973. Mick Taylor quit in December 1974. They toured America in 1975 and released Made In The Shade, a rather limp Best Of, as a stop gap. Black And Blue was recorded with their touring band, which included Ron Wood, and they used the opportunity to audition a number of auspicious lead guitarists for Taylor’s role.

There are eight tracks, four each side. Three are experimental, one is a cover left over from It’s Only Rock And Roll, two are ballads and only two are proper Stones-y tracks. The style of Blues Rock that defined their imperial phase was petering out. The presence of Billy Preston and Ollie Brown gave them the confidence to try dance, funk, latin and a bit of jazz. Wood’s enthusiasm for reggae added to the mix. Jagger dominates proceedings, clearly having a ball. Richards sits back, contributing little to the writing and leaving plenty of room for the guest guitarists. He was swimming in a fog of » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Ronnie Wood is one of nature’s collaborators. He gets on with everybody, loves being part of a gang, and is willing to participate in all the fun, even if it means taking risks with excess alcohol, street drugs and groupies. He is an ideal band member, someone who can make the long hours in the studio or on tour pass more quickly. He has some guitar prowess but nothing that will steal the limelight from a real guitar hero. He brings occasional ideas to songwriting, but generally he needs someone to add melody and lyrics. He is blessed with a voice that suits backing vocals. Most importantly, he is too polite to demand top billing and equal pay.

Fearless collects together 38 tracks from the whole of his sixty year career, in chronological order. It starts well. The Birds and The Creation were raw and exciting, part of the UK Mod scene. The first song he wrote and recorded is You’re On My Mind by The Birds, one he has admitted is a copy of The Yardbirds. He co-wrote three tracks on Beck-O-La, the whole of side two in old vinyl, represented here by » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Ah! The vicissitudes of conducting a romantic relationship in the work place. This is the long lost album by the famous star crossed lovers before they joined Fleetwood Mac. It had one single print run on release in 1973, sold very little, and this simple remaster is the first time it has been available on CD, download or streaming. There are no extras, despite one well known bootleg having twelve additional tracks. It begs the question why it has been buried all this time.

Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks met at High School in California. They found themselves harmonising to a Beach Boys song at a youth event. Later Buckingham invited her to join his band, Fritz. They touched real fame, supporting Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane and Jimi Hendrix, learning valuable lessons in stagecraft at first hand. It took five years and the breakup of the band for them to begin a personal relationship and for them to start writing songs of their own. Tempted to record demos at Sound City Studios by Keith Elson, they dropped out of college and moved to Los Angeles. Nicks earned money cleaning Olsen’s house, waiting tables and » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

This is the sixth and final box set in the ‘Eras’ sequence that started with Five Years in 2015. The template was set by Bowie himself: freshly remastered studio albums, contemporary live sets, Re:Call collections of officially released singles, B sides, EPs, and a different take on one of the albums. Five Years had a Ken Scott mix of Ziggy Stardust, Who Can I Be Now? a Harry Maslin mix of Stationtostation and Tony Visconti’s view of The Gouster, A New Career In A New Town Visconti’s mix of Lodger, Loving The Alien a Mario McNulty remake of Never Let Me Down, and A Brilliant Adventure included Mark Plati’s version of Toy. Live albums that have received a first official release on these boxes include an extended Stage, Serious Moonlight, and a complete BBC Theatre. Otherwise, Eras boxes do not include any outtakes or previously unreleased material, which are held back for a different collection of box sets covering approximately a calender year, a series that is up only up to 1973. Surroundsound was never a part of the offer, so no Blu-Rays.

I Can’t Give Everything Away covers a period of just four » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Bob Dylan said, “Prine’s stuff is pure Proustian existentialism; Midwestern mind trips to the nth degree.” He may have a point. Proust’s concept explores the relationship between memory, self-identity and the passage of time, suggesting that our understanding of who we are depends largely on flimsy, inaccurate, subjective memories. Prine was modest, with a self-deprecating sense of humour. His band was faithful, his voice quiet and his songs simple, based on basic chords and an acoustic sound. He was never going to be big. He found wisdom and heartbreak in the everyday mundane, noticing and remembering profound moments that are most often ignored. His calm, measured approach is captivating and his carefully chosen words hang heavy, both on his shoulders and in our hearts. He was a man whose character was built from the small details that really matter.

Lost Dogs And Mixed Blessings is a follow up, of sorts, to a Grammy winning comeback (after a five year spell away from the studio). It’s an attempt to cash in on the attention to secure some radio play and more sales. The production values are upped » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Whatever happened to White Arena Rock? Back in the seventies and eighties, almost any white rock band with a hit could fill a stadium, especially in the States. Think of Europe, Journey, Styx and Survivor. Both Michael Jones, guitar, and Lou Gramm, vocals, are original Foreigner members continuing to take an interest in the band but Jones’s Parkinson’s restricts his ability to tour and Gramm only makes the occasional appearance for one or two songs. Effectively, the Foreigner of today is their own glorified tribute act with high quality musicians and inflated prices for tickets. The Rolling Stones are another perfect example of a heritage act still filling stadiums, with just two original members, both in their dotage. Black Sabbath have just said an emotional farewell in their home town and, now, the Prince of Darkness has gone to another place. Oasis are relative youngsters performing songs that are a juvenile thirty years old. Dave Grohl has hit his mid fifties. Chris Martin isn’t far behind. White Arena Rock has become a nostalgiafest.

4 was Foreigner’s fourth album, released in 1981, at a time when the band reduced in number from six to four, » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Joni Mitchell has been having a conversation with Jazz her whole career. Her songwriting style has always been unique; self-relevatory lyrics on a volatile bed of unusual chord changes. Childhood polio weakened her left hand forcing her to be creative in finding fret placings for her fingers. Her solutions were chords most other singer songwriters never used but Jazz musicians recognised. In an interview with New York Magazine in 2005, she described her influences: romantic classical music, folksy impressionists, Leonard Cohen until she realised he took a lot of lines from Camus and Lorca, Bob Dylan, of course, and innovators such as Marie Curie. However, in the music world, it was Charlie Parker’s trailblazing approach to melody, rhythm and harmony that fired her up.

Her “Jazz period” is generally regarded as being between 1974 and 1979 for the albums Court & Spark through to Mingus, when she recruited bone fide Jazz musicians to her band and adjusted her writing to suit them, including luminaries such as Jaco Pastorius, Airto Moreira, Larry Carlton, Michel Colombier, Charles Mingus, Gerry Mulligan, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Emil Richards, and John Guerin. Most of this period is covered by » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

There is a pall of sadness that hangs over this album. Mac Davis, who wrote or co-wrote these songs with Girelli, died in 2020 aged 78, and the work dates back six years before then. Davis was a veteran songwriter, performer and actor. He wrote A Little Less Conversation and In The Ghetto for Elvis Presley. He had a long songwriting career, including songs performed by Nancy Sinatra, Kenny Rogers, Louis Jordan, Helen Reddy, Perry Como, Bobby Goldsboro, and, more recently, Bruno Mars and the Swedish DJ Avicii. Nevertheless, it’s Country music that flowed through his Texan veins. Girelli is from Otley, West Yorkshire and more than forty years younger. He started off in Indie Rock bands as melodramatic as Radiohead or U2. He’s always loved the big heartbreak songs of the fifties and sixties, decades before he was born, thrown in with some Springsteen and opera. A performance on Letterman brought him to Davis’s attention and soon they were writing together, prompting Girelli to changed direction towards emotionally charged songs of the Rock & Roll era set in the wild Yorkshire Dales. His solo debut in 2018, Love Kills, represented an artistic awakening, » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

This is Speedvark’s third release in thirty-nine years. Ben and Pedro normally sing songs about homely mundanity, such as drinking tea, quietly existing in middle England. Music is more of a hobby, a bonding experience for the two of them, something to keep them out of mischief. You can imagine them writing songs around a kitchen table, guitars on their knees, a rudimentary keyboard within reach. They are fully aware of their limitations and approach performing, producing and marketing with good cheer and self-deprecation. Their first two albums troubled no charts and shifted few units. Some of their friends and family like them, which was the main thing. Presumably, they have alternative ways of making a living.

For this release, available for streaming and download, Ben Raudnitz recruits his offspring, Mig and Nath to play. Pedro Flatt is on drums. It is a sixty-eight minute piece inspired by Albert Lord Tennyson’s poem The Lotos Eaters, an epic tale about getting stoned out of your mind. It takes them a good seven and a half minutes of messing about with chords to find the riff. After all, they originally wrote it thirty-two years ago. The » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Coles Corner is where Richard Hawley found his place in the musical firmament: shoulders square, reverb guitar, and mournful baritone, crossing Roy Orbison’s romance with Johnny Cash’s grit. The songs are beautiful constructs, with their feet firmly in the fifties, soul in the city of Sheffield and heart hopelessly dreaming of Hollywood. Hawley totally inhabits every moment of them. As with all the very best albums, Coles Corner is a world entirely of its own but, in 2005, the music scene in the UK was fragmented and there was enough room for its faded glamour and yearning nostalgia to be noticed. It was nominated for the Mercury Prize, won by The Artic Monkeys, also from Sheffield. As soon as Alex Turner accepted the award, he declared, “Call 999. Richard Hawley’s been robbed!” It’s his third LP and he has released six since, not to mention five film soundtracks and three live albums, but it’s the one with which he is most closely associated and many believe is his best.

The album was immaculately recorded in 2005 and requires no further embellishment or polish. Twenty years have enhanced its stature. It is the kind of » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Revved up and raring to go after touring with The Ramones, Talking Heads flew to the Bahamas to record at the newly opened Compass Point Studio with Brian Eno in the producer’s chair. They were a band in hurry, battle-hardened and armed with a clutch of songs they knew worked a crowd. Rather than separate into constituent parts, Eno recorded them as a single unit. The early run-throughs are the band playing together, live, all in the same room, with minimal Eno treatments. As a result, disc two of this set is fantastic: raw, frantic with energy, but as tight as a gnat’s chuff. The band clearly can’t believe their luck, loving their job and working in such a beautiful part of the world. David Byrne chortles away with delight at the beginning of the alternative With Our Love, hardly the cheeriest of songs, and the sense of glee pervades the whole project from beginning to end. It’s not often the work-in-progress tracks sound so great but these are definitely worth repeated listens.

John Cale had taken Eno to see Talking Heads perform almost a year before. A smitten Eno invited them to » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Last year, Claudia Brücken celebrated a significant birthday with a round number. Bearing in mind she first enjoyed pop success in the eighties with German band Propaganda, you can guess which one it was. In fact, their first album, A Secret Wish, was released exactly forty years ago, a rather grand affair, typical of the label ZTT. The producer was Stephen Lipson “under the supervision of” Trevor Horn, but you can barely tell the difference. Brücken’s contribution to the songwriting and distinctive co-lead vocal, were an essential part of its character. The band quickly broke up in acrimony, fuelled by Brücken’s relationship with Paul Morley, when they discovered their contract meant they weren’t going to make any money, ever. Since then, apart from spending the nineties bringing up her two children, she has remained musically active furrowing the by-ways of the music industry, often working with others, including ex Propaganda members and OMD’s Paul Humphreys. xPropaganda’s The Heart Is Strange in 2022 was a third attempt at a reunion but only involved Brücken, Susanne Freytag and Lipson, and not Micheal Mertens and Ralf Dörper. It’s a fine album, if indicative of the complications of » Continue Reading.