What does it sound like?:

1999 was Prince’s breakthrough album. Released in 1982, it was his fifth and yielded his first top ten singles, bringing him to the attention of a wider audience and giving him the platform for the mega-Michael Jackson stardom Purple Rain would bring. It marks the start of his imperial phase.

It’s a double LP. Although Prince had plenty of songs available, he fills it by extending the length of the eleven tracks, allowing his vivid, depraved imagination to roam free. He simplified the sound of its predecessors, Dirty Mind and Controversy, using mainly synthesisers and a Linn drum machine, plus some bass and electric guitars. He keeps the instrumentation tight, creating a stark, robotic, electro-funk that helped define the Detroit Sound. Afrika Bambaata’s Kraftwerk influenced Planet Rock clearly had an impact but it was the feel and tone of Blade Runner and its Vangelis soundtrack that impressed Prince most. Somewhat improbably, The Stray Cats inspired some experimentation with Rockabilly. The vocals are key. Across the album, he deploys five backing vocalists, mainly female, and shares lead vocals with two of them on the title track. However, Prince’s own singing is stunning. The textures and » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

In 1968, David Bowie had been dropped by his record label, Deram, and was on the scrap heap at the age of twenty-one. Undaunted, he continued to make music in any way he could, he tried some acting, joined a mime group and became part of a ‘Folk scene’. He fell in love with dancer, Hermione Farthingale, and formed a Folk trio with John Hutchinson, developing a fondness for verbose allegorical fables. By early 1969, Farthingale left him for Norway, he appeared in a Lyons Maid ice cream commercial, was third on the bill as a mime act beneath Tyranosaurus Rex and became involved in a Beckenham Free Festival. Fortunately, for Bowie enthusiasts, he often had a tape recorder playing nearby. He made numerous demos, recorded sessions for BBC Radio and had an audition for Mercury Records captured for posterity, an audition he passed. He also starred in his own promotional film, Love You Till Tuesday.

Most Bowie watchers will be expecting part five of the ‘Five Years’ box sets, which began in 2015 before Blackstar was released. Sadly, a dispute over Tin Machine royalties is causing a delay. In the interim, Conversation Piece » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

By all accounts, Ronnie Wood has spent his career in the Ringo role, the affable chap all the others like talking to. He’s a great companion on a long tour. In the studio, he makes the clock tick by that bit quicker when the engineers are tinkering with the snare drum. He has a nice little sideline in ‘art’, painting portraits of his band mates and selling them for a pretty penny. Experts rate him as better than Dylan but that’s not saying much. He also plays guitar.

It’s difficult to be anything other than condescending when confronted with this vanity project. Ron has gathered around him a group of musicians including a fine vocalist in Imelda May and a classy pianist in Ben Waters. The album is recorded live at Wimborne’s Tivoli Theatre, eleven tracks of Chuck Berry usual and not-so-usual suspects, bar Wood’s own imaginatively entitled Tribute To Chuck Berry and a Maceo Merriweather song, Worried Life Blues, that Chuck covered for a B side. The sleeve is ‘hand painted’ by Ron himself, a copy of an image most people will instantly recognise. The deluxe box includes LP, CD and a » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

The Shelby brothers emerged from the tunnels of the First World War and proceeded to use their ingenuity and ruthless brutality to wreak havoc across the Midlands. Tommy is the brains of the family, Arthur its fists and Aunt Polly its heart. Peaky Blinders has enjoyed five successful TV seasons to date. It is shot in colour but looks black and white, mired in mud and smog. Key to its success is the Songtrack. The use of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds’ Red Right Hand as the theme tune is pivotal. It defines the show sonically and atmospherically. Dark, ominous, dripping with blood, an outsider arises from the shadows. All else follows its template.

In an era of Spotify, it is easy to put together a playlist of Red Right Hand soundalikes. A soundtrack, such as this, needs to offer something extra and Peaky Blinders does not disappoint. There are brief snippets of dialogue from the main characters, none of which overstay their welcome. There are pieces of the score, setting the mood and, most importantly, some exclusive songs. PJ Harvey has two tracks on the set but adds a made-for-the-show cover of » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Sting attracted much criticism in May when he released an album of remakes of fifteen of his old chestnuts. There were no deep cuts, the arrangements were largely unchanged, there was a tendency to replace the drummer with a machine and his new vocals, never his strong point, sounded more weathered. It all seemed a bit aimless except that it fuelled the inclusion of more Sting compositions on Spotify playlists and it provided a setlist for a world tour, as documented on this live album.

Outside of the studio with a proper drummer, Josh Freese, two guitarists, Dominic Miller and Rufus Miller, Shane Sagar on harmonica, Kevon Webster on keyboards and Gene Noble and Melissa Musique on backing vocals, My Songs Live sounds like a straightforward live greatest hits package. The truth is, whatever you might think of him as a celebrity, Sting has written some great, great songs. Message In A Bottle, An Englishman In New York, Brand New Day, Every Breath You Take and so on, as played by a professional band, simply roll by. Sting’s vocals are raspy and ragged but, at least, he has resisted the temptation to adjust them » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

In 1994, an extremely large audience eagerly awaited the next R.E.M. album. The jangly pop of Out Of Time and the fragile melodies of Automatic For The People had established the band as mainstream, making all four members multimillionaires. Monster, when it came, gave their fans was a migraine of brutal guitar noise. Even so, sales held up well, the tour was a hit and two singles made the UK top ten but, overall, the reaction was mixed and Monster marked the beginning of their commercial and artistic decline.

If the transition between Out Of Time to Automatic For The People represents that between life and death, Monster is an act of self-harm. It quite deliberately turns away from the pin-sharp clarity and adulation of its predecessors and embraces distortion, obfuscation and artifice. Michael Stipe was bereft from the recent loss of his friends, River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain, and his writing contribution was blocked. He spent most of the time in a corner of the studio, away from his colleagues, contemplating his sexuality and his place in the world, his voice buried deep in the mix. Stipe came out during the album’s » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Let It Bleed was a turning point for The Rolling Stones. Their original musical leader, Brian Jones, made his last, albeit minor, contributions to an album and his replacement, Mick Taylor, contributed for the first time on just two of the tracks. Keith Richards had stepped up his game on Beggars Banquet but he redoubled his efforts for the follow up. He is the only Stone to play on all nine songs, solidifying his reputation as one of the versatile and imaginative Rock guitarists of his generation in the process and Let It Bleed as his finest work.

On the whole, it follows the template of its predecessor but Let It Bleed is far more than a transitional album or a Beggars Banquet part two. During 1969, The Beatles were in their bubble, busy obsessing over themselves, whereas The Stones captured the zeitgeist on an album full of dread and the threat of violence, not to mention all the sex and the drugs. Released with just one month of the decade to go, the day before Meredith Hunter was murdered at Altamont and just as the Manson Family were arrested, it sounded like a » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

The Soft Parade is commonly regarded as the nadir of the Morrison-era Doors. Their distinctive, lucid sound drenched by producer Paul A. Rothchild’s strings and horns on their weakest collection of songs. Just as a sense of dread pervaded 1969, The Doors seemed to be out of step, brightening their sound and creating a more radio-friendly product. It did sell very well, especially in America, where it reached number six, and its lead-off single, Touch Me, peaked at number three.

The truth is that when The Doors convened in the studio, November 1968, there was no material fit for a fourth album. Morrison’s songbook was spent, he was exhausted with the strain of being the central focus of attention on a long tour and was consuming copious amounts of alcohol. As a consequence, Robby Kreiger, the guitarist, stepped into the songwriting breach while Rothchild, paranoid by excess cocaine, drove the band obsessively into new musical areas in a quest to be as groundbreaking as Jimi or The Beatles.

Fifty years on, nicely polished up for a superdeluxe edition by Bruce Botnick, The Soft Parade is a lot better than you may remember and » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Abbey Road represents The Beatles at their most professional. It is their most beautifully produced and most flawlessly played. The four of them had spent virtually every waking hour playing together for the best part of ten years. They knew each other inside out and had grown together as musicians. Having been semi-detached for much of The White Album and the Get Back sessions, George Martin was reinstated as producer-in-chief, his trusty lieutenant, Geoff Emerick, back by his side. Once the studio red light came on, they were focussed, disciplined and working almost telepathically as one.

The sessions grew from the Get Back recordings. Billy Preston was still present for the early versions of Oh! Darling and I Want You (She’s So Heavy), both of which you can imagine being performed on the rooftop. The Beatles had rehearsed thirteen of the songs during January 1969 at Twickenham. Only Come Together, Here Comes The Sun, Because, You Never Give Me Your Money and The End were new. Some had been demoed as far back as Esher mid 1968. In April, they recorded the non-album single The Ballad Of John And Yoko and its B » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

When Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory got together to create music, it was inevitable that their first album would have a creepy, cinematic atmosphere. After all, strange things happen after dark in Wessex and Will had already made a decent living crafting soundtracks. Factor in Alison’s sensual, breathy vocals and Felt Mountain, released in 2000, made many a critic’s knees tremble. Sales, however, were modest, the album just about breaking into the UK top sixty.

There was an adjustment in approach for the follow up, Black Cherry. In addition to the graceful mix of sustained chords, sweeping strings, weightless ballads, folk, cabaret, electronica and film noir, Goldfrapp added cheesy synths, infectious hooks and stomping beats, while cranking up the sex quotient in the lyrics. The result felt a little schizophrenic. Will had a new toy, a flute sound he deployed picking out a gentle tune in no less than three of the quieter songs. The new style works best on Strict Machine, co-written with Nick Batt, a bass heavy track, powered by a storming Glitter Band beat, buzzing with a frisson of naughtiness. It was the second single off Black Cherry, establishing them as » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Who’d be a Blues Rock guitarist in the Twenty-First Century? Blues Rock, a genre that came into being over fifty years ago and reached its peak in the seventies. The electric guitar, an instrument that hasn’t exactly fallen into disrepute but is no longer the centrepiece of the modern world of music.

The answer is plenty of people and here are two of them. Danny Bryant is English and has been a professional guitar player for over twenty years. His skills impressed the likes of Buddy Guy and Carlos Santana enough for them to want to work with him. He’s made numerous albums and tours regularly, going down particularly well in America. He makes a decent living doing something he loves. Means Of Escape is ten tracks of classic seventies Blues Rock with loud, stomping riffs and some reflective acoustic songs. The key instrument is actually the Hammond organ. A sustained organ chord behind some stylish guitar ‘solo’ing is very effective at getting the pulse racing. The trouble is that Bryant is too much of a purist. Means Of Escape could be preserved in aspic from four decades ago as it sounds exactly like » Continue Reading.