What does it sound like?:

David Bowie emerged from the eighties a rich man but in the wilderness as an artist. A period of relative anonymity as a band member of Tin Machine, and the sense that the Sound + Vision tour effectively retired his back catalogue, suggest the move was deliberate. There was a part of Brit Pop that was influenced by seventies Bowie but very few of the younger acts and music journalists seemed familiar with his work. The result was that he could spend the nineties enjoying writing and recording music without having to consider the needs of a commercial or a critical audience.

Nile Rodgers still hoped to make a hit but Bowie preferred to create a playlist about himself and his new wife, a jazz-influenced, club-ready sequence of tracks to start their own private party. He always wanted to be a saxophonist in a jazz quartet and on Black Tie White Noise he almost realises his dream. The album is a kind of Acid Jazz, a genre that enjoyed a commercial breakthrough in the early nineties. Lester Bowie, a jazz trumpeter of real class, had the good grace to allow David the space » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

This is a superlative album. The songs are carefully selected, the arrangements exquisite, the production beautifully balanced, the musicianship exemplary and it’s all topped off by an enthralling harmonisation of two contrasting voices. It’s an album that defies categorisation, that occupies its own time and space and deserves every accolade it will undoubtedly have showered upon it.

It’s only problem is that it follows possibly the best album of the noughties, Raising Sand. They are two peas in a pod, even with a fourteen year gap. The main protagonists are the same. T Bone Burnett brings the atmosphere, Robert Plant the grit and Alison Krauss the elegance. The heartbeat is again provided by core musicians Marc Ribot guitar, Jay Bellerose drums and Dennis Crouch upright bass. Together, they create strings of pearls.

The twelve songs are almost wilfully obscure with one original. This time the net has been cast wide and far. Krauss and Plant have spent years exchanging suggestions. The collection includes Bluegrass, Folk, Southern Soul, Rockabilly, Country, Blues and Pop. The song that finally set the trigger is Quattro (World Drifts In) by Calexico. But, wherever the songs come from, » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Who knew that Hereford was a hotbed of gritty, urban Punk? Three of four Pretenders, Pete Farndon bass, Martin Chambers drums and James Honeyman-Scott guitar, hail from the city of cider and sausage rolls. The fourth, an American Anglophile, Chrissie Hynde, brought a love of Pop music and a Rock Chick sensibility to the band. She fell in love with the Rock Star lifestyle as a youngster and came to England in 1973 to realise her dream. Early on, she wrote for the NME. She served apprenticeships in bands that included future members of The Clash, The Damned, Generation X, Culture Club, Visage and Devo. In 1979, she finally found her own band. The rhythm section had plenty of aggression and crunch to match her street-smart lyrics and fuck-you cool, not to mention her own belligerent guitar playing. Best of all, the Honeyman-Scott was in the vanguard of a second New Wave of inspirational lead guitarists alongside Robin Guthrie and Johnny Marr, one that played beautiful, jangly riffs and romantic suspended chords.

This band made two great albums, packed with strong enough hooks for both LPs and the related singles to climb high in » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

This second volume of Joni Mitchell’s archive begins as the ink dried on her first record contract and ends as she prepared to release her fourth and, possibly, best known album. It’s a Joni-completist dream, gathering together nearly six hours of live, home and demo recordings in a neat box of five CDs or ten LPs, accompanied by beautiful illustrations and photographs in an informative book. Her confidence audibly grows. She studiously polishes her songwriting and her guitar playing moves from really good to outstanding. In live performance, she develops a commanding, composed presence, spinning carefully detailed yarns between songs, as she makes sure her unusual guitar tunings are just so. Her singing extends its range and expressiveness. She also becomes a very accomplished pianist. It is during this period that she blossoms, not just as a musician/singer/songwriter, but as one of the truly great artists of the late 20th Century.

In 1968, Joni Mitchell threw herself into a wandering minstrel lifestyle, leaving her brief marriage behind and burying her guilt and sorrow over her child, given up for adoption, deep within her soul. As she moved from place to place, she enjoyed a » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Ronnie Wood passed the audition on Black & Blue and officially became a Rolling Stone in 1976. Whatever you think of his guitar playing, especially compared to Mick Taylor, there is no doubt he galvanised The Stones, sparking a prolific songwriting spree and their most commercial period from Some Girls, through Emotional Rescue to Tattoo You, navigating the Punk/New Wave era unscathed. Keith was so inspired by his old friend, he decided to multiply and added the ‘s’ back onto his surname. When you listen to the records, it does sound like Keith has been cloned, his and Ronnie’s style being so similar. Mick, himself, also learnt to play the guitar, giving the band a triple attack. It wasn’t subtle, it wasn’t sophisticated but it was very effective.

Tattoo You is something of a mopping up exercise. Fifty songs were written for Some Girls, dozens more for Emotional Rescue and there were other leftovers dating back to Goats Head Soup, pre-Ronnie. Chris Kimsey, co-producer, claims Mick and Keith were not getting on at the time and he suggested putting something together using tracks already in the can. Keith said they had too little time » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

The plan for the Get Back/Let It Be project was ambitious, even for The Beatles. They intended to write songs from scratch, rehearse them and then record an album of the new material in front of a live TV audience in just a matter of weeks. Michael Lindsay-Hogg was invited to film all of the build up and the show itself. It led to a forensic exposure of the band’s sausage-machine creative process. The results have dripped out in various ways over the years, tainted by the belief that the eventual movie captured the break-up of the band and that Phil Spector ruined their swan-song album.

Rehearsals began in the aircraft hanger-like studio at Twickenham in the bitter cold of January 1969. None of these were properly recorded to studio audio standard but the film’s magnetic-track has been the source of many bootlegs. The pleasure of close band interaction was elusive and the songs were in short supply. When they were last a functioning live act, The Beatles spent their off-time in hotels writing songs. In 1969, they went to their homes and watched telly. Harrison, inspired by a trip to America visiting Dylan » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

The Steely Dan Band, has included several mainstays for the best part of two decades: Keith Carlock on drums, Freddie Washington bass, Jon Herington guitar, Jim Beard keyboards, Michael Leonhart, Jim Pugh, Walt Weiskopf and Roger Rosenberg horns, plus Carolyn and Jamie Leonhart and Catherine Russell on vocals. Connor Kennedy has stepped into Walter Becker’s guitar strap and La Tanya R. Hall has joined the vocal group. It was essentially this band that cooked up such a wonderful groove in the studio for Everything Must Go in 2003 on songs written with them in mind, sounding as magnificent as any Steely Dan combination of crack session musicians on any other album. Put Gary Katz back in the producer’s chair for the first time since 1980 and you are guaranteed excellent sound quality for both these live albums recorded on the same tour in 2019.

The jeopardy in any Steely Dan track is Donald Fagen’s voice. It is not the most refined of instruments: raspy, nasal and prone to being flat. The songs are carefully constructed so that it isn’t stretched too far and he delivers with the deadpan wink the lyrics often demand. Nevertheless, » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

George Harrison was liberated when The Beatles finally split up in 1970. It was a moment he’d prepared for. In 1968, disillusioned with the acrimonious recording of The White Album, he travelled to America and recharged his batteries with The Band and Bob Dylan, where he enjoyed a musical respect and equality lacking in his relationships with Lennon & McCartney. He collaborated with Eric Clapton, co-writing Badge for Cream, and accompanied him on a tour with Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, learning how to play slide guitar in the process. He also completed an apprenticeship as a producer, working with Billy Preston, Doris Troy, Leon Russell, Jack Bruce and enjoyed two hit singles with the Rhada Krishna Temple. The final ingredient was Harrison’s recruitment of Phil Spector to produce The Plastic Ono Band’s Instant Karma!

He had a bag full of songs rejected for Beatles records dating back years. Isn’t It A Pity and Art Of Dying date back to 1966 and Revolver. In early 1969, The Beatles chose For You Blue over All Things Must Pass, Hear Me Lord and Let It Down and spent time recording Dig It instead. After becoming a » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

This is something of an odd product, described as a companion to last year’s Metrobolist. It consists of two CDs, housed in a DVD shaped book, with 104 pages of text, collecting all the material David Bowie recorded in 1970 other than The Man Who Sold The World album. The only other available physical product is a vinyl EP of four 2020 remixes of the singles.

Bowie began the year brimming with confidence. He’d just enjoyed the triumph of a number one single and had snared an Ivor Novello for Space Oddity. You can hear that self-assurance in disc one, a live recording from early February for The Sunday Show Introduced By John Peel, the first time he was treated as a star at the top of the bill for the BBC. Peel’s dulcet tones introduce each song in turn, engage in some exchanges with Bowie and throw in the occasional obtuse anecdote, anchoring the recording in time and place. You can smell the joss sticks and feel the Persian rug with your toes. Bowie plays twelve string (remember those?) and is accompanied by The Hype, a band with Mick Ronson on guitar, » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

The Afterword has been to the gigs and enjoyed Spike Lee’s movie but how about completing the set and buying the soundtrack? The musicians on the American Utopia were untethered, all wore matching grey suits with bare feet and every move across the stage was carefully choreographed, their ebbs and flows emphasised and exaggerated by simple but effective lighting, the backdrop being a curtain of chains. Can a soundtrack capture a show whose essence is so visual?

There are twelve musicians: guitar, bass, keyboards, six percussionists, two backing vocalists and David Byrne himself, contributing guitar to some songs. The bassist, Bobby Wooten III, revels in the limelight and the percussionists, who more than substitute for a drum kit, are well organised and disciplined. They add power and intricacy to songs that rely heavily on complex rhythmical patterns.

They play twenty-two songs in all: ten Talking Heads: one from ’77, one Fear Of Music, three Remain In Light, three Speaking in Tongues, one Little Creatures and one Naked: six ‘solo’ Byrne, four of which were collaborations, and five from the American Utopia album itself, plus a cover. The song choices are mostly the obvious » Continue Reading.