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.

What does it sound like?:

In 1970, you’d have thought David Bowie would be doing everything he could to impress his new employer, Mercury. He’d been in danger of becoming a one-hit wonder with Space Oddity. His follow up singles were flops. His audition for the label was whimsical and folky, in keeping with much of the other music on his 1969 album. He’d won the contract by the skin of his teeth but allowed himself to become embroiled in the complexities of changing his manager. Ken Pitt had stood by him when most others looked away but Bowie was smitten by fast-talking American, Tony Defries. The transfer was protracted and distracting and one he would rue for decades. He was smitten in another way, newly married to Angie, who was keen to spend most of her day in bed or in antique shops. Bowie enthusiastically indulged her. He had two trusted lieutenants to look after the music, one longer standing, Tony Visconti, and one new, Mick Ronson. If Visconti is to be believed, Bowie was either absent or spent most of the recording time lounging about. The album he delivered is an album of extremes with no singles » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Pretty Things are a ‘cult’ band, meaning they enjoyed little commercial success but attracted a loyal and fervent fan base. This year, their lead singer and lyric writer, Phil May, the only constant member through the decades, sadly lost his life, effectively ending the band as a going concern. This 50th anniversary edition of Parachute, their fifth album, serves as a fitting tribute.

Pretty Things began by playing ugly, unkempt rhythm and blues. Their debut is more than a match for The Rolling Stones’ for raw excitement, except for the fact it came out the following year. Early singles bothered the UK charts. They missed the wave of The British Invasion in America, spending much of 1965 touring the Southern Hemisphere, their drummer, Viv Prince, wreaking havoc wherever he went. They flirted a little with Soul (they even signed to a subsidiary of Tamla Motown) but the drugs Phil May started taking made him see himself as a sweet, sensitive poet, aspiring to be T.S. Eliot. Their sound became more psychedelic and they created the first Rock Opera, S.F. Sorrow, in 1968. Parachute, produced by Norman Smith in Abbey Road, is the follow up, » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Joni Mitchell spent a lot of her career bristling against the label “Folk Singer” but here she is in 1963, at the age of nineteen, recording for her small town radio station in Canada, undeniably a Folk Singer. She is singing House Of The Rising Sun, a year before The Animals transformed it, with a confident yet tremulous voice, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar. Everything Joni Mitchell is about is there. The brave yet vulnerable demeanour, the purity of her mezzo-soprano and a strong right hand, her left, weakened by polio at the age of nine, protected by unusual guitar tunings. She has a core inner strength enabling her to stand alone, away from the crowd, her whole life exposed under a spotlight. There is also an innocence soon to be lost.

The recordings on this box are mostly live with some demos, single takes almost without a flaw, documenting a period of personal turmoil up to her first album. They are presented in chronological order and the sound quality is almost uniformally excellent. It starts in her home town radio station, CFQC AM, moves to The Half Beat, Toronto, for two sets, » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

By the time The Doors settled down in the studio to record their fifth album in November 1969, they, and Morrison in particular, had endured a difficult year. Morrison was facing two court cases, both of which carried potential jail sentences. He had been arrested for alleged ‘indecent exposure’ at a gig in Miami that March and ‘skyjacking’ during a flight to Phoenix to watch The Rolling Stones. One tour had to be abandoned because of the bad press and their records were blacklisted by many radio stations. In July, The Soft Parade, with its horns and strings, was greeted by accusations of a sell-out. Morrison surrendered his Lizard King leather trousers, grew a beard, gained weight and attempted to steer clear of drugs, an effort undermined by an increase in alcohol consumption. His relationship with Pamela Coulson became even more wild. It must have been a relief to return to his real family: the other members of the group, producer Paul Rothchild and engineer Bruce Botnick.

With opener Roadhouse Blues, Morrison Hotel immediately sounds the polar opposite of The Soft Parade. Kreiger’s growling guitar, Manzarek’s whorehouse piano, John Sebastian’s bluesy harmonica and a » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Robert Plant has been a solo artist for forty years. He was Led Zeppelin’s lead singer for just twelve. This two CD collection is effectively a playlist to accompany his successful podcast, Digging Deep, in which Plant looks back on his songs and discusses how they came about. There are thirty tracks taken from ten solo albums with three previously unreleased ‘exclusives’: Allen Toussant’s Nothing Takes The Place Of You from the 2013 film, Winter In The Blood, Charley Feather’s Too Much Alike, a gentle-paced rockabilly duet with Patti Griffin, and Charlie Patton Highway (Turn It Up – Part 1), a teaser for the upcoming Band Of Joy Volume 2.

His solo career had a shaky start, beginning in 1980 with Plant engulfed in grief. He’d lost his best friend, his band, his five year old son three years before and his marriage three years later. It took him some time to find his voice both artistically and literally. Surgery for nodules had changed it for ever. There would be no more shredding with his characteristic Led Zeppelin high pitched shrieks. He found it difficult to abandon bombast and turned to drummers such as » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

If you are capable of doing anything, why not do everything at once? Sign “☮︎” the Times is Prince’s definitive statement, a double album displaying the full spectrum of his gifts, delving into all aspects of his bizarre imagination and stunningly performed almost entirely by himself. It is a musical embodiment of Prince’s flibbertigibbet personality and may well be the peak of his career.

In 1986/7, you’d think he had nothing to prove. Purple Rain had been an enormous global success, establishing him as a bone fide film star who could also effortlessly fill stadiums. He was a superstar, charisma oozing from his pores, living life exactly as he pleased, mostly writing, performing and recording his own songs. However, the movie Under The Cherry Moon had been a critically panned flop and he’d broken up his band, The Revolution. Some had been with him since the seventies, but they had become unwieldy and unruly with the addition of members of The Time and three so-called Bodyguards. Still, his restless creativity threatened to overwhelm him. A full band double album, Dream Factory, a pseudonymous alter ego project, Camille, and a proposed triple album, Crystal Ball, » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

There are two watershed albums in the entire career of The Rolling Stones. The first is Their Satanic Majesties Request. Compare and contrast their musical style pre and post that album. There isn’t just a step change. It’s almost a completely different band. The second is Goats Head Soup.

Goats Head Soup is the sound of men on the cusp of thirty considering the possibility of becoming responsible adults. In the songs, they look back on their Rock’n’Roll lifestyle, reflect on past relationships, and weigh the meaning of adulthood. By 1973, The Rolling Stones were a complex adaptive system bordering on the edge of chaos. The pall of heroin, clinging to them since 1967, incapacitated both Keith and Jimmy Miller. Various drug busts over the years restricted their ability to remain tax exiles. Jamaica was one of the few countries that would allow them all entry but there was no respite from dealers. The Caribbean sunshine couldn’t eradicate the murk and mire of the basement at Nellcôte where they recorded most of Exile On Main Street. Bill felt intimidated by The Stones’ own armed guard and a break-in to his hotel room. Hunter » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Absolute Beginners is a film that can’t make up its mind if it’s a musical or a series of pop videos. It fits into Julien Temple’s directing style quite logically. He likes to string together a series of short segments featuring cameos by celebrities, distracting from any lack of narrative or character development by deploying showbiz panache and lots of energy. The Great Rock And Roll Swindle and It’s All True made him a popular turn-to director for eye-catching music videos, a reputation confirmed by Jazzin’ For Blue Jean for David Bowie, a light-hearted twenty minute short you might have seen supporting Company Of Wolves. Goldcrest, a British film company, riding high on the critical and commercial successes of Chariots Of Fire, Ghandi, Local Hero, The Killing Fields and A Room With A View, enlisted Temple for a big budget film of Colin MacInnes’s excellent novel on Afro-Caribbean and hipster culture in 1950’s Swinging London with a view to exploiting the best of British talent in Pop music, acting, writing and film-making.

In the mid 1980s, England was enjoying a revival of smooth jazz with a kindred spirit to the music described in the » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

After the recent sad loss of Kraftwerk founder, Florian Schneider, it’s an opportune time to re-evaluate their catalogue. It’s helpful that Kraftwerk, still led by Ralf Hütter, have released most of it digitally, for streaming or download, in stereo and Dolby Atmos/HD Surroundsound best appreciated via Amazon HD or Tidal. You can now enjoy the eight core studio albums from Autobahn to Tour de France Soundtracks in their 2009 remaster and the 2017 3-D Catalogue in both English and German. Autobahn, Radioactivity and Tour de France have only one set of vocals but Trans Europe Express, The Man Machine, Computer World, Techno Pop and The Mix were issued in German for the German, Austrian and Swiss markets, and English for the rest of the world. For Kraftwerk purists, the German versions are the definitive ones.

Kraftwerk began as experimental Krautrock group, flirting with atonality and repetitive motorik rhythms. By the time of Autobahn in 1974, they had found their niche. Impressed by an exhibition by Gilbert and George, two similarly suited men with narrow ties, influenced by the Bauhaus aesthetic in wanting to make their lives into a work of art, Kraftwerk decided to » Continue Reading.