Category Progressive
1974 COUNTDOWN | #59 — #55
#59 DAN FOGELBERG — SOUVENIRS With Joe Walsh on guitars, Don Henley and Glen Frey guesting, plus backing vocals from Graham Nash, you could be forgiven for thinking Dan Fogelberg was a cut-price one-man Eagles. Except Souvenirs is no mark-down album, offering great songs in a melodic country-rock vein. This is an LP I taped […]
1974 COUNTDOWN | FIVE LIVE
Although several ‘in concert’ recordings have made it into the 74 FROM ’74 Countdown, there are lots that didn’t. Here are a handful. * BIRTHCONTROL — LIVE Almost a quintessential 70s prog rock band, Birthcontrol released this live double album to please their many German fans. It is energetic, with familiar songs getting extended treatments […]
1974 COUNTDOWN | #64 — #60
#64 STEVIE WONDER — FULFILLINGNESS’ FIRST FINALE Compared to the sharp-edged focus of Innervisions, FFF is a mellow affair. Working pretty much on his own, Wonder delivers a selection of fine songs which are broadly about relationships and the journey of connection. “Boogie on reggae woman” and “You ain’t done nothin’” are obvious standouts; surely […]
1974 COUNTDOWN | #69 — #65
#69 LOU REED — SALLY CAN’T DANCE Eternally suspicious of, well, everything actually, Lou Reed was not exactly overjoyed by the unexpected success of Sally Can’t Dance. His acidic comment ran thusly: “It seems like the less I’m involved with a record, the bigger a hit it becomes. If I weren’t on the record at […]
1974 COUNTDOWN | #74—#70
#74 MACKENZIE THEORY — BON VOYAGE How fitting to begin another COUNTDOWN voyage with an album called Bon Voyage. How ironic saying “Hello” to another epic trek through more than six dozen albums (selected from a pool of around three hundred) with a ritual phrase of farewell. How ambivalent was your correspondent about attempting this […]
KALEIDOSCOPIC GLORY
Transatlantic are a genuine progressive rock supergroup, albeit a part-time one. Comprising members of Spock’s Beard (Neal Morse) Dream Theatre (Mike Portnoy) Marillion (Pete Trewavas) and the Flower Kings (Roine Stolt), the band released its first album, SMPT:e in 2000. In February 2014 Kaleidoscope, their fourth studio album, appeared. Another huge opus blending symphonic prog […]
ALBUM COVERS | JADE WARRIOR
Tony Duhig and Jon Field created art rock band Jade Warrior at the birth of the 1970s. After three albums on Vertigo, they shifted to the Island record label and produced a fascinating quartet of albums between and 1974 and 1978. Characterised by an eclectic range of influences and instrumentation, their albums presaged ‘Fourth World’ […]
TAKING THEM TO TARKUS
There is nothing like a great three minute single. A song that grabs you, thrills you and then is gone. It’s been the staple of rock and pop music for over sixty years and shows no sign of becoming extinct, as we saw recently with the success of the Nuggets fiftieth anniversary box set. Yet […]
1973 COUNTDOWN: #73 — 71
After initiating planning and sorting for 73 FROM ’73 in the middle of 2022, somehow the project got delayed; again and again. A number of the schedule blowouts arose from life intruding on music activities, annoying incursions I hoped had been redirected towards more gainfully employed bloggers as I mooched towards retirement; but in fact […]
INOCULATE AGAINST FEAR
One of the most popular on-line music guides lists more than 50 adjectives to describe the last album by progressive-metal masters Tool. This tells you a lot about the complexity of their 2019 eighty-minute epic. Some of the descriptors are pretty obvious… dramatic, powerful, intense, heavy… words that fans of the band will see as […]
vinylconnection.com.au 