Sonically daring and lyrically challenging, Radiohead’s follow-up to the hugely successful OK Computer was the result of much suffering. Thom Yorke endured a psycho-emotional crisis during the extensive world tour following OK Computer’s success while the whole band agonised about their ‘direction’. Yet somehow they managed to both renew their sound and create an album […]
One of the wonderful things about popular music is the way it has splintered into a thousand sparkling threads, like a fireworks display in slow motion. There are more genres, sub-sections, and styles than could be examined in a lifetime… and it all started less than seventy years ago. Yet despite the best efforts of […]
Growing up in a musical family, young Jimmy Smith learned piano and later, double bass. When he switched to organ in the mid-1950s after hearing Wild Bill Davis, Jimmy combined the two instrumental skills, utilising the bass pedals of his Hammond B3 to fill out the lower end of his sound. While this made the […]
A number of Bob Dylan’s 60s songs have become part of the tapestry of popular culture. He was a lightning rod for the folk revival and the emerging protest movement. As a result, it is tempting to think of Dylan as an introverted singer-songwriter, a strumming folkie who presents his songs in an unassuming way […]
There are many reasons for not having attended a live concert by an artist you love. Maybe the tickets sold out quicker than you could say ‘Scalpers!’. Perhaps the concert was in another city—or another country. For artists long gone, you may have been born too late. Whatever the reason, the live album has long […]
He is a powerful voice backed by a forceful band, an entertainer who shirtfronts his fans while elevating them; a singer-poet-preacher who roars about suffering while channelling exaltation. He is Warracknabeal born global citizen Nick Cave, and his latest album is Wild God. If you follow Cave’s music, you already know that Wild God has […]
Here is the entire 1974 COUNTDOWN, with links to the original posts. Following this are the other 1974 posts including live albums, film soundtracks and jazz. And here is an invitation to add their your own favourite 1974 albums in the Comments… ranked or unranked, two or twenty, curated our plucked out of the ether, […]
It has certainly been a long, strange trip yet here we are near the end of the 74 FROM ’74 album countdown. With a dozen-and-a-half days of 2024 still remaining. What efficiency! Before launching into the final five albums, it is timely to recall that this is neither a ‘Best of’ list, nor a ‘Greatest […]
Although the German Top 40 of the late Sixties and early Seventies remained resolutely traditional and cringingly bland, elsewhere this was a highly creative time for German rock music. Beyond the safe confines of radio-friendly singles dwelt tribes of restlessly inventive and determinedly non-Anglo-American musicians creating some of the most interesting and exciting music of […]
#10 BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS — NATTY DREAD If, like your correspondent, you have tended to be a bit puzzled by reggae and respectfully bewildered by the deification of Robert Nesta Marley, may I recommend Natty Dread? This is Marley’s first album after parting company with Peter Tosh and you can almost hear him […]
#15 LOU REED — ROCK ‘N’ ROLL ANIMAL Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner on guitars supercharge this live Lou Reed classic. Drawing heavily on his Velvet Underground period, but in updated arrangements, the song-list is user friendly but never cuddly. The version of “Heroin” is scarifying and “Lady Day” despairing. But at other times the […]
Born LaDonna Adrian Gaines but widely known as the Queen of Disco, Donna Summer sold over 100 million records worldwide and was responsible for the wearing out more pairs of dancing shoes than any artist in pop history. (Possibly not true, but then again…) Having racked up an astonishing forty-two hit singles on the US […]
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