Tag Archives: 50th anniversary albums
1975 COUNTDOWN | #50 — #41
#50 AC/DC — T.N.T. The Aussie rockers crank it up a notch for their second album of 1975. “It’s a long way to the top” fully deserves its iconic status, while “High voltage” offers exactly that: raw, electrifying rock. Add in a title track that boasts one of Malcolm Young’s best riffs and you have […]
1971 COUNTDOWN: #71 — #66
After some time becalmed in lockdown waters, word has come from the poop deck of the good ship Vinyl Connection that it is well and truly time venture once more into the ocean that is “1971”. Although voyages on this varied and exciting sea have been a tad irregular, a few nautical miles have accumulated. […]
MASTERS OF UNREALITY
Black Sabbath’s third LP, released in July 1971, is not exactly a long-player. Clocking in at thirty-four minutes, the follow-up to 1970’s breakthrough Paranoid does not wear out its welcome. Overlooking the two brief instrumental pieces you are left with a six song record that opens with a love song to grass and closes with […]
1971 LIVE [PART 2]
Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends… The second (and final) part of Vinyl Connection’s pick of 1971 live albums, counting up to #1! * 5 TRAFFIC—WELCOME TO THE CANTEEN In terms of personnel, this is an ‘in between’ Traffic album. In fact it isn’t even credited to the band. In-again out-again […]
1971, SINGER SONGWRITERS #1
The early 1970s saw the emergence of the singer-songwriter as an acoustic force in popular music. If you played something—commonly piano or guitar—and wrote your own material, why bother with a band? All that negotiating and compromise, pah! Do your own thing, (wo)man. Do it yourself. So albums boasting a single person’s name on the […]
FEBRUARY 1971 — PART TWO
Continuing our trawl through Vinyl Connections holding from February 1971, and beginning with an absolute classic. [Part One here] Pretty much everyone agrees that Carole King’s second LP is a flawless album that boosted singer-songwriter artists towards the top of the first division. And not just in the US and Canada where the LP was […]
FEBRUARY 1971 — PART ONE
We’re running late, by about two months, so let’s get into it. * FEBRUARY 1971 ALBUM RELEASES Simply the most infectious collection of straight-ahead electric boogie that you’ll ever hear. John Lee was a savvy veteran by the early 1970s, he’d witnessed the surge in interest following the British blues boom of the early 1960s […]
JANUARY 1971 — THREE LATE ARRIVALS
It is tempting to believe that the internet knows everything about everything. When it came to finding release dates for Vinyl Connections bushel of 1971 albums, it became clear that the www is not as all-knowing as you think. Sure, I discovered a number of errors in the VC spreadsheet, mostly albums where I had […]
JANUARY 1971—50 YEARS AND TWO MONTHS AGO
Even while the 70 FROM ’70 finalists were still being mentally debated by your correspondent, lists were being compiled and assessments made for the following year. This year, in fact. The one in which we are currently deep into March and sniffing the yellow-brown air of autumnal decline. Where is the spring in Vinyl Connection’s […]
1970 COUNTDOWN | NUMBER 2
2. SANTANA — Abraxas What keeps a half-century-old LP fresh? Lots of possibilities, but in the case of Santana’s second LP, it is the superbly blended mix of different styles and influences that propels the record like an eternal multi-cultural street festival. Many know the infectious blues-rock interpretation of Fleetwood Mac’s “Black Magic Woman” or […]
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