If Smiths fans had a propensity for violence, I would’ve been beaten up quite a bit in middle school. You see, I was eleven and quite liked Bon Jovi – might as well get that skeleton out of the closet now. The most I got from the older Smiths fans at school (and ooh they ever were soo cool) were dirty looks or eye rolls. Well, whatever…I don’t like Bon Jovi anymore (don’t hate ’em either, they seem like nice chaps), and do consider myself a Smiths fan, but it wasn’t really anything to do with my school experiences. Enter Morrissey and Marr. The latter’s distinct guitar style is what blew me away first. He comes across as a kind of post punk Roger McGuinn. I guess I realized that one didn’t have to be a “shredder” like Eddie Van Halen to stand out as a good guitarist. Then the Moz…well, not many have managed to duplicate that croon of his have they? I remember the Smoking Popes didn’t sound anything like the Smiths, but their singer had the dry tuneless croon down pat. I find the Moz’s singing on this debut strangely attractive, even funny – especially on “Miserable Lie” on which he eventually gives up singing altogether and just kind of hoots. But everything here is instantly memorable, especially the smash hits on the latter half of the album. –Neal
Album Reviews
Richard Thompson “Henry the Human Fly” (1972)
Richard Thompson’s solo debut is, not surprisingly, the one where the chilly folk rock wind of his former band blows most freely, a creaky, moldy affair that matches his stuffy-nosed vocals to a set of weary and ominous songs. The traditional, old world atmosphere of Henry perfectly suits tracks like the fearsome “Roll Over Vaughn Williams,” sorrowful folk ballad “The Poor Ditching Boy,” and drunken “Twisted,” yet also limits the immediate appeal of the album. Elsewhere there’s “The Old Changing Way,” a simple and affecting tale of fragmented brotherhood, while the clouds briefly part with the arrival of Sandy Denny and Linda Peter’s (soon Linda Thompson) vocals on the virtually upbeat “The Angels Took My Racehorse Away,” never mind it’s sentiment of loss. While it’s hard to recommend the soggy sounds of Henry to those who’ve yet to be converted to the doom and gloom of Thompson’s world, it’s also not hard to see why, with it’s distilled purity, it’s become an unlikely favorite. –Ben
Metallica “Ride the Lightning” (1984)
Like everyone else my age, The Black Album was the introduction into metal and the undeniable force known as, Metallica. So, obviously I had to do a bit of working backwards to familiarize myself with their other (heavier) albums. I came to enjoy all of their 80’s material, but Ride the Lightning struck me the hardest with its tremendous sound that was brought to the forefront by James Hetfield’s growling voice, Lars Ulrich’s powerful drumming, Kirk Hammett’s severely commanding guitar playing, and Cliff Burton’s intense bass. Each member proved to be pivotal to the genius sound they created on this record and while, Master of Puppets usually gets all the accolades for being their finest, I still come back to this one much more and truly feel that it’s by far the greatest thrash metal album of all-time. –Jason
Thin Lizzy “Jailbreak” (1976)
Containing the only two Thin Lizzy tracks you’re ever likely to hear on the restricted playlists of classic rock radio in the US, with the barroom nostalgia of “The Boys Are Back in Town” and tight-fisted title track, Jailbreak has become the most recognized release of the band’s existence. In many ways, the album simply carries on from Fighting in it’s mix of classic Lizzy rockers featuring generous amounts of their signature dual guitar sound, and an abundance of mellower songs highlighting Lynott’s penchant for romantic lyricism. The heavier tracks are some of the band’s best yet, with the bold “Warriors” and battlefield tale “Emerald,” but the band turns in some stellar easygoing entries like the wistful “Cowboy Song,” catchy “Running Back,” and broken-hearted “Romeo and the Lonely Girl.” Throughout, Lynott’s expressive vocals and the band’s high-caliber musicianship add an earnestness to the material, without sacrificing the power at the band’s core. –Ben
Roxy Music “Roxy Music” (1972)
An insane record that sounds at times like rock ‘n’ roll risen from the dead (the original post-rock?): Bryan Ferry’s a vampire in too-tight tuxedo, drunk out of his mind on champagne at a cocktail party and desperately declaring how he used to be a star (a unique and paradoxical property for a frontman’s debut); Brian Eno’s synths spread gloomy atmospherics like a fog machine, his keys stab clumsily like a Jerry Lee Lewis rebuilt by Frankenstein; Andy Mackay spit-shines the rough edges with creepy Teutonic reeds and squealing brass; Paul Thompson galumphs along like a Stax stable studio drummer kept alive by amphetamines; and Phil Manzanera’s overdriven six-string heroics harness noise like White Light/White Heat era Lou Reed with years of lessons.
This is in many ways the quintessential Roxy album (although I’d be tempted to say the same about the next three). Their sly, subversive pop is at its most unhinged here, at its riskiest and most outrageous, making few concessions to commercialism and with a self-aware artiness and goofiness that contrasts rather sharply with Ferry’s later shameless self-promotion as refined European Romantic (a self-stylization that would eventually get the best of him). By no means is it their best album—their ambitions exceed their abilities in a few places, and the suave, smarmy refinements of For Your Pleasure now seem conspicuously absent—and I agree with most reviewers who suggest it’s rather top-heavy—but it’s a milestone of 70s rock, nonetheless; an important template for much that followed; and thus arguably the group’s most important. –Will
Circuit Rider “Circuit Rider” (1980)
This private press pot of insanity from 1980 literally sounds like hell’s angels covering L.A. Woman. There’s no record label, the catalog number is 666, and it was maybe recorded in the early seventies, but no one really knows. Where did this come from? Connecticut actually, but it sounds a lot more like a deep swamp field recording. A lot of music sounds druggy, this one seems to top it all. The density of the haze within the grooves is thick enough to make you want to take a shower. At times it sounds like Funkadelic with no drums, at others it touches on more of a Canned Heat aesthetic, but always laced with heavy doses of lucid blanketing. The singer has some sort of biker/shaman/howling dog formula that, besides making the lizard king sound like Tom Jones in comparison, doesn’t bore the listener with cheesy trippy organ either. In fact the listener is way too frightened to be bored. It basically sounds like what you think of the sixties in your head, even when most actual sixties music sounds like the soundtrack to pictures of somebody’s goofy dad wearing bellbottoms. –Alex
Atomic Rooster “Death Walks Behind You” (1970)
Death Walks Behind You opens with the title track – a study in what I would term doom rock (it’s in the direction of doom metal, but isn’t quite metal). It’s a good hard rocker with a nice riff; it starts off building a doom laden atmosphere real slow and then kicks into a blues rock theme; it’s perhaps a little too long. “V.U.G.” is an impressive instrumental piece, and “Tomorrow Night” (the single off the album) is an excellent simple rocker. It was my introduction to this great band. “Seven Lonely Streets” closes the 1st side. Despite an unconvincing vocal performance from Cann it has some good jamming and a brilliant hook – you know – the kind that’s still going through your head when you wake up in the middle of the night. On the second side “Sleeping For Years” is yet another good hard rocker with a great hook. “I Can’t Take No More” is kind of pop-rock, almost a precursor to the kind of song Cann would produce 10 years later. “Nobody Else” starts off nice and quiet on the piano before rocking out from about halfway. It’s pretty good, sort of contemplative. The last track, “Gerschatzer” (a german-sounding word with no meaning), is instrumental only. It starts off brightly but gets a bit messy, as much of what is termed ‘prog’ tends to. I would recommend this to anyone interested in hard rock, particularly of the Deep Purple or early Sabbath variety. This is possibly their best album, though it’s hard to pick out one of their first three albums. –Jim
Rolling Stones “Hot Rocks” (1972)
At this point in my life, every Rolling Stones record sounds like a greatest hits record. The younger, stupider me might go off on how the hits aren’t as good as the more obscure album cuts that nobody has heard, but let’s get real. Everybody has heard that stuff, just like everybody knows all the Beatles and Dylan songs on every album. Who are we trying to impress anymore? This is not private press psyche or hardcore. It’s the Stones, and when I want to listen to the Stones I want to hear Jumping Jack Flash go into Street Fighting Man go into Sympathy for the Devil, skip Honky Tonk Woman, then finish the side with Gimme Shelter (hot rocks record two, side one) At some point, you just got to pick up a worn copy of something that’s worth nothing just for the simple pleasure of rocking out. It’s a healthy reminder of why you listen to records in the first place. –Alex
Sonic Youth “Daydream Nation” (1988)
“Record collectors shouldn’t be in bands!” This is what Joe Carducci said when the other guys at SST records wanted to sign Sonic Youth in the mid eighties, And I can’t fully disagree with the statement. Sonic has spent their career as artsy NYC hipsters riding any and every genre of music that they may or may not have business making, as long as it’s “cool”. In the early days, it was mostly a band trying to balance with one foot in punk while holding on to their no wave and high art credibility. By the early nineties, they were consciously dumbing down to cash in on grunge riffs. But at some point between the two, they managed to create one of the best rock albums of all time, the massive double LP, Daydream Nation. It’s focused drive and sprawling experimentation come off so impressively natural. Somehow they balance a sort of psychedelic rock approach to slightly punk fueled pop songs with very DEAD C like noise drone outs that miraculously blend into a seamless late eighties indie record. Even the usually free flowing poetic vocals are at their least offensive. In fact most of the lyrics are amazing. It’s the band at their peak of maturity. The space inside each song seems to grow with each listen as well, which leads to what seems like endless repeated listenings. Sadly, the 4th side trails off into some annoying territory, but there’s so much to chew on already, and for the first three sides, nothing to skip. The sound suggests high art without the pretension overshadowing the human feel of the songs. Even Carducci later admitted that they were a good band in this period. That’s what I think impresses me the most about Sonic Youth; every instinct tells me that this band need’s to get real yet I always come back to them, and in Daydream’s case, rarely leave. –Alex
Morrissey “Viva Hate” (1988)
In the land ye fishey and chips, there would come about a band that would rocketh the stray teenagers of the middle class. They would defeat the masses of hair metal and 80s b-boys, but would ultimately be destroyed by time. There would be a man to rise out of the fire who would make an album better than half of said band’s. We would then call him Moz because that sounds cool and agree that he hasn’t been the same since (although You are the Quarry was a hell of a comback….ye olde You are the Quarry, I mean). Sexy British asshole male divas of the world unite. Only one, eh? –Allistair
Uriah Heep “Demons and Wizards” (1972)
Uriah Heep’s 4th accentuates the pomp and bombast at the band’s core even further, “The Wizard” re-introducing us to the world of Demons and Wizards in grand, whisper to a scream style. Really, only two lively, pure of purpose rockers in this bunch, the good-timer “All My Life” and barreling “Easy Livin'” (the band’s first US top 40 entry). It’s imposing works of sorcery and heft like “Traveller in Time,” the hard swing of “Poet’s Justice,” which sounds in places like Scott Walker gone heavy (really!) and “Circle of Hands,” a majestic number recalling Zep’s “Thank You,” that one carries into the unquiet slumbers experienced after too many hours steeped in the Heep. Elsewhere, “Rainbow Demon” chains you to a Hyborian Wheel of Pain with it’s leaden, Iommi on organ riff, as Demons concludes with the meandering “Paradise/The Spell,” an alternately lush and rollicking soar towards the heavens. –Rob
Curtis Mayfield “Curtis” (1970)
Curtis’s call to unity and peace is that we are all going to hell for being assholes; I absolutely love that. Here everyone is telling everyone to form a love train and hold hands and Curtis is saying that if things don’t work out now maybe we’ll get things right in hell. The music is just as revolutionary, an embrace of what was going down on the East side of the United States in the 60s and the music that has been going on in the western hemisphere since the 16th century. Dirty funk with prog-rock ascension (“(Don’t Worry) If There’s a Hell We’re All Going to Go”) and a Motown hit with a 5-minute jam (“Move On Up”), Curtis knows no limits and it’s all for the better; even simple soul like “Miss Black America” and “Wild and Free” feel like transcendent miracles of celebration with lyrical potency.
There’s The Last Poets who were looking at all the failures going on and then there was Isaac Hayes looking at a bright future, but both were either too cynical or scarred to look at each other. This is Curtis standing up aware of the shortcomings of black society in the late 60s (“Don’t accept anything less than 2nd best” he sings in triumphant glory) and looking up at the bright days behind the gloomiest haze of despair in the album’s centerpiece “We the People Who are Darker than Blue”. Curtis knows there is no point in pondering what could have been of Africa had it not been ravaged and he knows there is no use in lying about black people coming on top. There is no black and white, there is only poor or rich and lucky or unfortunate. You can only embrace those small moments when things are looking up in your life and you make a connection to the history that binds you to that moment. This is what Curtis accomplishes for forty minutes and it’s a beautiful thing. –Allistair
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