TEARS FOR FEARS
SONGS FROM THE BIG CHAIR
1985-MERCURY
Produced By CHRIS HUGHES
1. Shout
2. The Working Hour
3. Everybody Wants To Rule The World
4. Mothers Talk
5. I Believe
6. Broken
7. Head Over Heels
8. Listen
In the second half of the eighties, when great albums were challenging to find, Tears For Fears made two of them. The second of the two, The Seeds Of Love, was expected to be great, and is a notch better. Songs From The Big Chair came from nowhere and established the band as one of the best of the decade. This album established the duo (Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith) as international stars, and the parade of hits from the record is as impressive as you’ll find anywhere. The lead singles, “Mothers Talk”, did okay in Great Britain, but it was the second single, “Shout”, that made the band huge stars. “Shout” opens with as infectious a chorus as you’ll find, and stays perfect: an excellent single. Equally as impressive is “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” (sung by Smith), a song the band considered too weak for inclusion that became the 1986 Brit Single Of The Year.
The final hit from Songs From The Big Chair is the lovely “Head Over Heels”, a picture perfect love song. With half of the tracks from the album having been hits, what about the other half? “I Believe” (dedicated to Robert Wyatt) was the final single, and although it didn’t chart as high as the others, it’s still a great track. “Broken” is built off of the same riff as “Head Over Heels”, and is performed live as a combo with that song. “The Working Hour” and “Listen”, both of which clock in at over six minutes, are solid anchors, holding the album firmly together. In all, what you get with Songs From The Big Chair is one of the very best albums of the decade, consistent and strong from start to finish. After The Seeds Of Love, Smith left Tears For Fears to Orzabal, who kind of drove the name into the ground for a few years before Smith Came back. They still play, but they’ve never been able to duplicate their two album creative peak. This and The Seeds Of Love are necessary albums.
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NATALIE MERCHANT
TIGERLILY
1995-ELEKTRA
Produced By NATALIE MERCHANT
1. San Andreas Fault
2. Wonder
3. Beloved Wife
4. River
5. Carnival
6. I May Know The Word
7. The Letter
8. Cowboy Romance
9. Jealousy
10. Where I Go
11. Seven Years
There were several things that were interesting about the band 10,000 Maniacs. Their horrible name, for one. The strange and wide array of musical styles that they touched on throughout their career, from reggae to Roxy Music covers to The Andrews Sisters before settling into smart folk pop. And, most of all, there was the beautiful and unique voice of their lead singer, Natalie Merchant. The Maniacs hit it huge with their 1987 album In My Tribe, and it became only a matter of time before Merchant would finally step out on her own. She did so in 1995, and her debut album, Tigerlily, remains the best of her seven solo outings. Produced by Merchant herself, the album contains her deepest and most meaningful lyrics, and musically does not get buried in sentimentality or snooziness. These things, along with her absolute gift of a voice, makes Tigerlily a real victory of an album for Merchant: flawed, for sure, but also a beautiful thing to listen to.
“Carnival” is the hit here. It’s a gorgeous song, and was used in the closing credits of the film about the life of serial killer Aileen Wuornos because the album was her solace during her time on death row. “River” is a song about the late actor River Phoenix. “Wonder” touches on physical disabilities, and “Jealousy” is another strong track. Maybe the best, and least known, is the eight minute long centerpiece “I May Know The Word”, which features some burning guitar work by Eric Schenkman. A bit too mature for the mainstream, Tigerlily made Merchant a star on the Adult Contemporary side of things, and nearly twenty years after its release, it still is a thing of beauty. But, despite the songs being Merchant’s best batch, it’s her voice that ultimately wins you over. It’s her voice that really makes Tigerlily worth hearing.
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THE LEMONHEADS
COME ON FEEL THE LEMONHEADS
1993-ATLANTIC
Produced By THE ROBB BROTHERS
1. The Great Big No
2. Into Your Arms
3. It’s About Time
4. Down About It
5. Paid To Smile
6. Big Gay Heart
7. Style
8. Rest Assured
9. Dawn Can’t Decide
10. I’ll Do It Anyway
11. Rick James Style
12. Being Around
13. Favorite T
14. You Can Take It With You
15. The Jello Fund
The Lemonheads came out in the mid eighties as a punk band, but when Evan Dando became the only constant member, they hit their stride in the early to mid nineties as a power pop band. The fame of this outfit was built around a pair of unlikely cover songs. Suzanne Vega’s “Luka” made them college stars and paved the way for their major label deal, and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson” gave them their one true smash hit. This was around the time of their best album, 1992’s It’s A Shame About Ray. The follow up to that album, Come On Feel The Lemonheads, is not quite as good, but it’s fairly close. By now, all of the original Lemonheads were gone except for Dando, who was finding himself on Most Beautiful People lists and hanging out with Oasis (and the drugs that came with them). The band, consisting mostly of Dando, David Ryan and Nic Dalton, is spiced by contributions from Julianna Hatfield, Belinda Carlisle, and even Rick James. The spark of It’s A Shame About Ray was already beginning to fade, but there’s still enough here to warrant interest.
The highlights here are “Into Your Arms”, which was a #1 hit for nine weeks, “The Great Big No”, “Big Gay Heart”, and “It’s About Time”. There’s lots of jangle and melodies here, and just enough good hooks to keep things going. The backside is that there simply aren’t 15 songs that are all that interesting. Still, a decent collection of Lemonheads will consist of the two albums from their peak. After Come On Feel The Lemonheads, it was all but over for Dando. The next album, Car Button Cloth, was a bomb, and drugs forced him to step away for the next ten years before a comeback that was, of course, not quite the same. But The Lemonheads were, at least for a pair of albums, a breath of fresh air, and a whole lot of fun. (The last track, “The Jello Fund”, is 15 minutes of crappy outtakes and silence. The absolute worst of hidden track madness.)
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BOARDS OF CANADA
MUSIC HAS THE RIGHT TO CHILDREN
1998 – MATADOR
Produced By MICHAEL SANDISON & MARCUS EOIN
1. Wildlife Analysis
2. An Eagle In Your Mind
3. The Color Of The Fire
4. Telephasic Workshop
5. Triangles & Rhombuses
6. Sixyten
7. Turqoise Hexagon Sun
8. Kaini Industries
9. Bocuma
10. Roygbiv
11. Rue The Whirl
12. Aquarius
13. Olson
14. Pete Standing Alone
15. Smokes Quantity
16. Open The Light
17. One Very Important Thought
Boards Of Canada is a Scottish electronic duo featuring brothers Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin. Somewhat reclusive (they rarely give interviews and haven’t played a live show since 2001) and prolific in ways other than traditional album releases (there are only 3 actual “albums” after their 1998 debut full album), Boards Of Canada, named after the National Film Board Of Canada, put it best on the promotional pre releases of their debut in a blurb from NME: “Not from Canada. Not boards. In fact, fellas from Scotland doing an excellent job of creating an enchanting, vaguely pastoral techno.” And that’s what you get here. In an age of rock trying to keep its footing, Boards Of Canada came out with electronic music that you really couldn’t dance to, that wasn’t repetitive and predictable, that was ambient and a whole lot more than interesting. This really is something different, which is why the album has slowly grown in stature over the last twenty plus years.
This is not a techno album, and it really doesn’t feel that way. It feels much more personable, and doesn’t have any kind of a robotic nature to it at all. The longer tracks (none of which reach the seven minute mark) are augmented and broken up nicely by shorter, strange vignettes, some of which are field recordings. Music Has The Right To Children is actually everything an electronic music album should be: non repetitive, interesting, and very atmospheric. Not mainstream, to be sure. Not club music, either. Chill out music? Most definitely. Boards Of Canada makes great music, electronic without the n-ts-n-ts-n-ts (you know that beat), cold yet never impersonal. In the mood for something completely different? Music Has The Right To Children is exactly that. If you only own one electronic album, this should absolutely be the one to have.
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AC/DC
THE RAZORS EDGE
1990 – ATCO
Produced By BRUCE FAIRBAIRN
1. Thunderstruck
2, Fire Your Guns
3. Moneytalks
4. The Razors Edge
5. Mistress For Christmas
6. Rock Your Heart Out
7. Are You Ready
8. Got You By The Balls
9. Shot Of Love
10. Let’s Make It
11. Goodbye & Good Riddance To Bad Luck
12. If You Dare
AC/DC began the decade of the eighties with a new singer and their strongest and most original album of their career. Could they do it again at the start of the nineties? Well…no. The Razors Edge is the twelfth album by a band that has always had a pretty simple formula, and they had already proven by this point that there’s not a whole lot you can do with that. But give them credit…they certainly did try. The Razor’s Edge was a success, their biggest album since Back In Black, with three hit singles which gave the band yet another life. The Razors Edge is their only album with drummer Chris Slade, and marks a return to form for Malcolm Young after being treated for alcoholism. As for opening the decade as strong as the previous one, they tried. And fell way short.
“Thunderstruck” is a fantastic opener, with what may be the best riff of Angus Young’s life. That frantic skittering guitar, augmented by huge bass drum beats and chants of “thunder” still sounds great today. “Fire Your Guns”, never a hit, just might be AC/DC’s best song…ever. Don’t believe me? Turn it all the way up and enjoy. “Moneytalks” is next, a surprisingly melodic piece. And then, the bottom falls completely out. After “Moneytalks”, the only track that is even remotely interesting is the bland hit “Are You Ready”. Everything from track four on is filler,and sounds as if the band simply made the tracks to get it done. You’ll dig this if you’re a fan, but there are better places to start with an AC/DC experience than this tired collection of Brian Johnson’s sneering, screeching vocals. You can get the hits elsewhere, but you will want this primarily for “Fire Your Guns”. They tried here. And they mostly missed the mark.
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WALTER BECKER & DONALD FAGEN
ANDROID WAREHOUSE
1998-AGE OF PANIK
NO PRODUCTION CREDIT
1. You Go Where I Go
2. A Little With Sugar
3. Roaring Of The Lamb
4. Charlie Freak
5. Sun Mountain
6. Oh Wow It’s You
7. Undecided
8. Caves Of Altamira
9. Any World That I’m Welcome To
10. More To Come
11. Parker’s Band
12. Barrytown
13. Brain Tap Shuffle
14. Brooklyn
1. Mock Turtle Song
2. Yellow Peril
3. Android Warehouse
4. A Horse In Town
5. Ida Lee
6. Stone Piano
7. Take It Out On Me
8. This Seat’s Been Taken
9. Come Back Baby
10. Don’t Let Me In
11. Old Regime
12. Soul Ram
13. I Can’t Function
14. Let George Do It
Apparently, Android Warehouse is a bootleg collection of pre-Steely Dan demos that were never intended to see the light of day. But in 1998, someone decided that the legions of Dan fans would fork over good money for two discs worth of stuff that probably would have kept Becker and Fagen from ever making it big. Steely Dan had broken up in 1981, but in 1998, they were in the midst of putting the “band” (Steely Dan never really was a band, but a duo) back together. By 2000, they would release their first album in 20 years, Two Against Nature, but in the meantime, there was still a void. Android Warehouse was meant to fill that void, giving fans two discs worth of never before heard material to salivate over. Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way…simply because of the quality of that material.
The only saving grace of Android Warehouse is that the music it collects is from the pre light jazz era of Steely Dan. Otherwise, there is pretty much nothing to recommend here. The musicianship is there, but it’s buried in the horrible quality of the recordings. And vocally, Becker and Fagen should be embarrassed to the core that this ever saw the light of day. Off key and often wailing, track after track is just terrible. You would have thought that more than one song (Brooklyn) that was fairly well known would be here…they are all obscure and they are all of the worst quality…which is probably why this is a bootleg release. Add to that a puzzlingly stupid album cover and liner notes that add absolutely nothing to the Steely Dan legacy, and you have an complete mess. Nothing from this collection should have ever been released to the public. It was left on the floor for a reason. Simply terrible.
This album is on BEA despite my objections. It's a bootleg, and it's a bad one at that. But I was overridden, and so it's here.
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1. La Femme D’Argent
2. Sexy Boy
3. All I Need
4. Kelly Watch The Stars
5. Talisman
6. Remember
7. You Make It Easy
8. Ce Matin La
9. New Star In The Sky (Chanson Por Solal)
10. Le Voyage De Penelope
Yet another duo (following Boards Of Canada and Steely Dan), Air came out of France in 1998 with their debut, Moon Safari. Using 70’s style electronic (and album art), the pair made an album that is not exclusively electronic, and that is as immediate and listenable as any album that has a drop of synthesizer on it. Moon Safari not only has cool and perfect sounds, it also has songs, which makes it all the more exciting. Air is the perfect name for this group, and Moon Safari is the perfect name for the album: this contains both. There’s nothing thin or repetitive about this, and there’s also nothing that would make you think you’re suddenly in the middle of a dance club. This is thick, dense music with a masterful use of layering and instrumentation (you will hear synths…you will also hear guitars, real drums, glockenspiels, pan pipes and harmonicas.), produced and arranged to absolute perfection.
You will hear some atmospheric keyboard vocals off in the background, but you will also hear some beautiful singing from Beth Hirsch. Jean-Benoit-Dunckel and Nicolas Godin are multi instrumentalists, and they show off their prowess at every turn. Moon Safari is a highly influencial album (it practically started the style of downtempo on its own), and most importantly, it’s a beautiful listen that only gets better each time. The heavy 70’s influence only adds to its charm. Air went on to create the soundtrack to the film The Virgin Suicides, and they remain an important electronic act…but they’ve never quite matched the special atmosphere of Moon Safari. An amazing and beautiful album from start to finish, this is one that I can very easily recommend to anyone…regardless of the music you may tend to like. A masterpiece.
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BABE RUTH
FIRST BASE
1972-HARVEST/EMI
Produced By ALAN SHACKLOCK & NICK MOBBS
1. Wells Fargo
2. The Runaways
3. King Kong
4. Black Dog
5. The Mexican
6. Joker
If you’re going to name your band after the most famous sports hero of all time, you’d better be prepared to live up to some high expectations. In this way of thinking, Babe Ruth the band left a lot on the table. Formed in 1970 in England as a vehicle for guitarist Alan Shacklock, the band rose from the ashes of the sixties as one of the pioneering acts of progressive rock along with groups like Yes and King Crimson. Two things stood out for Babe Ruth. Shacklock’s heavier guitar sound gave the band more credibility as a rock band, and vocalist Jenny Haan was more badass than just about any female lead singer of her time, including Grace Slick. Their songs were longer and louder, and also had a tendency to be more interesting than those of their contemporaries. There were plenty of flaws here (Haan’s vocals can get really screechy at times), but mostly the album comes across as an almost forgotten artifact of the early 70’s.
Parts of the album sound rushed, particularly “Joker”. “King Kong”, a Frank Zappa cover, was recorded live in one take. “Wells Fargo” was the single, which didn’t go far. But the real highlight, and the track that has kept the legacy of Babe Ruth barely alive for all of these years, is “The Mexican”. Resurrected during the disco years, it has been covered multiple times, and sampled even more in hip hop, where it stands as highly influential. It was written as a rebuttal of the slight shown to the human side of the Mexican soldiers in the 1960 John Wayne film The Alamo. The rest of First Base is solid, and has flashes of what the band may have grown into had they not completely splintered over the next few years. By their third album, Shacklock was gone, and by 1975, Babe Ruth was continuing without a single member from the First Base lineup. They then split up, having reunited recently with both Shacklock and Han in the lineup. First Base is their best work, and is well worth checking out.
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DON MCLEAN
AMERICAN PIE
1971-UNITED ARTISTS
Produced By ED FREEMAN
1. American Pie
2. Till Tomorrow
3. Vincent
4. Crossroads
5. Winterwood
6. Empty Chairs
7. Everybody Loves Me, Baby
8. Sister Fatima
9. The Grave
10. Babylon
11. Mother Nature
12. Aftermath
Of all the folkies to follow in Bob Dylan’s footsteps in New York, Don McLean has made the most lasting impression. With Pete Seeger as his mentor, McLean snagged a record deal at the end of the sixties and released his little know debut album Tapestry, a hit among folkies and home of the Perry Como hit, “And I Love You So”. It was his second album that vaulted him to stardom, and which is the one thing people remember about him to this day. The song “American Pie” is one of those rare songs…it’s a real, honest to God anthem that will receive airplay and scrutiny long after McLean is gone and forgotten. It’s widely believed that McLean wrote the song about the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper in 1959 (“the day the music died”), and there are obvious references in the song that suggest that this is true, but McLean has maintained his silence about the song for almost fifty years…so it’s all open to speculation, which has probably been part of the songs mystique. Still, the album is dedicated to Holly, and even though the song sounds tired these days, it will never die (even Madonna covered it).
As for the rest of American Pie (the album), everything else is lost in the shadow of the eight minute behemoth of a title track. Unnoticed is “Vincent”, which may be McLean’s finest song (“Starry, starry night…”). If you go into this album expecting a bunch of full band arrangements and long, sprawling story tracks, you’ll be disappointed. The thing about McLean is that he has always been, first and foremost, a folk singer. Aside from “Everybody Loves Me, Baby”, much of the album is just McLean and his guitar. And, with the exception of “Vincent”, the rest of American Pie is McLean’s career in a nutshell: perfectly crafted folk music that pales in the shadow of the title track. McLean has gone on to release 20 unnoticed studio albums over the years, never again stepping into the massive spotlight that American Pie brought. Which he seems perfectly happy with. This is still the McLean album to own, although most of his other albums have sparks of brilliance.
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JOURNEY
FRONTIERS
1983-COLUMBIA
Produced By MIKE STONE & KEVIN ELSON
1. Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)
2. Send Her My Love
3. Chain Reaction
4. After The Fall
5. Faithfully
6. Edge Of The Blade
7. Troubled Child
8. Back Talk
9. Frontiers
10. Rubicon
Most of what was always frustrating about Journey can be heard in the opening minute of “Separate Ways (World’s Apart)”. A killer keyboard riff (a rare feat indeed), joined by some really great sounding guitar from Neal Schon. There was never any question that Journey had the chops to be a great, great band. They just never did it. All of a sudden, the dreamy voice of Steve Perry dives in, and “Separate Ways” becomes just another decent shot at a song killed by Journey. Then, once the song for the guys is out of the way (guys bought Journey albums because the girls liked Journey, and the guys liked girls), in wades the heavy handed rock romanticism of “Send Her My Love”. Game over. The Journey formula, which proved that you really could almost please a lot of the people enough of the time, was back in full swing. Actually, for the last time on Frontiers, as the cracks would finally start to show once Frontiers had sold a gazillion copies. But, in 1983, the boys still had some empty singles up their sleeves.
Four singles from Frontiers, actually. After “Separate Ways” and “Send Her My Love” had killed the palette, there was “After The Fall” and the spongy ballad “Faithfully”. But, hey…Steve Perry was still dreamy. The best moments, as on any Journey album, are the ones where they were seemingly allowed to do what they wanted. The title track sounds almost nothing like Journey, and is much better for it. Remember, this is a band that came from the best Santana lineup and began life as a prog band. There has always been an abundance of talent in the Journey stable, but they became obsessed with selling units more than making memorable music. And so, as always, there’s always Greatest Hits if you must have the greatest hits. The individual studio albums are each weaker than they are strong, which is really too bad. So much talent wasted on “Faithfully”, Steve Perry, the cultivation of mullets, and the inventions of arena rock and power balladry. There are some moments here…just not enough of them. Oh, well.
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