MARIA MCKEE
1989 – GEFFEN
Produced By MITCHELL FROOM
1. I’ve Forgotten What It Was In You (That Put The Need In Me)
2. To Miss Someone
3. Am I The Only One (Who’s Ever Felt This Way?)
4. Nobody’s Child
5. Panic Beach
6. Can’t Pull The Wool Down (Over The Little Lamb’s Eyes)
7. More Than A Heart Can Hold
8. This Property Is Condemned
9. Breathe
10. Has He Got A Friend For Me?
11. Drinkin’ In My Sunday Dress
Wrong place, wrong time. That’s quite simply the story of Maria McKee. Her country rock band Lone Justice became the talk of the town in Los Angeles in the mid and late eighties, in the midst of the rise of that city’s glam metal movement. The band was championed by the likes of Tom Petty and Dolly Parton (who once called McKee “the greatest girl singer any band could ever have”), and were brought to the attention of David Geffen by Linda Ronstadt. Their great first album found no audience, and by 1987, they were gone. McKee embarked on a solo career that has contained some great recordings, and very few album sales. Her 1989 self titled solo debut turned critic’s heads and sold very little. Why? Does 1989 seem like a good time to be releasing country rock albums out of Los Angeles? I didn’t think so.
There is much to like about this record, but there are also flaws. McKee has always been a top notch vocalist, and her songwriting here is pretty strong. And she gets plenty of help…most notably from Richard Thompson and Steve Wickham, along with some of LA’s best session players. However, the production style of Mitchell Froom doesn’t quite match the music here, leaving many of the songs sounding old and tired instead of new and fresh. The best songs are “I’ve Forgotten What It Was…”, “To Miss Someone” (later a minor hit for Feargal Sharkey), and “Nobody’s Child”, which was co-written by Robbie Robertson. “Breathe” is fine as well, featuring some nice guitar from Thompson. But the rest falls flat, particularly the second half. And so has gone the rest of McKee’s career…always underrated and never quite finding her niche.
Link _________________ I'm leaning on the threshold
Of her mystery
And crashing through the walls
Of dying history
MARIA MCKEE
1989 – GEFFEN
Produced By MITCHELL FROOM
1. I’ve Forgotten What It Was In You (That Put The Need In Me)
2. To Miss Someone
3. Am I The Only One (Who’s Ever Felt This Way?)
4. Nobody’s Child
5. Panic Beach
6. Can’t Pull The Wool Down (Over The Little Lamb’s Eyes)
7. More Than A Heart Can Hold
8. This Property Is Condemned
9. Breathe
10. Has He Got A Friend For Me?
11. Drinkin’ In My Sunday Dress
Wrong place, wrong time. That’s quite simply the story of Maria McKee. Her country rock band Lone Justice became the talk of the town in Los Angeles in the mid and late eighties, in the midst of the rise of that city’s glam metal movement. The band was championed by the likes of Tom Petty and Dolly Parton (who once called McKee “the greatest girl singer any band could ever have”), and were brought to the attention of David Geffen by Linda Ronstadt. Their great first album found no audience, and by 1987, they were gone. McKee embarked on a solo career that has contained some great recordings, and very few album sales. Her 1989 self titled solo debut turned critic’s heads and sold very little. Why? Does 1989 seem like a good time to be releasing country rock albums out of Los Angeles? I didn’t think so.
There is much to like about this record, but there are also flaws. McKee has always been a top notch vocalist, and her songwriting here is pretty strong. And she gets plenty of help…most notably from Richard Thompson and Steve Wickham, along with some of LA’s best session players. However, the production style of Mitchell Froom doesn’t quite match the music here, leaving many of the songs sounding old and tired instead of new and fresh. The best songs are “I’ve Forgotten What It Was…”, “To Miss Someone” (later a minor hit for Feargal Sharkey), and “Nobody’s Child”, which was co-written by Robbie Robertson. “Breathe” is fine as well, featuring some nice guitar from Thompson. But the rest falls flat, particularly the second half. And so has gone the rest of McKee’s career…always underrated and never quite finding her niche.
MARIA MCKEE
1989 – GEFFEN
Produced By MITCHELL FROOM
1. I’ve Forgotten What It Was In You (That Put The Need In Me)
2. To Miss Someone
3. Am I The Only One (Who’s Ever Felt This Way?)
4. Nobody’s Child
5. Panic Beach
6. Can’t Pull The Wool Down (Over The Little Lamb’s Eyes)
7. More Than A Heart Can Hold
8. This Property Is Condemned
9. Breathe
10. Has He Got A Friend For Me?
11. Drinkin’ In My Sunday Dress
Wrong place, wrong time. That’s quite simply the story of Maria McKee. Her country rock band Lone Justice became the talk of the town in Los Angeles in the mid and late eighties, in the midst of the rise of that city’s glam metal movement. The band was championed by the likes of Tom Petty and Dolly Parton (who once called McKee “the greatest girl singer any band could ever have”), and were brought to the attention of David Geffen by Linda Ronstadt. Their great first album found no audience, and by 1987, they were gone. McKee embarked on a solo career that has contained some great recordings, and very few album sales. Her 1989 self titled solo debut turned critic’s heads and sold very little. Why? Does 1989 seem like a good time to be releasing country rock albums out of Los Angeles? I didn’t think so.
There is much to like about this record, but there are also flaws. McKee has always been a top notch vocalist, and her songwriting here is pretty strong. And she gets plenty of help…most notably from Richard Thompson and Steve Wickham, along with some of LA’s best session players. However, the production style of Mitchell Froom doesn’t quite match the music here, leaving many of the songs sounding old and tired instead of new and fresh. The best songs are “I’ve Forgotten What It Was…”, “To Miss Someone” (later a minor hit for Feargal Sharkey), and “Nobody’s Child”, which was co-written by Robbie Robertson. “Breathe” is fine as well, featuring some nice guitar from Thompson. But the rest falls flat, particularly the second half. And so has gone the rest of McKee’s career…always underrated and never quite finding her niche.
That is just spooky. I've just posted on the Women's History Month thread about this album and then saw your post straight after
I think that this is a superb album. I sort of get what you are saying about the production but everything else is top draw for me. It's an exquisite pice of work IMO.
MOGWAI
KICKING A DEAD PIG: MOGWAI SONGS REMIXED
1998 – EYE Q
Produced By MOGWAI
1. Like Herod (Hood Remix)
2. Helicon 2 (Max Tundra Remix)
3. Summer (Klute’s Weird Winter Remix)
4. Gwai On 45 (Arab Strap Remix)
5. A Cheery Wave From Stranded Youngsters (Third Eye Foundation Tet Offensive Remix)
6. Like Herod (Alec Empire’s Face The Future Remix)
7. Mogwai Fear Satan (Surgeon Remix)
8. R U Still In 2 It? (DJ Q Remix)
9. Tracy (Kid Loco’s Playing With The Young Team Remix)
10. Mogwai Fear Satan (Mogwai Remix)
1. Mogwai Fear Satan (U Ziq Remix)
2. Mogwai Fear Satan (My Bloody Valentine Remix)
The more time goes by, the more I grow as a fan of post rock music. And the more I like post rock, the more I appreciate Mogwai. This Scottish band formed in 1995, and has been turning out mostly instrumental excellence for thirty years now. Their very first album (and still their best work), Mogwai Young Team, came out in 1997. The following year, a small budget label called Eye Q assembled Kicking A Dead Pig, a collection of Mogwai remixes by various artists. Eye Q almost immediately went out of business, leaving this collection out of print for a few years. Mogwai’s label, Chemikal Underground, got the masters and re-released the album with some changes from the original. All of the songs are from Mogwai Young Team except for two, with “Helicon 2” coming from an early single, and “Gwai On 45” previously unreleased.
The problem with this is that it in no way eclipses the quality of Mogwai Young Team. It also doesn’t help that this version contains 4 remixes of “Mogwai Fear Satan”, which total forty minutes, and another 12 minutes of two versions of “Like Herod”. Not rare for this to happen on a remix album, but that doesn’t make it not tedious. What we end up with is a two disc thing that is going to be of value mainly to the Mogwai completist...and not to many other people. There really isn’t a reason to spend for these two discs when you can get the single disc original album, which is much better. The music here is great, yes. But is it essential? Is it a cost worthy alternative? Does it put the original into a brand new light? The answers to all three are no. There’s really no good reason for this to exist. If you’re going to spend, buy the debut album. Not this.
Link _________________ I'm leaning on the threshold
Of her mystery
And crashing through the walls
Of dying history
MY BLOODY VALENTINE
MBV
2013 – MBV / DOMINO
Produced By KEVIN SHIELDS
1. She Found Now
2. Only Tomorrow
3. Who Sees You
4. Is This And Yes
5. If I Am
6. New You
7. In Another Way
8. Nothing Is
9. Wonder 2
My Bloody Valentine made a pair of exceptional albums in the late eighties and early nineties…and then they didn’t do anything for 22 years. The band fell apart, they couldn’t get their shit together, Kevin Shields went into an extended period of writers block, and when they did get back together in 2006, it took another seven years to finish MBV, which was started a decade earlier. The anticipation for the promised new album turned to hype, then turned to rabid overhype, and when the record did finally come out in 2013, it was predictably hailed as a second coming and blindly viewed as a truly great work. The truth is this: when you end a band, the last thing you should do is put it back together. It pretty much never works. My Bloody Valentine is no exception. MBV is exactly what one should expect after a 22 year hiatus: it’s simply okay.
The understandable love by critics and fans of their second album, the great Loveless, led to MBV being placed way to highly on best ever lists, which is too bad. It’s not a bad album at all…nor is it anywhere near great. Shields’ struggles with his songwriting (most of these songs really did take over a decade to complete) are evident. The songs are uniformly non remarkable, saved only by how cool the band sounds. Because of this, twelve years later, MBV has been slowly slipping into oblivion. The best description I can give is that it’s an okay record that was way over hyped when it came out, not because of the content, but because of who the band is. And their struggles continue. Since MBV, it’s now been another thirteen years (which includes yet another extended hiatus) with no new album. Loveless was fantastic. But don’t let this band get your hopes up again.
Link _________________ I'm leaning on the threshold
Of her mystery
And crashing through the walls
Of dying history
ALICE IN CHAINS
SAP
1992 – COLUMBIA
Produced By ALICE IN CHAINS & RICK PARASHAR
1. Brother
2. Got Me Wrong
3. Right Turn
4. Am I Inside
5. Love Song
American bands never quite got the idea of using the EP to their advantage. The exception to that was Alice In Chains. This Seattle band ruled the first half of the nineties with the release of three studio albums, a successful unplugged live album, and three extended plays. The first, 1990’s We Die Young, served as an introduction to the band before their debut album, Facelift. And, of course, their third EP, Jar Of Flies, became the first to ever debut at number one on the Billboard charts in 1994. This is their second EP, Sap. After their first album’s success, they got studio time to record “Would?” for the Singles soundtrack. They used that studio time to make a large batch of demos, which included all five of the songs that would end up on Sap. The EP was not promoted, but it became a hit on the heels of the success of Nirvana’s Nevermind album, which was out at the same time…and while grunge was becoming a phenomenon.
Now, Sap isn’t great by any means. And it’s only 21 minutes long. But it IS an interesting disc. While not the best material by Alice In Chains, the songs are not bad. What makes it fun is that Ann Wilson of Heart appears on two tracks, “Brother” (guitarist Jerry Cantrell’s first lead vocal with the band) and “Am I Inside”. “Right Turn” is credited to Alice Mudgarden, because it features Mark Arm of Mudhoney and Chris Cornell of Soundgarden. Even more fun is that on the hidden track “Love Song”, everybody in the band switches instruments, with the drummer Sean Kinney taking the lead vocal while singer Layne Staley plays drums. The EP also serves to precede their best album, Dirt. Alice In Chains went to some dark places later on, but Sap is a reminder that they were once a pretty damn fun band.
Link _________________ I'm leaning on the threshold
Of her mystery
And crashing through the walls
Of dying history
OASIS
DON’T BELIEVE THE TRUTH
2005 – BIG BROTHER
Produced By DAVE SARDY & NOEL GALLAGHER
1. Turn Up The Sun
2. Mucky Fingers
3. Lyla
4. Love Like A Bomb
5. The Importance Of Being Idle
6. The Meaning Of Soul
7. Guess God Thinks I’m Abel
8. Part Of The Queue
9. Keep The Dream Alive
10. A Bell Will Ring
11. Let There Be Love
By the end of the nineties, the world knew that Oasis was not the second coming of The Beatles. Everyone, that is, except for their home country. In the UK, Oasis released seven albums in just over a decade, each one of which went multi-platinum and shot straight to number one. They had 22 consecutive number one UK hits. Outside of the UK, they were big for awhile, but their long term mania level of success was almost purely regional. In America, after their third album, the most interesting thing about Oasis was whether or not Noel and Liam Gallagher had killed each other yet. In 2005, a full decade after Definitely Maybe had become a sensation, they released their sixth album, Don’t Believe The Truth. It became a top ten hit in almost every country, but the feeling that this band was maybe the best ever was fading. And this album proved that in spades.
Noel wasn’t writing all of the songs anymore. And while it seemed to be a good thing, it showed that maybe what made Oasis a great band was Noel’s songwriting. Sure, it was nice that Liam and the other two guys were contributing, but the truth is, the best songs are Noel’s. “Lyla”, “Let There Be Love”, and “The Importance Of Being Idle” are easily the best of this lot…and they’re all written by Noel. This album has been called a “comeback” album…really, it’s barely a notch above average. The energy that carried them through the nineties was now tarnished. That didn’t stop this from being highly overrated, with rabid fans calling it underrated. Truth be told…Don’t Believe The Truth is truly average, and compared to the best work this band has done, it’s actually close to inferior. Oasis made one more record before finally imploding four years later.
Link _________________ I'm leaning on the threshold
Of her mystery
And crashing through the walls
Of dying history
THE CORAL
MAGIC AND MEDICINE
2003 – DELTASONIC
Produced By IAN BROUDIE & THE CORAL
1. In The Forest
2. Don’t Think You’re The First
3. Liezah
4. Talkin’ Gypsy Market Blues
5. Secret Kiss
6. Milkwood Blues
7. Bill McCai
8. Eskimo Lament
9. Careless Hands
10. Pass it On
11. All Of Our Love
12. Confessions Of A.D.D.D.
Welcome, friends, to yet another edition of Bands That Are Adored In The UK, But Not In America. The Coral is a group that was formed while its members were still in high school, and they’ve been together now for thirty years. Their self titled debut album from 2002 was a success, and was nominated for the Mercury Prize. Released a year later, Magic And Medicine was a UK hit as well. The album was more acoustic based than their debut, and had a number of successful singles. But it was also a kind of a step back for the band. Where the sound of the debut had been fresh and new, this time around, they seemed to be simply imitating music and bands they liked the sound of…particularly, sixties psychedelic music. Comparisons to bands like The Animals are inevitable here, and there are other obvious sources.
The better tracks here are worth hearing. “Pass It On” was quite successful as a single. “Secret Kiss” and “Don’t Think You’re The First” are fine as well. “Bill McCai” was written prior to the first album. In all, The Coral on Magic And Medicine sound like a band that was already running out of ideas of their own…and they still had another ten albums plus to release in their career. They never gained footing in the US, despite several efforts and multiple American television appearances. Their popularity in the UK began to fade at the dawn of the 2010’s, but that hasn’t stopped them from soldiering on. The best album from this band is clearly their debut. From Magic And Medicine forward, it’s been a long slow decline. There are may British bands that are more interesting than this one. Worth a listen, but you won’t likely go back to this one.
Link _________________ I'm leaning on the threshold
Of her mystery
And crashing through the walls
Of dying history
BETH ORTON
TRAILER PARK
1996 – HEAVENLY
Produced By VICTOR VAN VUGT & ANDREW WEATHERALL
1. She Cries Your Name
2. Tangent
3. Don’t Need A Reason
4. Live As You Dream
5. Sugar Boy
6. Touch Me With Your Love
7. Whenever
8. How Far
9. Someone’s Daughter
10. I Wish I Never Saw The Sunshine
11. Galaxy Of Emptiness
The first Beth Orton album was actually a 1993 collaboration with William Orbit that saw only a limited release in Japan of 5000 copies. Her first true solo album was three years later. Trailer Park showcases this British singer as a folkie with an ear in the sixties and seventies blending her songs into trip hop and electronica. The result is a mellow and cool album that is quite good, but never really finds that big audience. She had spent her earlier career working with Orbit and The Chemical Brothers, and those elements are quite present here. And it sounds great. Orton possesses a fine voice, and her songwriting is adequate. There are enough high points on Trailer Park to keep this one close by. It, along with her next album, Central Reservation, is a high water mark in her career. But nearly everything she’s done is worth hearing.
“She Cries Your Name” is a remake of a song she previously did with Orbit. “Tangent” is an extended trip hop song that is mostly fine, but has a few too many out of place electronic noises. “I Wish I Never Saw The Sunshine” is a surprise Ronettes cover. The real centerpiece here is “Touch Me With Your Love”, which showcases all of Orton’s strengths over seven and a half minutes. On the downside, the album could have been better without the dull “Don’t Need A Reason” and the minor hit, “Someone’s Daughter”. Orton has always been an interesting one, but she never made records better than she did in the late nineties. She’s had a couple of adult contemporary hits, and she’s collaborated with many artists, including Ryan Adams, Beck and particularly Bert Jansch. She may be mellow, but she’s always entertaining.
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Of her mystery
And crashing through the walls
Of dying history
PATTY LOVELESS
MOUNTAIN SOUL
2001 – EPIC
Produced By EMORY GORDY JR.
1. The Boys Are Back In Town
2. The Richest Fool Alive
3. Daniel Prayed
4. Someone I Used To Know
5. Out Of Control Raging Fire
6. Rise Up Lazarus
7. Cheap Whiskey
8. Pretty Little Miss
9. I Know You’re Married (But I Love You Still)
10. Sorrowful Angels
11. Soul Of Constant Sorrow
12. You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive
13. Two Coats
14. Sounds Of Loneliness
Patty Loveless was a star in the nineties. No doubt about it. Between 1988 and 1997, she released seven big albums that kept her in the country music eye non-stop. The turn of the century marked her beginning to be less popular, giving way to a new breed of Nashville singers. In 2001, she released her eleventh album, Mountain Soul, which announced that while she wasn’t reaching as high on the charts as she once had, she was also not done making good records. This album became her very first to not have any charting singles, but don’t mistake that for the songs being not up to snuff…they most definitely are. Her strengths are still very much alive. Her voice of course. Her exceptional taste in material (she’s not really a songwriter). And her musical partnership with her longtime husband, Emory Gordy Jr. It’s all good.
There are three notable duets here, two with Travis Tritt (including “Out Of Control Raging Fire”) and one with Jon Randall (“Someone I Used To Know”, which had been a hit for Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner). “The Boys Are Back In Town” (not the Thin Lizzy song) is excellent. The high point, though, is the great Darrell Scott number, “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive”. Mountain Soul wasn’t a big hit, but it easily could have been. It’s just that sometimes, time passes us by. Loveless revisited this theme in 2009 with Mountain Soul II, which has turned out to have been her final album (she retired after that). Always a voice worth hearing, and unfortunately underrated outside of country circles. Another fine effort from one of country’s best and steadiest voices. This one ranks alongside her very best works from the nineties.
Link _________________ I'm leaning on the threshold
Of her mystery
And crashing through the walls
Of dying history
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