Febraury SRE Week 3 - Music - Forums : Best Ever Albums

Fergenaprido

Gender: Male

Location: GTA

Here are the five albums for Week 3 of the February Song Rating Extravaganza (February 12 - 18 )
All data is from January 29th, 2012.

Album 1 nominated by Xavygravy

Buddy Holly

Album 2 nominated by sgraham1990

Home

Dixie Chicks

Album 3 nominated by Mind Movie

The Days of Wine and Roses

Dream Syndicate

Album 4 nominated by gussteivi

Friday on My Mind

The Easybeats

Album 5 nominated by Charicature

The Boy with No Name

Travis

junodog4

Future Grumpy Old Man

Gender: Male

Location: Calgary

I already have Travis, Dixie Chicks and Buddy Holly. Will rate and listen to the other two. Buddy Holly should be near the top of the BEA artist lists. So influential, and so strong, considering the simplicity of the 1950s sound. IMO, better than Elvis or Chuck Berry.

gussteivi

I would like to provide a little introduction to The Easybeats:

The Easybeats are, in my humle opinion, perhaps THE most underappreciated band of the late sixties.
They came from Australia (although i believe not a single member actually was from there Think

), and at the height of their popularity they not only rivaled, but probably toppled The Beatles popularity in their home country.

But just as is the case with The Beatles, their biggest success with the mainstream audience came in the beginning of their carreers, when they weren't making very challenging or innovative music.

It's not until they decided to move to England and started recording music produced by Shel Talmy (also producer of The Who and The Kinks), that they really found their own voice.
It's during this very fruitful time of their short carreer that the title track of this album, "Friday on my mind", was written.
If you've ever heard of The Easybeats, it's most likely because of this song.
It was a big hit all over the world, and it's really easy to understand why, it is, again in my humble opinion, one of the very best songs of the sixties.

Sadly, "Friday on my mind" was their only big hit. They did write a string of really great songs (as I hope listening to this album will make you realize), but they were quite unlucky: their next single: "Heaven and hell", was actually banned from all radio because one drug reference in it and their carreer abroad never really recovered from it. It all sort of went downhill from there and before the decade was over, The Easybeats were no more Sad

One problem with their discography is that they didn't really put out so many actual albums.
There's "Easy", and "It's 2 Easy", but those are from their early days, which I'm personally not so fond of due to it's lack of musical adventurousness.
Other than those two, it's basically all complitations.

This one, simly entitled "Friday on my mind", is sort of a semi-compilation, made in 1967, which manages to include a lot of their greatest songs (especially with the bonus tracks).

That's all for me, sorry about the long-windedness etc etc.

Fergenaprido

Gender: Male

Location: GTA

Thanks gus Smile

I think I only heard about The Easybeats and Friday on My Mind because of that Aussie Album tournament last year.

I'll start with the first of two albums that I own in this tournament, The Boy with No Name by Travis. I need to listen to this again, but I don't think my song ratings will change drastically, since I've listened to it countless times.

This album is a mix of great tracks and not so great tracks for me. Nowhere near their best album (which flip flops between The Man Who and The Invisible Band for me), I often switch between this album and 12 Memories for which one I like third; right now Memories is winning. For me, this album was a return to their softer sound from Man and Invisible, especially in the first five tracks of the album, which you'll see I've rated much higher as a group than the rest of the album. The rest is a strange mix of rock and other genres that I don't reall see fitting together on this album. Fran's voice also gets annoying on some of the later tracks, especially on New Amsterdam, which is by far my least favourite track here and should probably be rated lower than 70. Almost every Travis album has at least one hidden track, and this is no exception. Often I find the bonus and hidden tracks better than most of the songs on the album, and the same here (Curse you BEA for ignoring them! Razz

). Sailing Away almost makes up for New Amsterdam.

Closer and Big Chair are my top two due to their nice mix of lyrics and instrumentals. They have a very mellow tone which I like and I connect with the lyrics. 3 Times and Out in Space are a bit less pleasant-sounding, but lyrically very strong. The 80s are pleasant all around, the 75s have some good beats but some wavering vocals... and New Amsterdam is the worst of the bunch.

Romanelli

Bone Swah

Gender: Male

Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Moderator

gussteivi wrote:

I would like to provide a little introduction to The Easybeats:

The Easybeats are, in my humle opinion, perhaps THE most underappreciated band of the late sixties.
They came from Australia (although i believe not a single member actually was from there Think

), and at the height of their popularity they not only rivaled, but probably toppled The Beatles popularity in their home country.

But just as is the case with The Beatles, their biggest success with the mainstream audience came in the beginning of their carreers, when they weren't making very challenging or innovative music.

It's not until they decided to move to England and started recording music produced by Shel Talmy (also producer of The Who and The Kinks), that they really found their own voice.
It's during this very fruitful time of their short carreer that the title track of this album, "Friday on my mind", was written.
If you've ever heard of The Easybeats, it's most likely because of this song.
It was a big hit all over the world, and it's really easy to understand why, it is, again in my humble opinion, one of the very best songs of the sixties.

Sadly, "Friday on my mind" was their only big hit. They did write a string of really great songs (as I hope listening to this album will make you realize), but they were quite unlucky: their next single: "Heaven and hell", was actually banned from all radio because one drug reference in it and their carreer abroad never really recovered from it. It all sort of went downhill from there and before the decade was over, The Easybeats were no more Sad

One problem with their discography is that they didn't really put out so many actual albums.
There's "Easy", and "It's 2 Easy", but those are from their early days, which I'm personally not so fond of due to it's lack of musical adventurousness.
Other than those two, it's basically all complitations.

This one, simly entitled "Friday on my mind", is sort of a semi-compilation, made in 1967, which manages to include a lot of their greatest songs (especially with the bonus tracks).

That's all for me, sorry about the long-windedness etc etc.

...and don't forget that George Young of The Easybeats is the older brother of Angus & Malcolm Young of AC/DC, and that George Young and Harry Vanda produced all of their early albums.

gussteivi

Romanelli wrote:

...and don't forget that George Young of The Easybeats is the older brother of Angus & Malcolm Young of AC/DC, and that George Young and Harry Vanda produced all of their early albums.

Indeed, forgot to mention that Smile

Also, a fourth brother of theirs, Alexander Young, was a member of the brilliant sixties baroque pop band Grapefruit, who The Beatles greatly appreciated and tried to help as much as they could with their carreers (didn't really help very much though).

Obviously a very musically talented family.

Fergenaprido

Gender: Male

Location: GTA

I listened to Home by the Dixie Chicks, and I was quite please with it. 80/100, and probably the best new album I'm heard in a while, at least since I first listened to Rumours in its entirety last year.

Travelin' Solider is the stand out track for me; great instrumentals and heartbreaking lyrics; 90/100. Long Time Gone was quite good as well; their version of Fleetwood's Landslide was pretty much on par with the original, though I think it lacked a bit of the emotive feeling behind the first; White Trash Wedding was a fun little stomper even if it's quite silly; 85/100 for those three.

The rest were 75-80s for me; solid tracks all in all. I Believe in Love was my low point; a bit too sappy for me. Apparently this was their return to bluegrass roots, and I quite liked it. I'll be checking out their other work; I have There's Your Trouble on my computer and I quite like it, but I've only heard their radio hits aside from that.

Heading out to a carnival tonight, but I should be able to hit up the Easybeats and/or Buddy Holly tomorrow, as well as get up Week 4's list.

Kiki

Buddy Holly - Buddy Holly

Really like the vocals on this one. Can see why so many would like him. Razz

1 I'm Gonna Love You Too 80
2 Peggy Sue 90
3 Look at Me 70
4 Listen to Me 65
5 Valley of Tears 75
6 Ready Teddy 75
7 Everyday 70
8 Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues 65
9 Words of Love 75
10 You're So Square (Baby I Don't Care) 75
11 Rave On 70
12 Little Baby 70