SANTANA
ABRAXAS
1970 – COLUMBIA
Produced By FRED CATERO & CARLOS SANTANA
1. Singing Words, Crying Beasts
2. Black Magic Woman / Gypsy Queen
3. Oye Como Va
4. Incident At Neshabur
5. Se A Cabo
6. Mother’s Daughter
7. Samba Pa Ti
8. Hope You’re Feeling Better
9. El Nicoya
Santana had quite the career launching. They played Woodstock without even having released an album. Their self titled effort was a big hit, and so the pressure was on to follow it up in 1970. Santana did not disappoint. Abraxas, their second album, would be their biggest seller for almost three decades until their 1999 release Supernatural. Abraxas proved that their mix of Latin flavored jams and an ability to create hits was no fluke, and Carlos Santana’s reputation as a guitar hero continued to grow. But it was the cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Black Magic Woman” that put them completely over the top. And pairing the Peter Green song with the blazing Gabor Szabo instrumental “Gypsy Queen” proved to be a genius move. The track is still a staple of rock radio to this day, and is the best known song by both Green and Santana.
But that’s not all that this record boasts. Tito Puente’s “Oye Como Va” was also a sizable hit…pretty good for not being in English. Greg Rolie’s “Hope You’re Feeling Better” and Santana’s perfect “Samba Pa Ti” (one of four instrumentals here) all make this a perfect record. They would make one more album in this vein (Santana III, which was the debut of Neil Schon) before moving into the world of jazz fusion. Schon and Rolie would go on to form Journey, while Santana has never stopped making music. But those first three records from that original lineup remain stunning to this day. All three are highly recommended must haves, showcasing not just what a great band it was, but also how powerful a guitarist Santana was right out of the gate.
THE KINKS
KINDA KINKS
1965 – PYE
Produced By SHEL TALMY
1. Look For Me Baby
2. Got My Feet On The Ground
3. Nothin’ In The World Can Stop Me Worryin’ ‘Bout That Girl
4. Naggin’ Woman
5. Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight
6. Tired Of Waiting For You
7. Dancing In The Street
8. Don’t Ever Change
9. Come On Now
10. So Long
11. You shouldn’t Be Sad
12. Something Better Beginning
13. Everybody’s Gonna Be Happy
14. Who’ll Be The Next In Line
15. Set Me Free
16. I Need You
17. See My Friends
18. Never Met A Girl Like You Before
19. Wait Till The Summer Comes Along
20. Such A Shame
21. A Well Respected Man
22. Don’t You Fret
23. I Go To Sleep (Demo)
The Kinks were an immediate success in 1964 with the release of their self- titled debut album and the single “You Really Got Me”. The band had just finished touring when they were rushed into the studio to record their second album, Kinda Kinks. To say it was a rush job would be an understatement. The record was recorded and released in just two weeks. Not surprisingly, this is easily the least satisfying of the Kinks early releases. The production is beyond sloppy, the vocal double tracking is terrible, and the whole thing clocks in at under 28 minutes. The only track really worth having is “Tired Of Waiting For You”, which was a substantial hit for them. Otherwise, this is one that really is a disappointment. It could have should have been a lot better.
However. Because in the 60’s the record companies didn’t quite know how to market their bands by way of albums, there was a treasure trove of non-album singles released by The Kinks in 1965. These are all included on this 1998 reissue of Kinda Kinks. And I will tell you that this is the exception to my rule about bonus material. The final eleven tracks here are of much better quality than the actual album. The songs all were released as singles, some coming from EP’s, and some from American only albums. One of these songs, “A Well Respected Man”, was a big hit for them. And the final track, a demo recording of “I Go To Sleep”, was previously unreleased, and is exceptional. If you’re going to get Kinda Kinks, make sure it includes these 11 bonus tracks. Otherwise, knock 2 stars off of a 4 star rating and pass.
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THE ANTLERS
HOSPICE
2009 – FRENCHKISS
Produced By THE ANTLERS
1. Prologue (Hospice)
2. Kettering (Bedside Manner)
3. Sylvia (Sliding Curtains Shining Children’s Heads)
4. Atrophy (Rings Ill-Fitting)
5. Bear (Children Become Their Parents Become Their Children)
6. Thirteen (Sylvia Speaks)
7. Two (I Would Have Saved Her If I Could)
8. Shiva (Portacaths Switched)
9. Wake (Letting People In)
10. Epilogue (Sylvia Alive In Nightmares)
You won’t find many albums like this one. The Antlers are a small group (currently a duo) fronted by singer and songwriter Peter Silberman. Hospice is the third Antlers release. The concept is unique. Set in an actual cancer care center in New York, Hospice is the story of a female patient with terminal bone cancer and her romantic relationship with a hospice worker, and how it all goes downhill from there. Sound depressing? You bet it is. This is about as directly emotionally devastating as an album can be. But as sad as it is, it’s also a very well made artistic statement, musically beautiful, and lyrically engaging. All of this is okay…no one ever said that all music has to be positive and filled with happy endings and such, did they?
The album was not a hit, understandably, but it did garner the band plenty of critical acclaim and a following. “Bear”, “Sylvia” and “Two” were all released as singles, and are all quite good. Also notable is the nearly nine minute long centerpiece, “Wake”. If you can be okay with the concept here, this is actually a pretty fine album. It’s a really bold move for a band that didn’t have much in the way of a following before it came out, and it made them more of a curiosity than anything else afterward…what else could it have done? Taken as a whole, this is a bold and brave and deeply emotional record. It’s definitely worth hearing, and you may just love it. Best to make sure you’re not in too down of a mood first, though. It really is that sad.
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SHANIA TWAIN
THE WOMAN IN ME
1995 – POLYGRAM / MERCURY
Produced By ROBERT JOHN “MUTT” LANGE
1. Home Ain’t Where His Heart Is (Anymore)
2. Any Man Of Mine
3. Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under
4. (If You’re Not In It For Love) I’m Outta Here!
5. The Woman In Me (Needs The Man In You)
6. Is There Life After Love?
7. If It Don’t Take Two
8. You Win My Love
9. Raining On Our Love
10. Leaving Is The Only Way Out
11. No One Needs To Know
12. God Bless The Child
The lucrative musical and romantic partnership between Shania Twain and Robert “Mutt” Lange began here. Her country roots and love of rock music combined with his rock roots and love of country music to create a perfect storm of pop country that changed Nashville in many ways. Between the eight hit singles on The Woman In Me (her second album) and the fact that she is simply ridiculously gorgeous, plus the perfect timing of it all…this album was everywhere in 1995. The first five songs were all hits, mixing ballads and perky spunky upbeat material (complete with lots of Shania shouting “woo!”.) The second half cools down a bit, but this is still a massive hit record. The pair had really stumbled onto a winning combination, one that they would ride for as long as they could.
“Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?” is pure pop country gold, and the perfect example of the winning formula that Twain and Lange had stumbled on to. The record is overall mostly country, with just enough rock influences to separate it from the rest of the pack. Twain sounds like she’s having a great time, and that’s pretty infectious. More than anything, though, The Woman In Me is a pop record and a new direction for country both at the same time, which is what makes it noteworthy. Shania’s bubbly enthusiasm wears a little thin, and things tend to get a little too clever lyrically, but there’s no denying that this album was a massive success for good reason…it’s simply loaded with hits. Twain and Lange found a format that really worked, and you can’t fault them for taking it for an extended spin.
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THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS
FLOOD
1990 – ELEKTRA
Produced By THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS, ALAN WINSTANLEY & CLIVE LANGER
1. Theme From Flood
2. Birdhouse In Your Soul
3. Lucky Ball And Chain
4. Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
5. Dead
6. Your Racist Friend
7. Particle man
8. Twisting
9. We Want A Rock
10. Someone Keeps Moving My Chair
11. Hearing Aid
12. Minimum Wage
13. Letterbox
14. Whistling In The Dark
15. Hot Cha
16. Women And Men
17. Sapphire Bullets Of Love
18. They Might Be Giants
19. Road Movie To Berlin
There were a lot of pretty cool albums in the 1990’s. One of the very coolest, and the one that shaped the way the 90’s played out, was Flood.
They Might Be Giants, which is mainly the duo of John Linnell and John Flansburgh from Brooklyn, had released a pair of mostly ignored albums in the 80’s before the amazing thing that was Flood in 1990. It was January of the new decade, and it contained mostly short songs that ushered in the next ten years in the strangest and most wonderful way. Many of the songs are less than 2 minutes long, but we don’t care about that. Because They Might Be Giants were suddenly everything that classic rock was not…but they were also not punk, and they were not new wave. They were just whatever it was that they were, and that was…awesome.
What cemented this band as great was this album…they never matched it. But MAN. This is great stuff. Most notable is the unbelievably perfect single “Birdhouse In Your Soul”, the most well crafted quirky single of all time. But that’s not all. “Twisting” is fantastic, and “Particle Man” is one of the greatest non hits of all time. And if you had any bit of kid in you in the 90’s…you can never ignore the greatness of their cover of the 1953 oddity “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”, which was made famous by its inclusion on “Animaniacs”, which you DID watch if you were a child of that decade. It’s absolute genius. The album is ahead of its time…it may be, in fact, STILL ahead of its time. This album is simply fantastic and filled with greatness. A MUST have!
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GUIDED BY VOICES
BEE THOUSAND
1994 – SCAT
No Production Credit
1. Hardcore UFO’s
2. Buzzards And Dreadful Crows
3. Tractor Rape Chain
4. The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory
5. Hot Freaks
6. Smothered In Hugs
7. Yours To Keep
8. Echos Myron
9. Gold Star For Robot Boy
10. Awful Bliss
11. Mincer Ray
12. A Big Fan Of The Pigpen
13. Queen Of Cand And Jars
14. Her Psychology Today
15. Kicker Of Elves
16. Ester’s Day
17. Demons Are Real
18. I Am A Scientist
19. Peep-Hole
20. You’re Not An Airplane
One of the most unique bands in the world, Guided By Voices, with their most unique album, Bee Thousand. This is their seventh album, and it’s the one that made them as famous as they ever could be. Not a traditional studio album…not a note of it was recorded in a recording studio. It was instead recorded on a variety of different machines in several different locations (garages, basements) over a period of a decade. Some of the tracks are demos, and most of them are less than two minutes long. This was almost their final album, as Robert Pollard was having difficulty keeping the band going financially. Thankfully, Bee Thousand was just enough to keep Guided By Voices afloat for a career that has produced, to date, 37 studio albums.
There are no hits here. This is not a band that makes hits. This is a band that makes albums that are better taken as a whole rather than individual songs. The recordings and the songs are all so different here that you can’t help but be drawn into this strange collage. It’s really a magnificent album. And you can easily believe that its excellence was completely by accident. Quick and quirky tracks like “Kicker Of Elves”, “I Am A Scientist” and “Tractor Rape Chain” somehow fit together perfectly. Bee Thousand is such a strange and magical journey of fragments and brilliant ideas. It shouldn’t work at all. It works perfectly. It’s sloppy and ragged, and at the same time amazing and engaging. Guided By Voices isn’t for everyone, but if they are for you, then Bee Thousand is a must have.
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NEIL YOUNG
PRAIRIE WIND
2005 – REPRISE
Produced By NEIL YOUNG & BEN KEITH
1. The Painter
2. No Wonder
3. Falling Off The Face Of The Earth
4. Far From Home
5. It’s A Dream
6. Prairie Wind
7. Here For You
8. This Old Guitar
9. He Was The King
10. When God Made Me
Prairie Wind is Neil Young’s 26th album. That alone is a major accomplishment. Coming off of his strange rock opera with Crazy Horse (Greendale), Prairie Wind puts on the brakes for the umpteenth time in his long and storied career and returns to the sound and style of albums like Harvest and After The Gold Rush. But this time around, Neil doesn’t have the strongest batch of songs to work with, and the fact that it was written around the time of his father’s illness and death makes it a bit of a downer…but a mellow one about mortality. It was recorded in Nashville, hence the more country flavor of the music. With better material, that’s a recipe for a real winner in the world of Neil Young. Unfortunately, greatness here is just out of reach.
There are some really fine moments here. “The Painter” is the album’s best song, overlooked as it is. The title track is the centerpiece, and while it was a minor hit, it falls short of being a true Neil Young classic. He may have been storing up the angst…his next album, Living With War, was a spirited protest against all things George W. Bush. Don’t get me wrong…Prairie Wind is not a bad album by any means. But it is, given Young’s career standard, a somewhat bland affair, and ultimately slightly above average. It’s a pleasant listen, but it may also end up putting you to sleep in the end. Neil’s better moments are usually either loud and proud and shaking the earth below your feet, or soft and stirring with the strength of a great songwriter. Prairie Wind is good, but it’s neither of those things.
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CHARLEY PRIDE
THE ESSENTIAL CHARLEY PRIDE
1997 – THE ESSENTIAL SERIES
Produced By STEVE LINDSEY
1. Just Between You And Me
2. Does My Ring Hurt Your Finger
3. Please Help Me I’m Falling
4. All I Have To Offer
5. Kaw-Liga
6. Is Anybody Goin’ To San Antone
7. I’d Rather Love You
8. Wonder Could I Live There Anymore
9. I Can’t Believe That You Stopped Loving Me
10. She’s Too Good To Be True
11. Kiss An Angel Good Mornin’
12. It’s Gonna Take A Little Bit Longer
13. I’m Just Me
14. A Shoulder To Cry On
15. Amazing Love
16. My Eyes Can Only See As Far As You
17. I’ll Be Leaving Alone
18. Someone Loves You Honey
19. Burgers And Fries
20. You’re My Jamaica
Who was Charley Pride? That’s a great question. He’s a country star from an era when African Americans were decidedly not country stars. He was a professional baseball player, and he was a great American contradiction. He was also a really great singer and an artist who sold a lot of records in a genre dominated by white artists. How did this happen? I wasn’t there, so I don’t know. But the music is there as proof that Charley Pride was good enough to overcome the barriers that stood in the way of an African American country artist in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Was it because America was open to this during that time? I do not believe that for a minute. Which is why Charley Pride deserves more credit than he gets for breaking down some of the biggest musical racial barriers of the 20th century.
Charley Pride had 52 top 10 country hits between 1966 and 1987. That speaks more to the fact that Pride was a great artist than it does to the country music acceptance of an African American being accepted as a great talent, and we all know that. Pride understood the greatness of country music, and he was good enough to overcome the color of his skin to be a star. His songs are truly great, and this collection contains enough of his finer moments to be a great testament to his amazing career. Yeah. It’s a somewhat low budget career retrospective. But the career is massive and amazing and awesome. Which makes this one of many must haves in the discography of Charley Pride. Never allow this giant of country music to be seen as less than how amazing he truly was.
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'Fore the devil knows we're dead...
GUIDED BY VOICES
BEE THOUSAND
1994 – SCAT
No Production Credit
1. Hardcore UFO’s
2. Buzzards And Dreadful Crows
3. Tractor Rape Chain
4. The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory
5. Hot Freaks
6. Smothered In Hugs
7. Yours To Keep
8. Echos Myron
9. Gold Star For Robot Boy
10. Awful Bliss
11. Mincer Ray
12. A Big Fan Of The Pigpen
13. Queen Of Cand And Jars
14. Her Psychology Today
15. Kicker Of Elves
16. Ester’s Day
17. Demons Are Real
18. I Am A Scientist
19. Peep-Hole
20. You’re Not An Airplane
One of the most unique bands in the world, Guided By Voices, with their most unique album, Bee Thousand. This is their seventh album, and it’s the one that made them as famous as they ever could be. Not a traditional studio album…not a note of it was recorded in a recording studio. It was instead recorded on a variety of different machines in several different locations (garages, basements) over a period of a decade. Some of the tracks are demos, and most of them are less than two minutes long. This was almost their final album, as Robert Pollard was having difficulty keeping the band going financially. Thankfully, Bee Thousand was just enough to keep Guided By Voices afloat for a career that has produced, to date, 37 studio albums.
There are no hits here. This is not a band that makes hits. This is a band that makes albums that are better taken as a whole rather than individual songs. The recordings and the songs are all so different here that you can’t help but be drawn into this strange collage. It’s really a magnificent album. And you can easily believe that its excellence was completely by accident. Quick and quirky tracks like “Kicker Of Elves”, “I Am A Scientist” and “Tractor Rape Chain” somehow fit together perfectly. Bee Thousand is such a strange and magical journey of fragments and brilliant ideas. It shouldn’t work at all. It works perfectly. It’s sloppy and ragged, and at the same time amazing and engaging. Guided By Voices isn’t for everyone, but if they are for you, then Bee Thousand is a must have.
Guided By Voices (or in fact Robert Pollard) is for everybody but you have to see the gems inbetween the stones. Just look at their "Greatest Hits" Human Amusement At Hourly Rates and listen to those songs in a row:
From Bee Thousand:
Tractor Rape Chain
I Am A Scientist
And from other albums:
Teenage FBI
The Best Of Jill Hives
Glad Girls
I Am A tree
Cut-Out Witch
Game Of Pricks
The Official Ironman Song
Everywhere With Helicopter
and why not: also all the other tracks from that album...
And you'll understand that all these tracks should have been hits. Of course there is a lot of clutter amongst the many many albums he released (not only as GBV) but these last years the average number of albums per year is three (his first for this year is only due for in a few weeks) and they are all consistently good although they don't contain the "hits" which appeared on earlier albums.
Of course you could argue to not take this too seriously because it's coming from somebody who has nearly all of his albums and will defend him at all cost but do yourself a favor if you haven't heard of him before.
KANYE WEST
808S & HEARTBREAK
2008 – DEF JAM / ROC-A-FELLA
Produced By KANYE WEST
1. Say You Will
2. Welcome To Heartbreak (Feat. Kid Cudi)
3. Heartless
4. Amazing (Feat. Young Jeezy)
5. Love Lockdown
6. Paranoid (Feat. Mr. Hudson)
7. RoboCop
8. Street Lights
9. Bad News
10. See You In My Nightmares (Feat. Lil Wayne)
11. Coldest Winter
12. Pinocchio Story (Live)
Kanye West, the person: he’s a messed up child who has a belief trail that is so all over the map that it’s hard to know just who or what he is. I believe he is someone who should not be listened to when it comes to personal beliefs, because I don’t think he understands himself who he actually is. Kanye West, the artist: his bipolar and all over the map behavior has made him one of the most interesting and listenable artists of his generation. As much of a mess he may be as a person…as an artist, he is quite gifted. And so, this brings us to 808s & Heartbreak, Kanye’s fourth album. This is not a rap album. At all. 808s & Heartbreak is actually, more than anything, a strange melding of 2000’s R&B and New Wave music of the 1980’s. Sounds impossible? Kanye West pulled this off, and he did it perfectly.
This album is loaded with drum machines and auto tune. It’s also loaded with more musical 80’s references than bands like Eurythmics and Simple Minds could shake a stick at. Did he put off the fans of his hip hop albums? Maybe he did. Did he gain a whole new white audience? Maybe he did. The album went to number one despite how different and unique it was, a tribute to how genius this man really can be…when it comes to music. Songs like “Love Lockdown”, “Paranoid”, Amazing” and “Heartless” will win you over. This record has been underrated despite its massive sales. It’s brave for a rapper to suddenly make a non rap album. And he did so without being tentative…Kanye holds nothing back here. So, while you may not like who his damaged personal self has become, he has an undeniable musical gift, fully on display on this surprisingly amazing album.
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