BEASTIE BOYS
BEASTIE BOYS ANTHOLOGY: THE SOUNDS OF SCIENCE
1999 – GRAND ROYAL
Produced By MARIO CALDATO, JR
1. Beastie Boys
2. Slow And Low
3. Shake Your Rump
4. Gratitude
5. Skills To Pay The Bills
6. Root Down
7. Believe Me
8. Sure Shot
9. Body Movin’ (Fatboy Slim Remix)
10. Boomin’ Granny
11. Fight For Your Right
12. Country Mike’s Theme
13. Pass The Mic
14. Something’s Got To Give
15. Bodhisattva Vow
16. Sabrosa
17. Song For The Man
18. Soba Violence
19. Alive
20. Jimmy James (Original Version)
21. Three MC’s And One DJ (Live Video Version)
1. The Biz Vs. The Nuge
2. Sabotage
3. Shadrach
4. Brass Monkey
5. Time For Livin’|
6. Dub The Mic
7. Benny And The Jets
8. The Negotiation Limerick File
9. I Want Some
10. She’s On It
11. Son Of Neck Bone
12. Get It Together
13. Twenty Questions
14. Remote Control
15. Railroad Blues
16. Live Wire
17. So What’cha Want
18. Netty’s Girl
19. Egg Raid On Mojo
20. Hey Ladies
21. Intergalactic
This kind of compilation album makes me absolutely crazy. I don’t mind forty plus tracks as long as it’s warranted (this one is pretty borderline). But please, man…the song order has to have some kind of sense to it. Which this one does not. The tracklist on this 2 hour plus double album is maddeningly thrown together in what appears to the listener to be completely random. The Sounds Of Science contains hits, B-sides, previously unreleased material, and a few short tracks that may have been intended as…I’m not sure what. But what I do get from this set is that the casual fan would most likely wander into this thing and become almost instantly lost. The hardcore Beastie fan? If you’re really into these guys, then you probably already have the individual albums.
As for the unreleased tracks and the B-sides, you could probably find them cheaper somewhere else if you want them…but in most cases, they are not going to be worth the price tag for this monstrosity. Don’t get me wrong…there is a lot of really great music here. But for me, from a group like Beastie Boys, I’m going to want something shorter and more concise. I’m going to want the weaker tracks weeded out. And maybe just because I’m a freak like I am, I am going to want some chronological order. 2005’s Solid Gold Hits also finds the tracks in random order, but at least it’s a single disc, giving a better overview of the Beastie’s career up to then. This has, as I mentioned, a lot of great tracks…but they could have packaged it in a much better way.
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COLD WAR KIDS
ROBBERS & COWARDS
2006 – DOWNTOWN
Produced By KEVIN AUGUNAS & COLD WAR KIDS
1. We Used To Vacation
2. Hang Me Up To Dry
3. Tell Me In The Morning
4. Hair Down
5. Passing The Hat
6. Saint John
7. Robbers
8. Hospital Beds
9. Pregnant
10. Red Wine, Success!
11. God, make Up Your Mind
12. Rubidoux
Cold War Kids came from California in 2006 with their debut album, Robbers And Cowards. A rock band with roots planted deep in the blues and soul music, this group has been touring and recording ever since, with nine studio albums to date. Led by the strong vocals of Nathan Willett, the band made a powerful showing right out of the gate. Not a perfect recording (I’d be disappointed if it WAS all shiny and spotless), Cold War Kids made their name here, especially with the powerful and almost Black Keys like “Hang Me Up To Dry”. The track uses the symbolism of hanging wet clothes on a line to tell of a one-sided relationship. “We Used To Vacation” is about an alcoholic struggling to be good to his family.
After that strong start, however, the rest of Robbers & Cowards takes a bit of a step back. At times, there’s a little too much homage being paid to Jack White and The Black Keys, meaning that they lean a little too much on the sounds of others. But this album will also grow on you, and the tracks further down (especially “Hospital Beds”) can be rewarding with some patience. And if you like this one, there’s plenty more where this came from. Cold War Kids work hard and release new material on a regular basis, so there’s plenty of their work to go around. This is the best place to start, naturally. And if this works for you, then go find the rest. A good band with a bright future…a good and promising debut.
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SPRIGUNS
REVEL, WEIRD AND WILD
1976 – DECCA
Produced By TIM HART
1. Trysting Tree
2. Outlandish Knight
3. Sir Colvin
4. Piscie Song
5. Nothing Else To Do
6. Hasberry Howard
7. Lord Lovell
8. Laily Worm
9. When Spring Comes In
Maybe it’s just me, but I think that the first step down the path of creating a career of obscurity for your band would be to call it Spriguns Of Tolgus. Heavily influenced by British folk bands like Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention, this band began as a traditional sounding act, moving slowly towards a more rock sound as the seventies progressed. Revel, Weird And Wild is their third album. Having shortened their name to Spriguns at this time, the band was led by Mandy Morton, a fine singer and a disciple of Sandy Denny. Though still moving towards a more contemporary sound, this is still loaded with traditional sounding songs. With traditional instruments alongside guitar, piano and drums, the mixture of the two worlds works quite nicely.
Spriguns has grown into a kind of a cult band over the years, even though they toiled in obscurity throughout their career. Mandy Morton went on to a short and mildly successful solo career, but Spriguns was finished by the dawn of the eighties. This album, the third of five they would release, breaks no new ground. It sounds nice, and it’s well played, but overall, it’s not much more than average fare, and there’s really not much here that Steeleye Span or Fairport didn’t do better. Still, it’s interesting, and Morton’s voice is appealing enough. It’s also nice to be reminded that there were bands from that time that slipped away into obscurity. If traditional English and Irish music is your thing, then you may just love this. In any case, it’s worth a spin.
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JOHN PRINE
LIVE
1988 – OH BOY
Produced By DAN EINSTEIN, JIM ROONEY & JOHN PRINE
1. Come Back To Us Barbara Lewis Hare Krishna Beauregard
2. Six O’Clock News
3. The Oldest Baby In The World
4. Angel From Montgomery
5. Grandpa Was A Carpenter
6. Blue Umbrella
7. Fish And Whistle
8. Sabu Visits The Twin Cities Alone
9. Living In The Future
10. Illegal Smile
11. Mexican Home
12. Speed Of The Sound Of Loneliness
13. The Accident (Things Could Be Worse)
14. Sam Stone
15. Souvenirs
16. Aw Heck
17. Donald And Lydia
18. That’s The Way That The World Goes ‘Round
19. Hello In There
After his career had spanned seventeen years, John Prine finally released his first live album, John Prine Live, in 1988. And it’s still his best one. Most of the songs were recorded over three days in San Juan Capistrano at The Coach House, and most of the tracks are just Prine, his guitar, and the audience. Which is the very best way to experience one of the finest American songwriters of all time…and one of the most naturally humorous. This intimate setting finds him sounding comfortable, and his between song banter is pure classic Prine on its own. Released as a double album at a time when music like this wasn’t exactly burning up the charts, this one fell quickly into a kind of forgotten land. But it’s excellent.
The songs recorded with bands are fine. “Angel From Montgomery” remakes the famous duet of Prine and Bonnie Raitt. “Souvenirs” features the late Steve Goodman. But it’s the solo tracks that are the best. He revisits seventeen years of hits, cult favorites, and hidden gems, with plenty of warm and hilarious commentary in between. His other live efforts are all very good, but this is the one I always find myself coming back to. This is the one where you can close your eyes and imagine being in a small venue with Prine telling stories and making the audience feel most welcome and picking his favorite tunes. It’s a soft spot album…and it’s a great one. It’s also severely undervalued. This is one you should hear. I think you’ll love it.
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DEEP PURPLE
MACHINE HEAD
1972 – WARNER BROS.
Produced By DEEP PURPLE
1. Highway Star
2. Maybe I’m A Leo
3. Pictures Of Home
4. Never Before
5. Smoke On The Water
6. Lazy
7. Space Truckin’
To this day, I still question how great a band Deep Purple was. With one exception. Machine Head is one of the absolute greatest hard rock albums of all time. It’s their sixth album, and to me, it’s undoubtedly their best work. It’s loaded with heavy guitar riffs from Ritchie Blackmore, impeccable vocals from Ian Gillan, and some of the best hard rock songwriting ever committed to record. Sure…the guitar intro to “Smoke On The Water” has been beaten to death. But it holds that place along with “Stairway To Heaven” because it’s simply freaking great. This is not the weird progressive rock Deep Purple of their early days. And this is not one of their many later watered down with and without Blackmore later editions. This is the best lineup at the height of their power.
Three songs make this album essential. “Smoke On The Water” is still one of the greatest radio songs of the seventies. “Space Truckin’” is one of the greatest album closers of all time. And “Highway Star”…my GOD! What a perfect rock song! But don’t sleep on the rest. “Never Before” was actually the first single from the album. “Maybe I’m A Leo” has an unstoppable groove. “Pictures Of Home” is maybe their most underrated song. And “Lazy” shows just how good every member of this band was. For me, the best thing about Machine Head is this: every time I hear a track from it, I want to hear the whole album from start to finish. This is hard rock at its very finest. For me…indispensable.
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TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS
INTO THE GREAT WIDE OPEN
1991 – MCA
Produced By JEFF LYNNE, TOM PETTY & MIKE CAMPBELL
1. Learning To Fly
2. Kings Highway
3. Into The Great Wide Open
4. Two Gunslingers
5. The Dark Of The Sun
6. All Or Nothin’
7. All The Wrong Reasons
8. Too Good To Be True
9. Out In The Cold
10. You And I Will Meet Again
11. Makin’ Some Noise
12. Built To Last
These days, it’s hard to remember that Tom Petty’s albums were mostly critically overlooked. His eighth album, Into The Great Wide Open, is a perfect example of that. This is the second album that Petty worked with producer Jeff Lynne, and it’s the follow up to his solo debut, the highly successful Full Moon Fever. By most accounts, this was rated as simply average to below average by most critics. But the fans know better. This is Petty & The Heartbreakers getting back to the music they did the best, and it contains some of the band’s most memorable songs. There is some filler here, but even that, given how good the band is and the job that Lynne does, is worth listening to.
“Learning To Fly” is one of the Heartbreakers biggest hits. The title track, thanks in part to its video starring Johnny Depp, ruled MTV for quite some time. “Two Gunslingers” and “Kings Highway” are both fine…but the track that really carries this album is the rocker “Out In The Cold”, which recalls the bands early days as hungry young rockers. Outside of that track, the album’s second half cools off a bit. Even so, tracks like “Too Good To Be True”, “All Or Nothin’”, and “Makin’ Some Noise” are fine reminders of just how good Petty was as a driven bandleader and as a songwriter. All of Petty’s albums are worth revisiting…there are always treasures you’d either forgotten or missed the first time around. This is a definite must hear, at least one more time.
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FACES
A NOD IS AS GOOD AS A WINK…TO A BLIND HORSE
1971 – WARNER BROS.
Produced By FACES & GLYN JOHNS
1. Miss Judy’s Farm
2. You’re So Rude
3. Love Lives Here
4. Last Orders Please
5. Stay With me
6. Debris
7. Memphis
8. Too Bad
9. That’s All You Need
In 1971, Rod Stewart was the coolest rock star on the planet. Having launched a solo career after his exit from the Jeff Beck Group, he had an absolute career year. Faces (one of the greatest bands of its time) released their second album of the year, A Nod Is As Good As A Wink…while Rod (with Faces) managed to get out his number one album in between, Every Picture Tells A Story. 1971 was Rod’s year, for sure. But it was also the year of his band, Faces. This album is as good as they got, and it contains their biggest US hit, the heavy swaggering “Stay With Me”. Stewart never rocked harder than on this track…it may have been the peak for him from which there was no way to go but down.
But this is more than just Rod. Bassist Ronnie Lane sings lead on three tracks. Ron Wood is in full pre-Stones force on guitar, and Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones round out one of rock’s greatest lineups. A nice cover of Chuck Berry’s “Memphis” is here as well. Lane’s best track is “Debris”. Alongside the rockers are three fine ballads, but Faces was always best when rocking out with Stewart singing lead. They waited two years to release Ooh La La, while Stewart stayed prolific throughout the decade. Faces split up in 1976, with Stewart slipping into a career of mediocrity. Wood joined the Rolling Stones, Jones joined The Who, and Lane was successful as a solo artist until he was overtaken by multiple sclerosis. Subsequent reunions have been less than great…but for these guys, there will always be 1971.
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THE MAMAS AND THE PAPAS
IF YOU CAN BELIEVE YOUR EYES AND EARS
1966 – DUNHILL
Produced By LOU ADLER
1. Monday, Monday
2. Straight Shooter
3. Got A Feelin’
4. I Call Your Name
5. Do You Wanna Dance
6. Go Where You Wanna Go
7. California Dreamin’
8. Spanish Harlem
9. Somebody Groovy
10. Hey Girl
11. You Baby
12. The “In” Crowd
When The Mamas And The Papas were on, there was no one else like them. Their vocals were just astounding…the arrangements by John Phillips were stunning, and they did things with their voices that no one else was even close to doing. This is their debut album, from 1966. John and Michelle Phillips, Denny Doherty and Cass Elliott made some of the most memorable folk pop of the rock era. The songs were great…but the real power of this group was in the vocal arrangements. They took the music world by storm with stunning tracks like “California Dreamin’”, “Monday, Monday”, “Go Where You Wanna Go”, and “Got A Feelin’”. There was nothing else like them…and there was nothing in music quite like the powerhouse voice of Mama Cass, either.
There’s also a wonderful cover of The Beatles’ “I Call Your Name”, but after that, the songs start getting thin. Even with that, this album still rates highly, simply because those vocals, even on the weaker songs, are something really special. This group broke up in 1968, but their importance to what the late sixties was musically cannot be overstated. This was one special group, with a phenomenally special sound that still stands up to this day. You’ll be able to overlook weaker songs like “Somebody Groovy” and “Hey Girl”, along with some covers that may not have been best for them…you can overlook those things because the performances are just outstanding. A really fine album.
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THE DEARS
NO CITIES LEFT
2003 – MAPLEMUSIC
Produced By MURRAY LIGHTBURN
1. We Can Have It
2. Who Are You, Defenders Of The Universe?
3. Lost In The Plot
4. The Second Part
5. Expect The Worst / ‘Cos She’s A Tourist
6. Pinned Together, Falling Apart
7. Never Destroy Us
8. Warm And Sunny Days
9. 22: The Death Of All The Romance
10. Postcard From Purgatory
11. No Cities Left
What an enormous surprise! This was an out of the blue, never heard of them purchase that has paid endless dividends. The mainstays of the band are husband and wife Murray Lightburn and Natalia Yanchak, and their sound alternates between gentle, lush, and heavy…often within the same song. No Cities Left is their second album…what a gem! They sound, at times, like every big classic band you’ve ever loved (ELO, Genesis, Jethro Tull), while still sounding much more modern than any of those bands could have hoped. Put this album on and you will be entranced. Lightburn sounds like he grew up listening to Morrissey, which turns out to be a great thing.
Two songs here are a head above the rest…meaning that they are simply masterful. “Expect The Worst / ‘Cos She’s A Tourist” and “Pinned Together, Falling Apart” are amazing. The rest is not far behind, which makes one wonder…why aren’t The Dears an incredibly huge band? They’ve had some success, but nothing close to what this record indicates they should have had. And even though the only steady members over 25 years have been Lightburn and Yanchak, they are still at it, with six albums released since this one. This is a band that I will definitely continue to explore. I highly recommend giving No Cities Left a listen…this is a really fine album, and one I think you’ll be as pleasantly surprised with as I was.
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...which makes one wonder…why aren’t The Dears an incredibly huge band? They’ve had some success, but nothing close to what this record indicates they should have had. And even though the only steady members over 25 years have been Lightburn and Yanchak, they are still at it, with six albums released since this one.
This article from 2003 explains it a lot better than I can, but the Executive Summary is that they won't sign to a major label, probably because bands like them always get screwed especially badly by major labels. And while I can say that their latest album (Lovers Rock from 2020) is really good, their two previous albums (Times Infinity Volume One, 2015, and Vol. Two, 2017) were significantly weaker by comparison (at least in my opinion, though they're also bottom-ranked here on BEA among the other Dears albums). So I guess they didn't really build on the success of their earlier stuff... And it didn't help that multiplying numbers by Infinity is really kind of pointless anyway, mathematically-speaking, because you always just get Infinity.
There's a new Murray Lightburn solo album that just came out, by the way, but it's more of a jazzy crooner type of affair.
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