ELTON JOHN
MADMAN ACROSS THE WATER
1971 – MCA
Produced By GUS DUDGEON
1. Tiny Dancer
2. Levon
3. Razor Face
4. Madman Across The Water
5. Indian Sunset
6. Holiday Inn
7. Rotten Peaches
8. All The Nasties
9. Goodbye
The great 70’s run by Elton John was based on a slew of great hit singles and a bunch of good, but rarely great, albums. Madman Across The Water is Elton’s fourth studio album, and falls squarely into that formula. Three strong, well known hit songs, some decent tracks that didn’t make it to radio, and some filler. As the follow up to Tumbleweed Connection, it’s a little disappointing…and it’s also, at the same time, the springboard for the excellent Honky Chateau. It’s also notable that this is John’s least successful album in his native England, although it has had much American success. This is also where the band from his most rock period came together. The album itself has a much more mature feel to it, is a bit darker overall than his previous work, and showcases the growing maturity of not only John musically, but also of lyricist Bernie Taupin.
“Levon” and “Tiny Dancer” were released as singles, and provides a great opening 1-2 punch. While not as big as songs like “Bennie And The Jets”, “Daniel” or “Your Song”, they have endured well over the years. The title track was originally left off of Tumbleweed Connection, then re-recorded for this album…it’s powerful, exceptional, and remains a regular on FM radio. “Razor Face” and “Rotten Peaches” could have been hits, and “Indian Sunset” is a strange but compelling track. The rest of the material is lesser stuff, part of the canon of filler that haunts most of John’s albums. Madman Across The Water was kind of a pause in the career of Elton John…his biggest successes were still to come on albums like Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Honky Chateau. This is not his best, but it’s still a fine album, well worth revisiting.
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a-ha
HUNTING HIGH AND LOW
1985 – WARNER BROTHERS
Produced By JOHN RATCLIFF, TONY MANSFIELD & ALAN TARNEY
1. Take On Me
2. Train Of Thought
3. Hunting High And Low
4. The Blue Sky
5. Living A Boy’s Adventure Tale
6. The Sun Always Shines On T.V.
7. And You Tell Me
8. Love Is Reason
9. I Dream Myself Alive
10. Here I Stand And Face The Rain
At the height of the popularity of New Wave music in 1985, a-ha unexpectedly entered the arena from Norway with their debut album, Hunting High And Low. The album made them immediate stars, with the huge hit “Take On Me”, which was bolstered by a cutting edge video that was once named the greatest music video ever shown on MTV. After the rush of “Take On Me”, its video, and the octave searing chorus by singer Morten Harket, a-ha disappeared in America, where they are considered to this day as one hit wonders. But this was not the end of a-ha. Even though they barely made a blip on anyone’s radar in the States (they did have a James Bond theme song in 1987), the band has remained popular in the rest of the world. And for good reason…there’s a lot more talent and good songs with this band than we Americans give them credit for.
Hunting High And Low is not just about “Take On Me”. In fact, there were five singles released from the album. “Love Is The Reason, “Train Of Thought”, and the title track are highlights, and “The Sun Always Shines On T.V.” is just as good as anything that was getting airplay at the time. There’s a little bit of a drop off after those tracks, but an album that’s half great is not such a bad thing. Lots of 80’s synths here, but there are also plenty of hooks, and Harket is a fine singer. They even have a knack for pulling out little bits of heavy guitar, which contrasts nicely with the keyboard driven tracks. A-ha has survived for nearly 40 years now, despite never matching the heights of their first single, a lack of presence in America, and three short breakups because they have songs, talent, and they are rarely boring to listen to. A worthwhile 80’s debut album.
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LYNYRD SKYNYRD
(PRONOUNCED LEH-NERD SKIN-NERD)
1973 – MCA
Produced By AL KOOPER
1. I Ain’t The One
2. Tuesday’s Gone
3. Gimme Three Steps
4. Simple Man
5. Things Goin’ On
6. Mississippi Kid
7. Poison Whiskey
8. Free Bird
While The Allman Brothers Band were reeling from the deaths of key band members and no longer the force of Southern rock they once were, Lynyrd Skynyrd, from Jacksonville, Florida, was rising to take their place. But while The Allmans were the prototypical jam band, Skynyrd was (“Free Bird” aside) more about shorter songs and a more radio friendly sound. Ronnie Van Zant was a strong presence at the front of the band, and the three lead guitars were no joke…Gary Rossington, Allen Collins and Ed King (from Strawberry Alarm Clock, of all places) were exceptional players. This, their debut album, shows that Skynyrd started off at the top of their game, and had it not been for the over-exposure of “Free Bird” and a bit too much production from Al Kooper, it could have been perfect, or close to it. Lots to love on this album, for sure.
This album contains three bona fide classics. “Simple Man”, despite Kooper having overdone it on the keyboards, is a beautiful and surprisingly mature song from such a young band. “Tuesday’s Gone” is a flawless song. And like it or not, “Free Bird” is amazing, from the slow, heartfelt singing of Van Zant to the soaring guitar jam at the end.
After that, “Gimme Three Steps”, “Mississippi Kid”, and the politically charged “Thing’s Goin’ On” are great fun. “I Ain’t The One” and “Poison Whiskey” are lesser tracks, but they still belong here. The playing throughout is great, from Billy Powell’s powerful piano to the three guitar attack to the air tight rhythm section. All supporting the calm, stoic and powerful vocals of Van Zant. Not a perfect album, but a sure sign that Skynyrd was going to be a force to be reckoned with for years to come.
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THE NOTORIOUS B.I.G.
READY TO DIE
1994 – BAD BOY
Produced By BLUEZ BROTHERS, SEAN “PUFFY” COMBS, DJ PREMIER, EASY MO BEE, LORD FINESSE, POKE, DARNELL SCOTT & CHUCKY THOMPSON
1. Intro
2. Things Done Changed
3. Gimme The Loot
4. Machine Gun Funk
5. Warning
6. Ready To Die
7. One More Chance
8. #!*@ Me (Interlude)
9. The What
10. Juicy
11. Everyday Struggle
12. Me & My Bitch
13. Big Poppa
14. Respect
15. Friend Of Mine
16. Unbelieveable
17. Suicidal Thoughts
Christopher Wallace was also known as Biggie Smalls, also known as The Notorious B.I.G.. He was only 21 years old, and had recently married Faith Hill when Ready To Die, his debut album (and his only album released while he was alive), came out in September of 1994. While the subject matter of the album was dark (gang life, drugs, murder), it was apparent that Wallace had a true talent for putting together great tracks, great lyrical flow, and a rare sense of pop musicality. While the title Ready To Die turned out to be strangely prophetic, the future looked very bright for this young man. Ready To Die is smooth, creative, and perfect…it would have been interesting to have seen how he would have progressed had he lived. As it is, the album is a masterpiece of hip hop, a fine mixture of pop and exceptional flowing tracks with what can only be described as great lyrics.
The album contains a pair of hits that have more pop appeal than the rest of the disc. “Juicy” and “Big Poppa” alone would have made Ready To Die a classic…but it’s the rest of the content that makes it truly great. With a concept depicting the rappers life from birth to death, it flows flawlessly from start to finish, with tracks that are strong, bare, honest, frightening and even funny at times. Wallace was only 24 when he was killed in a drive by shooting in Los Angeles just weeks before his second album was due for release, having become involved in an east coast/west coast hip hop feud. The loss for the music industry has been massive, but Ready To Die is always there to remind us of just how talented and promising this man really was. A true hip hop masterpiece, a must have album, and one of the best and most interesting albums of the genre.
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BOSTON
1976 – EPIC
Produced By JOHN BOYLAN & TOM SCHOLZ
1. More Than A Feeling
2. Peace Of Mind
3. Foreplay/Long Time
4. Rock N Roll Band
5. Smokin’
6. Hitch A Ride
7. Something About You
8. Let Me Take You Home Tonight
This first Boston album is one of the more interesting stories of the rock era. Tom Scholz was an MIT graduate working as an engineer for Poloroid when one of his homemade demos was finally picked up by Epic Records. There’s a fine looking photo of a band on the back of the album, with six members credited, when in actuality, almost the entire album was recorded by Scholz and singer Brad Delp. Producer John Boylan’s job was to trick the label into believing that the band was recording in a Los Angeles studio, when in fact Scholz was making the record in his basement in Boston…songs that had been written several years earlier. The ruse allowed Scholz to get out the album he wanted…they were a mess live, but this stuff sure did sound great next to the comparatively crude recordings of the time. And the album was a huge, massive, undeniable hit.
The biggest and best part of Boston was always the vocals of Delp, a positive monster of a vocalist. Scholz made the guitars sound pristine, and that Hammond sound that graces its best tracks is classic on its own. The first three tracks…”More Than A Feeling”, “Peace Of Mind”, and the “Foreplay/Long Time” epic made the career of Boston forever. While the rest of the album still gets classic rock airplay to this date, it’s really not much more than glorified filler. Still, it sounds fantastic, especially given that it was recorded when it was recorded…and in a basement studio to boot. Boston is blamed for several things…”corporate” rock, arena rock, studio excess…much of which cannot be denied. And the rest of the Boston discography is boring at best. But this album can still sound terrific and cutting edge, and will always be a turning point in 70’s rock.
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GNARLS BARKLEY
ST. ELSEWHERE
2006 – ATLANTIC
Produced By DANGER MOUSE
1. Go-Go Gadget Gospel
2. Crazy
3. St. Elsewhere
4. Gone Daddy Gone
5. Smiley Faces
6. The Boogie Monster
7. Feng Shui
8. Just A Thought
9. Transformer
10. Who Cares?
11. Online
12. Necromancer
13. Storm Coming
14. The Last Time
Something of a super duo, Gnarls Barkley consisted of the very successful hip hop producer Danger Mouse and former Goodie Mob member Cee-Lo Green. Their career together has been sporadic…understandable given the body of work the artists have worked on separate from each other. St. Elsewhere is the first of their two albums, and the more successful one by far. The album contains thirteen original collaborations by the two, and a cover of “Gone Daddy Gone” by Violet Femmes. It’s a soul and dance album for the most part, but there’s enough rock edge to it to make it just different enough from everything else in 2006 to be memorable. Of course, the golden voice of Green doesn’t hurt, and neither does having the insanely successful single “Crazy” on the track list. The whole thing reads like a recipe for massive success.
“Crazy” alone made Cee-Lo a star. It’s a perfect song, and his huge voice fits it perfectly. It was also the first song to reach number one on the British charts based on downloads only. “Smiley Faces” and “Who Cares?” are also strong tracks. Sometimes the experimental nature of the project gets in the way…”Go Go Gadget Gospel” is a puzzling and messy opener, but can be forgiven for leading directly to “Crazy”. It’s a strange album in spots, and it’s pretty short by the standards of the day, but overall, St. Elsewhere is strong and shows great promise. Green’s future as a panelist on The Voice is nowhere present here, and this album is a big positive in the careers of both men. A second and less successful album, The Odd Couple, was released in 2008, with a rumored third album nowhere to be seen in the 12 plus years since. St. Elsewhere is a fine album, a good mix of soul, hip hop and rock.
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PJ HARVEY
RID OF ME
1993 – ISLAND
Produced By STEVE ALBINI
1. Rid Of Me
2. Missed
3. Legs
4. Rub ‘Til It Bleeds
5. Hook
6. Man-Size Sextet
7. Highway 61 Revisited
8. 50ft Queenie
9. Yuri-G
10. Man-Size
11. Dry
12. Me-Jane
13. Snake
14. Ecstasy
Aside from the strange and unattractive album cover art, there aren’t many bad things to say about Rid Of Me. PJ Harvey’s second album, it was recorded very shortly after the debut album (Dry), and is the last album by the original PJ Harvey trio. The album utilizes the hushed to noise dynamics, sometimes pushing them to the limit, that were popular at the time (via Nirvana), and while it may sound like an almost simple punk album on the surface, the songwriting here is actually becoming much more complex than it was on the debut. The lyrics by Harvey are great, showing her quirkiness and sense of humor as well as being sometimes very serious and frightening. The band plays like there’s a fire somewhere nearby, tearing through the songs and showing considerable restraint when needed during the quieter passages.
Rid Of Me contains no big hits, but tracks like “50ft. Queenie” and “Man-Size” could have been, and are excellent. Her take on Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited” positively rocks, and is refreshing. Things can get a little abrasive at times, but for the most part, you can’t go wrong with this. Rid Of Me is the first of three great albums by Harvey (along with To Bring You My Love and Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea), all of which are different and could have been by three different artists…a testament to the versatility and creativity of the artist. Her profile has never been really high, and outside of the three classic albums, her work tends to be ignored…but she still soldiers on, with an eleventh studio album released in 2016. PJ Harvey is always interesting, always entertaining, and always worth hearing.
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THE BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA
HIGHER GROUND
2002 – REAL WORLD
Produced By JOHN CHELEW
1. People Get Ready
2. Spirit In The Dark
3. Wade In The Water
4. Stand By Me
5. The Cross
6. Many Rivers To Cross
7. Higher Ground
8. Freedom Road
9. I May Not Can See
10. You And Your Folks/23rd Psalm
11. I Shall Not Walk Alone
12. Precious Lord
So The Rolling Stones have been together for, what, 60 years? Big deal. They have nothing on The Blind Boys Of Alabama, an exceptional gospel and blues group that first sang together when they were about 9 years old…in 1944. Two founding members are still alive and active with the group, singers Jimmy Carter and Clarence Fountain. The group consists of at least four blind singers and a backing band, and the music they make is nearly always excellent. Hard to tell how many albums they have recorded, but their debut was in 1948. Pretty incredible history they have. Higher Ground was released in 2002, and is one of their most acclaimed albums. It won the Grammy for Best Traditional Gospel Soul Album in 2003, won the same award from the Gospel Music Association, and helped propelled the group into the Gospel Hall Of Fame just a year later.
The Boys may be older…but their level of cool is unparalleled. The title track is the Stevie Wonder hit from Innervisions, and they also cover Curtis Mayfield (“People Get Ready”), Prince (“The Cross”), Aretha Franklin (“Spirit In The Dark”), Jimmy Cliff (“Many Rivers To Cross”), and George Clinton (“You And Your Folks”), as well as some great traditional songs. And yes, this rocks…the album features instrumental work from Robert Randolph & The Family Band and Ben Harper. Simply put…Higher Ground is loaded with great songs, great vocals, great playing, and a vibe that is second to none. One of the more accessible and soulful gospel albums you’ll ever hear, by one of the greatest groups ever to record. You can’t go wrong with The Blind Boys, and this is one of their strongest efforts. A truly classic and great album from one of the greatest groups in any genre ever. Must have.
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FOREIGNER
4
1981 – ATLANTIC
Produced By ROBERT JOHN “MUTT” LANGE & MICK JONES
1. Night Life
2. Juke Box Hero
3. Break It Up
4. Waiting For A Girl Like You
5. Luanne
6. Urgent
7. I’m Gonna Win
8. Woman In Black
9. Girl On The Moon
10. Don’t Let Go
11. Juke Box Hero (Nearly Unplugged Version)
12. Waiting For A Girl Like You (Nearly Unplugged Version)
When former Spooky Tooth guitarist Mick Jones and King Crimson’s sax player Ian MacDonald formed Foreigner in 1977, this was the last band you’d think was going to turn into a massive hit making machine. But, during the late seventies through the mid eighties, Foreigner was just that. And they were never hotter than on 4. Led by Jones (MacDonald was gone by now) and lead singer Lou Gramm, the band put together their most consistent album, and overall their best. Foreigner had slimmed down to a trio by the time of this album, but there was plenty of room for other instruments. The heavy dose of synthesizers is supplied by a not yet famous Thomas Dolby, while Junior Walker provides a scorching sax solo on the biggest hit from 4, “Urgent”. As is usually the case with Foreigners albums, the hits are memorable…while the remaining tracks tend to be forgettable.
The real weapon that Foreigner possessed was in the powerhouse voice of Gramm. One of rock’s greatest singers, he was never better than on “Juke Box Hero”. Not a great song by any means, Gramm makes it a great track with his scorching “one guitar” vocals. “Waiting For A Girl Like You” is the required ballad, and it’s a very good and catchy one. And of course, “Urgent” was on the radio it seemed like the entire summer of 1981. “Night Life” and “Break It Up” are also interesting, but after that, the rest is predictably filler. 4 was one of those albums that was just released at the perfect time…there was a void in rock in 1981, and Foreigner stepped up and filled it nicely. It sounds like 1981. After a greatest hits album, they went on to release the hugely successful Agent Provocateur in 1984 before starting to run out of hits. This is as close as Foreigner ever got to great.
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THE BREEDERS
LAST SPLASH
1993 – 4AD
Produced By KIM DEAL & MARK FREEGARD
1. New Year
2. Cannonball
3. Invisible Man
4. No Aloha
5. Roi
6. Do You Love Me Now?
7. Flipside
8. I Just Wanna Get Along
9. Mad Lucas
10. Divine Hammer
11. S.O.S.
12. Hag
13. Saints
14. Drivin’ On 9
15. Roi (Reprise)
The Breeders was originally a side project for Kim Deal and Tanya Donnelly to have an escape from their main bands, Pixies and Throwing Muses. By the time of Last Splash, Donnelly was gone making music with Belly, leaving the main focus of the group on Deal. The lineup was completed with the addition of Deal’s identical twin sister Kelley on lead guitar…strange because Kelley could barely play a note. But Last Splash turned out to be a powerhouse of an album, strange like the Pixies, a perfect showcase for Kim Deal’s knack for the unconventional and strange way of skewing a perfectly normal pop song. The big track (and huge MTV hit) was “Cannonball”, with its almost undecipherable lyrics and monster guitar scratching. “Cannonball” made The Breeders stars on the Lollapalooza circuit, and made Last Splash a hit, despite the very unconventional songs and most Pixie-esque feel that surrounded it.
Last Splash contains completed full songs, fragments, and short instrumental workouts. It also showed that Black Francis wasn’t really the only creative force in the Pixies…Deal had the creative gene as well, and it was in full flower. The Breeders seemed poised to make great music in the 90’s…and then Kelley Deal was arrested for possession, and the band disappeared from the face of the earth for nine years. When they came back, it wasn’t the same. It would have been interesting to hear what The Breeders would have done in, say, 1995 with the way Deal was growing as a songwriter. Unfortunately, we’ll never know. But, we do still have the gem that is Last Splash, and tracks like “Drivin’ On 9”, “Saints”, “Roi”, and especially the timeless “Cannonball” to remind us of the promise that The Breeders gave us in 1993. Still a really fine album.
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