SPIRITUALIZED
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN WE ARE FLOATING IN SPACE
1997 – DEDICATED
Produced By JASON PIERCE & John Coxon
1. Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
2. Come Together
3. I Think I’m In Love
4. All Of My Thoughts
5. Stay With Me
6. Electricity
7. Home Of The Brave
8. The Individual
9. Broken Heart
10. No God, Only Religion
11. Cool Waves
12. Cop Shoot Cop…
Space rock is what it’s called. And that’s pretty accurate. Spiritualized has been around since the dawn of the nineties, having released nine albums to date. The best of this batch is their third effort, Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, which was named by at least one publication as the best album of 1997, ahead of Radiohead’s OK Computer. The band has not maintained a high visibility…maybe because rock music that sounds like it was recorded on Mars is possibly a bit ahead of its time. But this album is really something great. Led by Jason Pierce (who was previously the front man for Spacemen 3), this band creates a spacy, weird and almost beyond psychedelic sound, while not forgetting themselves by getting lost in the atmosphere of it all. Ladies And Gentlemen is also a break up album, made in the aftermath of Pierce and keyboardist Kate Radley’s split. Lots to write about, for sure.
Three singles were released from this record…”Electricity”, “Come Together” and the excellent “I Think I’m In Love”, but it’s the title track that really sets the tone for everything else. This album rocks yet is spacey and psychedelic. It’s heavy, deeply emotional, but it’s also not sad. Spiritualized hit pure gold with this one, a definite peak that they have never quite duplicated. Ladies And Gentlemen seems to be forgotten…but it’s one that’s definitely worth discovering. It truly is one of the best of 1997, and one of the best of its decade. Check out the other efforts by this band, and also the work of Pierce’s previous band, Spacemen 3. This kind of rock didn’t go over with the masses, but it’s better than people remember it, and this album is a should be classic. Maybe someday it will be…it just needs to be heard more than it has been.
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LAURA MARLING
A CREATURE I DON’T KNOW
2011 – VIRGIN
Produced By ETHAN JOHNS
1. The Muse
2. I Was Just A Card
3. Don’t Ask Me Why
4. Salinas
5. The Beast
6. Night After Night
7. My Friends
8. Rest In The Bed
9. Sophia
10. All My Rage
Laura Marling is a British folk singer who has had huge success in her home country, but she is a virtual unknown in America. Which is really way too bad, because this girl has something special. She has spent her entire career being compared to Joni Mitchell, and she has never wilted because of it. Instead of reeling from the comparisons, Marling seems to revel in it, and has even developed a somewhat similar career arc. Marling is the daughter of a music teacher, and her father ran a recording studio, so she had the music in her from an early age. A Creature I Don’t know is Marling’s third album, and it’s a beauty. Branching further out from her folk roots, Marling takes on more complicated musical territory, and does so without sacrificing her songwriting abilities.
A Creature I Don’t Know helped win the Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist for Marling, an award she has been nominated for five times. The album is loaded from start to finish with great tracks, but the best of the lot is the amazing “Sophia”, which makes this worth having on its own…but there is so much more to love here. Marling has made very little headway in America despite having released seven albums over the past decade plus. She deserves to be heard here, and appreciated. A Creature I Don’t know is just one…take your pick. They are all fantastic, although this one showcases her starting to take more chances with her craft. Regardless of where you begin, the rewards that come with the special talent of Laura Marling are quite plentiful.
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THE CLASH
COMBAT ROCK
1982 – EPIC
Produced By THE CLASH & Glyn Johns
1. Know Your Rights
2. Car Jamming
3. Should I Stay Or Should I Go
4. Rock The Casbah
5. Red Angel Dragnet
6. Straight To Hell
7. Overpowered By Funk
8. Atom Tan
9. Sean Flynn
10. Ghetto Defendant
11. Inoculated City
12. Death Is A Star
Combat Rock was the big commercial breakthrough for The Clash…and it was also their last gasp as a truly great band. Their first four albums had been pure classics, and had led to The Clash being hailed by many as the world’s greatest band. By the time of Combat Rock, internal struggles (mainly involving guitarist Mick Jones) and the heavy heroin use by drummer Topper Headon had the band left mostly in ruins. The album contains two of the band’s biggest hits: the strangely fun and bouncy “Rock The Casbah”, and the now overplayed by cover bands to death everywhere “Should I Stay Or Should I Go”. And while the rest of Combat Rock is by no means terrible, it feels like the last drops of the magic that the group had once had in abundance.
Aside from the two hits, there is nothing here that will stick with you for very long. The end for them was very near, and you can almost hear the cracks forming as you listen. The first half of the album is much better than the second…The Clash had originally wanted this to be a double album, but you get the feeling that it would have actually made a better EP. Jones and Headon were fired after this came out, effectively ending the band (although there was one last effort, 1985’s Cut The Crap, which was simply awful). Because this was the last album with the classic lineup, you can view it as a farewell. There have been bands who have gone out on much worse notes. As it stands, Combat Rock is simply a slightly above average disc from a band that had once been consistently one of the best ever.
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THE ADVERTS
CROSSING THE RED SEA WITH THE ADVERTS
1978 – BRIGHT
Produced By JOHN LECKIE
1. One Chord Wonders
2. Bored Teenagers
3. New Church
4. On The Roof
5. Newboys
6. Gary Gilmore’s Eyes
7. Bombsite Boy
8. No Time To Be 21
9. Safety In Numbers
10. New Day Dawning
11. Downing Men
12. On Wheels
13. Great British Mistake
14. One Chord Wonders
15. Quickstep
16. Gary Gilmore’s Eyes
17. Bored Teenagers
18. Safety In Numbers
19. We Who Wait
20. On Wheels (Live)
21. Newboys (Live)
22. New Church (Live)
23. Gary Gilmore’s Eyes (Live)
24. Drowning Men (Live)
25. No Time To Be 21 (Live)
The early days of punk were dominated by three bands: Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. But don’t sleep on The Adverts. This, their debut album, came out in 1978 and was just as good as what their more famous brethren were doing. The Adverts were led by T.V. Smith and the first female star of the punk era, bassist Gaye Advert. The band played fast and angry music, and the debut was a solid whirl of pure punk angst. The original album was eleven tracks, clocking in at 31 minutes of punk joy. But over the years, Crossing The Red Sea has grown into a somewhat difficult 25 song marathon that can be tough to take in a single sitting. And while it’s great that songs like “Gary Gilmore’s Eyes” (maybe the creepiest punk song ever) are included, having three different versions is pretty tedious.
The first 13 tracks are the original album plus a pair of what were non album tracks. The next six are the band’s singles leading up to the album, and the final six are live versions. It’s great to have this album, but it’s also a bit much for a single disc. The Adverts released a second album (Cast Of Thousands) in 1979, which featured a puzzling experimental sound that did not work well at all, and the band was gone by the end of the year. It would be great to find a shorter version of this re-release from 2011, but for now, this will have to do. The Adverts were a blip on the radar of what great British punk in the seventies was all about…they were as good as any of their contemporaries, if only for a single album. Well worth hearing, and you can always skip the monotony at the end.
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PARLIAMENT
MOTHERSHIP CONNECTION
1975 – CASABLANCA
Produced By GEORGE CLINTON
1. P. Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up)
2. Mothership Connection (Star Child)
3. Unfunky UFO
4. Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication
5. Handcuffs
6. Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)
7. Night Of The Thumpasorus Peoples
8. Star Child (Mothership Connection) (Promo Radio Version)
Nobody in the world understood funk the way George Clinton did, and George Clinton never made a greater funk album than Mothership Connection. And neither did anyone else. This album is Clinton’s crowning achievement, and it’s the foundation of the entire Parliament Funkadelic galaxy. All the stars of P-Funk are here, including Bootsy Collins and a pair of newcomers from the James Brown band, Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley. This is as heavy as funk ever was, as great as it ever could be, and it’s one hell of a blast of an album. Every track here is steeped in badass bass and endless groove. It’s insane and deep and powerful, and perfect in every way. And it should have been a whole lot bigger than it ever was…but that doesn’t change how important and legendary it is today.
The hit here is “Give Up The Funk (Tear The Rood Off The Sucker)”, which very well could be the greatest heavy funk track of all time. Every other track here is pure joy. Not a weak moment, not a missed beat…you could play this album and easily dance non-stop for 38 plus minutes. Parliament will have you singing along to tracks you’ve never even heard before, and dancing like EVERONE is watching…and you just don’t care. Mothership Connection is one of the greatest and most underrated album of the seventies. It never gets old, and it never stops making you feel just a little bit better each time you hear it. The rest of the P-Funk discography is worth having as well, but this is the one that you absolutely must have.
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CROWDED HOUSE
1986 – CAPITOL / EMI
Produced By MITCHELL FROOM
1. Mean To Me
2. World Where You Live
3. Now We’re Getting Somewhere
4. Don’t Dream It’s Over
5. Love You ‘Til The Day I Die
6. Something So Strong
7. Hole In The River
8. Can’t Carry On
9. I Walk Away
10. Tombstone
11. That’s What I Call Love
It’s hard to talk about the history of Australian rock music without spending a huge amount of time on the subject of Neil Finn. Finn was a member of his brother Tim’s band, Split Enz, until they split up (heh…) in 1984. Neil and Split Enz drummer Paul Hester formed Crowded House, and their self titled debut turned out to be a huge success. The album contained three exceptional singles…the monster hit “Don’t Dream It’s Over”, “Something So Strong”, and the almost Beatlesque “Now We’re Getting Somewhere”. The band became MTV stars, and at the time, there were not many who could claim the melodic mastery that Crowded House did. As it turned out, this marked their early commercial peak, and while it’s not their best album, it is their most famous.
This album also includes the excellent tracks “World Where You Live” and “Mean To Me”. There is a bit of filler here, but otherwise this is a big part of the great singles that came out in the eighties. “Don’t Dream It’s Over” alone will keep this album in print forever, and it’s a great companion album to their greatest work, 1991’s Woodface, which reunited the Finn Brothers on one of the most perfect albums ever made. The band made only four records before splitting up in 1996, and though they have reformed, it’s been without Hester, who died in 2005. This has some truly great moments, and it shows just how good Neil Finn was when his songwriting was on point. One of the better debut albums from the decade, and a fine piece of Australian rock history.
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CROSBY, STILLS, NASH & YOUNG
SO FAR
1974 – ATLANTIC
Produced By CROSBY, STILLS, NASH & YOUNG
1. Déjà Vu
2. Helplessly Hoping
3. Wooden Ships
4. Teach Your Children
5. Ohio
6. Find The Cost Of Freedom
7. Woodstock
8. Our House
9. Helpless
10. Guinnevere
11. Suite: Judy Blue Eyes
Pretty much the ultimate description of success would be if you had enough great material after just two albums to release a greatest hits compilation. That’s how good the Crosby, Stills, Nash and sometimes Young supergroup was coming out of the gate. So Far (with cover art by Joni Mitchell) contains four songs from the CSN debut album from 1969, five from the 1970 CSNY album Déjà Vu, and both sides of the 1970 single “Ohio”. But there was a reason for having a compilation album like this one: outside of the live 4 Way Street album, which was recorded in 1970, the group had released nothing. And it would be another three years before CSN would come out. The purpose here was to simply keep the group from disappearing completely.
The material here is not in question. It’s all great stuff. In fact, they could have easily added two more tracks…”Marrakesh Express” and “Carry On” would have fit quite well. But if you’re a fan of their music, you should already have the debut and Déjà Vu in your collection. Which makes it worthwhile for the “Ohio” single and not much more. This was the last album before Stephen Stills decided to become Jimmy Buffett, before David Crosby became a train wreck, and before Neil Young (who appears on only four songs here) continued doing what he has always done best, which is being Neil Young. This is a great listen, and it was a great marketing deal at the time to capitalize on an upcoming tour, but the two original albums are both better.
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TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS
LONG AFTER DARK
1982 – BACKSTREET
Produced By JIMMY IOVINE & TOM PETTY
1. A One Story Town
2. You Got Lucky
3. Deliver Me
4. Change Of Heart
5. Finding Out
6. We Stand A Chance
7. Straight Into Darkness
8. The Same Old You
9. Between Two Worlds
10. A Wasted Life
You may not buy this, but I put it to you like this. Tom Petty was a huge, massive star. He had a gazillion hits, and he had one of the greatest rock and roll bands ever assembled. He was also criminally underrated. What’s that, you say? Underrated? You bet. Because after his exceptional and best selling greatest hits album from 1993, Petty is seen as a singles artist. His individual albums (aside from Full Moon Fever and Damn The Torpedoes) tend to be overlooked and critically panned. But the truth is, Petty’s albums are loaded with gems that are ignored and underplayed. His songwriting over his entire career was stellar, and albums like Long After Dark, seen as a weak link for so long, are actually better than the critics ever told you that they were. And that’s no lie.
Long After Dark is the first album to include bassist Howie Epstein. It contains the big hit “You Got Lucky”. But it’s also home to the excellent tracks “Change Of Heart” and “Straight Into Darkness”, and the completely under-appreciated rocker “Between Two Worlds” and the fine “Deliver Me”. The harmonies here, because of Epstein, are better than on any Heartbreakers album before it, and Petty’s songwriting is powerful throughout. Petty was panned throughout his career for never having a whole album filled with hits…but his true fans understand. It wasn’t all about what the radio would play, it was about writing great songs and having them played by an incredible band. Long After Dark is a really fine album, better than they ever told you it was. So there.
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SONNY & THE SUNSETS
LONGTIME COMPANION
2012 – POLYVINYL
Produced By JAMES FINCH JR.
1. I Was Born
2. Dried Blood
3. Children Of The Beehive
4. Pretend You Love Me
5. Year Of The Cock
6. Rhinestone Sunset
7. I See The Void
8. Sea Of Darkness
9. My Mind Messed Up
10. Longtime Companion
Sonny Smith is by no means a household name, but he is definitely one of the hardest working artists out there. He is not only a musician, he is also a playwright, and has created some very interesting music related artworks, including an ambitious work called 100 Records, in which he created 100 fictitious bands, then recorded a two sided single for each one. As for his music career, with and without his band The Sunsets, he has released more than fourteen studio albums in the past twenty plus years, many of them being self-released efforts. Longtime Companion is his eighth album, and his first of four to be released on Polyvinyl Records. The music here is most definitely what you would call alternative country, with a very prevalent pedal steel guitar and more than enough twang. It’s not your usual country music…which is part of its charm.
Smith is not the greatest singer…sometimes. He has his moments, and those moments tend to be the best tracks. The best of this lot is “Pretend You Love Me”, with the title track not far behind. The Sunsets show, especially on these songs, that they are capable of making beautiful music. There are also some clunkers here (“Year Of The Cock” is monotonous and dull), so it really is a hit and miss album. But Smith does know his way around a melody, and when he’s on, it’s worth sifting through the lesser material. Perhaps it’s uneven works like Longtime Companion that has kept The Sunsets from bigger and better things…maybe they and their sound are not cut out for large scale stardom. No matter. This is an interesting indie sounding album with some nice delights. Not great, but pleasant enough.
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EAGLES
EAGLES LIVE
1980 – ASYLUM
Produced By BILL SZYMCZYK
1. Hotel California
2. Heartache Tonight
3. I Can’t Tell You Why
4. The Long Run
5. New Kid In Town
6. Life’s Been Good
1. Seven Bridges Road
2. Wasted Time
3. Take It To The Limit
4. Doolin-Dalton (Reprise II)
5. Desperado
6. Saturday Night
7. All Night Long
8. Life In The Fast Lane
9. Take It Easy
Sometimes, an album just feels…wrong. The Eagles had never released a live album before this, and it came at a most unfortunate time. The band was in the process of a fairly nasty breakup, to the point where Glenn Frey was talking to nobody, refused to be in the same room with anyone else in the band, and the final mixing was basically done by Fed-Ex. It ended, as we all know, quite badly. Anyway…the result is perhaps the most overdubbed live album ever made, maybe the most uncomfortable sounding discs ever put out, and one of the most confusing setlists ever on a live release. The two discs were recorded in two different years: 1976 (with Randy Meisner on bass) and 1980 (with Timothy B. Schmitt). A different disc for each year would have been better, but that didn’t happen, either.
Also, most (not all) of the band’s impressive early catalog of hits is left out, with the space instead taken by a pair of unnecessary Joe Walsh solo songs and a hugely overrated and massively overdubbed cover of Steve Young’s “Seven Bridges Road”, which was released as a single. But it’s also the only live document from the original Eagles era. And as misguided and uninspired as this album may sound, these guys are also terrific enough musicians to keep it from totally sucking. So, what we ended up with was something completely average…and then they were gone. No new recordings for another 14 years with Hell Freezes Over, but it was never the same. It was never the same BEFORE Eagles live. It was a contractual obligation release, or they would have likely never put it out. But it’s all we have of the early Eagles live. So…that makes it worth something…
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