"This is really growing on me. In some ways it's the most desolate and stark "road trip" album ever relased. In other ways, after seven albums of blissful ignorance and woe, Mitchell finally sounds content and in control. An existential masterpiece."Reply
"Big Star along with Badfinger has often been called the fathers of “power-pop” - obviously mostly due to both bands´ great melodic song-writing. Big Star was led by Alex Chilton, who had already years of experience behind him as a member of the Boxtops. The original 4 piece band also had another ...""Big Star along with Badfinger has often been called the fathers of “power-pop” - obviously mostly due to both bands´ great melodic song-writing. Big Star was led by Alex Chilton, who had already years of experience behind him as a member of the Boxtops.
The original 4 piece band also had another great song-writer in guitarist Chris Bell, and Chilton and Bell together wrote the majority of the songs on their 1972 debut album.
The fine hard-rocking opener “Feel” almost sounds like Led Zeppelin. The extraordinary beautiful next track “Ballad of El Goodo” is one many highlights - jangling guitars, haunting melody very “Byrds-like”. Another song in the same vein is the equally beatiful “Thirteen”. Two up-beat songs “When My Baby´s Beside Me” and “Don´t Lie to Me” were taken from the album as singles, but they were largely unsuccessful, as indeed was the album itself. The label´s distribution system was simply insufficient, so it´s no wonder that frustration and tension was growing within the band.
Chris Bell left the band in late 1972 with the others continuing as a trio but soon the band split up. Later they reunited to do another album for Ardent Records; original member Chris Bell were also back for a brief period of time, but it´s uncertain how much he contributed to these new recordings.
Chilton and Bell were shortly reunited ,when Chilton helped Bell with his solo-album, which was never released in his own lifetime. Bell tragically died in an accident in 1978. The blend of Chilton´s and Bell´s voices on Bell´s “You and Your Sister” is so heartbreakingly good, and this album “I Am the Cosmos” is as close to sounding like the first two Big Star albums as you can get.
https://www.angelfire.com/nv/Badfinger/BANDbigstar.html
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"Passage to Bangkok is one of my all time favourite Rush tracks, this is a masterpiece album with no weak fillers. Have recently re purchased the vinyl edition as mint, it sounds superb. I love the way Geddy Lee assumes the parts of High Priest and innocent re-discoverer of music on side 1."Reply
"Superb album .. i ain't the one great song to start the album , tuesday gone still one of my favourites,and what can you say about free bird......pity these guys didn't get the recognition they deserved until it was too late."Reply
"Unsettling, oddly alluring, and unthinkably profound, Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom is a true miracle. It is a monument to what can be accomplished in the rock medium and may forever stand as the greatest album in rock history. As an uncanny, cerebral, gradually developing tidal wave of dense, multi...""Unsettling, oddly alluring, and unthinkably profound, Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom is a true miracle. It is a monument to what can be accomplished in the rock medium and may forever stand as the greatest album in rock history. As an uncanny, cerebral, gradually developing tidal wave of dense, multi-layered emotional outpouring, it unfolds through a series of structurally dynamic religious hymns, deeply affecting in its poetic beauty, enigmatic and explosive as a fertile wonderland of astoundingly moving stream-of-consciousness set to an endlessly flowering prayer that blossoms majestically towards bursting seams of exhausting and intellectually stimulating emotional heights. Rock Bottom is as shattering, as powerful and as subjective and personal as music ever gets. It is one of the very few musical works that heals, that washes away social circuitry and conformist adherence to the status quo, and can propel one on a course towards more vitality, empowering a sense of wonder and creativity and dynamic purpose, a wealth of spiritual unity and an affluence towards heightened awareness and depth, emotional honesty and balance. It is so profound it can actually change one's life. I will never, ever forget the first time I fully cognited on its immense power, such was the clarity, the personal sense of achievement, the rippling effect it had, and continues to have on my very being. If there is but a small handful of works of art I am eternally grateful for, Rock Bottom is one of them, because once its merits fully come to fruition, its power astounds to such degree that its existence, and the fact someone was brilliant enough to actually conceive such a courageous, flat-out, supreme masterpiece, seems all but completely and utterly impossible.
Here is the story of the increasing fluctuation of Wyatt's soul, at once shattered and built by undying passion and love for a woman he would eventually marry--a woman for whom he sees a reflection of nature, the sea and the tides, reflections of happiness, dependancy, relief and faith. This is a perplexing, mysterious and provocative look at the intricate nature and complicated landscapes love treads, the strange idiosynchrocies of devotion, confusion, heartbreak and passion, evoking unlikely simularities between profound, matured spirituality and the naive esprit and childish emotional honesty in longing for the care and affection of one's mother.
Here is a virtual reinvention of both rock and jazz music, sharing a compositional unity that is fascinating, complex and lyrically illustrative in the vein of Lewis Carrol. Wyatt uses the foundations of folk music to support a dense structure of weaving styles and sounds, creating a richly textured and dynamic haven for his fascinating portrayal of his own life-changing journey, reflections and considerations on his intimate relationship with wife Alfreda Benge.
The first half acts as a fluid and gradient entry way into Wyatt's strangely metaphysical and evocative universe. Opener Sea Song is a masterpiece of eerie, luminous folk voiced patiently in the touching melancholia of Wyatt, before lifting into a cognitive and overtaken scat performance, the singer drowns out within his own overwhelming whirlwind of previously suppressed emotions. The patted drumming and perfectly timed keyboard chords are key to the sense of defied gravity, a lunar element presented here and sustained throughout much of the album. A Last Straw is a gateway, moving forward with a unique rhythm, an unorthodox series of angular patterns parallel descending then ascending vocal rises and collapses. All the songs have an immediacy to them, they appear creations of a magician, of God's hand. They are effortlessly suspended in space, growing their own universes, each instrumental or vocal phrase and effect a brushstroke to a magnificant painting. Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road opens a wormhole of constantly changing, wildly pounding bongo drums filling the seams of persistent streams of jazzy instruments set to swimming, magnetic vocals. It is an absolute masterpiece of textures and depth, and a milestone achievement in the conception of scoring "rock" to jazz music. It features some impressive moments of elasticity and jaw-dropping ingenuity when Wyatt's singing gets pulled back into the vaccuum, changing pace and reversing backwards with the vocals and lyrics.
Side two is among the most uniquely moving portions of music ever created. Alifib, probably rock's ultimate love song, is one of the most personal, beautiful and singular musical works ever scored. Has Wyatt been born again? Has he embodied another life form? The first half of the song paints a level of sensitivity and deft keyboard mastery rarely achieved by even the great giants of classical music, throughout an intensely dedicated Wyatt continuously whispers the name of his lover, as if lost in a dreamy reverie, helpless and alone in a coma. The second half of Alifib is intoxicatingly melodious, a mantra of religious sacrifice and healing. Here Wyatt erects a prayer of deeply passionate and sacred heights, as he engages in a monologue of baby talk, somehow managing a merger between keen insight and unabashed immaturity. Wyatt's prayers are that of a child locked in the arms of his mother, at least metaphorically. In truth he is asserting his own feelings that he is on the verge of losing her and this is the denouncement of his previous ways, the ultimate sacrifice of self for the coming transformation towards the embodiment of a new man, and facing potential death he is at once magically reborn. He lies there, repeating between passages of mostly nonsensical verbs, that she is his ultimate source of life, that he depends on her above all else, "Alifie my larder, Alifie my larder." And further, "I cannot forsake you. I cannot forsqueak you." It is in this astonishingly personal rendering that we begin to acknowledge the true depths of his character, the dedication and the synergy from Wyatt to his wife, Alfreda. Everything up to this point has been a search and unveiling. Here Robert Wyatt lays himself completely, utterly bare.
If Alifib marks the foundation, the birth and beginning of Wyatt's newfound immaturity/maturity, the incredible Alife is its more chaotic twin brother, rising hesitantly then spastically, into a daunting level of visceral freedom, and eventual implosion. In its conclusion breathes a wrestling, spewing saxophone, erupting fountains of emotional turmoil. During its introduction, Wyatt is hesitant and tired as he pronounces a stumbling but verbatim recollection of Alifib. At its close, his wife finally responds as the song boils in a juxtaposition of steaming vigor, denouncing his prayer in a startling nursery rhyme that is both ironically understanding in a sympathetic motherly persona as well as slightly disgusted and decisively dismissive. The closer Little Red Robin Hood Hit The Road, is among the most pressing, emphatic and enigmatic stews in rock history. Here Wyatt reaches multiple levels of finality, as sweeping, smashing bursts of cymbal crashes rush towards the coda, backed by a pummeling group of instruments before a magical metamorphosis bleeds out into a heavenly backdrop. This last portion of the song is one of tremendous insight. Wyatt (using Ivan Cutler on vocals) presents a series of scenes voiced in an intentionally unintelligible manner, yet insinuate a haunting, unearthed childish tendency towards violence, while the music in the background and the basic melody upon which the voice sings are both caught in a sea of floating, see-sawing, harmonic beauty. This draws a starkly contrasting, yet parallel view to what began with Sea Song. As rock historian Piero Scaruffi has accurately noted, it bridges the apparent gap between an intense religious hymn and a childish nursery rhyme, thus offering them as one and the same. Perhaps Wyatt is communicating that no matter our form, no matter our age and no matter our personality, we are all innately beautiful, loving and creative spiritual beings. I have a feeling he learned this most of all, from his wife, who helped lead him through and past a tragic accident that year which left him paralyzed from the waist down after his fall from a 4th story window. Thus, Rock Bottom can be viewed as an ode to Alfreda Benge, the woman who understood his complex genius no matter what, and the woman with whom he shared his life with from that point forward.
That said, Rock Bottom causes multiple combinations of feelings, ideas and inspirations hitherto unimaginable, and is without easy definition, without singular intepretation; ultimately complete, utterly incredible, and heart-wrenchingly, impossibly life-affirming. "[+]Reply
"The Allman Brothers Band is the culmination of jazz, southern rock, and blues in the early 70's. This album is a testament to the improvisational mastery of Duane Allman and Dickey Betts. Greg Allman's soaring vocals and Berry Oakley's driving bass give the album the firm foundation from which it...""The Allman Brothers Band is the culmination of jazz, southern rock, and blues in the early 70's. This album is a testament to the improvisational mastery of Duane Allman and Dickey Betts. Greg Allman's soaring vocals and Berry Oakley's driving bass give the album the firm foundation from which it can propel itself into the clouds."[+]Reply
"This album is part of my personal Album top 100 (I was tempted to put "Deepest Purple: the very best of Deep Purple" in this top 100 because there are so many fantistic Deep Purple songs which don't appear on this album like "Highway Star" and many others, but I chose this one because it does sta...""This album is part of my personal Album top 100 (I was tempted to put "Deepest Purple: the very best of Deep Purple" in this top 100 because there are so many fantistic Deep Purple songs which don't appear on this album like "Highway Star" and many others, but I chose this one because it does stand out) which you can check out by clicking on m link.
It contains one song that has been my absolute favourite song for a very long time: "Child in Time". It is not my favourite song anymore but still a stand-out with the fantastic voice of Ian Gillan and the incredible build-up of the song (two times) to the shredding of the guitar solos.
The other great tracks on this album are "Speed King" and "Flight of the Rat".
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"A much more focused and consistent release across the board with all tracks being of some quality which leads to a cohesive listen. Despite this, there are only 2 songs I would consider to be outstanding and the rest are enjoyable but not something that would draw me back to this release. With th...""A much more focused and consistent release across the board with all tracks being of some quality which leads to a cohesive listen. Despite this, there are only 2 songs I would consider to be outstanding and the rest are enjoyable but not something that would draw me back to this release. With that being said, the lead guitar from Santana is absolutely brilliant on here as it completely transforms tracks and is by far the best thing about this release. The percussion is thoroughly enjoyable as well with the opening track being a personal highlight of this for me. Overall, a demonstration of high quality guitar playing that is lead by two fantastic tracks and it makes for a short but enjoyable listen. "[+]Reply
"The best Roxy Music album ever in terms of inventiveness, clarity and execution. Eno shines his production magic, particularly brilliant on "The Bogus Man"."Reply
poppmusic | Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +4 votes (4 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
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AfterHours | Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +7 votes (8 helpful | 1 unhelpful)
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dihansse | Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +3 votes (3 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
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