Not Forgotten
Not Forgotten: The Waterboys – A Pagan Place
Post-punk in a vaguely similar way that U2, Simple Minds and Big Country were post-punk, in the early 80s The Waterboys were a band laden with potential, fronted by an ace songwriter with a distinctive voice. Trouble was on their self-titled debut, The Waterboys consisted of Mike Scott and a saxophone player called Anthony. They …
Reissue: Supertramp – Crime of the Century
The mid 90s coincided with my late teens and were a period of contrariness and of rebellion for me, though not in the cliched ‘railing against your parents and authority’ sense. Being bullied throughout my teenage years led me to rebelling against my own generation, rebelling against the idea of rebellion itself and confounding the …
Not Forgotten: Neil Young – Rust Never Sleeps
Neil Young has always struck me as a somewhat schizophrenic artist, rattling between noisy guitar-rock which could be either thrilling or dragged out beyond all reasonable endurance and his softer acoustic side, which could either be touching and well-judged, or bland and uninspired. The two sides of his muse rarely acknowledged the existence of the …
List – Jaw-dropping debut albums
The debut album, by it’s very definition is a crucial album for any act, as it’s success or failure will inevitably dictate their future success. Sure, the act may have scored a few hit singles, or maybe had a few well-received EPs, or even a mini-album, but it’s that crucial full length debut which counts. …
Not Forgotten: Ian Hunter – All American Alien Boy
He could have taken the easy route and trotted out facsimiles of his brilliant eponymous solo debut, but Ian Hunter is a smarter cookie than that. He knew that if he was going to really establish himself as a solo artist, he’d have to distance himself from preconceptions of him that had developed when he …
Not Forgotten: Nilsson – A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night
Back in the early 70s, there was still a distinct generational difference between what ‘the kids’ listened to and what ‘the olds’ listened to. Only particularly foresighted adults were listening to what current music was offering at the time and very few kids had anything but a passing interest in their parents music collection. Pop …
Not Forgotten – Talking Heads – Stop Making Sense (1999 Special Edition)
It starts with audience noise, David Byrne scrolls out and utters immortal opening lines. “Hi. I’ve got a tape I wanna play you.” A basic electronic drum pattern starts up, there’s a sharply strummed acoustic guitar and then the bare-bones live version of “Psycho Killer” blows the studio original clean out of the water. Just …
Not Forgotten: Atomic Rooster – In Hearing of Atomic Rooster
In Hearing Of Atomic Rooster is a remarkable album, but not for the most obvious reasons. On first listen, it’s a heavy psych-prog album by a band centred around former Crazy World of Arthur Brown organ-botherer Vincent Crane and the band’s only album featuring the vocal talents of former Leaf Hound vocalist Peter French (who …
Not Forgotten: ZZ Top – Degüello
Pretty much smack inbetween the career high-water mark that was Tres Hombres, and the ultra-commercial, MTV-courting, mega-seller, Eliminator, ZZ Top’s Deguello is something of a stand-alone for the band. Whereas all their earlier albums albums were re-released on CD in the latter-half of the 80s slathered in drum machines, and their next album, El Loco, …
Not Forgotten: REM – New Adventures in Hi-Fi
New Adventures In Hi-Fi can be a difficult album to digest. It doesn’t flow particularly well, it can drag and in places it can sound rather dull. There aren’t many REM fans that would claim that New Adventures In Hi-Fi is their favourite album. It’s reputation has suffered because of comparisons to those albums that …