Not Forgotten
Not Forgotten: Billy Bragg – Don’t Try This at Home
Billy Bragg’s first full album since Workers Playtime, an album which saw him change his style to something a little more mainstream than clattering his battered Telecaster and delivering his love them / hate them vocals (personally I’ve always been charmed by his rampantly untutored vocal stylings) with assistance from a few select collaborators (step …
Not Forgotten – Steely Dan – Katy Lied
The general consensus seems to be that Katy Lied is Becker and Fagen’s least favourite Steely Dan album, because it didn’t match their levels of studio perfectionism that they had achieved on their other albums. As it turns out that is exactly the reason that it is my favourite Steely Dan album. I’m a rock …
Not Forgotten: Wilco’s A Ghost Is Born Ten Years Later
I don’t think there’s a more divisive Wilco record than A Ghost Is Born(maybe Wilco(The Album)). It was a record filled with claustrophobic silence, whispered musical intentions, and the sound of numbed pain. It was the record where people asked “What’s going on with Jeff Tweedy’s voice?” Well I asked it, anyways. It felt both pared down …
Not Forgotten – Faces – A Nod is as Good as a Wink… To a Blind Horse
There are some bands whose true worth only became obvious following the passage of time, whose stature continues to build year upon year, long after the band members themselves have gone their separate ways. Faces are not one of those bands. In the early 90s gold rush to re-evaluate and re-assess the music of the …
Not Forgotten – My Morning Jacket – Z
The first time I heard about My Morning Jacket was when Mojo Magazine got themselves into a fizzle of excitement about them a few years back. Apparently they’d already released a couple of albums which had crept in under the radar, but Mojo had them tipped as the next big thing on no better authority …
Not Forgotten: Deep Purple – Made in Japan
It is the 70s. Weeks last three days, amplifiers are stacked, hair is long and unkempt, pants are loon and sleeves are gatefold. In the pop charts, glam-rock and hollow pop held sway, while the album charts were dominated by progressive and hard rock bands, whose live reputations were at least as important as their …
Not Forgotten: Dusty Springfield – Dusty in Memphis
It’s heartbreaking that someone who had such a huge talent as Dusty Springfield suffered from almost crippling insecurity and self-doubt. Legend has it that she struggled so much with the recording of this, Dusty in Memphis, now her most celebrated album, that “Son of a Preacher Man” and “Just a Little Lovin’” aside, she was …
Not Forgotten – Manfred Mann’s Earth Band – The Roaring Silence
Ah pop-prog, that strange little sub-genre that only Electric Light Orchestra, Queen and Supertramp seemed to get right. Each band had their own special way of approaching it, so none of them ever sounded remotely like each other, but most of them enjoyed a certain level of success that allowed them to become household names …
Not Forgotten – Alan Hull – Pipedream
Alan Hull is one of those frequently forgotten names in British rock music. Probably best known as one of the creative forces behind Newcastle folk-rockers Lindisfarne, who were themselves best known for a string of hit singles in the early 70s (including the rightly celebrated “Lady Eleanor” and “Meet Me on the Corner”) and a …
Not Forgotten: Joe Cocker – Mad Dogs & Englishmen
“Thee Mad Dogs, thee Engleeshmen and Joe Cockair….” Crookes lad Joe Cocker was always more comfortable interpreting others songs rather than composing his own originals. None of his hits have been self penned and most casual fans would struggle to name one song that Cocker has written (I know I do). That said Cocker has …