rock rewind
Not Forgotten: Warren Zevon – Life’ll Kill Ya
It’s tempting to retrospectively view Warren Zevon’s final three albums as a loose trilogy based around the theme of mortality. While the post cancer-diagnosis musings of My Ride’s Here and the acceptance of The Wind can certainly be seen as being directly influenced by the fact that Zevon knew that he was reaching the end …
Not Forgotten: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers – Hard Promises
For reasons that have never been explained to my satisfaction, the majority of rock fans this side of the pond never embraced Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers in the same way they did Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band. There seems to be no rhyme or reason for this, both are acts steeped in …
Classic Compilation: A Testimonial Dinner – The Songs of XTC
By the mid 90s XTC must have felt distinctly unloved. Neither critical darlings, nor a massive commercial success, they’d had a career-stalling set-to with their record label and had no choice but to down-tools and go one strike. What Virgin records didn’t take into account was the fact that although XTC’s fanbase was small, it …
A Beginners Guide to Bob Dylan
Over the last fifteen months we here at Backseat Mafia have been publishing a series of Buyers Guides on a number of musical acts. Sometimes these guides have covered a specific period in an act’s career, sometimes it has been a more general overview. There are some acts though, where an exhaustive overview can be …
Not Forgotten: Crowded House – Woodface
The career arc of Crowded House through their initial phase was really rather odd. Over four albums they recorded some of the finest pop songs of the era, the first two being hits and successful in North America, while their profile in Europe was negligible, their last two were huge hits in Europe, but barely …
Not Forgotten: Fish – Internal Exile
Fish’s debut solo album, Vigil in the Wilderness of Mirrors, had sounded almost exactly like what you’d expect the debut solo album of the former Marillion frontman to sound like. His second album, 1991’s Internal Exile, was a tweak in sonic pallette thanks to the addition of producer Chris Kimsey (who has recently has loaned …
Not Forgotten: Elton John – Tumbleweed Connection
There are some who will always view Elton John with suspicion, or even disdain. With his stocky frame, his bad wigs and a reputation for over-reacting when things don’t go his way. Add to this his predilection for writing musicals, bank-rolling films about garden gnomes and his all too public love of all things monarchy …
Reissues: Tyrannosaurus Rex
Marc Bolan’s reputation as one of the 20th Century’s greatest pop stars is forever tied to the material he released as the frontman of T.Rex, one of the finest glam rock bands of the 70s. Of course, much like his contemporary, David Bowie, Bolan’s journey to the crown prince of sequinned pop stardom had been …
Not Forgotten – Kate Bush – Hounds of Love
The rules for being a successful prog rock act were seemingly set in stone. You had to be a band, predominantly male, you were not allowed to have hit singles after 1974 and the majority of your songs had to clock in at at least twice the length of the average pop single. …And then …
A Buyers Guide to Warren Zevon – The Asylum Years
Warren Zevon is one of those songwriters who is unfortunately best remembered for one song which overshadowed the rest of his career. This is a great shame, as Zevon’s output is one of considerable depth which underwent repeated twists and turns in terms of commercial success which lead to a relatively stop-start career punctuated by …