album review
Not Forgotten: The Zombies – Odessey and Oracle
Odessey and Oracle is one of those albums whose reputation seems to continue to expand with each passing year. The Zombies had enjoyed a number of chart hits through the mid 60s, but their first album hadn’t shifted many units. By 1967 they had switched record labels and headed into the studio to record an …
Album Review: FFS – FFS
FFS are a supergroup in the purest sense. Two musical acts, seperated by a generation, combining to release an album which will hopefully combine the best bits of their respective sounds. It’s particularly interesting for me though, as I’ve had contrasting fan-relationships with the two acts. I liked Franz Ferdinand from the moment I heard …
Not Forgotten: Paul Simon – Paul Simon
Simon and Garfunkel had enjoyed astoundingly success and were at the peak of the commercial powers when Paul Simon decided that had had tired of sharing the limelight and followed the signposts down the path towards his solo career. While it had been Art Garfunkel’s vocals which had received high praise, Simon had matured into …
Not Forgotten: Scissor Sisters – Scissor Sisters
It’s been well over a decade since Scissor Sisters rose to prominence as the perfect antidote to the type of dour faced guitar bands that were taking their music far too seriously at the time. While they enjoyed a string of sizeable hit singles, it was the group’s self titled debut album in particular that …
Not Forgotten: Tom Petty – Wildflowers
For his second ‘solo’ album Tom Petty did the smart thing and recruited Rick Rubin as the producer. Rubin’s organic and raw production methods were in sharp contrast to the synthetic and processed sounds that Petty’s albums (both solo, and with his celebrated backing band, The Heartbreakers) had suffered from since the lack-luster Southern Accents. …
Album Review: My Morning Jacket – The Waterfall
After over a decade of following My Morning Jacket’s career, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’ll prefer some of their albums over others, and oddly enough that’s lead to me anticipating their new albums more keenly than I do most other acts. One of the thing’s I’ve always admired about MMJ is …
Not Forgotten: Harry Nilsson – Nilsson Schmilsson
Harry Nilsson was something of an anomaly in the music industry. He was undeniably a top-draw songwriter, however the majority of his best known hit singles were covers. He never performed live, yet such was his reputation as a hell-raiser and general mischief maker, it has subsequently clouded the fact that he was a genuinely …
Album Review: Amber Run – 5AM
Amber Run proves to us all that popular music can still be sincere. After releasing a handful of EPs and singles the past few years, we’ve finally been gifted with a full-length album, produced by the magnificent Mike Crossey. 5AM is a moment of clarity in a world full of noise. Whilst you’ll recognise ‘Spark’ …
Not Forgotten: T.Rex – Electric Warrior
The gap between being a ‘serious’ album act and being a ‘disposable’ pop act was still relatively wide back in the early 70s. The more album-orientated acts had a couple of hit singles at most (if indeed they even released singles), whereas the acts that appeared on Top of the pops had hit albums, but …
Not Forgotten: The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
After years of struggling in the alt-rock wilderness, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots was the first release by The Flaming Lips that you could say had been ‘long awaited’ by just about anybody outside of North America. Sure they had their small bands of admirers scattered across the globe previously, but The Soft Bulletin had …