pop rewind
Classic Compilation: Neil Innes – Re-Cycled Vinyl Blues
When is a compilation not a compilation? When it is an album padded out by a few contemporaneous bonus tracks. Except it isn’t, because those additional b-sides, singles and rarities are dotted around before, after, and even during the original album’s run time. There’s also the fact that Re-Cycled Vinyl Blues is almost everything that …
Classic Compilation: The Beatles – Love
How many words have been written about The Beatles in the last five and a half decades? Too damn many that’s for certain, but it’s also probably one of the greatest indicators of how they still stand like an immovable colossus over popular culture. Almost fifty years after they imploded in a cloud of legal …
Classic Compilation: ABBA – ABBA Gold : Greatest Hits
There’s seemingly always been a certain amount of sniffiness around compilations, as if they are somehow unrepresentative of the musical act they allegedly represent. This is particularly the case across the Atlantic, where they are often dismissed as, at best, being poor value for money, or at worst, being a cynical attempt to rip off …
Not Forgotten: Neil Innes – Taking Off
When the rare conversations regarding the merits of the Bonzo Dog Band are had, a fair portion of that time is spent discussing the work of Viv Stanshall, he of the instantly recognisable voice, weird lyrics, variable solo career and someone generally held to be a cult hero. While Stanshall and his creative career certainly …
Classic Album: Considering the status of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band 50 years later.
50 years ago popular music reached its absolute apex when Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the most perfect musical statement in the history of the eardrum was released. It instantly made every album released prior to May 1967 sound utterly juvenile, and every album released after it has been a shockingly poor attempt to …
Not Forgotten: Alison Moyet – Alf
When Alison Moyet launched her solo career, there was no small amount of anticipation. One of the few genuinely standout vocalists on the British Music scene in the early 80s, Moyet had impressed as the voice of Yazoo, with her warm and soulful voice managing to transcend the limitations of synthpop. Moyet was able to …
Classic Album: Stevie Nicks – Bella Donna
You almost don’t need to hear Bella Donna to know what it sounds like. Name recognition alone will inform you that this is a solo album by the Fleetwood Mac frontwoman and visual figurehead. There she is on the cover, resplendent in a floaty dress, lofty heels, big hair and brandishing a cockatoo. Oh, and …
A buyers’ guide to Kirsty MacColl
Has any songwriter ever been more perfectly human than Kirsty MacColl? Intelligent, witty, wilful, vulnerable, contrary, mind-bogglingly talented, possessing a steely resolve and yet still coming across as approachable and utterly vulnerable, was there any wonder that I was besotted with her back when I was a teenager? Hell, I guess I still am. However, …
Classic Album: Fleetwood Mac – Rumours
One of the weirdest gigs I ever attended was seeing Fleetwood Mac play Sheffield Arena back in 2009. While it was an entertaining enough show, there was a general undercurrent that resulted in an odd vibe. Christine McVie had departed the band for a solo career some years prior, Stevie Nicks, all slow hand-movements and …
Classic Album: Elton John – Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
Managing to traverse the chasm between critics favourite and global commercial acceptance at the same time as David Bowie, the former Reg Dwight seemingly had the best of both worlds by the mid 70s. Like Bowie, he had segued almost effortlessly from lauded singer-songwriter to glam rock icon (and, lest we forget, had even cracked …