A self-indulgent
collection of personal opinions and reflections.
Elvis Costello,
Get Happy!! (1980).
Apart from The Beatles' White Album, this is the only album in my experience that
rewards an unlimited number of plays. Ten years after it was released, at the end of the 1980s, quite a few
critics and music fans listed this as the best album of the decade. I agree with
them. On a first listen, you might be surprised at this assessment as it's not
an album with any classic standout individual songs. But listen again. And
again. And again. The songs are so short (20 songs averaging about two minutes
each) and so packed with ideas and hooks that they need repetition to be be
fully appreciated. Before long, you'll find
that playing it has taken over your life. This was Elvis at the height of
his clever-word-play phase, and there are many, many witty and clever puns,
double meanings and clever insights into the human condition hidden in the
lyrics of these songs so that you'll still be discovering them years or even
decades later. A couple of favourites: "Don't put your heart out on your
sleeve, when your remarks are off the cuff" (from Riot Act); "Though you may
not be an old fashioned girl, you're still going to get dated" (from Girls
Talk on the extended reissue version). The album was reissued in 2003 with a
free bonus disc of 30 tracks (B sides, outtakes, live tracks, etc.) making it
50 tracks altogether.
Elvis Costello,
This Year's Model
(1978): Searing power pop.
Trust
(1981): Beginning to broaden horizons. My
favourite album cover.
King of America
(1986): Amongst Elvis fanatics, this is usually voted his best. I might have
agreed if he had left off the two awful cover versions, but despite them, it is a
magnificent collection of deep and honest songs in a simple style - a sort of
dark but gentle folk/country.
Spike
(1989). Eclectic sound. Great musicians. Great songs.
The Juliet Letters (1993): Recorded with classical string
quartet, The Brodsky Quartet. The album has a wonderful feel. Fantastic singing
too. Brutal Youth (1994): Return to energetic rock sound with
The Attractions.
All This Useless Beauty
(1996): The last album he recorded with the Attractions. Painted From Memory
(1998) with Burt Bacharach. Wonderful songs, performed in rich and tasteful
arrangements (apart from those tasteless female backing singers). Includes my favourite
EC song: "God Give Me Strength". North. It's very gentle, a bit like Painted
From Memory, but more positive and thankfully free of backing singers.
Takes some time to fully appreciate, but is worth the effort.
See my various writings on Elvis Costello here.
One of the good things about being a fanatical Elvis Costello collector is all
the collaborations he does. You end up buying all sorts of wonderful music you
wouldn't otherwise have heard (or probably even heard of). Here are three
recommendations I discovered this way.
Solomon Burke, Don't Give Up On Me (2002).
Solomon is an old soul singer. He called on a collection of his admirers to provide songs,
and what a list of songwriters it is. Apart from Elvis Costello providing a
superb song, there is also Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison,
Brian Wilson and Nick Lowe. The album won a Grammy. I'm not a huge soul fan,
but I really enjoy this.
Roy Nathanson, Fire at Keaton's Bar and Grill (2000). I am
not a huge jazz fan either, but this is also highly enjoyable. Includes Elvis
Costello singing lead on three tracks. It's a bit like a concept album,
telling the story of a fire at a bar from different perspectives. Elvis's role
is something like the narrator (in song). Tasteful modern jazz, with Roy's saxophone
prominent.
Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks, Beating the Heat (2000). Dan's got
a wonderful sort of bluesy, poppy, country thing happening. Great melodies,
addictive songs, mostly with a twinkle in the eye and a tongue in
the cheek. Impressive list of guest performers as well; he does duets with
Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Bette Midler and Rickie Lee Jones.
John Lennon,
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
(1970): Fiercely honest and bare confessions. Quite bleak in its emotional
intensity. Remembering that his mother died when he was 16 and his Dad ran off
when he was a young child, try listening to "Mother" without being deeply
affected. My younger daughter came in recently when it was
on and said, "He's got ISSUES!!" Imagine (1971):
Much glossier, but what great songs. John didn't maintain this standard on
subsequent albums, but neither did anybody else.
XTC, Drums
and Wires
(1979). An all-time favourite. Intelligent and creative pop music. XTC is criminally neglected. Skylarking (1986):
more perfect pop, this
time cleverly integrated into a thematic package by producer Todd Rundgren.
The band hated him, especially lead singer and main songwriter Andy Partridge, but acknowledged his outstanding contribution to this
album. XTC is one of my collecting obsessions. I have absolutely every track
of theirs, including all the obscure rarities. All their albums are worth
having. Sadly, they recently split up. Actually it's been more like a slow
disintegration. In 1978 there was a bust up between Andy Partridge and
keyboard player Barry Andrews, and Andrews left. After they stopped touring in
1981 (due to terminal stage fright by Andy Partridge), drummer Terry Chambers
left and moved to Australia (joining Dragon for a while). They continued as a
trio with session drummers. Then in the late 90s guitarist Dave Gregory left
due to tensions with Andy, leaving XTC as a duo. And finally Andy seemed to
fall out with the last remaining member, bassist Colin Moulding, in about
2006. The common element in all of the tensions is Andy; I guess he must be
hard to work with. He does seem rather manic when you hear him interviewed,
but musically he's a gem. He's shaping up for some solo releases.
Ed Kuepper, Today Wonder (1990): The start of
a fantastic sequence of five albums in quick succession on which Ed could do
no wrong. Today Wonder is wonderfully sparse with just Ed, his acoustic guitar
and a drummer playing lightly, often with brushes. Honey Steel's Gold
(1991) (pictured): More of
a full band sound. Still wonderfully sparse and tasteful 'though. Black Ticket Day
(1992): Darker,
heavier sound, but retains the spirit and atmosphere that pervades
these five albums. Serene Machine
(1993): Apparently
Ed finished recording this album, and then erased the tapes because he felt it
had been too easy. The second attempt is fantastic. Character Assassination
(1994):
Perhaps the best of them, although some weeks I prefer Serene Machine. The
version of Character Assassination that includes a bonus album of acoustic demos is worth seeking out.
This was the end of the golden run. After that he put out several rather weak
albums (only Frontierland is mosty good), with the
latest one Smile ... Pacific (2000) being particularly disappointing.
It has a few reasonable songs, but some of the other songs on it are
embarrassingly bad. Since then Ed has completely disappeared from view (at
least from my view). It's a remarkable contrast to his amazing productivity in
the 1990s, and a great shame given his capacity to make great music.
Jeff Buckley, Grace (1994). Of any album, this
is the most likely to reduce me to tears. Jeff
sang like an angel and lived inside the songs. If you see a video of
him live it's extremely intense and emotional. Not background music.
P.J. Harvey, Dry (1992): Just a three piece
band, but fantastic and original arrangements, full on delivery by Polly Jean,
great melodies, powerful emotions. A magnificent debut. To Bring You My Love
(1995):
Smoother, but still hard. Richer sound and (even) more confident delivery. Is This Desire?
(1998): Gentler,
but still original and challenging. My favourite of hers. Stories from the City, Stories
from the Sea (2000). Slightly more pop than the others. Consistently great songs,
like all five of these. Uh Huh Her (2004) is
another brilliant album from
Polly. Saw her live for the first time in Nov 2004. It was an awesome concert.
Such a tiny person, but such a huge presence.
Radiohead, OK Computer (1997). The Mount
Everest of recent albums. The best and most original from a period when there
were lots of good and original albums released. Clearly the best album of the
1990s, and a strong candidate for the best album of any decade (which it was
once voted by readers of Q). The Radiohead albums since
this one, Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001), Hail to the Thief
(2003) have lacked the same consistency and accessibility, but are still
excellent. Thom's singing on Hail to the Thief is probably his
best ever, and that is saying something. Lately I have been rediscovering
The Bends (1995). I originally thought it was pretty good, but now
I've realised it's brilliant.
Muse, Absolution
(2003) A magnificent album. Quite heavy in
places, but superb melodies throughout. And what a great singer.
Tom Waits:
I love almost all his studio albums from 1983
onwards: Swordfishtrombomes (1983), Rain Dogs (1985),
Frank's Wild Years (1987), Bone Machine (1992),
Mule Variations (1999), Alice (2002), Blood Money
(2002), Real Gone (2004). In 1983 Frank's wife Kathleen Brennan convinced him to take on the
role of producer of his own albums, and to follow his creative instincts
rather than record company preconceptions about him. He has proceeded to make
the most wonderful and original sequence of albums, vastly better than his
early stuff. He and Kathleen are truly a songwriting team that deserves to be
described as "great".
Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
(2002). This album grew on me slowly, but just kept
growing. It's off-centre music, with all sorts of elements. Some
pop, rock, alternative, country, folk, and sundry sound effects. It works
brilliantly, because the songs are so great. Their record company (Reprise)
are pathetic cowards and philistines, and refused to release it
because it didn't seem commercial enough. Released the band from their contract
and let them keep the master tapes. Reprise might not have liked it, but Wilco
soon found 30 other labels courting them. They ended up signing with Nonesuch
which, in a delicious irony, turns out to be under the same parent company as
Reprise. Final
element of the sweet revenge was that the album was a huge critical success,
and a respectable commercial success. (You should help that further by buying
it). In a wonderful stroke of luck, a young film maker had decided to make a
movie about the making and touring of the album, never suspecting the drama
that would unfold. He captured the whole thing, including the fateful phone
call from Reprise, and you can see it in the highly recommended
movie I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (available on DVD). It
includes quite different versions of some of the album's songs, and these
reveal different aspects that strengthen your appreciation of the album as
well. Summerteeth
(2000), A Ghost is Born
(2004), Kicking Televisions (live
album) (2005) and Sky Blue Sky (2007)
are also
highly recommended.
Cotton Mather, Kontiki (1997). Sparkling Beatlesque power pop.
Neil Finn, Try Whistling This (1998),
One
Nil (2001), and 7 Worlds Collide (2001). Essential pop gems.
Neil has a genius for melody. The DVD of 7 Worlds Collide is
also fantastic. For some reason I can't quite identify, the crowd singalong at
the end "Fall at your feet" on the DVD affects me to a ridiculous extent. One of my favourite minutes of music of all, and Neil isn't even singing! I think it's
partly the way the huge crowd gets this not-very-well-known but lovely song
word perfect and note perfect, not just the chorus but even the long bridge.
Crowded House, Recurring Dream, (1996).
There are a few great Crowded House songs missing (from their third and
fourth albums) but this compilation holds most of their
masterpieces.
They Might Be Giants, Flood (1990).
I love albums with stylistic diversity where every song is strong. This is one
of them.
The Sundays, Static and Silence (1997).
Harriet Wheeler's voice is a priceless gift. On hearing it,
atheists believe in heaven. Also buy Reading, Writing and Arithmetic
(1989) and Blind (1992).
Ron Sexsmith, Ron Sexsmith (1995).
Peaceful, reflective, insightful, great songwriting, great singing. I also
like all his other albums: Other Songs (1997),
Whereabouts (1999), Blue Boy (2001),
Cobblestone Runway (2002), Retriever
(2004). My friend Dave Dole proposed a
theory that Ron's real name is Ron Smith, and he decided he needed a name that
was more sexy. (But I've since been assured by a Canadian email correspondent
that it's his real name, and there are indeed Sexsmiths in the Toronto phone
directory.) I chatted with Ron after his concert in Perth in 1999 when I gave
him an Elvis Costello bootleg (he and Elvis are friends).
Elliot Smith,
XO
(1998), Figure 8
(2000). Not a million miles from Ron Sexsmith, but darker in sentiments.
(I wrote that before Elliot's suicide on 22 October 2003. Very, very sad. What
a waste. Makes the sad dark sentiments and drug references on these albums
rather hard to take.)
Magazine. I am devoted to Magazine. Led
by the wonderful Howard Devoto, Magazine delivered a sequence of fantastic
albums in the late 70s/early 80s. The attitude of punk, music influenced by
the Eno of Low and Heroes era (see below), with the lyrical
brilliance of a Bob Dylan in a difficult mood. Howard has an unusual singing style,
something of an acquired taste. Perhaps in a similar way to Bob Dylan, you
wouldn't say he has a great voice, but he is a great singer in terms of
impact, delivery, and conviction. My favourite Magazine albums are
Secondhand Daylight (1979) and The Correct Use of Soap
(1980), but I wouldn't be without Real Life (1978), Play
(1981) or Magic, Murder and the Weather (1981).
Luxuria. After breaking up Magazine in
1981 just as they were about to go on tour, Howard Devoto released a disappointing solo album Jerky Versions of
the Dream (1983) (the songs are good, but the arrangements seem tame and
the mix is thin). Then he disappeared for five years, re-emerging as one
half of a duo called Luxuria. Almost nobody has heard of them, but they
released two truly fantastic albums, Unanswerable Lust (1988)
and Beast Box (1991) before Howard again lost faith in the music
industry and retired, apparently for good, to the security of a day job,
managing a photo library in London.
ShelleyDevoto. I had given up hope of
ever hearing more treasures from Howard Devoto, when out of the blue came
Buzzkunst (2002). Pete Shelly and Howard were the founding members of
punk rock luminaries The Buzzcocks in 1976, and this history is suggested (not
too subtly) in the title of their 2002 collaboration. It is right up there
with Howard's best work.
Bob Dylan. Bob's mid sixties albums (Bringing
it All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blond on
Blond) are quite essential, and he was worth keeping track of up to
and including 1978's Street Legal, but after that he put out some truly awful records. I stopped paying attention
until the buzz around Time Out of Mind (1997) was so strong
that I couldn't resist the temptation. And it certainly is a gem, even if Bob
sounds like a croaking frog on its death bed (he actually did almost die
around that time). Love and Theft (2001) and Modern Times
(2006) are almost as good.
Also essential is Bob Dylan Live 1966.
Orange Juice, Rip it Up
(1982). Edwyn Collins' first band. This is one of those rare albums that doesn't have a weak track. A jangling pop masterpiece. Edwyn has another one of those
acquired-taste voices that I seem to like acquiring. Also recommended from
Orange Juice are their two other original albums, You Can't Hide Your Love Forever
(1982) and The Orange Juice (1984).
Edwyn Collins,
Hope and Despair (1989). His first solo album after leaving Orange
Juice. His most well known track as a solo artist is "A Girl Like You", but
these earlier solo albums are quite different to that. More laid back and
contemplative. Hope and Despair includes a beautiful love song called "You're Better Than You
Know" which alone makes the album worth owning. His second album, in a
similar vein and with a fantastic title, is also excellent: Hellbent on Compromise
(1990) (pictured). In February 2006 Edwyn suffered a major cerebral
hemorrhage and almost died, saved by a major operation. He was very badly
affected, and underwent a long slow process of rehabilitation. Although he's
still not fully recovered (and I'd guess that he might never be), he recently
released a new album Home Again (2007), which was recorded
before his illness but mixed after.
Ryan Adams, Cold Roses (2005). It
would be a bit annoying to be known primarily as someone who is not someone
else. Whenever I mention Ryan to someone new, I always have to say that he is
not Bryan Adams (echh!!). I would have changed my name to something more
distinct, if I were him. That's all irrelevant to Cold Roses, which is
possibly my favourite album of the century so far. It has a bit of a country
feel, but it's not too intrusive, and the songs are superb. An interesting
sidelight is that it comes as a double CD, even though it would (just) fit on
a single CD. Maybe Ryan wanted us to take a break half way, or maybe he wanted
to emphasise how generous he has been with the songs. It would have been
easily a double album on vinyl (and the CD's are printed up to look sort of
like vinyl). Also recommended are Love is Hell
(2003), 29 (2005) and Easy
Tiger (2007) but definitely
not Rock N Roll, which he quickly knocked out for the CD company when
they decided that Love is Hell was not commercial enough! Anyone who
would prefer Rock N Roll to Love is Hell needs their head
examined.
The
Rezillos,
Can't Stand The Rezillos (1978). Fantastic punk pop band. This
album includes the best bass guitar sound ever recorded,
bar none. They have recently reformed, but not with
the original bass player.
The
Boomtown Rats, A Tonic for the Troops (1978). I really couldn't
give two figs for anything else Bob Geldof has released (I've owned most of it
at various times) but this album is just fantastic. Great songs, terrific
production (by Mutt Lange, who later married Shania Twain!), no filler. Just
about perfect new wavy pop.
King Crimson, Discipline
(1980). The second half of the sixties
was a peak for creativity in music, but there was also a brief peak in 1978-1980
when several of the best-ever albums were released, including Discipline. King
Crimson is often seen as being primarily a vehicle for Robert Fripp's guitar
(especially by KC obsessives), and he is unambiguously the leader of the band,
but it was Adrian Belew joining the band in 1980 that elevated them into another level.
His singing is wonderful and his guitar playing, by turns beautifully fluid
and completely wild, complements Fripp's highly structured linear style
perfectly. All their
subsequent albums are worth having too, especially Thrack (1995) and
the construKction of light (2000).
Peter Gabriel, Peter Gabriel (1978). At the start of his solo
career after leaving Genesis, Peter Gabriel release four albums in a row all
called Peter Gabriel.
(Outside the US that is. The label's US marketing people couldn't cope with
such an interesting concept.) The best of them, predictably, was the least successful. Robert Fripp produced it, and it has that wonderful clarity and
atmosphere of his productions from this era. Of the other three albums called
Peter Gabriel, the third (1980, with "Games Without Frontiers") and fourth
(1982, with "Shock the Monkey") are also excellent. The songs on the first one are not
at the same high standard, apart from Solsbury Hill and Here Comes the Flood, which
definitely are. The later albums So, Us and Up are slicker and
a couple of them were
vastly more successful, but they are ultimately less satisfying. What a pity he didn't maintain
the same album name for them as well.
The Roches, Keep on Doing (1982). Another excellent Robert
Fripp production, and at least partly thanks to him, this is the best Roches album.
The Roches are three sisters who specialise in close three-part harmonies,
acoustic guitars and gently humorous songs about people and relationships.
Folk, but with a progressive pop attitude.
Talking Heads, Remain in Light
(1980). Hugely
innovative and influential album. Revitalised dance music. A precursor to rap
(not that I'd boast about that). Other classics are
More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978) and Fear of Music
(1979)
U2, Achtung Baby (1991). Superb hybrid rock,
dance, pop album. Their finest hour.
David
Bowie. More than any other artist in modern music, David Bowie's work has
spanned the highs and lows.
Low (1977) and
Heroes (1978), both produced by Brian Eno (see below), are landmark albums of real daring and
brilliance, and they had enormous influence on other musicians at the time and
ever since. But after Heroes, the quality trajectory was downhill fast
and ultimately reached shamefully dark depths in the 1980s before partially
recovering in the 1990s. Of his early albums, Hunky Dory (1971)
and The Man Who Sold the World (1971) are big favourites of
mine. I never got into The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from
Mars (1972) in the 1970s, but many consider
it his finest album, including some people with remarkably similar musical
preferences to myself. So I thought I'd better give it another chance. Bought
it cheaply off ebay and have played it quite a lot. I still don't feel
it rates with his very best work, but I can see
why people like it so much.
Brian
Eno, Discrete Music (1975), Music for Airports (1978). Eno's artistic
success as a producer of other people's music is without parallel. Have you
noticed an artist making a radical shift in direction, exhibiting a massive
burst of creativity and originality, pulling it off with great success, and
thereby influencing development of a whole cohort of new musicians? Have a
look at the production credits on their pivotal album and the probability that
Brian Eno was involved is very high. That is the case, for example, with
Low, Heroes, Remain in Light and Achtung Baby. To
have had anything to do with any of these landmark albums would have been a
great privilege. To be present on all of them is clearly no accident.
He is to producers what the Beatles are to popular music: in a separate,
higher category. (Elvis Costello has recorded one fabulous song with Eno: My
Dark Life. Later asked if he would record with Eno again, he said
something like, "any time, any place".) Eno's solo albums established a whole new genre of music: ambient. Lots of atmosphere, not a lot of noise. These two albums are favourite
examples.
The Beatles, The Beatles
("White Album") (1968). Less slick than their
most celebrated works, and all the better for it. Rewards an unlimited number
of plays. Sometimes described, with a hint of disparagement, as four solo albums, but that doesn't go close to doing it justice. After all, the
backing band on these solo albums is The Beatles, and they were at the
peak of their powers. This album marks the start of what must surely be
the most incredible 12 months of creative productivity by four musicians in
history. Consider this.
From mid 1968 to mid 1969, they recorded this double album, the Let It Be
album,
the Abbey Road album, enough additional material for the two CDs of
Anthology 3 (a triple album on vinyl), five fantastic singles "Hey Jude",
"Get Back", "The Ballad of John and Yoko", "Let it
Be" and "Something"/"Come Together" (eight of the ten songs on them appeared not at all or in different versions on
the albums), made the film Let It Be, and released the film and soundtrack
album Yellow Submarine. Outside the Beatles, there
were five (five!!!) Beatles solo albums recorded or released (one film
soundtrack by George and four highly experimental albums, one from George and
three from John and Yoko), a landmark single from John ("Give Peace a Chance"), Ringo
acted in a major film with Peter Sellers and Paul wrote
and produced big hits for Badfinger and Mary Hopkins. As well as all
this, they wrote quite a number of songs that turned up later on solo albums.
And in the middle of all that, two of them got married. They did all this in just barely over one year, and
it was a year when they weren't always getting on well. It's not as if
this extraordinary productivity caused the
quality to suffer either. Not all these outputs are classics (the solo experimental albums are pretty hard to listen to in fact) but much of the
year's output stands among the best music ever made. It is interesting to
compare this output with the usual release schedule of major acts these days. For example, through the 1990s, U2 released three albums, for an average of about five
songs per year. An average of 15 tracks per year is extremely high, probably
reached by only one or two major artists. The Beatles' efforts in this incredible 12 months spawned over
110 tracks that were released at the time or subsequently, not even counting
their non-Beatles work, and not counting the unreleased Get Back album,
or its relative, Let it Be ... Naked, which finally saw commercial
release in November 2003.
Other
favourites by The Beatles: A Hard Days Night (1964), Rubber Soul (1965),
Revolver (1966),
Sgt Pepper (1967),
Magical Mystery Tour (1967),
Abbey Road (1969),
Live at the BBC
(1994).
Of course, all their other albums are special. If I had to
forego any, it would be possible for me to give up
Beatles for Sale
(1964) and
Let it Be
(1970).
Music
