Full disclosure part 1: I listened to this on a streaming service so a few tracks were missing, the videos were included in the track list, and I really have no idea how it would compare to the actual boxed set. (No booklets, etc.) Full disclosure part 2: the time for me to have listened …
Tag: Blues Rock
Pocket Full of Kryptonite (1991) by Spin Doctors
What a bizarre story. A bit like Ten but with way fewer sales and hits. “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” hit #17 in December of 1992. “Two Princes” hit #7 in April of 1993. (The album came out in August 1991.) When this came out, the world was apparently not yet ready for it. I’m …
Load (1996) by Metallica
I must say that I couldn’t have cared less about this album when it came out, I was only vaguely aware of Metallica as the band responsible for those videos from The Black Album. (I did not know it was The Black Album.) I wasn’t aware that they were now playing the kind of music …
A Night on the Town (1976) by Rod Stewart
Atlantic Crossing felt like the beginning of Stewart’s long decline from exciting rock and roll singer to raspy poor man’s Tony Bennett. But A Night on the Town finds him in a bit of a holding pattern. The problems of Atlantic Crossing are still here, as are some of the redeeming qualities of that album’s …
Jailbreak (1976) by Thin Lizzy
I was raised on the idea that Jailbreak was Thin Lizzy’s magnum opus. I don’t know where this came from exactly – my classic rock station? VH1 programs on Much More Music? – but it seeped into my consciousness. And then it took me two decades to listen to it. So, what can I say? …
Little Feat (1970)
I love Sailin’ Shoes. And I generally enjoy the albums that came after it (though not as much as Sailin’ Shoes, which is definitely a favourite of the ’70s). So this first record, the one everyone gets to after they become fans, came as a bit of a shock. (As it always does. Yes, I’m …
Lick My Decals Off, Baby (1970) by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band
There are people out there who are going to tell you that this is superior to Trout Mask Replica. And from an aesthetic perspective, I can see the case they’re making. (I mean, it’s more listenable for one.) But albums exist in time, as everything else does, and there’s just no getting around that this …
Stephen Stills (1970)
Though I became kind of obsessed with Manassas’ debut album and Super Session back in the day, Stills is the last of CSNY for me, in terms of listening to proper solo albums. Some of that is accidental (or technical, depending upon how you feel about Manassas). But some of that is also because, though …
Atlantic Crossing (1975) by Rod Stewart
When going through Stewart’s solo early solo records I’m always wary that maybe this one will be the one in which he abandons his early sound for the money-chasing of his later career. But the truth is never so straight-forward and so I find myself listening to a record that manages to both sound close …
The “Angry” Young Them (1965)
When I was younger, I was really into British R&B. But the older I get the less essential it seems to me: it’s not the genuine article and so much of it sounds the same. 55-60 years later, do we really care about British interpretations of American music? I mean, it made sense at the …
Venus and Mars (1975) by Wings
Every Wings album is a reminder why the Beatles were great. Every Wings album is a reminder that, though they may have hated each other at the end, Lennon and McCartney needed each other artistically.
Hair of the Dog (1975)
I wasn’t going to talk about this album until I realized the American version contained the band’s two biggest hits – well their biggest hit and the title track, which became a classic rock radio staple, though it wasn’t a hit initially – and so I figured I should deal with it. So where we …
McCartney (1970)
It is incredible to me that this album now has a pretty good reputation. It speaks to McCartney’s fame and immense presence in the music world that an album which was once at least partially attacked by critics is now beloved. In fact, the fact that the album received mixed reviews at the time only …
Nuthin’ Fancy (1975) by Lynyrd Skynyrd
There was a time in my life that I should have listened to all Skynyrd albums. I wouldn’t have necessarily loved them but I would have liked most of them, and I would have had a lot more time for them.
Leon Russell (1970)
Russel’s solo debut is an album I once heard a lot about when I was following Clapton’s session career but hadn’t read anything about it in ages, so I completely forgot how all star it is.
High Voltage (1975) by AC/DC
Sometimes debut albums show a fully formed band and listening to them its easy to imagine the band going on to be very successful. (That’s especially easy with the benefit of hindsight, of course.) But sometimes debut albums are more confusing, even or especially with hindsight. And such is the case with AC/DC’s true debut, …
Funkadelic (1970)
If I had heard this 15 years ago I probably would have absolutely loved it. But my tolerance for directionless music has decreased over the years.
Black Sabbath (1970)
There are people who will tell you this is the first heavy metal album of all time. And I understand why they say that, especially with the benefit of hindsight. I respectfully disagree with that particular claim and I think I have pretty valid reasons for doing so, but that doesn’t take away from both …
Mule Variations (1999) by Tom Waits
At this point, anyone who has followed Waits since his left-turn in the early 1980s knows what to expect from a Waits album. Aside from from production choices, most Waits albums of the last 35 years have sounded rather similar to each other, with everything in his own inimitable style, and the only major difference …
Second Helping (1974) by Lynyrd Skynyrd
This record is notable for containing Skynyrd’s most famous song (apologies to “Freebird”), perhaps the definitive Southern Rock song, their biggest hit and such a cultural touchstone that Kid Rock managed to have a hit sampling it decades later. (The less said about that last one, the better.) But the presence of “Sweet Home Alabama” …
The Rolling Stones (1964)
If you were British when this came out, and especially if you were a kid in Britain which didn’t have access to London’s blues scene (or any of the other blues scenes, if they existed), this record was likely a revelation to you – dirty, gritty, blues-based music (more blues-based than anything you’d ever heard …
Get Your Wings (1974) by Aerosmith
There was a quite a lot of loud blues rock around in the early 1970s. You generally had to do a lot to standout. The thing is, a lot of bands did a lot to stand out, at least at the time. Now, the sheer number of blues rock “classics” from the late ’60s and …
Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) (1978) by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band
For some reason, so much of my experience of Beefheart is tied up with Safe as Milk and Trout Mask Replica, and how the latter is such a huge departure from a former, that when I hear latter Beefheart records that are closer in spirit to his early work than Trout Mask Replica I’m not …
Marjory Razorblade (1973)
Reading about someone before you listen to them is always problematic. I had never heard of this guy but then I read a lot about him on Wikipedia before listening to this record and so much of it was about how much of an “outsider” he was. Well, he may well have been an outsider …
Cure for Pain (1993) by Morphine
The thing that makes Morphine so unique is, in some ways, the thing that keeps them from ever being a band that I will truly love. That’s not their fault, of course, but it does make them one of those bands who I like more or less depending upon the quality of their songs.
Vagabonds of the Western World (1973) by Thin Lizzy
I’ve been meaning to listen to Thin Lizzy since I listened to classic rock almost exclusively (i.e. for 20 years). For some reason that has never happened. And now I find myself listening to a different album that their reputed best. I worried that was a recipe for disaster. Good thing Thin Lizzy are pretty …
Danzig (1988)
This is not the first Danzig record I’ve heard. So I worry that my reaction to it comes from the fact that I’ve heard a more “mature” version of the band, and this debut, which may have seemed relatively unique at the time – given the state of metal – sounds like something lesser to …
pronounced ‘lĕh-‘nérd ‘skin-‘nérd (1973)
With their debut album, Lynyrd Skynyrd didn’t invent southern rock, as it had already existed for at least 4 years. But you might say they invented the populist form of southern rock, a louder, more blue collar version that relies more on hard rock and country than on soul or jazz. There are eight songs …
Cheap Thrills (1968) by Big Brother and the Holding Company
In the version of the ’60s I got from ’90s music television, Cheap Thrills is one of the seminal documents of the San Francisco psychedelic scene. But listening to it for the first time all these years later, it’s hard to see why it was such a big deal. I guess it’s considered the best …
We’re An American Band (1973) by Grand Funk Railroad
I don’t know much about Grand Funk Railroad. I’ve heard the title track and a few other hits, but most of what I know of them consists of jokes about them from The Simpsons and other places, so I have kind of always dismissed them without giving it a second thought. And, since it’s been …