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: 1972
Jumpers (1972) by Tom Stoppard
My favourite philosopher, Hannah Arendt, believed that space exploration, particularly manned space exploration, created a new paradigm for human beings. For the first time in history, humans could physically see what astronomy and math had only proved before, namely that we were just animals on a little planet in some little corner of the universe. …
Neu! (1972)
Neu!’s debut album finds them stuck somewhere between the early electronic explorations of Tangerine Dream – and, I presume, early Kraftwerk, the band Neu! split off from, which I have never heard – and the motorik of CAN and Faust and bands like that. It’s an odd juxtaposition that I might struggle with were it …
The World is a Ghetto (1972) by WAR
All I knew of this band was “Low Rider” and “Why Can’t We Be Friends?”. Despite the evident commercial success of this record I had never even heard the title track or the successful single from this record. I had literally no idea what I was getting into. But this is great stuff: the majority …
Can’t Buy a Thrill (1972) by Steely Dan
My understanding is that this full-band debut album is not really canon or at least is looked as an immature effort by fans of the band’s later music. But I must say that I think I like it more than their other music.
Talking Book (1972) by Stevie Wonder
Of all R&B artists, I have been familiar with Stevie Wonder about as long as any, because Wonder was acceptable to the Oldies station I grew up with to a much greater extent than most of his contemporaries. (There was Motown of course – just the hits! – and a few Ray Charles hits, but …
I’m Still in Love With You (1972) by Al Green
The first time I heard an Al Green record, I must say I was disappointed. I had heard so much about his music over the years that I guess I was bound to be disappointed. In addition to the hype, I think I was probably disappointed by the lack of variation in the record. I …
Greetings From LA (1972) by Tim Buckley
Ever since Tim Buckley embraced jazz and abandoned the more staid, more traditional singer songwriter approach of his earliest records, there is always been a bit of soul to his music, but that soul, such as it was, was always filtered through the lens of jazz.
Bustin’ Out (1972) by Pure Prairie League
I feel like one of the problems of getting into a genre through a progenitor of that genre is that later bands don’t hold up. If you manage to listen to the later bands first, they always sound better because you don’t know what came first, you don’t realize how derivative they are.
Vol 4 (1972) by Black Sabbath
Round about the time the piano opens “Changes,” we start wondering what is going on. Prior to this moment (or, perhaps, prior to “The Straightener”), Black Sabbath was the heaviest band in the entire world. There was no band louder or lower than Sabbath. And then we get a piano ballad backed with a fucking …
Irrlicht (1972) by Klaus Schulze
Learning that this man is the former drummer of Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel sort of puts your expectations in a certain place and, at least for me, that turns out to the wrong place.
Back Stabbers (1972) by O’Jays
What do you do with an album named after a track called “Back Stabbers” when much of the album is about making the world a better place? I don’t know.
Roxy Music (1972)
On their debut, Roxy Music appear to have stumbled upon a unique take on art rock: it’s borderline prog at times but Ferry’s songs and croon are just way too rooted in popular music conventions (whether they subtly overturn them or not) for this to be mistaken as King Crimson or some Canterbury scene band …
Mauricio Kagel (2003) by Alexandre Tharaud
This collection is a little confusing in part because of the confusing nature of Rrrrrrr…, which can apparently be performed independently. The disc appears to be a compilation of his piano-based music. Calling “piano music” would be a misnomer, as there are lots of other instruments on a number of the pieces.
Miserere et. al (1994) by Henryk Gorecki, performed by John Nelson et al.
This is a collection of Gorecki’s choral music, mostly performed by choruses from Chicago. (Yet another release where the performers differ from track to track! I really need to get over this.) Fortunately, I wouldn’t have known that, if they didn’t tell me. So that’s something.