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 …
Tag: Country Rock
Bringing Down the Horse (1996) by The Wallflowers
I think my brother had this album but I don’t think I ever made it far enough into his CD collection before I got to it. I had, um, zero interest. Once I was interested in the contemporary stuff he owned I certainly wasn’t interested in Dylan’s son. That single was everywhere. I must have …
Feels So Right (1981) by Alabama
Alabama are one of the few country bands I sort of knew when I was young. For some reason, my father had a few of their records (not this one as far as I know) and my dad would play them sometimes, so I was exposed to Alabama’s sound before CMT existed (or we got …
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 …
Country Music (2019)
This is an engrossing, thorough, occasionally moving and, for its first six episodes, authoritative history of country music. It follows the usual rhythms of a Ken Burns’ documentary, which is something I thoroughly enjoy, and has the usual strengths and weaknesses of his approach to storytelling.
Casino (1990) by Blue Rodeo
Blue Rodeo are an institution in Canada. And they were well on their way to becoming an institution in Canada before I ever cared about alt country, or any form of country music. And I guess that’s why I missed the boat on them. Because they were already in my musical ether before I started …
Tumbleweed Connection (1970) by Elton John
Try as I might, I cannot fall in love with Elton John’s music. I have listened to many of his records at this point – basically only from the ’70s – and I have quite liked one of them. The others don’t really connect with me yet and this one is just another of those.
Osmium (1970) by Parliament
Recorded by the same people who made Free Your Mind…, this particular version of Parliament is basically just Funkadelic moonlighting. The record actually feels like the outtakes – the stuff that was just too weird – for Free Your Mind… if you listen to both of them at the same time. Parliament would be relaunched …
No Depression (1990) by Uncle Tupelo
There are people who will tell you that this is the first ever alt country album. They are wrong about that. They have apparently never heard of the Jayhawks or any of the alternative rock bands incorporating country into their music in the 1980s. (I just finished reviewing an album also credited with inventing this …
One of These Nights (1975) by Eagles
I have an irrational hatred for the Eagles that was developed long before I could articulate why I hated them. Now the reasons are that I dislike the whole aesthetic of the Mellow Mafia (and their sheer dominance of American popular music in the 1970s) and I don’t like what they did to country rock. …
12 Songs (1970) by Randy Newman
With virtually every Randy Newman album I’ve yet encountered my problem with him has in part been the aesthetic – a unique and not particularly compelling singer singing acerbic is often backed by extremely slick arrangements. But that’s not the case here as Newman has abandoned the massed arrangements of his debut for members of …
Heart Like a Wheel (1974) by Linda Ronstadt
Despite her relative commercial success, I don’t know much about Linda Ronstadt or her music, beyond “You’re No Good” and maybe the odd other hit song that I’ve heard through the ether – oh and backing vocal guest appearances on Neil Young albums and elsewhere. So I really wasn’t sure what to expect.
Tusk (1979) by Fleetwood Mac
The number of times I’ve heard that Tusk is “experimental” in my life…well, if I had a dollar, I still wouldn’t be able to afford a down-payment on a house in Toronto, or anything, but maybe I could lease a car or something. The problem with pop music fans telling you that some pop album …
Hootie and the Blowfish Live at the Budweiser Stage August 29, 2019
You read that right. Last night, I went to see Hottie and the Blowfish. The band I wrote this review about. I went because my girlfriend wanted to go. I hadn’t been to the Molson Amphitheatre Budweiser Stage in so long I almost forgot what it was like. It seems they have made it a …
Full Moon Fever (1989) by Tom Petty
For years, my only real experience of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers was their 1993 Greatest Hits record. That record contained the three big hits everyone knows from this solo album, though I wasn’t too concerned that these were ostensibly solo singles on a record collecting the band’s hits. I also wasn’t particularly concerned, at …
Copperhead Road (1988) by Steve Earle
I have a weird bone to pick about records that weren’t recorded with the same group of musicians throughout. This doesn’t necessarily apply to guest vocalists, but it does apply to guests on other instruments. I guess my argument would be that I want a record to have a consistent sound and recording with different …
Sweet Revenge (1973) by John Prine
Many years ago – 15? – I was watching Austin City Limits as usual and John Prine came on. I had never heard of him before but I was blown away. ‘Who was this songwriter I’ve never heard of?’ I thought. I was blown away by his stage demeanour as much as his songs, probably, …
For Everyman (1973) by Jackson Browne
Jackson Browne is one of those artists I’ve heard so much about but never really heard (that I know of). He’s always been on the periphery of music I’ve listened to – guesting on many albums I’ve heard, or co-writing songs, or both – but I’ve never sat down and listened to anything of his …
Bradley’s Barn (1968) by The Beau Brummels
The usual history of country rock goes something like this: The Byrds invented it with Sweetheart of the Radio. A more sophisticated version of that story is that the International Submarine Band invented country rock, but nobody heard their record, so the Byrds popularized the genre when they hired ISB singer-songwriter Gram Parsons and he …
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
I have read so much about Lucinda Williams that by the time I heard her I was like “This is what she sounds like?”
A White Sport Coat and Pink Crustacean (1973)
I gave a listen to Down to Earth recently, as I figured that I should give the infamous Jimmy Buffett a listen for the podcast, given his longevity, his popularity and his notoriety. But I read that he had essentially disowned that album – it is a pretty conventional singer-songwriter album that does not give …
Safe at Home (1968) by International Submarine Band
This record invented country rock. As such, it’s one of the milestone records of the 1960s. (Country infected popular music in the 1970s and the country rock phenomenon of the late 1960s and early 1970s and Safe at Home is a big reason why.) But with the benefit of hindsight I am tempted to criticize the …
Hotel California (1976) by Eagles
Who is this record for? Clearly, it’s for a lot of people, as it sold somewhere between 20 and 30 million copies. But listening to it, I don’t know who it’s for. The rock tracks feel like they appeal to one group of people, and the sappy, over-produced soft rock ballads to another group. It’s …
4 Way Street (1971) by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
When I was young, I was told by various reviews that this was one of the great classic rock live albums of the early ’70s and I was enticed by the talk of guitar duels.
Workingman’s Dead (1970) by the Grateful Dead
If you had been aware of the Dead in Spring 1970 but you didn’t live in San Francisco, you would have no way of knowing the band was birthed by a folk band in the mid ’60s. If you caught them live, you would have been familiar with how they were the first ever jam …
Tonight’s the Night (1973, 1975) by Neil Young
Neil Young was a star for the first time in 1973. And yet even though he was star, and he was expected to pump out further “Heart of Gold” style hits, his life was a mess. Whether or not he may acknowledge it now, he had drug issues. And within a rather short span of …
Emotional Rescue (1980) by the Rolling Stones
I don’t know what to do with my first impressions. I’ve learned to distrust them. I give every album I review a minimum of three listens in order to defeat my initial prejudice. I adopted this approach, I think, because I wanted to be fair, but also because sometimes my initial impression did not jive …
Mendocino (1999 Compilation) by Sir Douglas Quintet
Throughout the history of recorded music, there have always been these silly little labels who try to profit off loopholes in music contract regulations, by releasing records or compilations of music that is somehow exempt from copyright protection. This is one of those releases. And I fell for it. Years ago this happened to me …