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 …
Tag: Folk Rock
I Often Dream of Trains (1984) by Robyn Hitchcock
A few months ago I was listening to one of Robyn Hitchcock’s ’90s records – Jewels for Sophia – and I was completely uninterested in it. I’m not sure if it was actually boring, but it definitely sounded out of time (and conservative) compared to what was being made at the time. It seemed like …
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 …
Meat Puppets II (1984)
I have not heard the Meat Puppets’ debut album, but I am led to understand that it is much more conventional hardcore punk, which is probably why it’s been deemed essential, where this record is considered a much bigger deal.
Mutations (1998) by Beck
I can imagine that, had I paid attention to Beck more when he first became popular, and only heard Mellow Gold and Odelay, and not his earlier “anti folk” records, this record might have knocked me on my ass. In retrospect it has far more in common with Sea Change than it does those records …
The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle (1973) by Bruce Springsteen
I have never heard a Springsteen record like this one. Maybe that’s because I just haven’t heard that many Springsteen records but I suspect or at least wonder that it’s because, at some point later on, he figured out who he was, and this version wasn’t part of that (or wasn’t normally part of that).
American Water (1998) by Silver Jews
Pavement were such a big deal – or seemed like they were such a big deal – that I think it’s really easy to understand why they inevitably come up with this band, even though, according to some sources, this band existed prior to Pavement, and certainly in some iteration or other. But even if …
Fisherman’s Blues (1988) by The Waterboys
I listened to the Waterboys’ debut a while ago, and grudgingly acknowledged it was probably a pretty big deal in the UK music scene at the time – it might have been the first record you could call “alternative” instead of post punk for all I know – but I didn’t love something about it, …
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 …
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 …
August and Everything After (1993) by Counting Crows
I was talking to a guest of the podcast a few episodes ago and I described how my “alternative” junior high school had been just full of alternative rock, pardon the pun, even though I was firmly into “oldies.” I mentioned the grunge usual suspects, which I do remember hearing for the first time at …
Sunshine on Leith (1988) by The Proclaimers
If you’re my age, or a little older, you’ve heard “I’m Gonna Be” more times than you could count. Depending on how you feel about this song, you may be pleasantly surprised by the rest of the album or severely disappointed.Because the thing is, there’s maybe one or two tracks on this album that come …
Boulders (1973) by Roy Wood
I had a Billboard book growing up, which was just a series of chronologies of bands. It was really quite boring but for some reason I ate it up; I read it front to back more than once. I think one of the things I found fascinating about it was all the recurring names from …
Scraps at Midnight (1998) by Mark Lanegan
I got really annoyed with Lanegan’s Blues Funeral (which came out a while ago now) because of its title. I got annoyed because the title referenced the blues and the record didn’t much, as if I had some kind of deeper knowledge of the blues than Lanegan does. But I read a quote from him …
The Waterboys (1983)
Note: The version I listened to on Google Play was the remaster which, as others have noted, adds bonus tracks, not on the end, like a normal new edition, but in the middle of the album, so I have heard a slightly different version of this record than that which was released in 1983.
Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart (1988) by Camper Van Beethoven
Perhaps for the first time they acknowledge their debt to Kaleidoscope by covering a song Kaleidoscope covered (“O Death”). If I didn’t think these guys were the ’80s College Rock Kaleidoscope before, I do now.
Tracy Chapman (1988)
Chapman’s self-titled album is the introduction of a strong new, one might even say necessary, voice. She offers what was likely a very unique perspective in late 1980s, that of a folk-singing African American woman. Excuse my ignorance but I’m not sure there was much precedent for her, even by 1988. (When I say folk, …
Parcel of Rogues (1973) by Steeleye Span
This is the first Steeleye Span record I’ve ever heard, after hearing about them for years and years. As with any band like that, my impressions were fixed without ever having listened to this, so on first listen I didn’t know what to do with it.
Fuzzy (1993) by Grant Lee Buffalo
I decided to talk about this record, rather than any number of other records from 1988 and 1993, in part because Michael Stipe once claimed it was the best album of 1993. Now, I don’t necessarily share musical states with the lead singer of REM, but I do feel like he had an important role, …
Solid Air (1973) by John Martyn
I had never even heard of John Martyn before listening to this. Just an album that came out in February 1973 so it was on my list of 45tth anniversaries. So this is, um, a giant surprise.
Lifemask (1973) by Roy Harper
Lifemask finds Harper pulled in two different directions after Stormcock, which I assume is his best album; on the one hand retreating from its ambitious format on side A but doubling down on side B. The arrangements are also more elaborate, on the whole, than on that previous record.
City to City (1978) by Gerry Rafferty
I listened to this because it was a big record, for my podcast. That’s the only reason I listened to it. If it hadn’t sold so damn much there’s no way I would have listened to this shit three times.
Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ (1973) by Bruce Springsteen
I have a complicated relationship with Springsteen, mostly caused by watching too much Much More Music (basically Canada’s VH1) when I was an impressionable teenager. So, to evaluate Springsteen’s debut album fairly, If eel like I have to try to pretend I’ve never heard Springsteen before nor have I heard of him. That’s impossible, but …
Did She Mention My Name? (1968) by Gordon Lightfoot
This is my first experience of Lightfoot outside of hearing 5 or so songs of his ad nauseum on Oldies Radio when I was a kid. I guess I associated those songs with my childhood and so I’ve never had an urge to explore his oeuvre. Reading about this record, I was shocked to find …
Calenture (1987) by The Triffids
I can’t speak for the Australian critics, but i feel like the American critics who went gaga over this record are guilty of a fairly common problem, where they over-hype a band from a “smaller” English-speaking country like Australia or Canada when if the same band appeared in the US or the UK they might …
Easter Everywhere (1967) by The 13th Floor Elevators
The 13th Floor Elevators’ debut album is viewed as a trailblazing psychedelic masterpiece by people who have apparently never heard Revolver but I can’t say I’ve ever been that impressed by it; vaguely psychedelic folk rock to my ears, significantly abetted in its psychedelic vibes by that electric jug, an utterly unique instrument, but only …
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.
One Nation Underground (1967) by Pearls Before Swine
There is a school of thought about how music evolved before the internet that believes that music needs urbanization to really develop. This school of thought views music as evolving in scenes in specific major cities. The internet has made this no longer necessary as now anyone can communicate with anyone else and even create …