Traffic

Things in life that nobody likes... Traffic.

Just OK Early 1970's riffs.

The missus said this sounded like music from a children's TV show, but good. I felt it was alright.

Yet another late 60s album.They can’t all have been derivative so sadly this gets a list mark.

This took a while to get going, but get going it did. Folk/rock/pop infused with some listenable saxophone. And some hair envy.

Listened while in traffic and it just blended into the background. Nothing to keep me interested

Having been introduced to Winwood through Arc of a Diver and Higher Love it's fascinating to hear his earlier stuff (albeit aided and abetted by Capaldi). Some really strong songs and brilliant arrangements. Especially when he gets his funk on. Some of it feels a bit dated though. 3*

I listened to this yesterday but sadly I have very little recollection of this already. That speaks volumes about the impact this must have had on my attention. I do have 'Bring me a Higher Love' running through my head as I type this, which is just a bit screwed up and really nothing to do with this, apart from it being Steve Winwood's best known song. The fact that I had to go back a and skim through the album again to refresh my mind makes this lose a star straight away. On to the album - if the Beatles and the Stones had a baby it would probably sound a bit like this. The tunes were solid, the playing excellent, but nothing particularly outstanding.

The blend of rock, pop, psychedelia is packaged in an aesthetically pleasing and occasionally slapping way. Fascinating to picture this as part of what the Beatles and Stones were doing in this same era.

I guess all revelations are unexpected, but Traffic's self-titled release is the redefinition of what it means for a record to catch you by surprise. Of the albums I've listened to this year, only Gene Clark's No Other surpasses the feeling of discovering something new I now associate w/ Traffic. A funky, & folksy, & psychedelic, & above all catchy record, it ne'er does what it isn't in the end supposed to, but then again, it plays by no rules but its own. For the most part, I say no to the incorporation of flute-play on rock albums - it suggests Jethro Tull & all things bad in Britishisms - yet e'en the flute is a welcome addition to Traffic's landscape. Now, I also recognize that it flirts w/ prog, & I shudder to think of where Traffic will go after, but this is prime.

A British revelation in pushing the boundaries in rock’s early days but never so far as to lose the listener or the enjoyment

Combines the worst aspects of hippie rock (complete with aimless guitar noodling), whitebread R&B and low-grade prog into a thin, flavorless soup. Even the band's own version of "Feelin' Alright" has all the excitement of a wet noodle.

Pretty solid, underrated perhaps

eh

This had a lot of _Dazed and Confused_ vibes about it, which works for me! Perhaps faded in the second half but would bear repeat listens.

Steve Winwood has always had a niche as the Blackest-sounding White guy in rock, and that's on display on his songs here ("Pearly Queen"). Which raises the question of why the less-talented Dave Mason is allowed to sing so many of these songs. The answer seems to be that he wrote them, and I guess the *real* problem here is exactly that - the writing. Neither Winwood nor Mason nor Jim Capaldi seem to be able to write a decent lyric; the closest anybody comes is on Mason's "Feelin' Alright," which is competent. But nothing really lands, and that's particularly galling from a band who seem to think they are saying something profound. And while there are some decent musical touches here and there (most notably the jazzy "No Time to Live"), they once again seemingly can't keep up the needed effort. I've thought my whole life that I loved the psychedelic era, and that the hatred for it in some circles was overblown. Turns out I just hadn't heard enough of the rank and file of the era to understand why it would be tiresome.

"Traffic" is an album very much of its time. It's a good listen but not 'essential' for me. Side one 1 "You Can All Join In" (3/5) 2 "Pearly Queen" (4/5) 3 "Don't Be Sad" (3/5) 4 "Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring" (3/5) 5 "Feelin' Alright?" (3/5) Side two 6 "Vagabond Virgin" (3/5) 7 "Forty Thousand Headmen" (4/5) 8 "Cryin' to Be Heard" (3/5) 9 "No Time to Live" (3/5) 10 "Means to an End" (3/5) Total - 32 Average - 3.2 444/1001 236/444 albums reviewed were new to me.

Not for me. 1/5

An exceptionally 1001 Albums album to be generated last for my group. Self-titled 60s psych rock with a follow-up album called John Barleycorn Must Die? I'm glad it was short and I'm glad I liked it as much as I did.

I suppose it's only fitting that my final album assignment is a meandering British folky rock release that I forgot almost immediately after finishing. Godspeed, 1001lbums. Thanks for a lot, but not for that.

The middest of mid. It's unclear to my why this is on this list outside of a purely historical context. We should shoot most records like this into the sun.

Some good basic ass 60s rock. Way too many songs though.

I was never much of a fan of Traffic. There's a bad pun to add, but I'll restrain myself. I do, however, enjoy much of Steve Winwood's solo output (especially the Arc of a Diver album), for what it's worth. Listening to this record today was fine. There were no standout songs (I much prefer Joe Cocker's version of Feelin' Alright), but no true duds either. This is my third album in a row of choices I will likely forget I'd listened to in a very short time.

Sehr abwechslungsreich allein deshalb schon toll

Helt greit. Inn det ene øret og ut det andre.

I myldret av 60-tallsband, så var dette datidens Maroon 5.

Was just bopping my big head along to the tracks in order, and it felt like a standard folk/rock album for the time. I'd never heard of the band before and figured this was the reason why. Run of the mill, nothing special. I was pretty firmly sitting at a 2. Then "No Time to Live" came on. The song starts off as a slow piano tickler, but just builds into this warm ballad that picks up the pace toward the end. Suddenly this was looking more like a 3. Then things started getting a little weirder, including a song about the fucking mulberry bush that I somehow enjoyed, until "Shanghai Noodle Factory," which is just a fun and funky song about what? I don't know, I assume mushrooms given the time period, but it doesn't really matter. I really did not see a 4 coming after those first few tracks, but the second half of this album gets a little stanky, in a good way. 4/5. Edit: I just found out Shanghai Noon is not on the original album, back down to 3. Oh well

As a fan...If I had to name four Traffic albums you need to hear before you die, this one still wouldn't make the list. "Feelin' Alright?" is a great, great song, but there are plenty of superior covers available, Skip this one and listen to Joe Cocker's "With A Little Help From My Friends" album instead.

You Can All Join In 3.8 Pearly Queen 4 Don't Be Sad 3.7 Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring 3.7 Feelin' Alright? 3.9 Vagabond Virgin 3.3 Forty Thousand Headmen 3.5 Cryin' to Be Heard 3.8 No Time to Live 3.4 Means to an End 3.3 Score: 3.64

prima

A bunch of British whites lacking the soul to execute what a good blues record requires to keep my attention. I’ll give credit where credit is due, feelin alright is a banger and winwood does a fine job arranging the songs, but it’s got nothing else for me (plus I’m pretty sure there is a song about a 13 yr old virgin, fucking boomers man). Just like real life traffic, I ain’t got no time for this. 2.

I really, really like this album. *Traffic* is absolutely steeped in that late-60s British R&B sound that I love so much, sharing a ton of musical DNA with the Kinks, Stones, Who, Cream, and even early Jethro Tull. It's that wonderful period when British rock bands were taking American blues and R&B, mixing in jazz, psychedelia, folk, and whatever else they could get their hands on, and creating something entirely their own. And when Traffic gets it right, they get it really fucking right. What's become pretty clear to me, though, is that I much prefer the Steve Winwood material to the Dave Mason stuff. Songs like "Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring" and "40,000 Headmen" are fantastic. I absolutely love the way these tracks start out so eerie, sparse, and open, almost like the band is feeling its way through the music in real time. There's this loose, freeform quality to the arrangements, with instruments drifting in and out, little musical ideas appearing and disappearing, and then suddenly everything starts to coalesce into these enormous, heavy blues-rock jams. That's the stuff that really gets me going. When they start stretching out into that Cream- or Who-style rock-out territory, with the bass practically playing its own melody, the keyboards doing something completely different, and the drums holding the whole thing together through sheer force of will. There's so much musical conversation happening. Everyone seems to have the freedom to explore their own ideas without losing the thread of the song. It's loose and improvisational, but never aimless. Just truly awesome stuff. And Winwood is such a phenomenal musician. His voice has that soulful, bluesy quality that sounds like it belongs to someone who's been singing in smoky clubs for about forty years, despite the fact that he was barely out of his teens when this album came out. His organ playing is terrific, too. There's something about that Hammond-driven British blues-rock sound that I find almost impossible to resist. It's warm, gritty, occasionally jazzy, and capable of turning even a relatively simple musical idea into something that feels enormous. Now, don't get me wrong, Dave Mason certainly has his moments. "Feelin' Alright?" is an absolute classic and easily his crowning achievement on this record. It's one of those songs with such a naturally great groove and such a timeless melody that it's almost impossible to screw up. There's a reason it became a standard, and the original version more than holds its own. But some of Mason's other material just doesn't work nearly as well for me. "You Can All Join In," "Don't Be Sad," and "Vagabond Virgin" have this distinctly late-60s, almost music-hall sing-along quality that feels a little dated. Campy, maybe. I don't quite want to call it corny, because there's clearly some charm there, but it's definitely not the side of Traffic that interests me most. There's something a little too cheerful, a little too whimsical, a little too self-consciously swinging-Sixties about it. And that's really the interesting contrast on this album. The more whimsical, pop-oriented material feels very much like a product of 1968, whereas the bluesier, jazzier, more exploratory stuff feels practically timeless. You could drop some of those Winwood-led jams into a set by Cream, the Allman Brothers, or any number of great improvisational rock bands, and they'd fit right in. There's an organic quality to that music that doesn't really age. Great musicians locking into a groove, listening to one another, and letting the song develop naturally. That's always going to work for me. I also love how this record captures that moment before the boundaries between rock genres had really hardened. It's psychedelic without necessarily being psychedelic rock, progressive without being prog, jazzy without being jazz-rock, and bluesy without being strictly blues. It feels like a band experimenting with all these different sounds before anybody had figured out what to call them. Sometimes the results are a little uneven, but when everything clicks, it's fantastic. Ultimately, I really enjoyed this record. There's a handful of songs that feel a little trapped in their era, but the highlights are genuinely excellent, and the musicianship is consistently impressive. Give me the spooky, spacious intros, the soulful Winwood vocals, the swirling organ, and those extended blues-rock grooves all day long. 8.1/10. More Winwood, less whimsy.

It's boomer rock. I like the bluesey sound the organ and some of the guitar riffs give. I actually really miss blues in modern music now that I think about it. Other than that, it isn't much to write home about. The riffs are decent, but repetetive, same with the singing. It's fun and upbeat, but nothing that has changed my life.

Nothing bad with this album, pretty decent music (especially the more experimental stuff later). Though there also wasn't anything particularly grabbing or interesting.

A solid album truly reflective of the time period. Starts strong but fades a bit towards the end. Still solid.

Ok, kinda bland.

This is a fine enough album but pales in comparison to their debut. Part of the problem is that Dave Mason only wrote one track on their debut (US version which I am more familiar with) and has half of the songs here. Steve Winwood’s songs are generally stronger. I knew of their debut through Dan, who had it among his limited album collection. It had wild stereo effects of music and voices arcing from one speaker to the other and back again. I did a speech class demo freshman or sophomore year on stereo music and used a track from the album along with others (e.g., The Lovin’ Spoonful’s Daydream and Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love, and something from Rubber Soul or Revolver). Winwood is known mostly for his keyboard work, but he is a very underrated guitar player, IMO.

Nobody: Classic Rock Artists(for some reason): "Fuck the war, and kids". Favorite Track: "No Time To Live".

They should've just been called Pedestrian and called it a day

Generic 60s blues Psychedelia with one song that's well known because Joe Cocker dddidd a better version and another song about under-age sex. Can we just agree that any album with a song about an under age groupie automatically makes it one star?

I really like Traffic, and I guess I really like Steve winwood, which is good because I grew up in the 80s, and Steve winwood of that period was real schlock. The Traffic albums are great. This is probably my least favorite of all the Traffic albums, but still very much worth listening to, in my opinion.

Totally fine 60's rock, but didn't grab me significantly.

I’ve known about this band and definitely heard songs by then but this is the first time sitting down with the album. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. I worried it was another UK blues rock band but this is closer to the Americana sounds like The Band and Grateful Dead which is my preference. I’ll be revisiting this one.

3/5 ⭐️ 266/1081

Fine

Nothing memorable!

Meh. It's nice but I didn't care about it.

This was both better and worse than I was expecting. Not sure how. Solid 3.

Smooth

Pas mal faut que j’ybretourne

Few good tracks, the rest was either forgettable or annoying.

Traffic, die 1967 in Birmingham gegründete englische Band um Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood und Dave Mason, brachte ihr zweites, selbstbetiteltes Album im September 1968 bei Island Records heraus, in den USA über United Artists. Aufgenommen haben sie es in den Olympic Studios in London und, für einige Stücke, im New Yorker Record Plant – produziert von Jimmy Miller, kurz nachdem Mason der Band den Rücken gekehrt hatte und im Frühjahr 1968 zurückgekehrt war. Genrelich sitzt das Album zwischen Folk-Rock und Jazz-Fusion, mit spürbaren psychedelischen Resten aus der Debütphase. Was mich an diesem Album trägt, ist die Reibung zwischen Masons unbeschwerten, songwriterhaften Stücken – "You Can All Join In" wirkt fast wie hingeworfen – und den ausgreifenderen Winwood/Capaldi-Nummern. "Pearly Queen" hat einen fast schon jazzigen Drive, "Forty Thousand Headmen" driftet ins Traumhafte ab. Man hört zwei Bands in einer, und Mason wurde dafür kurz darauf wieder rausgeworfen. "Feelin' Alright?" trägt das Album bis heute, auch wenn Joe Cockers Version ein Jahr später bekannter wurde als das Original. Für mich bleibt aber die Coverversion nicht das bessere Stück – Traffics Fassung hat einen lässigeren Groove, der bei Cocker verlorengeht. Insgesamt eine Band kurz vor dem ersten Bruch, aber musikalisch noch vollständig bei sich. Ein Album, das seine zwei Songwriter nie zu einer Stimme verschmilzt – und genau darin liegt sein Reiz.

This was boring. Feeling alright is cool little groove but the rest. Meh. I know Steve winwood is a legendary guy and all but this record didn’t bring it for me.

It was okay...the only songs I really enjoyed were 'Feelin' All Right' and '40,000 Headman' the rest seemed very vanilla, even considering the 1968 context.

Ça s’écoute bien mais s’oublie vite C’est assez riche en instruments Il a de la puissance mais je pense l’oublier 6/10

A solid album from that era. Nothing life altering, but a good listen

Kind of rock/twangy/folk music I have never heard before. It's pretty good but I can see why it wasn't more popular at the time. Probably not great for a wide audience as it doesn't seem to fit in with anything I have heard from that time. I enjoyed listening to it though.

Didn't like it much

I guess this list really likes Steve Winwood. But seeing as Dave Mason passed away this year, let's give him some credit for writing what's arguably the best tracks on the album: "You Can All Join In," "Don't Be Sad," "Cryin' to Be Heard," and the phenomenal "Feelin' Alright?," which I knew best from Joe Cocker's cover on his debut album. The rest? Eh. Overall, it's a fine, if rather forgettable, listen. I like the use of guitars and organs to create a sort of semi-wall of sound, but a lot of it is ugly white-boy soul and blues, leaving me longing to listen to the real thing. The jazzy arrangements are fine, too. The bonus tracks are completely useless. Normally I'd be generous, but seeing as the Zombies' Odessey & Oracle was given to me yesterday AND also happened to came out in 1968 like this album, you can clearly see what's aged well and what hasn't. This is the stuff from the '60s I think we'd all be happy to forget. 2 stars.

I recognised far more songs on here than I expected to. Middle of the road blues rock with jazz elements. Totally fine and inoffensive. Middle of the road score of 2.5/5

I dug this a lot! Totally forgot they originally did Feelin’ Alright!

3.5 solid prog rock

Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush Medicated Goo

Pearly Queen Feeling’ Alright? No Time to Live

⭐⭐⭐+ Svårbedömt album. Det är ju bra, det svänger och jag gillar mycket men samtidigt är det något som gör att jag inte riktigt faller för det. Kanske att det är lite för snyggt och polerat. Dock kan jag konstatera att jag gillar mest när de är funkiga. Bäst är You can all join in, Feelin' alright, Medicated goo, Shanghai noodle fakctory

Twas alright

I wish I could slap any Brit that has ever picked up a guitar and tried playing a blues riff

On the whole not nearly as cool as their other record on here but “Crying to Be Heard” is a banger.

nice! hobbity flute-forward 60s rock. one of those bands I've heard of a million times but not one I'd ever intentionally listen to without this list

Thought this was pretty good tbh

I liked this a lot, bluesy, poppy, a bit groggy a bit cheesy. Some really nice guitar solos.

not much to say about this one. it is what it is

Um. Well. This is saved from a 2 by the flute and the fact that I did not detect any references to the solstice, the May, Aphrodite, or anything having the odor of Renaissance Fair minstrelsy. Wish they went more prog, actually. Otherwise, what can I say? I don’t like this period in general. It makes me itchy. 3 Boolean: true (I think)

Album of the times. Other than a song which was familiar, very forgettable.

granted i've only skimmed the list, but i think this is one of the only ones where i've never heard of this band or this album in my life lmao did.... did they rip off Pearly Queen for Walk the Dinosaur? well. i mean i like this track because i like Walk the Dinosaur Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush and Am I What Was Or Am I What I Am are kinda cool, there's some prog stuff going on here big jethro tull energy with the flutes on Withering Tree okay Shanghai Noodle Factory is neat. this goes some places i'm gonna be honest this is kinda just going in one ear and out the other. i don't dislike it, but i kinda feel like i've heard 'better' versions of what this is. which is silly because that's not how art works, i realize. i need to hear someone who knows shit about anything talk about this album because i feel like there's stuff i'm not picking up on or something. it's not bad by any means but i feel like i want to read what the book has to say about it. this might be something i'd appreciate better upon multiple listens (lol after the album was over it autoplayed into Rainmaker and i dig this a lot honestly. maybe i should listen to some of their other albums)

If you're playing the flute and harpsichord in your rock album, I can't give you anything less than a 5. Those are the rules.

It was alright. 60s rock, maybe I didnt pay enough attention, but nothing grabbed my attention.

This is so dad rock that I asked my dad if he was a fan of the band back in the day and he said he saw them live in the late 60s. I'm actually surprised I didn't love it to the degree I expected to (I don't really vibe with the lead vocalist's voice) so I'm giving it a 4 instead of a 5 but I do think experiencing them playing together during a concert would be an incredible experience.

I dug it. Solid 60’s album. Sort of psych/prog/rock

p131. 1968. 2 stars. Considering the talent on display, this is a major disappointment. Steve Winwood has a great voice, and musically they are all on point - but there are no decent songs, and it strays into late 60s faux folk-rock whimsy far too often.

I've heard this album 100 times. It just happened to have a different name each time.

So basically the doors but they’re british and also slightly annoying

Started strong, ended more average but a solid album

Sure, why not. The album cover perfectly represents the album. Patchy, everyone doing what they want. A random dude with a cowboy hat. The album is nice. It has good songs. It also has some songs that are so middle of the road it makes me yawn. You Can All Join In, Don’t Be Sad and Crying To Be Heard are so… beige. There are some other songs here i quite enjoy because they are groovy and have some life in them, like Pearly Queen, Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring and Feelin’ Alright - but they are still not great or mind-blowing songs. The last two tracks, No Time to Live and Means to an End attempt to do something interesting and building towards some payoff, but fall flat and end before they can reach a climax. Especially No Time to Live gave me hope for a great track to come. So yeah, Beige - the album.

Such a great era of music.

it was fine but listening felt sooo long

3.5

3.5

Very of its time, and not too exciting. 3 stars

This album is okay. I think Traffic would get a bit more interesting after Dave Mason's departure. Some of the Mason tunes are okay, particularly "Feelin' Alright", but I think Steve Winwood is a more interesting singer in every way. 3 stars.

I like Steve Winwood (mainly 80s Steve Winwood) but this is very middling, very thumb-twiddling. It is quite earthy n hippie sounding and psychedelically adjacent to some of Hendrix music at the time but the main difference is that it is utterly boring. Crying To Be Heard is the closest to a real catchy humdinger song although the chorus gets hammered home and it does become a bit too oppressive in its repetitiveness and dullitude. Beat the Traffic by skipping the car. Maybe put more Scott Walker on the list instead.

Groovy 70s. Nothing to go out of your way for but a good listen.

Outoa menoa mutta tykkäsin kuitenkin. En ois uskonu näin vanhaksi

Ihan tämmöstä lepposaa rokkia, hiukan särmä puuttuu.

Tää ol yllättävän jees ja toimiva tän ikäseks. En siis lähe haukkumaan kaikkee 60-lukulaisuutta, mutta monasti nää aikalaiset on aika paljon pliisumpaa. Toisaalta, kun on ameriikkalaisen kuulosta, mutta sitten kuitenkin ritit tekemässä, niin ehkä se tekee tän TVISTIN. Mennään nyt posipetenä ja skaalan rajotteisuuden takia ylärekisterissä.

Paikkapaikoin ihan tiukkaa cross-over meininkiä, en kyllä yhden kuuntelun perusteella osaisi edes lokeroida tätä varsinaisesti mihinkään genreen. Valitettavasti vaan biisit oli kyllä ihan paskoja ja levy oli liian pitkä.

I think a lot of 60’s albums end up sounding very similar. This one definitely doesn’t

When you listen to this I’ll ask, Feelin’ Alright?

Not bad, but unexciting.

Nunca habia escuchado hablar del grupo, la verdad que es bueno, me gustó bastante