1001 Albums Summary

I knew Deep Purple for Smoke on the Water - the tune every kid knows when learning the guitar. It's a classic and it pigeon-holed the band to a certain sound in my head. This album expanded my understanding of the band a lot. While a fairly hard band, sort of metal, sort of hard rock, the progressive rock element was also highlighted. At times it could have been Emerson, Lake and Palmer that thought I was listening to, other times, the lilt of the voice and riffs reminded me of Spinal Tap. The long drum solo was lost a bit without being able to see it. As far as live albums go, it seemed to capture the band well for the true fan, but as a casual listener to their genre, I will check this one of the list and probably not revisit it again.

This fourth album from Springsteen is gritty and melancholy. A few tunes are more up beat like Candy's Room. Yet a tune called Racing In the Street which sounds like it would be up tempo is as melancholy as any. The band is tight, this is the classic E Street Band line-up; Steve Van Zandt on guitar well before he got into acting on The Sopranos; Max Weinberg on drums before he became Conan O'Brien's band leader for 17 years, and Clarence Clemons on sax who is only featured a few times here. The album stands the test of time which many from 1978 don't during an era of music defined by disco. Springsteen is the working class American singer-songwriter and here he defines and refines that role. If albums could be B-sides, this one would be perfect.

This album features airy, guitar-driven pop tunes from early 90’s Brits. The tunes get lost from one to the next but maybe after several listens that would change. Not bad but nothing that makes my ears perk up. I had never heard of this band; they got a short burst of fame in UK before their time was up. I don’t even know what the name of the band means. Ok I just looked it up. Auteur is a filmmaker whose personal influence and artistic control over a movie are so great that the filmmaker is regarded as the author of the movie.