Man, I remember listening to this when it first released. It was so different from anything else I'd been listening to. Actual synthesizers in a pop band? It was one of the first New Wave/punkish bands to actually seem to write songs that you would hear on the radio. And radio itself played it, which set the stage for them to open up their formats a little.
51 years later, this is still as awe inspiring as it was in 1973. Iggy and the Stooges were on a mission to take rock to new scary and rebellious places, and this was a typical grenade of glitter and bong resin thrown over the walls of pop music.
Timeless and beautiful music.
This holds up extremely well compared to most of their contemporaries from the era. Although it's mostly mournful and sad sounding, it still captures them at one of their creative peaks (IMHO).
It's hard to tell what year this is from, and I mean that as a high complement. It defies any categorization by era or genre. Wonderful stuff.
Now THIS is why I signed up for this. Music I've never heard from a band I was only vaguely aware of, and I'm absolutely loving it.
Well, it had to happen, I got an album by a group that I've just never gotten into that much. The Flaming Lips are certainly talented enough and have pretty good songs, but to me they try way too hard to be quirky and Beatles-esque. With that said, I wouldn't change the station if this came on the radio, but I wouldn't seek it out or buy it either.
This is like Talking Heads during the Remain In Light phase, only happy and fun. I never listened to this when it was new, I think I need to rectify that.
This one doesn't really do anything for me. It's trying just a little too hard to be clever I guess.
I can't figure out what it is, but something about this sounds so Australian... the imagery of the lyrics, the music. I really like it, but sometimes it's just too bleak to listen to. But when the mood strikes, it's great stuff.
Who would have thought that a jazzmaster could make that much noise? Seriously though it sounded like nothing else I'd ever heard at the time, I'll always have a soft spot for it.
It's not just about the music, it's also the lyrics that make Leonard Cohen's music stand out. Was he a poet who also wrote music or a musician who also wrote poetry? The answer is both of course.
I never listened to the Byrds when I was growing up and they were active, but I'm glad to get a chance to make up for that now. A beautiful mix of psychedelia, jazz and country, and holy crap, that twang! Music like this is one of the reasons I've always been a huge fan of Rickenbackers, Telecasters, and Danelectros. A perfect late 60's time capsule.
It's smooth rollin' and laid back musically, but firm, confident and strong lyrically. That west coast hip-hop sound that is one of the few styles I really like of that genre. Has it really been almost 30 years now? Damn.
It's like Our Gang meets painfully ironic ennui. Trying way too hard to be clever and original and not really pulling it off for me. Maybe a third of these songs I'd want to hear again, but not for a while.
Peak Stones. They were a force of nature in the late '60s & early '70s. If you were alive when this was new, you didn't really have to buy it right away as all of the AOR stations ended up playing EVERYTHING from it on the air. Of course, "Gimme Shelter" is the huge track for me. It says something about how incredible this whole album is that they could open with this and keep the same amazing quality and momentum for the rest of it.
Meh. Pretty generic '90s alt-crunch for the most part. I still kind of like "Connection", but then I liked it when Wire did it first. One of those albums I bought based on one song and found out that's pretty much the only decent thing on it.
Another record that blew me away in '78 when I first heard it (although the next album "Duty Now For The Future" was actually the first Devo album I ever heard). Yet another record that subverted all expectations, and signaled a whole new type of music. How could I not give it 5 stars?
This is the kind of contemplative songwriting that you listen to, and it makes you want to go do something about whatever problems you have like the songwriter is singing about...anything as long as you don't have to listen to the songwriter complain anymore. It's very pretty and gentle, and just so damn depressing. So yeah, the whole singer/songwriter genre runs the risk of that, and that's why it's one genre that I just can't get into.
Well, it is what it says it is. Unobtrusive in the background, somewhat interesting if you listen to it. Repetitive in a non-annoying way. I bought this when it first came out expecting something more experimental. It actually is for its time, but just not in the way I was expecting I guess. Other than if you actually work in an airport, I suppose there are lots of scenarios that you could have this playing in the background. It would be decent studying or relaxing music I guess.
It has a few interesting starts, but pretty much falls back into '90s alt-nu-metal meh for most songs. "Drive" is a decent song with the only issue being the pointless DJ noodling that gets into a lot of the other music. I think they got better by the time of Light Grenades, this was a good step in that direction.
Very lovely '70s soul and jazz feel to the music. Slow and intimate. The lyrics of course stand out. They tell stories, it's easy to see how Scott-Heron is regarded as a major influence on hip-hop.
Wonderful stuff. Not only a great introduction to African musical styles, but important in that it helped break down cultural barriers around South Africa that kept the world in the dark about native South African culture as well as helped the apartheid government hide. I remember the controversy of Simon working with African musicians during the boycott of SA culture, and the musicians themselves taking Simon's defense. This is an important cultural touchstone, just one that you can dance to.
Beautiful guitar interplay and vocals. Another album/musician on buy list, thanks to this site. :-)
Of course at my age I've heard all of the classic Beatles songs more times than I can remember. What's nice about listening to individual albums like this all the way through is rediscovering the tracks that aren't played to death on the radio. And realizing just what excellent musicians and songwriters these guys were/are.
Well of course I've heard it a million times since it came out when I was a kid. But like with many other albums on this list, I haven't listened to it for a while. This album holds up amazingly well for it's age. The cleaned up production helps, but you have to give credit to the band members themselves. Great musicianship ( that remastering lets me hear properly for the first time ), songwriting, and they're all at the top of their game here. The album that helped launch a whole genre of music.
When it first started playing, I thought it was yet more 90's-ish blah rock. But sticking with it, they do have some really good songs and production. Saving for further listening.
Years after it's release, I still can't listen to "Money For Nothing" since it was played ad nauseam for years. The less well known songs on here are actually pretty good, but they almost seem like they're from another band/album alongside the bigger hit songs here.
Very cool stuff. Poppy punkish music with vintagey synths mixed in. Like if the Talking Heads went to trade school instead of art school. Instead of boring you with discussions about polyrhythms, they'd be tagging your house with cool graffiti while you're busy dancing.
I love finding new music and artists through this site. And I also love this type of scenario, becoming reacquainted with and artist/album that I absolutely loved when I first found them/it. In 1978 I was deeply into the standard classic rock of the day (Zep, Boston, Aerosmith, etc) and I was also exploring the newly emerging punk and electronic sounds in the background of the music world of the day. Along with Kraftwerk, Dire Straits absolutely blew me away with how different it was from anything I'd ever heard up to then. Of course I found out later about the music and artists that influenced Mark Knopfler, but for the longest time I couldn't listen to anything else, this album was as fresh and different as Duty Now For the Future, Autobahn, and Never Mind the Bollocks to me.
RIP D Boon, we'll keep the lights on and the music loud for you.
Pretty cool stuff. I hear lots of Mod influence (I think anyway). Definitely going to listen a few times.
Guitars? In my synth-pop? What is the world coming to? I was actually a pretty big Depeche Mode fan back in the '80s, but this album is a perfect example of why I fell out of love with them. The addition of guitars on a few tracks definitely added something to the music, but overall, they just started, IMHO, to take themselves too damn seriously. Compare an album like Black Celebration, which used engine sounds and songs about Princess Diana's new dress to make it interesting, to Violator's seeming attempt to be super serious Gloomy Gus rock stars. They stopped exploring using synths to make something at least a little interesting and different, and just tried to be the synthetic Rolling Stones. Meh. At least Vince Clarke had the sense to get out and keep making fun interesting music with Yaz and Erasure.
Wow. An album and a band I heard of in the '80s, but never really heard. But absolutely incredible songwriting, Paddy McAloon's reputation is well deserved. The bonus acoustic versions on the 2007 remastered version are a 5 star album on their own. Classic stuff, and other than the occasional synth frill from producer Thomas Dolby, this could be from any era, it's that timeless.
I almost don't even have to listen to it, these songs are all burnt into my memory from constant listening to all of their albums back in the '70s and '80s. A genuine cultural touchstone with a leather jacket and a sneer. At the time, this was truly revolutionary stuff, and it threw the doors open for the whole punk rock scene that followed. Nothing makes me feel quite as mortal and old as the fact that they're all gone now (the original 4 anyway). This would be an excellent desert island disc, but the volume and energy would reach any ships passing by, and they'd offer to rescue you if you'd just turn that damn noise down. :-)
Not an album I'd paid attention to before. But that will have to change; Recorded in the middle of changes within the band (Gene Clark is back, David Crosby is out) and without (one of the first recorded uses of the Moog Modular synthsizer), and featuring their first work with Clarence White. It still sounds very much like a Byrds album though. Some bits of pedal steel (and of course Clarence White's guitar work in spots) foreshadow Sweethearts of the Rodeo, so this album is kind of a bridge sylistically. This will definitely get repeat listens.
OK, I get it. You know cuss words and you don't care what other people think. Yawn. Actually, the music and instrumentation is fairly clever, and his vocal delivery is definitely original for the time. It's not as bad as I would have thought it would be 26 years ago when it came out. In fact, I do kind of like it, I just don't have time for the canned controversy about the language and subject matter of the lyrics. And BTW, whatever happened to Dido?
