3 of the all time greatest rock songs (Tuesdays Gone, Free Bird & Simple Man), with some fun filler songs surrounding them albeit a bit cheesy (in a retro 70s way). Top notch musicianship, and production sounds amazing for the age. Enjoyed it, but can only see me revisiting the standout tracks, rather than listen in full.
Amazing energy, vocals, horns and sense of time/place. Infectious, fun and enjoyable, but also mercifully short - not sure I could cope with much more!
Extremely tedious and boring. The spoken-word vocals grated on me - lyrics seemed to matter more than the music - and the all-acoustic background musicianship wasn’t compelling enough to keep my attention, very repetitive with bursts of jarring harmonica. 2 stars for Blowin’ in the Wind and A Hard Rains A-Gunna Fall - maybe you have to be there, or a folk fan, to enjoy the rest.
Good guitar work and vocals, but through modern ears it mostly sounds like a generic classic rock/blues album - cheesy in places, a bit samey, and nothing really stands out. I get that records like this helped create that sound, though. For the record, I’ve never liked Bad Moon Rising.
I used to be the kind of music fan who’d dismiss a band like Coldplay as music for posh picnic crowds at Glastonbury. I couldn’t separate the music - which, secretly, I kind of liked - from the image of the insufferable Chris Martin.
Now, 25 years on, with a bit more maturity and an open mind, I’ve listened to Parachutes in full for the first time, and honestly… it’s kind of lovely. It’s warm, nostalgic, and full of feeling. Yellow instantly takes me back to my college/university days, the video still fresh in the memory. Then there's Don't Panic, Sparks, Trouble - so many wonderful songs, and even the album tracks are solid (even if it does drift a little during the latter half).
It’s an album driven by emotion, with genuinely beautiful melodies throughout.
Mesmeric guitar riffs and that unmistakably smooth tone—nobody plays like Knopfler. Add the gravelly, understated British vocal and it sounds like nothing before or since. The rest of the album drifts by pleasantly, effortlessly listenable, with Sultans of Swing the obvious standout.
I'm sure it's great, but it's jazz, it sounds like jazz, I have no context for this, I'm not sure I enjoyed listening to it, kind of meandering trumpet playing with some bum bum bum walking bass notes, but I'm sure it's great. But really, it could also be the worst jazz album ever and I'd still be non-the-wiser. I'm giving it a 2 for personal enjoyment, it wasn't offensive to my ears, pleasant enough, it could be 1 or a 5 though!
I enjoyed the opening track, but the rest left me frustrated. It feels like a medley of rambling lyrics, folky acoustics you could imagine being played by tie-dye-clad hippies in the ’60s, and the occasional orchestral flourish. There are moments that caught my ear—the Spanish guitars on Maybe the People, for example—but overall it’s a stressful listen on first listen.
Edit: on second listen these tracks are really coming into their own, the rhythm shift in Daily Planet, the foreboding A House in Not a Motel with the awesome guitar work. It loses some momentum with tracks 5/6, before Maybe The People brings you back in with a winning combo of bombastic acoustic rhythms and horns. The closing tracks are a bit too zany.
Definitely one that needs time to enjoy, too much for your brain to handle in one sitting.
A complete surprise - I’d never heard of Emmylou Harris or Red Dirt Girl before. I really enjoyed the sparse, atmospheric production; at times it reminded me of Big Thief, who I’d imagine took some influence from this. The opening track is a definite highlight.
That said, the ponderous tempo doesn’t help, and the 56-minute length combined with several similar-sounding tracks makes the album drag, even though the songs themselves have plenty of interesting instrumentation.
As classic rock goes this is hard to top, just incredibly talented musicians each delivering powerhouse performances in tandem. That BASS! Those VOCALS! The RIFFS, oh and Moby Dick..A few of the best tracks ever.
As per Parachutes last week, it's difficult to not enjoy this album, there are 6 top quality songs here - cinematic, stirring and simple - with strong melodies, and tons of emotion. So there I said it, it's great.
