The album offers pure electric blues performed by a superb band. And yet, at the same time, it contains everything I detest about blues: clichéd lyrics, predictable solos, rigid structures. The “Oohs” and “Yeahs” from the audience complete the stereotype. Yes, the album is certainly a role model for many blues (rock) musicians of later years. But I simply can’t relate to this 12-bar blues structure and the “my baby, she left me” lyrics at all. Because I’ve heard it all a thousand times before and it always comes across the same. If you're a Blues fan, this album is a full ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐, but for me, as a Blues skeptic it's barely a ⭐⭐ because I have to give some credit for musical excellence.
Jethro Tull were the last of the big prog bands I discovered for myself. I’d already been familiar with the other big bands – Yes, Genesis, King Crimson and ELP, even Van der Graaf Generator and Gentle Giant – since I was a pre-teen, thanks to my older siblings; I only really got to know Tull in the late 1980s; before that, I’d only heard their hits on the radio. “Aqualung” was the first proper studio album of theirs that I heard, and to this day I find this very distinctive blend of folk rock, blues rock, hard rock and progressive rock utterly captivating. The album also defines the band’s musical framework: acoustic folk numbers, riff-driven hard rock passages, bluesy solos and complexly arranged, unusually structured prog numbers featuring classical and jazz quotes, often with witty, biting lyrics. And although the album sounds hopelessly old-fashioned, it is at the same time timeless, because it has, in any case, fallen out of time since its release.
‘Here Are the Sonics’ is the debut album by American garage rock band The Sonics, released in 1965. It features original tracks such as “The Witch” (a minor regional hit), “Psycho”, “Boss Hoss” and “Strychnine”, as well as covers of rock ’n’ roll and R&B classics, including a very raw version of the Beatles’ “Money”. It's fascinating how many bands remained virtually unknown in the underground scene at the time, only to be discovered by later generations. In a sense, The Sonics anticipated musical styles that would not emerge for another 10–20 years: punk and grunge. It's no surprise that Kurt Cobain was a fan of their music. As someone with little time for grunge and punk, I find this album intriguing in that it shows that the 1960s were much wilder and more diverse than one might assume. However, snotty rock ’n’ roll with a punk attitude ultimately proves too simplistic to entertain me in the long run.
Better than I feared, but not good enough to become a lasting favourite. A few individual tracks work well in a playlist, but over the course of a full album I find it all a little too monotonous.
Leftfield are yet another one of those '90s bands that you either discovered and fell in love with at the time, or simply can't connect with today, because this kind of mind-altering music no longer feels in tune with the times. Or perhaps it's just no longer in tune with my age.
I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, but I’ve always felt that Bowie's mythical status overshadows his actual musical achievements. "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" is a good example of this. While the album is widely regarded as a milestone in rock music, to me it's just average glam rock, sometimes with orchestral accompaniment, featuring songs that try too hard to be edgy. The story of "Ziggy Stardust" seems more important than the music itself. Above all, Bowie’s vocals are simply too theatrical and over the top here. I realise that Ziggy Stardust's stage persona, image and provocatively presented, ambivalent sexuality were a welcome break with convention for young people of that era, offering an alternative to post-war prudery. However, when "Ziggy Stardust" was released, I was only five years old. This album has never held any significance in my personal history; other Bowie albums played a much greater role in my youth. Musically, the album simply leaves me baffled. What’s so great about it? Would it be as well known today if it had been released by other glam rockers, such as Slade or Mott the Hoople? Hardly. Once again, Bowie’s image (or more precisely, Ziggy's stage persona) outshines the music itself. Of all Bowie's overrated albums, this is perhaps the most overrated of all. Sorry folks.
Imagine a cover band that loves playing covers of Queen, T. Rex and AC/DC, hires a boy soprano, and starts composing tracks that sound suspiciously similar to the bands they’ve been covering with such ease for years. Voilà – you’re listening to the debut album "Permission to Land" by The Darkness. When it was released in the early 2000s, it was a huge hit with younger music fans, who thought it was the most brilliant idea since sliced bread. However, if you know anything about music history, the references to mainstream rock in the 1970s are so obvious that they're almost cringe-worthy. It's all very well done and catchy, and Justin Hawkins’ yodelling – sorry, singing – is impressive, but to me it's just old hat. And over the course of a whole album, it's rather tiring and annoying. When I do want to listen to music like this, I prefer the originals.
What sounds in the description like two of the four horsemen of the musical apocalypse – rap and blues (the other two being country and techno... or was it country and reggae?) – is in reality an incredibly dull, remarkably sluggish and lacklustre album. I’ve no idea why this ended up in the ‘1001 Albums’. Is it because of ‘Cold Beverage’, which, according to Wikipedia, became a ‘college radio staple’? What’s next? ‘Popular in Polish sausage adverts’? Dull, just plain dull.
Cheap Trick sound exactly as their name suggests. A cheap rock ’n’ roll trick or, to put it a bit more sexistly: hard rock for little screaming Japanese girls. Because if you strip away the screeching during the concert recording, the flowing manes, the unbuttoned shirts and the bare chests on display, all that’s left is very ordinary boogie rock, somewhere between Status Quo and the Bay City Rollers. Cheesy pop music for teenagers, with electric guitars and simple lyrics about love and heartbreak.
Everything I hate about indie rock in one album. I didn't like the Pixies when all my friends started to listen to this boring post punk crap, I really disliked revisiting them yesterday. Definitely not for me.
At the WOMAD Festival in 1985, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and his ensemble, Party, gave one of their finest performances outside Pakistan. It marked the beginning of one of the most remarkable international careers not only in world music, but in the world of music as a whole.
Qawwali is the devotional music of the Sufis, the mystical tradition within Islam. Its purpose is to elevate the spirit by bringing both performers and listeners closer to God. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was the undisputed master of this art form and, in my opinion, possessed one of the three greatest male voices I have ever heard (the other two being Tim Buckley and Demetrio Stratos).
"Devotional Songs" was one of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's earliest releases on Peter Gabriel's Realworld label. Originally issued alongside "Love Songs", the two albums neatly separate the central themes of Sufism: faith and love. Both are approached through ecstasy, and this music is genuinely ecstatic. It needs no translation to convey its profound spirituality, but also its joy of life, of music, and of love. It speaks a universal language.
Almost thirty years after Khan's death, this music has lost none of its beauty or its power to captivate.
