Year of the Cat

Ahhhh...now this takes me back to the long hot summer of '76 cruising down to Cornwall with the window open. A beautifully crafted 70s album (Alan Parsons) with great guitar and saxophone solos. Lovely listening.

Well Al Stewart certainly deserves a spot on a list like this. I love the songs “Year of the Cat” and “The Border” - fantastic songs - but had never listened to this. There’s a lot more great stuff on here! In particular, “Flying Sorcery” and “One Stage Before” are already in my musical rotation giving me something “new” to listen to from Al Stewart. There’s a lot of great gold left to mine yesterday’s LPs!

Al Stewart seems like the kind of musician that had a much larger influence in the UK than anywhere else. I’ve never heard of him prior to this but his melodies are pretty standard soft rock that resemble Paul McCartney, Bowie, and Elton John but lack the ability to write classics. Stewart is a good artist but he just gets overshadowed by the more popular artists of his time. 6.5/10

Nice and happy pop/rock album from the 70s. Of course Year of the Cat and On the Border are great songs. The other songs are also not that bad. All in all a pleasant listen, but not something I would put on again (apart from the two classic tracks).

I feel like I'm almost always turned off by overly-wordy/lyrically dense music but goddamn if this record doesn't bring back some massive childhood flashbacks. Something about Al's rather twee voice (very Pet Shop Boys...?) makes it weirdly less-annoying for me (also it just fits the material perfectly) so as to be able to focus on the lush music behind it. Always loved that they saved the killer title track for the end. Not much to say about that one other than it's perfection and one of the true classic pop/rock songs of all-time; grew up as a little kid hearing that (long!) song on the radio constantly. I do love this album - it plays out like a movie and really needs to be heard all at once. Killer production/mix, too (Alan Parsons!). Caveat: I'm not sure how well this does/will translate to younger/unfamiliar listeners though; I'm definitely listening a lot through a nostalgic lens and objectively even if I do love it it is pretty old-timey in song construction. Anyways for me it's a perfect addition; couldn't believe it wasn't in the original 1001. 9/10 5 stars.

July 18, 2025 HL: "Lord Grenville", "If It Doesn't Come Naturally, Leave It", "One Stage Before", title track Al Stewart is kind of like if Neil Tennant from the Pet Shop Boys was born 10 yrs earlier and played soft rock. Al Stewart's hits on the radio (mainly "Time Passages") didn't click with me like other "old gold" singer/songwriters like Cat 🐱 Stevens or Jackson Browne, but Year of the Cat 🐱 is a pleasant way to spend an hour. Cat 🐱

Probably because I have no nostalgia for him, nor am I British, but I was mostly unimpressed. It's an album style I've heard a thousand times. 2.5/5 but rounding down since there are 3 star albums I like way more.

Never heard of this before, but big Bowie/Elton John vibes. I like it. 4/5. Update towards the end: this is fantastic. No idea how I'd never heard of it before. 5/5.

Never heard of this album. Never heard of this musician. This is amazing. Thanks for the recommendation.

Rating: 8/10 Best songs: On the border, If it doesn't come naturally leave it, Broadway hotel, Year of the cat

This was a really enjoyable listen. There's so much to like here, and that title track is a pure delight. I just want to play that song on a loop all day. Melodic, richly produced arrangements that are mildly proggy, but still have an easygoing vibe. That's actually a hard balance to pull off, which Al Stewart/Alan Parsons manage beautifully. I can point to several artists Stewart reminds me of (Elton John obviously, also George Harrison and even some early Steely Dan), but Stewart also brings a lot of his personality to these songs as well. My main critique would be that Stewart lacks much in the way of lyrical nuance, but he really makes the most of the material here. Fave Songs: Year of the Cat, One Stage Before, Lord Grenville, On the Border, Broadway Hotel, Midas Shadow

Never heard of Al Stewart before and really enjoyed this. At first I thought it was just another 70s album riffing on The Beatles, Bowie and Elton… and it basically is, but it does it really well. Great hooks and some real theatricality and character to the songwriting

Never heard of the album or the guy, but I loved it. Simple but lovely folk pop with unique songwriting and production. The title track hits hard, what a tune. Strong 4/5.

The good part of people submitting less familiar albums is discovering great music I was unaware of! Lovely 70s music

Shockingly pleasant and perfectly epic in its execution and production. Just a couple more tracks like the opener to replace the less exciting stuff and this could truly be an all time great, but it's still very good and explains why I see it in every record store in America.

Al Stewart always seems to be written off as an effective "One-Hit Wonder" (not true, he had several hits), but I find his voice and musical style rather soothing. Gentle enough that it slips into the background, but it doesn't get lost. An enjoyable album.

Never heard of this guy, but he had Bowie vibes. Pretty great album!

Intressant album. Det är som en enda lång berättelse. Flera fina låtar.

He’s got a voice that would fit right in with the post punk era, though it isn’t annoying like most of those other twats. The production of Mr. Parsons is fabulous and, combined with the vocals, makes for a unique sound. Lyrically, it tells its story with both effectiveness and beauty. Not always an easy combo to manage. Songwriting and instrumentation are equally brilliant. I’d never heard of this or Mr. Stewart so I’m pleased with the submission. Great stuff. Fantastic outro. 4/5

It's alright, I just can't get past his voice for some reason. It's always bugged me. 3 stars.

Cheerful

David Bowie core

Love the title track, though the rest of the album is just pleasant moody soft rock, that isn't quite as compelling or engaging.

feather light melodies. painfully british.

It came from Abbey Road

An ok listen. Nothing fancy, nothing to get annoyed about.

4 3

I enjoyed this but the style does feel very dated. Some things survive and they just feel timeless, other things hold up but more as museum pieces, and this seems trending to the latter side to me. I also kind of spent the whole time trying to decide if the lyrics were really saying all that much or were just very artfully constructed. On the whole positive though.

Was okay. Nothing too exciting

"nice"

Good enough.

Rock, soft rock, progressive pop. Ni fu ni fa.

This is another one of those albums that is fine, but also very much not for me. The music is good. I don't love his voice, but I wouldn't consider it a distinct negative either. I just didn't really get into the songs at all 3/5

Year of the Cat is a bit twee but fairly enjoyable in a laid back way. I liked On The Border early on and the title track late on, a middling high 2/5 is fine here, probably 3 because it was never bad or annoying. Just fine.

Well produced but slightly wishy-washy nice English folk album.

Meh. It's pretty run of the mill 70s-era soft rock. There are dozens of these albums that exist out there. My personal rating: 3/5 My rating relative to the list: 3/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No.

Good 70’s album, worth a listen, but not sure I’d rate it higher than the other classics from the era.

Sounds even older than it is; catchy songs, well sung; the wee "story of the songs" interview at the end (of the remaster) was cool, even if he sounded like an old school transatlantic 'Smashie & Nicey' style radio DJ; contains possibly the only song about an Elizabethan privateer

Not bad for what it is, which is mid-70s singer/songwriter soft rock. Just not my thing.

Thoroughly almost aggressively pleasant.

Not bad, but after 1100 albums, it sounds quite generic. It's possible to be a pleasant generic singer-songwriter, but it deserves a 3-star rating at maximum.

This I actually thought was very peaceful and nice. I think it needed a little more something, but I was a big fan and parts were very beautiful.

Good but a little too slight and nice.

What is it? Some sort of *No-Other*-era-adjacent Gene Clark, only more streamlined and -- at the time -- more successful? As some other perceptive reviewer noted, the Al Stewart also sounds like Neil Tennant -- but one that would have hit the charts in the seventies, only interested in the pop rock of that era instead of electronic music. I have a sneaking suspicion this soft-rock album is actually as good as quite a few other obscure ones from those same mid-seventies years. Jackson Browne comes to mind, here. But no way he can be the only example. I'm currently waiting in the emergency ward for some health scare that I hope will turn up minor. I know I'm gonna wait for another hour or so to see yet another doctor... and I feel old, you know. Truth be told, I probably feel as old as this particular album sounds today. To put it in a nutshell, it's hard for me to find those songs relevant or even catchy, as much as I like music from that era. Is it the whitish walls of those hospital corridors, like a visual version of those aseptic synths in "On The Border" -- otherwise a pretty good song??? Or is it because of a more general lack of warmth, maybe enhanced by my current surroundings? Like, "Sand In Your Shoes" is for me a mere spoof of a Bob Dylan song, and as such, it tastes like a hospital meal on a tray -- a long shot from a real dish cooked in a real Zimmerman restaurant. Likewise, the music in "Midas Touch" comes off as equally bland. Just like those goddamn corridor walls... The second side fares a little better, going back to the quality level of the opener "Lord Grenville". "If It Doesn't Come More Naturally, Leave It" is quite OK. "Flying Sorcery" is a little insignificant, but that unhinged violin at the end of "Broadway Hotel" is a thing of wonder. The synth bass on "One Stage Before" sounds deep, and its final guitar solo takes flight in rather admirable ways. As for the string sections on the title track, they bring a lot of emotions on the table, just as those short guitar and saxophone solos do. So when you focus on the details, *Year Of The Cat* paints a nice picture. But if you zoom out to look at the bigger one (mainly the overall quality and memorability of the songs), something gets lost in translation for me. In a sense, the arrangements take center stage, not the vocal melodies -- in spite of how astute most of the lyrics are. And as those arrangements take center stage, I kind of lose the actual chord sequences that are used. Just as I lose the songs per se, failing to leave an imprint on my memory. The doctor has not arrived yet. Listing the features of this record had occupied my mind for a while but there was no joy in this exercise. It feels like I've checked through a list of symptoms when I wrote about this album, just like that first doctor did when I entered the ER. I didn't "feel" this album, sorry. And chances are I won't return to it. Maybe that's unfair to Al Stewart. But his record popped up on a bad day, and I'm only human. Still wish I could review several albums at once to find or discover the ones I really love in this users list. Life's too short to watch whitish walls peeling off in front of you. That's what I'm gonna remember from today's suggestion. Hope you can relate to the idea, even if you don't agree with my personal take about this particular LP. 3/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums. 8/10 for more general purposes (5 + 3) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 64 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 82 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 152 (including this one) ---- Emile... Ma propre balise temporelle... Tu trouveras mes trois dernières réponses sous les albums d'Eric B. & Rakim, Shpongle et Ookla The Mok

It sounds like Kermit the Frog trying to sound more like a human and drop a 70s album. Not for me but maybe for frogs?

It's a 3 stars album, but since you have a track of commentary you lost a star...

There’s the sense of a strong songwriting effort attempting to break through here, but from a modern perspective it’s hampered by the sonic trappings of the past. Found myself questioning whether this was a lost Bowie B-sides album at points, as the LP just can’t clear a defined path for itself.

It was fine

Eltonish.

man whatever the hell that was.

Ultimate dad rock. 1 star pretty unlistenable.