I was listening to Western Stars last night, the greatest album Jimmy Webb and Glen Campbell never made. Seriously, though, I think it doesn’t get the recognition it deserves as not just Springsteen’s best record since his seventies and eighties heyday, but one of his best ever. Perhaps it’s because it doesn’t sound like an E Street Band record (even Nebraska sounded like an acoustic version of an E Street Band record). Anyway, “Sundown” is possibly my favourite song, but then it might be “There Goes My Miracle”, or the title track, or…
Tag Archives: Bruce Springsteen
75 Years of the Album: 32. 1980
Into the eighties we go, and another selection of some of the albums I think were the most important over the last 75 years.
If the 1980s were the decade of electronic music, especially in the pop sphere, then they couldn’t have had a better start than this bleak, stripped down masterpiece. The songs have hooks galore, but the atmosphere is austere, mechanical and dystopian. There is no warm glow of humanity, just metal, wires, and blinding light.
Three Mantras was awash with disinformation. There were, for a start, just two of them: an eastern and a western. It was marketed as an EP, but had a run time of forty minutes. It was also one of the trio’s (as they were then) finest achievements, predicting the cultural clash between the Islamic and Judaeo-Christian worlds very quickly after the seizing of power in Iran by the Ayatollahs. Voice of America was a more traditional nine track affair, with its sights firmly set on fundamentalism of a different stripe.
Politically engaged in a direct way for the first time (see “Biko”), this is still one of Peter Gabriel’s most satisfying records. It was the record where Gabriel, guest drummer Phil Collins and engineer Hugh Padgham came up with the gated drum sound that would go on to dominate the decade. “Intruder” was the first. Collins was so pleased with the result that he used the sound on his first solo single “In the Air Tonight”, and the rest is history.
Two very different aspects of British reggae. London’s Misty in Roots were the more spiritual in their music, but as political in their actions. People Unite was a Southall based collective that gave the Ruts their first break, and was on the frontline in the street confrontation between black and Asian youth and their allies on the one hand, and the National Front and their implicit supporters at the Met on the other. Member Clarence Baker was severely beaten by the Special Patrol Group in 1979. You just had to put up with that sort of thing then. UB40 were a multi-racial outfit from Birmingham. The songs were much more explicitly political, even though the music had a tendency towards the soporific at times. Signing Off is their best album, a long way from the insipid pop-reggae covers band they’d become.
Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” is all over the opener “I Travel”, but it was good that some old punks were listening. The track was the making of Simple Minds who had already released two decent albums of Bowie inspired, angular pop. The rest of the album is not as frantic, but there’s a unifying sense of purpose behind it that they lacked before, even if the central European themes (see also Ultravox’s Vienna) were already a bit hackneyed.
The California-based avant-pranksters’ bid at pop stardom? Not quite. The Commercial Album is in a lot of ways the Residents most accessible work. Especially since that if you don’t like a tune, another one will be a long in a minute. Literally. These were commercial tunes in as much as they were a length that made them suitable for advertising. Each of the forty tracks is one minute long. It’s actually quite a discipline composing something memorable and engaging that only lasts a minute.
With Eno fully on board as an unofficial fifth member, Talking Heads’ masterpiece is split between a side of three Afro-funk workouts and a side of more focussed, but highly varied rock and pop. “Once in a Lifetime” was the earworm, but “Listening Wind” is probably the highlight, whilst “Overload” takes the band into Joy Division drone territory.
This is possibly my favourite Springsteen album, although I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily the best. It is probably the most representative. There are throwaway, good-time rockers, pop gems, blistering rock and roll, sombre tales of life’s darker side, and moments of existential despair. In other words, all of life is here. It’s not that surprising that Springsteen toured it, in full, extensively a few years ago. It has all the ups and downs, highs and lows, thrills and spills of a live set without any tweaking.
Joy Division’s Closer is probably my album of the year, but I covered them in ‘79. Buggles followed the brilliant “Video Killed the Radio Star” with The Age of Plastic, a great synth-pop album that sounds way ahead of its time. Orchestral Manouevres in the Dark struck twice with their self-titled debut and its follow-up Organisation. Synths were prominent on Magazine’s Correct Use of Soap, Japan’s Gentlemen Take Polaroids, Yello’s Soild Pleasure, and the master himself David Bowie whose Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) restored him fully to commercial favour after the slightly left-field excursions of the Berlin trilogy. Laurie Spiegel’s The Expanding Universe was a neglected masterpiece of early electronica. It’s far better known now than it was at the time. Colossal Youth by Young Marble Giants brought a calm minimalism that would prove influential. The Jam had another winner with Sound Affects, and the Clash splurged out with the triple Sandinista which everyone agrees would have made a stunning single album, but nobody agrees on what would be left off to make that theoretical classic. Finally AC/DC shook off the tragic loss of Bon Scott with one of the biggest selling rock albums of all time, Back in Black, and Dead Kennedys made the definitive American punk statement with Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables.
75 Years of the Album: 27. 1975
1975 was a pretty good year for albums, in fact one of the best. So without further ado…
They get lumped in with the pub rock crowd, but Wilko-era Dr Feelgood, like their fellow Essexers Eddie and the Hot Rods, had none of the country-rock influences. This is raw, hard rhythm and blues, but with all the guitar-god wankery stripped away. Like punks who could play. When it comes down to riffs, Wilko Johnson was up there with Keith Richards and Malcolm Young (see “Roxette” for example). The second album is more covers-heavy, and hence not as strong, but both pack a punch.
These are the two albums where Scott-Heron and Jackson really created something that was an indivisible whole, rather than the poetry on one side of the table, and the music on the other. You get the best of both worlds: a melodic soul-jazz groove that’s eminently danceable, and some of Gil’s most memorable, and expansive songs.
Dylan’s most personal album, to be sure. But without doubt it is one of his very best, too. Later in ’75 Columbia issued The Basement Tapes, Dylan and The Band’s jam sessions at Woodstock in 1967. The best version is the 2014 Bootleg Series reissue, although I’d argue you don’t need the six disc set – all of the best tunes are on the double CD The Basement Tapes Raw.
Jazz-funk’s ultimate statement. If you associate the term with Level 42 and Shakatak, then you’ll be very pleasantly surprised by this set. It’s very light and loose, almost smooth jazz in places, but consistently interesting and funky.
Even if it didn’t include “When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease” this would be a great album. But it does, and that makes it exceptional. That Harper never got beyond cult status is one of those unfathomable things. Maybe his songs are just too good. A decent box set is long overdue.
Beyond Johnny Cash and the Carter Family there isn’t a great deal of country music that I play. It’s too hidebound by it’s own self-imposed parameters, and of course there is the Republican redneck undercurrent to a lot of it. But then there’s Waylon and Willie, Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt and I have to re-examine my own prejudices. These two albums, in particular, are flawless. Red Headed Stranger has the plot of a western, but the killer is never judged save by himself. The covers fit into the story like they were written for it. Old No.1 is another set of timeless songs. It’s the sort of album Tom Waits might have made had he grown up in East Texas.
This is one of those records where I know every note, and yet it never feels worn or tired. For some its romantic optimism and complete lack of cynicism mark against it when compared to, say Nebraska. But there is nothing wrong with being a romantic optimist.
There are various versions of both this and the flip “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet”, but these are the first on record. The looped recording of the homeless man in London on “Jesus’ Blood” is incredibly powerful. How can a man in his desperate position remain so convinced that his faith has not failed him? It’s the sort of thing that even shakes the cynicism of a die-hard atheist like me. “Titanic” also features a hymn, “Autumn”, and is another tribute to unshakeable determination, and how Wallace Hartley and his band remained at post, playing as the ship sank. What gave them the strength to do that?
There are an awful lot of recordings of Keith Jarrett’s solo piano concerts out there, and I’ll confess right now that this is the only one I have. Whether it is really the best of them or not is something I’ll have to leave to wiser heads. But it is an exemplary piece of improvisation. At no point does it feel like homework listening to it. It’s almost as if you are listening to composition happening in real time.
I can’t imagine what this sounded like for the first time in 1975. There are elements of Dylan to it, of course, and elements of sixties garage rock (band member Lenny Kaye compiled the legendary Nuggets compilation in 1972), but the whole structure of it is completely unique. Only “Elegy” has the resonance of a traditional piano ballad. “Land” is just an extraordinary creation.
The second half of the seventies was the golden era for Jamaican roots reggae, and this is one of the finest albums of the time. It has to be said that a lot of Rastafarian reggae acts aren’t particularly strong lyrically, which is surprising when there is a clear message to be delivered. Winston Rodney, though, is a clever and well-informed wordsmith. In addition to the title tracks, “Slavery Days” is a particular highlight.
A bumper batch of fourteen, but 1975 was such an incredibly strong year for albums that I’ve not found room for a whole raft of classics. Although neither record is quite as good as their first, both Hokey Pokey and Pour Down Like Silver (both Island) are formidable Richard and Linda Thompson albums. Richard’s old band Fairport was briefly rejuvenated by Sandy Denny’s return. Her songs on Rising for the Moon (Island) are in a different league to the others’ which makes it a bit uneven. Tangerine Dream were in peak form on Rubycon and the live album Ricochet (both Virgin). Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother reconvened for Neu! 75 (Brain). Although it’s pretty much a side of Dinger and a side of Rother it’s consistently superb. After Autobahn, Kraftwerk’s Radioactivity (Capitol) is a transitional beast that straddles the techno-pop of the future, and the avant-garde soundscapes of the past. Neil Young released two splendid albums in ‘75: the loose, nihilistic Tonight’s the Night, and the more accessible Zuma (both Reprise). Little Feat’s Last Record Album (Warner Brothers) wasn’t, but it was arguably their last great one. The same can be said of Curtis Mayfield’s angry There’s No Place Like America Today (Curtom). Tom Waits’ distinctive growl was unveiled for the first time on the live-in-the-studio set of lowlife and bar life Nighthawks at the Diner (Asylum). Bob Marley and the Wailers finally found a mainstream audience with Live! (Island), as did, after years of plugging away hopefully, Fleetwood Mac (Reprise) whose self-titled album with added Buckingham and Nicks laid the groundwork for Rumours. Joni Mitchell’s The Hissing of Summer Lawns (Asylum) saw her stretching out further towards jazz. Finally Brian Eno’s Another Green World (Island) was a brilliant exhibit of all facets of his work, and his Discreet Music (Obscure) invented ambient (discuss).
Song of the day: SAM COOKE – Meet Me At Mary’s Place (1964)
Springsteen fans might find this tune familiar. His song “Mary’s Place” on The Rising owes more than a little to this 1964 Sam Cooke track, particularly the chorus. “Meet Me At Mary’s Place” is taken at a more leisurely tempo than the Springsteen tune, being little more than a joyful chug. In fact whenever I play it, it always seems a lot slower than the version I sing in my head. It’s basically a song about partying, about a weary, overworked, stressed guy whose pal implores him to get down to Mary’s and forget about all that shit and have a ball. The theme that music, dancing, good company and a good time can compensate for a hard and troubled life was a central one to all blues based music from the plantation dances to disco and beyond. This song is as good as any at conveying that.
Springsteen’s album was seen at the time as a work heavily influenced by the attacks on the World Trade Centre in 2001. His “Mary’s Place” takes the same theme of the comfort to be had in the company of friends and the familiar, where you can party and temporarily forget the madness of the outside world. It’s a bigger song in every way to Cooke’s, but Sam’s seems a little less troubled underneath. Despite the depravations of a period when racism was the norm rather than the exception, and the madness of the Cuban Missile Crisis was only a few months in the past, they still seem more innocent times.
Music Musings and Miscellany 