75 Years of the Album: 26. 1974

1974 saw an IRA mainland bombing campaign, the three-day-week, an oil crisis, inflation and recessions. But there were also some good records out.

Brian Eno – Here Come the Warm Jets (Island February) / Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) (Island November).

Eno began his post-Roxy career with a brace of records of brilliantly skewed rock music that straddled glam, prog, the avant-garde and his own weird take on pop. Lyrically there was plenty of oddball Dada-esque ramblings, but the music (especially on the second record) was muscular. Only “On some faraway beach” and “Taking Tiger Mountain” itself were their hints of his ambient direction.

Tangerine Dream – Phaedra (Virgin April).

Tangerine Dream signed to Virgin, jettisoned some of their more extreme spaced out tendencies in favour of burbling sequencer riffs, and pretty much defined their sound. They also bagged a surprising top twenty album. Its possibly the definitive Tangerine Dream album, although Rubycon (1975) hones their sound even more. Cluster’s Moebius and Roedelius teamed up with Michael Rother of Neu! to create Harmonia. Musik from Harmonia (Brain) is the best of their records. Can’s Soon Over Babaluma (United Artists) was the last of the classic United Artists Can records. The move to Virgin in ‘75 began their decline. And Tangerine Dream leader Edgar Froese’s solo album Aqua (Virgin) is one to hear.

Blue Oyster Cult – Secret Treaties (Columbia April).

Eight tracks of perfect rock from the connoisseur’s metal band. Having Richard Meltzer, Sandy Pearlman and Patti Smith write the lyrics meant that there is an intellectual bent to the band lacking in any of their peers (with the exception of Hawkwind). And Secret Treaties has some of their very best tunes, such as “Career of evil”, “Flaming telepaths” and “Astronomy”.

Richard and Linda Thompson – I Want to See The Bright Lights Tonight (Island April).

April ‘74 was a pretty good month for albums. Richard Thompson and Linda Peters married in 1972, and this was their first (and best) record together. It’s also one of Richard’s darkest set of songs, with “End of the rainbow” giving a particularly bleak view of life. There are brighter points (the title track, for instance), and “The Great Valerio” sees the world pushed away in a dream-like concentration on the art of a tightrope walker. It reminds me of the Blue Nile’s “Easter Parade” in the way that a scene of excitement and celebration can be frozen into something so still.

Neil Young – On The Beach (Reprise July).

Harvest this definitely isn’t, and the sixties dream dissolves into a post-Nixon fug of alienation. The mood is sombre – almost more down and out than downbeat. For years contrary Young left it out of print before a CD finally arrived in 2003. I would argue its his best record, especially the trio of songs on the second side: the title track, “Motion Pictures” and the cynical “Ambulance Blues”. Neil’s fellow Canadian Joni Mitchell was a bit more upbeat with Court and Spark (Asylum), the perfect balance between the old singer-songwriter Joni and the new jazz Joni.

Kraftwerk – Autobahn (Vertigo November).

The first album that Ralf Hutter appears to own up to, Autobahn still has more in common with the three Philips albums than it does with, say, The Man Machine four years later. An edit of the 22 minute title track was a hit, of course. The second side is instrumental ranging from the gorgeous “Telstar”-esque “Kometenmelodie 2” to Florian’s flute-led, bucolic “Morgenspaziergang”.

Here are seven other records of note, in no particular order. Diamond Dogs (RCA) is heavier than Bowie’s previous few albums which maybe why it’s not as widely loved. Gil Scott-Heron teamed up with multi-instrumentalist Brian Jackson for the first time for Winter In America (Strata-East). Stevie Wonder’s Fulfillingness’ First Finale (Tamla) ditched the Moogs for a more organic, and reflective sound. Jackson Browne’s Late for the Sky and Tom Waits’ The Heart of Saturday Night (both Asylum) looked at two sides of seventies California: Browne’s fading sixties dream and Waits’ world of working class diners, bars and flop houses. Bob Marley’s first album without Tosh and Livingstone Natty Dread (Island) gave the world “No woman no cry”. Finally, Peter Gabriel’s last hurrah with Genesis was the patchily brilliant concept alum with a barely intelligible plot The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (Charisma).

Album: RICHARD & LINDA THOMPSON – In Concert, November 1975 (Island IMCD327 2007)

In these days of Record Company panic over future revenues, one customer base can always be relied on – ‘fifty quid bloke’. This is the forty or fifty something male with money to burn who reads Mojo, and buys CDs by the shed-load. Sensing a cash cow, the companies sure know how to milk it. Fairport Convention’s Liege And Lief has just been reissued in a ‘deluxe’ double CD version with various session tracks and demos. This is a mere three years since it was last out in a remastered version with bonus tracks. There will be folk who have bought the album four times now – each edition having more than its predecessor to entice owners to upgrade. Another favourite ploy is to start dusting off loads of old live sets. So, rant over, we come to the latest Richard Thompson set – a 32 year old recording of shows recorded in Oxford, Swindon and Norwich on the 1975 tour with his then wife Linda. Is there any point in buying it? Well, yes actually.

The Thompsons were joined on the tour by a rhythm section of Daves Pegg and Mattacks and John Kirkpatrick on accordion and concertina. The recordings are superbly mastered and of soundboard quality and are structured to give the illusion of a single show from opening to encores. The majority of the songs are taken from I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight, Hokey Pokey and Pour Down like Silver, but there is also a medley of Morris tunes, an old Fairport classic and some fun covers.

First the down points. The Morris medley is pretty lumpen, and seems twice as long as its 5’20” duration. Also, there are times when you really wish that Kirkpatrick would nip off for a fag break, go for a pint, or even bugger off home. The accordion and concertina add colour to some of the songs, but on others they’re an irritant and just get in the way. They are minor points. Some of the performances here are stunning. Linda Thompson always sounded more like a country singer singing English folk than a dyed in the wool folkie, and this is one of her great strengths. She is amazing on “A Heart Needs A Home”, Hank Williams’ “Why Don’t You Love Me” and the Fairport staple “Now Be Thankful”.

The core three tracks, though, are “Night Comes In”, “For Shame Of Doing Wrong” and (especially) “Calvary Cross” – together they have a running time of something like 33 minutes! Richard Thompson is not just one of the best songwriters that these islands have produced, but one of the greatest guitarists alive. These three tracks show why. Flash isn’t a word in his vocabulary. The playing is subtle, emotional, but with a breadth and depth simply beyond most players. “Calvary Cross” is simply stunning and worth the CD price on its own. This trio may dominate the CD, but the “Morris Medley” aside, there isn’t a weak track on this set. I’ve never been a massive fan of live albums – more often than not the tracks are inferior to their studio counterparts, and add little. I could count the live albums that I listen to regularly on the fingers of one hand. I think this set may mean that I require an extra finger.

Song of the day: RICHARD & LINDA THOMPSON – The End Of The Rainbow (1974)

When you see Richard Thompson live you know you’re guaranteed a good time. There is audience banter, knockabout tunes and a genuinely warm and celebratory feeling for the whole evening. He has a talent for following harrowing songs like “Shoot Out The Lights” with something light like “Don’t Sit On My Jimmy Shands”, and ensuring that the lows in mood are always well-balanced by the highs. If you were selective, though, you could build a set of his compositions that numbered some of the most depressing ever written. When Thompson does ‘down’, he can make Leonard Cohen look like a Butlin’s Redcoat.

Of all of Richard Thompson’s songs, I don’t think anything can match “The End Of The Rainbow” for rock-bottom despair (and it has fierce competition). It appeared on his first album with his then wife Linda (nee Peters) – I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight. The record is generally considered the duo’s best. Linda was well used to Richard’s more gloomy ouevre, but even she was reportedly shocked at “The End Of The Rainbow”. The song is an address to a new born child. Rather than offer succour and hope, it dashes the infant’s dreams. The opening lines set the tone immediately: “I feel for you, you little horror / Safe at your mother’s breast / No lucky break for you around the corner / ‘Cos your father is a bully /And he thinks that you’re a pest /And your sister, she’s no better than a whore“. The song goes on to warn of all the unsavoury characters that the child will encounter, cynically suggesting that “Every loving handshake / Is just another man to beat“. The chorus sounds worn out and defeated. “Life seems so rosy in the cradle / but I’ll be a friend, I’ll tell you what’s in store / There’s nothing at the end of the rainbow / There’s nothing to grow up for anymore“. In no other song that I’ve ever heard have the disappointments of shattered dreams been so poignantly articulated. “The End Of The Rainbow” has music to match its stinging lyrics. It sounds resigned and empty, but never fails to hit a nerve. Sometimes it sounds like the truth. Thankfully, not all the time.