949 - Neil Young & Crazy Horse 'Weld' (1991)

My Rating: 2.25 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: √

Chart Peak (UK/US): 20/--

Favourite Tracks: Hey Hey My My, Cinnamon Girl, Cortez The Killer
Least-Favourite Tracks: Blowin' In The Wind, Like A Hurricane, Tonight's The Night

Any live album that leaves your ears ringing can’t be all bad. Well, Neil Young might disagree since he apparently developed tinnitus as a direct consequence of mixing this record, but for me the ear-ringing effect was rather less permanent. I certainly felt like I’d just come out of a gig though & for a live recording that’s some achievement.

I’m not a big fan of live albums; they rarely do justice to the experience of being there in person but I have to admit this one comes a little closer than most. I didn’t know much about this record but in an effort to recreate the original ambience of a live show, I donned my best headphones & cranked the volume right up… and almost blew my head off. What’s that chainsaw guitar doing on a Neil Young album? I was expecting something all soft & acoustic (which perhaps reveals my limited knowledge of Neil Young) so the ultra-heavy opening bars of track one Hey, Hey, My, My (Into The Black) made me think I’d put on the wrong album.

So it’s loud & it’s heavy but does that make it any good? Clearly a lot of Americans didn’t think so, since this was the first Neil Young album that didn’t enter the US top 100 since his 1969 debut. I’m not really sure why because while it certainly has its flaws, I found there was an awful lot to praise here. First & foremost, it’s that lead guitar. Great rock bands need great guitarists & the guitar work here is mightily impressive; it’s brutal, edgy & bristling with raw energy & emotion. I’d normally find a line like “Rock & Roll can never die” to be the corniest of clichés, but when you hear it surrounded by the strangulated solos & vicious power chords of Hey, Hey, My, My it somehow becomes validated – almost as if it was the very distillation of what rock music was about.

Of course, any old band can turn their amps up to 11 & thrash the hell out of their guitars but what makes this album interesting is the way that it never quite descends into some pointless wall of noise; as violent as the guitars may sound, they are always tempered by the melodic nature of Young’s songwriting. That contrast between his tuneful vocal harmonies & chord progressions & those angry snarling guitars works superbly well here, especially on tracks like Cinnamon Girl, F*!#in’ Up & Powderfinger.

As good as the musical performances are though this record still trips over the same old stumbling block that every live album encounters; namely what works for a live show doesn’t necessarily work on a record. Some of the songs are drawn out too long & are then stretched out even further with interminable “concert” endings & even a bit of the dreaded crowd singalong. The 14 minute version of Like A Hurricane might have breezed by if you were there in person but sitting here listening to the album the song just drags & drags. I’m not against long tracks – both Love To Burn & Cortez The Killer run to 10 minutes & held my interest throughout, but tracks like Rockin’ In The Free World, Tonight’s The Night & Like A Hurricane just seem too one-dimensional to merit their extended running times. Similarly the overblown cover of Blowin’ In The Wind, complete with machine gun fire & explosions may have seemed a timely statement during the (first) Gulf War but I just found it as dull-as-dishwater. It might have worked OK as a final encore but as the third song in the line-up it just stops the show dead & destroys all the energy & momentum of those opening numbers (which I presume was his intention).

An enjoyable album – frustrating towards the end, but in this age of endless X-Factor & soul-less prissy pop, it’s a powerful reminder of what live rock music is all about.

955 - Jack Bruce 'Songs For A Tailor' (1969)

My Rating: 3.00 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: √

Chart Peak (UK/US): 6/55

Favourite Tracks: Rope Ladder To The Moon, He The Richmond
Least-Favourite Tracks: Boston Ball Game 1967, The Ministry Of Bag

Very 60s, this one. My first listen was as I cycled alongside the Grand Union canal & within a few minutes I was transported into some kitchen-sink drama; the industrial landscape around the half-finished Olympic stadium faded out into black & white & I half-expected a youthful Rita Tushingham to wave at me from one of the rusty iron bridges. It’s funny how the 60s, 70s, 80s and even 90s all have their own distinct signature sounds. Can’t think what the signature sound of the 00s will be though; perhaps an anonymous voice singing through Auto-tune accompanied by the shuffling noise of marketing men rubbing their clammy hands together & the distant rumble of Simon Cowell’s wallet dragging on the ground? But this album is almost the antithesis of today’s music – it’s unrefined, unpredictable and credits its listeners with having more intelligence than a goldfish – all of which makes it refreshingly enjoyable.

It kicks off with Never Tell Your Mother She’s Out Of Tune – all squawking horns & grimy distorted bass like a cross between Blood, Sweat & Tears, Spirit & some wacky incidental music from The Prisoner. The reviews I’d read referred to this album as ‘jazz-rock’ but I’d say ‘art-rock’ was a more accurate description. For me, jazz-rock conjures up images of Miles Davis in kooky shades or John Mclaughlin grappling a guitar with about 27 necks. I suppose I’m confusing jazz-rock with fusion but however you want to describe this record, it’s certainly more about rock than jazz.

I wasn’t all that familiar with Jack Bruce - I know Cream’s big hits of course but that didn’t prepare me for this album which grew on me the more it went on. Unusual chord progressions steer songs like Tickets To Waterfalls into odd directions, yet whenever it seems to be heading too far into the unconventional we get a delightfully melodic line to haul us back from the brink. Having spent my formative years listening to a lot of avant-garde material, I was especially taken with Rope Ladder To The Moon which with its dark acoustic guitars, melancholic scratchy cellos & angular vocal melodies seemed to have more in common with acts like the Art Bears than any conventional rock outfit.

Lyrically it’s rather a poetic album but that’s not to say it’s portentous or overblown; there’s some quasi-psychedelic quirkiness with lines like “The cook’s jumped in the river / The menu smells of feet” (from The Ministry Of Bag) but generally the words seem heartfelt and, to me at least, rather profound. Weird Of Hermiston has “Skies are no longer a comfort / Leaves turning black with the autumn / The corn is hung down with the heaviest weight that I’m feeling” while on He The Richmond Bruce sings “Yes my name it is written in the sand / And it can’t escape your sweeping hand”; worthy of Brian Wilson that one & a league above the standard flimsy pop/rock sentiments. (Having just researched a little further, I’ve discovered that the lyricist Pete Brown also penned the words for Cream’s hits & published poetry too so that explains a lot).

For all its inventiveness, the album doesn’t always hit the mark. Boston Ball Game 1967 is a bit of a mess, The Ministry Of Bag sounds musically like something dragged from the KPM archives & the jam-session second half of To Isengard drifts perilously close to Derek Smalls’ Jazz Odyssey. But I’d gladly listen to any of them on a 24 hour tape loop ahead of anything that Mr Cowell digs up during the rest of this decade.

958 - Tom Waits 'Small Change' (1976)

My Rating: 3.00 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: √

Chart Peak (UK/US): --/89

Favourite Tracks: Step Right Up, Invitation To The Blues, Can't Wait To Get Off Work
Least-Favourite Tracks: I Wish I Was In New Orleans, Pasties & A G-String

Like a butterfly that transforms into a caterpillar, Tom Waits has undergone a peculiarly topsy-turvy musical career. Back in the early 70s, he fluttered onto the scene all gentle, jazzy melodies & lightly-rasping voice but over the decades metamorphosed into a guttural, growling maniac, crawling ever-deeper into his own shadowy, discordant world.

To stretch my flimsy (and grossly over-written) metaphor to breaking point, this album then represents his 'pupal' stage; a kind of halfway point still rooted in jazz, yet edging ever-closer towards the experimental (a transition evidenced on The Piano Has Been Drinking). And that can be a bit of a problem - fans of early-era Waits often bemoan the overbearing gruffness of his vocals, fans of the later years run screaming from the room at the merest hint of jazz. I have some sympathy with both viewpoints. Listening to a tender ballad like I Wish I Was In New Orleans, part of me yearns for the older, softer vocals, rather than the Louis Armstrong-through-a-cracked-megaphone style we get here. On the other hand uptempo numbers like Step Right Up really come alive as he roars out emotive lines like "Christ, you don't know the meaning of heartbreak buddy!"

Ah yes, the words. Let's face it, if we were rating these albums solely on lyrics, this would be a perfect '5'. Like all of Tom Waits' albums, it's the lyrics here that stand towering over everything else. The music, good as it is, is often little more than a conduit for those astonishing words. In fact, Pasties & A G-String dispenses with the music altogether, its sole instrumental backing being a cheesy stripclub-style drumbeat while Waits rattles off gems like "I'm gettin' harder than chinese algebra-ssieres". Or on the title-track Small Change, where he abandons singing in favour of a spoken novelistic monologue over a lone 'Sam Spade' saxophone. And I'm not sure that anyone but Waits could get away with that 1950's Ellroy'esque hipster-speak either; tracks like The One That Got Away & Jitterbug Boy are crammed with outmoded phrases like 'deep six holiday', 'easy street' & countless nostalgic American references. (Visit the excellent Tom Waits Library for comprehensive annotations). Of course, purists might argue that the art of songwriting, like poetry, is condensing a great deal of meaning into very few words and in that sense, Waits is sometimes less a lyricist & more akin to an author who sets his stories to music. A kind of 'Charles Bukowski - The Musical' if you like.

As far as influences go, Waits has cited performers like Mose Allison & Ken Nordine & you can certainly hear that here in the wry humour, the clever puns & the whole hepcat word-jazz style. Where Waits elevates himself above those influences however is his ability to pen such poignant love songs. There's not many who could deliver a cliche-free ballad of such yearning emotion as Invitation To The Blues. I must have heard it a hundred times yet I still find myself wistfully wondering about the waitress who "looks like Rita Hayworth" & the "broken down jalopy of a man" she left behind.

It was an odd experience returning to this album because back in my younger days I played all my Tom Waits LP's to death (literally, in the case of The Heart Of Saturday Night, which is one of the few vinyl albums I did actually wear out). Small Change was never one of my favourites, not that it's a poor album, just that musically it's not as consistently good as many of his others. Quite why this one made it onto the Top 1000 ahead of those is a bit of a mystery (though perhaps the popularity of its opening track Tom Traubert's Blues has something to do with it). By Tom Waits standards then it's not a great album, but that still trumps the best that most have to offer.

961 - Aimee Mann 'Whatever' (1993)

My Rating: 3.23 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: √

Chart Peak (UK/US): 39/--

Favourite Tracks: Say Anything, 4th Of July, Could've Been Anyone
Least-Favourite Tracks: Jacob Marley's Chain [but only because the melody reminds me of Nik Kershaw's 'The Riddle'..]

I never judge a book by its cover. Well that's what I sanctimoniously think about myself but the truth is I must do precisely the opposite because otherwise I'd have heard this record a long time ago. I blame the album title; you see I didn't read it as Whatever - I took one look at the cover, saw a young blonde American woman & it became (cue Californian accent) 'Whateverrrrrrrrrrr'. Like most opinions forged from flimsy prejudices that one stuck so I really wasn't looking forward to hearing this album. But before the opening track was over I could feel my face stretching into something of a donkey head as I realised I'd got it all wrong; this was not the frivolous, piece of froth that I'd presumed - it's an accomplished rock record. Four minutes in & it already had more hooks & harmonies than you find in 40 minutes of most albums.

First surprise is that it's such a full-on production. I was expecting an oh-so earnest singer-songwriter backed solely with an acoustic guitar, but that's partly thanks to Allmusic who describe this album (here) as 'folk-tinged'. (Long afternoon down the pub was it lads? 'Folk-tinged', my arse) No, from the start this has a bold & confident feel; the production is excellent & is tailored to fit the mood of each song. That means we get an incredible variety of arrangements & instruments, from electronic samples & drum machines to strings & full orchestration; you get the impression that they just raided the studio stockroom & grabbed every single musical instrument they could lay their hands on.

What about Aimee Mann herself? As a singer she sounded a little like a cross between Chrissie Hynde & Alison Statton of the Young Marble Giants (remember them?). I wouldn't describe her voice as commanding & yet she has a remarkable ability to scythe through a wall of guitar noise. And even better, she sounds like she means every word she sings which is quite a rare commodity these days.

As a songwriter she also does an admirable job; everytime I thought a track was getting a little predictable, it'd suddenly spear off into an unexpected bridge, middle-8 or instrumental break. And it's a tuneful album; the vocal melodies & backing harmonies are always pleasing & the lyrics are intelligent & thought-provoking (especially when you read between the lines of songs such as I Could Hurt You Now).

And that's the best thing about doing this daft project; every so often you discover some good music that you never knew existed.

967 - Supertramp 'Crime Of The Century' (1974)

My Rating: 4.00 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: √

Chart Peak (UK/US): 4/38

Favourite Tracks: School, Bloody Well Right, Dreamer
Least-Favourite Tracks: If Everyone Was Listening

Older brothers don't have much going for them when you're 9 years old. You learn how to take a punch, how to run away fast (before getting punched) & how to eat a variety of pet foods, but did they really have any positive uses? Well actually, yes there was that one saving grace; their record collection. Back in the mid-70s when about all I had were some scratched-up, hand-me-down Disney soundtracks, an album of orchestral war movie themes & one David Essex LP (ahem), my big brother literally held the key to an exciting new world of music. Behind the locked doors of his LP cupboard were dozens of shiny new records & despite the threat of almost-certain death, I eventually buckled under the temptation & busted my way in, rather appropriately choosing Crime Of The Century as one of my first ill-gotten gains. For this particular 9 year old, music was never quite the same again.

Skip forward several decades & I'm sitting here listening to this album for the umpteenth time & it still sounds great. But I suppose I would say that, wouldn't I? I grew up listening to it, it's intertwined with all sorts of childhood memories, it's the first record in the Top 1000 I already owned, so while I'm desperately trying to be objective about it, the truth is how the hell can I be? Wait a minute though, I don't feel that way about that bloody David Essex LP so there must be more to it than just some nostalgic feelings.

From the opening bars of the first track School you know this is going to be something special. Wailing harmonica with rumbling ethereal bass notes in the background & as the intro builds we get spooky guitar effects, children's voices, what's that - an oboe in there too? Then we get that creepy kid's blood-curdling screech (which scared the crap out of me the very first time I heard it) & the whole thing kicks off. But this is not your typical verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure; like 10cc every 30 seconds the melody seems to change completely & yet somehow the whole thing hangs together perfectly. And that's just it, much of the artistry of this album is that it can take something so complicated & make it sound so simple & accessible.

It's not just the songwriting, the production & arrangements are also interesting & innovative. Subtle little touches are everywhere; the chorus of Bloody Well Right with the Wurlitzer electric piano panned over to one speaker & a hokey, out-of-tune upright piano in the other; the theremin (or saw) whistling away under the chorus of Hide In Your Shell; the strings, orchestration & even clanging bell on Asylum (I only recently noticed the cuckoo clock at the end - I've heard this album hundreds of times & I'm still discovering new things buried in the mix). But it's not like all this production trickery is there as some kind of gimmick, it's been deftly applied to enhance the meaning of the songs. Rudy starts off at the station boarding his 'train to nowhere' & the arrangement creates the impression of a train rattling ever-faster down the tracks. Yes I know that's nothing new, but with its sweeping strings & wah-wah guitar stabs, I've never heard it done better.

Lyrically the songs are rather impressionistic. There is a common thread with themes of madness & isolation but the precise meanings are left open to interpretation. To me it is clearly a concept album - the songs segue into each other taking us on a journey that starts out at School, progesses through teenage rebellion, adult mental breakdown & culminates with the album-closing Crime Of The Century. Exactly what that crime is, we're never really told - I've got my own idea though & I quite like it like that.

Back in 1974, it wasn't long before my big brother discovered that I'd made off with his LP. But strangely I didn't get the pulping I'd imagined. I think he may have secretly been rather proud that he was having such a strong influence on my musical tastes. More likely he was just relieved that he didn't have to hear that David Essex album again. Either way it's a shame he wasn't so understanding when I discovered his stash of 'jazz' mags...

978 - Sly &The Family Stone 'There's A Riot Goin' On' (1971)

My Rating: 2.91

out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: √

The Mojo Collection: √

Chart Peak (UK/US): 31/1

Favourite Tracks: Family Affair, You Caught Me Smilin', Runnin' Away
Least-Favourite Track: Spaced Cowboy

O

ver the years everyone harped on about Sly & The Family Stone so much that I was put off listening to them. It always seemed to be the ultra-trendy people; they'd regurgitate everything they'd read from the critics, smugly explaining to me about Sly's innovative & original approach as if they'd just thought of it themselves. And I suspected that they only thought he was cool because he took lots of drugs. (Don't forget these were the same morons who would pay more for a pair of jeans with designer rips & spots of paint than I paid for my car).

Anyway I digress... I finally listened to this record & my initial impression was 'what a mess'. The album opens with Luv N' Haight & the recording is hissy, lead vocals are mumbled & distorted, bass guitar & horns are out of tune and the song sprawls along like some directionless demo-jam session. But as the album progresses, it all starts making more & more sense. Yes it's raw & unrefined, but it's also inventive & groundbreaking stuff with drum machines, psychedelic filtered vocals (often recorded when he was lying in bed according to this wikipedia feature) and tons of tape edits & overdubs. There's no doubting it's the twisted funk prototype for bands like Funkadelic & Parliament. And I must admit that the critics largely got it right - this may be the sound of Sly slow-falling into a drugs abyss, but it works because it also mirrors our own nagging feelings of aimlessness & disintegration. The lyrics aren't the great social statement that they'd have you believe though (there aren't enough of them for a start) & it doesn't always hit the spot (e.g., the ill-advised yodelling on Space Cowboy), but it still bears all the hallmarks of a classic album.

980 - Hole 'Live Through This' (1994)

My Rating: 2.17 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: √

The Mojo Collection: √

Chart Peak (UK/US): 32/52

Favourite Tracks: Doll Parts, She Walks On Me
Least-Favourite Tracks: Softer Softest, Rock Star (Olympia)

In the unlikely event that I was invited to a dinner party for drugged-out, self-destructive pop stars, I must confess that I'd make a bee-line for a seat next to Courtney Love. Unlike say Pete Docherty, Amy Winehouse, Britney Spears et al, she always seems to me to have a sense of self-deprecating humour, something interesting to say & a streak of sincerity. Listening to this album for the first time has done little to alter my opinion either, because without Courtney Love it'd be a pretty ordinary record. Musically it's not all that original - quasi-punk, mainstream grunge - however you define it, it's still pretty straightforward guitar rock but Love's voice & lyrics elevate it into something a little more special. Her voice may not be note-perfect but it bristles with character - on Doll Parts she switches from sarcastically purring 'I want to be the girl with the most cake' to an anguished guttural cry of 'Someday you will ache like I ache'. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it sounds genuine - I was expecting to find some kind of 'grunge-lite' created by marketing men but this actually has a lot of emotive power running through it.

Reviews always tend to draw musical comparisons to Nirvana though for me there is a distinctive retro quality to the music that harks back to the 1980s UK New Wave acts. I read on Wikipedia that Courtney Love used to live in Julian Cope's house in Liverpool during The Teardrop Explodes era & it sounds like she has absorbed some of that musical pedigree - Jennifer's Body has a jangly guitar & bass line straight out of The Monochrome Set & there's even a (not very good) cover of The Young Marble Giants' Credit In The Straight World. I do wonder how well Hole would have fared without the Cobain connection though - if you strip away all the hype & hyperbole you're left with a reasonable album, but not one I'd regard as a classic.

992 - The Isley Brothers '3 + 3' (1973)

My Rating: 3.11 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: √

Chart Peak (UK/US): --/8

Favourite Tracks: That Lady Pt. 1 & 2, The Highways Of My Life
Least-Favourite Tracks: Listen To The Music

So I was lucky enough to see Prince on the opening night of his Dome concert-athon a few days ago & I was thinking what an original, innovative performer he was. That was until I stuck this album on. It kicks off with That Lady, all Ernie Isley & his bonkers rock guitar licks over a slick funk backing (hmmm, now where have I heard that recently?) Of course I'd heard the track many times before, but this was the first time I'd ever sat down & listened to it (full blast) & it was just stunning. The record closes with another accomplished Isleys' original composition Highways Of My Life and it made me wonder why they relied so much on rather pithy cover versions inbetween, because it just diluted the whole album. Apart from that there's really not a lot to complain about here though - it has crisp, clear production and strong musicianship & vocals and that makes it stand out compared to most of the top 1000 albums I've heard so far.