965 - Talking Heads 'Speaking In Tongues' (1983)

My Rating: 2.33 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): 21/15

Favourite Tracks: Girlfriend Is Better, Making Flippy Floppy
Least-Favourite Track: I Get Wild: Wild Gravity

I have always had a problem with Talking Heads but I've absolutely no idea why. They sound like the kind of band I really should like, with a charismatic frontman, original songs, inventive production and yet... it's a bit like one of those recipes where you combine all your favourite ingredients but end up with a meal that just tastes wrong. Like a KFC Zinger Tower Burger.

Since just about everyone I know seems to love Talking Heads I approached this album really wanting to like it, or at the very least to understand why I didn't like it, but several listens later and I have to confess that I'm still not totally convinced & I still can't figure out why.

Plus points first. For a 1983 album that leans heavily on keyboards & electronics it is remarkably un-80's sounding. There's none of your schmaltzy digital piano presets here - the synth positively shrieks, wobbles & belches all over tracks like Making Flippy Floppy & Girlfriend Is Better, with the latter including a bonkers solo that is more Throbbing Gristle than Thompson Twins. I liked that.

I also liked David Byrne, who invests his nonsensical lyrics with the kind of authoritative intensity that makes you feel like you're the one who is missing the point. E.g., on Swamp he sings "Click click see ya later/Beta beta no time to rest/Pika pika risky business/All that blood will never cover that mess". No wonder then that his lyrics are a bit of a thorny subject; I've seen some reviews that dismiss it all as meaningless gibberish & yet I've seen others that try to unearth all sorts of hidden meanings & metaphors. Actually both views are missing the point; in this interview (former Heads producer) Brian Eno said that Byrne combined words together largely for their sonic effect, using them as a kind of musical instrument to create interesting sounds & rhythms. In that sense, I'd have to say his lyrics succeed.

So what's my problem then? Perhaps it's partly one of expectations - I was anticipating an album by Talking Heads but it is so dominated by David Byrne that it just doesn't sound much like a group anymore. Byrne's voice thunders across every track; every abrasive noise or twitchy synth reflects his character to such an extent that there's hardly any space left for the guitar, bass & drums. They forge an uneasy alliance with all the electronics anyway - on Moon Rocks the funky guitar licks & percussion integrate reasonably well, but on tracks like Slippery People or I Get Wild they're rendered so far in the background as to be largely superfluous.

The truth is I still don't know why Talking Heads leave me a little cold. I used to work with a guy who absolutely hated Green Onions by Booker T & the MG's. It puzzled me how anyone could dislike that record so I asked him one day & he answered "Oh I just don't get it." As flimsy as that sounds perhaps that's all there is to it sometimes.

968 - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers 'Hard Promises' (1981)

My Rating: 2.30 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): 32/5

Favourite Tracks: A Woman In Love (It's Not Me), The Criminal Kind, You Can Still Change Your Mind
Least-Favourite Track: Letting You Go, A Thing About You, Insider

I found it really hard to have any strong opinions about this album but perhaps that explains a lot. It's not awful but neither is it awe-inspiring, it's not pretentious but neither is it inventive - it's just a no-nonsense, straightforward rock & roll album. And having read Tom Petty's withering views about the music business, I reckon that's exactly what he was aiming to create.

From the opening twelve-string chords of The Waiting it's clear that Petty's not afraid of showing his influences on this record - the Byrds, Springsteen & Dylan all immediately come to mind but I don't have a problem with that, after all there is only so much you can do with 3 chords & a guitar, bass & drums. And as A Woman In Love (It's Not Me) demonstrates, Petty knows exactly how to turn a handful of simple chords into a solid rock song; the reflective lyrics of the verse get the soft wistful musical backing & the anger of the chorus prompts the big drums & monster guitar riff treatment - it's not groundbreaking stuff but it works.

Production-wise it's very well recorded but if anything I feel it's a little under-produced - there's not much in the way of studio trickery or fancy arrangements which gives it the impression that the band just turned up & played the thing live in the studio. Although that adds to the no-nonsense rootsy feel of the album, I also found it a little limiting; the band don't stray too far from their formula anyway so a few more overdubs & production surprises would have stopped it sounding too samey.

Lyrically I thought it worked pretty well & the words are enhanced further by Petty's Southern twang. Take the conversational narrative of Something Big (Speedball rang the night clerk / Said, "Send me up a drink" / Now the night clerk said, "It's Sunday man... wait a minute let me think / There's a little place outside of town that might still have some wine" / Speedball said, "Forget it, can I have an outside line") - it might not look like much when you read it but when delivered in Petty's distinctive nasal drawl it somehow comes alive.

The album makes a welcome change of direction at the end with the ballad You Can Still Change Your Mind - a contemplative song with a melodic Brian Wilson / Todd Rundgren thing going on ('Everybody wants all the world can give 'em / Everybody wants to get all they can get / Everybody's waiting on somethin' that hasn't come yet'). I liked it a lot & the long fade as it meandered along uncertainly made it the perfect track to close out the album. An honest uncontrived record with a few good songs, a couple of great ones & handful of fillers.

969 - Tina Turner 'Private Dancer' (1984)

My Rating: 1.50 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): 2/3

Favourite Tracks: Private Dancer, Let's Stay Together
Least-Favourite Tracks: Steel Claw, Help!

You know how some albums (usually the classic ones) transcend their own eras, never sounding outdated or unfashionable? Well, this isn't one of those. It's utterly rooted in the 1980s & rather like leg warmers or Mr T, it really isn't ageing all that well. The All-Time Top 1000 stats suggest I'm not the only one thinking that; in the 1994 list this record was voted at #25, by 1998 it had slipped to #242 & for the latest (2000) edition its rank had plummeted down to #969. And after listening to it several times I can understand why.

First of all, it really is very much of its time. Tracks like I Might Have Been Queen or Steel Claw sound like something lifted straight off the soundtrack of 80s movies like Footloose, Flashdance or Fame - you know, schmaltzy US rock with big, bland major-chord choruses. It's also a masterclass in mid-80s production values & while I've always been fond of electronic music, I think that the heavy-handed 80s way of shoe-horning drum machines, synth bass & keyboard brass stabs into MOR mainstream rock created some real horrors (does anyone really like the 'power' synth riffs on Europe's The Final Countdown or Berlin's Take My Breath Away ?)

Then there's the substance, or rather the lack of it - virtually half the tracks here are cover versions & that makes it sound like those dreadful debut albums we get these days from any old X-Factor contestant. I mean, her cover of Help! sounds like something that was knocked up by the guys who normally record backing tracks for kid's karaoke machines.

The original compositions don't fare much better either. Is anyone really moved by hackneyed lyrics like 'Prisoner of your love / Entangled in your web / Hot whispers in the night / I'm captured by your spell' ??! (from Better Be Good To Me). And once you know that What's Love Got To Do With It was originally written for Cliff Richard (by the same guy who wrote him Devil Woman) that sickeningly twee synth solo suddenly makes sense. It doesn't help that there are so many different songwriters & producers - the record sounds like a mish-mash of wildly different ideas & styles.

It's a shame as there are also fleeting glimpses of what a good album it could have been. It goes without saying that Turner's voice is a fantastic instrument & her uncharacteristically laidback approach on Mark Knopfler's Private Dancer remains a highlight of the album. And while most of the Heaven 17 collaborations would have worked better on their own records, their inventive reworking of Let's Stay Together still stands out. Of course, with over 20 million copies sold & 4 Grammy awards, I doubt that anyone involved with the album is too worried about its longterm credibility, or indeed the fact that some middle-aged nobody in England thinks it's a little bit crap. Ultimately, the fact that such an insubstantial offering achieved such enormous success perhaps says more about 80s consumerism & mass marketing than anything else.

971 - Suzanne Vega 'Solitude Standing' (1987)

My Rating: 2.36 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): 2/11

Favourite Tracks: Language, Night Vision
Least-Favourite Track: Gypsy, Tom's Diner (Reprise)

It's hard to find anything all that objectionable here - this is a melodic collection of songs, well performed & well sung. I was expecting a typical solo singer-songwriter album, you know just one folky woman & her guitar, but this has much more of a group feel with crisp, full production throughout. On the downside, the production is rather 80's with lots of compression, flanged guitars & digital synth presets, which I guess was a (successful) way to move this into the mainstream market back in 1987. Listening to it twenty years on, I kept wishing the album had gone for a more organic feel, but that's got more to do with my own personal distaste of 80's production values (of which I will undoubtedly drone on endlessly elsewhere). Having said that, this is the first album in the top 1000 list that I haven't needed a lyric sheet in order to understand the words, so producer Steve Addabbo did a good job in that respect.

I read somewhere that Suzanne Vega was suffering from writer's block when making this record & so she utilised some of her older songs dating back to 1978. According to the Allmusic review these tracks are just as strong as the new ones & add to the diversity, but actually I found them to be by far the weakest things on the album. Early compositions like Calypso & Gypsy are rather naive, both lyrically & musically and simply don't have the depth or craftmanship of the later works. The instrumental home-organ style reprise of Tom's Diner also has 'filler' written all over it & having such a bland & uninspiring track to close out the album didn't make a fitting finale for what was largely a decent record.

973 - The Fall 'Wonderful & Frightening World of the Fall' (1984)

My Rating: 2.94 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): 62/--

Favourite Tracks: Pat-Trip Dispenser, Lay of the Land, Disney's Dream Debased
Least-Favourite Tracks: Oh Brother, Bug Day

A girl from my work went to a dinner party where one of the guests was The Fall frontman Mark E Smith & the next day she described him as 'the most unpleasant person I have ever met'. I think I would have been disappointed to hear anything else - it strikes me that if anyone is the living embodiment of Punk, it's Mark E Smith. For a start, he'd never consider himself to be punk. And I'm not talking about punk the fashion uniform or punk the corporate machine, but the original anti-establishment, do-it-yourself attitude. It was supposed to be a way of life, but these days even John Lydon is doing reality TV & Sex Pistols cash-in tours. Yet Mark E ploughs on, 29 albums down & he's still spitting venom at everything & everyone around him.

I haven't listened to a Fall album for many years but I really enjoyed this. Unlike the squawky teenage angst of the last record in the list (#974 - Violent Femmes) there is a real simmering malevolence here. While the Violent Femmes swore & sang (rather unconvincingly) about murderous urges, Smith sings of 'Curly-Wurly' chocolate bars & a 'Georgian glazed porch' yet somehow manages to create an atmosphere that is dark, amusing and as the album title suggests, also a little frightening. There's something intriguing about Smith's semi-spoken, oddly-articulated delivery - the way he precisely enunciates lines like 'His oppression abounds / His type is doing the rounds / he is a scum egg / a horrid, trendy wretch' (from C.R.E.E.P.) It might not always be obvious exactly what he's on about, but the enjoyment here is often less what he means & more the way he says it.

Musically it was much more tuneful than I expected too. I especially liked the rumbling, rattling groove of Pat-Trip Dispenser and I suspect a lot of that is down to John Leckie's production. It even gets pretty mainstream in places - Disney's Dream Debased is the harrowing story of a death that Smith witnessed at Disneyworld which has a gentle, lilting melody that makes it all the more unsettling. I suppose the best summary is that I've listened to this album several times now & it's certainly reawakened my interest in The Fall. The fact is that Smith sounds like nobody else & you either love him or hate him. Either way, I'm sure he truly couldn't give a toss.

974 - Violent Femmes 'Violent Femmes' (1982)

My Rating: 1.90 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

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

Favourite Tracks: Blister in the Sun, Kiss Off, Gone Daddy Gone
Least-Favourite Tracks: Please Do Not Go, To the Kill

Well I've known a few violent femmes in my time, but I don't know much about this band. I quite like that though - listening to a record with no preconceived ideas, opinions or other baggage. I also try not to read any reviews or artist biographies until after I've heard the album for myself - just in case my puny viewpoint crumbles under the might of collective critical opinion.

For some reason, I'd imagined this group to be a good deal more sophisticated than they are - probably just because they use a french word in their bandname or they have an arty album cover. Anyway it's not what I expected. For a start, it turns out that I do know something about the band - I recognised the opening track Blister in the Sun straight away - all twangy guitars & a maddeningly catchy riff. I like the acoustic, quasi-rockabilly feel, but like so many songs with instantly infectious tunes I can also imagine tiring of it pretty quickly. (A measure of its catchiness/disposability is that burger chain Wendy's have used it for their adverts). But it's a bright start & the second track Kiss Off continues in a similar vein with more pleasing acoustic bass work & singer Gordon Gano, a cross between Lou Reed & Howard Devoto, continuing to display a certain fey charm.

The problem is as the album progresses its one-dimensional appeal begins to wane; the songwriting starts getting very ordinary, the often tuneless vocal melodies & squeaky intonations start getting irritating, the whimsical lyrics make way for the kind of 'kill the world' nonsense you can read in the margins of a thousand school roughbooks & the musical arrangements never stray far from sounding like some busking trio. (I just read here on Wikipedia that it was actually penned while they were at high school & that they used to busk the songs on street corners so that explains a lot). The album closes out with Good Feeling, a slow number that sounds like a rip-off of Lou Reed's Perfect Day to me & I was left wondering why so many people rate this album so highly. Judging by the gushing customer reviews over at Amazon.com I think I may well have felt differently if I'd been brought up in the US & I'd first heard this when I was fourteen. But I wasn't. When I finished listening to it, I took off my headphones & Avril Lavigne was playing on the radio and I hardly noticed the segue at all. Which is probably not a good thing.

975 - Pogues 'If I Should Fall From Grace With God' (1988)

My Rating: 2.54 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): 3/88

Favourite Tracks: If I Should Fall From Grace With God, Bottle of Smoke, Worms
Least-Favourite Track: Streets Of Sorrow/Birmingham Six (because of the lame
chorus, not the lyrical content)

As a spotty-faced youth back in the 80s I spent a lot of time in the Irish clubs in London, so listening to this album conjures up some strange disjointed images from the past. Sounds like some clichéd stereotype but it was pretty riotous - absolutely everyone really was smoking, drinking, laughing & (occasionally) fighting (well that's how I remember it anyway). I have a bizarre memory of one particular comedian who used to drag tramps in off the street & dress them up as women. They made quite a grotesque spectacle on stage in flouncy dresses & full make-up, especially as he'd then generally abuse them & kick them up the arse as part of his act. They'd endure it all on the promise of free Guinness & I'd see them drunkenly flailing around later in the night still wearing smeared lipstick & mascara.

The bands that played the Irish club circuit were generally pretty riotous too, but also patriotic, nostalgic & cheeky & listening to this album The Pogues seem rooted in much the same tradition. I like the way they update the traditional storytelling ballad form using modern subject matter - Bottle Of Smoke tells the tale of a big win at the horse track in Shane MacGowan's inimitable style ('The moon is clear / The sky is bright / I'm as happy as horses' shite'). And I think MacGowan is the key here; his lyrics are poetic, witty, irreverent & drenched in nostalgia & historical imagery; his voice is bristling with character & passion. Moreover the tracks that don't feature MacGowan tend to fall a little flat, as without him they can sound like any other 'fiddley-diddley' band. Similarly I felt that another key ingredient was the band's energy; on the faster tracks there's a manic punky influence that really works alongside the traditional Irish instruments, whereas on the slower, reflective numbers the band loses much of its originality & can sound like any number of bands that used to play the clubs. That's not to say that it's exclusively Irish - there's a European flavour on Fiesta, Worms & Turkish Song Of The Damned that allied with the evocative lyrics sounds very much like late-era Tom Waits. All in all an enjoyable listen - shame it reminds me of grizzled old men in bras & tights.

977 - Van Morrison 'No Guru, No Method, No Teacher' (1986)

My Rating: 2.40 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): 27/70

Favourite Tracks: Got To Go Back, Tir Na Nog
Least-Favourite Track: Oh The Warm Feeling

You know, I only found out today that 'Van' is actually short for 'Ivan' which demonstrates how little I know about him... Van Morrison commands loyal devotion from his fans & since I only know his Moondance LP & the obvious hits I was looking forward to seeing what all the fuss is about. And while nobody could claim that this is one of his masterworks, there's still plenty on this album to admire. I liked the sense of nostalgia, the warm & evocative arrangements, Van's gravelly & souful vocals, some of the swirling, mantra-like song structures. Equally there's things that I disliked - rather too much soprano sax (I still get terrifying visions of Kenny G whenever I hear one), the overt religious content (not for me, I'm afraid), the rather samey tempo & style. Perhaps the most frustrating thing was that while the music is often melodic & poignant, the lyrics can be a little vague & obtuse. I felt the songs would have had a great deal more emotional power if the music had been allied to lyrics that really said something, rather than lots of oblique references to gardens, rain & Christ. So another middling album really, neither terrible nor fantastic, but then we are at the tail end of the Top 1000 after all so perhaps that's to be expected.

979 - Eric B & Rakim 'Follow The Leader' (1988)

My Rating: 2.00 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): --/22

Favourite Tracks: Follow The Leader, To The Listeners
Least-Favourite Track: No Competition, Beats For The Listeners

In an era when so many acts think that songwriting is simply sampling huge chunks of someone else's song & shouting over the top of it, it's refreshing to hear someone using a sampler as a truly creative instrument. The title track that kicks off this album is a musical collage constructed of many fragments of other songs; honking horns, swirling strings & spooky sci-fi effects all combine over a driving synth bassline that holds the whole thing together. Sadly the rest of the album doesn't quite live up to this early promise - tracks like Microphone Fiend & Lyrics Of Fury use the standard James Brown-type sample repeated ad infinitum & while Rakim's self-congratulatory rapping may be impressive to hip-hop afficianados, an old fart like me found it all rather dull. Good as it is, Rakim's rapping is mainly about Rakim & how good he is at rapping, though thankfully there's none of the guns & gangsta nonsense here. There's a welcome change of mood on To The Listeners - its raw 80s synth sounds reminded me of Wally Badarou (remember Chief Inspector? Anyone?? Oh forget it) though Beats For The Listeners, an instrumental version of the same song is the ultimate filler track & not really a fitting way to close the album.

991 - Depeche Mode 'Speak & Spell' (1981)

My Rating: 1.45 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): 10/--

Favourite Tracks: New Life
Least-Favourite Tracks: I Sometimes Wish I Was Dead, What's Your Name

I must have sinned terribly in a previous life as recently I had to do some work compiling music for German toddlers - high-energy squeaky synth saccharine songs that almost drove me insane. Putting this album on, I felt my eye twitching Herbert Lom-style because it just reminded me of all that appalling pap.

I hated this album when it was originally released, not because I didn't like electronic music, but conversely because I loved electronic music. Back then I had loads of analogue synths myself & I loved the fact that you could make so many wild & exciting sounds. The versatility of the instruments seemed to inspire early electronic bands (Kraftwerk, early Human League, Throbbing Gristle, Devo, etc) towards experimentation & to subvert the traditional verse-chorus structures. Then this album arrived & electronic music was delivered to the masses as a big pink candy bunny with a bow in its hair.

The main culprit is of course Vince Clarke, a man who liked the presets on his first synth so much that he went on to use them for the next twenty-five years. From this album, through Yazoo (or 'Kazoo' as they should be called) to Erasure, Vince always plumped for the shrillest, most twee & feeble sounds that is is possible to extract from a silicon chip. Producer & Mute Records boss Daniel Miller should also hang his head in shame. After listening to this album, I went back & listened to his 1980 Silicon Teens recordings & the production & sounds are identical.

By the time I'd reached the closing track Just Can't Get Enough, I'd truly had enough. This was the third song where it 'whooshed' into a middle eight of Dave Gahan repeating the chorus over a lone drumbox. Depeche Mode became a much more interesting band after this album (i.e., once Vince had gone). If you really want to check out early 80s electronic music, I'd suggest people like Fad Gadget, Thomas Leer, etc - unless of course you're a 3 year old from Germany in which case I'd recommend this album wholeheartedly.

996 - Neil Young 'Freedom' (1989)

My Rating: 2.08 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): 17/35

Favourite Tracks: No More, Don't Cry
Least-Favourite Track: On Broadway

This was the first time I had heard this album & my initial reaction was a little apathetic. It's OK, but it's not the masterpiece that I'd anticipated after reading several reverential critical reviews. Seeing as it's languishing near the tail-end of the all-time top 1000 (and waaaay below Britney Spears who, as we have established elsewhere, is the barometer for measuring the greatness of all recordings) I can assume that most people are of the same opinion. Although there is a drugs theme running throughout, I found that the album sounded a little disjointed. Yes I know that I also complain when albums sound samey, but this just sounds a bit too much like a compilation to me. Some of the tracks would not have been out of place on his melodic 70s releases, while others reminded me more of mid-80s Dire Straits. The mad guitar break on Don't Cry had more in common with 'The The' than any soft rockers though & I quite liked the unpredictability & raw aggression of that. The songs have a strong political element - I can imagine the matches being held aloft for Rockin' In The Free World & while I like the storytelling style, I do feel the lyrics lack a certain depth & emotion.

998 - John Scofield 'Still Warm' (1986)

My Rating: 2.29 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

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

Favourite Tracks: Still Warm
Least-Favourite Track: Picks & Pans

I had heard some John Scofield tracks before, but I've never listened to a complete album. This was a lot funkier than I expected with some intros reminding me more of Earth, Wind & Fire than anything else. Elsewhere it reminded me of Pat Metheny & Weather Report. As you'd expect, all the musicans here are technically very proficient, but I was surprised by just how tightly unified they were as a band. Too many jazz quartets feature four guys trying to out-solo each other, but here they seemed to be working together as a solid, cohesive unit. I was particularly impressed by bass player Darryl Jones who really seemed to hold the whole thing together. Although the production is very clear, with good definition between the drums, bass, keys & guitar, it did feel a little too clinical for me at times. The keyboards occasionally venture into that yeuchhhy Yamaha DX7 sound (well this was the 80s after all) & added to the squeaky-clean production sometimes made it sound a little soul-less. That's a pity because Scofield's guitar playing is quite inventive & he does try to avoid just noodling around jazz clichés. By the end, I really wanted him to turn off that Chorus effect too, so perhaps a little more variation in his guitar sound would have helped.

999 - Cowboy Junkies 'Trinity Session' (1988)

My Rating: 2.50 out of 5

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: √

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X

The Mojo Collection: X

Chart Peak (UK/US): --/26

Favourite Tracks: I Don't Get It
Least-Favourite Track: Sweet Jane

For some reason I imagined the Cowboy Junkies were some wall-of-noise grunge outfit so this album really took me by surprise. I didn't quite know what to make of the folky acapella opening track but as I went along the album really grew on me. It's got a really laidback, ethereal quality coupled with an alt-country feel that reminded me of Lambchop or early Tom Waits. I probably made a mistake listening to this on a bright sunny morning as this is a real 'after-hours' record - I think I'd have scored it a lot higher listening to it late at night after a few beers. I like the unrefined, demo-like quality of the recordings too (including the chatting at the end of the session) as it gives the album a real stamp of sincerity. Ah, I just read on Allmusic's review that it was all recorded live in one night with just one microphone so that explains a lot. On the downside, it can sound a little samey on first listen; these cowboys are riding a bit of a one-trick pony (ouch, sorry about that), but it's a rather a nice trick so I think I can forgive them that.