Album Reviews

Why has the blues been banished from popular music? Probably because young people today don’t have the blues. For one thing they seem generally more happy and well-adjusted than previous generations—certainly in matters of sex, though recently a youngster who couldn’t get any indulged his self-pity with a mass shooting. Perhaps had he learned to sing or even listen to the blues, some soothing could have stopped him.

Caught in 1972 between The Beatles and Byrds pop/folk undertow and too early to catch the indie rock wave pioneered by bands like REM later in the decade, commercial failure was all but assured for Big Star, aided by what many at the time considered was a bad Memphis, TN based record company roll out with spotty distribution and less than stellar promotion.

Named for a now defunct Northern New Jersey, Route 23 lawn furniture emporium (bought my chaise lounges there!), Fountains of Wayne has been making consistently tuneful and erudite observations about just plain folks since 1996 when they released their eponymous first album on Atlantic Records. The core was then and is now, the delightfully bratty-voiced Chris Collingwood and his multi-instrumental partner Adam Schlesinger.

Wow! Leave it to Sundazed to pull off the ultimate Christmas gift for Byrdmaniax-not that any of them will wait until then to devour this quintuple 45rpm box set. All of these A and B sides were originally conceived of as the “next” Byrds single, but for one reason or another, were shelved. Now Sundazed has resurrected them with fabulous sound and impeccable, sumptuous packaging.

Truly, you can live without The Hollies' version of "That's How Strong My Love Is," compared to The Rolling Stones' white boy version, which you can also do without once you've heard Otis Redding do it. 

Smartly arranged and orchestrated, nicely recorded and beautifully packaged, Bright Eyes’s latest double LP set is a wistful set that begins oddly but effectively with a denouement of a song about the encroaching pincer forces of corporate, military and religious aggressors (“If you think that God is keeping score, hooray!”)

Kitsch fans alert! This obscure 1960 oddity by composer/arranger Bob Thompson consists of a dozen short, lushly orchestrated impressions of various forms of transportation, each introduced with a stereo high-fidelity sound effect recording of a train, ocean liner, motor scooter, sports car, Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, or what have you.