Album Reviews

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Michael Fremer  |  Jan 01, 2010

(Originally posted in 2006)
With the release of the second, third and fourth Fairport Convention albums on 180g vinyl, lovers of British folk and folk/rock who weren’t around when these records were issued on vinyl by A&M in America and Island in the UK, can hear the brilliance of both the group and John Wood’s sympathetic engineering as originally intended. CD simply can’t breath life into the late Sandy Denny’s voice. On vinyl she’ll take your breath away. (Originally posted in 2006)

Michael Fremer  |  Jan 01, 2009

True, The Who were once called The High Numbers, but can you imagine a more self-loathing album title than The Who By Numbers? Painting by numbers or doing anything by "the numbers" usually connotes rote work. It was an honest assessment of the album.

Michael Fremer  |  Feb 01, 2009

The big problem with vinyl �greatest hits� compilations is that they are, of necessity, at least a generation down from the master tape. That�s because assembling the actual masters into a cutting reel usually isn�t allowed and even were a record label to allow it, levels, equalization and tape head azimuth issues make in nearly impossible to adjust between tracks as the tape reel rolls and the lacquer gets cut.

Michael Fremer  |  Jun 01, 2010

In the early �70�s, with the second great rock era in its death throws, the rock intelligensia hungered for something, anything that might reinvigorate the softening musical firmament.

Michael Fremer  |  Jan 01, 2009

If you choose to linger on the external contours and often predictable constructive conventions of these tunes, instead of on how the musicians fill the spaces, this Horace Silver set can sound conventional, overly familiar and even mundane to 21st century ears.

Michael Fremer  |  Jan 01, 2009

Dennis Wilson didn�t sing very well in the conventional sense of the word: his pitch was frequently off, he warbled, his vocal timbre was raspy and calling his range �limited� would be an overstatement.

Michael Fremer  |  Jan 01, 2009

It always seemed as if there was a great recording lurking under the glaze of the original 1994 CD release. Finally, 14 years later Pure Pleasure gives us an answer: yes! Wow is there a great recording here on Keb' Mo's audacious, country/blues/soul debut.

Michael Fremer  |  Jan 01, 2009

Very few singers can get this close to a dry microphone, be balanced way forward of the backup band and sound as good as Peggy Lee does on this series of standards backed by a pair of small ensembles, recorded in 1953 and 1956. Neither the original nor the reissue notes explain the album’s temporal context so perhaps there’s no story there.

Michael Fremer  |  Jan 01, 2009

Before there was Norah, Diana, Patricia, or even Jacintha, there was Julie London. Just as audiophiles today seem to gravitate towards sexy, breathy singers, audiophiles in the mid-fifties found themselves inextricably connected to Ms. London, thanks in great part to the Liberty Records original ((LRP-3006), issued December, 1955.

Michael Fremer  |  Feb 01, 2009

The contrast between this Sam Cooke playing a tiny Miami stop on the Chitlin circuit and the one who showed up at New York�s Copacabana the next year couldn�t put the singer�s flip sides into greater relief.

Michael Fremer  |  Feb 01, 2009

Like Richard X. Heyman, Matthew Sweet, Jason Falkner, Owsley, Myracle Brah (to a lesser degree), a guy named William Wisely, Jr. (whose record from last April I should have already reviewed but promise to right after this) and some others, Jim Boggia is a true keeper of the pop music flame lit by the early Beatles, Kinks, fellow Philadelphian Todd Rundgren and the others ‘60s icons&#151 not to mention second gen acts like Badfinger.

Michael Fremer  |  Feb 01, 2009

Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes makes Freddie Mercury, Prince and David Bowie sound positively macho. His whiney vocalizing and gay shrieking makes glam-rock sound like Led Zeppelin. And while a Mercury song like “We Are the Champions” has become a ball game anthem, nothing in the Barnes oeuvre could possibly crossover&#151unless a day comes when what sound like gay diary entries become the favorite half-time sing alongs.

Michael Fremer  |  Feb 01, 2009

Before there was an Internet, before cell-phones but after smoke signals, news of this remarkable Leo Kottke album with the black and white armadillo cover spread throughout the “underground” almost immediately upon its release in 1969 on John Fahey’s Takoma Records label.

Michael Fremer  |  Feb 01, 2009

Note: After this the posting of this review, Sundazed's Bob Irwin sent a correction. I've chose to leave the original review intact, prefaced by Irwin's comment:

Michael Fremer  |  Feb 01, 2009

You can bet this blistering, groundbreaking jazz-rock fusion album from 1971 spun Jeff Beck’s head around big time, turning him from heavy metalist-rocker (his version of The Yardbirds’ “Shape of the Things to Come” on the Jeff Beck Group’s album Truth is arguably the first “heavy metal” rock arrangement) to the jazz-fusionist he became on Blow By Blow. Others followed too, of course.

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