Album Reviews

Sort By: Post DateTitle Publish Date
Album Reviews
Gene Clark Album That Wasn't, Finally Is
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 11, 2012
Gene Clark owed A&M an album in 1972 and so to fulfill his contract he did what most artists do in such circumstances: he decided to make one for himself.

Graham Parker kissed off his label with an album called Mercury Poisoning. Van Morrison owed one to Bert Berns' Bang label. Berns had died but Van, who had had a volatile relationship with Bert and was anxious to go to Warner Brothers and record Astral Weeks, handed his grieving widow Eileen an unreleasable album containing the ten songs and the publishing rights thereto. The songs—actually a series of short ridiculous and nonsensical jams— had titles like "Blow In Your Nose," "Nose in Your Blow," and "Ringworm."

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Acoustic Dead Album Puts You Right On Stage
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 12, 2012
Who knew vinyl lovers were such Deadheads? The labels doing the reissuing hope you are. There are recent studio reissues from Warner Brothers/Rhino and Analogue Productions and live recordings from Mobile Fidelity and Analogue Productions including this one from AP.

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
ORG Reinvents Heavy Weather
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 13, 2012
Jazz Fusion may have turned out to be a dead end genre exiled to The Weather Channel's 24 hour forecast, but at its inception arguably with the group Weather Report, the sun shone brightly on its possibilities. How ironic that the jazz offshoot took off with Weather Report and dead-ended on TWC!

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Finally, "Music From Big Pink" on AAA Vinyl With BASS
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 14, 2012
Who begins a debut album with a dirge-like, mournful song taken at a heartbreakingly slow pace like Richard Manuel's "Tears of Rage?" The Band did on their debut album that didn't exactly hit the pop charts running.

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Talk Talk's 1991 Sonic Spectacular Gets First American Vinyl Issue
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 19, 2012
Talk Talk's Mark Hollis may have long ago retired from the music business, but his musical legacy prospers and grows. A near cult-like devotion hovers around the group's records as succeeding generations discover his dense, probing, faith-based cogitations. The intensity and strength of his spiritual commitment was matched only by the forcefulness of his later "spirited" rejection.

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Glenn Frey Proves He's Got the Vocal Chops For A Standards Album
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 20, 2016
Like Paul McCartney's Kisses on the Bottom, The Eagles' Glenn Frey's standards album was produced with requisite class, though Frey's song choices range wider, covering everything from the 1922 Al Jolson classic "My Buddy" to Brian Wilson's soothing Pet Sounds solo turn "Caroline No" written with Tony Asher.

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Joni Mitchell’s Laurel Canyon Rediscovered
Randy Wells  |  Jun 28, 2012
Joni Mitchell’s decision to stay in New York City instead of traveling 300 miles north to attend a three-day rock festival in August of 1969 was probably a good idea. If she had actually seen Woodstock for herself, she may not have created such an intense and idealized song by the same name.

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Nick Lowe Waxes Melancholic at 45 (RPM)—He's Considerably Older, Of Course
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 02, 2012
NIck Lowe has aged more than gracefully—he's never been better melodically and especially lyrically. On his latest release, issued by Yep Roc on a "wide groove 45rpm" record, Lowe waxes both melancholic and bemused about a break up.
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Which "Wish You Were Here" Do You Want?
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 05, 2012
It's a bit late in the day to write a review of the music on this album, which concerns itself mostly with how the music business chews up musicians with dreams and spits them out—not that Syd Barrett, the subject of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" was done in by the business.

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Thelonious Monk Plays Just For You
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 06, 2012
You can tell me yours, but my first encounter with Thelonious Monk was the 1963 Columbia album Criss-Cross(CS 8838). I'd given up on rock'n'roll, which had become all Fabian and Frankie Avalon-ed out and new musical adventures of a more adult nature were in order for this high-schooler.

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
The Doors At 45 On 45!
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 11, 2012
Do you really need a musical discussion at this point in time? All I can say is that in the "Summer of Love" of 1967, all you could hear coming from car radios, and open windows was the edited version of "Light My Fire." It defined that summer for most of my peers and was the perfect calling card with which to beg for some action from a date. Hard to believe that was 45 years ago.

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
David Bowie's "....Ziggy Stardust..." Gets Vinyl Reissue From Original Master Tapes
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 16, 2012
Originally released in June of 1972, Bowie's "rock concept album" broke the then still obscure musician and changed the face of rock'n'roll forever—and that ain't hyperbole. If this wasn't the album that gave Freddie Mercury his dream, I can't imagine what was.

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
"Pan"-Demonium Breaks Out As Mo-Fi Issues "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan"
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 19, 2012
There was no "sophomore slump" for Bob Dylan. Quite the contrary. His first album brought promise, but it was an album of covers with but two originals and it hardly sold. Some at Columbia called signing Dylan "Hammond's Folly," and the lackluster sales for Dylan's debut seemed to back them up.

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Mute Nostril Agony! Analogue Productions Issues "Strange Days" As a Double 45rpm LP
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 25, 2012
“Strange Days” was the perfect album for its time. For music lovers at a time when records were the main means by which a generation communicated with its culture, the title, cover art, music and sound resonated with the meaning of the fall of 1967 (even though the album was recorded the previous spring at L.A.’s Sunset Sound).
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
IMPEX Reissues Ellington Columbia Classic AAA
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 27, 2012
Starting in 1954 the late veteran DJ William B. Williams hosted a long-running radio show on WNEW-AM called "Make Believe Ballroom" (a name, coincidentally, we also used at summer camp for kids who prematurely wore jock straps before they really had a need to).
Continue Reading »

Pages

X