Well, I listened to A Song For All Seasons in full last night and am again as I type.
My first thought is: where have you been all my life? Excellent album. In places it reminds me of the Strawbs, Pentangle, Fairport Convention, even Jethro Tull a bit - all the stuff I like. And what a voice!
Thanks for posting it; it’s certainly enriched my audio experience. It’s one of those rare times when I come across a gem which will always be with me. My favourite tracks I’ve added to my current playlist so they’ll pop up now and again, but this is an album I’ll listen to a lot from now on. I’ll also have a listen to Renaissance’s other work.
Pleased you enjoyed it, Ffosse
What is your favourite track? I love The Day Of The Dreamer best with it’s beautiful middle section and orchestration, but the whole album is a gem, as you say
No.15: “I Robot” by The Alan Parsons Project (1977)
The second album from the legendary record engineer who produced albums as they were made to be played. High tech, classy, intricate, clean production as good as anything George Martin, the boys from Abba or any of the other legendary top studio men constructed, The Alan Parsons project made nine albums as a functioning studio unit from 1976-1987.
The band had that core of individuals including main songwriter/producer Eric Woolfsson, plus some of the best session men in music circles employed in the 1970s’80’s. Another strength was their use of lead singers throughout their history. Passing through the various records as vocals for hire were such names as Colin Blunstone, Steve Harley, Chris Rainbow, Elmer Gantry, Lesley Duncan, Christopher Cross, Lenny Zakatek and David Patton and many more. (See personnel list below for this album’s contributors). Parsons himself was a studio engineer at Abbey Road and was the engineer on Pink Floyd’s masterpiece The Dark Side Of The Moon.
All of their albums have featured in my list at some point and I Robot is definitely right up there with their best work. It’s a concept piece about machine taking over the world as we knew it, the pre-digital age. The band’s succulent instrumental pieces merge with some brilliantly-written poignant and melancholy songs which tackle themes such as insular depression, being alone and remembering when the days were better as a whole. But it’s not doom and gloom, it’s a piece of musical art and I urge people to listen to more music from this little-know UK band who shifted 50 million albums around the world. Massive everywhere except their homeland, which is a pity to be honest.
Alan Parsons performing the “I Robot” title track, Rome 2016:
Interview:
Personnel:
• David Paton – bass, acoustic guitar, backing vocals
• Stuart Tosh – drums, percussion, backing vocals
• Ian Bairnson – electric and acoustic guitars, backing vocals
• Eric Woolfson - keyboards, vocoder, backing vocals
• Alan Parsons - keyboards, vocoder, backing vocals, acoustic guitar
• Duncan Mackay – keyboards
• B.J. Cole – steel guitar
• John Leach – cimbalom, kantele
• Lenny Zakatek Allan Clarke, Steve Harley, Jack Harris, Peter Straker, Jaki Whitren, Dave Townsend, the English Chorale, the New Philharmonia Chorus – vocals
• Hilary Western - backing vocals
• Smokey Parsons - backing vocals
• Tony Rivers, John Perry and Stu Calver - backing vocals on “Some Other Time”
• Produced and engineered by Alan Parsons, executive producer Eric Woolfson
• Orchestra and choir arranged and conducted by Andrew Powell
No.14: “Born To Run” by Bruce Springsteen (1975)
The title track of this album is my favourite single of all-time. From those opening guitar and drums, in fact the full band crashing into a song with so much feeling, so much power. It’s a song about freedom, finding your soul and having the right to live your life as you wish. The sheer exuberance of this song is awesome.
But this album doesn’t end there. From the opening harmonica wails of the opening song about finding love out on the highway, the brilliant acoustic-rock of ‘Thunder Road’ rankes alongside Bob Seger’s ‘Roll Me Away’, The Eagles’ ‘Take It Easy’ and Jackson Browne’s ‘Running On Empty’ as one of the greatest ‘road’ songs ever recorded.
We move on through a further five evergreen Springsteen marvels including the band introduction live favourite and funky-soul of ‘Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out’ and end up with the frankly brilliant concert closer ‘Jungleland’, an epic of the highest calibre. With the E Street Band fully formed by this stage, this album is a requisite of anybody’s collection.
“I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen”. That famous quote by record promoter and manager Jon Landau was both a blessing and an ultimate hindrance for Bruce Springsteen as he made his name with an incredible London performance in 1975 but fought a horrendous legal battle which almost finished his career stone dead after a three-year legal wrangle with his former manager.
Personnel:
• Bruce Springsteen – lead vocals, producer, lead and rhythm guitars, harmonica, percussion
• Roy Bittan – piano, Fender Rhodes, organ, harpsichord, glockenspiel, background vocals on all tracks except “Born to Run”
• Clarence Clemons – saxophones, tambourine, background vocals
• Danny Federici – organ and glockenspiel on “Born to Run”
• Garry W. Tallent – bass guitar
• Max Weinberg – drums on all tracks except “Born to Run”
• Ernest “Boom” Carter – drums on “Born to Run”
• Suki Lahav – violin on “Jungleland”
• David Sancious – piano, organ on “Born to Run”
• Steven Van Zandt – guitar, background vocals, horn arrangements, alto horn
• Wayne Andre – trombone
• Mike Appel – background vocals
• Michael Brecker – tenor saxophone
• Randy Brecker – trumpet, flugelhorn
• Richard Davis – double bass on “Meeting Across The River”
• David Sanborn – baritone saxophone
• Charles Calello – conductor, string arrangements
• Jon Landau – producer
• Mike Appel – producer
• Jimmy Iovine – engineer
No.13: “Live Rust” by Neil Young & Crazy Horse (1979)
Hot on the heels of Rust Never Sleeps, Neil Young’s great live-without-audience album, Live Rust appeared later the same year as a full-length double album from a real life tour. And it is brilliant.
Beginning with just Neil and his trusty guitar, he’s strumming away with acoustic versions of ‘Sugar Mountain’, ‘Comes A Time’ and others, but as we move forward he’s gradually getting the Crazy Horse band involved to end up belting out classics such as ‘Like A Hurricane’ and ‘My My, Hey Hey (Into The Black)’. This is the final time we will see Mr. Young in this list, the album coincided with a video (now DVD) release of this concert and I seriously urge you to seek that out. It even has Ewoks acting as roadies setting up the stage equipment!
Track listing: Side one 1. “Sugar Mountain”
2. “I Am a Child”
3. “Comes a Time”
4. “After the Gold Rush”
5. “My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)” Side two
“When You Dance I Can Really Love”
“The Loner”
“The Needle and the Damage Done”
“Lotta Love”
“Sedan Delivery” Side three
“Powderfinger”
“Cortez the Killer”
“Cinnamon Girl” Side four
“Like a Hurricane”
“Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)”
“Tonight’s the Night”
Personnel:
Neil Young - lead guitar, harmonica, piano, lead vocals
Frank Sampedro - guitar, keyboards, vocals
Billy Talbot - bass, vocals
Ralph Molina - drums, vocals
Neil Young in Floydy’s Top 1000:
013-Live Rust-1979
043-Rust Never Sleeps-1979
059-Freedom-1989
098-Harvest-1972
154-After The Gold Rush-1970
215-Harvest Moon-1992
289-Psychedelic Pill-2012
360-MTV Unplugged (Live)-1993
444-Journey Through The Past (Soundtrack)-1972
513-Ragged Glory-1990
548-Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere-1969
549-Neil Young-1969
776-Silver & Gold-2000
851-Comes A Time-1978
Well, not long to go now. I’ve enjoyed this thread very much - it’s far better than lists I’ve seen on other forums where there are 4 page arguments over which genesis album is better than the other.
Well what do you want from someone’s personal favourites? Sorry to disappoint. But…
You try putting together a list like this with info included mate…I don’t think I’ve done a bad job really.
Sorry if my tastes are not to your liking. Should I end it now or what?
Okay folks, I’ll just say that if you’re losing interest please don’t post. It’s taken me a hell of a lot of work to compile and If it’s not appreciated by some I’ll see this thing out on my own if need be.
Two more then the Top 10, one by one.
But firstly, another ‘samey’ album:
No.12: “The River” by Bruce Springsteen (1980)
The first song I ever heard was the title track of this album ‘The River’ in late 1979 when it entered the UK singles chart at No.35. It blew me away as just a perfect teenage love song and I bought the album in early 1981.
That great single aside, there were plenty more superb songs on this double album. Ballads, rockers, pensive thought-provoking songwriter gems about car crashes and everything else.
Highlights for me are the quiet lull of songs such as ‘Independence Day’, ‘Point Blank’, ‘Drive All Night’ and bar-room rockers such as ‘Ramrod’ and ‘Cadillac Ranch’, ‘Sherry Darling’ and the second single ‘Hungry Heart’. Still my favourite album by The Boss.
Sleeve image:
Videos:
And take a listen to this live version of ‘The River’ with its introduction about Bruce almost being enlisted for Vietnam:
Track listing: Side one
“The Ties That Bind”
“Sherry Darling”
“Jackson Cage”
“Two Hearts”
“Independence Day” Side two
“Hungry Heart”
“Out in the Street”
“Crush on You”
“You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)”
“I Wanna Marry You”
“The River” Side three
“Point Blank”
“Cadillac Ranch”
“I’m a Rocker”
“Fade Away”
“Stolen Car” Side four
“Ramrod”
“The Price You Pay”
“Drive All Night”
“Wreck on the Highway”
Bruce Springsteen in Floydy’s Top 1000:
012-The River-1980
014-Born To Run-1975
031-Born In The USA-1984
054-The Rising-2002
063-The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle-1974
072-Darkness On The Edge Of Town-1978
112-Greetings Form Asbury Park, N.J.-1973
205-Live In New York City-2001
247-Nebraska-1982
285-Wrecking Ball-2012
305-Tunnel Of Love-1987
325-The Promise (’78 Outtakes)-2010
420-Magic-2007
469-Human Touch-1992
530-Working On A Dream-2009
630-We Shall Overcome – The Seeger Sessions-2006
713-Lucky Town-1992
741-The Ghost Of Tom Joad-1995
805-High Hopes-2014
866-Devils + Dust-2005
No.11: “Never Mind The Bollocks…Here’s The Sex Pistols” by The Sex Pistols (1977)
A predictable album you know you would see eventually I reckon.
Colourful in every sense of the word and ignoring all the political nonsense that came with the Sex Pistols as if they were the biggest terrorist organisation on the planet in 1976, this album, whether or not, it did actually feature the band as ‘musicians’, was the most important record of the mid-to-late 70’s. If it wasn’t for this band and their album we’d probably still be listening to the Carpenters or the Stylistics. Music needed a kick up the ass in 1976 and this band provided that.
So with the rather outspoken Johnny Rotten (nee Lydon) on bile-spattering vocal duties, the terrific grunge-before-it- happened guitar work of Steve Jones, the more modest bass and major musical songwriting from Glen Matlock and the solid and steady timekeeping of Paul Cook on drums, Never Mind The Bollocks delivered the goods and paved the way for a million copyists and influenced just about every UK indie-rock band since. And with the egotistical animated character that was Malcolm McLaren the band could not fail to succeed (or fail, whichever way you look at it).
‘Anarchy In The UK’, ‘God Save The Queen’, ‘Pretty Vacant’, ‘Holidays In The Sun’. Fantastic singles all. And all this without one Sid Vicious, who never actually played a note on any Sex Pistols recording, though his later Eddie Cochran covers were a bit of anarchistic cartoonish fun.
The band dissolved in a sea of utter mess in early 1978 with Vicious and his girlfriend both dead, Lydon recording for his new band Public Image Ltd and Cook & Jones disappearing to Brazil to make a hit with Ronnie Biggs! Great times.
Personnel:
• Johnny Rotten – lead vocals
• Steve Jones – guitar, bass guitar, backing vocals
• Sid Vicious – bass guitar on “Bodies” (dubious!)
• Glen Matlock – bass guitar on “Anarchy in the UK”
• Paul Cook – drums
• Chris Thomas – production
• Bill Price - engineering, co-production
I want to know what number one is whatever it is.
