Also known as ‘Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac’, the band’s debut album was a collection of blues standards, plus a few of their own compositions. Lead guitarist and former Bluesbreaker Green is highly regarded as one of the best guitarists ever In the early days anyway). The band had one or two more strictly blues albums then melded into a sort of blues-psych fusion before floundering somewhat in the early 70’s as rather middle of the road group and finally hitting the big time since '75. Like Pink Floyd, the Mac were three distinctly different bands in a way.
Canadian rock band Arcade Fire’s magnificent debut release and a concept album to boot. The theme of this record is death obviously but was deliberate as most of the band were going through some incredible bad luck all at the same time with losing members of their families and fiends.
Driving, stirring music and lots of hard work touring constantly has seen this excellent band reach the top of the tree in the rock music fraternity.
One of the most cruelly overlooked bands of the late 60’s psychedelic era, Fever Tree deserved much more as their signature tune ‘San Francisco Girls’ illustrates. Highly melodic songs and some wonderful songwriting.
More san Franciscan rock and yet another album from 1968 this afternoon (all coincidental), The Doors third release was more of the same keyboard-driven rock from Jim Morrison’s boys.
No.436: “Tender Prey” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (1988)
Featuring quite heavily of late in my list, Nick Cave brings his dark and gloomy touch to more death and glory with this 1988 album, which was the turning point in his career from being stuck in the realms of indie-rock for a decade or so. The song I’ll feature here was later covered by Johnny Cash as part of his American series of albums.
Many years after leaving Genesis, Peter Gabriel was enjoying a successful solo career when this album went massive. It fitted in so well with the whole mid-80’s bombast of the MTV generation with it’s striking videos and quirky songs. Hard to decide what to pull off this fine record, so I’ll stick to the two biggest hits, the second video here featuring Kate Bush this classic single ‘Don’t Give Up’.
Two days on the trot for The Killers after yesterday’s Sawdust album. This is their debut, and a solid release from this very English-sounding Las Vegas band who were raised on our indie scene. Full of immediate, exciting rock songs, this is still their finest hour.
No.433: “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim” by Jim Croce (1972)
Soft folk-rock songwriter Jim Croce was a talent from Philadelphia who wrote Bad Bad Leroy Brown for Frank Sinatra and had two U.S. No.1 singles of his own, featured below. He recorded five albums between 1968-1973 before he died in a plane crash in 1974 aged just 30.
No.432: “Enigma 2: The Cross Of Changes” by Enigma (1993)
A Romanian-German new age “band” created by DJ/producer Michael Cretu. This was their second album following the international success of their debut which featured the Gregorian chants (coming up soon in my list). This haunting music was notable for the Asian-sounding lead single, ‘Return To Innocence’:
Plethora of platters there
Tumbleweed Connection I had as a present from a girl friend(she liked him)I grew to like it…ish
Come down in time is the best track I think.
I’d forgotten all about that one from the album, PS. I’m going to have to dig this album out again as it’s a bit of an anomaly in Elton’s early releases. Nice choice, thanks.
No.431: “Tango In The Night” by Fleetwood Mac (1987)
Second from the Mac today, but this isn’t for the purists, it’s the mid-80’s big hair band led by famous bickering couple Buckingham & Nicks and their return to massive pop success. Seven singles came from this album including massive hits Everywhere, Little Lies, and the underrated seven Wonders. Selecting the first single though here, the great ‘Big Love’, and my favourite song off the album ‘Isn’t It Midnight’, captured live.
Ian Dury would have been so happy about that, PS. I imagine he wasn’t instant fanciable material tbh! But, as you say, he had a way with his words, despite not being a particularly pleasant man in looks or personality (as legend would have it).
I’m going to have to end with this one today…and it’s another from ‘Fat Reg’:
No.430: “21 At 33” by Elton John (1980)
This criminally underrated album from Elton John’s leanest patch (between 1979-1982 he made some excellent albums with little success), features probably my favourite EJ track, a song called Sartorial Eloquence. Single Little Jeannie is pleasant enough as well, but on the afore-mentioned miss of a single, he made a song so well-played with its chord structures that it’s impossible to pass it by without special mention. Also check out the 2-minute ditty ‘Cartier’ from this record too.
Hi Bobby.
Sure mate, but I’d prefer it if the songs are relevant to the albums we talk about, otherwise the thread would become just a random music posting thread.
I’m thinking you want to post a Yes record? Well, we’ve had them and will see them again, so that’s fine bud, if you can find the album I’ve mentioned
