I'm bored. As usual. I'm trying to find some new-to-me music that speaks to me, that gets me excited, but that only happens occasionally. I'm slowly working my way through a stack of new-to-me stuff, but only sometimes is any of it stunning & worthy of re-playing (like Kirsty MacColl's "Free World" was awhile back). Until I trip over something great to tell you about, here's what I've been listening to lately....
Jade Warrior -- A Winter's Tale.
Fleet Foxes -- Blue Ridge Mountains.
Fleetwood Mac -- Hypnotized.
Icehouse -- Great Southern Land.
Kansas -- Journey From Mariabronn, Song for America.
Pink Floyd -- High Hopes, One of These Days, Keep Talking.
Miles Davis/Bill Laswell -- In a Silent Way/Shhh/Peaceful/It's About That Time, What If? (all remixed).
Brian Wilson -- On a Holiday, In Blue Hawaii.
Alan Parsons Project -- The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether, Don't Answer Me, Days are Numbers (The Traveller), You Don't Believe, Lucifer, Old and Wise.
Porcupine Tree -- The Sound of Muzak.
The Roches -- Hammond Song.
Sly and the Family Stone -- You Can Make it if You Try.
Barclay James Harvest -- One Hundred Thousand Smiles Out, Moonwater, The Joker.
"A Winter's Tale" & "Blue Ridge Mountains" are both gorgeous, well worth tracking down. "Hypnotized" is laid-back brilliant, but it took me YEARS to catch on to its languid mood. "Great Southern Land" is spooky, perfect late-night listening.
"Journey from Mariabronn" is THE great lost Kansas song, as great as "Song for America," if not better. Their poise was amazing, their seemingly effortless ability to mix rock & prog & folk & whatever. Later on they leaned a little too much toward the "boogie" side -- but there should've been WAY more of this kind of stuff....
Why do later Floyd albums get slammed? "High Hopes" & "Keep Talking" can stand up with any of the earlier Roger Waters stuff. & "One of These Days" has a great riff -- really good driving music. I need to check out more of the earlier Floyd stuff from SAUCERFUL through OBSCURED BY CLOUDS....
The Miles stuff all sounds great in its remixed form, but things get kind of noisy after "What If?" Guess if I felt really brave I could play "He Loved Him Madly" at work -- I've inflicted far worse things on customers. & I really should check out JACK JOHNSON and ON THE CORNER....
"On a Holiday" & "In Blue Hawaii" were the two best NEW songs on Brian Wilson's resurrected SMiLE album of a few years back. "In Blue Hawaii" is positively scary in places. & I liked the way these two songs reworked some old fragments that we'd been hearing on bootlegs for years. These were about the only two tracks where I didn't think Brian's vocals were strained....
Parsons' "Tarr and Fether" is an Olde Favorite that Almost Rocks. The rest is ... musically gorgeous, antiseptically pristine production ... nice vocals ... but absolutely nothing unexpected or surprising ever happens. It's all so predictable. These tracks had the life produced right out of them.
Doesn't mean I don't still like them -- I'm a sucker for "Don't Answer Me" & "Days are Numbers," & I think "You Don't Believe" is a neat peek behind the scenes into Parsons' & lyricist/singer Eric Woolfson's creative arguments. But it's all a little too perfect. & I had the same complaints about the Project's INSTRUMENTAL WORKS, & I still think that's pretty great....
But "Lucifer" is too sweet; it should be more menacing. & why isn't "The Gold Bug" on their ULTIMATE best-of? Or "Some Other Time," "Winding Me Up," "I'd Rather Be a Man," "Secret Garden"?
Speaking of perfection, "The Sound of Muzak" has a nice, smooth, updated prog sound, plus some drama.
Heard "Hammond Song" & "You Can Make it if You Try" thanks to the syndicated-radio music-news&reviews show SOUND OPINIONS, where hosts Jim DeRogatis & Greg Kot were doing a special on family bands. I've got the first Roches album at home but hadn't heard "Hammond" in quite awhile -- the vocals are still gorgeous, plus there's great added guitar from Rockin' Bob Fripp! Still remember the first time I heard the album back in '79.... "You Can Make It" I must've overlooked on Sly's GREATEST HITS -- very solid, as always. When I go back into another Soul/R&B phase I'll likely be playing more of Sly....
It's time to finish off Barclay James Harvest. "One Hundred Thousand Smiles Out" indicates they might've been listening to Bowie's "Space Oddity" -- it's tolerable. "The Joker" is a sorta downbeat rocker, not bad, but it certainly doesn't save the HARVEST YEARS best-of collection at the end.
"Moonwater" adds a HUGE orchestra to a possibly-7-minute piece full of BJH's usual self-pity. Why did they feel compelled to do this stuff? This is not rock&roll, closer to chamber-pop. But it's not endless, as I thought when I first heard it 35 years ago on one of Harvest's BJH vinyl-best-of's. There were at least 2 of those, & since then there've been 2 2-CD Harvest-era best-of's -- clearly EMI is still trying to get back the money they invested on these guys.
Mercifully, BJH learned how to write better, stronger pop hooks after they moved to Polydor & MCA -- at least for awhile (check out "Hymn," "Spirit on the Water," "Poor Man's Moody Blues," "The Song They Love to Sing," "Play to the World," & the glorious "Ring of Changes"). By the time they released XII (1978), they weren't writing hooks at all, near as I could hear....
So, from a best-of look at their first four albums, the verdict is: These guys had some talent, but not all that much to say, & hardly any inspiration. I found ONE new-to-me song worth re-hearing ("Ursula"), out of 31 tracks. I won't be keeping THE HARVEST YEARS. Thank Ghod I got it CHEAP.
More soon....
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The Jack Johnson is a classic album in itself although it's only 2 songs that clock in at 52 minutes Second side gets a bit used to, but I like the John McLaughlin jam at beginning of song. On The Corner is bit more abstract as they say, the lesser of the two albums but worth your time if you're bored for new music ;)
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