By the time Joni Mitchell’s debut album came out in March of 1968, her songs had already been recorded by the likes of Judy Collins, Dave Van Ronk, and Fairport Convention. Produced by David Crosby, Song To A Seagull is mostly Joni with just her acoustic guitar. The albums starts with a highlight in “I Had a King” that looks back at the breakdown of her marriage to Chuck Mitchell, “I can’t go back there anymore/You know my keys won’t fit the door”.
The album is broken up into two sides, the first being “I Came to the City” and the second side being, “Out of the City and Down to the Seaside”. On the first side, “Michael From the Mountains” can barely contain Mitchell hitting the high notes and “Night In The City” has swooping vocals in the chorus with the added bass playing of Stephen Stills to help uplift the tune.
The second side is mostly made up of pleasant folk songs with the ambitious lyrics of “The Dawntreader” being a standout and later concludes with the heavier “Cactus Tree” that sees the guitar get strummed a little bit harder. Noted as not being the best recorded album, Mitchell would later take over the producer chair as her songs and career start to take off.
Formed in 1993, it wasn’t long before the band Gene lead by singer Martin Rossiter became a buzz band in the UK press the following year. After a few well received singles, the band released their debut album Olympian in the spring of 1995 which took them into the top 10 of the UK charts. The black and white cover picture and melodramatic lyrics saw the band draw wide spread comparisons to The Smiths. “Haunted By You” about a broken relationship is set to a happier tune and handclap percussion. The single was their second top 40 hit.
With Rossiter’s slight vocal, he doesn’t quite capture the emotion quite like Morrissey or Bret Anderson from Suede, and equally, the music doesn’t break new ground. Yet, what the band does really well are choruses for the now 50 year old kids to jump around to. The soft rock of “A Car That Sped” sees the guitar get turned up on the chorus. A trick that “Your Love, It Lies” does as well. “Sleep Well Tonight” has the non-threatening lyric of “sleep well tonight/tomorrow we fight”, an anthem for the introverts.
“Still Can’t Find the Phone” slightly changes the style to a light, country/folk feel that is really quite good. The softer title track adds a bit of strings as Rossiter sings, “I wanted to be there with you/For I, can only be normal with you”. A lyric that teenagers and twentysomethings, and even those of us older, can relate to as we try to figure out the world with our partners. Listening 30 years later, Olympian is a fun romp through some fine second tier literary guitar pop.
Just like their counterparts in The Beatles, The Rolling Stones early US records were a bit of a mix bag. Following up their first US album, England’s Newest Hit Makers, their second release was 12 X 5. Named after the band’s 5 x 5 UK EP, this release takes those five songs and adds seven more including cover songs and three credited to Mick Jagger/Keith Richards.
The band gets the joint rocking with a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Around and Around”, includes some great piano playing from Ian Stewart and the sweet honey vocals of Jagger. The band’s first US top ten hit appears in the cover “Time Is On My Side” based on the Irma Thomas rendition. The version that appears here is a bit more raw than the version that they would later record and include on compilations over and over again.
Of the three tracks credited the iconic duo, “Good Times, Band Times” is the pick. A slower, bluesy R+B number does the band good basing it on the music they have been covering. Their first UK #1 closes out side one with their version of “It’s All Over Now”. A bit of a country and western twang with some terrific bass playing courtesy of Bill Wyman and pained vocals of Jagger. Good stuff.
The second side starts with an instrumental band jam “2120 South Michigan Avenue” credited to their moniker, Nanker Phelge. The side also has a couple of cover versions of popular songs including “Under The Boardwalk” released in the same year as The Drifters’ classic version and “Susie Q” that is a rough and ready version with handclaps thrown in for good measure. 12 X 5 does a solid job of featuring some classic Rolling Stones songs and a few other great turns but with a few others that that are better left to the originals.
It’s remarkable that in her nearly 40 year recording career, Kim Deal is just now releasing her first official solo album. Having worked in main bands The Pixies and The Breeders, on this album the spotlight is solely on her. Nobody Loves You More sounds like it could have come out in the mid 90s after her breakthrough with The Breeders, Last Splash. Indie rock, surf guitar, and orchestral strings co-mingle throughout this album that Deal produced with several tracks having been recorded by Steve Albini before his untimely death in 2024.
The title track has a 70s soundtrack feel to it, it’s a bit hazy, like a yellowing photography with a just a subtle drumbeat. A country twang on the softer sounds of “Are You Mine?” told from the perspective of an Alzheimer patient. One of the highlights of the album is “Wish I Was”. The laid back surf guitar underpinned with a throbbing bass where Deal sings of really liking/loving someone but with the line, “Coming around is easy/coming down is rough”.
The album still fits in plenty of scuzzy rock songs. “Crystal Breath” comes to life when the drumbeat kicks in. Similarly, “Big Ben Beat” kicks up the distortion with some great guitar lines while “Disobedience” is just a cool, upbeat indie rock song that Deal has been writing all her life. The album closes with the last song that Albini recorded, “A Good Time Pushed”. Fittingly it sees Deal sing, “We’re having a good time… I’ll see you around”. A really great album, hopefully we don’t have to wait 35+ years for the next solo album.
Blood On The Tracks is one of Bob Dylan’s best loved albums. Released in early 1975, the album went through quite the process to get recorded. Working with Phil Ramone, Dylan recorded the tracks in New York before being persuaded by his brother David Zimmerman to re-record back in his home state of Minnesota a few months later. The released version is a mix of tracks recorded in both locations.
Clocking in at just under 9 minutes with 15 verses, “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts” is the only typical Dylan song here. The epic country hoedown spins a cast of characters taking up residence in a boozy saloon. With his first marriage disintegrating, most of the rest of the songs are in one way another about love and relationships. Reading about the songs 50 years later, it’s almost like reading about the last Taylor Swift album as reviewers try to figure out little clues in the songs on what was happening in his life. Dylan denies most of it and insists that the album was lyrically inspired by Anton Chekov. Tortured poets society indeed.
A beautiful track, “Simple Twist of Fate” goes from the third to first person as Dylan sings, “To know and feel too much within/I still believe she was my twin/but I lost the ring”. On “You’re a Big Girl Now” he then sings of “A pain that stops and starts/like a corkscrew to my heart/ever since we’ve been apart” before a flash of anger appears at the end of side one on “Idiot Wind”. Far more scathing than anything else on the record, here he sings of “idiot wind/blowing every time you move your mouth”.
The last three songs of the album touch on the complexities of relationships including the touching, “If You See Her, Say Hello” – looking back on a past partner and wishing them well regardless of how things ended. Lyrically more complex, “Shelter From The Storm” tells of a relationship where one is welcomed in from pain and turmoil before it all goes wrong. The album ends with the more lighthearted “Buckets Of Rain”. Like several tracks, the last two just have Dylan on guitar and the excellent bass playing accompaniment of Tony Brown.
The most well known track is the first song and only single, “Tangled Up In Blue”. At seven verses and no chorus, on paper this works as an older style Dylan song but this one sounds shot through the pop world and back through the other side. The drumming of Bill Berg give the track some oomph as Dylan turns in a staggering vocal performance. Both the song and album are highlights of the Dylan catalogue. Blood On The Tracks still gets mentioned in pop culture and is widely regarded as one of the best albums ever recorded. A truly classic album.
The Light Appears 