Category: Album Reviews

Posted in Album Reviews

The Beatles – Abbey Road (2CD Anniversary Edition) (2019)

Posted on by Michael

The Beatles along with Giles Martin (and Sam Okell), continue their 50th Anniversary releases with iconic Abbey Road having issued Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Beatles (aka The White Album) in recent years.  As with those releases, we have forgone the $130 CDN super deluxe edition and put our hard-earned money down on the 2-disc collection that has the remixed version on disc 1 and outtakes on disc 2.

The first side of Abbey Road veers from darker blues of the John Lennon tracks and harder rock songs to some of their most celebrated pop songs. Album opener “Come Together” is best remembered for its psychedelic lyrics about “ju ju eyeballs” and “got to be good looking cause he’s so hard to see”.  The eight minute “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” mostly repeats the title of the song with a few added lyrics in mantra like fashion with various shades of affection and guitar effect. 

McCartney takes over and shreds his vocals on “Oh! Darling” but also offers the much maligned “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”.  Similar to the charming “When I’m 64” from Sgt Pepper’s, this is a bridge too far with what Lennon called Macca’s “Granny music”.  Ringo Starr’s solo composition “Octopus’s Garden” is a fine slice of childlike whimsey.  “No one there to tell us what to do” is sure to appeal to the youngest of Beatles fans and a reason why they are beloved by both the young and the old.

The two big highlights come from George Harrison.  “Something” is a traditional love song wrapped up in dreamy psychedelia.  Harrison pleads “You’re asking me will my love grow, I don’t know, I don’t know” over a nice bit of Ringo drumming. Side two starts with “Here Comes the Sun”, a song that floats in on a cloud after the heaviness of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”

The next several tracks up the ante on Abbey Road.  The palette cleanser of “Because” leads into “You Never Give Me Your Money”, the song that opens the medley of eight tracks all strung together.  Starting with just McCartney with his piano it goes into a bit of old timey piano. “Sun King” is awash in a sunlit haze whereas “Mean Mr. Mustard” is more upbeat and introduces us to raucous garage rocker “Polythene Pam”. “She said she’s always been a dancer” is a lyrical highlight of “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window” before McCartney belts out the chorus to “Golden Slumbers” that magically spins on a dime to the thundering drums of “Carry That Weight”.  “The End” rocks out with a guitar line later lifted by The Beastie Boys but also offers the classic line “the love you take is equal to the love you make” before a few moments of silence…. Then the lite ditty “Her Majesty” appears and secretly gets into your head for days.

As a whole, the first half of Abbey Road is very good rock record with a few ebbs and flows.  What lifts it to greatness is the suite of songs on side two that don’t really sound like they should go together but are strung together so magnificently that it sounds like they were born as one. It’s hard to have hands type fast enough while exhilarating “The End” plays. 

Unlike the anniversary editions for Sgt Pepper’s and The Beatles, the outtakes on Abbey Road don’t feel as essential. The drums and a big fat bass are pushed to the forefront on “Here Comes the Sun” and there is a rawer vocal on “Come Together”.  The studio demo of “Something” with a prominent piano and more ragged vocal is really interesting but the outtake of “Octopus’s Garden” falls apart in under two minutes. There is simply no need to hear “Maxwell Silver Hammer” or “She’s So Heavy” in outtake form.  An instrumental version of “Because” is pleasant but the outtakes of the suite of songs that make Abbey Road great just don’t live up anywhere near to the final product. 

Abbey Road  – 10/10

Abbey Road Outtakes – 7/10

Posted in Album Reviews

Bob Dylan – The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963)

Posted on by Michael

Our Bob Dylan journey continues as we work through The Complete Album Collection Vol. 1.  Here we arrive at his first classic disc, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.  Released in May of 1963, a year after the self titled debut, it sees Dylan make a startling leap forward as he moves from mostly covers to mostly originals including several of his most important songs.  I did own this album before buying the box set but had never given it more than a few scattered listens throughout the years.

The first three songs alone seal the greatness of this album.  “Blowin’ in the Wind” takes the tune of “No More Auction Blocks” and creates one of the greatest folk songs ever written.  One that seems like it has been around forever, not just since The Beatles were singing “Love Me Do”. “Girl From the North Country” is influenced by old folk tune “Scarborough Fair” and is a lovely track of looking back on an old love, perhaps a high school sweatheart from back in Minnesota.  “Masters of War” is laser focused on the politicians in charge of pulling the war strings.  The anger at those who send kids off to war comes through in several scathing lines –  “come you masters of war… you that hide behind desks…I just want you to know, I can see through your masks”

Recognized by music scholars as one of his most complex, “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” is episodic in nature.  Upon hearing it performed at the Gaslight Café, singer Peter Blankfield commented that “every line kept building and bursting”.  It’s hard not to stop what you’re doing while this plays and just listen. Still powerful 50+ years later. “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” speaks of the loves that pass through one’s life for a short but intense time then disappear. “I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul” ….but that’s alright, it was good, now it’s time to move on. 

The first half of the album hits harder but the second half does have a few understated gems. “Oxford Town” is a short two minute track about James Meredith being the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi in 1962.  “Corinna, Corinna” is refreshing after the much longer “Talking World War III Blues”.  A traditional song with a few Robert Johnson lyrics thrown in. All the other songs leading up to this just feature Dylan so it takes a few seconds to realize there are drums and a band playing behind his impressive harmonica work. Based on a Leadbelly song, “I Shall Be Free” adds a bit of levity at the end of an album that addresses many serious topics that were at the forefront of 60’s culture.

The cover photo of Dylan walking down a street in the West Village with then girlfriend Suze Rotolo is iconic and one of the best album covers of all time.  Still ranking high in most lists of the greatest albums of all time, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan has not diminished at all. While not perfect, Dylan’s first classic album containing several towering songs is one that should be in all serious music collections.

10/10

Posted in Album Reviews

Weyes Blood – Titanic Rising (2019)

Posted on by Michael
Titanic Rising

One of our favourite tracks from 2016 was the cosmic “Do You Need Me” from 24 year old American singer-songwriter Natalie Laura Mering who goes by the name Weyes Blood.  Earlier in the year, she released her fourth studio album Titanic Rising on Sub Pop Records. Listeners are greeted with just vocals and piano to start album opener “A Lot’s Gonna Change” which is teleported from the early 70s and would fit in well on any radio station playing The Carpenters.  First single “Andromeda” has a hazy, off kilter sound that is balanced by an uplifting chorus. “Everyday” ‘s jaunty bounce really shows off Mering’s vocal range.

“Movies” sounds like a slowed down Muse track and might be the most epic song written about a love of popcorn summer movies.  “Mirrors Forever” states, “no one’s ever gonna give you a trophy for all the pain you’ve been through”.  I made the mistake of listening to the album a lot while walking the dog where the sumptuous sound of tracks like “Wild Time” did not fit. At home, listening on headphones as the music envelopes you, fits the mood much better.

8/10

Posted in Album Reviews

Liz Phair – Girly Sound To Guyville (2018)

Posted on by Michael

I’m not sure of the exact timeline but I have a distinct memory of buying The Juliana Hatfield Three’s Become What You Are disc on the same day I bought Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville.  Released in 1993, the debut album from Liz Phair, is an all-time classic indie rock record.  25 years later, Matador Records brought out an anniversary edition that added two extra discs that compromised much of the Girly Sound tapes. 

All these years later, the power of the original album is still intact.  “Fuck and Run” and “Divorce Song” still cut straight to the bone and are devastating in their emotional directness.  While those tracks are wise beyond their years, “Help Me Mary” sees a mid-twenties Phair pleading for help with lousy roommates. “Flower” saw Phair talk about sex in a way that had many indie rock males aroused while they listened in their bedrooms with the lights off.  “Stratford-On-Guy” still disorients and sounds like an updated version of Joni Mitchell’s “This Flight Tonight”. 

Much was made at the time of Exile being Phair’s response to The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street.  Perhaps a bit of hyperbole but for the first minute on “Johnny Sunshine”, Phair’s crunching guitar drives straight through rock’s heart. In 1994 Phair performed “Never Said” on the old David Letterman show and it felt like a major win for indie rock fans everywhere, like one of our own was making it. There is no praise that is too high for Exile in Guyville, this is one of the best rock albums of the 1990s and of any decade.   10/10

The rest of this three disc collection is music from the Girly Sound era that appeared on three cassettes in 1991.  Years later Phair told Rolling Stone magazine that these demos act like a library that she has gone back to throughout her career.  Many of these songs appear not only on Exile but also on the next two albums – 1994’s Whip-smart and 1998’s Whitechocolatespaceegg.

With just an electric guitar as accompaniment, some of the tracks like the aforementioned “Divorce Song” and “Johnny Sunshine” lack the power of the versions that would later appear. The bizarre first track, “White Babies”, a song about black market babies is a highlight.  “Dead Shark” and “One Less Thing” are also standouts.  Where things pick-up is when the tracks move to the GirlsGirlsGirls tape. “Hello Sailor” and “Wild Thing” that incorporates part of the famous Turtles track is ultra lo-fi coolness. The version of “Fuck and Run” that appears here with “Ant in Alaska” sound more professional and serious, like Phair knew she was writing really great stuff. 9/10

The second disc offers up more of the same.  These tracks would have been extraordinary to have heard in the early 90s as the tapes got passed around from music fan to fan. Third disc highlights include “Miss Mary Mack” and “Gigolo” which almost sounds like a lost melody from The Beach Boys. Later career single “Polyester Bride” appears in a slower seven-minute version whereas the original “Whipsmart” is a mature take on raising children. 9/10

Listening to it almost 30 years later, it’s interesting to hear the demo tracks with fresh ears having listened to the finished versions 1000s of times.  What really comes through is the power in these tracks and the enthusiasm that music fans would have had in 1991 is spot on. It’s an extraordinary batch of songs recorded in a short amount of time and to have it all in one box set is priceless.

Girly Sound to Guyville –  10/10

Posted in Album Reviews

R.E.M. – Automatic For The People (25th Anniversary 2CD Edition) (2017)

Posted on by Michael

While I was aware it was happening, I didn’t bother with any of the R.E.M. reissues that have been coming out over the last 10 years or so.  I finally dipped in with a not yet reviewed Out of Time in 2016 and absolutely loved the sound so started collecting the other more readily available remasters.  For it’s 25th Anniversary in 2017, the band issued deluxe versions of Automatic For The People.  Originally released in 1992, this elegiac album went supernova amongst a sea of grunge, baggy Manchester beats and the golden age of rap.

First track and single, “Drive” recalls David Essex’s “Rock On”.  While barely scraping into the top 30 in the US, the song made the top 10 in Canada.  The band tip it’s hat to another classic, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” with the upbeat “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite” which plays like this album’s “Shiny Happy People”.  The Bill Berry written “Everybody Hurts” was everywhere in 1993 and its freeway traffic jam video images are one of the most memorable of the 90s.

The politically driven “Ignoreland” blasts out of the speakers as the hardest track here.  Destined to be a concert classic, “Man On the Moon” was virtually a non-hit when released as the second single.  Featuring just Michael Stipe and Mike Mills on piano, the penultimate track, “Nightswimming” is one of the most beautiful tracks the band ever released, one easily recalled at the lake when the sun starts to set.  Hard to follow up one of the best tracks in the band’s long cannon, “Find The River” closes out the album on yet another high note with Stipe noting, “nothing is going my way”.  While Out of Time is what pushed them into superstardom, Automatic For the People is R.E.M. at the peak of their powers.

Having waited nearly two years to see if the super deluxe version would drop it price, it has never fallen much below $90CAD.  Finally losing hope on that set, instead we opted for the 2CD deluxe with the biggest loss being a disc of rarities not included here.  What is included is a 1992 concert from the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia.  Famously the band did not tour for either Out of Time or Automatic so this is a rare live recording from that era. 

The disc gets off to a bit of a shaky start with four tracks from Automatic that don’t really hit including the aforementioned “Man on the Moon” that a few years later on the Monster tour would turn into a massive singalong. Where the band really hit their stride is with tracks from Out of Time including a sparkling version of “Losing My Religion” that will now be my go-to version on playlists.  This is followed up with a haunting “Country Feedback” and a bouncy version of “Me In Honey”.  Berry’s thunder like drumming and Peter Buck’s swirling guitar power the band through 1986’s “Begin the Begin”.  Two covers appear in the Mill’s sung, and The Turtles classic, “Love Is All around” before Stipe returns with The Stooges “Funtime”.  To finish off the night, the band lift the roof off the club with rip roaring version of “Radio Free Europe” showing off the chops that made them one of the must-see bands through the 80s and 90s.

Automatic For The People – 10/10

Live At The 40 Watt Club – 8/10