Red Mosquito

liebzz wrote:

The Ramones - End of the Century

This one starts well with Do You Remember Rock ‘N’ Roll Radio, but it also takes a major gear shift as the production is clearly different and there’s all sorts of stuff here, even a horn section. I’m Affected is a good follow, but then it seems like the band is sort of losing its way in the middle, and This Ain’t Havana is probably the next decent track. Rock ‘n’ Roll High School is a classic and High Risk Insurance probably rounds out an okay and listenable album, but nothing near the records that came before it.

The Essential Track: Do You Remember Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio?

Up Next: Kate Bush - Never for Ever

It's a widely maligned album and I understand why. The drum sound is especially terrible. But Phil Spector's bells-and-whistles approach really works for "Danny Says," my favorite song on the album and one of my favorite Ramones tracks

liebzz wrote:

Billy Joel - Glass Houses

The first half of this album is stupefyingly good. Channeling nearly early Beatles-like pop, Joel has a ton of momentum banging through You May Be Right, Sometimes a Fantasy, Don’t Ask Me Why, It’s Still Rock and Roll To Me, and All For Leyna - I was fully prepared for what started as my favorite Billy Joel album. The second half doesn’t match the first and drops off considerably but is still pretty good, including album closer Through the Long Night. But good news is it didn’t grate on me like it sometimes can. Good stuff.

The Essential Track: You May Be Right

Up Next: Pete Townshend - Empty Glass

Love this album, it's my favorite from him.

Kate Bush - Never for Ever

It seemed like Kate Bush wasn’t at the forefront of the music world for a while, or that interest reignited with her inclusion in the musical palette of Stranger Things. That song isn’t here, we’ve got a few albums and years, but we do get really eccentric pop music. Babooshka starts this thing off and previews the off kilter pop vibe, but Bush finds moments to really push and rock out, particularly on Violin. Egypt and the Infant Kiss also stuck out on this one.

The Essential Track: Violin

Up Next: Yes - Drama

Yes - Drama

With different personnel, it’s maybe mildly surprising that I felt like I was dropped back in the throes of mid-70s prog rock. Machine Messiah is a 10+ minute opus that really sets the stage for this, another eccentric album that hits the right spots when it’s good. Run Through the Light is another huge highlight here, and Tempus Fugit finishes this one nicely. I enjoyed this way more than I expected.

The Essential Track: Machine Messiah

Up Next: Bauhaus - In the Flat Field

darth_vedder wrote:

liebzz wrote:

Billy Joel - Glass Houses

The first half of this album is stupefyingly good. Channeling nearly early Beatles-like pop, Joel has a ton of momentum banging through You May Be Right, Sometimes a Fantasy, Don’t Ask Me Why, It’s Still Rock and Roll To Me, and All For Leyna - I was fully prepared for what started as my favorite Billy Joel album. The second half doesn’t match the first and drops off considerably but is still pretty good, including album closer Through the Long Night. But good news is it didn’t grate on me like it sometimes can. Good stuff.

The Essential Track: You May Be Right

Up Next: Pete Townshend - Empty Glass

Love this album, it's my favorite from him.

Of the Billy Joel albums, this is also my favorite.

I can never decide if Glass Houses or River of Dreams is my favorite Joel. Both very good.

Bauhaus - In the Flat Field

This debut album is apparently credited with creating goth. I think there’s more to it than that, but no doubt it is moody and foreboding in many moments. The first half probably more resembles that sound (and probably the last two songs), and there’s quite a few gems in here. I really liked Dark Entries, the title track, and Dive in that first half, and things lighten up a bit on Small Talk Stinks and St. Vitus Dance. Stigmata Martyr and Nerves finish on a dark note, sort of feels like Jim Morrison down the doom and gloom rabbit hole.

The Essential Track: In the Flat Field

Up Next: The Psychedelic Furs

The Psychedelic Furs

I am not sure what I was expecting here, maybe some combination of post-punk and art rock, and to some extent that is what it is, but the manner in which this is elevated by the very well placed use of a saxophone actually really separates them from their peers. I was pretty much shockingly wowed right from India onwards, and really surprised to have seen mixed reviews of this. Sister Europe, Fall, Pulse, Blacks/Radio, Imitation of Christ, and the US version’s Soap Commercial were really quite excellent. Probably would rate this among my favorites of the post-punk era at the moment.

The Essential Track: India

Up Next: Joe Jackson - Beat Crazy

I love everything I've ever heard by The Psychedelic Furs.

Joe Jackson - Beat Crazy

This is three in a row of excellent Joe Jackson albums. There’s still some level of inevitable comparison to Elvis Costello, but here Jackson seems much closer to exploring ska and reggae fusing with rock music. Of course it largely works great. The middle of this album in particular is excellent - The Evil Eye, Mad At You, and Crime Don’t Pay is a hell of a run. Pretty Boys and Fit really bring this home strong as well. This felt like hitting some bright and shiny rock music after a run of more serious seeming post punk.

The Essential Track: The Evil Eye

Up Next: Dire Straits - Making Movies

liebzz wrote:

Joe Jackson - Beat Crazy

This is three in a row of excellent Joe Jackson albums. There’s still some level of inevitable comparison to Elvis Costello, but here Jackson seems much closer to exploring ska and reggae fusing with rock music. Of course it largely works great. The middle of this album in particular is excellent - The Evil Eye, Mad At You, and Crime Don’t Pay is a hell of a run. Pretty Boys and Fit really bring this home strong as well. This felt like hitting some bright and shiny rock music after a run of more serious seeming post punk.

The Essential Track: The Evil Eye

Up Next: Dire Straits - Making Movies

Dire Straits - Making Movies

Now this is a fantastic f’in album. It seems like Mark Knopfler really comes into his own here. The band behind is largely a laid back affair, not soft rock but something more akin to future Kurt Vile’s band - not over the top at all and largely steady and sturdy. Knopfler uses that pastoral vibe to sing and jam over, and it brings an intensity and power to his solos that really makes him shine here. Tunnel of Love is a wonderful 8 minute intro to what comes here, and Romeo and Juliet follows with a more stripped down approach from the band. Espresso Love, Hand in Hand, and the downright hard rock Solid Rock provide a great run in the middle. I really quite liked this one.

The Essential Track: Tunnel of Love

Up Next: Warren Zevon - Bad Luck Streak in Dancing

liebzz wrote:

Dire Straits - Making Movies

Now this is a fantastic f’in album. It seems like Mark Knopfler really comes into his own here. The band behind is largely a laid back affair, not soft rock but something more akin to future Kurt Vile’s band - not over the top at all and largely steady and sturdy. Knopfler uses that pastoral vibe to sing and jam over, and it brings an intensity and power to his solos that really makes him shine here. Tunnel of Love is a wonderful 8 minute intro to what comes here, and Romeo and Juliet follows with a more stripped down approach from the band. Espresso Love, Hand in Hand, and the downright hard rock Solid Rock provide a great run in the middle. I really quite liked this one.

The Essential Track: Tunnel of Love

Up Next: Warren Zevon - Bad Luck Streak in Dancing

Totally here for the Cars, Straits and Zevon visits

oasisfan35 wrote:

liebzz wrote:

Dire Straits - Making Movies

Now this is a fantastic f’in album. It seems like Mark Knopfler really comes into his own here. The band behind is largely a laid back affair, not soft rock but something more akin to future Kurt Vile’s band - not over the top at all and largely steady and sturdy. Knopfler uses that pastoral vibe to sing and jam over, and it brings an intensity and power to his solos that really makes him shine here. Tunnel of Love is a wonderful 8 minute intro to what comes here, and Romeo and Juliet follows with a more stripped down approach from the band. Espresso Love, Hand in Hand, and the downright hard rock Solid Rock provide a great run in the middle. I really quite liked this one.

The Essential Track: Tunnel of Love

Up Next: Warren Zevon - Bad Luck Streak in Dancing

Totally here for the Cars, Straits and Zevon visits

All three are largely new to me, save for the hits, just because I hadn’t gotten to it despite wishing to.

Warren Zevon - Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School

This is another solid front to back album from Zevon. Classical interludes, piano based and guitar based rock music…this is a more varied album than initially meets the eye, and nearly all of it is very good. Play It All Night Long is my favorite here, but Jungle Work and Wild Age are damn close - the last of which I can’t seem to get the chorus out of my head, in a good way.

The Essential Track: Play It All Night Long

Up Next: Prince - Dirty Mind

liebzz wrote:

Warren Zevon - Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School

This is another solid front to back album from Zevon. Classical interludes, piano based and guitar based rock music…this is a more varied album than initially meets the eye, and nearly all of it is very good. Play It All Night Long is my favorite here, but Jungle Work and Wild Age are damn close - the last of which I can’t seem to get the chorus out of my head, in a good way.

The Essential Track: Play It All Night Long

Up Next: Prince - Dirty Mind

Same happens to me every time I listen to the album, great final song. Added personnel for that track is impressive as well: Glenn Frey, Don Henley and David Lindley.

Drive-By Truckers do a solid cover of Play it All Night Night Long included on their rarities compilation.

Prince - Dirty Mind

This I think is the first, and definitely not last album, we are covering from Prince. Really a pop music genius, creative and beyond what you’d expect from a pop star, but never so far out that you can’t follow him to that place. This is Prince’s Let’s Get It On, at least in tone and substance. That, said the two most stunning tracks for me on this were When You Were Mine and Uptown, which may not have been as overt, and are definitely the two tracks that have not a single hint of datedness.

The Essential Track: When You Were Mine

Up Next: Kool & the Gang - Celebrate!

Kool & the Gang - Celebrate!

There are a very few albums on this list so far I flat out disliked, and this is one of them. In the early to mid-70s, Kool & the Gang made music that was danceable on a groove and beat that was funky, sometimes instrumental, and undeniable. This feels like they forced dance music, a turn to what feels more or less synthetic in comparison. Celebration is a classic song here, one you can’t miss if you’ve ever been to a wedding, bar mitzvah or sweet 16 in the last say 45 years where they needed that song to placate the over 50 crowd. The rest is a collection of middling dance and ballad songs that never captured me.

The Essential Track: Celebration

Up Next: Bruce Springsteen - The River

Bruce Springsteen - The River

I’ve often referred to Bruce Springsteen’s first 2 decades of work as a sort of loose storyline arc, starting with the youthful exuberance of Greetings and The Wild… to the epic escapism of Born to Run, to the angry reaction of Darkness when all those big ideas and hopes fall flat. The River in many ways advances that arc and becomes the centerpiece, a loose collection of songs that work with what people do when those big ideas and dreams don’t come true - they live their lives the best they can - through love and lust and moments of desperation, reflection, anxiety, celebration, and hope renewed and evaporated again. This is the heart of The River, tales of regular 1980 folks living their lives and experiencing the array of moments that bring color and meaning to what we describe as ordinary. The River, the song, is as much about what you get as what you give up, a sense that time and a series of moments dulled once vibrant love and affection inspired by his sister’s experience. Or in Independence Day, a kitchen table moment where Bruce himself is communicating with his father about his new beginning, which will sever a conflicted relationship with his moving out (delivered melodramatically on Bruce’s end but seemingly without a trace of emotion from his counterpart). All heavy stuff amidst the party and seemingly endless momentum of the rockers on this album, meant to portray in studio the power of their collective spark live.

I think it’s up to the listener to decide whether this is perhaps too ambitious a reach for Springsteen - to capture it all in under 90 minutes. For some, it would be the true beginning of heartland rock and a landmark album that falls within his best. For others, it might seem overly broad and inconsistent in tone. It largely falls into the former for me, another in a series of impossibly great albums where you almost feel like you can only judge harshly against his other grand works, but it nearly topples everything else.

The Essential Track: The River

Up Next: Midnight Oil - Place Without a Postcard

Midnight Oil - Place Without a Postcard

Peter Garrett seems much more prominent on this album, and in that respect, it feels like Midnight Oil are coming into themselves more. I do think they have better albums, but the heart of this album - Don’t Wanna Be the One, Armistice Day, and Bernie - is pretty great. Not that the rest is bad per se, but it I guess is hard knowing what they are capable of, so decent but not the stuff to make you run out and buy all the albums as soon as possible.

The Essential Track: Armistice Day

Up Next: Van Halen - Women and Children First