Red Mosquito

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts - I Love Rock ‘n Roll

I was quite enamored with Joan Jett’s other album from ‘81, Bad Reputation, which felt like it was influenced by punk and classic rock. This one, her first with the Blackhearts, is a much tougher pill to swallow. Instead of drawing influence, Joan Jett here is merely replicating with maybe a little more guitar volume rock & roll from the 59s and 60s. No mistake that is Bo Diddley’s riff, or Buddy Holly’s cadence, just underneath louder guitars. There’s some bright spots to be sure, like the title track and the more than solid cover of Crimson and Clover, but most of this is over the top cliche on recycled riffs. Lightning did not strike twice here.

The Essential Track: I Love Rock ‘n Roll

Up Next: Black Flag - Damaged

Black Flag - Damaged

Hardcore punk is not a typical place I go for music listening. It often seems to me unnecessarily extreme and abrasive. I certainly had friends that were real into it and I never quite understood. Black Flag’s debut album, universally beloved apparently, is precisely the sort of over the top hardcore punk I just can’t get behind - nearly all energy and chaos without the songs to ground them. Piss and vinegar certainly has its place, but I don’t know that this really takes me where I want to go.

The Essential Track: Rise Above

Up Next: Bill Evans - You Must Believe in Spring

Bill Evans - You Must Believe in Spring

Like an antidote to a long progression on rock albums, it’s very refreshing to get back to a little jazz. This is piano jazz, and really beautiful work, especially on the title track. Gary’s Theme and The Peacock were also songs I thought were highlights and I even stuck around for some bonus tracks, including a version of Miles Davis’s Freddie Freeloader and Without a Song. I don’t know if it’s wrong of me, but my favorite here is Evans’s playing off the Theme from M*A*S*H, which boasts really some exceptional piano work. Good suggestion!

The Essential Track: Theme from M*A*S*H

Up Next: Harold Budd - The Serpent in Quicksilver

Harold Budd - The Serpent (in Quicksilver)

From piano jazz to ambient largely piano music. The key to this is the impact of a key stroke as each is drawn out, not so dissimilar to some of the minimalist stuff we listened to in the 70s. I can certainly hear and feel the value in this, though I am not likely to return to it much. Pleasant and just the right length.

The Essential Track: The Serpent (in QuickSilver)

Up Next: King Crimson - Discipline

King Crimson - Discipline

I had not even realized it was been 7 years worth of material since I had listened to King Crimson, but here we are. Robert Fripp returns with quite a different sound, pulling from his influences Brian Eno, and here very much David Byrne - I mean this is like a heavy Talking Heads album…and it’s as brilliant as King Crimson’s earlier work. The entirety of the album is pretty exceptional, though the first half is filled with great stuff - Elephant Talk, Frame By Frame and Indiscipline are probably my three favorites on here. But don’t sleep on those hypnotic instrumentals to close the album or Thela Hun Ginjeet, which is addictive. Nice surprise here.

The Essential Track: Indiscipline

Up Next: Nick Mason - Nick Mason’s Fictitious Sports

Nick Mason - Nick Mason’s Fictitious Sports

Apparently, Nick Mason plays drums on this and that is his primary contribution, but credited as a solo album as a way to draw in Pink Floyd fans. Whatever you want to call it, this is a more than solid album, featuring a lot of jazz inflected rock music that defies expectations. When they play it straight on Hot River, they are actually pretty scorching, but the twists and turns of I Am a Mineralist, Siam, Can’t Get My Motor to Start, and Wervin’ are where all the best goodies are here. I liked this way more than I expected.

The Essential Track: Wervin’

Up Next: Rolling Stones - Tattoo You

The last four were all my recommendations and I’m very glad you dug them!

Nick Mason’s Fictitious Sports is one of the greatest albums ever made.

Birds in Hell wrote:The last four were all my recommendations and I’m very glad you dug them!

Nick Mason’s Fictitious Sports is one of the greatest albums ever made.

Yeah, I really enjoyed in particular that one and the King Crimson album.

Rolling Stones - Tattoo You

Whether this is a compilation of completed ideas from the 70s, or brand new material, however you slice it, this is among the strongest collection of Rolling Stones songs on one album, particularly once you are outside of that four album run from ‘68-‘72. Start Me Up is one of the most well known Stones anthems, but the momentum never stops on this, from Hang Fire to Little T&A, and Neighbours. Probably the song of the album though is Waiting On a Friend, a synthesis of the long term musical relationship between Mick and Keith, infamously clashing in the 80s to near breakup. The Stones may have never been quite the same again after this album closer.

The Essential Track: Waiting On a Friend

Up Next: Mission of Burma - Signals, Calls and Marches

Mission of Burma - Signals, Calls and Marches

Hard and loud enough to hang with the punks, rhythmically hypnotic enough to hang with the post-punks, this EP (I listened to the expanded version that is basically full album length with an additional 4 songs in the beginning), this is the sort of fusion that was on to something really special - much in the way a few years later a batch of kids in the Seattle area would fuse punk and metal. It obviously doesn’t sound like that in particular, but it wouldn’t at all be out of place with the current century’s indie rock movement. Every song on here is pretty special - in the expanded version Academy Fight Song and Devotion stuck out, and in the EP itself, man everything is pretty great. No notes really.

The Essential Track: Fame and Fortune (this feels random and I could be easily swayed by any of the tracks really)

Up Next: Tom Tom Club

Tom Tom Club

This is an eccentric, but quite influential, album from the Talking Heads sans David Byrne. Pushing into funk and dance over what David Byrne was doing with the Talking Heads at the time, this is a totally different beast, albeit with some connective DNA. It’s certainly not Talking Heads lite or anything like that. The song you must hear here, best or not, is Genius of Love, given the sheer amount of cover/sampling it’s since been through. Wordy Rappinghood and On On On On… is also fun and interesting here, though every song is worth catching the eccentricities and all the little details that come together to make for a full experience.

The Essential Track: Genius of Love

Up Next: Wipers - Youth of America

Wipers - Youth of America

This second album doesn’t quite live up to their debut, but it’s still a pretty solid album here. A heavy punk rock looms over this, and for the most part, the results are good, though they do touch greatness on When It’s Over. That one just builds and soars on those guitars, the closest I guess you’d get to an instrumental, but it’s a pretty flawless track here among tracks I enjoyed but wouldn’t necessarily go crazy over.

The Essential Track: When It’s Over

Up Next: Squeeze - East Side Story

Squeeze - East Side Story

Tempted is a complete anomaly on this record, and that is the song this album will be remembered for, it’s probably my least favorite song on here, as the rest of the album I think shows a strong Beatles influence amidst the pop music. When it felt operatic and lush and huge, it sounded at its best, with the best examples being F-Hole, and Vanity Fair. This is one I probably won’t return to but it was at least largely enjoyable.

The Essential Track: F-Hole

Up Next: The Cure - Faith

We’re quickly approaching but yet at ‘82, but it’s time to check in and see how that year shapes up:

Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska
Led Zeppelin - Coda
Robert Plant - Pictures at Eleven
Jerry Garcia - Run For the Roses
Neil Young - Trans
Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones
Paul McCartney - Tug of War
Michael Jackson - Thriller
Prince - 1999
Duran Duran - Rio
Toto IV
Michael McDonald - If That’s What It Takes
Phil Collins - Hello I Must Be Going
Simple Minds - New Gold Dream
INXS - Shabooh Shoobah
Marshall Crenshaw
Asia
Roxy Music - Avalon
Elvis Costello & the Attrractions - Imperial Bedroom
Midnight Oil - 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
Tom Petty and the Heartnreakers - Long After Dark
Dire Straits - Love Over Gold
The Who - It’s Hard
The Clash - Combat Rock
The Cure - Pornography
The Psychedelic Furs - Forever Now
Mission of Burma - Vs.
Sonic Youth
XYC - English Settlement
The English Beat - Special Beat Session
The Misfits - Walk Among Us
Van Halen - Diver Down
Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast
Judas Priest - Screaming For Vengeance

liebzz wrote:

Bill Evans - You Must Believe in Spring

Like an antidote to a long progression on rock albums, it’s very refreshing to get back to a little jazz. This is piano jazz, and really beautiful work, especially on the title track. Gary’s Theme and The Peacock were also songs I thought were highlights and I even stuck around for some bonus tracks, including a version of Miles Davis’s Freddie Freeloader and Without a Song. I don’t know if it’s wrong of me, but my favorite here is Evans’s playing off the Theme from M*A*S*H, which boasts really some exceptional piano work. Good suggestion!

The Essential Track: Theme from M*A*S*H

Up Next: Harold Budd - The Serpent in Quicksilver

My favorite Evans and a top 10 jazz record for me. Just heartbreaking stuff.

ABC - the lexicon of love (1982)

Flipper - Album: Generic Flipper
Donald Fagen - The Nightfly
The Exploited - Troops of Tomorrow
Fleetwood Mac - Mirage

liebzz wrote:We’re quickly approaching but yet at ‘82, but it’s time to check in and see how that year shapes up ...

Brian Eno - Ambient 4: On Land
Adrian Belew - Lone Rhino
King Crimson - Beat
Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel [IV - Security]
Siouxsie and the Banshees – A Kiss in the Dreamhouse
Kate Bush - The Dreaming
XTC - English Settlement

All added folks!