With each successive album, The Stooges seemed closer and closer to the knife’s edge of raw rock music, and this third album takes that just a little bit further. The band may have been on the verge of collapse, but there’s no greater sense of urgency than here. Search & Destroy is an all-time classic, Gimme Danger displays that the grooves can be raw, and Raw Power, I Need Somebody, and the closing Death Trip are all huge highlights on an album that may be rough but has no weak spots in the least. There’s sound of rock music as pure adrenaline and fire.
The wonderful thing about good rock music is that it can challenge the mind and push the listener, like the myriad of albums I have posted about here; but they can also call into some basic sense of delivering simple but effective earworms that stick with you. When listening to this album, not so dissimilar than #1 Star but for the guitar being a bit more biting, and a natural set of folks to come jump out of the speakers with them, like a Tom Petty or a Jackson Browne. That is to say there’s something deliberately effortless about the delivery of these songs as if they appeared naturally in the course of things as if they just belong in the DNA of the listener despite this being the first time I heard these songs. That’s no less thrilling than a challenging listen where you learn something new about your tastes in the process.
The wonderful thing about good rock music is that it can challenge the mind and push the listener, like the myriad of albums I have posted about here; but they can also call into some basic sense of delivering simple but effective earworms that stick with you. When listening to this album, not so dissimilar than #1 Star but for the guitar being a bit more biting, and a natural set of folks to come jump out of the speakers with them, like a Tom Petty or a Jackson Browne. That is to say there’s something deliberately effortless about the delivery of these songs as if they appeared naturally in the course of things as if they just belong in the DNA of the listener despite this being the first time I heard these songs. That’s no less thrilling than a challenging listen where you learn something new about your tastes in the process.
I have heard this one before, of course, being that I am at least a decent enough fan of both Bob Dylan and the Band. I have never been fully convinced that this one, as opposed to The Basement Tapes or the live album, quite hits the mark as a whole. It’s a matter of degree of course - Dylan’s albums are so good that anything that doesn’t quite reach those heights, even if that wasn’t intended, falls into a different bin. It could be unfair or it could be he’s that good. And this is very much a good album, but what followed over the next few albums is greatness.
It’s bands like Big Star that make this whole project worthwhile. Just a bunch of stuff I always meant to hear and didn’t, alongside established favorites. I have already though discovered a lifetime of music here that I’ll have back on when this is done, and that includes Radio City.
This one doesn’t get the attention of some of his other albums, like say a Harvest or After the Goldrush or even Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere or Tonight’s the Night, but from the second I heard this album for the first time a long time ago, this has been one of my favorite albums in life. Neil is at his best when he’s rebelling against something, or there’s a friction of sorts going on, and you can feel that throughout this one, from Walk On to Vampire Blues. But what makes this one particularly astounding to me is how hard I feel those jagged chords followed by how hard I’m falling on the slower songs too. I find everything in this phenomenal, from the almost pastoral beauty of Ambulance Blues to the distorted country (alt-country seemingly decades before there was such a thing) in the stunning See the Sky About to Rain. Revolution Blues is a near perfect Neil rock song, and On the Beach is morose but wonderful. This is the exact height of his work for me.
The Essential Track: *throws a dart at the tracklist* Ambulance Blues
This one doesn’t get the attention of some of his other albums, like say a Harvest or After the Goldrush or even Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere or Tonight’s the Night, but from the second I heard this album for the first time a long time ago, this has been one of my favorite albums in life. Neil is at his best when he’s rebelling against something, or there’s a friction of sorts going on, and you can feel that throughout this one, from Walk On to Vampire Blues. But what makes this one particularly astounding to me is how hard I feel those jagged chords followed by how hard I’m falling on the slower songs too. I find everything in this phenomenal, from the almost pastoral beauty of Ambulance Blues to the distorted country (alt-country seemingly decades before there was such a thing) in the stunning See the Sky About to Rain. Revolution Blues is a near perfect Neil rock song, and On the Beach is morose but wonderful. This is the exact height of his work for me.
The Essential Track: *throws a dart at the tracklist* Ambulance Blues
In terms of developing atmosphere, this album might be even more the personification of a glass of whiskey and a cigarette in a lonely bar than Closing Time - though song-wise it’s not as strong. Even still, Waits delivers another really strong vocal jazz performance that at least rivals Sinatra, but with a sense of blues that grounds all of this. He’s got an incredible mind for atmosphere and imagery, and it’s definitely on display here. New Coat of Paint, Semi Suite, (Looking For) The Heart of Saturday Night, Fumblin’ With the Blues, and The Ghosts of Saturday Night are all really excellent here.
The Essential Track: any of those, but I’ll pick Fumblin’ With the Blues because I just really enjoyed that one
It’s a shame that some excellent albums seem to come from painful personal experiences, and it seems the genius of the divorce record hits again. This album shares a lot of DNA with some of Morrison’s best records, particularly the lush atmosphere musically, but rather than the pastoral vibes of say Astral Weeks, this comes across as more of a personal record, and Morrison’s singing seems more pointed and intense. There’s a pretty incredible run of songs here: Streets of Arklow, You Don’t Pull No Punches But You Don’t Push the River, Bulbs, and Cul De Sac - great run.
The Essential Track: You Don’t Pull No Punches But You Don’t Push the River
Even though the Grateful Dead had a reputation for being an epic live band at the expense of their studio output, the studio albums to this point had been pretty spectacular. This one is the first that I would provide something short of a full throated defense. Yes, it has three of the better Dead songs in US Blues, Scarlet Begonias, and Ship of Fools - but once you get past that this album is full of good ideas that don’t seem to quite work out as well in execution. The songs aren’t bad by any stretch, but at least for me, they fail to generate the kind of excitement I get listening to the other albums.
This one doesn’t get the attention of some of his other albums, like say a Harvest or After the Goldrush or even Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere or Tonight’s the Night, but from the second I heard this album for the first time a long time ago, this has been one of my favorite albums in life. Neil is at his best when he’s rebelling against something, or there’s a friction of sorts going on, and you can feel that throughout this one, from Walk On to Vampire Blues. But what makes this one particularly astounding to me is how hard I feel those jagged chords followed by how hard I’m falling on the slower songs too. I find everything in this phenomenal, from the almost pastoral beauty of Ambulance Blues to the distorted country (alt-country seemingly decades before there was such a thing) in the stunning See the Sky About to Rain. Revolution Blues is a near perfect Neil rock song, and On the Beach is morose but wonderful. This is the exact height of his work for me.
The Essential Track: *throws a dart at the tracklist* Ambulance Blues
Up Next: Tom Waits - The Heart of Saturday Night
Neils best
It's a toss up between On the Beach and After the Goldrush for me
Of Jerry’s last solo outing was a very very good facsimile of a Grateful Dead album, this is the one where he makes a hard break. An album of predominantly cover songs that span jazz, blues, rock, and soul, Jerry and in many instances his guitar are on a war path, and even though this one can’t possibly match up to its predecessor, it does a good job of keeping things interesting and completely different from the Dead’s approach. It also sets the standard by which the Jerry Garcia Band would pick up the formula for their live shows.
So this one is every bit as engaging as Dixie Chicken, but the band sounds so good here that I might elevate this one over Dixie Chicken. Rock n’ Roll Doctor, Oh Atlanta, Spanish Moon, the jam in The Fan, and the closing rehash medley of Cold Cold Cold with Tripe Face Boogie all show this band playing at its peak. Granted nothing they do can top their live album, Waiting For Columbus, but this is as close as they’ve gotten so far.
This seems like a transition where we’re incorporating yet a different sound from this supergroup. This is the stuff that foreshadows the Bostons and the Journeys of the second half of the 70s. The kind of stuff that would seem like the soundtrack to countless 80s movies. It’s still a fun album, the kind of break from headier stuff out there in the time. Punk rock would end up being the remedy to this and to prog taking itself a little too seriously, but it doesn’t take away from the random need to just enjoy some rock songs for what they are. Can’t Get Enough, Ready For Love, and Bad Company are the essence of classic rock radio - dad rock for dad rock’s sake.
Well, it didn’t take long for the wheels to come off this band. The album starts well enough with Good Lovon’ Gone Bad and the classic rock radio staple Feel Like Makin’ Love…and then it just kind of collapses on a string of mediocre songs and descends into awful territory to close on Anna. Call On Me isn’t bad but by the time you get past Anna you are ready to move on. I’ll note Shooting Star is on here, which is another well known track, but certainly not one I’d prefer. Turns out being on Led Zeppelin’s label doesn’t automatically make it awesome.
…and the David Coverdale era of Deep Purple begins! To be frank, this is a pretty damn good album. Mistreated, at the tail end of this album, is epic. This band runs the line between hard rock and metal nicely, all of it sounding very 70s. burn, Just Make Take Your Life, Lay Down Stay Down, and Sail Away is a killer starting half to this album, and while this doesn’t let up, these plus Mistreated are the big highlights.
Most of these songs are baked in my brain from hearing Alive! growing up with an older brother that was a big KISS fan. And I would very quickly argue that they are somewhat unfairly maligned in large part due to dressing like sci-fi cartoon characters. The shtick is a bit much, but at least on their first album, they’ve got a good number of songs, simple in structure as they may be, to be worth the listen. Strutter, Cold Gin, Deuce, and Black Diamond are pretty damn good, ironically or not. They may not be profound but at least the got the party rock thing down.
