Put your recording reviews here! (amazing that there wasn't already an item)15 responses total.
Joe Jackson & Friends, "Heaven & Hell", 1997. The "Friends" are guest vocalists, including Dawn Upshaw, Joy Askew, Suzanne Vega, Jane Siberry... This is Yet Another thing based on the Seven Deadly Sins. However, you can pretty much ignore that and go for the music. It's good, it's a decent Joe Jackson album. Be aware that there is a lot of string sections (small ensemble) and some opera vocals (Dawn Upshaw), enough that it seems to have been released on Sony Classical. There are still some hard edges, and the whole thing still sounds like Jackson. I like it.
Hmm. I need to sit down and write some of these.
Bruce Springsteen, "Tracks". This is a 4 CD set of stuff that got recorded but never made it onto an album. First 4 tracks are original demos (just Bruce with an acoustic guitar) for the record company, then into full band stuff. The 4 CDs cover beginning to end, ie. the demos to outtakes from the most recent CD (Ghost of Tom Joad). Quality is variable; the sound is good but the songs vary a lot. This will be influenced by which era you like (I hate the most recent, really like the early stuff). Some songs are really good, some were left off albums for good reasons. Some songs sound too much like others to be on the same album, too. Summary: Don't blow your rent money on this, unless you are a total fanatic. If possible, find somebody who likes a different era than you and split up the discs accordingly.
Pete Townshend, "Lifehouse Chronicles" box set. This is the long-delayed release of Townshend's "Lifehouse" concept. This was originally being developed after "Tommy", and had a mix of rather far out concepts such as virtual reality, future stuff, and other elements. Due to various problems it never got finished, although a few of the songs written for it became the "Who's Next" album. The box set contains 2 CDs of original demos (probably a fair number of which already appeared on "Scoop"), a CD of experiments, a CD of orchestrations, and a 2 CD "radio play" which is the final Lifehouse story. It's not perfect. The radio play is somewhat interesting, but tends (in my opinion) to spend too little time with music and too much with artsy dialogue. I thought that "Psychoderelict", Townshend's radio play / concept album from 1993 to be more interesting simply because it had more music (this album also covered a fair amount of the "Lifehouse" plot as well, from a slightly different perspective). The orchestrations CD is interesting but a bit weak; most of it is existing recent work by other composers used in the radio play. Quite cool is the orchestral version of "Baba O'Reilly" (aka "Teenage Wasteland"), which works extremely well. The other CDs have some really interesting bits, like updated versions of established songs and some suprising demo material (bet you didn't know that "Teenage Wasteland" was a totally different song whose lyrics were eventually stuck onto some synthesizer experiments to make "Baba O'Reilly"). Overall rating? I find box sets to be a bit of a letdown, since it's rare for anybody to 4-6 CDs worth of A material just laying around. If you don't have a copy of "Psychoderelict" you might find that a more cost effective entry into the Lifehouse stuff (and if the PBS "Great Performances" video of the live show turns up on DVD, WOW!). I'm probably going to make 1 or 2 MiniDiscs/car tapes of the bits I like, which seems to be the usual fate for bex sets in my house.
Well, here's the Dar review :) Her newest album is "The Green World". Came
out on Tuesday.
Ummmmm.....where to start. It's very Dar in an un-Dar like sort of way. Or
is it very not Dar in a Dar sort of way? Deffinately wait until it goes on
sale...the regular price is $19, and since its only a 42 minute cd....
To start with, I don't even recognize her in a couple of the pictures. She's
gone a bit mainstream, both in music and in looks. I'd have to say that this
album is the most radio-playable of all of her stuff. It's also quite a bit
more Christian...."And a God Decended" was a bit much for me, and religion
was really an undertone to quite a few songs. (A bit of a shock, really!)
One of the things that I've always enjoyed about her disks is that she always
has a few other people on it, and this one is just her and her backup
band...No Lucy Kaplansky, no Richard Shindell, no Nields, no Cliff Eberhardt,
and most distressing for me, no Larry Campbell, who did the guitar work for
the rest of her albums. All of her backup vocals were done by her. In fact,
it looks as if all of her backup band is new too. It also seems a lot less
personal.
On the other hand, there are some *great* songs on it. A quick rundown on
songs ('cause it's the only way I can sepperate the good, bad, and really
ugly)
Playing to the Firmament: I'm still not sure on this one...Dar lyrics, but
to a radio-friendly tune.
And a God Descended: *way* too "uplifting Christian rockstation" for me.
After All: Pure Dar. Deffinately more personal than most, and has her
traditional way with words.
What do You Love more than Love: Take the tune from "Alleluia" (from her first
album), shake it up, and add different lyrics. Not a bad song, but
certainly not her best.
Spring Street: Lyrics are the style of the first album, but new-style
tune. I'm *really* fond of this one. :)
We Learned the Sea: The music reminds me of Solas at their gentlest. The
lyrics remind me of traditional Newfoundland stuff (for the most part)
Deffinately another keeper.
I Won't Be Your Yoko Ono: I was really looking forward to this one, 'cause
I figured it would be a musical pun to BNL. I listened to it a couple
of times, and cannot stand it. Won't listen to it again.
I Had No Right: The song is about a Fr. Daniel Berrigan, who apperntly
dismantled some airplanes that were going to be launching bombs. I
don't know the full story on him, but I'm going to do some looking.
In the mean time, this song is really wonderful.
Calling the Moon: I first heard this song on Richard Shindell's newest album,
and fell in love with it then, but thought that Dar could do it better.
After hearing Dar, I thought Richard did it better. Now, I think that
it's a great song done a bit wrong by both of them. But I still love
it. To me, it's a very personal song, in a very feminine way. Her
little blip at the bottom about how she came up with it was very
amusing. :)
It Happens Every Day: Another old lyrics, new tune song. Another personal
favorite of mine. The music is very plodding....and fits perfectly
with the lyrics.
Another Mystery: Great Song! It's a song that reminds me of Dar herself
(after seeing her in concert a couple of times) - a bit flakey, a bit
perky, and very spunky. The lyrics rock.
All in all, I could really do without the first half of the disk
Kinda makes you want to get a CD burner and make your own private edition of the CD, eh?
I did that with a tape player already. Things I should have added about the dreaded Yoko Ono song. I hate Yoko Ono. I hate the BNL Yoko Ono song. I've also become more and more attached to Calling the Moon. What do You Love More Than Love is also pure Dar...the more fast paced kind. I'm growing fonder of Playing to the Firmament.
I know not everything by Yoko Ono is remotely like this, but I thought her songs on "Double Fantasy" were remarkably pleasant. (As far as I can recall from nearly 20 years ago.)
Ah, another CD that will get an edited, personalized version put into the case when I get that new computer and CD burner. Has anyone done this with a CD they listen to? It's kind of like a review, when you get the chance to make a private edition.
Yes, I have a number of CDs where I've deleted a track when I copied to CD-R. It's unsettling when I listen to the original and find the deleted track suddenly back in the sequence..
Agreed. I have a CD burner, and use is to often it can't be believed. I put my own mixes together, and then when you listen to them often enough, you hear one of the songs on the radio and expect to hear the next on the mix afterwards. Quite a letdown. One of my favorite car cd's is one of hooks. Classical Gas -- Mason Williams Let My Love (Open the Door) -- Pete Townshend Teenage Wasteland -- The Who Only You -- Yaz Magic -- The Cars Limelight -- Rush and several others I can't remember when I'm about to go home from work. Mostly, I just turn the CD back and keep playing the first few songs. I can't listen to Classical Gas only once. Must be 8 or 9 times in a row to get my fix.
It's a good song, isn't it? I'd love the sheet music (in standard notation and tablature) for it.. had a piano arrangement, but it was a little too difficult to figure out how it played out for guitar after 4 or 5 lines of measures. I'd also like to figure out how to arrange it so it could be played with a classical guitar.. the traditional arrangement is too powerful for nylon strings unless it was miked or amplified. (It would be an interesting challenge..) Now, which recording do you have? The original recording, or the new recording with Mannheim Steamroller? The latter was a collaboration album titled with the same name, and it's really worth a listen.
I always think it's odd when I hear a guitar version of "Classical Gas" because I was introduced to it as a piano piece and heard it often in that context from a very young age (as played by my sister Mariann, with whom I will always associate "Classical Gas", certain Joplin rags, and various Chopin exercises..)
a tonal memory/anchor, essentially. but being a guitarist, I see how the piece was written for guitar-- stylings, choices of notes fitting into the chord shapes, etc. Mason Williams is a guitarist, of course-- missed him when he played at Leavenworth.
Sorry it took me so long to get back. I have the original recording on vinyal and .mp3.
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