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arabella
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Recording Reviews
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Jul 26 07:11 UTC 1991 |
Here's where you can enter short to medium reviews of recordings that
have captured your fancy (or not) lately. Be just as opinionated as
you like.
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| 268 responses total. |
mew
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response 1 of 268:
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Jul 26 16:32 UTC 1991 |
I just bought the cd "Red Hot and Blue" which is a collection of
rock (?) artists doing covers of Cole Porter tunes. The proceeds
benefit aids research.
I really like it. It is fun to hear the different treatments that
the various songs recieve. Some are VERY VERY different from the
original. I origianlly bought it because I decided I couldn't live
another day without owning the David Byrne cover of "Don't Fence me In"
. Since then I have other favorites. Erasure does a great rendition of
"Too Darn Hot" and the Neville Brothers do "In the still of the night".
Kd Laing does a haunting version of "So in love". (even more effective
with the video) There are some amusingly weird things too:
Tom Waits does "Its all right with me", The Thompson Twins do a funny
version of "Who wants to be a millionaire" and Iggy Pop and Debbie Harry
do a must be heard to be believed version of "Well did you evah".
I reccomend this cd. Besides you can justify the $16 because most of it
goes to aids research! :)
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hawkeye
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response 2 of 268:
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Jul 29 14:37 UTC 1991 |
Bought 3 discs at Art Fair:
Volume 4 of Frank Zappa's "You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore".
Some good, some bad. Another version of "Montana". ANOTHER version of
"The Torture Never Stops" - though with the original Capt. Beefheart
vocals. The '68 tour stuff wasn't anything special, but the double
guitar solos by FZ and Steve Vai on "Stevie's Spanking" are the highlight
of this set.
XTC's "Rag and Bone Buffet". Some good stuff here and, again, some
bad. Don't really need "Cockpit Dance Mixture" or "Countdown to Christmas
Party Time", but it's nice to have "Thanks for Christmas".
Finally bought the one disc, remastered "Layla". Sounds pretty good
but quite depressing lyrically.
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morandir
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response 3 of 268:
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Jul 29 17:29 UTC 1991 |
Bought the $3.99 "Great Performances"
version of 'Carmina Burana' :-P, had
to give it away.
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mcnally
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response 4 of 268:
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Jul 29 19:58 UTC 1991 |
I only picked up two things during the art fair. The first was an
album called "Club Ska '67". I had high hopes for this since I had
really liked two other similar releases on the same label (Mango.)
(The two similar discs, which I highly recommend, are "Scandal Ska"
and "More Intensified!") I found "Club Ska '67" to be disappointing,
though, even though it was sprinkled with tunes by big name early
ska figures who had excellent tracks on the other collections.
The second thing was the "Tremolo" EP by My Bloody Valentine, which
I bought at the urging of a (persistent) friend. The jury's still
out on that one.
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krj
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response 5 of 268:
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Jul 30 16:54 UTC 1991 |
Most of what I bought at the Art Fair seems to have been for other people:
GULA GULA by Mari Boine Persen, DIE DONNERGOTTER by Rhys Chatham, a Steve
Goodman collection and the new Bonnie Raitt, and an old China Crisis
disc. For myself: THE BIG O by The Ophelias (anyone know anything about
this?); SEE WHAT TOMORROW BRINGS (minor Peter Paul and Mary, but it's been
unavailable for years). JOHNNIE B. BAD by Johnnie Johnson, who's billed
as Chuck Berry's uncredited piano player in the 1950's; some very nice
R&B and boogie-woogie piano. THE STORM by Moving Hearts, which we
mentioned briefly in the currently-playing item; it's the link between
Moving Hearts' existence as a band with singer Christy Moore, and
piper Davy Spillane's solo career.
I wish I'd been able to spend another 30 minutes at that Where House
Records sale ($10 for most discs), but I had three people tugging on my
sleeve insisting that we go to dinner.
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mew
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response 6 of 268:
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Jul 31 20:57 UTC 1991 |
Darn! I bet I missed that sale eh? sigh.
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krj
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response 7 of 268:
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Aug 22 06:51 UTC 1991 |
SILK, by Sheila Chandra, was probably a redundant CD for me; it's a
compilation from her six solo albums, which I already had (mostly on LP,
though.) Chandra, a woman of Indian descent living in London, was
making "world music" before it was a fad; between 1983 and 1985 she did
five very tasty albums (one as the band Monsoon) mixing traditional
Indian styles with dance pop rhythm sections. She then disappeared
for five years, re-emerging in 1990. I've never heard a satisfactory
explanation of why she left recording.
One nice aspect of the compilation is the chance to hear Chandra's
different styles all mixed together.
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mcnally
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response 8 of 268:
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Sep 3 04:56 UTC 1991 |
Wow.. I was gone 8 or 9 days and there were only about 4 new responses
in all that time. I'm very disappointed in everyone..
As soon as I can afford to buy them (who knows when that'll be..), I plan
to purchase and review two of the recent Bowie re-releases, "Heroes" (which
I've heard before (and liked)) and "Low". Both are discs from the Bowie/Eno
collaboration period.
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krj
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response 9 of 268:
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Sep 3 09:59 UTC 1991 |
(Well, we've been gone too, we're just back from Worldcon in the last hour
or so. We saw the first half-hour of Mary Ellen's band's concert, which
I quite enjoyed; much better than the typical filk fare. Mary Ellen should
enter a new item about Steven Brust's campaign to clean up filk music...)
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mew
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response 10 of 268:
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Sep 5 21:11 UTC 1991 |
Well thanks Ken! Coming from you that means a lot.
Actually it isn't exactly Stephen's campaign. I'll try to explain it in an
item if you want.
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krj
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response 11 of 268:
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Sep 6 03:52 UTC 1991 |
By all means, please do...
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mcnally
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response 12 of 268:
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Sep 7 07:34 UTC 1991 |
Arrgghhh.. According to rec.music.misc, the new Eno album ("My Squelchy
Life"), supposedly due out next week, has been moved back to "early 1992".
They can't do this to me!
As if that wasn't bad enough, there's going to be a King Crimson boxed set
released this fall. I can only pray it doesn't have any previously unreleased
tracks on it because it'd be very painful to resist if it did and even more
painful to pay $60 for it if I couldn't resist.
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ty
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response 13 of 268:
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Sep 9 04:36 UTC 1991 |
Funny how record companies just *force* you to buy some stuff, eh? ;)
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mcnally
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response 14 of 268:
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Sep 9 04:42 UTC 1991 |
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mcnally
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response 15 of 268:
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Sep 9 05:04 UTC 1991 |
After a night of good cards and moderately skillful poker playing,
I found myself with a windfall of enough to convince me to go out
and buy the new Material album, "The Third Power". All I can say so
far is that it's very, *very* different from their last album, "Seven
Souls". This one features about half of the players from the last
Material album with a bunch of soul, funk, and rap musicians thrown
in (for a grand total of at least 26 musicians, at last count.) In
addition to frequent Bill Laswell, head of Material, and frequent
Laswell partners like Nicky Skopelitis, Aiyb Dieng, and Sly & Robbie,
this album features the Jungle Brothers, ex-P-Funk members Bootsy Collins
& Bernie Worrell, Shabba Ranks, Herbie Hancock, Henry Threadgill, Maceo
Parker, and a host of people even I've never heard of doing songs that
range from a fairly straightforward rap to Funkadelic and Bob Marley
covers.
While "Seven Souls" was hard to describe, between the somewhat middle-
eastern sound of the music used to either back William S. Burroughs poetry
or Sly & Robbie reggae-style raps, it can be fairly said that it shared
very little in common with the funk, rap, and reggae blend of this album.
I'm not as immediately enthusiastic about this album as I was about "Seven
Souls" but on the other hand I was somewhat afraid it would be very
disappointing, which it isn't (so far.) I guess the moral of the story
is, don't buy it expecting it to be at all similar to "Seven Souls" (as
if anyone out there has heard the album but me, anyways..) but check it
out if you're looking for something in its vein. I'd recommend people
give it a listen before buying it, though, just so you're not surprised.
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hawkeye
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response 16 of 268:
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Sep 9 18:35 UTC 1991 |
Picked up a few discs the other day:
Raspberries: The Collectors Series. Knew a few songs from the early-70s
pop band like "Go All the Way", "I Wanna Be With You" and
"Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)", so I picked it up for $9. Really
great stuff here. Lots of great hooks, ringing guitars, and nice
Eric Carmen ballads.
Blondie: Eat To The Beat. Liked it, though I always like those Chinn/Chapman
productions (like The Sweet and early Pat Benetar).
Jay and the Americans: Legendary Masters. 24 cuts from this mid-sixties
pop band. Some really good stuff here like "Cara Mia", "This Magic Moment"
and "Come A Little Bit Closer". The non-hit stuff is surprisingly listenable.
Also grabbed vol. 6 of Rhino's "Didn't I Blow Your Mind: Soul Hits of the 70's
just to get a copy of Theme From Shaft on it. The rest was good too.
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krj
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response 17 of 268:
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Sep 10 05:03 UTC 1991 |
Ah, how many people here owned the *original* release of the Raspberries LP,
complete with fruit scent? I can still remember that smell, all these years
later...
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mew
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response 18 of 268:
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Sep 12 13:49 UTC 1991 |
The Strawbs yes. The "Raspberries"? You are all clearly insane. ;-)
Sorry I am tired.
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krj
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response 19 of 268:
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Sep 29 22:13 UTC 1991 |
This is new-release information rather than a review. The October issue of
the ICE newsletter reports that "Island tentatively plans November 5 for a
double-CD Traffic anthology." It will include "Paper Sun", "Hole in My Shoe",
and "Mulberry Bush". Island also projects 1992 releases for Traffic's
"When The Eagle Flies" and a disc of Traffic's 1967 BBC sessions.
Our resident Traffic fan will want these for completeness' sake; I'm looking
forward to the anthology because I find that I like about 1/3rd of the tracks
on any given Traffic album.
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mcnally
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response 20 of 268:
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Sep 30 06:08 UTC 1991 |
Cool.. Makes me feel better about letting the import copy of "When the
Eagle Flies" that I found at Wherehouse slip out of my hands due to lack of
funds. I never figured out in the first place why they didn't release that
album when they released the other stuff. I'd certainly have released it
in preference to several other albums, especially "Last Exit". I wonder if
that will account for all of the Traffic Tracks I don't have. Somehow it
seems like there's still one or two missing.
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krj
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response 21 of 268:
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Oct 1 09:14 UTC 1991 |
I've been enjoying two new folk/ethnic-oriented releases:
"Cumbia, Cumbia", by Various Artists, from the wonderful folks at
World Circuit CDs in England, collects a set of tracks in the (surprise)
cumbia dance style. The liner notes say cumbia is in a simple 2/4, as
opposed to the more complex polyrhythms of salsa. Nice, simple, swaying
stuff, with lots of yummy accordions and muted brass. A couple of tracks
are obviously mastered from vinyl; I assume these are of historical
significance, though the liner notes don't go into too much detail about
each track. (I seem to have forgotten to mention that this music is
from Columbia.) It's very similar to the Nortena style we encountered
in El Paso this spring.
Beausoleil has a new CD out, "Cajun Conja". Lots more accordion and fiddle.
A bonus treat here are two tracks featuring Grex's favorite guitarist,
Richard Thompson; one of the tracks has him taking a scorching solo.
I don't know that I need every disc Michael Doucet & Beausoleil have
recorded -- Cajun starts to sound a bit samey to me after a while --
but this is a nice one to have.
Anyone know anything about Peter Himmelman? On a lark I picked up
the *three* promotional CDs which Epic has issued for his current album.
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krj
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response 22 of 268:
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Oct 2 04:21 UTC 1991 |
The GPs, "Saturday Rolling Around" : This finally showed up today; it's an
import from the UK, via Dirty Linen magazine. It's a live recording of a
short-lived pickup band: Richard Thompson, Ralph McTell, Dave Pegg and
Dave Mattacks. Most of what they are covering is 50's C&W and early rock
standards -- "Honky Tonk Blues" and "Great Balls of Fire" being the most
obvious examples. There are a few minor sound glitches -- the tape is
from 1981 and had deteriorated in storage -- but they shouldn't get in the
way of enjoying the music. The singing is shaky, but there are *lots*
of Thompson guitar solos.
This will make a nice complement to "Rock On" by The Bunch, a studio
recording from 1972 in which Thompson, Sandy Denny and lots of other
Fotheringport Confusion players take their whacks at early rock and roll.
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krj
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response 23 of 268:
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Oct 16 06:12 UTC 1991 |
LIP, by God's Little Monkeys, finally showed up in East Lansing today after
a year's delay due to record company financial problems. On first play, I
am relieved to find that I like it. More details later.
(The new Walkabouts is out, but I haven't got the heart to play that one yet.
The CD single was not good. GLM and the Walkabouts released my favorite
1990 albums, which is why I'm so hyped about these long-delayed new releases.)
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tcc
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response 24 of 268:
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Oct 16 06:52 UTC 1991 |
There's supposed to be a new Elton John Honorarium album out, with all of his
hit songs performed by different artists. Anyone?
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