As it’s that kick in the pills that serves as a reminder that the weekend is over that’s also known as Monday, it feels like a fitting moment to come down from tripping the cosmos collate some of those tunes that I’ve been enjoying of late in the hope that others dig them too.
Top Drawer – Song of a Sinner
I’ve been listening to a lot of Vietnam-era tunes lately (more on which to follow) and I guess the algorithm overlords of Spotify decided I’d enjoy this. They were right. Top drawer (pun intended) garage / psych rock from 1969 of which I know nothing about other than I dig it, man.
Pink Floyd – The Gold It’s In The… (2016 remix)
On a very similar vibe – and bypassing the fact that Roger Waters has travelled so far up his arsehole he’s come out as a Russian apologist for a moment – I’ve been enjoying some of the Early Years takes from Pink Floyd lately and Obscured By Clouds being one of those albums often overlooked it’s always worth revisiting a tune where Gilmour gets to break loose for a few bars.
Blondshell – Sepsis
This is one of those examples of not judging books etc etc…. I saw the name ‘Blondshell’ in one of those ‘artists to look for in 2023’ lists at the end of last year and scrolled on as it was sandwiched between some of those rappers with ‘Lil’ or ‘Big’ and numbers in their names and I figured it was more of the same. However, I went back to the list and read ‘brutally frank, distorted guitar-driven’ and started listening. Sabrina Teitelbaum – who performs as Blondshell – was en route to becoming a pro pop music writer before dropping out and writing her own stuff on a more alt leaning which means there’s a clear songwriting sensibility stapled to that aforementioned ‘distorted guitar-driven’ vibe that makes for great listening.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – The Trip to Pirates Cove
I’ve been listening to a lot of later-period Tom Petty on the road lately. The inbuilt chill to his voice serves as a perfect counterpoint to the throb of the Ferrari’s V12* that helps take the edge off the cocaine. For reasons unknown it took me a long time to get to Mojo (well, I guess the reason was the disappointment of The Last DJ) but it’s a real resurgence of a record and I love both the overall vibe of this one but especially the lyric “she was a part of my heart, now she’s just a line in my face.”
Gretel Hänlyn – Wiggy
I’m determined not to be one of those guys that once the mid-40s arrive they adopt the ‘no music worth listening to has been made since 199X’ and I’m constantly keeping an ear out for stuff that has a vibe I can plunge into. I can’t tell you anything about Gretel Hänlyn – who I caught on the radio – other than she’s a 20 year old singer / songwriter / guitar player from London. Obviously there’s a big 90’s guitar element to this that’s probably why it caught my ear and I’ve come to terms with the fact that, given the age of a lot of current new bands I’m digging, it’s likely that they’ve been taking inspiration from their parents’ record collections.
Howlin’ Wolf – Smokestack Lightning
The cub has some very specific requests when it comes to music to listen to and when he recently requested we pick up a 3-disc ‘Classic Blues’ comp I didn’t have any objections and this tune is always a stone-cold killer.
In what feels like a fitting post to follow my take on Springsteen’s The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts, I’ve been thinking about live albums of late.
A friend and I have been debating their merits – his ‘no-thanks’ take on them driven by the fact that ‘you don’t get the same vibe as actually being there.’
I can understand that. But – is that really their purpose? I’ve got a lot of time for live albums – there are a lot of artists that really deliver the goods in concert more than others and more than they do in concert. They’ll throw their all into a show and there are plenty of live albums out there where that’s evident as well as the fact that a song performed live is often a different beast to that which graced a studio album. Not only that but there are many bands out there that I’ll never get a chance to see or shows I could never have been at.
Here I can quickly point to two staples of this blog – Springsteen and Pearl Jam, both of whom are renowned for their live shows with both (Springsteen only more recently) performing a different set list every night. Foo Fighters, by contrast, played an identical set (including the rehearsed ‘banter’) night after night.
Whereas once upon a time the live album was once a staple, if contractually obligatory, of many a rock band’s discography we now find ourselves in an era of Nuggs (or whatever service they chose to use) means that almost every show from a tour and many archival individual shows are available to fill up our iPods. Does the traditional live album, then, still have value?
I reckon there’s still a place for it. At least there is within my shelves – digital and physical. While it’s great to have a document of a specific concert – especially if you were there, say – it’s also great to have a live collection from a band at the peak of their power without, say, the mistake they made in the pre-chorus of a song that forced them to restart or a location-specific anecdote, as well as the mastering (not remixing, mind – I’m looking at you Van Halen) that an official release can give. Without having to pay a fortune for a pint of piss-poor beer, swim to the toilet or wonder if you need to duck out during the encore to get the last tube.
With all this preamble in mind I thought I’d take a butchers at some of those live albums that I would say are definitely worth giving a listen to, old and new.
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band: Live 1975-85
Keeping it Boss for another moment… Bruce’s first official live album was a suitably hefty 5LP / 3 CD / 3 Cassette beast that covered Springsteen and the E Street Band’s journey from theatres to stadiums across 40 songs. Springsteen had developed a reputation as a live performer and this set delivers upon that and then some – it’s a great listen even close to forty years on, even hearing his earnest story-telling ahead of ‘The River’ as he works to instil a sense of intimacy to the stadium-sized crowd still works and while he could easily have created another similarly-sized instalment to cover the decades since I don’t think (save a few obvious titles) you could want anything more than what’s here. It remains an unimpeachably great snapshot of Bruce and the E Street Band’s powerful peak and sounds as vital now as it did then.
Nirvana – Live at Reading
Nirvana’s second visit to the Reading festival was the stuff of legend even aside from the actual show itself. This was 1992, mind, when the Kurt ‘n’ Courtney show was dominating press coverage – there were rumours that the band wouldn’t show. That the band were on the verge of breaking up, that Kurt’s heroin addiction was so bad he was close to death (both rumours sadly not that far from true)…
Playing to this, Kurt took to the stage in a wheelchair. Wheeled on and wearing a hospital gown and wig, sang a few lines of ‘The Rose’ and collapsed before getting to his feet and the band delivered one of their most intense and powerful sets to date. Yes, there’s no way to capture being at that show – I hold that for every dozen or so people I’ve met that claimed they were there only two are probably telling the truth – but, fuck me, this is one hell of an amazing live album. The band seem to be giving it everything as a middle finger to the rumours and the setlist is everything you’d want, covering nearly all of Nevermind, plenty from Bleach and a few new songs that would later grace In Utero and is the superior live Nirvana document to From The Muddy Banks of Wiskah.
Johnny Cash – At FolsomPrison
This one’s got to be a given, right? Johnny Cash’s first live album, a career reviving release that starts with the now famous ‘Hello, I’m Johnny Cash’ and finds the then relatively-clean Cash singing songs like ‘Folsom Prison Blues’, ‘Cocaine Blues’ and ’25 Minutes to Go’ to an audience of convicts in a prison canteen that Cash would later describe as “the most enthusiastic audience I ever played” – lapping up every line like ‘I can’t forgot the day I shot that bad bitch down’ like it was written for them. While At San Quentin recorded the following year would have ‘Boy Named Sue,’ this album combines Cash’s strongest points – grit, balladry, the spiritual and humour – into one setlist that while tailor-made for his audience and became the stuff of legend.
Mogwai – Special Moves
As a live band, Mogwai are one of the loudest out there. While they shy away from being branded as post-rock, their predominantly instrumental music takes its cues from a myriad of influences including bands like Loop, My Bloody Valentine and Slint – intricate pieces that build up layers and parts and not play with the quiet-loud-quiet- FUCKING INSANELY LOUD dynamic but own it. I’ve just finished Stuart Braithwaite’s fantastic memoir ‘Spaceships Over Glasgow’ which revealed – amongst other things – the level of nervousness with which he’d play gigs, hoping that the bands head-nodded signals would work when it comes to bringing in the different parts of each song, finding a sound-guy that could sufficiently mix them at the level of noise desired and joy they take in a set when it all clicks.
The New York shows captured on Special Moves – in terms of both setlist and the power of the performance – are as ideal an introduction to and one-hit slab of Mogwai you could ask for. It’s perfectly mixed – balancing all the elements of their music with a smattering of crowd noise to let you know they’re there and capturing the extremes of their sound (the pin-drop silence to absolute wall of sound in Mogwai Fear Satan, for example) perfectly.
Neil Young and Crazy Horse – Weld
Speaking of wall-of-sound…. Neil Young has got quite a few live albums out there – while Time Fades Away and Rust Never Sleeps were made up of entirely new songs and Live Rust felt like a bit of a cash-grab, Weld is the real deal for me and the more I explore Mr Young’s back catalogue the more I enjoy it. A live document of Young and Crazy Horse’s tour to promote Ragged Glory (my current favourite of Neil’s albums), it’s a ridiculously heavy document of the Horse in full gallop and blasting through some of Ragged Glory‘s highlights like ‘Fuckin’ Up’ and ‘Love To Burn’ along with storming takes on ‘Cinnamon Girl’, ‘Powderfinger’, the then-recent ‘Rockin’ In The Free World’ and a blazing cover of Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’.
Gary Clark Jr – Live
This is one of those examples where someone comes across so much better live than on record – to my ears at least and this is my blog, after all. I’d seen the praise heaped upon this enough to be curious and since picking it up it’s been a regular spinner. Having been compared to the mightiest of guitar slingers like Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan, Gary Clark Jr has both that glorious blues tone and dexterity to make his performances addictive listening while also flowing in a touch of soul and hip hop. On record the combo doesn’t really come across so well with his playing taking a back seat too often to slick production. There’s none of that on 2014’s Live – a mix of originals and covers shed of gimmickry and just highlighting how great and in-focus performance he – and his band – can deliver.
My Morning Jacket – Okonokos
The band captured following the peak of the mighty Z album deliver a brilliant set to a crowd at The Fillmore in San Francisco. While the recent compilation Live Vol. 1 adds newer songs to the mix and further cements how great a live draw the band are, Okonokos captures the band in all their intense power, it’s heavy on Z material with eight of its ten songs gracing the set and showcases the band’s musicianship and a rare ability to both jam out and deliver tight, focused performances.
Jeff Buckley – Live at Sin-é(Legacy Edition)
Jeff Buckley left us with just the one studio album before he took his fateful swim in 1997. His first release for Colombia, though, wasn’t Grace but the Live at Sin-é EP. The EP was just a four-song set was released to draw attention to the power of Buckley’s voice. The full set, released ten years later, instead gave us a captivating and wonderfully intimate (you can even hear the odd clink of coffee cups) performance of some twenty plus songs interspersed with monologues and jokes – we get works in progress of songs like ‘Grace’, ‘Last Goodbye’ and ‘Mojo Pin’ along with covers of Led Zeppelin, Dylan, Nina Simone, Van Morrison and, of course, his take on ‘Hallelujah’ all armed with just his voice and a guitar. For a small coffee house show, Buckley commits fully and for all the myth and mystery that’s build up over the years since his passing, it’s a beautiful document of pure talent and the enjoyment of music.
Bob Dylan – The Bootleg Series Vol.4: Live 1966, The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert
First – it wasn’t captured at The Royal Albert Hall, it was Manchester’s Free Trade Hall. It was mislabelled in the bootlegs that so pervaded before its official release. in 1998. It was so extensively bootlegged because it was both a brilliant show and, secondly, the “Judas!” concert.
All these years later it’s hard to conceive of the upset Dylan’s ‘going electric’ caused his folky faithful. Through his 1965-66 tour Dylan would perform a show of two halves: the first alone and the second with his backing band The Hawks for an electric set. Both the heckle and Dylan’s brilliant response – “I don’t believe you…. you’re a liar” – along with Dylan’s instruction to the band to “play fucking loud!” into ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ are captured here along with a fantastic performance of fifteen brilliant Dylan songs that are all worth the price of admission alone and captured with brilliant sound quality.
If you don’t trust my opinion on this, take it from Jimmy Page too – he found the bootleg to be the ultimate album and would buy a whenever he found one.
Some honourable mentions and few additional thoughts in place of a tenth for the list…. I’ve only recently begun listening to the Allman Brothers Band’s At Fillmore East but it’s a mighty fine thing…. The Clash’s Live at Shea Stadium is a great listen too but a little stiff in parts, capturing them opening for The Who – who’s Live AT Leeds is pretty decent too though I’m not that big a Who fan. Dire Straits deserved better representation than the too-short Alchemy and too-sterile On The Night while one of the best bands I’ve seen live, Pearl Jam have yet to drop a live album that really captures how arse quaking they can be live though Live On Two Legs tries and the same could be said for Pink Floyd – Pulse is another case of too much gloss and The Delicate Sound of Thunder features both an excess of gloss and an excess of songs from A Momentary Lapse of Reason.
The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men. Gang aft a-gley… it seems each time I build up a head of steam on here the train falters just a few miles out of the station.
But let’s persevere, shall we, and slip back in by commencing another week with a summary of those songs that have been getting some love from my ears of late.
Exxasens – Le-Voyage, Pt2: (Back to Space)
There’s a wonderful, rich seam of post-rock in Spain. Bands like Toundra, Astralia, Audiolepsia and, of course Exxasens are regular spinners for me. I particularly love those bands from the Catalonia region – to my ears there’s something more of the melodic bent to their brand of post-rock and Exxasens, from Bareclona, typify this beautifully. Plus, a lot of their releases are space-themed and I do love a bit of the space race. This is from their gorgeous new album Le-Voyage.
M’dou Moctar – Chismiten
Thanks to tuning in to The Rough Guide to Desert Blues – courtesy of 1537’s reminder to do so – songs like this often slip into one of my Spotify play lists and this one really made me sit up and pay attention. M’dou Moctar is a mean Tuareg guitarist and his brand of Saharan rock / desert blues just soars… it blows my mind sometimes how music of this calibre comes from places you might least expect it.
James McMurtry – Canola Fields
Changing gears pretty sharply here… you know when a monarch slips this mortal coil the radio stations here have to change gears too and adopt songs from a more suitable sombre tone, pre-approved play list. The commercial stations also have to do away with adverts – whether this is a requirement or because maybe hearing that prick James Cordon enthusing about their printer’s ink coffee during a period of ‘national mourning’ isn’t the image McDonald’s wants I don’t know. However, it does mean I both listen more to stations I wouldn’t normally and tend to hear those tunes that wouldn’t get much airplay usually. Driving back from some rave in an aircraft hanger or massive acid bender somewhere during that period I flicked the radio over and caught this one and was hooked. More specifically I caught the lyrics, the moody tone and the guitar work and was hooked. Alt.Country has often throne up some fucking great lyrics (see Bill Mallonnee and the Vigilantes of Love’s ‘Resplendent’) and this is another prime example of how to get across a novel’s worth in a song without over stuffing the sandwich – due diligence later on enjoying the album of the same name revealed the James is the son of writer Larry McMurtry so it’s clear where the story-telling gene comes from.
Cassandra Jenkins – Michelangelo
Speaking of bruising guitar tones…. the combination of Cassandra Jenkins’ vocals and that tone on this one caught my ears on one of those ‘Best of 2021’ comps that I dug out of the door bucket in the car and slipped on whilst drunkenly careening down country lanes after an all-night booze-up. Her album An Overview on Phenomenal Nature is one I’d missed entirely last year but have been enjoying lately – the variety of styles, all underpinned with Jenkins’ voice and great performances – makes for a real enjoyable spin.
The Hold Steady – Denver Haircut
The Hold Steady’s return, and return to form, had kind of been unnoticed by me but I’ve been belatedly really digging their last two efforts – Open Door Policy and Thrashing Thru The Passion – and while the ‘indie’ scene seems to be overrun by sprechgesang of late it’s a timely reminder that Craig Finn had been effortlessly putting lyrically dense narratives against some blistering riffs long before it was the cool thing.
The War On Drugs – Oceans of Darkness
Last year’s I Don’t Live Here Anymore was another slab of perfection from The War On Drugs. Unfortunately they’re signed to a massive label which means that its success warrants a ‘deluxe edition’ re-release less than a year later and, as if to excuse such a step, they’ve included a new tune. Still, that’s what streaming is for. It’s a bloody belter though and shame it wasn’t included first time round.
The Beatles – Taxman (2022 mix)
Paul McCartney once said “I’m not signing that, that’s disgusting. Put it away.” He also, apparently, said no to helping George Harrison with the lyrics for ‘Taxman’ so Lennon – who wasn’t involved with either heroin or Yoko at this point – did. Since spending time with ‘Get Back’ I’ve been enjoying The Beatles more than before and while I’m not about to go out and drop any money on the upcoming massive archival release of Revolver (my favourite Beatles album) I will be enjoying nuggets like this as they pop up on the streamers.
“They are an immovable force in music... I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t likethem.” Jack White
Jack White may be many things but wrong about Led Zeppelin isn’t one of them.
Often imitated, never bettered. They burst out of the gate white-hot and tighter than a duck’s arse, delivering jaw-dropping rock with a capital ROCK and never really slowed down. Their last few albums may have suffered from the shadows of personal tragedies but even then they could bring it like few others. I can’t write anything about them or better than what has already been written.
But… as a result of prepping a room for redecoration I did come across a pile of old cd compilations that I must have made some ten years gone and – while they’ve travelled and been spun here and in Romania before picking up dust and scuffs that cause the dreaded skip just as you’re getting your head bang on – it was a real pleasant surprise to find my old self-compiled Led Zeppelin cd again.
I know… why would I want such a thing, it’s not like there are already several Led Zeppelin compilations on the market but we all know that those compilations are invariably altered based on Jimmy Page’s preference at the time, there’ll be a little too much focus applied to later tunes that don’t really stand shoulder to shoulder, suffer a little from CD bloat etc…. besides: this is my single-disc all killer, no filler blast of my favourite Led Zeppelin tunes (well, as they were back when I made it) that – I think – covers every aspect of what made them great, get in, hit em hard and get out compilation. It’s probably also the only Led Zeppelin compilation with no ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and without a trace of ‘Stairway to Heaven’. I know: denied.
Been a while since I shunted some of my current spins up on here. It’s not all been research for the Boss piece or Albums of my Years series after all. So here follows a few of those things that have been getting spun on either the iPod or record deck of late….
Sam Fender – The Borders
Trying to keep up with new stuff and not sound like the stereotypical Dad who only listens to music released a decade or so prior… the new Sam Fender album (which essentially collates the seven (yep seven) singles this guy has already released with a few album-tracks but is a solid listen as latest single ‘The Borders’ demonstrates – makes me think of The War on Drugs if Adam Granduciel hailed from Newcastle way, complete with an E Street Band sounding sax addition.
Led Zeppelin – Dazed and Confused
I mean, seriously, do you have to ask? I’m deep into the Ken Burns docu-series ‘Vietnam’ at the moment and this track popped up. I then discovered that, somehow, Led Zeppelin was missing from my CD collection. Quickly fixed by getting the recent 180gsm reissue. Faultless album, stonking tune.
Stevie Ray Vaughan – Pride and Joy
SRV has been getting a LOT of play in my car lately. The miles just fly by, man, interspersed with the occasional “holy fuck” of amazement.
Explosions in the Sky – Day One
I love EITS. They’re one of those bands with a discography in which I can find no fault. To celebrate their 20th anniversary they re-issued their first album and The Rescue with a couple of beautiful packages and both have been getting a lot of spin time.
Damien Jurado – Lincoln
This year’s In The Shape of a Storm from Damien Jurado is an arresting listen. He’s stripped off all the production and concepts of his last few albums and gone back to little more than an acoustic guitar and his voice for an album that’s so intimate it almost feels like a conversation. I’ve always loved this side of Damien’s work – take I Had Not Intentions – and this album is one of my favourites of the year.
May Your Kindness Remain – Courtney Marie Andrews
I know next to nothing about this artist. She came up after one of those ‘Fans Also Like’ journeys on Spotify but I really dig what I’ve heard so far, including this one – strong vocals and that guitar tone that starts to lurk and push through at the two minute mark…. more please.
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks lost in a very comfortable and enjoyable Pink Floyd trip.
It all started with an article in an actual printed music magazine that I bought for the first time in more years than I can count. Well written, the article in ‘Uncut’ detailed the years between Syd Barrett’s departure and the commencement of Dark Side of the Moon. How, in just four years they went from being Barrett’s backing band on songs like ‘Bike’ – via the addition of Gilmour – to writing what is arguably* one of the greatest albums of all time.
From there I needed more. So a quick search punt about on eBay and two quid later (yup, bargain) Mark Blake’s Pigs Might Fly: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd was in my hands for what would become a deep dive into the story and music of those five chaps from Cambridge**.
A good music biog is a hard thing to achieve***; for every Crosstown Traffic there’s at least five Scuse Me While I Kiss the Skys. Especially with a band so reticent to deal with the press during their peak as Pink Floyd were. Pigs Might Fly, falls firmly into the former camp. While not as painstakingly researched and deep as, say, Peter Guralnick’s Last Train To Memphis it documents in insightful detail how The Pink Floyd Experience (though there will always be debate on where and when the name formed) came together around the creative nucleus of Syd Barrett – enforcing my opinion that, at the time, it was really Barrett and Friends, the shocking and painful disintegration of the poor guy, Gilmour’s arrival, Waters’ gradual take over and journey up his own arse and efforts to shoot his own band in the kneecaps before Gilmour pulled it free and moved it forward for a final two albums.
There’s plenty in Pigs Might Fly to enjoy. While it eases up and speeds up as success takes hold – there’s no real detail on song creation etc beyond DSOTM – there’s plenty in terms of the crumbling relationships within the band. That the book takes a very neutral stance means it manages to point more effectively to just what a skid mark Waters became. Despite his later claims that none of the band came out of that period well, it’s abundantly clear that Gilmour, Mason and the revived Wright did an awful lot better than he did. It did make me chuckle that the late Barrett’s neighbour recalled a time in the late 80’s when Syd was heard shouting “Fucking Roger Waters! I’ll fucking kill him!”
Another highlight was the discovery of how the band dealt with a negative review for the album which was their then biggest step forward and into the realms of ‘new’ Floyd, Meddle – which Melody Maker’s Michael Watts (a long-time fan) described as ‘Muddle’ and featuring ‘vocals that verged on the drippy and instrumental workouts that are decidedly old hat’. When Watt’s took delivery of a parcel at his office a month later a he assumed it was a Christmas gift from some record company’s PR dept. Instead he found a bright red hardwood box with a lid held in place with a little catch. When he flipped the catch he jumped back as a spring-loaded boxing glove shot out, just missing his face. It was a Christmas gift from Pink Floyd.
While Pigs Might Fly now sits amongst the other music biogs in my library, I thought it worth running down my Top Ten Pink Floyd albums. I’m not up to doing another Least to Most series so I’ll make this a monster post and go for it now. This is in order and, as per all on here, is my own opinion rather than arguing it’s definitive.
More
The band’s first album without any involvement from Syd Barret and their first soundtrack album, More is a slight listen but one that’s still worth digging out. Somewhat scattershot in style – from their heaviest , Zep-like recordings to pastoral folk and abstract instrumentals, More contains a few nods of the directions the band would later take. Most important, though, is Gilmour coming out of his shell – free’d from this previous requirements to ape Syd’s parts, this is the first time he’s really let loose and ‘The Nile Song’ shows the way out of songs like ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ and toward the Gilmour / Waters collabs that would later prove so powerful.
Atom Heart Mother
While More pointed at any number of directions, it would be a while before Floyd followed them up. Umagumma doesn’t rank here because it’s two strong tracks are set amongst a quagmire of misfires. Atom Heart Mother, though, is a strong slab of music that, while there are still a couple of duds (‘Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast’) is more consistent in quality and was the band’s first Number 1 album. The suite itself – mired by recording and production setbacks – is a 23 minute bombast (which Stanley Kubrick asked, and received a ‘no’, to use in A Clockwork Orange) that’s followed by some great early gems like Waters’ ‘If’ and Gilmour’s ‘Fat Old Sun’.
A Momentary Lapse of Reason
The first of two Gilmour-led Floyd albums is the weaker of the two but still a strong album. Having made the decision to push ahead with a Waters-less Pink Floyd was one thing, the legal battles and arguments that followed meant recording A Momentary Lapse of Reason a dogged process. Bringing in co-writers was no longer new for a Pink Floyd album and Gilmour used all the help he could with lyrics. But Gilmour was keen to avoid too many lyrics, telling the press that the last albums by the Waters-led Floyd had lost focus on music over words. He was also determinedly avoiding the use of a ‘concept’, Pink Floyd’s A Momentary Lapse of Reason is an odd beast as a result and is more of a collection of songs as a result – much like an album by most other bands so why it became a big deal is beyond me – and while some (‘Learning to Fly’ and ‘A New Machine’) sound rooted to 1987 – the distinctive Pink Floyd feel is still there in the mix and songs like ‘Sorrow’ punch in the Floyd’s old weight division.
Unfortunately, the pressure of carrying all the responsibility for Pink Floyd on his shoulders would push Gilmour deeper into use of cocaine and it would be some time before he could shake the weight.
The Wall
One of Pink Floyd’s best known and biggest selling albums doesn’t make the Top Five. The Wall is one of those albums that I always think is great but then – having revisited it so much again recently – realised that my version of The Wall is only five songs long and two of those are ‘Comfortably Numb’ because I always have to play that twice. The others – ‘Mother’, ‘Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)’ and ‘Hey You’ are of such strength as to be outright classics. Thing is though, 4 out of 26 tracks is not a good ratio but these really are gold, proof that even when strained to the point of breaking the Gilmour / Waters partnership was one of songwriting’s finest.
The rest, though… for fuck sake, Roger, have a word with yourself before thinking we need to be tortured. Drop any of them on in isolation and tell me if ‘The Trial’ or ‘Vera’ have any place in the list of great Pink Floyd songs. That Roger demanded – and received – such control over The Wall as part of the agreement to drop legal actions shows just how much his project / vanity this album really is. It took Bob Ezrin to navigate it away from being Rogers’ rant and life story into something as near to generic as it became but The Wall and Waters’ determined dominance over sessions and direction that was the tolling of the bell for the band as it was (recording sessions saw Richard Wright booted out).
Obscured by Clouds
This is one of those gems of an album that is so often overlooked as to be criminal. Recorded in quick sessions against a ticking clock as the band were both on tour and in the midst of working up DSTOTM – working under pressure and without the time to indulge proved benefical: Obscured by Clouds contains some great tunes. The instrumentals – benefiting from the great leaps the band were making – contain touches of the album that would follow while songs like ‘Free Four’ and the brilliant ‘Wot’s… Uh the Deal?’ are classics. Yes, there are some songs best skipped but the ratio of solid to tosh puts this higher than The Wall in my listening rota.
Meddle
Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air… Before Meddle, Pink Floyd were – as Nick Mason would later put it – in danger of being bored to death with their existing material. The direction their psychedelic roots had pointed on was hitting something of a dead end and they were reaching for a new sound. That new, now ‘classic’ Pink Floyd sound arrived on Meddle. A trio of three cracking little tunes (best forget ‘Seamus’ to be honest) sandwiched between the bass-driven corker that is ‘One of These Days’ and the absolute epic ‘Echoes’ with Gilmour and Wright’s vocals blending perfectly. Meddle – and Echoes – is majestic, airy and introduces that sense of overworldliness that would be the benchmark of the classic Floyd sound. Oh, and it’s stuffed full of weird, dark sounds that punctuate it all – it’s the precursor to all that would follow and it’s sodding brilliant. “Give us a ‘ping’ Richard!”
Animals
I’ll be honest – it took me a long time to dig Animals. It didn’t hook me as much as the rest of the Top Five for some time but when it did…. oh boy. ‘Punk Floyd’ as one reviewer at the time put it, Animals is the bridge between the anger that was boiling up in some of Wish You Were Here‘s songs and the self-indulgent ranting of The Wall only clearly still with full band involvement and enjoyment. The music is stronger and rewards with each listen. Gilmour’s guitar work is amongst his finest and Waters’ lyrics are as on-point as they’d ever be:
“And after a while, you can work on points for style
Like the club tie, and the firm handshake
A certain look in the eye and an easy smile
You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to
So that when they turn their backs on you,
You’ll get the chance to put the knife in”
The Division Bell
The last studio album proper from Pink Floyd is one of their finest and much underrated. The Division Bell – recorded free of the legal stress and pressure of A Momentary Lapse.. is closer to the classic Floyd sound since anything pre-Animals, perhaps in part as some of Richard Wright’s vintage organs and instruments were hauled out from storage for use and, more likely, as the music was born out of long improvised jam sessions between the then three members of the band. With the exception of ‘Take it Back’ (tellingly the only song with music written with outside assist) there’s not a duff track on here.
I also seem to recall reading that at some point, with the road behind them, Gilmour approached Waters with the idea of his taking part on what he, rightly, believed would be the final Pink Floyd album. Waters’ response is the inspiration for the line in ‘Lost for Words’:
Wish You Were Here
Ok, look at that track list: ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ in all it’s spectacular parts, ‘Have A Cigar’, ‘Wish You Were Here’… perfection. I’m not a huge fan of ‘Welcome to the Machine’ but I’ll take it over a thousand other songs any day. Much has been said of the appearance of Syd Barrett – shaven of eyebrows and hair and overweight – and none can agree if it really was while ‘Shine On..’ was being recorded.
Apparently Gilmour didn’t sing the vocals on ‘Have a Cigar’ because he couldn’t get on the same page as Waters’ anger at the music business…. the start of many a disagreement… so Roy Harper gladly volunteered. He told Roger at the time he’d take a lifetime season ticket to Lords which, despite his prompting, he never received. At one point years later he suggested that, based on the album’s success, he’d settle for (I think) £30k. He never got it, Roger was long gone up his own rectum by then.
The Dark Side of the Moon
It would be impossible for this to not be at number one. It would be impossible to sum this up sufficiently in a short manner too. This album has never failed to hold me and move me since I first heard it so many years ago.
Their most accessible concept – no anger or political ranting. It’s about the fears, worries and process of life. The band are at their peak in terms of songwriting and playing. Every decision made in terms of the sounds, the mix, the samples, even the fucking cover… is absolutely spot on. From Wright switching from the use of organ live to piano for the recording of ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’, to Gilmour winning out on having the voice recordings lower in the mix (Roger Waters took it upon himself to interview as many people as he could find and record their answers to a series of questions such as ‘when were you last violent?’ – the McCartney’s were recording in the same studio but their forced attempts at ‘funny’ answers failed to make the cut) and the choice of those voices. From the heartbeat that starts and ends the album to the beautiful interplay of lyrics about suddenly finding yourself ‘one day to closer to death’ and war ‘forward he cried, from the rear, and the front rank died’ to the dark, decidedly British, humour that keeps it on the right side up – I fucking love this album.
*In that you could try and say it isn’t but you’d have no leg to stand on.
**Well, three of them anyway – Nick Mason and Rick Wright being from Birmingham and Essex respectively but you get the idea.
***Upcoming blog on my preferred music biogs / reads
It’s not the easiest thing to go out on a high note, just ask George Constanza. Seinfeld managed it. So did the Sopranos, come to think of it. Some just drag it out too long. The lifestyle and money too good to turn down after syndication kicks in perhaps. Joseph Heller was once told by a reported that he hadn’t written anything since that was as good as Catch-22, to which he responded “who has?”
It’s even trickier for musicians to do so – very few go into sessions with a definitive “this will be the last time” approach, some call it a day following poor reception to a bad album and others leave this mortal coil with their last recorded output barley touching their former dizzying heights.
Were Dylan to meet Elvis tomorrow, for example, I doubt it could be said that he’d left a great final record in Triplicate. At The Drive In and Refused almost managed it – but then they got back together and managed to slap their legacy in the face with a bloody great fish.
I go these lengths to point out that a good final album isn’t all that common as a build up, of course, to sharing my list of Ten Great Final Albums. Displayed below in no particular order but with two qualifying criteria: ‘only’ albums (Jeff Buckley’s Grace for example) don’t count and nothing posthumously released is eligible.
Nirvana – In Utero
Originally it was going to be called I Hate Myself and I Want To Die as a joke. Cobain’s piss take of how he was so often portrayed as “this pissy, complaining, freaked-out schizophrenic who wants to kill himself all the time.” In an attempt to distance themselves from the overwhelming popularity of Nevermind and sheer off the sound of Vig’s production that – despite loving it at the time – Cobain would slate publicly as too commercial, Nirvana recorded In Utero with Steve Albini.
As raw and uncompromising an album as a major like Geffen would allow. There’s a lot of talk and mumbling about how the label insisted on having it remixed and polished by Scott Litt (known at the time for work with REM and The Replacements) but the band had already approached Albini to remix it but the producer refused – claiming he’d recorded exactly the ‘fuck you’ ablum Kurt had asked for and wouldn’t released the master tapes to be remixed by someone else. After much back and forth he relented and Scott Litt and Andy Wallace were allowed to work on some of the songs.
In Utero ranks as my favourite Nirvana album and would certainly feature high on my all-time list. ‘Serve the Servants’, ‘Scentless Apprentice’, ‘Heart Shaped Box’, ‘Dumb’…. it’s not only stuffed full of killer tunes but the whole album feels so intense and powerful. The only thing that bugs me about it is that it still showed so much more potential for what was to never come. As a final album, though, it takes some beating.
Chances of a follow-up: None. Well, the surviving members of Nirvana could cut some new material with a different vocalist but then they’d probably chose someone crap like a former Beatle and call it something else entirely.
Sonic Youth – The Eternal
Boy does it pain me to talk about Sonic Youth having a final album. However, The Eternal, released in 2009 and their 15th studio album – is Sonic Youth’s final studio album. To quote from a previous post about them, Sonic Youth were one of the greatest things to blow my ears apart, literally; I’m convinced that the hearing in my right ear has never been the same since I was close to front row and very close to intimate with Thurston Moore’s amps as they performed Daydream Nation in its entirety at Camden’s Round House.
Listening to SY for the first time was like getting a key to a room full of ‘next-level music’. It was music that didn’t give a fuck – pure punk in that respect yet somehow effortlessly cool. No regard for standard tuning. No regard for form and traditional structure. No regard for anything but the feel. And it all made sense. Explosive and experimental guitars that powered through songs that always managed to feel both on the brink of collapse yet tight and in control. A three-decades long career stuffed with ground-breaking work based on the guitar work of Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore with vocals from both along those of bass player Kim Gordon. And then, suddenly, it was over as the divorce of Gordon and Moore collapsed amidst rumours of mid-life crisis infidelity on the part of Moore. Their latest album The Eternal very quickly became their final album.
In many ways, even down to the title, it’s a fitting final album. It contains some of their finest songs and showed that, more than 25 years on from their debut EP, they were still evolving and making great music. Songs like ‘Sacred Tricksters’, ‘What We Know’ and ‘Anti-Orgasm’ sit among their best and the album, for all it’s sonic experimentation and guitar freak-outs, is one of their most consistent and accessible as though, no-longer on a major label, they were interested in as many people as possible getting into their songs.
Chances of a follow-up: Very very slim. While drummer Steve Shelley has worked on projects with both Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, the acrimonious dissolution of Moore and Kim Gordon’s marriage points to Sonic Youth as wrapped up.
Jimi Hendrix – Electric Ladyland
Given the sheer amount of posthumous compilations of ‘previously unreleased’ recordings or ‘intended next albums’ you’d think that Jimi Hendrix spent more time in the studio than he did anything else. However, there were only three studio albums released in his lifetime (all recorded with The Jimi Hendrix experience and released within an 18 month period).
Jimi’s final studio album Elecrtic Ladyland is a stone-cold classic. A double album that contains pure gold. Take Hendrix’ reinvention of ‘All Along The Watchtower’ which was so good it overwhelmed Dylan himself, take ‘Crosstown Traffic’, take ‘House Burning Down’ or take the 15 minute long jam of ‘Voodoo Chile’ with Steve Winwood’s organ whirling away – which itself led into what is easily one of the greatest songs ever put to tape: Voodoo Child (Slight Return). Apparently – the Experience returned to the studio the next day to find cameras rolling for a documentary, rather than try and repeat the magic of the previous night’s jam session, they improvised it on the spot and a monster was born:
Chances of a follow-up: got a shovel?
Band of Susans – Here Comes Success
Band of Susans I got into far too late – some 20 years after they called it a day. Born out of the same New York noise rock scene that gave us Sonic Youth but with a more layered, complex sound that saw them draw comparisons to shoegaze bands like My Bloody Valentine woven into an experimental mix. The original lineup had three women named Susan and always had just as many guitarists. In their ten year life as a band, with fairly fluid lineups around the three Susans (which eventually became just the one, Susan Stenger) they put out five stonking albums of guitar-centric music that was markedly different to the field in which they were often lumped but never really found as wide an audience as they deserved.
Here Comes Sucess – complete with sarcastic title – is arguably their finest work and one of the best records I’ve discovered in the last year or so. Nine songs that all kick around the seven minute mark. All slow burning, hypnotic worlds that revolve around Stenger’s bass lines with intricate and explosive guitar workouts.
Chances of a follow-up: All members are still active in music in one way or another but given how little attention was paid to the band, their split or – if the low level of monthly listens the band receive on Spotify is any indication – their back catalogue, I’d say none.
Elliott Smith – Figure 8
If I can bring myself to do so there will be a wider-scoping post on Elliott Smith. However…. there was supposed to be a double album. Something to do with record contract obligations with DreamWorks. Smith had graduated to the major label after the success of Either/Or and his exposure via the Goodwill Hunting soundtrack. But he also fell into depression. Following on from Figure 8, Smith went through a troubled period of addiction, paranoia and all kinds of trouble before cleaning up. He had a clearer state of mind, sessions were underway with a good number of tracks recorded and mixed. However, Smith died on October 21, 2003 at the age of 34 from two stab wounds to the chest (which was reported as suicide but officially left open with the question of homicide). As such Figure 8 remains his final recorded statement and it’s a beauty.
Full of lush production, pop-like song structures that wear their Beatles influence on their sleeve and pretty much every instrument played by Smith, Figure 8 contains some of Elliott’s finest songs from ‘Son of Sam’ to ‘Everything Means Nothing to Me’, ‘Easy Way Out’, ‘Pretty Mary K’… A real loss.
Chances of a follow-up: soon to be released on St. Peter’s Gates Records.
REM – Collapse Into Now
How do you bow out in style? REM’s the closest any act has gotten to following the Seinfeld route of stopping at the top before things go south. Well, if we ignore Around The Sun that is. Guitarist Peter Buck has said that, as the band entered the studio to record “We got together, and Michael said, ‘I think you guys will understand. I need to be away from this for a long time.’ And I said, ‘How about forever?’ Michael looked at Mike, and Mike said, ‘Sounds right to me.’ That’s how it was decided.”
Collapse Into Now is a great final album, it’s nothing but strength. Following the all-out single-focus return to form of Accelerate, REM’s final album paints with every brush at their disposal – it has the odd effect of listening to a new album as a greatest hits. All of these songs are new yet there are echoes of their finest work across each. I’ve written a full post on this one before so won’t repeat myself but will point out that I still consistently pull Collapse Into Now off the shelves and don’t skip a single track. ‘Discoverer’, ‘All The Best’, ‘Mine Smell Like Honey’, ‘Oh My Heart’… all gold. Perhaps, most likely probably, because they knew it was their last, the band put their all into this and created a final body of songs they could be proud of. I’m just glad they didn’t decide to call it a day after Around The Sun.
Chances of a follow-up: I mean…. you can never say never, right. Not while all members are still alive and well and engaged musically in some form… there’s group projects and meetings for the ongoing ‘business’ side of REM’s catalogue but I, sadly, don’t see it happening. I don’t think they have anything to prove and if their hearts aren’t in it…
The Replacements – All Shook Down
The Replacements were already kind of over before All Shook Down. It was supposed to be a Paul Westerberg solo album but before recording could get underway his management talked him into making one last Replacements album from the material.
As such All Shook Down features a few session musicians but not to the point of it not being a Replacements record – there are no additional guitarists or bass players listed so it’s a safe bet to assume that Paul Westerberg and Slim Dunlap handled guitar parts with bass either missing from some songs or handled by Westerberg when Tommy Stinson wasn’t about (Westerberg’s solo albums often did away with bass altogether). Perhaps as a side effect of the material’s original intention, it’s one of the most consistent Replacements albums recorded without a single foray into ‘Lay It Down Clown’ territory.
The album is full of strong songs and I’m sure that if such a solidly great album come sooner in their career they would’ve finally secured the attention / success they deserved. As it is, this collection of tunes such as ‘Merry Go Round’, ‘Sadly Beautiful’, ‘When it Began’ and ‘Someone Take The Wheel’ makes for a fantastic swansong.
Chances of a follow-up: unlikely. Original guitarist Bob Stinson died in 1995, replacement Slim Dunlap suffered a severe stroke in 2012 and could not take part in the reunion shows while drummer Chris Mars has given up on music to focus on his art. The well-deserved lap of honour tours that followed the reunion in 2012 of Westerberg and Stinson yielded an aborted attempt at recording new material with the old ‘just didn’t feel right’ results.
The White Stripes – Icky Thump
Ah the White Stripes… while I’ve got no real time in Jack White these days, there’s no denying that The White Stripes generated a great deal of catchy and solid tunes in their 14 year career together. The tour behind their last album, Icky Thump, was called short in 2007 after Meg began suffering acute anxiety. Quits were called by the duo as a band in 2011 after a period of inactivity.
Oddly, Icky Thump is not only the last White Stripes album but also my favourite. I love the title track, the hook of ‘300 M.P.H Torrential Outpour Blues’, the daftness of ‘Rag and Bone’ and stomp of ‘You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do as You’re Told)’. ‘Conquest’ aside, there’s not a song on Icky Thump I don’t enjoy. For my money it’s the strongest entry in their catalogue, a leap on from the already great Get Behind Me Satan and Elephant and I was really hoping they’d continue that trajectory. Ho hum.
Chances of a follow-up: Meh. Jack seems too busy being all kinds of a muppet and Meg… where is Meg?
Nick Drake – Pink Moon
Another career and life cut far too short and another on this list with only three albums left behind. Nick Drake died at just 26 – an overdose of antidepressants that was ruled suicide. He disliked both performing live and giving interviews which helped keep him so under the radar that his albums barely registered during his lifetime; not one of them sold more than 5,000 copies while he still drew breath. His three albums are beautiful, minimal yet deeply affecting records of tender melody and soul that I never tire of and ‘River Man’, ‘Time Has Told Me’ and ‘Place To Be’ would certainly be in the long and short lists of my favourite songs.
There’s no video footage of Nick Drake as an adult – only still photographs. It wasn’t until his albums were released in a box set – Fruit Tree – some five years after his death that the music world began to pay attention. To the point that Drake’s final album – Pink Moon – would be included in Rolling Stones’ list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: “Drake recorded his last album in a couple of nights, delivered the tapes to Island Records and checked himself into a psychiatric ward. If the music were as dark as the lyrics, it might be unlistenable. But Drake’s soothing vocals and unadorned acoustic picking make Moon unfold with supernatural tenderness.”
Chances of a follow-up: I’m running out of pithy comments about resurrection..
Pink Floyd – The Division Bell
Two quotes:
“Pink Floyd is a spent force creatively.” Roger Waters
“Yeah, well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.” The Dude, or His Dudeness … Duder … or El Duderino, if, you know, you’re not into the whole brevity thing.
Man it’s a good thing nobody cares what Roger Waters says as much as he thinks they do. Don’t get me wrong, A Momentary Lapse of Concentration isn’t a great album by any measure but it paved the way forward for a Pink Floyd without that knobhead ordering people around and dictating dreary songs about soldiers and Thatcher. 1994’s Division Bell, though, is a fucking awesome album and ranks in my Top 3 Pink Floyd albums on any day of the week.
Without the legal problems that surrounded the recording of its predecessor, The Division Bell sessions were relaxed and songs were born out of lengthy jams and improvisations with music predominantly coming from Gilmour and Richard Wright – the album would feature his first lead vocal since DSOTM. Which is fitting as The Division Bell, for all its then contemporary touches, is the closest the band had come to sounding like ‘classic’ Floyd since before The Wall. Every time I slip this one into the CD player I find something else to love. The opening trio of songs is unimpeachable, ‘Marooned’ is a great tune, ‘Coming Back to Life’, ‘A Great Day for Freedom’, ‘Lost for Words’ are spot on and underpinned by Gilmour at his finest in terms of both voice and the fluidity and beauty of his playing. Oh, and in ‘High Hopes’ they had the perfect final Pink Floyd song.
Chances of a follow-up: Nah… While Nick Mason doesn’t consider the band broken up David (never Dave) Gilmour seems content with the odd solo album and colossal tour playing the usual Floyd-heavy quota of tunes to keep him in comfortable retirement. Richard Wright left us in 2008 and Roger Waters has yet to raise sufficient moneys to fund the removal of his head from his own rectum where it’s been stuck since the early 80’s.
There’s a lot going in my ears at present so I thought I’d drop a few on here while working on a couple of longer pieces and ahead of the inevitable ‘Holy Shitballs OKNOTOK Is Amazing’ post* and share what’s been cropping up regularly in the mix as it were.
Pearl Jam – Of the Girl (Instrumental)
I’m putting together a post about Pearl Jam, specifically their fallow period from 2000-2005 and I think Binaural often gets a bad rap. There’s a lot going on in the songs as this instrumental take of ‘Of The Girl’ from the PJ20 soundtrack shows.
The War On Drugs – Holding On
Because there is a new War On Drugs album dropping this year and this is the first single from it. Shame that the wax looks to be what I’d consider over-priced.
The Appleseed Cast – The Waking of Pertelotte/On Reflection
I don’t think I’ve touched on this band here so far. I can’t get enough of the Low Level Owl albums these days (even if they passed me by first time) and I love, LOVE Josh “Cobra” Baruth’s drumming. These are two seperate tracks that open Volume 1 but are best experienced flowing together as intended .
The Kinks – I’m Not Like Everybody Else
So many great Kinks songs to chose from…. this is a Ray song sung by Dave. It was a b-side to ‘Sunny Afternoon’ but the version I keep listening to was from their final release To The Bone and I first heard it and got hooked via ‘The Sopranos’. **
Fleetwood Mac – Albatross
Because a) this is a great tune to listen to when the sun is shining and b) early / Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac > Rumours Fleetwood Mac.
*I dropped needle on it once and confirmed I need a new stylus. Until that arrives….
I tell you, moving house knocks it out of you. Still, sometime between my birthday a couple of weeks back and popping it back up on a new shelf, I found the time to tear through Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography Born To Run (it was never going to be called anything else, was it?).
It is an absolute blast to read. Written completely solo and without the assistance of a ghost-writer, the voice is clearly that of Bruce – at times cuttingly honest, at others poetic and then written as though delivering a sermon from the stage on the LIFE SAVING POWERS OF ROCK AND ROLL!!! (yes, the caps-lock button is Bruce’s friend). Contained within its five hundred or so pages is the story of how a young man from a poor, working class family in the town of Freehold, New Jersey, fell in love with music, got a guitar, learned how to make it talk, refined his craft and cracked the code. It’s fascinating and joyous stuff.
This being a memoir / auto-biography, the story is going to be somewhat one-sided. This is Bruce’s version. So while in Born To Run, Bruce describes the recording of Tunnel Of Love, for example,by writing that Bob Clearmountin ‘tidied up’ his playing so it sounded as if he knew what he was doing, it’s Peter Ames Carlin’s 2012 Bruce that fills the picture out by pointing out that Bruce and Bob actually used samplers, drum machines and synths to create a lot of the music and then bought in members of the band to “beat the machine” – if they did the part was recorded, if not… well not every member of the E-Street featured and not every member of the band were impressed by the process but then Bruce is the Boss, a fact he gently underlines on a number of occasions in the pages of his own book; “I’d declared democracy and band names dead after Steel Mill. I was leading the band, playing, singing and writing everything we did. If I was going to carry the workload and responsibility, I might as well assume the power”.
The part of the book that deals with the period before the release of Born In The USA is both the largest and juiciest. There’s a wealth of information about the source of Bruce’s art, his influences and his decisions. These were lean times – it wasn’t until after The River tour that Bruce had anything resembling financial success thanks to lawsuits and recording costs inflated due to his infamous perfectionism – and there’s a huge amount of detail as to what drove him to take certain choices with his music. While there’s no real breakdown of what inspired each and every song (that already exists in Songs) there’s a great amount of revelations to be found.
Bruce is surprisingly candid when it comes to more personal elements too. I was a little surprised by some of his descriptions of his fellow E-Streeter’s – especially the late Danny Federici – but then his undeniable love for these band-members is also evident as his heartbreak at their passing.
Many of the column inches covering this book in the press have been at pains to mention that Mr Springsteen is equally revealing when it comes to his struggles with depression. Having managed to suppress what he describes as a consequence of the same mental plagues suffered by his father through years of working and touring, Bruce’s own depression came jumping up into his face . He is very open with his fight with and its effect on both him and his loved ones. As a fellow sufferer of that Black Dog it’s inspiring to read. His relationship with his father as a young man – while hinted at in song – is revealed in a much deeper and, at times, darker light and there’s a real sense of emotion and release when, post diagnosis with Paranoid Schizophrenia, Bruce’s father becomes a softer man and the two find some form of closure.
Part of not embracing the full ‘rock star lifestyle’ means that there’s not a huge amount of rock star stories to be found here and you’d be forgiven for skimming a go-nowhere Frank Sinatra story or those chapters (yep) dedicated to horse riding and Bruce’s equestrian escapades. Indeed, post-USA the structure is more vignettes than linear bio and some of those don’t really feel all that vital but, then, Bruce spent the larger part of that time period between E-Street lives building and raising his family and seeking a sense of calm that had previously alluded him so I’d hardly argue that this is a fault.
But there is still plenty to enjoy in the latter section of the book including some real eye-openers even post-USA. Bruce shines a little more light on the ‘missing’ album from the period between ‘Streets of Philadelphia’ and Greatest Hits – it was another ‘men and women, relationships’ themed album but steeped in that minimal, loops and beats sound he’d employed for SoP. During a drive with Roy Bittan, his trusty piano player mentioned that perhaps it was the lyrical content of this new music that audiences were having trouble connecting to. Unable to find a unifying voice and sound for it, the album was shelved “and there she sits” – ‘Secret Garden’, ‘Missing’ and ‘Nothing Man’ would see the light of day. Bruce may have shot The Professor down but it dawned soon enough – he’d lost his ‘voice’. Post Greatest Hits he went to find it and that’s why Ghost of Tom Joad is more of an important album than that subtle masterpiece may have been considered: “the songs on it added up to a reaffirmation of the best of what I do. The record was something new, but was also a reference point to the things I tried to stand for and still wanted to be about as a songwriter.”
Particularly interesting and surprising – given how logical and inevitable it must have seemed to all outside of Bruce’s head – is that up until the last minute, he still doubted whether reuniting the E-Street Band was the best move – not feeling the fire despite the band’s force, initially building a set list that drew heavily from Tracks and eschewed hits and classics (fuck but I’d love to hear that set!) It wasn’t until the fifty or so fans that had stood outside the rehearsals trying to hear the sounds drifting out were let in to watch that Bruce felt the spark.
Given the level of detail assigned to the writing and recording of earlier works, it’s a little surprising and perhaps disappointing that the post E-Street reformation era isn’t deemed sufficiently interesting to warrant the same treatment. The Rising onwards saw Bruce’s career and popularity reborn after a lacklustre nineties yet the six albums recorded since are breezed over – with the exception of Bruce noting how disappointed he was that Wrecking Ball did not garner the impact and attention he felt these songs warranted. From my point of view and deviating slightly that’s down to the fact that his and Ron Anellio’s attempts to sound sonically relevant and ‘now’ detracted from the quality of the song writing. That being said it was surprising to read the candour with which Bruce realised that, after years of doing so, he simply wasn’t the right person to record or produce his music any more.
Despite the slightness of its third act – I guess if he’d been as thorough here the book would’ve been simply too long as well – Born To Run is, without question, one of the best musician’s autobiogs I’ve read. Hugely insightful, informative and written with a trueness of voice that equals Bruce’s finest music, it’s an essential read for any fan and a bloody important one for anyone with even a passing interest.
Released to accompany the album is Chapter and Verse. Given that it took close to twenty-five years and eleven albums for Bruce to release his first Greatest Hits and in the twenty years that followed there were another three such compilations to the six studio albums… it’s hard to believe that another new compilation were needed to do so, it does kinda reek of cash-grab.
Of the eighteen tracks on Chapter and Verse, thirteen have already been released many in the same order on other compilations. That’s not to say the songs aren’t required listening – any album that contains ‘The River’, ‘My Father’s House’, ‘Born To Run’ and ‘The Rising’ is easily going to stand strong. In some respects the running order here is more beneficial than other instances – lifting ‘Long Time Comin” from it’s sandwiching on Devils And Dust‘s weaker tracks really allows it to shine. But, given that fans will already have either the existing compilations, the albums these tracks are culled from or both, it’s hard to argue a case for their recompiling.
So – the big USP of Chapter and Verse comes down to this; the first five songs have not been released previously and pre-date Bruce’s recording career with Columbia. But are they worth shelling out for? In a couple of words, sorry but not really…. These songs are notable for the progression they represent (even the jump in style between the two cuts from Springsteen’s first band The Castiles) but, ultimately are only being heard because who one of their members went on to be. The Steel Mill song ‘He’s Guilty (The Judge Song)’ is a standard southern-blues stomper recorded in San Francisco as the band tried to use California to break out of Jersey-only stardom but highlights what Bruce himself realised; for every Allman Brothers Band there were a hundred Steel Mill’s and there’s little here to distinguish them above the pack. The exception, though, is The Bruce Springsteen Band’s ‘The Ballad of Jesse James’ which, of the five ‘new’ tracks is the keeper.
For myself, and I’d wager a few others, I’d rather the previously-unreleased material shone some light on either the E-Street Band’s take on Nebraska (that the fabled Electric Nebraska exists in its entirety is confirmed in Born To Run) or Bruce’s shelved album from the nineties… so I’ll drop one such track here – ‘Waiting On The End of the World’, written for that album and taken a stab at with the E-Street Band at the time of Greatest Hits which, for my money, is still the best Springsteen comp.
If you are still looking for music to ‘accompany’ the reading of Born To Run, there’s a Spotify playlist that Bruce (or someone on his team, most likely) put together containing all songs referenced and important:
While every sane and right-thinking person on this planet greets this morning’s news with a collective “WHAT THE FUCK?!” I received a “Top 5 songs that reflect 2016” message.
In the spirit of ‘think less, post more’ here are those that, in no particular order, leapt to mind.
Tool – Ænema
The lyrics… the timing signatures…
Bob Dylan – A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall
REM – It’s The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
The Rolling Stones- Gimme Shelter
Has there been a better apocalyptic song than this? Or album than Let It Bleed?*
Eels – End Times
“Crazy guy with a matted beard, standing on the corner. Shouting out “end times are near” and nobody noticed him”
Mumbling About... 