Andy Summers: XYZ

Once the Police were finished, we were rooting for Andy Summers. Never as loud or as pugnacious as Sting or Stewart Copeland, surely his expertise on guitar and quest for new sounds would ensure something of a career outside of that band. Right?

One obstacle was that he didn’t have much of a singing voice; his monologue on “Be My Girl—Sally” was just that, and “Mother” was the one track most people skipped on the multi-platinum Synchronicity due to his yowling. That was a lot to overcome, especially when XYZ, his first solo album, sported songs he sang. He also handled all the guitars and most of the basses, while coproducer David Hentschel—most famous for earlier production work for Genesis and the synth on Elton John’s “Funeral For A Friend”—was credited with keyboards and drum programming. It should be no surprise that the album is firmly affixed in 1987. That production style often buries the vocals in reverb and other contemporary effects, and sometimes there’s a woman adding an ethereal counterpoint, but that only underscores Summers’ shortcomings.

“Love Is The Strangest Way” was the first single, and it got some airplay, but the title might have been a little too close to one of Sting’s to stand out. Much of what follows doesn’t sound enough like the Police to please those fans. “How Many Days” and “Almost There” do have some hook hiding in the murk, but “Eyes Of A Stranger” might as well be Pat Benatar (instrumentally, not vocally). “The Change” is a moody departure from the norm, with a minimum of percussion, to close what was side one, and therefore welcome.

With “Scary Voices” it’s back to music that wouldn’t seem out of place on a movie soundtrack, and we’re trying to figure out which Sting melody “Nowhere” echoes. The balance starts to improve with the title track, a pleasant, almost new age instrumental that echoes Mark Isham’s work on the Windham Hill label. The desert feel in both lyric and backing help “The Only Road” stand out, and the equally subdued “Hold Me” doesn’t sound too far from a Blue Nile track with its keening vocal a la Paul Buchanan.

The title track was somewhat prescient, as he would release four instrumental albums over the next four years, sometimes using some of the musicians common to Isham. These were all on the Private Music label, which specialized in new age-type music that was too techno for Windham Hill, and had about as much commercial impact as XYZ.

Andy Summers XYZ (1987)—2½

David Bowie 47: I Can’t Give Everything Away

The modern Bowie reissue project took a nearly four-year break, wherein they kept busy with colored vinyl, picture discs, and comprehensive archival digs related to Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust. Finally, what was billed as the final installment of the comprehensive series of box sets—though we’re still waiting on that Tin Machine collection—appeared. I Can’t Give Everything Away takes its apt title from the last song on the last of the four studio albums collected. As per usual, each has been remastered, and each is followed in the box with something to fill in the story. And there’s a nice thick book.

Even though there was a big gap between the first two albums and last two studio albums here, there is unity, given the production by Tony Visconti and the same players on about half of the contents. Heathen was a strong return to form after the commercial ‘80s and experimental (to be kind) ‘90s. He assembled a band for a relatively brief tour, and the performance at the 2002 Montreux Jazz Festival—which included eight songs from Heathen among a bunch of the old hits, and an encore consisting of the entire Low album save “Weeping Wall”—is included on two CDs. The same band stuck around to help him quickly record the Reality album, which was of course also promoted with a tour. The A Reality Tour DVD appeared in 2004, followed only six years later by a CD version; here it has been resequenced so the original non-DVD tracks appear in their proper places in the setlist.

The Next Day was a bounty after such a long break, and the various bonus tracks and other music on The Next Day Extra EP showed he had a lot cooking, as well as knowing what songs should be relegated. Even so, it was a big surprise when Blackstar appeared less than three years later, and the world had three days to ingest it before he died. From there, the only “new” music was the songs included in the Lazarus cast recording, then released on their own in the No Plan EP, which repeated “Lazarus” from Blackstar, as it does here.

While that was an official standalone release, it could be argued that “the final songs” made more sense as part of Re:Call 6, three CDs of extras from throughout the period. These include the various B-sides and SACD mixes from special editions of Heathen and Reality, two more songs from A Reality Tour that wouldn’t fit on those CDs, the earlier single versions of “Sue” and “‘Tis A Pity She Was A Whore”, guest appearances and soundtrack one-offs, three songs from one of his last live performances (with Arcade Fire), and “Arnold Layne” with David Gilmour and Richard Wright. Criminally, “The Little Fat Man (With The Pug-Nosed Face)” with Ricky Gervais didn’t make the cut.

David Bowie I Can’t Give Everything Away (2002-2016) (2025)—3½

Crowded House 9: Gravity Stairs

The most recent lineup of Crowded House stayed intact for a second album in a row. But while the cover of Gravity Stairs emulates that of Revolver, the Beatlesque pop of nearly forty years earlier has long since mutated into the Finn family brand. The hooks are there, but they’re usually buried in atmosphere.

“Magic Piano” is another tentative beginning, a love song to the joy of playing that breaks open for the chorus. “Life’s Imitation” (retitled “Teenage Summer” for the streaming editions) also has a catchy chorus, but the repetitive lyrics make the song seem unfinished, despite the production. Liam Finn is responsible for “The Howl”—his lyrics are more impressionistic than Dad’s—and we’re getting steadily closer to rock. “All That I Can Ever Own” is another love song, this time to family, with the perspective of age, and somewhat obscured amid a very busy mix. “Oh Hi” is equally herky-jerky, but as it was inspired by and intended to benefit an African education charity, it’s fine. If the harmony on the Neapolitan-inspired “Some Greater Plan (For Claire)” sounds familiar, it should, because it’s Tim Finn. Once again, it’s related to the healing power of music.

“Black Water, White Circle” comes from another dreamy place, perhaps somewhere on open water. If anything sounds like Crowded House of an earlier decade, it’s the electric guitars dominating “Blurry Grass”, written with Elroy, who provides a nice little drum break. The energy stays up for “I Can’t Keep Up With You”, an apt title for a song loaded with electronic flourishes that once again hide the decent song in there. Most of these layers are peeled away by the end of the track, which makes a nice segue into the fingerpicked backing for “Thirsty”. It’s even nicer once “Night Song” starts, beginning as something of a lullaby but chases tangents down effects and time signatures, with the sort of disembodied voices that jar you awake when you’re trying to go to sleep.

Gravity Stairs is certainly of a piece, so it’s successful as an album, but we’ve always depended on Neil Finn to give us tunes we can hum. As we’ve said too many times, the production takes away from the enjoyment of close listening, and we shouldn’t have to work so hard for the songs to stick. A lot of people had their hands on the mixing board, making for a more democratic vision than a unified one. We still like it.

Crowded House Gravity Stairs (2024)—3

Joni Mitchell 30: Joni’s Jazz

It should be clear by now that while she started as a folksinger, Joni Mitchell had an affinity for jazz, from standards to fusion. She dabbled with these throughout her career, as evidenced by her experimental tunings and chords, and the caliber of musicians she used in the studio and on tour.

After the Joni Mitchell Archive compiled four box sets of unreleased material (and three of remastered albums), the Joni’s Jazz box took a pretty bold approach by presenting four CDs’ worth of music that supposedly fit the thesis. Some of these tracks wouldn’t necessarily have been labeled as “jazz” in their original contexts; just having a saxophone doesn’t count as far as we’re concerned. Wayne Shorter does feature quite a bit; he’s shown on the cover, and the set is dedicated to him. Herbie Hancock is also on the cover, and two collaborations from his catalog are included: the Gershwins’ “The Man I Love”, and her own “Tea Leaf Prophecy”.

Beyond those, the set gets some rarities out of the way early on: a big-band version of Marvin Gaye’s “Trouble Man” from the debut album by Clint Eastwood’s son Kyle, and demos of “Moon At The Window” and “Be Cool”. Near the end of the fourth disc is a lovely wordless demo of “Two Grey Rooms” that appeared in a box set of the Geffen albums in 2003. Beyond that, it’s a nearly five-hour trawl through the catalog. With seven tracks each from Turbulent Indigo, Taming The Tiger, and her orchestral covers album Both Sides Now, we wonder if a Reprise Albums box covering the ‘90s is moot and therefore not in the pipeline. Every now and then songs taken from an album are bunched together, but generally it seems all over the map, and random-sounding.

So we’re not sure of the intended audience for this set. While there is some undoubtedly masterful music here, just because it has a jazz influence doesn’t necessarily make it essential. It’s a Spotify playlist in a fancy physical format.

Joni Mitchell Joni’s Jazz (2025)—3

Jimi Hendrix 14: Lifelines

The CD era gave the Hendrix catalog another life, helped by the increased commercial interest in archival material. After Rykodisc got into the game with their two very well received compilations, Reprise let Alan Douglas do some more vault-trawling. Lifelines was essentially a reproduction of Live And Unreleased, a syndicated radio show—inspired by the Lost Lennon Tapes series and produced by former Knack drummer Bruce Gary, whom we’ll hear from again—spread across three CDs, plus a fourth disc with most of a 1969 Experience concert and an anachronistic cover photo.

Hearing the radio show in real time was certainly an event for those who knew where to tune in to hear it, but with interview snippets and smarmy narration often obscuring the music—both the songs we know and the rare stuff—it was a persistently frustrating listen. While the CDs were usually indexed to start at each complete track, and the liner notes gave some information among the hyperbole, this was a missed opportunity to present the material optimally.

That said, the show does move mostly chronologically from his earliest work with the Isley Brothers and Curtis Knight all the way through to the end. Rarities include a club performance of “Like A Rolling Stone” with Al Kooper, live versions of “Red House” and “Machine Gun”, a few more BBC recordings, alternates of “Look Over Yonder”, “One Rainy Wish”, “1983”, and “Angel”, and such legendary outtakes as “Cherokee Mist”, “Rainy Day Shuffle”, “South Saturn Delta”, “Send My Love To Linda”, and “Valleys Of Neptune”. Even with all those, most purchasers likely spent more time with the live disc, recorded at the L.A. Forum. “Foxey Lady” had to be cut to accommodate the shorter disc capacity of the time, but it had already been a bonus track on the previous year’s CD reissue of The Jimi Hendrix Concerts, as if they planned it.

When MCA took over the Hendrix catalog three short years later, Lifelines went out of print. Over the years much of the rare material would emerge on other archival releases, but it took nearly two full decades before Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969 finally became available again, and in full for the first time. At this point the Experience were better than ever, allowing Jimi to explore and extend songs well past their three-minute lengths on vinyl. At over 14 minutes, “Tax Free” is even longer than on the box. After tuning and tossing out “Foxey Lady”, he tries to get “Red House” over the rowdy audience. “Spanish Castle Magic” starts more immediately, and runs for 12 minutes into “Star Spangled Banner” (we’re still about five months away from Woodstock) and “Purple Haze”. By now the police are trying to quell the crowd, so Mitch Mitchell takes his customary solo at the start of “I Don’t Live Today”, which continues with fiery-sounding effects. The cops have made their way to the stage, so the band responds with a 17-minute “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” that includes a detour through “Sunshine Of Your Love”. It’s good to have this one back in circulation.

Jimi Hendrix Lifelines: The Jimi Hendrix Story (1990)—3
Jimi Hendrix Experience Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969 (2022)—4

Guns N’ Roses 4: The Spaghetti Incident

They had only just finished the massive Use Your Illusion tour, and the “Estranged” video hadn’t even been released yet when Guns N’ Roses released their long-threatened covers album. Much of what made up “The Spaghetti Incident?” originated during the album sessions, and could have ended up on those albums, but they eventually decided that “Live And Let Die” and “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” would be the extent.

While most of the album runs the gamut through punk and glam, it opens with “Since I Don’t Have You”, the venerable doo-wop nugget with a profane Axl aside before the solo and an unnecessary atmospheric coda. That out of the way, Duff does a decent job shouting the Damned’s “New Rose”, and Axl puts on a bad cockney for U.K. Subs’ “Down On The Farm”. He cleverly adds a kazoo in lieu of sax for “Human Being”, which they stretch out even longer than the New York Dolls version. Duff helps Axl with the Stooges’ “Raw Power”, and Michael Monroe makes his second appearance on a GN’R album, duetting on the Dead Boys’ “Ain’t It Fun”, though Axl makes sure he himself gets the line with the c-word.

Slash takes his first-ever lead vocal on “Buick Makane” (from the T. Rex album that inspired his hat), which gets a twist by bringing in the chorus of “Big Dumb Sex” by Soundgarden in a nod to grunge, but more a reason to drop more eff-bombs. Nazareth’s “Hair Of The Dog” is an inspired choice, right up to Slash’s “Day Tripper” quote at the end. Duff returns for the Misfits’ “Attitude” and Johnny Thunders’ “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory”, the latter brought over from the sessions for his own solo album. The Sex Pistols are said to be the source for “Black Leather”, but in reality it was a Steve Jones and Paul Cook collaboration first covered by the Runaways. The final listed track is a plow through the Fear classic “I Don’t Care About You”, which would have been a fine ending, but Axl decided to sneak on a song written by Charles Manson as a hidden track. (As if that wasn’t enough, the typed gibberish on the album’s front cover uses the code invented by the Zodiac Killer.)

What helps the album succeed is, of course, Slash, who plays his butt off everywhere without seeming showboaty, and Duff should get some credit for some of the more arcane selections. If the intention really was to pay homage as well as generate royalties for some of these people, good for them. But their sell-by date had passed. Outside an unnecessary carbon copy cover of “Sympathy For The Devil” released on the Interview With A Vampire soundtrack a year later, this was the end of the band as we knew them.

Guns N’ Roses “The Spaghetti Incident?” (1993)—3

Duff McKagan: Believe In Me

For a while, Duff McKagan was the dumbest man in rock ‘n roll, stumbling around drunk and/or high, laughing at some inside joke, with hair and clothes that suggested something of a male version of Kelly Bundy. But his marginalized role as the bass player in Guns N’ Roses belied his varied musical background, kinda like we always underestimated what Izzy Stradlin brought to the mix. This wasn’t exactly utilized to the fullest on Believe In Me, his first solo album, as epitomized by the song titles and the cartoony portrait of the artist on the front. No expense was spared for this project, seemingly created during studio and touring breaks; along with most of the current lineup GN’R except Axl, special guests included members of Skid Row and the girl from Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” video. But he does play the majority of the guitars and drums on the album, and quite well too, along with his usual bass.

Unfortunately, he also sings with confidence but not competence, his lyrics trite and cliché. Sometimes he speaks (or yells) asides when melodies just can’t suffice. These traits combine to erase most of the appreciation one could muster for the quality of the arrangements. Much of the album is heavy rock or power ballads, but he does detour into funk for Jeff Beck to shred on for “(F-cked Up) Beyond Belief” (censorship ours) that’s mostly instrumental but gets its title from the near rap in the midsection. (Beck also turns up on “Swamp Song”.) “Punk Rock Song” is a one-man thrash that lasts just over a minute and a half, and would have been shorter if he stayed true to the genre and didn’t break it down halfway through. Lenny Kravitz sings (and screams) “The Majority” with little fanfare, which is surprising considering his ubiquity at the time. Co-writer and contributor Gilby Clarke—a.k.a. Izzy’s replacement—can share half the blame for “10 Years”, and Sebastian Bach takes the Izzy role on “Trouble”. “F-uck You” (censorship again ours) is a loud metal number with a profane rap by one Doc of something called Haus Mob. The closing ballad “Lonely Tonite” is manna for those whose favorite song on the Use Your Illusion albums was “So Fine”.

Since getting mostly sober by the end of the century, Duff managed to clean up his look, resurfacing in various offshoots with old and new friends—most successfully with Velvet Revolver—and even went back to school to emerge as something of a financial adviser to his fellow burnouts. Back then, though, not a lot of people believed in Believe In Me, and it was soon overtaken by a more bankable release.

Duff McKagan Believe In Me (1993)—2

Aerosmith 2: Get Your Wings

This was more like it. For Aerosmith’s second album, they were placed under the care of producer Jack Douglas, who’d already worked with Alice Cooper and John Lennon. And while it still offered breadth of style, Get Your Wings came loaded with hooks.

To wit, “Same Old Song And Dance” begins with one of those, made for air guitar or to be actually learned by budding pimply faced axemen. The Brecker brothers, plus Stan Bronstein of Elephant’s Memory, on horns don’t distract from the rock at all. Beginning with what would become a familiar drum pattern, “Lord Of The Thighs” (pretty clever title, that) takes its sweet time for everything to fall into place, including subtle rhythmic piano and guitars playing single sixteenth-note patterns. Steven Tyler has found his swagger, and his voice is mixed up front, unlike on the first album. While the spooky extended intro for “Spaced” is about as contrived as the mildly existential lyrics, they do combine for a hell of a track. Acoustic guitars blend with electrics for “Woman Of The World”, which is very well constructed but doesn’t stick as well the rest of the album. Joe Perry does get in some cool licks over the fade.

At almost half the length, “S.O.S. (Too Bad)” accomplishes what “Woman Of The World” couldn’t, knowing enough to get out of the way when it’s made its point. And a good thing too, because the one-two punch in the middle of the side dominates. First, “Train Kept A-Rollin’” starts with the intro of the Yardbirds version, then settles into trademark Aerosmith stank for two minutes before going into strict Yardbirds tempo. (Douglas brought in audience noise from the Concert for Bangladesh to cover the transitions, and apparently Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter from Lou Reed’s band play the solos.) From there they could only go with a slow one, and wind soon drowns out the fake audience for the doom-and-gloom acoustic intro to “Seasons Of Wither”. There’s excellent doubling of instruments, subtle keyboards (or layered vocals?) on the choruses, and a superior lyric. Then Tyler’s back to being horny on “Pandora’s Box”, which distills the rockers on the album into a decent closer with an extremely complicated ending. (Before that, however, listen for the clever spoonerism on “city slickers”, and even more closely at the start of the track for a clarinet playing “I’m In The Mood For Love” for some reason.)

Get Your Wings nails down the classic Aerosmith sound, and the template they’d follow for the rest of the decade. And for the most part, that’s what they did, and well.

Aerosmith Get Your Wings (1974)—3½

Mike Campbell 1: Blue Stingrays

Surf music received something of a revival in the ‘90s thanks to Quentin Tarantino movies, and while it didn’t enjoy the massive sales windfall of the swing revival, it also didn’t tank as quickly. Bands like Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet, Laika & The Cosmonauts, and Man Or Astro-man? were just a few outfits who rode the trend and created new music, while independent labels searched for little-known practitioners from back in the day to reissue.

One such outfit was Blue Stingrays, whose Surf-N-Burn collection came with a mysterious bio and catalog listings for long-lost albums, but just one listen to the CD made it clear that these were not thirty-year-old tapes. In reality, it was a new album by Mike Campbell of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers, heavy on the twang and whammy bar, with former Heartbreaker Ron Blair on bass and Mudcrutch drummer Randall Marsh. (Benmont Tench is mentioned as being involved as well, but we don’t hear any keyboards; it’s been suggested he ordered the pizza.)

A dropped needle on vinyl opens the album, and party noises are heard throughout “Monsoon”; thankfully they don’t persist, but both reappear on the closing “Super Hero”, which sounds a little like the Mighty Mouse theme. Speaking of which, the theme from Goldfinger had already featured in Petty live sets, and it was something of a surf song already anyway; “Russian Roulette” has a similar secret agent theme quality as well. Every now and then there’s a riff and chord sequence that’s just screaming for a Petty lyric, especially “Brave New World”, and we could swear we’ve heard “Blue Venus” somewhere else before. “Surfer’s Life” and “Zuma Sunset” have distinct Brian Wilson qualities, and help break up the tempo. Fifteen songs in 47 minutes make it longer than most actual surf albums. (Two outtakes from the sessions, the more rockabilly than surf “Grits And Eggs” and “Dawn Patrol”, were released as a 45rpm single in 2021 alongside the album’s reissue on three varieties of limited edition colored vinyl.)

Overall the album is pleasant, but occasionally emulates the period incidental music concocted for the previous year’s hit movie That Thing You Do!; if Mike was in Tom Hanks’ radar he likely wouldn’t have opted to score a movie soundtrack so close to She’s The One. Throughout his time in the Heartbreakers, and despite the occasional session gig, he never dared pursue a solo project, which is why this one was a badly kept secret for such a long time.

Blue Stingrays Surf-N-Burn (1997)—3