Pink Floyd 22: 8-Tracks

The 8-track tape music format dominated the industry for a few decades. These bulky plastic cartridges split an album’s program into four stereo segments, but they didn’t always match the vinyl sequence, or even the sides. In order to cut down on excess silence and conserve actual tape, songs were often shuffled, many times in baffling combinations. From time to time a rare mix would sneak through, but for the most part, the 8-track’s appeal was more from convenience and mobility than pristine fidelity: cars had players, and portable players were available in a variety of designs. By comparison, the cassette’s smaller size was that much more fragile, and the thin tape could threaten to unwind and stretch if you weren’t careful. Even those took liberties with album sequencing, but that’s not important right now. Eventually people decided it was a lot easier to dub albums and songs from the radio onto a cassette, which was just one of the factors that helped hasten 8-track’s demise.

Like most kings of the high school parking lot, Pink Floyd sold a lot of albums on 8-track, and a new compilation of favorites that likely got a lot of play in that format appeared for no real reason, on the heels of the 50th anniversary of Wish You Were Here and its various expansions. Despite the hyphen, 8-Tracks offered exactly that: eight tracks from the ‘70s sequenced and mixed by Steven Wilson, and something of a mutant cousin of A Collection Of Great Dance Songs.

Like that album, it begins with “One Of These Days”, only this time the wind fades into “Wots… Uh The Deal”—a wonderful song, to be sure, but not the most expected choice for a “hits” album. That’s soon taken over by the coins and cash register of “Money”, this time the original track and not the rerecorded version. “Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2” is also the extended single mix, with the extra bars at the top and with the schoolmaster’s ranting over the end. “Wish You Were Here” begins from the tuned radio, and its wind at the end turns into the ticking clocks of “Time”. The “Breathe” reprise conveniently ends on the same chord that opens “Comfortably Numb”, and that fades into the sheep sounds to preface “Pigs On The Wing”.

And that right there would seem to be the big deal of this album, from the title to the concept. This is the version of the song that appeared on the 8-track version of Animals—both verses, separated by solo played by auxiliary touring guitarist Snowy White. Why this did not appear in 2018 on that album’s sonic and visual overhaul made no sense, but here it is now. Beyond that, everybody who cares already knows these songs, and might even be tired of them.

Pink Floyd 8-Tracks (2026)—3

Paul Westerberg 5: Come Feel Me Tremble and Dead Man Shake

A year after his double-whammy bipolar Stereo and Mono albums, Paul Westerberg stuck with the formula with two more albums that equally indulged his desires to rock and wallow. Once again he played everything himself, and he’d gotten rather adept at recording in his basement.

Come Feel Me Tremble may have gotten more attention, seeing as that was also the title of a documentary—mostly gathered from camcorder footage—about his tour promoting the last album, usually with a cigar in his mouth. While some of the songs appear here, this is not a soundtrack album. It’s still full of catchy hooks, but the vocals are usually buried, so it’s not easy to hear if anything should be considered profound.

To wit, “Dirty Diesel” rumbles along with a riff one chords except when it switches to a second, and eventually fades away. Titles like “Soldier Of Misfortune” and “What A Day (For A Night)” portend Westerbergian wordplay, but we can’t understand most of the verses. The vaudevilley verses of “Knockin’ Em Back” sit strangely next to the punkier verses, “Wild & Lethal” has some unexpected chord changes and wailing harmonica for five minutes, and “Never Felt Like This Before” is a tender piano sketch that stops after a minute. Two versions of “Crackle & Drag” back to back not only finally provide marked contrast between loud and soft, but it’s only the more acoustic version that cause us to dig into the lyrics, which address Sylvia Plath’s suicide. By the same token, the subject of “Pine Box” would appear to be his father, but that’s only a guess. “Meet Me Down The Alley” tries for the yearning of “Here Comes A Regular”, and he takes a stab at Jackson Browne’s perennial “These Days”; Gregg Allman needn’t have worried.

That’s a mild tie-in to the content of the album credited to Grandpaboy that came out the same day on the Fat Possum label, the subsidiary of Epitaph devoted to aging bluesmen. Dead Man Shake isn’t really blues per se, but is actually rather convincing. Covers are scattered throughout; “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” is older than he is, while Jimmy Reed’s “Take Out Some Insurance” first came out the year he was born. “Souvenirs” is from John Prine’s second album, but nobody expected Anthony Newley’s “What Kind Of Fool Am I?” Of his own tunes, “Vampires & Failures”, “Get A Move On”, and even the title track might has well have been on the “other” album, “Mpls” and “Cleaning House” sound more like the stuff Slim Dunlap would do, while “No Matter What You Say” is more smokey and descends into parody.

While he’s certainly capable as a one-man band, and such economy may have helped his bottom line, it didn’t do much for enriching his catalog. If you’re gonna put out two albums at once, make them different if they’re not stellar top to bottom. Better yet, form a band.

Paul Westerberg Come Feel Me Tremble (2003)—2½
Grandpaboy Dead Man Shake (2003)—2½

Guided By Voices 3: Sandbox

Clearly determined to keep making records even if nobody bought them, Guided By Voices released their second album in the space of a calendar year. Another dozen songs totaling less than a half-hour, Sandbox was recorded with the established rhythm section of Mitch Mitchell (not that one) and Kevin Fennell, with Robert Pollard’s brother Jim and their coproducer adding some guitar.

“Lips Of Steel” and “A Visit To The Creep Doctor” might as well be two halves of the same song, with solid power chords and partially buried vocals. “Everyday” still has some R.E.M. jangle, but with mildly out-of-tune guitars; while the message is muddled, he knew it needed a hook for a chorus. While all one performance with no editing, “Barricade” is alternated between fast and slow sections, one of which culminates in a repeated quote from the Beatles’ “Little Child”. “Get To Know The Ropes” is a martial dirge with self-harmonies and a repeat of the “ladies and gentlemen” introduction already heard on “Lips Of Steel”. There’s even a fake fade.

He learned to kick off sides with a rocker, and “Can’t Stop” is that, with dynamic shifts; it’s almost a love song. He gets mildly political on “The Drinking Jim Crow”, but you have to listen really closely to hear him call America “a nasty little nation”. “Trap Soul Door” is very interesting, as it’s so brief, but has his hallmark of a simple soloing guitar over droning bass lines. “Common Rebels” begins with alternating guitars in each speaker, but improves when it turns into a Who pastiche. “Long Distance Man” is a solo acoustic one with layered harmonies; straightforward but over quick, whereas “I Certainly Hope Not” straddles a jerky verse with a more power-pop chorus. While “Adverse Wind” has some melodic moments, it’s still a little jumbled and clattery.

Being recorded in an eight-track garage studio, Sandbox doesn’t have the lo-fi experimentation that would one day define the band, but Pollard is still experimenting with the form. He also hasn’t quite developed his voice—yet. It’s harmless, with no real clunkers, if not very memorable.

Guided By Voices Sandbox (1987)—3

Neil Young 75: As Time Explodes

Clearly excited by his latest band of older and newer friends, Neil Young took the Chrome Hearts on a “world tour” in the months before he turned 80, playing dates in Europe and the U.S. A live album followed, appearing first as a Record Store Day vinyl release, then given more widespread distribution on CD and via streaming about six weeks later.

What sets As Time Explodes apart from his other timely tour souvenir live albums is of course the song selection. “Daddy Went Walkin’” and “Looking Forward” from the late ‘90s and “Harvest Moon” have gentle accompaniment, while the louder “Ohio” is appropriately ragged. The more obscure “Name Of Love” is driven by his pump organ, and given a better treatment than its original, just as “Be The Rain” is about half the length of other versions. Current events inspired many of the song choices on the tour, as well as the new rant “Big Crime”. “Long Walk Home” is resurrected after almost forty years, with revised lyrics and widely missed notes, though “Vampire Blues” has been a regular since he first took up with Promise Of The Real. From there it’s some familiar warhorses: “Cortez The Killer” runs almost fifteen minutes, colored nicely by Spooner Oldham’s organ, but is most notable for the appearance of its long-missing final verses. “After The Gold Rush” now has Mother Nature on the run on in the 21st century. “Like A Hurricane” goes for almost eleven minutes, with the band doing their best Crazy Horse while also giving Neil room to stretch the dynamics. Finally, he tells the story of writing “Silver Eagle”, which gets a little more twang from guitarist Micah Nelson.

Considering the thirty-odd other songs from the thirty-odd shows on the tour, why he picked these particular selections and performances is known only to him. As Time Explodes is a perfectly serviceable live album in a catalog full of many others that are better just because they are.

Neil Young & The Chrome Hearts As Time Explodes (2026)—3

Queen 14: A Kind Of Magic

The Live Aid concerts in July 1985 were a big deal, and of all the artists given twenty minutes to strut their stuff onstage, Queen pretty much stole both shows. The history leading up to this occasion has been muddled by the major dramatic license taken by the Bohemian Rhapsody biopic, but the fact remains that—overseas anyway—the band was still quite popular. They chose to capitalize on this momentum with a new album that partially tied into another major motion picture.

So given that they’d re-established themselves as rock royalty, and Freddie Mercury had gotten his pop preferences out of the way with his solo album (which, despite what the movie said, did not threaten to break up the band), you’d think that A Kind Of Magic would kick butt, right?

Well, it didn’t. The cartoon artwork throughout looked like they were hoping to ride the coattails of the Stones’ “Harlem Shuffle” video, and there was just the barest tie-in to the Highlander film with a single line on the back cover. The whole thing was just plain garish, even for them, and considering the year in which it appeared.

“One Vision” would have been better served had they started with those classic Brian May chords then the mysterious-sounding intro that kills a full minute. It’s not a bad tune, even with the “fried chicken” joke at the end. The title track continues the “one” theme in the lyrics, and is pretty harmless, especially compared to the rest of the album, starting with “One Year Of Love”. This is execrable adult contemporary, right in line with other hits of the time, complete with the same saxophone player from “Careless Whisper” and strings played first on synthesizer and then on real instruments. “Pain Is So Close To Pleasure” is dominated by Freddie’s unflattering falsetto throughout; he might have been going for Motown, but it sounds more like the worst parts of Hot Space. Brian remembered he played guitar in time for “Friends Will Be Friends”, another attempt at a grand singalong, forgetting that they’d only ended up combining and diluting “You’re My Best Friend” and “Somebody To Love”. (John Deacon had a hand in the last three, so maybe he was having a tough year.)

Side two is most closely connected with the movie, which would only be obvious to those who’d seen it. “Who Wants To Live Forever” has another orchestra for extra pomp, and the song only works once the drums come in. After several seconds of Brian trying to out-hammer Eddie Van Halen, “Gimme The Prize” is helpfully titled “Kurgan’s Theme” after the villain, and his voice can be heard quoting Def Leppard’s “Rock Of Ages” in the many samples heard among the heavy metal tropes. Roger Taylor is responsible for “Don’t Lose Your Head”; apparently he was content to program a drum machine, and somebody roped in Joan Armatrading to intone the title a few times. “Princes Of The Universe” ends a mostly loud album with a lot of bombast, but nothing really original.

As a soundtrack, A Kind Of Magic is no better than Flash Gordon, and as a Queen album, it’s a disappointment. Yet somehow the album has since made it to rank on several classic albums lists. The original CD had extras in the form of extended mixes of “A Kind Of Magic” and “Friends Will Be Friends”, as well as a solo piano instrumental of “Who Wants To Live Forever”. The 1991 CD added only that last track, plus an extended mix of “One Vision”. Two decades later, the third version added “Forever” and the extended “Friends”, the movie mix of “A Kind Of Magic”, single mixes of “Pain Is Close To Pleasure” and “One Vision”, plus a demo of the latter and a live version from their 1986 concerts at Wembley.

Coming a year after Live Aid, those shows were a big deal in the UK, where they were celebrated at year’s end with Live Magic, most of which came from the tour finale at Knebworth. Unfortunately, several songs were edited—badly, in the case of “Bohemian Rhapsody”, since the Galileo section came from the record anyway—so all could fit on a single LP. It didn’t come out on the US for another ten years, by which time Live At Wembley ’86 had already become the standard celebration of their triumphant return to the scene of Live Aid. It’s a full two hours, complete with their “ay-yo” jam, Brian’s nine-minute solo off “Brighton Rock”, an oldies medley, and starting the encore with “Big Spender”. Ten years later it was repackaged and retitled, with bonus tracks from other shows, including the Hungarian folk song Freddie performed in Budapest. (Some of that show was already excerpted on Live Magic, and the whole thing was commemorated on VHS and laserdisc in the UK and Japan in 1987. The full performance was released on CD 25 years later as Hungarian Rhapsody.)

Queen A Kind Of Magic (1986)—2
1986 CD: same as 1986, plus 3 extra tracks
1991 Hollywood reissue: same as 1986, plus 2 extra tracks
2011 remaster: same as 1986, plus 7 extra tracks
Queen Live Magic (1986)—3
Queen Live At Wembley ’86 (1992)—3½
2003 Live At Wembley Stadium: same as 1992, plus 4 extra tracks

Bill Wyman 3: Bill Wyman

Twenty years with the Stones meant a lot of sitting around for Bill Wyman, and although they were never going to use any of his songs for their semiannual albums, he kept recording anyway. Mostly this meant playing around with synthesizers, with a rotating group of friends who tended to work at Jimmy Page’s studio in Berkshire. Some of this experimentation was used on the soundtrack of the little-seen film Green Ice. Then somehow, the summer before Tattoo You was released and the subsequent tour happened, he had a mild hit with “(Si Si) Je Suis Un Rock Star”, a novelty song in fractured French with a truly cheesy synth part to match his weedy voice.

While it got somewhat regular MTV play when it was current, it wasn’t enough of a hit for the accompanying album to be released in America. It’s tough to say whether it would have made a dent. His voice does seem better matched to the robotic arrangements of “A New Fashion” and “Nuclear Reactions”. “Jump Up” attempts to create a new dance craze and fails, and we’re not sure how we’re supposed to relate to the weary jetsetter in “Rio De Janiero”. “Come Back Suzanne” was his other mild hit single of the period, with an even goofier video to match; it sounds like a real rhythm section too. “Ride On Baby” isn’t the Stones leftover from the Aftermath sessions, but his son helped write it. It has a lot of guitar from Brian Setzer, while Chris Rea provides the lead on the dreamy “Visions”. Knowing what we know now about his, shall we say, proclivities, “Seventeen” and “Girls” are a little cringey, though he might be trying to ape Mick on the latter.

While Bill Wyman isn’t as dull as his other two solo albums, it’s only of interest to Stones completists. They would naturally go for any of the reissues, which include four single edits as well as demos of the two hits.

Bill Wyman Bill Wyman (1982)—2½
2006 Bill Wyman Solo Collection Edition: same as 1982, plus 4 extra tracks

Grateful Dead 23: Two From The Vault

The curators of the Grateful Dead’s archives were always mindful, knowing that their audience was somewhat particular. Rather than just throw any show out on the market, even if it had already been shared and dubbed on countless tapes, whatever they released needed to be important or unique. So it was in the case of the second installment of the From The Vault series.

At the time, this 1968 show was the earliest one they’d yet officially released, on top of being one of the few professional recordings from that year. Amazingly, some of the band wasn’t thrilled with the tapes back in the day, and even used them as a reason to justify firing Pigpen and Bob Weir for not keeping up with the others musically. Luckily for this supposedly less-than-dynamic duo, they would be reinstated soon enough, and ‘90s technology enabled us all to hear what the dissenters couldn’t then.

Pigpen was still a focal point onstage, so they open with a 16-minute “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl”. But then the suites start to flow: “Dark Star” into “St. Stephen” and “The Eleven”, slowing down for “Death Don’t Have No Mercy”. None of these were on either of their two albums, and could have filled up an album on their own. After a new seconds to regroup (and change CDs for the listener) they head right into “That’s It For The Other One” and “New Potato Caboose”, both twice their album length, followed by 17 minutes of “Turn On Your Love Light”. The crowd’s begging for more, so they get “Morning Dew”, which builds until the power is cut.

Two From The Vault certainly makes a nice companion to Live/Dead, unless you didn’t like that album to begin with. It portended well for the future of the series, except that further excavations would emerge under another banner, leaving this one all but abandoned. (Three songs—totaling 34 minutes—from the night before appeared on the first expansion of Anthem Of The Sun, and eventually comprised the bonus disc in Rhino’s expansion of this album fifteen years after its original release.)

Grateful Dead Two From The Vault (1992)—3½
2007 reissue: same as 1992, plus 3 extra tracks

Nilsson 13: Sandman

The cover of Sandman is something of a joke; the front shows Harry Nilsson happily sitting on a beach, fully clothed, while the rear suggests he’s been eaten by a crab. (These photos were taken by his pal Mal Evans, the Beatle road manager who was tragically killed shortly before the album came out.) Inside the gatefold is something of a Victorian-style etching of what appears to be an impending shipwreck, with various of the album’s participants’ faces slipped in. Clearly, Harry loved comedy, but even humor that isn’t an in-joke can only be funny so far.

“I’ll Take A Tango” begins with admitting to an aversion to rock ‘n roll and electric guitars, while the barely danceable rhythm lists towards the edge of the deck depicted in the aforementioned gatefold. But it’s followed by “Something True”, the closest thing to the romantic splendor for which he first became famous, and a stunner. That slide guitar isn’t George Harrison’s, yet we wish it were. It’s only a momentary distraction, as he now informs us that “Pretty Soon There’ll Be Nothing Left For Everybody” over a busy samba beat. There’s a lot of reverb throughout the album, thankfully toned down on the a cappella college parody “The Ivy Colored Walls”—we’re guessing all those vocal parts are him—which crawls to a denouement without a clear punchline. Instead it’s right into the completely lazy “Here’s Why I Did Not Go To Work Today”, which on the label is the subtitle of “Thursday”.

Depending on who you are, the album’s high or low point is “The Flying Saucer Song”, which he’d been trying to record for three years. It’s predominantly a conversation over a lopey sax groove between two drunks at a bar, mediated by the bartender, and naturally he does all the voices. (Joe Cocker can be heard wailing in the background.) While it may not have been inspired by Cheech & Chong, it pales. For even more hilarity, “How To Write A Song” gives him another excuse to put “a—hole” into a song while providing the instructions over a canned cheering audience. He finally finishes “Jesus Christ You’re Tall” from the snippet on the last album, degenerating into a few minutes of scatting. “Will She Miss Me” is another big production with a romantic undercurrent, trilling strings everywhere.

Comedy albums were of course popular by the mid-‘70s, but that’s not the main reason why people liked Harry Nilsson. He clearly didn’t have enough songs in him anymore, which is too bad, since he didn’t have enough for a comedy album either.

Nilsson Sandman (1976)—2

Guns N’ Roses 5: Chinese Democracy

Despite the rise of grunge, Axl Rose kept Guns N’ Roses in the spotlight till the mid-‘90s, courting controversy and creating events with each new cryptic video. Before long, each of the other members got fed up with him and quit, replaced by handpicked minions. 1999 saw the release of both the double-CD retrospective Live Era ’87-’93 (most of which was recorded towards the later year) and the very noisy “Oh My God”, released on the soundtrack of, yes, another Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Rumors flew about the next album, which somehow and somewhere gained the title Chinese Democracy. Once the 20th century turned to the 21st, both the idea and the title of any new Guns N’ Roses album had become a joke. Much like Neil Young’s long-promised Archives, we’d believe it not when we heard it, but when we saw it in the wild. And besides, how could something that took so long to make, involving hundreds of thousands of studio hours, possibly sound any good?

Over 17 years after the Use Your Illusion albums made a splash by arriving the same day, Chinese Democracy started streaming at the band’s official MySpace page—now there’s a flashback for you—in preparation for its official release via the Best Buy chain, barring any last-minute crisis, of which Axl was the undisputed master. Just as amazing as the album finally going on sale was the simple fact that it didn’t stink. It sounded like him singing, and the guitars sounded like Slash. But that shouldn’t suggest that the album is “good”.

There’s a lot of music here—14 songs, most pushing five minutes, some over six. The first minute is atmospheric, until some power chords kick in for the title track, which sets the template for much of what follows: Axl doubling his angry vocals an octave apart, and one of the guitarists shredding constantly. There’s a chorus, but it’s not exactly “Paradise City”-level catchy. It also holds the record for the song with the most credited writers: eight. Only six people wrote “Shackler’s Revenge”, its industrial basis coming from two of them. “Better” slows the pace a bit, and could almost be a pop song, but we could really do without the singsongy falsetto verse at the start and end. Here’s a case where the minor key melody and chords serve the song well. That means it’s time for a power ballad, and “Street Of Dreams” is the album’s “November Rain”, complete with orchestral arrangement. Dizzy Reed, the only other member to play on the last album, is still on board to pound the piano; the rest of the band includes such famous stage names as Buckethead, Bumblefoot, and Brain, plus Tommy Stinson from the Replacements.

“If The World” probably irritated a lot of people, from the robotic drums to the Philly soul strings, the wrong kind of ‘70s homage for this brand. “There Was A Time” is even more divisive, with another drum loop and a damn children’s choir aah-ing along to hide what could be a half-decent tune, proof that a decade obsessing over an arrangement squeezes the life out of a song. Those of us familiar with the original novel were dubious of any song called “Catcher In The Rye”; here Axl manages to channel Oasis on the piano, clearly identifies with the protagonist, clearly misses the point of the book, and seems to chastise his fellow legendary recluse for writing it in the first place. But for those continual guitar lines and muddled message, it’s actually a cool track.

After a side away from hard rock, the hook of “Scraped” is vocally based around some of Sam Kinison’s most iconic yawps, and takes advantage of the layering capabilities of infinite tracks to have lyrics flying in from all over the place. It’s hard to picture anyone relating to “Riad N’ The Bedouins”, since the words are so muddled and obscure we don’t know who pissed him off this time. There’s another atmospheric intro, more Kinison-style “ah”s, and chorus chords that would be better served in another context. But no such ambiguity clouds “Sorry”, a mournful waltz complaining about everyone who’d ever doubted or underestimated him, specifically the other musicians on Appetite For Destruction. Despite the false alarm of the acoustic guitars, “I.R.S.” is a tirade against the government that might be more effective if he came up with a better title.

It’s been a while since we heard an orchestra, so “Madagascar” begins with one right out of a Russian symphony or Pink Floyd epic. From what we can gather from the lyrics, which don’t include the title once, he’s alone and lonely and misunderstood, and piles on movie samples and Martin Luther King quotes to illustrate his point. It’s got all the markings of a grand finale, but we’re not done yet. He’s got another love song in him with “This I Love”, another Elton John homage, loaded with heartbreak, and the only track on the album he apparently wrote all by himself. Finally, in the tradition of unfortunate title choices, “Prostitute” manages to encompass alt-rock and bombast, ranging from pensive to anguish, finally throwing all the ingredients we’ve heard so far into the soup for the big finish.

Chinese Democracy didn’t change the world, but in a universe where a Black man could actually be elected President of the United States and there was finally a new GN’R album, it seemed like anything was possible. And for a brief period, hope was truly alive and well. Yes, we could.

Guns N’ Roses Chinese Democracy (2008)—2½

Faces 6: Mahoney’s Last Stand

This enjoyable Faces side project snuck out four years after it was recorded, the soundtrack for a film that didn’t get a wide release either. Mahoney’s Last Stand was the brainchild of an actor best known for a couple guest star appearances on episodes of the cult TV series The Prisoner, and detailed the trials and tribulations of a man trying to get back to nature—a concept very appealing to Ronnie Lane. He and fellow Face Ron Wood recorded these tracks in 1972 while apparently “waiting around for Rod Stewart to show up to the Ooh La La recording sessions.”

Some of the music is very much along the lines of what the Faces might have done if Woody and not Rod had been so dominant. “Tonight’s Number” is a virtual Faces track, with Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones on board, along with Jim Price and Bobby Keys on horns, plus Pete Townshend on one guitar. “Title One” is a similar one-chord jam with horns, but not other Faces or Pete. “‘Mona’ The Blues” is an acoustic remake of an outtake from the first Faces album, whereas the Motown-flavored “Car Radio” could’ve come from their second.

Scattered throughout both sides, the rest points the gypsy folk direction Ronnie would pursue on his own. “From The Late To The Early” only has one verse despite several runs through the chords, mostly letting Woody extemporize on various acoustic guitars. “Chicken Wire” is a banjo-driven workout, while “Chicken Wired” is a slightly slower take with vocals and electric guitar. “Hay Tumble” and “Rooster Funeral” are another one-chord strum and a bluesy melody respectively, both with Ric Grech on violin, and “Woody’s Thing” features Ian Stewart on piano. Each side ends with a take of the wistful “Just For A Moment”, the second with a vocal.

By the time the album finally came out, Woody had already joined the Stones, while the packaging didn’t make it clear that this wasn’t a fresh reunion, that wasn’t enough to make it a hit. In the decades since it has been reissued a few times on CD, as well as streaming, so it can be appreciated again.

Ron Wood & Ronnie Lane Mahoney’s Last Stand: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1976)—3

Style Council 2: Internationalists

Straight out of the gate, the Style Council kept fans busy with singles, 12-inches, and a second album. As with its predecessor, Internationalists differed from the British version in title and cover—Paul Weller’s haircut clearly the influence decades later for Bill Hader’s Stefon—but only the mildest of track substitutions, which actually helped. Pointed political stances colored the lyrics, making it almost necessary to read along on the inner sleeve, where they appeared out of order and incomplete. (Like most Brits his age, Paul Weller really, really hated Margaret Thatcher.)

Just to be different, Mick Talbot takes the lead vocal on “Housebreakers”, probably because Weller’s phrasing wasn’t generally that measured. The jazz pop is about what we’d come to expect, but even from these guys, the bossa nova beat and harmonized flute solos in “All Gone Away” seem like parody. “Come To Milton Keynes” gets a more straightforward arrangement, but it’s a terribly sarcastic slam of a British town that didn’t deserve it any more than any others going through the same growing pains. (The trumpets always remind us of “Just Who Is The Five O’Clock Hero?”, which might have been intentional.) Weller pulls out the guitar and wah-wah pedal for the title track, but is accompanied by only a string quartet on the mournful “A Stone’s Throw Away”. The gravitas is killed by “The Stand Up Comic’s Instructions”, which are recited by comedian Lenny Henry over, though the chorus is catchy. “Boy Who Cried Wolf” is a little more standard, but the overly synthy backing is a matter of taste, but would appeal to fans of Sade and future pop stars Simply Red.

Side two is a little more consistent. Church bells right out of the Kinks herald “A Man Of Great Promise”, a surprisingly buoyant song for what’s essentially an obituary. “Down In The Seine” continues their Francophile tendencies, right down to the accordion solos. Besides being bestowed with another typically unwieldy title, “The Lodgers (Or She Was Only A Shopkeeper’s Daughter)” also features a front-and-center vocal by D.C. Lee, who got star billing when it was re-recorded in an inferior version for the single; here it’s solid R&B underneath more social commentary. With “Luck” we finally get a straightforward upbeat love song, and then “With Everything To Lose” brings back the bossa nova undercut by more complaints about the government. Here in the US, likely thanks to its appearance on the Vision Quest soundtrack, the Philly-infused “Shout To The Top!”—a single from the previous fall—replaced “Our Favourite Shop”, the instrumental title track of the UK version of the album. It makes a good lead-in for the equally snappy and punctuated “Walls Come Tumbling Down!” (By the time the album was issued on CD, it was the UK sequence, with “Shout To The Top!” added at the end.)

The best parts of Internationalists are the toe-tapping ones, but it’s still a very breezy and slick album, and Americans didn’t know what to do with it. They loved it in the UK, of course, where the eventual Our Favourite Shop Deluxe Edition was loaded with contemporary B-sides (of which there were always plenty) and some demo versions, a few of which were previously released elsewhere.

The Style Council Internationalists (1985)—2½

Morrissey 8: Maladjusted

In the early days of the Internet, various chat groups were dedicated to generating fake Morrissey song titles. His album titles weren’t so easy to concoct, but Maladjusted would be a good one if he hadn’t thought of it himself. Considering how all over place the songs are arrangement-wise, it’s fitting.

The title track is a bold opener, with pounding drums and feedbacky guitar from the Oasis album due out in a few weeks. He was due for a big anthemic-sounding single, and “Alma Matters” comes through on that score. “Ambitious Outsiders” is pinned to a somber synth orchestra arrangement that doesn’t make us want to decipher the lyrics any. Most people will hear the chords of Radiohead’s “Creep” in “Trouble Loves Me”, it’s actually very close to a song of a similar, shorter title from a Jayhawks album earlier that year. That aside, it’s very well arranged. The tale told in “Papa Jack” is open to lots of interpretation, none of which seem to match the soaring guitar parts over the second half.

“Ammunition” is similar musically to the other rockers, but stands out for being a song of confidence, even self-acceptance. “Wide To Receive” is a little dreamier and mopier, especially when the repeats of the first word of the title sound like “why, why, why, why”. “Roy’s Keen” would be a decent crowd chant to honor a Manchester United player of note, but the verses honor a guy who cleans windows for a living, so we’re at a loss. “He Cried” could be another one of those fake song titles, but it’s another catchy one reminiscent of older melodies. As good as the album’s going, it screeches to a complete halt with “Sorrow Will Come In The End”, wherein he recites a monologue of revenge over another faux-orchestrated backing. It would be unbearable even if it hadn’t been directed at the Smiths drummer who sued him and Johnny Marr over royalties, to the point where it was dropped from the UK release. Best to skip ahead to “Satan Has Rejected My Soul”, which is far catchier.

The band is the same as the last album, just as Steve Lillywhite produced it, so the sound throughout Maladjusted crackles. Yet twelve years later, he chose to reissue and repackage it with a new cover (as he also did with the one that came before it). In this case, the track list was dramatically shuffled and overhauled, going so far as to remove “Roy’s Keen” and “Papa Jack”. But beyond that, the new sequence flows better, even with the added tracks, all of which were contemporary B-sides, each excellent save the too-long and too-serious “This Is Not Your Country”. “Satan Rejected My Soul” was swapped with the worldwide reinstatement “Sorrow Will Come In The End”, making it easier for the listener to avoid that one altogether.

Morrissey Maladjusted (1997)—3
2009 Expanded Edition: same as 1997, plus 6 extra tracks (and minus 2)

Aerosmith 4: Rocks

When you get your sound down, the thing to do is work to perfect it on your next album, especially when you need a follow-up and fast. Rocks did just that for Aerosmith fans, delivering 35 minutes of guitars and stank, with Jack Douglas once again helping them get it all on tape.

With all the subtlety of crashing through saloon doors, “Back In The Saddle” is a perfect opener, right down to the whipcrack, stomping spurs, and neighing horses, you can practically feel the dust. (There’s even yodeling.) “Last Child” slows things down right away, but they fall into a stank of a groove with plenty of layers, mostly from the fingers of Brad Whitford. Some city sound effects link to the next track; “Rats In The Cellar” ups the tempo bigtime in something of a mirror to the title track of the previous album, with a cool extended ending. “Combination” is a sneaky one, since you really have to concentrate to discern the lyrics, but it’s actually a duet between Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, and something of a manifesto for their “toxic twins” image.

Don’t be fooled by the acoustics (and maybe a banjo?) at the start of “Sick As A Dog”, because it soon resolves into more chord-driven riffing that’s not too different from what we’ve already heard, but the twin solos in the break make a difference. After another atmospheric link, “Nobody’s Fault” would launch at least a dozen metal bands by the turn of the decade, only these guys keep some personality in the mix. “Get The Lead Out” sports a sassy strut they’d return to time and time again, while “Lick And A Promise” starts with one seriously complicated riff and just keeps going. Not until the end do they vary from the program. “Home Tonight” is a piano-based power ballad that would set another template for the band in the decades to come. At least they left out the orchestra, or at least mixed it low.

Throughout Rocks, the vocals are generally buried under all the guitars. Which is fine, but it makes it kinda hard to sing along. While it lacks the musical breadth of the two albums before, it delivers and keeps knees jogging. It’s clear why so many budding guitarists choose this as their favorite Aerosmith album.

Aerosmith Rocks (1976)—3

Beach Boys 4: Little Deuce Coupe

Perhaps feeling he’d exhausted the songwriting potential surfing offered, Brian Wilson decided to focus more sharply on that other Californian teen sensation: cars. What’s more, their label had already used “Shut Down” as the title track of an album that repackaged “409” and other songs about cars by other bands, as well as Robert Mitchum. So they figured they might as well repackage themselves, which is why an album released only a month after their last one repeated four songs from previous albums, including the title track of this one. Confused yet?

That title track is still primo Beach Boys, but here it’s followed by “The Ballad Of Ole Betsy”, a maudlin plaint for an automobile on its way to the scrapyard. While it may not specifically mention cars, “Be True To Your School” is one of the better high school rah-rah songs despite itself; the music makes it more than the words, which come off as the rantings of “some loud braggart”. (Co-writer Roger Christian is responsible for most of the lyrics on the album, being Brian’s go-to car expert.) “Car Crazy Cutie” is dominated by Dion and the Belmonts-style do-run-runs, and while it’s about a girl for a change, it’s not any more exciting than “Cherry, Cherry Coupe”, which was a rewrite of an earlier track and piles on the technical references.

“Spirit Of America” was supposed to pay tribute to racecar driver Craig Breedlove and his eponymous jet-propelled trike; fittingly, Capitol Records used it a decade later as the title track of the less musically successful cash-in follow-up to Endless Summer. While three of the repeats may have been worthy of hearing again, we won’t say the same for “Our Car Club”, but “No-Go Showboat” shows Brian trying to work more complicated arrangements into their albums than the usual three chords. Somewhat along the same lines, “A Young Man Is Gone” puts new lyrics eulogizing James Dean—who, or course, died in a car crash—to the lush Four Freshman-style harmonies of “Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring”. Finally, “Custom Machine” is more grandstanding, again over some unexpected chord changes.

Musically and vocally, Little Deuce Coupe certainly stands out as competent, even influential. But with only twenty minutes’ worth of new material, it offered little except to push them as a novelty act. Luckily, it was paired with a better album for its two-fer CD, which also included the rerecorded single version of “Be True To Your School”, featuring a simulation of a high school marching band and even more cheerleader chants.

The Beach Boys Little Deuce Coupe (1963)—2
1990 CD reissue: same as 1963, plus All Summer Long album and 4 extra tracks

Kinks 34: Did Ya and Phobia

Having somehow made it through the ‘80s, could the Kinks extend their longevity to a fourth decade? Their new manager hoped so. First, they’d need a new label, and Columbia stepped up. At a time when the CD was king, the band took the new opportunity to release an EP, with the single “Did Ya” as the lead track.

This charming little ditty was very reminiscent of “Sunny Afternoon” and “Dead End Street”, right down to the wheezing harmonium and backing vocals. This time Ray Davies’ concerns about the decline of British society were wrapped in wistful disappointment at the broken promises of the swingin’ sixties. As long as they were looking back, “Gotta Move”—originally the B-side to “All Day And All Of The Night”—is an outtake from The Road, and “Days” got a new acoustic busk with a not-too-raucous backing. But the irritating “New World” would be something of an extension of “Aggravation” from UK Jive, and a rant about Europe fifty years after the start of World War II. Much better is Dave Davies’ “Look Through Any Doorway”, instrumentally, lyrically, and musically, and deserves wider exposure than the end of an EP.

Eighteen months later, none of these were included on the band’s next album in the U.S., though “Did Ya” was added in some territories. Instead, Phobia was an entity all its own, and at 71 minutes their longest album since Preservation Act 2.

A forty-second “Opening” of dueling guitars gives way to the slow but big riffs of “Wall Of Fire”, an angry piece of social commentary. Following a brief pastoral opening, “Drift Away” is more of the same—neither a rewrite of “Loony Balloon” from UK Jive, nor is it remake of the Dobie Gray hit. While the sentiments in “Still Searching” seem genuine, and the performance is wonderful, the song is treacly and trite, two words we don’t normally associate with Ray Davies. (Plus, following a song that insists “sometimes I wish I could just drift away” with one that opens with “I’m just a drifter who has lost his way” is just sloppy sequencing.)

The title track brings back the crunch, and is one of his better litanies of neurosis, though we can’t imagine stadiums singing along. “Only A Dream” is this close to being one of his better tunes of late; all he’d have to do is jettison the spoken-word sections, where he rivals Pete Townshend in the creepy old man race. Titlewise, “Don’t” would be better extended to “Don’t Look Down”, as that’s the main hook, and an excellent metaphor we don’t think he’s touched on before. Along the same lanes, while “Babies” touches on all kinds of psychological ramifications of overpopulation, couldn’t he have found a better title?

The circus metaphors in “Over The Edge” don’t excuse a keyboard hook straight out of “Freeze-Frame” by the J. Geils Band, but he still manages to cram a lot of lyrics in. “Surviving” takes the other tack, being to find one hook and beat it into the ground. The best part of this six-minute opus is the breakdown over the final two, where they repeat a few wordless phrases over trilling acoustics and what sounds like at least one banjo. Dave’s guitar and harmonies have been prominent thus far, and “It’s Alright (Don’t Think About It)” provides something of a defiant determination with a spidery riff any grunge or hair metal band would have killed to have. “The Informer” comes completely out of left field, a gentle monologue by one pub patron to another, hinting at lots of back story and intrigue that’s only alluded to and never explained, unless we’re missing something really obvious.

Not so with “Hatred (A Duet)”, which seems to be the answer to some suit’s idea that it would hilarious if the Davies brothers sang a song about how they really feel about each other. It’s generally embarrassing. There’s no metaphor in “Somebody Stole My Car” unless you really want one; the best part is the “beep beep yeah” quote at the end. Only two tracks after yelling at each other, the boys were able to swap verses and harmonize on “Close To The Wire”, another example of Dave summing up a side’s worth of Ray’s angst in one song. The best is saved for last, as “Scattered” opens with a strum of “Lola” dobro and travels through rather dour subject matter—she’s gone and I’m alone, we all turn to dust someday—over a very jaunty tune, complete with accordion.

For the most part, Phobia isn’t a “bad” Kinks album, especially considering the handful that preceded it. The music is driven mostly by guitars, and the drums only occasionally sound canned, so on the surface, the album rocks. When you try to get into it, however, its flaws emerge, and you wish they had kept the songs tight and compact, rather than try to fill up a CD. It must have been too much for the band, as to date, it is the last Kinks album of new material. God rest the Kinks.

The Kinks Did Ya (1991)—2½
The Kinks Phobia (1993)—3

Todd Rundgren 35: State

The good thing about Todd Rundgren constantly upgrading his technology is that with every one-man band album, he sounds closer to something organic even when he’s relying on electronics. Of course, it also helps if he’s got songs, and State does have a few of those, but not enough.

Over a bed of extraterrestrial synthesizers right off of any of his other albums, “Imagination” crawls towards us from across the desert. Both “verse” and “chorus” seesaw between two chords, but while the former is more pastoral, the latter is pure forboding, with suitably grungy guitars. The eight minutes don’t drag, but then everything changes. “Serious” is mildly jokey, unfortunately locked into a synth-funk backing that does the sentiment no favors. “In My Mouth” (as in “something in my mouth for you”) comes from a standard lyrical trope following a trip to the doctor, but overstays its welcome, while “Ping Me” is a modern take on basic communication. But comparing the plight of women to a popular video game in “Angry Bird” is a major whiff.

What we’d call side two begins as the first did, with a mysterious synthesizer heralding “Smoke”. The dance beat is a bit much, yet the track holds up. Not so “Collide-a-Scope”, already used as a clever song title and better song by nemesis Andy Partridge for the XTC side project the Dukes of Stratosphear, and theirs wasn’t a litany of opposites. Thankfully with “Something For Nothing” we finally have a track worthy of his talents, lyrically and melodically, nicely supported by Rachel Haden on the bridge and chorus. “Party Liquor”, which pointedly sounds like it’s set in a dance club, kills that mood, but it can be skipped in favor of the bleak landscape of “Sir Reality”, which has some screaming lead guitar above the synth beds.

Those still wanting to dive in to State would have been best served by springing for the deluxe edition, which boasted selections from a concert that covered his entire career, pop to prog, accompanied by the Metropole Orkest in big band arrangements on a second disc. He’s started to croon in his advancing years, but things like “Pretending To Care” and even songs from 2nd Wind get a fresh perspective. The otherwise unavailable “Frogs”, about a plague of same, allows him to indulge his Gilbert & Sullivan tendencies. (He encouraged attendees to film it, and the complete show is still available for viewing.) It’s still more entertaining than the zoopa-zoopa techno medley of “Can We Still Be Friends?”, “I Saw The Light”, and “Hello It’s Me” stuck at the end of the digital version of State itself.

Todd Rundgren State (2013)—2

Joe Jackson 22: Hope And Fury

It’s always encouraging when Joe Jackson emerges with a set of songs that aren’t specially part of a grand concept. Hope And Fury finds him keeping it basic yet again—another good sign—with his current trio backing him, anchored yet again by the staunch bass of Graham Maby. The music is described as “bicoastal Latin jazz funk rock”, which pretty much sums up his more commercial albums.

That description isn’t immediately apparent on the opening to “Welcome To Burning-By-Sea”, where the tribal rhythm doesn’t support any kind of melody until the chorus. If there is a theme to the album, it would be the state of the world, particularly in comparison to life in the same place in another time. (And frankly, the cover photo looks just a little too much like bad AI.) His defiance comes through on the more melodic “I’m Not Sorry”, a slap at cancel culture from a guy still miffed he can’t smoke in bars. “Made God Laugh” is the first really constructed and arranged song here, incorporating echoes of previous decades and a killer chorus. Speaking of previous decades, “Do Do Do” (which rhymes with “no no no”) begins with a cop on “Twist And Shout” sports cheesy Farfisa organ and guitar stabs while has a lot of fun with wordplay. The saga of Billy in “Fabulous People” may or may not be autobiographical, but boy, is it catchy. (The percolating bass and doubled piano and xylophone evoke that of “Stepping Out”.)

Unfortunately the main guitar riff of “After All This Time” immediately resonates of “Smooth” by Santana, and it’s a shame he couldn’t have found a better hook, since the pre-choruses and choruses are worth getting to, to the point where one doesn’t notice the deliberately pointed clichés stacked in the verses. “The Face” is another anthem for the timid, with a terrific call-and-response bridge and extended solos highlighting almost Klezmer violins, progressive guitar, and his own piano. On an album with already sophisticated ideas, “The End Of The Pier” stands out with its precise juxtaposition of families a century apart, even if the earlier one doesn’t seem that far back. (In fact, “Sunday Papers” would fit lyrically at the halfway point.) “See You In September” is thankfully not the near-bubblegum hit from the ‘60s, but something more resonant of the Great American Songbook, with its Ellington chords and shades of “As Time Goes By”. It would have been better served with just the piano and strings, and without percussion, but he really likes that percussion.

While Hope And Fury is short and sweet at under 35 minutes, there’s enough here for sinking one’s teeth. Although it doesn’t grab with the immediacy of Rain or Fool, it’s another fine installment in what seems to be a career without end.

Joe Jackson Hope And Fury (2026)—3

Daniel Lanois 3: Sling Blade

Production work and his own musical forays were still trickling in, but Daniel Lanois arguably got his widest exposure in the mid-‘90s in the context of Billy Bob Thornton’s breakthrough film Sling Blade. Lanois’ swampy atmospherics were well suited to heavy, hot, and humid scenery in the movie, and are weaved through out the soundtrack album. “Bettina”, “Omni”, and “Secret Place” are trademark instrumentals in his brand, and “Asylum”, “Orange Kay”, and “Blue Waltz” are suitably dark. Fellow Hamiltonian Russell Wilson collaborated with engineer Mark Howard on “Phone Call”. “Jimmy Was” isn’t that far musically from “Still Water” from his debut solo release, and “The Maker” resurfaces over the closing credits, ending the album.

Mostly, if there are vocals, they’re by other people. A relatively brief “Shenandoah” comes from his recent sessions producing Emmylou Harris, while Tim Gibbons, another Ontario native, croons his own brooding “Lonely One”. We were mystified for years by Bambi Lee Savage, whose “Darlin’” provides a wonderfully sweet break here and in the movie, until we found out she was previously known as Shannon Strong, who’d had engineering credits on U2’s Achtung Baby and their Passengers album with Brian Eno. The old 45 of “Soul Dressing” by Booker T. & The M.G.’s fits just fine, while the inclusion of Local H’s cover of Guided By Voices’ “Smothered In Hugs” seems like record label finagling, since it’s not in the film, wonderful as it is. Sadly, the backporch performance by Dwight Yoakam’s character’s band in the movie, featuring Ian Moore, Vic Chestnutt, Col. Bruce Hampton, and Mickey Jones, is not included. (For those who haven’t seen it, Dwight is genuinely terrifying in this film.)

Decades later, after the album had gone out of print and he’d started selling music via his own website, My Music For Billy Bob recycled his own contributions to the soundtrack, and added a few that didn’t make it, some for obvious reasons. “The One I Love” has a drum machine and doesn’t sound like much more than a demo, but “Nicky” is based around a pretty piano and other keyboards, and “London” has that eerie quality that may well have been used somewhere. “Willie Brown” would appear edited as “Flametop Green” on Belladonna, and the melody of “Moondog” would end up on another Emmylou Harris album. The album is nice to have if you can’t find the soundtrack, but you will end up with yet another copy of “The Maker”.

Music From The Miramax Motion Picture Sling Blade (1996)—3½
Daniel Lanois My Music For Billy Bob (2014)—3

Yes 13: Yesshows and Classic Yes

While Yes was in a state of limbo, somewhat, they still owed the label some product. This conundrum was addressed in the usual way, first with their second live album. Yesshows was taken from recordings at five locations over the last three tours with Jon Anderson, yet still works as an entity to itself.

The finale from Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite is the opening fanfare as the band takes the stage for “Parallels”. Steve Howe does an awful lot of noodling through “Time And A Word”, the only earlier song here, having been revived in the wake of Yesterdays as part of a medley of earlier songs, not included here. Instead there’s a sharp but effective edit into “Going For The One”. Side two was devoted to “The Gates Of Delirium”, when Patrick Moraz was still in the band and Rick Wakeman wasn’t, and it translates well to the stage, particularly the transition from the solos into “Soon”.

Jon helpfully explains the impetus for “Don’t Kill The Whale”, after which he thanks various crew members over an against-type band jam and actually says “Don’t put that funk in mah face.” “Ritual” (again with Moraz) had to be split between sides on vinyl, and is now all one track. Chris Squire gets a decent bass solo, but the Tuvan-style throat singing during the percussion freakout is almost laughable, making the final “Nous Sommes Du Soleil” section a big relief. There’s a sloppy edit before “Wonderous Stories”, but Chris adds nice harmonies.

Outside of the devoted, Yesshows was always something of a stepsibling to Yessongs, and didn’t make it to CD outside of Japan until the ‘90s. Also, it was only a double album, as a triple album wasn’t going to fly in 1980, but it least it didn’t repeat selections.

Two such candidates for the album did appear a little over a year later, kind of. Some editions of the Classic Yes compilation included a bonus 45 consisting of live 1978 recordings of “Roundabout” and “All Good People”. (The cassette added a song to the end of each side, while the eventual CD had both at the end of the disc.) The album itself was sufficient as an overview of a now-defunct band, concentrating on some of their longer yet popular pieces, most of which were established radio staples. “Heart Of The Sunrise” is a surprising opener, jumping ahead to “Wondrous Stories” then back to “Yours Is No Disgrace”. “Starship Trooper” feeds into “Long Distance Runaround” and “The Fish”, and “And You And I” sums up the final Bruford trilogy. Plus it had another Roger Dean cover to underscore its place in the canon. And with that, the band’s label contract was fulfilled.

Yes Yesshows (1980)—3
Yes Classic Yes (1981)—3½

Oasis 7: Heathen Chemistry

With rhythm guitarist Gem Archer and bassist Andy Bell still on board since the live album, the Gallagher brothers felt confident enough to get back to the rock with Heathen Chemistry. Noel seemed to have cut back on the nose candy, and even let the other members contribute to the songwriting. Even Liam wrote three songs of his own.

You’d be forgiven for fearing some kind of insensitive musical decoration on a song called “The Hindu Times”, but to their credit none of the other lyrics would have been better titles, and we’re off and running. “Force Of Nature” starts out like Iggy Pop’s “Nightclubbing”, but gets more of its own character when Noel starts singing. “Hung In A Bad Place” is very reminiscent of their first and third albums, but since one of the new guys wrote it that’s just fine. The piano on “Stop Crying Your Heart Out” brings to mind early Bee Gees in a good way, though we wish Noel had let off the “Wonderwall”-style echoed voices during the verses. The song still works as an anthem, especially as it sets up Liam’s utterly charming “Songbird” strum, sadly over before we know it. Noel seems to slow things down again on “Little By Little”, and we’re not used to hearing him sound so humanistic, but as ever, he knows how to nail a chorus.

“A Quick Peep” is indeed that, a rockin’ sketch by the bass player, then “(Probably) All In The Mind” recycles those Revolver tropes that put them and others on the map. The feedback doesn’t dominate, and a kinder, gentler Noel rises out of the fade with the attempt at sincerity of “She Is Love”, but even the Mellotron flutes can’t hide that this song has been written several times already, to the point where we can’t place the original source for the theft. (We suspect somewhere in Laurel Canyon, and tips or leads are welcome.) “Born On A Different Cloud” proves that Liam hasn’t learned how to vary a melody yet, but the “Karma Police” piano and dirge rhythm are more White Album than 1967, even if it does drag at six minutes, and enough with the Mellotron flutes already. He does better with “Better Man”—not the Pearl Jam song, nor an update of “It’s Gettin’ Better (Man!!)”—which favors guitars over its trip-hop backing. The half-hour of silence at the of the song serves only to fill up the disc to capacity, but since “The Cage” apparently never got lyrics, it provides a mildly moody finale. And they just couldn’t lay off the Mellotron.

Derivative as it is—and despite how many times we used the word “but” throughout this summation—Heathen Chemistry succeeds from not being overly indulgent or self-important. They still had their swagger, of course, though they weren’t trying to push people away. Too much, anyway. The parts are mostly better than the whole.

Oasis Heathen Chemistry (2002)—3

Prince 26: One Nite Alone

Having not learned his lesson with the Crystal Ball debacle, Prince tried again to make his music available directly to his fans, this time via online subscription. It was a nice idea, but those who parted with a hundred bucks complained first about the frequency of releases, as well as repetition of stuff they’d already received.

At any rate, the first such issue was One Night Alone…, billed as “solo piano and voice”, which is pretty much what we get for just over half an hour. The title track is a slow seduction, starting off nice and pretty over two chords, alternating between falsetto and spoken, escalating into a Keith Jarrett exploration, then out. Apparently she didn’t buy it, given the heartbreak in “U’re Gonna C Me”. “Here On Earth” is even slower, a rumination on a dream with some overdubs, including drums by John Blackwell. He pulls out some guitar and bass for “A Case Of U”, a cover of his favorite Joni Mitchell song, though he only uses the second verse.

“Have A ” is loaded with nonstandard chord changes and unexpected harmonies, and its mildly vague content makes an odd direct segue into the salacious metaphors of “Objects In The Mirror”. It’s right into “Avalanche”, another lovely performance, but the lyrics air eyebrow-raising claims about the history of slavery in America. After that, “Pearls B4 The Swine” is a quirky little post-breakup number, the closest thing to a catchy single. “Young And Beautiful” could be one too, with a message of empowerment for the object of the song, leaving us with “Arboretum”, a lovely instrumental closing theme of sorts, after which he gets up and walks away. (His pet doves are credited with “ambient singing”.)

The album was something of a taster for the One Night Alone… tour, where he was accompanied his smallest combo in years—albeit with Maceo Parker, Candy Dulfer, and Najee on horns—and would spawn his first official live album. He was ostensibly promoting The Rainbow Children, and the music certainly thrives onstage; the deep narration is still there, but mostly he just plays, mostly on guitar. The only real rarity is “Xenophobia”, which serves to introduce the band and to admonish those in the audience who came for the oldies. He does touch on his entire catalog, but more on deep cuts than obvious choices. “Extraordinary” and “The Other Side Of The Pillow” are surprises, while the adjusted title “When U Were Mine” and “Take Me With U” retain the vibe of the records. After 90 minutes he says good night, but comes back for a set alone at the piano cocktail lounge-style, touching on romantic favorites and encouraging the crowd. They go nuts when “Nothing Compares 2 U” kicks in, and the band comes back and stays for the duration. “Free” goes into “Starfish & Coffee”, then “Sometimes It Snows In April” and “How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore”, and “Anna Stesia” stretches for ten minutes so he can harangue about God before a moody coda and farewell.

But that wasn’t all either. A third disc, The Aftershow: It Aint Over!, provides a glimpse into his tradition of hitting a club a few hours after finishing a concert to keep the party going. Larry Graham sits in on a torrid “Joy In Repetition”, George Clinton croaks “We Do This”, and Questlove and Musiq Soulchild are on the medley of the latter’s “Just Friends” and Sly Stone’s “If You Want Me To Stay”. “2 Nigs United For West Compton” fits well with “Alphabet St.” He threatens to keep “Peach” going for twenty minutes, but we only hear eleven. “Dorothy Parker” is more subdued but jazzy, “Girls & Boys” is mostly suggested by one chorus, and the closing vamp on “Everlasting Now” brings it full circle to the main show. All in all, a satisfying experience. (In 2020, the Up All Nite With Prince: The One Nite Alone Collection box included all of the above, plus the Live At The Aladdin Las Vegas DVD. Not included was 2004’s C-Note, a download-only EP consisting of four soundcheck jams—two funky and two moody—plus the first-ever release of “Empty Room”, a song about heartbreak dating from 1985.)

Prince One Night Alone… (2002)—3
Prince & The New Power Generation One Night Alone… Live! (2002)—3½

Nico 1: Chelsea Girl

Even before she was appended to the Velvet Underground, Nico had been trying to make it in showbiz. Her blonde beauty and cheekbones had already emblazoned album covers and got her into movies, but the girl just wanted to sing. Her husky timber would be an acquired taste, but she exuded enough cool to open a few doors.

Once the band’s first album had been released, producer Tom Wilson took to the task of establishing her as a chanteuse. She’d already been doing solo shows at the same East Village venue that Andy Warhol had already turned into a nightclub, and where she was accompanied by a rotating cast of guitarists, including the guys from the Velvets, Tim Buckley, Tim Hardin, and a kid we’ll reveal shortly. She built a repertoire, which Wilson recorded in the folk style, then promptly slathered in chamber-pop arrangements nothing like the album she’d just finished, and which she insisted she hated. (Interestingly—to us, anyway—the arranger would work on Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks a year later.)

The aforementioned kid was named Jackson Browne, and while his own career would take another five years to really start, he plays on most of Chelsea Girl, and two of the three songs he’d written for the album open it. “The Fairest Of The Seasons” is lovely little reverie, and the strings don’t get too much in the way, but the future classic “These Days” would be bettered by others. “Little Sister” is credited to Lou Reed and John Cale, but the see-sawing organ and airy lyrics suggest mostly the work of the latter. Only his name is on the tense, Gothic “Winter Song”, which comes off as a faster minor-key variation with more polysyllabic words. Folks who were with her so far might not have appreciated “It Was A Pleasure Then”, wherein she sings a haunting, almost Gregorian melody over Reed and Cale’s tapped guitars and burst of feedback for eight minutes. Only the absence of drums keeps it from being a full-on Velvets track.

Another contender, and almost as long, is “Chelsea Girls”, written after the fact for Warhol’s experimental 3½-hour split-screen film experience. Eight nursery rhyme-style verses document the sad lives of the denizens, each culminating in a mournful chorus of sorts. She wasn’t the first person to record Dylan’s “I’ll Keep It With Mine”, but like Judy Collins she insisted he’d written it explicitly for her, and sources say he did. “Somewhere There’s A Feather” is another very sweet Jackson Browne song to which he never returned, while “Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams” was one of Lou’s earliest songs. At five minutes it tends to drag, and the constantly fluttering flute has the effect of a buzzing fly, causing the listener to swat the air with the album sleeve. “Eulogy To Lenny Bruce” is Tim Hardin’s tribute to the comedian who’d died the previous summer, and a little too specific about their shared addiction to be universal.

Chelsea Girl is one of those “iconic” albums that people seem to revere, but we always suspected it was more due to the fascination with her image and mythology. The arrangements are a little precious, and many of the songs have a sameness to them that take a lot of listens to distinguish. And you’ll either really, really like her voice, or find the accent and pitch problems to be too much to handle. Still, it’s since become part of the Velvet Underground story as a whole, having been included with its stepsiblings in various box sets and expanded reissues.

Nico Chelsea Girl (1967)—2½

Brian Eno 32: Lateral, Luminal, Liminal

Clearly not slowing down when he could simply enjoy the pensioner’s life, Brian Eno’s next collaborator was one Beatie Wolfe, a conceptual artist who’d done a lot of work fusing music and technology, and specifically exploring its therapeutic capabilities. Something sparked between the two, to the extent that they managed to release three albums in less than six months’ time.

Lateral consists of a single ambient track, “Big Empty Country”, split into “Day” and “Night” halves on the abridged vinyl and eight eight-minute segments in the digital files. Described by the pair as “space music”, not a lot happens over the course of it, making it not that different from Thursday Afternoon or Neroli. The same hum and triad are established for the first twenty minutes, then a few gentle guitar notes appear in the same rhythm, and other harmonics begin to emerge. Towards the last ten minutes or so, the atmosphere seems to spread wider, and eventually fades. So basically, it’s pretty and easy to get lost in as well as ignore, so it works.

Released the same day, Luminal presented “dream music”, which in this case means actual songs. Wolfe has a pleasant alto voice that melds well with her guitar and the background, as on “Milky Sleep”. “Hopelessly At Ease” is unique in the Eno catalog for being an actual love song; “Suddenly” could almost count as one, but it’s more suited to somebody in recovery. (Both of these recall Daniel Lanois’ work on the Sling Blade soundtrack thirty years earlier.) “My Lovely Days” picks up the tempo and a little jangle, but “Play On” is a little too robotic, and definitely too long. “Shhh” is an improvement, as his voice isn’t manipulated on it. “A Ceiling And A Lifeboat” ups the eeriness, and while “And Live Again” hints at more hope, “Breath March” and “Never Was It Now” are full of foreboding. At least the ticking rhythm of “What We Are” suggests that the bad dream has subsided.

Four months later, Liminal appeared, this time presenting “dark matter music”, which to them means a mix of songs and shorter, not necessarily ambient pieces. After the very slow “Part Of Us”, “Ringing Ocean” sets a slowly spiraling, tense mood, continued in the two-word phrases of “The Last To Know” before resolving on a major chord. “Procession” could well be a descriptive placeholder for this particular idea, while “Little Boy” is a lullaby over textures right out of Apollo. “Flower Women” isn’t much more than a looped two-chord phrase, the few words mixed so low as to be inaudible until the midway break. “Shallow Form” uses his favorite chord changes, as heard in “Spinning Away” and “The Big Ship”, then “Before Life” sends us off into the solar system again. “Laundry Room” is an existential crisis wrapped in a monologue a la Laurie Anderson, and “Corona” gives us more spacey music before culminating in the eerie carnival of “Shudder Like Crows”.

All of these are fine on their own, and are therefore recommended for individual use. But given the simple, uniform designs of each, one wonders if they couldn’t have simply created one really good album instead of three.

Brian Eno & Beatie Wolfe Lateral (2025)—3
Beatie Wolfe & Brian Eno Luminal (2025)—2½
Brian Eno & Beatie Wolfe Liminal (2025)—2½

Talking Heads 13: Tentative Decisions

A good half-century after they were formed, Talking Heads continued to be appreciated, and not just by people who liked them in the first place. David Byrne had continued to find interesting ways to apply performance art to his catalog, and interactions with his former bandmates had become much less strained, even cordial.

The band’s catalog had also become subject to deluxe editions on top of earlier expansions, as well as live recordings issued for various Record Store Days. Tentative Decisions: Demos & Live was one such release, but what was first a single LP plus a bonus 45 was expanded by a degree of three.

The first disc, which replicates the vinyl release, consists mostly of demos recorded by their sound guy, and offers early versions of songs that would go on to populate their first two albums. The tracks on the second disc were recorded as an audition for Columbia Records, who didn’t sign them, and features a lot of the same songs again. They were only a trio at this point, but already Tina Weymouth has learned how to maneuver through Byrne’s angular, non-standard riffing and chording. His voice is almost there, but sounds more, well, tentative than the eventual brand. There’s even two songs by the Artistics, the first version of the band before Chris Frantz got his girlfriend to learn the bass.

The third disc is all live, split between a show at Max’s Kansas City recorded from the audience, and another in much better fidelity a few months later and hours away in Syracuse. By this time they’d gotten their record deal, and have beaten the tunes into shape. Jerry Harrison still hadn’t joined, but “Take Me To The River” is already in their set, along with Jonathan Richman’s “Pablo Picasso” and “1, 2, 3 Red Light” by the 1910 Fruitgum Company.

Tentative Decisions comes in a handsome book-bound package, with hype incorporated into the artwork, and should fit comfortably on the shelf alongside its siblings. Historically it’s very interesting, showing both how formed the band was at this stage, and demonstrating just how much Jerry would bring to the dynamic.

Talking Heads Tentative Decisions: Demos & Live (2026)—3

Frank Zappa 57: The Lost Episodes

Another project Frank was working on his final years was a further attempt to present the pre-history and evolution of his music and obsessions. The You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore series only scratched the surface of what he’d been sitting on, and outside of a few stray tracks, didn’t even begin to encompass studio work. The Lost Episodes was the first of several “audio documentaries” that would emerge over the coming decades, distilled from some of the multidisc retrospectives he’d threatened since the late ‘60s. (Sequels were promised and forgotten at the turn of the century, but the vault-digging continues to this day.)

Being mostly chronological, it’s designed to tell a story, starting from the oldest recordings in his vault. After a brief intro about one of his early bands, it begins at the beginning with “Lost In A Whirlpool”, sung by the future Captain Beefheart. Kenny and Ronnie of “Let’s Make The Water Turn Black” fame provide context for that song, and then we seesaw between his early attempts at classical and film scoring, and his earliest recording studio projects. Highlights include takes of Mothers music later heard on Freak Out and Ruben & The Jets, the Captain singing lines from a comic book over a blues riff for “Tiger Roach”, and the one-man doo-wop parody “Charva”. Engineer Dick Kunc sets up a series of recordings of the Mothers in New York City, including arrangements of the sea chanties “Wedding Dress Song” and “Handsome Cabin Boy”, excerpts from a visit by the police that almost made it to Uncle Meat, and the soundtrack for a cough drop commercial. Beefheart returns for a couple of humorous monologues and another original collaboration in “Alley Cat”, then it’s right into the ‘70s for some familiar songs. Ricky Lancelotti shrieks his way through “Wonderful Wino”, and we hear the first versions of “RDNZL” and “Inca Roads”, the latter without lyrics yet. We go back to the Hot Rats sessions for “Lil’ Clanton Shuffle” with Sugarcane Harris, leap ahead for the 1980 single version of “I Don’t Wanna Get Drafted”, and end with a glorious 12-minute alternate take of “Sharleena” that surpasses the original, with Sugarcane and Frank trading solos and Ian Underwood being amazing.

The Lost Episodes is a very listenable disc overall, particularly as it provides context for that elusive conceptual continuity before the internet made it easy to explain all the references. While the earlier field recordings are of historical interest only, the music stands out, and the humor even lands most of the time.

Frank Zappa The Lost Episodes (1996)—3½

Roger Daltrey 11: Going Back Home

What was left of the Who had been touring somewhat steadily with the idea that they’d keep showing up as long as tickets were sold, but they weren’t playing hundreds of dates a year. While Pete Townshend would occasionally mention some long-gestating project he was working on, Roger Daltrey had learned long before that he couldn’t just sit and wait for Pete to give him something to sing.

Still, once he got to his 70s and was all too aware that his voice might not last forever, Roger embraced the “if not now, when?” mentality common to rockers his age and got to work. A chance meeting with pub-rocker guitarist Wilko Johnson, who started out in Dr. Feelgood and had a brief stint with Ian Dury’s Blockheads, led to Going Back Home, Roger’s first solo album in twenty years, and first full-length non-Who collaboration ever.

With the exception of a surprising cover of Dylan’s “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window”, the album consists mostly of rerecorded Johnson originals, taken from all eras of his career. (The photos throughout the packaging come from all eras too.) This is straight guitar-based rock ‘n roll, with no effects or pedals. The songs are all pretty tough, chock full of defiant lyrics over standard changes, though the regretful “Turned 21” is sung almost sweetly. The band includes two former Blockheads as well as Mick Talbot, once of the Style Council, on piano and organ. Sadly, it’s not Roger blowing harmonica at all, but he struts and growls his way through the tunes like he must’ve back in 1964. Meanwhile, Wilko plays guitar like he’s hitting the strings with a brick, and never misses a note.

At just under 35 minutes, Going Back Home gets the job done. Besides giving Roger some songs worthy of his voice, the album also raised Wilko’s profile at a time when he needed a boost, having been diagnosed with inoperable cancer. As it turned out, he would outlive the original terminal diagnosis by almost ten years. (About six months after its initial release, a Deluxe Edition offered an extra disc filled up with one session outtake that should have made the album, one radio edit, three songs from the album sung by Wilko and not Roger, six live tracks without Roger, and six tracks with.)

Wilko Johnson/Roger Daltrey Going Back Home (2014)—3