Monthly Archives: May 2017

747. the great pretender

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“It says 1974 on the cover but Brian Eno‘s second solo album Taking Tiger Mountain (by strategy) will always be pure 1981 for me. Weird and oft times jagged pop that was pretty much perfectly in synch with the times and thus not at all afraid to just dissolve into abstraction if necessary. Which was fine by me given all the acid I was taking. I needed those dissolutions, like at the end of The Great Pretender when the crickets (or whatever they are) just take over, suck us into the insect realm, alien and strange.” (Philip Random)

BrianENO-1974-3

748. danger bird

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It’s 1975 and if you’re Neil Young, you’re hanging out in sunny California, feeling a decade older than you were three years ago, but at least the drugs are good, and sometimes the smog ain’t so bad, particularly when Crazy Horse drops by. Just plug in and play so loud it actually cuts through the haze, and mystical birds of great danger are seen soaring high, fierce and beautiful.

NeilYoung-1975

749. I hang on to my vertigo

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In which Rupert Hine (better known as producer than performer) reminds us that the best music of the early 1980s generally wasn’t that nice at all deep down inside, but rather deep with shadow, strange eruptions, queasy feelings of madness, suspicion, and vertigo. The album Immunity is a rare gem, full of such stuff. Nothing remotely normal about any of it.

RupertHine-Immunity

750. ain’t no justice

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It’s 1973 and the times may be grim but the Temptations (and producer Norman Whitfield) are in full, expansive, beautiful bloom (riding as they are on the mega-success of 1972’s Papa was a Rolling Stone). But the focus now is not the past, but seventeen years into the future, the dawning of the 1990s, not that not much has changed.  There still ain’t no justice.

Temptations-1990-1973

751. leaving this town

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The only Beach Boys track on the countdown list is as good a time as any to reference the guidelines, the key ones in this case being A. if Philip Random didn’t have it on vinyl as of August 2000, it doesn’t matter how good it is, the song doesn’t qualify, and B. it has to be something the average person probably hadn’t heard (also as of August 2000 – a few of these tracks have since gained some much deserved notoriety), which means no chart-toppers, no inescapable big deal pop items already played lots on commercial radio and/or heard in commercials themselves, or in big deal movies or TV shows, or video games, or in any other way already exposed out there in the culture. So, in the case of the Beach Boys, we only get one selection, “… the easy, breezy, really quite cool Leaving this Town (found on 1973’s Holland), because everything else I’d care to share has either A. proven impossible to find on vinyl at non-ridiculous collectors prices, or B. popular enough already.” (Philip Random)

752. memories can’t wait

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“It took me three albums before I finally got Talking Heads, the aptly named Fear of Music being one of those long players that absolutely does not have a weak moment (even the radio ad was a killer). From ballads to groovers to psyche outs to the powerhouse doom of Memories Can’t Wait, it was so good it was scary. But good luck hearing anything but the one song on the commercial rock radio of 1979 (and even that was mostly scarce). No doubt about it – the music industry was scared to f***ing death by stuff of the depth and quality of Fear of Music. So if you wanted to hear it, you had to go out and actually buy it, or tape a friend’s copy, kill the whole stupid industry. It was a tough job but somebody had to do it.” (Philip Random)

TalkingHeadsp-1979