If I Should Fall From Grace With God is the album where the Pogues made it clear that they were more than just a rowdy bunch of ex-punks who’d figured their parents folk music went well copious amounts of alcohol and drugs. Nah, they were worldbeaters now, with a raw handle on their roots-based instrumentation that let them go pretty much anywhere they cared, slay any dragon. Only the aforementioned drugs and alcohol could stop them now, which they did. Sort of.
“As my friend Mark once put it, Presence is the good Led Zeppelin heroin album — the mostly sh** one being In Through The Out Door as Jimmy Page was too f***ed up to care. Either way, the Zeppelin’s days of full-on world dominance and glory were slipping past them by 1976, which didn’t exactly stop them from laying down some of the evilest blues mankind has ever known. Even if Nobody’s Fault But Mine is about taking personal responsibility for the mess you’re in, which, when you think about it, is very mature behavior, not really evil at all.” (Philip Random)
“A friend of mine caught Trouble Funk live around this time (1986) while on business in their hometown of Washington, DC (on a Saturday night, of course). I remember him trying to describe the show to me. Like rap, except not at all really because they weren’t rapping, and there was a full-on band. And Holy F***ing Sh** did did people go wild for it! Drop The Bomb indeed.” (Philip Random)
“1984 was Frankie‘s year (Goes To Hollywood, that is). Nobody had heard of them before. Nobody would ever really care about them after. The root of it, I figure, was a line from Two Tribes (which won’t be on this list because I’m assuming you’ve heard it). ‘Are we living in a land where sex and horror are the new gods?’ The land they were from was England, but given the degree of international success they had, it’s safe to say they were speaking of the whole mad Cold War world. Which put the Pleasuredome everywhere, including spread across the entirety of side one of Frankie’s debut double album.” (Philip Random)
“Nobody saw this coming in 1986. Public Image Ltd (ie: original Sex Pistol John Lydon) combining forces with Bill Laswell, Ginger Baker, Riuchi Sakamoto, Stevie Vai (and more) and the result was something called Album (unless you bought it in cassette or CD format) which absolutely thundered when it wanted to. In the case of Ease, that meant the closest thing to a proper Led Zeppelin planet cruncher that anybody’d heard since at last 1975. I’m still pretty sure it set the atmosphere on fire for a few seconds one night in early spring.” (Philip Random)
Camel being a so-called second tier Prog Rock outfit (in other words, not King Crimson, Genesis, Yes, Pink Floyd or ELP), Nimrodel (found on their second album Mirage) being epic in all the right ways. It starts with a parade, it works all manner of moods and changes, it’s even inspired by Lord of the Rings. And at less than ten minutes (even including the parade) it doesn’t overstay its welcome, just takes you there, where the magic is smooth and beautiful and even strong when it needs to be. It must’ve been 1974.
Randophonic 
