Category Archives: All Vinyl Apocalypse

1,111 greatest records you probably haven’t already heard

708. somewhere over the rainbow

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“I first heard Bobby Blue Bland‘s take on this masterpiece of yearning wafting over a backyard barbeque sometime in the early 1990s. And it was good. I believe I was playing croquet at the time, taking it very seriously, understanding that it was far more than just a game, that it was in fact a working metaphor for the great and imponderable complexity of the universe, and man’s place in it, the games we really must play in order to reconcile it all for our small, but ever expanding brains and imaginations. I’m sure the LSD and Tequila helped.” (Philip Random)

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709. Oddfellows Local 151

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Come 1987, REM had already conquered the world of indie-cool with four solid albums of ever increasing finesse, articulation, even a hint of crossover commercial success. Which made album #5 Document pivotal in terms of what might happen next. Yes, it continued the commercial ascendancy, but it also went the other way with the likes of Oddfellows Local 151, a track that Peter Buck referred to at the time as either the worst thing they’d ever done, or the best, he wasn’t sure yet. Either way, its deep fried southern weirdness expanded the stage for one of those outfits who, love ’em or hate ’em, still had a long way to go.

REM-1987-live

710. I must not think bad thoughts

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In which first wave American punk band X (straight out of LA) rein in the intensity of their attack a touch and rather brilliantly nail down the zeitgeist circa 1983. Which was that, come year three of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, humanoid reptiles were in full ascendancy. Look no further than the radio dial. Where was any band that mattered? Nothing left to do but tell the truth.

X-1983

711. Panic in Detroit

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“As I remember it, David Bowie hit the suburbs of the Americas in comparatively slow motion. First came Space Oddity (a big deal AM radio hit in early 1973, some three years after it had hit big in the UK), then Ziggy Stardust (various album tracks popping up on FM radio), by which point you were starting to see pictures of the guy. Beyond freakish. Which were backed up by the inevitable rumours (that he actually was an alien, that he and Elton John were secretly married). But by the end of the year, all that stuff was settling, and it was the music you couldn’t ignore. So Much Great And Strange Music. So much so that a track like Panic in Detroit didn’t get near the attention it deserved. If only for the riff. You could base a whole genre on that riff. Which, it’s arguable, the Rolling Stones already had. But that’s another story.” (Philip Random)

Bowie-1973

712. beware of darkness

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“Speaking of darkness, I would’ve been eleven when George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass hit the world (and hit it did). The Beatles had just broken up and it was the first serious indication that all was not lost. The big singles were My Sweet Lord and What Is Life, but I got to hear the whole sprawling six-sided thing because my cousin got it for Christmas. I wouldn’t say I understood a song like Beware of Darkness but I got it anyway. That is, who cared about the specifics of the words? The title and mournful tone were enough, speaking volumes about the nature of a messed up world, all that hungry darkness floating around, wanting a piece of me.” (Philip Random)

GeorgeHarrison-1970

713. In My Hour of Darkness

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Gram Parsons was dead before the world ever heard his final album, Grievous Angel. Which made In My Hour Of Darkness, its final song (completely concerned with people who had died before their time) all too relevant, particularly the part where he sings his own eulogy: he was just a country boy his simple songs confess – and the music he had in him so very few possess. Who says there’s no such thing as ghosts? And angels, because that’s Emmylou Harris singing backup.

GramParsons-1973