Category Archives: All Vinyl Apocalypse

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

361. heroes-helden

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’ve heard Heroes a million times already. But have you heard the German/English edit that showed up on the soundtrack for Christianne F, the most depressing movie ever?  There’s just something about what that complex language does to Mr. Bowie’s delivery, the deeper, more wrenching depths of soul and enunciation, how it gets you right to the heart of what was then still a divided city – two opposed universes of politics and animosity grinding up against each other. Forever. Or so it felt at the time.

DavidBowie-ChristianeF

362. clap hands

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“I said my piece already on why there’s probably not enough Tom Waits on the list. Basically, I think of him as a character actor working a particular role (blue and boozy and nicotine infused), whereas in real life, he just mows his lawn and reads his morning paper and shouts at his kids like the guy next door, and the guy on the other side as well. But it is a strong act, I’ll give it that, and it really had me with Rain Dogs, in fact that whole prolonged mid-eighties moment he had. Like it’s 3am and you’re miles from home, polluted drunk, getting rained on. Except it’s not real rain, is it? It’s Hollywood rain, and Hollywood lights, too. Probably wasn’t even real whiskey. Am I allowed to say that? Clap Hands is great whatever the real story.” (Philip Random)

TomWaits-onSet

 

363. the lunatics have taken over the asylum

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It’s 1982 and the Fun Boy Three (pity about the name really) are spitting it out in so many words. The clinic full of cynics have had their way, the lunatics are in control, we’re all gonna die. No party was complete without it.

FunBoyThree-1982

364. 30 seconds over Tokyo

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“Pere Ubu were one of those bands I started hearing about in 1977-78 as punk and whatever finally started reaching the suburbs (the underside of them anyway). And then I actually heard them and yup, they were intense, noisy, hard to ignore but also hard to love. Though 30 Seconds Over Tokyo would eventually turn me. Because it’s just so damned good. It was the title first, reminding me of the movie, a World War 2 thing, American heroes bombing Tokyo, a suicide run, just like the record says. Except the record’s way better, and recorded way before punk actually, in 1975. Cleveland, Ohio of all places.  No, let me rephrase that. Cleveland, Ohio obviously. Because something had to start there, whatever it is that got started, that’s still going on, that mad suicide run to take the war to all the normals, figuratively, of course.” (Philip Random)

PereUbu-1975-live-02

365. gypsy man

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“The band known as War at absolute peak power. In the case of Gypsy Man, it’s how the song creeps in, as if carried by a distant storm, catching the moment for me, 1973, maybe fourteen years old, the Watergate thing, the Vietnam thing, the whole prolonged end of the 1960s thing, all the bright colours fading, distinct stench of garbage caught in the breeze. But at least  radio was still good in 1973. You could actually hear Gypsy Man on a commercial FM station, the long album version. Because the big corporate screwing hadn’t happened yet, but it was about to, because the consultants had filed their reports. There was stupid money to be made with the FM airwaves, and all of this visionary art and truth-telling crap — it was in the way, babe.” (Philip Random)

War-LIVE-1976

366. will to love

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“It’s 1977 and punk rock may be erupting but Neil Young‘s gone strangely, evocatively ambient … for one song anyway, all heartfelt yearning and fireplace hisses and crackles. Will To Love being an example of a unique artist at the peak of his powers doing something the’s never really done before so well that he’ll never really have to do it again. Found on American Stars And Bars a mish-mash of an album that also includes Like A Hurricane and some pretty much straight up Country stuff, making it a more or less perfect evocation of one man’s confusion. And don’t kid yourself, everybody was confused in 1977.” (Philip Random)

NeilYoung-1977-pool