“In which T-Rex relax the groove a bit with an album cut that nevertheless sounds at least as big as its title. The album being Electric Warrior, and a gem it is from first note to final fade, cool and wild, and bubbling over with sensuous groove and delight. It even tastes good, I swear.” (Philip Random)
Ian and Sylvia being the Tysons (husband and wife) and that rarity among Canadian artists of their era – they made it before government-imposed radio play quotas became a thing. “Special thanks to my friend Andrew’s mom, because she was the only parent I knew who seemed to generally care about music, and thus had a few decent records. Nothing heavy mind you – just good solid easy-to-listen-to options like Simon and Garfunkel, Neil Diamond, Moody Blues, and more obscure stuff, which Andrew and I spent many hours exploring – both of us still young and fresh enough to dig something even if it wasn’t driven by heavy guitars and appeals to Satan.” (Philip Random)
If you were a little kid in the late 1960s early 1970s, your life was full of this kind of stuff. Various pop orchestras taking on the hits of the day, delivering mostly average versions. But every now and then, someone got it just right, like Roland Shaw, whose take on the On Her Majesty’s Secret Service theme is punchier, more revved up, better than the original in pretty much every way. The perfect soundtrack for bombing around on your banana bike, rooting out all the evil geniuses who were plotting world destruction from their suburban lairs two blocks over.
In which Leonard Cohen weighs in on the stuff of love and confusion and the avalanches that sometimes cover one’s soul. We’ve all known them. In Philip Random’s case, there was some LSD-25 involved and yes, it eventually occurred to him that he hadn’t completely annihilated his ego, and that it wasn’t God Himself singing to him from the far side of the room with a face as big as a fireplace, it was in fact a fireplace and a scratchy side of Leonard Cohen vinyl that someone had thoughtfully put on. And it was good.
The lazy take on Cat Stevens is that he was a hippie singer songwriter type who lost his nut somewhere along the line and suddenly decided Allah was Great and death to the infidels (or whatever). Which is mostly wrong. And rather completely misses the point that, even with all the MOR hippie hits (most of which weren’t really that bad), he could still genuinely surprise on occasion. Case in point, Bitterblue, particularly the guitar bit near the beginning, when it suddenly kicks from standard strumming into an almost mystical overdrive. Allah be praised.
In which David Bowie, on the cusp of mega icon-dom himself, gives credit where it’s due, though apparently Andy Warhol didn’t much care for the song himself. Neither did Philip Random’s musician friend Tim, who took issue with the lyrics. “Trying a bit too hard, don’t you think? But man, that guitar riff’s a killer!”
Randophonic 
