The Great Al***s
Posted by: Guido Fawkes on 13 April 2007
We are often inundated with programmes on CH4 that do top 100s. Wondered if anybody would like to contribute to a list of truly great albums - no restrictions: if you think it's truly great then it should be in the list. Describing it's content and saying why you think it is truly great would be helpful.
SF Sorrow - The Pretty Things
Phil May wrote a short story about Sebastian F Sorrow who was born, grew-up, fell in love with girl along the road, went to war and decided to make a new life in America, but it went wrong when she dies going to meet him in a tragic airship crash.
It is often said to be the first Rock Opera.
However the songs hang together very well.
"S.F. Sorrow Is Born" – 3:12
"Bracelets of Fingers" – 3:41
"She Says Good Morning" – 3:23
"Private Sorrow" – 3:51
"Balloon Burning" – 3:51
"Death" – 3:05
"Baron Saturday" – 4:01
"The Journey" – 2:46
"I See You" – 3:56
"Well of Destiny" – 1:46
"Trust" – 2:49
"Old Man Going" – 3:09
"Loneliest Person" – 1:29
All of the songs are short pop/psych style and are episodes in the story. The opening track is very strong and sets the scene of how our hero came into the world at No3. Braclets of Fingers has him growing up to work at Misery Factory and the he meets Grey who is standing at the gate and He Says Good Morning. Private Sorrow has him off to the Great War and his name is absent from those missing in action. Balloon Burning is a song about an Airship crash in New York and followed by Grey's death. He then meets Baron Saturday and descends in to gloom as he takes a Journey to discover himself at the Well of Destiny. But his Trust is lost for after his ordeal he discovers that there's nobody in the world who is left to trust. He grows old and fades away saying you might be the loneliest person in the world, but you'll never be as lonely as me.
There were other songs around the theme that didn't make the album - notably the superb single Defecting Grey. The re-mastered gold CD has these tracks too including Talking About The Good Times and Walking Through My Dreams At Night. And there are bits that were used on The Electric Banana records (who of course were the Pretty Things).
The album was produced by Norman Hurricane Smith - the guy who produced Piper At The Gates Of Dawn and worked with the Beatles.
It may sound pretentious and even morbid from my description, but it isn't. It really is a great record: every track stands up.
The Pretty Things made some other good albums and some fairly awful ones, but this was their best by far. I think any group of that era would have been proud of it.
I have both the original vinyl and the gold CD and can never decide which is best. I cannot recommend this album highly enough.
This is an incredible album it sounds somewhere between Love's Forever Changes and the Beach Boys Pet Sounds whilst it has a character of its own that makes it stand out. Like SF Sorrow this was recorded at Abbey Road (well most of it). It is the only true Zombies album and shortly after its completion the group disbanded, which was a great shame. Although I liked the members subsequent work: Chris White and Rod Argent with Argent and Colin Blunstone on his own - I just think this was their greatest achievement.
"Care of Cell 44" (Rod Argent)
"A Rose for Emily" (Argent)
"Maybe After He's Gone" (Chris White)
"Beechwood Park" (White)
"Brief Candles" (White)
"Hung up on a Dream" (Argent)
"Changes" (White)
"I Want Her She Wants Me" (Argent)
"This Will Be Our Year" (White)
"Butcher's Tale (Western Front 1914)" (White)
"Friends of Mine" (White)
"Time of the Season" (Argent)
All the tracks are excellent, but the opening two tracks are immense - also Beechwood Park is a tremendous song and the Butcher's Tale is deeply haunting. The vocal harmonies are superb and never sugary. Of course, the album concludes with hit single Time Of The Season.
I've only got the CD version of this and it has the Stereo and Mono versions of the album, which I find rather pointless. However, whatever format you can listen to it in then give it a spin.
A butcher yes that was my trade
But the king's shilling is now my fee
A butcher I may as well have stayed
For the slaughter that I see
And the preacher in his pulpit
Sermon: "Go and fight, do what is right"
But he don't have to hear these guns
And I'll bet he sleeps at night
And I ..and I can't stop shaking
My hands won't stop shaking
My arms won't stop shaking
My mind won't stop shaking
I want to go home
Please let me go home
It's not all doom and gloom
The summer is here at last
The sky is overcast
And no one brings a rose for Emily
She watches her flowers grow
While lovers come and go
To give each other roses from her tree
But not a rose for Emily...
And as the years go by
She will grow old and die
The roses in her garden fade away
Not one left for her grave
Not a rose for Emily...
Well perhaps it is, but done with great style.
Does everybody remember Ripping Yarns and in particular the Golden Gordon episode about the football team, well, IIRC. then the forward line of Barnstoneworth United were McIntyre, Treadmore and Davitt.
Which, coincidentally, was the title of the classic 1991 HMHB album. And whilst I could have picked all the HMHB albums in any list of great albums: I’ll go with McIntyre, Treadmore and Davitt this time - it was a landmark album because after Back In The DHSS and Back Again In The DHSS, it looked as if the lads had split because rock n' roll success was interfering with Nigel’s daytime TV viewing. However, they must have secretly rehearsing because this album is more tuneful than the previous two.
The album kicks off with An Outbreak of Vitus Gerulaitus and it’s a real rocker with typically great lyrics: What can you do when your mum's in Rampton bouncing off the walls, singing who's afraid of Virginia Wade. It also mentions Tarkus - yes we all know what Nigel thinks of prog-rock especially after he dreamed he’s forced to see HELP and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Focus in Planet-Prog, but that's on another album.
Prag Vec At The Melkweg starts like Yellow Submarine (In the town where I was born lived a man who went to work) and suggests a way to get out of the unemployment culture of Merseyside in the late eighties was to attend a Meadowlark Lemon seminar, which I guess is fine if you wanted to be basketball player. Of course, it all ends when just as I expected, the shopkeeper appeared .
The next track is about a Christian Rock Concert and in particular a group called Striper. Apparently if you play their album backward it says .......... sorry it just sounds like jibberish to me.
Let's Not is a great song about a world where nothing is as it would be if it were written by Carla Lane and the West Indian cricketer, Vanburn Holder, joins the local grindcore outfit.
My Baby Got The Yipps starts with a nice melody and then transforms in to a song about a girl friend who was having trouble with her golf swing.
We then go Hedley Verityesque (Hedley Verity was the Yorkshire cricketer who returned figures of 19.4-16-10-10 against Notts in the 1932 county championship - we could do with Hedley in the world cup). And I, like all sane men, agree we could do without the hand clapping sequence at the end of Blockbusters.
Next up is A Lilac Harry Quinn a song about a bike made by Mr Quinn. It contains the great lines If God had meant for us to work, he would have given us jobs; six weeks to live, but at least I’m not in Journey; so sign on you crazy diamond. Yes and there's a man in the dole queue with Alchemy under his arm. And haven’t you wondered why you never see badminton courts in the jungle - it’s because there’s no demand BTW. The refrain about bicycle components.
Our Tune mentions a hero of mine when it starts by saying that on A47 somebody was shouting at passers by that he was Alan Brazil. His friend would also prefer to browse around hardware shops than watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Still he ends up chasing Lori around St Neots, which sounds like fun.
Girlfriend’s Finished With Him is about dolphins and a visit to a pub called the Wim Van Hanegem and the move by Telly Sevalls to spearhead a costermongers' revival in Whitechapel.
Everything’s AOR is the last track and it is the best track. When the HMHB greatest hits comes out - this will still be the best track on it. It's a song about Mary who has a swivel chair and an appalling CD collection (Sade, Whitney, Vandross and T'Pau) Sitting in her chair she turns her back on the singer and thinks she is better than him and it contains one my favourite choruses: She's the main man in her office in the city / And she treats me like I'm just another lackey / But I can put a tennis racket up against my face / And pretend that I am Kendo Nagasaki which gets changed in the last verse to She's the main man in her office in the city / But I remember her when she was reading Jackie / But I can put a tennis racket up against my face / And pretend that I am Kendo Nagasaki.
It is great shame that the flip-side to the Let’s Not single called Ordinary to Enschede didn’t make it on to the album.
But honestly this album is brilliant - here’s a list of lyricist that IMHO come close to Nigel Blackwell
Sorry you’ll have to think of your own ‘cos I can’t think of any.
Anyway here's the obligatory sleeve.
Which, coincidentally, was the title of the classic 1991 HMHB album. And whilst I could have picked all the HMHB albums in any list of great albums: I’ll go with McIntyre, Treadmore and Davitt this time - it was a landmark album because after Back In The DHSS and Back Again In The DHSS, it looked as if the lads had split because rock n' roll success was interfering with Nigel’s daytime TV viewing. However, they must have secretly rehearsing because this album is more tuneful than the previous two.
The album kicks off with An Outbreak of Vitus Gerulaitus and it’s a real rocker with typically great lyrics: What can you do when your mum's in Rampton bouncing off the walls, singing who's afraid of Virginia Wade. It also mentions Tarkus - yes we all know what Nigel thinks of prog-rock especially after he dreamed he’s forced to see HELP and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Focus in Planet-Prog, but that's on another album.
Prag Vec At The Melkweg starts like Yellow Submarine (In the town where I was born lived a man who went to work) and suggests a way to get out of the unemployment culture of Merseyside in the late eighties was to attend a Meadowlark Lemon seminar, which I guess is fine if you wanted to be basketball player. Of course, it all ends when just as I expected, the shopkeeper appeared .
The next track is about a Christian Rock Concert and in particular a group called Striper. Apparently if you play their album backward it says .......... sorry it just sounds like jibberish to me.
Let's Not is a great song about a world where nothing is as it would be if it were written by Carla Lane and the West Indian cricketer, Vanburn Holder, joins the local grindcore outfit.
My Baby Got The Yipps starts with a nice melody and then transforms in to a song about a girl friend who was having trouble with her golf swing.
We then go Hedley Verityesque (Hedley Verity was the Yorkshire cricketer who returned figures of 19.4-16-10-10 against Notts in the 1932 county championship - we could do with Hedley in the world cup). And I, like all sane men, agree we could do without the hand clapping sequence at the end of Blockbusters.
Next up is A Lilac Harry Quinn a song about a bike made by Mr Quinn. It contains the great lines If God had meant for us to work, he would have given us jobs; six weeks to live, but at least I’m not in Journey; so sign on you crazy diamond. Yes and there's a man in the dole queue with Alchemy under his arm. And haven’t you wondered why you never see badminton courts in the jungle - it’s because there’s no demand BTW. The refrain about bicycle components.
Our Tune mentions a hero of mine when it starts by saying that on A47 somebody was shouting at passers by that he was Alan Brazil. His friend would also prefer to browse around hardware shops than watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Still he ends up chasing Lori around St Neots, which sounds like fun.
Girlfriend’s Finished With Him is about dolphins and a visit to a pub called the Wim Van Hanegem and the move by Telly Sevalls to spearhead a costermongers' revival in Whitechapel.
Everything’s AOR is the last track and it is the best track. When the HMHB greatest hits comes out - this will still be the best track on it. It's a song about Mary who has a swivel chair and an appalling CD collection (Sade, Whitney, Vandross and T'Pau) Sitting in her chair she turns her back on the singer and thinks she is better than him and it contains one my favourite choruses: She's the main man in her office in the city / And she treats me like I'm just another lackey / But I can put a tennis racket up against my face / And pretend that I am Kendo Nagasaki which gets changed in the last verse to She's the main man in her office in the city / But I remember her when she was reading Jackie / But I can put a tennis racket up against my face / And pretend that I am Kendo Nagasaki.
It is great shame that the flip-side to the Let’s Not single called Ordinary to Enschede didn’t make it on to the album.
But honestly this album is brilliant - here’s a list of lyricist that IMHO come close to Nigel Blackwell
Sorry you’ll have to think of your own ‘cos I can’t think of any.
Anyway here's the obligatory sleeve.
Regular visitors to this Forum will have got a handle on what I enjoy listening to!
But for my first nomination as a great album I would nominate:
To get it, you do have to have a spiritual bone in your body, because this great record is in fact a prayer - articulated not in words, but in music. A profound encounter between man and the eternal.
James
But for my first nomination as a great album I would nominate:
To get it, you do have to have a spiritual bone in your body, because this great record is in fact a prayer - articulated not in words, but in music. A profound encounter between man and the eternal.
James
Moondance by Van Morrison.
Van's second solo outing and a wonderful album. Great songs about music love and mysticism. A great combination of saxes, flute, piano, clavinet as well as guitar bass drums, giving an overall sound that is as beautiful as it is rare.
There is a great happy vibe from such songs as And It Stoned Me, Caravan, These Dreams Of You and everyone.
Brand New day and crazy love are great soul numbers.
Great albums should have no weak track and this doesn't.
The songs aren't as obtuse as some of Van's and there is an almost dylanesque delivery of some great lyrics
almost let a pick up truck nearly pass us by
You could pick several Van albums for this "great" thread but Moondance gets in for my first contribution.
SJB
It was early '67: Warner Brothers needed a psychedelic album and what better group to supply than the Grateful Dead. So the Dead were duly rushed to the studio and after three days an album was cut. It was all done in a rush and although the album is good, the result isn't quite as good as it could have been. There are some great songs like the opener The Golden Road To Unlimited Devotion and Cold Rain and Snow and a wonderful extended version of Viola Lee Blues, but ultimate the Dead’s debut leaves you feeling there was something better to come and indeed there was.
Later in 1967 and into 1968, the Dead were afforded 6 months of studio time to indulge and create an extraordinary work: Anthem of the Sun. The group wanted to translate the live sound into the studio, to learn how the studio worked and use it to create something complex. The studio work was done in San Francisco (Coast Recorders) and New York (Century Sound and Olmstead Studios). Producer David Hassinger walked out saying the project took too long and was too experimental. Eventually, with help from Dan Healy, the Dead assembled a collage of studio work and exerts from concert tapes.
I have never heard another record quite like this. The final result is a 40 minute work called Anthem of the Sun, but to make it more accessible it was sub-divided in to tracks and the opening track That’s It For The One was sub-divided in to parts.
Anthem of the Sun I
1. That's It for the Other One - 7:40
• Cryptical Envelopment (Garcia)
• Quadlibet for Tender Feet (Garcia, Kreutzmann, Lesh, McKernan, Weir)
• The Faster We Go, The Rounder We Get" (Kreutzmann, Weir)
• We Leave the Castle (Constanten)
2. New Potato Caboose (Lesh, Petersen) – 8:26
3. Born Cross-Eyed (Weir) – 2:04
Anthem of the Sun II
1. Alligator (Lesh, McKernan, Hunter) – 11:20
2. Caution, Do Not Stop on Tracks (Garcia, Kreutzmann, Lesh, McKernan, Weir) – 9:37
We leave the castle features Tom Constanten on John Cage style prepared piano.
The original vinyl pressing, which I have is a bit murky in places, but captures the music well enough, the group returned to the studio to re-mix the album in 1972. The early CDs were this re-mix. It has more focus, but I prefer the original. However, to hear the work at its best, I’d recommended the Anthem of the Sun: Expanded and Re-mastered (Original recording re-mastered) CD from 2003. This used original tapes under supervision from Phil Lesh and contains the requisite bonus material, most interestingly, a single version of Born Cross Eyed which was the original flip side of the Dark Star studio single.
If you're expecting pleasantly crafted songs like the CSN&Y-type Dead of Workingman’s Dan and American Beauty then this isn’t it. Good though those albums are, they are not in the extraordinary mould that Anthem occupies. I remember Lesh saying that the group decided to do song based albums because works like Anthem just took too long and required too greater discipline to get right. I think you'll either love Anthem and think it's a great album or find it unlistenable. IMO, it is one of the great albums.
For info: Phil Lesh started as a trumpeter, interested in avant-garde classical music, and studied under Luciano Berio at Mills College with minimalist composer Steve Reich and Tom Constanten. Lesh had never played bass before he joined the Dead and had no preconceived ideas about the bass. He says his playing was inspired by Bach counterpoint than by rock or soul. Phil has donated money to and supported many up and coming avant-garde composers.
Later in 1967 and into 1968, the Dead were afforded 6 months of studio time to indulge and create an extraordinary work: Anthem of the Sun. The group wanted to translate the live sound into the studio, to learn how the studio worked and use it to create something complex. The studio work was done in San Francisco (Coast Recorders) and New York (Century Sound and Olmstead Studios). Producer David Hassinger walked out saying the project took too long and was too experimental. Eventually, with help from Dan Healy, the Dead assembled a collage of studio work and exerts from concert tapes.
I have never heard another record quite like this. The final result is a 40 minute work called Anthem of the Sun, but to make it more accessible it was sub-divided in to tracks and the opening track That’s It For The One was sub-divided in to parts.
Anthem of the Sun I
1. That's It for the Other One - 7:40
• Cryptical Envelopment (Garcia)
• Quadlibet for Tender Feet (Garcia, Kreutzmann, Lesh, McKernan, Weir)
• The Faster We Go, The Rounder We Get" (Kreutzmann, Weir)
• We Leave the Castle (Constanten)
2. New Potato Caboose (Lesh, Petersen) – 8:26
3. Born Cross-Eyed (Weir) – 2:04
Anthem of the Sun II
1. Alligator (Lesh, McKernan, Hunter) – 11:20
2. Caution, Do Not Stop on Tracks (Garcia, Kreutzmann, Lesh, McKernan, Weir) – 9:37
We leave the castle features Tom Constanten on John Cage style prepared piano.
The original vinyl pressing, which I have is a bit murky in places, but captures the music well enough, the group returned to the studio to re-mix the album in 1972. The early CDs were this re-mix. It has more focus, but I prefer the original. However, to hear the work at its best, I’d recommended the Anthem of the Sun: Expanded and Re-mastered (Original recording re-mastered) CD from 2003. This used original tapes under supervision from Phil Lesh and contains the requisite bonus material, most interestingly, a single version of Born Cross Eyed which was the original flip side of the Dark Star studio single.
If you're expecting pleasantly crafted songs like the CSN&Y-type Dead of Workingman’s Dan and American Beauty then this isn’t it. Good though those albums are, they are not in the extraordinary mould that Anthem occupies. I remember Lesh saying that the group decided to do song based albums because works like Anthem just took too long and required too greater discipline to get right. I think you'll either love Anthem and think it's a great album or find it unlistenable. IMO, it is one of the great albums.
For info: Phil Lesh started as a trumpeter, interested in avant-garde classical music, and studied under Luciano Berio at Mills College with minimalist composer Steve Reich and Tom Constanten. Lesh had never played bass before he joined the Dead and had no preconceived ideas about the bass. He says his playing was inspired by Bach counterpoint than by rock or soul. Phil has donated money to and supported many up and coming avant-garde composers.
quote:Originally posted by Sloop John B:
Moondance by Van Morrison.
Van's second solo outing and a wonderful album. Great songs about music love and mysticism. A great combination of saxes, flute, piano, clavinet as well as guitar bass drums, giving an overall sound that is as beautiful as it is rare.
There is a great happy vibe from such songs as And It Stoned Me, Caravan, These Dreams Of You and everyone.
Brand New day and crazy love are great soul numbers.
Great albums should have no weak track and this doesn't.
The songs aren't as obtuse as some of Van's and there is an almost dylanesque delivery of some great lyrics
almost let a pick up truck nearly pass us by
You could pick several Van albums for this "great" thread but Moondance gets in for my first contribution.
SJB
Sloop John
I'm with you on this one...a fantastic almum. I went through a long period when I would have said "Peoetic Champons" was my all time favourite, but I've had Moondance on a few time lately and there's just something magic about it.
Gary
40 years ago, the Incredible String Band released one of the best records I have ever heard. This was the group that had a big influence on the Beatles and 5000 Spirtis Or The Layers Of The Onion is a truly great album. Robin Williamson and Mike Heron added to their folk roots a more psychedelic sound. The album was unlike anything else at the time: a fusion of folk, blues, psych with world music influences. It is almost entirely acoustic too.
The song writing is split between Mike and Robin and except for some odd harmonies each sings his own composition.
Mike's Chinese White starts the album, it is a slow song with Robin’s rather rudimentary but effective violin.
The tempo picks up on Robin’s No Sleep Blues with its frantic chorus and controlled verses.
Painting Box has a very happy, catchy tune and was was released as a single; it has Licorice McKechnie singing on it with Mike. This somg is beautifully constructed with Mike's sitar behind Robin’s guitar.
Robin’s Mad Hatter's Song is a complex flok/bues song with a very clever story line or rather several interwoven story lines. The music changes to reflect the current story.
Little Cloud is another upbeat song from Mike with some great percussion and a catchy guitar backing.
Back with another Robin song: The Eyes of Fate and it is again a mixture of time signatures and complex passages mixed with chanting. The very simple guitar that contrasts with this is a great touch.
Turning over the record gives us another Robin song: Blues for the Muse, which is an up-tempo blues with Mike on Harmonica. Sounds a bit like Medicine Head, but a few years before.
Next up is Mike’s wonderful, whimsical The Hedgehog's Song. in which Mike explains that he is looking for the girl of his dreams, but unfortunately this funny little hedgehog who’s always around explains that he learned all the notes, but never quite learned the song she sang.
First Girl I Loved is a solo performance by Robin. It has was hit too. A very good love song.
You Know What You Could Be is Mike again and as the song lifts so do the lyrics from the sad to joys. Superb guitar again.
Robin’s My Name is Death is a bit gloomy, but contrasts nicely with the generally happy feel of this album.
Mike’s Gently Tender rocks along with a complex mix of instruments and some psych vocal harmonies.
The album concludes with a rock n roll song from Robin: Way Back in the 1960s. A song that somebody might sing now if they were looking back at the 60s and this great record.
If you only ever have one ISB album then it should be this. Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter is almost as good and a bit more complex, but 5000 Spirits is their great album.