Dance Mania Vol. 1

Tito Puente & His Orchestra
1958

About eight years ago I pledged to brush up on my knowledge of the music of the 50s by listening to all of the "must listen" albums from a couple of big list books. I'm still working my way through them (hey, there are nearly forty albums!), and here's one of the last to write up.

I knew nothing about mambo - let alone the Tito Puente, the "King Of Mambo" - prior to listening to this, and in all honesty I think I'd struggle to distinguish between it and,say, merengue (the latter is more of a "marching" beat, apparently).

Dance Mania probably serves as a good introduction, even if it doesn't include the song most rock music fans would know Puente for, "Oye Como Va" (as covered by Santana on Abraxas). Unfortunately, not being familiar with the intricacies of the style means that all the tracks here tend towards sameness. It's all a bit early-60s jazz club, like the Purple Pit in Jerry Lewis's The Nutty Professor -  jazzy and brassy, maybe a bit like big band swing, except more relaxed. Great if it really floats your boat, maybe a bit wearing after twelve tracks of what is broadly indistinguishable music.

A couple of the instrumental tracks stand out for me: "Hong Kong Mambo" is a great riff, and "3D Mambo" has a great feel. Overall, it's good for something a bit different in the background though, and as ever with these recommendations, I'm very pleased to have heard it and know it.

Abbey Road

The Beatles
1969

I came to Abbey Road relatively late - which is to say, for some reason I was at least ten before I listened to it properly. Given that at seven I was putting A Hard Day's Night, Rubber Soul and Sergeant Pepper on constant repeat, it's an odd oversight.

Perhaps this late-coming is why it's never been such a favourite as other Beatles albums. It hadn't embedded itself into my juvenile subconscious in the same way. Or maybe it's because ... well ... it's not really quite as good?

For a classic album, let alone a Beatles album, it really does have a lot of filler. Fully half of the first side is bordering on awful. I know they had to let Ringo sing on a track but really, "Octopus's Garden" is just rubbish. "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" is trite and unpleasant. "Oh Darling" just sounds like Paul's trying too hard. It's even more puzzling when you consider that the remainder of those six songs are fantastic, in particular the ground-breaking "I Want You", real heavy music to a ten-year-old.

Then there's the second side. After "Here Comes The Sun" (about as good as a song can actually ever be) and "Because" (disposable) comes the much-vaunted medley. A medley of songs that weren't quite finished or good enough to make it as whole pieces. It actually only starts to make sense with "Golden Slumbers", more than half way through. Then, I'll grant you, it's superb. The duelling guitars on "The End" are just fantastic - and then we get that perfect ending couplet: "And, in the end, the love you take / Is equal to the love you make". (Which they then spoil by having a joke song follow it.)

Still, I suppose the fourth or fifth best Beatles album is still good, eh?

C'est Chic / Risqué

Chic
1978 / 1979

If all you know of Chic is "Le Freak" and "Good Times" then you might assume that they were a pure disco party band. However, as Nile Rodgers - a man who seems to be everywhere these days - has stated, their ambition was to present a whole, sophisticated image (hence the name). So in fact, despite the globe-straddling dominance of their most famous tracks, they don't really represent what Chic were really about.

More representative of both albums' feel are the lesser-known singles such as "I Want Your Love" or "My Forbidden Lover": groove-laden but laid back and infused with an undercurrent of mournfulness. Album tracks like "Sometimes You Win" or "Can't Stand To Love You" are much more in this vein, while full-on ballads like "At Last I Am Free" and "A Warm Summer Night" fit the relaxed mood much better.

Overall, then, the feel of both albums is surprisingly a lot less immediate than I expected, given the band's reputation. Indeed, my initial impression was one of slight disappointment. But a number of repeated listens have brought out the appeal in tracks like "What About Me" - a nice groove - or "Savoir Faire" - a smooth instrumental with some very tasteful guitar soloing.

Talking of guitar, as the last surviving male member of Chic, Mr Rodgers has become the face of the band, and there's no doubt he's a superb and unique guitarist. However, the real engine behind the music is unquestionably Bernard Edwards, whose wonderful, funky bass winds, bubbles, growls and powers through the grooves, forming the backbone around which everything else hangs.

Released in consecutive years, during which Rodgers and Edwards seemed to be doing a million other projects too, these two albums are not identical in feel but do form a very consistent whole. And while they are not disco party albums, they are satisfying listening.

Signing Off

UB40
1980

UB40 in actually good shock

Although the lasting impression in my mind of UB40 is of the reggae-lite colossus that gave us easy listening classics such as "Red Red Wine", I vaguely knew that they had once been good. Nevertheless I am very pleasantly surprised at just how good. Signing Off is superb.

The songs are excellent, with great tunes and meaningful, politically engaged lyrics. The music is authentically dub (at least to my ears) and doesn't sound dated at all, and there's a good variety of tracks. I knew "Food For Thought" as it was one of the songs I would have recorded off the Top 40 countdowns, and I've always loved the saxophone riff and moody, minor key melody. However, my new favourite song is "King", particularly the harmonies. "Burden Of Shame" is an anguished rail against the iniquities of society. "Signing Off" is a funky echo laden instrumental.

There isn't a poor track on the album and if it isn't an all-time classic (in my view at least), it's certainly a great album to listen to.

Searching For The Young Soul Rebels

Dexys Midnight Runners
1980

Mmm ... horny!

The  albums in the eighties list fall broadly into two categories: those that are important because of their impact at the time and those that are timeless classics. Needless to say, the latter category has fewer albums in it. Searching For The Young Soul Rebels is one of them.

It is often cited as one of the best debut albums ever, but this does it something of a disservice, since you could take the word "debut" out of that statement and it would still be correct. It's certainly one of my favourites - in my top ten, in fact - and has been for some time, but oddly I can't remember when I first came across it. All I know is that although I loved the single "Geno" at the time, I didn't get the album until I was buying CDs, probably over ten years later.

Why do I love it? It's the horns. For all the column inches written about the genius and vision of Kevin Rowland - and don't get me wrong, he's great here - the unsung heroes of this wonderful album are the horn section, and in particular, whoever did the arrangements. The way they harmonize with each other, punctuate the vocals and punch up the emotion is inspirational and uplifting, even on the slowest of tracks, and on the wonderful instrumental "The Teams That Meet In Caffs" it's all brass goodness. Other horny gems include the slow-burning "I'm Just Looking" or "I Couldn't Help It If I Tried", "Geno" (of course) ... well, pretty much the whole album.

The tracks come with serious messages I believe (Rowland doesn't come across as a man with much of a sense of humour, however much he claims otherwise) but it passes me by, as ever. But Rowland's odd yelping delivery is strangely compelling and his commitment is legendarily indisputable. Overall, the ingredients add up to a completely unique album that truly counts as classic.

Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables

Dead Kennedys
1980

I've known Dead Kennedys tracks like "Kill The Poor" and "California Über Alles" for a long time but never listened to the whole album. But there it is on my "Eighties in Music" list, so now's a good a time as any. It's not available on Spotify so I've had to resort to the lawless wild west of YouTube to hear it.

First impressions: it's full of energy and Jello Biafra's voice is cool in a whiny kind of way, while the music is surprisingly varied. It's obviously a low budget production but that's appropriate for the style. Best of all, it's nice and short. Not in the "thank god that's over" way, just about a dozen short tracks.

Some of the lyrical targets are very dated, some are obscure, but most tracks are musically interesting enough to make listening worthwhile. The singles are good - not least because there's the semblance of a tune: I particularly like "Holiday In Cambodia" because it has a great intro, moody verse and some great playing (although lyrically it's hardly cheery); and "Viva Las Vegas" is great, probably because it's best tune on the album and I know it best. It suits their style, funnily enough, although I'm sure it's all heavily ironic given their known politics.

Not something you'd put on for repeated listens but it's enjoyable because of the energy and it has a place in history, of course.

Kings Of The Wild Frontier

Adam And The Ants
1980

Adam & The Ants' singles were the soundtrack of my early teens and I remember them so well. Despite that, I never owned the albums at the time, 1980 being just a little bit before I started buying records properly. What strikes me now is that the best tracks - "Dog Eat Dog", "Kings Of The Wild Frontier" and, to a lesser extent, "Ant Music" and "Ant Invasion"  - seem to have come from nowhere. They sounded like nothing else at the time and sound like nothing else today - incredibly distinctive, strange but familiar, and executed with an almost infinite swagger and bravado.

The other tracks are hit and miss and are more obvious in their influences. "Killer In The Home" is obviously based on Link Wray's "Rumble", while I'm sure there's also Eddie Cochrane and Duane Eddy in there too. As an album, it's patchy and doesn't really deserve a place in the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, but the singles are absolutely essential.

The single and indeed the album were hugely successful (the UK's biggest selling album of 1981, no less) but not imitated - I wonder why not? The time is ripe for a revival, I think!

Back In Black

AC/DC
1980

Single entendres and loud guitars. What's not to like?

Some albums take a while to bed in, to seep into your consciousness or unconscious. On the other hand, some albums are pretty instant. I don't think I'd ever listened to Back In Black before today, but already I like it.

It wouldn't be fair to call Back In Black shallow, but there's not really a lot of depth or complexity here, nor is it needed. Titles like "Shoot To Thrill", "Let Me Put My Love Into You" (sample lyric: "let me cut your cake with my knife") aren't exactly difficult to decode, and the music is just as straightforward. But that doesn't imply that it's without power, excitement or dynamics. Obviously it's great rock - you don't sell million and millions on the back of sub-standard music.

I'm not particularly keen on the high-register screech-sing of much of this kind of stuff but Brian Johnson's voice has enough grit and personality to make up for it. The guitars are superb, of course, thick, crunchy and powerful. Even better, it's ten good tracks and doesn't outstay it's welcome. Classic for a reason.

Lady In Satin

Billie Holiday
1958

I'm finding this a hard album to love. It's an album of standards, in the same vein as the contemporary Sinatra and Fitzgerald albums. But while those two singers were at the top of their abilities at the time, it's clear that Billie Holiday was at the end of her career, and it's uncomfortable listening to her voice. She sounds tired, and there's an underlying feeling that she might only be doing this because she has to (although from what I have read, this is not the case; she wanted to make this album this way).

Bill Holiday's phrasing is as distinctive as ever, although I can't help wishing sometimes that she'd clear her throat first, and the arrangements and musicianship are first rate. There's not much variation across the tracks and because her voice is so unusual, it also serves to blend the songs together somewhat. The overall result is to make the album a less enjoyable experience for me.

Time Out

The Dave Brubeck Quartet
1959

Time Out is pleasantly polite, easy-listening jazz. If that sounds dismissive then that's unfortunate; the music is unobtrusively groovy and inconspicuously accomplished. It doesn't barge its way into your consciousness, but moves in gradually, until suddenly you find you can sing along with all the tracks.

Given that the linking idea between these choices is that they are in a variety of time signatures, with only a few excursions into 4/4, it's quite a feat that they should sound so natural. It doesn't feel like challenging music. I expect this is partly why it was such a success in its time - that, and the one-off, mellow hummability of the famous "Take Five" (in 5/4 time, of course). Even the featured drum solo doesn't dent its likeability.

If none of this comes across as a whole-hearted endorsement, that's probably more to do with the fact that I find most jazz a little bloodless, rather than anything else. It's all ... well, like I said, pleasant.

Jack Takes The Floor

Ramblin' Jack Elliott
1958

If I hadn't read up on the history of Jack Elliott and of this album, I would have assumed that this was some sort of take off. The hill billy "yee-haw" persona sounds so fake and overdone, and the whole sound is a dead ringer for Bob Dylan on his first couple of albums.

In fact this is partly true. The main thing to note is that the influence ran the other way round: early Dylan albums were heavily influenced by Jack Elliott, hence its inclusion in the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. It's not so much that you can trace the lineage from Elliott to Dylan, more that Dylan shamelessly copied Elliott lock, stock and barrel. And not just the sound either, but the whole persona. Both "Jack" and "Bob" were suburban Jewish boys who reinvented themselves in Woody Guthrie's image.

The music is not my kind of thing - unremarkable traditional dirge-like songs with hokey introductions. I've only listened to the album a few times but I can't pick any out. Of historical interest only, and little of that frankly.

Palo Congo

Sabu
1957

Ground-breaking world music. Probably.

Although this album is listed in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, its entry only describes it rather than explaining why it has been included. (The piece reads like someone was assigned it as homework; the book is a great resource, but I have many reservations about it.) Having listened to Palo Congo, I am also at a loss to explain its place in history.

Certainly, the album brings a flavour of world music from a time well before there was such a category in the western world, and it must have sounded very different at the time. It isn't Sinatra-smooth crooning, or bouncing Basie jazz; it's not perfect pop or raw rock'n'roll. It's a view into a different kind of world, an older world, where music is made for participation rather than listening to.

So, all the chants and repetition would be great fun if you were joining in. As an audio experience at home, it's a bit tedious. If I had to choose one track, it would be "El Cumbanchero", which has an actual tune and some sort of direction and development - at least, for the first couple of minutes. After that it runs out of steam but persists for another three. "Choferito Plena" has an appealing figure on a guitar (or something similar) which reminds me of The Bhundu Boys. "Triblin Cantore" is nice enough. However, too many tracks are just extended conga workouts - fair enough given that Sabu Martinez is a congo player, I suppose, but unedifying to listen to for any length of time.

Deserter's Songs

Mercury Rev
1998

I remember this album being released. It was well and widely reviewed in the many music publications I read at the time (Q, Select, Vox and Muddly Mucker) but for some reason, although I got as far as purchasing and enjoying the singles "Opus 40" and "Goddess On A Hiway", I never bought the album until this year. I haven't even heard it before.

Still, apparently this hasn't prevented me from forming preconceptions about how it would sound, since my overriding feeling is that it isn't what I was expecting. The track that comes the closest is "The Funny Bird", an epic-sounding roller-coaster with some nicely squalling lead guitar.

Much of the rest is a little fey and wan by comparison. Not that, after several listens, it doesn't have its appeal. "Pick Up If You're There" is a lovely, ethereal instrumental. "Tonite It Shows" steals sweetly and shamelessly (and without credit) from "Hushabye Mountain" (from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang). "Hudson Line" is cute, mainly remarkable for featuring Garth Hudson himself!

Overall, though, I had expected something with a little more substance. Perhaps, given the well-known connection between Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips, I thought we would get something as well-rounded, powerful and imaginative as Lips albums Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots or At War With The Mystics - although that said, it does seem fair to point out that, if it's hard to slip a cigarette paper between the two bands, Mercury Rev got there first.

Eliminator

ZZ Top
1983

Machine metal music

To the average rock fan, Billy Gibbons probably isn't a name that rings any bells. To the pop anorak, he's the guitar player and lead singer in ZZ Top, a Texas bar band who achieved a remarkably sudden commercial breakthrough with this album, Eliminator, its singles and the three made-for-MTV videos that went with them. But in rock guitarist circles, Billy Gibbons is, simply, a legend, known for his creamy tones and the fact that he (and his Les Paul) inspired one of the first artist-endorsed after market pickups (Seymour Duncan's "Pearly Gates").

I guess I need to hand my rock guitarist badge back then, because this is the first ZZ Top album I have ever listened to, and that only in the last few months. It's not quite what I expected. From a guitar perspective, there is some excellent playing and some fantastic tones, but what's really taken me by surprise is that this is, fundamentally, a pop album. Shorn of the rock colouring, most of these songs would have served perfectly well on any contemporary pop album.

In fact, in some respects they are fairly ground-breaking - for pop. There's clearly some early computer-based tools involved here; the music is too clean and too precise, the repeated riffs too identical, to be anything else. You could replace the guitar with keyboards and not lose the essence of the song. Yet the best of them have clearly grown out of the bar-boogie ZZ Top were known for.

The singles - "Gimme All Your Lovin'", "Sharp Dressed Man" and "Legs" - are classics and the best tracks here, of course, but I also rather like "I Need You Tonight", which has a wonderfully liquid guitar tone, heavy on the echo, effortlessly sustaining and fading into upper harmonics. It's the tone I aspire to when I play. The song is OK. The other album tracks kind of blend into one - good music, but not standing out much. Interestingly, possibly of most influence was the kind of guitar tone we hear on "Sharp Dressed Man" and "Dirty Dog", a heavily distorted, heavily phased sound much imitated through the 80s.

Brilliant Corners

Thelonious Monk
1957

Delicate, sensitive harmonic exploration, or tedious, lethargic, meandering indulgence?

I have blogged before about my late-teenage infatuation with jazz - or, at least, my attempt to be seen liking jazz (hey, how interesting am I?) - but even then, I preferred something with a bit of life to it. Many of the albums I liked were on Blue Note, and the label has come to be associated mostly with hard bop that has more of a soulful or funky edge - such as Donald Byrd's Byrd In Hand, one of my favourites.

Despite Brilliant Corners being classified as hard bop (according to Wikipedia, anyway), this doesn't sound like it to me. It's not soulful or funky enough. I'm quite prepared to believe that there's some very clever composition and playing, but it doesn't touch me.

As Joey "The Lips" Fagan says in The Commitments (the book), "soul is from the heart, jazz is from the head". This is head music and there is no heart in it. Dull dull dull.

Before And After Science

Brian Eno
1977

I'm finding Before And After Science to be a more interesting album than Here Come The Warm Jets, but it's still a patchy affair.

Much of the first side reminds me of something else - and usually something better. "No One Receiving" sounds like Station To Station-era white funk, only less convincing. "Energy Fools The Magician" sounds a bit like a cross between Jaco Pastorius' first solo album and Miles Davis circa Decoy or Tutu, which is no bad thing, but it's a bit directionless. "Kings Lead Hat" is obviously Talking Heads (in anagram and sound) - scratchy, antsy and funky, just not quite as good. It's fitting that Eno should then go on and produce them though.

The second side is more relaxed and less derivative and better for it. None of the songs stand out particularly, but are nicer in mood and sound and provide a more rounded listening experience. Again, none seem to go anywhere much but it's easier to forgive here.

To be charitable to Brian Eno, I think much of Before And After Science would be classed as experimental, which from what I know of the great man is more likely to be what he was aiming for than popular, polished or commercial. Unfortunately, it doesn't make for something that rewards me for repeated listens.

British Steel

Judas Priest
1980

From what little I know about Judas Priest (and I tried not to prejudice myself before listening by reading lots), they mark a junction between "rock" and "metal". Certainly you can hear both in the music on British Steel. "Living After Midnight", for example, could be Whitesnake - a big, stadium-friendly anthem about staying up all night (like a proper grown up and everything!), with big chorused guitars and a medium widdly but forgettable solo. On the other hand, opener "Rapid Fire" is, appropriately, a very fast metal chug, and much more interesting.

I think the real point here is that this album significantly pre-dates both the stadium rock of Bon Jovi or any other hair metal bands, and the more thrashy bands like Megadeath, Anthrax and so on. So although this album might sound slightly dated now, it was clearly very influential. And if that's so, I'm just grateful that it was tracks like these that proved so, rather than the, frankly, over-pompous "Red, White & Blue" or the comedy lyrics of "The Rage" (no surprise to find that singer Rob Halford came out many years later).

I'm no expert on all these micro-genres, because I find metal in general a bit juvenile. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of loud guitars, but metal's posturing, "attitude" and shrieking puts me off. British Steel, though, is surprisingly listenable. The songs mostly have memorable tunes you can sing along with, and Halford mostly stays in a lower range (although he can hit the high notes too), which I definitely prefer. The twin guitars of Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing are big, crunchy and wild. Good fun for a while, but probably superseded by later artists.

Sail Away

Randy Newman
1972

One of the things I really like about listening to albums from the seventies is that they are so short. None of that fifteen songs, 75 minutes of "value" that we were cursed with from the mid-nineties on. Sail Away is half an hour of excellent songwriting that hasn't taken me several weeks to get to grips with.

Randy Newman has a number of similarities with Bob Dylan: both known for their songwriting skills, and frequently covered by other artsists; both possessed of, um, unusual singing voices; and both lyrically some way away from "moon/June" lyrical laziness. (Not that I really care about lyrics, as I've said a number of times before.) However, unlike Dylan (who I can't stand), Newman hasn't made the mistake of assuming that good lyrics (for some definition of "good") can carry a poor song. Newman is an accomplished musician and all the tracks here have good tunes, superb arrangements and distinct identities. I also rather like his singing voice, despite its obvious limitations.

I'm surprised by the number of songs I recognise - in particular "You Can Leave Your Hat On", which I only knew from The Full Monty (I know, a pop anorak really should be better informed), but is better here. Alan Price covered "Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear" and "Political Science", is on an Old Grey Whistle Test DVD. All are good. I also rather like "Last Night I Had A Dream", mainly for its tune and atmosphere.

One World

John Martyn
1977

Having previously nominated 1977 as a year zero for modern rock music (and not because of punk, I hasten to add), I've been listening to some of its other releases. Obviously, my theory doesn't stand up to any rigorous analysis, but that's OK because I wasn't planning on analyzing it.

Despite having owned One World for several years I've never properly listened to it before. It shows obvious progression from Martyn's previous albums, particularly his classic trio of Bless The Weather, Solid Air and Inside Out - each getting more experimental, less obviously folk-influenced and less song-based. Here, the songs are mostly reduced to languorous, liquid grooves, over which he weaves his distinctive vocal and guitar. "Big Muff", "Dealer" and "Smiling Stranger" all work like this, and very satisfactorily so; the tracks are built from some wonderfully organic sounds and feel nicely rounded. In fact, the most conventional song, "Certain Surprise", is probably the weakest.

We're also offered a fascinating chance to compare the progress of production techniques with "Couldn't Love You More". Here it's typical mid-period Martyn acoustic ballad, all growling double bass, delicate finger picked guitar and decorative chimes. Four years later, he revisited it on the album Glorious Fool, where it is "treated" to a Face Value-era Phil Collins production, in which you can almost hear the Armani jacket sleeves being rolled up as the fretless bass winds its rubbery way around the gated drums.

Anyway, back to 1977 and One World, which finishes with the beautifully insubstantial "Small Hours", recorded outside apparently (and accompanied by a few roll-ups, no doubt). The album sets a very agreeable mood overall and if it doesn't reach the heights of previous works, is still superb. Ooh - and another knocked off the 1001 Albums list!

The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society

The Kinks
1968

For rock music, I think the key decade since the birth of rock'n'roll is the seventies. The developments in style and recording techniques during that time mean that while anything prior to it sounds irrevocably dated, anything post about 1977 (stylistic considerations aside) sounds almost, if not actually, modern.

As a case in point, here's The Village Green Preservation Society; all tinkly, faintly awkward English sub-psychedelia, it could not have come from any other time than the late sixties. It was even released in mono, for goodness sake! A mere nine years later and you can choose from the air-brushed, silken sheen of, say, Rumours or Aja, either of which sound like they could have been released last year, or the professional punch of Never Mind The Bollocks or News Of The World, guitar rock that has been constantly referenced since.

Anyway, this is an album of its time, then, and very reminiscent of others of its era. "Do You Remember Walter" sounds like the more whimsical bits of early Floyd. "Big Sky", probably my favourite track, could have come off Ogden's Nut Gone Flake or Jack Bruce's Songs For A Tailor. As  you'd expect from Ray Davies, decent tunes are in good supply, although a few sound somewhat contrived. The Village Green Preservation Society is a concept album, clearly (anything titled "<band name> are <something else>" can't be anything but) but I'm struggling to detect the concept. Musically, it sounds like a collection of pop songs - nothing more, nothing less.

As you might gather, I haven't been blown away. Nice enough, very evocative of a certain period, but I'd rather listen to Piper At The Gates Of Dawn.