2012 - What A Great Year !

I have enjoyed loads of new albums this year; some by established artists and some by new ones. It has been a long time since there's been so many great albums released in a year. So my "picks of the year" are :-

"Hair" (Ty Segall and White Fence) - this is full of garage-y, Beatly pop gems. The sound is raw and fuzzy, and the playing urgent and arresting. Not always easy to hear the words as the vocals are mixed back, but this wins through on songs and spirit.
"Slaughterhouse" (Ty Segall) - another top CD, this one heavier with lots of noise ! The man keeps coming out with great stuff, and there's a third CD out which I haven't heard yet...
"Temple Beautiful" (Chuck Prophet) - an album about San Francisco, the most beautiful city on earth. Each song features a strong lyric and notable playing. The vocals are full of character and there isn't a weak track. Probably gets my vote as the year's best.
"One Day I'm Going To Soar" (Dexy's) - after 27 years we finally get a follow-up to the towering "Don't Stand Me Down". If anything this surpasses it - a very coherent and committed album with a number of themes running through it. Kevin Rowland opens up more than just about anyone else in his music. Will there be another ?
"Life Is People" (Bill Fay) - another "comeback", this time after 41 years ! This is a very solemn, wise, and peaceful album. It's the sort of thing that can pull you through troubled times. There's a track on there about being thankful for what God has given you that lifts me up every time.
"Tempest" (Bob Dylan) - a deep and dark masterpiece; Bob's best since "Street Legal". The song about John Lennon gets me each time I play it. The music is raw and driving, the lyrics so sharp and real, and the vocal performance is full of expression.
"The Leaving Of London" (Bevis Frond) - his first since 2004 and his strongest since the epic "North Circular". The lyrics are bitter and incisive as usual, the melodies amongst his best, and the playing is fresh and exciting, with a minimum of the aimless sludge that he can sometimes descend into. One of his very best  albums.
"Psychedelic Pill" (Neil Young) - Jerry Garcia aside, who else would do an album of long jams this late in his career ? The whingeing about digital media on "Drifting Back" is a pain (note to Neil Young : for people who don't have the very top-grade stereo gear, digital sound is way superior to anything you could get for a similar spend with vinyl). However the playing is as arresting as ever, and you simply get lost in the inimitable Crazy Horse groove.

Three live albums recorded ages ago but only released now have also given me much pleasure :-

"Europe 72 Vol 2" (Grateful Dead) - the European tour in 1972 saw the Grateful Dead at their absolute peak. The playing is just so bright and crystal-clear, and Keith Godchaux's rippling piano runs work so well alongside Garcia, Lesh, and Weir. All the performances are very strong and focussed here; Disc 2, with "Dark Star" and "The Other One", goes to the sorts of places which only the Dead at the top of their game can reach.   
"Live At The Fillmore 1969" (The Move) - this is such a rare gem. It reveals the great Roy Wood as a blazing, lyrical guitar player. The improvisation in the middle of "Fields Of People" is one of those golden pieces of music that stops you up short whenever you hear it. It must have been incredible to see this performed. But this is also the album which shows how great a frontman Carl Wayne was, and has some moving comments on the sleeve from his widow Sue (Diane in "Crossroads", for those of you old enough to remember such things).
"Live At The Carousel Ballroom 1968" (Big Brother and the Holding Company) - Janis was the greatest singer ever, and Big Brother are such an untutored and adventurous band. James Gurley's guitar blazes in spontaneous bursts of fire. I never tire of hearing live recordings of this band as they are always so fresh and engaging. Music lost so much in the 1970s when it became "polished". Give me Big Brother or Quicksilver any time !

So 2012 has been a terrific year and rock music stays alive despite the dulling forces of post-Thatcher hyper-materialism and X-Factor shallowness. Wouldn't it be great in 2013 if people finally started fighting back against the Bankers, the Lawyers, and the oppression of global capitalism - with music at the centre of a blazing inferno of protest and idealism ! We must all WAKE UP AND FIGHT - in the meantime we've got great rock music like the albums mentioned above to keep us going.

Songs I Hate by great artists no. 1

I absolutely loathe Neil Young's song "Change Your Mind" on the "Sleeps With Angels" album. This is odd as it's a long jam with Crazy Horse and I normally lap those up. And Neil Young is just about my favourite artist of all. So why ?

Firstly, it's musically lame - it plods along with no tension or variation in either the rhythms or the soloing. The singing is soppy and insipid, with none of the bite which he normal brings to his vocals.

Secondly the subject-matter. This song is telling the listener that nothing matters in life apart from having regular sex. Well, Neil, I've got news for you - some of us have relationships and some don't. Many of those relationships don't always have a high sexual content. And many people who don't have relationships desperately wish that they could and don't want this shoved down their throats.

Thirdly the clincher - this songs has the sheer gall to tell me to "Change My Mind". It doesn't evoke anything, doesn't try to justify or persuade, it just tells me. Mr. Young - you might be a genius but you have no right to tell me that my life is not valid in some way. I happen to think that your views on God are wrong, but I'll happily listen to such atheistic ditties as "Love In Mind". Just don't tell me how to run my life.   

P.S. Psychedelic Pill is amazing, containing incredible jams and not a smug or patronising lyric to be found anywhere ! 

Jim Morrison's Grave

Last week I was lucky enough to spend three days on holiday in Paris. With the financial settlement from my divorce imminent, involving as it does the ripping apart of the company pension I worked so hard for thirty years to obtain, I needed to get my head straight. Paris did the job - the sense of history is overwhelming, and there's a relaxed urbanity about the place. As you walk through the different areas you pick up all kinds of variations in tone, atmosphere, and architecture.

The highlight was a trip out to visit Jim Morrison's grave in Pere Lachaisse cemetry. It was a more profound experience than I was expecting; the humble nature of the grave is appropriate for Jim, who was always true to his bohemian nature and did not fall for all the material trappings which other rock stars have surrounded themselves with. Jim Morrison genuinely lived out the life implicit in his art; I think he is happy in his final resting place.

Being at his graveside was an ideal prompt to reflect back on my life and The Doors' part in it. I grew up in a post-war era where working-class children with sufficient ability were lucky enough to gain access to an excellent education. My father and mother both left school at the age of fourteen and had to go straight into the world of work, with no opportunity to explore any academic leanings they might have had. So when I came along and started to get extraordinarily good marks at school it was a major talking-point; like many working-class children who flowered in the 1960s, I became a sort of symbol of progress for the family.

As a child I was fine with this; I had a very strong mathematical side, worked hard to please my parents and teachers, and played a lot of sport. I was bullied a lot at school, but fortunately I was quick enough verbally to keep people off my back. I learned that my function in life was to deliver the goods and just get on with it.

I had enjoyed the occasional single as a child in the Sixties and had a couple of early Beatles albums. I learned to skip the McCartney mush and focus on great John Lennon rockers such as "Please Please Me" and "Money". Then in 1970 I started buying current albums. When I discovered people like Cream, Hendrix, Zeppelin, The Who, and Deep Purple I realised that there were albums around which didn't have any garbage to skip; records like "Led Zeppelin 2", "Wheels Of Fire", and "Deep Purple In Rock" were crammed with exciting rock throughout.

I then branched out a bit from heavy rock, getting into people like The Nice, ELP, Yes, and the Pink Floyd. But at this point I was still very much focussed on the musical side of things; the lyrics didn't mean much to me (probably a good thing when I was listening to lyricists like Robert Plant and Jon Anderson). As a person I was still that hard-working, sport-loving, mathshead schoolboy and I didn't read much. Also, the music I was lapping up was almost exclusively English.

All this changed dramatically when I first heard "Riders On The Storm" in 1972. The spell-binding mystery of the vocal and the cool intensity of the music were gripping. And the lyrics ! "There's a killer on the road / His brain is squirming like a toad". I was completely and utterly taken up by the unique atmosphere and coherence of the music, and the compelling persona of Jim Morrison.

From there I acquired all The Doors albums and love them all to this day. Jim Morrison's lyrics introduced me to the whole idea of literary appreciation; I could see just how brilliantly they flowed along with the music and conveyed the finer nuances of Jim's peculiar and compelling pre-occupations. He changed my life - from there I started getting into other great lyricists such as Dylan, and also began reading novels. Since my mid-twenties I have been an avid reader, and Jim Morrison is largely to thank for that.

I can also see now how his vision spoke to my suppressed feelings of "performance anxiety" and "otherness". As I was growing up I was starting to see that my own values did not correspond to many of those of my parents; the world of appearances and formality just didn't speak to me. Jim certainly did :- lines such as "women seem wicked when you're unwanted", "cancel my subscription to the resurrection", "the future's uncertain and the end is always near" (to quote just a few) tapped right into the core of my frightened, lonely, and anxious being. They have continued to speak to me throughout my life; circumstances and pressures have changed, but always Jim has been there to excite, intrigue, and comfort me. The darkness at the essence of his work has always been very real to me.

As I look back on the Doors' work I am amazed at how consistent and coherent it is. They are virtually perfect; there are maybe two or three weak tracks on the seven albums released during Jim's lifetime. The subsequent "American Prayer" album, various live sets, and assorted outtakes have largely maintained this standard. The Doors music was tight, structured, carefully-planned yet dramatic. Jim's persona as lead vocalist remained a constant from "Break On Through" to "Riders On The Storm".

The first Doors album is the most fully-formed debut album ever released. Some critics such as Greil Marcus believe that the group never went any further; I disagree as I think each of their albums has a unique atmosphere. Nevertheless, the debut album is a full-on masterpiece; mainly consisting of short, sharp, explosive songs but with the release of the side-closers (yes, albums had sides in those days) "Light My Fire" and "The End". The latter track conveys a sense of sheer dread and apocalyptic drama which speaks to us as much today as it did back then. The album has such a unique sound; the evocative, unique organ-playing, Robbie's slinky slide guitar, and the tight, rolling, sensitive drumming of John Densmore. And the singing ! No other singer is as compelling and exciting as Jim, and his persona emerges fully-formed on this astonsishing debut album.

Then came "Strange Days", which I see as one of their two masterpieces along with "LA Woman". Unlike the dramatics of the first album, this album holds itself in check for most of its duration. Songs like the title track, "You're Lost Little Girl", "Moonlight Drive", and "People Are Strange" are controlled, tense, and classic short-song popular music. This, if anything, amplifies rather than dampens down the darkness and power of Morrison's words and atmosphere. "Horse Latitudes" is a brief glimpse of the horror of humanity. Then it all comes pouring out in the overwhelming closer. "When The Music's Over" is eleven minutes of power, drama, and desparation. This time, rather than evoking apocalyptic fatalistic doom as per "The End", the focus is strictly on an urgent, last-ditch plea for a way out. "Cancel my suscription to the resurrection", Jim growls in rejection of conventional belief (nevertheless he later screams "Save us ! Jesus !"). "We're getting tired of hanging around", he laments, before the final outpouring of "we want the world and we want it....NOW !". Yes, we still want the world, and thirty years of raw-toothed capitalism and "I'm ok" have not dulled the urgency for those who still believe that things could be otherwise. "What have they done to the earth ?" indeed.

After two such major albums, and with all the pressures of touring and stardom, it was inevitable that the group would run out of steam. Jims increasing alcohol intake wasn't helping either. Nevertheless, "Waiting For The Sun" certainly has it's moments - the strangeness of "Hello I Love You" and "Love Street", the power and (possibly) irony of "Five To One", the horror-show of "The Unknown Soldier", and the extraordinary acapella work-song of "My Wild Love". The group may have been digging out older songs to cover a lack of new material, but there still isn't a track on the album which is less than strange and compelling. And what a record this would have been if that central, seminal Doors track "Celebration Of The Lizard" had been completed !     

The next album, "The Soft Parade", divides people. Like Mark E. Smith I love it. "Wild Child" is such an archetypal Doors song; the distinctive riff, the bluesy guitar, the dark vocals, and the "remember when we were in Africa ?" outro. "Touch Me" showcases Jim as an alternative cabaret star. Most notably of all the title track begins with the powerful "When I was back there in seminary school" introduction and then goes into the most creepy evocation of Los Angeles. This is a highly-structured, peculiar, and compellingly-poetic piece which ranks amongst the group's finest achievements. And what does "the monk ate lunch" signify ? I don't know, but the line sure sticks in your mind.

"Morrison Hotel" takes the group into their version of pure rock'n'roll, featuring uptempo classics such as "Roadhouse Blues", "Peace Frog", "Land Ho !", and "Maggie M'Gill". The former of these is such a great way to open up an album; the compelling riff, the instrumental touches (in particular Kreiger's solo), and the penetrating, memorable lyrics. The other above-mentioned rockers on the album are similarly striking - and what a great opening line "the human race was dying out" (Peace Frog) is. But side two does have a couple of weak moments on it - "Indian Summer" in particular is about the only piece of pure filler the group ever recorded. The strains of the Miami aftermath were perhaps taking their toll, although the group's creativity was still massive as confirmed by outtakes such as "Rock Is Dead".

"Absolutely Live" is, quite simply, the most exciting live album ever made. We get the most creepy and ominous version of "Who Do You Love" ever cut as a starter, the drama of "When The Music's Over" with Jim's "SHUT UP ! Now is that any way to behave at a rock'n'roll concert ?", the thunderous preaching of the "Seminary school" verse, the poetic improvisation at the start of "Break On Through", and the new song "Build Me A Woman" (albeit with the frutier content excised). Best of all, we finally get a version of "Celebration Of The Lizard", Jim's most complete exploration with the group of his poetic symbology. And what a mysterious, atmospheric, and totally convincing piece this is ! The closing "tomorrow I return to the town of my birth; I want to be ready" leaves the listener enraptured and completely swept away by the bizarre visions and sheer authority of this amazing singer and poet.

Then the finale; "LA Woman". All I can do is issue forth yet more superlatives. This is a blues-based album which never lets up for a moment; from the poppy "Love Her Madly" and "Hyacinth House" through to the eerie peace of the closer. And the title track ! Nothing in music can match the sheer propulsion of this song - the way the bass drives along with such elasticity, underpinned by the subtle but constant drumming. The apparent indolence of the guitar phrases is matched by the grizzled intensity of Jim's vocal. The observations Jim makes are stark, mordant, and oddly compassionate - "never seen a woman so alone", he observers. LA is summed up as "motel money murder madness". And what does the use of the "Mr Mojo Risin'" anagram mean ? Is this a hint that the sensational "Jim Morrison" media persona is about to disappear ? Whatever, it is so amazing that a group as intense and consistent as the Doors could go out with (in my view) their second-strongest album.

I've relished the stuff that has come out since - "An American Prayer", the live sets, the outtakes - but the basis of my lifelong love for this group is in the body of work released during their active career as discussed above.

Jim Morrison - thank you for everything; your courage, your verbal dexterity and sensitivity, and your integrity. Your work will last forever. May you continue to rest in peace. 

    



  


          




  

    

Lou Fellingham - Live Album "Review"

A Lou Fellingham live album is something to look forward to as she and Phatfish are dynamite in concert.  However this is an interesting time for such a release as her gigs have been somewhat unusual of late. I haven’t heard the CD yet, but the following review came to me in a dream….

Introduction : “Is everybody ready ? Please give a welcome to the greatest worship band in the world LOU FELLINGHAM AND PHATFISH !!” Silence…no band…the audience is getting impatient. “I said is everybody ready ? Let’s hear it for the greatest worship band in the world LOU FELLINGHAM AND PHATFISH !!”

The band starts tuning up and goes into the intro to “Promised Land”. Still no Lou. Nathan and Luke exchange weary glances; Lou’s Sly Stone obsession has made her punctuality somewhat erratic of late. The intro carries on and on; still the crowd noise bubbles away. Finally applause breaks out as Lou lurches on stage dressed in black trousers and a purple jacket, and swigging from a bottle of Jack Daniels.  Nathan looks up in despair and drops the beat slightly – “it’s going to be one of those nights”, he’s thinking, but even he isn’t prepared for what follows.

Lou staggers up to the mike and eventually goes into the opening verse.  But as she gets to the “What a Saviour !” chorus the vocal suddenly stops; the band play on, Lou swigs from her bottle, and eventually returns to the mike. The tension is unbearable. She declaims “I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT A REVOLUTION !! I JUST WANNA HAVE A GOOD TIME.  I’m kinda tired of all this evangelism crap. Tonight I just want everyone to love their neighbour !”. The band picks up the chorus again and Lou eventually completes the song. She reaches for her bottle, but before she’s able to take a swig the group launches into “Step Into The Light”.  Lou dances around manically as she proclaims the verses, and the song is given a relatively tight and competent performance.

Lou steps away from the mike again, takes a swig, and returns :- “I think I’ve lost a button on my trousers”, she says , “you wouldn’t want my trousers to fall down now would you !”. A few “whews !” are heard from the audience. Someone shouts “show us your bum Lou”. Lou turns away, takes a hit from the bottle, and eventually launches into a few perfunctory renditions of songs from her latest album. The band is subdued but the music is hypnotic – their nervousness is putting a coiled restraint and erratic, offhand intensity into their playing reminiscent of the music on Neil Young’s “Time Fades Away”.

Then she goes into “If I Don’t Have Love”. Lou slurs her way through a couple of verses, and then picks up her bottle and stares at the audience. She starts talking in a broken, confessional voice “You know I always thought this song was kinda bullshit. I’m always given the wimpy girly love song on the albums. But I wanna  tell you that 1 Corinthians 13 was written by someone who just didn’t know what he was talking about. What does a Saint know about love ? Let me tell you about love. When I come home at night after a hard day’s worshipping I want someone’s arms around me. I’m sick and tired of coming home to an empty flat and an empty bed” (Nathan had found her recent behaviour so hard to handle that he’d taken the kids back to Mum and Dad).  “I’ll sing you a real song about love…”. Incredibly she goes into a pain-wracked rendition of “Ball and Chain” – “IT AIN’T FAIR !”, she screams as the band backs her up with an impromptu blues vamp. The guitarist even makes a fair stab at a James Gurley solo. The crowd are struck dumb. There are even a few boos.

The band, in desperation, kicks off the intro to “Heavenbound”. This continues for a couple of minutes, and we hear someone yell “Paint it black, you devils”. The vocal comes in, wild and rasping, before the chorus suddenly slows down and the band quietens to a single repeated note backdrop. The crowd grows more and more agitated. There hasn’t been this much excitement on a live album since the late sixties. The crowd noises grow and grow…still the single bass note…on and on it goes until you worry that the CD has got stuck. Then “SHUT UP !!” followed, more quietly, by “Now is that any way to behave at a worship session ?” Back to the almost-silent bass note. The tension builds again…the quiet is unbearable …on and on it goes…we hear a disturbance in the crowd. “Well that’s Spring Harvest for you”, Lou slurs, “the only people who rush the stage are girls”. Laughter breaks out in the audience; the band members look at each other wearily – sometimes this song has dragged on for half-an-hour recently. But eventually Lou swigs from her bottle, turns back to the mike, and picks up the chorus. The band crashes through the rest of the song as fast as they can.

A couple more recent songs, then it’s time for the closing stretch of crowd-pleasers. “How Good It Is” stumbles into life like an old man’s erection. The vocal suddenly stops and Lou speaks again. “You know I’ve never understood how you can enjoy being loved by a spiritual being. I’m lonely. I need a man.  I need real love”. Nathan stares up from his drum kit in astonishment. Lou really is going too far tonight. “Forget all that crap about marriage. Forget celibacy. Forget homophobia. I don’t care whether you’re straight or gay, if you meet someone who wants you then this is what you’ve gotta do…this is what you’ve gotta do…”. She launches into “Get It While You Can”.  As her wracked, hysterical voice pours out like a river of whiskey, the band (who can barely remember the song) strikes up an edgy, tentative, stumbling backing.  The song builds to a chaotic, tearful, screaming finish. You can sense the collective gasps of the audience. They have never heard a worship session like this.  

Another hit from the bottle. Then this “YOU’RE ALL A BUNCH OF FUCKIN’ IDIOTS ! HOW LONG ARE YOU GONNA LET PASTORS PUSH YOU AROUND ? HOW LONG ARE YOU GOING TO SIT THERE AND DO NOTHING ?  LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT FREEDOM ! NO FEAR, NO BARRIERS, NO LIMITS !”. Nathan glares up again – he knew he should never have let Lou go to the Edinburgh festival. Before she can take this rap further the band hurtles into “Holy Holy” and “There Is A Day”, and the concert lurches towards the finish.

Time for the last number…the band starts jamming as Lou turns away, slugs from her bottle, and lurches back towards the mike. A yell from the crowd :- “JUDAS !!”. Lou staggers away, turns around, and leans back into the mike. “I don’t believe you”, she slurs, “you’re a liar”. Then she turns to the band; “Play fuckin’ loud !”, she instructs. The intro strikes up, and Lou turns in an impassioned version of “Stained Glass Masquerade”, all rasping and slurring now gone from her voice as she delivers a crystal-clear, controlled, and heartfelt performance. The band builds up and up at the end; Lou turns back to the mike for one last message “If you take anything from tonight we pray that it’s the song you’ve just heard”.

Silence. The crowd does not know how to react. Some sporadic cheering breaks out along with a few wolf-whistles. Gradually the booing starts, and builds and builds. The CD ends. 

(Writer’s note : Lou Fellingham is a Christian singer and writer as well as the lead singer with Phatfish, which includes her husband Nathan and his brother Luke. They are one of the few Christian bands whose work stands up as great rock music. Lou’s live album should be brilliant and I do anticipate it with genuine pleasure. The news of its imminent release got me thinking about great moments on live albums in the past, hence the above set of surreal ramblings. I mean this for amusement only, with no offence to Lou, Phatfish, God, or anyone else intended, although there are some serious messages in the piece. Eric)                                     

The Who - "Live at Leeds"

Was listening today to the first CD of the "Who Live At Leeds" double and was struck yet again by what an awesome, perfectly-toned yet passionate, live band they are. It has been a very difficult time for me of late; I'm struggling with depression in the aftermath of a traumatic divorce and the havoc it has wrought on my emotions, health, and financial situation, so it was a blessing indeed to be uplifted by the presence of sheer power and greatness.

This album is, I think, the most sonically-exciting music ever made. Townshend's riffs are huge and raging, yet never bombastic. His guitar-playing is much under-rated - it may lack the virtuosity of Clapton and Page and the sonic daring of Jeff Beck, but his solos are full of fire and tension, and always mean something in the context of the song. Roger Daltrey is at his peak here, singing with anger and intensity and yet also control. His renditions of "Substitute" and "Can't Explain" have all the verve of the original singles but with the added power and authority built up over years of touring in America. For pure passion and integrity he is the number one rock vocalist - he never indulges in the phallic preening of a Plant or the sexual decadance of Mick Jagger.

Then we come on to the two now-deceased members. Can there ever have been a rhythm section like this ? Entwistle's power is thundrous, and he weaves the most intricate lines between Townshend and Moon. I can think of only one other bass player (Jack Bruce at his peak in Cream) who plays such complex lines with such intensity. And then there is Moonie, who is at his very best here. He thunders around and underneath the riffs, plays a constantly-inventive stream of fills, and keeps a continuous backdrop of hissing, crashing, cymbal-work going. Yet his work is also tightly-disciplined here; not a single drum roll is out of place, and everything he does serves the song. Like that other titanic drummer John Bonham, he has power, flair, and great creativity - every fill and drum roll is worth listening to.

This, then, is the sound of a band who have honed themselves over years of touring in the States and have built their strength as a band - nothing is done out of context of the overall sound. Pete's guitar roars out the riffs; John's bass powers away underneath, providing the fundamental forward thrust of the band while playing some awesomely complex lines. Keith's drums pound under and around the music, and have a tension to them which is always in sync with the rest of the group; listen to the extended "My Generation", on which Keith provides a text-book lesson in how outstanding virtuosity, power, and flamboyance can be tied in with the rest of the music to provide an irresistible force. The cymbals surge over the repeated riffs, the bass and tom-toms thud with intensity, and the fills keep coming.

Then, of course, we have the songs. One key difference between The Who and all the other great English live bands (Stones, Zeppelin, The Faces, Free) is that all their songs are about something. They have a weight, intensity, sensitivity, and humour in the lyrics which matches everything else going on. The band sound as if they are actually on a mission to tell us something. Also, whereas those other bands have a high phallocentric / chauvinistic element to what they do, The Who's lyrics (and Daltrey's singing) do nothing to offend my sisters. The virtues of Pete's songs have rightly been much-praised; what I notice most here is that, for all the virtuosity and musical power of the band, everything they do is in service to those songs, whether they're playing their sixties hits, their supercharged versions of rock'n'roll classics, or "A Quick One" and "Tommy".

A nice final touch is that this notoriously-volatile group do sound to be enjoying each other's company on this album. The banter between Townshend and Moon in particular is hilarious - listen to the introduction to "A Quick One" for the sense of fun that's being had here.

All the great English rock bands listed above have meant an awful lot to me. The Stones have their amazing raw musicality (and Keith'n'Charlie); Zeppelin are over-powering and awesome in their violence yet also mysterious and eclectic. The Faces are soulful, lively, and good-humoured, while Free have that constant sense of tension and emotions reined in. Yet the Who mean the most; they are perfectly-integrated, and have a sheer anger and intensity which those other bands lack. For me their only match as a live rock band (English style) are Cream at their peak, for very different reasons. Listening to "Live At Leeds" I am exhilarated, grateful, and humbled. 


        

The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones are a problematic group. They're too obsessed with image, posing, and pouting. Look at their 1978 picture on a recent cover of Mojo; Mick has his customary pout, Keith is dressed in a pretty-boy red shirt, and they come across as the fashion victims they undoubtedly are. The standard of their lyrics dropped alarmingly in the 1980s, albeit 1994's "Voodoo Lounge" signalled a revival. They were never that great as a 1960s singles band - ok, they made a few classics, but a Stones "Greatest Hits" collection lacks the spark, melodic invention, and lyrical cleverness of similar compilations by the Beatles, Beach Boys, Kinks, Who, Small Faces, and the Byrds. In terms of music you won't find much of the adventurousness of musically-challenging groups such as the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver, The Yardbirds, Zeppelin or the progressive bands.

And then there is the subject of "politics". In the sixties the Stones were seen as standard-bearers for the "counter culture", and songs such as "Street Fighting Man" played to that image. Then there was all that satanic stuff - the "Jumping Jack Flash" video, "Monkey Man" etc. Finally we come to morals - most Stones songs are not exactly progressive in terms of sexual politics. They glorify rampant and random sex (for men with 13 year-old girls). Mick Jagger is also a very sharp businessman - a true Home Counties Tory.

Finally there is the feeling that they have simply gone on too long - they have released only two new albums since 1994, and have traded for years on their oldies. They can be seen as yet another nostalgia band.

And yet, and yet....the Stones may have made some sub-standard albums, but none of them are unlistenable and they have never cut a really duff track (unlike Dylan and The Beatles). Their run of albums from 1968's "Beggars Banquet" until 1974's "It's Only Rock'n'Roll" is unparallled in music for the sustained high quality throughout. There is a very personal magic in the way that Keith's (and Mick Taylor's) guitars produce a churning, thick-set rhythm and the way it plays against Charlie Watts' precise and clipped drumming and Bill's (or often Keith's) fluid bass underpinning.

Most people will acknowledge that Keith has written the finest riffs in rock and many of the greatest intros ("Honky Tonk Women", "Gimme Shelter", "Brown Sugar" etc.). There is also a constant textural interest, a fascinating and subtle interplay between various elements of their backing tracks, which makes their work endlessly playable. I must have played "Beggars Banquet" and "Exile On Main Street" nearly a thousand times each over the years; there are so many touches in the music which provide constant listening pleasure. I'm thinking of the muddy acoustic sounds on "Street Fighting Man", the build-up to the guitar solo on "Stray Cat Blues", the dark intensity of "Midnight Rambler", the strange lurching rhythmns of "Sway", the percussion on "Shake Your Hips" etc. etc. etc.

Moreover these albums show the Stones to be in love with American music - all the core forms are here, and all synthesised into that unique Stones grit. They write and perform great Country songs such as "Dead Flowers" and "Torn and Frayed". There's gospel throughout "Exile On Main Street" ("Just Wanna See His Face", "Shine A Light"). A folk influence occasionally comes through on "Beggars Banquet" in particular. And they have such a unique take on the blues, from the "purity" of "Prodigal Son", "Love In Vain", and "You've Got To Move" through to more quirky, angular works such as "Ventilator Blues".

Lyrically Mick is at the top of his game in this period. "Beggars Banquet" is a very sophisticated look at the landscape of 1968 and a study in detachment (see Simon Frith's excellent article in Greil Marcus' "Stranded" book on this), while a song such as "You Can't Always Get What You Want" has weight and high seriousness. The lyrics can be playful, ironic, funny, melancholic, and dark. Listen to "Shine A Light" if you think Jagger lacks compassion. And of course his singing is definitive - THE great non-voice of the last 50 years, meshing perfectly with the quirky, tense, and grinding flow of the music.

So what about other periods ? Pre-1968, it must be said that "Aftermath" is a great album, featuring "Going Home", which extends all their textural subtlety and tension over 11 minutes, and so is not only one of the first but one of the very best long tracks. Then there is "Play With Fire" from early 1965; this eerie comment on London class issues features harpsichord and acoustic guitar and came out well before The Beatles started diversifying on "Help". For its time it was the most advanced track recorded by a rock'n'roll band. Their first album (scandalously unavailable on CD) is a driving rush of raw blues and R'n'B, and is still possibly the greatest debut album ever made. I've never been that fond of "Satisfaction" - it strikes me as a petulant whinge with a dull riff - but "The Last Time", "Get Off My Cloud", "Paint It, Black" and "19th Nervous Breakdown" are loud, glorious, chaotic, full-on rockers and hence a joy forever. Finally their "pastoral" period offers many treasures, such as "Lady Jane" (a song of creepy, evil melancholy), "Back Street Girl", and "Ruby Tuesday".

So, while the Stones Greatest Hits don't match up to those of other bands, there are plenty of gems to be found in their pre-1968 output. But what about after "Exile" in 1972 ? Their next two albums, while not quite up to their peerless 1968-1972 period, are strong records that have stood up well over the years. "A Hundred Years Ago" is a complex song with a thrilling final section, "Star Star" is great Chuck Berry and great fun, while "It's Only Rock'n'Roll" has "Time Waits For No One" and "Fingerprint File", two great examples of the Stones bringing other 70s developments into their world. "Some Girls" from 1978 has several durable tracks; best of all is the remarkable "Shattered", which has Mick showing rare vulnerability to convincing effect.

And since then ? Their 1980s output was fairly minor but always entertaining (I can't help it - I just love the way they sound) - they have never released anything unlistenable. Their last three albums have been really terrific and unfairly ignored; lyrically they are at their most convincing on the slow, melancholic tunes such as "Out Of Tears" on "Voodoo Lounge", while the rockers and blues tracks are always a pleasure to hear. While they'll never make an "Exile On Main Street" again, they do make albums which stand up to repeated plays and have something to offer on virtually every track.

Summary :- yes, The Stones are poseurs, phonies, musically conservative (after 1968), and still have the cheek to play on into their 70s (oh, and Ron Wood has been sadly supressed - a waste of a fine talent). Yet they are still at the core of this wonderful rock'n'roll of ours, and are still "The Greatest Rock'n'Roll Band in the world".                     

Album Review - "Revolver"

I'm an absolute Beatles fanatic, and "Revolver" is viewed as their greatest work - the peak of their mid-sixties flowering. I don't quite buy this, and tend to view it as a slight lull between the twin peaks of "Rubber Soul" and "Sgt Pepper". For all its production innovations and the occasional brilliant song, it has nothing on it which grips me emotionally like "Norweigan Wood", "Girl", or "Run For Your Life" on the former or "With A Little Help From My Friends", "Lucy In The Sky", or "Day In The Life" on the latter.

The album features one brilliant McCartney song and one absolute turd. First the genius : "Eleanor Rigby" is a compelling and acutely-observed commentary on loneliness. The arrangement is masterful, with the strings being used sparely and eloquently; there is no flab and no sugar. This song spawned a thousand other "English social comment" songs. Yet it also reveals tendencies which encapsulate the flaws of this album. It is simply a detached, "here's how it is" commentary. There's no bite or anger here, no analysis or questioning  of how or why there are so many people who feel isolated. It would be possible to write a searing indictment of the ways in which society, with its emphasis on "the family", locks people out. Yet nothing like that is attempted here (it would take Lennon on his first solo album to tackle themes like that).

Now for the turd - "Here, There, and Everywhere" is a HORRIBLE and HATEFUL song. It is like drowning in a vat of Tate & Lyle syrup. The words are so weak and simpering ("running my hands through her hair" indeed) and it is sung in such a feeble and spineless way. The chords are bland and cabaret-like. McCartney is a genius who has written loads of brilliant ballads ("Yesterday", "Blackbird", "Long and Winding Road" etc.), so why he had to turn out something so gut-churningly mediocre here really beats me. I think this is the single worst song in my entire CD collection.

Lennon has some really strong stuff on this album, although nothing which quite reaches the peaks of "I'm A Loser", "In My Life", "Strawberry Fields" etc. "I'm Only Sleeping" is a gem, with a typically melancholy lyric and floating, distorted, guitars, plus mysterious and alluring backwards guitar passages. "She Said She Said" is a great Beatles rocker with the classic mid-sixties double-guitar sound. The lyric combines lysergic observation with melancholy self-reflection, picking up Lennon's childhood theme which would be expanded upon greatly in "Strawberry Fields". "And Your Bird Can Sing" is a great-sounding song with an acerbic Lennon vocal, although I don't think it's about anything in particular. "Yellow Submarine" is a very deep song of profound symbolic importance - we can all find a "yellow submarine" in our consciousness somewhere.

And then there is the much-praised "Tomorrow Never Knows". I can admire this song, enjoy the sounds and atmosphere, and appreciate the sonic craftsmanship, but I've never been able to quite get next to it. To me the lyric is generic and non-involving (compare it with the very real spirituality conveyed by Jim McGuinn in "5D") and the song is unexciting melodically. Like quite a lot of the album it's an impressive artefact which doesn't have much substance to it.

And that's about it. Elsewhere there's "Taxman", a dour complaint about taxation which is hard to sympathise with in these days of rampant tax evasion (great guitar solo though), "Love To You" which sounds great but doesn't say anything, and then well-crafted trivia like "Good Day Sunshine", "Dr. Robert", "I Want To Tell You", and "Got To Get You Into My Life".

In all this is an album I tend to be impressed by rather than love (as I do pretty much all the other Beatles albums). For me it has a lot of impressive effects and some great playing, but not all that much which is really gripping or compelling. It might even be the second-worst Beatles studio album (after "Let It Be").

Score : 7/10   

 

Am I too old ?

Most of my musical preferences were formed by the time I was eighteen. Although I have continued to explore widely since then, the enjoyment from music I have discovered along the way has its roots in the tastes and aesthetic worldview I had developed as a teenager. So when I say that I think that 50s rock’n’roll is the greatest thing ever, and that the rock music of the sixties and seventies which derives from it is far superior to nearly all music produced after 1980, is this just me being old, jaded, and nostalgic ? Or are there actually some valid grounds for believing this ?

To put it another way, are there any objective grounds for assessing music, or is it purely down to subjective individual preference ? (in which case why bother to write about it as there’s nothing to say beyond “I like this” and “I don’t like that”).

The fundamental job of any artist is to move people, so, being a populist, that would lead me to conclude that the music which reaches the largest number of people is the “greatest”. That notion has its attractions for me – a) it is simple and easy to measure, and b) it is in line with my view that all art should be inclusive. But there are dilemmas with this :- 

1. Madonna and Michael Jackson have sold far more records than Elvis, Dylan, and The Beatles, and yet few music obsessives would content that the former are “better” than the latter.

2.This perspective justifies the view of the music snobs who were prevalent when I was growing up, i.e. that Classical Music, because it has stood the “test of time”, is far superior to music arising from (largely American) working-class culture such as Blues, Jazz, Country, Folk, and Rock (however the advocates of the “test of time” argument ignore the fact that, in the pre-technological era, what lasted and what didn’t was largely down to the political and cultural patronage of a particular artist, and this was determined by the privileged elite).

So I would like to also consider the concept of the quality of the effect music has on people as well as the quantity. Bob Dylan changed the world because he put poetry – previously the preserve of the educated classes – into the pop charts. Without him I and millions of others from working-class backgrounds would never have experienced the sheer joy of words. The Beatles synthesised more and more elements into their music without ever losing the common touch. The track “Revolution 9” on the “White Album” is the biggest-selling piece of avant-garde music of all time. Would any modern major act dare to be so extreme ?

But now we’re into subjective areas. I am saying that music that has meaningful lyrics or is radically-challenging has a “better” effect on people than music that gets people dancing. So we get to a point where we say all music has its function (listening to, thinking about, dancing, accompanying sex etc.) and as such is equally valid. So it’s all just down to what people like to do !

It does seem that rock’n’roll and what followed in the sixties and seventies had a dramatic effect upon people – could you imagine someone going through Adele’s trash looking for “clues” to her lyrics the way that people did with Dylan ? Is some lunatic going to assassinate Will Young in twenty years time, uniting the world in grief and loss ? Here’s some of the many, many positives arising out of fifties/sixties music :-

·         Formulas in music were progressively challenged and eroded – “we liberated rock from the four-minute song” as Pete Townshend wrote.

·         The repressive conformity of the fifties and early sixties was blown apart by the energy and boldness of Elvis, Chuck Berry, The Beatles, and Bob Dylan.

·         Great songwriters – people whose work will last forever, kept on emerging week after week. Lennon/McCartney, Jagger/Richards, Goffin/King, Brian Wilson, Ray Davies, Pete Townshend, Gene Clark, David Crosby, John Sebastian, Marriott/Lane, Neil Young, Lou Reed, Roy Wood, Holland/Dozier/Holland, Van Morrison, Randy Newman, Bruce/Brown, John Phillips, Garcia/Hunter, Brooker/Reid etc. etc.

·         The quality of musicianship developed radically, and some unique musical geniuses emerged. As well as the well-known guitarists such as Clapton/Hendrix/Beck/Page etc, there were keyboard players like Winwood/Emerson/Ratledge/Kopper/Hudson, bass players like Jack Bruce, Phil Lesh, and Jack Cassady, and unique individual drummers such as John Bonham, Charlie Watts, and Keith Moon.

·         It became a voice of political and moral protest and dissent, and spoke for people alienated by capitalism, macho culture, and materialism.

·         Black and white music came together organically, not out of “political correctness” but out of a simple unified desire in peoples’ hearts to live in a more loving fashion.

·         Most important of all, the music really mattered to the people who heard it. It inspired millions of people like me to look more deeply at life and understand that there was more to it than money/cars/success/family.

Of course there is still a lot of great music coming out. However rock music now has become ‘just another genre” like Blues and Jazz before it. There are only brief flash-points in history where an artistic movement erupts in conjunction with the mood of the times and genius after genius emerges. One might think of late 5^th century Athens or classical music in the late 1700s / early 1800s. Even people who do not “like” rock would be able to see the power, seriousness, and intensity of the music that arose from that era, just as I can acknowledge the greatness of classical composers without being at all moved by their music. In both genres, at its best there is an ambition, a yearning to reach beyond the prevailing values of the day, a spiritual excitement which just cannot contain itself. There is also the craft and discipline involved in writing a symphony or working for years “treading the boards” as a touring rock band.

In a nutshell, these are the things I look for in music, and this is the reason I continue to write about it. If it really is totally subjective and “purely down to personal taste”, then it has no more value than fish’n’chips or popcorn.        

Rod Stewart and Ron Wood - a Tragedy

I was listening today to Rod Stewart's first two solo albums. Such glorious records - the rough'n'ready atmosphere, the combination of acoustic and slide guitar, and such raw and honest singing. These two albums deserve a place right up there in anyone's list of classics, and were rightly recognised as such by Greil Marcus and Robert Christgau. Ron Wood was a crucial part of these works with his distinctive soul'n'blues-influenced guitar-playing.

Then came 1971, "Maggie May", and Rod was no. 1 on both sides of the Atlantic. The album this came from ("Every Picture Tells A Story") was another faultless collection, and the title track is possibly Rod's best composition. The follow-up ("Never A Dull Moment", 1972) maintained the high standard.

So there he was in 1972 - four magnificent, timeless, solo albums to his credit, a star in England and the US, and the lead singer of one of the biggest and best live atractions of the time (The Faces). His musical partnership with Ron Wood produced some of the most honest, vibrant, and gritty work it has been our pleasure to here - and it has lasted just fine.

So what happened ? It would seem that Stewart and Wood got jaded, and the final solo Stewart album ("Smiler" 1974) doesn't live up to the standard of the first four despite several strong tracks such as "Farewell" and "Dixie Toot". Somewhere in all this Stewart decided to move to the States and record with session musicians. Ron Wood, meanwhile, became infatuated with the Rolling Stones and The Faces disintegrated.

Neither of them have done anything of any worth since. Rod's first US album ("Atlantic Crossing" 1975) had one side of stale rockers and one of string-laden ballads, climaxing with the dreadful "Sailing". Despite the odd amusing lyric here and there, his work has never recovered and he is now reduced to covering old standards. Ron Wood joined The Stones and was absorbed in their overall sound; no-one apart from Mick and Keith were ever going to be a prominent part of that band. We have therefore largely lost a hugely talented musician (although his solo albums do have something going for them).

Rod Stewart - the greatest lost talent in rock. Ron Wood - a gifted musician wasted. It makes me very sad.
     

Acknowledging My Influences

Before I post my own stuff on here I want to acknowledge five great music writers who have influenced my thinking :-

1. Nick Kent

The NME from'72 to '74 was a thrill for me each week. I didn't always agree with Nick Kent - he liked the glammy side of things and was often obsessed with style. However he had a genuine passion for the music and a way of writing about it which conveyed its essence to the reader. He introduced me to the roaring hurricane which is Iggy & The Stooges' "Raw Power" - a true classic of thunderous, manic, heavy metal. He also wrote superb investigative pieces on Syd Barrett and Nick Drake, showing a true empathy with the melancholic depth and strangeness of the English muse. Then there was his three-part epic on Brian Wilson in 1975, which gave me such an insight into the spirit behind The Beach Boys music and the mid-sixties LA scene. We had a hero in common - Keith Richards.

He wrote many exciting album reviews and retrospectives - his work on "Physical Graffiti", Nils Lofgren's "1+1", "Blood On The Tracks", and "Tonight's The Night" comes to mind. Two reviews of his stand out in my memory :-

"The Ramones" - he conveyed the revolutionary power of the band's minimalism and righly hailed this as the masterpiece of "moron rock" which it is. Crucially, he wrote about how this music speaks to "us loser white kids". In an interview with Zigzag in 1976 he spoke about how he was thin and weedy at school and didn't like sport. He understands how rock music speaks for the outsider and helps you survive when the world around you is brutish. He spoke for me and countless other nerdy kids who were bullied for being intelligent and struggled to get girlfriends.

"Marquee Moon" (Television) - this review shone like a beacon of hope when it emerged in January 1977. There I was in Oxford surrounded by public school types, and here was a review that spoke of the gleaming guitar of my heroes such as Quicksilver and Country Joe and linked it to this album. I can remember many a late night pouring over this writing and being so glad that someone out there was excited by the same things as I was. The album, when I eventually got it, turned out to be a slight let-down; the guitar-playing is as spectacular as Kent said, but the songs are not all that strong and the singing very weak. The 10-minute title track, though, is one of the few works from the late seventies to match the musicianship and inventiveness of the classic late 60s bands.

It is mainly Nick Kent's enthusiasm, love of everything about rock music, and fresh use of adjectives (such as "bracing chord progression") which has stayed with me and hopefully influenced my writing for the better.

2. Charles Shaar Murray

CSM was also part of the seminal team of writers at the NME in the early seventies. He often infuriated me - he was chronically "politically correct" and so, despite his love of blues/rock which you could see in his early articles, he got himself into the position whereby Jimi Hendrix (being, of course, black and therefore sanctified) was the only purveyor of the genre he allowed himself to like. He also frequently peppered his articles with "hip" Jamaican patois and bent over backwards to deny any "misogynism" in artists he liked. I will never forget a review he did of Ry Cooder's "Bop 'Till You Drop", where he tied himself in knots trying to convince us (and himself) that "The Very Thing That Makes You Rich" - a classic of blues misogyny - was meant ironically.

For all that, CSM was probably the most skilled writer of all rock critics. His 1975 review of Led Zeppelin at Earls Court got right to the core of Zeppelin's aesthetic; he put his finger on the tension between the rigorous control and apparent emotional spontaneity of the music with precision. He did a similar job with The Rolling Stones in 1976 with his famous "dream sequence" and his description of them in concert. He powerfully conveyed the fan's disappointment when a major artist failed to deliver, notably in his review of the Stones' "Black and Blue". At the time (April 1976) the Stones were still seen as unassailable, yet CSM's review oozed the sheer disbelief that such a great band could put out such third-rate fodder. He could be very amusing while doing this too, as in his 1975 interview with Paul McCartney, the theme of which was "how do you tell an ex-Beatle he's made a duff album ?".

For me his most memorable pieces were his 1977 in-depth profile of the revived Johnny Winter (plus his 1974 "Looking Back", which got me buying his records), his review of Patti Smith's "Horses", and his piece on The Clash's "London Calling". I was also always struck by his comments on Rod Stewart, who is surely the greatest artistic tragedy in rock. His vivid language, his ability to convey the environment and context within which an artist was working, and his analytical skills have given me much to think about over the years. According to his website he is now holding writing courses; they must be excellent value.

3. Ian MacDonald

The third of the great NME triumvirate. One of the saddest moments in my life was in early September 2003, when I sat down to relieve myself in the claustrophobically-tiny loo on a jet flying across the Atlantic. I opened my copy of Mojo and read of Ian Mac's suicide. He was a man plagued by depression throughout his life - you could tell that from his 2000 article on Nick Drake - and it had finally overcome him. For me this was one of those moments to go alongside the assassination of John Kennedy and the shooting of John Lennon - a "never forget where I was when I heard" day.

Ian MacDonald was the most intellectually-gifted man to write about music. He managed to bring a rigorously coherent approach to his work without losing his love for the core of rock music. While many critics tried to keep up with the trends (e.g. the rather terminally-hip John Peel), Ian Mac made the argument for his belief that rock music peaked in the 1960s when musicianship, idealism, and energy all collided and colluded. He was not ashamed to advance the view that music has been in decline since then.

Two major works in 1974 epitomise his greatness :-

1. His article on "Todd" by Todd Rundgren, where he picked up on the theme of trying to keep idealism alive in the 1970s which runs through the album. He tackled head-on the cynicism which was the prevailing culture of the time, and invented the concept of the "cosmic buffoon", the artist who stretches himself into areas he cannot comprehend but does so with so much passion that he takes you with him. He nailed down "Todd"'s achievement of facing the prevailing culture head-on, acknowledging the sell-outs of the late sixties, and standing up for idealism and optimism anyway. The album has stayed with me as a full-blown masterwork, a work which sustains its interest throughout and musically and lyrically examines just where rock music and its values had got to at the time.   

2. His re-appraisal of "On The Beach" by Neil Young. Weeks earlier the NME had published a review giving it the standard Neil Young fan's "thumbs down" - i.e. "where are all the nice tunes ?". Ian Mac, over a two-page spread, went through the album song-by-song and line-by-line and showed that it was actually a very brave and penetrating analysis of post-Watergate America and the place of rock'n'roll. He rightly compared the work to John Lennon's first solo album with its starkness and honesty. His argument in this piece was so compelling that it almost single-handedly transformed Neil Young's critical reputation in this country. It also showed me how a gifted thinker with the right heart could illuminate a piece of music in a way that less-rigorous critics could not. It confirmed for me the value of thought, logical argument, and attention to detail in rock writing.

Ian's contribution to the NME subsequently fell away, although there were still high points such as his appraisal of David Bowie's "Low". His last great work was "Revolution In The Head", his song-by-song analysis of The Beatles and the 1966s. As well as the expected close musical analysis, this book contains some moving evocations of just what it was like to be 14-17 in 1967 hearing magical works such as "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane". In his writing he captures the way in which Lennon and McCartney worked with and against each other, and picks up oft-neglected aspects such as the quality of Ringo's drumming (listen to "Rain" or "Day Tripper"). The book also re-dressed the balance of critical perspective on Paul McCartney, who had been so unfairly viewed as the "junior partner" since Lennon's death. This is one of those books which I shall always keep and consult regularly.

Ian MacDonald was a man who expanded the scope of rock criticism and had a very unique voice - the rigorous rationalist who retained his ideals. He could have achieved so much more as his work paid no lip-service to "staying contemporary". His death has left music writing very much the poorer.

4. Robert Christgau

The great thing about New York's Robert Christgau is that he attempted to a) construct a coherent and objective body of criticism based on a defined framework, and b) make this useful and accessible to "normal" people who don't get sent piles of free albums. His approach of declaring his prejudices upfront was behind me doing the same on this Blog; the grading system he introduced for his album reviews (also clearly defined) is also an approach I shall be adopting albeit with some "tweaks".

Robert began compiling his "Consumer Guides" in the late sixties when working for a newspaper. It consisted of short, pithy album reviews with a grade to sum them up and was aimed at people with a limited budget for buying albums. He then re-worked and compiled these into his "Consumers Guide to the Seventies" book. He has an amazing ability to pack a lot of ideas into a few sentences, and detects themes in records which others have missed - e.g. the stoic pessimism of Andy Fairweather-Lowe's three mid-seventies albums. He also had Abba well sussed - he concludes one brief review with "we have met the enemy and they are them". Some obvious prejudices creep into his work - for example, New York artists tend to get consistently higher grades than anyone else, and English progressive music gets short shrift. However this is thoroughly consistent with his declared principles. I still can't get over the New York Dolls being the only artists to receive two consecutive "A+"s though - but I'm bound to disagree with him sometimes given that my declared prejudices are different !

Christgau was a brilliant and perceptive conceptualist. Right at the start of the Eagles' career, when everyone else was lavishing praise upon them, he saw them for the conceited, cocaine-addled bland-outs which they are. He also came up with the brilliant label of "semipopular music" - this is music which is based upon popular forms but is listened to by a minority rather than a mass audience. This is the sort of music (Van Morrison, Traffic, Big Star, Little Feat, Bevis Frond, Robyn Hitchcock etc.) which has featured large in my listening habits ever since many decent bands stopped taking singles seriously at the start of the seventies, and Christgau, being (like me) a populist, picks out the ironies and implications of this phenomenon. Whereas sixties music aimed to convert the world, Seventies artists aimed to have a dialogue with their audiences; while a source of disappointment to people like me, Christgau rightly points out that a) this is part of the music maturing and b) the act of choosing populist forms is in itself populist even if the resulting music isn't actually all that popular !

There are pearls of insight throughout his writing, and his books are vital reading for anyone wanting to get deeper into the music. I hope I can apply some of his brilliant analysis and epigrammatic writing into my own work.         

5. Greil Marcus

I often find Greil Marcus' work woffly, pretentious, and far too fashion-conscious. The way he fell hook, line, and sinker for punk orthodoxy in the eighties was a major disappointment, and his book about Punk and the Situationist movement ("Lipstick Traces" 1990)  is largely a waste of space. However in the mid-seventies he did write the best book ever written about music, "Mystery Train".

In this book he brought all his erudition to bear in putting rock music in the context of American politics and culture. He showed how the shadow of Robert Johnson hangs over most subsequent American and English  rock music. His chapter on The Band's "Music From Big Pink" highlighted both the particular qualities of the group (three vocalists, five multi-instrumentalists) and the way the album evokes the dark shadows behind the American dream. He also draws out the tragedy of the group; how a great collective fell apart as it became increasingly Robbie Robertson's backing band.

His chapter on Sly Stone is a fascinating insight into black culture and politics in the US. His analysis of "There's A Riot Goin' On" was the first to identify the acuity of Sly Stone's vision and the sophistication of the music; it is single-handedly responsible for the high reputation that complex album now enjoys. He illustrates this by giving us a plotted history of the "Staggerlee" myth and how it relates to the dark themes in the album.

However the part which astonished me most was the "Presliad", which occupies the final half of the book. This is a sustained piece of writing covering the five singles Presley recorded for Sun in the 1950s, as well as commenting on the Comeback TV Special in 1968 and concert appearances in the 1970s. We see in these pages exactly why Presley was the definitive American artist and probably the most important cultural figure of the 20th Century. Right from the start, his records echoed with the sounds and themes of the Blues, Country, and Gospel traditions. Marcus also makes it clear how much Elvis himself had to do with his records; he was a painstaking artist who paid attention to every note, lyrical nuance, and vocal inflection. He reminds us just how explosive a record like "Baby Lets Play House" is. He gives us insight into just how high the stakes were when Elvis did the 1968 Comeback show, and how Elvis was shaking off the film years as he dug back into his music. This is thrilling and ground-breaking writing which is worth any number of reads.

Marcus achieved something similar with his "Invisible Republic" book about Dylan's basement tapes. He describes how he drove through the mountain areas of Virginia while listening to this music, and informs us of great American oddballs such as Doc Boggs whose music lurks in the background of Dylan's 1967 output. In these pages he evokes another America; the odd, eccentric, and wierd back-country regions which lie in between the art & commerce of New York and the showbiz of LA. Having driven across the USA last year, it is now an ambition of mine to go to Virginia and follow the route which Marcus took.

I have always been obsessed with the USA since childhood; Greil Marcus opened me up to the full richness of the culture and environment in that amazing country.