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Post by rayshae3 on Sept 17, 2015 22:40:11 GMT -5
Week34: Al Stewart-‘Year of the Cat’ Born in Glasgow, but raised in England and launched his musical career in London, Alastair Ian Stewart. moved from purely a folk-rock background, into exquisite texture of sound when he started collaborating with Alan Parsons for his 1975 album ‘Modern Times’; but topped the musical collage with 1976 album ‘Year of the Cat’. Interesting songwriter with lyrics full of historical mysticism from centuries gone by. His highest of six chart albums outsold the followup album that also was another million seller, ‘Time Passages’. Track Played: “Year of the Cat” My personal favorite: (the same long version of the title track) “Year of the Cat”
Arctic Monkeys-‘AM’ Arctic Monkeys, the quartet from Sheffield in Yorkshire, had five chart album, and the biggest selling (their only Gold-certified album) is the most recent one from 2013, called ‘AM’ (as abbreviation of the band’s name). The #6 BB200 album generated six singles out of the twelve tracks on this set. Track played: “Do I Wanna Know?” (The Grammy-nominated title only managed to go as high as #70 on the Hot 100; but the single is now a million-seller. How is it possible?! The single just kept selling gradually for two years.) My personal favorite: “Fireside”
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Post by rayshae3 on Oct 8, 2015 20:08:49 GMT -5
Week35: Sex Pistols-‘Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols’ The biggest and arguably the best punk band in the UK that started the movement in 1975 in Britain only lasted for two and a half years, and disbanded in January 1978, but their influence on other punk and alternative groups has remained unmatched ever since. The group that shook all the sacred English establishments, only recorded a single studio album called ‘Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s Sex Pistols’. It even got the younger Richard Branson in hot water in 1977 upon its release and in British court for displaying the offensive fourth word of the LP’s title on the Virgin label product (no such move in the US against the Warner Bros. side). The Pistols’ only chart album reached the high of #106 on Billboard 200, but since it entered the chart it continued selling till it got certified platinum. The influential Sex Pistols were acknowledged by RR Hall of Fame in 2006; still rebellious the remaining members trashed the ceremony calling the Cleveland museum “a piss stain”. Track played: “Anarchy in the U.K.” My personal favorite: “Holidays in the Sun”
Yes-'90125' The legendary prog-rock band that was formed in the late 60s by Jon Anderson and the late Chris Squire disbanded in 1980. But they reformed in 1983 after the new line-up aborted an interim band called Cinema (on this album there’s even an instrumental nod to the failed project titled “Cinema”). Indeed both Anderson and Squire were the main linkage to the band’s past. The eleventh studio album was on Atco records and its catalog number ‘90125’; hence the album title. As is the case with most progressive/art rock bands, Yes were a major album (rather that a singles) act. They had overall eight million-selling-plus sets; but this one was the biggest (3xplatinum), superseding their double platinum ‘Fragile’ or single platinum ‘Close to the Edge’ (both from 1972 and both scoring higher than #5 ‘90125’ on the album chart). Track Played: “Owner of a Lonely Heart” My personal favorite: “It Can Happen”
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Post by rayshae3 on Oct 10, 2015 16:36:15 GMT -5
Week36: Deep Purple-‘Machine Head” The hard-rock band’s 1972 album that gave the band a superstar spot among the heavy metal acts, despite the fact the album itself, comparing with their other efforts, is rather a balanced work, not too raw and bluesy loud, and not too artsy either. Led by Ritchie Blackmore, and the vocals of their second singer, Gillan, it’s the group’s only double platinum album. But chart-wise, their ‘Live in Japan’, outpeaks ‘Machine Head’ by one position (#6 for the live set, as opposed to #7 of Machine Head); though ‘Live in Japan’ is only a single platinum certified set. Track played: “Smoke on the Water” (one of the heaviest rock songs ever to go to the top of the CHR airplay chart in July 1973 according to Gavin Report) My personal favorite: “Pictures of Home”
Wham!-‘Make It Big’ Wham! with a one-two punch opening music of “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” and an exclamation mark on their act name, made big with this second studio album in 1984 (#1 for three weeks on BB200, and eventually 6xplatinum by the album’s tenth anniversary). This album also had major hits including three Hot 100 #1s plus another #3 (“Freedom”). The album by the duo of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, had the entire production and most of its tracks written credited to George Michael only, being another British musician with a Greek heritage after the previous successes of Cat Stevens, and Tina Charles in the UK, who continued making it ever bigger as a solo artist, after Wham! broke up in 1986. Track played: “Everything She Wants” My personal favorite: “Like a Baby”
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Post by rayshae3 on Nov 20, 2015 15:44:56 GMT -5
Before going to Week37, I am going to name the albums, in this thread so far, that have been part of the Grammy Hall of Fame. These are the recordings (could be singles as well as albums) deemed significant historically or culturally. The inductee recordings were first established in 1973, and must be at least 25 years old at any given point, But they do not have to be given even an “Album of the Year” award in the annual ceremonies. In fact none of the following nine albums, except one (‘Saturday Night Fever’ OST) is the Hall of Fame (of those introduced so far in this thread), and honored on the annual ‘Album of the Year’ category as a winner. The Beatles- The Beatles (White album) Pink Floyd-The Wall The Police-Synchronicity Who-Who’s Next Paul McCartney & Wings-Band on the Run George Harrison-All Things Must Pass Elvis Costello-My Aim Is True Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack Sex Pistols-Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s Sex Pistols
Now onto… Week 37: Dusty Springfield-‘Stay Awhile-I Only Want to Be with You’. If you’ve been ever a fan of this blue-eyed soul act, you might have wondered about one of the best albums recorded by Dusty Springfield, 1969’s ‘Dusty in Memphis’ which BTW is also another inductee recording in the above-mentioned GHAF. No, it wasn’t charted or sold big. In fact none of her albums did. For example, this first of her eight chart albums (all between 1964 and 1973) called ‘Stay Awhile/I Only Want to Be with You’ was the highest at #62 and her biggest seller. The first US set was released about a couple of months after her first British-only released album ‘A Girl Called Dusty’ appeared on the other side of the Atlantic. But the US-exclusive release included her UK-singles-only releases “Stay awhile” and “I Only Want to Be with You” (both also Hot 100 hits) as well as selected tracks from ‘A Girl Called Dusty’ and otherwise singles b-sides. This wide ranging difference between the UK and US album releases was of course the norm for the better part of the 60s and included big name British acts like the Beatles and the Stones too. In fact probably because of the rather sloppy mouthful LP title (of two hit singles), Billboard listed the title as ‘The Dusty Springfield Album’ during the entire 13 weeks run on its Top 150 LP’s chart . For the record, Cash Box magazine, took another easier route, and identified the LP as ‘Stay Away’ on its chart, abbreviating the title .
Track Played: “I Only Want to Be with You” My personal favorite: “Anyone Who Has a Heart”
XTC-‘Black Sea’ X is usually the letter with the least amount of acts on chart books and rock reference books (i.e. artists whose name start with X). As far as the American album chart is concerned the biggest X act, is one of my favorite, XTC; it has always had more persistent cult followers in the US overtime than in their own country (although their first two studio albums missed the Billboard 200). Led by its guitarist Andy Partridge during their thirty year existence (1976-2006), their biggest of ten chart album (#41 only) 1980’s ‘Black Sea’, was also their biggest seller according to RIAA. Hard to imagine several of the tracks were also big on the disco scene, before the British new romantic/alternative acts as upfront and regular dance artists were embraced by pop and rock establishments. Maybe, this was because of their album’s distribution by RSO at the time.
Track Played: “General and Majors” My personal favorite: “Travels in Nihilon”
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Post by rayshae3 on Nov 21, 2015 20:59:40 GMT -5
Week38: Faces-‘A Nod Is as Good as a Wink …… to a Blind Horse’ And here we won’t mix Faces’ discography with that of Small Faces, since the new band was really a hybrid of ex-members of both Small Faces and the Jeff Beck Group. But of their six chart albums, one 1974 release is a live set that overlaps both the group and individual works of its signature superstar, sandpaper voiced Rod Stewart. And no need to dig further for their bestselling album; it’s also their only Top 20 album titled ‘A Nod Is as Good as a Wink …… to a Blind Horse’ that was so much subject to mis-titling on BB album chart at the time. Boiling rock from all its members from this third set (their second of 1971), it was certified Gold in a year. Co-produced and engineered by Glyn Johns (worked on albums by the likes of Steve Miller Band, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Boz Scaggs, Eagles, Eric Clapton,…)
Track played: “Stay with Me” My personal favorite: “That’s All You Need”
Howard Jones-‘Dream Into Action’ The follow up studio album by the Keyboard wizard, had a more commercial sound than his first effort (highly admired ‘Human’s Lib’ that contains one of my favorite 1984 tracks “Hide and Seek”). This was again due to the production work by Rupert Hines who was supervising bands like the Fixx and Thompson Twins at the time. The album is full of optimism as well, even on tracks like “Elegy” he declares “…We must live to fight the negative…”. Also the album version of “No One Is to Blame” is rather different from the single which was arranged by Phil Collins and hit the Hot 100 at #4. Therefore the single releases from the album were only “Things Can Only Get Better” and “Life in One Day” (plus “Look Mama” elsewhere but North America). And when the 1985 album got released a couple of weeks after it hit the shelves in the UK first on vinyl/cassette, it only had ten of twelve tracks in common with the British release. But if you’d waited for its CD release shortly after, all 14 tracks on both side of the Atlantic was available for purchase. ‘Dream Into Action’ was also the only Top 30 set of five chart album (all in the 80s) and his only platinum-certified million seller.
Track played: “Things Can Only Get Better” My personal favorite: “Hunger for the Flesh”
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