1001 Album Club

WHAAAAAA?! The crew finds out about a brand new (to them) glam rock band, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band! The book delivers a very happy surprise and most of us are here for it, mime guitarist and all.

In the summer of 73, known vegetarian and former professional bassist, Paul McCartney and wife Linda (henceforth known as McCartney squared) booked studio time in Lagos, Nigeria for the recording of Wings’ third album. Mere days before recording was to take place, both the drummer and guitarist yelled “Wings suuuuuccckkks” and quit the band. With…

Tres Hombres is the third record from ZZ Top (the longest running rock n roll act of all time). It may lack in Legs and cheap sunglasses but still, we found it to be a passable… Kidding, y’all. This is one of the greatest records of all time! Come for the amazing tunes, stay for…

Stevie Wonder continues (or begins depending on what jerk is talking) what is the greatest back to back run of recordings ever put to wax with, Innervisions.  This album of the year winner has everything; weird whole tone solos, macking on ladies using fake Spanish,  a golden lady , and the continually prescient and horribly…

Pink Floyd may have better albums than Dark Side of the Moon, but no other record defines them quite as well as this one.

Waylon had always been looking, perhaps unintentionally, for a common ground between country and rock, and Shaver’s songs — sketching an outlaw stance with near defiance, borrowing rock attitude to create the hardest country tunes imaginable

It was designed to be a blockbuster and it was spilling over two LPs, which was all the better to showcase every element of John’s spangled personality. It is good but is it double album good?

Patti Smith was enthusiastic in her review : “Blasphemy even the gods smile on. Rock and roll for the skull. A very noble concept. Past present and tomorrow in one glance. Understanding through musical sensation. Todd Rundgren is preparing us for a generation of frenzied children who will dream in animation.”

Mike Oldfield’s groundbreaking album Tubular Bells is arguably the finest conglomeration of off-centered instruments concerted together to form a single unique piece. A variety of instruments are combined to create an excitable multitude of rhythms, tones, pitches, and harmonies that all fuse neatly into each other, resulting in an astounding plethora of music. – Mike…

All the Young Dudes actually brought Mott the Hoople success, but you wouldn’t know that from its sequel, Mott. Ian Hunter’s songs are a set of road tales fraught with exhaustion, disillusionment, and dashed dreams, all told with a wry sense of humor so evident on Mott’s earlier work. -AllMusic Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

I began to feel that I had been spending so much time exploring the upper atmosphere of music and the more ethereal kind of far-out spacey stuff. Now there was this need to take some more of the earth and to feel a little more tethered; a connection to the earth. … I was beginning…

Coming on the heels of the cut-and-paste sound-collage schizophrenia of The Faust Tapes, Faust IV seems relatively subdued and conventional, though it’s still a far cry from what anyone outside the German avant-garde rock scene was doing.

On Roxy Music’s debut, the tensions between Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry propelled their music to great, unexpected heights, and for most of the group’s second album, For Your Pleasure, the band equals, if not surpasses, those expectations.

The album was recorded over eight days and features instrumental contributions by bassist Danny Thompson and members of Fairport Convention.[4][5] “Solid Air”, the title track, was dedicated to a friend of Martyn’s, Nick Drake, who would die of an antidepressant overdose 18 months after the album was released. – wikipedia

Serving as Gaye’s first venture into the funk genre and romance-themed music, Let’s Get It On incorporates smooth soul, doo-wop, and quiet storm. It has been noted by critics for its sexually suggestive lyrics, and was cited by one writer as “one of the most sexually charged albums ever recorded”. – Wikipedia

Genesis proved that they could rock on Foxtrot but on its follow-up Selling England by the Pound they didn’t follow this route, they returned to the English eccentricity of their first records, which wasn’t so much a retreat as a consolidation of powers. – AllMusic Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Listeners felt the Berlin album was either a work or macabre genius or a an aural pit of despair – there was not much middle ground. As for critics, the underground press generally loved it, while the mainstream rock magazines trashed it. Lou Reed is trying something different.

On Future Days, the band foregrounds the ambient elements they had begun exploring on previous efforts, dispensing largely with traditional rock song structures and instead “creating hazy, expansive soundscapes dominated by percolating rhythms and evocative layers of keys.

One of John Cale’s very finest solo efforts, Paris 1919 is also among his most accessible records, one which grows in depth and resonance with each successive listen. – AllMusic Review by Jason Ankeny

Space Ritual is an excellent document of Hawkwind’s classic lineup, underscoring the group’s status as space rock pioneers. As the quintessential “people’s band,” Hawkwind carried ’60s countercultural idealism into the ’70s, gigging constantly, playing wherever there was an audience, and even playing for free on five consecutive days outside the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival.

Catch a Fire was the major label debut for Bob Marley and the Wailers, and it was an international success upon its release in 1973. Although Bob Marley may have been the main voice, every member of the Wailers made valuable contributions and they were never more united in their vision and sound.

Larks’ Tongues in Aspic showed several significant changes in King Crimson’s sound. Having previously relied on saxophone and flute as significant melodic and textural instruments, the band had replaced them with a single violin. This is Prog-jazz-metal-rock that gets us going and was a delightful surprise.

Ziggy Stardust wrote the blueprint for David Bowie’s hard-rocking glam, and Aladdin Sane essentially follows the pattern, for both better and worse. A lighter affair than Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane is actually a stranger album than its predecessor, buoyed by bizarre lounge-jazz flourishes from pianist Mick Garson and a handful of winding, vaguely experimental songs.…