You acclaim, I declaim

I listen to the so-called classics of my lifetime (1972-present), and report my findings here.

[dorsalstop]

#89 - 1976/12: Peter Frampton - Frampton Comes Alive!

The sleeve: Nice '70s font, and as live show photos go, not too bad either. The pink hair is very now.

Had I heard this before: well, no.

Sure, I've complained about those 1970s live double albums enough now, but honestly. When I called the Rush album 'terrible in every way' I mainly meant that it was the opposite of what you might call my thing. This, though, THIS, is really terrible in every way and there is no way the critics of yore aren't trolling us with its inclusion. Here is a man who, I'm sure, is a talented guitarist and a generally nice individual. He's also a no more than competent singer, though, and he's seriously lacking in the writing-good-songs department. From the evidence here, he's written two or three and a whole lot of unremarkable ones. And then of course they're played live here, so they start to all sound the same (because the same band with the same setup and Frampton having to shout-sing over them without any scope for dynamics) and they get elongated solos, and they have crowd noises. By the third track, "Lines on my Face" (but who cares about the titles, they really are all the same song), which gets a 7-minute treatment, his voice has absolutely worn me out. I can't take any more of it, nor of the plodding meat-and-potatoes rock it's couched in. But guess what? There's 16 more songs to go over almost three quarters of an hour. Interminable suffering ensues.

Now, partly this is my fault, as I'm listening to the 35th-anniversary edition, which adds five songs to the original 14 (and the irksome "Lines..." is on side 4 originally, not 'disc 1'). But I'm afraid re-editing the edition down to its original tracklist order for the 2nd listen does little to make this more bearable.

It's a chicken and egg thing, I'm sure, but it also strikes me that the better songs ("Show Me The Way", "Baby, I Love Your Way") are relatively tidy at just over 4:30 minutes, while the weaker ones are either drawn out to 7+ minutes via lengthy additional solos or were of epic length to begin with (I'll mention "Lines" again, but also "I Wanna Go To The Sun", a song so lacking in character or spirit I'm forgetting it while it's playing - sadly, the irritability it provoked does not disappear with it).

By side 3 (or 'disc 2'), … oh well whatever, you know where this is going. I'll just say that there's a 14-minute track at the very end - charmless from start to finish - and before that, the worst possible cover of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" you can imagine this side of Nouvelle Vague or Postmodern Jukebox versions. May all copies of this monstrosity spontaneously catch fire.

[F]

Next up: More classic rock, but surely the only way is up?

[dorsalstop]

88 - 1976/13: Rush - 2112

88 - 1976/13: Rush - 2112

The sleeve: A bit Star Wars (avant la lettre), not terrible for the genre

Had I heard this before: no

Well, this is terrible in every way - pretty much the exact opposite of what I look for in music, the songs and sounds I enjoy, etc. Side 1 is a long prog concept 'suite' (20 mins) inspired by Ayn Rand - I've never read any Rand but it appears to be some story set in a dystopian future where music is banned (maybe?), with all kinds of tempo changes, key changes, no doubt proficient musicianship and the high-pitched voice of Geddy Lee declaiming things such as "we are the priests of the temples of Syrinx / All the gifts of life are held within our walls". Some pretty guitar-picking about halfway through aside, this veers between highly annoying and outright torture.

Side 2 is considerably different, esp in terms of its lyrical content: we get some sort of ode to marijuana, listing all the places in the world it comes from, then a Twilight Zone episode and a couple of love songs. Sonically, while there are more recognisable songs here, it all remains roughly the same: a lot of riffing and soloing and high-pitched screaming. There's definitely an audience for this, but it's not me.

[D]

Next up: Ah yes, a live double album. Goodie. Punk revolution, what's taking you so long?

[dorsalstop]

87 - 1976/14: The Upsetters

The sleeve: Awesome

Had I heard this before: No

Dub. Pleasant. My favourite is "Dub Along". I will never play this again.

[C]

Next up: erm, a "20-minute futuristic science fiction suite" inspired by Ayn Rand, apparently. And more! 🥳

[dorsalstop]

86 - 1976/15: Warren Zevon

The sleeve: I like the lights, I like the font. Pretty good for a basic-shot-of-the-artist one

Had I heard this before: no, not at all

I have listened to this one considerably more than the requisite three times, due to each of the first three listens changing my mind about it, and also because whenever I thought I'd write this one up I'd forgotten what my most recent opinion was. On this, my eighth or so listen (Spotify has started suggesting Zevon rereleases in my Release Radar and according to last.fm he is now one of my most-played artists of the year), I'm convinced this is actually a wonderful collection of songs that I'm going to need to own soon. Not only that, I'll have to follow up on the man's music that came after this album, of which I was only vaguely aware -- i.e. I was aware of the Hindu Love Gods, which he formed with 3/4 of R.E.M. at some point in the late 80s, and their cover of Prince's Raspberry Beret would occasionally play on MTV in the late hours.

This album starts with a silly outlaw country song, "Frank and Jesse James", that made me groan a little, though I have to admit it's also catchy. It's followed by equally catchy and increasingly endearing songs in a country rock / Cal-Mex / soft rock vein. They tell tales of many other types of criminals, deadbeats, and losers in a way that reminds me of one of my favourite albums of the early 90s, Freedy Johnston's The Trouble Tree. In terms of production, though, they are opposites: while the latter sounds raw, Zevon's is downright lush: it has that mid-70s immaculate, expensive sounding studio sheen with great dynamic range and all that. No wonder, as it's produced by Jackson Browne and has a star-studded lineup of studio musicians, including Buckingham/Nicks, Bonnie Raitt, several Eagles and the occasional Everly and Beach Boy. (Zevon had been hanging around their scene for a while, writing songs and playing piano for them, or simply sharing a flat with them.)

Very happy to have made this record's acquaintance, even if it took a while.

[B]

Next up: back to Zion

[dorsalstop]

#85 - 1976/16: Jackson Browne - The Pretender

The sleeve: I like the photo, very 70s NYC, and the debossed effect is nice. Less keen on the fonts.

Had I heard this before: not at all

I liked Browne's Late for the Sky (1974/11) enough to buy a used vinyl copy so I was keen to hear this one (his other big hitter, Running on Empty, won't feature in the stuffed goodie bag that is 1977). Opener "The Fuse" immediately establishes the sound of the record, with the piano considerably more foregrounded compared to Late for the Sky. It's a solid ballad, then followed by the just-OK "Your Bright Baby Blues", which is a little Van Morrisonesque. While that's a slur these days, it has nothing on "Linda Paloma", which is terrible to the point where I wonder if it's a bad joke, a parody of sentimental Mexican guitar music rather than simply a pastiche. Much of the rest of the record then hits me as kitschy more than anything and the songs don't really stick. "Sleep's Dark and Silent Gate" stands out in terms of its expensive sounding production (very hi-fi!) and the closing title track as, again, pretty solid but also a bit long (and let's not get into the awful rhymes).

Can't say the overall impression is positive but it's the end of term and I'm feeling generous so let's call it a

[C]

Next up: the Hindu Love God

[dorsalstop]

#84 - 1976/17: Kiss - Destroyer

The sleeve: Ugh, no. The less said about it the better, I suppose.

Had I heard this before: nothing except big ballad 'Beth'.

This seems to be a concept album, or something close to it: it is about being in a rock band, playing live shows and making a lot of noise. Funnily enough (but maybe not unsurprisingly), some of the most popular songs on this record (going by the number of Spotify plays they've racked up) are my least favourite ones. There's 'Detroit Rock City' (not much of a song, although it works as an opening statement I guess) with 12M Spotify plays and the absolutely awful, stodgy 'God of Thunder' with 14M, while the fun, breezy 'King of the Night Time World' and 'Flaming Youth', which sounds like a blueprint for most of Cheap Trick's output are stuck at around 3M plays. Still on side 1, there's also a downright creepy rock ballad, addressing a fan/groupie from the point of view of the musician ("you see what my fingers can do and wish they were doing it to you", that kind of thing, yeesh). The second side is generally pretty good though, with 'Shout It Out Loud' (at 18M plays, here's where I agree with Kiss's fans for once) and 'Do You Love Me' the standouts.

After the dreadful experience that was the Kiss live LP, this is yet another case of 'not half as bad as expected, and in fact pretty enjoyable at times'. And I cannot deny that I've been humming "shout it out loud" all day.

[C]

Next up: tinkle those tasteful ivories

[dorsalstop]

#83 - 1976/18: Fela & Afrika 70 - Zombie

The sleeve: nothing if not representative. Fela vs the military, the spot of bright colour in a sea of army green

Had I heard this before: I don't think I'd even heard of it before

Released around the 76/77 new year, this would perhaps have fit better on the 1977 list - it's when most people would have heard it (even in Nigeria itself) and wouldn't it have made an exciting companion piece/counterpoint to all those punk records? A party album criticising an actual military regime!?

One of the more shocking backstories of all records discussed here, I should think, with its release coming after two successive military coups in Kuti's home country, and resulting in the destruction on his home, his studio, and the death of his mother, all at the hands of vengeful soldiers.

The music? Afrobeat - Yoruba jazz-funk - designed to keep you moving, a joyous party of 25 minutes spread over two long tracks (or two short sides, if you wish). And all the while it taunts soldiers, the zombies/mr follow-follows of the the track titles. Not the kind of music I tend to listen to but it sounds good on this sunny autumn day inside, and I could imagine it sounding a lot better on a summer's day out.

The CD re-release from 2001 adds two bonus tracks, but these are inessential - in fact, if included I'd mark the album down a letter. But in its original version, it's a handsome

[B]

Next up: ah, it's that time of year is it?

[dorsalstop]

#82 - 1976/19: Blondie - Blondie

The sleeve: perfect. Fantastic picture, and like their other sleeves presents Blondie as a band, not just a singer (looking at you here, Tom Petty). Only outdone -maybe?- by the sleeve for their third album.

Had I heard this before: yes, but it may have been the fourth or so Blondie album I ever heard. I always assumed it was a minor one, with so few songs ending up on their Best Of compilations (though I always loved "X Offender")

Is it punk? Of course not. Is it new wave, though? Depends on how new you think pairing early-60s girl group pop with a modern rock production is, or perhaps the genre term can simply be applied by association with the CBGB's scene.

Anyhow, as someone who really loves early-60s girl groups and mid-70s modern rock production and writing 46 years after the fact, I don't have to care about genre labels and can just enjoy this record, however new or wavy or not. From the pop rush of "X Offender", which opens the record, to the surprisingly complex arrangements of "A Shark in Jets Clothing" and "Man Overboard" (shades of both the disco and the pop reggae they would later have huge hits with) and back down to the raw "Rip Her To Shreds", the album is both versatile and straightforward -- it both grabs you by the, erm, collar AND bears repeated listening. Thinking how this was neither a commercial nor a critical success really leaves one wondering about the musical climate of '76.

Anyway, great album; not a duff track on it. A party.

[A]

Up next: we get political

[dorsalstop]

#81 - 1976/20: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers

The sleeve: one of many where the Heartbreakers decided, democratically, one imagines, to simply use a picture of their front man for the cover. Not my favourite of those -the heart logo is very corny, and anyway, the photos on the back show that band member Stan Lynch was the photogenic one.

Had I heard this before: no

Such a funny little album, and a mean 'little' quite literally: it's only 10 songs and just over 30 minutes long, and none of the opening three songs make it over the 3-minute mark. The intro to opening track "Rockin' Around (With You)" also sounds as if it wasn't thought about properly, and the band just kind of starts up because someone happened to press 'record' - similarly, "Hometown Blues" has a fadeout ending that seems to come in too early (surely there was more song there?). Though some of the songs (such as "The Wild One, Forever") have more clearly defined and drawn out intros, for instance, the feeling of most of them being mere vignettes, sketches of songs, continues for most of the album.

And then there's "American Girl", the album's closing track. It makes you wonder if the people at the record company had wool in their ears - this is not just the obvious single (it was only released as the second single) but it also practically screams 'opening track'. It is meatier than anything else on the record, more meaningful and perfectly formed. I say this with the benefit of hindsight, because when the song came out it didn't actually chart at first - it did on re-release in the UK, but never in the US(!), so I suppose I'd have to give the record execs a break - the public had the same hearing problem. Anyhow, its inclusion and placement gives the album the feel of 'here's a bunch of barely developed demos and oh yes, here's what we can do once we really try".

Those barely developed demos aren't bad themselves, though - I'd say side 1 quite effortlessly does what Dylan and The Band tried for hours on what became the Basement Tapes, and side 2 brings that sort of southern rock into the present with more modern production (not unlike what would soon come to be known as new wave). But yes, it all pales in comparison to the stratospheric heights of "American Girl" - what a song, what a slice of perfection.

A big, big [B]

Up next: new wave

[dorsalstop]

1976 - "Swing time is here children, for large and small"

What was I doing in 1976? Going to school for the first time, meeting new people. No specific memories of the long hot summer except for a holiday in (newly non-fascist) Spain.

What was on the playlist? More children's songs and cartoon theme tunes, no doubt. Or what my dad was playing on his Dual - a Linda Ronstadt compilation maybe?

My album of the year? At the time: n/a Now: I'd instinctively say Ramones, but I'm open to being persuaded otherwise.

[dorsalstop]

1975 wrap-up - "where are those happy days / they seem so hard to find"

1975, I never thought I'd see the end of it. A very different year from 1974 in my assessments - no fewer than four As (1974 had two) but also three Fs (1974 had one). It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The real wins are in between, though: me discovering I don't dislike Queen's most famous album although I had expected I would, and discovering Keith Jarrett and also Eno's Another Green World, both of which I've since bought on vinyl. Here's my verdict on the Top 20 most acclaimed: 1. Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run [A] 2. Roxy Music - Siren 3. David Bowie - Young Americans 4. Eno - Another Green World 5. Patti Smith - Horses [B] 6. Aerosmith - Toys in the Attic 7. Keith Jarrett - The Köln Concert 8. Joni Mitchell - The Hissing of Summer Lawns 9. Fleetwood Mac - s/t 10. Queen - A Night at the Opera 11. Bob Marley & The Wailers - Live! [C] 12. Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti 13. Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks 14. Burning Spear - Marcus Garvey [D] 15. Parliament - Mothership Connection 16. Willie Nelson - Red Headed Stranger 17. Bob Dylan & The Band - The Basement Tapes 18. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here [F] 19. Neil Young - Tonight's the Night 20. Kiss - Alive! Has my album of the year changed? If you remember, I previously thought this was a toss-up between Born to Run, Roxy and Bowie. Springsteen is the clear winner, but I've been listening to Neu! '75 a lot over the three(!) years it took me to get through 1975 and I now think that one has just the slightest edge. (Elsewhere in the top 10, Deluxe by Harmonia and Kraftwerk's Radioactivity would also beat some of the Bs above.) Guess what, I've already started on 1976. My goal is to finish it within this calendar year :shock:

[dorsalstop]

#80 - 1975/1: Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run

The sleeve: as Springsteen parked his arm on Clarence Clemons' back, did he know he was striking a classic rock'n'roll pose, and indeed was it as classic as it is now? In any case, it's a great sleeve (also when flipped open to reveal Clemons and the annotated tracklist) from font to composition.

Had I heard this before: why yes - this was a bit of a favourite before this listening project.

The most Springsteen Springsteen? There's opener "Thunder Road", which contains the lines "Well the night's busting open / These two lanes will take us anywhere / We got one last chance to make it real / To trade in these wings on some wheels" - Springsteen bottled. And there's the title track, which opens side two with "In the day, we sweat it out on the streets / Of a runaway American dream / At night, we ride through mansions of glory / In suicide machines" but I could quote all of it to make the point. The songs that follow each of these also tell tales of dead-end towns, dreams of getting out, hitting the open road, saving her, being saved by her.

In step with these lyrics, the music also goes all out and more than occasionally over the top. An updated Spectorian Wall of Sound washes over the listener for most of the record, propelled by that roaring sax, while repeated listens reveal one lovely detail after another, from the way the rhythm and lead guitar trade off each other in the second half of 'Thunder Road" to the melodic bassline in "Backstreets" to the strings on "Jungleland".

I dare anyone to encounter all this heart-on-sleeve, almost-too-much-to-bear, desperate romanticism and be left cold by it. I can kind of imagine some listeners thinking it's all a bit too much and also, who does Springsteen think he is - Goethe, Shakespeare, Spector, Dylan, all rolled into one? - but personally I am utterly convinced by it and I've always marvelled at how the emotions wrought on the cracked concrete of working class New Jersey are able to travel and translate to my comfortable, safe European home. Proof, no doubt, that it's a universal desire to find your Wendy and get out while you're young.

[A]

Up next: a round-up! Finally!

[dorsalstop]

#79 - 1975/2: Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks

The sleeve: fine - I like the lettering. Dylan is not very photogenic so this silkscreen/etch effect is not a bad idea.

Had I heard this before: not that I remember. And I would have remembered.

The good: well, it's better than the decidedly b-side/jam band/studio outtakes feel of Basement Tapes...

The bad: pretty much everything else. Well. Funnily enough, a lot of songs start off pretty great, with a nice shuffle beat (Tangled up in Blue) or some pleasant Beatlesque guitar (Simple Twist of Fate, You're A Big Girl Now), but somehow they all go downhill from there. Dylan's voice comes in, of course, which is enough to ruin any song. If you're somewhat allergic to his voCAL styLEENGS, as I am, you'll be covered in hives by the end of this album, as I was. I just cannot reLAAAATE. I think if a song like Tangled Up In Blue had had 3 verses and ended well before the 3-minute mark, I'd be a lot more positive about this record; a major issue is that the songs here average 5 minutes and tend to consist of many, many verses without any kind of development. This is most obvious on the dreary "Shelter from the Storm" (sorry Bill Murray) and taken to inadvertently comical extremes on the 9-minute "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts", where you get the feeling Dylan could have added 3-sentence verses until the end of time to create a never ending song - a song, mind, which reveals all that's interesting about it in the first 67 seconds.

My third listen here (headphones) was the one where I was least annoyed, and being able to hear small details in the music (some lovely Hammond organ in places) improves the experience considerably, which was just enough to tip this into a higher letter grade range than the one I was considering before. Nonetheless, it is unlikely I will ever listen to this album again or indeed, unless I am mistaken and there's a later Dylan album that makes it into the Top 20 of its year, anything by this artist ever again. I understand he won the Nobel Prize in Literature, though, so maybe I'll pick up one of his books some day.

[C]

Next up: we'll get out of 1975 (while we're young)

[dorsalstop]

#78 - 1975/3: Patti Smith - Horses

The sleeve: absolutely brilliant, from the font and placement of the titles to the picture to the clothes. Classic, timeless though somehow establishing a new aesthetic anyway. I don't know how that works, but it does.

Had I heard this before? Yes, a few times. I've owned a copy for a while (despite the lack of evidence above), though it hadn't not been on the turntable as much as I thought it might.

In which Patti Smith is pre-punk, early punk and post-punk all at once, deconstructing rock 'n' roll while playing her ferocious version of it. There's a clear legacy of the New York (velvet) underground - not just in the form of John Cale producing the album, but also songs such as "Kimberly" being easy to imagine sung by Lou Reed instead. There's a knowing subversion of Them's "Gloria" (a tune only 11 years old then, but that was a lifetime in rock'n'roll history at the time of course).

"Free Money" is one of the standout tracks, a Springsteenesque mini teenage rock opera about escape from despair, disguised as a throwaway garage rock song. "Kimberly", opening side 2, is a gorgeous pop song, only made 'punk' by Smith's unwillingness to pretty up her voice. I'm less taken by some of the other tracks, esp. the 9-minute-plus "Birdland", where the drive to experiment lands Smith in 'jam band' territory, but this takes away very little from the excitement I feel for what is essentially the first modern rock album in this series. A very solid:

[B]

Next up: oh no, not him again. this may take a while.

[dorsalstop]

#77 - 1975/4: Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti

The sleeve: one of the best I've encountered and will encounter in this project. A great photo of a New York tenement with die-cut windows that reveal different occupants based on how you slip in the inner sleeve, what's not to love? OK, the basic look was stolen from a José Feliciano album sleeve, but the execution here is brilliant.

Had I heard this before? No, save for the strings in "Kashmir" as sampled by Puff Daddy.

One of the more interesting things about PG is how it's obviously an inspiration to many hard rock bands of the following decade - if the entire New Wave of British Heavy Metal as well as the Slayer and Metallica strands of thrash had never happened, nothing would be different for Guns'N'Roses; without this album, I wonder how they (and their whole LA/Hollywood hair metal contingent) would have sounded. Anyway, those influences are most apparent on the opening three tracks, which are otherwise (that is, song/hook-wise) rather forgettable, this being especially grating on the 11-minute "In My Time of Dying".

In fact, and sadly so, after Houses of the Holy being one of the major finds of this project, Physical Graffiti is a little closer to how I'd expected to experience Led Zep in the first place. Fittingly, one of my favourite songs here is "Houses of the Holy", indeed recorded for that album but shelved at the time, deemed good enough now on account of there being 4 sides to fill - oh yes, this is a double album, and it feels like one. Not the fault of "Houses", which sounds, as does the album of the same name, effortless, breezy, though not slight. Sadly, many of the other tracks are either needlessly stretched out: "Kashmir" has cool menacing strings and vaguely south Asian melodic touches, but it does not need to be 8 1/2 minutes long, and neither does the song that opens disc 2, "In the Light" - what could have been a charming ballad becomes a slog, and these aren't the only tracks I'd level that criticism at. Stronger tracks are "Trampled Under Foot", essentially the Doobie Brothers' "Long Train Runnin'" for people who can't dance, and the lovely, wispy "Bron-Y-Aur"; side 4 is the most engaging listen - the songs are tighter, the hooks more obvious. All in all, 80 minutes of mostly pretty cool sounds but it feels a little bloaty. Oh well.

[C]

Next up: couldn't drag me away

[dorsalstop]

#76 - 1975/5: Queen - A Night at the Opera

The sleeve: kitschy, over the top, but in a sort of restrained way. Which, well...

Had I heard this before? No, nothing except the two greatest hits ones (You're My Best Friend and the dreaded Bo Rhap).

One of the more surprising listening experiences so far. Let me put that into context by stating how extremely resistant I have always been to Queen's charms. I'll happily admit they have the odd good song (Don't Stop Me Now, Under Pressure, I Want to Break Free), but these are much outweighed by the many truly terrible ones that are among my most hated songs of all time (We Are The Champions, Friends Will Be Friends, Killer Queen, We Will Rock You), not to mention the absolute ridiculousness that is Bohemian Rhapsody, a song that would be entirely fine as a rock-opera parody on a single b-side, but which has inexplicably been elevated to Greatest Song of All Time status by the type of rock fan whose complete lack of a sense of humour about their music taste leaves no question as to whether there is a level of irony in that assessment. And that's the other thing: the only way I could imagine enjoying Queen is by fully embracing their nonsense, camp and kitsch (which I'm sure at least half the band members themselves did). But although I'm not averse to camp and kitsch, Queen's just isn't my brand, I'm afraid. All the major elements that make up the band's music - May's hard rock guitar soloing, Mercury's vocal histrionics, the music hall / show tune melodies and arrangements, the studio trickery: I'm sure I could enjoy, nay do enjoy, most of them on occasion, in other configurations in other bands, but somehow they have always mainly annoyed me in Queen.

And boy are these elements all present here - Queen had just broken through properly with "Killer Queen" from their third album the year before, and it's obvious that they've taken that song as their template - not just in using similar arrangements and structures in some of the individual songs here, but for the album as a whole, as it were. Tempo changes, multitracked vocals, guitar wankery - check; but also one-minute song, eight-minute song, country-folk song, Abbey Road medley-type song, cabaret, Dixieland, national anthem - check.

Here's the surprising thing: I mostly really enjoy it, on first listen, as well as second and third (although I'll admit I skipped the juggernaut after the first one). Coming to this record right after Neil Young and, especially, Pink Floyd, obviously helps. There is a levity here, a sense of mischievous fun the band must have had writing and recording  this bizarre, eclectic, constrained chaos of an album. No, "Death on two Legs" is not my kind of thing: it has all the typical Queenisms described above. But it doesn't go on forever, and segues into pure Noel Coward for "Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon", only a minute long, and then "I'm in Love with My Car": a song that is twice as ridiculous as the title suggests.

But then there's "You're My Best Friend", a song I will have heard many times before, but somehow never noticed that it is absolutely perfect - from the near-funky (Stevie Wonderesque?) electric piano that propels it to the Beatlesque backing vocals to the way the band keep this small song small all the way through (even may's guitar solo mostly follows the vocal melody and is under 20 seconds). It finally manages to do what Queen so often failed to: it genuinely moves me.

That song was written by John Deacon, my favourite member of Queen by some distance, and it's his double bass booming away underneath "'39" that keeps the good vibe alive. It's the one I called "country-folk" above, although May apparently aimed for it to be a skiffle track, which would explain why it reminds me of at least two Paul McCartney tunes - "I've Just Seen A Face" and "I Will". Anyway, it's good. After that, a fierce rocker and another bit of Vaudeville round of side 1. Side 2 has similar offerings, including the only real misstep, "The Prophet's Song", but mainly seems to be building up to the grand finale... any way the wind blows. Which isn't actually the finale, because the band end the album with a rendition of "God Save the Queen", the jokers.

This was such a great palate cleanser and such a nice surprise that I'll go a little higher than I should for an album with *that* song on it. Go on then:

[B-]

Next up: the writing's on the wall

[dorsalstop]

#75 - 1975/6: Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

The sleeve: The famous one is the one that originally was inside a black wraparound sleeve with an ugly handshake logo on it, but most people know this one as the outer sleeve and it's great - probably my favourite Hipgnosis cover (I'm not generally a fan of their aesthetic but this is an exception - T. Rex's Electric Warrior is another one).

Had I heard this before: not as an album, although I'd obviously heard the title track before and snippets (I think) of others.

Oof. Not that I thought post-Syd Pink Floyd and I were ever going to be friends, but this is really rancid. The opening track is long (very long), slow, and mainly showcases a very ugly guitar sound. There's some 'moody' sax towards the end but it's too little too late to salvage anything; in fact, it adds to the noodly muso mess. Music for people who hate music. "Welcome to the Machine" is slightly better, once you get past the first two minutes or so, which is where the unimpressive vocals and cringeworthy lyrics reside. "Have a Cigar" on the other hand is almost comically bad - essentially a skeletal blues rock ballad bloated with, you guessed it, guitar solos ad infinitum (though at 5 1/2 minutes it mostly *feels* really long.

The title track is a bit of relief: a decent song for once, with a country/folk type feel - oh well, I suppose you know it.

From my reading (thank you, Wikipedia) I have learnt that the recording sessions for this album were "tortuous", and "tedious", which is unsurprising, as are the contemporaneous reviews calling the album "unconvincing in its ponderous sincerity". More surprising is the later critical reevaluation that has led this turd to sit at #6 for the year. Who knows - maybe it'll also click for me one day. Although, will I really like this better when I hear it again in 20 years' time? Will I have grown so tired of well-written songs and embraced unfocused half-ideas, stretched out to five or thirteen minutes? God, I hope not.

[F]

Next: very, very frightening