Radiohead - Karma Police Arrest Me Now!

Given that I am and have always been a fan of indie and alt-rock, I know that I’m supposed to like Radiohead. And so I’ve tried - I really have! I’ve been open-minded, making every effort to like them. I’ve even persevered giving Radiohead a good three decades to win me over. But when it comes right down to it, I still hate their music. Yes, I know. ‘Paranoid android’ is cool. And “Fake Plastic Trees” is pretty great, but that’s pretty much it really. 

Thom Yorke has always bothered me. I thought he was weird back in the 90s, and I still think he’s weird now although I do admit a spotty adolescent is more likely to be impressed by Yorke’s soul-sucking neoliberalism than I am! 

I generally don’t mind electronic or even prog’ bands with an art school influence, Radiohead though can feel like a dead end amid the tributaries of its various influences. For whatever reason, I can’t stand them. The closest I’ve really come to liking a Radiohead song is The Pretenders version of ‘Creep’ where Chrissie Hynde absolutely nails the track in a way Radiohead never did.

As a big music fan and collector I’ve been bombarded with 30 years of critical and fan acclaim for Radiohead. I don't mean to take away from their artistry because there is no doubt that they are a talented group of guys, but I just don't like them. I can only gather that there’s something wrong with me, or maybe there’s something there that I’ve yet to get. Or is it just a case of it’s not them, it’s me? 

If you’re a Radiohead fan reading this, congratulations on being way, way smarter than the rest of us simpletons who just want to listen to a song with a good hook or a beat that isn’t in some weirdo 179/4.26 time signature. For me though, the map of my personal tastes has a Radiohead-shaped blank space in one corner, coated with some kind of space-age non-stick material that keeps me from liking them.

Five Top Albums That Are 50 Years Old in 2019

I'm not normally into writing ‘List’ blogs but I couldn’t resist this one. It’s now 50 years since the closing year of that great musical decade, the sixties. In my humble opinion these are my top five great albums from 1969 – and they’re still great albums half a century later!

The Who – Tommy
Tommy was The Who’s fourth studio album. It was an extremely innovative and risky album at the time being a rock opera. Thanks to bands like The Beatles and The Beach Boys albums were becoming more important than the single in rock music. Therefore Pete Townshend wanted to do something to fully capitalize on the album as a continuous art form.

The album told the story of a psychosomatic deaf, dumb and blind lad and his experiences in life. Tommy was essentially a melting pot for Pete Townsend’s ideas about sex, family, spirituality and hero worship.

Keith Moon and John Entwistle's rhythm section got more and more chances to shine throughout this double album than they had previously and manage to achieve some truly jaw-dropping results. Roger Daltrey is finally able to put some real feelings into his singing as he identifies with poor Tommy, just listen to him perform ‘See Me, Feel Me’

Top Tracks

• See Me, Feel Me/Listening to You
• We’re Not Gonna Take It
• Pinball Wizard

The Beatles – Abbey Road
By this point The Beatles were on the verge of breaking up, what with McCartney now trying to be fully in charge of the band (in his eyes at least) and Lennon’s almost non-existent interest in continuing as a part of The Beatles, things hardly indicated that there was any hope for a complete album - let alone a good one! 

The release of ‘Abbey Road’ proved to the world that they actually could leave all those problems behind, and put their heads together creating one last fresh, heart-stirring masterpiece. The album works incredibly well as a whole, with each Beatle getting his highlighted moments. They did end on a high note, though It’s really sad to think that the dream would soon be over.

It might have been their last album but it contained some absolute classics, there are the two George Harrison masterpieces, ‘Here Comes the Sun’ and ‘Something’; both rank alongside the best songs the band ever recorded. Then there’s ‘Come Together’ which must count as one of the greatest opening tracks on any album.

Top Tracks

• Come Together
• Here Comes The Sun
• Something

Sly & the Family Stone - Stand!
Stand! was the fourth album by the funky soul band Sly and the Family Stone released in 1969 a few years before Sly Stone’s drug addiction and enigmatic persona fully materialized. Back then he was changing the way people viewed soul and pop music from a musical, cultural and racial standpoint. ‘Stand!’ catapulted Sly & the Family Stone into mainstream success, combining ample doses of lyrical consciousness and infectious pop song writing into one cohesive record. 

Before transitioning into psych-soul pioneers on their subsequent record, 'There’s A Riot Goin’ On', the group achieved a near-perfect balance of both sides of their career, refining some of their earlier work while hinting at the experimentation to follow. 

You can’t deny that the success of Stand! Did lead to problems within the band, but for me it was a pinnacle of Sly & The Family Stone's career, it’s also a true landmark album for funk music.

Top Tracks

• Everyday People
• Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey
• I Want to Take You Higher

King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King
'In the Court of the Crimson King' represents the beginning of progressive rock as a genre, and what a start it was! It’s neither pretentious, nor inaccessible - descriptions often levelled at prog’ albums. Yes it’s bombastic and grandiose; yes it has flutes, mellotrons and strange vocals; yes it has some weird, abstract lyrics. It’s also quite simply an excellent album with pleasing musical ideas greeting you around every corner.

Prog’ has tried (largely unsuccessfully) ever since to be as heavy-hitting as the albums opening track ‘21st Century Schizoid Man’. It’s a piece of music so dressed up with over-distorted guitars, finger-flying note runs and radio-filtered hooks that it brought a new focus to rock music. It leant on jazz and classical influence ahead of the English's love of blues music at the time.

King Crimson created a highly influential album that set a benchmark and was referenced by every progressive act for years to come.

Top Tracks

• 21st Century Schizoid Man
• Epitaph
• In The Court of the Crimson King

MC5 – Kick Out The Jams
Kick Out The Jams is one of those albums that is in my 'hall of fame' because it goes completely against the grain of its time. It’s A fabulous explosion of rage, a murderous din with a fair bit of psychedelia thrown in too. Its just 40-odd minutes of sustained, rage fuelled rock - “Kick out the jams, motherfucker!”

This album stands head and shoulders above most modern pop-punk/garage rock style bands. It has a freshness, energy and ability that would put many of today's bands to shame - and you can still understand every word. Throughout the album’s breakneck eight songs, MC5 sprawl through white noise and feedback, cosmic jazz freakouts and polemical frenzy with a glorious sense of abandon.

It’s quite simply one of the most influential albums ever, without this would we have had heavy metal, punk, goth or emo? Maybe? Maybe not! It might not have been until 1977 when punk rock kicked off but its foundation was set in 1969 with Kick Out the Jams. 

Top Tracks

• Ramblin’ Rose
• Kick Out The Jams
• Starship

So There We Have It!!

There we go, five brilliant albums which signified the end of the sixties and influenced the future of much of rock, punk, soul, funk and prog' in the next decade. If you haven't already then get out there and give them a listen - you won't regret it!

Soul II Soul Club Classics Vol I – 30 Years On & Still a Classic

Hard to believe I know, but Club Classics Volume One by Soul II Soul is 30 years old this week! Released in April 1989 its still a landmark album for British soul and R&B today. From the opening funky beat of ‘Keep On Movin’ through to the closing ‘Jazzies Groove’ it impresses.

Soul II Soul was the baby of Jazzie B (formerly known as Beresford Romeo) born in the UK of Antiquan parents. He started the embryonic Soul II Soul with mate Philip “Daddae” Harvey after leaving school. They were modelled on the Jamaican mobile DJ/dub crews and started to get hired for gigs in the mid-eighties. In 1985 a misunderstanding and a fight with Bristol’s “Wild Bunch” who had hired Soul II Soul for a party in London ended up with the Wild Bunch’s Nellee Hooper joining Soul II Soul. Successful club nights followed in rapid succession and resulted in the guys being signed to 10 Records who were a subsidiary of Virgin. Their first singles ‘Fairplay’ and ‘Feel Free’ reached as high as Number 63 in the Top 100 and set the formula for their future.

Club Classics Volume I 
The next single was the great ‘Keep On Movin’’ which opens the album. It was released ahead of the album and reached the Top 5 setting the standard for a whole genre of UK smooth soul. It was a club and pop classic with the most recognisable drum track ever. It sounded American - but it wasn’t! It moved UK black music truly into the mainstream. There was an obvious Chic influence but hey, there’s nothing wrong with learning from the masters. Caron Wheeler’s vocal, Hooper’s production (especially the piano and strings parts) all made ‘Keep On Movin’’ one of the album’s standout tracks.

The other truly great track on the album is ‘Back To Life’. The track got to Number One and was fully deserved.   On the album though it was the original a cappella version rather than the single version. For me this made it even more special. When the drums do eventually kick in they lead very nicely into ‘Jazzie’s Groove’ a track that really epitimised the era, with it’s James Brown style beat and the stabs of horn it was appropriate to not only close the album but the Eighties too, setting a new benchmark for the UK nineties soul and R&B sound that influenced heavily the likes of Jamiroquai, Lisa Stansfield, The Chimes and Massive Attack.

Of the other tracks, ‘Fairplay’ moves you into a grittier, urgent sound especially the feral, funky vocals of Rose Windross. ‘Holdin’ On’ with its message was clearly influenced by Gil Scott Heron. ‘African Dance’ brought African sounds to a Chicago House beat which along with ‘Dance’ has a breeze of chilled-out beats and flutes making the album truly feel like a new dawn for UK soul.

Club Classics Volume I is still a peerless summer soundtrack, which truly provided a blueprint for how things could be done. It was a huge international hit but it was also probably the pinnacle of what Soul II Soul achieved. Wheeler soon left to go solo,  Jazzie B soldiered on, to varying degrees of success, but was always a formidable presence in British black music. Hooper left to have further success with Massive Attack. There were more Soul II Soul albums up to 1997 but none reached the heights of that debut.

A True Classic
Hearing Club Classics Vol One today still takes you right back to the vibrancy, excitement and possibilities of the coming nineties decade. It might be 30 years old now but it hasn’t really aged. Go dig your old copy out now and enjoy it all over again I say.

Mull of Kintyre – A Guilty Pleasure

We all have our "guilty pleasure" music even if we try and deny it. What is it though? Well it’s those songs that we don't want to admit to liking. The term "guilty pleasure" is often used to describe music that is supposedly so bad or cheesy that people feel embarrassed listening to it. The way I see it, if you're enjoying a song on any level then the artist must've done something right! For me,‘Mull of Kintyre’ by Paul McCartney’s Wings is one of my guilty pleasures - and I must admit I’ve still got the 7” single that I was bought as a Christmas present way back in 1977. 

McCartney’s Writing
Paul McCartney always seems to me to be at his best when he’s writing about things that he really cares about, be it a place or someone special. It’s almost like he feels he should put more effort into his writing rather than some of the half-baked, unfinished ideas of songs he has in the middle of most of his albums. I know it’s back in his Beatles days but ‘Hey Jude’ was a really good example of what I’m saying. Written about John Lennon’s son, Julian, it start as a compassionate word to Jules and ends up a no limits anthem for positivity. Similarly, on Penny Lane he takes a beloved Liverpool street from back in his childhood and transforms it into a nostalgia filled idyllic scene.

Mull of Kintyre 
 ‘Mull Of Kintyre’ was written by Paul and Denny Laine back in 1977. The Mull of Kintyre in Scotland is obviously a place very close to McCartney’s heart and as such continues this tradition he has of writing good songs about things he loves. Its lyrics describe the Scottish countryside around the Mull of Kintyre and, while I know that it’s a spectacular landscape, it’s not really the place itself that provides the magic, it’s Paul’s connection with it - or to be even more accurate, Paul’s undeniable love for it.

Somehow he manages to transpose that stunning landscape into the melody, lyrics and overall general atmosphere of the song. You can tell the way he sings “my desire is always to be here” that it really is heartfelt. It feels like he’s putting the place above anywhere else. Now under normal circumstances I’d be pretty irked by someone sticking a load of bagpipes in the middle of a song, but on ‘Mull of Kintyre’ it works, they create a feel for the place almost an atmosphere that draws you into Paul’s own tranquil feelings, the effect when those bagpipes kick in still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Close your eyes, and you’ll feel like you’re stood on those “Dark distant mountains with valleys of green”- but without the howling gale force wind of course.

McCartney manages to communicate his own memories and feelings so vigorously, that they transcend any particular landscape. The accent is not put on the Mull itself, but rather on those “smiles in the sunshine and tears in the rain”. And that’s why the track resonates with us from the start. In reality, ‘Mull of Kintyre’ could be about any place that you want it to be - just like ‘Penny Lane’ could. And like ‘Hey Jude’, it can hold any personal connotations you might want to attach to it. 

Despite what some naysayers might say, in my opinion it’s a timeless classic in the same way both ‘Hey Jude’ and ‘Penny Lane’ are. It’s a song whose meaning goes way beyond most of the fake folkie labels that seem to get attached to it. So for me, it will always remain one of my guilty pleasures.