If you wish to investigate this record you may first need to accept some facts that might seem disquieting. First of all the album has been called a covers album, it’s not, it’s stirring interpretations, and this in essence, is the difference between an artist and a copyist. Although it would be impossible to inject […]
When Colin Blunstone released his first solo album in 1971, to say his musical career had been through some ups and downs would be something of an understatement. Originally the lead singer in The Zombies, most fans of the band know the story about their unexpected success in 1969 in the USA with Time of […]
Perhaps the most influential Rock/Soul/Funk record of all time, There’s A Riot Goin’ On was actually the beginning of the end for Sly Stone as he descended deeper into drugs, alienation from his band mates, involvement with gangsters and the Black Panthers and a general realisation that the utopian vision of an interracial band with male and […]
Kate Bush referred to this album as her “I’ve gone mad” album. Released in 1982 it went to Number 3 in the UK album charts but mostly succeeded in alienating her audience, confusing the critics and selling substantially less than any of her solo albums before and after. It is of course a great album, […]
When Skylarking was released in 1986, I must have been in America because I remember having it on pre-recorded cassette. These little convenient plastic boxes of sound were extremely popular there – more popular than anywhere else I’d been. It was something to do with the car culture, everyone had a car, everyone had a […]
The first time I became aware of this album I was outside the Liverpool Stadium, where I saw a lad with long hair and a velvet jacket carrying it under his arm. Whenever there was a concert on there, a line from the front door would wind around the building – if you got there […]