Albums Listened To Today

[I. Spaceman]

So it's All The Best Music Ever Released day, Jda?

[Sheriff John Stone]

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drf500/f506/f50697ron0b.jpg[/img][img]

jdavolt,
       When the music's over, turn out the lights...

[OLD GREGG]

[LaurieBiagini]

[NC]

Wild Honey and Some Girls - Stones.

[jdavolt]

So it's All The Best Music Ever Released day, Jda?

Hehe...actually, I've been trying to go through my whole collection chronologically (roughly), starting in '62. I've been stuck in '67 for a while now, though, thus the albums in yesterday's post...wrapping '67 up today with:

[I. Spaceman]

Don't forget Wild Honey and Who Sell Out.

[Jason]

And Smiley Smile.

[I. Spaceman]

And Surrealistic Pillow and 13th Floor Elevators and Satanic Majesties.

[Jason]

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

[I. Spaceman]

Axis: Bold As Love and Forever Changes.

[Jason]

HEADQUARTERS!

[I. Spaceman]

Pisces Aquarius.

[Maybelline]

I Never Loved a Man the Way that I Loved You

[jdavolt]

All last week, except the Monkees and the Elevators and the Airplane...don't have those albums yet.

I did borrow the Monkees boxed set from my brother tho, so I'm starting to delve into them. Got the Bee Gees box, too.

Edit: or the Aretha.

[Jason]

Herb Alpert's Ninth, Days Of Future Passed, and a real obscurity - Perrey-Kingsley's Kaleidoscopic Vibrations: Spotlight on the Moog.

[cabinessence]

Gilberto Gil, The Early Years, a compilation of 22 tracks by this Brazilian national treasure recorded between 1968 and 1976,  the majority from the very earliest years and the first couple albums as he navigated from Bossa Nova into Tropicalia of which he was a cofounder with -among others- Caetano Veloso, Gail Costa and young pup mascot-clowns Os Mutantes.

There's nary a bad track here; at the least-inspiring, it's still super-smooth pop of the Sergio Mendes variety. At its best, revelatory in any number of ways: the easy mastery of traditional forms and his supremacy over nearly all his rivals in this arena; the rock and soul and psychedelia: just as facile being these things, but what's really inspiring is that he's no mere bandwagon jumper and expert mimic, but a real artist integrating  what he digs into what he must do, a charismatic musical spokesman for a generation akin to the Beatles he loves and emulates; and a Tropicalista mutater of the international influences he's absorbing, and in tune with the comrades in arms he's playing with, and as such fascinating for fans of Mutantes: much overlap here with those more straightforwardly rock and roll folks: the George Martinesque arrangements, the daft, surreal, sunny protest lyrics, not to mention Gil's greatest contribution to pure Rock and Roll: Bat Macumba, played great by the Mutants, equally great here in a raga rock arrangement.

The best track is so for partly extra-musical reasons: samba Aquele Abraco (That Hug), recorded live as Gil announced his goodbye to his public heading into political exile in the UK for the next several years. The crowd-singer feedback loop is amazing as they hug one another in a really passionate tearstained performance. Interesting too is exile-recording Can't Find My Way Home, a Blind Faith-Winwood cover that rivals the original (and points out what Gilberto and Stevie share vocally), but trumps it in terms of poignance and soul invested in the lyric. 

[Daniel S.]

Phil Spector - Back to Mono box set

 

[Reverend Joshua Sloane]

          

That kind of music.

[halleluwah]

I've been listening quite a bit to Fotheringay's only album a lot since I got last week.  Some of Sandy Denny's most haunting work ever, and I'm a big fan of hers.  I think this album more than holds its own against her Fairport Convention work; I can't for the life of me see why it's so often relegated to mere footnote status.

[jazzfascist]

"Aura" by Miles Davis, with music by danish composer/trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg. IMO one of Miles' most ambient-sounding albums, a little like Eno's ambient music, but I think also inspired by french composer Messiaen. I didn't really like this album at first, but have recently started listening to it some more.

Søren