ITT: /mu/ in 1971
fuck you, Don McLean. just...just fuck you.
*dies*
>>130869893Grand Funk rocks no matter what Rolling Stone Magazine thinks of htem.
*also dies*
yep yep yep
>>130869893ha ha i sure hope Rod Stewart doesn't totally sell out and become lame buttrock for white trash women in a few years
let it be the great hit single plus filler album as their malaise era begins
isn't it great that this board isn't full of faggots talking about kpop?
>leave Hendrix to me...
>>130869941my mom loves that song and doesn't like their disco era stuff
>>130869893
the great thing about this time is there's absolutely no rap anywhere
>>130869975off to the rest home, codgers. it's no longer '51.
This was released in Europe October '70 but its US release was in spring '71. Also unlike Europe, nobody here paid any attention.
>>130869986tbqh i could picture them covering "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart." "Brown Sugar" not so much lol.
Since affluence is a terminally American condition, I suppose it not only makes sense for the rich to inflict their sensibilities on the rest of us, but for us to dig it, too. Too bad, though. It's one thing to voice a cliche such as "That's The Way I Heard It Should Be", quite another to voice it with such a precociousness and air of false discovery. Besides, if Carly's college friends are already old enough to have alienated their children, then her self-discovery program is a little post-mature anyway. C+
>>130870073just so you know she faked her age. she long claimed a 1945 DOB but actually she was two years older than that.
The other band Europe loves but us not so much.
>>130869923Why can’t rockstars stop choking on their own vomit?
>>130870073would you believe being a trust fund kid in music used to actually be shameful?
>>130870097idk why Americans weren't much into Purple, but they were the band that convinced Lars Ulrich what to do with his life
>>130870119Organs in rock music aren’t cool anymore. >Lars UlrichWho?
The title cut is the great novelty song that may or may not be about rock-and-roll and its refusal to die, although the lyrics indicate that McLean can't possibly have written them himself--merely took dictation from the shade of Buddy Holly, who must be taking some pretty strong drugs up there to make such a mistake. And so, do like any good novelty lover and buy the single, unless you're in the market for songs about how nobody understood Van Gogh. C+
>>130870081not new practice>>130869975as far as anyone in '71 knows, Doris Day is 47 not 49 and her actual DOB wasn't clarified until just a few years before she died
>>130870149i hate this song. everyone hates it. also nobody actually pays attention to anything but the chorus anyway.
>>130870223all eight fucking minutes of it
>>130869975AT THE BBCBB KINGAND DORIS DAY
"Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" is a major annoyance. I tolerated Paulie's crochets with the Beatles because his mates balanced them out. I enjoyed them on McCartney because their scale was so modest. I actively enjoy them on "Moonberry Monk Delight" because it rocks! But the rest of the songs are so lightweight they practically float away even as Paulie layers them down with caprices. For God's sake, if you're going to be eccentric at least don't be pretentious about it. C
>>130870168Being the good mom she was, she rescued her child from Manson's clutches before it was too late.
>>130870297>inb4 HIRRR ONLY 12 YEAR OLD GIRLS LISTEN TO THIS
>>130870297why did critics pile on Paul so much back then?
>>130870312i wish it was so. my dad was 15 back then and his grandma who was, like, Frank Sinatra's age and hated rock loved Uncle Albert. 'nuff said.
Just picked up this weird little album. Has a song about killer plants and one about hermaphrodites. I heard the singer wears a red dress and a fox's head on stage. Why are the English like this?
>>130870334What did we say about Paul writing grandma tunes? We meant that, dammit.
The second UFO album featuring the longest ever rock track yet put to vinyl.
>>130870297I mean, it's fairly obvious that UA/AH is about John and his attempts to extend the olive branch to him.
>>130870097>>130870119Because they barely tour here.
>>130870342WHY DONT YOU TOUCH METOUCH ME TOUCH MENOW NOW NOW NOW NOW
>>130870377Paul kept trying for years, in the late 70s he'd show up to John's apartment in NYC with a guitar and be like "Hey man, wanna jam?" and he'd be like "Fuck off."
IMAGINE THERE’S NO HEAVENIT’S EASY IF YOU TRYNO HELL BELOW USABOVE US ONLY SKY
The most heartwarming thing to happen to the wonderful world of pop music since Georgia Gibbs recorded "Dance With Me, Henry." Mike Curb strikes again. D
>>130870468that album would look good on the shelf next to Ram, y'know what i mean?
>>130870524You’re lame
>>130870468Fuck Mormons.
>>130870454Nobody cares about 60s Aaron Carter and his lame attempts to look grown up and political.
>>130870119Another reason to dislike DP really.
the first REO album when they had a different singer
>>130870297>christgau has more in common with old /mu/ than nu /mu/sad day
>>130870433John was strung out on heroin no matter how much he pretended to be a lovable house husband just baking cookies and caring for his son.
Those who dismiss them as unlistenable miss the point altogether--they Americanize Led Zeppelin with a fervent ingenuity that does broad service to the gestures of mass art. But now I read where similar men of taste, having arrived at the same conclusion, are claiming in addition to actually like the stuff. That's going too far. C+
>>130869893Give it 4 years these proggays wont ever been seen outside again
>>130870648>men of tasteI wouldn't go that far, Bob.
James Brown album number 60 or 70 I think.
Alright, Grandma, it's really past time to go. Someone get the vaudeville cane and yank her off the stage already.
>>130870757You forgot the image Mitch miller fag
>>130870757Forgot pic.
I don't know what's harder to believe, the fact that they're still around making music after Syd left, or the fact they've actually made something good for once.
I hope the Village Voice fires that Christgau asshole soon.
>>130870766you didn't need to samefag reply to your own post, retard
F
As an increasingly regretful spearhead of the great Grand Funk Railroad switch three years ago, in which the critics defined Grand Funk as a good ol' white boy blues band, although I knew of no critic, myself included, who played the records, I feel obliged to put this one in its place. Grand Funk are American--dull. Black Sabbath are English--dull and decadent. I don't care how many rebels and incipient groovers are buying, I don't even care if the band actually believes their own Christian/liberal/satanist muck--this is a dimwitted, amoral exploitation. D+
no studio album this year just two live ones
This is virtually the only good soul music to come from Atlantic in recent memory, which must mean something, probably not good. A standard solid soul LP, nothing ruinous and a couple of good singles to get off on. B
>>130870882fuck you, fag
>>130870957god even knows how many hip-hop tracks stole from that thing
I only listen to video game sound tracks such as Pong and Computer Space.
>>130870882what does this gibberish even mean?
>>130870770and that's it for Ms. Fowler as far as major label releases. there are some later budget country albums she did on indie labels but no more major label ones.
Duke Ellington never got away with a fifteen-minute, six-song suite titled "Elegy." What makes James William Guercio and his self-styled band of revolutionaries think they can? Sterile and stupid. C-
>>130871053>Sterile and stupid. C-you sure you're not talking about yourself, Bob?
>>130871088he's pretty washed up by this point. his peak was ten years ago, really.
>>130871091Another critical punching bag in the early 70s, which was a bit unfair tbqh.>>130871053These guys though, they deserved it.
You'd think some compensation was in order a year and a half after the fact, but that old evil life's just got them in its sway. From titles like "Bitch" and "Sister Morphine" and (the one Altamont reference) "Dead Flowers" through "Brown Sugar"'s compulsively ironic and bacchanalian exploitation/expose to the almost Yeatsian "Moonlight Mile," this is unregenerate Stones. The token sincerity of "Wild Horses" drags me. But "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" and "I Got the Blues" are as soulful as "Good Times," and Fred McDowell's "You Gotta Move" stands alongside "Prodigal Son" and "Love in Vain." A
This opens with "The Barbarian," a keyboard showpiece (not to slight all the flailing and booming underneath) replete with the shifts of tempo, time, key, and dynamics beloved of these bozos. Does the title mean they see themselves as rock and roll Huns sacking nineteenth-century "classical" tradition? Or do they think they're like Verdi portraying Ethiopians in Aida? From such confusions flow music as clunky as these heavy-handed semi-improvisations and would-be tone poems. Not to mention word poems. C
>>130871124>You'd think some compensation was in order a year and a half after the fact, but that old evil life's just got them in its swayi forgot how everyone somehow blamed the Stones for Altamont when the Grateful Dead were the guys who actually thought hiring a biker gang for security was a good idea
>>130869906>t. drove his chevy to the levy but the levy was dry
>>130869975>>130869986Lamentably, Como is back in black this year with "It's Impossible" making #10 on the Billboard.
>>130871053Elegy is just a lot of shrill noise.
The usual competent loud rock with the usual paucity of drive and detail. Likable in its own way--I actually find myself touched by "People, Let's Stop The War." But it doesn't tell me anything I don't already know. B-
>>130871209moms need music too. you expect them to listen to Master of Reality?
>>130871284KISS totally stole the intro of Footstompin' Music for Detroit Rock City.
Why is this schizofaggot spamming christgau reviews in every thread?
>>130871284why critics hate Grand Funk back then? idk.
WHAT I'VE GOT THEY USED TO CALL THE BLUESNOTHING IS REALLY WRONGFEELIN' LIKE I DON'T BELONGWALKIN' AROUNDLIKE SOME KIND OF LONELY CLOWN
The creator of a feedback experiment titled "Rumble", who must have beaten the Yardbirds to it by six or seven years, also appears to have turned hippie on his own, although his headband indicates loyalties to the Shawnee Nation. These days he runs a four-track in a recording shack in rural Maryland where he and a couple of kindred spirits put together this blues and country-rooted document. The playing is better than the songwriting is better than the singing and on the whole it's pretty dumb. But hey, you have to give him credit where it's due. Any rocker who can sing about being persecuted by the Man almost as un-self-consciously as a back-porch bluesman sings about trains has got to be good for something. Right? C+
>>130871338well it's not a Monday today but it is raining out
>>130871400god i hate this cuck faggot so much
>>130871400This was his best album though.
>>130871088>>130871109funny how that works but he was the same age as Patti Page yet because of starting so much later belonged to essentially a completely different era
IMPEACH NIXON
>>1308704549 years from now, I’m planning to to give my “““hero””” Lennon a gift he’ll never forget. One that will blow his mind.
This picture upsets Karen Carpenter.
>>130871454t. Hunter Thompson
Me and my attorney are attending the Mint 400 in Las Vegas. Any musical recommendations?
Graham's first solo lp.
A taste for the base usages of hard rock rarely comes with a hit attached these days, much less "surreal," "theatrical," and let us not forget "transvestite" trappings, which is why some desperate rock and rollers have convinced themselves their prayers are being answered. But while this is the band's most song-oriented LP, it falters after "Under My Wheels" and "Be My Lover," neither of them an "I'm Eighteen" in the human outreach department. And only one of the three "theatrical" extravaganzas, "Dead Babies," works on record (never mind in the theatre). B-
dont go near the water!
>>130871548everyone loved AC when my dad was in high school lol. turns out teenage boys and cucked adult rock critics have rather different opinions on what makes a good rock and roll album.
I hate goddamn hippies.
>>130871704Eat shit you rotten rat bastard!
Armed with an acoustic guitar and a wire-rimmed smile, Dion has been projecting the aura of the quintessential Bronx rocker ever since reviving his career in clubs three years ago. On this LP he applies his sweet, sliding, blues-based style to both quintessential Bronx rockers and acoustic-guitar specialties, though his good-humored stage patter seems coyer every time it repeats. Still wish he (or Warners) would put "Your Own Back Yard," his song about him and heroin, on an album. And forget "Abraham, Martin, and John." B-
>>130871712Get a shower and a haircut, punk.
The most honest thing about this automatic boogie is the title: what can you do when Little Richard sounds as false as Bob Hite except contemplate the past? C-
>>130871400filtered
More even than "Rock and Roll," which led me into the rest of the record (whose real title, as all adepts know, is signified by runes no Underwood can reproduce) months after I'd stupidly dismissed it, or "Stairway to Heaven," the platinum-plated album cut, I think the triumph here is "When the Levee Breaks." As if by sorcery, the quasi-parodic overstatement and oddly cerebral mood of Led Zep's blues recastings is at once transcended (that is, this really sounds like a blues), and apotheosized (that is, it has the grandeur of a symphonic crescendo) while John Bonham, as ham-handed as ever, pounds out a contrapuntal tattoo of heavy rhythm. As always, the band's medievalisms have their limits, but this is the definitive Led Zeppelin and hence heavy metal album. It proves that both are--or can be--very much a part of "Rock and Roll." A
>>130871901took that long to get to it?
>>130871901ugh, the worst
>>130871901Fuck this pedo band.
>>130872401"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" isn't about the Civil War btw it's a metaphor for the civil rights movement.
>>130872300she was better 8-10 years ago
>>130870595>baking cookiesMore like beating the shit out of his wife.>and caring for his sonMore like beating the shit out of his son.
And you guys aren't good now and you weren't good five, ten, fifteen years ago. Now fuck off already.
With its acoustic guitars and drumless bits, this triumph of hard rock is no more a pure hard rock album than Tommy. It's got more juice than Live at Leeds. And--are you listening, John Fogerty?--it uses the synthesizer to vary the power trio format, not to art things up. Given Peter Townshend's sharpness and compassion, even his out-front political disengagement--"I don't need to fight"--seems positive. The real theme, I think, is "getting in tune to the straight and narrow," and comes naturally to someone who's devoted a whole LP to the strictures of hit radio. Another sign of growth: the love songs. A
>>130872569my dad only knew one Who fan back in the 70s, this fat proto-Goth girl who work black eyeliner
Because he's tawdry enough to revel in stellar pop-and-flash, Stewart can refine the rock sensibility without processing the life out of it. His gimmick is nuance. Rod the Wordslinger is a lot more literate than the typical English bloozeman, Rod the Singer can make words flesh, and though Rod the Bandleader's music is literally electric it's the mandolin and pedal steel that come through sharpest. A smash as huge as "Maggie May" must satisfy Rod the Mod the way a classic as undeniable as "Maggie May" does Rod the Artist. But it's "Mandolin Wind" leading into Motown leading into Tim Hardin that does justice to everything he is. A+
>>130872643I hate Maggie May, incidentally.
>>130872300I'm not trading "Needles and Pins" for this.
Pacific rock, sure, but with a sharpness worthy of a Brooklyn girl--if there's a truer song about breaking up than "It's Too Late," the world (or at least AM radio) isn't ready for it. Not that lyrics are the point on an album whose title cut compares life to a you-know-what--the point is a woman singing. King has done for the female voice what countless singer-composers achieved years ago for the male: liberated it from technical decorum. She insists on being heard as she is--not raunchy and hot-to-trot or sweet and be-yoo-ti-ful, just human, with all the cracks and imperfections that implies. And for the first time she has found the music--not just the melodies, but the studio support--to put her point across as cleanly and subtly as it deserves. A-
>>130870790it's not samefag, retard.see >>130870766>>130870757posted less than a minute apart
>>130872711why this soft rock mush went platinum? i don't get it.
>>130872766Women.
There are no bad songs on this album, and from Paul Buckmaster to acoustic strum, Bob Johnston's production fits each individually. I know, you wonder who cares. Well, I don't trust Cohen's melancholy anapests any more than I do his deadpan despair; there are plenty of songwriters both naive and arty, as well as page poets, with a fresher sense of language. But the poets can't read like Cohen, the songwriters rarely combine his craft and his maturity, and the man can really project. His bare voices and melodies shade in his tenderness and self-mockery ("I who have no need" indeed), creating a dramatic context in which his posture becomes as credible as Denise Levertov's or Mick Jagger's. Granted, its uses are limited--best for late nights alone. Recommended to those who are turned off by Christie's opium fantasy in McCabe and Mrs. Miller but moved by Beatty's snow trek. A-
>>130872801nobody except leafs and Euros cared about this guy
>>130870770thank you for the nine years too late Orbison cover, Patti
Never would have figured this theatre type to come up with it, but he did--"I'm Eighteen," as archetypal a hard rock single as you're liable to hear in this flaccid year, or maybe ever. Almost as surprising, guitarist Mike Bruce surrounds it with the anthemic "Caught in a Dream" and "Long Way to Go." After which drummer Dennis Dunaway gives forth with "Black Juju," which lasts four seconds longer than all three of the above combined. B-
>>130872857idk why he's so obsessed with I'm Eighteen and thinks it's Alice's best song
>>130872874so Faggau saw AC live back then and he said meh his stage theatrics are kiddie stuff adults would be bored stiff by them. he also saw Zeppelin and complained the set went on too long and he didn't get the appeal of Page playing a guitar with a bow. seriously, did this guy ever actually like music at all?
>>130872922Prog sucks did btw.
>>130870773Not bad. "Echoes" moves through 23:21 of "Across the Universe" cop with the timeless calm of interstellar overdrive, and the acoustic-type folk songs boast their very own melodies (as well as a real dog, rather than electronic seagulls, for sound effect). The word "behold" should never cross their filters again, but this is definitely an improvement: one eensy-weensy step for humanity, one giant step for Pink Floyd. B-
>>130872948>seriously, did this guy ever actually like music at all?No.
A singer-guitarist (and occasional composer) who renders all the Collins/Baez melodrama superfluous. Raitt is a folkie by history but not by aesthetic. She includes songs from Steve Stills, the Marvelettes, and a classic feminist blues singer named Sippie Wallace because she knows the world doesn't end with acoustic song-poems and Fred McDowell. An adult repertoire that rocks with a steady roll, and she's all of twenty-one years old. A-
>>130872973she's a dyke>>130872988lol it's about licking asshole so funneh XD
>>130869928After two overwrought excursions for Mercury this ambitious, brainy, imaginative singer-composer has created an album that rewards the concentration it demands instead of making you wish you'd gone on with the vacuuming. Not that he combines the passion and compassion of Dylan (subject of one song) with the full-witted vision of Warhol (subject of a better one) just yet. But he has a nice feeling for weirdos, himself included. A-
Those of you who thought album number five a fluke ought to consider this one instructive--one side of "live" blues and another of dead rock. C-
Joel's debut lp which got mastered improperly and sounded like Alvin and the Chipmunks. He kicked a copy of it down his front porch in a fit of anger and then spent a year hiding out in LA to dodge his contract with CBS.
>>130873046unfinished album Capitol released without telling Miller. he denounced it.
>>130871124>Contrary to popular belief, the cover art, done by Andy Warhol, does not depict Mick Jagger, but an unknown and possibly gay male model.[9]
Ian Anderson is like the town freethinker. As long as you're stuck in the same small town as him, his inchoate cultural interests and skeptical views on human nature and organized religion can come off as refreshing. Meet up with him in the big city however and he comes across as a real bore. Of course he can also be Bob Dylan--it all depends on whether or not he abandoned provincial values out of a quest for more, or out of a more axial (and somatic) negativity. And whether he was pretentious because he didn't know any better. C+
>>130873138>British Frank Zappa
>>130871822i love this one
Steve Stills has always come on as the ultimate rich hippie--arrogant, self-pitying, sexist, shallow. Fortunately he's never quite reached his true level but flashes of brilliance remain--the single, "Marianne", is very nice especially if you don't listen too hard to the lyrics, but there's more to the tune of an all-male chorus with jazz horns singing straightly and in perfect unison the phrase "It's disgusting" over and over. Keep it up, SS, it'll be a pleasure to watch you fail. C-
>>130873201>Steve Stills has always come on as the ultimate rich hippie--arrogant, self-pitying, sexist, shallowso much projection
>>130873201tf is his beef with Stephen Stills? did Stills do his girlfriend at Woodstock?
>>130873183Mark II FM. It's an ok album, not really my kind of thing.
>>130873223also i forgot early FM and their penchant for pedo cover arts
A disastrous conceit, in which snippets of a "theme" song segue between tracks, makes it very hard to tell what happens to the Big Concept--Elvis Sings Ernest Tubb, Bill Monroe, Bob Wills, Anne Murray, etc. Most of his recordings sound suspiciously casual anyway, like preconcert runthroughs, and these segues add a rushed medley feel. "The Fool" and "It's Your Baby, You Rock It" work, and "Whole Lot-ta Shakin'" works out. But Tubb's "Tomorrow Never Comes" is a horn-fed monstrosity. And somehow I don't think Elvis had his heart in "Snowbird." B-
It's reassuring to learn there are constants in this changing world. A dozen years ago, Nelson was a better than average fake, and he's still a better-than-average fake. This is a pleasant record and I would go see him in a club in Denver any time--country-rock at least as good as, shall we say, Poco. B-
>>130873253>It's reassuring to learn there are constants in this changing worldunless it's Perry Como or Steve Lawrence lol
The boys will be back together by the end of the yearScreencap this
I was a teen idol just like Ricky once, now I'm a mediocre country singer.
>>130873290Funny, so was I.
>>130872569Fuck this other pedo band.
>>130871400What the fuck, I would have expected Cuckgau to love that albumFag as always
>>130873299Frank decides to retire after this album (hence track 13) but two years later decides retirement is boring and has a change of heart.
Unlike my straightlaced friends, I've always dug the idea of Melanie--Edith Piaf as Brooklyn waif, preaching the hippie gospel in that absurdly flexible and resonant alto. But I've found the reality cloying. Here she grows up just enough. "Brand New Key" is one of those impossible celebrations of teen libido that renew one's faith in AM radio. "Steppin'" is the best breakup song since "It's Too Late," and though side two slips badly toward the end, she's rarely a simp this time out. B+
>>130873363ok Bob let's not go nuts at this Tiny Tim rip here. besides, if she was from Los Angeles the album would almost certainly get a C minus.
>>130873363>a Russian-Italian halfuAnd I thought the Andrews Sisters had the freakiest genetic mix ever.
>>130873376I guess his point was that those bubblegum-y teen pop anthems that were a dime a dozen in the 50s-early 60s had become rarely seen by the 70s.
My taste for Hopkin's limpid prettiness may be eccentric, but there it is. She sings like the demure, starstruck adolescent she was until very recently, which lends her straightforward role-playing a revelatory poignancy lacking in the genteel atavism of the folkie madonnas she superficially resembles. Recommended: "International." B+
I h8 Nixon plz impeach him na0w
>>130873413can't say i find this one as charming as he thinks it is
This disgraceful performance inspires the first annual Consumer Guide contest. Your challenge--Rename David Crosby (he won't know the difference). The prize--One Byrds lp of your choice (he ought to know the difference). The catch--You have to beat my entries. Which are: Roger Crosby, Vaughn Monroe, Rocky Muzak. D
>there is no Kim Fowley album this yearoh thank God
I wish some of this live double had been done in the studio--might have saved Bob Weir's faint "Playing in the Band" if not his "Me and Bobby McGee"--and the drum-and-guitar interlude isn't going to inspire anybody to toke up, much less see visions. But even there they gather some of that old Dead magic. And it's about time they documented their taste in covers--I've craved their "Not Fade Away" for years. B+
Children, this is a funkadelic. The title piece is ten minutes of classic Hendrix-gone-heavy guitar by one Eddie Hazel--time-warped, druggy superschlock that may falter momentarily but never lapses into meaningless showoff runs. After which comes 2:45 of post-classic soul-group harmonizing--two altos against a bass man, all three driven by the funk, a rhythm so pronounced and eccentric it could make Berry Gordy twitch to death. The funk pervades the rest of the album, but not to the detriment of other peculiarities. Additional highlight: "Super Stupid." B+
>>130873553oh but when a white group does a 25 bpm spaced-out guitar solo it gets a C minus, amirite Bob?
This record almost gets over on sheer vocal excess. Neither Aretha in Paris nor any of her studio albums has ever caught her in such an explosive mood, and the result is a "Dr. Feelgood" that could heal the halt and versions of "Eleanor Rigby" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water" that sound like Sunday morning. But though the speedy tempos help vitalize those last two songs as well, they do less than nothing for "Respect" and "Don't Play That Song" and can't save "Love the One You're With" or "Make It With You" (did she have to do 'em both?). And while in theory nothing could be more exciting than an eight-minute duet with Ray Charles on "Spirit in the Dark," in practice I'd rather hear Ray sing "The Three Bells" and Aretha go it alone. B
>>130873595This is the first year since starting a decade ago that she doesn't have a studio LP out, just this live one.
>>130873511The Dead fucking suck, man.
I find this group's mystique mysterious. Unlike most girl groups they boast a lady-soul front woman, but so do the Sweet Inspirations. They can trade leads like the Temptations, but rarely bother. They have their own songwriter, but she hasn't written any good songs. And though I too prefer their style of upward mobility to the Supremes', it's mostly aura--a matter of costuming and melodrama. I like what they do with "Wild Horses"--maybe the way to save that overstated metaphor is to overstate it some more. But too often they change the beauty of the melody until it sounds just like an op-e-ra. C
>>130873702this is their return to action after a four year hiatus, also i won't disagree that Patti's singing is a little much at times
God's wounds, it's a "rock" version of the myth of Hermaphroditis! (rock in quotes 'cos the drummer seems to have the singer a bit confused) Or maybe it's the invocation to Old King Cole. C-
>>130873702supposedly Jackie Wilson raped her or something
These fellows certainly have lost their hip aura, and their bid for the feminist vote here is likely to be undercut by, let's see, titles like "Jaded Strumpet" (nor to mention "For Ladies Only"), the customized Penismobile in the gatefold, and the vagina dentata--denture atop shapely gams--from which the band recoils on the enclosed poster. Too bad, since the title tune does lay out rock and roll misogyny with the kind of dumb, well-meaning insight I've always liked in John Kay. Wish he had come up with a few more dumb, well-crafted hooks as well. C+
>>130873779they got run into the ground by their label demanding too many albums
>>130873472that's not the best cover art i've ever seen
On the front cover of this album is a black man in silhouette. On the back cover Eric, looking paunchy, rests his head in the crotch of a black woman straddled above him. He also holds her ankles. Inside the jacket seven men, presumably the band, occupy the background of a full-length photo of a grassy field. Six of the men are black; five are bare-chested. In the foreground recline two naked blondes who obviously belong in a centerfold. The left hand of one is thrown back to reveal a clean-shaven and possibly airbrushed underarm, so that her right does not quite conceal her pubic hair. Her companion hides her sex with both hands. The only man who is standing appears to be walking toward the women. He has removed the belt from his pants. D+
>>130873847did anyone still care about Eric Button at that point?
I'm not claiming to have actually listened to this four-disc set--you think I'm a nut? But an event this monumental is too big to ignore and Chicago are a C minus group if ever I heard one. Anyway, the packaging offers contextual support for my opinion--shrink wrap so loose that prospective consumers buying it as a Christmas present for their girlfriends will think they have a review copy, while the absence of sleeve liners means the only way to avoid scratching these plastic documents to lay the whole shebang out on the coffee table and never touch it again. C-
Peaking at 67 on the Billboard, this is a minor hit and Tony's biggest-selling album in half a decade.
McCartney is coming to terms with his own fluff--the overproduction sounds less cluttered this time--but it's still fluff, and not even goosedown. Maybe the thrill of leading his very own band has him distracted. (Yes, Linda is in it--that's the good part.) C-
Bobby, you serve only to annoy and clutter up radio playlists. Go away.
Went to #1 and their final charting hit. One of those typical John Loudermilk cheese bomb tunes.
Like any country workhorse, Lynn customarily pads her three or four albums a year with the popular songs of the day. Here the unadorned sexuality of "Help Me Make It Through the Night" and the white gospel roots of "Put Your Hand in the Hand" prove that for a great natural singer remakes needn't be a waste. But then there's "Rose Garden." And "Me and Bobby McGee." B
>>130874088>But then there's "Rose Garden." And "Me and Bobby McGee."is he saying they're good or bad? idgi.
>>130874095Beats me. That version of Rose Garden isn't particularly better or worse than the original but nobody's taking her Bobby McGee over its more famous version.
>>130874088three this year to be specific
>>130870882who the fuck doesn't like GFR or Sabbath? What a turd that guy was.
Chuck isn't specializing in filler this time out, but the memorable cuts aren't exactly models of craftsmanship. "Festival" is the man at his most endearingly crass, envisioning a rock and roll circus featuring "bad Bo Diddley and the Beatles and the Mothers" in one line and the Woolies (his Detroit backup band) and the Loading Zone (San Fran backup, rhymes with Stones) elsewhere. The other is six minutes of doggerel over bass-and-piano accompaniment that is a good bad poem the way Husbands is a good bad movie. B-
>>130874143Critics lol. if you didn't back up New Left politics back then you didn't get the good grades.
we miss ya, Jimi
Full Tilt Boogie prove themselves the most musicianly of her three backup bands--there's not a track where they don't help her grab the moment by the seat of the pants. Nevertheless, they and their soul/blues do her a disservice. I miss Big Brother, whose bizarre lumpenhippie "acid rock," when combined with her too frequently ignored country roots and her blues allegiances, made for an underclass triple-header altogether too threatening and unkempt to suit the kind of professional advisors who help singers assemble backup bands. No accident that the only transcendent tracks here are "Me and Bobby McGee," an country song, and "Mercedes Benz," an impromptu (or simulated impromptu) hippie goof. A-
>>130874192ditto
>>130874192Jimmy Johnson (the football coach) went to school with her. he said she was unpopular and a weirdo the other kids picked on. he was baffled at her later music successes.
>>130873201>it'll be a pleasure to watch you fail.I hope Stills kicked his ass after reading this CSN/CSN&Y kick major ass, go listen to Almost Cut My Hair right nowhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK3TIYG9mqM
>>130874192this did absolute wonders for the size of Kris Kristofferson's Cayman Islands bank account
>>130874258lol if anything Stills is an awkward nerd aspie he's not any kind of a Chad. that's Neil Young.
>>130874276>Chad. that's Neil Youngooof, in "everything is backwards" Canada maybe
>>130874159>>130874221country is hardly even an album format especially in this era. the 50s never ended in Nashville, so to speak.
>>130874276he sees himself in Stills, that's why he doesn't like him
>>130874276>Neil Young>ChadThey're both aspies, that's why they made so much music together. If anything, Neil is slightly more autistic
>>130871153The biker gang was in the right. The feral nigger was threatening people with a gun and everyone acts like it was a tragedy that the piece of shit criminal got stabbed.
>>130874068Who do we call this Schizo?
>>130875190the proper term for Goldsboro is "pedophile">In 1982, Goldsboro, then in the process of getting a divorce from his wife, was accused by his 11 year old daughter and a friend of hers of molesting them. Los Angeles police found child pornography material in his house.[3]
>>130873916>>130873847This is not a review of an album, it's a review of an album cover.
>>130876073I mean the one obsessed with has beens
>>130876073>replying to someone who posts with ChatGPT>proof is Schizo being capitalized
>>130876152not all of us are native English speakers you realize
This time the hits Ashford & Simpson have written for Diana were written for Diana, which minimizes embarrassing comparisons. And the verve of side two--where Motown finally learns how to kowtow to Broadway and keep the songwriting royalties--suggests that she's learning to hold her own. B
>>130876134>I mean the one obsessed with has beens?
>>130873553i checked the archive for the /mu/ in 1970 thread which was posted 6/23 and you all forgot to post Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow>>130876262she also had an album between S/T and this one that wasn't posted
>>130872857>Never would have figured this theatre type to come up with it, but he did--"I'm Eighteen," as archetypal a hard rock single as you're liable to hear in this flaccid yearyou're telling me a year with Sticky Fingers, Who's Next, LZ4, and Master of Reality is a weak year for rock?
>>130876363I had to guess only because '71 didn't have anything quite as blisteringly intense as a lot of the 68-70 releases, at the height of the counterculture. Things were softening a little bit by this point.
Despite sage advice from my female advisers, I cherished hopes that Coolidge's thick voice--which is grainy rather than gritty, like the Bramlett voice without the bravura--would grow on me the way Tracy Nelson's did. She does get more out of "Seven Bridges Road" than Tracy does by underplaying the overstatement just a little, and it's nice to hear "The Happy Song" as praise for a househusband. But in the end this is so solid that it never sparkles once. C+
Dylan takes off on hiatus for a while.
she got a couple huge hits out of this one
Two albums this year.
>>130871109in fact Andy has his last top 10 hit this year with "Love Story"
Three more albums (two Box Tops collabs) as the now leaderless Supremes carry on.
As Joni grooves with the easy-swinging elite-rock sound of California's pop aristocrats, her relation to their (and her own) easy-swinging sexual ethic becomes more probing. But thoughtfulness isn't exactly making her sisterly--I've even heard one woman complain that she can't sing Joni's melodies any more. Well, too bad--they're getting stronger all the time, just like the lyrics. From the eternal ebullience of "All I Want" to the month-after melancholy of "Blue," this battlefront report on the fitful joys of buy-now pay-later love offers an exciting, scary glimpse of a woman in a man's world. A
>>130876885all i gathered is that it's about her being a whore and fucking every rock star in the business
>>130876950go to bed Dylan
"Something," "The Long and Winding Road," "Wichita Lineman," "Down in the Valley," and "The Three Bells" on one LP? Would even Jim Reeves have the guff? Yeah, he might, which in his case is unfortunate. 'Cause Jim Reeves wouldn't syncopate that chapel bell. Or chuckle in abject lechery and infatuation on some ASCAP oldie. A-
>>130870744Is it rolling, James? The hit vamp (can't call it a tune, now can you?) "Escape-ism" was supposedly cut to kill time until Bobby Byrd arrived. The title track follows and it's a killer too, one of Brown's richest Afro-dances. "Blues and Pants" suggests that the title track is a mellowed down takeoff on "Sex Machine," which is good to know. And "Can't Stand It" is not to be confused with "I Can't Stand Myself." If you say so, James. Only he doesn't. I don't think he cares. And neither do I. A-
>>130877002I still say Peggy Lee had the best "Something" cover even though Ray's isn't bad.
>>130877023George says James Browns is the best
>>130877023also Ray Charles is one of the biggest artists /mu/ almost never brings up
>>130876446>the Yoko Ono of CSN
Not so enthused about what happens next year when she sings Shel Silverstein's feminist agitprop.
The tip-off is when in the middle of a lyric about needing someone who doesn't need etc. etc. Jim intones the line "I see the bathroom is clear." That's how you know the "raaght awn"s in "Cars Hiss by My Window" (hiss, huh?) and the jungle talk in "The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)" (wasps, huh?) and even the cover of John Lee Hooker's "Crawling King Snake" (take that, lizard-haters) are jokes. Which is nice, because the band has never sounded better--the blues licks are sharp, the organ fills are hypnotic, and they've even hired a bass player. But if "Been Down So Long" is also a takeoff, I prefer Randy Newman's. And Newman has better ideas about "L'America," too. A-
>>130873363never even knew she performed at Woodstock
>>130877149RIP big boy.
Old bluesmen lived on the road out of necessity--although they often got into it, Taylor is an egotist, plain and simple. A born-rich noveau star who resides on a "down home homestead" (what does he raise there? hopes?), he feels compelled to the road and the Holiday Inn by the "mean ol' world" and the conniving, self-pitying whine of a voice that is his curse. Having squandered all his big songs on the debut, the material here is more involved, onanastic, escapist by design. Interesting, intricate, unlistenable. C
>>130870223>>130870149>>130869906i don't understand the hate for don mclean
>>130877385His one hit being bashed into everyone's skulls since 1971?
>>130877401I love american pie, but it wasn't his only hit, he had 6 hits and he had other great songs:https://youtu.be/qarnzcRbPMkhttps://youtu.be/ciLNMesqPh0https://youtu.be/TI9NjQK_xm8
>>130877385He's apparently a gigantic asshole of a person.
i was the guy who posted >>130869906. lol. the first post of any thread is always important to consider because it sets the tone for the rest of the thread. that said, American Pie is obnoxious as shit.
>>130877452>>130877447nevermind, i googled it, bob dylan famously said he hated american pie because don mclean called him a jester in it which offended bob, who saw himself as bravely protesting wars. so retards hate mclean now. i knew it was some artificial kind of thing. thanks for your time.
>>130877468>Nobody is allowed to use jester metaphors in songs but me. Get your own thing, dude.that's as bad as him accusing Neil Young of copying him because he used a harmonica on some song once
Despite a few jarringly saccharine choral bits and some dumb screeching, this mostly instrumental enterprise by John Mayall grads Jon Mark and Johnny Almond is indeed relaxing--so relaxing people are getting excited about it. That's what happens when you confuse enlightenment with more mundane contemplative states. Miles Davis's In a Silent Way on the one hand and Booker T.'s Melting Pot on the other are just as pleasant and offer both thrills and substance underneath. This offers neither. C+
>>130877593>black musician good white musician lame
>>130877593you'd get the complete opposite impression from his review of Millions Now Living Will Never Die when he acts like M-A were kino and he totally didn't give them a C plus
Brown's farewell to his own indie label is so outre purists will probably prize it. Rock-funk instrumentals dominated by (literally) anonymous electric piano and guitar, both more rock than funk, which would never be said of the rhythm section. At moments it sounds like JB Meets BB--and I don't mean the bluesman, I mean Bela Bartok--in the person of arranger Dave Matthews. As for JB, he grunts a few times. Veddy interesting. C+
>>130877593this album is purdy solid. was pleasantly surprised because it's dollar bin filler
>>130877626That was 24 years later (1996), a lot changed in that time and stuff that seemed lame in '71 may have been critically reappraised since.
Jon Anderson, who delivers the inane Con III lyrics with prissy expertise, and Tony Kaye, whose keyboards run the gamut from vague to overweening, are the bad guys. Bill Bruford, who rocks the rather fancy tempos and signatures, and Chris Squire, best when he gets a good interlock going with Bruford, are the neutrals. And new guitarist Steve Howe makes the record worth hearing if not owning. His commentary throughout "Yours Is No Disgrace," his live acoustic solo "The Clap," and his duet with himself on "Würm" (that's German for "worm," in case you're interested) make the first side almost interesting, and he's at the heart of the album's one great cut, "I've Seen All Good People," where all their arty eclecticism comes together for 6:47. B-
>>130871145>release date November 11, 1970Tarkus was their '71 release not S/T.
>>130877734It released in '71 in the US.
>>130877713>>130877734prog fucking sucks anyway
Beginning with two absolutely classic songs, one about a mother's love and the next about a mother's sexuality, and including country music's answers to "Triad" ("If I Lose My Mind") and "The Celebration of the Lizard" ("The Mystery of the Mystery"), side one is genius of a purity you never encounter in rock anymore. Overdisc is mere talent, except "She Never Met a Man (She Didn't Like)," which is more. A-
>>130877773would never happen today, nu country singers grew up in suburban McMansions and didn't have the kind of childhood she describes. no wonder nu country is lame.
This brand-new cover of Mussorgsky's mouldy-oldie does have a big new beat, but you can't dance to it and the instrumentation does seem a bit spare. Anyway, I don't even listen to the original all that much. D+
>>130877822See previous. Prog sucks in general but ELP exceptionally sucks.
>>130870454Primal goes pop--personal and useful. The title cut is both a hymn for the Movement and a love song for his wife, celebrating a Yokoism and a Marcusianism simultaneously, and "Gimme Some Truth" unites Lennon unmasked with the Lennon of Blunderland wordplay as it provides a rationale for "Jealous Guy," which doesn't need one, and "How Do You Sleep?," which may. "Oh Yoko!" is an instant folk song worthy of Rosie & the Originals and "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier" an instant folk extravaganza worthy of Phil Spector. "It's So Hard" is a blues. "Crippled Inside," with its "ironic" good-time ricky-tick, is folk-rock in disguise. And the psychotherapeutically lugubrious "How?" is a question mark. A
>>130877643we haven't met them yet in '71, but soon
>>130877880groans audibly
>>130877149>OH GOD YES, RANDY. FUCK MY TIGHT LITTLE ASSHOLE. YES YES YES! GOD YES, RANDY. FASTER! FASTEERRRR!!!!
Between the cardboard leatherette jacket and the cold-type rotogravure souvenir booklet is a piece of plastic with good melodies and bad Westerns on it. Why do people believe that these latter qualify as songpoems? Must be that magic word "connection," so redolent of trains, illegal substances, and I-and-thou. Did somebody say Grand Funk Railroad was a hype? What about this puling phony? B-
>>130871569Their worst since Friends, which just goes to show that making like a great group is as bad for your music as making like a buncha mystics. Except for the sophomoric "Student Demonstration Time," the songs on the first side are all right--"Take a Load Off Your Feet" is worthy of Wild Honey and "Disney Girls (1957)" is worthy of Jack Jones's Greatest Hits--but the pop impressionism of side two drags hither and yon. The dying words of a tree are delivered in an apt, gentle croak, but the legendary title opus is an utter failure even on its own woozy terms and there are several disasters from the guest lyricists--Van Dyke Parks's wacked-out meandering is no better than Jack Rieley's. I'll trade you my copy for Surfin' Safari even up, and you'll be sorry. B-
>>130878056I fuckin' hate "Disney Girls" though.
People say Kris is ruined by producer Fred Foster. Note, however, that the ruin isn't commercial but artistic--the man sells a lot better than Randy Newman. That's because Kris's pet paradox--hobo intellectual as Music Row hit man--almost demands extraneous strings. Ungainly, not to say dishonest. C-
>>130878056Shit tastes as usual
>>130878289accurate
Led by ex-folkie Toni Brown (the principal composer) and ex-blueswoman Terry Garthwaite (whose three rhythm songs sizzle joyously), this may not be your idea of rock and roll. The music revolves around Brown's piano, which rolls more than it rocks, and the band goes for multi-percussion rather than the old in-out. I find it relaxing and exciting and amazingly durable; I can dance to it, and I can also fuck to it. The musical dynamic pits Brown's collegiate contralto against Garthwaite's sandpaper soul, and the lyrics are feminist breakthroughs. "Too Late, but Not Forgotten" remembers a trailer camp while "Red Wine at Noon" touches international finance, but the two protagonists are united by one overriding fact--they're victimized as wives. And it's about time somebody in rock and roll said so. A
>>130878056not as good as Randy Newman, huh?
>>130878883nobody remembers this mediocre feminist rock existed, nobody cares about it
>>130877468WTF I love Bob Dylan now!!!
>>130878927you'd love him even more if you heard that he ranted how Joni Mitchell was a worthless whore who just got a career by fucking male rock stars
This isn't as bad as the faithless claim (a lot better than Bite, for instance), but it's definitely a collection of weirdnesses rather than an album: duh boys in duh band sing a cappella, Grace sings German, Grace defies cop, Hot Tuna outtake, fiddle feature, and so forth. And so on. C+
>>130878909I do, you nigger
>>130878883>and I can also fuck to ityou mean the chick pegs you with a strap-on as this album plays, right?
I know you think they're dumb, but they're not, they're just slow, and this intelligent noise proves it. Every instrument in what is basically a trio format must make a solo-quality contribution, yet every one is held in check, by the tempos and the structures in which flash is strictly discouraged. The tension that results is more gripping here than on Fire and Water because vocalist Paul Rodgers and guitarist Paul Kossoff have mastered the reined-in expressiveness that comes naturally to drummer Simon Kirke and (especially) bassist Andy Fraser--last time they showed off, but this time you can hear them trying not to. Equally important, the tracks average 3:48 instead of 5:02. But though there are hints of melodic and verbal facility as well, there aren't enough. B
>>130878994yeah yeah we know. the 60s were over, Grace was a mom now, and also 30 now and they were just dicking around here and didn't really have big statements anymore.
This postsoul big band isn't as messy as the sum of its cross-references; on the second side especially, the heavy guitar, post-Memphis horns, and off-center 4/4 all work to similarly disquieting effect, and even the African kalimba is suitably weird. But at times the brass locks into gear just like Vegas, and the expert vocal harmonies neither fit the concept nor assert any personality of their own. Worse, even the songs that work when you're listening have a way of slipping away unnoticed once the record is over. C+
>>130879062the birth of buttrock
>>130878994pretty as you feel is pretty great until it gets to that awkwardly excessive guitar solo. you can imagine someone's dad playing it while sticking his tongue out.
>>130877836king crimson and soft machine were decent
Since the last few years Clive Davis has tried to wean her off of showtune slop and into contemporary pop/rock.
You can blame this on the march of history, stylistic evolution, what have you, but it's not just that we've changed--so have they. John Phillips now reserves his inspiration for his solo LP, where his heart is, and overall the level of simple effort is so sappy it's startling. C-
To call this progressive rock is only to prove the term an oxymoron. But if you don't insist on snappy tunes with a good beat there are quite a few textural and technical attractions here, and the cold (not cool) jazziness of their compositions does project a certain cerebral majesty--third stream that deigns (rather than fails) to swing. Unfortunately, neither Gordon Haskell nor (keep off the weeds) Jon Anderson delivers Pete Sinfield's overwrought lyrics with the sarcasm they deserve. B-
>>130879087this band sucks
The two decent songs here--I refer primarily to the melodies of "Tiny Dancer" (just how small is she, anyway?) and "Levon"--clock in (with lots and lots of help from Paul Buckmaster) at 6:12 and 5:37 respectively. In other words, they meander. The others maunder as well. Ugh. C
>>130872801only made it to 145 on the billboard top 200. lol nobody listened to his musicwas anybody here even alive in 1971? glad i wasnt because all this music is shit
>>130879610>was anybody here even alive in 1971? glad i wasnt because all this music is shitwhich music is shit?
Was it only two years ago that the formation of Crosby, Stills & Nash brought gladness to the hearts of rock and rollers who remembered that they loved tight songs rather than endless jams and believed that an ex-Hollie's pop sense would temper Byrds/Springfield folk-rock? Who would have figured that none of them would remember that rock and roll is also supposed to be funky--and fast. And that the best stuff on their live album would be the jams, dominated by the new guy, who would also write their tightest songs? And for that matter that a singalong of dig-its and right-ons by the man who wrote "For What It's Worth" and a goody-goody song about Chicago by the ex-Hollie would sound like political high points? B-
>>130879624>which music is shit?The Joy of Cooking, Gentle Giant, and that geriatric Patti Page album.
>>130874076this got pushed because it was lame critic/social justice b8. Mark doesn't sound especially into the song either.
The great Nashville songsmith has never bowled anyone over with his singing, and here he finds the concept to match. Since "perfect man" has already been and gone, he announces at the outset, "the voice of imperfect man must now be made manifest, and I have been chosen as the most likely candidate." Most of these songs--though not the two best, "Yesterday's Wine" and "Me and Paul"--are on religious themes, and on more than one he seems to be playing the part of God's messenger, which tends to limit their general relevance. But if that's how he got to "These Are Difficult Times," maybe it was worth it. Anyway, sometimes his nonsinging bowls me over. B+
If any of you is sufficiently impressed by the Allman Brothers to settle for an imitation, here it is, with great cover art and a touch of declamation for flavoring. C
>>130879776this band loved their retarded shock humor covers, didn't they?
In which all the flash of Bitches Brew coalesces into one brilliant illumination. On "Right Off" (i.e., side one) John McLaughlin begins by varying a rock riff I'll bet Miles wrote for him over Michael Henderson's blues bass line and Billy Cobham's impressively rockish pulse and then goes on to cut the leader, who's not exactly laying back himself. "Yesternow" (side two) is mellower, mood music for a vacation on the moon. A great one. A+
>>130879624all of it! i like new wave/synth music and metal. the music from 1971 couldnt be more opposite>>130879673>The Joy of Cookingjust awful!
>>130880416i mean yeah every decade is really two decades and the Carter years were very different from 1971.
>>130872393what exactly is "pedo" about banging 14 year old women?
>>130877468No, I meant he's supposed to be a total asshole in person, regardless of what he called Dylan.
>>130877960Yeah, he writes this hippie-dippy shit but he strikes me as the sort of person who could join a violent religion and start calling for people who criticize it to be murdered.
