By April it was clear that we were in this for the long haul, and so, reluctant to get anything new to listen to I stuck to my under-listened-to vinyl:
Miles Davis:
A little too cool for me, but it does give hints to what was to come.
B+
This is one - like Midnight - that I've had for years but was just too thick to hear. Well, if Grace Slick vouches for it as an inspiration for "White Rabbit" who am I to say no? This doesn't seem like jazz to me but a lot of what I recommend doesn't seem like music to some of my friends, so there. I don't think this will quite hit me for another few years.
B+
Okay, I guess. Maybe because the songs are more familiar to me than on the others.
B
This has that great flow when it's over before you know it. Probably dumbed down for people like me but still one of my favorites by him.
A-
Everyone thinks this is a great record. I think it sucks. The piano flourishes, the longer songs. Grand statements.
Their first one was spare and mysterious.
Their second was ornery and mysterious.
This one the mystery is gone and there's less there than you imagined.
This one the mystery is gone and there's less there than you imagined.
C+
This, however, hit me right away because of all the soloing, which while not always on the same planet I occupy was always quite intriguing. I'd put this on at any time.
A-
Sweet and sincere, but for limited occasions. Like working in the basement.
B+
with John Hassell: Fourth World, Vol. I, Possible Musics:
Bob Dylan:
He's a pretty good interpreter of these old songs, but it just hasn't worn that well.
B+
The quintessential classic album with several absolutely towering songs and a few more merely good ones. Ah, but the former are all-time champs.
A
This is Dylan after his self imposed quarantine with the Band. It must have seemed quite the letdown at the time. But aside from a bit too much harmonica, this is a damn near perfect album, The melodies are wonderful if not particularly original, and the lyrics are endlessly mysterious.
A
This came out in the middle of the "lowered expectations of Dylan" era (or rather the first one, or was it the second) and I didn't like it at the time because it wasn't "pretty", but it's really quite good, and it's before his voice went full nasal.
B+
Some of this is quite nice, ("Take a Pebble", "Lucky Man"), some pretty good ("Knife Edge"), some awful ("The Barbarian", "Tank"). Serious Boy Music? Very.
B
Eno:
Our weird time has finally caught up to this record. Tuneful yet abrasive. Like some friends
A-
For years I'd respectfully put this one away in favor of Remain in Light, but now this sounds pretty current to me.
A-
This was hard to get into at first (thirty years ago) but in a basement early in the morning, a real trip.
A-
I got this very cheap import - the liner notes are all in Spanish - and it feels a little slapped together and missing some key songs. And yet it floats by effortlessly. Beautiful but incomplete.
A-
Like Eric Dolphy, a pick up from the discount bin. If you drop the guy with the hyper falsetto and his big dumb organ (wait, that sounds odd) you can hear Jan Akkerman's blistering guitar. So the first disc is pretty good, especially side 2. But then they get into a classical style beloved of prog-rock bands and start naming their songs as if they're fairy tales.
Side 1: B+, Side 2: A, Side 3: C, Side 4: C-
B
A tribute to Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly, it got short shrift in my haste to get to the fun pop music. Now, given the chance, it reveals only one bad performance (Brian Wilson, of all people) and many great songs.
B+
Funkadelic:
Soul? Psychedelia? Sly? Temptations? Well, yes. This one holds up extraordinarily well.
A
It features the best first five seconds of any album ever. Better sound, and almost enough guitar to convert me.
B+
That last one ends some lines that sounded paranoid at the time, but now sounds pretty understandable:
"Think!
Think!
It ain't illegal yet!?
Indeed.
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