Great_AlbumsNov 9, 2024
#TheKinks – Everybody’s in Show-Biz (1972). The live gig on the second LP of this set is evidence of the Kinks running out of steam, but the first LP showcases Ray Davies’s potent wit and poignancy on “Maximum Consumption,” “Motorway” and the timeless “Celluloid Heroes.” Dave Davies takes a strong turn on “You Don’t Know My Name,” while elsewhere the LP serves another round of the boozy Americana explored on the previous year’s Muswell Hillbillies.

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Great_AlbumsNov 9, 2024
#TheKinks – Muswell Hillbillies (1971). After trimming British hedges on Village Green and Arthur (1968-69), Ray Davies turned his barbed shears on America. Country music was a natural bed for Ray’s wry lyrics as Bakersfield/ Nashville informed Dave Davies’s guitar on “20th Century Man” and “Muswell Hillbilly.” New Orleans dirge “Alcohol” and the Big Pinkish “Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues” added a shot of psychosis to the Kinks’ Anglophilic Americana.
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Great_AlbumsNov 5, 2024

#JohnCale – Paris 1919 (1973). Cale’s most accessible LP landed midway between the streetwise poeticism of the Velvet Underground and the literary lyricism of Leonard Cohen – Cale’s voice being similarly limited yet evocative. Allusions to Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, and Graham Greene feel lived in, never pretentious. Studio support from Little Feat’s Lowell George and Richie Hayward, plus Crusader Wilton Felder on bass, adds bluesy ambiance to Cale’s songs.

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Great_AlbumsNov 2, 2024
#DavidBowie – Low (1977). The first LP of Bowie’s Berlin trilogy, marked by Brian Eno’s influence, defined a new era for Bowie – one that would ricochet into the 1980s. Side One’s angular pop carried on from previous LP Station to Station, conveying guttural energy on “Speed of Sound” and “Sound and Vision.” Side Two sounded more in Eno’s realm than Bowie’s, exploring ambient textures on “Warszawa” and “Weeping Wall” reflective of Berlin’s electronic zeitgeist. #GreatAlbums1970s #GreatRockAlbums
Great_AlbumsNov 2, 2024

#DavidBowie – Station to Station (1976). Falling back to earth after his Ziggy phase, Bowie created the Thin White Duke as the persona behind this LP’s alienated stance. Combining Kraftwerk cool with an austere grimace, the Duke “throws darts in lovers’ eyes” on the title track, “runs for the shadows” on “Golden Years,” and clings to life on a cover of Nina Simone’s “Wild is the Wind.” A transitional LP that deepened the dark and paved the road to Berlin.

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Great_AlbumsOct 31, 2024

#DavidBowie – Young Americans (1975). Bowie’s leap into R&B and funk garnered mixed reviews and a shaky legacy while reinforcing his chameleon persona. Two big hits, “Young Americans” and “Fame” (with a John Lennon cameo) secured Bowie’s mainstream acceptance. A couple of unsung gems – “Win” and “Fascination” (written with a then-unknown Luther Vandross) – gave the LP substance. Much of Bowie’s future, from Station to Station to Let’s Dance, begins here.

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Great_AlbumsOct 28, 2024
#DavidBowie – Diamond Dogs (1974). On this underrated LP, Bowie adopts a stance somewhere between Ziggy-era rock (“Diamond Dogs,” “Rebel Rebel”) and the urban soul typical of his next phase (“Sweet Thing,” “Rock ‘N’ Roll with Me”). Mick Ronson’s absence is felt, although Bowie’s brittle guitar tone lends an eerie flair to “We Are the Dead.” Echoes of Curtis Mayfield inform the Orwellian funk of “1984,” while “Big Brother” anticipates Bowie’s Berlin period.
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Great_AlbumsOct 28, 2024
#DavidBowie – Aladdin Sane (1973). The spectre of Ziggy Stardust looms on this LP as Bowie and the Spiders, augmented by pianist Mike Garson, explore celebrity decadence on “Cracked Actor” and “The Jean Genie,” and futurism on “Drive-In Saturday” – one of Bowie’s underrated gems. At the same time, Bowie spins new ethereal atmospheres on “Aladdin Sane” and “Lady Grinning Soul.” Only the overwrought cover of “Let’s Spend the Night Together” feels superfluous.
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Great_AlbumsOct 26, 2024
#DavidBowie – The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders From Mars (1972). After years on the fringes of mainstream rock, Bowie finally connected with a mass audience – ironically, with a character beamed from outer space and doomed to oblivion. “Five Years,” “Starman,” and “Moonage Daydream” captured the darkness and decadence of the seventies zeitgeist, while “Hang On to Yourself” and “Suffragette City” pointed the way for the new wave generation.
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Great_AlbumsOct 24, 2024
#DavidBowie – Hunky Dory (1971). “Turn and face the strange,” Bowie sings in “Changes.” It describes Bowie’s jump into anthemic pop while taking a quantum leap in music Hunky Dory came to represent. It’s hard to find any other set of songs as consistently spun as “Changes,” “Oh! You Pretty Things,” “Life on Mars” and “Quicksand.” The rest of the LP moves from the poetics of “Eight Line Poem” to the thorniness of “Queen Bitch” without a wasted syllable or note. #GreatRockAlbums #GreatAlbums1970s