Iggy Pop ‎Blah-Blah-Blah

Iggy Pop Blah-Blah-Blah

Get It At Discogs

In 1983, Iggy Pop's career was in shambles, but an unexpected windfall arrived thanks to Iggy's frequent benefactor David Bowie. Bowie recorded "China Girl," a song Bowie and Pop co-wrote, for his album Let's Dance, earning Iggy some large (and much-needed) royalty checks. Wisely realizing he was running out of second chances, Iggy decided to make the most of his good fortune; he steered clear of drugs, learned to cook his own meals, started putting money in the bank, and used his savings to bankroll a new album. David Bowie offered to help, and together they came up with Blah Blah Blah, the most calculatedly commercial album of Iggy's career. Like The Idiot, Blah Blah Blah was heavily influenced by Bowie's input; however, while The Idiot was made by a man creating intelligent and ambitious art rock, Blah Blah Blah is the work of a popmeister looking for hits and not afraid to sound cheesy about it. In the liner notes, a member of Duran Duran is thanked for the loan of a drum machine, and that speaks volumes about the production; Blah Blah Blah is slick in a very '80s way, dominated by preprogrammed percussion and swirling keyboards. And in the four years since Zombie Birdhouse, Iggy hadn't come up with much in the way of material; the only truly memorable tracks are "Real Wild Child (Wild One)," a neat bit of electro-processed rockabilly (previously a hit for Australian rocker Johnny O'Keefe), and the moody "Cry for Love," co-written by former Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones. Both of these songs were minor hits, so Blah Blah Blah succeeded on its obviously commercial terms.

The Pale Fountains Pacific Street Japan Reissue

The Pale Fountains Pacific Street

Get It At Discogs

Liverpool, during the early 1980s, was quite possibly the hardest English city to form a band. The Beatles’ legacy continued to cast a long shadow. Manchester’s Factory Label was quickly becoming the voice of the North. And thanks to the Human League, Sheffield’s once avant-garde electronic scene was becoming a national phenomenon. The only way for Scoucers to stand out in the face of such strong competition was to scatter like roaches and explore a wide range of eclectic styles. Echo and the Bunnymen performed with a bombast and grandiosity that rivaled U2. The Teardrop Explodes boldly explored psychadelia and Krautrock. And Frankie Goes to Hollywood managed to subvert the world by coupling shamelessly homoerotic lyrics with Trevor Horn’s inventive production. Despite their quirks, all managed to strike a balance between post punk principles and Britain’s lush musical past and reassert their city’s place as a breeding ground for English talent. But one band remained totally out of step. Based on their influences alone, The Pale Fountains, formed by Michael Head in 1981, managed to stand out as an anachronism. Their music betrays the influence of Burt Bacharach, Love, Brazilian jazz and bossa nova. Their overtly sunny lyrics were suspect during the gloom of the early Thatcher years. Some critics dismissed them as a “cabaret band.” Their response? "A cabaret band play cover versions of standards -- we play our own songs." . Released in early 1984, “Pacific Street” is a very rich and well recorded album. It’s brimming with a wide variety of sounds: including, but not limited to, congas, trumpets, string sections, flutes, mandolins, pianos and steel drums. All of this with the perfect touch of foreign rhythms to keep things interesting. The opener, “Reach”, kicks off the program in a very quiet way. The intro is barely audible and rather unspectacular, but quickly gives way to chiming guitars and chipper trumpets. Song two, “Something On My Mind,” is a song that I use as a starting point when I recommend this band to friends. It’s quite possibly the most flawlessly recorded piece of pop rock of the last twenty years. “Unless” is the only song to take advantage of affordable synth technology. Pre-recorded choral swells accent the lead vocal while a sequencer occasionally gurgles through. Kinda reminds me of Brian Eno, except with better lyrics. A heavy debt to Love is evident on the saccharine “Southbound Excursion” and the thrash poppy “Natural”. Though I tend to grit my teeth at Michael’s “Yeah yeah yeahs” and yelps in the latter. After the instrumental “Faithful Pillow (Part 1)” the boys get really ambitious with “You’ll Start a War,” a mini-epic that failed to make a dent in the UK charts upon its release as a single. The remaining numbers, while strong, lean a bit too heavily on the Burt Bacharach influence. This doesn’t mean they’re boring, but they sorta validate all the cries of “cabaret” and “M.O.R.” But I do enjoy the lively steel drum intro of “Crazier.” The original album ends with a reprise of “Faithful Pillow.” European re-issues feature 4 bonus tracks, including the single that got the band signed, “Thank You.” The Japanese reissue really beefs it up with a total of 9 bonus tracks, including alternate and extended versions. Because the public was so fixated on looks and controversy, “Pacific Street” only reached #84 in the UK charts. Funny because if this had been released in 1996, the same year as Belle and Sebastian’s “Tigermilk” it surely woulda been a hit. From what I’ve read, Virgin Records gave these lads a £50,000 advance and an additional £100,000 for expenses and recording fees. In a 1990 interview with French rock magazine, Les Inrockuptibles, Head expressed a sense of regret about the heroin fuelled demise of this band, but also looked back with a certain fondness: “Money was an excellent thing for the whole of us. We could do anything we wanted. The problem is that money can buy anything, good things as well as bad. Because I've always been very curious, I began to experiment everything. I say: everything. Therefore, it's money that killed the band, because it enabled us to buy all sorts of drugs we wanted to.” The Pale Fountains disbanded in 1985, following the release of “From Across the Kitchen Table”. Head would go on to form Shack with his brother, and continues to drift along in obscurity. But the Pale Fountains and Shack retain a cult following that includes the likes of Noel Gallagher and Badly Drawn Boy.

Roxy Music ‎For Your Pleasure

Roxy Music ‎For Your Pleasure

Get It At Discogs

Tracklist

1	Do The Strand	3:58
2	Beauty Queen	4:34
3	Strictly Confidential	3:44
4	Editions Of You	4:46
5	In Every Dream Home A Heartache	5:28
6	The Bogus Man	9:19
7	Grey Lagoons	4:08
8	For Your Pleasure	6:53

For a bunch of voguish, sartorial art rockers, Roxy Music enjoyed a commendable level of success with their eponymous debut album, with the record itself reaching number 10 in the UK album chart, and its lead single 'Virginia Plain' faring even better, stealing the number 4 spot, and in the process, gaining the band a booking to appear on the coveted 'Top of the Pop’s' television show in their native Britain - giving them a platform to exhibit themselves to an audience of millions. The lads appearance on 'Top of the Pop’s' proved to be fortuitous, as the citizens of a grey, miserable early seventies Britain lapped up the kitschy glamour, outrageous style and exhilarating, arty glam rock (a genre that was to be the country’s favourite around this time period, with the likes of Bowie and T. Rex popularising glam stylings a great deal) of Bryan Ferry and his gang of talented, ornate musicians. It provided people with a sense of escapism - a chance to exit the bleak surroundings and practices of everyday life, and enter Roxy’s world of excessive glamour, stylish fashion, sex, drugs, and art, in the form of experimental, glam rock. Roxy Music’s modus operandi was executed to an even greater extent than on their debut, with their 1973 sophomore effort, 'For Your Pleasure'. 'For Your Pleasure' is an album of juxtapositions - taking steps in one direction, but just as many in the other. The main fuel of this apposition was the creative tension between the two Brian’s of the group - Ferry and Eno. Ferry wished to fall into a more familiar glam rock setting, albeit one with the group’s arty inclinations still intact, whereas Eno wanted to push for a move towards texture - precisely his electronic experimentations with early synthesisers and sound manipulation. In the end, Ferry ‘won’ and Eno decided to pack his bags (probably full of clunky VCS3’s) and set off on his own solo path after the album was complete. But for the time being, his eerie undercurrent of electronic buzz and clever sound manipulation of Manzanera’s guitar was still present and welcomed across the album’s 8 tracks. The set kicks off with the archetypal 'Roxy' tune, 'Do The Strand' - a five minute thrill ride with tense piano, sleazy saxophone, a driving rhythm section, and typical crooning Ferry vocals. 'Beauty Queen' begins with some chilly distortion work courtesy of Eno, before its odd floating melody starts swaying along with Ferry’s exaggerated croon, stopping briefly at intervals for just a second before restoring the tune, in time for Manzanera’s guitar to pick up, in all its buzzing, reverberated glory. Most of the other tracks continue in the same fashion, but what makes each song stand out are the small details and oddities. Of particular notice is 'In Every Dream Home A Heartache' a track that spends 2/3rds of its entirety creeping and crawling along at slow pace, with a simple, eerie whirl tailing behind Ferry’s foreground vocals, before the song explodes into a distorted fit of excellent psychedelic guitar fury from Manzanera that fades away for a couple of seconds, before returning at full throttle to close the song moments later. 'Editions of You' is also stellar, even if its one of the (relatively) simpler compositions on the album - with pounding drums and vigorous guitar and sax interplay. The only song that falls flat, somewhat, is 'The Bogus Man' - spending almost nine and a half minutes not really going anywhere, it seems either self-indulgent or misguided - either way, it's the single superfluous track on the entire record. 'For Your Pleasure' is, essentially, a continuation of what Roxy set out to do on their debut the preceding year, and because of that, its simply more of the astounding work that influenced and enthralled many. But where appropriate, the album is held back just the tiniest amount by the creative tensions at play between Ferry and Eno, with some tracks being ever so slightly indifferent in their goals and execution. However, ‘slightly’ is the key word, as 'For Your Pleasure' is, despite its minor niggles, a thrilling and radical slice of arty, glam rock experimentation at near perfection.

R.E.M. Out Of Time

R.E.M. ‎Out Of Time

Get It At Discogs

Tracklist

1	Radio Song	4:12
2	Losing My Religion	4:26
3	Low	4:55
4	Near Wild Heaven	3:17
5	Endgame	3:48
6	Shiny Happy People	3:44
7	Belong	4:03
8	Half A World Away	3:26
9	Texarkana	3:36
10	Country Feedback	4:07
11	Me In Honey	4:06

.

Following the success of R.E.M.‘s 1988 album Green and the extensive supporting tour which followed, the band took nearly a year to recuperate before reconvening to produce their next album. That album would come in 1991 and be titled Out of Time, and would serve to further expose this once niche alternative band to mainstream commercial audiences. The seventh studio album by the band, Out Of Time was by far the most richly produced to date, with more relatable compositions, an expansion of the instrumentation used, cameos from contemporary artists, and much more attention paid to sonic detail of the finished product. The album combines the elements which were carried over from Green – pop and folk – with the addition of country, funk, and classical elements. The band’s chief lyricist, singer Michael Stipe, moved away from the overtly political themes they had used frequently in the 1980s, towards more personally-relatable and accessible songs, a direction they would continue through the 1990s. Fueled by the blockbuster hit “Losing My Religion”, which became the band’s biggest, Out of Time would top the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, despite the fact that R.E.M. did not tour to support the album. The single and album won a combined three Grammy Awards in 1992 and to date has sold over 18 million copies worldwide. The album commences with “Radio Song”, a lighthearted funk that was completely unique to anything the band had done to that point. The song features vocals by KRS-One, leader of Boogie Down Productions, and also shows off the talents of the band’s drummer Bill Berry. Another popular song from the album to include a guest vocalist was “Shiny Happy People”, featuring Kate Pierson of the B-52s. The song is introduced with a unique string arrangement before breaking into a typical, upbeat R.E.M. riff. It became the band’s fourth career Top 10 hit. The song’s title is based on a Southern phrase meaning “being at the end of one’s rope, however Stipe has also stated the lyrics are influenced by unrequited love.Near Wild Heaven” was another single released from the album, co-written and sung by bassist Mike Mills. It was the first such song to be written and sung by Mills. Mills also provided vocals for “Texarkana”. While this was not released as an official “single”, did well on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. “Country Feedback” was written as a stream-of-conscious by Stipe who claims he sang it in one take as an experiment and it was not re-recorded. The recording features pedal steel guitar by John Keane. With the success of Out of Time, R.E.M.’s status grew to a top-level, major act from their humble beginnings as a “cult band” on colleg radio. They would continue the momentum into the next year with 1992’s Automatic For the People.

Various ‎Doing It For The Kids

Various ‎Doing It For The Kids

Get It At Discogs

By 1988, Creation Records was firmly situated as the U.K. indie label -- the one that all others either emulated or reacted against. More importantly, by this time they were varying their roster to the point that the definitive Creation sound of the label's early days -- exceedingly jangly guitars meshed against artless and pitch-poor male vocals -- was only a part of their sound. Early Creation mainstays the Weather Prophets and the Jasmine Minks, not to mention Bobby Gillespie's pre-dance Primal Scream and label-head Alan McGee's own Biff Bang Pow!, still adhere to this style, but Doing It for the Kids also contains the atmospheric proto-shoegazer pop of Heidi Berry's "North Shore Train" and My Bloody Valentine's sublime "Cigarette in Your Bed," as well as the sparky wit of the Jazz Butcher's "Lot 49" and Momus' "A Complete History of Sexual Jealousy (Parts 17-24)." An interesting mix of bands on the verge of greatness (My Bloody Valentine and Primal Scream), artists at the top of their game (the Times, Felt, the House of Love), and a few also-rans who never quite built on the promise shown here (Emily, the underrated Razorcuts), Doing It for the Kids shows Creation Records at a pivotal moment.

Tracklist

1	–Jasmine Minks, The	Cut Me Deep
2	–Felt	Ballad Of The Band
3	–House Of Love, The	Christine
4	–Weather Prophets, The	Well Done Sonny
5	–Primal Scream	All Fall Down
6	–Biff Bang Pow!	She Paints
7	–Jazz Butcher, The	Lot 49
8	–Heidi Berry	North Shore Train
9	–Nikki Sudden	Death Is Hanging Over Me
10	–My Bloody Valentine	Cigarette In My Bed
11	–Pacific	Jetstream
12	–Times, The	Godevil
13	–Momus	A Complete History Of Sexual Jealousy (Parts 17-24)
14	–Emily	Reflect On Rye
15	–Razorcuts	Brighter Now

Various ‎– Sleighed (The Other Side Of Christmas)

Various ‎Sleighed (The Other Side Of Christmas)

Get It At Discogs

The perfect holiday album for a dysfunctional family gathering, Sleighed is a stocking full of Christmas novelty songs, with a couple of notable exceptions. Renaissance electro-folkie Beck donated "Little Drum Machine Boy," which could very well be an outtake from his album Midnite Vultures (except it was recorded in 1996!), and indie rock godfathers Sonic Youth riff out "Santa Doesn't Cop Out on Dope," both of which were featured on Geffen's 1996 release Just Say Noel. Roasted chestnuts like Bob & Doug McKenzie's rambling "Twelve Days of Christmas" and the heavy duty "Christmas With the Devil" by Spinal Tap are peppered with newer songs by Goldfinger, and the hilarious "I Farted on Santa's Lap" courtesy of Little Stinkers. These chucklers dominate the album, but there are a few real interpretations of holiday songs, the best of which being the Smithereens' earnest blast through "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

The Fatima Mansions Bertie's Brochures As Requested By Learnandsing

The Fatima Mansions Bertie's Brochures

Get It At Discogs

Bertie's Brochures, another eight songs, is a mixed bag of stuff that evidently didn't fit elsewhere; its tone is low-key, sad and rueful. R.E.M.'s "Shiny Happy People" becomes a snide hip-hop diatribe against the British government ("go g-go g-go go fuck yourself"), but the condemnation of career terrorism in "Smiling" is anything but frantic, leaving room for a little grief to breathe amid the bile. The title song is a touching little number about a curiously misguided life. Plus, it's all sandwiched between three simple, strong, straightforward songs about the vagaries of (gasp) romance: Coughlan's own "Behind the Moon," Scott Walker's "Long About Now" and Richard Thompson's "The Great Valerio." While not a representative record, Bertie's Brochures is Fatima Mansions' most broadly appealing work.

The Fatima Mansions Lost In The Former West US Album

The Fatima Mansions Lost In The Former West

Get It At Discogs

The final Mansions album almost snuck out instead of being released, with sessions split between regular producer Ralph Jezzard and ex-Talking Heads studio hound Jerry Harrison. Adding to the band's confused discographical tangle, two Valhalla Avenue cuts were appended to the American issue of the album, which still went next to nowhere in terms of any level of attention. A pity, because while the Mansions essentially hadn't changed much beyond its initial mode of feedback-heavy aggro and perversely calm adult-entertainment numbers, the overall performances on Lost were some of the band's best. Coughlan remains the central figure, writing everything with one notable exception and singing with the expected gusto, while his main collaborator O Gruama adds some scraggly, nervous guitar parts to his usual arsenal of amped-up rage. With most of the regular Mansions crew along for the ride, along with some guest performers here and there, the band set out with murder on its mind and specific targets in its sights. "Popemobile to Paraguay" starts with all the bile that an ex-Catholic Irishman could be expected to bring to bear -- by the time it's all over, American foreign policy idiocies and the leftover impact of the Cold War are but two of the other issues addressed with Coughlan's usual bile. If the album was nothing but lectures there'd be little point, but the music is always the winning edge to the Mansions' brew, whether the spooked-out mood into mayhem of "Walk in the Woods" or the calmer "Walk Yr Way." The one non-Coughlan number might have been an inevitable thing for the Mansions to do -- a cover of Scott Walker's shimmering paranoid classic "Nite Flights," here given just enough extra bite while Coughlan delivers a vocal worthy of his hero.