Tag: 1970s

Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd

~ Pete Cox ~ Leave a comment

Hitting the 70’s with a slab of Southern Rock.

With classics like Simple Man and Freebird, this album was always going to be a bit of a winner in my eyes. And it didn’t disappoint at all. Filled with some of the greatest rock riffs of all time which have seen Lynyrd Skynyrd included on a plethora of greatest rock and air guitar albums and on games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, this album is wall to wall solid.

And you can feel that the album isn’t just about rock, there are huge amounts of blues and country influences throughout the album. Everything just melds together into a great album.

Tubular Bells

~ Pete Cox ~ Leave a comment

Aside from having heard some of this in The Exorcist, I’d not heard the rest of it. And I will be honest, I didn’t really like this album. Not sure why, but I really didn’t get into it like I have the other albums from the book. Maybe I was expecting something more from it, maybe I’m just having a bad day. But this left me bored, and I nearly turned off the album halfway through the first track, there are only two tracks on the original album and they are both over 20 minutes.

No picture on this at the moment as I can’t get it to upload.

Honky Tonk Heroes

~ Pete Cox ~ Leave a comment

Time for a change of pace again, this time to the guy who sings the theme tune for the Dukes of Hazzard, Waylon Jennings.

It’s a short album, with ten tracks and under 30 minutes long. But it’s a nice album, to have on in the background. The country twang and honky tonk vibe is completely uninvasive and weirdly quite calming. There was nothing on the whole album that really stood out, but equally there was nothing that I didn’t like either.

I’ve been listening to more country music over the last year or two and (in some cases) it’s definitely something I can get into. This album has just added to that feeling.

Van Halen

~ Pete Cox ~ Leave a comment

Time for the debut album by a band who would become hair metal gods, Van Halen.

I knew a few tracks by Van Halen, one of which is the first track Running With The Devil, but the rest weren’t on here.

It was a good mix of styles, showing just how good Van Halen were. There was a little bit of everything from what would become hair metal, through to what sounded like doowop…

It worked for me, short, fun album which is a great intro into both this genre and the band.

School’s Out

~ Pete Cox ~ Leave a comment

Ok…I thought I knew Alice Cooper’s style of music, but this really isn’t what I was expecting. I normally associate AC with rock music, and although there was a rock feel to this, it was less rock than I thought it would be, much less… That’s maybe not a bad thing, it’s good to have a new spin on things.

This was a good album, not great, not bad, just good.

There was the rockier feel on a couple of tracks, but a majority of this wasn’t that rocky. There were still guitars and all that, but it almost had more of a rock and roll feel to it and in places it was more country and even pop…

The title track is one that everyone knows, but the other tracks on here are also good and worth a listen.

The Clash

~ Pete Cox ~ Leave a comment

Back to the classic punk again with the eponymously titled debut from The Clash.

On the whole it’s a good album, filled with mostly short, anthemic punk songs that you can learn the chorus for quite quickly, and be singing along to in no time. Some more political songs on this album compared to 90’s punk and certainly the more modern punk/pop bands, but nothing overly contraversial or contentious. I do think some of the sentiment behind the songs still rings true, such as “I’m So Bored With The USA” and “Career Opportunities”.

Musically, it does what a punk album should; shouty singing, stop/start guitars and driving drums.

Autobahn

~ Pete Cox ~ Leave a comment

Sliding into the 1970s electronica era with this truly classic album.

I’ve heard of Kraftwerk, I’ve heard of Autobahn, I am pretty sure I’ve heard the title song as well.

It is a classic album, it is repetative though, but that actually doesn’t detract too much if you’re listening to it in the car or while working. And besides, most electronica as an element of repetition in it.

The title track is a journey, right from the get go, with getting in the car. It does sound a little dated and like a 70s/80s sci-fi movie soundtrack, but that is part of the cult status for this album.

I genuinely liked it! I dont know why I was shocked by this, but I was. It’s just one of those background albums that you can put on let wash over you without thinking about it.

(GI)

~ Pete Cox ~ Leave a comment

So I’ve switched to some classic America punk from the late 70’s today. And to me this is what punk is all about; short, fast songs, with catchy guitar and bass riffs, semi political lyrics that you can’t always make out, and a rhythym that makes you want to bounce around. Crammed with short, catchy songs, this album in under 40 minutes, but has 16 tracks worth of proper punk.

I’d heard of The Germs, but only because the guitarist joined the Foo Fighters later on, I’d never heard anything by them. This was their only album, but you can feel the influence they had on other later bands. There was a bit at the end of the track Media Blitz that even reminded me of White Zombie.

Good to listen to, made me want to get back into punk a little as well.

Phaedra

~ Pete Cox ~ Leave a comment

It’s another album by a band I’d not heard of, this time Phaedra by Tangerine Dream.

This is another different genre of music, this book is really coming through with stuff I should listen to. I mean I was always a music fan and a fan of pretty much anything (aside from generic mass produced pop music, but even there I have the occasional guilty pleasure).

This is a short album in terms of number of tracks, there are only 4…but given that the first track, Phaedra, is near 17 minutes long, the total length of the album is pretty normal.

For an album from the 1970s, this does feel a little ahead of itself. It’s electronic, and has that kind of feel to it that it wouldn’t be out of place in some of the big nightclubs these days as part of a chill out set.

While it’s not my usual musical taste, electronica is something that I do like form time to time. I enjoyed the album, there was no driving beat behind it, melodies and harmonies fade in and out, with different effects and sounds being played with. There’s no vocal track to this album, in fact I think it’s only synthesizers that are used through out the album. It means that you don’t have to think about the lyrics and you can just let the sounds wash over you.

Pink Moon

~ Pete Cox ~ Leave a comment

Ok, so this is what I got the 1001 Ablums book for, and why I started writing this. I’d never heard of Nick Drake and never listened to Pink Moon before this coming up. And I was really surprised. I’m definitely going to have to listen to other songs/albums by Nick Drake.

Pink Moon has a very folky feel to it, but that could just be because it’s all just the vocal and an acoustic guitar, which also gives the album a really intimate feel, it’s almost as though he was sat in the corner. Something about this album really spoke to me, and there wasn’t a song on this album that I didn’t enjoy.

The style reminded me of Damian Rice, so I’m wondering if Nick Drake was an influence. I’ve read that he died at 26, and never really made a big impact on the industry when he was alive, which is really hard to believe after listening to this album.