|
- Shocking Blue "At Home" 1969 (Netherlands)
Here's
another classic album that has been on my list for a long time -the
breakout album by Holland's top rock band of the groovy era, Shocking
Blue. At Home was actually
their second album, but it was the first with lead singer Mariska Veres
who put them on the map with her powerful voice (often compared to Grace Slick) and stunning looks (achieved in part through the use of fabulous wigs!)
The other crucial member was Robbie Van Leeuwen, the eclectic
songwriter in the group, who dabbled in lots of styles but seemed
particularly fond of CCR-style chooglin' Americana rock. He wrote the group's international hit "Venus" - a Creedence boogie with country guitar licks, a cheesy keyboard riff, an intro borrowed from "Pinball Wizard",
all topped off with sultry Mariska ensuring you that "she's got it,
yeah baby she's got it!" It went to #1 in at least a dozen countries
including the USA, where Shocking Blue is considered a "one hit
wonder." But there's lots more to discover, like the sitar-driven
rocker "Love Buzz" (also on At Home) which worked surprisingly well when Nirvana covered it
(literally sounds like a song Kurt could have written). I also
especially love their 1968 non-album single "Send Me A
Postcard", a tremendous hard rock "nugget" of the era which was
the group's first Top 10 hit in their native country. You can also find
psychedelia, soul, country, blues, gospel, and more in the pop music
stew this group created. Their appetite for diverse Anglo-American
styles remind me of another internationally popular chameleon band of
the same era: Canada's The Guess Who,
another group with a lot of great songs but no signature style to call
their own. One more fun fact: all of Shocking Blue's lyrics are in
English, yet Mariska could not speak a word of that language so
she learned all the lyrics phonetically! |
|
- The Rascals "Peaceful World" 1971 (USA)
The
Rascals were one of the biggest hit-making groups in America
during the mid-sixties, when they were known as "The Young Rascals" -
I'm sure you know their #1 smash "Good Lovin'"
(good gawd, their drummer was a MONSTER!)
By the end of the decade, they dropped "Young" from the group name, got
very psychedelic and spiritual, and as they entered the 1970's went one
further and
ditched "rock and roll" completely to become a guru-inspired
soul-jazz fusion
project. Only two members of the group remained by this point: singer,
songwriter & keyboardist Felix Cavaliere along with that beast
drummer Dino
Danelli. So the "group" was augmented by a monster lineup of jazz
talent
including Ron Carter, Alice Coltrane, Hubert Laws, Joe Farrell, and
many more. I personally think their final "jazz period" was The
Rascals' most interesting, and the double album Peaceful World is their masterpiece (the other two albums they made in this style during 1971-72 were Search And Nearness and their final album The Island Of Real). Though the preceeding "psychedelic pop" albums Once Upon A Dream, Freedom Suite, and See
(1968-69) have their share of underappreciated groovy tunes as
well (and of course their earliest albums are the ones with all the Top
10 singles). Of all the popular groups of the golden sixties era, I
can't think
of any others that went in such a singular direction after the sixties
ended. The closest thing could be Steely Dan
(who debuted the same year Rascals broke up), though they were "more
rock than soul" and waaaayy more misanthropic than the "peaceful"
Rascals. |
|
- Blues Magoos "Psychedelic Lollipop" 1966 (USA)
The psychedelic rock era exploded in 1966, led by landmark albums from The Beatles, The Byrds, and The Mothers of Invention. There were also three records released that year with the buzzword "psychedelic" in the album title: the ones by 13th Floor Elevators and The Deep
have already been CAOTWs, so this week we add the best-selling of that
trio, the debut by NYC band Blues Magoos. In spite of another
buzzword "Blues" in the band's name, they were not particularly bluesy
and were really more of a garage band that successfully climbed on the
acid rock bandwagon. Magoos are remembered as
a one-hit wonder, and their one hit "(We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet" can be
found on this album. Their second and third albums (Electric Comic Book and Basic Blues Magoos) are also full of sixties "nuggets" - on the whole their career was comparable to a group like The Strawberry Alarm Clock: never first-tier, but they made more groovy music than you might have expected.
Meanwhile, the summer of 2023 is turning out to be a renaissance for J-pop Metal: BABYMETAL's new single
is their first with new member Momometal (finally replacing
Yuimetal who left in 2018), who sings the weird bridge in this song - a
collab with Tom Morello which is better than anything on the album they
released last spring! Even more exciting, the iconic supergroup Maximum The Hormone released their first new song in about 5 years! |
|
- Styx "The Grand Illusion" 1977 (USA)
Happy
Hippy Xmas! All the music on the show this week is sourced from crusty
old vinyl elpees, mostly the kinds of little-known things you find in
the "dollar bin" at used record stores. Sometimes you find hidden gems
there, other times uncool records from artists that were once cool but
no longer! Styx is a great example of the latter: in the late 70's and
early 80's, they were one of the most popular groups in America
(especially here in the upper midwest) - though they had very little
success overseas and music critics despised them. Their career imploded
with the cringe-tastic concept album Kilroy Was Here
(1983) and in retrospect they are seen by most through the cursed lens
of "Mr. Roboto". But on the plus side: Styx was a talented band
with a keyboard virtuoso and two hotshot lead guitarists, tight
harmonies from three lead vocalists, plus two of the members
consistently wrote hit songs. Their sound was highly derivative of
British classic and progressive rock. In particular I think they often
sound like Queen (and concidentally, bassist Chuck Panozzo
is kind of like an American Freddie Mercury - except that he survived
AIDS and is still alive!) It's also easy to put them in the same bin as
other popular "corporate rock" artists of their era such as Boston,
Journey, and Foreigner. But honestly, I think they are better than most
of those bands and their string of hits are memorable and distinct
classic rock gems! Three of the best are on this album and heard on the
show this week: The titular track is a masterpiece of proggy pomp-rock
(shades of ELP) and has genuinely great
lyrics (profound truth sung in regular language anyone can understand.)
Dennis DeYoung also wrote the immortal "Come Sail Away", which was
designed to be an epic to rival "Stairway To Heaven" and its lyrics
incorporate two awesome ideas: UFOs AND YACHT ROCK!
The third hit from this album was Tommy Shaw's "Fooling Yourself (The
Angry Young Man)" which nicely blends prog synths and acoustic guitars
with another solid lyric. The rest of the album is also pretty good (in
particular another proggy number entitled "Castle Walls", and "Miss
America" by James Young, the third singer-songwriter in the band who
produced no hits). Styx already had a few hits before The Grand Illusion
("Lady", "Lorelei", and "Mademoiselle" were their first three Top 40
singles - can you sense a theme there? They also had a flop single
called "Jennifer"!) But this one was the Big Hit Record that made the
group into superstars (in America) for about five years. If you want
more, Pieces Of Eight (1978) is the most similar to TGI, but I think Paradise Theatre
(1981) may be their true masterpiece, though being "a concept album in
a very early-80's Top 40 pop-rock style" it is obviously pretty dated
(and not the usual territory for Kosmik Radiation!) Earlier albums Equinox (1975) and Crystal Ball (1976) are also solid "American prog" efforts, though the four(!) albums they made in 1972-74 are mostly not that interesting. Cornerstone
(1979) is the really sucky album that includes their only #1 hit, the
Barry Manilowesque "Babe" which completed their cycle of
"hit songs about chicks" (actually "Lady" and "Lorelei" are
both pretty awesome!) And about that aforementioned Kilroy Was Here: it was an overambitious wreck, but the albm itself isn't really that terrible - the cringey bits are mostly a good chuckle, and it's only half as long as Pink Floyd's over-rated The Wall from the same era! |
|
- New Riders of the Purple Sage "New Riders of the Purple Sage" 1971 (USA)
Yesterday was Jerry Garcia's
birthday, but pretty much all the essential Dead albums are already in
the CAOTW hall of fame (I'm not including those two overly-popular
"soft rock" studio albums they did in 1970). So this week's classic is
arguably the most notable release from the Dead's "extended universe".
The roots of NRPS go back to John Dawson, David Nelson, Jerry Garcia
and Robert Hunter jamming together in Palo Alto during the mid-sixties
folk boom. A couple years later, Jerry moved to San Francisco and his group took off
(with Hunter providing lyrics as a non-performing member). Jerry &
Bob got reacquainted with John & Dave around 1969, and soon they
were performing country songs as the opening act at Dead concerts under
the name "New Riders Of The Purple Sage" (i.e., John & David with
members of the Dead). Eventually, a stable band was assembled with Dave
Torbert replacing Phil Lesh on bass, and Spencer Dryden (ex-Jefferson Airplane) replacing Mickey Hart
on drums. Jerry remained in the band for their first album, but only
plays pedal steel and banjo instead of his usual guitar antics (this
album marks the high water mark of Jerry's flirtation with country
instruments: he also played pedal steel on tracks by The Airplane and CSN
around this time.) Unlike any of the other NRPS albums, their 1971
debut features 100% original songs written by John Dawson: the
songwriting would become more democratic and they'd play
lots of cover songs on subsequent releases. While groups like The
Eagles (and Poco and Firefall and a lot more groups you don't
remember) had massive success later in the 1970's wiith the
"country-rock" style, NRPS remained a cult favorite and none of their
singles even made the Top 100. But that hasn't stopped them from
touring on to the present day! David Nelson (lead guitar) is the only
remaining original member since 2005 (they haven't had more than one
original member since 1982, though it was John Dawson from 1982-1997). |
|
- Wire "Pink Flag" 1977 (UK)
This
week we have TWO classic albums: for the basic reason that both feature
very short songs, which is why they sat on my list of potential CAOTW's
for years! Doing both at once means I'll have enough short songs to
make up an entire set of music! Also, these two albums are related. The
first is the debut by Wire, a long-running UK "punk" band that was
sortof post-punk while punk was just beginning - and is still around
making new music today with 3/4 of the original members. I think the
crucial thing about this album is the way they dispensed with normal
song structures - Sex Pistols, The Clash, Stooges,
etc. generally maintained the usual verse and chorus structures of pop,
repeating things and including guitar solos. Most of the songs on Pink Flag
are under 90 seconds, including several that are shorter than 60
seconds. This radical approach to songwriting arguably made them the
most (musically) revolutionary of the UK punk bands. The following year, a band from California called Black Flag
recorded their debut: a 7-inch "EP" with four incredibly
short fast songs totalling just 5 minutes of music (also, it seems obvious the name "Black Flag" was partly inspired by Pink Flag). The American "hardcore" punk movement was on! |
|
- Bad Brains "Bad Brains" 1982 (USA)
Our
second classic album this week is perhaps the cornerstone album of
American hardcore punk. When it came out, Bad Brains were as fast
and loud as any
superfastloud hardcore band, but also they were better musicians than
any other punk band, BUT ALSO they were Black Rastafarians who
mixed reggae songs with their punk! That was the crucial
thing:
the unlikely idea that "anything goes" with hardcore. Very soon, all
sorts of weird "hardcore" bands were popping up: the Americana
desert punk of Meat Puppets, the dissonant avant garde art punk of Sonic Youth, and the "ear-bleeding country" and classic rock guitar hero vibes of Dinosaur jr. The debut album Bad Brains
also gets superduper authenticity points for sounding like it was
recorded on cassette in a basement! Ric Ocasek from The Cars would
produce their next album, though it did not help them become more
popular! (And did you know Ocasek also produced a classic album by Suicide?)
Finally, may I present the "hardcore" pop group HANABIE from Japan with our "OFFICIAL KOSMIK RADIATION SUMMER JAM OF 2023"! |
|
- X "Los Angeles" 1980 (USA)
This is one of the greatest American punk rock albums of all time, and pretty unique within that genre. The "punk sound" was well established by 1980, in fact it was already becoming stale which led to the glorious "indie punk" underground of the 1980's when "punk got weird"
and much more interesting. X was one of the critical bands that got
that movement started. They have the beat and energy of a classic late
70's California punk band, but created a unique take on that sound by
adding unusually poetic lyrics, eery harmony vocals (by co-lead singers
Exene Cervenka and bassist John Doe), and classic 50's style
rockabilly guitar riffs (by Billy Zoom; the fourth member of the classic line-up is drummer
D.J. Bonebrake.) And as if that weren't enough to
make them stand out, their debut (this week's CAOTW) was produced by
Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist of The Doors,
who were the kings of the 60's L.A. rock scene (and attitudinally sort
of proto-punk). Not only does Ray produce, he also added his trademark
swirling electric organ to several songs, which works much better than
you'd ever expect The Doors' keyboard player jamming with a punk band
to sound! (How many classic punk albums with keyboards can you think of?)
X blazed their own trail in the 1980's and never really seemed like
part of any particular scene. They broke up for the 1990's but
returned to touring in the 2000's and released a new album in 2020 that sounded like they never went
away. |
