Elton John - Honky Chateau

Released - May 1972

Genre - Rock

Producer - Gus Dudgeon

Selected Personnel - Elton John (Vocals/Piano/Organ/Keyboards); Davey Johnstone (Guitar/Banjo/Mandolin); Dee Murray (Bass); Nigel Olsson (Drums/Percussion); Jean-Luc Ponty (Electric Violin)

Standout Track - Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters

About a week ago, Elton John's first new album in three years, The Diving Board, was released. It's a really very accomplished work, and a continued mark of an ongoing creative renaissance that started with 2001's Songs From The West Coast. One day I'll get this blog all the way up to 2013 and I can talk about it in more detail (like Tristram Shandy, my decision to organise this blog chronologically and the nature of time means I will probably never, ever write a review for a new album unless I significantly up my output), but one thing it did prompt me to reflect on is just what it is about Elton John that makes him such a great artist. He's a genuinely phenomenal pianist, but it's not often that you find yourself consciously aware of that fact while listening to him as his piano skills are so often relegated to accompaniment rather than moments of scene-stealing. He has a great voice, capable of both soulful hurt and playful glee, but it's not really the voice you keep coming back for. But I think what makes him such a unique figure is how effortlessly brilliant he is at writing catchy, memorable tunes - after only two listens, pretty much every song on The Diving Board had etched itself into my brain like I'd known them for years and I could sing along to the whole album. His songs have always just been brilliantly simple, impossibly catchy and memorable. The other significant thing about The Diving Board is that it shows the emphasis of Elton's songwriting shifting back onto himself as a serious singer-songwriter rather than a writer of pop tunes, for perhaps the first time since 1972's Honky Chateau (though arguably 2010's collaborative album with Leon Russell, The Union, was also moving back in that direction).

Because Honky Chateau will generally be remembered as Elton John's "last" singer-songwriter album before he morphed into a stadium pop-rock act as the style and form of his songs shifted ever so slightly into the mainstream circuit and away from the introspective, folksy mould of the likes of Russell, James Taylor et al. But even listening to Honky Chateau, it's clear that that transformation was already commencing. For one thing, for the first time Elton had been allowed to record an album using a core group of musicians rather than a disparate group of session musicians. So it is that we have the first full album from the touring band of Dee Murray and Nigel Olsson on bass and drums, and new recruit Davey Johnstone on guitar, who continues to play live with Elton to this day. Perhaps this in itself was one of the major spurs that started the metamorphosis to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - previously, while Elton and his arrangers had proved more than adept at incorporating a diverse array of musicians into his songs, he had always principally had to rely on his own talent as a singer and pianist to really bring his songs alive. But now, with his own regular line-up of musicians around him, he perhaps felt like a "real" rockstar for the first time, and it wouldn't be long before he felt the creative freedom to diversify his writing and start producing songs that relied entirely on the talents of his band rather than just on his own.

But we're not quite there yet. "Honky Cat," one of the album's two big singles, does demonstrate an increasingly pop-sounding sensibility, being an upbeat, New Orleans-inspired funk piece complete with playful horn refrains and the whirring of electric keyboards, it was still heavily built around Elton's own virtuoso, key-hopping piano skills. The album is bookended by two such playful, musically slight but undeniably fun tracks, the second being "Hercules," (Elton's self-appointed middle name), which has a certain whiff of Beach Boys scatting in the arrangement of its backing vocals, and sees Johnstone deliver his first guitar solo on an Elton John record, appropriately tasteful and modest without pulling focus from the full-band setup. The best rock track on offer is the wonderful "Amy," a brilliantly petulant song that sums up both the deliriousness and the frustration and anger of being in love with someone and being too young to understand it, with one of the best, stutteringly syncopated choruses in the Elton John canon - "Amy, I may not be James Dean and Amy I may not be nineteen, and Amy I may still be in romper boots and jeans, but Amy you're the girl who wrecks my dreams." I spent a couple of years working on a webseries about a character of mine called Matt Fisher, whose housemate and best friend Amy Sergeant got her name entirely down to this song, so it's always one I enjoy going back to.

In general, while these upbeat rock tracks would become increasingly de rigeur for Elton, the album is still principally steeped in slower numbers and ballads. "Mellow" is a great example of how evocative it can be when the right word is paired with the right song - Elton John has written a whole number of songs in a similar mould, but something about its title and its slow, drowzy melody makes it feel like the perfect musical embodiment of hazy, mellow sunny afternoon bliss, of carefree enjoyment, and Jean-Luc Ponty's electric violin solo is an inspired moment. Then there's the album's best-known song, "Rocket Man," a song I had always found it hard to really get into until I saw it played live last year, at which point the soaring triumphalism of its melody really hit home and its brilliance became clear to me. There's always been an ongoing debate as to just how conscious a rip-off of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" it was, which is an argument that certainly has credence considering that Elton's producer Gus Dudgeon also produced "Space Oddity" itself - the themes of isolation and loneliness as felt by an astronaut adrift in space are there, and while it's very different in its tone, they both use similar musical flourishes and structures, and there are certain keyboard sounds in "Rocket Man" that seem to echo the eerie stylophone effect of "Space Oddity." No matter at the end of the day - they're very different songs really, with "Rocket Man" ultimately feeling hopeful rather than desperate, and only a month after the release of Honky Chateau the world was given The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, at which point Bowie presumably gave up on any feelings of resentment and the two let each other get on with their meteoric careers.

The last song on the album that really makes you stop and pay attention is the incredible "Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters," another song that had always gone over my head until hearing it live, and particularly hearing Elton's introduction of it in which he explained why he chose it as the song to sing at a benefit concert shortly after 9/11. Written by Bernie Taupin as a response to hearing a gun go off in Spanish Harlem, it's an uncharacteristically direct and maudlin account of the truth about the people and the lives that fuel New York City, and the spirit that keeps it alive, while also offering a more general commentary about the importance of valuing the people you meet in your life and not becoming distracted or spoiled by privilege or position. It's a touching plea for companionship, really, for all the people in the world to remember one another and the importance of having people around you. It's musically very simple, reduced to little more than Elton at his piano singing one of the most beautifully simple and characteristically memorable melodies of his career, and as a song it's definitely a career high.

Not everything reaches the highs of those few tracks, though there's nothing here that's actively difficult to sit through. Songs like "Susie (Dramas)" are fun and rumbustious but not really captivating or inspiring, but overall it has more standouts and highlights than earlier albums like Elton John and Tumbleweed Connection. It's not quite up to the standard of Madman Across The Water, but probably comes a close second in the run of his early singer-songwriter albums. It would prove to be a major success, with both "Honky Cat" and "Rocket Man" becoming successful singles, while the album itself became his first No. 1 in the USA. The following year would be the year of Elton's transformation, the year he largely consigned folk, blues and gospel music to his past for a very long time and chose to focus more on pop and rock, becoming one of the biggest musical sensations of the decade. His career post-Honky Chateau would continue to be full of amazing songs, but a particular kind of wonderful music was left by the wayside for decades before he began revisiting it comparatively recently. The next time he would be in the public eye, he would be a rather different artist.

Track Listing:

All songs written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin.

1. Honky Cat

2. Mellow

3. I Think I'm Going To Kill Myself

4. Susie (Dramas)

5. Rocket Man (I Think It's Going To Be A Long, Long Time)

6. Salvation

7. Slave

8. Amy

9. Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters

10. Hercules

David Bowie - Live Santa Monica '72

Released - June 2008 (Recorded October 1972)

Genre - Glam Rock

Producer - Unknown

Selected Personnel - David Bowie (Vocals/Guitar); Mick Ronson (Guitar); Trevor Bolder (Bass); Mick "Woody" Woodmansey (Drums); Mike Garson (Keyboards)

Standout Track - I'm Waiting For The Man

In my mission statement for this blog, one of my rules was that I would do my best to avoid including live albums. In general, live albums just aren't particularly interesting to listen to - they give an insight into how exciting it would be to actually experience that particular artist in a live context, but generally the recording quality will be a little muddy and you'll generally just be listening to inferior or, at best, tediously identical versions of songs you're already familiar with from the studio recordings. There's nothing quite as exciting as seeing an artist you love live, but that experience doesn't translate well to record and it's rare that I listen to a live album for nothing but my own enjoyment. My rules for their inclusion on this list are that they have to either have some sort of personal significance for me, or they have to do something significantly different to what you can listen to on that artist's studio albums. Or, finally, they need to be of some kind of historical or cultural significance, though in this instance they have to also be good to qualify. Such is the case with the infamous live recording of a performance by David Bowie and his Spiders From Mars at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in 1972. The recording was broadcast on the radio but never officially released, meaning it was only available as a bootleg for decades. As Bowie's official live albums David Live in 1974 and Stage in 1978 were released to fairly muted praise and considerable grumbling that they didn't accurately reflect the power and excitement of the man's live performances, the bootleg of the Santa Monica recording became unofficially known as the "only" live recording that really did justice to his stage presence and the talent of him and his band. Eventually, after circulating among die-hard fans for decades, it was released semi-legally as Santa Monica '72 in 1994 and then officially by Bowie's current record label as Live Santa Monica '72 in 2008. It's generally regarded as the definitive document of the Ziggy Stardust era and the true might of the Spiders, and it certainly does showcase a side to Bowie and co. that isn't given as much attention as it warrants on his studio recordings.

Firstly, it is, of course, nowhere near good enough to really convey the excitement that must have been in the air to see Bowie live, and no live album will ever really express that experience. And in several places, nor is it up to the standard of the studio albums with their crisp production and careful mixing to make sure everything is audible in just the way it needs to be - the version of "Five Years" here, which on the Ziggy Stardust album relies so much on the slow-burn build of intensity and on its clearness, is rendered almost unlistenable as it becomes a muddy trudge ruined by some overly-loud backing vocals from the Spiders. Likewise, "Space Oddity," a song which relies so much on orchestral backing and grandiose flourishes, feels rather limp here - in places its stripped-down acoustic setting is hauntingly effective, but Bowie's attempt to replicate an orchestral crescendo with an a cappella scat just comes off as a lame cop-out. There are other songs that don't really work, but Bowie was aware of the fact that when people came to see him live, the thing they wanted more than anything else was to rock out to something, and that's where he and his band really delivered. The setlist is mostly comprised of his heavier, more up-tempo rock tracks, and here they're transformed into something revelatory - given free reign, Mick Ronson in particular becomes a showstopping force of nature, his heavy guitar riffs or incendiary solos taking off in a way they've never quite been able to when confined by the polite restraints of a studio recording. Even Trevor Bolder and Woody Woodmansey are far more noticeable than they've ever been on record, actually pulling focus and demanding attention with their tight rhythmic parts on occasion rather than just providing a good-natured backdrop for the two bigger stars. Songs like "Suffragette City," "Queen Bitch" and "Ziggy Stardust" sound more dramatic and powerful than ever, while the extended instrumental jams of "The Width Of A Circle" are mesmerisingly, blisteringly good.

The record also throws up a couple of interesting little curios for the Bowie collector in the form of live performances of a couple of songs Bowie never got around to professionally recording and officially releasing. There's a solo acoustic cover of Jacques Brel's "My Death," which is eerie and dramatic but never particularly musically compelling, and then there's the album's stand-out moment, and one of the finest moments ever committed to record by Ziggy and the Spiders in their incredible take on the Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting For The Man." On the band's seminal debut album, The Velvet Underground And Nico, it had been a jaunty, tongue-in-cheek romp driven by pounding piano. Here, it's transformed by Ronson's furiously insistent guitar riff and inspired soloing, with Bowie packing more fire and passion into his vocal delivery than Lou Reed's (admittedly deliberate) laconic drawl. It's almost transformed into a late 60s psychedelic jam, and is a true testament to just how well the Spiders could transform a piece of music when they put their minds to it. Also of interest is an early performance of a song that would go on to be a Bowie classic after being recorded for his next album, Aladdin Sane - a little song called "The Jean Genie." Its iconic chugging guitar riff (supposedly borrowed from the Yardbirds' cover of Bo Diddley's "I'm A Man,") is the stuff of rock legend, and while this muddy, early version doesn't hold a candle to the brilliance of the official version to follow, it's an indication of the dirtier, grittier sound Bowie would be moving Ziggy towards in the following year.

Another sign of things to come is the presence of pianist Mike Garson, who does keyboard duties here. Bowie met Garson while touring the USA with the Spiders and soon drafted him in as a regular member of the band. Here, Garson's contributions are limited and rarely particularly noticeable, but once Bowie had discovered just how weird Garson could make music sound via his education in avant-garde jazz, he would become a key component of the sound on Aladdin Sane. He's a background figure here, but would soon be dragged into the limelight and would end up being one of Bowie's most long-serving sidemen, playing on albums as late as 2003's Reality (despite a good two decades' absence in the middle). The only other thing worth mentioning here is that it's a fascinating insight, albeit only fleetingly, into Bowie's mental state at the time. During his tour of the US he had started a relationship with cocaine that would spiral into a devastating dependency over the next few years, causing physical ruin and emotional trauma that culminated in 1976 with rumours that he kept his own urine in a fridge and survived on a diet of peppers, milk and cocaine. In 1972 Bowie was a long way from the worst lows the drug would take him to, but in his brief spoken interludes between songs you can already here a mind beginning to crumble a little - there's an erraticism and a trembling desperation to some of his song introductions that's genuinely unsettling to hear when you know where those problems led. Thankfully, by the end of the 70s both his mental and physical health would be much recovered.

Beyond that, there's not too much to add about Live Santa Monica '72 - it's an imperfect record, just as all live albums are doomed to be, and ultimately it's extremely rare that I would choose to listen to it over just listening to some of Bowie's early studio albums, but "I'm Waiting For The Man" is still a song I go back to a lot, and it's an undeniably powerful document of the Spiders From Mars at the peak of their powers. The next record they made together would more or less be their last.

Track Listing:

All songs written by David Bowie except where noted.

1. Introduction

2. Hang On To Yourself

3. Ziggy Stardust

4. Changes

5. The Supermen

6. Life On Mars?

7. Five Years

8. Space Oddity

9. Andy Warhol

10. My Death (Jacques Brel; Eric Blau & Mort Shuman)

11. The Width Of A Circle

12. Queen Bitch

13. Moonage Daydream

14. John, I'm Only Dancing

15. I'm Waiting For The Man (Lou Reed)

16. The Jean Genie

17. Suffragette City

18. Rock 'n' Roll Suicide

David Bowie - The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars

Released - June 1972

Genre - Glam Rock

Producer - David Bowie & Ken Scott

Selected Personnel - David Bowie (Vocals/Guitar/Saxophone/Piano); Mick Ronson (Guitar/Keyboards); Trevor Bolder (Bass); Mick "Woody" Woodmansey (Drums); Rick Wakeman (Piano)

Standout Track - Five Years

It occurs to me that, while I've now written a few reviews of Bowie's early albums on this blog, I've yet to actually say much about my own personal experiences with Bowie's music and how I came to discover it, and I've found so far that those recollections are often the most enjoyable bit to write (and perhaps the most enjoyable to read, I wouldn't like to put words in your mouth though). Well, it seems fitting now I've realised that omission to save that story for this, the album that will always be remembered as his defining moment, his magnum opus. Growing up in a musical family, with a step-dad who was steeped in classic rock of the 70s and a brother who at the time was a bigger music-lover than me (though I have since far outstripped him in terms of sheer obsessive anorak points), Bowie was of course a figure I was aware of from a very young age and, like a number of my favourite artists, I owe my first awareness of him to my brother Barney. As with Tom Waits, when he first introduced him to me I didn't much care for him, only to discover him myself years later and quickly let them become figures of obsession and fascination to me. (By this logic, I can reasonably assume that Red Hot Chilli Peppers, one of Barney's favourite bands in his teens who I have hated passionately for over ten years now, will one day be my favourite band of all time. I don't look forward to it). Barney was a big fan of Bowie's and used to regale me with stories from something called "The David Bowie Black Book," some sort of nerd's annual that told you how he damaged his eye and so on and suchforth. Being a dyed-in-the-wool Elton John and Sting fan at the time, Bowie felt like he had some sort of iconoclastic, dangerous streak that I didn't think was good for me, but I dutifully listened to his greatest hits and enjoyed a few songs - notably "Let's Dance," "Changes" and "Life On Mars?", I seem to remember - but it never got much further than that.

At uni, having developed a greater love of music in the meantime, I decided that Bowie was such a towering figure in the history of music that I needed to be better versed in him, so started listening to albums like Hunky Dory and this, supposedly his two crowning achievements. I enjoyed them, but it still took me another couple of years for my love of his music to really go nuclear. In fact, it was the fact that I had become fascinated by ambient pioneer and audio wizard Brian Eno (more on him another day) in the meantime, that prompted me to discover that, more than being a glam rock dinosaur from the early 70s, Bowie had gone on to continue pushing musical boundaries into new and strange areas, with Eno as one of his semi-regular cohorts. Suddenly, Bowie took on far greater significance for me - he had always been an enjoyable and talented and immensely charismatic figure who intrigued me, but I hadn't known that he was such a pioneer, such a versatile and daring innovator across the entire spectrum of popular music. Perhaps it was that iconoclastic streak, the desire to keep pushing boundaries and to challenge his audience and to be willing to throw away everything he'd done and start again in a new direction, that reminded me of Tom Waits, who had recently become the most significant cultural icon in my life. So it was that over the subsequent years (this was in 2010, I think) that Bowie became my newest object of fascination and obsession, and I wouldn't rest until I'd heard all his work and also understood the man behind it.

And so, on to Ziggy Stardust itself. Whether he had done it entirely independently from the hero of the moment Marc Bolan, who in 1971 was basking in the success of Electric Warrior and the subsequent sensation dubbed "T. Rexstacy," or whether Bowie's songwriting post-Hunky Dory was heavily indebted to Bolan's giving birth to glam rock is up or debate - Bowie has always been a musical magpie, able to take snatches of elements in the world around him and transform them into something better. Either way, Bowie suddenly found himself writing the same sort of glitzy, theatrical, short and concise, stomping pop-rock numbers that Bolan had popularised. "Queen Bitch" on Hunky Dory had been an early prelude of the kind of music that would come. He had already made an album on which he was almost drowned out by his backing band in The Man Who Sold The World, and had followed it up with an album that kept its focus squarely on him as a central figure, keeping his sidemen in the shadows. Now he set about creating an album of perfect synergy, with a charismatic and otherworldly figure at its helm but that showcased a tight, well-honed band in perfect synchronicity with each other. The new songs were more vital, daring and exciting than anything Bowie had written up until that point. But there was something else incubating in his mind that would truly set his next album apart from any number of glam rock competitors.

Simon Goddard's book Ziggyology tells the story of the construction of the Ziggy Stardust concept and myth in fascinating detail, but it all seems to begin a couple of years previously when Bowie met the British rock & roll singer Vince Taylor, whose career had fallen apart around him and led him into a downward spiral into madness and depression, convinced he was an alien or a god. Bowie had also recently encountered Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground (who had recently lost frontman Lou Reed and replaced him with their current bassist, Doug Yule) as well as the man then known only as Iggy (the surname "Pop" to be added at a later date) and his band of raucous proto-punk noisemakers, the Stooges. All of them had prompted him to reflect on the notion of using music as a means of portraying something other than yourself, of playing a part onstage. After all, all music is a form of artifice, so why not make it overt? Taking cue from the newly fashion-conscious and theatrical tastes of the new glam rock scene, Bowie drew on traditional Japanese costumes to create the look and identity of his new musical alter-ego, Ziggy Stardust, who would co-exist in his mind for the next two years or so.

It's easy for the brilliance of the Ziggy Stardust concept to get lost under the weight of its "story," concerning a world approaching an Apocalypse in which an alien messiah figure comes to earth in the form of a rockstar (Ziggy) who spreads a message of peace and earth to the people of the earth before his delirious fans turn against him and prompt his death. The story was never what mattered - what mattered was the sheer ambition of it, the incredible audaciousness of doing something so brazen and unprecedented, the way it seized on the popular imagination to unlock an immense counter-cultural wave that made everyone feel included - previously marginalised groups like gay and bisexual people suddenly felt embraced in a cultural movement that pointed at some sort of bold new exciting future.

One could go on for days about the cultural and historical significance of Ziggy Stardust, and many have, but at the end of the day, what you can't get away from is the sheer fact of its brilliance. It's one of those albums that's swathed in an absurd amount of historical significance, but that manages to never disappoint. Bowie is more confident and vocally perfect than ever, the bleating and mewling of the past lost in his total absorption of his new alien character. The band around him sound tighter than ever - nobody drowns anybody else out, they serve the music perfectly, and no member is given short shrift. Bolder and Woodmansey are the perfect stolid rhythm section as Bowie and Ronson deliver the major setpiece moments over the top. Things start out with the achingly wonderful "Five Years," which starts with a slow, ricocheting drum beat and Bowie's simple, rigid piano chords. It tells the story of a world five years from destruction and simply reports, with blanked-out passivity, on a series of images from the world's response to the news. Spiralling into a nightmarish cacophony after Bowie's heart-rending wail of "I kiss you, you're beautiful, I want you to walk," it fades out over his increasingly deranged screams of "Five years!" It's simultaneously one of the most terrifying and exciting, but also the most tender and beautiful songs Bowie and co have ever delivered, and the album sometimes struggles to live up to it. "Soul Love" is a song so good it would easily steal the show on most albums, but here barely registers because it's surrounded by so many other classics. "Moonage Daydream" is perhaps the ultimate Ronson showpiece, with his colourful solos elevating the song to classic status, while the simple recorder descants Bowie had played with on "All The Madmen" make a welcome return in the sing-along chorus.

"Starman" is the classic single everybody knows from this album, but even that, too, is one of the album's less incendiary moments, though it's soaring chorus and jubilantly feel-good bridge are among the finest moments in early 70s glam rock. The album does sag a little in the middle, with a trio of songs that are perfectly decent but mark a bit of downtime after the barnstorming opening, before a devastatingly good sweep of closing songs. "Hang Onto Yourself" is the most reminiscent of "Queen Bitch," riding another jaunty Ronson guitar riff and Bowie's pounding piano, while "Ziggy Stardust" itself is a rousing, dangerous, fist-pumping anthem to the entire concept behind this, Bowie's magnum opus, with Ronson's classic riff again to the forefront. "Suffragette City" comes very close to being the best song on the album, and ups the ante once more in the "Just how good a riff can Ronson deliver?" stakes. It's perhaps his finest work with Bowie, a driving, swaggering riff that propels a fearsome beast of a song, both dangerous and playful at one at the same time, while the mid-song crescendo and Bowie's gleeful squeal of "Wham bam, thank you ma'am!" have become rock legend. After a trio of guitar-heavy songs, the focus shifts back onto Bowie as a figure in isolation for the meditative closer "Rock & Roll Suicide," a reflection on the desperation of Ziggy's need to destroy himself in the wake of his success. It starts as a quiet and contemplative meditation on embracing death and by the end has escalated into a doom-laden repetitive cycle of chanted choruses while Bowie screams "Gimme your hands 'cos you're wonderful!" as the record winds to its close.

Ziggy Stardust is too often called a concept album and the truth is, it doesn't need the portentous weight of that label to be interesting. Most of the songs were written independently of the concept itself, which was happened upon in the late stages of the album's development and only informed the composition of a few songs as well as the way in which Bowie went about promoting the thing. But at the end of the day, with or without all the godlike aliens and suicides and sci-fi trappings, this is just one of the finest records of effortlessly brilliant rock music of all time. It manages to inspire with its upbeat pop hooks as often as it compels with its hard rock credentials, or terrifies with its austere, raw emotion. Thankfully, for the first time in Bowie's career, the buying public were 100% behind his new offering. There was no longer any whiff of a "Space Oddity"-style one-hit wonder that would quickly burn out. Courtesy of a legendary appearance on Top Of The Pops, Bowie would soon become the hero of the nation's youth. Here was a man who delivered the same kind of catchy, hard-hitting pop music that their previous hero, Marc Bolan, had given them. But now it was done with a sense of theatricality and optimism and promise not seen before. It opened the door to a whole new kind of music and, for many kids at the time, to a whole new way of life. Bolan had won the battle in 1971, but in 1972 Bowie won the war and made music history. One of those albums you just do have to listen to, regardless of how often people say it.

Track Listing:

All songs written by David Bowie except where noted.

1. Five Years

2. Soul Love

3. Moonage Daydream

4. Starman

5. It Ain't Easy (Ron Davies)

6. Lady Stardust

7. Star

8. Hang On To Yourself

9. Ziggy Stardust

10. Suffragette City

11. Rock 'n' Roll Suicide

Cat Stevens - Catch Bull At Four

Released - September 1972

Genre - Folk

Producer - Paul Samwell-Smith

Selected Personnel - Cat Stevens (Vocals/Guitar/Mandolin/Piano/Keyboards/Bass/Drums/Percussion); Alun Davies (Guitar); Gerry Conway (Drums/Percussion); Alan James (Double Bass); Jean Roussel (Piano/Organ); Del Newman (String Arrangements)

Standout Track - Ruins

Anybody who previously read my review of Cat Stevens's Teaser And The Firecat (I'm reliably informed by Google Analytics that people do come to this blog, though I've no idea who they are) might have sensed that, after three albums of his stellar singer-songwriter folk music, I was beginning to struggle to find new things to say about him. Well, that's true to a certain extent. As I said in that review, pretty much throughout his entire career Stevens very rarely felt the impulse to do much to radically transform or reinvent his music - there was his initial shift from novelty pop to spiritualistic folk inspired by his battle with tuberculosis, and that move established a pattern that he would continue to retread for many years up until his conversion to Islam in the late 70s, which would change the nature of his work for pretty much the rest of his career (his next album of popular, non-religious music wouldn't appear until 2006 in the form on An Other Cup, released under his new name Yusuf). So, while progressing through his early 70s album, there does eventually come a point when a lot of what can be said has already been said about the previous ones. Don't get me wrong - Catch Bull At Four (its title a reference to the Ten Bulls of Zen, a series of Buddhist poems, thereby again demonstrating Stevens's increasing fascination with non-Western religion and spiritualit) in no way represents a decline in quality, and its place on this list is highly earned - it contains some of Stevens's finest moments. But it does show the man continuing in the same vein that he had been working in over the previous two years, feeling little need to change or alter the kind of music he was making.

And why should he? Nobody could listen to Mona Bone Jakon, Tea For The Tillerman and Teaser And The Firecat and come away complaining of a lack of imagination or of a need for a creative renaissance. They are short and sweet and expertly crafted albums of simple and beautiful folk music, and Catch Bull At Four continues in much the same vein. Things kick off in fine style with "Sitting," one of the album's true highpoints and one of his very greatest up-tempo songs. Driven by the bright chiming of Stevens's piano, and delivered in the gruff, ravaged voice Stevens occasionally deploys to such devastating effect, it's perhaps the only song on the album that continues the ongoing theme of his need for spiritual fulfilment, of his sense of being on a spiritual journey and searching for something to give him the sense of purpose he so desired, a journey that first showed its tentative beginnings back on Mona Bone Jakon. "The Boy With A Moon And Star On His Head" is a more subdued affair, a fairly standard acoustic Stevens folk parable full of little village ceremonies and furtive affairs in stables. "Angelsea" is one of the more unusual songs in Stevens's catalogue, featuring the odd, buzzing drone of a synthesiser alongside the jubilant guitar strumming of Stevens and longtime cohort Alun Davies. It's lyrically a fairly by-the-numbers paean of absolute adoration to some idealised idea of womanhood, but manages to come off as a genuinely endearing expounding of love on account of its sheer energy and sincerity. The other affecting love song on offer is "Sweet Scarlet," a song which, given the touching and fascinating nature of the lyrics, is a song I really wish had more musical value to make me really enjoy it. It's Stevens's tribute to Carly Simon, a singer he had been dating in the months before Catch Bull At Four with whom he had shared a producer in the form of Paul Samwell-Smith (probably most famous for singing "Nobody Does It Better," the theme tune to the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, years later). The lyrics show a fascinatingly mature perspective on such a short and recent relationship, and history seems to be unclear as to whether Stevens wrote it while seeing her or shortly after they broke up - it's a song laden with unabashed affection and fondness, and the line "I want you so to know there's no bridge between us" could be read in many different ways depending on the song's exact context - whether it's a heartfelt tribute to a woman he now feels more close to than ever, or a touching farewell to a loved one left behind without an acrimony or hard feelings is difficult to discern, but it's a fascinating laden with some of Stevens's best symbolism.

But the two songs that really jump out and demand the listener's attention here (other than the brilliant "Sitting") rank among two of Stevens's finest. The first is the album's centrepiece, the clattering, jubilant "Can't Keep It In." It takes all the energy and joy of "Sitting" and ramps things up tenfold, propelled as usual by the playful dynamism between Stevens and Davies on guitar duties as well as the thumping drums of Gerry Conway, while Stevens again barks and cries hoarsely in a barely constrained, ecstatic tribute to the joy of being unable to withhold one's happiness or love. It's one of Stevens's simplest songs, but all the better for it and is one of his most joyous pop songs. Then there's "Ruins." It's just possible that if it weren't for "Ruins," I'd think twice about including Catch Bull At Four on this list, given how it more or less just demonstrates Cat Stevens following his well-worn formula with some fantastic highlights. But no album that includes a song as devastatingly powerful as "Ruins" can be given short shrift. Quite simply, it's one of the three finest songs Stevens ever wrote, along with "Father And Son" and "Sun/C79." It features dim echoes of some of the environmental messages Stevens was concerned with on the likes of "Where Do The Children Play?", telling a story of someone who returns to their hometown to find it a blackened ruin of its former self. The verses are tentative and trembling, but tinged with a sweetness and a sense of distant optimism that builds into a fantastically rousing chorus (where Conway's drums crack and boom like never before) that manages to summon up all the strange trepidation but the warming comfort of returning somewhere familiar to find it different. It's ultimately a very optimistic song, I think - while its closing lines condemn the actions that have moved the world closer to ruin and further away from innocence, it seems to feel as though it's still within our grasp to keep things familiar, and to keep the places we call home the way we remember them. A really, truly brilliant song, and one of the most rousing and inspiring choruses of all time.

So, there we have it - further excellence from Mr Stevens which treads familiar ground but manages to do just about enough to keep it fresh (it features far more electronic instrumentation, from guitar to synth, than any of his preceding albums), while also managing to turn in a few of his very finest moments. By this time, perhaps even Stevens himself, a man who had shown no qualms about repeating himself up until now, was becoming tired of the same old thing, and his next album would see him not exactly rewriting the rulebook but certainly taking a few more risks than he had in recent years to deliver a work of greater ambition and scale than ever before. But Catch Bull At Four is a fitting full-stop to this early run of classic albums before he began to rethink his approach. Oh, and "O Caritas" is a piece of Spanish-styled flamenco so brilliantly affected it comes across as almost tongue-in-cheek, and easily another album highlight if only for novelty value.

Track Listing:

All songs written by Cat Stevens except where noted.

1. Sitting

2. Boy With A Moon And Star On His Head

3. Angelsea

4. Silent Sunlight

5. Can't Keep It In

6. 18th Avenue

7. Freezing Steel

8. O Caritas (Andreas Toumazis; Jeremy Taylor & Cat Stevens)

9. Sweet Scarlet

10. Ruins

Yes - Fragile

Released - November 1971

Genre - Progressive Rock

Producer - Yes & Eddy Offord

Selected Personnel - Jon Anderson (Vocals); Steve Howe (Guitar); Rick Wakeman (Piano/Organ/Synthesiser); Chris Squire (Bass); Bill Bruford (Drums/Percussion)

Standout Track - Roundabout

Having come to Yes's big commercial breakthrough, 1971's Fragile, after already being familiar with their earlier career peak The Yes Album and their later almost-as-good magnum opus Close To The Edge, I couldn't help but find it a disappointment. Along with those two albums, it constitutes one part of the trio of classic albums that will forever be remembered as Yes's definitive contribution to the music world. Unfortunately, it comes a long way short of either of its contemporaries. It lacks the innate musicality and classic tunes of The Yes Album and it lacks the ambition and scale of Close To The Edge. For a long time I wrote it off as a failed experiment, an interim measure as the new lineup of the band struggled to consolidate their sound before unleashing their next masterpiece onto the world. Through sheer persistance and the desire to understand why it was this record rather than their earlier classic that captured the public's imagination at the time, I eventually came to re-evaluate my position, and have now realised that in-between all the failed experiments lie a number of classic Yes tracks. They're marred by the muddled and generally unsuccessful premise behind the album as a whole, but listened to in their own right there are some great songs on Fragile, and it'd be wrong to write it off completely just for its failings.

The most significant change that occurred within Yes after the release of The Yes Album was the departure of keyboardist Tony Kaye. Tensions had been brewing between Kaye and lead vocalist Jon Anderson during the recording of that album, largely concerning Kaye's stolid loyalty to traditional instrumentation and the use of the piano and the Hammond organ rather than the newer technological advances offered by electronic synthesisers. Anderson, along with the rest of the band, wanted to modernise Yes's sound by taking advantage of these new possibilities, and eventually Kaye's traditionalism rendered him too much at odds with the rest of the band and he left the fold. In his place was classically trained keyboardist Rick Wakeman, an absolute virtuoso equally as adept on the Moog synthesiser or the Mellotron as on the piano and organ. Wakeman's prolific work as a session musician is already well-documented on this blog, having played on albums by David Bowie, Elton John, Cat Stevens and T. Rex, but it was with Yes that he would really get an opportunity to showcase his talent in his own right. His presence is by far one of the most exciting and fresh things about Fragile, lending a textural diversity to the sound admittedly absent from The Yes Album - a frantic organ solo in one moment will give way to a stark wall of sound from the Mellotron the next, with the blare of a synth or the rolling of a piano only moments later. There's a real richness and an orchestral quality to the sounds Wakeman is able to contribute to the band, and he's also enough of a virtuoso at everything thrown his way that he fits in perfectly with the bold, colourful, cartoonish musical style the band had already established.

Nowhere is the addition of Wakeman more successful than on the album's opening track, the classic "Roundabout," which benefits from one of the most deliriously brilliant organ freakouts courtesy of them man himself about halfway through. It does little to rewrite the rulebook in terms of the formula Yes had already established for themselves, but it's another great piece of upbeat, breathless prog with Anderson at his declamatory best, Chris Squire thudding and pounding his way through with great acumen, Steve Howe snapping and blistering away on the guitar and drummer Bill Bruford rattling about like a madman. Typical Yes, then. The other two classics are the other two longer songs, "South Side Of The Sky" and "Heart Of The Sunrise." The former isn't wholly successful and slogs through a fairly by-the-numbers instrumental and choral passage halfway through, but whenever it returns to its main refrain with Squire's brutal bass and Howe's vicious, fusion-esque guitar riff it's a powerful beast of a song. "Heart Of The Sunrise" is altogether more dramatic, propelled once again by Squire's driving, fearsome bass riff and eventually escalating into a jubilant chorus sung with great fervour by Anderson while Wakeman has a ball contributing his favourite keyboard sounds to the mix.

But sadly those three songs are pretty much where the fun ends here. Granted, they make up a good half hour of the material, so proportionately the majority of the album is great stuff. But structurally, the record is rendered somewhat redundant-feeling by the inclusion of the other material. Effectively, Fragile serves as a great example of how tedious prog can be when those behind it let the idea of being talented come ahead of the idea of making music that genuinely compels and entertains. In between the three full band performances are a number of shorter pieces that act as showcases for each of the individual band members themselves (with the exception of "Long Distance Runaround," which is another full band song but a fairly forgettable one). Every single one of them is a very good example of why Yes were best as a collective unit not as a group of individual solo artists. Wakeman's "Cans And Brahms," an arrangement of Brahms's Fourth Symphony, is terrible even by his own admission, and Anderson's "We Have Heaven" is a hugely impressive stream-of-consciousness array of multi-tracked vocal harmonies, but hardly does anything to actually command the listener's attention or enjoyment. "Five Per Cent For Nothing" is the worst of the lot, but then I've always found drum solos a very difficult thing to really get enthusiastic about. Chris Squire's funky bass workout, "The Fish," is the only solo composition that really does anything genuinely enjoyable, and Howe's "Mood For A Day" is a pretty acoustic number but blurs into anonymity alongside all the other similar acoustic pieces he would contribute over the course of Yes's career.

So, ultimately, there are more terrible songs on this album than there are good ones, which makes it a difficult album to love, even if those songs take up considerably less time than the great ones. Its structure and failed "showcase the individual members" premise make it easy to dismiss or dislike, but it does reward proper attention and eventually reveals itself as a genuinely enjoyable prog classic, but one that has conspicuous flaws when assessed alongside the far more successful records that preceded and followed it. The only other thing worth mentioning about the album is that it marks the first collaboration between Yes and artist Roger Dean - it's rare that I draw attention to an album's particular artwork, but Dean's striking dream lanscapes, and his iconic Yes logo, have become so closely associated with the band themselves that it's worth mentioning the first time the world got a glimpse of his work. The prog-hungry masses at the time weren't bothered by the album's inconsistency in the end and, off the back of the success of "Roundabout" as a heavily edited single, Fragile became Yes's major commercial breakthrough. Even if it had been a genuinely terrible album from start to finish, its commercial success ultimately couldn't be something the true prog fan could begrudge as it granted the band the exposure and success they needed to move ahead in whatever direction they would make, resulting in an album that would come to be remembered as one of the defining moments of the genre - Close To The Edge.

Track Listing:

1. Roundabout (Jon Anderson & Steve Howe)

2. Cans And Brahms (Johannes Brahms, arranged by Rick Wakeman)

3. We Have Heaven (Jon Anderson)

4. South Side Of The Sky (Jon Anderson & Chris Squire)

5. Five Per Cent For Nothing (Bill Bruford)

6. Long Distance Runaround (Jon Anderson)

7. The Fish (Shindleria Praematurus) (Chris Squire)

8. Mood For A Day (Steve Howe)

9. Heart Of The Sunrise (Jon Anderson; Chris Squire & Bill Bruford)

Yes - The Yes Album

Released - February 1971

Genre - Progressive Rock

Producer - Yes & Eddy Offord

Selected Personnel - Jon Anderson (Vocals/Percussion); Steve Howe (Guitar); Tony Kaye (Piano/Organ/Synthesiser); Chris Squire (Bass); Bill Bruford (Drums/Percussion)

Standout Track - I've Seen All Good People

In 1971, progressive rock had existed for a few years but the handful of bands who were destined to become the eternal giants of the genre were still struggling to really develop their signature sound and truly capture the hearts and minds of the public. King Crimson, after their seismic debut In The Court Of The Crimson King, had effectively given up on ever being a truly successful band, deciding instead to follow the musical whims of iconoclastic head honcho Robert Fripp. Genesis had yet to do anything I'd consider particularly essential (I find 1971's Nursery Cryme immensely tedious). Pink Floyd's Meddle saw the first stirrings of the sound that would go on to make them one of the world's biggest bands with the release of The Dark Side Of The Moon. And Jethro Tull were busy fending off accusations that Aqualung even counted as a prog album at all. But then there was Yes, the curious and colourful little band who'd released a debut album that was immensely promising but didn't necessarily feel like it demonstrated a band who could be more interesting or exciting than their musical peers at the time. In the two years since that debut, however, Yes had honed their sound and their musical complexities and ambitions and now stood poised to release their masterwork, their most consistent and accomplished album and one that would finally see them achieve mainstream success. 1971's The Yes Album was the first record by the band that I listened to all the way through (having complained about having no time for Yes throughout my time at uni) and I was blown away by it on first listen. They never made anything quite as good as this again, though the years immediately following its release would see some incredible work from them that came very close, but this would be the early pinnacle of their achievements.

Since 1969's Yes, the band had gone on to record an album called Time And A Word which, in an attempt to introduce an unexpected variation on their established formula, featured a full orchestra accompanying their own performances. The orchestra itself is a great addition to the sound and makes for some great moments, but the songwriting in general just isn't up to par and the album is fairly forgettable (although the title track is an absolute Yes classic). Dissatisfied with the process of recording alongside an orchestra, founding guitarist Peter Banks left the fold and was replaced by Steve Howe, a figure who would become another cornerstone of the classic lineup and a key ingredient of the band's success even up to this day. Whether or not the arrival of Howe was instrumental in their subsequent recording of their finest album, or whether they were poised on the point of achieving greatness before he arrived isn't for certain, but the band we see on The Yes Album is one that's far more assured, confident, fresh and brilliant than the one seen on their two previous albums.

I feel fairly confident that few prog bands are able to balance virtuoso complexity and exhilarating musicality with a masterful command of a simple, memorable tune or hook quite like Yes. Pretty much every song here manages to do everything necessary to impress the typical starry-eyed, open-minded prog fan while still having enough classic tunes for anybody who just enjoys simply brilliant music to have a whale of a time with this album. "Yours Is No Disgrace" veers from a breathless fusion jam featuring heavy use of Tony Kaye's syncopated organ and Steve Howe's psychedelic, incendiary, almost cartoonish guitar solos, to a simple sing-along refrain, always anchored by Chris Squire's trademark thudding bass. "Clap" is Howe's first solo contribution to the Yes discography and, while it's an enjoyable sprightly acoustic guitar number, it's perhaps the only moment on the album that feels a bit like a supernumerary. Fortunate, then, that it segues into "Starship Trooper," a shoe-in for one of the finest Yes songs. The song's first half is a similar retread of some of the colourful guitar and organ jam motifs from "Yours Is No Disgrace," but the final section (a Howe composition entitled "Wurm") is the most incredibly well-paced and satisfying crescendos in musical history. As Howe's guitar slowly repeats the same few chords, the entire band gradually starts joining in around him as the phrase builds in intensity before Howe's jubilant solo and Squire's explosive bass crash in during the final moments and deliver the most cathartic climax to any prog song.

It'd be a shoe-in for the album's finest moment if it weren't followed immediately by the wonderful "I've Seen All Good People." For a band known for their lengthy instrumental passages and indulgent solos, Yes really do have a knack for writing really beautiful pieces of music when they put their minds to it, and the first part of "I've Seen All Good People," titled "Your Move," is the most beautiful thing they ever recorded. Jon Anderson's vocals strike the perfect note of wide-eyed, declamatory optimism over Howe's acoustic guitar part and a joyously pastoral recorder part before Kaye's organ sends the whole piece into the stratosphere and lurches it into its rockabilly, party tune finale. Hands down, it's Yes's finest moment. After three of the finest songs of the band's entire discography, it's inevitable that things wind down a little for the album's closing moments - "A Venture" is fine but not outstanding, although "Perpetual Change" recovers things with some more classic moments, particularly further evidence, if any more were needed, of Howe's insanely clownish and eye-boggling proficiency at a ridiculous guitar solo.

With The Yes Album, Yes really capitalised on the fledgling potential they'd shown on their debut, and they deliver in spades. No longer did they sound like an interesting new band who might go on to great things - they sounded like a band in total control of their sound, knowing exactly what they were good at and how to go about it, and simply having a great time being in their element and creating incredible music. While the history of music, particularly prog, is full of bands achieving such greatness and going unnoticed by the paying public, The Yes Album successfully, and deservedly, thrust the band into the mainstream and laid the groundwork for their most iconic and successful work over the subsequent years (although, for my money, none of it would quite match the majesty of this one). One final revision needed to be made before Yes could achieve such greatness, though - a new kind of texture and sound would be added by the recruitment of new keyboardist Rick Wakeman, who would complete the band's classic lineup for their next record.

Track Listing:

1. Yours Is No Disgrace (Jon Anderson; Chris Squire; Steve Howe; Tony Kaye & Bill Bruford)

2. Clap (Steve Howe)

3. Starship Trooper (Jon Anderson; Steve Howe & Chris Squire)

4. I've Seen All Good People (Jon Anderson & Chris Squire)

5. A Venture (Jon Anderson)

6. Perpetual Change (Jon Anderson & Chris Squire)

The Who - Who's Next

Released - August 1971
Genre - Hard Rock

Producer - The Who & Glyn Johns

Selected Personnel - Roger Daltrey (Vocals/Harmonica); Pete Townshend (Guitar/Organ/Synthesiser/Vocals); John Entwistle (Bass/Vocals/Piano); Keith Moon (Drums/Percussion)

Standout Track - Baba O'Riley

One of the all-time great albums in the history of classic rock and also, in my personal experience, one of the greatest examples of how disappointing it can be when your introduction to a band is by some considerable distance their finest work. I had been aware of the Who for many years before I first listened to Who's Next, and knew some of their bigger hits - in particular, I knew and loved "Baba O'Riley" and "Won't Get Fooled Again," but for some reason the band had always fallen into that category of artists who I knew about but had never gotten into, like the Rolling Stones. A couple of years ago I decided to give them my full attention and, at the prompting of my rock guru Jack, started naturally enough with Who's Next, the album containing my two favourite songs of theirs. It is, trying as hard as possible to keep away from hyperbole, a phenomenal record, and for a while it seemed like I might have found another band to truly adore. Sadly, my research into the rest of their work quickly proved disappointing - followup Quadrophenia is great but overly convoluted, while their much-loved 60s work, for me, demonstrates a band going through the motions of finding their feet and developing their sound. 1969's Tommy has some great songs on it but suffers from too much ambition, really. So Who's Next is to be savoured - it represents the moment the band suddenly discovered their muse and worked out how to create something utterly indispensable. Sadly, it's the first and last time they were this good, but any band would kill to have made something as brilliant as this.

Pete Townshend, effectively the creative focal point of the group, wanted to follow Tommy with something on a similarly grand scale - a futuristic rock opera entitled Lifehouse. For months, he attempted to get his head round it while also trying to win round the other band members and record executives. Whether or not Lifehouse would have been any good will forever be a mystery - it proved impractical on too many levels, and the stress and infighting that surrounded its inception nearly drove Townshend to a suicidal nervous breakdown. Ultimately, given how Tommy suffers from having too much ambition and complexity behind it, Lifehouse would probably have suffered the same fate, and what makes Who's Next such a towering success is its relative simplicity. Not to be defeated, Townshend decided to take fragments of what he had written for Lifehouse into the recording sessions for the band's next album, and those fragments ended up being the songs on this record. Freed from the pressures of having to deliver something with a narrative and a conceptual arc, the band were able to focus on making every single song as strong on its own merit as possible, and it's this focus that delivers such strength on the finished product. There's honestly not a weak song here, and the album's big high points are simply breathtaking.

What's surprising about Who's Next is just how far the Who had come on in terms of their sound in just two years. While they had always been renowned for their brutal and destructive live performances, their early albums really struggled to convey any of that power and sounded very tame, while here, for the first time on record, the band sounds dangerous and powerful. Townshend's guitar slashes through the sound with an aggression not seen before, while even Roger Daltrey's vocals are a total revelation - there were moments on Tommy that showed him pushing his voice further into unexplored territory, but here he pushes it to the limit to reveal true ferocity and power. "Baba O'Riley," "Bargain" and "Won't Get Fooled Again," in particular, show him wailing and screaming with an intensity that finally marks him out as one of the finest rock vocalists in history, a legacy that the Who's early albums struggle to justify. There's also the addition of the synthesiser, an instrument that had only recently become commercially available and that really transforms the sound of a number of the songs here. The two behemoth bookend tracks, "Baba O'Riley" and "Won't Get Fooled Again," in particular, benefit from the burbling, relentless walls of sound Townshend is able to create with the instrument.

The songs themselves are by far the most consistently brilliant set the Who would ever deliver. "Baba O'Riley," with its insistent synth backing and pounding piano riff, is one of the great air-punching rock classics, an anthem for spirited youth all over the world, while the next track "Bargain" keeps things simpler but is still an effortlessly brilliant slice of hard rock. John Entwistle's "My Wife" is a very different beast, featuring heavy use of a full brass section, but as such renders itself one of the most excitingly unusual songs on offer here. The focus is definitely on heavy rockers rather than slow-tempo ballads, but "Behind Blue Eyes" is a characteristically gutsy and committed rendering of the ballad format that ticks the box without ever making concessions to a softening of the band's sound. And then there's "Won't Get Fooled Again" which, like "Baba O'Riley," is principally defined by its frenetic synth part and is simply a beast of a song - never stopping to catch its breath or slow down, it's a ferocious call-to-arms for all those too apathetic to take a stance against the world around them. It features some of Daltrey's most powerhouse bellows captured on record, and Townshend's guitar continues to demonstrate its newfound, show-stealing power.

This album genuinely never puts a foot wrong - there is some material that isn't quite up to the standard of the truly great songs, but everything is exciting, fresh and has all the attitude you'd expect of a band with the Who's legacy. Sadly, as mentioned above, this glimpse of a band on top of their game wouldn't last - Quadrophenia would see Townshend returning to the ambitious rock opera format of Tommy and, while it's a great album with some brilliant songs, it lacks the concision and focus of Who's Next, and it's a shame Townshend didn't learn that what made this album so great was its simplicity. There are a few albums by the Who that need to be heard (I'd say Tommy, Who's Next and Quadrophenia) but I'd recommend coming to this one last if you're unfamiliar with them and want to get to know them better - appreciate the individual merits of those albums and then let yourself be blown away by the brilliance of this one. Don't let yourself be disappointed by setting your hopes too high. I shouldn't end this review on a negative, though - this is a sure runner for being one of the greatest rock albums of all time. Do not die without having heard it.

Track Listing:

All songs written by Pete Townshend except where noted.

1. Baba O'Riley

2. Bargain

3. Love Ain't For Keeping

4. My Wife (John Entwistle)

5. The Song Is Over

6. Getting In Tune

7. Going Mobile

8. Behind Blue Eyes

9. Won't Get Fooled Again

T. Rex - Electric Warrior

Released - September 1971

Genre - Glam Rock

Producer - Tony Visconti

Selected Personnel - Marc Bolan (Vocals/Guitar); Mickey Finn (Congas/Bongos); Steve Currie (Bass); Bill Legend (Drums); Rick Wakeman (Keyboards); Ian McDonald (Saxophone)

Standout Track - Cosmic Dancer

Everybody already pretty much knows T. Rex. That, I think, was my justification for holding off for so long on actually giving them any of my attention. Certainly, in the early 70s T. Rex were one of the most successful singles bands around, and their big hits - "Ride A White Swan," "Get It On," "20th Century Boy," "Children Of The Revolution," etc etc, have become forever ingrained in the world's musical consciousness. From what I'd vaguely heard, T. Rex's albums never managed to equal the consistency of their singles, so they were never high on my list of things I had to get into. Even a couple of years ago, when David Bowie's work became a new point of obsession for me for over a year, T. Rex remained something I was only casually familiar with, despite how closely the careers of Bowie and T. Rex frontman Marc Bolan paralleled one another. But then earlier this year I read a book called Ziggyology, I think the fourth Bowie biography I'd read (made ever so slightly different by its decision to identify itself as a biography not of Bowie himself but of his fictional alter-ego Ziggy Stardust, tracing his cultural influences throughout history). Ziggyology articulated the friendship and rivalry between Bowie and Bolan in more interesting terms than I'd read elsewhere, and suddenly I felt a compulsion to do what I could to get more to grips with T. Rex's discography. Ultimately, the reputation they have of being more of a singles band than an albums band is entirely justified - their albums feature a couple of tent-pole singles that stand head and shoulders above the rest, and rarely manage to develop much of a coherent identity or consistency to them. But albums like Electric Warrior are of enormous cultural significance, and manage to have enough fun and deliver enough great party tunes to be worthy of inclusion.

Bolan had founded Tyrannosaurus Rex in 1967 and in its first years it had effectively been a solo project showcasing Bolan's acoustic guitar-based songs alongside the percussive skills of Steve Peregrin Took. Bolan had a mind full of Tolkien and middle-England fantasy, and early Tyrannosaurus Rex sat comfortably within the psychedelic folk of the era, consisting of ethereal tales of kings and fairies and castles that won them a cult following among the musical underground. As the 60s neared their end, Bolan met Bowie for the first time and it was immediately clear that the two of them were trying to head for the same endgame - both were vaultingly ambitious young men determined to take the world by storm, both with minds full of alien, fantastical imagery and a penchant for the whimsical and the psychedelic. Immediately, the race was on for one of them to become a sensation. Their music developed in parallel alongside one another over the next couple of years - at the same time that Bowie was first experimenting with electric instrumentation via his collaborations with Mick Ronson on The Man Who Sold The World, Bolan similarly made the switch to electric guitar and shortened the band's name to T. Rex, hoping to simplify the overtly intellectual style of the band up until then (this switch also concided with Took's departure from the band, something which presumably freed Bolan to move in whatever he direction he wanted). "Ride A White Swan" was the first sample of the new sound, still laden with the same druidic fantasy references but now enlivened by an infectious electric guitar riff. Bolan's subsequent appearance on Top of the Pops wearing glitter on his face gave birth to the early 70s sensation of glam rock - effectively a kind of modern revivalism of the spirit of late 50s rock and roll, performed with all possible pomp and theatricality and androgynous glamour. The world went wild for it and it seemed that Bolan had won the battle with his rival.

Electric Warrior was the second album released by the newly christened "T. Rex" and their first to follow their sudden nationwide success. As such, it will always be viewed as their most essential contribution, the album on which their legacy will always be tested. Coming to it as someone familiar only with T. Rex's big hits, it was actually something of a surprise to me - the band is generally remembered as being a heavy-hitting array of catchy, chugging guitar riffs and Bolan's orgasmic wails, but Electric Warrior is frequently a surprisingly subdued affair, though not necessarily to its disadvantage. There are songs like the eternal classic "Get It On," perhaps the definitive T. Rex song, and the similarly upbeat "Jeepster" that showcase the classic T. Rex sound, but the majority of the real standouts here are the more introverted, reflective songs. Album opener "Mambo Sun" is a brilliantly laid-back bit of scene-setting, as Bolan croons over the slowly chugging guitar riff and pulling back the curtain on the hazy fog of the mood of the album as a whole. It's followed by "Cosmic Dancer," a song with all the acoustic majesty and wide-eyed mysticism of the band's early days, and it's easily one of the best and most affecting songs Bolan ever recorded, made all the more stirring by its subtle string arrangements. Then there's "Girl," a similarly moving acoustic ballad that finishes with an engagingly weird wall of noise from a full horn section.

But the album never really showcases the full raucous party anthems they would go on to perfect with the likes of "20th Century Boy" or the brilliant "Metal Guru." In that way, it came as something of a disappointment to me - for an album that's been given the legacy of being the birth of glam rock, it's disappointingly restrained and rarely does much to really inject any energy into proceedings. There's also a lot of unnecessary filler on here - while most of the first half is decent to great, from "Planet Queen" onwards it really struggles to gather momentum, with "The Motivator" (pretty much a carbon copy of "Get It On" but without any of the energy and dynamism that makes that song so much fun) being a particular low-point, along with the tuneless tedium of "Rip Off." Certainly, Bolan could write a fantastic tune, and pulls off a few here, but he was no master of the album format. Still, the paying public weren't complaining, and Electric Warrior quickly rode the wave of "T. Rexstacy" to the number one spot. In the wake of its success, T. Rex would continue to release good material for another year or so before the success of another figure soon eclipsed them and rendered them obsolete. Though Bowie had lost the battle, he would be certain to win the war - taking inspiration from Bolan's success in making androgynous glamour popular, he began devising a conceptual way of taking this new musical movement to a whole new level and, via the masterpiece that is The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, it wouldn't be long before Bowie was on top once again.

Track Listing:

All songs written by Marc Bolan.

1. Mambo Sun

2. Cosmic Dancer

3. Jeepster

4. Monolith

5. Lean Woman Blues

6. Get It On

7. Planet Queen

8. Girl

9. The Motivator

10. Life's A Gas

11. Rip Off