"Second Album" by The Four Tops (1965)

“It’s the same old song, but with a different meaning…”

 

Soul Classics on This LP:I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) and It’s the Same Old Song

 

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:

HIGHLY Recommended (3.5/4 stars)

 

When I was a kid, it seemed like my family was always on its way to somewhere.  The car was our temple and the radio was our swinging censer of jasmine.  And Solid Gold Saturday night was a weekly ritual.  It hooked me on oldies and exposed me to a lot of really good and really diverse music.  My education was so thorough that I can still remember the show’s jingle and call-in number.  It’s going strong these days with the original DJ, Mike Harvey – only now it’s called Super Gold and they play way too much disco.  I have nothing against disco, but for me, “oldies” music stops dead in 1974.

 

My dad also kept about 20 eight tracks (and later, cassettes) in the car at all times, in case the radio hit a streak of songs he didn’t like or we drove out of reception – this was always a possibility in our particularly rural neck of Eastern Kentucky.  When I was about six, I latched on to a couple in particular.  My request was always for Sam Cooke’s Greatest Hits, the one with the yellow and black cover.  Being a big Sam Cooke fan, but also growing tired of playing the same thing over and over, Dad introduced me to similar music he thought I might like. 

 

And so, between Solid Gold Saturday Night and my father’s music collection, an undying love for soul music was born.  And it grew.

 

One of my first music purchases was a cassette with the best of The Four Tops on one side and the best of The Temptations on the other.  I played that thing until it broke.  For a long time though, I couldn’t distinguish between the two groups, since they were mingled together on the same tape (I had a similar problem with BTO and Grand Funk Railroad).  But now, there’s no comparison whatsoever.  The Temptations had some great songs, but not nearly as many as The Four Tops.  Also, The Four Tops tie The Beach Boys in my book for best, most consistent use of the baritone saxophone ever.

 

Like I said before, I love this type of music.  There’s just something… primordial going on in those early Motown records and their ilk – you can’t not be moved by them.  It’s like they took the blues and infused them with a spark of hope, even in the most hopeless of songs.  That’s an impossible, yet impeccable equation.  And nobody has ever been able to recreate it.  Nobody has ever even come close.

 

So, is it an album?  Yes.  It’s tight, it’s focused and it’s guaranteed to make you smile.

 

Up next, we stay in our R&B vein with Stevie Wonder’s double-album opus, “Songs in the Key of Life.”

"Denim and Leather" by Saxon (1981)

Be Forewarned: This will be a heavy-metal geek-out entry.

 

“Where were you in ’79 when the dam began to burst?”

 

Personal Favorites:

And the Bands Played On and Denim and Leather are both phenomenal songs about the emergence of heavy metal in the popular consciousness.  Play it Loud is about playing it loud and is also amazing.

 

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:

REQUIRED LISTENING (4/4 stars).  Seriously, if you like any type of remotely heavy music and you haven’t heard this LP, you are really missing out.

 

The LP’s lyrics make references to several bands, including Deep Purple, Rainbow and UFO.  And those influences are apparent all over “Denim and Leather.”  It has Ritchie Blackmore guitar sensibilities and shares UFO’s acumen for crafting radio-friendly heavy music.  And that blending is what set Saxon and their contemporaries apart and got the world’s attention. 

 

I have mentioned before that fellow NWOBHM band Iron Maiden is a great starting point for a journey into heavy metal.  Saxon also works well in this capacity for the same reasons.  First, their songs are full of great hooks; you can’t go wrong with great hooks. Secondly, they are readily accessible the first time you hear them.  That’s a big deal and it’s something that none of their metal predecessors (like Sabbath) were ever able to boast.  Also, they teeter right on the precipice between hard rock and heavy metal, making them an easier pill for many to swallow, as opposed to a group like Venom that was much heavier and a precursor thrash and death metal.

 

Let me clarify that last statement.  I have very specific criteria for what I myself consider to be heavy metal music as opposed to hard rock.  I love both genres, but I do think there’s a clear distinction.  Led Zeppelin is not heavy metal.  Deep Purple (or any other Blackmore project) is not heavy metal.  Kiss and AC/DC are not heavy metal.  Those are all hard rock.  Which is great, I love hard rock too.  But for me, metal crosses into something that is continually thicker and darker; metal lurks in the fringes and shadows.  It’s not even about the sound, it’s about the attitude.  All of the bands I just listed made songs with that attitude, but it was never a consistent (or even regular) thing for any of them.

 

Saxon has both feet firmly on the metal side, but the band is clearly still looking back across the chasm.  And it makes for some great music.

 

So, is it an album?  Yes.  It flat out rocks from stem to stern.

 

Up next, we finally get back into the R&B world with the second album by The Four Tops, creatively titled “Second Album.”

"All American Boy" by Rick Derringer (1973)

Fun Fact:
Per the liner notes, there is a thing called a hair-drum... and Rick Derringer knows how to play it.

"There's a lotta sexy girls out there and I've got a built-in cosmic need for a TEENAGE LOVE AFFAIR."

Rock-and-Roll-Hoochie-Classic:
Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo

Song That Makes My Brain Melt and Ooze out of My Ear because it Exists:
Hold

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Average (2/2 stars)

"All American Boy" sounds almost exactly like what you would expect from a one hit wonder.  Of course it opens with Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo.  After that, there are a few oases of interesting bits scattered  throughout an otherwise choppy and uneven bunch of space fillers.  Oh yeah, and there are songs with titles like The Airport Giveth (The Airport Taketh Away) and Slide on over Slinky  that get devliered without a single drop of irony whatsoever.

Except that...

Joe Walsh shows up and plays on a couple of tracks.  Okay, I get that.  Joe Walsh played on pretty much everybody's stuff in the early seventies.

And Edgar Winter does keys on a few more.  Fair enough.  That crazy albino Texan  probably should have been on more stuff in the early seventies.

And then, of course, Derringer cowrote one of the songs on this LP with Patti Smith.  3... 2.. 1... Wait, what?!  Yes, THAT Patti Smith.  The protopunk icon who did Horses and Gloria also helped pen the most schmaltzy and terrible ballad on this LP (and trust me, that's saying a lot).

Additionally, Toots Thielemans plays harmonica on one number.  I no idea who he is, but with a name like that, he's got to be awesome.

So, is it an album?  No.  As the cover art suggests, "All American Boy" can't decide whether it wants to be rock or pop, so it just keeps bouncing back and forth between the two... except for when it shifts into smooth jazz mode, which it totally does every now and then.

Up next, do you NWOBHM?  Well, you're about to as we explore "Denim and Leather" by Saxon.

"Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits (1985)

Fun Fact:Mark Knopfler writes more songs about people singing songs than anybody I can think of.  There are three in a row on this LP.

"I want my MTV."

Songs You Might Have Heard on the Radio (or seen on MTV) from this LP:So Far Away, Money for Nothing, Walk of Life, Brothers in Arms

"Brothers in Arms" insists on being an eighties album.  At the time it was released, it was resolvedly grounded absolutely in its time.  When people think about the big hits from this LP, they think of the technology of the time.  I want to point at right here and now that there's a helluva lot more going on here than just Reagonomics and Max Headroom.

But it seems Dires Straits doesn't want us to think about that because they (or somebody, but Mark Knopfler is the first producer listed) force fed it to us when "Brothers in Arms" came out.

The best example and worst offender here is Walk of Life.  What's the first thing you think of when I mention that song?  Okay, now what's the second?  I don't know the order, but I'll bet good money that the two answers were: that opening synth riff and that great, iconic video.  And I have to admit, they both hooked me and reeled me in every time it came on the tube.  Let's face it, sports bloopers were awesome in the days before "America's Funniest Home Videos," and that's just one of those primordial sequences of notes that grabs you.

But here's the thing -- all of the technology overshadows some other (really great) aspects of that song.  For starters, it's an infectious twelve-bar guitar shuffle.  It also has some incredible lyrics.  For your reading enjoyment: "after all the violence and double talk, there's just a song in all the trouble and the strife."  See what I mean?  I have sung that line probably over a hundred times, but I had never processed it until I read it in the liner notes today -- and all because of that infectious keyboard melody.

So I do have to concede that all that tech makes for a really fun experience.

Still, The Man's Too Strong never had a video and it doesn't have much at all in the way of synths, but it does have TWO VERY ANGRY GUITARS.  And it's hands down my favorite cut.  You should go listen to it right now.  I'll wait.  Yeah, you can't beat The Man's Too Strong.

...until you get to Brothers in Arms.  And it turns out to be an astounding marriage of guitars and keyboards -- registering a whopping 9.2 Pinks on the Floyd scale.  Each instrument elevates and amplifies the other, until they pierce your soul in beauteous rapture.  Brothers in Arms is a phenomenal song, and it's not even about people who sing songs.

So, is it an album?  Yes.  Say what you want about the synths (and the sax -- a sax can damn near ruin a song in a sixteenth note), but this thing is clearly one man's vision.

Up next, we check out a one-hit rocker from the seventies.  It's "All American Boy" by Rick Derringer.  Something tells me it'll be heavy on the Rock & Roll, Hoochie Koo...

"Bustin' Out" by Pure Prairie League (1972)

Classic Rock Radio Staple: Amie

Another Song That Is Also Pretty Good: Jazzman

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Above Average (2.5/4 stars)

My friend Doug used to insist that you could never buy a full-length release on the strength of one single -- he had apparently been burned too many times by that particular bait and switch.  When No Scrubs came out he commented that he liked the song and then stubbornly refused to buy the CD.  But the second he heard Unpretty, he ran out and scooped up "FanMail."  Typing this now, I realize that those are both good songs, but they're also both very girl-powery.  You go, Doug!

If Jazzman had been released as a single, "Bustin' Out" would have met Doug's goofy criteria.  It's a good song.  And Amie is a great song.  However, there's not much else going here on besides that.  Doug would have been disappointed in "Bustin' Out."  Hell, it may even have changed his whole way of thinking, possibly upping the stakes to as many as three good songs required before purchase.  I can see Doug now ratlling off the hit singles like The Count in Sesame Street as he stands in the line at Best Buy, waiting to purchase his copy of "Oops.. I Did It Again" (I'll stick with the theme he established).  I then imagine him -- two hours later -- changing the requirement to full listening disclosure before purchase.

Anyway, Pure Prairie League is definitely not aiming for the fences here.  There's one song with a discernable electric guitar, but otherwise all the tracks sound pretty much the same.  There's a tune called Angel No. 9 and another one just called Angel; and the tracks don't even have anything to do with each other (as opposed to Tom Petty's copout on "She's the One" with Angel Dream  (No. 4) and Angel Dream (No. 2) -- that's a whole lotta similarities for not a lot of value).  Additionally, Falling in and out of Love with You and Amie share so many lyrics and melodies, PPL would have been much better to just slam them together into a single song.  Or, preferably, they could have just leve FiaooLwY off completely.

But in the end, I sat in my chair and bopped along because this is a kind of music I really enjoy.  It sounds like the Allman Brothers when they're not being bluesy or jammy.  Next time though, I'll just listen to the Allman Brothers.

So, is it an album?  Yes.  Surprisingly, its narrowness of scope makes it remarkably cohesive, albeit pretty dull.  I guess being an album is not necessarily a positve thing.

Up next, we definitely gets some bluesiness and jamminess as we swing back to the eighties with "Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits.

"Faith" by George Michael (1987)

"People -- you can never change the way they feel.  Better let them do just what they will."

Charting Singles from This LP:Faith, Father Figure, I Want Your Sex, One More Try, Monkey, Kissing a Fool

The fifties exploded pop music.  The sixties perfected it.  The seventies carried its torch through a coke-riddled haze.  And the eighties evolved it into something immensely more massive and ferocious; the eighties gave us Super-Pop.  This was the age when giants roamed the Earth -- the Madonnasaurus, the Veloci-Prince, the fearsome Jackson Rex. 

This LP fits right in with those juggernauts.  In the sixties, it was about taking the recent singles and compiling them into an LP.  In the eighties, it was about crafting an LP that was overloaded with potential pop hand grenades. 

As a result, it took George Michael two years to make "Faith."  In contrast, The Monkees released five whole LPs in a single two-year period.  And his diligence paid off.  Of it's nine tracks, seven were released as singles.  Four of them were number one hits on the pop chart.  Two more broke the top five.  Juggernaut.

The best proof I can offer is this... "Why do I have to share my baby with a monkey?" should not be a line from the chorus of any non-novelty pop hit.  I get that that the monkey is an obvious metaphor for addiction, but that only makes it about ten times less pop-friendly.  And yet...

God bless the eighties.

So, is it an album?  Yes.  "Written, arranged and produced by George Michael" pretty much says it all -- except that he also sang it and played a bunch of the instruments (sometimes all of them).

Up next, we go "Bustin' Loose" with the Pure Prairie League.