"Point of Know Return" by Kansas (1977)

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Filed between: Judas Priest and KC & The Sunshine Band

Key Tracks Really Good Songs: Dust in the Wind

Pretty Good Songs: Point of Know Return, Lightning's Hand

Obvious Filler & Swings-and-Misses: Portrait (He Knew), Nobody's Home

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately: Average (2/4 stars)

Eerily Telling Quote:
"I am patiently doing nothing in reverie... All these hot licks and rhetoric surely do you no harm."

I'm sure there are people out there who swear by the depth and color of "Point of Know Return" - but I'm not one of 'em.  It exemplifies the a major pitfall inherent to prog (and even more so in prog-pop).  Like Malcolm says in "Jurassic Park" - "Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean that you SHOULD." 

There's clearly a rich mythos behind "Point of Know Return," and it's got some really interesting elements to it.  Unfortunately, it feels like we're getting the least interesting stories (or the least interesting perspectives) from it.  It's Like if "Lord of the Rings" had only focused on the hobbits that never left The Shire.

And then there's the sound.  For the most part, the synths swallow everything else with a jaunty, sailing shanty grin.  That works really well for the first two tracks (especially the one about sailing of the edge of the world), but then it all changes...

After that, we move into a synth-heavy instrumental and then into Portrait (He Knew).  It keeps up the synth throughout the intro and bridge, but whenever there's a verse/chorus involved, it immediately slips into pure BTO-esque power rock.  The second-tier Christian rock lyrics don't help either.  Then they do it again on the next track - Closet Chronicles.  The do-over is monumentally unoriginal, but at least it yields a (comparitively) better song.

Then, Lightning's Hand is almost metal (if they allowed sailing shanties in metal).

Dust in the Wind (the track everybody remembers from "POKR") doesn't even try to pretend like it fits in with anything else on the LP.

So, is it an album?  No.  The concept for a good prog album was buried in there.  Kansas just dug in the wrong spot.

Up next, an artist I've already covered twice teams up with a songwriter I've already covered twice.  It's Alice Cooper with help from Bernie Taupin on "From the Inside."  Their scores are both one and one right now.  I'm curious to see what the tiebreaker yields...

"Flowers of Evil" by Mountain

Editor's Note: The vinyl cover is much less washed out

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Filed between: Mott the Hoople and Michael Martin Murphy

Obtained via: mistakenly thinking this version of Mississippi Queen was the studio version (I call this one a happy accident)

Key Tracks: Flowers of Evil, Crossroader and (the NOT studio version of) Mississippi Queen

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately: Recommended Listening (3/4 stars)

So, one side is a set of studio sessions and the other side is a couple of live songs.  How does that work out?  Pretty well actually...

Except for a live version of Mississippi Queen, this is a record lost to time as far as I know.  I'd never heard any of the tracks before (or even heard OF them, for that matter).  And that's a shame.  "Flowers of Evil" is a solid power-prog-psychedelic rock record with a few tunes that could have been classics.

The title track rails at Vietnam with a simultaneously humanistic and nihilistic spit of bile.  Much of the LP follows
suit.

Crossroader is thick, heavy and bluesy.  It's easily the best thing on "Flowers of Evil."

Side two is all live, and it's only two songs - a 25 minute jam and an even heavier version of Mountain's (sadly) only hit.  But it fits right in with the feel of what came before it.

Basically, if you like Cream, you should check out "Flowers of Evil."  It's a familiar sound in a package you probably haven't heard before.  Ahhh, the wheels of fate turn in mysterious ways.

So, is it an album?  Yes.  "Flowers of Evil" often folds back on itself with that thunderous, insistent guitar and lyrics detailing the futility and perserverence inherent to being alive.

Up next, we get even proggier (is that even a word?) with "Point of Know Return" (is that even a pun?) by Kansas.

"Tommy" by The Who (1969)

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My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Above Average (2.5/4).  Honestly, I would reccommend "Physical Graffiti" by Led Zeppelin, another double album by a band that went by almost exactly the same template and exectuted it phenomenonally better.  (NOTE: hipsters will vehemently disagree with that last comment.  SECOND NOTE: suck it, hipsters.)

Key Tracks:
The old blues cover of Eyesight to the Blind works really well.  Christmas is the most cohesive track on either LP.  Pinball Wizard is fantastic on its own; the whole "concept" actually cheapens it some.  The same goes for Sally Simpson.

Obvious Filler & Swings-and-Misses:
John Entwistle contributed two tracks to "Tommy," and they both suck.  First is Cousin Kevin.  It's just dull and distracting.  The second is  part B to the far more disturbing, unnecessary and agendized Do You Think It's Alright/Fiddle About - a song that would reflect an isolated incident of incestuous, homoerotic masturbatory fantasy if it weren't reprised in a far more disturbing way in the climax on disc 4.  Keith Moon's contribution doesn't fare any better - Tommy's Holiday Camp is crap too.  And I'm not letting the mastermind behind "Tommy" off the hook either.  Townsend's Underture is ten minutes of wasted space, and he wrote the first half of Do You Think It's Alright/Fiddle About.

Really, the only difference between a concept album and a rock opera is one of two things: (1) an overture or (2) a stage production released prior to the LP.  "Tommy" gets props for #1.  But they still don't seem to get there.  "Tommy" is clearly a concept album, but it is content to leave gigantic gaps.  Let me explain...

Side one focuses on: setup, trauma, hopelessness and deceit.
It's a great premise/intro to a bottomless well of potential.  Unfortunately...

Side two focuses on: coping, family and maturation.
We COULD be headed somewhere interesting, but this seems like an irrellevant side trip...

Side three focuses on: action, outreach and connection.
Unfortunately, side three never earns it.  Tommy has a personality, but that's trampled beneath the treads of the fact that...

Side four focuses on: salvation, messianic overtones, fanaticism and evangilism.
Tommy is suddenly converted from deaf/dumb/blind to faith healer in an eleven second segue, and it never rings true.  It seems much more like a plot device to spiel a late-sixties agenda.

So, is it an album?  No.  Seriously, I'm gonna say that a "rock opera" / "concept album" is not an album?  You're damn straight.  Like I hinted to earlier, all four acts (sides) seem to happen independently of each other without any logical or emotional segue from one to the next to explain how we got to where we are now.  "Tommy" never delivers on a great premise; it never delivers on the unspoken promises it makes.  Sadly, this record affirms every misgiving I ever had about The Who.

My Top Three Rock Operas Ever: (Pretty Standard)
3. "Hair"
2. "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat"
1. "Jesus Christ Superstar"

My Top Three Concept Albums Ever (not including theme albums): (A Little More Diverse)
3. "Red Headed Stranger" by Willie Nelson
2. "Year Zero" by Nine Inch Nails
1. "The Wall" by Pink Floyd

Up next, we blend the studio with the live again with "Flowers of Evil" by Mountain.

"That's Life" by Frank Sinatra (1966)

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Filed Between: Simon & Garfunkel ("Bookends" and "Bridge over Troubled Water" were determined to be required listening) and Sir Mix-a-Lot (EP only - otherwise, required listening beware)

Key Tracks:
The key tracks have the unassailable laizes faire quality that crop up on the best Frank tunes.  That's Life sums it all up in two words.  And then, at this point in his life, Sinatra got Don Quixote on an unnerving, fundamental level, so The Impossible Dream gets sloffed in there as well.  I tend to think of Sammy Davis, Junior as Sancho Panza - but that's just me...

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

When I first came up with the idea for this blog, I really hoped I would get a chance to review Sinatra's "September of My Years."  It's a fantastic them album about dealing with the aging process.  I missed it by one and landed on "That's Life" instead.  So, I told myself that it's still Reprise-era Sinatra and that he attacks everything with an inescapable joie de vivre.  But then I saw that there's a cover of Winchester Cathedral on this LP...

But even a bad Frank song is at least on par with a lot of artists' good output.  "That's Life" is tolerable - it's even
enjoyable.  It just makes me sad 'cause Ole Blue Eyes can do so much better.  To lay it out, there's not a bad song on "That's Life" (he even brings the abysmal Winchester Cathedral up to a listenable level with a horn section and an oxcart full of swagger), but there just aren't enough great songs and - let's be realistic - some artists get held to a higher standard.

So, is it an album?  No.  It's just a bunch of songs.  That makes it doubly disappointing that it's not "September of My Years."  Oh well, there are still four months of this project left - maybe we'll get lucky and hit the one I wanted too.

Up next. we see if The Who can redeem themselves with the role that Rod Stewart and Elton John almost came to blows over - it's a rock opera, and another double album - "Tommy."

"Genesis" by Genesis (1983)

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Filed Between: Crystal Gayle and Giuffria

Key Line:
"We relive our lives in what we tell you."

This LP Has a Really Great Song About: A Haunted House

Key Tracks:
Mama, Home by the Sea/Second Home by the Sea and Just a Job to Do come from a collective sameness that we'll get into more directly.

Obvious Filler & Swings-and-Misses:
Illegal Alien - nobody should try to be The Police except for The Police.  At least it has a catchy chorus.  Can't say the same for Silver Rainbow.  It sounds like they're trying to ape the Genesis sound from the Peter Gabriel days, but it never gels.  It's Gonna Get Better is maudlin and hammy.

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

I'm taking this one off the rails.  The dark ferocity of Mama and the (literal and figurative) haunted insistence of Home by the Sea deserve to be anchored in something deeper than what "Genesis" delivered.  So, I'm gonna make my own suggestion for which songs should have been included on this LP.  I know it's totally pretentious and insulting to the artists, but as a card carrying fanboy, I figure that it's also part of my duty to do such things from time to time.

And I think Genesis might agree.  They knew where the money was; you can tell by the way they ordered the tracks on "Genesis."  It kicks off with Mama, one of the weirdest and most disturbed tracks in the Genesis catalogue.  Next comes what they had to know would be a pop juggernaut with That's All.  Then they jump into the epic Home by the Sea.  After that, their hand is played.  Most of the b-side sounds like an afterthought.

So, here's what my track listing would have been for "Genesis"...

Songs Phil Collins should have saved instead of releasing on his 1981 solo LP "Face Value":
In the Air Tonight crouches in the darkness and his cover of Tomorrow Never Knows is strange wherever it gets put.

Songs they should have kept from the "Genesis" LP:
As mentioned, Mama and Home by the Sea/Second Home by the Sea have an eeriness and a weight to them that merits great attention.  Also kept, the spy versus spy themed Just a Job to Do.  That's All could have been saved for later.  It would have fit in perfectly on "Invisible Touch."

And speaking of "Invisible Touch"...

Songs they should have waited until they wrote that eventually wound up on the follow-up LP, "Invisible Touch":
Domino is another weird, dark, long song.  Ditto for Tonight, Tonight, Tonight.

That's my line-up.  It's only seven songs, but it's almost fifty minutes worth of moody, elaborate music and complicated themes.

So, is it an album?  No.  See above.

Up next, we go back to the Chairman of the Board.  It's "That's Life" by Frank Sinatra.

"Bad Company" by Bad Company (1974)

(...more cover artwork by Hipgnosis)

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Fun Fact: The only other bands I know of that have not only a self-titled album, but also a self-titled song are Black Sabbath and Wilco.

Filed between: Bachman-Turner Overdrive and a compilation called "Banjo in the Bluegrass."  (No Bad Brains or Bad Religion on vinyl.)

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
HIGHLY Recommended (3.5/4 stars)

Key Tracks: 
Guitarist Mick Ralphs penned three the four megahits on "Bad Company."  It turns out that I prefer the songs Paul Rodgers had a hand in.  They all have a great late-era Beatles vibe.  My faves are: Rock Steady, Don't Let Me Down (NOT a Beatles cover) and Bad Company ('cause cowboy rock songs are cool).

I have heard the same argument used for Bad Company that is often used for Def Leppard: "But they sound so [wistful sigh] perfect."  I respond, as I do in regard to Def Leppard, with "but they sound so [deflated sigh] perfect."  Boston is really the only band that toes that line in a great way, IMO.

I think maybe Bad Company (and "Bad Company" - quotes are critical in this post) sounds a little TOO clean and pristine.  I also think maybe that's why they get a bad rap in some circles.  Sometimes, music just needs a little dirt on it; I think it could have elevated "Bad Company" even further.  [Editorial Note: I want to point out that this is a positive review, despite how it may sound.  I just feel like the band left something on the table that might have resulted in a REQUIRED LISTENING assessment.]  When you get studio perfection, it most often comes at the cost of soul and authenticity.  Usually, it also makes for really good music (as is the case here), but it can feel like something is missing and you think maybe something even more magical could have happened if the engineers and producers just got out the way.  For the record, "Bad Company" was self-produced by the band.

Rock Steady is the closest they get to letting go of the reins and just going with it.  It's also the ballsiest (and
simplest) track on "Bad Company."  Rock Steady is a lot of easygoing fun. I wish more of "Bad Company" was.

So, is it an album?  Yes.  Precision and perfection do have their merits.

Up next, we keep with the self-titled trend and get "Genesis" by...