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Use Your Illusion II
Guns N' Roses
Hard Rock - Released September 1, 1991 | Guns N Roses P&D
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Use Your Illusion II is more serious and ambitious than I, but it's also considerably more pretentious. Featuring no less than four songs that run over six minutes, II is heavy on epics, whether it's the charging funk metal of "Locomotive," the antiwar "Civil War," or the multipart "Estranged." As if an attempt to balance the grandiose epics, the record is loaded with an extraordinary amount of filler. "14 Years" may have a lean, Stonesy rhythm, and Duff McKagan's Johnny Thunders homage, "So Fine," may be entertaining, but there's no forgiving the ridiculous "Get in the Ring," where Axl Rose threatens rock journalists by name because they gave him bad reviews; the misinterpretation of Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door"; another version of "Don't Cry"; and the bizarre closer, "My World," which probably captures Rose's instability as effectively as the tortured poetry of his epics. That said, there are numerous strengths to Use Your Illusion II; a couple of songs have a nervy energy, and for all their pretensions, the overblown epics are effective, though strangely enough, they reveal notorious homophobe Rose's aspirations of being a cross between Elton John and Freddie Mercury. But the pompous production and poor pacing make the album tiring for anyone who isn't a dedicated listener.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo
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A New World Record
Electric Light Orchestra
Rock - Released September 1, 1976 | Epic - Legacy
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Axis: Bold As Love
Jimi Hendrix
Rock - Released December 1, 1967 | Legacy Recordings
Distinctions
The Qobuz Ideal Discography
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Songs From A Room
Leonard Cohen
Pop - Released April 1, 1969 | Columbia Nashville
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Leonard Cohen's first album was an unqualified triumph which announced the arrival of a bold and singular talent, and many who heard it must have wondered what Cohen could do for an encore. By comparison, Cohen's second album, 1969's Songs from a Room, was something of a letdown. While it's a fine LP, it ultimately feels neither as striking nor as assured as Songs of Leonard Cohen. Bob Johnston stepped in as producer for Songs from a Room, and his arrangements are simpler than those John Simon crafted for the debut, but they're also full of puzzling accents, such as the jew's harp that punctuates several tracks, the churchy organ line in "The Old Revolution," and the harsh synthesizer flourishes on "A Bunch of Lonesome Heroes." Johnston also had trouble coaxing strong vocal performances from Cohen; his singing here sounds tentative and his meter is uncertain, which regardless of how one feels about Cohen's much-debated vocal prowess is not the case with his other work. And finally, the quality of the songs on Songs from a Room is less consistent than on Songs of Leonard Cohen; as fine as "Bird on a Wire," "You Know Who I Am," "The Story of Isaac" and "Seems So Long Ago, Nancy" may be, "The Butcher" and "A Bunch of Lonesome Heroes" simply aren't up to his usual standards. Despite the album's flaws, Songs from a Room's strongest moments convey a naked intimacy and fearless emotional honesty that's every bit as powerful as the debut, and it left no doubt that Cohen was a major creative force in contemporary songwriting.© Mark Deming /TiVo
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Hey Doll Baby
The Everly Brothers
Rock - Released June 17, 2022 | Rhino - Warner Records
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Body & Soul
Coleman Hawkins
Jazz - Released January 1, 1956 | RCA Victor - Victor Jazz
Distinctions
The Qobuz Ideal Discography
Much of the material on this two-LP set has been since reissued on CD, but, one way or the other, this music (particularly the first 16 tracks) belongs in every serious jazz collection. In 1939, Hawkins returned to the U.S. after five years in Europe, and it took him very little time to reassert his prior dominance as king of the tenors. This set starts off with the session that resulted in Hawk's classic version of "Body and Soul," teams him with Benny Carter (on trumpet) for some hot swing (including a memorable rendition of "My Blue Heaven"), and then finds Hawkins using younger musicians (including trumpeter Fats Navarro and trombonist J.J. Johnson) on some advanced bop originals highlighted by "Half Step Down Please." The remainder of this set is also good, but less historic, with Hawkins being well-showcased with three larger groups in 1956, culminating in a remake of "Body and Soul."© Scott Yanow /TiVo
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The Exciting Wilson Pickett (Edition Studio Masters)
Wilson Pickett
Soul - Released August 31, 1966 | Rhino Atlantic
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Less of a hodgepodge than his debut album, In the Midnight Hour, Pickett's second album established -- if there had been any doubt -- his stature as a major '60s soul man. The 12 tracks include his monster hits "634-5789," "Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won't Do)," "In the Midnight Hour," and "Land of 1000 Dances" (the last of which was his first Top Ten pop hit). Collectors will be more interested in the non-hit cuts, which are of nearly an equal level. These include covers of the R&B standards "Something You Got," "Mercy Mercy," and "Barefootin'"; several original tunes written in collaboration with Memphis soul greats Steve Cropper, Eddie Floyd, and David Porter; and Bobby Womack's "She's So Good to Me." It all adds up to one of the most consistent '60s soul albums ever.© Richie Unterberger /TiVo
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Kaleidoscope
Fatma Said
Classical - Released September 2, 2022 | Warner Classics
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The 20 tracks on Kaléïdoscope reveal the many facets of Fatma Saïd’s vibrant personality. The soprano—whose first album, El Nour, was so well received it was awarded a Qobuzissime—takes on multiple vocal characters, each equally joyful and delivered in her signature velvety tone. She creates a rich musical landscape, bursting with beautiful pieces from the likes of Offenbach, Massenet, Weill and Gardel. When it comes to the singer’s choice of repertoire, she states: “Since I was very young, dance has accompanied me everywhere, and I’ve learnt a number of different styles. […] While researching potential repertoire for this album, I found myself drawn to songs from a number of very different countries and peoples, all with strong dance elements—sometimes in the words, but invariably in the music. It’s hard to imagine music without dance, or dance without music. For me, both are inseparable.”Fatma Saïd completely lets go in this album, and it’s a pleasure to experience the feeling of weightlessness that seems to guide each of these tracks. It’s also wonderful to hear the evolution of her operetta registers, particularly in the bolero from Massenet’s La Fiancée en loterie with its delicious Hispanic flavour. Kaléidoscope documents the singer’s craft remarkably well, as well as the acting dimension that accompanies it. Saïd’s voice adapts perfectly to every mood and style: unhurried in the Barcarolle from Contes d’Hoffmann, jubilant in I Could Have Danced All Night (an impressive track from the film My Fair Lady) and mysterious and restrained in Youkali. She even offers a stunning yet unexpected jazzy digression with Cheek to Cheek. Far from being just one more album in a vast catalogue, Kaléïdoscope is a spectacular portrayal of this Egyptian singer. And what a singer she is! © Pierre Lamy/Qobuz
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Porgy And Bess
Ella Fitzgerald
Vocal Jazz - Released January 1, 1958 | Verve Reissues
Producer Norman Granz oversaw two Porgy & Bess projects. The first involved Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, and came together during the autumn of 1957 with brassy big band and lush orchestral arrangements by Russ Garcia. This is the classic Verve Porgy & Bess, and it's been reissued many, many times. The second, recorded during the spring and summer of 1976 and issued by RCA, brought Ray Charles together with versatile British vocalist Cleo Laine, backed by an orchestra under the direction of Frank DeVol. A comparison of these two realizations bears fascinating fruit, particularly when the medleys of street vendors are played back to back. Those peasant songs, used in real life to purvey honey, strawberries, and crabs, were gathered and notated by George Gershwin and novelist Du Bose Heyward in 1934 during a visit to Folly Island, a small barrier island ten miles south of Charleston, SC, known today as Folly Beach. As Charleston Harbor had been one of the major ports during the importation of slaves from Africa, the waterfront was mostly populated by Gullahs, a reconstituted community that retained and preserved its ancestral cultures and languages to unusual degrees. Gershwin, who even learned to chant with the Gullah, absorbed the tonalities of the street cries he heard and wove them -- along with all of the other impressions stored within his sensitive mind -- into the fabric of his opera. What's really great about the Ella and Louis version is Ella, who handles each aria with disarming delicacy, clarion intensity, or usually a blend of both. Her take on "Buzzard Song" (sung 19 years later by Ray Charles) is a thrilling example of this woman's intrinsic theatrical genius. Pops sounds like he really savored each duet, and his trumpet work -- not a whole lot of it, because this is not a trumpeter's opera -- is characteristically good as gold. This marvelous album stands quite well on its own, but will sound best when matched with the Ray Charles/Cleo Laine version, especially the songs of the Crab Man, of Peter the Honey Man, and his wife, Lily the Strawberry Woman.© arwulf arwulf /TiVo
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Sailor
Steve Miller Band
Rock - Released October 1, 1968 | Steve Miller - Owned
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Most definitely a part of the late-'60s West Coast psychedelic blues revolution that was becoming hipper than hip, Steve Miller was also always acutely aware of both the British psychedelic movement that was swirling in tandem and of where the future lay, and how that would evolve into something even more remarkable. The result of all those ideas, of course, came together on 1968's magnificent Sailor LP. What was begun on Children of the Future is more fully realized on Sailor, most notably on the opening "Song for Our Ancestors," which begins with a foghorn and only gets stranger from there. Indeed, the song precognizes Pink Floyd's 1971 opus "Echoes" to such an extent that one wonders how much the latter enjoyed Miller's own wild ride. Elsewhere, the beautiful, slow "Dear Mary" positively shimmers in a haze of declared love, while the heavy drumbeats and rock riffing guitar of "Living in the U.S.A." are a powerful reminder that the Steve Miller Band, no matter what other paths they meandered down, could rock out with the best of them. And, of course, this is the LP that introduced many to the Johnny "Guitar" Watson classic "Gangster of Love," a song that would become almost wholly Miller's own, giving the fans an alter ego to caress long before "The Joker" arose to show his hand. Rounding out Miller's love of the blues is an excellent rendering of Jimmy Reed's "You're So Fine." At their blues-loving best, Sailor is a classic Miller recording and a must-have -- especially for the more contemporary fan, where it becomes an initiation into a past of mythic proportion.© Amy Hanson /TiVo
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My Voice - The 1st Album Deluxe Edition
Taeyeon
Asia - Released February 28, 2017 | SM Entertainment
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Bande Originale du Film "Bugsy Malone" (Alan Parker - 1976)
Paul Williams
Film Soundtracks - Released January 1, 1976 | Polydor Records
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Restless Heart
Whitesnake
Rock - Released June 30, 1998 | Rhino
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Even though they were a global chart-topping, hit-making machine less than ten years prior, David Coverdale came up empty when he tried to find a U.S.-based record company to issue the group's 1997 release, Restless Heart (available Stateside only as an import). To Coverdale's credit, he did not attempt to give Whitesnake a modern-day makeover (which so many pop- metal bands of the late '80s did post-Nirvana, and failed miserably), as he follows in the same melodic rock mold of Whitesnake's previous two releases, 1987's Whitesnake and 1989's Slip of the Tongue. Unlike the late-'80s edition of Whitesnake (which included Steve Vai, Tommy Aldridge, etc.), the 1998 version is not a showcase for rock's most renowned hired guns. In addition to Coverdale, the only holdover from the group's previous album is guitarist Adrian Vandenberg, who FINALLY gets the chance to appear on a full-length Whitesnake recording (after several close calls on the aforementioned releases). Instead of walloping listeners over the skull with an album opening rocker, Coverdale kicks things off on a mellow note, with the bluesy ballad "Don't Fade Away," but harder-edged material soon follows, including the riff-rocking title track, and "Crying," which shows the singer's Zeppelin fixation remains. The times may have changed, but David Coverdale is content with his old sound -- and longtime Whitesnake fans will be pleased.© Greg Prato /TiVo
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City Life
The Blackbyrds
R&B - Released January 1, 1975 | Fantasy Records
The Blackbyrds -- a jazz-funk outfit formed in a university class taught by jazz trumpeter Donald Byrd, who produced the albums and wrote most of the tunes -- were more of an Earth, Wind & Fire-style horn band than a purist jazz crew, but few groups were better in their chosen style, and 1975's City Life is probably their best album. It's certainly their most successful, including the pop hit "Happy Music" and what has become their signature tune, a percolating Latin-flavored jam called "Rock Creek Park" that's one of the pinnacles of '70s jazz-funk. As on the bouncy title track, the lyrical content is minimal, a simple hypnotic chant, but the fluid interplay of the musicians, who are masters of the unison horn section and the polyrhythmic groove, is what's important about this music. Other highlights include the funky southern-style soul of "Hash and Eggs" and the lyrical ballad "Love So Fine." This is often-sublime stuff ripe for rediscovery by fans of '70s funk, soul, and fusion.© Stewart Mason /TiVo
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Thoroughbred
Carole King
Folk/Americana - Released December 1, 1975 | Epic
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1976's THOROUGHBRED was Carole King's last album for Lou Adler's Ode Records imprint, and it's clearly a transitional release. Change was afoot in the musical air in 1976, and while there's no hints of punk or disco on THOROUGHBRED--which is a good thing--King is definitely moving away from the solo piano sound of her earlier solo albums. King's thumping, percussive piano playing is still all over the album, but guitars play a more prominent role than ever before. At times, the instrumental interplay resembles that of Fleetwood Mac, particularly Waddy Wachtel's Lindsey Buckingham-like solo on "Only Love Is Real." The songs themselves are in the eclectic style of 1973's all-over-the-map FANTASY, with the country-tinged "We All Have To Be Alone" and "Ambrosia" sitting comfortably between the slinky pop of "I'd Like To Know You Better" and the soulful "Still Here Thinking of You."© TiVo
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It's Five O'Clock
Aphrodite's Child
Rock - Released June 7, 1969 | Cobalt Music - Helladisc S.A. (GR)
Aphrodite's Child's second LP was in some ways both a continuation of and departure from their debut album, End of the World. There were some grandiose keyboard-based sub-British psychedelic tracks that could have fit in well on the previous record. The title song's celestial organ, for instance, is much like that on heard on U.K. psychedelic records of the period such as Rupert's People's "Reflections of Charlie Brown," though it's more sentimentally romantic than virtually anything a British band would have released, especially in its vocal delivery. Yet on other cuts, the group took on a markedly different character, whether it was mildly rousing social consciousness ("Wake Up"), pretty fair stomping power pop-psych ("Let Me Love, Let Me Live"), and, least successfully, good-time country-rock ("Take Your Time") and gravelly vaudevillian soul ("Good Time So Fine"). "Funky Mary," on the other hand, is a really cool departure into almost experimental soul-rock, its phased vocals backed by an almost musique concrète wash of bashing drums, Latin-African-flavored bongos, and jazzy vibraphone. If it's guiltier pleasures you're looking for, the unreservedly heart-tuggingly sad "Marie Jolie" is their best (if most saccharine) pop ballad with Mediterranean gondola balladeer overtones complete with accordion solo, though it's End of the World's "Rain and Tears" that the group's most remembered for in that department. "Such a Funny Night," which follows right after that, steers the boat back to pop-psychedelia in the twee British mold. Like their first album, then, it's a very uneven record, but one whose best half or so is pretty enjoyable psych-turning-into-prog with Greek accents to both the vocals and melodies, even if it's never going to be classified as especially hip.© Richie Unterberger /TiVo
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