Tag Archives: music albums

10 Great Albums (The Final 6)

Posted on by Steve Higgins

I was struggling to finish my post 10 Great Albums last week. I did manage to get as far as 4 albums along with a little background for each of my choices so this week I’m going to try and finish the job with another 6 albums. To do so I thought I’d open up my Spotify account and see what I’ve got in my favourites.

The Very Best of Sting and The Police

Looking back I think that the late 70s and early 80s were the height of my record buying life. I spent many hours each week trolling through boxes of vinyl singles in record shops. I rarely bought any single while it was still in or going up the charts, choosing to buy when the record was out of the top 30 or at least dropping down and in the half price section. The Police were one of my favourite bands and I bought many of their singles. They were formed in 1977 and the lineup stayed the same until they went their separate ways.

Sting, aka Gordon Sumner was the lead singer, bass guitarist and writer. Stewart Copeland was on drums and Andy Summers played lead guitar. Their first hits were Roxanne and Can’t Stand Losing You released in 1977 from their debut album Outlandos d’Amour. They had numerous hits, all penned by Sting until their eventual break up in 1986 although they returned for a reunion tour in 2008.

Sting went on to have a successful solo career. His first album was the jazz/rock album Dream of the Blue Turtles which included one of my favourite tracks, If You Love Someone, Set Them Free.

Dance for the New World

I’ve always been a bit of a jazz fan and perhaps that’s why I like a lot of Sting’s jazz orientated work. Back in the 90’s I was a big fan of the radio station Jazz FM. Jazz FM started up in 1990 and they played a lot of modern easy listening jazz and soul. In 2004 the station was rebranded Smooth FM and began to play a mix of classic pop. Back in their Jazz FM heyday, they played a lot of tracks from Dance for the New World, an album by modern jazz pianist Rob Mullins. I loved it straight away and bought it despite it having a hefty price tag as it was a US import.

You can find out more about Rob by clicking here.

Favourite track: Dance for the New World

Aerial by Kate Bush

I don’t know about you but in the past I’ve never had any real interest in Kate Bush. I’ve never disliked her but I’ve never felt compelled to buy any of her music, in fact, her early work has always sounded good but sort of odd if you know what I mean. Her slightly screechy ‘It’s me, I’m Cathy, I’ve come home’ was interesting but I never bought a copy and ‘Babooshka Babooshka‘ was ok but again, I never felt compelled to buy Kate’s work.

Kate topped the UK singles chart in 1978 with Wuthering Heights when she was only 19. She has had various hits over the years including Running Up That Hill which first charted in 1985 and was a recent hit due to its use in a Netflix series, Stranger Things.

Some years ago I watched a documentary about Kate on BBC Four and I found myself liking the sounds and the melodies I heard. Straight afterwards I started searching on eBay for her records. Aerial is a double album full of lovely rhythms and melodies. It’s perhaps more akin to music that comes under the genre ‘chill out’ than her earlier frantic singles. I love the quick changes of direction, the way one track merges into another or into some soothing morning birdsong. The tracks on this album do not comply with the standard three-minute rule and they ebb and flow with Kate’s mood. Lovely stuff but be prepared to sit back and enjoy. This album is not something that can easily be put away.

Favourite track: Sunset.

Remote by Hue and Cry

Hue and Cry are a Scottish duo comprising brothers Pat and Greg Kane. Their first single Here Comes Everybody was released in 1986. It wasn’t a hit but it caught the attention of Virgin records subsidiary Circa Records and they signed up the duo. They released I Refuse on Circa, one of my favourite tracks and then went on to make Remote from which they released a couple of hit singles.

My favourite track on Remote: Looking For Linda.

Images by the Crusaders

I bought this album a very long time ago. I’m not sure where I first heard it but back in the late 80s I used to listen to a Manchester radio DJ called Mike Shaft who used to play a great deal of soul and funk and jazz/fusion. There was also that great track which was a hit in 1979 Street Life, featuring Randy Crawford.

When I was a budding amateur video maker I made a number of videos using this album as the soundtrack. Most of those videos are over on YouTube but I did have to substitute the Crusaders for some copyright free music. Pity because I do love this album. I used to have one of those programs where you can connect your record player to your PC and digitise your tapes and vinyls. Sadly, the result sounded really tinny but happily in recent years I was able to find Images on Spotify which I tend to play quite a lot.

Favourite track: Bayou Bottoms.

 Greatest Hits of James Taylor

I’ve got pretty a wide taste in music and I do like a good folk or country singer. I’m not sure when I first heard James Taylor but he was one of the first people to be signed by the Beatles new record label Apple. According to Wikipedia he is a six times Grammy award winner and was inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame in 2000.

Taylor started out as a singer in New York, part of a group called The Flying Machine but he fell into a cycle of drug taking and the band split up. He became hooked on heroin until his father came to New York, picked him up and took him home. Later he decided to have a new start by moving to London where he met Peter Asher who worked for Apple records and was instrumental in signing up James to Apple. He later became his manager.

Favourite track; Carolina on my Mind.

Spotify

As it’s close to the end of the year Spotify comes up with a whole lot of statistics that are pretty interesting. My top five most played tracks were a complete surprise to me, for instance my most played track in 2024 was Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty. In second place was Stuck in the Middle with You by Stealers Wheel which of course featured Gerry Rafferty.

Third was Escape, the Pinocolada Song by Rupert Holmes. I’ve always loved that song, particularly the theme and the lyrics. It’s about a couple who are bored with each other and decide to meet someone else who likes Pinocoladas and getting caught in the rain but is not into yoga and has half a brain. Guess who they meet on a blind date? Each other of course.

At number 4 was The Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News and number 5 was Top Hat sung of course by Fred Astaire.

In complete contrast, my top artist of the year was Nora Van Elken. Well, I did say I’ve got a pretty wide taste in music although you’ll probably find no new tracks or artists in my choices this year. Oh well, perhaps I should widen my taste a little for 2025. Spotify does recommend a lot of new music for me but I’m not sure I’ve actually listened to music that much lately, except in that one spot where I need advertisement free music; in my car.

What did you listen to in 2024?

What to do next: Here are a few options.

Share this post on your favourite social media!

Hit the Subscribe button. Never miss another post!

Listen to my podcast Click here.

Buy the book! Click here to purchase my new poetry collection.

Click here to visit Amazon and download Floating in Space to your Kindle or order the paperback version.

Click here to visit amazon and purchase Timeline, my new anthology.

 

 

(Slightly Less Than)10 Great Albums

Posted on by Steve Higgins

I can’t say I had any great interest in pop music until my brother and I received a record player for Christmas 1972. I always rather liked Olivia Newton-John but to be fair, my interest in her was based more on her looks rather than her singing. The very first singles I ever bought were two 45s by Olivia. Both had dropped out of the charts and my local music shop were selling them for half price so I picked up The Banks of the Ohio and What is Love for a grand total of 48 pence.

That was the start of my music collection although back then I always went for singles rather than albums which of course makes this post so much harder. Anyway, I did buy a few albums. I bought quite a few by Olivia although I can’t really say they are ones that I have loved ever since. One of the first albums I did buy was Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and that is one album I still play today.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was released on October 5th, 1973, two days after my 17th birthday. I’m not certain when I bought it although I reckon it was probably the following year. Numerous singles were released from the album, notably the title track and Candle in The Wind, a song about Marilyn Monroe. Another hit was Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting. Interestingly a big hit in the USA was Bennie and the Jets which was seen as a soul track in the USA and Elton was even invited onto the US show Soul Train to perform the song. In the UK the song was on the flip side of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

I saw a TV show about the making of this album on the Sky Arts channel a while ago and Elton’s guitarist Davey Johnstone told some interesting stories. Elton and his band had wanted to record in Jamaica but the facilities at the studio were basic and rudimentary so they flew to the Château d’Hérouville near Pontoise in France, where they had recorded previously for Elton’s album Honky Château . One rather surprising thing was that when Elton and his band arrived at the studio they had no songs written. Elton composed all the songs from the album while at the studio. In some cases he wrote the music, ran through it with his band and then they went into the studio and recorded. As usual Bernie Taupin wrote all the lyrics. Dee Johnstone was on bass guitar and Nigel Olsson was the drummer.

Singer Kiki Dee helped with backing vocals as did the other band members. Davey mentioned that Elton was notoriously difficult to be with when he didn’t have much to do so when everything had been recorded he left and the rest of the band got on with recording the backing vocals without Elton ‘getting on their nerves’. Presumably then Gus Dudgeon, the producer made the final mix.

I still have my original vinyl album as well as a double CD version. I lost interest in Elton in later years and I never liked his work throughout the 1980s but Goodbye Yellow Brick Road remains one of my favourite albums and something that I play frequently on long car journeys.

Favourite track: Difficult but I’d go for The Ballad of Danny Bailey.

Band on The Run by Paul McCartney and Wings.

I can’t say I’ve ever been a really big Beatles fan. Don’t get me wrong, I do like the Beatles. A few years ago I decided I was going to buy all the Beatles albums on CD but the more I bought, the less I liked them. The Beatles classic hits are wonderful of course but I found that there is a lot of other stuff on the Beatles’ albums that I just didn’t like so I just stopped buying them. In 1974 I went to see Paul McCartney and Wings at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester. Their tour had been in part to promote their album Band on the Run which had been released a few months before in November of 1973. A number of tracks had been hit singles but I’ve always particularly liked the title track Band on the Run.

Just like Elton John, McCartney wanted to record an album in an exotic location and found that his record company, EMI, had a studio in Lagos, Nigeria. Prior to leaving, McCartney and guitarist Jimmy McCullough had an argument and McCullough quit the band. Danny Seiwell the drummer also left the group on the day before the band flew to Lagos. This meant that McCartney himself would play the drums and lead guitar with his wife Linda on keyboards and Denny Laine on rhythm guitar.

The studio in Lagos was disappointing. It was a ramshackle establishment and there was only one tape machine and the control desk was faulty. Even so, the band stayed in Lagos and began to record. Lagos had just experienced a civil war and corruption and crime was commonplace. One night Paul and Linda went for a walk and were mugged at knifepoint and as well as losing valuables they also had a bag of demo tapes and lyrics stolen. On another occasion McCartney keeled over gasping for air. Everyone thought he was having a heart attack but the eventual diagnosis was a ‘bronchial spasm’.

After six weeks of recording, the band returned to the UK where the 8 track recordings were converted to 16 track and various overdubs added as well as orchestral arrangements.

Perhaps inspired by the cover for Sergeant Pepper, McCartney decided to create another noteable cover. This time Linda, Denny and Paul posed as prison escapees with various celebrities such as Michael Parkinson, boxer John Conteh and film actor Christopher Lee. Also included were TV personalities Kenny Lynch and Clement Freud.

According to Wikipedia, the album did reasonably well in the music charts then began to drop down a little. Later, buoyed by the success of two tracks released as singles, Jet and Band on the Run, the album began to rise up in the charts, hitting the top spot in the USA in June and in the UK in July.

The album sold 6 million copies and became EMI’s best selling album of the 1970’s.

Favourite track: Band on the Run.

Rumours by Fleetwood Mac.

Rumours was released in February 1977 after recording the previous year. The album was recorded with a background of relationship breakups and heavy drug use by the band members. I first came to be interested in Rumours as I loved the four singles from the album, two of which I bought as vinyl 45s. I’ve never been much of an album man but when more tracks were released as singles I thought it made more sense to buy the album rather than more singles.

The album was recorded first at the Record Plant in Sausalito which consisted of heavily soundproofed small wooden rooms and the band were not completely happy but Mick Fleetwood insisted they stay. John and Christine McVie had recently split up and would not talk to each other except for musical matters. Apparently it was only later than the group realised that many of the lyrics revolved around relationship issues.

After spending two months in Sausalito, the band decided to test some of the new songs by performing them in concert. Later, they returned to the studio, a different studio, to complete the recording sessions.

Favourite track: Go Your Own Way.

Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds.

Back in the late seventies when I used to work for a bus company, one of my colleagues was a guy whose name I can never remember. His nickname however was Clouseau as he was the image of Peter Sellers’ famous creation, Inspector Clouseau. Clouseau, my Clouseau, was a former disc jockey who talked non stop music. He ran a mobile disco and still dreamt of being a radio DJ. He was always giving me albums to take home and listen to and was always eager to get my opinion. Some of the music he gave was good and a lot of it just wasn’t to my taste but one album he insisted I take home and play was War of the Worlds and I loved it pretty much on first hearing it.

Jeff Wayne was a producer and musical director working with singer David Essex and he was looking for a new project, a story that he could give a musical interpretation to. His father suggested War of the Worlds and the idea caught Jeff’s interest. He acquired the musical rights to the story and even booked a recording date in advance to give himself a deadline to work to for creating the music. David Essex appears as an artilleryman as well as singing and Justin Hayward and Phil Lynott also sing. Jeff convinced Richard Burton to record the narration and the project was ready for the recording.

A prototype 48 recording system was used which apparently malfunctioned numerous times but the resulting double album was released in June of 1978. According to Wikipedia it was the UK’s 32nd best selling album of all time.

I still have my vinyl version plus the CD version. There have also been remixes, new versions and even a live concert.

Favourite Track: Forever Autumn sung by Justin Hayward.

I did mention earlier I’m more of a singles man rather than an album lover which is why I’ve only covered 4 albums rather than 6. I could add in various Greatest Hits albums from my collection to make up the 10 albums I mentioned in the title but I think I’ll save them for another post.

What are your favourite albums?

What to do next: Here are a few options.

Share this post on your favourite social media!

Hit the Subscribe button. Never miss another post!

Listen to my podcast Click here.

Buy the book! Click here to purchase my new poetry collection.

Click here to visit Amazon and download Floating in Space to your Kindle or order the paperback version.

Click here to visit amazon and purchase Timeline, my new anthology.