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Post by fearlessfreap on Feb 20, 2023 16:27:19 GMT
I’m far from a power pop fan, as far as I’m concerned, it’s too weedy and slight. Once in a while, though, I’ll find something that hits me, plus it’s time for me to pick something that isn’t r&b. This is what Tom Petty should have sounded like I’m On Fire - Dwight Twilley
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Post by Stacy Heydon on Feb 20, 2023 16:33:19 GMT
Well my choice was, in the end, between Neu 'Hero' and Lonnie Liston Smith 'Expansions'. I went for the latter, partly because (with the exception of Fange) it was unlikely to be picked elsewhere, but mainly because it was one of those seminal tracks that shaped the kind of music I wanted to find. I discovered it on a Streetsounds comp in the early 90s. I was already into jazz, but I'd not heard anything this hypnotic and spell-binding. It was both meditative and visceral with its great groove, like the kind of thing Georgio Morodor might have made had he been a jazzer. It had a massive impact on me.
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Feb 20, 2023 18:37:42 GMT
1975
Born To Run. Such an obvious title and so perfect that somebody had to use it eventually. Mercifully for us it just so happens to be one of the greatest records in rock n roll history where Springsteen used the symbolic trope of the American car song but blew it up on a musical and lyrical canvas so grand, romantic and heroic it somehow captured the entire mythology of rock n roll in four minutes.
Fittingly the music is of cinematic and Spectorian grandeur. There are deliberate echoes of 60s girl group records (strings, glockenspiel), pre-Beatles rock n roll (Clarence's ebullient sax) but with enough “chrome wheeled” and “fuel injected” 1970s oomph and early Springsteen verbiage to be absolutely its own creation. A work of inspired alchemy that never fails to move and transport from the very first drum roll and introduction of that four note guitar hook that possesses as much elemental power as any guitar phrase in rock. I only have to hear that defiant riff to transport me into the songs adolescent heart. It’s such a dramatic record that like a lot of the best pop and rock records inhabits a psychological space you’ll never experience with this kind of life-or-death, youthful intensity ever again. The records atmosphere is so heightened and its lyrics infused with such a poetic romanticism that is almost verges on a kind of magical realism. If you doubt me listen to the verse that follows the sax solo.....the windswept wah wah’s that accompany the “hemi-powered drones” (I have no idea either) or the way the strings magically appear to indicate the amusement park rising “bold and stark". Like the best Spector records this is teenage melodrama elevated to levels of Greek drama. Christ, has there ever been a more romantic line than “I wanna die with you Wendy on the streets tonight in an everlasting kiss!”?. Hope and salvation on the streets of New Jersey and the promise of the American dream in the post-Nixon wasteland of the 70s.
As self-conceived “masterpieces” built to propel an artist into the rock n roll firmament go this one takes some beating. This is Springsteen self-actualising and in the process offering us the kind of rock n roll dreams and visions that few artists have ever been so gracious to offer. Nice one Bruce.
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osgood
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Post by osgood on Feb 20, 2023 19:01:35 GMT
Great post, Doug. You and Ray have chosen two of the records that impressed my 17 yo me the most. These two specific tracks were on my short list together with one more from each record. But there are a couple of albums also very important for me waiting to pop up. I have to think about it.
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Feb 20, 2023 19:32:28 GMT
greatest dumb-fuck chorus of 1975 A former BCB cup choice of mine.
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Feb 20, 2023 19:33:31 GMT
1975
There are four contenders for me, and they are all from the same album, the John the Baptist to the second coming of rock & roll. I suppose there's an outside chance of someone else choosing the lust explosion of Gloria, but I'll just have to yield the extraordinarily visceral depiction of grief that is Birdland and the great lost singe Free Money with a sigh, in favour of this Holy Mess of beat poetry, fin de siecle posing, primitive playing, sex, high school slasher flix, and a garage classic, violence and beauty. With a VU alumnus producing and passing the flame along.
We don't always agree on music, but it's nice when we do. I was going to pick Land myself. It's greatest strength is the way the loose drive of the playing and Smith's utterly committed vocal evoke a real sense of personal liberation...the "sea of possibilities" indeed. It's fantastic. That whole stream of consciousness thing is very hard to pull off but she did it on Horses. The band are cooking too. Almost makes you forgive her for her friendship with Michael Stipe and her instagram posts.
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toomanyhatz
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Post by toomanyhatz on Feb 20, 2023 20:27:29 GMT
1975 was such a dramatic year - the rise of an incredibly diverse array of acts under the 'rock' banner, from Springsteen to Boston, career-defining albums by 'old-school' artists like Neil Young and Dylan, Zeppelin at the height of their swagger, the beginnings of the punky, quirky, and power-poppy stuff that would define the second half of the decade...so much of the pot being stirred. No idea what to pick here, so I'll just wait and see what others come up with.
Glad Patti's already accounted for, at least.
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Post by DayoRemix on Feb 20, 2023 21:01:16 GMT
Geez, 1975 was a ghastly time for music..With Smith,Kraftwerk and Dictators off the board, trying not to default to the Reed/Bowie crutch is difficult and has left a musical, a proto-thrash Sabbath song and Lennon doing Ben E. King..Ugh..I'll come back to this..
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toomanyhatz
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Post by toomanyhatz on Feb 20, 2023 21:26:10 GMT
Yeah, there's definitely a shortage of great records from 1975, which is another thing that makes it hard to choose something. Possibly the most 'transitional' year ever, though. Like I said, the pot was being stirred in a variety of different directions. The implications of it were all either in the past, or to come. With the exception of Patti, though (and maybe Metal Machine Music if your mind goes in that perverse direction), not a lot of landmarks.
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Post by davey on Feb 20, 2023 21:37:43 GMT
Jeez - I couldn’t disagree with you two more. If you’d asked me about 75 before I looked at what was released, I probably would have said it was a bad year. But there are at least a dozen records pulling at me here… each of them a kind of a landmark as far as I’m concerned.
I’m legitimately torn and waiting for a few of you to pull some of these off my list before I commit.
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Post by DarknessFish on Feb 20, 2023 22:03:45 GMT
Geez, 1975 was a ghastly time for music..With Smith,Kraftwerk and Dictators off the board, trying not to default to the Reed/Bowie crutch is difficult and has left a musical, a proto-thrash Sabbath song and Lennon doing Ben E. King..Ugh..I'll come back to this.. G mentioned my other contender, if you're struggling for a choice right neu...
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Post by oh oooh on Feb 20, 2023 22:06:20 GMT
Yeah, but 'Hero'? Rotten halfwit German shouty 'punk'
'Isi' on the other hand...
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Post by DarknessFish on Feb 20, 2023 22:39:04 GMT
Yeah, but 'Hero'? Rotten halfwit German shouty 'punk' 'Isi' on the other hand... But it's clearly a big influence on New Order, I thought you'd love it for that alone...
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Post by Stacy Heydon on Feb 20, 2023 23:16:18 GMT
Geez, 1975 was a ghastly time for music..With Smith,Kraftwerk and Dictators off the board, trying not to default to the Reed/Bowie crutch is difficult and has left a musical, a proto-thrash Sabbath song and Lennon doing Ben E. King..Ugh..I'll come back to this.. There's more than just white acts available you know...
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Post by Stacy Heydon on Feb 20, 2023 23:17:40 GMT
Yeah, but 'Hero'? Rotten halfwit German shouty 'punk' Nonsense..it's an epic track that builds with tremendous power.
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