Whilst picking through my parents’ collection, I saw this and said, “Emerson Lake & Palmer…I wonder what all the fuss is about.“
I have since learned that this probably isn’t the best place to start. Continue reading
Month: April 2015
Record #304: Don Henley – Building the Perfect Beast (1984)
I don’t really like the Eagles. That is to say, I love a lot of their earlier songs–Witchy Woman, One of These Nights–but by and large, the longer the Eagles wrote songs, the more I disliked them (the Hotel California album is pretty deplorable). However, back in 2003, I was a young punk kid with a new drivers license and a copy of the Ataris’ So Long Astoria stuck in my car’s CD player. One of my favorite songs on that album was the Henley penned Boys of Summer, and as I grew to adulthood, I have come to prefer the original version. And to be completely honest, if I needed to pay money for this album on the strength of that single, I wouldn’t have ponied it up. But when you raid your parents’ vinyl collections, you take chances.
Record #303: Crosby Stills & Nash – Daylight Again (1982)
I was entirely prepared for this album to be terrible. The 80s offered some pretty notoriously awful music from legendary 60s groups (I’m looking at you, Beach Boys), and the neon alien invasion scene on the cover does absolutely nothing to convince us that this isn’t the same sort of synthy-schlock that the sometimes Y in CSNY was releasing around the same time. And there’s also the talk about David Crosby only appearing on one song (due to a crippling drug addiction, I think. Elsewhere his parts were performed by an up and comer named Art Garfunkel), but his contributions are almost always my least favorite, so I can deal with that.
But despite its contemporaries and cover, this isn’t too far from their (excellent) debut.
Record #302: Buckingham Nicks – Buckingham Nicks (1973)
In 1973, two struggling, romantically entangled singer-songwriters, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks (who reportedly splurged on a new blouse for this photo shoot and was enraged that Lindsey wanted to use a nude photo for the cover) entered the studio to put together an album showcasing their talents.
In the larger context of pop music history, this album served as their application for Fleetwood Mac.
Record #301: Band of Horses – Everything All the Time (2006)
Every once in a while, I’ll go back to all those records I almost bought but opted for something else instead. Band of Horses’ debut has had a firm place in the indie rock canon since its release, but for whatever reason, I kept passing over it.