In a perfect world, bands that release great singles will be able to release great albums. Nowhere is this made more apparent than the Eagles’ discography.
For being psychedelic mainstays, the Doors are tragically unhip among certain musical circles.
A lot of that has to do with “Hello, I Love You,” a hokey, clumsy pop single released by a band that just the year earlier released two classic albums in the psychedelic canon. It has always been my least favorite Doors single (well…excepting their cover of Backdoor Man).
One of the things that confuses me about hipster music snobs (pot and kettle, I know. Shut up) is how they can use “dad rock” as an insult while pointing to the picture of Dire Straits next the dictionary definition (”dad rock” is in the dictionary, right?).
The War on Drugs (who are excellent) have been pejoratively compared to Dire Straits for using the same sort of atmospheric new wave/roots rock mixture, and I’m so confused about why the hell that’s a bad thing.
Classic music and metal have always has a strange sort of kinship. Both explore the outer reaches of human emotion through big, dramatic bombast. When you think about it, metal is sort of like the long haired, torn jeaned cousin to the straightlaced, tuxedoed classical music. They may argue over Thanksgiving dinner, but at the end of the day, they still love eachother.
And on Concerto for Group and Orchestra, we’re in for a family reunion.
For a movement birthed out of the late 70s’ punk scene, it didn’t take long for new wave to become entirely married to pop.
In terms of climax-chasing, bombastic post rock, Explosions in the Sky are the poster boys. While “cinematic” gets thrown around a lot with post rock, EitS actually make soundtracks. Continue reading
Let’s get one thing straight. Each of these guys are bloody legends. Any album of either of them would be worth listening to. Both are iconic members of the jazz elite who expanded the boundaries of jazz through their experimentation with synthesizers, and both played with Miles Davis (often at the same time–most notably on In A Silent Way, my favorite Davis album). On this album (slash concert), rather than their electric pianos and synths that they were famous for, they meet with a pair of Steinway pianos between them.
The songs aren’t as much duets as they are duels–if a duel was won by making your opponent look as badass as possible. These two frequent collaborators–and great friends–perform a number of tracks that are as aggressive as they are humorous (the crowd bursts into laughter on several occasions, betraying some visual aspect missing here). And true to their legacy, neither musician is content with the confines of the instrument. At one point, the frame of the piano is played as a drum. Often, one will rapidly arpeggiate a single note while the other bangs out seemingly unrelated chords. Very little about this performance is gentle or expected, but Corea and Hancock seem to read eachother’s minds, playing in perfect counterpoint, like a sort of angry ballet.
Burt Bacharach has been a staple in pop music for so long that it’s strange for me to consider a time when he would be releasing his songs for the first time.
Anyone who appreciates Chicago for their unique blend of progressive jazz and soft rock would be sorely disappointed by this disc.
You can never be sure what’s going to happen when you put on a Chicago record for the first time. What’s coming first? Soft rock? Swing? Progressive rock? In the case of V, the answer is “the closest Chicago ever came to free jazz.”
