Not Forgotten: Bruce Springsteen – Darkness on the Edge of Town
There’s a time in all of our lives when we put aside our romantic dreams of an ideal life aside, and simply accept life for being the often thankless struggle that it is. Perhaps it’s a lifetime of listening to the wrong people that has led you to where you are. Perhaps circumstance has ensured …
Not Forgotten: Randy Newman – Randy Newman
While Randy Newman had been a songwriter for others since 1960, and he had released his debut single at the tender young age of 18 in 1962, his self titled debut album would not see the light of day until the middle of 1968. A distinctly un-rock and roll record, Randy Newman was heavily orchestrated …
Not Forgotten: José Feliciano – Feliciano!
There have been numerous times in the history of popular song when quiet has proved to be the new the new loud, in fact it is something that happens so frequently, that every few years a new generation manages to discover the singular delights of José Feliciano, and this pleasant album of acoustic covers of …
Not Forgotten: Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of War of the Worlds
Imagine for a moment the pitch for this album to Columbia Records in the mid 70s. A guy best known for advertising jingles and writing light-weight pop-rock hits turns up at the office one day, saying he wants to record a musical version of H G Wells’ science fiction classic, War of the Worlds. He …
Not Forgotten: Smashing Pumpkins – Adore
Smashing Pumpkins were undoubtedly one of the key rock acts of the 1990s. Lumped in with the grunge movement, they stood apart from the Seattle trio of big hitters, and they were on a completely different level to the movement’s rank and file foot soldiers. Up to Adore’s release in 1998, each Smashing Pumpkins album …
Classic Album: Small Faces – Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake
By and large, there are some albums that transcend the era of popular music they were recorded in, and then there are some that remain forever tied to the culture and attitudes of the era. There is a very small group of albums that manage to do be both, or neither. Released in 1968, Small …
Classic Album: Mike Oldfield – Tubular Bells
I used to listen to Tubular Bells endlessly when I was about sixteen. Back then it seemed like some the most exciting music ever made, two massive suites of throbbing instrumental prog recorded by one bloke, a few mates, and one of the great British raconteurs as Master of Ceremonies. Two dozen years later my …
Album Review: Half Man Half Biscuit – No-One Cares About Your Creative Hub So Get Your Fuckin’ Hedge Cut
Fourteen albums in, and those who have not followed their thirty four year career might expect Half Man Half Biscuit to be showing signs of cultural irrelevancy. That is to miss the point of Half Man Half Biscuit though. For nearly three and a half decades Nigel Blackwell and his loyal opposite number Neil Crossley …
Classic Album: Iron Maiden – Piece of Mind
As Backseat Mafia’s ongoing series of Buyers and Beginners Guides demonstrate, picking your way around a discography of a well established musical act can be full of pitfalls and delightfully distracting cul-de-sacs. Even those well versed with the vagaries of music fandom can fall foul of not starting off with the right albums, or getting …
Not Forgotten: AC/DC – Powerage
It’s hard to consider that AC/DC could have an album that could be overlooked, but Powerage, slotted between 1977’s Let There Be Rock, the album that first saw them achieve a measure of international success, and the live, If You Want Blood… You’ve Got It, it seems to be an album which gets oddly overlooked …