Not Forgotten: The Flaming Lips – The Soft Bulletin
September 2002. It is a time of personal misery and darkness. I’d sold the house I’d worked so hard to afford and had struggled to find a new place, so I was stuck back at my parents and holed up in their tiny box room with those few of my worldly goods that I could …
Not Forgotten: Kate Bush – 50 Words for Snow
In less capable hands 50 Words for Snow could have been a disaster. A ‘seasonal’ album is not something that many artists can pull off, especially as the majority of albums around a ‘winter’ theme are also based around the theme of Christmas (trust me, the day that the The Jethro Tull Christmas Album was …
Not Forgotten: Ed Harcourt – Here Be Monsters
At the time of its 2001 release, Ed Harcourt’s Here Be Monsters was released to a modest amount of fanfare and expectation of great things to come, however for some reason, he’s just never enjoyed the sales that his music deserves. Harcourt is first and foremost a great songwriter, and he’s no such on the …
Not Forgotten: World Party – Goodbye Jumbo
A lot more people should really know who Karl Wallinger is. He left The Waterboys at exactly the right time and set up his own musical project under the catchy name World Party. He immersed himself in 60s influences a good five years before it became fashionable, releasing albums like 1990’s Goodbye Jumbo, but by …
Not Forgotten: Bob Dylan – Christmas in the Heart
Ah, Bob Dylan’s Christmas in the Heart. Oh how music fans far and wide chuckled at the idea of one of the 20th Century’s song writing icons deciding that it would be a shrewd career move to release an album of traditional Christmas Carols and festive favourites. Down the decades Christmas albums in general have …
Classic Album: Black Sabbath – Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
If Black Sabbath’s eponymous debut is their most influential album, Paranoid boasted the hit single that became the band’s signature tune, Master of Reality and Vol 4 are the fan favourites, then where does that leave Sabbath Bloody Sabbath? Better produced than its four predecessors, a touch broader in its musical scope (even heavy metal’s …
Not Forgotten: The Beatles – The Magical Mystery Tour
A Not Forgotten article on The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour? I must have flipped my lid right? How can any album release by the biggest act in popular music be forgotten? Okay, so maybe it hasn’t been forgotten, but it has been massively under appreciated, especially when you compare the avalanche of sycophantic praise heaped …
Not Forgotten: Tom Waits – Nighthawks at the Diner
Sometimes it is impressive what can be achieved with proverbial smoke and mirrors. Promotions, relationships, business deals. Sometimes the appearance that you are something can get you further than actually being that thing. Smoke and mirrors work in the music industry too. From the doing quite well on the surface pop act whose managers are …
Not Forgotten: Jethro Tull – Stand Up
For many fans 1969’s Stand Up is where the Jethro Tull’s story really starts. That’s not to say that their debut, This Was, wasn’t any good, but Stand Up is where Jethro Tull started to sound like no one other act than Jethro Tull. In the few months that split the release of This Was …
Not Forgotten: Levellers – Levelling the Land
There was a time in my late teens when Levellers were a genuinely important band to me. They were a genuinely rocking folk band with a good ear for melody, a memorable riff and, in Mark Chadwick, a reasonable vocalist. 1991’s Levelling The Land is by far and away the best Levellers album. It was …