Not Forgotten
Not Forgotten – Half Man Half Biscuit – Back in the D.H.S.S.
The current documentary series on BBC4 on the history of the Indie music labels here in the UK has made for great watching so far, having so far detailed the rise of the indies in the late 70s, and their flourishing in the 80s. I have had but one minor quibble with the series so …
Not Forgotten – Deep Purple – Machine Head
The sixth studio album of their career, and the third by their much celebrated Mk2 line up, Deep Purple were very much in the ascendant when they set out to record Machine Head. While there had certainly been distractions in the form of a major line up change and Jon Lord’s much celebrated Concerto for …
Not Forgotten: XTC – Oranges & Lemons
Oranges and Lemons is an album that has spent the twenty six years since its release trying to put behind it the fans disappointment that it wasn’t as good as Skylarking. The thing is, there are precious few albums as good as XTC’s 1986 masterpiece, so anyone expecting Partridge, Moulding and Gregory to release something …
Not Forgotten: Kate Bush – The Red Shoes
Oddly unappreciated by all but her most devoted her fans, and seemingly Kate Bush herself, I find The Red Shoes to be one of her most fascinating albums. Having established herself as a phenomenally creative spirit over her first four albums, in which she rapidly transitioned from exciting debut, to consolidation, to pop experimentalism, to …
Not Forgotten: Monie Love – Down To Earth
Hip hop has always been a male dominated industry. It’s probably something to do with the blatant misogyny in the lyrics, or the sexually explicit imagery in the videos. Whilst big female icons such as Missy, Nicki, and Lil Kim have paved the way for the girls to be taken more seriously, back in the …
Not Forgotten: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – Damn the Torpedoes
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are one of the great rock and roll bands of the American Heartland. Every bit as accessible as Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, they’re huge in the USA, yet they have always had oddly inconsistent commercial success in the UK. This is really rather odd, as Tom Petty …
Not Forgotten – PJ Harvey – Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea
Sometimes heading for more calmer, more easily accessible waters is a good thing. Take PJ Harvey for instance, for years she had been known as a lady with a penchant for the shouty, confrontational and vitriolic. The trouble was she always seemed to possess an unfulfilled desire to create music that one day may get …
Not Forgotten: Father John Misty – Fear Fun
Every now and again you encounter an act whose entire aesthetic appeals to you. From his gorgeous gatefold CD artwork, to his live presence, Father John Misty’s combination of classic singer songwriter stance and soulful rootsy vibe strikes a chord with those of us who would really like them to make albums like they used …
Not Forgotten – Mick Ronson – Slaughter on 10th Avenue
I will always argue that Mick Ronson is always massively short changed in any assessment of the career of David Bowie. Without Ronson’s arrangement acumen, iconic guitar heroics and unerring sense for what made for great rock and roll dynamics, Bowie would have been little more than a cult artist, rather than the international mega …
Not Forgotten: Ben Folds Five – Whatever and Ever Amen
Popular opinion would have us believe that most acts find their second albums much more problematic than their debuts. In some ways this is understandable as the material on debuts is generally years in the making, having been honed and perfected in the years of hard gigging and demo recordings that inevitably happen before band …