rock/metal rewind
Not Forgotten: Eagles – One of These Nights
Eagles are one of those bands that split opinion. For some they are the absolute epitome of bland, coke-blasted, West Coast Album Orientated Country-flecked Rock. To others they are an act of rare quality, whose big hit and mega-selling album sadly eclipsed the fact that they were one of the finest rock bands of the …
Not Forgotten: Leonard Cohen – I’m Your Man
It shouldn’t work. It should have been a complete and utter dud. Of the old guard of the 60s and 70s, almost no one had made the hard synthetic production techniques of the 80s work for them. Sure, a few had maintained a certain level of commercial success, but at what cost to their integrity? …
Not Forgotten: Warren Zevon – Excitable Boy
Sometimes a single song becomes so synonymous with an artist, that they are unable to outrun its shadow and anyone who is not a established fan only ever associates the act with that song, regardless of how rich and varied the rest of their output. “Werewolves of London” certainly isn’t a bad song, but as …
Not Forgotten: Rush – A Farewell to Kings
By 1977, although Canadian progressive power trio Rush had taken the scenic route to commercial success, they were well on the way to becoming one of the biggest bands from the North American continent. Their proverbial last roll of the dice in recording an album, 2112, had finally found the band’s audience of kids who …
Not Forgotten: The Darkness – Permission to Land
I initially took them as a joke. Actually, it seems that most people took them for a joke the first time they saw them. After all, stadium rock played by skinny blokes with big hair in tight catsuits, leaping around could only be a parody of the 80s hair-metal acts. Hell, they even looked a …
Not Forgotten: The Sensational Alex Harvey Band – Framed
As 1972 drew to a close, things had seemingly settled down a little bit in the landscape of British rock music. The singles charts were full of good time glitter stompers, and the album charts full of amplified heavy rock and ambitious prog rockers. There were a few acts that bridged the chasm between singles …
Not Forgotten: Bob Dylan – John Wesley Harding
Music changed forever in 1967, primarily because in the wake of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, it was firmly established that the long player had finally wrestled the mantle of definitive medium for rock and roll statements from the single format. Sure, it was already in the pipeline anyway, as acts like Pink Floyd …
Classic Compilation: Frank Zappa – Strictly Commercial
For those of us with somewhat mainstream rock tastes, Frank Zappa can be a fascinating, yet utterly confusing artist. He was so prolific, and his albums were so varied, both in musical style and quality, that his body of work is at best a stylistic labyrinth you can spend decades getting lost in, and at …
Classic Compilation: Neil Young – Decade
Even by the standards of the late 60s and early 70s, an era where acts would generally be expected to deliver a new studio album at least as regularly as one every twelve months, Neil Young was terrifyingly prolific. Between 1966 and 1976 he released seven solo studio albums, a sound track, a collaboration with …
A beginners’ guide to Elton John
The 50 year career trajectory of Elton John has remained fascinating if not consistent. Rising to prominence during the singer-songwriter boom of the early 70s, he and songwriting partner Bernie Taupin developed a sound which started in thrall to rootsy Americana (indeed, the USA embraced him before the UK did), before striking out in their …