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Nov. 8th, 2006
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(Part 1 here)
AC/DC, Let There Be Rock, 1977
AC/DC may be a complete anachronism now, but at least they've stayed true to themselves and their army of fans who were with them from day one, which is more than can be said for any number of other morphic rock bands who felt they had to adapt to survive. Few bands went kerrang better than when AC/DC were at their best which is, in a nutshell, here. By 1977 guitarist Angus Young knew for certain he would never grow up, and the inimitable Bon Scott would never know he'd only live to do a couple more albums. This was the kind of music I craved before punk came along, which was an upheaval of world-changing proportions for many but one that probably didn't even register on AC/DC's musical seismograph. If you loved the utterly headbanging 'Whole Lotta Rosie' back then you'd probably feel no shame about loving it just as much now, because if that song is truly in your blood it can probably still give you that same kind of physical rush that can blow off layers of mental cobwebs in the same way the entire Never Mind the Bollocks still does. There's very little I admire in AC/DC now, though as I've refused to let this album go for the last thirty years I expect this also means I'll probably be hanging on to it well into my old age.
The Cars, 1978
Right from the start of this debut album it was immediately apparent that Ric Ocasek was living on a different planet to the rest of us, and the bubblegum rock of The Cars' first single 'My Best Friend's Girlfriend' gave us his unattainable fantasy woman straight out of the future: "She's got her nuclear boots and her drip-dry glove"... this is SF, surely? And all doubts were dispelled with 'I'm In Touch With Your World': "It's a sticky contradiction / it's a thing called creation / everything is science fiction / and I ought to know...". I perhaps mistakenly thought there was a deliberate, almost British 'don't give a fuck' attitude to their quirky kind of new wave rock/pop Americana (they were, after all, The Cars and not 'The Automobiles'), as if they were just as keen to be accepted here as in the US. I had high hopes for The Cars, and this debut engaged me completley for a year until the release of their patchy second album, Candy-O, by which time my tastes were moving on again. I played The Cars to death then, and it still reanimates with remarkable consistency when I periodically dig it out now, thirty years on.
Peter Gabriel, 1977
Gabriel's first solo album came out a year after he did the right thing by leaving Genesis, who then commenced their very long descent into utter mediocrity while Gabriel himself took a direction that embraced a more personal, often confessional style of songwriting. His first solo gigs were among the first I went to at age seventeen: a night at the Hammersmith Odeon was a seriously adult outing for me then (and it was where I also first came across Robert Fripp, who has since been a long-standing guitar hero of mine). This album's cover was baffling and deliberately obscure yet typically Gabriel, the music unexpectedly diverse, the aftertaste patchy. 'Here Comes The Flood' may still be a monumentally good piece of music but, sadly, the dignified 'Solsbury Hill' has since become muzak for the Coldplay generation. There are also some embarrassments here (eg. 'Excuse Me') which I don't doubt The Blessèd Pete must now cringe over, but let's not be too harsh – this album launched the solo career of a hugely influential man in world music, and that fact alone makes it a small landmark in British rock.
Genesis, Wind and Wuthering, 1977
Nothing survived in my memory of this album until a few days ago. I'm not surprised really, as it has absolutely no edge whatsoever, a turgid and forgettable selection of self-satisfied complacency masquerading as music. That's the snap judgement I came to just the other day after borrowing it from an old schoolmate who has obviously hung onto better memories of it than I have. However, the thing I do remember is that I have a shameful recollection of half-liking it at the time. Thankfully in retrospect, this (and maybe also their earlier album Trick of the Tail) was about as comfortably middle-class as my schoolboy taste in music ever got, being briefly led astray as I was by mates who somehow aspired to ELP's cold and remote Pictures at an Exhibition and Yes's impenetrable Relayer as being the twin pinnacles of rock sophistication, while smugly looking down on my own gutter preference for Motörhead, AC/DC and Zeppelin. The world can do just fine without Genesis. Or at least my world can. It's only music.
AC/DC, Let There Be Rock, 1977
AC/DC may be a complete anachronism now, but at least they've stayed true to themselves and their army of fans who were with them from day one, which is more than can be said for any number of other morphic rock bands who felt they had to adapt to survive. Few bands went kerrang better than when AC/DC were at their best which is, in a nutshell, here. By 1977 guitarist Angus Young knew for certain he would never grow up, and the inimitable Bon Scott would never know he'd only live to do a couple more albums. This was the kind of music I craved before punk came along, which was an upheaval of world-changing proportions for many but one that probably didn't even register on AC/DC's musical seismograph. If you loved the utterly headbanging 'Whole Lotta Rosie' back then you'd probably feel no shame about loving it just as much now, because if that song is truly in your blood it can probably still give you that same kind of physical rush that can blow off layers of mental cobwebs in the same way the entire Never Mind the Bollocks still does. There's very little I admire in AC/DC now, though as I've refused to let this album go for the last thirty years I expect this also means I'll probably be hanging on to it well into my old age.
The Cars, 1978
Right from the start of this debut album it was immediately apparent that Ric Ocasek was living on a different planet to the rest of us, and the bubblegum rock of The Cars' first single 'My Best Friend's Girlfriend' gave us his unattainable fantasy woman straight out of the future: "She's got her nuclear boots and her drip-dry glove"... this is SF, surely? And all doubts were dispelled with 'I'm In Touch With Your World': "It's a sticky contradiction / it's a thing called creation / everything is science fiction / and I ought to know...". I perhaps mistakenly thought there was a deliberate, almost British 'don't give a fuck' attitude to their quirky kind of new wave rock/pop Americana (they were, after all, The Cars and not 'The Automobiles'), as if they were just as keen to be accepted here as in the US. I had high hopes for The Cars, and this debut engaged me completley for a year until the release of their patchy second album, Candy-O, by which time my tastes were moving on again. I played The Cars to death then, and it still reanimates with remarkable consistency when I periodically dig it out now, thirty years on.
Peter Gabriel, 1977
Gabriel's first solo album came out a year after he did the right thing by leaving Genesis, who then commenced their very long descent into utter mediocrity while Gabriel himself took a direction that embraced a more personal, often confessional style of songwriting. His first solo gigs were among the first I went to at age seventeen: a night at the Hammersmith Odeon was a seriously adult outing for me then (and it was where I also first came across Robert Fripp, who has since been a long-standing guitar hero of mine). This album's cover was baffling and deliberately obscure yet typically Gabriel, the music unexpectedly diverse, the aftertaste patchy. 'Here Comes The Flood' may still be a monumentally good piece of music but, sadly, the dignified 'Solsbury Hill' has since become muzak for the Coldplay generation. There are also some embarrassments here (eg. 'Excuse Me') which I don't doubt The Blessèd Pete must now cringe over, but let's not be too harsh – this album launched the solo career of a hugely influential man in world music, and that fact alone makes it a small landmark in British rock.
Genesis, Wind and Wuthering, 1977
Nothing survived in my memory of this album until a few days ago. I'm not surprised really, as it has absolutely no edge whatsoever, a turgid and forgettable selection of self-satisfied complacency masquerading as music. That's the snap judgement I came to just the other day after borrowing it from an old schoolmate who has obviously hung onto better memories of it than I have. However, the thing I do remember is that I have a shameful recollection of half-liking it at the time. Thankfully in retrospect, this (and maybe also their earlier album Trick of the Tail) was about as comfortably middle-class as my schoolboy taste in music ever got, being briefly led astray as I was by mates who somehow aspired to ELP's cold and remote Pictures at an Exhibition and Yes's impenetrable Relayer as being the twin pinnacles of rock sophistication, while smugly looking down on my own gutter preference for Motörhead, AC/DC and Zeppelin. The world can do just fine without Genesis. Or at least my world can. It's only music.