Day 0061 - Pet Sounds

The Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" (1966)

Superb album, I can't even imagine what it was like hearing this when it came out. Not only are there some super strong songs that managed to strip away the surfer boy veneer in favour of giving the vocals space to breathe over baroque pop; but the production is just gorgeous.

According to the book, the title 'pet sounds' came from Brian's use of a bunch of his favourite or 'pet' sounds in the production. 

The record company hated the album, many of their fans hated it (though they'd find new fans too), Brian lost his confidence and went mad trying to create the 'perfect' pop album, Smile. 

Day 0060 - Revolver

The Beatles "Revolver" (1966) - got it

According to the 1001 Albums book, this album had working titles including "Abracadabra" "Magic Circles" (sounds like an indie band name) and "Beatles on Safari".  All in all, I think they made the right choice with "Revolver".

I find it funny that Rubber Soul and Revolver are so often grouped together; in some ways the two albums are polar opposites. where RS has a kind of diverse uniformity to it (yes I know it's an oxymoron, but then that's the nature of the Beatles) Revolver is all over the place.

There's the brassy Motown of "Got to get you into my life", the 'George-4-India-4-eva' vibe of "Love you to", and, though John is generally my favourite songwriter in the band, I have to admit that Paul's beautiful pop of "For no one" and "Here, there and everywhere" gives him a run for his money.  John counters with 'Dr Robert', 'I'm only sleeping' (a personal favourite of mine) and 'Tomorrow never knows', which the 1001 albums book jokes, with its sound collage approach and eastern flavour has pretty much been the basis for the Chemical Brothers' entire career.

Day 0059 - My Generation

The Who "My Generation" (1965)

This seems like it must be one of the weirder Who albums.  Apparently they were being pushed and pulled all over by the place by their record company who wanted to market them to the mod audience, yet there are moments of heart-rending James Brown-esque soul and noisy hints of the rock band they had within them.  With every other song, no matter how restrained they are trying to be you can still hear the band (Moon in particular) straining to get out of that box.

I've never really hooked into the Who but this album was alright... not mindblowing or amazing, but fun with decent songs and and so much potential.

Day 0058 - Highway 61 Revisited

Bob Dylan "Highway 61 Revisited" (1965)

Another Bob Dylan album that I found listenable and enjoyable well enough.  It's still probably not something I have a huge desire to revisit (no pun intended) after this but it ticked along nicely.  The ridiculously epic "Ballad of a thin man" is a highlight. 

Day 0057 - Mr Tambourine Man

The Byrds "Mr Tambourine Man" (1965)

It's a good enough album; a good selection of songs with nice vocal harmonies, but for some reason it didn't quite 'blow my mind'.  Possibly it's because the songs all sound a bit too similar or they needed to share out the lead vocals a bit more?

Day 0056 - Bert Jansch

Bert Jansch "Bert Jansch" (1965)

Recorded on borrowed equipment and guitars in the producer's flat, and sold to the record company for £100...humble beginnings.

Seems like something of a mixture of full songs, and fragmented instrumentals.  Jansch's emotive and fluid guitar style defines the album. Admittedly this was a bit of a slow starter for me, but the songs "I have no time" and "do you hear me now" won me over.

Day 055 - Rubber Soul

The Beatles "Rubber Soul" (1965) - got it

Wow, 1965 was obviously a decent year for music (not like smelly old 1961), including as it does, this... contender for best Beatles album?

It manages somehow to be hugely varied, yet it still feels like it has a kind of uniform sound.  Possibly the only weak song is the country cover with Ringo on vocals.  Even that's not 'bad', and kind of makes a nice counterpoint to the baroque pop and increasingly psychedelic mod rock that makes up much of the rest of the album.  So many brilliant songs, I was going to list the great ones but it's pretty much all of them.  My one gripe (and it's only a small one) is around sequencing: "In my life" would have made a great album closer, rather than being jammed in the middle of the second side.

Apparently this was one of the first albums released in the US to not feature the artist's name on the cover... I guess at this point, they didn't have to.  It also adds to the enigmatic vibe of the album.

Day 0054 - Live at the Regal

B.B. King "Live at the Regal" (1965)

Another great live album.  King is part bandleader and part revivalist preacher; the congregation responds with cheers, moans and call-and-response.

King is at home on the stage.  He jokes with the crowd, whipping them into a frenzy and wailing into the microphone while the distinctive tones of Lucille paint the air blue.

Day 0053 - A Love Supreme

John Coltrane "A Love Supreme" (1965) - got it

I love this period of music history, where pop/rock albums could sit side by side in popularity with instrumental jazz records and other genres.  I honestly hadn't realised that 'a love supreme' was released this late though!

One of the more popular jazz albums ever released, and, like Miles' "Kind of blue" it's an exploration in modal jazz.
I somewhat prefer Coltrane's "giant steps" album for its concise, hooky yet virtuosic bop.  Also, some of his later more exploratory releases, but a love supreme is still an amazing record.   Coltrane's band at the time was unsurpassed, especially his drummer Elvin Jones... mindblowing ability!

Day 0052 - Today!

The Beach Boys "Today!" (1965)

I  saw a documentary about the beach boys a while back and I've been meaning to check out more of their albums (I have the greatest hits album and one or two other things). 

If I'm honest this album didn't really blow my mind or anything... I think it's a case of 'familiarity breeds contempt' in that I know enough of these songs so well that their impact is slightly lost.  It is a fine a collection of BB songs, but listening to 'do you wanna dance' 'when i grow up (to be a man)' and 'help me Rhonda' for the gazillionth time, it's hard to create a detached perspective on the album.  Perhaps a better indicator of how good is, is that listening to "in the back of my mind" which I'd never heard before immediately perked up my ears as a brilliant song.

Day 0051 - Otis Blue/Otis Sings Soul

Otis Redding "Otis Blue/Otis Sings Soul" (1965)

A flawless soul album.  The Stax Records house-band backs Otis with tight, stone-cold funk and blues grooves.   All punctuated by a badass horn section.
The man himself is a vocal force-of-nature.  Pain, love, need, joie de vivre are all expressed through his voice.

Day 50 - Bringing it all Back Home

Bob Dylan "Bringing it all Back Home" (1965)

I much preferred this to "the Freewheelin' Bob Dylan".  The bouncy rockabilly sound just makes a great counterpoint for Dylan's drawling vocal delivery, and the flow-of-consciousness lyrics are great.

The acoustic tracks are really good too, and while they don't rival the high points from "the Freewheelin..." the album is (to my tastes) an overall stronger offering.

Day 0049 - Here are the Sonics

The Sonics "Here are the Sonics" (1965)

Another raw, visceral album.  An early garage band.

The album was recorded as-live, and sounds rough and ready.  The instruments kind of bleed into each other through the microphones; from the tin pan-sounding drums to the wild screams.

A great mix of rock n roll covers (completely eviscerated) and memorable, wild originals.
Apparently their own manager criticised their musical ability, likewise, the producer recording their album was like "what am I supposed to do with these guys? I mean LISTEN to them!"

Day 0048 - Live at the Star Club, Hamburg

Jerry Lee Lewis "Live at the Star Club, Hamburg" (1965)

This feels like a similar vibe to the Sam Cooke live album earlier in this list, as it pings from song to song with the audience yelling and hooting.  Jerry's performance is electrifying, with his band barely able to keep up.

 After the scandal of marrying his 13 year old cousin (we've all done it, come on) Jerry went underground.  This was his first release in quite a few years and he just comes out swinging.  You can just about hear the sweat hitting the microphone.

Day 0047 - I've got a tiger by the tail

Buck Owens and his Buckaroos "I've got a tiger by the tail" (1965)

I don't have much to say about this one... but not because I didn't like it.  It's an enjoyable album of twangy country that I would happily listen to again.

Day 0046 - The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones "The Rolling Stones" (1964)

If we lived in a world where you had to choose between the Beatles and the Stones then my allegiances would always be with John, George, Paul and Ringo.  That being said, there are plenty of tracks from the Stones that I enjoy and I'm kind of interested to see how I enjoy their individual albums in this book.

This one is a lot bluesier than most of the Stones' stuff that I'm familiar with.  It's like an early, embryonic version of the band. The 1001 albums book talks about how brash and rude they seemed at the time.  Not by today's standards, but I guess if you compare them to the Orbisons and Everlys... even the Elvises and Beatles, they were loud, rude and crude.

Day 0045 - A Girl Called Dusty

Dusty Springfield "A girl called Dusty" (1964)

A nice, tight, concise pop album. Apparently Dusty had quite diverse musical tastes.  She had been in a girl-pop group, then played in a folk group with her brother. During her time in the latter group she got introduced to soul music which opened her eyes/mind a bit and factored into her decision to go solo.

And so we come to this first solo album which musically (for the time) had quite a lot of guts to it, with the power of Dusty's voice not found wanting against the rocking soulful material.

Day 0044 - Rock and Soul

Solomon Burke "Rock and Soul" (1964)

I don't own a copy of this, and actually found it hard to find a copy of a "whole album" video on youtube which is just so bloody annoying because as I had to go between videos it keeps throwing up ads at the start of them, or you get videos that honestly have a 30 second soundless thing of a record clicking into place in a jukebox before starting the song, so you don't get the proper flow of the album.

Anyway, those gripes aside, another soulful amazing singer whom I'd not heard of before now!  He feels like that, kind of mid point between soul, rhythm n blues, and a touch of doowoop.  Like an earlier iteration of Marvin Gaye.

Burke is an interesting guy too.  He had apparently been a certified mortician, a televangelist... and father to 21 children!
 
 

Day 0043 - Olympia 64

Jacques Brel "Olympia 64" (1964)

I had mostly been familiar with French singer Brel's music through Scott Walker and David Bowie's English-language versions of some of his songs.  It was nice to get a hit of the originals.

This is a live album, one that is slightly more polished and sterile than the offerings on this list so far from Sam Cooke and James Brown, but that approach is more suited to this music with a small orchestra backing Brel to create the lush and adventurous musical backdrops to his crooned stories.

Day 0042 - Hard Day's Night

The Beatles "Hard Day's Night" (1964) - got it

More great music from the Beatles, with another in-your-face intro, this time in the form of the opening discordant chord from the title track.

This was the first album they'd done consisting solely of original songs, which was something of a rarity for a 'pop' group at the time.  Though the songs are all listed as Lennon/McCartney compositions, all but 3 tracks originated from Lennon... though when Paul's 3 include "can't buy me love", "and I love her" and "things we said today" he's not slouching by any stretch of the imagination. John's tracks include a favourite of mine "if I fell".  His "I'll be back" makes a great closing track with gorgeous close-part harmonies.  I much prefer the second half of the Beatles' career where they really spread out sonically, but they put out brilliantly concise pop music back in the early 60s.

Day 0041 - Getz/Gilberto

Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto "Getz/Gilberto" (1963) - got it

This follows on from the success of 'Jazz Samba', which was apparently also popular in Brazil and not seen as a watered down or inauthentic interpretation of the bossa sound.

For this album Getz recruited actual Brazilian musicians to record with, the resulting album is simultaneously ridiculously catchy, and laidback.
Apparently Astrud Gilberto only featured on the album because the producer wanted a verse of "The Gir from Ipanema' in English and Joao couldn't do it.  Thus one of the more famous vocal performances of the day happened.

Day 0040 - Live at the Apollo

James Brown "Live at the Apollo" (1963)

Holy shit, that was wild!  I think JB is one of those artists who has just been around so long that you forget how awesome a performer he was in his heyday.   His scream is just electrifying, the audience is totally going crazy, and while this a much tighter, more polished production than something like the Sam Cooke live album earlier in this list, it's no less exciting.

Day 0039 - The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady

Charles Mingus "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady" (1963) - got it

There's not really much to say: if you like interesting modern/third-wave jazz then you really can't go past Mingus.  I'd say this one (which I hadn't heard before, but have since bought) is on par with albums like 'Mingus ah um' and 'Blues and Roots'.  Top musicians, beautiful mellifluous sax, strong drumming, bursts of guitar and Mingus cheering the whole thing on with his usual shouts from the back of the studio.

According to the book, the liner notes were written by Mingus' psychiatrist!
Also, if you ever find yourself in the vicinity of a copy of Mingus' autobiography "beneath the underdog" it is a fantastically crazy read.

Day 0038 - Live at the Harlem Square Club

Sam Cooke "Live at the Harlem Square Club" (1963) - got it

I'm not usually a fan of live albums but good lord this is brilliant!  It feels less like a big glossy concert recording and more like somebody set up some microphones around a band playing someone's party.

Cooke is an amazing presence, sounding like he is having the time of his life and keeping the audience in the palm of his hand the entire time.  The audience are totally getting off on it, in one of of the more interactive live albums I've heard.  A lot of call and response and just the sound of absolute jubilation.

Sometimes with the sound of the recordings, the non-stop nature of the show and the similar genres throughout it can be hard to discern individual songs... but it kind of doesn't matter, it just adds to that feeling of sitting in on some private jam session with the players just having a great time and everyone vibing off of it.

Day 0037 - A Christmas gift for you from Phil Spector

Phil Spector & the Artists "A Christmas gift for you from Phil Spector" (1963) - got it

According to the book, this album almost vanished without a trace, as it was released the day before JFK was assassinated.  Spector withdrew it out of respect, though re-released it a short while later, at which point it started picking up steam.  I've often thought that a Christmas song/album is a canny career move as, each year it can be wheeled out and sold again.  A Christmas release can temporarily bring an artist back into popular consciousness (in the same way that songs from the Darkness, Destiny's Child and Cliff Richard appear once a year)

In the case of Spector's Christmas album, it would be crazy to think of it having never become known.  The way he popularised (or repopularised) these Christmas songs has inspired plenty of other artists to follow suit, not to mention his soulful poppy Christmas sound has spread to movies, TV, and of course every department store you go into from October through to the end of December.

Day 0036 - The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" (1963)

It has to be said that I came to this album not the biggest fan of Bob Dylan ...and that hasn't really changed.  Don't get me wrong, there are some decent enough songs on here, like "Blowin' in the wind" "Masters of war" "A hard rain's gonna fall" "Don't think twice it's alright" but taken together, the whole album is a bit too much of Bob for my tastes.

Day 0035 - With the Beatles

The Beatles "With the Beatles" (1965) - got it

The first Beatles entry.... the Beatles are going to come up a lot so I'll get my rant out of the way now: I love the Beatles, I was into them as a kid listening to my parents' early era Beatles stuff.  Then, when I saw the Beatles anthology back in 91 or 93 (whenever it screened) I 'discovered' them for myself.  Their later era music gelled nicely with the oddities of my own musical tastes.

These early albums were obviously strong 'hit em and quit em' albums.  The Beatles would get into the studio with songs they'd chucked together and some cover songs and they'd churn out an album in a matter of days and then be back out on the road playing shows and promoting themselves.

'With the Beatles' starts with a bang, much like Little Richard yelling "wop bop a loo bop a lop bom bom" John's "IT WON'T BE LONG" provides a startling intro to the album.  The Beatles then show that, even though they were on a tight schedule, it didn't limit them creatively.  Already fighting against the confines of the 'rock band' and the beat sound that they were being championed under, there are elements of soul, RnB and light balladry.  Some of the riffage in "hold me tight" sounds one distortion pedal away from hard rock/metal in places... diffused though by the tight vocal harmonies over the top of it.  The vocal harmonies are pretty great all round.

This band was just a great combo, Ringo was often cited as the weak link, but it's surprising just how often he is doing some relatively fiddly and interesting stuff; it just fits in so well with the music that you kind of don't notice.  Though I wouldn't put Ringo at the same skill level, I'd say that a good modern drumming comparison would be Matt Cameron (Soundgarden, Pearl Jam) he does all kinds of tricky and interesting parts but they just sit so comfortably in the song, that much of the time you don't even really pick up on exactly how much he's doing.
 

Day 0034 - The Nightlife

Ray Price "The Nightlife" (1963)

This is some real 'cry in your beer' down-and-out country blues... lyrically speaking.  Often though there is a contrastingly upbeat feel to the music.

My favourite fact from the book about this one is that Willie Nelson used to be in Ray's band, but left after Ray shot one of Willie's Roosters.  You've gotta believe that at least one of them got a decent country song from that!
Features a song ("are you sure") that I was familiar with due to its effective use in an episode of the TV show LOST years ago.

Day 0033 - Jazz Samba

Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd "Jazz Samba" (1962) - got it

Pretty much does what it says on the tin.  Sounds like the soundtrack to a sunny day; a relaxing evening by the pool; or a light-hearted film, set somewhere along the French Riviera.

This was apparently recorded in one single session in a church hall, and was credited with sparking the bossa nova craze in the US.

Day 0032 - Green Onions

Booker T and the M.G.s "Green Onions" (1962)

I actually own one of their greatest hits compilations but I'd say that this album is a little bit better than that.

A surprising amount of variety for an instrumental combo consisting of drums, bass, an electric organ and a clean-toned guitar that ostensibly stick to one genre.

Day 0031 - Modern Sounds in Country and Western

"Modern Sounds in Country and Western" Ray Charles (1962) - got it

Apparently this was a shocking album at the time: a young black RnB singer taking on the country genre.  I guess that beyond the race aspect, this was still an age where artists largely stuck to their pigeon-hole, less of the freewheeling genre-mixing that would come later.

Stripped of that shock and 'historical' importance, it's still a strong album... not Ray's best, but still a good collection of tracks. It works best (to my tastes) when it's Ray putting his touch on songs that still sound well rooted in the country vein, so I prefer the ballads to the brassier, jazzier renditions on here.

Day 0030 - Sunday at the Village Vanguard

Bill Evans "Sunday at the Village Vanguard" (1961)

Apparently 1961 was a bit of a dud year for music as this is the only entry in the book for 1961.

Evans had made a name for himself playing with everyone from Konitz to Mingus.  He was part of Miles Davis' band for Kind of Blue, then he decided to go solo.

This is some nice laidback jazz, that feels like it would go just nicely with a gin and a cigarette and your arm around a companion at the club.

I know it's Bill's album, and yes he has a brilliant touch and a lovely sound, but that bass soloing from Scott LaFaro... hot damn!