Day 0165 - Hot Buttered Soul

Isaac Hayes "Hot Buttered Soul" (1969) - got it

Isaac was a hit songwriter before this album.  He was primarily writing songs for other artists.  I saw a documentary about Stax Records, and it sounds like at some point EVERYBODY got given a chance to do an album.  Isaac first release didn't fare so well, but his second go paid off nicely, and once he had the Shaft soundtrack under his belt his reputation was pretty well set in stone.

With music I generally prefer shorter more concise statements (but with plenty of exceptions to that rule).  The songs on this album are fairly long, but they are just so damned sultry and funky that it doesn't matter, plus this seems to be one of the earliest albums designed specifically for the audience to "get it on" to, so I guess you don't want the tracks to be 3-4 minutes long!  That being said, I definitely need to be in the right mood to listen to the lengthy spoken word intro to "By the Time I Get to Phoenix".

Day 0164 - Elephant Mountain

The Youngbloods "Elephant Mountain" (1969)

I really enjoyed this.  Laidback, pop and folk with bits of funky rock along the way.  It has a lot of kind of 'familiar' sounds.  At times there are hints of Led Zep's mellower moments, at other times you can hear various stages of the Beatles.

Some really beautiful melodies and chord sequences. Sunshiney acoustic songs.  "Double sunlight" in particular is gorgeous,

Day 0160 - Stand!

Sly and the Family Stone "Stand!" (1969) - got it

This has got to be one of the first serious 'funk' albums.  Those beats.  Dat bass.  Those horns. Sly and the family are one of those bands that have always been on my radar but I've never quite got around to checking them out properly.

A mixture of races and genders coming together to make great music, and one of the earliest bands to mix upbeat funky 'party' music with serious political commentary.  Great stuff, and as the "got it" at the top implies, I ended up picking up a copy of the album as a result of listening to it.

Day 0159 - Cloud Nine

The Temptations "Cloud Nine" (1969)

 
Love the Temptations, I only have a greatest hits, so some of this was new to me. The Temps got teamed up with a new lead singer and a hot producer who wanted to take them new places, moving beyond the standard motown sound to throw in some looser, slinkier funk beats and some whicky whicky wah wah guitar.  It's great stuff, and suits the Temps' vocal harmonies and passionate lead vocals down to the ground.
 

Day 0157 - Led Zeppelin II

Led Zeppelin "Led Zeppelin II" (1969)

This has to be a record: two entries in the 1001 albums book, with only a one other artist's album to separate them!

I'm more familiar with the non 'hits' on this album than I was from the debut.  There are further forays into delicate numbers with 'ramble on' (or parts of it are delicate) and the beautiful 'thank you'.  There's also plenty more big rockin' blues, including a favourite of mine 'heartbreaker'.

John Bonham's drums sound ENORMOUS throughout.

Day 0153 - The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground "The Velvet Underground" (1969) - got it

The Velvets aren't doing too badly so far.  This was their third album released, it's also their third album on this list.

A much more straight-ahead, mellower album (and possibly my favourite from VU) than previous outings. "Some kinda love"  is almost like a more languid, loping read on the Beatles' "Get Back". "Beginning to see the light" is cathartic, "Jesus" is lovely, "the murder mystery" is a touch of the older, weirder Velvets (and is brilliant).  Things calm back down for the closing track "after hours" ...which, incidentally, is the first VU song that I ever heard.

According to the book, the band's equipment was stolen when they arrived in town to record, but that didn't stop them from having quite a relaxed, enjoyable recording session.

Day 0152 - From Elvis in Memphis

Elvis Presley "From Elvis in Memphis" (1969)

 
Elvis had been sinking a bit of time into making his movies.  He got back into the music thing with a TV special that was hugely popular and revitalised him and inspired him to get back into the studio. He went down to Memphis and unlike Dusty (in yesterday's post) he apparently had a laid back and enjoyable recording experience, dipping back into the RnB sound that worked so well for him in the past.

Another success, and some great tracks.  You can kind of hear the start of the added cheese that would segue the King into his sequinned disco suits and Vegas residencies.

Day 0148 - Basket of Light

The Pentangle "Basket of Light" (1969)

I'd never heard of these guys but it sounds as they're a sort of folk 'supergroup' led by Bert Jansch. Their music is a thing of beauty with occasionally complicated time signatures, wistful vocals and virtuosic musicianship. It all works to serve the music, rather than being musical wank just for the sake of it.  The mix of male and female voices works beautifully.

Day 0134 - The Beatles (AKA 'The White Album')

The Beatles "The Beatles" (AKA 'The White Album") (1968) - got it

The band were not on best terms by this point, and were clearly heading off more and more in their own creative directions here.  They still had enough input on each other's music that it still sounds like a band.

Lennon and McCartney deliver some great cuts between them such as "Julia", "Happiness is a Warm Gun", "Helter Skelter", "Back in the USSR" etc etc, with "Sexy Sadie" being shameless ripped off by Radiohead a few years later for 'Karma Police'.
Ringo contributed a song too, but the real star songwriting-wise is George with the beautiful 'while my guitar gently weeps' and 'long long long' that really sounds like it could have been released last week... possibly because a few bands are still copying/being influenced by that sound at the moment.

The band mostly eschew their former psychedelic and baroque pop sensibilities (outside of a few tracks) for a more stripped down blues and rock sound.

Basically you know it's a good collection of songs when everyone is trying to use/copy/reference them; the most famous example probably being Danger Mouse's "the Grey Album" which combines this album with Jay-Z's "Black Album".

Day 0130 - Scott 2

Scott Walker "Scott 2" (1968) - got it

I've made no secret in the past for my love of Scott Walker.  His luscious, lush arrangements, his brilliant croon, his quirky sense of humour... this is possibly the peak of his early work (to my tastes).
This set is somewhat typical of the 'Scott' albums: some translated Jacques Brel covers with an added swagger, some syruppy easy listening ballads and some other grandiose galloping arrangements.  Ranging from the trumpeting upbeat 'Jackie' the almost Bond-esque epic sound of 'best of both worlds' (a great near-breakup song).  The elephantine Eastern swagger of 'the girls from the street' slips into a nimble European bounce without a thought spared!

Day 0129 - Caetano Veloso

Caetano Veloso "Caetano Veloso" (1968)

 
Groovy and quirky, Veloso was at the head of the 'Tropicalia' movement, playing highbrow art pop psychedelic bossa-nova.  He was hated by the dictatorship in Brazil and was forced out of the country to live in exile in the UK (which just made him seem cooler to the various anti-establishment types who were attracted to him at the time).  Veloso went on to become hugely popular with artists in the UK and US such as David Byrne and Beck.

Great album.

Day 0128 - Truth

Jeff Beck "Truth" (1968)

 

 
Hadn't really heard much of Jeff's music outside of some of his work with the Yardbirds, and his beautiful playing on the version of 'A day in the life' for Sir George Martin's "In my life" album.

This is a nice bluesy rocking album (aside from a breezy acoustic rendition of Greensleeves) with various star players featuring, most notably Beck's upcoming young singer Rod Stewart.  The Who's Keith Moon appears on one track and the Rolling Stones' Ron Wood pops up on another. Beck shines most in the instrumental tracks, but then I'm glad that it's not an entirely instrumental guitar album as the vocals add some variety to proceedings.

Day 0112 - Os Mutantes

Os Mutantes "Os Mutantes" (1968) - got it

The original Mutantes line-up centred around the three Baptista brothers, one of whom didn't really perform, but built a lot of the band's electronic instruments.

They took the popular Brazilian music forms such as bossa-nova and jammed it together with the mod and psychedelic music of the US and UK, and to be honest, kind of made something better than a lot of those bands were able to.

The Mutantes ended up being hated for a time in their homeland (along with much of the 'Tropicalia' movement) by conservatives for their outlandish, hippy appearance, and by bossa nova aficionados for their subversion of the genre.

As a complete aside, I saw the Mutantes live at a festival in 2008.  They were the last act that night, so were allowed to play for over 2 hours.  Nobody wanted them to stop, it was a brilliant and magical show!

Day 0073 - Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton

John Mayall and the Blues Breakers "Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton" (1966)

As I've said before, I can be 50/50 on blues as a genre, I mean I like some tracks but there often just isn't enough variety for my tastes... this album is good though, it mostly stays squarely in the blues camp but still manages to feature some crazed jazz drumming, some hints of 60s rock and of course the whole thing is lifted by Clapton's sublime playing.

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.