Day 0379 - Aja

Steely Dan "Aja" (1977)

 
Steely Dan ramp up the 'jazz' part of their 'jazz tinged pop' sound.  As much as I love jazz, and a couple of the other Steely Dan albums, this one didn't quite 'ring my bell'.

I enjoyed the album well enough, but where the "Can't buy a thrill" and "Pretzel logic" were brilliant; this is just alright. The pop moments work well enough, and there is some impressive musicianship in jazzy parts but it just feels too polished... just needs a little more 'edge' for my tastes.

Day 0378 - Low

David Bowie "Low" (1977) - got it

 

As I was listening to this album, I started to think about how this is the album where Bowie really became an artist in moving away from traditional song-forms (though that was also true of 'Station to station' to a certain extent).  As a famous singer, it was a reasonably daring move to produce largely instrumental music ("Speed of life"), or have his voice feature more as another instrument with equal billing in the mix ("Warszawa").

But of course that would be a fairly arbitrary and debatable notion; really you could just as easily say that Bowie became an artist when he started creating and inhabiting characters for his music to exist through, or when he started creating concept albums, or even when he started making music at all.

I think it would be more accurate to say that this was like when he saw Bolan doing glam and thought "I'll have a bit of that", or when he decided to investigate grunge, or techno/EDM in later years.  It was just a case of Bowie listening to krautrock and hearing people like Eno making avant, collage music and thinking "yeah, why not?!"

This album features a couple of favourites of mine, the bouncy "Sound and vision" with its compact harmonised vocals; and the majestic, beautiful 'Warszawa' that, with its chanting vocals and ambient textures, feels like it must have been an influence on my old favourite Mike Patton for some of his more atmospheric work.

A stylistic leap for Bowie and an absolute success (IMO).

Day 0377 - The Clash

The Clash "The Clash" (1977) - got it

The Clash mostly eschewed the self-destructive ideology of many of their peers, digging more into the political anger and cynicism. According to the book (and a Joe Strummer doco I saw a while back) they were accused of sloganeering and bandwagon jumping in some corners, but they made good music, so who really cares what their motivations were. As best as I can tell, the lyrics of songs like "Career opportunities" and "I'm so bored with the USA" seem authentic enough.

The band soaked up the multiple cultural influences of living in West London at the time, with sounds including reggae, ska and rocksteady fusing into their punk with a bit more musicality than some of their contemporaries could/wanted to included.

Day 0376 - Rattus Norvegicus

The Stranglers "Rattus Norvegicus" (1977)

Out-punking the punks, by playing a similar style of music, with the usual aggression and attitude and recording their album in just a few days (so punk), but loading it up with musicianship and flourishes of keyboards, which no doubt angered many punkers.

The keyboards sound like a mix between 60s rock and 70s fusion.  Also odd for a punk band, the drummer was nearly 40 by the time this album was released!

According to the book they were criticised for a degree of misogyny in their lyrics, luckily I didn't take a whole lot of notice to what they were saying.

Day 0375 - Hard Again

Muddy Waters "Hard Again" (1977) - got it

Muddy let's everyone know how hard he is... thanks Mud'

Muddy had recently parted company with Chess Records after some 28 years and set out to prove that he still had it: spoiler: he did!

I find that the blues... I can take em or leave em. My issue with them is much the same as my problems with reggae, that there is some good material, but that over the runtime of an album it all starts to sound a bit 'samey'.  I belive that part of the draw with the blues is the stories, but as I don't spend much time listening to lyrics, that doesn't elevate the material at all for me.

With that all said, this album is at another level. Hard is in fact one of the better adjectives to describe these tracks, and the arrangements are pretty straightforward.  The vocals are unadorned and passionate, and this music rocks!  There are some tracks here that would give Hendrix a run for his money as far as rocking, deep-grooving blues go.

This is an album that I actually picked up as a result of listening to it for this list.

Day 0374 - Heavy Weather

Weather Report "Heavy Weather" (1977) - got it

 
I read that Jaco Pastorius favoured the fretless bass because he viewed frets as "speed bumps" and while, some of the tracks attest to that.  His playing is often quite languid and serene, supporting the work of his bandmates.  Quite reserved, given that he got his gig with the band after walking up to them and proclaiming himself to be the best bass player in the world!

But it's unfair of me to act like Pastorius is the only shining light here, it's just that I'm a bit of a fan of his (I discovered the band through him rather than the reverse) and this is his first full release with Weather Report, though he had played on a couple of tracks on the previous release "Black Market".

'Rumba Mama' highlights the group's drummer and percussionist (Alex Acuña and Manolo Badrena).   Original instigators of the band Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter had been in Miles Davis' early fusion bands and they both shine throughout this album too.  All in all it's an accessible and digestible fusion record.

Day 0373 - Out of the Blue

Electric Light Orchestra "Out of the Blue" (1977)

Jeff Lynne once made the daring declaration that ELO would pick up where the Beatles left off but still presenting it on stage rather than being a studio-bound unit.

I was quite surprised to see that this was actually the 7th album by the band, they're a tad more prolific than I'd thought.  They're even prolific within the album itself, it's a double LP, over 70 minutes long and includes a 3-part 12+ minute 'concerto' that took up much of one of the sides.

This album sounds like the work of someone who could easily have 3 or 4 different bands on the go to explore all of his musical ideas, but I find it enjoyable to have the mix of elements such as rock, prog, classical, pop and even hints of disco all fighting for space on one album. I've always liked what I've heard from ELO. This album in particular sounds to me, almost like a meshing of the Beatles and 80s era Queen, among other things.