Day 0334 - Marcus Garvey

Burning Spear "Marcus Garvey" (1975)

 
I had a brief confusion over which was the artist name and which the album title. It turns out that the album is named after a black nationalist activist who championed a "back to Africa" movement to return African Americans to their countries of ancestral origin.

With the music, like I said for Bob's "Natty Dread", I find reggae enjoyable enough but a bit samey.  Like, at no point while listening to the album did I find it 'bad' but, every other song started with the same little drum fill and most had the same drum beat and whicky guitar on the off-beat etc. "Jordan River" had a bit of a different feel, but most of the music just acted as a pleasant background.

Apparently the record company remixed the album to make it more digestible to a white audience, which I would usually take to mean that they declawed it a little in the process?

Day 0333 - Young Americans

David Bowie "Young Americans" (1975)

A Bowie album that, oddly, I don't have.  Apparently somewhere in between Ziggy Stardust and the Berlin trilogy, Bowie got fully into American soul music and called his producer Tony Visconti across to London to bash out an album of it... really bashed it out, like apparently they wrote half of it in the studio.

Kind of a mixed album, quality-wise.  There are some great tracks on it, but I really love the original of "Across the universe" and Bowie's version here doesn't do it justice. "Fame" and the title track are clear standouts. "Somebody up there likes me" is a soul/gospel epic.

The album title ended up being apt, as the album went over nicely in the States.

Day 0332 - Toys in the Attic

Aerosmith "Toys in the Attic" (1975)

 
Aerosmith were on the bones of their arse by this stage.  They'd built up a great reputation as a live (mostly opening) band and had scored a recording contract at the same time as the New York Dolls. But the band had suffered through 2 commercially unsuccessful albums, with the band frequently being compared (unfavourably) to the Rolling Stones.  Joe Perry, in his autobiography stated that the producer on their first album was not great and left the band sounding 'flat', he knew that they could and did sound better.  So the band really needed to deliver the goods on this one.  Spoiler: they did.

The signature Aerosmith sound of big guitars, a bit of sleaze, a bit of glam and Tyler's wailing voice all come in to play, with the shining example being "Walk this way".  There are some other, different sounds too.  "Uncle Salty" almost sounds like Revolver/Rubber Soul era Beatles in places. "Big Ten Inch" has Tyler stretch his vocal to gravelly growls and a laid-back bluesy croon. "Sweet Emotion" and the title track feel like quintessential 70s 'classic rock' tracks. "You see me crying" is like a prototype for the later Aerosmith power-ballads.

The success of the album would eventually go on to revitalise the single "Dream on" from their first album, making it somewhat successful yadda yadda yadda Eminem.

Day 0331 - The Köln Concert

Keith Jarrett "The Köln Concert" (1975)

Crikey, this one was a drama.  I searched for it on YouTube, but all of the tracks I could find were "Köln Concert, interpretation by so and so" couldn't find a torrent... but ah the public library had a copy of the CD, excellent! I put it on hold but there was just a message "held aside by collections department" I gave it a week then enquired "oh that could mean anything, we'll send them an email to find out what they're doing then we'll give you an email".  Another few weeks passed, so I went looking online again and finally a torrent that was the original rather than someone else's interpretation of the piece! In the meantime I'd already listened to the next 15 odd albums on the list, so I'll feed them out.

Onto the music: it's essentially a recording of a live solo piano show from Jarrett, where he improvises throughout.  The concert was organised by Germany's youngest concert-promoter 17-year old Vera Brandes.  Jarrett had requested a specific type of piano but it was only discovered at the last minute that the rehearsal piano as brought in instead. The piano was old and required extensive tuning to get it ready for the show, and even then the high and low keys were relatively weak in tone. Jarrett took all of this in his stride and worked his improv to the piano's strengths (or lack thereof). Playing busily on the high and low keys and stretching out longer notes in the middle section. In one place he riffs back and forth between two chords for 12 minutes but you don't even notice.

This is a brilliant example of musical creation, with themes and melodies popping up that Jarrett himself (judging from his exuberant yells) was just as surprised and excited about as the crowd were.

Day 0330 - Physical Graffiti

Led Zeppelin "Physical Graffiti" (1975)

According to the book, Zep took a while to make this record.  John Paul Jones had been sick and the band had several stop-start attempts at recording, but couldn't seem to hold onto a studio for long enough to get things done.

Once they got going though, they were unstoppable, producing a double LP that explores all sorts of musical avenues, with the slide guitar-laden epic "In my time of dying" apparently nutted out more or less live in the studio. There's the hard funk of "Trampled under foot", the gargantuan "Kashmir" written after Page and Plant holidayed in Morocco.
There are proggy tendencies, light folk, there's sunny west-coast pop (meets country) in "Down by the seaside", old style rock n roll in "Boogie with Stu".

The guy who reviewed it in the book referred to it as Zep's last high point.  Even if you agree with that though, considering they only had 2 more albums (if you don't count 'Coda') after this, that's not really signalling a huge period of decline.

As a side note: 'graffiti' is a word I find stupidly difficult to remember how to spell.

Day 0329 - Neu! '75

Neu! "Neu! '75" (1975... rather obviously I guess)

Two ex-members of Kraftwerk formed their own famous Krautrock group Neu!.  The main problem with this was... one of them was a big fan of slowly evolving, washy soundscapes, and the other preferred punky pulsing drums. They seem to have compromised by making the album half and half washy-and-thumpy.  The album did fairly well commercially and critically, but they split up (for a time) after it was released.

Day 0328 - The Dictators Go Girl Crazy

The Dictators "Go Girl Crazy!" (1975)

 
Another of the early punk albums before the Ramones, the Sex Pistols et al really got going with it.

Like a few other punky bands back in the day, the Dictators fell apart through a mix of record company apathy (they were dropped by their label), in-fighting and bad tour planning.

I'm not overly wowed by the album. I can imagine that at the time it would have been a noisy revelation, but when compared to other early pioneers of the sound like Death, the Stooges and the Monks it's just 'okay'.  The surf guitar sound of the closing track adds a little something extra, but still...