Rocks In The Attic #90: JJ72 - ‘JJ72’ (2000)

This album is much better than I remember. I must have liked the band enough to go out and buy the album, but I haven’t listened to it for about 10 years.

JJ72 were a band that was small enough to be playing The Castle in Oldham when I used to DJ, but still big enough (and talented enough) to be signed and to be releasing albums like this. I remember DJing the night they played - which means I probably also did their lights - but I don’t think I met them because if memory serves, they didn’t stick around to meet anybody after their set.

Hit: October Swimmer

Hidden Gem: Long Way South

Rocks In The Attic #89: Unkle - ‘Psyence Fiction’ (1998)

I bought this very simply because Badly Drawn Boy features on one of the songs, and at the time, just before his debut album was released, I was doing my best to collect everything relating to him. The album then grew on me, as I started to realise that on a very rich album, the badly Drawn Boy song on there isn’t one of the highlights.

I don’t think I knew who DJ Shadow was when I first bought this album, but I’m familiar with Endtroducing, and I see he is listed here as the producer. It’s a very zeitgeist album when you step back and take a look at it - Richard Ashcroft, Badly Drawn Boy, Mike D, Thom Yorke, DJ Shadow.

Hit: UNKLE Main Title Theme

Hidden Gem: Rabbit In Your Headlights

Rocks In The Attic #88: Stevie Wonder - ‘Music Of My Mind’ (1972)

The first of Stevie’s classic period, this is actually the second album where he was given full artistic freedom. There’s still a feel of him regarded as a Motown novelty on the album before this, Where I’m Coming From, but on Music Of My Mind you can start to hear him branching out.

This album doesn’t have any of the big hits that his follow-up albums have, so it always tends to get overlooked. It arguably has the best cover of any of his classis albums - a close up photograph of Stevie wearing mirrored Aviators, with a couple of random images in the reflection of each glass. Unfortunately, some of the covers of his later, more well-renowned albums have dated quite badly - (and obviously he isn’t responsible for that aspect of his career).

Hit: Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)

Hidden Gem: I Love Every Thing About You

Rocks In The Attic #87: Prince & The Revolution - ‘Purple Rain (O.S.T.)’ (1984)

I recently wrote that of all the soundtracks in my vinyl collection, Air America is the film I know the least as I’ve only seen it once. That’s actually incorrect - I’ve never seen Purple Rain.

I don’t know where I stand on Prince. People say he’s a genius, but I don’t really see it. Although, maybe I haven’t heard his genius work - I only own this and 1989’s Batman soundtrack. I’d go and see him play live if I got the opportunity, just on the reputation of his touring band, but in general I don’t think I’m in on the joke.

Hit: Purple Rain

Hidden Gem: I Would Die 4 U

Rocks In The Attic #86: The Wildhearts - ‘Earth Vs. The Wildhearts’ (1993)

Aside from older bands - Aerosmith and AC/DC specifically - The Wildhearts were probably my favourite contemporary band when I first started listening to music. I really don’t remember why but I bought the Suckerpunch CD single - still one of my all-time favourite singles mainly due to the strength of its B-sides - and I was hooked.

I could never understand - as you never do when you’re young and you don’t really understand the music business - why The Wildhearts weren’t more popular than they were. In the mid-nineties, they were the darlings of the British rock press, and their singles were sold in enough quantities to usually make the Top 10, securing them a spot on Top Of The Pops. Fans didn’t just like The Wildhearts - they loved The Wildhearts. Once at Rio’s in Bradford, I was let into the club for free by the bouncer, simply because I was wearing a Wildhearts T-shirt.

When touring this album, their set at 1994’s Reading Festival was memorable when their bass player - Danny McCormack - dislocated his knee doing a star jump during the first song Caffeine Bomb. Instead of stopping, he was propped up onto a flight case, and played the rest of the set (in blinding pain). I think it’s things like that which really made them real. Can you imagine Jack White doing that? Or the Kings Of Leon?

Their other big draw is that their B-sides were just as good - if not better - as the material they would put on their albums. So fans were rewarded by decent songs every time they released something, whether it was a full album or a single (or even a fan-club only album like the very limited original version of Fishing For Luckies, which I still have on CD and always look up in Record Collector to see how much it’s worth these days).

In that decade, out of all the bands I liked, I must have seen this band play live the most. I rushed out and bought tickets to their tours, even when they didn’t have an album out to support. Unlike most bands, they used to tour continually, and their gigs were always well attended by fans in black smiley-bones T-shirts with the ironic catchphrase ‘Demand The Right To Be Unique’ scrawled across the back in white lettering. I can’t remember how many times I saw them, but it must have been something like 6 or 7 times within the space of 3 or 4 years.

I even had a pen-pal (a pen-pal!) around this time - who I met (I don’t know where) through our mutual love for the band. Unfortunately for her, living in the USA, she didn’t get to see them play live too often - if at all - so I used to report back to her every time I saw the band play, and we would share bootleg tapes of their shows. Ultimately I think we lost touch when the internet replaced such archaic forms of communication.

When I went to University, and my musical tastes broadened, I fell out of touch with what the band were doing. I still bought their stuff, but 1997’s industrial-sounding Endless, Nameless turned me off them completely. I saw them live again in the early 2000s, and thankfully they had gone back to their early days, wearing leather jackets on stage and playing material from their early years.

Just listening to this album brings back so many memories - probably just because I went to see them play live so often. I remember driving to Warrington to see them play once - at Parr Hall - and we pulled over to ask a couple of locals who looked like rockers for directions. They said they didn’t know where the venue was, so we eventually found it ourselves, and ended up standing in the queue behind the guys we had just asked for directions (seems that Warringtonians either aren’t too friendly, or they’re not great at giving directions). Another time, I saw them support AC/DC in Manchester - one of my all-time favourite gig line-ups - and I was amongst a very small group of people (there were maybe 5 or 6 of us) moshing to them amongst the older AC/DC fans.

This album is dedicated to Bowie guitarist Mick Ronson, who died not long after it was recorded. He plays a guitar solo on the great My Baby Is A Headf*ck - his final recorded appearance.

Hit: TV Tan

Hidden Gem: Everlone

Rocks In The Attic #85: Primal Scream - ‘XTRMNTR’ (2000)

Wikipedia tells me that this album was the final LP released on Creation Records. I don’t remember that at the time - I definitely remember Creation folding, but I think I bought this purely for Kill All Hippies, a great song I would regularly play in my Saturday night DJ set at Oldham’s 38 Bar / The Castle.

I must have met Primal Scream (and ex-Stone Roses) bassist Mani not long after this album was released, down in the basement bar of Corbieres in Manchester’s St. Anne’s Square. He signed my cigarette packet - which I still have - and as I’m not a fan of the band he’s more well known for, his bass playing for Primal Scream will always remind me of that chance encounter. His bass playing on this album, especially Blood Money, is noteworthy - it’s like he’s playing his own tune, keeping the bass driving forward regardless of what the rest of the band are doing.

This version of Primal Scream isn’t my favourite. It’s a bit - dare I sound like an old man - noisy and tuneless. It’s also not the most popular thing to say, but my favourite version of Primal Scream is the Give Out But Don’t Give Up version - where they’re practically doing everything right to appeal to my classic rock leanings. That album almost sounds like a Black Crowes record, and although I’d like them to record another album like that, I guess you just have to admit that they’re a continually evolving band - probably one of the most genre-shifting bands in the last couple of decades.

Hit: Swastika Eyes (Jagz Kooner Mix)

Hidden Gem: Keep Your Dreams

Rocks In The Attic #84: Led Zeppelin - ‘Led Zeppelin’ (1969)

Although this is only (only!) the 84^th entry in the Rocks In The Attic blog, this is actually the 100^th disc I’ve reviewed, taking into account all the double- and triple-albums that I’ve wrote about so far.

A few weeks ago I covered the Truth album by Jeff Beck - released prior to this debut by Led Zeppelin, and an album Jimmy Page must have had at the front of his mind when planning and arranging this.

This was a very cheap album to make. Zeppelin’s manager Peter Grant paid for the 36 hours of studio time himself, and then sold the tapes to Atlantic Records. A studio cost of just £1,782 led to the record grossing more than £3.5 million. Not a bad return for a record company.

If I had to choose one album over the other, I’d go with Zeppelin’s debut, only because the songs fit together that little bit better. Led Zeppelin and Truth are very similar though. They even share a cover - You Shook Me - but the majority of the songs could be interchangeable. Both albums have soulful vocals, by Robert Plant and Rod Stewart respectively. The guitar work on each album (both players are ex-Yardbirds) is of a higher quality than most players at the time (and more in line with the likes of Hendrix and Clapton); and the bass is top-notch (by John Paul Jones on Led Zeppelin, and future Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood on Truth).

The real point of differentiation is the percussion. There’s nothing wrong with the drums, by Mick Waller, on Jeff Beck’s album. They keep time, as they should. But they’re not a patch on Bonzo’s debut. The opening track on Led Zeppelin - Good Times Bad Times - could almost be renamed How To Play Drums by John Henry Bonham. You can ignore everything else about that song and just concentrate on the drums - they are the very definition of a perfect drum track.

Hit: Dazed And Confused

Hidden Gem: Black Mountain Side

Rocks In The Attic #83: Thompson Twins - ‘Here’s To Future Days’ (1985)

Just before I started the Rocks In The Attic blog, I had a clear-out of my vinyl collection and took anything I would never listen to down to the charity shop. There was quite a bit of stuff - mainly 80s compilations, like the Now That’s What I Call Music series and some Heavy Metal compilations with the likes of Saxon and other similarly-titled bands on them.

In that pile of records destined for the charity shop was this album, plus its predecessor, Into The Gap. I hadn’t listened to either record - in fact I don’t think I know any songs by the Thompson Twins, or at least none that I could associate the band with. I saved these two albums because I happened to notice on the back of this one that it was produced by Nile Rodgers.

This album comes with a free five track record of remixes - which I actually prefer to the actual album, as the material sounds a bit more direct and to-the-point than the songs on the album.

On listening to this record, I think I made the right decision by saving it from the charity shop. Donating this horrific record wouldn’t have been very charitable.

Hit: King For A Day

Hidden Gem: Alice (Remix)

Rocks In The Attic #82: Simon & Garfunkel - ‘Bookends’ (1968)

The cover to this album always makes me laugh, being the prime example that Frances McDormand’s controlling matriarch uses in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous to prove that rock musicians are on drugs (“Look at their eyes!”). I guess she’s right - they look pretty wasted.

I love this album. It sounds, to me, slightly out of its time with the electronic noises at the start of the album dating it later than April 1968 when it was released. I have the Spanish version of this album, which means that although it looks (and plays) the same as the international release, the song names on the label in the centre of the record are in Spanish - such as Viejos Amigos (Old Friends), El Dilema De Punky’s (Punky’s Dilemma) and La Oscura Sombra Del Invierno (A Hazy Shade Of Winter).

Hit: Mrs. Robinson

Hidden Gem: At The Zoo

Rocks In The Attic #81: Aerosmith - ‘Honkin’ On Bobo’ (2004)

Aerosmith really know how to disappoint. When I first heard about this record - that it was going to be a back-to basics Blues record, produced by their old-time 70s producer Jack Douglas - I was so excited. After almost twenty years of trying to rewrite their past, and becoming a shadow of their former selves, this idea seemed to make sense. They’ve realised that their Geffen output was sub-par! They’re going back to their Blues influences! And just to make sure it all works, they’ve got Jack Douglas back on board to produce the record! What could go wrong?

This album is so bad it’s offensive. Everything sounds so clean and polished, they end up sounding like the resident jazz band on the Starship Enterprise. Any indication that they were going back to their roots was then completely swept aside when they went out on tour to support the album. The accompanying tour DVD - You Gotta Move - shows them getting massages and travelling to shows separately in private jets.

If there is one good thing to come out of all this, it’s the fact that they started playing their older material on tour. During their Geffen days they pretty much only played Geffen material live. When I first saw them touring Get A Grip in 1993, and then twice touring Nine Lives in 1997, they pretty much only played their Geffen singles, plus a few album tracks from the respective album they were touring, rounded off with an encore of their three big Columbia singles - Dream On, Sweet Emotion and Walk This Way. Since they reacquainted themselves with their older material for Honkin’ On Bobo, they now tend to play roughly a 65/35 split - with their older stuff still taking the minority - but at least they’re playing a decent amount of 70s material and not acting as though it doesn’t exist.

Hit: Baby Please Don’t Go

Hidden Gem: The Grind

Rocks In The Attic #80: Les Rythmes Digitales - ‘Darkdancer’ (1999)

My good friend Danny Beetle got me into LRD when we were DJing together. I ended up buying all the 12” singles from this, plus the full album. Danny once saw Stuart Price (the guy behind LRD) browsing through the records at Manchester’s Vinyl Exchange. That’d be a pretty sweet sight to see.

I remember once, I was DJing on a Friday or Saturday night. It was still relatively early so there were only a few people in. A young girl got up from her table walked over to my booth and asked me if I had any “Lez Ryth-mez Digita-lez”. I guess she didn’t do too well in French. I ended up taking pity on her, not laughing in her face, and playing some anyway.

There are two big hits off this record - Jacques Your Body (Make Me Sweat) which I think was used on a Sunny Delight TV ad; and (Hey You) What’s That Sound? which Price gives a full writers’ credit to Stephen Stills on (the song is based on the lyric from Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth).

This is LRD’s second album - I’ve never heard the first one - and not long after this was released he was poached by Madonna to become her musical director. This isn’t bad a bad record to listen to, given that effectively it’s a dance album. His leaning towards 80s sounds akin to the like of The Pointer Sisters and Georgio Moroder make this an interesting enough listen.

Hit: Jacques Your Body (Make Me Sweat)

Hidden Gem: Sometimes

Rocks In The Attic #79: Bon Jovi - ‘Slippery When Wet’ (1986)

Hmm. Well, everybody needs a bit of hair-rock in their collection, don’t they? Don’t they?

This album is pretty much exactly what you expect. Big choruses, and dumb lyrics. I haven’t deciphered the lyrics fully but I doubt they deal with politics, world hunger or the threat of global overpopulation. There is a song called Social Disease though, which I guess could be about the AIDS crisis.

Wikipedia tells me that currently this album is the 21^st best-selling studio of all time. There are only so many strip clubs in the world though, which probably explains why it stalled at #21.

Hit: Livin’ On A Prayer

Hidden Gem: Raise Your Hands

Rocks In The Attic #78: David Bowie - ‘Space Oddity’ (1972)

This is a strange album - considered by many to be the first proper Bowie album, this was originally released as David Bowie in 1969, before being repackaged with a different title and released with a different cover in 1972. I have that version - the one with Bowie looking stoned with spiky orange hair on the cover.

I remember being taken to Rock Circus by my parents when I was 8 or 9. Rock Circus was a museum, in Picadilly Circus (hence the name), run by the same people who do Madame Tussauds. Alongside the usual eerie-looking waxworks was a room set up like a small theatre. We took our seats and the first act was Bowie himself doing Space Oddity. In a spacesuit. Revolving around the stage, going upside down and such. Obviously this was just a waxwork, but it looked pretty good - enough to forever stamp that song onto my brain. I think, if memory serves, that Bowie was then followed by The Beatles doing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and maybe With A Little Help From My Friends. Or maybe The Beatles opened for Bowie, I can’t quite remember.

This isn’t a fantastic album. There are flashes of brilliance, but overall it’s full of hippie nonsense and only a tentative sign of things to come.

Hit: Space Oddity

Hidden Gem: Memory Of A Free Festival

Rocks In The Attic #77: Queen - ‘Queen II’ (1974)

This comes from the days before Queen could write a decent melody, turning a rock song into a pop song. Seven Seas Of Rhye turns up on this album as the last song, but even that is a heavy song with only a slightly catchy vocal line that takes it out of the dirge of the rest of the album.

People might buy this album expecting Bohemian Rhapsody to be included - the cover of the album was later used by the band to iconic effect in the music video to that song. Unfortunately, there’s nothing even hinting at the genius of that song.

Queen are an odd band - loved by millions but similarly derided by millions. They’re a rock band that appeal to a pop audience. Here, they’re still a rock band having trouble appealing to a rock audience.

Hit: Seven Seas Of Rhye

Hidden Gem: Nevermore

Rocks In The Attic #76: Otis Redding - ‘Live In Europe’ (1967)

In terms of music gifted to me, this has to be up there with the best of them. A birthday present from my good friend Moo, this is one of the gems of my record collection - a March 1967 recording of Otis Redding, backed by Booker T. & The M.G.’s, in Paris. The record was released in December of that same year, exactly five months before his death, making this the last Otis Redding release while he was still alive.

I think the reason I like this album so much is that it’s two of my favourite Stax artists - Otis and Booker T. & The M.G.’s - all for the price of one. It’s like that time I went to see AC/DC and The Wildhearts were the support band.

Hit: Try A Little Tenderness

Hidden Gem: Day Tripper

Rocks In The Attic #75: Gomez - ‘Abandoned Shopping Trolley Hotline’ (2000)

This album is number 2.5 for Gomez - a collection of b-sides and outtakes released between their second and third albums. I must have liked both of their first two albums enough to buy this, but I don’t think I listened to it more than once or twice.

I’ve never really understood outtakes albums - well I understand them - but I think in most cases you need to be a total and complete fan of the band to truly appreciate them. This is very true of this album - it’s all recordings made in and around the sessions and tours of the first two albums, but where a studio album is pored over and analysed, this sounds as cobbled together as you would expect.

Also, the vinyl format of this album isn’t assisted by the fact that they’ve crammed 49 minutes on one disc. Normally that would be okay, but given that the first two albums are double-LPs, this just doesn’t have the depth and clarity to stand up to those records.

This was the last Gomez record I bought - but if I saw any of their other ones on vinyl, I wouldn’t hesitate.

Hit: 78 Stone Shuffle

Hidden Gem: Bring Your Lovin’ Back Here

Rocks In The Attic #74: Various Artists - ‘Air America (O.S.T.)’ (1990)

Of all the film soundtracks I have in my record collection, this is probably the film I’m least familiar with. I think I’ve only seen it once, and it doesn’t ever seem to be played on TV (well, not on New Zealand television at least).

I bought this as it has an Aerosmith song on it - a cover of The Doors’ Love me Two Times, presumably recorded during the Pump sessions.

The rest of the album isn’t bad - a random collection of pop rock mainly from the late sixties and early seventies. Aside from Do It Again by Steely Dan - which always sounds good - the real treasure on the album is Rescue Me - Fontella Bass’ 1965 single on Chess Records.

On a negative point, this album goes a long way to showcase how poorly made vinyl records were in the early 90s. On both sides, the run-in groove has been cut into the record incorrectly so that when you put the needle down it doesn’t actually run onto the first song - it’s just goes around in a circle without the songs starting. Idiots.

Hit: California Dreamin’ - The Mamas & The Papas

Hidden Gem: Rescue Me - Fontella Bass

Rocks In The Attic #73: Badly Drawn Boy - ‘The Hour Of Bewilerbeast’ (2000)

I usually remove stickers from the cover of records. Most of the time it’s easy - especially if it’s a brand-new record - but sometimes it can cause more damage than keeping it on there. I’ve brought many records home from second-hand vinyl shops, and tried to remove a sticker that’s probably been on the cover for 15 or 20 years, only to pull off a huge chunk of the cover in the process.

There is a sticker on the front cover of my vinyl copy of this album that I’ve left on there. It is a HMV sticker, and alongside the price (£9.99) and the barcode, is my name in block capitals (MR J ANDREWS), the phone number of my parents’ house, and the date of sale (19/07/00).

This was given to me as a birthday gift by the lead singer in the band I was playing in at the time, and he had to order it into HMV Oldham, as they didn’t usually stock vinyl, hence the sticker.

I have to say I was pretty let down by this album. There was a lot of buzz around Badly Drawn Boy at the time, and I already had one of his early EPs - EP3, I think. This album was set to be an instant masterpiece, but it’s very disjointed. Later, Damon Gough said that he panicked when he got into the studio, and recorded a load of bits and pieces he didn’t plan. It sounds like it. I’d take those first three EPs - plus the It Came From The Ground single - over this album any day.

Hit: Once Around The Block

Hidden Gem: Disillusion

Rocks In The Attic #72: Daft Punk - ‘Homework’ (1996)

I can’t remember buying this. I definitely remember buying the 12” of Around The World, which was always something I’d play first when DJing, while I sorted everything out in the booth; but this always seems to have been in my collection.

There are some tunes on this album - the aforementioned Around The World is probably the best known, but Da Funk is probably the other one most people know. Like most ‘House’ music, it’s hardly something you’d put on the record player and chill out to - it’s meant to be played loud, and preferably in a club.

I remember at some point buying the DVD - or was it the VHS? - of the music video collection that accompanies this album. Those videos probably go some way to explain how much Daft Punk were in the zeitgeist when they first came out. If you can get music videos made, of your two best songs, by people like Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze, you must be doing something right.

Hit: Around The World

Hidden Gem: Daftendirekt

Rocks In The Attic #71: Blondie - ‘Autoamerican’ (1980)

This is an odd album, effectively showing Blondie moving with the times and changing from a 70s band into an 80s band. You can imagine rock fans turning away from Blondie in droves when this was released, but I like it. It has a charm, and the band sound very confident taking such a departure from their punk beginnings.

Okay, their punk was always very pop-oriented, but here they move away from sure ground to embrace Jamaican ska (The Tide Is High), jazz (Here’s Looking At You, Faces), disco (Do The Dark), and even funk and rap (Rapture). It’s almost as though they thought they’d switch genres but couldn’t decide on which one to switch to so they chose all of them.

When listening to a greatest hits record by Blondie, the hit singles from this album - The Tide Is High and Rapture - sound out of place, but on this record, in their original context, they make much more sense.

Hit: The Tide Is High

Hidden Gem: Europa

Rocks In The Attic #70: Led Zeppelin - ‘Coda’ (1982)

This album goes a long way to confirm that when bands choose not release material when they record it, there’s usually a good reason. That’s not to say this is a bad album - it’s nowhere as near as bad as the atrocious In Through The Out Door - but for a Led Zeppelin album, it’s pretty poor.

Released two years after the death of John Bonham, this is Page’s way to get out of a contractual agreement (they owed Atlantic Records a fifth album from when they started the Swan Song label to release their own work). The songs are mostly left-over pieces that didn’t quite make the albums they were originally recorded for, together with a couple of live tracks (where they’ve removed any audience noise, to make them sound like they were recorded in a studio).

The real issue is that the album is very disjointed, which you would expect from an album that collects songs from across their entire career, from 1969 through to 1978. There are also a few notable omissions - Baby Come On Home and Travelling Riverside Blues, which would eventually surface on Boxed Set in 1990 and Boxed Set 2 in 1993, and are better than anything included here.

Hit: We’re Gonna Groove

Hidden Gem: Bonzo’s Montreaux



Rocks In The Attic #69: ZZ Top - ‘Rio Grande Mud’ (1972)

Rio Grande Mud is ZZ Top’s second album, and to this day is one of three of their early albums that are yet to be released digitally in their original mix. In the mid-80s when bands were transferring their back catalogues onto CD, somebody at ZZ Top headquarters decided to take the opportunity to tinker with the recordings. The currently available version of this, ZZ Top’s First Album and Tejas feature a very 80s drum sound over the top of the original recordings made back in the day. So if you want to listen to any of those three albums in their original form, you have a choice - vinyl or cassette. They’re probably available on 8-track too. Thankfully I own all their 70s output on vinyl, but it would be nice to be able to listen to this digitally.

You can see Rio Grande Mud as a clear stepping stone for the band between their very bluesy first album, and the all-conquering third album Tres Hombres. This one is still steeped in the blues, but it shows the direction that the band was moving towards - what we would now call classic rock.

Francine may have been the big hit, and attracted listeners of the pop charts to the band, but it’s very throwaway. Just Got Paid is a well-overlooked rock riff, and for me the highlight of this album.

Hit: Francine

Hidden Gem: Just Got Paid

Rocks In The Attic #68: Van Halen - ‘Van Halen’ (1978)

Aside from a slightly misplaced running order (I so would have opened this album with Eruption - something they would do in retrospect on their Best Of Volume 1 package), this is a killer rock album.

History - and Ozzy Osbourne - would try and have us believe that Randy Rhoads was the hottest new guitarist on the block at the time, but this debut by Van Halen came out a full two and a half years before Blizzard Of Ozz, and Eddie is on fire here. People say there’s no soul in the way that these guitarists play, but like any virtuoso, soul and feel will always take a backseat to speed and technique.

This album is also very California - although a lot of the music is in minor keys, it feels sunny and happy all the way through, with even some Beach Boys-esque harmonies employed on Feel Your Love Tonight.

When it comes to David Lee Roth versus Sammy Hagar on vocals, obviously the original frontman is the purist’s choice, but those crazy yelps and creams that Lee Roth peppers all over this album is a little off-putting. So the choice comes down to that, or the middle-of-the-road soulful vocals of Hagar. At the end of the day, I’m only listening to Eddie anyway.

Hit: Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love

Hidden Gem: Eruption

Rocks In The Attic #67: The Beatles - ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ (1967)

...and the winner of the most overrated album in the history of pop music goes to...

When I first started listening to music exhaustively in the early 90s, it was widely agreed that Sgt. Pepper’s was the best Beatles album. It wasn’t even questionable. Then, as Britpop came along and prompted a revival of the Beatles and sixties music in general, Revolver quite rightly started to overtake its successor. Nowadays, every music magazine you pick up, or best album polls will proudly place Revolver at the top, with the same single-mindedness that was reserved for Sgt. Pepper’s a couple of decades ago. If this continues, perhaps in 100 years we’ll be seeing Please Please Me as the pinnacle of pop music achievement.

That’s not to say that Sgt. Pepper’s is a bad album, it’s just nowhere near the best of their work. Even the outtakes from these sessions - available on Anthology 2 - show that the band was essentially directionless at this point, and they were given all the time in the world to come up with a new album. Taking lyrics from a newspaper, or a fairground poster is not a stroke of genius, it’s a stroke of laziness. They may have conquered pop music, but I think this album suggests that perhaps they were not the best people to decide where music would turn next.

Also, for a lot of non-musos, this album may be the only Beatles album in their collection. This was true of a friend of mine I went to school and college with. So as far as he was aware, this is what all Beatles albums sounded like - a collection of mid-tempo songs with vaguely abstract lyrics and no real thematic cohesion. He’s probably a Coldplay fan these days...

Hit: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Hidden Gem: Lovely Rita

Rocks In The Attic #66: Various Artists - ‘The Best Of Bacharach’ (1968)

He can write a tune and a half, Burt.

The instrumental versions of Bacharach / David songs prove that music and melody is far superior to the written word. Although when you really think about it, is the instrumental version of Do You Know The Way To San Jose just as catchy because we all know the words anyway? Who knows...

I’ve always scratched my head when you hear about bands’ royalty payments being weighted towards the lyricist of the band - which confuses me even more when you see behind-the-scenes footage of albums being made, and the so-called poets of the band are rushing around trying to think of a couple of syllables to fill a line in a song. There will be suicidal teens somewhere, poring over these lyrics and at the end of the day they’ve used purely to plug a gap, with no thought behind them.

Which isn’t to say that Hal David is guilty of this. Although maybe he is. And maybe the musical equivalent of this is when a composer of a song builds in a small section of music to join two existing pieces together, which probably happens more often.

Perhaps I should stop thinking too deeply about all this and just listen to Burt. Pass the brandy, will you?

Hit: I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself - Dusty Springfield

Hidden Gem: The Look Of Love - Dusty Springfield

Rocks In The Attic #65: Paul McCartney - ‘Wingspan: Hits & History’ (2001)

I remember buying Wings Greatest on CD when I was at University, from Our Price (Our Price!) in Huddersfield town centre. Then, a few years later when I was building my vinyl collection, McCartney released this - a retrospective of (mainly) his work with Wings, even though the collection is credited to McCartney in name, as though it is purely a solo compilation.

This was an album I bought on vinyl and immediately transferred onto tape so I could play it in my crappy Nissan Sunny on drives over to Ireland. I’ve spent many a reggae-inspired middle-eight of Live And Let Die racing through the Welsh valleys on my way to the ferry port at Fishguard.

The Wings stuff across this double-LP set is essentially their greatest hits (their singles complimented by their better album tracks), and these are bookended by McCartney’s solo stuff both pre- and post-Wings. Thankfully, there’s not a great deal of McCartney’s solo cheese on here - the only real example is No More Lonely Nights, which gets two versions for some reason. The rest of his solo cheese - especially the likes of Ebony & Ivory and Wonderful Christmastime - is thankfully overlooked.

I’d have stuck Say Say Say on this if I had the opportunity, but given that none of his big duets appear on the album, it’s probably a simpler affair to keep it strictly a McCartney / Wings affair.

Hit: Band On The Run

Hidden Gem: Too Many People

Rocks In The Attic #64: Bis - ‘New Transistor Heroes’ (1997)

I can understand why people don’t like Bis. I wouldn’t even argue about it. Manda Rin’s vocals are grating at best, but their saving grace is that they can write a decent pop song. However, I’m not a fan of this album.

I first caught them supporting Garbage in Manchester in 1995. I wasn’t too impressed - musically they sound okay, and they get a decent sound out of two guitars and a keyboard, but Manda’s vocals are just on the wrong side of the squealometer.

I remember being aware of Bis when I saw them support Garbage - most musos knew about them as a lot had been made of them being the first unsigned band to play Top Of The Pops (which is untrue). I definitely remember them playing Kandy Pop, which was the only song I knew them for, but they didn’t make me rush out and buy their records.

A couple of years later when I was at University, my good friends Robbie and Natalie introduced me to their second album, Social Dancing, which I still regard as an overlooked gem. I ended up meeting the band when they were touring that album, but I guess that story is best saved for another time.

Hit: Sweet Shop Avengerz

Hidden Gem: Tell It To The Kids

Rocks In The Attic #63: The Doobie Brothers - ‘Toulouse Street’ (1972)

I love this album. I think there are better Doobie Brothers songs scattered on other albums, but for a full album that gels well from start to finish, this is the one. The sleeve also has titties, in the photo on the inner gatefold, and that’s always a bonus.

Not too long ago, I saw The Doobie Brothers play in Auckland - the Tom Johnston Doobie Brothers this is; thankfully Michael McDonald was nowhere in sight (or sound). I was so excited that they were touring - I remember being at work when the pre-sale email popped into my inbox. I didn’t even know they still existed, let alone were touring the world, so I snapped up tickets as quick as I could, and we found ourselves in the third row in the Civic Theatre.

Unfortunately, local TV evangelist Brian Tamaki was sat in the row in front of us, so you can’t have everything; but it was quite amusing when they played Jesus Is Just Alright from this album, and everybody started to point at him behind his back. Snigger.

Hit: Listen To The Music

Hidden Gem: Mamaloi

Rocks In The Attic #62: Tina Turner - ‘Foreign Affair’ (1989)

Another record in my collection that seems to have always been there, but I can’t remember ever receiving it as a gift from anyone.  And I definitely wouldn’t have bought it. I might hang on to it though, just in case I ever get asked to DJ at somebody’s wedding - The Best would go down as well at the drunken end of a wedding reception as it would have in 1989.

Tina Turner is one of those people who doesn’t look anything like their younger self. When you see video or photos of her singing with Ike Turner, she looks nothing like the solo version of Tina Turner. It’s probably the hair, which she rocks out in every photo on this album sleeve. Al Pacino is another one - I just don’t see the connection between the young Michael Corleone and the man who won an Oscar playing a blind man.

This album was made in 1989 but it sounds very dated, like it was made in the middle of that decade. It has the production feel of an Eric Clapton album of that period, but with the type of half-hearted instrumentation that showcases a vocalist and not a musician.

Hit: The Best

Hidden Gem: Steamy Windows

Rocks In The Attic #61: Jeff Beck - ‘Truth’ (1968)

It took me a long time to track this down on vinyl. If Led Zeppelin albums are numbered, this could almost be titled Led Zeppelin 0.

Released a couple of months before Led Zeppelin (I) was recorded, this also features heavy blues arrangements by an ex-Yardbird (Jeff Beck), and a soulful white singer (Rod Stewart) providing vocals. It also features a reworking of the Willie Dixon song You Shook Me, which would also grace the first Zeppelin album.

Apparently Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page fell out over that one - with Beck claiming that Page stole his idea to do a heavy blues version of You Shook Me. You can understand this - even if Jimmy Page did come up with that idea first, Beck beat him to the punch and Page simply shouldn’t have put it on the first Zeppelin album.

Rounding out Beck’s  band are Ronnie Wood on bass, and noted blues explosion drummer Mick Waller.

You can’t help but compare the two albums - they’re very similar - but for me the first Zeppelin album is slightly more cohesive, but only just. Page even features on the Truth album, credited as the writer of Beck’s Bolero - an instrumental with Beck and Page on guitar, John Paul Jones on bass, Keith Moon on drums and Nicky Hopkins on piano.

At the end of the day, I’m not a huge fan of either album. There’s something very dirge-like about both albums, as though both architects are trying to outdo each other with a (very) heavy blues album, and without the adequate quantity of light (to balance out the shade), they can both be very hard to listen to.

Hit: Shapes Of Things

Hidden Gem: Beck’s Bolero

Rocks In The Attic #60: Super Furry Animals - ‘Mwng’ (2000)

I was so happy when I bought this album - on white vinyl - that I played songs from it when I was DJing that evening. Local boy done good and ex-Inspiral Carpet Clint Boon was doing a homecoming show at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in Oldham, and I was asked to DJ. Hardly anybody turned up but I do remember that I played a few songs off this album. I was even approached by one of members of the support bands playing that night (somebody fairly minor, but a known act all the same), when I was playing Ysbeidiau Heulog, and asked who this was.

Apparently this is the best-selling Welsh-language album of all time. I couldn’t care less that it’s sung in a different language. In fact, I think it gives it charm. I hardly listen to lyrics anyway, so it doesn’t mean a thing to me. The music and the melody is where I’m at.

Hit: Ysbeidiau Heulog

Hidden Gem: Ymaelodi Â'r Ymylon

Rocks In The Attic #59: Jr. Walker & The All Stars - ‘Greatest Hits’ (1969)

Another one of my Dad’s (I think). This one’s a Tamla Motown record, and features the singles of Jr. Walker & The All Stars - a very overlooked artist in the Motown canon - released between 1965 and 1969.

It’s incredible how well known their debut single Shotgun is. It’s one of those soul songs you’ve heard a million times, in films and television especially, but you might not know who performs it. Many of the songs are driven by Walker’s saxophone, but there’s something very Steve Cropper about guitarist Willie Woods, and his licks are as funky as anything.

Hit: Shotgun

Hidden Gem: Cleo’s Mood

Rocks In The Attic #58: Spinal Tap - ‘Break Like The Wind’ (1992)

Shit sandwich.

Hit: The Majesty Of Rock

Hidden Gem: All The Way Home

Rocks In The Attic #57: Jane’s Addiction - ‘Ritual de lo Habitual’ (1990)

We were the first family I knew of to get Sky TV in the UK. It caught on very fast, but when we first got it installed there was nobody else we knew at the time who also had it. So when The Simpsons started, we would watch it religiously, and then I would go to school and for a short time there wouldn’t be anybody else who I could talk to about it. Part of the fun of being at school is shared experiences - “Did you watch Dr. Who last night?”, etc - but in this respect I couldn’t discuss The Simpsons with anybody else except my own family.

So when I first started listening to rock music - back in early 1993 - the house was already set up to receive MTV, and for a few years I became an addict. I consumed everything. Headbanger’s Ball. Beavis & Butthead. 120 Minutes. Unplugged. The MTV Music Awards, when you’d see great things like John Paul Jones playing bass on Lenny Kravitz’s Are You Gonna Go My Way, or The Beastie Boys playing Sabotage as a little garage-rock three-piece. I watched the breaking news, and the resulting tributes, when Kurt Cobain blew his head off with a shotgun. I even remember being at a friend’s house, steaming drunk, and being elated to see Joe Perry being interviewed live, on the red carpet before one of the awards shows.

The point I’m trying to make is that despite the evil that I now see MTV as - mainly because videos can take away your objectivity about music - it was a big part of my life, and for a few years it supported my burgeoning addiction to rock music.

During this time, there was a music video I would see all the time. My first impressions were of the visual elements of the video - a man, grossly made-up as a pregnant woman, shoplifting in an American grocery store, interspersed with Perry Farrell singing the song looking like a robber, with nylon tights stretched over his face. It was funny. I used to like catching the video whenever it was played, simply because it amused me. Then the music started to grow on me. It was a rock song, but with these weird crashing jazz chords played over the top.

Of course, since then I’ve learnt who Jane’s Addiction are, especially how Perry Farrell was the architect of Lollapalooza. I was also a big fan of One Hot Minute - the sole Red Hot Chili Peppers album which Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro played on.

Listening back, I’m not a huge fan of Ritual de lo Habitual - I love Been Caught Stealing, but the rest of that first side has a very similar sound. That’s okay, it’s just their sound and just like the very early Chili Peppers albums, it’s that almost jokey version of punk. I’m much more interested in the second side - where the songs go a bit more progressive rock.

Hit: Been Caught Stealing

Hidden Gem: Three Days

Rocks In The Attic #56: AC/C - ‘If You Want Blood - You’ve Got It’ (1978)

56 blogs in, and I’ve not even covered an album by the mighty ‘DC. Shocking!

I remember when I first started listening to rock music - well, not even rock music, it was Aerosmith and nothing but Aerosmith at this point - my Dad brought home a stack of LPs that he’d borrowed from a friend for me to listen to. Amongst this pile was several AC/DC albums - all from their classic 1970s period.

This was the first time I had been subjected to AC/DC, and even before listening to them, I was in awe of the covers; and the one I remember being blown away the most by was this one - their first live album, recorded during the Powerage world tour. On the front cover, an out of focus shot of Angus Young impaling himself in the gut with his Gibson SG, with Bon Scott leering over his shoulder, holding onto his microphone. On the reverse, a similarly blurry shot of a now lifeless Young, lying face down with the headstock of his guitar poking through the back of his bloodied white school shirt. You can talk about classic album covers all day long, but this one is a real peach. In terms of a cover describing a band’s sound, this one really gets it down perfectly.

As well as introducing me to AC/DC, this album also gave me a love of the song Riff Raff. Underrated and underplayed by the band, this is a real gem and used perfectly here as their show-opener. You know that guitar sound that comes out of the speakers after the first line of vocals in the song? That’s Young bending an entire open-D cord. Beautiful. I’ve broken many guitar strings doing this very trick.

It’s odd that AC/DC have never really been able to capture their live sound in the studio. They sound as good as anybody in the studio - especially from Powerage onwards - but recorded live they sound like a completely different band. That’s probably the reason they’ve never released a greatest hits record - their live records are their greatest hits.

Hit: Let There Be Rock

Hidden Gem: Riff Raff

Rocks In The Attic #55: Elastica - ‘Elastica’ (1995)

This is an odd little record. Fifteen songs breeze by in less than forty minutes. There’s one song over four minutes, a couple at the three minute mark, and then all the rest chalk up between one and two minutes. How punk is that?

I probably bought this album purely for Connection, and from the sticker inside the sleeve I seem to have bought it from the Vinyl Exchange on Oldham Street in Manchester for £12. Not bad considering that, as the Vinyl Exchange sticker proudly states, it’s in mint condition and comes with a free 12-page booklet and a flexi-disc.

The flexi-disc - a cover of Adam Ant’s Cleopatra is pretty good. Well, at least it doesn’t sound as bad as the flexi-discs you would get free in Look-In magazine in the 80s. There’s no surface noise and it plays just like a standard 7”.

This is a pretty good album - with plenty of catchy songs. At the end of the day though, you can never have enough albums with a photo of the band standing in front of a brick wall on the cover. It should be mandatory, for debut albums at least.

Hit: Connection

Hidden Gem: Waking Up