Wyatters delights (what are you listening to?)

[theallgolden]

btw max: neil young's first album is one of my all time fave albums. after buying 'decade' in the seventies and becoming a neil young fan this was one of my first 'original' neil young albums i bought (the other was 'comes a time' and i have similar feelings to this album). i love every single song on this album. nearly twenty years later after i bought ny's first album i felt in love with the music of van dyke parks. and if you take a close look on neil youngs first album it sounds a bit van dyke parks like, or?

[theallgolden]

and btw once again: isn't it , ah, strange that a real flood of posters came around just beacuse to win a cd. materalistc world it is....

[Max_Gate]

btw max: neil young's first album is one of my all time fave albums... i love every single song on this album.

For me the arrangements are uniformly strong, however the core material is variable in quality. There isn't enough lyric bite to many songs, with excessive repetition (a generic problem with popular song) dulling them. Still, as I said, I've finally accepted that this album is a keeper - and there is no Neil Young opening I prefer to the power chords of 'I've Been Waiting For You'. Such a wonderful visceral urgency that is perfect for the lyrics!

[Max_Gate]

and btw once again: isn't it , ah, strange that a real flood of posters came around just beacuse to win a cd. materalistc world it is....

There are hundreds of people, thousands world-wide, who sacrifice part of their never-to-be-repeated life listening to radio pap so that they can ring in on the slender promise of either free movie tickets or a CD single... What a failure of the imagination!

I'm delighted this album is out there, in the big badlands, and I'll buy it. Cash is not quite the equivalent of sweat but it is one measure of honest labour.

[Max_Gate]

The Who: 'Thirty Years of Maximum R&B'

"Play some rock'n'roll - what do you think that was, Mantovani?"

This 4CD box set is so earthy that even its quirks (a 15 second track?) are worthwhile. I intend to listen for the next thirty years.

[Max_Gate]

Steely Dan: Pretzel Logic (1974) - They never made a better album, with later work (even the guitarfest of 'The Royal Scam') bordering on mannerism. Here the arrangements fizz like vintage champagne, the jokes are not overly opaque, and the whole is greater than the parts.

[Max_Gate]

Pink Floyd: 'The Division Bell' - This is an excellent forgery. It's as if the back catalogue was mashed up by a computer. The sequencing is strong, the texture perfect, yet only Richard Wright (Lazarus back from the dead) brings the essential scent of being human.

[Max_Gate]

On my 51st birthday I've reversed the digits and am playing one of my favourites from the teen years: 'Close to the Edge' was released by Yes in September 1972. After decades of punk-induced prejudice I'm now able to hear it again. You know what? Never mind the Sex Pistols, here's the bollocks.

[theallgolden]

first of all: happy birthday, max.
yes, yes! four years younger as you, but with the same prejudice i sold so many so called prog-rock albums in the eigthies. pink floyd, genesis and yes as the most prominent bands were the first ones with which i made some peanuts. that was a fault (maybe,but without selling that stuff i would not have bought other treasuries). i bought some of that vinyl again. one of my favourites as a teen was yessongs. it is a kind of early speedmetal album. o.k. the music has nothing to do with speedmetal, but the power with which they played their songs thereon reminds me always to this genre. still a thrill!