Fairport Convention – Liege & Lief

Well, maybe I’m a bit grumpy for having to replace the warm sun of Costa Rica with the somewhat unpredictable (is it hot? Is it grey? It can’t be guessed in advance) weather here in Belgium, the giant rainforest plants with a small cactus on my office desk and the multitude of exotic animals with the cars in our highways, but the next album on the list after my well-deserved holiday, Liege & Lief, doesn’t really blow me away.

Of course I’m not saying this is a bad album, it was after all voted…

Leonard Cohen – Songs From a Room

Well, damn my ignorance! I always thought The Partisan was a song originally written by Leonard Cohen (and I considered it his best song). So when I went to a concert of Leonard Cohen last week in Colmar in France, I laughed with those Frenchmen who didn’t sing along to any of his songs (well, some lalala sometimes) but knew the entire French part of The Partisan by heart. But as it turns out, The Partisan isn’t from Leonard Cohen. It’s from the Frenchmen! Called originally "La complainte du partisan", written in London…

King Crimson – In The Court Of The Crimson King

I was a bit worried about this album in advance, because it was labeled as “the progrock album”. And as I had no clue what progrock was, I had some idea about it being a very strange kind of rock music (well, it is called progressive rock, right?), not at all accessible.

Great was the surprise when I heard the first song ‘21st Century Schizoid Man’. This sounded excellent! Exciting! So modern! And so very different from the other music in 1969! It wasn’t hard to get, there…

The Kinks – Arthur (Or The Decline And Fall of the British Empire)

Yay, this was a great week. I try to listen to three 1001 albums a week, and when I’m lucky 2 out of those 3 are really good. Well, the previous week, all three were quite amazing… and what’s more they’re all three something completely different. So yes, it’s been a very pleasant week.

First album in this fantastic batch of three: another Kinks album. And The Kinks are instant guarantee for quality, which is again proven by this album. The Kinks get more and more ambitious,…

Grateful Dead – Live/Dead

I will tell you about the song lengths on this album:
1st song: 23 minutes
2nd song: 6,5 minutes
3rd song: 9,5 minutes
4th song: 15 minutes
5th song: 10,5 minutes
6th song: 7,5 minutes
7th song: 0,5 minutes (that’s what I call funny).

Are the Grateful Dead kidding me?!

No, they’re not. And they’re also not kidding about playing impressive guitar solos, drumming unbelievable rhythms, improvising till you’re kilometers high in the (psychedelic) sky and exploring every possible corner of a song. This is a live album, and it consists almost solely of improvising and/or…

Isaac Hayes – Hot Buttered Soul

To be honest, I knew nothing about Isaac Hayes except (the word) “Shaft!”… and that’s not much.

My first impression after two minutes of this album was “Wow! Is this 1969?” First of all, the “wah wah” singing and the slicing guitar melody in the beginning of Walk On By has been sampled so often I was surprised to find the original here, as I had estimated the sample much younger. It sounds so modern!

Isaac Hayes brings soul, but not as we (the 60s people) know it. His version of Walk On By…

The Youngbloods – Elephant Mountain

The Youngbloods… who are The Youngbloods? It’s in cases like these the Forrest Gump soundtrack offers a solution. (Bought for only 4,5 euros, this soundtrack is paying off as a great compilation of 50s/60s songs.) The soundtrack includes Let’s Get Together, which is apparently The Youngbloods their biggest hit.
Their biggest hit? Why yes, it has a beautiful melody and it’s nicely sung, but to be honest, much better songs can be found on this album.

Darkness, Darkness for instance with the echoing sounds and a more than excellent guitar. As the opener, this song…

Fairport Convention – Unhalfbricking

Well, this is a nice album. A very nice one indeed. Can’t say much about it except that it’s nice. (I’m so talented with words)… but I’ll try!

This is folk music with a more rocky side and it sounds great: Sandy Denny has a very beautiful voice and sometimes there are some eastern influences. And hey, covering Bob Dylan is never a bad idea.

The opener Genesis Hall is a very good demonstration of Sandy Denny’s pure beautiful voice. As for the next song “Si Tu Dois Partir” I guess they wanted to…

Chicago Transit Authority – Chicago Transit Authority

Chicago! If I again get my “judge a group by their most famous song” attitude towards older music, I must admit Chicago always reminds me of a commercial for dog food (Cesar) where a white little dog is so very unhappy to see his boss go away, but is happy again when she comes back with delicious Cesar dog food… all accompanied by If You Leave Me Now by Chicago.
Therefore it must be understandable that in my lack of any knowledge of Chicago I didn’t expect much from them. If You Leave…

Tim Buckley – Happy Sad

Whoever said I am inconsequent in my music taste? (My brother). It’s not true! I said about the previous Tim Buckley album it first raised high expectations and sometimes succeeded in fulfilling those ('Pleasant Street' stays mindblowing) and sometimes did nothing at all. And I don’t mean from song to song, but from listening turn to listening turn. As if my liking of the album depended heavily on the mood I was in or the hour of the day or… I have no clue, all I could conclude was I didn’t love the album as…