Album Review: “Ram” — Paul & Linda McCartney (1971)
Ram may have been unfairly targeted as pabulum in 1971, but Paul McCartney ultimately produced one of the strongest albums of his career and a now-acknowledged indie pop classic.
Album Review: “Vagabonds of the Western World” — Thin Lizzy (1973)
Thin Lizzy’s 1973 album Vagabonds of the Western World marks their third LP release, their final album with guitarist Eric Bell, and a continued evolution of their sound. Sure, you have Phil’s inimitable vocal stylings and lyrical prose aplenty, and Bell — as underrated a classic rock guitarist as they come — continues to show off what…
Album Review: “Venus and Mars” — Wings (1975)
For the first time in his solo career, Paul McCartney had heat! The consensus was that Wings produced another strong effort.
Album Review: “Arthur (Or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire)” — The Kinks (1969)
The Kinks’s previous album, the exquisite The Kinks are The Village Green Preservation Society, certainly didn’t deliver on the commercial front, did it? Never mind that it would go on to become the most acclaimed and biggest selling non-compilation album of their careers… Still, that must have smarted a bit for the Ray and the…
Album Review: “Paul Stanley” — Paul Stanley (1978)
The 1978 Kiss “solo” albums are pretty infamous for how they were marketed, developed, and received, rather than for the quality of the released product. They all shipped Platinum, which means the distributor released over a million copies of each of the four records… and when most of them didn’t sell all that great, they…
Album Review: “Black Rose: A Rock Legend” — Thin Lizzy (1979)
One of the most endearing elements of Thin Lizzy’s legacy is that you could never quite pigeonhole them with a single sound. They ran the gamut from their early folk-rock to dalliances in R&B, FM radio rock, soulful balladry, near metal intensity, and nearly everywhere between all points in their career. The common thread woven…
Album Review: “Yesterday …and Today” — The Beatles (1966)
I like being born into the last generation that was able to appreciate vinyl LPs in a non-retro, non-ironic manner. I got my first CD player in 1988 and that was just the beginning of the end of vinyl for me (and for vinyl as a whole, which gave up the ghost to CDs soon…
Album Review: “Muswell Hillbillies” — The Kinks (1971)
Muswell Hillbillies was the start of a new era for The Kinks, as they left longtime label Pye and signed with RCA. Emboldened by the commercial success of their previous album Lola v. Powerman…, they would release six albums with RCA that would go on to be commercially disappointing and critically quizzical, to say the least.…
Album Review: “Band On The Run” — Paul McCartney & Wings (1973)
Band On The Run — the album that saved Paul McCartney. There isn’t a weak song on the album, a landmark 70s record by any reckoning.
Album Review: “The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society” — The Kinks (1968)
“For me, Village Green Preservation Society is Ray’s masterwork. It’s his Sgt Pepper, it’s what makes him the definitive pop poet laureate.” — Pete Townshend, 2004 The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society (referred to as VGPS from here on) is the musical equivalent of the perfect trip to Disneyland. Warm and sunny weather with…