Scott Walker- Scott 4- ****
Colin Blunstone- Ennismore- ****
Bob Marley & The Wailers- Kaya- ****
(It's nice to hear "Is This Love" is its original context instead of in a travel commercial.)
Del Amitri- Some Other Sucker's Parade-****
(A perfect Side One, and a damn good Side Two.)
Small Faces _ S/T (Immediate, MONO)- ****
Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow- S/T- ***1/2
Dave Edmunds- Information- ****
(I love Jeff Lynne through and through, but I totally get why people don't like the sound of the records he produces. That said, this record is damn good! And I think some of those great harmonies and melodies may just be because of Jeff Lynne, bad drum sound aside.)
Perfect- Once, Twice, Three Times A Maybe- ****1/2
(Holy crap! I totally forgot about this record. Recorded in 1997, four years after Bash & Pop's "Friday Night Is Killing Me," Tommy Stinson and friends in Ardent Studios, gettting produced by Jim Dickinson. The record doesn't come out until 2004. It's a bashin' and poppin' killer.)
Parthenon Huxley- Homemade Spaceship-****
(Forgot about this beauty, as well. A gorgeous approach to ELO, recommended for those who love Jeff Lynne's songs but not his productions. P. Hux nails it.)
Terry Reid- S/T- ****
10 comments:
Some Other Sucker’s Parade falls into that rare breed of Perfect(or near perfect) records for me. In that same camp is The Connells Still Life, a record no one seems to know about ( or maybe I just love it more than anybody else). Information is a good record absolutely spoiled by Jeff Lynne, a production job best deemed a travesty of music. I like some ELO enough, but Lynne’s production work is consistently disappointing. Not enough of P. Huxley’s work is available for streaming. Cleveland Jeff
Jeff Lynne's production skills are no better or worse than Daneil Lanois, Rick Rubin, Todd Rundgren or T-Bone Burnett. All have a very distinct sound. It's a matter of taste. Some prefer their music to sound like 78's from the 30's, so T-Bone is their guy. Just add some dust to your stylus, and any record will siound like a T-Bone production. Others enjoy their music to sound like they are in the constellation exhibit at the N.Y. Planetarium, so Lanois is their man. I, for one, will take Jeff & Todd over Lanois and T-Bone anyday because the artists still sound like the artists...at least to my ears. But what do I know?
Valid points. And you are always more open-minded than I. I mostly don't like T-Bone's stuff, but sometimes he gets out of the way (recent Elton records are good, but what he did to the Elton/Leon record was bad). Lanois makes everything sound the same- he only really makes Daniel Lanois records, and I feel the same way about Lynne, but then I'm not the ELO fan that you are. Todd's work does indeed let the artist be the artist. He's not in this group. The example at hand, Information, while good, just does not sound like Edmunds. I admit that Lynne and Burnett have done some good work that are exceptions to the rule, Lanois not so much (OK, Time Out Of Mind is good).
Yes, "Time Out Of Mind" and I give him "Oh Mercy."
I’m a big fan of Emmylou’s Wrecking Ball, partly for production and partly for performance. It doesn’t sound like any of her earlier work, but her voice and the songs are excellent. Lanois’s work with the Neville Bros. was a big mess.
The first BoDeans album might be T-Bone’s best production work.
- Paul in DK
I listened to Kaya the other day and loved it as much as ever.
- Paul in DK
I always said "Lanois and Malcolm Burn broke Emmylou." She was never the same after "Wrecking Ball."
I second Paul in DK on the first BoDeans.
Tom Petty’s work with Lynne, Full Moon Fever, and Rubin, Wildflowers, seem equally definitive and multi-platinum successes. I prefer the latter.
And Lanois did some nice work with Peter Gabriel (So, Us) that’s pretty solid.
Thanks for the BoDeans callback. Diggin’ it. Day gets better and better :)
"Us" is my favorite Peter Gabriel record. I totally forgot, or maybe didn't realize it was Lanois.
Post a Comment