The mission of this blog is to review, discuss and appreciate various music and musicians. Your contributions on these topics will be both welcome and appreciated. From major label to indie release, all music is fair game.
Believe it or not, there are a lot of great Monkees albums out there. The group didn't just do great singles.
Ignore the foolish controversy of being a fabricated group. Especially in this modern age, far worse corporate musical atrocities have taken the spotlight. Focus instead on the great music, and accept The Monkees as the musical powerhouses that they were.
"Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd." is the fourth album released by the group, and it is a close second in terms of being my favorite Monkees album ("Headquarters" claims the top spot for me). The quality of the songs, the experimentation and the camaraderie of the group are all at their peaks with this release.
Harry Chapin has many albums that could stand as his "defining album," including "Sniper and other Love Songs" (featuring "Sniper," "Circle" and "Better Place to Be") and "Verities and Balderdash" (with "Cat's in the Cradle," "I Wanna Learn a Love Song" and "30,000 Pounds of Bananas").
But, for me, "On the Road to Kingdom Come" from 1976 is his best release.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers had a pretty good decade in the 1990s. In 1991, the group released "Into the Great Wide Open." If you've never heard the album, it's like "Full Moon Fever, Vol. 2." Just about every song on the album sounds like it could have / should have been a radio hit (and a couple of them surely were).
Then you had the first "Greatest Hits," which featured "Mary Jane's Last Dance." Anyone who was conscious in the mid 1990s knows this song (and probably loves it). And for the Kim Basinger haters, well, the video featured her as a corpse. Win-win, right?
Then came Tom Petty's second "solo" album "Wildflowers" (the first being "Full Moon Fever," and the "solo" distinction reflecting that ... one again ... many of the Heartbreakers were actually involved). "Wildflowers" is my favorite of all the Petty-related albums released through 2011, so I don't need to speak further on my opinions of its qualities.
And THEN you have the great soundtrack to the movie "She's the One." I'm not a big fan of the film itself, but the album is an enormous success. Everything about the variety of the music screams to the immense strengths of the band. And it had one of their last great frilly psychedelic hits: "Walls (Circus)."
And finally ... you hit "Echo." Released in 1999, it's something of a curiosity.
Will there ever be such a consummate performer and powerful singer as Freddie Mercury ever again? I hope so, but with quality such as this ... it is hard to imagine.
Being best known for his remarkable work with Queen, Mercury is no less a talent on his solo work. He didn't produce many solo albums ("Mr. Bad Guy" and "Barcelona" were the only legit records he put out in his lifetime), but his personality and style are stamped upon each song he recorded and released.
Whereas "Pet Sounds" is perhaps the Beach Boys' most powerful record, "Sunflower" their most united effort and the "SMiLE" sessions their most creative period (or, at least, Brian Wilson's most creative period), "Love You" may be their most real ... if slightly goofy ... release.
Mixed-bag releases are notoriously rough in quality. Taking the odds and ends that didn't make official releases often opens up listeners to material that supports the initial decision not to release it.
Surprisingly enough, that isn't the case with Weezer.
