JuniorGong
Footballguy
If I could only listen to one album for the rest of my life this would probably be it.
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Classic Album Discussion Thread: The Kinks-Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Pt. 1 (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter timschochet
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rockaction
Footballguy
I will never understand or get this album, and I'm not averse to jazz.
eta* Not denying its importance. I just...don't get it. Or at least didn't in my late twenties. Who knows? Maybe another listen and it reveals itself.
eta* Not denying its importance. I just...don't get it. Or at least didn't in my late twenties. Who knows? Maybe another listen and it reveals itself.
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wikkidpissah
Footballguy
Like Erik Satie before them and Radiohead after, this ensemble - Misters Davis and Evans especially - got us to hear the notes that weren't played.
timschochet
Footballguy
Somehow I’m betting this is the only sentence ever written that included the names Erik Satie, Miles Davis, and Radiohead.
Koya
Footballguy
Dr. Octopus
Footballguy
As much as I always tell myself I'll get really into jazz - I just never make enough effort. I really do like it, but I really don't "know" it. This record is great off course and I love a lot of the early Miles Davis stuff (Quintet?) - I also listen to John Coltrane A Love Supreme often. I just don't have a ton of range in the genre though.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
I would follow up with someother work by the guys on Kind of Blue.
Cannonball Adderly- Somethin' Else
Bill Evans: Portrait in Jazz
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Bonzai
Footballguy
wow
Koya
Footballguy
Cannonball Adderly Live in Japan is a simply outstanding album.
Work Song
Mercy, Mercy, Mercy
This Here
Gr00vus
Footballguy
rustycolts
Footballguy
Man 55 pages in and still no Allman Brothers smh.
Gr00vus
Footballguy
What's there to say? Tim posted it, I nodded my head in agreement, thinking "yep, that's an all timer".Guess people don't want to discuss or think much of Kind of Blue.Legendary album by one of the finest, baddest musicians of all time. Love it, although I'm a bigger fan of the experimental #####es Brew.
Where's @Bob Magaw when you need him?
Eephus
Footballguy
Bill Evans' playing sets Kind of Blue apart from the recordings made by Miles' first great quintet (rounded out to a sextet with the addition of Cannonball Adderley).
Red Garland had been Davis' main piano player for years. One day he was late for a gig and Wynton Kelly sat in with the band. Miles liked the sound and let Garland go on the spot. Kelly plays on track #2 on Kind of Blue (Freddie Freeloader) and Evans plays on the remaining cuts. Their style of accompaniment is very apparent when you listen to the records. Kelly plays a more rhythmic role while Evans' chord progressions weave in and out of Miles' solos.
Evans left Davis after Kind of Blue to go solo. Kelly stayed with Miles until Adderley left the group. Miles eventually found a young pianist who merged the styles of Evans and Kelly. The second great quintet with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams is peak Miles IMO.
Red Garland had been Davis' main piano player for years. One day he was late for a gig and Wynton Kelly sat in with the band. Miles liked the sound and let Garland go on the spot. Kelly plays on track #2 on Kind of Blue (Freddie Freeloader) and Evans plays on the remaining cuts. Their style of accompaniment is very apparent when you listen to the records. Kelly plays a more rhythmic role while Evans' chord progressions weave in and out of Miles' solos.
Evans left Davis after Kind of Blue to go solo. Kelly stayed with Miles until Adderley left the group. Miles eventually found a young pianist who merged the styles of Evans and Kelly. The second great quintet with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams is peak Miles IMO.
zamboni
Footballguy
Fair point - guess being a fan of Miles is not quite as controversial as The Clash, Nirvana or The Eagles.
Gr00vus
Footballguy
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Good write-up. I need to check out more of that era Miles. I have mostly listened to KoB era Miles. I love his work Cannonball. That is peak jazz for me.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Aa for Miles Davis, I really love his soundtrack for Elevator to the Gallows/Ascenseur pour L'echafaud. Great music (you may recognize some of it from the Matthew Mcconaughey Lincoln commercials). It was about a year before Kind of Blue and was recorded really quickly with some French musicians that I don't think he knew well. It is a haunting jazz album, spectacular soundtrack and a movie I highly recommend people check out if they like crime films.
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Ghost Rider
Footballguy
I rarely listen to jazz - when I do, it usually fusion (Herbie Hancock, Return to Forever, Jeff Beck's albums from the mid 70's) - but I do own a handful or so of jazz CD's, and Kind of Blue is one of them. Definitely great stuff.
AAABatteries
Footballguy
Crazy talk. They get a lot of love here and from some critics but they don't cross genres or demographics much at all like the true greats. I'm happy for you and others that get them but they just aren't in the pantheon like people around here try to claim. Obviously all just my opinion.
I will say this - I still make a concentrated effort to listen to them ever so often and occasionally I find another of their songs that I think is pretty good - I still can't say that for Pink Floyd.
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Eephus
Footballguy
The second great quintet is the culmination of Miles' two decades of playing (mostly) with small acoustic ensembles. He blew it all up afterwards by going electric (on Filles de Kilimanjaro) and with larger groups (on In a Silent Way).
The other players in the second quintet were all a decade or two younger than Davis. Their sound was a freer evolution of the styles Davis was doing on Kind of Blue and his first great quintet. I'd start with the studio albums but the starkest difference is on "The Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel 1965" box set. The band was still new young then and only had about an album and a half of original material. So Miles took it back to the standards that his first quintet had recorded ten years previously. The head and the chord changes are barely recognizable but the solos take the music in a completely different direction.
TheDirtyWord
Footballguy
It’s almost become rote to point to this record as one of, if not the greatest jazz album of all time. But I discovered jazz in college and this record was a big reason why. This along with his other records during this time period; Cookin’/Steamin’/Relaxin’/Workin’ With The Miles Davis Quintet were my go-tos. Blue in Green is probably my favorite trac, but all told...it’s 45 minutes of greatness. I don’t listen to it often...more out of wanting to savor it for the right occasions/moments than oversight.
timschochet
Footballguy
U2- The Joshua Tree (1987)
Where the Streets Have No Name
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
With or Without You
Bullet the Blue Sky
Running to Stand Still
Red Hill Mining Town
In God’s Country
Trip Through Your Wires
One Tree Hill
Exit
Mothers of the Disappeared
The hardest thing for me to believe about this album is that it’s over 30 years old. I like the first 3 songs that got all the radio play. They’re catchy. The rest of it- I really should listen to again at some point. At the time it seemed incredibly dull, just like the band.
U2 started off as part of the New Wave scene- no better or worse than several other bands from the same era, with some songs I really enjoyed like “I Will Follow” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday”. Then came “Bad” and “Pride” and suddenly they emerged into the “serious” band they’ve been ever since. It’s fine, but a lot of what they do puts me to sleep.
Where the Streets Have No Name
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
With or Without You
Bullet the Blue Sky
Running to Stand Still
Red Hill Mining Town
In God’s Country
Trip Through Your Wires
One Tree Hill
Exit
Mothers of the Disappeared
The hardest thing for me to believe about this album is that it’s over 30 years old. I like the first 3 songs that got all the radio play. They’re catchy. The rest of it- I really should listen to again at some point. At the time it seemed incredibly dull, just like the band.
U2 started off as part of the New Wave scene- no better or worse than several other bands from the same era, with some songs I really enjoyed like “I Will Follow” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday”. Then came “Bad” and “Pride” and suddenly they emerged into the “serious” band they’ve been ever since. It’s fine, but a lot of what they do puts me to sleep.
Eephus
Footballguy
timschochet
Footballguy
I do like some of Brian Eno’s solo stuff. Backwater, Everything Merges With the Night. Weird guy though.
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Eephus
Footballguy
Miles has an extraordinarily diverse catalog that extended the boundaries of Jazz. He only recorded in a quartet setting once but worked extensively in a quintet with a sax as an added horn. The Birth of the Cool was a nonet and his albums with the Gil Evans Orchestra are among his loveliest
B###### Brew wasn't revolutionary because it tried to blend Jazz with Rock. Plenty of other artists tried that with varying results. Davis and producer Teo Macero changed how the records were constructed. Jazz was historically getting a bunch of cats into the studio and rolling the tape but the early Davis fusion records were pieced together from multiple takes. It wasn't just trickery though, his live recordings from that era are incredible as well (although the jams go on and on).
Miles' late career aren't great but they have their moments. His chops definitely weren't the same but there's some tremendous musicianship from the other players, especially on the records he made with Marcus Miller. On the other hand, his hip hop album Doo-Bop has to be heard to be believed.
Bruce Dickinson
Footballguy
Speaking to the last part first.. if you watch the videos for "I Will Follow" by U2 and "Planet Earth" by Duran Duran back-to-back, it's stunning how similar they are given how differently the bands are perceived now. (I think you would dig the documentary "New Wave: Dare To Be Different". It's about a tiny radio station in Long Island that became a new wave tastemaker in the early 1980s. Showtime On Demand has it right now.)
As for the rest... I went to the Joshua Tree tour last year. Twice. It's one of my favorite albums ever. I do recall it took me a while to get into Side 2. but now that's some of my favorites of their catalog. Red Hill Mining Town is one of Bono's best vocals, In God's Country is one of Edge's best riffs, Trip Through Your Wires hinted at where they were headed on Rattle And Hum, and One Tree Hill really resonated with me while dealing with the first major loss in my life and exploring my spiritual side for the first time.
Maybe it was just a matter of timing. The album came out when I was still a kid but had some freedom, and became one of those "soundtracks of your life" records.
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msommer
Footballguy
Bullet the Blue Sky, In God's Country and the haunting One Tree Hill deserves much more air time and ear time. IIRC One Tree Hill is Bonos farewell to a friend that died early, whether from drugs I don't remember. I remember this album for the Edge really expanding the sound of his guitar, from the style prevalent on Bad and Pride, to something much more melodic and ethereal, but also dark, distorted, aggressive as in Bullet the Blue Sky, and for Adam Clayton perhaps getting a bit more prominent in the soundscape at times
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Dr. Octopus
Footballguy
I like the Joshua Tree but think it’s extremely over-rated. The Edge’s one note guitar playing just adds nothing to the music experience.
i feel the same about the band generally. I like U2, own a few records, but I think they are over-rated as well. Good band, and due to longevity they have a lot of good to great songs but I’m just not ready to list them as an all-time great.
i feel the same about the band generally. I like U2, own a few records, but I think they are over-rated as well. Good band, and due to longevity they have a lot of good to great songs but I’m just not ready to list them as an all-time great.
zamboni
Footballguy
Circa 1987, I was pretty tired of U2 between MTV's non-stop playing of the "Sunday Bloody Sunday" video at Red Rocks along with Bono's omnipresent political involvement. So I didn't really get into this album. Years later, I find that it is a really solid, well-constructed album by a talented band, but another one that probably gets more credit than it warrants by being a critical darling.
My U2 interest kind of came and went in the early '80s with Boy/October/War, and at this stage likely won't change.
My U2 interest kind of came and went in the early '80s with Boy/October/War, and at this stage likely won't change.
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Koya
Footballguy
If you ever have the chance, play the album from the start just as you enter Joshua Tree national park... the songs take on additional meaning as you traverse through the unique desert landscape where indeed, the streets have no name.
One of the more cool experiences I've had.
One of the more cool experiences I've had.
Ghost Rider
Footballguy
Great record, and a classic for a reason. The three big singles were all great, and then songs like Bullet the Blue Sky and Running to Stand Still are among their best ever as well.
It's not their best album - that honor goes to Achtung Baby - but it is probably their most classic.
It's not their best album - that honor goes to Achtung Baby - but it is probably their most classic.
Raging weasel
Footballguy
Great album by a great band and one you can just put on and play all the way thru.
Andy Dufresne
Footballguy
Bullet The Blue Sky is almost unlistenable, but the rest is awesome.
Stuart Ullman
Footballguy
But I stilllll haven't found what I'm looking for...
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This is kind of where I'm at. Joshua Tree-some of it at least-was so quickly and incredibly played out that I tired of it very quickly.
I like October the best, Boy as well, but I'd put Achtung Baby second for me. My favorite U2 song is "I threw a Brick through a Window" from October. But I really like Achtung Baby too, lot of good stuff on that and I used to play it regularly.
I saw U2 at Shea's theater in Buffalo, sometime around 80-81 I think, shortly after first (few?) albums but before they became big. They were fantastic and that's probably the single concert I've seen that sticks in my mind. Likely a big part of that was the venue, as it was a smaller, intimate place to see a concert.
Brony
Footballguy
Joshua Tree is one of a handful of albums (cassette in this case) that I bought day one without a preview of what was on it. No ragrets.
Joshua Tree and Unforgettable Fire are probably 1 and 2 for me among the U2 catalog which says more about my age than the quality of the music.
Joshua Tree and Unforgettable Fire are probably 1 and 2 for me among the U2 catalog which says more about my age than the quality of the music.
timschochet
Footballguy
Styx- The Grand Illusion and Pieces Of Eight
The Grand Illusion (1977)
The Grand Illusion
Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)
Superstars
Come Sail Away
Miss America
Man in the Wilderness
Castle Walls
Grand Finale
Pieces Of Eight (1978)
The Great White Hope
I’m OK
Sing For the Day
The Message
Lords Of the Ring
Blue Collar Man
Queen Of Spades
Renegade
Pieces Of Eight
Aku Aku
According to a book I read recently, Tommy Shaw admitted that they couldn’t get any songs on the radio, and they finally broke through with “Come Sail Away” after they gave baggies filled with cocaine to any DJ that would put it on. Who knows? In any case, these two albums showcase the band at its prime, but they also predict what would eventually lead to its demise, with Dennis De Young insisting on sappy ballads like “Sing For the Day” and Tommy Shaw wanting harder rock like “Blue Collar Man” and “Renegade”. “Come Sail Away” is such a late 70s epic, evoking for me early memories of Star Wars and the “Asteroids” arcade game. That was the time.
The Grand Illusion (1977)
The Grand Illusion
Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)
Superstars
Come Sail Away
Miss America
Man in the Wilderness
Castle Walls
Grand Finale
Pieces Of Eight (1978)
The Great White Hope
I’m OK
Sing For the Day
The Message
Lords Of the Ring
Blue Collar Man
Queen Of Spades
Renegade
Pieces Of Eight
Aku Aku
According to a book I read recently, Tommy Shaw admitted that they couldn’t get any songs on the radio, and they finally broke through with “Come Sail Away” after they gave baggies filled with cocaine to any DJ that would put it on. Who knows? In any case, these two albums showcase the band at its prime, but they also predict what would eventually lead to its demise, with Dennis De Young insisting on sappy ballads like “Sing For the Day” and Tommy Shaw wanting harder rock like “Blue Collar Man” and “Renegade”. “Come Sail Away” is such a late 70s epic, evoking for me early memories of Star Wars and the “Asteroids” arcade game. That was the time.
HellToupee
Footballguy
Dr. Octopus
Footballguy
Meh
zamboni
Footballguy
A bit surprised you put not one, but two, Styx albums. I like some of their older stuff, but I think that even with Grand Illusion (their best IMO) is somewhat uneven.
FWIW, none of my favorite Styx songs come from these two albums:
"Crystal Ball"
"Suite Madame Blue"
"Miss America"
"Boat On The River"
FWIW, none of my favorite Styx songs come from these two albums:
"Crystal Ball"
"Suite Madame Blue"
"Miss America"
"Boat On The River"
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Dr. Octopus
Footballguy
It took me an embarrassingly long time to pick up the whole Alien Spaceship part of the song.
zoonation
Footballguy
The opening 3 song salvo of the Joshua Tree is arguably the best ever (arguably). Those songs could be released today and would sounds as rich and as fresh as they did 31 years ago. The sonics are insane. The vocals soaring. Unbelievable tracks that, for good reason were overkilled on the radio and are now a ubiquitous part of the modern music tapestry. The rest of the Album is super solid as well. Truly one of the great records of all-time.
Parrothead
Footballguy
The Grand Illusion was the anthem of my junior high summers... Liked Paradise Theater better than POE..
Was big into Styx as a kid but was turned off for good when I saw them in concert at The Aud back in '83. Was my first concert and I was all hyped for a good time and then...Kilroy Was Here happened. What a load of dreck. :X The album wasnt good to begin with but that concert sucked donkey nutz on an epic level. Pure schmaltz! Havent listened to Styx the same way since and have basically written them off and turn the station quick when they come on.
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