What Are You Listening To?

[CRAZY-HORSE]

ELVIS COSTELLO  "kojak variety" cd, 1995

his seventeenth of thirty-one...
i own twenty plus a couple of compilations...
a covers set...
from Dylan thru Motown, country, '50s rock, jazz and blues...
was know the original artists for the most part but am only aware of a handful of the fifteen tracks on offer...
nothing bad on here, in fact i love most of it.
album stalled in the 20's on the UK chart and barely scratched the US market...
I LOVE THIS ALBUM

favorite:
not familiar with the 'country' original but im sure MH would be:

---

unfortunate not to get my 'favorite track' but i still love this old R+B tune ive never heard of by an artist i cant ever recall hearing.

[CRAZY-HORSE]

JOHN LENNON & YOKO ONO "double fantasy" vinyl/cd 1980

seventh proper album...
after a five year hiatus Lennon picked up his pen and paper once again after supposedly feeling inspired by two songs he heard on the radio: "coming up" (paul mccartney) and "rock lobster" (b-52s)...
on the B-52s he is on record as saying 'the world has caught up with Yoko's music'...
anyway on with the album...
fourteen tracks, seven for John and seven for Yoko...
the main theme is love, rekindling their marriage, love for their child, fear of losing eachother again etc..
so it is very clever, John will sing a song from his point of view then Yoko sings (yes, sings!) a song with the same theme but from her female point of view and so on through the album. and its only over the last couple of years that ive really come to terms with her material on this record, her singing ranges from the B-52s  thru Toyah/Bow Bow Wow and obviously Bjork...
ive always thought Johns tracks on here were the equal to anything he had recorded previously but understanding and getting the whole Yoko part i have a new found respect and love for this one
album ultimately sold around 12.5 million copies making it his biggest selling album.
album was released in mid November 1980 and we all know the sad and violent events that transpired just three weeks later.....
I LOVE THIS ALBUM

lets post this one:






Here in some stranger's room
Late in the afternoon
What am I doing here at all?
Ain't no doubt about it
I'm losing you
I'm losing you

Somehow the wires have crossed
Communication's lost
Can't even get you on the telephone
Just got to shout about it
I'm losing you
I'm losing you

Well, here in the valley of indecision
I don't know what to do
I feel you slipping away
I feel you slipping away
I'm losing you
I'm losing you

Well, now, you say you're not getting enough
But I remind you of all that bad, bad, bad stuff
So what the hell am I supposed to do?
Just put a band-aid on it?
And stop the bleeding now
Stop the bleeding now

I'm losing you
I'm losing you

Well, well, well, I know I hurt you then
But hell, that was way back when
Well, do you still have to carry that cross?
Don't want to hear about it
I'm losing you
I'm losing you

[CRAZY-HORSE]

JOHN LENNON & YOKO ONO  "milk and honey"  cd,  1984.

his eighth proper album, eleventh overall..
tracks written and recorded during the same sessions as Double Fantasy in 79-80...
Yoko tidied them up in late '83 and released them the following year...
twelve tracks, six each...
love four of Johns, liking the remaining two and dislike everything of Yoko's which is a shame as she showed some promise on the previous album...
album sold less than a quarter of Double Fantasy's figures clocking in sales of just under 3 million...
does contain one of his best singles in "nobody told me" which incidently was originally written and demo'd for Ringo but with his death etc it never happened...
his tracks do show that he still had what it took to be a major recording star but alas we will never know what could have been...
I LIKE THIS ALBUM

best track:






Three, four!


Everybody's talking and no one says a word
Everybody's making love and no one really cares
There's Nazis in the bathroom just below the stairs.

Always something happening and nothing going on
There's always something cooking and nothing in the pot
They're starving back in China so finish what you got.

Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed -- strange days indeed.

Everybody's runnin' and no one makes a move
Everyone's a winner and nothing left to lose
There's a little yellow idol to the north of Katmandu.

Everybody's flying and no one leaves the ground
Everybody's crying and no one makes a sound
There's a place for us in the movies you just gotta lay around.

Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed -- most peculiar, mama.

Everybody's smoking and no one's getting high
Everybody's flying and never touch the sky
There's a UFO over New York and I ain't too surprised.

Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed -- most peculiar, mama, roll!

[Ruby]

Steely Dan - The Royal Scam (which seems fitting at this moment!) - always an engaging listen. 

 

[Ruby]

A live album Shadows and Light - Joni Mitchell. 




Several pithy YouTube comments on this one! - "I'm surprised the stage didn't collapse from the substantial weight of talent assembled there. Incredible players."  The players aside from Joni being Jaco Pastorius, Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays, Michael Brecker and Don Alias.

And another comment that is just brilliant IMHO - "The great thing about this phase of Joni Mitchell's career is that she dragged all the barefoot children of the folk era kicking and screaming into her brilliant evocation of jazz and poetry.  In so doing, she created a genre of music that has never since been attempted much less duplicated.  The whole thing was so colossally subtle that no one noticed it was happening.  If Paul Simon or Peter Gabriel had the musical acumen to pull off such a majestic musical coup, they would have been lauded for it for decades to come.  Since it was Joni, the  revolution was silent, subtle, and so completely innovative as to go unnoticed--like a dog whistle  blown for an audience of deaf people.  I defy any of the current crop of geniuses to make music like this, to write poetry like this, and to do it with such low key humility and flair.  Revisiting this event after so many decades, I'm in awe all over again."

I read an article recently on book publishing and a new app called Blinkist which basically condenses books into 'insights' that you can read or listen to in 15 minutes because hardly anyone seems to have either the attention span or enough time to read books - there is too much other stuff competing for our attention. It's true - there really is, unless you are discerning, and even then it's difficult to get away from the tangled web of Netflix, podcasts, webinars, social media, etc., etc. It's all so insidious. The Blinkist app has been downloaded by 17 million people. The article also opines that are too many books being churned out, and that most of those should have been a 'blink' rather than a book which I can't help thinking applies to the music industry as well - it's all about quantity instead of quality and the machine that churns out crud just keeps rolling on relentlessly. Now where was I going with this (case in point for short attention span! Lol!) - oh yes - this kind of live show might be in danger of extinction. Chatting to a popular SA muso the other day - he's still doing shows but the revenue from those shows accounts for one sixth of his income compared to earnings from merchandise, (and you can sell anything - or rather, people will buy pretty much anything - it's astonishing) whereas before, everyone wanted the live gigs, especially the corporate events, which is where the money is/was. If music is what you do for a living, it's perilous unless you are one step ahead on the business front. I dunno - it's like the slow changes that were happening, and were probably inevitable, have sped up madly. I'm glad there are recordings of shows like these for posterity. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLKb9Ms68ME

[CRAZY-HORSE]

nice clip Ruby.

[CRAZY-HORSE]

CROWDED HOUSE  "time on earth" cd, 2007

a revisit listen....
their fifth of six with a new one on the way in June...
initially meant to be a Finn solo project but the sudden and unexpected death of drummer Paul Hester drew the remaining band members together for obvious reasons...
typical CH sounds here, uptempo music with quite a few solomn, sombre, dour lyrics, again, not unexpected given the circumstances...
was their highest charting album in the uK (peaking at #3), another platinum seller in their homeland and Australia...
if i did a ranking of all their albums this would probably end up in the bottom three but...
I LOVE THIS ALBUM

favorite has a distinct Split Enz feel to it and his tribute to Paul Hester, RIP (the lyrics are quite simple but effective IMO)
love his falsetto in this one also





She called up
And gave me the news
It made me so sad, sad, sad
There was nothing I could do
She's too far away
And you had to leave
I can never repay you now
For what you gave to me....


A whisper that can blow a chasm wide
It took us all
It took us all
Pushed apart the mountains and the tide
It took us all.

She called up
And gave me the news
It made me so sad, sad, sad
There was nothing I could do
I was so lost
In delirious sleep
Wasn't prepared for that position
Yeah maybe I was naïve....

But truth is a mortal blow
You know all there is to know
The hurt that you held so close
There's something better now.

And she called up
And gave me the news
It made me so sad, sad, sad
There was nothing I could do
She's too far away
And you had to leave
I can never repay you now
For what you gave to me...

For what you gave to me
She called up
She called up
She called up
And gave me the news

[Ruby]

A new discovery - Adam Baldych, Vincent Courtois, Rogier Telderman - Clouds. Released in September 2020 - violin, cello and piano. Luverly stuff - crossover jazz/fusion ... 

[CRAZY-HORSE]

DAN FOGELBERG  "captured angel" cd, 1975

soft rock/easy listening time.....
a revisit...
his third...
gorgeous easy listening feelgood album this morning..
almost country sounding in places, folky in others, then add some strings and it sounds similar to Uncle Neil's Harvest...
love just about every track on here, fantastic stuff IMO
I LOVE THIS ALBUM

favourite, the opening track:

[CRAZY-HORSE]

ELTON JOHN "the one"  cd,  1992

his twenty-third studio album....
soft rock here...
a couple of great EJ tunes on here including "simple life" and "the one", 
three or four average tunes and a couple of glorious cringeworthy ones also..
so, an inconsistent album overall but still passable.
I LIKE THIS ALBUM

favourite:






There's a breakdown on the runway
And the timeless flights are gone
I'm a year ahead of myself these days
And I'm locomotive strong
My city spread like cannon fire
In a yellow nervous state
I can't cut the ties that bind me
To horoscopes and fate.

And I won't break, and I won't bend
But someday soon we'll sail away
To innocence and the bitter end
And I won't break, and I won't bend
And with the last breath we ever take
We're gonna get back to the simple life again.

When we break out of this blindfold
I'm gonna take you from this place
Until we're free from this ball and chain
I'm still hard behind the eight
My city beats like hammered steel
On a shallow cruel rock
If we could walk proud after midnight
We'd never have to stop.

And I won't break, and I won't bend
But someday soon we'll sail away
To innocence and the bitter end
And I won't break, and I won't bend
And with the last breath we ever take
We're gonna get back to the simple life again, alright