Speaker 1Hello and welcome to another edition of the Album Years with myself Stephen Wilson and Timothy Bowness. Hello. And Tim so we're back in lockdown in the UK so we've got plenty of time to have a complete nerd off and I'm sure people have been noticing that our podcasts have been getting progressively more sloppy and extended as time's gone on haven't they?
Speaker 2It is true we just can't be bothered to edit I think I keep on telling people normally we speak for about four hours and then we edit it down to a decent album length almost edition but the last few times we've maybe only been editing about half of it we've just been either getting lazy or more comfortable I'm not quite sure which.
Speaker 1So there's a nice parallel here isn't there because we've often said that most of the classic albums are about 40 minutes in length and then as the CD era comes along things become more bloated, more sloppy, less editing, more extended so that's basically the way we're going
Speaker 2isn't it? Yeah and also to mirror this year really because this year's 1974 which is the I think is what I would call peak prog in all respects.
Speaker 1But anyway before we start Tim let's go through as is traditional this part of the show complaints in errata as the person that monitors the feedback what have we got this time?
Speaker 2Well again only one error comes from your side of course and it is very minor, very minor. Okay. A few people very offended Manson fans were saying what return of the Grey Lantern? I think you'll find it's Attack of the Grey Lantern.
Speaker 1And that is a terrible error and and I'll hold my hands up and say yes that yes that that's a terrible error and a great record as well so there's no excuse for getting the name of a great record wrong particularly if the album is called Benefit in your case Tim.
Speaker 2Oh you'll never let me forget that one. Other than that a few people saying well you know I don't know about bonus mentioning Fripp but he's always mentioning Eno. I mean I'm just
Speaker 1looking down your list here 1974 it's a great record. It's a great record. It's going to be difficult it's going to be difficult isn't it to avoid mentioning Eno or Fripp for that matter. Impossible. So let's start 1974 so you kind of already mentioned that 1974 was you said that it was like the peak of progressive rock but was it because progressive rock was kind of beginning to uh beginning to turn a bit wasn't it?
Speaker 2Except I think this is when it was ubiquitous I think that you know you could argue that the underground and progressive it was rising from sort of Sgt Pepper's through to this period and by this period what I mean by peak prog is that almost everybody's doing it you know even the Queen is doing the Changing of the Guard in 7-8 everybody's doing it everybody's doing concept albums country artists like William Nelson and I think in that respect that it's where the underground of the 60s early 70s has become mainstream in a big way and so progressive concert music has become mainstream in a big way and so progressive concert music has become mainstream in a big way and so progressive concept albums and even musical experimentation is very very normal in almost every single genre.
Speaker 1Yes I take your point yeah because I'm looking down the list it's almost like that is evident not from the progressive rock artists themselves but as you say from the artists that have nothing to do on the surface with that genre making more conceptual albums. You pointed out the Nesmith's The Prison album again which is a very weighty you know piece of intellectual conceptual cosmic country we'll come on to that later but so I do take your point yeah but let's start with the actual the mainstream progressive artists themselves because in an interesting year you know not necessarily the best work that some of these these artists produce like Jethro Tull made War Child this year it's a good record but I don't think anyone would call it you know a peak Jethro Tull record then we have Yes making Relayer which is a kind of strong one in their catalogue isn't it it's it's um it's probably almost like the coldest album from this era in the sense it's kind of moving towards a more kind of you know jazz rock very angular jazz rock quite dissonant in places isn't it they do it
Speaker 2very differently though they're obviously taking on board influences from Return to Forever and Mahavishnu Orchestra but they're adding a quintessential yesness to it and then with pieces like Soon there are moments of incredible beauty amidst the dissonance I think it's a great album actually
Speaker 1I like it yeah I do like it it's interesting I remix as I'm sure many people know I remix that kind of sequence of albums starting from the Yes album through to Relayer and you can well I'm talking in terms of just the sonic qualities of the record that the sound of the records become harsher and harsher and without naming any names somebody who was involved in those records I won't say who basically said that the sound of the Yes records basically degraded in direct relation to the amount of cocaine that went up a particular individual's nose and apparently one of the things that cocaine does is it makes you want to hear everything really trebly and really bright and really in your face because you're so kind of hyper a little aside there but the two albums I think we want to talk about here because they're both I suppose more kind of underdog bands in the progressive genre and I'm a big fan of both these records Gentle Giant The Power and The Glory which for me is their masterpiece this this is just for me progressive rock in its in all its glory pardon this is music which is both accessible and incredibly complex and it doesn't forsake one for the other and I think that was the beauty of Gentle Giant one of the one of the things about Gentle Giant influenced bands is they always seem to take the technique and that kind of vertical complexity but they miss out on that kind of charm and that pop sensibility and lest we forget the came originally came out of Simon Dupree and that that kind of very psychedelic pop aspect was always there with them wasn't it beautiful melodies and yeah I think it
Speaker 2probably is their best album because I think that you know what it preceded was leading up to this moment and this is where all of the the skills the melody in the experiment blend effortlessly I mean I've got a lot of time for the two albums that came after this where they were kind of looser slightly more melodic again slightly more accessible so I've always really liked Freehand and Interview but I think this is an exceptional album and I Kerry Muneer, whose voice I always really liked, he has slightly more of a role on this album. And for those who don't know Kerry Muneer's voice, he's got an incredibly pure, almost English choir boy voice. And in a way, it's a bit like Peter Hamill at his prettiest without any of the anger.
Speaker 1Yes. And the song on this record that Kerry pretty much wrote and sang himself, Aspirations, for me is one of my most favourite songs by anyone. And it's a great example of something that actually is very accessible, very beautiful. And it's only when you start to examine the way the rhythmic meters are created that you understand that actually there's a lot of sophistication, a lot of complexity gone into the music as well. This is not simple music, but it has a very, very kind of powerful, simple, affecting emotional quality. So you're not distracted by that complexity. And I think that's something that's so much. You know, clever progressive rock kind of misses that. And Gentle Jack, for me, are the exception that prove the rule. You know, their music is incredibly complicated, but never at the expense of the emotional kick.
Speaker 2Yeah. You know, it's a band who are kind of following their muse. Luckily, I think because of this kind of globalisation of progressive, they're having a great deal of success in Canada and America in particular around this stage. And it is quite fascinating to listen to bands like this who are able to just do what they want. They feel and what they want without interference. And of course, by the end of the decade, that isn't the case, really.
Speaker 1So I think the other album I want to talk about from this year that you've quite rightly put in the progressive rock genre is, I guess, another band, I suppose, that are very interested in this idea of complex rhythmic meters and, you know, that kind of thing, which is Egg and the Civil Service. Now, Egg is a band that only made three albums. And I think in a way, I think if they'd carried on. A little bit longer, made more records, they might be more well known. But I think they get a little bit overlooked, don't they? Yeah. Which is a shame because certainly the Polite Force and the Civil Service, I think for me, are as good as any album made in the name of progressive rock. So predominantly instrumental, nominally associated with the so-called Canterbury School. Dave Stewart, the main keyboard player, obviously was also in Hatfield in the North, National Health. So he's very much associated with that scene. And his keyboards really are the sort of. You know, the hallmark, well, of all of those bands in a way, isn't it? But particularly in Egg, where they didn't have a guitar player. This is just keyboards, bass and drums.
Speaker 2This album's a bit different in the sense that you get the Woodwind quartets as well, which weren't on the earlier Egg albums. And so there's another voice outside of the keyboard. And it's one of the only albums I've heard really complex Woodwind quartet arrangements in terms of rock.
Speaker 1Yes, although I think Dave will tell you the only reason the Woodwind quartets are on there is because they didn't have enough material. Yes. Because this album, just to give a little bit of backstory, I believe I'm right in saying this album was kind of a one-off reformation. The band had actually split up two years prior to this. And this was a chance to basically record a one-off chance. They were given by Virgin, the label, to record. record the material they had not recorded at the time and they had left over except they only had about 30 minutes so they had to sort of pad it out with the woodwinds but those woodwinds to be fair they work really beautifully in context don't they
Speaker 2well it gives it a real quality actually it's one of the things that distinguishes it from the earlier egg albums and yeah as you say it's a bit like the quiet son album which i think came out a year after this the vilman's narrow where it was his pre-roxy music jazz rock band and then getting success with roxy meant that he could finally record all the material he'd written with them which is another great album actually the quiet son album yeah no i
Speaker 1do like that too yeah but how do you i mean how would you describe you know i mean it's it's it's complex isn't it but it's got that real charm to it hasn't it it again it doesn't seem a bit like we were talking the gentle giant it doesn't seem like complexity for the sake of it although clearly they are fascinated by time using different time signatures and that kind of thing but not bashing you over over the head with it i don't feel like sort of being lectured when i'm listening to it to egg i think it's a very enjoyable very very feels like a very organic very natural sound in a way too doesn't
Speaker 2it yeah well i've always loved their use of um female vocal harmonies as well i think which kind of softens the music very haunting quality yeah um and weirdly a bit like with gentle giant there's a very strong bark influence on this i think very specifically in the organ sound so in some ways it's a bit like a more academic version of the nice or emerson lake and palmer could have been had they gone down a different route because essentially it is a kind of power trio with um organ keyboards dominating there's something
Speaker 1about egg that feels quite small and quite homegrown and quite charming in that respect and also they they have i guess they have got that gentle giant thing in the sense also where they can really rock out too some of it's quite aggressive and if you listen to the beginning of a track like enneagram that's a really aggressive opening you know isn't it so they can rock out too but yeah i mean it's it's i guess it's a fairly um uh you know relatively unknown sort of entry in the progressive rock canon from this era i guess people know hatfield the north perhaps more than egg but that's that's a wonderful record the civil surface egg yeah so other big hitters with some big hitters releasing record obviously king crimson released two albums this year and uh i'd like to deny tim the opportunity to mention uh robert fripp at least in this part of the show and uh damn you damn me yes and uh genesis released the
Speaker 2i think it's a magnificent album and one of the things kind of interesting for me that this is peak prog and so you're getting a lot of bands all over the world emulating that progressive ambition that symphonic pretension the conceptual nature but what is kind of interesting to me is that the major players people like genesis jethro tull king crimson yes are actually doing something different i mean genesis i think like hamill and like frip did sense there was a change and in some ways perhaps they were as influenced by you know the art rock and art pop that was around and obviously you know contributes sonically to the limelight down on broadway and you know had worked with robert fripp prior to the red starless period and there's a kind of a an anger and a looseness in red and starless which is kind of ripping apart any progressive cliches and i think it was the limelight down on broadway genesis are experimenting fantastically you know with beautiful pop songs ambient experiments this is not prog by numbers nor is something like yes relayer and you could argue that a lot of the bands that have had success in this period under the progressive banner and they've made very good albums you know the focus albums this year hamburger concerto the camel album mirage they're much more prog by numbers than the heavy hitters in prog who seem to be already searching for something different
Speaker 1so we're gonna we're gonna move on to uh uh you mentioned hamill there who's another person that's kind of ubiquitous on our shows isn't he we're both massive fans aren't we and and you know and he's endlessly discussable as well because he did do so many different things and he seems to span so many different kind of musical approaches and genres and you've this we're working off your list today you've got this this category called mavericks which i think is a really interesting uh way to look at it yeah um and uh peter released two fantastic records this year in camera and silent corner of the empty stage two absolute masterpieces for me both pretty much homegrown records he made them i think in his own home studio on four track or eight track and maybe then took them to a studio later to mix but they still have that very diy aesthetic which is something that is very unusual at the time isn't it i mean we're you know we're operating in a sort of era now where everyone makes records at home yeah but people simply didn't do it in those days did they and yet here he is creating his own studio setup at home sofa sound which enables him to come out with this these kind of records that probably wouldn't have been made otherwise it's probably fair to say that you know no no record company would have bankrolled these kind of records to the extent of putting someone in a big expensive studio no to come out with a track like gog magog in bromine chambers which just this record this track just blows my mind this is like this track is like the sound of a thousand coffin lids opening it's just sends a shiver up my spine well yeah
Speaker 2and i think you know if you want a good example of his imagination let loose i think the opening track to silent corner modern which begins as quite a sort of bitter singer-songwriter piece but then proceeds through about 10 really unexpected movements and it's progressive in the sense that it's incredibly eclectic incredibly experimental but it's very diy it's not necessarily virtuosic but what it is is incredibly surprising and i think that tonally on these albums his use of texture is very unusual and also the
Speaker 1fact he can go from sort of incredibly tender beauty to to you know sort of raging anger almost within the same song it's interesting you mentioned the non-musicianship and i think that's what i love about these records like modern the track you mentioned that starts off with him essentially playing the open strings on an acoustic guitar anyone that's tuned a guitar will know that the open string and then and then using that as a vocal melody and so that's actually someone taking a guitar not even putting their fingers on it just using the open strings as a starting point for this magnificent as you say a track that unfolds in very unexpected very quirky ways yeah well talking
Speaker 2of beauty i was going to say wilhelmina one of the tracks apparently that was written for shirley bassey i've heard or shirley bassey was considering doing a cover version of that and when you listen to it you can almost hear it also you we've
Speaker 1mentioned it twice before so here's your chance to to get some more drinks down you guys uh brian eno made also two records this year two two yeah exactly uh his first two solo albums here come the warm jets taking tiger mountain by strategy they're kind of two sides of the same coin in a way aren't they in fact to the point that i often forget which tracks are on which uh third uncle is on taking tiger mountain i think and yeah baby's on fire is on here comes the warm jets which uh two two of my favorite eno songs both graced with extraordinary uh robert frip guitar solos we're
Speaker 2talking about frip i think one of the things that i've always found interesting is that of course his work with crimson is extraordinary but i've often found that as a collaborator when he's working on instinct he's maybe even better so his work for bowie his work for eno where perhaps he's kind of not engaging his brain as much um he does remarkable things you know he changes the idea of what a rock solo can be whereas obviously within king crimson even on the magnificent red this music is even in the improvised parts it seems quite composed quite cerebral and he seems to be working on his instinct when he's with people like you know when he's with people like bowie talking heads etc and um yeah so i think his contributions are great obviously for you know it's got something in common uh with hamill in that he's not the most gifted of musicians technically he's actually got more ideas than he has technical gifts but then he's playing as i think phil man's narrative with aso one gifted players against primitive players and the fusion of those things is incredibly exciting on these albums i guess with these albums i think this is almost eno making the roxy music albums he thought roxy music should have been making because in some respects they're coming out of that melting pot of influences that you hear on the first two roxy albums and it's almost like he's carrying on the early roxy torch perhaps more than roxy although i think you know country music which was the roxy music album in 74 is sorry uh country oh that was going to be a
Speaker 1shocking error i was hoping you were going to let that one go but you've corrected yourself well i have to say
Speaker 2you've already made you've made one error which i haven't corrected so far yeah i've not corrected it go correct it country
Speaker 1life yeah what was
Speaker 2the era i made 1974 yeah um silent corner of the empty stage i think so also
Speaker 1this year we have a i think a bona fide masterpiece in in robert wyatt's first uh well i should say first solo record after his accident you know i think he made an album called the end of an ear prior to this pretty much more as in his role as a drummer and a musician but he's now paralyzed and he's come back with his first i guess what you might call more traditional singer songwriter album rock bottom this year except it's not is it it's not traditional it's not a traditional singer songwriter album in any respect is it this is an album which really redefines the notions of what a singer songwriter album could be um and And it's an interesting, it's a very interesting group of musicians. He's got Nick Mason from Pink Floyd Producing. He's got people like Ivor Cutler, Mike Oldfield, Hugh Hopper from Soft Machine. Basically, essentially working with what I imagine was a very close-knit group of friends or people that he felt comfortable to work with and creating this, I mean, I listened again to it last night, that sequence, the opening side two sequence of Alphib and Alfie where he's basically, I mean, that's the sort of thing that could go horribly wrong, isn't it? He's basically vocalising like a baby, isn't it? I mean, speaking nursery rhyme lyrics as a kind of what appears to be a love song to his partner.
Speaker 2It's very brave. And as you say, I think that it is a kind of a song of dependency because I guess that after the accident, he was rendered almost childlike and dependent upon the help of others. And so, yes, it's gibberish, but incredibly affecting gibberish. And this is now. I remember hearing it described as strangely beautiful and beautifully strange. And in some ways, I can't think of a better description.
Speaker 1I mean, rock bottom, as I say, has got that sense of almost regressing to, you know, not even childhood, to babyhood. You know, he's on that on that track that I just mentioned. He's just making baby noises and he's he's calling, you know, he's changing the word. So he's calling his lover a larder. You're my larder. You know, the sort of thing that my kids do, you know, sort of doing silly things with language. And getting words wrong and sort of laughing at it. But at the same time, it feels like there's something incredibly sad about it, isn't there? There's a sense of desolation that I guess he must have felt after he was paralyzed. So there's this kind of channeling almost, as you say, this feeling of being incredibly dependent, suddenly losing all of all of his independencies, all of his independencies that he was used to and some of his faculties that he was used to, like being able to walk and bathe himself and go to the bathroom.
Speaker 2He was a great drummer, you know, he was a great drummer. He was a wonderful drummer.
Speaker 1Absolutely. And he's lost all that. But somehow out of this, he's managed to reinvent himself as arguably something even greater. And in a way, this is what I think this is the kind of beginning of what people think of now when they think of Robert Wyatt, isn't it? That kind of that keyboard sound is kind of his hallmark, isn't it? That kind of wavering, sort of queasy keyboard sound. That's the basis of all of these songs. That's his trademark.
Speaker 2Well, that is the thing, isn't it? Because, you know, you listen to a lot of keyboards on albums from this period and you can recognize them instantly. I cannot recognize what Wyatt's playing. I can't. And I don't know whether it's because he's using particularly obscure models or he's processing that sound in such an unusual way, but it's so distinctive and it's a combination of his use of chords and harmony and the sound. And there's a real tension because, as you say, there's a gorgeous melancholy that runs throughout the album. But there's also a tension that rises and reaches a climax on the final piece where you have Ivor Cutler and Mike Oldfield join in and he always manages, I guess this is the thing. There's a lot to say about Egg as well, why it has a smallness. There's a Canterbury quality, there's a Canterbury intimacy that you hear in the music of Early Soft Machine and Caravan that's also in Egg that still makes its way into Rock Bottom. And he undercuts the seriousness and the tension with Ivor Cutler reciting an absurd poem. And this is while Mike Oldfield is maybe delivering the solo of his life underneath it.
Speaker 1Yes, I think you're right. It's definitely that sense of undercutting what could become bathos or very pretentious. And it never feels like it tips over into that, does it? Also this year in Mavericks, you've got another great Kevin Coyne album, Blame It On The Night, and another Kevin, Kevin Ayres, again associated with the Canterbury Soft Machine axis, Confessions of Dr. Dream, which is a- Produced by Rupert Hine. Produced by Rupert Hine, who I'm looking forward to discussing when we get to the particular relevant years, discussing some of Rupert's solo albums. Some of his other albums from the early '80s, which I know we're both big fans of. So let's. Interesting, again, you mentioned at the top of the episode about how this idea of progressive rock or conceptual conceit is kind of seeping its way into all sort of corners of the music world here. Perhaps the least likely, in a sense, to have picked up on that is the world of American country music. And yet this year we have at least two of these, Michael Nesmith's The Prison and Willie Wilson's Prison Stages, are clearly records that have a kind of conceptual kind of continuum to them as albums, you know, they're definitely trying to, you know, tap into that approach. Let's talk about the Michael Nesmith album, The Prison. I mean, this is, I mean, is it a country album? I guess he's kind of vaguely associated with the country genre, but this is not really country music, is it, The Prison?
Speaker 2I'm not sure it is, to be honest. I think that, you know, we have this thing, don't we, that when you're established in a genre. it defines you to an extent. So Manson, to all intents and purposes, produced a prog rock album in six, but they've already been cast as indie or Britpop. And we found this with you to an extent that because you've been associated with progressive and rock, whatever you do, sometimes is seen as that. And I think that with Nesmith through the years, he's become known as a country singer
Speaker 1songwriter. It's almost like, I think if it is country, it's very cosmic country, isn't it? Because there's this constant sense of. Yeah. Of these very, very rich keyboard textures. I think there's a lot of string synthesizer on this record, isn't there? And I think also some real strings in places, but all underpinned by the acoustic 12 string and acoustic guitar and these gorgeous, gorgeous, like haunting melodies. Yeah. Well, isn't this kind of
Speaker 2tied in with the book as
Speaker 1well? I guess, yeah, you're supposed to, I think you're supposed to be able to read the story in real time as you listen to the album, which I think is about 40, 48 minutes long. So. So basically read the story as you listen to the music.
Speaker 2I mean, it is as much a soundtrack as it is an album in some ways.
Speaker 1It's very, it's very gloopy and rich in the way it's arranged. It sounds very lush. It's almost like you can just sort of bathe in the sound of this record. It's almost proto ambient in that sense, is that you can just lose yourself in this glorious kind of texture of sound and his voice, his voice of course is beautiful too.
Speaker 2Well, the only other thing I can kind of tie into, because you're right, I think in some ways it does have a proto ambience. It's coming from a very different direction and it reminds me a little bit of Beaver and Crouse in that respect as well, that they're creating ambient albums before the term is
Speaker 1even coined. Let's, I want to talk about what I think for me is one of the great masterpieces from 1974, which also falls very loosely into this category, which is Jean Clark's No Other. And this is an album obviously that has, it has a strong element of country music, but it's not country music. I mean, Jean Clark famously was in the birds, but arrived at a point. Where he was making music that was clearly influenced by the American country tradition. And this album really stands alone in the sense, even in his own catalog, I mean, he never really followed it up. I don't think it was very successful at the time. It's one of those albums, I guess, and in that respect, it has something in common with the Nick Drake catalog that has been constantly rediscovered and reappraised in the decades since it was made and is now quite rightly held up as an absolute masterpiece. And interesting 4AD reissued this album. The, you know, the. One more hip indie label, uh, alternative indie label reissued this last year. I mean, how to describe No Other, it has a kind of a yearning, melancholy to it. It's almost like this guy has the weight of the world on his shoulders, doesn't he? But the arrangements, um, are just stunning, aren't they? These wall of sound arrangements with this glorious, glorious voice over the top.
Speaker 2Yeah. Well, I think it sort of deserves that cosmic country category that it's placed in and it has something of the sound of Dark Side of the Moon. There are very rich synth additions, the backing singers, the girl backing singers, backing singers. Yeah. There's a gospel element in this as well. It's bringing in quite a number of aspects outside of country. And as you say, there's a yearning melancholy throughout. So I always kind of saw it as being a country tinged Dark Side of the Moon. And one of the only precedents I kind of hear is, um, Poco the year before had done an album called Crazy Eyes. Um, a nine minute title track, which also has a certain kind of Floydian melancholy and
Speaker 1symphonic grandeur. But I mean, there just seems to be such an incredible sense of disappointment and disillusion in his vocal delivery, doesn't there? But he's not, it's not like he's bitter about it. It's just the sadness, if you like, of something unfulfilled or some sense of regret. And I think that's what I feel, you know, when I hear this music. So that, I mean, this is definitely one of my, my no risk discs. I think, I think your analogy with Dark Side of the Moon is a good one. This is almost like the Dark Side of the Moon of, of cosmic country. It feels like it has that sense of scale, doesn't it?
Speaker 2Yes. And, uh, as you say, there's a fragility in the voice, which I think is interesting. You point out the Nick Drake, that one of the things that say Nick Drake, Robert Wyatt, Gene Clark have is a sadness without any kind of bitterness. They're not blaming anybody. There's almost a kind of instinctive reaction to the sadness of their circumstances. Or the sadness of the world. And in the case of Robert Wyatt, as we've said, he undercuts that
Speaker 1often with humour. So let's move on. The next category you have here is R&B. Shuggie Otis' Inspiration Information, one of the great finds for me over the last 10 years. I first discovered this album when there was a Record Store Day edition came out in 2013. And Sly and the Family, Stone's Small Talk. They have a very similar sound to them. And I think Shuggie Otis is very much inspired by the sort of notion of Sly and the Family. So that kind of psychedelic soul funk thing. but i think he made the better record this year and again this is another example of a you know an album that essentially comes from the world of r&b and funk but it's so rich in terms of the kind of musical forces that are being used here there's almost i don't know if you agree it's almost like something that kind of predates kind of slick west coast accessibility of something like fleetwood back's rumors on an album like inspiration information the use of orchestral to the very west very kind of laid back very accessible great hooks yeah no i
Speaker 2mean i i agree with you i think it's a it's a strong album it's one i kind of discovered over the last 10 years as well i think partly because david byrne had been raving about it on one level you can understand why people think that this is the missing masterpiece a work of genius that should have been more celebrated on another level you think well actually it's just a great concept yeah i mean i think it's a great concept yeah i mean i think it's a great concept i think it's a great concept yeah i think it's a great concept yeah i think it's a great concept yeah i mean as you say that was one of the
Speaker 1yeah i mean as you say that was one of the reasons i kind of put these together i felt reasons i kind of put these together i felt felt that use of drum machine also the use of organ textures and the kind of the voice i think also is quite similar that kind of sweetness that sly stone has when he wants to sing in that way is all over small talk and that's that's the kind of shuggy otis approach too he was 21 when he made this album and this is his second album it's just unbelievable i also hear a lot of what you know we might associate say 10 years later with what prince was going to do yeah that kind of fusion of pop melody psychedelia funk and soul and great hooks as well i mean out of my head it's just such a catchy earworm i do wonder if maybe this record had come out a couple of years later it might have even sort of caught on with that that kind of market and done better than it did at the time i think it's one of
Speaker 2those albums that could have been released maybe two or three years earlier or two or three years later and had more impact than it did because you know one of the things i was thinking about 1974 is when we picked on the year if we wanted to we could probably do an entire series on 1974 because it was so fascinating for so many of the genres and this is a great example of an album you know you were talking earlier about gentle giant and egg being accessible yet inventive and this is effortlessly accessible and sweet and yet it doesn't flinch on experiment as you say there's a kind of psychedelic curiosity running through it and in the use of drum machines although sly stone had used this it was not commonplace in 1974 on an r&b album right yeah
Speaker 1so it's got that kind of intimacy too hasn't it i mean to me to me this is like you know this is up there with what's going on for me i just think this is just such and it's a record that i think anyone you know if we're going to pick a no risk disc actually well i would say the gene clark gene clark no other this for me would be the other no risk disc that perhaps people don't know that you almost can't fail to like so that would be my pick from the r&b category also this year we have stevie wonder's fulfillingness first finale which is you know part of a string of wonderful records that he was in the process of creating uh in the early 70s an album i don't know that you put on the list gil scott heron's winter in america i mean i think of gil scott heron as you know more of a poet than a songwriter but what is this one like well this
Speaker 2one's really interesting it's his transitional album really because his first album is the poetry set to rhythms revolution will not be televised style approach but he was working with a jazz musician brian jackson and the material was becoming increasingly melodic and jazz influence and winter in america is mostly a really intimate very beautiful ballad album so lots of fender roads bits of flute gil scott heron's remarkably rich voice so i i take
Speaker 1it that winter in america is a metaphor then this this is about the the hard times in america essentially right it is to
Speaker 2an extent and specifically i think the hard times experienced by black people in america and um the track winter america doesn't appear until the next year on his follow-up and that is a gorgeous piece it's maybe you know one of the strongest things he ever did okay it sounds like
Speaker 1it's a very topical record then uh given what's going on in the world right now so um the next category you have is post psychedelic rock um and you've used this as a category for some some bands i really love man uh rhinos winos and lunatics hawkwind hall of the mountain grill but you've also got zapper and and beef heart in here um and i think it's a really good album and i think it's um zapper made obviously classic apostrophe album this year beef heart made a couple of albums that are very often sort of dismissed as being his sort of sellout records but i i really like these records unconditionally guaranteed and blue jeans and moonbeams and there's no doubt that he was kind of forced to compromise a little bit on these records but i think in some senses it worked didn't it i mean the these these records have got some lovely songs on them i've never understood
Speaker 2the hatred for these albums um and they're great showcases for his voice and he's much more tender you know he's much more in the role here of a kind of a blues rock statesman but there are some beautiful melodies really nice feel in the music it's just not as jagged complex eccentric as what he's done but he's still a brilliant singer with in my opinion a very sensitive
Speaker 1backing band yeah i mean it's a world away from trout moss replica isn't it this i mean these these are very conventional sort of pop songs there is that sense that he's got a lot of that he can do something which for him is comparatively middle of the road but it still sounds very much a part of his universe and his whole well this is in some ways there should have
Speaker 2been bigger successes because they're very accessible albums with a certain tenderness and you know had they maybe hit in the way that bands like little feet did he might have had another an alternative career and i think it's because they were critically lambasted and because they perhaps didn't sell as well as he wanted them to that they were later dismissed as um poor efforts but perhaps this
Speaker 1comes back to what you're saying in a sense you were talking about you know artists being defined very early on in their career and not really being permitted to to you know to break the pattern and maybe this is the case with him too that people thought of him as this kind of freak that created that had created trout moss replica and lick my decals off baby and what's he doing making relatively conventional you know tin pan alley pop music it never mind the fact it's actually very high quality uh and very good you know uh so it's almost like not being allowed out of that box you know it's a problem we see time and time and time again isn't it really yeah
Speaker 2and i think the thing is with beefheart that he clearly came from those reference points you know that you can hear his love of r&b his love of the bluesman his love of pop songs you know it was always in the mix so i don't think he was compromising in the slightest so
Speaker 1then we have the the mighty hawkwind uh one of their classic albums for me hall of the mountain grill some of my favorite songs on this record psychedelic warlord uh wind of change d rider paradox you better believe it just a an absolute classic hawkwind album and an album that they were very closely uh sort of uh you know affiliated with man also making one of their great records i think this year rhinos winos and lunatics produced by uh roy thomas baker probably one of their most professional sounding records not that their other records didn't sound good but this i think this is a more slightly more streamlined record where the melodies really come to the fore are you a fan of either of these records tim
Speaker 2sort of yeah i mean hollow mountain grill it's where they're sort of using a lot more melatron isn't it this is as well you know we're talking about peak prog i think that prog kind of infected the hawkwind sound around the mid 70s particularly the album that's going to follow this but you know there's a very strong progressive element to it and man yeah i've always had time for i don't know them as well as i should but whenever i have heard them i've always been quite surprised because there is a really nice feel in the music and they're a lot more serious than perhaps the reputation suggests well i think
Speaker 1they you know a lot of people have kind of referred to them in a way as the british grateful dead in the sense they had kind of jam band mentality uh long before that was a thing but i think they were they were a lot more uh flexible than that would suggest and sorry to grateful dead fans i i think you know i like the grateful dead by the way but i think man were were a little bit more than just the equivalent go and listen to a song called california silks and satins off this is the most beautiful i mean the vocal arrangements the the sound of the guitar the arrangement it's very lush uh you know it's much more sophisticated i would say than anything that a jam band would normally be expected to do but but i'd
Speaker 2say the same with grateful dead in the sense that blues for alec isn't jam band music it's very complex very interesting and terrapin station's got some
Speaker 1wonderful stuff on it let's move on to to your next category which is jazz and jazz rock i think it's fair to say that that jazz rock um was really a peak for the first five years of the 70s wasn't it but there's still some amazing jazz rock being made uh in 1974 isn't there and this is i guess this is another album you've got top of the list here which is pretty underrated even in their own catalog mahavishnu orchestra with the london symphony orchestra's apocalypse album produced by george martin the idea of taking the furious jazz rock of the mahavishnu orchestra and fusing it with orchestral arrangements obviously didn't resonate with everyone i absolutely love this record i don't know about you tim
Speaker 2yeah it's always one of my favorites if not my favorite mahavishnu and i think you're right that maybe because people saw that they neutered the you know there's early albums you can really hear the influence on progressive music you know as much as progressive music is influencing jazz fusion jazz fusion is influencing progressive music so in relayer you can hear the influence of early maha vishnu in what crimson were doing in 73 74 there's a strong maha vishnu influence but you could argue that maha vishnu in turn are being influenced by the gigantic conceits of prog rock and uh and i rather like this yeah i think
Speaker 1it's an absolutely gorgeous record i mean i think there is still some fury on the record uh but certainly it's not the fury that you get from in a mountain flame or birds of fire it's not the fury of a live band with that incredible sense of abandon and momentum it is more considered of course it had to be in order to incorporate the orchestral uh elements but i still think it's a it's a pretty you know fiery record talking of which um the complete opposite end of the spectrum we have miles davis releasing get up with it this year which is um it's one of those albums that's so badly recorded it's become part of the texture of the music the kind of sludginess of this record and you think of songs you know there's a track on this record called rated x which arguably is the most dissonant and violent pieces of music ever made in the name of jazz i don't know if you agree with
Speaker 2me on that tim oh yes i mean for me that has got the furious something at vandergraf and it's also got the dissonance of something like vandergraf rated x and and it's an extraordinary mix as well because as you say it's totally dense and then all of a sudden the band will disappear and you just have that
Speaker 1organ dissonance yeah miles leaning on his literally leaning across the keys of his organ to create or
Speaker 2just sitting on it sitting on his organ creating the dissonance
Speaker 1there's a lot of double entendres uh going on here but but uh yeah i mean literally just the sound of someone sitting on his organ sitting on the organ and creating this massive massive cloud of dissonant notes and as you say i mean it's but the groove as well it's just relentless isn't it relentlessly aggressive relentlessly unforgiving this piece of music oh it's magnificent yeah and the rest of the album is equally fascinating not i don't think all of the pieces are successful some of them are quite tedious i find actually but i love the fact that it is fearless music making and and this is the whole
Speaker 2album is like that isn't it
Speaker 1i mean he loved him madly i've got a real soft spot for this is an era of miles leaning on his organ and creating this massive cloud of dissonant notes and as you can see this is an album of miles that famously was pretty much derided at the time by the critics and the jazz purists because this is way beyond notions of conventional jazz music but i think it's a music that over time was rediscovered particularly by the kind of people who are into electronic music and has been completely reappraised since and has now gone on to be considered one of the classic sort of moments in the miles davis
Speaker 2catalog well you know it remains one of my favorite miles davis albums and partly because of its fearlessness and when it does something conventional so there are times you're always going to be thinking about it and you're almost here lounge funk or lounge jazz but there's always a dissonance in the background or sloppiness in the recording this is quite an unusual record one of the things i never got with people who dismiss this the jazz purists is that miles was selling out because you're not selling out no no no no no textual pieces making the furious dissonance of rated x this is as far from a sellout as you can get um so yeah it's an album i've always kind of enjoyed it because it's maybe that little bit too indulgent that little bit too needing of an edit it's not my favorite miles but it's in that list of favorite miles albums
Speaker 1it's quite runny isn't it we myself and tim like to use the you know the the analogy of something being runny or being solid uh and it's very runny a runny record is one that just becomes you know rather self-indulgent you know i suppose the the archetype of runny album would be the idea of the ambient record where somebody just goes to a synthesizer preset and holds down an e minor for 30 minutes that would be that would be considered extremely runny wouldn't it and then you'd have something like pink moon by nick drake would be solid there's not an ounce there's not an ounce of unnecessary self-indulgence on the record there's this is quite a runny album for miles isn't it there's a lot of things that just go on too long a bit too unwieldy doesn't quite work but it's insane and we applaud it for that and the as you say the notion that he was selling out could not be more absurd
Speaker 2this is it because i think when he returns in the 80s then you get hints of sellout and often quite obvious ones so one of my favorite quotes around this because miles plays a lot of organ on this album as you've said and i think it's one of the later albums it might even be star people and it actually started in the sleeve notes it's no one plays organ like miles davis which is true yes says miles davis let's let's move on from
Speaker 1jazz your next category is art pop some great entries in in the in the art pop uh category this year 10cc sheet music possibly maybe their best album
Speaker 2uh on balance i was thinking that i think it probably is their best album i think that at the time and probably seen afterwards i'd have had more affection for original soundtrack and how dare you but sheet music is the one that i come back to because it has the perfect balance of the invention the pastiche and the truly affecting melodies you know it has old world men and somewhere in hollywood and i think it's a really good album and i think it's a really good album as well as some incredibly playful pieces and that great single the worst band in the world love it yeah yeah yeah certainly one of the pieces that should have been bigger than it was at the time and wall street shuffle is just a fantastic rock single silly love silly love i love that
Speaker 1track also yeah i think you can also tell they still like each other at this point you know and the cracks haven't yet appeared you know so it's
Speaker 2not bloated the thing is this is as ambitious as the two albums or three albums that follow it but it's not quite as bloated and what can we
Speaker 1say about sparks who made according to your list here they made two records this year kimono my house of course which features their their absolute timeless masterpiece this town ain't big enough for the both of us and propaganda i guess would have been towards the end of the year uh which in some ways is kind of like a retread of kimono isn't it a little bit but uh still a great record you know some great singles has that got never turn your back on mother earth
Speaker 2on it i think has it i think it has yeah and i think amateur house in this sort of period as well i mean what can you say inventive band they managed to reinvent themselves in every single decade sometimes several times and they are never less than fascinating lyrically and musically and these two albums obviously they were their third and fourth albums because they've done a couple of albums i think on todd rungren's label prior to this or at least todd rungren had produced them at an earlier date and they they were always interesting and they're kind of an american art pop band with anglophile but they add something to it that none of the british bands do there's something utterly unique in males tone vocally and and if you get into that
Speaker 1world it's a fascinating world to explore isn't it i mean 30 plus albums now and as you say so many different genres and different ways they've reinvented themselves over the years you know the george omaroder album from from a few years later the disco ear album is also a great record isn't it the other albums you've got in this category the electric light orchestra's eldorado i love everything the electric light orchestra did this is no exception great record perhaps not one of their best what you might call a transitional record i love this one i love it weirdly enough it's one of my favorites oh okay no listen i love it too elo just go and get all the records they're all brilliant um but i think rather than focusing on a band that everybody probably knows about already this is an album that probably people wouldn't think about which is the david essex eponymous record which was his second record there's something i listened again to it and i think it's one of the great things about david essex records from this period ultimately is the production yeah jeff wayne's production it's almost proto dub in a way some of these songs i mean obviously rock on is the classic single which wasn't on this album is on the previous album there's lots of attempts to kind of remake that sound um in different contexts on this record but it really works as an album because i think the production is so strong and it's so consistent across the record there is one massive hit on this record of course going to make you a star but that's kind of the outlier on the record isn't it the rest of it seems stardust is on it isn't it stardust is on it too yeah but they're kind of the outliers in the sense that most of the record is trying to tap into that kind of rock on production again which i've been very influenced by interesting very influenced by this production approach on my song eminent sleaze which is also folks the theme song to the album years podcast anyway your experience of david essex tim
Speaker 2well i think in some ways his good looks and his success go against him because it's a really interesting album particularly from a production point of view but also his voice is great it's a really distinctive quite expressive pop rock voice and i think one of the things when i listen to it rock on is a magnificent single and as you say they try that trick on this album maybe half of it tries that but what's interesting about the production this album is it's almost the 80s pre-80s it's trevor sound is processed to some degree every single instrument is in there for a reason you feel that wayne is probably obsessing over every hi-hat sound yes i
Speaker 1think you're right there is definitely a very painterly quality to the production it's as you say it seems like everything has been the possibilities the sonic possibilities of every single sound have been explored uh even if most of them basically end up meaning i'm going to put this through the echo box but she does love the echo box i mean it's on the voice always it's on the drum sound and that's where i kind of get that sense of it almost having an almost dub sort of aspect to the production sometimes plate reverbs and slapback delays on almost every element element in the mix but it works it really works i'm i'm definitely a fan but as i say mainly mainly because of i think jeff wayne's genius yeah and to think that this was a mainstream as you say almost like a equivalent of a boy band you know at the time to be making a record that was so strange sonically i mean the mind mind boggles it reminds me as well
Speaker 2of you know what bowie and roxy were sort of seen as doing at the time which was combining the past with the future if you like because with the slapback echo there's a kind of rock and roll quality it's gene vincent it's elvis presley yes with the albums uh for essex i think that wayne is doing what roxy music and david bowie were also doing which is sort of combining rock's past with something very adventurous that kind of led it towards a future
Speaker 1you yeah absolutely no that's a good call on the yeah the rocker yes the use of the slapback delay of course was was de rigueur for for uh 50s rock and roll records interesting and of course a lot of the sentiment behind the songs you know rock on there's a there's several uses use uses of the phrase rock and roll on this record as well there is a hankering for the past as well as a sort of looking to the future and i think that's true of a lot of music uh around this time isn't it we as you say we've talked about the sort of art rock uh the art rockers who grew up on rock and roll music kind of taking it somewhere new we need to sort of burn through some more records here tim or they will be here all night so a couple of categories left we need to talk about singer songwriter some great records this year from artists that we've talked about a lot on the show already todd rungren's tods van morrison's v and fleece which i see is very much in a way as a kind of three decade trilogy with astral weeks made in the 60s common one made just at the beginning of the 80s and this feels like the third part of that trilogy doesn't it's kind of spiritual
Speaker 2well-known music and it's kind of a kind of you know it's van doing what i love van doing and you're right it fits in between astral weeks and common one it's the one album that just doesn't seem to be beholden to anything other than his the more poetic aspects of his spirit and music it's a lovely album
Speaker 1yeah so it's a lovely so if you've enjoyed if you enjoyed common one which we talked about i think on our very first episode i know a lot of people discovered that album as a consequence of that episode which is very flattering to us the next ones you should look forward to is the one that i'm going to talk about assuming you already know the classic astral weeks v and fleece is very much the the next part of that de facto trilogy if you like at least that's the way me and tim feel uh what else have we got this year elton john's caribou i've always it's a massively underrated album in in elton's category uh i think it unfortunately it was unfortunate it came between the two you know commercial peaks of his 70s career which was um it's a goodbye yellow brick road and the album that came after this which was uh um captain fantastic but i think this album is just the just as good it has one of my favorite elton songs on it called ticking is so stunningly heartbreakingly beautiful and very interesting i noticed elton has got a um a new box set coming out this week i don't know if you saw this team he's got a box set coming out this week and two of the discs in the box set are what he's called um deep cuts they're things that he's personally chosen from his catalog that he feels are often overlooked and i was very very happy to see that he had picked ticking from the caribou album which i think is one of his greatest songs yeah uh roy harper's valentine we talked about roy harper on the show before i don't know
Speaker 2that we have actually i mean this has got some great david bedford arrangements and a few of his prettier songs and valentine essentially is his love songs album i think we did discuss life mask actually and this 12 hours of
Speaker 1sunset what a song yeah i mean this
Speaker 2is the harper that is closest to the love songs of john martin or closest to the feel of nick drake because there are some gorgeous arrangements essentially quite simple songs the likes of forbidden fruits you've got none of his
Speaker 1epics forbidden fruit his his uh his uh almost got him in a lot of trouble that song oh indeed yes yeah so we we best gloss over that yes it was probably i thought it was a good idea at the time yeah so yeah i mean a lovely record as you say almost like the more accessible side of roy if the more unwieldy albums like storm cock and life mask that extended compositions are too much for you then maybe valentine and more accessible side of roy i think that's a good idea i think that's more accessible the songs are short they're essentially love
Speaker 2songs yeah just don't don't read the lyrics to forbidden don't read those forbidden fruit don't think about what it's about
Speaker 1everyone is now going on wikipedia to look up the lyrics don't read the
Speaker 2sleeve notes that he writes about it that incriminates him don't read them
Speaker 1don't read it don't read it everyone's going to read forbidden fruit roy
Speaker 2harper don't listen to it don't read the notes it's
Speaker 1like when somebody says to you if you're a musician and somebody says to you uh oh did you see that review somebody wrote such and such he said no i didn't say oh don't read it don't read it you just know that you're going to have to go and read now uh anyway so listen um so uh richard and linda thompson's i want to see the bright lights tonight one of my favorite songs of the whole great well great valeria valeria great valeria stunning song but the record for me that is the top of the tree this year is an artist that you said you had stopped listening to because you didn't what was it you said you felt he was something along the lines you felt he was acting too much it was all an act so you've you've thrown out all his records tom waits tell me again tim why you don't like tom waits i've got to
Speaker 2remember now what i said um with you said something
Speaker 1like you said something like it made no sense he said something like you feel he's playing a role which is true of almost every musician and every pop star that's ever been
Speaker 2and i might be entirely wrong on this because in truth i don't know his background but but randy newman for example does the same thing but it affects me a lot and i think that's what i'm trying to say i think that's what i'm trying to say i think that's what i'm trying to say i think that's what i'm trying to say i think that's what i'm trying to say i think that's what i'm trying to say i think that's what i'm trying to say i think that's what i'm trying to say i think that's what i'm trying to say i think that's what i'm trying to say soundtrack composer in his own right and he did a concert album this year good old boys which effectively is about people from the south people whose experiences he would not have known about and often it's a very sophisticated view of racial bigotry but also hypocrisy in the way in which the northern american states view the southern american states and so on and i don't know why because yes perhaps there's a hypocrisy here with me because i can take it with randy newman where i think they're brilliantly judged short stories and incredibly affecting and something like marie kills me every time whereas tom waits i just see it as being an actor inhabiting you know kind of charles bakovsky style persona that maybe he's not earned right well
Speaker 1that's dribble absolute dribble but i did let you finish i mean listen i can understand yes there's a lot of bukowski in some ways there's a lot of almost like for me it's like looking at an edward hopper you know painting he's definitely got that kind of barfly late night american diner that's the atmosphere i get from this i love it for that you know this is definitely an album about the small hours it's about about the time of night the ghosts of saturday night the heart of saturday night these two songs stunning but it's also songs diamonds on my windshield i mean i just think he's a genius and observational songwriting and yes you're right there probably is a little bit of affectation to it too but i completely buy it the moment you write a song unless it's purely either autobiographical you are you are borrowing you're creating a kind of fictional construct
Speaker 2i agree and um obviously the thing is that when you're often writing that fiction sometimes it can be more emotional you can put yourself more into that story believe that story than sometimes directly autobiographical lyrics so i don't disagree with that heart certainly not for me
Speaker 1one of the preeminent masterpieces of the 70s uh this is a no risk diss for me a few other singer songwriter records that we're going to just mention it joni's caught and spark i think we both agree this is far from our favorite joni album although it's it's obviously part of a string of you know classic albums she created through the 70s uh neil young's on the beach i think ditto really uh we we've given neil young a bit of a rough ride on the show really haven't we because we're both massive fans but every time we've done an episode we've sort of said oh yes and neil young released an album this year uh and it was really good i think i'm waiting for the opportunity to talk about you know one of the albums he's made that is really beloved to me
Speaker 2i mean i love on the beach i think on the beach is a great album but zuma eclipses it yes i i
Speaker 1feel the same yes and in fact there was one album i would have loved to have talked about in 1979 that we managed to forget made that year which was russ uh russ never sleeps which i would have loved to have waxed lyrical about as a masterpiece on the beat it's a great album absolutely a great album let's move on to your last category really which is electronic music and i'm looking down the electronic list and most of these records are also what you might be able to call kraut rock tangerine dreams phaedra i think one of the you know the cornerstones of the whole genre of electronic music periods i mean really just a a genius record that i'm sure most people know if you don't you really should remedy that but but let's talk about maybe some of the the the less obvious records that came out in the electronic genre this year franco battiato's clique i think you say it like that clique franco battiato an italian artist who was obviously massively successful as a mainstream pop star i think probably before and after yeah but he but he has this period in his career doesn't he in the early 70s which he he makes this string of albums which i think he reissued under the name of the experimental years which is not hyperbole these are really really experimental records
Speaker 2aren't they battiato is kind of interesting because when he starts off he's making experimental conceptual albums that seemingly coming out of psychedelic floyd so there's a there's a progressive element to what he's doing but there's also quite a stringent melodramatic quality that's quite bowie-esque
Speaker 1and very very theatrical
Speaker 2yeah and and i think say that Hamill, who was a huge influence on sort of Italiano progressive rock at that period, is also an influence in terms of the theatricality and the extreme emotions. And so his first two albums use a lot of textures as well as a lot of more conventional instruments. And as the 70s go on, he gets even more experimental and is probably listening to Boulez, Stockhausen, and his music becomes very, very far removed from rock or pop of any kind. And after that, suddenly he becomes almost Eurovision friendly pop star. It's a massive shift. So it's an
Speaker 1interesting career. What I love about this record, it seems to have also, it almost plays out like a radio play. I mean, you use the word, I think, theatrical. It feels almost like you're listening to a kind of performance of a play. There's also seems to be a little bit more of an influence from people like Terry Riley on this record. Minimal keyboard patterns, repetition, but there's also sort of freeform saxophone solos. In fact, I could argue it's not really an electronic album at all. It's just a very, very experimental, experimentally minded record, isn't it? But it's fascinating. It's fascinating to listen to these records he made at this point in his career because they really are, they couldn't be further away from what he became.
Speaker 2Well, he was lucky as well. I think 'Fetus' and 'Pollution' were huge albums, partly because remember, you know, Van de Graaff's 'Porn Hearts' was a number one album there for several months, and you were getting albums like 'Ys', 'Il Billetto di Bronzo'. There were some extreme albums that were getting to number one in Italy, and I guess he fitted in there. And yeah, those first two albums are interesting and experimental enough, but what he goes, on to do, and you're right there, I think he does kind of pick up on the American minimalists a lot earlier than many other people. You know, there is that Terry Riley, Philip Glass influence, but then he perhaps goes outside of that. I think by about '78, he's making very odd albums with tones and pianos and so on that, you know, using the piano in extraordinary ways. And yes, then suddenly there's a cutoff point and he's the go-to, M.O.R. Eurovision song composer.
Speaker 1Also this year, so the other German entries, Klaus Schulz, 'Black Dance', I love that record. Edgar Froese from 'Tangerine Dream' made his first solo album, 'Aqua'. And Cluster made a very strange record, 'Zuckerzeit', which was very, very influential, I think, on Brian Eno. Let's get him in again, why not? This is perhaps a slightly less heralded artist from the krautrock scene, certainly in comparison with your 'Craftworks' and your 'Tangerine Dreams' and your 'Faus' and the those kind of people. But Cluster, in their own way, were completely unique. This is a very odd album, isn't it? I mean, this is actually a bit of a departure for them this year. The previous two records were more in the sort of, you know, spacey, cosmiche sort of bracket. But then they come out with this record, which is using these. the title of the album means 'sugar time', quite literally. And there's something very sort of sickly sweet and sugary about the kind of sounds they're using. They're almost deliberately using these kind of slight cheesy kind of M.O.R. library music sounds, but creating this very strange otherworldly music too.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I think it has a very unique place in Cluster's output, because as you say, it's very different from the more experimental early albums, because like 'Craftwork' and 'Tangerine Dream', they started off in a more abstract, dissonant way. And this is a very, very sweet album. I mean, it has elements in a way of elevator music, it reminds me in a way, you know, we were talking about 'M.O.R. specials', how they were influenced by elevator music. There's a kind of elevator music sweetness to this. So it has quite a unique and accessible sound without being particularly cheesy or a sellout. It's a lovely album, and in some ways it kind of sets the template for some of Harmonia's music later, and Rodelius, some of his solo work, which always has this easy, listening meets kraut rock aspect. But they really seem
Speaker 1to have discovered their sound on this record, having dabbled in the sort of world of, you know, cosmiche and space rock. And this is the point at which they've said, no, we're going to do our own thing. And this is the result.
Speaker 2You could argue 'Tangerine Dream' and 'Craftwork' settle on their sound in this year as well, or their approach, you know, with 'Autobahn' and 'Phaedra', you know, the sequences coming into 'Tangerine Dream's' music. And 'Craftwork', one of the things that you said there is quite interesting that in some ways, in being more accessible, it makes the music more alien. And that is also the case with, say, 'Autobahn', where they're consciously bringing in aspects of what they see as American pop, like the Beach Boys. But they do it so strangely, it makes them more otherworldly.
Speaker 1I get that sometimes from even from things like Carpenters and ABBA and a band like Free Design, that it's obviously very, very middle of the road, but there is something also slightly strange about it, which I guess in a way is what I'm responding to. I can't quite articulate what that is, but yes. Well, I think what it is that it's not quite right. It's not quite right. Yeah. Something that is not sweet or accessible in any respect is a French artist, Heldon, made their first album this year, Richard Pienaar's 'Electronic Guerrilla', which is a kind of the sound of sickness, isn't it? Which he's kind of made a career out of this kind of sick, oppressive miasma of dissonant sound. And it's kind of there right from the beginning, isn't it, on this record?
Speaker 2Yeah, I think it is. I mean, I'm afraid we do have to mention Eno and Fripp, though, with Heldon and Pinhaus, because that is where he comes from. And he kind of adds a symphonic, progressive grandeur to electronic music, but in a way that is far from gentle and far from conventionally appealing.
Speaker 1No, I think you're right. I think it's fair to say he took no pussyfooting as his template. Certainly for most of his career. But he does bring in other elements like the use of arpeggiators and synthesizers and repetition and ostinatos, which he plays. And obviously his guitar's tone is very, very influenced by his Royal Highness, Mr. Fripp. In fact, I think on the next album, the opening track is called 'In the Wake of King Fripp', if I remember rightly, which is kind of a bit of a giveaway.
Speaker 2'In the Wake of King Fripp'. And I didn't write that song.
Speaker 1No, you didn't write a song. Okay, Tim, I think that's a good point, Bowie, is barking in the background there. My dog Bowie, I should say. Bowie, shush, daddy's on a podcast. So Tim, let's cut to the chase. Let's pick our favourite album of the year or favourites of the year. And also the album that we think in the long term was perhaps the most influential or significant. This is one I almost find
Speaker 2impossible, really, because there are so many that could be favourite albums or albums that meant a lot to me, you know, when I was younger and still do, and then albums I've discovered subsequently. And I find it very difficult. In terms of influential, I'm going to go for a rather left field one, actually, because I know I could go for 'Autobahn' and 'Tendering Dreams' Phaedra in ushering in that electro pop era of sequences and drum machines and so on. But I'm going to go with Jeff Wayne's production on 'David Essex', because I think that really ushers in Prince to a certain extent, although I'm sure Prince didn't necessarily listen to that album, and Trevor Horn, that kind of 80s obsession with sound processing and instrument placement. It's such an unusual album from a production point of view that I'm going to put 'David Essex' as the futuristic album of 1974.
Speaker 1Okay. Very interesting choice. Okay. And your favourite album? 'Rock Bottom' probably 'Wood Edge' it. I'm just surprised you hesitated because I know how much that album means to you. Yeah, I'm going to go with 'Rock Bottom'. Yeah. Okay, good. All right. Now, so me, oh God, this is tough. I'm looking down this list here. Yeah. So many albums I love. It is tough. It's tough. Yeah. It's tough to pick one. I think I'm going to have to shoot out a few here that I really love and I never get bored of. Peter Hamill's 'In Camera', Gene Clark's 'No Other', Hawkins' 'Hall of the Mountain Grill', Elton John's 'Caribou' I love. Tom Waits' 'The Heart of Saturday Night' might just edge it for me as the album I listened to the most from this year, actually. Tangerine Dream's 'Phaedra'. Yeah, absolutely. Some great records. 'Most Influential', that was a really good call on the Jeff Wayne production on the David Essex. Well, maybe, you know, maybe I would go with the Shuggie Otis record because even though again, I'm like you, I'm not sure if Prince actually listened to it. This is the Prince ingredients. They're all here. This is the kind of Prince recipe, you know, right here. Psychedelia, great pop hooks, great funk grooves, a great voice, great songs, accessibility. It's all here in a way. On this record, I don't know how influential it was because I don't think it was that successful at the time. But I think in many ways it's the album for me, which tells, I mean, when I listen to an artist, for example, contemporary artists like Michael Kiwanuka, I hear exactly what Shuggie Otis was doing in 1974. Well, no, what I'm thinking
Speaker 2is that, you know, like Nick Drake, Shuggie Otis, I think probably is more widely listened to by musicians than he was at the time or in the 80s. And so I think that that influence probably, I don't know. I think that that influence probably is going to be heard in more music now than it was in the 70s, 80s, 90s. And the same goes for people like Nick Drake, who obviously had no real impact in the 70s, 70s but had a massive impact in the 90s and um 21st century and i realized that one of my favorite jazz rock albums was 74 that we've not even discussed which is weather report mysterious traveler which i think is a marvelous record
Speaker 1okay yes good i love the
Speaker 2keyboard textures on that yeah and bowie on diamond dogs i always think it's one of those albums that kind of slips in between the cracks because it's not as well known as young americans but for me it's um a lot more inventive a lot more edgy and a lot more beautiful than young americans which again i think is a great album but diamond dogs definitely edges it for me i'm also i actually
Speaker 1also want to give a shout out to the gentle giant album from this year the power and the glory because i think they're such an underrated band and i think this is for me this is the pinnacle of of their catalog i mean so many great records but something about this record just edges it for me um it has my favorite gentle giant song on it aspiration so definitely a shout out for that one if you are a fan of progressive rock but you've not checked out uh gentle giant which i think is true of a lot of people sadly um they are first division um they are absolutely up there with all of the greats and they deserve to be so uh check that out well i
Speaker 2think that's a point isn't it because i think this year you know if we talk it was a peak prog i think what you get is it was the best of prog it was the worst of prog so you have quite a number of terrible prog by numbers albums in 1974 but you also have bands like gentle giant and genesis in my opinion reaching creative peaks as well so i think it's a great album and i think it's a great album and i think it's a great album and i think it's a great album and i think it's a great album and i think it's a great album you know the pinnacles of their career thank you
Speaker 1very much for listening um if you have enjoyed the podcast please as we always say do do go on and give us a review or make some comments or leave us a rating or if you've just spotted a terribly embarrassing schoolboy error please make us aware of it and we're quite happy to admit our mistakes of which i'm sure there were many more in this episode thank you very much for listening it's goodbye from me and goodbye from
Speaker 2tim bye-bye you
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