Speaker 1hello and welcome back to the album years uh with myself and and tim and we're halfway through 1977. And this is episode three of 1977. Now, obviously, this is a this is a very, very key year for us. Yeah. And as you pointed out at the beginning of episode one, everything seemed to be every genre seemed to be on fire. Looking at this list of albums, how many albums have been important within the genre that they are and are considered classics within the genre? And as you say, across so many genres, I mean, if we if we went, you know, to, you know, maybe a year in the 80s or a year in the 90s, we might find there was a particular genre that was really on fire at that particular time and all the other genres less so. Here, it's like everything, isn't it? Everything's on fire in 1977. So even allowing, as you say, for the kind of nostalgic attachment to the music. And I was nine this year. So I didn't know any of these records at the time. Well, OK, a few. I knew hardly any of these records.
Speaker 2Well, the same here. You know, I was 13 and of course I was learning and some of these artists I knew, but actually a lot of them, I discovered them in the next five years. Really, that was when there was a greater period of musical education. So, yeah, it wasn't like it was hitting me at the time. Of course, there are some exceptions to that. You know, Pink Floyd, they were a band I was aware of and I had Wish You Were Here, which I thought was a magnificent album. But weirdly, I didn't buy Animals. When it came out, I was 13. I didn't know it was released. I didn't buy the music papers.
Speaker 1So one of the genres and one of the and some of the albums that I was very much aware of in 1977, because my parents had these records, was not all of the artists, but certainly the Bee Gees and Donna Summer. My parents loved these records, which were, if you like, the kind of. Poster children for what became known as disco music, Saturday Night Fever, obviously being the soundtrack to the end, of course, is technically some various artists album. But most of the big hits on that record were written by the Bee Gees, if not performed by the Bee Gees and the Donna Summer records from the period. My parents also had records that I remember yesterday. Once upon a time, I remember hearing things that I feel love. And this was a big part of my life being a nine year old. Hearing these records and I still think of them as absolute masterpieces. So disco music, disco, obviously, perhaps has has something in common with progressive rock in the sense that it became very quickly the antichrist in the in the eyes of the of the hipsters and the tastemakers, didn't it? I think in America they had that, you know, disco sucks movement in 1970. 1979, where people were encouraged to bring along their disco records to American football matches to be burned or baseball matches. Yeah, that's pretty extreme that. But in a way, that also indicates how dominant it was in mainstream pop culture for for those few years that people would get so irate about it that they would feel like they had to kick back against it. The Bee Gees, obviously, you know, a band that had been around. For many years or 10 years by the time more than 10 years by the time and, you know, had some pretty lean years where they were struggling to find their direction. And suddenly they find themselves at the cutting edge of this new musical genre, disco music. And in many ways, their records come to define, perhaps along with the early chic records, come to define what we now think of as disco music. I still. I still absolutely love this kind of music. Yes, you can look at it from another direction and say it's a bit kitsch. It's a bit cheesy. Lyrically, it's not the most sophisticated, but there's a sense of joy that comes through this music that I find absolutely irresistible.
Speaker 2What's your. Well, again, I was kind of a fan at the time and I bought a few of the Bee Gees singles. I really liked Donna Summer and I Feel Lovers. It was a remarkable. piece of music. And this was before I'd read that Brian Eno thought it was the future. You know, this was just something that you heard and it was exhilarating and different. And obviously, in retrospect, you hear that it's that kind of electronic innovation that you're hearing in Kraftwerk combined with the New York clubs. It's such a great combination. And I think I was also kind of attracted because we were saying, you know, why wasn't I attracted, let's say, to Slaughter and the Dogs, but I could buy Once Upon a Time by Donna Summer. And again, I think there was a kind of lavish, beautiful ambition. And obviously she did around this time as well, her version of MacArthur Park, which was a song that I'd always loved as one that is in my parents' record collection. I think it was a magnificent piece of work. Anyway, the Richard Harris version, I'm presuming you were aware of it. And the Donna Summer version. Again, I loved these epic disco excursions, which in their own way were like. Kind of adventurous journeys that were, you know, when you say there's progressive rock link, I think the link is probably closer to the electronics of, say, Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk, but also a band like Pink Floyd, where in effect they investigate one or two ideas over a long period of time. And when I'm listening to Donna Summer albums, there's a connection and they're beautiful text is in those records as well.
Speaker 1Well, almost all the Donna Summer records from the period are concept records. Yeah. So you've got the. Four Seasons of Love, which came out in 1976, the year before this, which is four 10 minute pieces, spring, autumn, summer and what's the one I'm missing? Winter. Thank you. Spring, autumn, summer and winter. You've also got albums like I Remember Yesterday, which is a concept record where each track on the record is supposed to be a pastiche of a different decade. So what's fascinating about that is this is why Giorgio Moroder came up with I Feel Love, is they got to the end of the side and they needed something that would represent the future. And they came up with I Feel Love. And you mentioned that Brian Eno considered it to be the future of music. And of course, it's proved to be the case. I mean, in some ways that track, you can trace all of electronic music and all dance music that's come in the wake of that track back to that moment of I Feel Love, the four to the floor, the disco hi hat, the electronic pulse, the simplicity of the melody, but the kind of hookiness of that melody. Sure. And once upon a time. And once upon a time, another double concept record. I mean, very prolific during this period as well. Unbelievable. Made in the same year as I Feel Love. There's actually one track on Once Upon a Time, which kind of is related to I Feel Love, which is a track called Now I Need You. Again, very electronic. But there are other tracks on that record that are pure R&B, pure disco, pure orchestral, Carpenters-esque in a way. A concept record called Once Upon a Time, a fairy tale told through the medium. A medium of disco music and beyond.
Speaker 2But there was always ambition, because obviously, although it's a more organic album, you know, with Love to Love Your Baby, which, again, is an epic piece of work, which builds and builds and builds.
Speaker 1Yeah. I mean, the title track of that record is still one of my touchstones, really, in terms of my musical DNA. It's a track I used to hear my parents playing all the time, a 16 minute long, side long piece, which just took you on a journey. And that's really been the hallmark of. Everything I think I've really responded to, a lot of what I've responded to subsequently. And it's interesting, it's the thing that kind of Dark Side of the Moon, which my dad used to listen to, and Donna Summer, which my mum used to listen to. It's the thing which they had in common, the idea of the album as a continuum, as a musical journey.
Speaker 2Well, I think also, actually, with us, I mean, it's interesting that these were things that, you know, we both. Found separately, we were in different parts of the country. But for me, Donna Summer, Pink Floyd, and I'd say John Barry as well, was a big thing. I think that's possibly for you as well. I think cinematic music, it was odd that we had quite an unusual collection of three influences, in a sense, that defined early adolescence, you know. Yeah, I mean, I was very drawn to these. I mean, my parents weren't necessarily buying the sort of Floyd or Donna Summer, so I had to kind of discover this stuff myself. And the Donna Summer, mainly, it was quite cheap. You're talking cutout bins, but, you know, in a place in Manchester, the Yanks, the famous shop, the cutouts, the Donna Summers would often be quite cheap. And a lot of funk and disco albums would be. So, you know, they were around in the shops, but not necessarily the most expensive albums.
Speaker 1Because I think they were massive sellers. I mean, that's the thing. They were being produced in large quantities, unlike perhaps some of the punk records, which kind of remained, you know, underground. Niche, sold by smaller independent record stores. These were big records. These were records you could buy in Rumbelows, in Woolworths, in Smiths, you know, and they were big. obviously the BG Saturday Night Fever for a long time, I think was the best-selling album of all time. Right. It's been overtaken now. It must still be one of the top 10 best-selling albums of all time. It sold ridiculous amounts, ridiculous amounts. This was as mainstream as it was possible to be. And what's fascinating about Saturday Night Fever is the BGs who wrote most of it, who recorded and sang the biggest hits of all from the soundtrack, How Deep Is Your Love, Stayin' Alive, Night Fever, More Than A Woman, You Should Be Dancing, were a band that had spent the preceding at least five years in the wilderness as a band that had had big success in the late 60s and even a few big hits in the early 70s. I mean, you think of those early hits like Gotta Get A Message, Massachusetts. This band would. They were big, you know. They were seen as the sort of the new Beatles at the time, briefly. And then in the 70s, they kind of disappeared. They stopped having hits. And then suddenly, I mean, there's a little bit of a preamble to this. They had a big hit with Jive talking from the main course record. But suddenly, Saturday Night Fever. And they've completely reinvented themselves, redefined themselves, and they find themselves as the torchbearers for a style of music that actually might. It might have seemed like a bit of a burden a little bit further down the line because they became so identified with disco. Even though they never really did disco music outside of this handful of singles, they became identified so much with the disco movement that they spent the next 10 years going back underground.
Speaker 2But I think it's partly because it was tied in with the image. You know, you were talking earlier about ELO and to a certain extent, they were never really. They were never really considered cutting edge and cool despite some brilliant productions because of the way they looked. And I think it was the same with Bee Gees. Actually, the look was so tied in as well with Saturday Night Fever. The medallions, the hairy chest.
Speaker 1Exactly. The falsetto voices
Speaker 2were very easy to make fun of too. And it also obliterated what they'd done before. Because, you know, I think we were mentioning this earlier that Bee Gees are one of those bands who not even quietly reinvented themselves several times through the years. And I think it's a really good thing. Because, of course, they're history. And did it totally convincingly. You know, from this 60s pop band to this 60s psychedelic band, you know, the likes of Odessa and so on. They took quite a few creative risks and made some really interesting music.
Speaker 1They did. But the one thing that slightly contradicts you there is that Chic also suffered the same backlash. And yet Chic were cool. They did look cool. And, you know, they were very. They were very hip at the time. Not like the Bee Gees. They didn't have the sort of big medallions, hairy chest image. They had a kind of cool image. You know, Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards looked cool. You know, and they had these cool girl singers as well. Sister Sledge and all this that were singing for them. And they also suffered the same backlash. I think that the backlash against disco was extreme because the success was so phenomenal. For a short period of time, disco or kind of taking on. You even hear it. I mean, some of the progressive rock albums we talked about in the last episode. You even hear sometimes influences from disco. It popped up in the strangest places.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, One, for example, is where the two interests collide. John Barry worked with Donna Summer and had disco. That's a cool. The Deep soundtrack. That's a great soundtrack. Really interesting. But again, the soundtrack is very ambitious. Yeah. Some glorious music. But he flirts with disco and. Isn't that 1977 as well? It's 77, yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah. So, I mean, that's a phenomenal album. John Barry's soundtrack to The Deep with Donna Summer singing on it. The whole of the side one sweep, amazing. And the track with Donna Summer is amazing. Yeah, so I think, you know, disco obviously became a victim of its own success. There was this incredible backlash. I think it took years for people like Donna Summer, Chic and the Bee Gees to come out the other way. I think it took years for people like Donna Summer to come out the other way. They did pay the price in a sense for. I mean, let's talk about Chic. Chic's first album this year, they came out of the gate just on fire. I mean, the first couple of singles, Everybody Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance, massive million selling hits. And again, came to define that kind of New York Studio 54 disco sound. Joyous. It's hard, even today, it's hard. I've just had the pleasure of remixing a lot of these records into Atmos. It's hard to hear those. Those records without being swept away in the sense of joy and lust for life. I mean, yes, lyrically, they're a little. You wouldn't want to read them as poetry, you know, but they're just phenomenal pieces of pop in pop in its truest sense. Joyous. Impossible not to like, really. You know, this is one of the things, I mean, you know, how could you not like, how could you not love Stayin' Alive? How could you not love Everybody Dance or La Frida? Freak or Good Times? How could you not love Night Fever? You know, there's something about them. I don't believe anyone that would tell me that they, you know. But I think there's also quite.
Speaker 2I always felt with Chic, there's kind of a slight, kind of minor key, almost jazz sensibility. I don't know what it is. I mean, Good Times, which I absolutely adore. I've always found slightly melancholy. I mean, obviously, they did
Speaker 1have their melancholic moments, A Last I Am Free. Yeah, beautiful song. You know. And Rose Royce.
Speaker 2Rose Royce, I think was.
Speaker 1Love Don't Live Here Anymore. Yeah, yeah. Some amazing pieces. But I mean, the jazz thing obviously was key to Chic. I mean, Niall's favourite musician of all time is McCoy Tyner, who was the pianist in John Coltrane's band. So there's a lot of jazz in Chic. Not so much in the Bee Gees, not so much in Donna Summer, but certainly in Chic, there is that sort of jazz funk aspect going on. It's in the chord voicings, isn't it?
Speaker 2And of course, then you get it in the Sister Slater recordings as well.
Speaker 1Also in the bass. I mean, for me, that's the epitome of jazz funk bass playing, the sort of way Bernard Edwards plays the bass. The kind of popping, the slapping. But yeah, I mean, I think they also had two or three years where they could do no wrong. And the tables turned very, very, very quickly. And they fell out of favour very, very quickly. And of course, Niall reinvented himself as a producer.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. Obviously, Let's Dance Bowie. But what's kind of interesting is you're saying that disco to a certain extent burned out. But some artists did take it on board and quite unexpected artists. So, for example, Drinking Game again, Robert Fripp, Discotronics. Discotronics, yeah. He incorporated, obviously, Blondie, Heart of Glass, their biggest ever success. Yes. Had a strong element of disco. And Talking Heads, you know, were coming out. Although there was an Afrobeat element, they were also coming out of the disco and funk of the New York clubs. And in the early 1980s, they were the band after disco had kind of had its day. To a certain extent, there were aspects of it in the likes of Gang of Four, Talking Heads. Yeah.
Speaker 1And also, I mean, you know, in the 90s, Daft Punk. Yeah. In the 2000s, LCD sound system. I mean, disco is still, you know, I think you can hear disco in almost all modern electronic music.
Speaker 2There's a great conceptual. There's a great conceptual disco album, Love You to Bits. I don't know if you've heard that. It's a classic, that one. A total classic.
Speaker 1Well, it's funny. I mean, that obviously was very much our idea of making a kind of disco symphony in the style of what Donna Summer was doing with Giorgio Moroder in the late 70s, albeit very much our own sound. But the idea of making an extended disco journey. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2It's true. I don't think Donna Summer had quite as much existential angst.
Speaker 1No, and probably not as many A-tone or guitar solos or saxophone solos either. But. But yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think disco music in many ways, you could argue, has been as influential, if not more influential than punk because it is heard in so much contemporary electronic music. Sure. And let's face it, most, you know, mainstream music these days is coming from the world of electronic music. If it's electronic music, I think it owes a debt. I mean, obviously to R&B before it and to soul music and also, but particularly. To disco. I mean, disco was the kind of the style of music that rammed home the idea of the four to the floor bass drum. Yeah. You know, if you listen to those Giorgio Moroder tracks, if you listen to the chic tracks, it's that four to the floor pulse, which is the foundation of so much modern pop and modern electronic music. Bee Gees always were a little bit more sophisticated with their rhythmic. But even then, the Bee Gees, I mean, Staying Alive is one of the first songs to use a drum loop. Right. There's no live drummer on that. It is a drum loop. They wrote and recorded the song over a drum loop. In 1977. The idea of using a drum loop obviously was something that would become de rigueur in the future, but at the time was probably quite unusual. So anyway, you know, we're obviously we're both big fans of disco music. I think, I think the. I think the truth of the matter is that probably like any music that became so successful, there was a lot of also rands and a lot of shit. Yeah. But the good quality stuff, which is the stuff we're talking about, the Bee Gees, the Chic, the Dollars. The Summer, Parliament, the Isley Brothers, these still sound as good. Yeah, and I'd say I'd throw Rose Royce into that as well. Rose Royce, yeah. They still sound as infectious, as appealing and as joyous as they ever did to me, perhaps even more so. Let's talk about this, Tim. This is going to be a controversial one, I think. You've put in here a category, a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. Oh, yes. Question mark. Yeah. You've only got three records in this category, one of which I don't know. Actually, two of which I don't know. I don't know the Beach Boys album here. The Beach Boys Love You. What are you getting at here with this subtitle?
Speaker 2Well, OK. These are albums that are considered by the cognoscenti to be ageless, deathless classics. Now, if you don't know the Beach Boys Love You, it is fascinating. I'm surprised you don't know it, actually. I've tended to avoid anything post-Holland with the Beach Boys. Well, they did a couple. A couple in 78 and 79 are actually gorgeous records. I think especially their 79 record is a couple of. Which is called what, Tim?
Speaker 1Come on, you've forgotten.
Speaker 2I wish I. You see, MU is the one in 78, I think, isn't it?
Speaker 1I'm going to look it up. OK, Beach Boys, right. But carry on while I'm looking this up.
Speaker 2But the thing is that the Dennis Wilson album, Pacific Ocean Blue, and the Beach Boys I Love You are commonly regarded as albums you must own. They're in the list.
Speaker 1Beach Boys, LA, the light album. The light album, that is the one. It's as good as it.
Speaker 2I really like it. I mean, obviously, I love the Beach Boys. That has a long disco track on it as well. OK. But it has a couple of absolutely timeless.
Speaker 1Oh, it's got the remake of Here Comes the Night from Wild Honey on it, hasn't it? It has indeed. I have heard that. Yeah, and that's kind of. I'm not sure if it's shit or amazing, but OK, you're going for it's amazing. I'm going for amazing.
Speaker 2But also, it's got a couple of. of Dennis Wilson-fronted ballads that probably have that feel of surf's up. There's a kind of real weariness and beauty about it. But anyway, yeah.
Speaker 1We're talking about the Beach Boys Love You in 1977, which is two albums early.
Speaker 2No, I'm talking about LA. No, no, but we need to.
Speaker 1Yeah, we need to get back on. You need to get back on track. Back on track. We're talking about Beach Boys Love You, which is their 1977 album, which I've never heard. Yeah. Is it considered a bit of a lost, overlooked classic?
Speaker 2Yeah. The main reason being that it was the Brian's back album. So I think. The 15 big ones precedes it. And 15 big ones is Brian is back in the band and they are in effect making a 70s version of their 60s surf music. So it's, to me, a slightly clunky reappraisal of the early 60s music, with synth bass. You know, there's a few token gestures of the era. But Love You was seen as the major, major return.
Speaker 1Lester Bang said at the time, it was the best Beach Boys album ever. And some people believe
Speaker 2this to this day. Right. And it was written by Brian and Brian sings a lot of it. But he's clearly not in a particularly great place. So it's a very, very different. You're not going to find a Beach Boys album like Love You anywhere else in their catalogue. It's mad. It's not like 15 big ones. 15 big ones is a confident reappraisal in a 70s style of their 60s work. Not my favourite. Like You. I think Holland is stunning. I think Surf's Up is a work of genius. So Love You, it's very heavy on the synth, very heavy on the bass synth, very heavy on the really clunky pop rhythms. And Wilson is at his most naive, bizarre, childlike, repetitious. So there's a track dedicated to Johnny Carson. Now, their voices are knackered. It's because, you know, they're renowned for having some of the most beautiful singing voices in pop history, justifiably. But their voices are kind of. kind of cocaine-cracked and exhausted. Right. And they're singing these juvenile lyrics about roller-skating girls or the stars in the constellation or, indeed, Johnny Carson. He's so funny. It sounds utterly ridiculous. But you're making it sound quite interesting. And you've got these jaunty synth basses, these jaunty rhythms. And so it's compelling. I quite like it. I've got to be honest with you. I do quite like it. And it is a really unique chapter. In the band's history, directly after it, the rest of the band jettison Brian and take over. And I think they make arguably two better albums
Speaker 1in terms of artistic and production. I've overlooked this whole. I have, to my shame, I've overlooked this whole era. I mean, I love Beach Boys from like 66 through to 73. I've kind of always shied away from this era because I always imagined it was going to be quite disappointing. I mean, looking at the Wikipedia page now and listening to you talk about it, I'm actually quite curious now to hear this record. One thing I love straight away about this album, 14 songs, 34 minutes long. I love that, straight away. But then I'm looking at some of the titles. Honking down the highway. And does it actually honk? Is it the sound of someone honking a horn?
Speaker 2In my mind, it honks. Yeah, it honks really badly. Yeah, but the lyric, honk, honk. I want to pick you up. These are not the best lyrics in the Beach Boys history, it must be said, nor are they the best songs. But as I've said, it's a totally unique, self-contained, almost DIY chapter of the band. And it is fascinating because you almost hear his mental decline in this material. Okay. So I don't think it's a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. It's heartbreaking, but it's really interesting.
Speaker 1You've got me curious. I'm going to go and listen to this record now. I think the first track I'm going to listen to is Honking Down the Highway. That is enough to get me. I mean, sadly, that is enough to get me interested. It's just like an album with a picture of Benny Hill on the front called The World of Benny Hill, which, as you know, I've just bought.
Speaker 2Imagine a song called Johnny Carson with them going, Johnny Carson. Yeah, it sounds. And what it's about, there's no irony in this. Yeah. It's about how hard he works to make people laugh.
Speaker 1Well, I think that's what's lovely about records like this. I mean, you know, we're thinking about like the Lewis record, which we talked about a previous episode, is that these records are utterly ridiculous. And yet the people that made them seem completely unaware of how ridiculous they are. There is a sincerity. There's a sincerity to that. And there's a dedication to their art, which you just have to go with it. And maybe this is one of those records. It sounds very kitsch, but maybe kitsch in a way that actually I'm going to really enjoy. It's very electronic as well. I'd say lots of synths. Lots of synth bass. Well, but there's good electronic sound and there's bad electronic sound. You know, what I'm saying
Speaker 2is that this and Trans Europa Express are probably the most interesting electronic albums of 1977 and Suicide. Let's say that throughout the world. So, yeah, that's Love You. It is fascinating. Self-contained chapter. And it sounds cheap as well. Not only do the voices sound cocaine cracked, not only do they sound as if they're on the verge of dying while they're singing.
Speaker 1Okay, you're really making me interested now. The word cheap definitely has got me. On the verge of dying. They sound like they're on the verge of dying. Yeah, that's again, it's a big plus. You're making it sound very appealing. I'm going to go and listen to it. Honking Down the Highway, Roller Skating Child, Johnny Carson. And the rest of the record. I mean, I can listen to 14 tracks in barely half an hour. So, okay, let's move on. So, also in this category, you have. Well, let's follow on from the Beach Boys. Yeah, directly. Dennis Wilson's Pacific. Is it called Pacific Blue? You've put it down as Pacific Blue. Is that what it's called? Is it Pacific Blue or Pacific Ocean Blue? Pacific Ocean Blue. It's called Pacific Ocean Blue. Okay. This is one of those records that the critics would have you believe is a lost masterpiece. I think that's fair to say, isn't it? It seemed to go through a sort of critical re-evaluation with the hipsters. In fact, it appears in a thousand. Robert Dimmery's A Thousand and One Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Mojo's Lost Albums You Must Own, 70 of the greatest albums of the 70s. It was listed at number 18 in GQ's 100 Coolest Albums in the World Right Now list. I bought it on the lavish reissue that came out around. Yeah, same here. You did the same in the book form with the unreleased album. I have to say, and I'm looking at the reviews here, five out of five on all music, Pop Matters, eight out of ten, Pitchfork Media, eight point five out of ten, Uncut, five out of five, Spin, four out of five. It's a two out of five, possibly. It's about a two. I found it really quite a dreary, ponderous record. It's got none of the transcendent spiritual beauty of his brother's best work. work. What is it, Tim, that's made people get Is it because it was the underdog record that nobody listened to at the time? To a degree.
Speaker 2I think with Love You, it was because it was Brian's big return where he was suddenly writing everything again. And it is insane. There is a real sense of a mind revealing itself or a mind unravelling on Love You. So I understand why that's rated in the Beach Boys history. Pacific Ocean Blue isn't mad at all, is it? For me, Pacific Ocean Blue, it's like a really dull Stephen Stills solo album. But without the gift that Stephen Stills has as a vocalist or musician. Or melodicist. So yeah, it's one of those albums that I've played again and again and again to grasp what it is that people hear. But it's always seemed very perfunctory, very dull. As you say, harmonically unadventurous. There are a couple of ballads that are good. And on the unreleased album, there are a couple of ballads that are actively beautiful. And again, quite cracked. And they appear on the LA album two years later. This album, it was a wash with nothingness.
Speaker 1Well, we've certainly trashed that record, Tim, haven't we? It's kind of a two out of five for me, too. I mean, I say, a couple of nice tracks, nice ballads. The up-tempo songs, particularly for me, are terribly pedestrian. I don't want to trash it anymore. I mean, it's kind of like, in a way, the more somebody tells you something is genius and you don't get it, the more you feel like you have to kick back in the opposite direction. So I kind of am overcompensating. It's not a bad record. It's not a bad record at all. But actually, I think you summed it up perfectly when you said it's like an average Stephen Stills solo record. And by God, there was a lot of average Stephen Stills solo records. There were indeed.
Speaker 2Yeah. But they were never terrible. And this isn't terrible either. And it is that. It's like taking an average Stephen Stills record and going, my God, you've got to listen to it. It's in the 70s, great album in the 70s. Yeah. And you're listening to it and you're thinking, it's not in the 70 greatest albums released that week in 1977.
Speaker 1It's definitely not one of the thousand and one albums you need to hear before you die. Not even close. Let's just put it this way. If there was, if there was a battle, you know, between Beach Boys Love You and Dennis Wilson's Pacific Ocean Blue, would it be a straight KO in the first round for Beach Boys Love You? I think it would.
Speaker 2And they are, you know, the Beach Boys are, they're weak on Love You in some ways. They're fascinatingly weak, but with a terribly, terribly prissy punch, it would be a KO straight off.
Speaker 1Isn't this interesting though? Sometimes a glorious folly is much more entertaining than a perfunctory, but adequate kind of effort. Of course, yeah. So I think what we're saying is the Beach Boys Love You, I mean, I haven't heard it yet, to caveat, I still haven't heard it, but it sounds to me, it sounds to me, like it's rubbish, but it's rubbish in a really madly fascinating way that kind of is completely engaging. Whereas the Dennis Wilson album for me, it's all right. That's the response. It's all right.
Speaker 2It's all right. The other response is, why? It's all right. Why? Yeah. Now, equally, you ask why with Love You, but you ask it with an exclamation, why? What the hell? What the hell were they thinking?
Speaker 1Exactly. What the hell did they think they were doing? Whereas with Dennis Wilson's Pacific Ocean Blue, you're just like. There is that feeling, why did you get out of bed to make it? Yeah. Wow. Okay. We've really given that a kick in. I mean, the poor bloke, he died within a year of making it. We've really given it a kick in, Tim. I mean, listen, we both love the Beach Boys. I suppose if you're a Beach Boys, an absolute Beach Boys fanatic, this would be a fascinating kind of course, a corner of the catalogue.
Speaker 2And look, I've followed the Beach Boys since, you know, even they've done a few great things in the last 20 years.
Speaker 1Okay. Let's move on. Heartbreaking work of Staggering Genius. You've got one more entry here, Randy Newman's Little Criminals. I know nothing about Randy Newman, so you're the Randy Newman connoisseur here.
Speaker 2It's really. Well, this was the album that really broke him. He'd been a critic's favourite up to this point. There are. There are many, many striking albums. His debut, Randy Newman with Orchestra, is wonderful. Actually, one of my favourite Newman-related albums is Nilsson Sings Newman. Oh, I love that one. Yeah, that's beautiful. Takes his material. I mean, impeccable material, impeccably rendered. But the Newman originals are also compelling. And, you know, I'm a big fan of his work. And this was the album where he came to international fame. And it's a really big production by his standards. But there are. There are still exquisite, complex vignettes. The thing about him, you know, I think he is one of rock's greatest lyricists. And, you know, within a single lyric can tell entire life stories beautifully. And this album's no exception. It's got, you know, Baltimore is another wonderful piece that Nina Simone covered. I think it's a great album. But it's slightly frowned upon by Newman fanatics because it was the one that brought him fame.
Speaker 1It's funny, isn't it, that with some artists and their fan bases, that the breakthrough is sometimes seen as some kind of betrayal. Let's move on, Tim. So, very naturally, move on to singer-songwriters. We've got an album which we've already talked about, actually, in either the previous episode or the first episode, Roy Harper's Bolina Ming Vaz from this year. I think we talked about it when we were talking about Songs from the Wood, the Jethro Tull. Didn't we? It's having a similar kind of very. English, bucolic kind of quality to it. One of my favourite Roy records, actually. It's a lovely record. It's one of my favourites as well. It's funny. It's soulful. It's wise. Musically, as you kind of pointed out, in many ways, it's the most lavish-sounding record he made, isn't it? It's very rich. John Leckie, I think, produced it.
Speaker 2Yes, he did, yeah. I mean, it's cordially very rich. The textures are very rich. So, there's a kind of bucolic easiness. I suppose what's unusual in his catalogue, although some of the lyrics are quite political, musically, it has quite a relaxed feel. It's unusual. He always seems at his most relaxed and happy during this period of turmoil for the rest of the country and during the era of punk. But I really like it as an album.
Speaker 1But there's some quite bitter lyrics, too. I mean, they're quite funny, too. The beginning of the sidelong piece, one of these days in England, he's talking about, you know, I give them the quick. Every Thursday morning, I go and give the Queen my autograph so she'll give me some money to live on, you know. And maybe, you know, I think probably Roy had been through some lean times. He was never a mainstream artist. He never crossed over into the mainstream. He never had the big hit records. Probably there was some, you know. I remember Roy, in the sleeve notes of one of the reissues, talking about how his managers would turn up in the Rolls Royces. Yeah. And he'd still be driving the sort of broken down Mini. While his management were driving around, he realised where the money was going and it wasn't to him. But it's also got one of his greatest pop songs, I think, one of these days in England. Not a hit, but a fantastic song. And it's, you know, in many ways, it's also. I mean, we talked about how the progressive rock artists in many ways were making some of their most important records in 1977. This is, in many ways, Roy still doing what he had always done, which is making these very elaborate, complex, progressive folk epics with, you know, a little bit more layering on this record, a little bit more to the arrangements. But in that sense, he's not doing anything different to what he was doing on Life Mask or Stormcock, is he?
Speaker 2It's texturally smoother. It's got a bit more of that 70s. Yeah. There's almost a kind of Richard Royce. Right, wish you were here feeling to a lot of the keyboard playing, especially on the epic, I find. There's quite a strong Floydian influence to a degree. But there always was.
Speaker 1And I think a lot of that was two ways, wasn't it? Yes, yeah. I think there always was that sort of Floyd-y aspect to what he did. In many ways, he was the singer-songwriter equivalent of what the Floyd were doing. You know, if you listen to those albums like Stormcock and Life Mask, these sort of grand conceptual suites, but the difference was they were predominantly, in terms of musical forces, they were predominantly played just on a guitar. But in terms of their flow and their structuring, I think Floyd took quite a little bit from Roy Harper, as did Jimmy Page, of course, and Led Zeppelin took a fair bit from Roy Harper as well. And Ian Anderson. Ian will very, very honestly admit there was a period in the early 70s when he felt he was too influenced by Roy Harper. Parts of a passion play, and particularly the Chateau d'Iravel tapes, they're very Harper-esque. So he was one of those guys that was always very influential. He was the musician's musician, wasn't he? But never really broke through to a mainstream audience. But I love this record. I think after this record, there's a little bit of what we talked about with some of the other artists. You feel like he started to become a bit more confused about what he should be doing. And he made. some attempts at more mainstream pop slick you know kind of fm pop with saxophones and dx7 synthesizers um but this is pre that this is still roy very much organic beautifully organic sounding but still no less ambitious uh possibly my favorite roy harper record maybe along with um the life
Speaker 2mask what's your favorite roy harper it's difficult i mean this definitely is in the top two or three yeah um it's a phenomenal run isn't it very yeah i mean i i thought hq is very strong as well um life mask obviously and i've got a very strong soft spot for valentine i love it
Speaker 1yeah well 12 hours of sunset what a song that is you
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