Speaker 1propel fitness water with gatorade electrolytes, zero sugar, and vitamins. propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you propel with gatorade electrolytes? Okay, I think we need to
Speaker 2talk about, and we've already talked about so many hours that came out this year that have been, you know, so ahead of their time, influential in the long term, but we have a category here. And again, we're going to paraphrase the ham here. The future then, slash new hybrids, perhaps the kind of artists that have had more of a long term slow burn influence on music. And we're going to start with a band. I didn't know that much about it. I'd kind of heard the name and I know they took their name from the Morton Subotnic piece, Silver Apples of the Moon. And we're talking about Silver Apples. I listen to this. Now again, straight out of the gate, this is a bizarre concept for a band. A drummer who sings and an only one other member of the band who basically operates a synthesizer. Now, we're talking about 1968 here, synthesizer, pretty primitive things. So it's not easy to get something usable, I have a synth. So a man that operates a synthesizer called Simeon. Simeon, yeah. And a drummer who sings.
Speaker 3Can you do a no man remix once?
Speaker 2You did a no man remix, which was shit. He's passed away now, bless him, so I'm speaking another day. But yes, there was about 20 years ago, there was a Simeon remix production. I never liked him. We got him into a remixing one of our tracks. Anyway, Silver Apples, their debut album, I believe it's their debut album, it definitely sounds ahead of its time. To me also sounds strangely dated in a way that some of the other things in this list don't. But I can hear the influence. I can hear the influence. I'm not sure on what. But this idea that you can reduce music to fundamentals. Rhythm, an electronic sound. I mean, again, just that in itself is pretty much out of its time.
Speaker 3You know, suicide, obviously, or a duo later on who kind of do this. Yes. In my view, better. Better. I personally prefer suicide. Yeah, I think it's as much the idea and the conceit, which is revolutionary. Yes. It's brave, it's interesting. I'm not quite sure it kind of demands constant listening. I think that's the thing. And again, a bit like the nice albums. I was with the standard a bit cheap.
Speaker 2Unlike the Velvet Underground, who released their second album this year, "White Light, White Heat." Which, you know, it's interesting. The first three Velvet Underground albums are so different aren't they? Yeah. On some days I can wake up and think the debut is the one I like the best. Other days I can wake up and think the third album, the self title is the best. Because it's a beautiful kind of sensitive, intimate quality to it. This is the really experimental record, isn't it? Yeah. And what an influence. It's hard. I mean, you can hear the influence in almost all contemporary alternative music, aren't you? I don't think that's hyperbole. I think you can hear the influence of the Velvet.
Speaker 3And you could hear it pretty quickly afterwards as well. I mean, Bowie did "A Cover of White Light." Stooges. Yes. Stooges is almost immediately afterwards. It's not my favourite of the albums. It's probably my least favourite of the early Velvet songs. I adore the debut, which I think flirts with experimentalism, as well as flirting with pop, as well as having those really mournful Nico contributions. So my favourite is the first, but I really have a lot of time for the third as well, whether these plaintiff quite straight songs.
Speaker 2You see, as I kind of suggested in my intro to this, I kind of agree with you, but I think even though this is also my least favourite of the first three, I think it is the most important record in some ways. It's the most seismic, it's the most experimental. The songwriting on the first and third album, definitely on another level. There aren't great songs on one. It kind of bears all the hallmarks of a record that was kind of rushed. Yeah, yeah. The fact that the final track on the album is a 17-minute jam, but what a jam.
Speaker 3Everything sounds like it's distorted. There's a pummeling intensity. There's an artlessness to the guitar playing. This is not your virtuoso, King Crimson noise. But it's also Luri and John
Speaker 2Kelly, the most sneering and cynical too, isn't it?
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah. Obviously, some of the guitars, especially the kind of clashing rhythmic guitars and these kind of stuttering almost atonal solos, all four. And also, again, another album with quite a sense of humour, because there's that piece, the gift with the Waldorf story. Yes, Waldorf being posted to his girlfriend coming to a pretty grizzly end, you know?
Speaker 2That's a sort of track that you probably wouldn't want to listen to over and over again every day of your life. Would you? So, but again, in terms of its sheer audacity, sheer experimental nature. And the fact that it doesn't sound like it's locked in a kind of whimsical summer of love,
Speaker 3it's dark, it's edgy, and unlike the doors, you know, it had impact and it has impact. And you can still hear it in so many indie bands, punk bands, rock bands.
Speaker 2Well, in many ways, this album is year zero for what we came to know as kind of indie music,
Speaker 3isn't it? For example, for me, I find there's a comparison with Velvet Underground and Pink Floyd, partly the gigs they did at that time, partly that they would just go into these improvised flights of fancy. And if I'm thinking of sort of 1980s indie music in Britain, I hear as much source of all as I do Velvet Underground.
Speaker 2Okay, fair point, fair point. I suppose my point is it's difficult to think of a band from that sort of post punk scene that Velvet Underground isn't in there somewhere, whether it's Echo and the Bunnyman or Teardrop explodes or a joy division or the blue airplanes or the Smiths even, there's Velvet Underground in there somewhere. But you're right, maybe the Floyd also, the Sid Floyd all line up are also in almost all of those bands. You know, maybe it's an album that we should have put in the canon, you know, in the sense it's been discussed and it's been over-discussed out in for an item. So let's let's move on to now, in C by Terry Riley. Now, I always said that Steve Reisch based his entire career on Terry Riley's in C, which is in many ways the first true piece of minimalist music, or at least the first piece of minimalist music that really went into popular culture and mainstream. However, I'm chasing to discover that Steve Reisch was involved in the recording of, or at least involved in the initial performances of In C, and was the one that suggested the eighth note pulse, which is always the thing I thought, oh my god Steve Reisch ripped off, and actually I'm now going to. See, I didn't know that, I know that John.
Speaker 3Because John Hassel was involved in this one in some way. So, and this is an outlier isn't because if you think of Rainbow and Curve Dare where Riley creates this really distinctive synth sound, it's nothing like this sound.
Speaker 2Now, most of the rest of his work was either to do with the saxophone looping, or the organ. So this is a piece which is by his standards, as you say, it's kind of an outlier, it's very organic, it's all based on acoustic sounds pretty much and chanting. It was great, it's
Speaker 3ragged, it's inventive, it's. It still sounds good. Yeah, it still sounds really good. Yes, it's hard because I think of that raw ragged performance and production, and you're right, I think you can. When I first heard it, I'd probably say, oh god, Steve Reisch. Yeah, but I think Steve Reisch always develops his works compositionally. There's always. For sure, you know, for me there are variations, even though it may sound to some people like the same piece an hour later, as it is before, I think with him there are within each piece, there are tempo variations, harmonic variations, which this hasn't got. No, you know, this is in C, basically.
Speaker 2Yeah, but and Terry Riley blessed him kind of moved away, I was just saying, almost immediately moved away from this kind of musical style into something more based on looping and electronics and stuff, but it still sounds good, it's still a seminal, you know, early minimalist work, perhaps the seminal early minimalist work. Other sort of artists that were creating new hybrids, the band, I think you mentioned them earlier to the music from the Big Pink, and again, this could have been in any of the other categories, but I think it's such an influential record, it's worth including in this, and it was a new hybrid because it was. We talk about music that's both simultaneously past, present and future. Here's a great example. The story I love most about this album, and you know, this is nothing to do with the music in a sense, is that when they were doing promo photos for the album, the record company came to them and said, "Which top photographer do you want to do? The budget's endless. Which top photographer do you want to do the. Do you want to do the artwork and the promo photographs for the album?" And the band said, "We want you to find the worst photographer working. We want him to do our photos." And then took that very. I'll define the worst photographer. Well, I don't know, and of course, I think that's a little bit simplification, but they found someone that apparently wasn't ready. He was very cheap, and they took that famous photo of them looking like lumberjacks from the 1880s. Do you know that famous photo? And in some ways, it's hard for me to hear the music without thinking of that image because there is a sense that this music had always existed. It was American Roots music, but at the same time, there's something about it that sounds very contemporary and very new and very progressive. You're right. I've
Speaker 3I've got a lot of time for a. Robertson. He's got a great voice, but also what I like about him is that right to the very end, he was still finding new techniques. He made a great 80s album, you made a great 90s beat album, you know, he was constantly listening to new music while being true to what he clearly came from and loved. So yeah, you know, I think he's really interesting artist.
Speaker 2And it's also interesting the beginning of this whole idea of getting it together in the country. This is a band that didn't go into a fancy studio in New York or LA. They rented a house and they set up a sort of makeshift studio and they wanted that sense of togetherness, of living in a commune together, of making music in the country. The songs are brilliant. I mean, that's the fundamental thing. And again, we talked about how I forget what we were talking about earlier. Was it the Rani Newman where we said it has almost a short story
Speaker 3quality? Well, there's kind of Wild West quality quality. Yes, you've just nailed it. What I was grasping for, you've just nailed it. It's organic, it's authentic. But as you've said, it couldn't be any other time that 68. But there's something about it that seems like it could be a century old.
Speaker 2Earlier on Tim, you and I off of Mike were talking about how we should do an episode where we do a rundown of the top 10 archetypal album years artists from 10 till one. Yeah, maybe we should get the listeners to vote on what they think, what order they think they should be in. Okay. And of course, in that top 10 rundown, we'd have the ham, we'd have Mark Hollis, we'd have David Sylvain, we had Robert Fripp, we had Brian Eno, but we'd probably also have Van Morrison, wouldn't we? Who? Exactly. And we started off the very first episode I think we ever did. Was it 90? Or the second one? 80? Was it the second one? One of the first episodes we ever did, we were, we were basically one of the reasons we started doing this podcast, was I remember? Yeah, it means we can talk about common one and tell people how it's the most underrated album of all time. And there's been a few sort of albums that I think consequences, Godly and Cream being another one where we almost felt like this is the justification for the podcast. John G Perry's Sunset Waiting, Virginia Astley's from God. These are almost albums that we've always wanted to eulogize about. Yeah. And common one was one of them.
Speaker 3One of these compilation albums comes out.
Speaker 2Yeah, they'll be on it. This is an album that isn't underrated. Asteroids, it's not underrated. In fact, if anything, its reputation continues to grow and grow and grow year by year. It still sounds like nothing else except it kind of, it was influential. I mean, you can hear its influence on certain records. Yeah, and I think the components quite simple.
Speaker 3I think, you know, you're right, it still provides fresh listening experiences. And it's partly because what you've got is the solid, quite simple Van Morrison singer songwriter pieces, you know, barely do they go over three or four chords. And you've got these amazing American jazz players who probably forgot about the session the day after they'd done it. And they are delivering, you know, in the same way for now, you know, another Drinking Game Public, Jenny Mitchell, that the players that she is pasturious and so on, Larry Contan, when she's using them on various albums, every bar is different because of the way they're playing it. The songs essentially aren't complex, but they're finding new ways of expression. So I think is it Richard Davis, the acoustic bass player on this one? I don't even know, I don't even know who the musicians are on this one. But the bass playing is amazing. And so they've got these jazz players who just probably coming in, probably think this is some kind of hippie-no-good playing on the tracks rather than a poppy. They can't understand what he's talking about. They can't understand his accent. They want to get out of there. You know, it's like they want some real ale. You know, there's some real ale. That's how I'm imagining how most of them sound it. You know, it didn't really be awesome because it do good. I don't know. Anyway, but they're a part of the magic. It's a very strange American accent. It's a very, it's my best American accent I find. And New Yorkshire. Hey, but Lee, Lee's United. That's what we're talking about. That's what they were talking about. But then again, Van Royston probably was. They could not understand what he said. That's what I was talking about. That's the accent. Exactly. It's brilliant. I mean, I love to be honest, I like a couple of them singles. I actually quite like blowing your mind all as Van used to call it blowing your nose. Have you ever
Speaker 2heard of Van?
Speaker 3I've got a loving
Speaker 2visual sod. You know,
Speaker 3there's some great stuff on it. You know, Brown Eyed Girl and so on. Yeah, I mean, TB Sheets is sort of hinting at this maybe. And then he does the album to get out of his contract. The one where it's like, you know, sort of, do you want a sandwich? I want a sandwich. But that does go early
Speaker 2versions of Madame George. Oh, God. Yeah, I think on it, isn't it?
Speaker 3Yeah. But in a way, this still comes out. I know where it's still amazing and it's magical and beautiful and it's worth everything everyone says about it. But yeah, I honestly suspect that, you know, Morrison was in a good place. He's singing brilliantly some of the lyrics, the tales of his Belfast childhood are quite touching. And then you've got these American jazz players who, as I said, it's just kind of nothing to them come in and they are as much a part of the magic. We're making some big assumptions.
Speaker 2They hated it. They didn't understand the Morrison for all we know. They didn't understand the music. One thing you touched upon, simplicity. There are songs on this record there and this is the beginning of Vand, something that you and I both love about Vand is this extended stream of consciousness to court wonders. Yeah. And you go forward to albums like, you know, St Dominic's "Preview" and listen to the line. You go forward to albums like "Vaden Fleece" and you can't push the river and whatever it's called. And then you go forward to albums like "Common One" and songs like "Summer Time in England and Winter". And it's this sense that you just get into this euphoric pocket. One fact remains, "Astrow Weeks" is an album that stood the test of time and it still sounds sublime. It still sounds like you're standing in the studio with Vand and his band listening to this. And there is a stream of consciousness element too. And I think this is where the jazz sensibility comes from in this music. He's approaching these songs like a jazz improviser. I mean, as you say, it's
Speaker 3kind of focusing a songwriter, but the modus operandi, it's closer to me in my mind, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, that when Miles Davis, again, you don't even need chords, there are one or two often simple chords that sustain a 20-minute piece. There's a hypnotic quality.
Speaker 2But also because Vand is an R&B singer and a soul singer, that is always there. So it's not jazz, it's not folk. I don't think he could sound like a folk singer songwriter. But musically, the palate is from jazz, from acoustic jazz, from folk music. And he's singing live with the musicians in the studio.
Speaker 3It's sweet like quality.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think. What, the sweet, the band? The glam rock rock rock. I think it's sweet, I think. Slay, Susie Quattro.
Speaker 3That is what I thought mud when I think of it. No, but you know what I mean? There's almost kind of, it could be, it's a continuum. It's almost like a sweet, the whole album. Yeah, it's absolutely.
Speaker 2It's together so naturally. And you know, you can just put, you get to the end and you just put it straight back on again. And even the fact that the two sides are now, I think they're called morning and afternoon, aren't they? Yeah. It's an album that we should have easily, we could have easily passed over and said, it's canon, we don't need to talk about it. It's been talked about a lot. But he is one of our top 10, how many years are this after? Of course, Vand. We get him in whenever we can. We love, we love Vand.
Speaker 3And what's even better about this is that Vand would think that what we're talking, it's answer ballerous. Yes, I need haters. I mean, he's hate us before we talked about the album,
Speaker 2he's hate us even more. Right, a couple more records we should talk about in the future than new hybrids. Switched on Bart by Walter Carlos. Now we talked about how Keith Emerson was fusing pop and classical music and how it's dated very badly. I think the same is true here. Switched on Bart literally moog synthesizer interpretations with all of the arrangements and all I mean, literally she or he as he was at the time, Walter Carlos famously later, you know, Wendy Carlos. Wendy became Wendy Carlos. At the time it was Walter Carlos, took the entire scores of bark pieces and played all the parts very faithfully, but using electronic sound. It's dated. At the time, it must have sounded revolutionary. It did. It still sounds pretty alien.
Speaker 3Obviously, I know the kind of Wendy Carlos catalog more from it's using Clockwork Orange and Keybrook. Yeah, really. Yeah. And yeah, it's still a question that, yeah, it does. Well, it's got a kind of an otherness. I mean, there's an element of what Tamita's about to do as well. Yes. You know, this kind of electronic versions of the classics. Yes. Which again has a very distinctive quality. Yeah, absolutely. You know, those albums that were in every single household of the early times. I think what I'm saying
Speaker 2is Tim, there's a reason why Walter Carlos, Stroke Wendy Carlos and Tamita don't get dropped in the same sentences as Craftwork, Tangerine Dream, as being influential on modern electronics.
Speaker 3Even though they're very innovative for the time and musically, they're clearly more capable of, say, craftwork or Tangerine Dream. I mean, in terms of their musical, well,
Speaker 2maybe that's the reason. Maybe that's the reason. It sounds like easier. Blood Sweat and Tears. We've also got them in this category. This is the beginning of what we know of as using brass as a kind of front line element in rock music, in pop music. She can't. I think, personally, I think Chicago did it much better. Chicago's debut was still a year away at this point. So Blood, Sweat and Tears, the first album produced, is it the first album? - Maybe it's the second one. - Second one, yes, I think you're right. First one was the one produced by Al Cooper, wasn't it? This is the second one. This is the one where they really honed in on the sound that everyone had, and had the big hits. So spinning wheel is on the sound. -
Speaker 3It's also got the Eric Sati cover as well, too. -
Speaker 2Right, very nice. - And again, when I listen to it now, I find it's dated. It does sound quite dated, but at the time, it was genuinely a new hybrid in the way that the band, you know, this sense of the old and the new fused together, rock music and, you know, a frontline jazz, bros, bros and bits of
Speaker 3classical and bits of classical music. - It's a classical music, yeah. - I mean, famously John Lennon hated it. - Did he? - Yeah, and said something along the lines of, if this is the future, I want no part of it. It's gotten none of the, you know, the future of rock and roll is not gutting the genre. So he felt that it would come so far from rock and roll. That it didn't even deserve to be called rock music, 'cause it had no kind of energy or flair. And so on, it was just odd. I mean, I like it. I like it, but like you, I think it's kind of not dated as well as some of the, you know, I prefer traffic from this era, you know, who kind of got a similar kind of fusion of soul. -
Speaker 2Yeah, and I love Chicago, who, actually, on paper, I have exactly the same ingredients. - Yeah. - Classical pretensions, jazz, jazz, bros. -
Speaker 3It's got great voice. - It's all the hair, you know, great players, great voice. - Yeah. - But I know you mean, there's just something about it that just hasn't quite-- - It's a little bit time locked. -
Speaker 2A little bit, I'll be like the silver apples in that sense. It's, on paper, it's brilliant, and it's completely revolutionary, it's completely fresh. And the watercolors, but actually perhaps time hasn't been as kind to it as it has been to the band, the Velvet Underground, et cetera, and Astral Weeks, of course, which is now, which just seems to exist outside of time, you know.
Speaker 3I mean, it's difficult to know, isn't it? 'Cause sometimes, you know, as we found, like the doors didn't have an impact really in the '60s, but by the early '80s, they were one of the most name-checked bands you could hear. - Are you saying the influence of blood sweat is,
Speaker 2the era of the influence that you have to come? - I'm saying it's so far into the future. - So far ahead of its time, it's still, we still haven't caught up with it. Well, you know, who knows? Stranger Things Have Happened. Who thought the C-Shanty would come back as a commercial part? Apparently it did, yeah. Okay, obviously another very important year in terms of the way things were changing, the way that the new hybrids were coming together, the way things were developing, and the way different kinds of music were kind of coalescing in a way to new sounds. And here we have a section called My Kind of Country. - Uh-huh. - I don't know these records. I know that I know the John Fahey. So John Fahey, for me, is not country. It's more like the influence of bluegrass tradition. - Yeah. - 'Cause the guitar,
Speaker 3difficult whether you put bluegrass in with country and ox, obviously you end up grateful, dead had those elements of bluegrass 'cause Garcia was a great player and he sort of saw me as a country player. -
Speaker 2Yeah, I suppose it is country. I suppose we think of country these days more. I mean, country has come to mean, you know, more the traditional form of country music, which would be better exemplified by things like Johnny Cash, which is also on this. So I've followed some prison. I don't know this record, but I know it's considered an absolute classic. -
Speaker 3It's great. I mean, this is shorn of any production. This is him playing in front of prisoners. - Yeah. - And it's one of his best life sets. He'd done it, I think possibly in the late '50s, early '60s as well, but this one was recorded. It became the classic album. He was knocking out a lot of albums. Again, he probably had another two or three out this year and he was doing a lot of conceptual albums as well around this period. Normally about the history of America or it could be Wild West stories, but this was just kind of a collection of some of the strongest pieces with an audience of prisoners, which he used to do. - I love that idea. -
Speaker 2I love that. That's a great idea to do a live album. -
Speaker 3That's it, no matter doing a tour of sea shanties to prisoners in the UK. - Can't wait for that. - And I think one of my favorite stories of that one is Mel Haggert, I think it was, had seen Johnny Cash when he was a prisoner and it inspired him so much. He became Mel Haggert, the great country star. -
Speaker 2So Johnny, okay, so Johnny Cash, for me, falls into that category of artists that I know are brilliant. - Yeah. - I have utmost respect for them as artists. Just don't like them. - I see, I never liked Johnny Cash's voice particularly. - Voices I do like, Glenn Campbell and Bobby Gentry. -
Speaker 3Both of them. - And they did an album, interesting enough, not put it on this list, but they did a duo album. -
Speaker 2They did. - Yeah, which is not the best for either of them. - A Greek fleet. - But these albums, the albums they made alone, the Delta Suite and Wichita Liner, great records. - Yeah. - Wichita Liner, what a song. - What is it? -
Speaker 3It's one of these things that, you know, if Richie Havens might be my favorite voice of the year, Wichita Liner might be my favorite song. - Or any other year. - It's an amazing piece of music. There's such a sense. - It's heartbreaking. - Longing. Very descriptive quality, beautiful, beautiful piece of work. And I think that, you know, the Glenn Campbell albums from this period, they're variable. You've usually got one or two deathless classics, generally written by Jimmy Webb. And then you've got a little more ordinary fare on the albums, but for the songs are great. They're well worth hearing. Bobby Gentry is slightly more consistent. I mean, she'd come to fame a year earlier with Otabilly Joe, wasn't it? - Yeah. - Which is amazing. And again, she, with her debut single, she has a fully formed artist. This is a really strong album. Her voice is really as much to the entry point as anything. She has such a strong distinctive singer that can kind of transform any base metal into gold. -
Speaker 2And they're pretty strong distinctive personalities. - Yeah, yeah. - She was quite willful. I mean, there was a couple of moments in her career where she felt like she'd been pushed into being, you know, something that she wasn't really. And remarkably, I didn't realize she'd had her own TV show on BBC. - I know, I know. - That's how high her profile was at the time. And yet for many, many years, I'd never listened to her work until a box set came out about 10 years ago. I think a box set came out of all her records and I'd read some reviews and I bought it and discovered this whole world of Bobby Gentry that I had no knowledge about. And to realize how mainstream she was with a brief period of time and how she was a TV celebrity, she was very glamorous and she basically retired and she stuck to her guns. She decided I don't want to be anything more to do with the music industry and she stuck to her guns right till the end. -
Speaker 3I mean, she wrote and produced the vast majority of her work as well, which I think is kind of little, which wouldn't have been common when they were like, you know, going gamble. Obviously didn't write a lot of the work that he did. I'm not sure whether he produced it, but she wrote and produced a lot of her work. -
Speaker 2And she was very glamorous that she had this kind of movie style look. So I think that was part of the problem that because she was a woman, she was very glamorous. She was pushed into being a sort of, you know, a puppet, a pop puppet and clearly she wasn't that. And I think that's one of the reasons why she's held in such a steam by so many particularly female artists. But generally, I think she's held, she's a very credible artist for people who value independence and, you know, not being turned into a party. - And she transcends,
Speaker 3you know, Otabilly Joe is not an obvious country piece. Nothing about her work is obviously country, but she was always put into the country category. -
Speaker 2Yeah, she's got moments where you can say, "Yes, that's country," but she's also come as far as you can say that's pop, you can say that's soul, you can say that's folk. - Yeah, she's funky. - Yeah, she's a very, she's a very unique artist. (dramatic music) 1968 was a good year for blues, and I guess people taking blues forward. So we have, the debut jethra tell album, this was, which could easily have been in tentative beginnings. Obviously, very different to what we come to now. -
Speaker 3And it's a strong album. - It's a great record.
Speaker 2It's a great record, but it's still very much in the tradition of blues music. The first Fleetwood Mac album. In fact, Fleetwood Mac made two albums this year. It's the wonderful two. Artists like John Male also have been around for a few years. And his two albums from this year are very ambitious. Bear Wires has got a long conceptual suite that takes up a whole of one side of a record. And it's okay. Everything is kind of using the blues changes, but he's using things like harmoniums.
Speaker 3'Cause you know, he'd been famous for sort of introducing the world to Peter Green. - Yeah. - And Jeff Beck, I think, wasn't it, as well? Was Jeff Beck more yard birds? -
Speaker 2I don't think Jeff Beck was in the band, but certainly. - But V definitely was. - Mick Taylor. - Yeah, Taylor. - Mick Taylor, sorry. John Mark and Armand, who later went on to form their band Mark Armand, not to be a joint soft sell. -
Speaker 3Yeah, John. - Not to be confused
Speaker 2with Mark Armand from soft sell. It was almost like a finishing school. A bit. - Yeah. - I suppose the analogy would be with Miles, famous bands of the era. - Yeah. - All of those musicians. - They're miles
Speaker 3always in a way. 'Cause the Male albums did sell. They were huge successes at the time. But where is Miles in a way still overrides? Anybody who ever worked for him, Miles is the biggest name. John Male probably today. - Yeah. - Clapton's better known. Fleetwood Mac, a better known. - But yeah, I think they're pretty good albums, actually. -
Speaker 2Yeah, I do too. I enjoy them, I enjoy them. And they were on the Derum Progressive Label. The Progressive Arm of Deck, how much they were. - It tells you all you need to know in a way. Okay, Tim. There are a couple of albums that you and I both adore that we haven't talked about yet. - Yeah. - And they are in the cat. Well, one, actually, one particularly. It's in the category, fascinating outliers, stroke, mad as a hat, a part 47. In this category, we've got both Tyrannosaurus for exams. We kind of briefly talked about Tyrannosaurus. I love these early Tyrannosaurus for exams. He made two albums in the space of four months, both with ridiculously long titles, where, again, straight out of the gate, he just sounds like nothing else but himself. Incredibly unique sound. Yes, a little bit of connection to incredible string bass. then in the sort of weird kind of psychedelic folk aspect, but his voice is beyond strange. And his lyrics are, as I say, they're almost at this magpie quality of just sort of taking phrases from Tolkien and Louis Cowell and putting them together, regardless, no regard for whether it made any sense at all, but actually it's very charming. And I still love these earlier stories. -
Speaker 3I do, but you know it's weird about these, almost I'm in the van category on this one. They just watch over you. There's no need to analyse these records. - Yes. - You've got a really nice feel, sound, it's unique. But analysis would kind of. - Yes, no, you're right. - You're right. - The albums would fall apart and the analysis would fall apart. -
Speaker 2Well, you can't analyse the lyrics for a start. -
Speaker 3No, where's actually sorry van, you can analyse, that's for weeks and so on. -
Speaker 2You can, yeah, yeah, but you can't really analyse Mark Bowen's lyrics because they are very much just for the sound of the words a lot of the time. In the context of the music, it works. Love these records. But the record you and I really need to talk about Tim and this might be along with the Floyd record, this might be an astral week, this might be my favourite record of the year. Now, I want to tell a story about this before you can get this record. One of the first times we ever met Tim, I came up to your, you were living in warring to the time in a house, or Stockton Heath in a house that you inherited the story about your mother passing away. You, very young age, people might know this about you. And you grew up pretty much on your own. You had your own house and everything. And I came to stay with you and your dad, I think, was living next door to you at the time.
Speaker 3Would that be right? - He was partly living next door and partly living in a different place. -
Speaker 2Anyway, right. - At a certain point, when I came up to visit you, you had to go next door. You might remember this, you had to go next door to go and do something for your dad. And just before you left, you put this record on. And you said, you might like this record and you put this record on. And by the time you came back 20 minutes later, my mind was blown and arguably my musical horizon was shifted. And the album is The Marble Index by Niko. How do you describe this record? Well, anyone, if you've heard Niko's voice on the first album underground album, it's an extraordinary, ugly, beautiful instrument, isn't it itself? It's singing in the most tutonic German accent. - There aren't many jokes on this one. - There aren't any jokes on this. But this, this music is dark. This could not be further away from the summer of love. Could it be the spring of the era, the psychedelic era. Most of the music is, now, as I understand it, produced by John Cale. - Yeah. - If there is a better argument for why John Cale is a genius than this album, I don't know it. And I'm including the valve underground albums in this. The production on this album is genius. Because I'm guessing he basically was using simple recordings of just Niko accompanying himself on harmonium. And that was the basis of the record. - And then ripping apart the arrangements in the songs. There are, there are demented arrangements on this record that sound to me like three different songs are trying to break through at the same time. -
Speaker 3That's a staggeringly imaginative work. Where suddenly, out of an obvious song, something totally peculiar has developed because what they've done is they've concentrated on the arrangement that's come out of the song itself and taken the song out of it. Or they've taken the skeleton out of it, if you like. -
Speaker 2I would say, to me, I would say the closest comparison I could come up with and this is another drinking game favorite. - Yeah. - Is what Scott Walker would be doing 15, 20 years later? -
Speaker 3Yeah, possibly, he does that. And of course, John Kerry himself, music for New Society. - Yes. - 1983, he does it. - Yeah, it's incredible. - Some of it,
Speaker 2some of it's like a demented death C shanty. Do you know what I mean by that? It's the harmonium makes me think of a sort of accordion, you know, the sailor playing the C shanty on his accordion. But her voice is like, I mean, I always describe, I always think of Niko's voices like sounding like the sound of a coffin lid open closer. It's deathly and her lyrics are bizarre. I mean, lawns of dawns, the first song that is a little brief intro, this is the quintessential song for me. Or evenings of light also, but where there's almost like three different songs simultaneously and yet it has a strange ghostly magical quality to it that I've never heard. As I say, that time you just put that record on and left the room and you came back and by the time you came back, I was just like completely hypnotized in trance. I've never had anything like it since.
Speaker 3Well, I first saw a live, I think I saw one as a teenager, so I saw it mentioned a library theatre. And she was at that time with the band that James the Young Inn. Oh, yes. But they were brilliant. I mean, I remember I think biting tongs and John Cooper-Claught on camera bill. It was about three years before the album came out. But they were doing that style of electronic arrangement with old material, new material covers. It was astonishing. So, you know, I was, I guess, 19 when I saw it, I was blown away by it. Half the audience walked out. I saw it again three years later at the housey ender. And it wasn't quite as good, but the audience stuck with it because she did a couple more velvet underground covers and by that stage, velvet underground. Right, but the band people were talking about.
Speaker 2It was a cool band to drop.
Speaker 3But at this point, nobody, they weren't dropping any velvet underground, people were walking out of the venue. The sound was amazing. It's a beautiful venue. And yeah, I was probably as blown away as you were by that 20 minutes, because it was still there when she was performing in '83. And I did make the mistake of going up to her afterwards and telling her how much I loved it. Oh, really? And what was the answer? She was in a glaze. She was. Her eyes was glazed utterly. Strong out on heroin, probably. I didn't know that. Right. I probably wouldn't even know what heroin was at that point. But yeah, she was utterly glazed and it was kind of, thank you.
Speaker 2OK, well, so you've got a thank you from her.
Speaker 3That was it.
Speaker 2It'd been bad, Morrison. You wouldn't have got that. I wouldn't have even got that.
Speaker 3It is true. He'd have just told me. Spat on you, probably. He'd keep me in the chin, spat on me, smear jam on my nose. But it's funny.
Speaker 2I mean, I don't know how old she was on this record. She sounds like an old soul on this record. Yeah, well, this is like a
Speaker 3hundred years old. There are people from the era, you know, I think Robbie Robertson to an extent. Yes, yeah, yeah. Randy Newman does. Yeah, she does. You know, oh, they're all of sort of late 20s, early 30s. At their oldest.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3And yet they
Speaker 2could be 102. The harmonium itself, I mean, it's the most ancient. Yeah, of instrument. And it's this kind of wheezing, pumping quality. And it keeps fading in and out of the mix. I don't know if it was something that didn't mix. But it seems to be almost coming out. You're like in waves.
Speaker 3As you say, I think that, you know, for me, I love felt underground, but I was always more of a fan of Nico Solo albums and John Cale Solo album to an extent. And Cale, who I've seen live countless times again, is still amazing. The guy's in his 80s now. And certainly the last time I saw him was maybe six years ago. He's not resting on anything he ever did before. You know, this is an ongoing evolving artist. So I really have a lot of time for Cale. But as you say, if you just needed one example of his genius, this is it.
Speaker 2He produced this album under a student of Fraser Mohawk. So I'm assuming there was some contractual reason why he couldn't produce. But I mean, to me, it's the combination of her voice and her money and playing, but his production and his arrangements. Yeah, like I say, they're demented. They are demented. It's like that doesn't go together. That doesn't work. You can't put that over there. And yet somehow your brain adapts to it. It's like there's two different songs going on a simultaneously. That's the only way I can describe it.
Speaker 3It's an extraordinary album and I think that the starkness of the cover as well. Because the cover is brilliant. It's an amazing fun and the back. The font is superb and timeless. So once more, it could be something that an indie songwriter releases next month.
Speaker 2Definitely going to be a contender for one of my favourite albums. And in some ways, it's the quintessential album he is out. Because I don't know how many people know about this. Although it's just about to be reissued, I think. Just be on the re-shoed, yeah. And there's a sure, which is kind of like the slightly lesser, but very similar. But we're still really good.
Speaker 3I mean, the end is, I think the part of the problem is that Marble Ender, I mean, Chelsea girls great, you know, for debut from a year earlier. But this is kind of so good that the end, which came out in '74 with. - Filmen's nearer. - Liningo in Filmen's an era. Great album, but maybe it's just not quite up to the standards, which is why it kind of slightly gets, you know, seen as a weaker record, but they're all great.
Speaker 2I really like it. I mean, I think I really love them.
Speaker 3But do you know what I mean? This is just so strong.
Speaker 2We love this record. We'll get to the end of the episode and we'll discuss what our favourite is here. But this, I think it's just going to be in the running here, yeah. (funky music) So some other fascinating outliers from this year, Song of Innocence by David Axel Ross.
Speaker 3Yeah. And he did Electric Prunes this year as well.
Speaker 2It's interesting sort of, you know, instrumental orchestral, I don't know what you call it, beat music, jazz, experiments of jazz, all sorts of things in there. Very soundtrack-y sort of aesthetic going on. It's good stuff. Scott Walker, Scott too. My least favourite of the first run of records. It's still good, isn't it?
Speaker 3It's still really good. No, yeah, I mean, I think part of the problem with this is that three and four are about to blow. Yes. Everything he's ever done out of the water. Two side projects of the Beatles.
Speaker 2Oh. Yeah, that kind of little-known
Speaker 3Liverpoolian beat group.
Speaker 2Little-known Liverpoolian beat group. Which shows that they were, you know, again, very curious. Yeah, about. Jon and Yoko, two versions, which sadly it's been the butt of many a joke over the years. I think mainly because of the cover, but also because it's Jon and Yoko carrying on with the Revolution 9 kind of thing.
Speaker 3But it's brave. I mean, what I love about this is that the Beatles, the biggest artists in the world, making
Speaker 2a record of this.
Speaker 3And he would do that. This is what I kind of would love now if a K-pop band or Taylor Swift does.
Speaker 2But I think Taylor Swift does has. She pulled off a real magic trick in making two albums folklore and evermore, which appealed to a kind of indi-alternative audience. And you've got to realize that about a few years before that, she was the natural successor to Avril Lavigne. Oh, it's, yeah. No, I mean, it's extraordinary. She's done that. I see this.
Speaker 3I think Billie Eilish too. I think Eilish, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, have shifted it a little. I've not seen it necessarily in K-pop artists, but nobody has done a two versions. Nobody's done a Revolution 9. Nobody's done even the Revolution, you know. And the point is that the Beatles absolutely shifted things decisively into phenomenally experimental areas and introduced the masses, if you like.
Speaker 2I suppose the closest to that, and obviously they've been going a long time, I radio-head did call off that. Yeah. So they've kind of done that. Yeah, but I think I agree with you. It's a shame in a way that there aren't more artists that would do that. Prince would, of course, you know, constantly expand the musical vocabulary of his audience and himself, and it's a shame more artists don't do that. I think we've discussed this on the podcast before. The stakes are so high these days when you're only making an album every five, six years. People are less prepared to gamble their audience and their following, which is a shame. In the days when people were making two, three albums a year, it was not such a big deal if you gamble, you know, on made a metal machine music, you know, because six months later you'd have your county island baby, you know, to whatever it was, yeah. Anyway, let's move on. The other Beatles member that made it quite an experiment to record is George Harrison, Wonderwall Music. In fact, did he also make his electronic music album this year called Electronic Music? I think he might have thought it. I thought he. Yes. Yeah. Another great example of your point, introducing people to a whole new world of music by basically saying, you know, I'm George Harrison of the Beatles, I can do anything. Everyone's looking at me. Yeah. Everyone's looking in my direction. I'm going to use that to my advantage. I'm going to blow your mind with something you'd never listen to otherwise. Yeah. That's the great thing about this whole era, I think. Yeah. A tramp shining Richard Harris. I know you're a fan. Tim, aren't you, Richard Harris? Talk about none more pretentious. You know, he's an actor essentially, isn't he? With an album written by Jimmy Webb of, I spent a while since I heard it. It's got poems on it. Has it been reciting? Well, I think a lot has happened.
Speaker 3Yeah. He's reciting poems. There are little snatches of orchestral music that have classical grandeur. Yeah. He's got this not particularly technically great voice, but really distinctive, croaky voice that kind of matches the grandeur of the arrangements. Really, yeah, it's thoroughly pretentious and odd. Had the fortune of having a top 10 global hit with MacArthur Park, which is wonderful. It's about seven minutes long, whatever, and then famously covered by Donna Summer years later. Yeah, I really like it, and once more, it's somebody who's in the popular eye, you know, at the time. I think I don't think he'd done Camelot or something at the stage. I mean, he started off with British Kitchen Sync films, but he quickly became a global phenomenon. And again, at the peak of his success is releasing these poetic, pretentious albums that get in the top 10.
Speaker 2Okay. Yeah, it's, we just got a couple of categories to him. We should really wrap things up. We've been talking for a long time. That is 68. We always say this at this point. 68. We've been talking a long time about this. R&B and Soul. There's a sense that R&B and Soul, like a lot of other music from this period, is being influenced by the summer of love, psychedelia. You mentioned earlier the rotary connection out of this year, having a giving a nod to that kind of. But also, slime the family stones in some ways, the quintessential psychedelic soul, R&B band. So, the music, Dion Warwick and the value of the dolls, the magic garden, the fifth dimension, the most traditional of sort of vocal ensembles and, you know, pop ensembles are popping away, of course, famously being their big, their big hit. The magic garden, it's something about it. It's a bit psychedelic. Yeah, yeah. And of course, there's a connection here between this record and the Richard Harrison. We were just talking about innocence. This is all again written by Glenn Campbell. And Glenn, it's written by Jimmy Webb. So, the songwriting is phenomenal. But Jimmy Webb, of course, was very much a traditional songwriter. He came from Tim Panagli and so there's nothing psychedelic necessarily about it. But there's something about this album that's very psychedelic, isn't there? Yeah. It seems to have ambitions beyond being, you know, a sort of conventional pop vocal.
Speaker 3The title, the artwork. And as he said, you know, I think the psychedelia rubbed off even on the likes of Elvis Presley. So, it was ubiquitous.
Speaker 2And it's a concept record. It's basically a cycle of songs about the end of a love affair. So, again, it's got that conceptual conceit to it. It's got the obligatory Beatles cover as you mentioned as well. Yeah. So, have you seen that quest love documentary Summer of Soul about that? No, I want to. It's just a brilliant documentary. Anyway, they're one of the performers at the Summer of Soul and they are brilliant. I mean, talk about the old days when people could actually cut it live, you know? No help at all. There's just brilliant ensemble singing. It's a brilliant, brilliant documentary. If you haven't seen it, I definitely recommend a Summer of Love documentary. So, which should also mention two Aretha Franklin albums, Lady Soul and Aretha now. Again, impossible to imagine that somebody could make two albums in the space of 12 months. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride is always at the end, Tim, I've round up jazz. It seems to me, it seems to me we always get to jazz at the end. But what a year, because there's some really interesting sort of strands coming. Yeah. Things are the beginnings, but I'm sure it's been around for a while. But it seems to me that Brit Jazz is really coming to its own this year. We have the sort of classic British jazz sound, Kenny Wheeler, Win Mill Till to John Sermon's first album under his own name, but also the birth of the European free jazz tradition. Peter Brodsman making his furious free jazz out, machine gun, spontaneous music ensemble, what a line up. What a line up. Derek Bailey. Evan Parker, John Stevens, Kenny Wheeler again, all in the spontaneous music ensemble. But then in America, I couldn't believe it when you wrote me, you sent me this list. I said surely Miles didn't release Nefertiti, Miles and the Sky and Filter Kalamanjara, all in 1968. Yes, he did. Hmm. Wow. Three of its greatest albums, I think.
Speaker 3And he's not repeating it, because these albums would have been recorded relatively quickly. And this is an example, you know, we were talking about silver apples earlier in the nice, where recorded relatively cheaply, relatively quickly, and they sound it. These are recorded very quickly. They sound amazing. Yeah. The playing, the microphone placement, everything about them, you probably couldn't better. And they're all quite different. You know, this is not Miles making three albums that sound the same. No. That year. You know, certainly. I mean, maybe Nefertiti is my favourite. There's a skeletal quality, I think, to all three of them, that maybe is the only similarity.
Speaker 2The title track is… Yes. I mean, it's interesting. The title track is almost no solo. It's just the theme repeated several times. And I think that's what's interesting is that these three albums chart a move away from that to more kind of thematic and also electric music. I mean, they're all top-tier milestones.
Speaker 3They're all really good. I mean, can my joyous probably be my second favourite of them? So, I like it.
Speaker 2What's your third favourite, Tim?
Speaker 3Ah, the three. Ah, the three. It's struggling. Nefertiti's your third favourite. It feels like it's the second favourite. What's your third favourite? I think the sky, maybe. It's a good one, though. That is really good. Yeah. They're all fantastic. I think, you know, yeah, had he just done one of the albums it would have been enough.
Speaker 2Miles and the sky's the one that has the psychedelic album cover again, and another nod to the zeitgeist and what's going on. I think Miles had doubted himself pretty well, you know, both in the way he chose to the way he presented
Speaker 3himself against seamless, isn't it? Yeah. So, yeah. The Floyd transition from past to future is seamless. The Miles Davis transition is seamless. But, you know, he's still the same old post-bop artist he was, and yet he manages to sort of co-op everything. And, in fact, if anything, anticipate things. I mean, by the end of it, Phil, the Kelly Majora is the most electric of the albums, and you can hear in these kind of spidery roads parts, the beginnings, as you say, it's kind of, it's going to dovetail into, in a silent way, isn't it?
Speaker 2Well, and it becomes less about soloing. It becomes more about this sort of Gestalt thing, if where everyone's just playing. Obviously, which reaches a pinnacle on things like Bitches Brew, where it seems like everyone's soloing but no one's soloing the whole time. But there's some other albums that she had, Alice Coltrane's a monastic trio, which I think is her first solo record. I think she would make better records, but her, I mean, Alice Coltrane is one of those artists that I think just gained in stature as time goes on, because I think we talked about this before. At the time, she probably was very much looked down upon as being John Coltrane's widow. But her musical sound is so distinctively Alice Coltrane, isn't it? And still, I think you're still influencing people today, just the fact that the way she used the harp in the context, in fact, there's another album you put on this is, which I didn't know, Afro Harping by Dorif, I'm going to listen to this. Yeah. What a very 1968, but great record day is as well.
Speaker 3Yeah. I still, you know, in some way she deserved to be discussed. And I like it. As you say, I think it fits in beautifully with the era. it sound. And again, like Alice Coltrane, she's a harpist. I mean, Alice Coltrane, of course, was a great pianist as well. And a monastic trio is more kind of a piano trio. More piano, yeah, yeah. Whereas I kind of prefer the slightly more adventurous harp. Indian influence. Well, also the Indian influence.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. I like that too. I mean, a monastic trist sounds like the album you would make having left, you know, her husband's back. It seems like a continuation of that. But it's moving towards the sound that she would develop on albums like Journey in Sashdin and Darren. A couple other jazz records worth mentioning. Speak like a child, Herbie Hancock, this year, very much cut from the same cloth as the the Miles Davis Quinter.
Speaker 3It's almost like kind of before or after Nefertiti, isn't it?
Speaker 2Yeah, it's a lovely record, but I suppose if anything, it just feels slightly in the shadow of the. Yeah. He would go on, obviously, to take jazz into completely different areas later on with the Moandishi band and then the headhunter's band. Here, he's still very much in the blue note,
Speaker 3kind of. Yes, great blue note cover, though.
Speaker 2I love. Oh, a brilliant album cover, yes, absolutely. I think we should draw a line at this point, Tim, so we've talked enough about albums of 1968 and we should try and figure out what we. And this is going to be tough. As always, on the podcast, we choose an album or a few albums that are our favourites. And we also pick an album or more than one album that we feel has had the longest, the greatest long-term influence on music. And of course, it's 56 years since these albums. It's been a long time. A long time for these albums to establish themselves as influential. Do you want to take a crack first, Tim? I'm going to really
Speaker 3struggle with this, as. Well, I see, I did just try to. Just for a change. No, with two change. With two thousand, now it's there. Straight in here. Well, you there, straight away. Oh, and goalfrap. Oh, yes, that's true.
Speaker 2We both went for goalfrap.
Speaker 3I mean, we could. The thing is, as well, we've got to say, we've left off a lot of albums. This really is. As always. The short list. You know, probably we could have done double the amount. And not only, you know, in the world of Brazilian music, with jazz music, rocks, I could hear there's so many interesting.
Speaker 2Classical music. We can't. Classical, we need more to an extent. Kind of made a decision to not try and cover classical music on the. He said maybe some strands, but we could have done a whole episode just on a Gada de Vida. I think we could have. That's face it, you know, deconstructing there. That track. That track. We didn't even mention Captain B. Farts strictly personal. We did, which is good. Which is good. Yeah, it's good. We didn't mention tomorrow. It's good. And we did mention. It's good. It's good. It's good. Well, as in, we kind of like it, but. We didn't even mention Laura Nairo's Eli and the 13th Confession. And as she. We didn't mention. She's great. We didn't mention Fred Neal's sessions, partly because I've never heard it. We didn't mention. We didn't mention Pearls before Swine's Balaclava, either.
Speaker 3But as well, Swine's done some lovely stuff. Do you think it's Fred Neal? He's written a couple of tracks that everyone knows. Everyone will know. Well, we doffins. Everyone will know. Everyone will know. Dolphins. It's about generalisation. But I kind of find that it's his great songs. I think he didn't. Everybody's talking it's a Fred
Speaker 2Neal song. That is the one everywhere. Dolphins, I think you're pushing you like their songs. Dolphins, everyone knows Dolphins. Just because Tim Buckley covered it. Everyone knows it because Tim Buckley
Speaker 3covered it. Oh, come on. Did they. They're covered it. Did they? Pretty sure they did.
Speaker 2Okay, Neal might be right. Pretty sure I've got that, Johnston. I did that. Did not know that. Go on Tim, try and pick a couple of albums. God, I don't know what I can.
Speaker 3Well, I kind of
Speaker 2preempted it earlier. Me, I said my favourite albums this year. Sources full of secrets. Pink Floyd fanboy. It's only incredible. Stringman's Wee Tam and The Big Huge. I've got to say is up there for me. The Marble Index. The Marble Index. Just stunning. Just stunning record. And there was another one, wasn't there? I said it would be. It would be up there for me. Oh, Astral Wigs. Oh God, yeah. How can you not have Astral Wigs in your top album? So those four for me, I'm going to. I'm going to quit while I'm ahead and say those four. Well, I definitely
Speaker 3out of those, I would say Astral Wigs, Marble Index for definite. You have to go and listen to
Speaker 2the Marble Index. It's the quintessential album, years album. You might hate it. You might hate it, but you will concede there's nothing else like it. I'm just going to go with those two because I'm confused. No, that's good. We are unanimous. Right, this is going to be tough. This is going to be tough. The most influential record from 1968. I mean, okay, let's take the wire album as red.
Speaker 3What else? Well, obviously Velvet Underground. What? Well, I think Game Over, isn't it? Easy, because, you know, if you think of in C, Terry Riley, you can still hear the influence of that in film music, system music, feminist music, now. Fair point. I can hear the Floyd, even, you know, that particular Pink Floyd in indie style bands today in the same way I can hear Love Underground. I can, but wouldn't most
Speaker 2indie bands say it was Piper and the Gays of Dawn, that was the one that influenced me. I mean, maybe not. Maybe you're right.
Speaker 3I think set the controls for the heart of the sun. It's more of a template.
Speaker 2Yeah. So for Shoegayser and Slowcore and all those kind of things. Yeah. Yeah. And even Post Rock. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, you're right. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 3Yeah. And then I was thinking weird little things like the very last track on the Judy Collins, the Murder Ballad, where she uses this kind of hypnotic harmonic guitar. And actually, it could be released on an indie singer songwriter's album next week. Probably will be. There's a timelessness about it all.
Speaker 2Okay. Who knows where the time goes. Yeah. Yeah. So
Speaker 3there are little moments I can hear in music throughout the years, even, you know, in a Judy Collins album.
Speaker 2Is this generally, let's say that everything this year is in some way, almost everything in the shoes, in some way, influenced or informed by this idea of psychedelia.
Speaker 3To an extent or against it. Yeah. You're right. It's either going with it or let's go back to the roots, like the stones.
Speaker 2Yeah. Do we still hear it? Do we still hear the spirit of psychedelic music in modern music? Well, I think it goes
Speaker 3through phases, doesn't it? Because I remember in the late 70s, the Great Wings on the Great London Town sort of evoked a psychedelic sense. I mean, I can definitely
Speaker 2see the influence of psychedelic music on shoe guys music. I can definitely
Speaker 3get Essex imperial wizard. You know, all the classic psychedelic tracks. Okay. No. And then, of course, you have in the 80s, as you say, Manchester, shoe guys, juke's of stratosphere, definitely post rock. And then, of course, in the American bands flaming lips mercury rev. I think there's a real flavor of psychedelia and what they're doing granddaddy can be added to that lit jellyfish. You know, there are lots of bands that have psychedelic influence.
Speaker 2But those bands are all minimum 20 years ago now. So what is psychedelic? Is the spirit of psychedelic still relevant? Is it still there anywhere? Do you hear it anywhere?
Speaker 3It's going to be so there. This is how the podcast you're in on the police side. Well, you can hear it, you know, again, I tell you that some of the early hit about the day's the age hip hop as well had psychedelic touches.
Speaker 2That's 35 years ago. But yes, you know, you know, you're right.
Speaker 3The influence through the ages to a certain extent.
Speaker 2I mean, in a way, that's passed through Funkadelic and George Clinton, hasn't it? So yeah, I mean, I was sort of thinking about this earlier, we were looking at the list of American so-called American psychedelic music. And I'm thinking, well, to me, true American psychedelic music is is maggot brain, Funkadelic, which is a couple years later. Yeah. That's true psychedelic American music to me. But that would have been the influence on things like Tribe Called Quest, Day of Soul and Prince and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3Yeah. I mean, I think that what I love about this year and what I love about some of the psychedelias that yes, it had already ossified and become, as you say, a series of tropes, that so much so that Frank Zapper can do an album in a sense, ripping it apart. But what I love about this period is one, its world of possibilities, one, its sense of potential. And I was thinking when I saw the list, it reminds me of how excited I was, because obviously I couldn't experience this first hand. But I could experience some of the post-punk period and there was again, then, a sense of excitement. And some of those bands had, you know, so people who are tired of explode, the stranglers have clearly listened to the doors.
Speaker 2Well, there you go, there's the doors everywhere too, the stranglers, that's a good one, yeah.
Speaker 3But again, years after the event. Yeah. And I think that there was a real world of possibility in that late 70s, early 80s where you didn't know where music could go and it was going in myriad directions, all really exciting. And I think the same goes for this 68 that it's just such a wealth of possibilities and potential. And none of it is hardened, none of its excessive, you know, you could argue, I obviously, you and I both of us love a lot, especially of the early progressive rock artist and underground artists. But by a certain stage, it becomes focused on a certain kind of technical expertise or a certain. Well, in a series of kind of cliches. Yeah, just exactly. But this day, they're all ideas. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, it's that. And so I think it's a really exciting, you know, for me, I loved even listening to what would have been a mainstream pop success at the time, like "Bookends" by Simon Gough Uncle. What a vivid, creative, strange album that is.
Speaker 2Already, the album seems to be the preeminent form of creative expression for so many innovative, creative, imaginative artists. And interesting, we I had a lot of debut albums this year. - Yeah. - I mean, we must have mentioned at least 20 of 30 debut albums in 1968. So there's a sense that record companies are gonna signing everything up. Sign all these interesting artists. We don't know what the fuck's going on. Let's just get all these people in the studio and let them do their thing. And of course, that's what we talked about is before the podcast. When record companies don't quite know what's going on is when you often get the most interesting period in music industry. -
Speaker 3And it had an amazing impact on the culture. And again, what we're talking about is this is an era when pop music and popular culture really was influential in the wider world. You know, we were talking about pretension, but actually, it had impact as great as any major novel, as great as any major poem. This was in a sense the artistic statement of the age, the album, and pop music. -
Speaker 2And we're sitting here speaking at a time when the big story in entertainment and the big story in the music industry is the Beyoncé has covered a song from this year. -
Speaker 3Yes. - And the predominantly urban R&B artist has done a country-flavored album, as if that should be anything to talk of. You know, in a sense, it's great that she's done this and it's great that she's flirting with genres, but shouldn't artists be doing this all of the time? - Yes. - And with far more than with just one genre. -
Speaker 2And it's always great to finish on a bombshell and there is that bombshell from Tim.
Speaker 3(laughing) Beyoncé, you've done well, but maybe you should have done more. -
Speaker 2Yeah. - Thank you very much for listening to the series of the album year episodes on 1968. Who knows what will be next? I don't think we've decided, you have to. I think our next episode, we're going to record in front of a live audience, which is-- - It is.
Speaker 3It's going to be the album year's live. Unfortunately, the tickets sold out in a day, so if you're listening-- -
Speaker 2Oh, I'm embarrassing in it. - If you've not got tickets, you won't be able to-- - No, you can't. You're going to stand outside with an ear trumpet. (laughing) - That's a wall. - Yeah, ear trumpet. - Or wait for the broadcast version. - That is true. - Edit it higher. -
Speaker 3But it will be very edited. -
Speaker 2Heavily redacted. - I totally agree. - All of Tim's schoolboy errors will be edited out, so you won't be able to enjoy those. Anyway, thank you very much for listening. We will be back with you very soon. Goodbye from me and goodbye from Tim. -
Speaker 3Bye-bye. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Mr.
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