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Speaker 2So, other, other old favourites have asked, now Tim, you are our resident Robert Wyatt expert. I don't know this record, old rotten hats.
Speaker 3Old, right now.
Speaker 2How does it fit in
Speaker 3the, in the, in
Speaker 2the era and in the Robert Wyatt continuum?
Speaker 3It's part of the continuum, I think that's it. I think that it's one of those, like a lot of these albums we're talking about, like the Sauvian, like the Gabriel, these are good albums that I'd have remembered buying at the time, really liking, but knowing even then they weren't the greatest
Speaker 2ones. They're not the standouts in the catalog.
Speaker 3And, you know, same goes to a certain extent, although other people would disagree with rain dogs for me, you know. Yeah, it's the same way too. Trombains did more for me.
Speaker 2So, let's talk about Brian Eno. Now, what's interesting about this album is not that it's a particularly extraordinary record. Well, it's a very beautiful record, Thursday afternoon. It's part of his, a part of his sort of series of ambient records, but what's interesting about this is being Eno, he's kind of latching onto the new technology, compact disk, you can have an unbroken 70 minute or 60 minute, as in the case of this record, 60 minute piece of music. And he's taking advantage of the medium to create music specifically for compact disk. In fact, this is an example of an album that only came out on compact disk. It may be the first of its kind, a record by an established artist that only came out on CD. This is what I mean, when I talk about this sort of this year kind of marks the transition from vinyl culture to compact disk culture in a way. Here's a record that only came out on CD by a big mainstream artist. It's a single 61 minute ambient composition. It's very pretty. We've heard Eno do this kind of thing before, tinkling pianos, textures. But I think what's interesting about it is he's still curious about the possibilities of how technology, not just the technology of making music, but the technology of carrying music. The media is changing the way he's approaching his music. But it's a very beautiful ambient piece.
Speaker 3I think it's a kind of, you know, by his standards, it's a middling ambient piece by numbers. But even his middling ambient pieces are transcendent, beautiful. I love it. It's a great album, although again, like some of these albums, he did better before. He'll do better. It's a consolidation, yeah. But you're right. It's one of the first albums I can think of that is using the CD as a medium. It's saying, okay, and obviously this I think came unfortunately to destroy the album in some ways. But it works with ambient music. Because I've always felt certain types of music work perfectly on compact discs and ambient is one of them. Agreed. And so he's one of the artists using this medium using it really well. So it's beautiful in terms of the compact disc is just the right format at that point for the quality of sound his work needs and then the length. So you can get lost in Thursday afternoon. It's one of those albums that is it's a wonderful listener in that sense. Almost as a kind of a backdrop for creative
Speaker 2thinking. Well, even the title kind of implies it's something you just put on and while away the afternoon while this music is playing in the background. I think that was his whole idea. But there is a sense that compact disc is the format that ambient music was waiting for, you know, because I mean, I'm a big fan of compact discs. I love vinyl, but I am still a big fan of compact discs. As you say, for certain kinds of music where I think that zero noise floor is so important and the
Speaker 3quality is still incredible. I think the thing is that, you know, certain CD albums do sound a lot better than vinyl albums. Yeah. To this day, you know, not only ambient and classical, although I think that ambient classical ECM they really benefit from the medium.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, agreed. So some other albums, but some of our favorites this year. Again, I think a lot of these you would probably put in the category of consolidation quality, but not necessarily pushing pushing things any further. Pete Townsend's white city. Yeah, that once more fits
Speaker 3into this that I don't think it's quite as adventurous as all the best cowboys or emcee glass bits are really good. Still good. Pete Townsend album. If anything on this one, it's a bit confused in that there are about nine tracks and probably five different directions. So some of it really is almost kind of him taking the who's stadium almost progressive rock for, you know, give blood, give blood vibrations. Dave Gilmore brilliant track. So I'd say there's about three absolute standouts and it's a solid album and you can hear that he's still listening because there's almost an element of Matt Johnson under the the in some of the rhythms and some of the intensity and I think Johnson had been a fan of Townsend and the who, but I actually suspect that Townsend was also listening. I'm sure that I think Pete Townsend was
Speaker 2always very curious about what was going on. Yeah. And always listening to to changes in the zeitgeist and trying to absorb that into what he did.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's it. The one thing it's got in its favor strongly is that some artists in the mid 80s probably some were going to discuss were a drift. They were complacent. Yeah. Well, they were either complacent or they just did not understand the technology. Couldn't in a sense get with the contemporary style. Yeah. Whereas Townsend he's doing it effortlessly. This is a great 80 sounding Pete Townsend album which he's in control of the materials.
Speaker 2And I wonder if the reason for that is because he's doing it out of love not because he feels like he needs to and and we'll come on to talk about this in some of the other some of the other artists we're going to talk about that perhaps didn't adapt as well. And the sense I have is that they're adapting because they feel like the market is demanding them to adapt and use DX7s and drum machines and gated drum sounds. Yeah. Not because they genuinely like it. Anyway, we'll talk about that later. Some other records that came out this year. Again, Tim, you are our resident American music club fanatic. This must be I'm guessing this is one of their first albums. It's their debut. Yeah. The rest of the stranger. So I'm fully with the music club. I don't know the debut record.
Speaker 3And once more. Is it all there? It isn't going to be my favorite. Okay. It's a good one though. It's actually not a bad one at all. It's the first album. And though they kind of very quickly got lumped in with that kind of new American, a country influence singer songwriter. Territory, you know, 10,000 maniacs, R.E.M. What have you? This does bear the strong influence of joy, division at times and maybe even the cure. So although it's got that slightly Americana short story element to it and Itsel's voice is very much there. There's something of the incertis in his phrasing at times. You can hear where he's come from. Right. Good album. I mean, not the best, but again, definitely worth hearing out. And I'd heard it about five or six years later after I'd got into the bank. So I think my got into the band on with Everclear, which I thought was a beautiful record.
Speaker 2Right. I think probably the same for me around that time. So one other we have in this category, an old favorite of ours, Roy Harper, made a record in collaboration with Jimmy Page. I'm never quite sure of the billing on this record. Sometimes I see it build just as a Roy Harper album. Yeah. With Jimmy Page kind of, you know, as the primary guest, sometimes he's actually given equal billing.
Speaker 3But the time it was, I think.
Speaker 2But there's no question that the songs are Roy, Roy Harper songs. Whatever happened to in parentheses, jugular or jugular. I'm not quite sure how you say it. I'm a big Roy Harper fan. I've never loved this record. I don't know why. I know I should do know why. I think the production is a problem. Now, one of the things we're going to talk about a lot, I think, on this episode is how production became much more of a stumbling block for certain records. So whereas in the 70s and artists would have just gone in with their acoustic guitar, mic up the acoustic guitar, mic up the voice, record the album. It's all about the songs, it's all about the characters, all about the personality. Suddenly technology is this extra layer that can sometimes enhance. Yeah. And sometimes can destroy or not destroy, but get in the way. So Roy Harper always had the most beautiful acoustic guitar tone and the most beautiful technique. And he would use the echoplex, much like John Martin would use the echo plex to add extra texture. Here, the acoustic guitar sounds like it's all recorded off a pickup. It sounds like there's no, it's a really glitchy, glossy, nasty, thin sound. And it spoils it for me. Even as I, even as I might appreciate some of the songs, it spoils it. The production is, is it, is it killer for me?
Speaker 3Well, it's also got that very 80s, for the space. I mean, I think work of heart, which is album for this, which a lot of people dislike. I like that better than this. I like that album. Yeah. I always thought it was really underrated, actually, the material's good. Yeah. And I think he sort of blends in the synthesized and processed sounds of the 80s. Quite. I agree. I agree. You know, especially the sidelong piece, but I think some of the other pieces. So in some ways, this was almost like his return to being Roy Harper. And I agree with you, although it's built as a Roy Harper Jimmy Hage album, it really just feels like life mask. It's a Roy Harper album with Jimmy Page. There's a bit of marketing going on, I think a lot of market. Yeah. - Yeah. - And I think it's a really good album. Actually, I think in the sense that I think it arguably is his best album since "Bulanaming" Vars, I think in terms of the material, the intensity, the waywardness. So in that respect, I'm a fan of it. I agree with you. I think it's got a very distinct, glassy guitar tone, which defines the album along with the "Fretter Space", which I actually quite like. Tony Franklin, I think it is on "Fretter Space". And "Page" in a sense is almost kind of improvising around Harper. And his playing's great throughout, you know, really imaginative. He's doing what Johnny Marl would do under those mind-bombs. He's being this kind of higher-hand. He's kind of enhancing the material. - And I don't really, I don't mind that at all.
Speaker 2I don't mind that at all, no. -
Speaker 3So for me, it's got, I mean, there's one track on it, which is just one chord, it's "Frozen Moment",
Speaker 2which I absolutely at all. - That's a beautiful song, yeah. -
Speaker 3And I kind of realise that part of my, when I play acoustic guitar, that my technique almost derives from that, picking so, I can sort of make that song again and again. And where the shift's coming, it's with the actual synthesiser, which is shifting the nature of the notes and chords. - That is very you. -
Speaker 2That is very you to do. -
Speaker 3Yeah, so I was always a fan apart from the last track advertisement. And I think "Advertisement" is one of the problems. It's the one which is the dope. He always used to have a silly dope song. Well, you know, some of the albums, and this is that album's song. And I remember them being on their grow whistle test. And I think it was with Mark Ellen. And they seemed out of their heads, possibly because they were out there. - I'm sure there is. - And a truth to that. - There was an aspect where they did seem, like spokesman from another generation. - As much as I like the album, I think it was, as I said, I think it was his best album since "Bullen of Ingvars". "Bullen of Ingvars", "Bullen of Mingvars", not "Bingvars". - "Bullen of Mingvars", yeah. - "Bullen of Mingvars". - It's a studio. - It's a studio. - It's hard to say, isn't it? - It's a studio, "Bullen of Mingvars". - And I'm not sure he's ever made an album better since. -
Speaker 2I don't dislike the album, but I would disagree with you. I think I prefer "Unknown Soldier" and "Work of Heart", or two previous records. -
Speaker 3I really didn't like "Unknown Soldier", or "Work of Heart", I liked "Unknown Soldier". - I love it. - That to me was the album he should have made in 1985, because it was the kind of honed, commercialized, Harper fit for the marketplace. - But it's got "K" Bush on it. - Oh, David Gilmore on it. - You can't not like it then. - I genuinely don't like it. - All right, love "Bullen of Mingvars". Love whatever happened to Jaguila. -
Speaker 2Let's move on. So, interestingly enough, Tim, you were, before we started recording this, you were telling me about the short-lived, beggars bank, in a beggar's bank, the British label. They had a short-lived imprint, called "Second Site", is that right? I think so. - I remember on the label, it had two, and then "Second Site". "Second Site", and there were three albums apparently released on this particular label. Roy Harper's "Whatever Happened to Jaguila", or Jaguila, was one of them. And the other two are in our next category. So, let's seamlessly start the next category with the other two records, released on the same label. Now, this category is called "Going With The Times". Now, that, I mean in both a positive and a negative sense. But the two albums we're gonna start with, I think you would certainly claim, and I would agree with you, in a positive sense, John Cale's "Artificial Intelligence", and Nico, and the faction, camera obscuro, which were the other two albums released on this very short-lived. Now, I'm guessing that the theme of this label was to maybe take older artists and to give them their own kind of imprint within beggars bank. -
Speaker 3That is what I'm guessing, 'cause the beggars bank was much more of a kind of a young hippo, a lot of new men, Bauhaus, was it, all that sort of stuff. - I think, well, they had 4AD, didn't they, as that was a sub-label. You might be right, from the Bauhaus stuff, and I think they had a few golf bands around that time. So, yeah, and I remembered it, so I sort of had to check up on it, as if I hadn't been dreaming about it, but I bought all three albums at the time. I remember them having this two second-site imprint, and of course, they were, God forbid, they were over the age of 40. - Yes. - And the age of 40, in the minute? - Were they? Were they over the age of 40? - No, they were pushing, they were certainly pushing. - I think they were over the age of 40. - Push them all the way. - The second site, basically, it was going to be titled "Zimmer Frame", but they weren't the second site, you know. But it was very, I remember buying them, I remember seeing the label, and I couldn't find anything about it on the internet, and so I then looked at the original vinyl albums and found that hadn't been dreaming it, that all three of these albums had this two second site, and I guess it was a particular A&R man, or a particular ethos for these artists, that for some reason, they didn't want Peter Murphy to be tainted. -
Speaker 2They didn't want the new Roy Harper album to be on the same label as the new Gary Newman. - Exactly. - The young, the young Bach alongside the old hippie. - Oh God. - I suspect that probably was the thingy. - Because if it did, Gary Newman,
Speaker 3crow's feet straight away. -
Speaker 2Yeah. - So I can have that. - Oh yeah, that probably was the thingy, wasn't it? He went, but obviously now these things are irrelevant in retrospect, but the point is that there was three albums released, I'm assuming within very short period of time. -
Speaker 3About six months or so. -
Speaker 2On this new label, and the other two albums we're going to talk about, which are obviously connected because John Cowell produced the Nico album, and both John Cowell and Nico had been members of Velvet. Underground famously, John Cowell's Artificial Intelligence and Nico and the Faction's Camera Obscura, these are albums which are definitely embracing technology, aren't they? But in a very interesting way. - Very unique way. - And not in a kind of, we're going to embrace technology so we can go pop and commercial. - Got it. - Quite the opposite. Pretty experimental and pretty ugly would be the wrong word, but abrasive use of technology on some of those records, isn't it? -
Speaker 3Well, the Nico and the Faction, I mean, this kind of follows on from 1968 that when I saw her play live, Night Take You Three, with the Manchester lobbyist, that she was playing with the Faction. And they had this really distinctive electronic sound. And again, rhythmically, it almost had that kind of Steve Jansson approach. Steve Jansson never played the obvious rhythm. It was almost kind of playing, almost geometric patterns. And the Faction was very like this. I mean, quite a different sound from Japan, but a very similar, disjointed effect. So it was Nico again, obviously occasionally with Harmonium, but Nico's singing over this really interesting, dislocated electronic band. And they've been doing it for years before Kale got involved in the production in this case. And this is almost like quite a straight recording of how the band sounded live from my memory. And it was a really good translation of that. So I remember loving this album, the one-out liar on it, of course, is. - My funny valentine. The Encarron Trumpet. - A very traditional reading, isn't it? - Very traditional jazz, green reading, great version. Obviously, her voice is the distinct factor in this that marks it from Peggy Lee or Frank Sinatra or Hatchett Baker. - So yeah, a great album. I don't know how well it did at the time, but I remember being really excited by it. -
Speaker 2It's been a while since I heard it, but I remember some of the drum treatments being particularly strange, like the snare drum, which is to be electronic snare drum, then triggering off this long chain of Evan Tardharm and Iser and Delay. And it's quite wayward and it's quite experimental and it's very curious, obviously, about the possibilities of the technology. This is not music that's trying to hone itself into commercial daytime pop quite the opposite. The John Kayle album, I don't know, but I'm guessing it's kind of the other side of the same coin, is it?
Speaker 3It's sort of similar, it's got a similar soundscape, so Gainey's using a lot of drum machines, a lot of keyboards and synths. It's a strong kale album. Dying on the vine is one of my favorite John Kayle tracks, which comes from it. It's not perhaps as startling original or interesting as the Nico album. I put the Nico album ahead of it. You know that definitely behind my favorite albums of the year. And as much as you write, the album is very experimental and it's the antithesis of Sasudio while being 1985.
Speaker 2I didn't say that, but actually that is what I meant. Thank you for just voicing. That's what you said.
Speaker 3It is the antithesis of Suss-Suss-Suss-Suss-Suss-Suss-Suss. Of that. And by her standards, it's actually quite accessible because it's her, in a sense, rooted within rhythm. But that's not saying much. You know, this is neat. Yeah, but she might have thought this is her saying to John Kayle. Make me sound like Suss-Suss-Suss-Suss-Suss-Suss-Suss-Suss. Exactly. This is what came out. And I love that. Because I was just thinking, we always like to pop music goes wrong. And I love it when pop music goes wrong and maybe that's what Nico and the Faction camera obscures, but great album and John Kayle album really strong as well.
Speaker 2I always love that idea that Scott Walker, when he was making climb of Hunter Thor, he was making Rilla. Or that's the way I imagine it anyway.
Speaker 3Well, he did. I remember hearing the interview at the time. And he said that he said, "I listened to a lot of the top pop records at the time." That's what you came out with. I said, "I've been listening to that. I've got a top pop producer involved." And you come up with Clare of Hunter.
Speaker 2Get brilliant ocean on your record. Exactly. You know, he's hearing. Yeah, I love that. That's a great story. So, other records that came out this year, going with the category, going with the times now. So there we had an example of a record going with the times in a good way, in a successful way. Here, I think. I don't think you're going to disagree with me here, Tim. These are fails. Miles Davis, you're under arrest. not good, Joni Mitchell's doggy dog. - I've got more time for that than you, I quite like it. - Well, I don't dislike doggy doggy, but to me, it sounds like a bunch of session musicians. - Yeah. - In a studio in L.A. and the lyrics are quite glib and banal by Hurston's. That song, ETH, I cannot listen to that. -
Speaker 3But quite an interesting kind of dissonance in the key. -
Speaker 2Not terrible. - Not terrible, unlike the miles out, which I think is terrible. -
Speaker 3Well, what's interesting is they've just released about a year ago or so the bootleg series Mars Davis. It's the outtakes from the series. -
Speaker 2They're better, are they? - Oh, really good, yeah, okay. -
Speaker 3Some of them are great. I mean, because this period was never, you know, decoy your address, decoy was better for sure. -
Speaker 2Well, and Tutu, the album that came after this, I think is a much more successful attempt to do what I fear he's trying to do on this. - Yeah. - And I think the element he's missing here, perhaps is Marcus Miller, the producer of Tutu, wasn't on board for this record, at least as far as I know. This to me, when I listen to this, and I listen to it again, to come and try this morning, it sounds like the kind of music that will be in the background on a US-80 sitcom. -
Speaker 3Yeah, it's very Miami-Vice as well. -
Speaker 2Yeah, but miles shouldn't be doing that. He shouldn't be doing that. And you know, the one thing I will say I caveat to that is that miles was always curious. - Yeah. - He wasn't complacent. He was probably looking around at him, a bit like Scott, you know, on Climate of Hunter, listening to Thriller and saying, "I'm gonna make my thriller." He was listening to what was going on around, the Prince, Michael Jackson, whatever it was, love of all two, whatever it was he was listening to. Scriticality famously, he was listening to it. We're gonna come onto that later. And he was saying, "I'm gonna do my miles version of that "and because I'm miles, I'm gonna do it better "than any of those guys did." Which is what he would have done in the set, not better, but he would have made it his own. And this is a massive fail for me on this record. -
Speaker 3Well, as the bootleg album suggests, he was still producing some interesting work. They were improvising with the X7s and so on, slightly longer pieces, so not as constrained. So I think it says much in the sequence thing until, I think Sting is on it, doesn't it? -
Speaker 2Sting is on at least three albums we're talking about today. - It's all money for nothing. - So he's been on Dimastrates, he's been on miles and he's gonna be on his own record. - So I think he's ruined Dimastrates, you know, if he's immensely talented, you know, again. - Well, he hasn't ruined miles. He hasn't ruined Dimastrates either. He's enhanced. He's enhanced. He hasn't ruined miles. I think Miles did a pretty good job of that himself. - Yeah. - It's my least favorite Miles Davis album, possibly of a wall. -
Speaker 3Mine least favorite as well, possibly. - Yeah, you're under arrest. - Ron, doggy dog, I kind of had something more timeful because what she did before while things run fast, that to me sounded like an A&R man's vision of Joni Mitchell. And this is as much, but I think the music is slightly more interesting as it was in shortmarking a rainstorm as well. Though there are some stories, I think Tomas Dolby was telling the story of it and he hated his experience on it and he said he got a lot of the blame for his failure. Even though she got him because she loved apparently the Tomas Dolby production and Tomas Dolby's work, but when it failed, apparently he'd force sounds on a forced approach and so on. - Was it true?
Speaker 2'Cause his producer credit was taken off, reissues. And I wonder if that was 'cause of, he asked for his producer credit to be taken off. -
Speaker 3He's still very sore about it, still very upset because he'd idolize Joni Mitchell. You can hear this, listen to screen kiss on the flat earth and he's clearly a Mitchell devotee. He's got a similar way of detail, lyrically. Well, yeah, aren't we all? And I think he was profoundly at the point. He said on one level, she was. - Never were with your heroes. - As intelligent and as sensitive and talented as he thought. But he said she was also more ruthless and he remembers her being surrounded by people who would agree with everything she said. So it wasn't quite the organic process of one on one. This was Stephen Wilson with four people. I don't know when you're in the studio, it's more like that. When every ID you put down, I'll brilliant. -
Speaker 2Well, you know, I was gonna say never were with your heroes unless it's Robert Fripp. You can work with him. He's great fun. Andy Partridge, he's great fun to work with you. - He's great, yeah. - Who else is, will we love to work with you? - You know, this is lovely to work with, yeah. -
Speaker 3No, there's lots of heroes. -
Speaker 2In fact, it's completely nonsense. It's completely nonsense, never were with your heroes. -
Speaker 3Right, I suppose it's interesting. It talks about a world where obviously you're detached. And maybe it's true that, you know, weirdly enough, talking to heroes, I was talking to Peter Hamel about it. The other time. - Damn, you've got him in. I have, he's just around the corner. - He's having a coffee, you won't get him in later. And he was saying that he felt, especially in this era, I think he was talking at the Taylor Swift and Beyonce era, that these are people who have five or six individuals clinging onto them, agreeing with everything they're saying. And I wonder, you know, Mitchell might have been an early version of that. According to Thomas Dolby's observation, we don't know, we weren't there. -
Speaker 2I mean, to me, the problem with the album, I don't mind, I like a voice still. I think some of her lyrics are okay, although she's not quite at the level she had been. How could she be, you know? The songs are okay. The production even doesn't bother me. It's the kind of session musician sound, the guitar player. - Yeah. - It's got that horrible kind of smug L.A. I don't even know who he is. He's got that horrible catheter, I think. - Is it? - Is it, this is the guy from Toto? - He's certainly on one of those albums. - Okay, anyway, the main guitar player has got the horrible gonna smug L.A. session tone on it. (humming) And it really jaws with me, particularly on a Joni Mitchell album. It just, I mean, from Jakob Astorius to that, I'm sorry. -
Speaker 3But, you know, Larry Carlton was the kind of cream of smug L.A. session players in the '70s. Yet, he really enhances the Joni Mitchell albums. He's on them. - Well, in Pat Muthini.
Speaker 2You know, she had Pat Muthini a couple of years ago. And suddenly she's got this kind of horrible L.A. session musician playing these guitar solos. So it really puts me off. I think, I think, you know, this is, this is what this whole category is really about. Going with the times, both good and bad. Sometimes it was good, sometimes it was bad. Now, I've got two more entries in this category. And these for me are a little bit more ambiguous about whether it's good or bad. Rush, power windows. - Yeah. - They're definitely going with the times, aren't they? There's a very strong, I've always sense, there was a very strong influence from ZTT. - Very strong influence from ZTT. - In fact, isn't the keyboard player the key? Is it handy? -
Speaker 3Yeah, I think it was, I think it was even produced at some where, to think it's produced in. - Could be. - One of the TTs,
Speaker 2Peter Collins is the producer. It's definitely reaching for that ZTT sort of sound world. But do they pull it off? I'm not sure.
Speaker 3I'm not sure either. 'Cause I think signals are really like, 'cause of the progressive sense, it's a weird, yeah. It's them embracing the '80s. In a totally idiosyncratic rush way. And so signals, I think, is strong. I really like grace under pressure, which is a much darker. - I know that, Ruck. - Well, this is where they've listened to you two and the police. And the one thing that's great about rush is that they continually evolved. - Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. - And they're really pulling off that kind of you two police influence, but again, in a quirky, definitively rush way. This kind of feels like they're slightly lost under the technology for me. -
Speaker 2It feels, I did listen to it again this morning. It feels like the production has dated it quite badly. There was some great songs in it. There was one song I was listening to, Middletown Dreams. It was a great song. Beautiful sentiment in the lyrics, great melody. But then these big, reverberating keyboard pads and big drum sounds. And I just thought to myself, you know, this screams 1985 at me. -
Speaker 3And it's very click-tracking, isn't it? In the sense that every thing is operating to quite clinically, it's quite clinical. - Which they don't. Even when you're on grace under pressure, this is a power trio, really stretching rhythms. -
Speaker 2There is a feeling of them getting lost, as you say, you use the word swamp, them getting lost under these layers of keyboards and layers of production and layers of sound design. Now, I like sound designer music. I love ZTT. I love what Trevor Horn does. As to whether those two things rush and that kind of production approach make good bedfellows. If it was, if the evidence was this album, I would say not really. And it's not because it's a bad album. It's an okay album. - Yeah. - It's an okay album. But I don't think it's entirely successful. I don't know what they did after this. Did they continue down this? - They did hold your fire.
Speaker 3I don't know, it's slightly more synthesized version of that. I mean, these probably hold your fire and this would be my two least favorite rush albums.
Speaker 2I mean, they're going with the times. And they're kind of pulling it off. They are. - Yeah, they are.
Speaker 3They get rub behind in a couple of albums down the line as well. -
Speaker 2I'm certainly not going to put this in the same category as, you know, Miles Davis, you're under arrest or-- -
Speaker 3No, don't. - The point is there's still an intelligence in the lyrics. There's still a definitively rushed quality in there somewhere. And I think it comes out of their natural curiosity about what's going on. -
Speaker 2I think so too. I think they genuinely loved the place and you too and the ZTT sound. They genuinely loved it and they genuinely wanted to bring that into their kind of sound. -
Speaker 3That's it. And I think, you know, again, if you're a musician,
Speaker 2you can hear that. You can hear that integrity is still there. -
Speaker 3Yeah. - I suppose they were coming at it from a different angle. You know, where is 84? I might have been blown away by Laurie Anderson, Scott Walker, David Sylvie and Blue Nile. They're blown away by Frankie Ghost of Hollywood. - Yeah. - But understandably, 'cause it was amazing. - I still am. - You know, it's still a great record, but that wasn't necessarily where I'd personally take my vision. -
Speaker 2There's something about the combination of rush at this power trio, as we know and love them. And the kind of ZTT, big, shiny ZTT production approach that makes the end result sound a bit FM rock. Do you know what I mean? A bit more journey, Toto, Foreign Aboston than Synchronicity by the police or Pleasure Dome or a Secret Wish. It kind of lends somewhere between the two. It's too close to that kind of AOR FM American sound. For some reason, for some reason. Maybe he wasn't the right producer choice.
Speaker 3And the album that proceeds this, I say, grace under pressure, it's very much a guitar album, even though it's a very processed and imaginative guitar. It's a guitar album, and this certainly isn't a guitar album. And it's keyboard albums, I was going to say, I think signals, because again, it's all played by literally. Yeah, love it.
Speaker 2And the production is still quite dry and up front, and you still feel like it's essentially a band there. Very much so. And I'm not sure you do. So there you go, me and Tim, we're not sure about this album. We're not sure if we like it, we don't like it, we're not sure it's good, but so maybe the people listening to us can give us their opinions on this particular.
Speaker 3They can, in fact, they can apparently give them verbally as well.
Speaker 2Well, we're going to, we're going to try, we're going to try and implement.
Speaker 3Not Miles Davis,
Speaker 2by the way, Miles Scaren. Miles, our videographer today has told us that the next level, the next level for the audience is going to be having short, spoken contributions by the listeners to the show.
Speaker 3So maybe we're going to be able to say Richard Davis didn't have a West Yorkshire accent. He was from Lancashire. That kind of thing.
Speaker 2I've no idea what you're talking about now, Tim.
Speaker 3Richard Davis, the session player in Astral Weeks, you'd forgotten that already.
Speaker 2I've forgotten that already. I thought Astral Weeks, you told me in the last episode that Astral Weeks just made by a load of anonymous session musicians. It didn't even know that Morrison was. Are you now recanting that? I'm not. They were session musicians.
Speaker 3It was the Drum Lancashire. No, from America. It was the drummer from modern jazz quartet. It was the drummer on it. Oh, okay. And Richard Davis, who's a great jazz session player. Oh, that Richard Davis, okay.
Speaker 2That one. Right. Anyway, let's move on because there's one more album in this category. I'm not sure. A bit like the rush album powering us. I'm not sure what to make of it. Okay. I'm not sure whether it's successfully adapting to the times with enthusiasm and curiosity or if it's a bit of a fail. Robert Plant shaken instead. No, I had never heard the record before. I listened to it this morning. Again, the production straight away was like that on my face. It's like, there's the production. 1985. Can I hear this Robert Plant making music underneath all that production? And I couldn't really. I couldn't really hear that there was a Robert Plant album underneath it. So in due days, yeah, in due time,
Speaker 3it is despised by parents because the first two albums I think kind of safely took yes, Plant into solo territory. Big log was a huge hit. And that managed to be sort of sensitively, sensually 80s while still being Robert Plant, didn't it? Big log. Great track. I actually really quite like shaken instead because I think it's taking quite a lot of risks. This really is him immersing himself in the chaos of 80s synthesized sounds and rhythms, really artificial drum sounds and keyboards. But he always sounds kind of very playful, very alive. And to me, it's a bit like if a rock and roll album could have been fused with synth pop.
Speaker 2Okay, yes, I can hit with a little bit I heard. I can hear how that would be a pretty good in a nutshell summing up of the album. Like I say, I couldn't, I couldn't even hear it as a Robert Plant album because this production was like smacking me in the face from the opening seconds of the track. The drum sounds, the synthesizer sounds. It was just, it was all about the production and I couldn't, I couldn't really engage with it. At the time I might have been able to but with 20 years, sorry, 40 years hindsight, I can't listen to her.
Speaker 3Well, this is it because sometimes again, something you said about Rush that you felt if you hadn't heard them when you were a teenager in the, you know, the flush of teenage confusion, perhaps they were a mystery to you because people you'd spoken to. Yeah, I think they're one of those bands.
Speaker 2You have, Rush or a bone you have to discover when you're like KISS. If you don't discover KISS when you're 13 and full of testosterone.
Speaker 3What we need now is just 70 year olds.
Speaker 2Yeah, I've just heard Rush for the first time and I like them. Mr. Watts. You can't come to KISS at the age of 40 and appreciate them. I think Rush are a little bit like that and I say that advisedly because I have a lot of friends that didn't hear them at the time. Yeah. And they listened to them now and they hit 21, 12 and they just think it's ludicrous and it is ludicrous. But in a way that I love. Yeah. It's ridiculous and I love it.
Speaker 3But I can see with this because I heard this album at the time. At the time. Yeah, I quite like playing. I think he's a talent. Me too. He's a talented fella. There's no doubt. And I loved the fact that he was kind of embracing possibilities but it was hated. It was really hated. Right. But I quite liked it then. So I don't know what it would be like to come to it 40 years later as you're saying, you know, it was a shock from big log and the first couple of solo albums. Right. Okay. You know, I was glad of that shock. I was thinking, well, good, you know, he's still the shock of the new. The shock of the new. Yeah. Yeah. And it was, do you know one of those albums that's very 80s and plasticky and geometric?
Speaker 2Yes. That. It's that. And there's a place for that, isn't there? There is a place for that record.
Speaker 3There's me dismissing simple minds. And then, and then a door in Robert Plant's worst ever album as far as the universe is concerned.
Speaker 2Even though we know which one is a brilliant record and which one probably isn't. But I get that. That's part of the beauty. That's why we had where did we do this podcast because musical taste, musical listening, the way we engage in music is full of those kind of anomalies in parallel. Contradictions. Contradictions. Yeah.
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