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Speaker 2to another episode of The Album Years in our new environs. Now, this is the new Crystal Spotlight podcast studio. It's very swanky, isn't it? It's glorious. Very swanky. And we've got all this amazing, like, super top-tier hi-fi equipment behind us. So maybe on future episodes, we can actually spin some of these records. And then we could do a sort of, you know, like a jukebox journey, trash the record if we don't like it.
Speaker 3And I think it's a perk that we get hits at the end of it as well. We get given the record player and speakers. We get given the record player. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we could smash the records over
Speaker 2our knee if we don't like them. What do you think? You like that idea?
Speaker 3I love that idea because I think I used to do that as a teenager. I used to find ways of destroying albums, as you know. You've told me all about it.
Speaker 2You've told me about lining telephone boxes with egg albums and things.
Speaker 3Tying them on pieces of string off the cantilever bridge.
Speaker 2Brilliant. I love that. So we are in the new studio, and we're doing 1972 today, folks. 1972. Now. Now, just a disclaimer to start with. 1972, Tim, shock horror. Yeah. Is the only year between 1969 and 1987 that The Ham did nothing.
Speaker 3He did a few gigs, I think. No, I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah. He didn't release an album.
Speaker 2Didn't release an album.
Speaker 3He did not. And I think they did attempt to do a follow-up to Porn Hearts in 1972, but it didn't pan out.
Speaker 2Didn't release it. So we've got nothing. So we're going to have to name check him anyway at the top of the show. We're not. We're not. We're not. We're not going to be talking about The Ham. There is an irony there. Anyway, the other big thing about this year is for the first time, we are going to be having some listeners' reviews. We are. So we've opened up a website that's enabling you guys out there to leave your own reviews of some of the albums from 1972. So we haven't listened to them yet ourselves. So Rob from Crystal Spotlight has chosen some that he thinks are interesting, and we're going to go over to hear your reviews when we're done. And we'll get to the albums in question. And we'll be able to comment on your reviews as well, whether we agree with you, whether we disagree with you. Let's just dive in. This was a great year. Well, it's certainly in the UK. And I understand this is a very UK centric thing. Glam rock was kind of defining the year, wasn't it? At least in terms of the charts, the mainstream glam rock was the big thing. And it had kind of been bubbling under for a while. T-Rex had had hits the year before, but this is the year that it all comes together. Really? It's really coalescing around, I think a handful of albums. Yeah. So let's talk about those albums. And the first album we want to talk about really is the debut album of Roxy Music. Now I understand we have a listeners, we're straight in. We're going to go to listeners. We've got a listeners review of the Roxy Mew debut album. So let's hear that review,
Speaker 4please, Rob. Oh my God. The 1972, the first Roxy Music, album. What a bunch of talent. Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera, Brian Ferry. What a beautiful songs like 2HB or Remake to Remodel with the first video clip. That is an incredible video that Brian Ferry still love it. It's one of the best rock albums and one of the best glam rock albums for me.
Speaker 3We're not going to disagree with that,
Speaker 2are we Tim?
Speaker 3Not at all. Though, the only thing I'd point out, partly disagree with is the glam rock that I kind of think they were glam rock by association because of their image. I kind of think that Roxy combined so many ideas. They came from an art school background. And if you listen to the album, it has elements of rock and roll glam R&B, but it also has elements of the kind of psychedelic underground of the late sixties, the progressive music of the early seventies. It seems to eat everything up and be, be totally on top of every influence they're using. And I kind of think that their image may be accidentally because I feel this sometimes with the Lou Reed. The Lou Reed was a very serious individual. And I think he always saw himself as a short story writer. And yet he became this kind of glam sleaze as far as the press were concerned. And Roxy, I think, got caught up in the glam mania.
Speaker 2But isn't that the point about all kind of labels and genres, though? I mean, I'm looking at this list of albums that are nominally in the glam section here. Wham! Glam, as we've called it. Yeah. You could say the same about all of them, really. I mean, Slade were never a glam band, were they? But they kind of hitched a ride on the bandwagon. Lou Reed, as you say, Bowie even, I mean, he kind of hitched a ride, or in some respects, you could say Bowie defined it. Yeah. But there was no such thing as glam rock really until Mark Bolan went on top of the pops wearing the glitter under his eyes. And then suddenly the press, decide this is this is a genre, this is a movement. And haven't we seen that happen so many times over there from psychedelic music to punk rock to Britpop to grunge? It's a question of the press or the media creating a bubble and then other bands kind of using that as a platform or as a springboard to get a record deal, to get a record out, to get some press. So you're right, I think Roxy, but you're right, I think the image is the thing that kind of people remember. Yeah. Very flamboyant image. Which puts them right in the vanguard of of being a glam act, doesn't it? Well,
Speaker 3I think what it was with Roxy and possibly even with Bowie as well, that they were responding, you know, a lot of movements are reactions to what is the prevailing trend. And I suppose that rock had become more serious, more academic, whether it was the singer songwriters or the progressive rock bands, Bowie, T-Rex, Roxy were all about putting entertainment at the forefront as much as art. But this is the,
Speaker 2this is the interesting thing, isn't it? I mean, Roxy, although you point out musically, they were drawing from all these different traditions. There's something about the way they market themselves that is about glamour, the artwork, the imagery, some of the lyrical subject matter. Brian Ferry was always fascinated with glamour and the high life, wasn't he? He was always fascinated by the way the rich people seem to me. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, he was a working class lad from Newcastle, wasn't he? Yeah. And he seemed to have aspirations to be living on a yacht, you know, Ibiza.
Speaker 3Lewis style aspirations.
Speaker 2Lewis style. Yeah. And, and a lot of the artwork, I mean, even going through some of his solo records from the 70s, always on the front cover in a sort of tuxedo standing next to a pool in Ibiza.
Speaker 3It's sort of transcending the griminess of his upbringing, I think. Yeah. But this is it, I suppose, with Ferry and with Roxy Music, I think it was very natural. I think the album, the image was a very unselfconscious extension of their passions and their interests. Whereas I think with Bowie, Slade and some of the artists that came afterwards, if you like Cockney, Rebel, Bebop, Deluxe, I think they cleverly and brilliantly self-consciously hitched themselves onto something. Whereas I think that Roxy arrived at this place.
Speaker 2Sweet. Exactly. Bricklayers from Hull.
Speaker 3Indeed. And so I think, you know, Ziggy Stardust was that to a certain extent. I think, I think Bowie was always canny and aware of what was happening. And of course, he was friends with Mark Bolan.
Speaker 2But I think the difference is Bowie and Bolan could pull off the androgyny thing. Whereas Slade and Sweet couldn't. And I think Slade were very aware of that. And they almost played up against that, you know, the pantomime.
Speaker 3Well, Slade had been a skinhead band.
Speaker 2Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I think they kind of played up the pantomime aspect of it. You know, we know we look like bricklayers, you know, but let's just, the whole Dave Hill thing with the ridiculous, you know, trying to outdo himself with the more ridiculous outfits every time on Top of the Pops. Whereas I think Bowie and Bolan, really pulled off the androgynous appeal.
Speaker 3They did. And arguably, you know, T-Rex or Bolan invented it really because he was kind of leading towards this. And they were very natural again. But his influences, you know, he came out of something that was more like the kind of incredible string band, you know, the early Tyrannosaurus Rex, the ramshackle experimental psychedelic folk of the early Tyrannosaurus Rex albums. But you can hear it on the later Tyrannosaurus Rex albums, the first T-Rex album where it really naturally fuses from this into him bringing in kind of Eddie Cochran rock and roll influences.
Speaker 2Now, is that also something that's interesting? You kind of alluded to this in the Roxy that I think there was a reaction against the sort of bombast and pretension of progressive rock. And there is a sense of getting back to rock and roll. And you hear it in Roxy. You hear it in Bowie's Ziggy Stardust album. You hear it in T-Rex. You certainly hear it in Slade. There is a sort of wanting to go. And Lurid, wanting to go back to the heyday of rock and roll and pop, pure pop. You know, Bowlin always said he was setting out to be a singles band when he felt like everyone else had forgotten to make great pop singles. You know, in the early seventies, everyone was making these big conceptual rock albums. He wanted to get back to, let's just make great pop singles the kids can get behind. And there is an element of that all the way through these glam albums, isn't there, from this year?
Speaker 3There is. Though I'd say that Bowie and Roxy, to pull it off. off both that i think they appeal as
Speaker 2well i think the slider
Speaker 3um but i'm saying that in terms of appealing to the serious progressive underground album audience that roxy and bowie totally pull that off as well as managing to produce the hit singles at the right time and have the image of
Speaker 2the rock snobs were a little bit suspicious of mark bowman weren't
Speaker 3they they were exactly
Speaker 2even though i think the slider artistically speaking creatively speaking is right up there yeah right up there with the roxy album and the ziggy album you know and i think but i think the problem was mark had kind of burned a lot of his bridges because he'd gone from being you know a pop star wannabe to a hippie when it was fashionable to be a hippie and then suddenly he was something else because it was no longer fashionable well i think he was a fashion victim but then bowie was too
Speaker 3let's be honest but i suppose the thing is as you say boland pulled off the image and he was a bona fide teen idol yeah and he was also being dropped by people like john peel around this time was yeah whereas bowie and roxy were still being courted by the likes of sounds enemy john peel and so on so i think there was a different perception that t-rex somehow had transcended their underground roots and become a total teen pop sensation and you're right it's unfair because i think the slider is arguably one of the most consistent albums that came out at just the right time yeah and it's a great cover you know i know it's a blurred photograph by ringo star but it's a great cover very iconic but very very yeah do you say iconic well a lot
Speaker 2of these albums have these very iconic covers i mean who can who can think of david bowie ziggy stars without immediately thinking of that cover you know on that location so we you know we love the roxy music album so complete concur with the listener there yeah it is a completely impossible to i mean i've had the pleasure of remixing the album it's fascinating to go into and just see what's going on in there it's this extraordinary virginia plains not not even on the record but one of the great great pop singles of all time i think extraordinary i think it's a great album it's a great album it's a great album extraordinary uh just so unique well i think you know we could go into every single track but i
Speaker 3remember that brian eno said that what he loved about the album was that it was something like eight tracks and there were eight potential future directions for the music of roxy music chance meeting yeah chance meeting classic wonderful piece but i'd say that actually there's about 16 different directions maybe maybe more 24 because you listen to some of these tracks and what i love about this album is the sheer unpredictability so you have something like if there is something that starts off almost as a jaunty country piece and ends up as an apocalyptic art rock piece with very screaming hysterically you know what's really interesting is that these pieces embrace so much and they play like their lives depend on it and you listen to some of these tracks as well there's a lot of kind of progressive and underground influences there's a lot of free jazz in there there's a lot of king curtis soul in there there's a lot of
Speaker 2dadaism as well which you know something you associate with the vocals on the first track is just a number plate they were they were yeah is that right something a number plate they were reading on the car so they didn't have any lyrics so they just recited so there's that dadaist aspect to it but i mean also tracks like sea breeze is very brooding almost sinister undercurrent
Speaker 3incredibly intense and as well they deal with dissonance as much as king crimson dealt with dissonance and soft and you can you know hear that manzanera had come out of kind of soft machine early pink floyd as those sort of influences they're in there somewhere i think this is it it's such an intriguing free-flowing album it was an outlier
Speaker 2at the time and it's still an outlier isn't it it's still very hard to talk about the album as we put it in the glam obviously we talked about this a few minutes ago that everything in this glam category in a sense is kind of an imposter because the whole glam genre didn't really exist except it did but only in the very kind of mainstream pop area yeah the albums that we take seriously that have stood the test of time are only very obliquely related to anything like a it's the same true of of ziggy i mean it's kind of nominally seen as the definitive glam rock album but it's not really is it i mean it's
Speaker 3no i think it's you know it's one of my least favorite bowie albums and that's not to say i dislike it because i think it's a great album yeah it sounds fantastic i mean one of the things is that roxy music roxy music i adore my favorite in this category but it's very murky the production's murky it's by pete sinfield of king crimson to my remix mate miles better i thought that sounded even murkier
Speaker 2did you actually listen to it yeah i've got it have you listened to it 5.1 i bought it you didn't
Speaker 3give it to me i
Speaker 2bought it they didn't give me a copy i had to buy it myself anyway so yeah i did
Speaker 3i bought it it sounds fun yeah you've done a great job thank you well done you made all the changes well done i think ziggy sounds very clear very competent it's a great production for the age and i kind of see it as his purple rain in that it's a fantastic album that comes out at the right time and it's got these often pared down arrangements you listen to the first few pieces it's very unpredictable you know beginning with little drum patterns and it's very uncluttered the production on that album i think i think maybe
Speaker 2this is slightly contradicting you in this way but what i what i was going to say what springs to mind for me is when i listen to it again i'm surprised how conventional it is yeah no that's the album and even the slider but also the rest of the bowie cat in fact what became what came before and after it yeah dory and and aladdin saint it's actually more conventional isn't it it's a more conventional heavy rock stroke folk i mean you can still hear the the influence of it you know from his singer songwriter yeah the songs are great but i think apart from the first track which for me is the outlier five years it's actually a surprisingly conventional rock and
Speaker 3from near the end they're surprisingly slow to medium tempo because i always think of this as being quite an aggressive album well but a lot of it yeah but you know a lot of it is actually quite medium tempo it's quite a safe bowie album i mean i love space oddity um man who saw the world fantastically off kilter record and hunky dory was almost bowie's attempt to do a kind of a plastic ono band to strip dancing a songwriter record in the bowie style and again it's one of my favorite so this doesn't compete with me in terms of being a personal favorite but it's almost like apart from the imagery and the cover this is bowie reigning himself in and making the right album at the right time because you listen to aladdin saint and diamond dogs and he's once more he's unleashed he's because he's he's firing off by then he's
Speaker 2kind of got the mandate to do what he wants yeah so i mean correct me if i'm wrong hunky dory wasn't a big success ziggy was the big brand breakthrough i think
Speaker 3was the big break so at
Speaker 2that point he's like i've made the record i've made my accessible record i've got everyone looking in my direction now now i can go off and start to introduce these other more interesting elements it was the album that got him on top of the pops
Speaker 3it's the album that gave him license to be himself yes i think um so i really like it's really well done and again you know although it's safe listen to moon age daydream and there are lovely little
Speaker 2arrangement touches safe relatively safe yeah in the context of his career and safe perhaps when you compare it to an album like the roxy debut and yeah absolutely
Speaker 3and the least safe element of it probably is his voice which is you know i mean ferry's voice is ultra quirky yes bowie's voice is still very passionate and quirky on this and it's something that will probably come to when we discuss yeah yeah bonus much much odder than bowies i think yeah but when we discuss foxtrot i think what's interesting with bowie is that though he's kind of a mask i mean i think this is really not a concept album in any sense i think this is a carefully curated bowie singer-songwriter rock album with some great hooks great arrangements for me i think it begins well and ends well i think the opening track is superb last track is brilliant and there's some classics in between but as i said it's never kind of gripped me in the way that aladdin no i agree with dogs and i
Speaker 2think it is relative because it's an utterly brilliant album yeah and and i love it and i think it's a great album and i think it's a great album and i think i like it very much but like you it would be one of the lower tier bowie 70s albums in terms of what i would personally reach for but he gets it right in terms of you know this is the album that gets
Speaker 3on top of the pops gets him in the magazines absolutely and he's honed his image to perfection
Speaker 2as well yeah so other albums that nominally fall into the glam rock category we mentioned t-rex we mentioned slade's album slade this this year mott the hooples all the young dudes i guess you know obviously um very closely related to bowie yeah yeah well bowie
Speaker 3obviously wrote the title track wrote the title
Speaker 2track which is
Speaker 3brilliant i mean this is it because bowie obviously he produces and gets and writes for people like mott the hoople and lou reed this year and strangely there are tracks on those albums that i put as my favorite bowie related pieces you know perfect day or you know all the young dudes itself what an amazing piece i think it's one of bowie's utter classics and it manages once more to tie into this kind of rock and roll revivalism which was happening you know there were kind of vintage rock and roll concerts in london in the early 70s people like you know little richard um jerry lewis not exactly coming out of retirement but almost having a second wind and having massive concerts i think chuck berry had a number one with my
Speaker 2my ding-a-ling yeah less said about that the better although do you
Speaker 3want a hamel reference
Speaker 2on this one go on let's get the ham in fire is that it is you just want to say that i just wanted
Speaker 3to say that but no you just want to say that but no Nick Potter Van de Graaff's bass player yes was in chuck berry's band in the early 70s
Speaker 2i did not know that i did not know that there you go pop kids some fantastic trivia there vandergrift chuck harry trivia there for you let's talk about lurita two albums this year the debut and transform i think that the debut is commonly seen and i you know this is this is not my opinion but it's commonly seen as i'm saying as a bit of a sort of a false start for him yeah um isn't it isn't it the first time that's got the members of yes as the backing group or something it's got steve howe and rick wakeman
Speaker 3yes this ties in with another album that we'll discuss oh yes later oh yes um i love it i love lou reed's debut it's one of my favorite lou reed albums i mean a lot
Speaker 2of tracks he wrote for vu and
Speaker 3yeah so it would have probably been the vu album after loaded but it's arguably better than loaded i mean i i think people didn't rate this because it didn't particularly sell it was seen it was a more serious album it's got great pieces like you know ocean for one it's really quite exploratory it's quite a serious singer-songwriter rock album coming out of velvet underground really uncompromising very strong personally love it
Speaker 2and transformer then was his kind of commercial high point wasn't it well he produced yeah and is that why or is it also is it also a question of uh you know a perfect storm he just had some great songs bowie was in vogue bowie produced yeah everything kind of came together
Speaker 3i think it is a perfect song i think as an album it's less consistent than lou reed but it's really playful really diverse it has elements i suppose of the eclecticism even of alice cooper at this stage you know where he could go into a doo-wop or a well it's got walk on
Speaker 2the wild side on it or a
Speaker 3broadway it's got the piece it's got the big hits on it hasn't it but it has it's got a couple of brilliant pieces the production is really really good and perfect day remains one of my favorite lou reed albums and i think it's one of my favorite lou reed pieces you know what an astonishing piece of music but again the image the songs and the timing and i think the bowie involvement yes because
Speaker 2i was otherwise it's very very tenuous any connection to glam isn't it really um but you know the like i said at the beginning of this category glam was very much in the uk this was what was happening in the mainstream this year yeah but let's talk about the mainstream more broadly now because some great records came out this year by mainstream music and i think it's a great thing to hear from mainstream artists let's talk let's first of all talk with another our favorites elton he's just on a roll i mean i you know i don't know if i've mentioned this on the show before but i do believe that elton john's run of albums from 1970 through to 1976 is one of the most incredible runs of songwriting and record making ever uh probably comparable with the beatles in the 60s something like 10 to 12 albums in the space of about seven years every single has got big big songs that we all know these are no exception honky chateau and don't shoot me don't shoot me i'm only the piano player just these two albums alone have got rocket man what a single what a single okay you could say it's kind of a little bit of a copy of space oddity very much in vogue at the time to do songs about space and space travel rocket man daniel crocodile rock but i think what people forget sometimes i mean elton obviously his singles are so iconic now and diamonds sell billions of copies every week deservedly so but deep cuts as the americans would say mona lisa's and mad hatters if you know that song off of honky chateau high flying bird from don't don't shoot me just brilliant brilliant songs i mean the guy is just on fire the songwriting partnership is just on fire and similarly over in america we got stevie wonder putting out two incredible records this year also chock-a-block with iconic tracks music in my mind and talking both came out this year and in a sense this is also the beginning of one of the most extraordinary runs of albums in the 70s isn't it i mean talking book was followed by um interviews interviews thank you fulfilling this first finale yeah uh songs in the key of life and then one of your favorites the music the controversial whatever it's
Speaker 3called the plant album the controversial the plant album
Speaker 2but these guys are just on fire aren't they in terms of just knocking and you know we forget we forget there was a time when this was happening because these years we these these days we get so used to the idea of our big mainstream artists delivering an album after five years and it's seeming like you know that was quick yeah only took them five only took adele five years to make a follow-up or only took harry styles four years to make a follow-up there was a time when the equivalent artist the big mainstream pop stars of the day and also i think what was
Speaker 3interesting is that the albums were often very different and we've discussed this prolificity i called with ian anderson jess rotol that you know he was making a studio album a year from the late 60s to the early 80s and 1980 and they wildly differed even though he was on tour for about half the year well let's get the ham in here as well the ham and obviously peter ham two albums a year material was shifting
Speaker 2a singer songwriter
Speaker 3um and and what i found curious about 72 is that you're right some of these artists were just knocking albums out and some of them might be my favorite album by the artist some of them might be you know mid-level but then they'd knock out a work of genius six months later yeah they were almost you know not thinking about these i mean the elton john um one of the things people don't talk about you know beyond his deep cuts is that there's a kind of rootsiness to some of his work again he sort of got in with glam with his image as well yes yeah hit singles i kind of knew him more from the greatest hits really as i was a kid and still to a certain extent you know so pocket man remains an all-time elton john favorite for me and daniel is you know there's some really heartbreaking great material i knew you know goodbye yellow brick road fantastic song and really interesting album but what's interesting about elton is that he's drawing from you can hear the band he's kind of listening to roots artists bernie
Speaker 2torpin and elton were big big fans of music from the big pink i think that was a yeah tumbleweed connection is kind of like neil young you can sort of hear
Speaker 3they've got he's on the radar but also they're listening to you know what stevie wonder and maybe keith emerson are doing with synthesizers very much there's a
Speaker 2kind of
Speaker 3cutting edge element soul
Speaker 2motown it's all in there it's all you're seeing a song randy newman is in there yeah for sure
Speaker 3yeah there's an anti-snob enthusiasm and openness and you know i think this is it that you know someone like something like an elton or a stevie wonder of 72 they're listening out to fusion pop soul they're being true to their roots as well i think that's the
Speaker 2beauty one of the is that he is such a music fan as he's very famously he's still a music very passionate about music a music fan first and foremost but it doesn't matter because he always transcends it he always sounds just like elton john yeah and that's the beauty of i think them taking drawing influences from americana at this time it just sounds very british it sounds very english but at the same time of course he was having massive success in america because there was enough of the dna american dna in there to make it appeal to the american
Speaker 3market too well he also pulls off that trick where the lead vocalist sounds completely convincing singing somebody else's words
Speaker 2right yes yeah i mean you mentioned goodbye yellow brick road this i mean this is amazing two albums this year and goodbye yellow brick road a double album yeah yeah it's just a few months around the corner as well this is what i talk about this incredible work rate incredible work rate and it's not just about the singles they are great great albums well i think that's
Speaker 3what differentiates the two stevie wonder albums music of my mind and talking book they are both brilliant equally good in some ways i might have slightly more time for music of my mind but talking book is that ziggy stardust transformer it's got three or four killer songs everyone music of my mind possibly doesn't it's a great album yeah but you know superstitious obviously yeah amazing um you're the sunshine of my life um yeah there are so many strong memorable i iconic tracks and talking book and it still takes risks like the elton album you know this was where i think i think music my mind was the first one where stevie wonder had complete control because i think after the success of marvin gaye um in 71 with what's going on stevie wonder wanted the same level of control he was experimenting with you know this is the thing it's brilliant mainstream music that manages to be accessible while taking risks with texture tone sound synths that are pretty avant-garde it
Speaker 2feels like the first stevie wonder album yeah doesn't it um and you know he's still only what 19 20 years old he's still quite old he's still very young it's just right i mean most people will be just at the beginning of their career but of course he's probably made about 10 albums before this but the albums before that would have been more a couple of hits and some filler and as you say this is now the marvin gaye influence beginning to to impact the rest of the the soul musics and r&b music he's so serious i mean this is the thing
Speaker 3one of the themes i think again is going to come up in 1972 as you've just said he's 1920 or what have you and this music is so sophisticated emotionally lyrically musically in a way that staggers me there are so many astonishing precocious he's not he's already
Speaker 2an auteur he's like an auteur isn't he yeah he's got a whole vision to the point that he's also a bit like bowie he's also producing these other artists as well around him and having massive hits syrita and all these other things -
Speaker 3There's the maturity of a 50 year old in some of this work. - Yeah, it's incredible.
Speaker 2it's like a yeah uh it's like a prodigy you know i mean everyone said he was a prodigy but very few prodigies actually transition to the world of albums and making great adult records too and he he certainly pulled it off in spades i mean
Speaker 3stevie stevie winwood was probably an equivalent as well around this
Speaker 2time yeah harry styles is doing it right now other mainstream artists that put out great records this year now this is an artist i don't know much about and i think you've mentioned him before on the show tim labby sifri yeah crying laughing loving lying is his record from this
Speaker 3year yeah well he was sort of making music that i'd sort of say fits into a post beatles cat stevens territory he's right you know you'll know it must be love that's the only song the only song i do
Speaker 2know because the madness but equally
Speaker 3he's producing some amazingly sensitive articulate singer-songwriter work that sort of puts him in the nick drake john martin category on occasion because again he's effortlessly fusing post beatles elements with folk music a little bit of jazz a little bit of terry callie as well i mean terry callie had an amazing album this year which has we're going to talk about that later yeah but i
Speaker 2mean in terms of sort of you know spanning that world of folk music it's a lovely album and i
Speaker 3wonder you know labby sifri certainly should have been as big as cat stevens and certainly should be spoken of in the same way that a lot of the early 70s british singer-songwriters are and he sort of appeared i think on kind of bbc variety shows because i think he also had with things like it must be love there was a slightly and i guess cat stevens had this as well slightly jaunty and more commercial element to some of his singles but you know there's some great as with elton deep cuts on this the title track being one of them so i just think he's a really underrated songwriter from this period you know but i'd also like to say that he's a really underrated songwriter say that about somebody like gilbert o'sullivan who did produce beautiful mainstream hit singles and clearly there was a talent and an intelligence and a depth in these people's work and i guess that because you know they ended up in the charity shops of the 80s and because they've been seen on these tacky itv bbc variety shows in the next generation they were slightly dismissed and i
Speaker 2think it's totally unfair scott walker another of our favorites on the show drinking game folks get scott walker's another another one that kind of suffered from that sort of light entertainment tarnish through the 70s didn't he and we'll come on to talk about scott later because he also made an album this year which is an interesting one okay so i mean labby sifri i mean in some ways a classic album years artist then someone that made records that you've i mean i'm not so familiar an artist that made records you feel are just as good as what anybody was doing but is pretty much and he was having
Speaker 3success he was certainly having successful singles
Speaker 2bg's made an album this year called to whom it may concern bg's were in the middle of a run where they were in these fantastically baroque pop records every year but very much had fallen off the map at this point this is between their sort of uh you know late 60s hits and the sort of disco era that was to come later they're beautiful records it's there's a kind of continuum of records during this period for the bgs that i i absolutely love but i think we talked about one of them before one of the previous shows
Speaker 3trafalgar before this we might have talked about
Speaker 2trafalgar or life in a tin can they're they're much of a muchness i don't mean that in a derogatory way they're all really really strong records carpenter's a song for you kind of ditto i mean every carpenter's album during this this period had a couple of massive hits and i forget what the hit singles on this record were they would have had a massive couple a couple of massive hit singles and the records are beautifully crafted beautifully produced middle of the road middle of the road orchestrated pop but with that voice oh yeah well i think this is
Speaker 3it is that voice and and i kind of one album around this time baby i'm a want you bread bread we're
Speaker 2going to talk about that had
Speaker 3certain aspects of that as well with with the single anyway again it's that voice yeah yeah glacial
Speaker 2paul simon's debut i believe it's his debut solo record i think it is certainly eponymous um i'm not so familiar with it i'm not
Speaker 3that familiar i mean again i know the the hit singles from it and of course i've heard it and i own it but it's not one of the ones i've played as much as his other catalog i mean i think he's kind of finding his voice i mean me and julio but it's cool whatever that's i think the big hit from this and it's inventive it's good i mean it's brilliant it's paul simon everything he's well he's an amazing vocalist certainly one of the era's greatest lyricists um i mean for me i kind of prefer some of his latest solo albums and i prefer some of the earlier simon garfunkel albums he went bookends i think we discussed in 1968 which is one of my favorite paul simon related records anything
Speaker 2with america on yeah it's going to be a winner for me also this year an hour an album by simon garfunkel and i think it's going to be a winner for me also this year someone that's a bit of an album year's favorite but a bit of a one-sided album year's favorite because i know very little about him so every time we talk about randy newman and we've talked about him a lot i have to defer to you sail away is this is this one of the classic definitive
Speaker 3well this is one of the ones that kind of defined him as a critic's favorite and it was i guess quite popular by randy newman standards not as popular as 77's little criminals and little criminals actually it's one of my favorite albums by randy and he gets the eagle and he gets the eagle and on backing vocals on that album and it was huge it had a huge hit single we've also had a list of
Speaker 2albums from 1972 very beautiful deep cuts from other years that we've already talked about we're going to be here all year just saying just saying you're
Speaker 3getting shirty just
Speaker 2saying if you're going to start talking no it's
Speaker 3great i mean it's it's it's a very strong album and again you know randy newman is one of those guys who must have been maybe late 20s when he's making this album but he could be 66 you know he's got the composure of a ray charles you know he's got certain elements of kind of ray charles louis armstrong in his delivery and he did have some you know quite old influences but this is quite a singer songwriter album the title track which you know broaches and the topic of slavery is seen as one of his greatest achievements and um what he tends to do and i and i love doing this myself and i think you know i love when other artists tend to do this is he puts himself in the mind of the deplorable so in some ways he's playing awful characters on this album that's a tom
Speaker 2waits thing too tom waits does this
Speaker 3well it's a it's a really strong album the title track is is very very powerful but difficult to listen to especially now i think so one more
Speaker 2entry we must talk about in the mainstream category the stones released exile on main street these this this year what a fantastic album this is the definitive stone early 70s shambling stones at their best exile on main street's got a more ramshackle quality to it which i would have thought you would really like personally
Speaker 3it's hard i've not heard it that often so i can't really talk on this with any authority let's
Speaker 2have a listen to a listener's review of exile on main street rob hi
Speaker 5this is diego from bolivia and i decided to choose exile on main street by the rolling stones as i think that it stands as a monumental achievement in rock history for me it encapsulates the raw and unpolished energy of rock and roll in that particular moment it's fascinating that this album emerged during a turbulent period for the band and despite or perhaps because of this chaotic backdrop the album's gritty and even eclectic mix of blues rock soul gospel captured the essence of the band's rebellious style and spirit i think it's a seminal work in rock music couldn't have
Speaker 2said it better myself diego are that are you i think that's exactly what i should have said about it yeah
Speaker 3i'll go with diego i'm with
Speaker 2diego i mean it's a masterpiece in some ways you know one of the interesting things about this is if i wanted to mention this earlier when you were you were sort of referring to to bowie we were talking about bowie we set out when we started this podcast to not talk about what we felt with the canon albums the albums that had been talked about ad infinitum and we've kind of fallen off that wagon a little bit because we have ended up in a way having to talk about these albums because there are certain albums like ziggy that cast a shadow over a lot of other things that come out during the same period and so it's difficult not to talk about some of these records and i say that because we're going to move on to a category that you've called progressosaurus rex uk division in many ways 1972 is also the high watermark for everything that we come to know of as progressive rock now we might have we might have also said that about 1973 but i think 1972 um i think the evidence here will bear this out yeah mr monopoly here miss me monopoly is back at
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