168. King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King (October 1969)

 

1. 21st Century Schizoid Man*

2. I Talk to the Wind*

3. Epitaph (Including "March of No Reason" and "Tomorrow and Tomorrow")

4. Moonchild (Including "The Dream" and "The Illusion")

5. In the Court of the Crimson King (Including "The Return of the Fire Witch" and "Dance of the Puppets")*

****

Blistering arrangements that switch time signatures like most songs switch chords? Check. Elaborate, classically influenced keyboards soaring all over the place? Check. Incomprehensible, fantasy-tinged lyrics intoned with the solemnity of a eulogy? Check and check. Well it looks like prog rock has arrived.

In fact this is often regarded as the first true prog album. In a lot of ways it shows both the best and worst that genre would have to offer. On the one hand you have some truly incredible music here. This album sounds like nothing before it, although it sounds like a hell of a lot that came after. But on the other hand the lyrics are largely inscrutable hippy nonsense, most of the songs are too long, and Robert Fripp's considerable talents are buried beneath oceans of mellotron and saxophone. But those mellotrons and saxophones are, frankly, the shit.

I really don't know what to make of this. It kind of sits beyond critical assessment. It's just so idiosyncratic, so simultaneously beautiful and frustrating. I think, really, that I love the first and last tracks. "21st Century Schizoid Man" rewrote the rules for heavy rock. It starts with stabbing chords and metallic vocals, then launches into a dizzying extended freak-out of scale runs that will have you wondering how in the hell a band could ever be that tight (seriously - are they wizards?), and then slams back into what sounds like Robert Fripp trying to tear his guitar in two in time to the beat. It's dazzling and it rocks. 

At the other end you have the title track. The swelling vocal harmonies and soaring keyboards are truly beautiful, creating a sound best described as epic. And the lyrics make no damned sense, but they're awesome. I mean, is there some deeper meaning to whatever the hell a fire witch is? What am I supposed to make of "the rusted chains of prison moons"? I gather that the Crimson King is an unsavoury character, and possibly the whole song is about how everyone is enthralled to a mindless and destructive authority. But I won't pretend I don't mostly just like this song because it's so damned trippy. And as a sensory experience it's almost overwhelming. 

I won't pretend to be a King Crimson expert, but I do like some of their stuff and I'm quite fond of Discipline. ITCOTCK is one of those albums that are arguably more important for how they changed and shaped the musical landscape than because of intrinsic musical worth. Don't get me wrong - this is a really good album and you should listen to it; but its real importance lies in the way King Crimson basically threw the rules of rock music out the window and created an entire genre from scratch. That they created something so pretty and engaging in the process is just icing on the cake. 

167. The Kinks - Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (October 1969)

 

1. Victoria*

2. Yes Sir, No Sir

3. Some Mother's Son

4. Drivin'

5. Brainwashed

6. Australia*

7. Shangri-La*

8. Mr. Churchill Says

9. She's Bought a Hat Like Princess Marina

10. Young and Innocent Days

11. Nothing to Say

12. Arthur

****1/2

It's always astounding that the Kinks managed to fit such great lyrics to such great music. It almost doesn't seem fair to the other bands. Here, Ray Davies goes full concept, with a suite of songs following the sad, small life of an unremarkable British everyman across the first half of the Twentieth Century. Things open with the glorious "Victoria", a rollicking and insanely catchy piss take of Empire and dreaming of growing up to fight and die for your country. The next two songs are dark examinations of what that actually means, ending with a clueless recruit being shot dead in a field. The rest of the album continues that tightrope walk between seething contempt expressed through wryness and irony on the one hand, while on the other showing a genuine compassion for the poor stiffs who are being relentlessly exploited by the establishment as they drag themselves through their cold, empty lives. They go driving in the country. They buy fashionable hats instead of food. The lucky ones emigrate to Australia (which is not, nor has it ever been, the halcyon wonderland the song hilariously depicts). And of course there's "Shangri-La", a colossus of a song that perfectly captures the hollow promise of the *insert country here* Dream - working your fingers to the bone so you can live in a cookie cutter house with a mortgage over your head, slowly realising that you'd better enjoy it because you're trapped there till the day you die. But at the end of it all is "Arthur", a gentle, only slightly mocking reminder that someone out there loves you - that they understand your plight, and while they may think you're silly to go along with things, and possibly a bit thick, they do realise how things turned out this way and they care. 

So as a concept album, Arthur... is a great success lyrically. Thankfully those lyrics are backed by some of the Kinks' best music. I already mentioned "Victoria", which takes bouncy, psych-tinged garage rock and twists it into hook-laden pop. But most of the songs are less immediate, and more complex in their structure. "Shangri-La" in particular is a little pocket symphony, ranging from delicate acoustic balladry to manic pop-rock sha-la-las over dirty guitars. And the music all serves the lyrics, so the whole thing hangs together beautifully. 

I don't know what to say, really. On a musical level this is an immediate, catchy album. Lyrically, it's incredibly complex and insightful, managing to juggle mocking irony with genuine pathos and always punching up at the establishment that creates all these countless little tragedies which beset our lives. When the Who wrote a rock opera, they crapped out some nonsense about a pinball player and acted like they'd discovered the meaning of life. The Kinks laser in on a perfectly unremarkable person, of which there are untold millions all over the world, and find genuine meaning amid the misfortunes of his unexceptional life. This album is so smart, so funny, and damned near perfect. 

166. The Grateful Dead - Live/Dead (November 1969)

1. Dark Star*

2. St. Stephen*

3. The Eleven

4. Turn On Your Love Light*

5. Death Don't Have No Mercy

6. Feedback

7. And We Bid You Goodnight

***1/2

Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; an acid rock band released a double album of extended jams that you could actually make it through sober. 

The Grateful Dead are a pretty easy target. People who grew up on three minute pop or hard, fast punk and hip hop may not have a great deal of time for a twenty minute jam with lyrics about stars crashing and mirrors exploding. But this is a very solid album. True, it's not entirely my thing, but I enjoyed American Beauty and I enjoy this album. Not to the extent that I particularly want to listen to the whole thing through very often, but it has a lot of merit. The Grateful Dead had a genuinely new approach to music - they didn't swipe from a bunch of genres to create a "new" sound, they twisted and warped a myriad of influences and then let them develop and expand on stage. Also they did drugs. So many drugs.

The thing that makes this album work is the sequencing. "Dark Star", the longest song, starts as a gradual mish mash of the different instruments as the musicians find their feet, and slowly coalesces into a very pretty and complicated piece of music. But I don't think most people would want a whole album of that sort of thing, and that appears to include the Grateful Dead - the next song, "St. Stephen", is an up-tempo rocker with surreal, humorous lyrics. And this continues through the ferocious workout "The Eleven", and the extremely fun extended R&B number "Turn On Your Love Light" (probably the most "normal" song here), which features exhortations to the audience and call and response vocals, and which has relatively comprehensible lyrics about love. 

After that, things cool down with the dark blues of "Death Don't Have No Mercy", then slide into the only moderately successful "Feedback". "Feedback" is probably the easiest target on an album full of easy targets, but that may just be because, post Sonic Youth, the idea of using guitar feedback as an instrument in itself can seem a little quaint. But while it takes a while to get going, by the end Jerry Garcia is coaxing a very strange and pretty melody out of his amp, creating a soundscape quite unique for its time.

The really good thing about this album is that it works so well as a live document. IIRC it was originally sequenced to be played on an auto-changer, and listening to it through one does get the sense that one is enjoying a top-notch concert performance by a bunch of extremely talented musicians. That live experience is a huge part of the album's charm, which is kind of funny when you consider that such a cohesive album was actually patched together from recordings of various different shows. I rarely go to concerts these days, but I used to go quite a lot, and Live/Dead perfectly captures the feel of being at a concert even if that causes it to suffer slightly as a album (IMO it would have made more sense to drop "Feedback" and close with a show-stopper). 

So I doubt I'll be throwing on a tie-dye t-shirt and declaring myself a Dead Head any time soon, but this is a very good album and a very important document of a band who obviously cast a very long shadow. Applying the improvisational methods of jazz to something so overtly rock, and doing  so successfully, is one hell of an achievement. But based on my experiences with the band, I think American Beauty is where I'd recommend neophytes start. 

165. Isaac Hayes - Hot Buttered Soul (June 1969)

1. Walk On By

2. Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic

3. One Woman

4. By the Time I Get to Phoenix

****1/2

I was kind of dreading this album. There are a few reasons for this. One is that funky, string-drenched make out music has kind of a bad rap these days, and I can't pretend I'm not effected by popular opinion. Another, more personal, reason is that the Dionne Warwick version of "Walk On By" is one of my absolute favourite songs. Like, if they stranded me on a desert island with an old 500 mb iRiver I would have that song on it. It's a masterpiece of construction - concise, complex and perfectly played, with one of the greatest singers of all time delivering one of the greatest lyrics of all time. So the existence of a twelve minute make out music version by the guy who played Chef in South Park concerned me. 

Of course, I needn't have worried. Isaac Hayes wrote the theme from Shaft, for God's sake. He knows what he's doing. His version of "Walk On By" is a classic from the moment it starts. From the immortal string part that opens it, through the stinging guitars and complex Hammond organ parts, it carries over the Bar-Kays' rock solid rhythm section to a devastating climax that basically bludgeons you with soul awesomeness for several minutes. And of course Isaac Hayes' vocals are an easy target, but that's just because his deep, declamatory and ultra sexy approach came to define a genre, and so what must have been astounding and revolutionary 55 years ago might seem a little cliché now. Just get yourself in the right headspace, and you'll appreciate what a brilliant song this is. I mean, Portishead built a career out of ripping it off. And like Dummy, you could put it on at a dinner party, cry to it post break-up, or, of course, fuck to it.

The fucking part is heightened by the way the song slams into the Meters-esque funk epic "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" (thank heavens for copy and paste). Where the preceding track is loose and ambiguous and multi-purpose, this is a straight-up sexy work out and totally awesome. I can only assume the plan for side one of this album was to put it on, get your desired to appreciate what a sensitive, deep and soulful character you are, and then proceed to screw their brains out. And fair enough. People have made worse albums for far worse reasons. Anyway, side one of this album kicks arse.

Side two also kicks arse, but in a different way. "One Woman" isn't a bad song, but it's a merely good song amongst three brilliant ones. It's pretty and soulful but largely moves away from the make out style of side one. It's also relatively short. Still, it provides an effective segue into what might be the best song on the album, the truly heart-breaking "By the Time I Get to Phoenix". Now, I have never heard the original, so don't ask me to compare and contrast. But the approach of this song is some next level shit. Over a two-note bass groove and a subtle organ vamp, Hayes spends nine or ten minutes laying out the back story for the song, a deeply relatable story about a man who falls for exactly the wrong kind of woman. Credit to Hayes, he manages to be chiding without ever veering into misogyny. A poor guy falls head over heels for a philandering gold digger, works his arse off to give her everything she wants, and (as Hayes says), she mistakes love and kindness for foolishness and weakness. The guy tries and tries to leave, finally manages to break away, and then the actual song kicks in. It's incredible. If I ever have kids, no matter what sex or gender they are I'm making them listen to this song the minute they hit puberty. Of course, I also plan (in the unlikely event I do have children) to make them watch Requiem for a Dream. So I don't know, maybe don't take my parenting advice. 

The sound of this album is a brilliant consolidation of all the different trends in soul and pop over the past ten years, reworked and given room to breathe by extending the songs to near-absurd lengths, There's an almost classical complexity to some of the music, but it remains earthy and soulful throughout. It's classy as fuck, but also fucking funky. It's one of those albums that cast a long shadow over the decade to come. And just look at that cover! The title may be terrible considering the music contained within, but Hayes looks like the coolest motherfucker on the planet. It's not really surprising that between this and the Shaft sountrack, Hayes would wind-up elevated from behind-the-scenes to pop superstardom in the course on a couple of years. Let's just overlook the whole Scientology thing, and that unfortunate episode of South Park about screwing underage boys. If you take this music for what it is, this is easily one of the coolest and sexiest albums I've ever heard. 

164. The Youngbloods - Elephant Mountain (April 1969)

1. Darkness, Darkness*

2. Smug

3. On Sir Francis Drake

4. Sunlight*

5. Double Sunlight

6. Beautiful*

7. Turn It Over

8. Rain Song (Don't Let the Rain Bring You Down)

9. Trillium

10. Quicksand

11. Black Mountain Breakdown

12. Sham

13. Ride the Wind

***1/2

Some albums blow you away with their daring arrangements and unexpected turns. Others just present a sort of inarguably quality throughout. Elephant Mountain is definitely one of the latter sorts. Opener "Darkness, Darkness" is both a brilliant song and highly misleading - its inky balladry is completely at odds with the subtle, sunshine infused R&B of the rest of the album. It's a dark, strange, beautiful song, but it really stands at odds with gorgeous numbers like "Sunlight" and "Beautiful".

This is an incredibly tasteful, well played and recorded album. There's barely a note out of place. Sometimes this can be a little disappointing, as The Youngbloods never really tear loose. But there's a place for subtle, impeccably played pop music, and if you're in the mood for that sort of thing I can definitely recommend Elephant Mountain. It's the perfect soundtrack to a summer's day (something I can vouch for - it is midsummer here and I've been relaxing on my day off with a few drinks). Although West Coast in sound, the Youngbloods hailed from New York and did the hard yards in Canada, and the result is sunshine pop with a harder, slightly artier edge. The rhythm section (especially the bass) is deep and rock solid. The guitar work is usually tasteful but engages in a few flights of fancy. And throughout you have some beautiful electric piano playing. Now, I may be in the minority with this, but I absolutely love the electric piano. And Lowell Levinger knows exactly what he's doing. 

Even though it's mostly ultra-tight soul-rock crossover music, there are also a few interesting jazz rock explorations (the multi-part "On Sir Francis Drake" is a good example). So you get a lot of variety, which is nice. I guess this is folk rock, but it tends far close to rock than folk, and successfully incorporates a lot of looser jazz elements into the music. Not just in the piano and organ accompaniments, but in the subtle and shifting way the group approach harmonics. This is some classy shit.

Anyway, it's not the greatest album in the world, but if you want smooth rock and R&B done right, this is definitely worth checking out. 

163. The Fairport Convention - Unhalfbricking (July 1969)

1. Genesis Hall

2. Si Tu Dois Partir

3. Autopsy*

4. A Sailor's Life*

5. Cajun Woman

6. Who Knows Where the Time Goes?*

7. Percy's Song

8. Million Dollar Bash

****1/2

And so we come to one of my very favourite bands. It's nice to encounter new music, but it's also nice to be able to settle in with an old favourite. Unhalfbricking is in many ways Fairport's high point. Their first two albums were pretty solid, and Liege & Lief has a couple of incredible songs in "Tam Lin" and "Matty Groves", but Unhalfbricking is just such a pretty, likeable, and diverse album. Unhalfbricking sees the band synthesising their West Coast American influences with traditional British folk fare, and the result is music that manages to sound new and vital while also drawing on a diverse range of traditional influences. There are a few zydeco-influenced numbers, and some excellent Bob Dylan covers. But there's also the epic sprawl of "A Sailor's Life", a song that rewrote the rules for what folk rock could be. There's the jazz-inflected, time signature-hopping "Autopsy", a beautiful and heart-breaking song about trying to break free from a cycle of self destructive depression and introspection. And there's the gorgeous "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?", possibly vocalist par excellence Sandy Denny's finest hour as both a singer and a songwriter. 

And really, it's hard to overstate just how good Denny is. Along with the superb Richard Thompson on guitar, she's really responsible for Fairport's classic sound. It's unfortunate that she'd spend the Seventies sliding into coke addiction and ultimately die of a brain haemorrhage after a drunken fall down a flight of stairs. There's a reason she's the only singer Led Zeppelin ever let guest on one of their songs. Her voice can be smooth as silk or (as on "Percy's Song") as strident and forceful as the wind. Add to that that she managed to write something as beautiful and affecting as "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?", and she's really everything you could want in a folk singer.

I won't go on for long about Unhalfbricking, because I really couldn't be bothered, but if you like folk rock, or even just rock in general, this is an essential album. Richard Thompson's jaw dropping guitar work and Sandy Denny's beautiful voice are worth the price of admission alone. It's a bit sad really. Here on Unhalfbricking, they present themselves as a bunch of nice young folks who might enjoy the odd smoke or drink but are really more interested in making beautiful music. They are, really, kind of a rock band for squares, but they have appeal beyond cardigan-wearing chicken farmers because they have a passion and a talent for music that elevates their music and because they really did have a new and exciting approach to not just rock, but music in general. Unhalfbricking lets you see every side of that band - everything from epic folk workouts to simple pop songs. The Fairport Convention were really something special. 

162. Chicago - Chicago Transit Authority (April 1969)

1. Introduction

2. Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is?*

3. Beginnings*

4. Questions 67 & 68*

5. Listen

6. Poem 58

7. Free Form Guitar

8. South California Purples

9. I'm A Man

10. Prologue, August 29, 1968

11. Someday (August 29, 1968)

12. Liberation

***1/5

If you're like me, you only really know Chicago from their song "If You Leave Me Now", which was mockingly reworked by Lemon Jelly and used as Butters' unofficial theme song in South Park. And fair enough - Chicago are I guess one of those bands that were huge at the time but have been largely forgotten by modern rock fans. This is a bit unfortunate, because as it turns out they're actually pretty great. As with most double albums, Chicago Transit Authority goes on far too long and doesn't have quite enough ideas to sustain its length, but this is still a pretty great album. In many ways, it's the album Blood, Sweat & Tears thought they were making - a clever mix of jazz, R&B, soul and hard rock that has had genuine thought put into it and is being performed by ferociously talented musicians. The result is an album that starts as proggy awesomeness, transitions through soul, jazz and psychedelia, and ends with a fourteen minute wah-wah guitar freak-out worthy of Jimi Hendrix. It's kind of awesome, and unlike most double albums you can actually listen to it all the way through without getting bored. 

A lot of the success of this album can be attributed to the band's attitude. They were all shit hot players, but rather than produce a bunch of techy nonsense they wanted to make an album of clever, innovative good time music. This means that they treat their audience with respect, and understand that most people listen to music to feel better about things and relax a bit. So this is an album you could put on at a party, or listen to by yourself while knocking back a few drinks (which is what I did). The songs are all very well done in the way they mix big band jazz with rock music (it sounds like a terrible idea but works really well), and they're all very cleverly structured so that ideas flow naturally rather than just having the songs lurch between genres. "Introduction" is a borderline prog workout, but the lyrics are just the singer exhorting people to have a good time while the band try and search for a new kind of music (impressively, they largely succeed). Then you have the classic "Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is?", which starts with a free jazz piano exploration and then shifts into a pop song so glorious it's like sunshine in a jar. 

The back end of the album contains looser, less carefully structured songs presumably more reflective of the band's live sets. "Freeform Guitar" is just guitarist Terry Kath improvising on his guitar, but it's actually pretty great and kind of a precursor to noise rock. That contrast between a harder, more exploratory form of rock and lighter pop sensibilities is part of what makes this album work so well. Chicago were obviously very well educated musically, and had pretty wide-ranging tastes, but they also understood how to craft songs that someone who wasn't on drugs might want to listen voluntarily. That sounds like an obvious thing to be but trust me - I have listened to 162 albums for this project and it is a lesson many, many artists have failed to learn. 

You could criticise this album for being a precursor to Seventies soft rock, but I actually don't mind that sort of music too much. Yes, Chicago probably led to REO Speedwagon, but on the other hand "Roll With The Changes" kicks arse. So this is a bold, ambitious, and incredibly fun album of highly innovative music, and I was glad to encounter it. If not for this project, I doubt I would ever have given Chicago the time of day. But Chicago Transit Authority is well worth a listen.