Last week’s biggest standouts weren’t the albums I selected, though Duff McKagan’s “The Living” release was a good look back at the days of punk rock and is a good piece to the whole of Guns N Roses; the band would later cover several punk tracks on their Spaghetti Incident album and when those tracks are performed live, Duff is the lead singer. (He may also be the lead singer on the album, as it doesn’t sound like Axl Rose)
But the biggest standouts were the five singles I wasn’t expecting. Rina Sawayama released a duet of her song “Chosen Family” with Elton John, which impressed me since I didn’t know Elton John was a big enough fan of the song to participate in a re-recording. I know last year he sang a duet with Ozzy Osbourne and was on one of Miley Cyrus’ “Bright Minded” videos, but it seems Elton John does keep his finger on the pulse of modern music (when those fingers aren’t on the piano, that is) and it was a beautiful duet that I really enjoyed, enough so I shared the music video on Facebook.
Tegan and Sara teamed with an act called Beach Bunny for a song called “Cloud 9” and it was so good to hear their voices again. Both Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart released singles, as well, Ann delivering a rocker called “Black Wing” while Nancy performed a guitar instrumental called “4 Edward,” which is going to be on her upcoming album scheduled to be released in the first week of May. Since Ann has released 3 or 4 singles in the last few months, I wonder if she’s gearing up for her own solo album. The last noteworthy single was Peter Frampton doing an instrumental cover of George Harrison’s “Isn’t It A Pity,” a beautiful rendition that worked well with Nancy’s guitar piece to create a relaxing mood, though "Isn't It A Pity" is quite a sad song. Peter Frampton’s instrumental covers album, amusingly titled “Peter Frampton Forgets the Words,” will be released tonight.
There are three other releases I’m looking forward to tonight, and two of them are going to take a while to get through, since they’re box sets.
Eric Church-Soul: I didn’t have time to hear all of “Heart” this last week, but “Soul” has kind of been the more popular choice of the two, so if these were Pokémon games, people would be choosing “Soul” instead of “Heart.” Soul has more amusing songs released as singles, such as “Break It Kind Of Guy,” “Bad Mother Trucker” (yes, he titled a song and based the chorus after a censor in Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged’s Ebonix Episode 1, or at least, that is the same censor and the song is about a truck driver) and “Lynyrd Skynyrd Jones,” where a man finds out he’s actually the son of Curtis Loew, a man Lynyrd Skynyrd made a song about on the Second Helping album, an African-American man with white curly hair who plays a dobro and “was the finest picker to ever play the Blues.”
The Who-The Who Sell Out Box Set: This album, featuring some blatant product placement, is getting a massive re-release with demos, alternate versions and outtakes. This album also features their hit “I Can See For Miles,” which was one of the inspirations for the birth of Heavy Metal. Pete Townshend bragged of the song’s heaviness in the paper, prompting Paul McCartney to check the song out. Paul found the song too light, so he set about writing a song about a popular ride in England called “Helter Skelter,” which I consider one of the first Heavy Metal songs along with “Voodoo Child (Slight Return).”
John Lennon-Plastic Ono Band (Super Deluxe): Warning, this is not a pleasant album. This was John’s first major release after The Beatles broke up and it is him lamenting, cursing out and displaying intense anger and sadness at the events in his life, the society/system he feels he and others are trapped in and everyone and everything he fell in love with, save Yoko and himself. It begins with “Mother,” a lament over losing his mother at too young an age, she was killed by an off-duty policeman who was acquitted of all charges. “I Found Out” sees him displaying fury at both Western and Eastern religion for not helping him deal with his internal pain, followed by “Working Class Hero,” a tear-down of America and Britain’s capitalist systems and society, showing a desire to create a Marxist society. It also contains him using the word “fucking” twice, as well as a beautiful line about Politicians; “you must learn to smile as you kill.” There’s an intense song called “Well Well Well,” where John discusses dates with Yoko where they discuss politics and societal reform, also screaming “Well” several times. “Love” shows that he still believes Love is the ultimate answer, and the penultimate track, “God,” features a list of everything he once believed was right and telling them, one by one, he no longer believes in them, followed by a somber piece where he seems to address the Beatles fans who idolized him, telling them he’s no longer interested in being their “savior,” their “Messiah,” their “god.” “I was the dreamweaver, but now, I’m reborn/I was the walrus, but now I’m John/And so, dear friends, you’ll just have to carry on/The dream is over.” This features outtakes and jam sessions I’m interested in, as well as John’s singles “Cold Turkey,” released in 1969 which featured Eric Clapton on lead guitar, Klaus Voorman on bass and Ringo Starr on drums, and “Instant Karma,” released in 1970 (like the album itself) with the catchy hook “We all shine on/like the moon and the stars and the sun.” (Also included are outtakes and mixes of those two singles)
No comments:
Post a Comment