Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

It would overstate things to say that 1976 was a great year for music, the release of a few absolute classics notwithstanding, but it was a satisfying year. So here are my 20 favourite albums of the year.

Some undeniable classics feature here: Boz Scaggs’ majestic Silk Degrees, Frampton Comes Alive! (though its inclusion here may be due mostly to happy memories) and Hotel California (which just scraped in).

The obvious standout is Stevie Wonder’s Songs In The Key Of Life, an explosion of creativity that even four sides couldn’t contain, so he added an EP to the package.

On Turnstiles, Billy Joel started to find his voice. It features my (nominal) favourite song by him — Summer, Highland Falls — as well as the superb New York State Of Mind. Joel wasn’t entirely satisfied with the album, though. When he put together his live album Songs In The Attic in 1981 — Joel described it as an exercise in improving recordings he wasn’t happy with — he included half of Turnstiles’ eight tracks. All four were vastly improved, but Turnstiles remains a very good album.

Some of the albums here are only half good. Take Rod Stewart’s A Night On The Town: Side 1 is Rod at his balladeering, lascivious finest; on Side 2 he rocks out. I don’t even know whether Side 2 is good or not. The sensational slow Rod is all I need to hear.

I have the same feeling about Bob Seger — I prefer the night moves ballads to the old-time rock and roll. The latter can be entertaining; Night Moves closes on a good rockin’ note with Mary Lou, but if I listen to the album, I might edit the playlist down to the slow jams.

With my love for South African jazz-funk, there are two exponents of the genre represented here. Remember District Six — a reference to an area of Cape Town that was being ethnically cleansed and razed at the time — was a project by local jazz legends Monty Weber, Sammy Hartman and Lionel Beukes. The album also included contributions by fellow jazz greats Basil “Manenberg” Coetzee, Winston “Nkunku” Ngozi and Errol Dyers. The album is now a rarity. Coetzee also appears on Pacific Express’ Black Fire, alongside more jazz legends, including Robbie Jansen, Chris Schilder and singer Zayn Adams. The great guitar solo on the featured track is by Issy Ariefdien.

A more recent discovery is Brazilian soul singer Cassiano, a pioneer of Brazil’s rich soul scene. Sadly, he suffered serious respiratory problems in the late 1970s, resulting in the loss of part of his lungs. Besides making it difficult to continue performing, his already troubled relationship with the record industry deteriorated further. He released his last album in 1990 and died in 2021.

Finally, one may argue whether Blondie’s debut album belongs here. It was first released in December 1976, when it made little impression, before being re-released in September 1977 to much better effect. I’ve decided to hold it over for 1977.

Another dating conundrum is AC/DC. The international release of High Voltage came in 1976, but it comprised tracks from the band’s two 1975 Australian albums, High Voltage and T.N.T.. I could have chosen AC/DC’s proper 1976 release, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, but that is a rather patchy effort (though the bluesy Ride On is a favourite of mine), whereas the international High Voltage release is packed with gems.

So which 1976 LPs didn’t make my cut? Those under consideration included This Is Niecy by Deniece Williams, the Ramones’ eponymous debut, Jackson Browne’s The Pretender and Marvin Gaye’s I Want You. After compiling this, I regretted dumping Deniece, so a track from her album is included as a bonus track.

I also considered Al Stewart’s Year Of The Cat, Queen’s A Day At The Races, Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak and Wings’ Wings At The Speed Of Sound. All of them contain some great tracks, but I never really connected with any of them.

Other acclaimed releases from 1976 that miss out because I don’t know them well enough include David Bowie’s Station To Station, Joni Mitchell’s Hejira (though I love Coyote), Jean-Michel Jarre’s Oxygène, and the eponymous debuts by Boston and Joan Armatrading.

As for the track selection, I’ve varied things a bit between the obvious, well-known tracks and deep cuts. I might like Dancing Queen better than the featured This Is Me (which was also the b-side of Dancing Queen; and in Japan the A-side to Money Money Money on the B-side), but it’s not really necessary to feature that mega hit. Likewise, say, Hotel California or Breezing. Above all, all of these are songs I enjoy hearing when I play this collection.

The sequencing does not imply any ranking of albums. If it did, Stevie Wonder’s Another Star would open the playlist. If I was forced to keep only three albums from this lot, it would be those by Stevie, Boz Scaggs and Warren Zevon.

This mix covers 50 years ago; the 20 albums of 1986 (or 40 years ago) featured earlier this year.

So, what are your albums of 1976?

1. AC/DC – It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘N’ Roll) (High Voltage)
2. Steely Dan – The Fez (The Royal Scam)
3. Warren Zevon – Mohammed’s Radio (Warren Zevon)
4. Rod Stewart – Fool For You (A Night On The Town)
5. Al Jarreau – Rainbow In Your Eyes (Glow)
6. Aretha Franklin – Something He Can Feel (Sparkle)
7. George Benson – This Masquerade (Breezin’)
8. Billy Joel – Summer, Highland Falls (Turnstiles)
9. Bob Dylan – Sara (Desire)
10. Eagles – Try And Love Again (Hotel California)
11. Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band – Main Street (Night Moves)
12. Cassiano – Coleção (Cuban Soul)
13. Monty Weber & Friends – Love Song (Remember District Six)
14. Pacific Express – Love Your Baby Right (Black Fire)
15. Stevie Wonder – Another Star (Songs In The Key Of Life)
16. Earth, Wind & Fire – On Your Face (Spirit)
17. Diana Ross – I Thought It Took A Little Time (Diana Ross)
18. Boz Scaggs – What Can I Say (Silk Degrees)
19. Peter Frampton – Show Me The Way (Frampton Comes Alive!)
20. Abba – That’s Me (Arrival)

GET IT!

Previous Albums of the Year mixes:
1971 Vol. 1
1971 Vol. 2
1972
1973
1974
1975
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986

More Albums of the Year
More CD-R Mixes

The year 1986, forty years ago, has a reputation as one of the worst years in pop music. And if I look at the chart-toppers in the UK charts, about half are songs I’ll be delighted never to hear again. But the tastes of the masses don’t define a year. It was actually a pretty good year.

In 1986, pop music was in a transition. The teen-dream acts and their fans were maturing — Wham! split up, Duran Duran were reduced to a trio, Spandau Ballet were growing up (neither of the latter two were in contention for inclusion here).

But exciting new acts appeared on the scene, led by the Pet Shop Boys. Hip hop was also breaking through commercially, with Run-DMC, Salt-N-Pepa and the Beastie Boys releasing albums that crossed over; and in the UK, the dance revolution started with house hits charting, particularly the superb Love Can’t Turn Around by Farley “Jackmaster” Funk (British readers may recall singer Darryl Pandy’s explosive performance on Top of the Pops).

The album-buying clientele had enough quality on the shelves to be kept entertained. Here we have my favourite 20 albums of 1986. As always, these are the albums of that year I enjoy the most — not the best, not the most influential, not the most notable.

Nobody else in the world will have my exact Top 20, so it is unique. Before we look at what made my 20, let’s have a quick look at what didn’t. Paul Simon’s Graceland, all debates about boycott-busting aside, is in many ways a great album, maybe the best of the year. And with all the South African musicians on it, I should love it — but somehow I don’t. I don’t like Nick Cave much, so Kicking Against The Pricks wasn’t in contention.

I do like a bit of Bon Jovi from time to time, but not a whole album of it, so no Slippery When Wet. For some reason I don’t mind Phil Collins’ solo stuff, but can’t do with Genesis, even though In Too Deep from Invisible Touch is a lovely ballad. I liked a-ha’s debut album, but 1986’s Scoundrel Days just didn’t touch me, other than the superb Manhattan Skyline.

A few albums scratched at the door for inclusion: Cameo’s Word Up!, The Redskins’ Neither Washington Nor Moscow, Freddie McGregor’s All In The Same Boat, and Prince’s Parade. The latter suffers from not being another Prince album; I simply never listen to Parade. One of these actually got bumped at the last minute when I realised that a particular album was released in 1986, not ’87.

Of my Top 20, most albums I owned at the time, so nostalgia might have blinded me to possible deficiencies on some of them. Only four albums here I got into at a later point: Van Morrison’s No Guru, No Method, No Teacher just a couple of years later, and Steve Earle’s Guitar Town much later. I knew most of Peter Gabriel’s So at the time — my friends played it often enough — and I bought two of the singles, Don’t Give Up and In Your Eyes. But I hated Sledgehammer, so never bought the LP. Listening to So later revealed to me its excellence. I still skip Sledgehammer though.

And the David Sanborn & Bob James Double Vision album I bought in 1988, when I first heard the magnificent Maputo. They feature here with a lovely cover of Since I Fell For You, with vocals by Al Jarreau.

I’m not a huge Madonna fan, but True Blue is a masterful pop album. It includes five hit single releases — and if La Isla Bonita was the last of these, then the album did something right. I’ve picked the one ballad from the set, a truly great vocal performance by Madge. It was a hit at around the same time as another ballad with truly great vocals, George Michael’s A Different Corner. The two artists should have done a duet…

On past Albums of the Year mixes I excluded live albums. I couldn’t do that for 1986, when two of my all-time favourite live sets were released: Bruce Springsteen’s Live 1975-1986 box set and Maze’s Live In Los Angeles. The latter might have seemed superfluous, coming just five year’s after the outstanding Live In New Orleans album, but Maze Featuring Frankie Beverley are best enjoyed live.

Walk Like An Egyptian puts The Bangles at risk of being reduced to a novelty act, but that would be an injustice and an act of ignorance. Even that slightly annoying song is very well put together. So is the rest of the Different Light album. The gorgeous If She Knew What She Wants featured in A Life In Vinyl 1986 Vol. 1.

The Pet Shop Boys’ Suburbia featured on A Life In Vinyl 1986 Vol. 2. That was the great “The Full Horror” remix; here we have the album version of my favourite PSB song.

For some people, Janet Jackson’s Control is 1986’s best album. They might be right: it’s one of the few albums of the year that signposted the future. This doesn’t mean that the future turned out great — Janet Jackson pioneered the endless choreographed dance interludes in dance-pop music — but for the moment, Control was a self-assured work of joy.

Some might regard The Smiths’ The Queen Is Dead as the best of 1986. I’m not among them, but I would rate it as their best, speaking as somebody who went through and survived an intense period of Smiths fanship. But the album’s genius resides not so much in Morrissey’s lyrics and vocals, but in Johnny Marr’s guitar and — often forgotten — Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce’s rhythm section.

Of course, Morrissey came up with some great lyrics, especially on the rightly much-loved There Is A Light That Never Goes Out and the beautifully morose I Know It’s Over. But then there are the stupidly-punning Vicar In A Tutu, the bile-shooting Frankly Mr Shankly, the unnecessary Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others… Morrissey wasn’t always as hilarious as he thought. Some might add the dyslexic Cemetry Gates as a crime against lyrics, but I like that one. Still, none of those are Girlfriend In A Coma, which would come a year later.

A lesser-know act here is Hipsway, who didn’t reach stardom despite my enthusiastic advocacy. The Scottish band had on solitary UK Top 20 hit, the irresistible The Honeythief (also on A Life In Vinyl 1986 Vol. 1), and four other singles tickled the Top 75. The featured track reached #55. It, and the band, deserved better. But for inadequate promotion and line-up changes, Hipsway might have become big, even without my enthusiastic promotion.

The most obscure artist here though is the excellent soul singer Tashan, and his inconspicuousness in the annals of 1980s soul is a real shame.  His Chasin’ A Dream album (which I might have bought in 1987) was released on Def Jam. While it was very much a soul affair with no rapping or scratching, the air of hip hop is discernible. Disappointingly, it was not a commercially successful album. Tashan went on to release three more albums between 1989 and 2002; none of them made him the star he deserved to be.

I don’t suppose that for many people, a playlist of music from 1986 would open with Janet Jackson’s funkiest number and close with a show tune. But I can listen to the soundtrack of Little Shop Of Horrors at any time. Of course, I love the initially panned film as well — more than the stage show because I actually like the film’s denouement. Because who doesn’t like a happy ending?

And if there was only one album I may keep from 1986? I think it would be the Springsteen live box set (if that’s not allowed, I take the Anita Baker album). So, what are your albums of 1986?

This mix won’t fit on a CD-R but I’ve made covers anyway, and the above text in PDF format. PW in comments.

1. Janet Jackson – Nasty (Control)
2. Pet Shop Boys – Suburbia (Please)
3. The Bangles – Walking Down Your Street (Different Light)
4. Hipsway – Long Black Limousine (Hipsway)
5. Madonna – Live To Tell (True Blue)
6. Anita Baker – Same Ole Love (Rapture)
7. Tashan – Ooh We Baby (Chasin’ A Dream)
8. Maze Featuring Frankie Beverly – Back In Stride (Live in L.A.)
9. Crowded House – Something So Strong (Crowded House)
10. The Housemartins – Flag Day (London 0 Hull 4)
11. The Smiths – I Know Its Over (The Queen Is Dead)
12. Depeche Mode – A Question Of Lust (Black Celebration)
13. Peter Gabriel – In Your Eyes (So)
14. Bruce Springsteen – Bobby Jean (Live 1975-1985)
15. Steve Earle – Down The Road (Guitar Town)
16. Van Morrison – Foreign Window (No Guru, No Method, No Teacher)
17. Luther Vandross – See Me (Give Me A Reason)
18. Freddie Jackson & Melba Moore – A Little Bit More (Just Like The First Time)
19. Bob James & David Sanborn feat. Al Jarreau – Since I Fell For You (Double Vision)
20. Rick Moranis & Ellen Greene – Suddenly, Seymour (Little Shop Of Horrors OST)

GET IT! or HERE!

Previous Albums of the Year mixes:
1971 Vol. 1
1971 Vol. 2
1972
1973
1974
1975
1982
1983
1984
1985

More Albums of the Year
More CD-R Mixes

In 1975 I was still too young to buy albums, so — unlike the Albums of 1985 I posted earlier this year — this set of 20 favourite albums from that year was accumulated post-factum. The first of these I bought was Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, still with the black wrap cover, around 1979 or 1980.

That album is an obvious choice — it is the best record of the year, after all — as is Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run, and perhaps also Earth, Wind & Fire’s Gratitude, Bob Dylan’s Blood On The Tracks, Steely Dan’s Katy Lied, or Fleetwood Mac’s self-titled album, their first with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.

Some inclusions are less expected (Linda Lewis, Allen Toussaint, Michael Franks), but this is a collection of favourites, not a “Best of” ranking. That means some “obvious choices” didn’t make the cut: some because I don’t really know them (Patti Smith’s Horses), or I know but don’t like them as highly as others (Queen’s A Night At The Opera, Led Zep’s Physical Graffiti, Joni Mitchell’s The Hissing Of Summer Lawns, Jefferson Starship’s Red Octopus, or the two Neil Young albums).

Others landed up in 21st spot: Bowie’s Young Americans, Curtis Mayfield’s There’s No Place Like America Today, Roberta Flack’s Feel Like Makin’ Love, Emmylou Harris’s Pieces Of The Sky, The Isley Brothers’ The Heat Is On, and Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan. Then there was ABBA’s eponymous set, with a couple of killer tracks but also too much disposable material. Earth, Wind & Fire’s That’s The Way Of The World fell victim to my one-artist-per-list rule.

Speaking of EWF, the featured track is the incredible live version of Reasons, on which Philip Bailey duels with saxophonist Don Myrick, whom Bailey namechecks at the end of the solo. Myrick was shot dead by police in 1993, the officer having “mistaken” the cigarette lighter in his hand for a weapon…

One act here will be obscure to virtually everybody reading this. Josh Sithole was a South African jazz musician who, as a boy in the 1960s, cut his teeth playing kwela on the streets of Cape Town. In the 1970s the guitarist recorded a couple of albums, including the groove-filled Joshua Sithole’s Africa. The featured track is a Crusaders cover; the US jazz-fusion band could well have made use of a player like Sithole.

In the 1980s and ’90s, Sithole was a popular act on the Cape Town club and bar circuit — his version of Rodriguez’s I Wonder had crowds dancing on tables. In 1993, he had a residency in a student bar and was performing there on New Year’s Eve when terrorists attacked the venue, killing four and injuring seven. Sithole survived unharmed. He died in 1999.

The albums of 1975 had some strange covers (check Hall & Oates anticipating the New Romantics!), and I don’t think the photo of Marlena Shaw on her album is flattering, but maybe it goes well with the best of all 1975 LP titles: Who Is This Bitch, Anyway?

And if there was only one album I may keep from 1975? I think it would be Earth, Wind & Fire’s Gratitude. So, what are your albums of 1975?

This mix won’t fit on a CD-R but I’ve made covers anyway, and the above text in PDF format. PW in comments.

1. Parliament – Chocolate City (Chocolate City)
2. Allen Toussaint – What Do You Want The Girl To Do? (Southern Nights)
3. Bill LaBounty – Lie To Me (Promised Love)
4. Daryl Hall & John Oates – Alone Too Long (Daryl Hall & John Oates)
5. Fleetwood Mac – Monday Morning (Fleetwood Mac)
6. Bruce Springsteen – Backstreets (Born To Run)
7. Steely Dan – Any World (That I’m Welcome To) (Katy Lied)
8. Bob Marley & The Wailers – Trenchtown Rock (Live! At The Lyceum)
9. Joshua Sithole – Soul Ship (Joshua Sithole’s Africa)
10. Camille Yarbrough – Take Yo’ Praise (The Iron Pot Cooker)
11. Marlena Shaw – Loving You Was Like A Party (Who Is This Bitch, Anyway?)
12. Earth, Wind & Fire – Reasons (live) (Gratitude)
13. Linda Lewis – This Time I’ll Be Sweeter (Not A Little Girl Anymore)
14. Minnie Riperton – Baby, This Love I Have (Adventures In Paradise)
15. Michael Franks – Eggplant (The Art Of Tea)
16. America – Daisy Jane (Hearts)
17. Eagles – Lyin’ Eyes (One Of These Nights)
18. Bob Dylan – Simple Twist Of Fate (Blood On The Tracks)
19. Willie Nelson – Hands On The Wheel (Red Headed Stranger)
20. Pink Floyd – Shine On You Crazy (Part One) (Wish You Were Here)

GET IT!

Previous Albums of the Year mixes:
1971 Vol. 1
1971 Vol. 2
1972
1973
1974
1982
1983
1984
1985

More Albums of the Year
More CD-R Mixes

At no time in my life did I ever buy as many newly-released albums as I did in 1985. There were many fine albums in that lot, but also a lot of rubbish. Some acts I liked then, but don’t have much interest in now (such as Phil Collins, who was marvellous in concert, though).

A benefit of compiling the albums of 1985 — an exercise in total subjectivity — is the absence of releases by the stratospheric stars of the mid-‘80s. No new albums by Jackson, Springsteen, Wham!, U2, Richie, Madonna, Duran Duran (though three of them created the dull Arcadia album), or Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Of the bestselling acts in 1984, only Prince and Sade released new LPs. As did the less stratospheric Style Council and Lloyd Cole & The Commotions.

Compiling a Top 20 of albums of 1985 was easy when it came to shortlisting, and difficult when it came to reducing that shortlist to 20.

When it came out, I thought Prince’s Around The World album was disappointing. Like many other disappointed punters, I wanted another Purple Rain or 1999. What we got was a psychedelic trip laced with stimuli from classical music. Listening to it without preconceptions provides for a happy revelation. Nobody sane will vote this as the greatest-ever Prince album, but it didn’t deserve my disappointment.

In 1985, I was only vaguely familiar with Steely Dan, other than a handful of tracks. So when it was reported that the new China Crisis album was produced by Walter Becker (who was even listed as a band member on the cover), I was unimpressed. I loved the lead single Black Man Ray and liked follow-up King In A Catholic Style regardless.

Revisiting China Crisis’ Flaunt The Imperfection, Becker’s fingerprints are all over it, with a kicked-back but shimmering production, flawless arrangements, and top-rate musicianship. But it didn’t come at the expense of the Liverpudlian band’s innate sound. Perhaps it is no accident that I chose the Steely Dan-iest track on the album for this Top 20 collection. The exquisite You Did Cut Me features a guitar solo, by Tim Renwick, so fine it would earn a place on any Dan album.

There was some exquisite soul music released in 1985. Alexander O’Neal’s eponymous debut features one of the great soul classics in If You Were Here Tonight, and Luther Vandross’ The Night I Fell In Love album is his first without any skippable numbers.

Whitney Houston (whose mother Cissy did backing vocals on the Luther album) was also a superb soul singer, but the soul was diluted to aim at the pop market. It was a delicate balancing act: too much soul, and the pop market wouldn’t buy the album; too little, and the soul market would reject it.

In the event, the right balance was found, with songs like the superb You Give Good Love and the duets with Jermaine Jackson and Teddy Pendergrass keeping the soul fans happy, and the hybrid soul-pop stuff — along with the mighty showstopper Saving All My Love For You — helping Whitney break through.

Other soul albums that landed just outside my Top 20 are Freddy Jackson’s Rock Me Tonight, with its mighty title track, and Cameo’s Single Life, whose title track provided one of 1985’s best dance tracks.

On the other end of the smooth soul spectrum were acts like The Smiths and Jesus & The Mary Chain, who provided an antidote to the peach tones of Whitney’s album cover. The latter were in their Beach Boys with feedback phase, which was almost shocking to 1985 ears. The Smiths, meanwhile, were telling us by LP title and in song that Meat Is Murder — just as I embarked on my vegetarian journey, not inspired by Morrissey, which would last more than a decade.

Politics were important to me in 1985. The Style Council provided naïve paroles, but acts like Latin Quarter dug a bit deeper with their political and social critique, and the Fine Young Cannibals’ great Blue (featured on A Life In Vinyl 1985 Vol. 2) articulated a critique to Thatcherism that was all the more powerful for its absence of sloganeering.

Apart from the soul albums mentioned, others that failed to emerge from my shortlist into the Top 20 were Simple Minds’ Once Upon A Time, A-ha’s Hunting High And Low (which to me is a 1986 album, really), George Benson’s 20/20, Michael McDonald’s No Looking Back, Big Sound Authority’s An Inward Revolution, Eurythmics’ Be Yourself Tonight, Dexys Midnight Runners’ Don’t Stand Me Down, Paul Young’s The Secret Of Association, and Sting’s The Dream Of The Blue Turtle.

Best-sellers and/or critics’ favourites that failed to make it on my list include Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms, Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love, Tom Waits’ Rain Dogs, Propaganda’s A Secret Wish, Phil Collins’ No Jacket Required, Stevie Wonder’s underwhelming In Square Circles, Killing Joke’s Night Time, and Bryan Ferry’s Boys And Girls. Some of them I own(ed), others I never bought.

So, what was my album of 1985? Presented with a pile of LPs, I think the first one I’d put on would be The Pogues’ Rum, Sodomy & The Lash.

But the one I think is artistically above them all is Tears For Fears’ Songs From The Big Chair, with its often bruised lyrics, the musical range from the pop of Everybody Wants To Rule The World to the almost symphonic The Working Hour, and the daring of appending the upbeat Head Over Heels with a downbeat live coda of Broken.

And what were your albums of 1985?

This mix is a bit longer than CD-R length, but I’ve included home-liveaided covers anyway, and the present text in an illustrated PDF. As companions to this mix you might enjoy A Life In Vinyl 1985 Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.

1. New Order – The Perfect Kiss (Low Life)
2. The Cure – In Between Days (The Head On The Door)
3. Talking Heads – And She Was (Little Creatures)
4. Prince – Pop Life (Around The World In A Day)
5. Tears For Fears – Head Over Heels/Broken (Songs From The Big Chair)
6. The Style Council – The Lodgers (Our Favourite Shop)
7. Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – Cut Me Down (Easy Pieces)
8. China Crisis – You Did Cut Me (Flaunt The Imperfection)
9. Sade – Is It A Crime (Promise)
10. Simply Red – Jericho (Picture Book)
11. Alexander O’Neal – If You Were Here Tonight (Alexander O’Neal)
12. Whitney Houston – You Give Good Love (Whitney Houston)
13. Luther Vandross – If Only For One Night (The Night I Fell In Love)
14. Fine Young Cannibals – Funny How Love Is (Fine Young Cannibals)
15. Latin Quarter – Radio Africa (Modern Times)
16. Strawberry Switchblade – Let Her Go (Strawberry Switchblade)
17. Prefab Sprout – Faron Young (Steve McQueen)
18. The Jesus And Mary Chain – Just Like Honey (Psychocandy)
19. The Smiths – That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore (Meat Is Murder)
20. The Pogues – The Sick Bed Of Cuchulainn (Rum, Sodomy & The Lash)

GET IT!

Previous Albums of the Year mixes:
1971 Vol. 1
1971 Vol. 2
1972
1973
1974
1982
1983
1984

The year 1984 was really a year for mega singles and mega-stars, though some of these stars were transient phenomena. It was the year when Prince, Madonna, Lionel Richie and Bruce Springsteen joined Michael Jackson in the stratosphere, when Frankie Goes To Hollywood were a supernova that briefly looked unassailable, when Wham! made it big, when Tina Turner and her fishnets made one of the great comebacks in pop, and when even The Pointer Sisters put together a sustained run of hits.

Some of these released great albums that year, above all Prince. Purple Rain is a perfect album, a case I’ve made before, most recently with the Purple Rain Recovered mix. U2’s The Unforgettable Fire is the band’s only album which I like unreservedly.

On the other hands, Born In The USA is not one of Bruce Springsteen’s finest moments. It still makes my Top 20 for 1984, because even at his less good, Springsteen is better than most of the rest.

This list comprises the 20 (well, 21) albums I’d rate as my favourites of that year’s release (note: I’m not claiming they were the best albums of 1984). Some evade the severest scrutiny because my attachment to them as an 18-year-old provides for an emotional bond that exceed critical faculties. That is true of the albums by Alison Moyet, Patrice Rushen and Heaven 17 — all good albums with a few excellent songs on them, but also a lot of stuff that has not stood the test of the intervening 40 years.

Aztec Camera’s Knife might be the least known on this list, which is a pity, because it is a beautiful set of songs, produced by Mark Knopfler (who also had a hand in Tina Turner’s comeback). Aztec Camera also featured on Any Major Albums of the Year 1983, as did four others. Similarly gorgeous is Lloyd Cole & The Commotions’ debut, Rattlesnakes.

I’m not in the habit of including soundtracks on these lists, but Ennio Morricone’s score for the magnificent Once Upon A Time In America is my all-time favourite of that genre. It must feature. I also once decided to excluded live albums, which was a stupid idea which I’m now easing myself out of by including as an extra-track a cut from Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense live album — which, of course, is also a soundtrack (a track from which featured just recently, on Any Major Backing Singers).

Frankie, Turner and Madonna were not on my shortlist, but Chaka Khan, Simple Minds, Roger Waters and Depeche Mode were in the running.

A companion to this collection is the Life In Vinyl 1984 collection: Volume 1 and Volume 2.

So, what are your albums of 1984?

By nature of the thing, this mix can’t be timed to fit on a standard CD-R, but it includes home-magicked covers, and the above text in an illustrated PDF. PW in comments.

1. Prince and The Revolution – Baby I’m A Star (Purple Rain)
2. The Cars – Magic (Heartbeat City)
3. Joe Jackson – You Can’t Get What You Want (Body And Soul)
4. Wham! – Everything She Wants (Make It Big)
5. Matt Bianco – More Than I Can Bear (Whose Side Are You On?)
6. The Style Council – My Ever Changing Moods (Café Bleu)
7. Aztec Camera – Head Is Happy (Heart’s Insane) (Knife)
8. Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken? (Rattlesnakes)
9. Ennio Morricone – Deborah’s Theme (Once Upon A Time In America OST)
10. U2 – The Unforgettable Fire (The Unforgettable Fire)
11. Big Country – Where The Rose Is Sown (East Of Eden)
12. The Smiths – This Charming Man (The Smiths)
13. Echo & The Bunnymen – Seven Seas (Ocean Rain)
14. Bruce Springsteen – No Surrender (Born In The USA)
15. John Prine – People Puttin’ People Down (Aimless Love)
16. Alison Moyet – Steal Me Blind (Alf)
17. S.O.S. Band – No One’s Gonna Love You (Just The Way You Like It)
18. Patrice Rushen – Feels So Real (Won’t Let Go) (Now)
19. Sade – Hang On To Your Love (Diamond Life)
20. Heaven 17 – Sunset Now (How Men Are)
21. Talking Heads – Burning Down The House (Stop Making Sense)

GET IT!

Previous Albums of the Year mixes:
1971 Vol. 1
1971 Vol. 2
1972
1973
1974
1982
1983

The fun in compiling a list of “favourite” albums of a year for this series resides in revisiting LPs I haven’t listened to, or maybe even thought of, for ages. And in the case of 1974, few artists released their best work that year. There is no pressing reason to play Carole King’s perfectly likeable Wrap Around Joy album when you’re much better served by 1971’s Music or, obviously, Tapestry.

Other albums on my shortlist were old favourites I had not heard for a very long time. Since I was a teenager many moons ago, I have rather gone off Supertramp. But listening again to Crime Of The Century, I recalled what I liked about them back then. To my surprise, Supertramp slipped into my Top 20 — ahead of Dolly Parton’s Jolene and John Lennon’s Walls And Bridges. Any other day, one of these two or both, might make it into my Top 20. But not today (I’ll show due respect by bonus-tracking them).

Then there are those sets I got into later in life. At some point, the venerable Whiteray of the now-defunct Echoes In The Wind blog turned me on to country-rock outfit Heartsfield. Their Wonder Of It All album earned repeated spins on my well-worn WinAmp.

Some albums, of course, pick themselves. Stevie Wonder’s Fulfillingness First Finale is one of these. Chronologically sandwiched between two masterpieces, Fulfillingness comes a bit short in critical appreciation. But if Innervisions and Songs In The Key Of Life didn’t exist, I suspect that people would speak of Fulfillingness in hushed tones. Generally, 1974 was a great year for soul albums.

By the time his marvellous Grievous Angel album came out, Gram Parsons was dead, having died at the age of 26 on September 19, 1973. The album had been recorded in the summer of 1973 and was released in January 1974. Originally it was to be credited to “Gram Parsons with Emmylou Harris”, with the cover featuring both of them. Parsons’ widow Gretchen used her powers to withdraw Harris’ billing and change the cover to feature only her husband. Sales of the album were poor, and only later did it come to be regarded as a classic in the country-rock canon.

Also ignored by the US album-buying public was Shuggie Otis’ pioneering Inspiration Information, a superb genre-defying album by a massively talented kid who was a teenager when he started recording it, and was only 21 when it was released. He played most instruments on it, wrote all songs and arranged them. On it Shuggie innovated with new technology, especially the analogue drum machine which Kraftwerk used on their Autobahn album (also featured here). Stevie Wonder and Sly Stones were fans of Shuggie’s, and Prince would later cite Inspiration Information as an influence, but Epic records looked at the bottom line and dropped him (not helped by the artist’s own loose attitude to deadlines). Shuggie Otis, who also featured on Any Major Albums of 1971 Vol. 2, didn’t release another album until 2018!

One act here featured just last month, even with the same song, albeit a different (and superior) version. Nino Ferrer was the letter  N in the Any Major ABC of France mix. Ferrer was an Italian-born French musician who traversed the genres, from European pop to R&B to jazz. A showbiz outsider by choice and design, he was nevertheless a popular figure in France. He died of suicide in 1998, aged 63.

On Nino And Radiah he collaborated with the US model, singer and erotic movie actress Radiah Frye, who dropped all for the LP’s cover. The standout track is the opener, South, which in its French version, Sud, was a hit in France. The album is an eclectic affair, with prog-rock stuff (New York), jazz-funk (Moses), Funkadelic-style funk (Vomitation), and in Mint Julep a song that draws from disco, prog and whatever the roots of New Wave were in 1974. A contender for Album of the Year.

I have in the past discussed the cover art of the Winter In America album by Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson. It didn’t include the powerful song of the album’s title — the album title inspired the tremendous track, which would come out the year after — but it featured the great rap H20gate Blues, which with updated lyrics (the modern term is, I suppose, rebooted) would still be relevant today, 50 years later.

The playlist ends with the whole Side 1 of Dollar Brand’s Mannenberg – Is Where It’s Happening. It’s a gorgeous Afro-jazz suite named after the ghetto in Cape Town created by apartheid after the forced removals of the urban District Six neighbourhood, which was populated by the oppressed “Coloured” people (it’s the term apartheid used for people of mixed race heritage). The track is not so much a celebration of the ghetto — which did become a jazz stronghold in the city — than a lament for apartheid’s ethnic cleansing. It would become an anthem in the struggle for freedom.

Dollar Brand is better known as the jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, a name he took on after his conversion to Islam. The magnificent tenor saxophone solo on the track is played by Basil Coetzee, who died in 1998 at only 54. The alto sax is played by two other greats, the late Robbie Jansen (I think the voice towards the end is his) and Morris Goldberg (the latter played on Paul Simon’s You Can Call Me Al).

The mix opens with a track from the album that features the Steely Dan song which inspired the name of this blog. Any Major Dude featured on a recent mix, so I’ve gone for a track which, as home video evidence shows, my son used to sing along to as a three-year-old.

And if there was only one album I may keep from 1974? I think it would be the Dollar Brand LP. On vinyl. So, what are your albums of 1974?

This mix won’t fit on a CD-R but I’ve made covers anyway, and the above text in PDF format. PW in comments.

1. Steely Dan – Barrytown (Pretzel Logic)
2. Joni Mitchell – Help Me (Court And Spark)
3. Stevie Wonder – Creepin’ (Fulfillingness First Finale)
4. Betty Wright – That’s When I’ll Stop Loving You (Danger High Voltage)
5. The Soul Children – I’ll Be The Other Woman (Friction)
6. Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan – Walkin’ In The Sun (Rags To Rufus)
7. Gram Parsons – $1000 Wedding (Grievous Angel)
8. Rusty Wier – Railroad Man (Stoned, Slow, Rugged)
9. Nino Ferrer – South (Nino And Radiah)
10. Heartsfield – House Of Living (Wonder Of It All)
11. Carole King – You Go Your Way, I’ll Go Mine (Wrap Around Joy)
12. Supertramp – Hide In Your Shell (Crime Of The Century)
13. Kraftwerk – Kometenmelodie 2 (Autobahn)
14. Little Feat – Oh Atlanta (Feats Don’t Fail Me Now)
15. Shuggie Otis – Sparkle City (Inspiration Information)
16. Grady Tate – Love Has No Pride (Movin’ Day)
17. Minnie Riperton – The Edge Of A Dream (Perfect Angel)
18. The Crusaders – Southern Comfort (Southern Comfort)
19. Gil Scott-Heron – H2Ogate Blues (Winter In America)
20. Dollar Brand – Mannenberg (Mannenberg – ‘Is Where It’s Happening’)
Bonus Tracks:
John Lennon – Bless You (Walls And Bridges)
Dolly Parton – Jolene (Jolene)

GET IT!

Previous Albums of the Year mixes:
1971 Vol. 1
1971 Vol. 2
1972
1973
1982
1983

More Albums of the Year
More CD-R Mixes

I almost wasn’t going to do this review of my Top 20 albums of 1983. I don’t recall that year as a particular highpoint in the history of popular music, unlike the preceding year, for which I found it quite easy to compile the Albums Of The Year: 1982 mix (and difficult to exclude some contenders). But therein lies the challenge!

I managed a Top 20, and did so without the inclusion of albums many of my peers might have included, acts like The Police, Tears For Fears, Yes, Tom Waits, U2, Eurythmics, New Order, Cyndi Lauper or Talking Heads.

Still, there are a few entries in my Top 20 which I’d rate as outstanding pop albums, in particular Wham!’s debut album, aptly titled Fantastic, and Aztec Camera’s thoroughly lovely High Land, Hard Rain.  The Style Council’s mini-LP, Introducing…, is also nearly flawless.

It strikes me that only half of the acts in my Top 20 are from the US. There are soul acts — Al Jarreau, Womack & Womack, Randy Crawford — and soul-popster Lionel Richie, whose Can’t Slow Down is raised by the genius of All Night Long and the glorious jazz-funk groove of Love Will Fund A Way (which featured on Any Major Soul 1983), as well as jazz singer Carrie Smith. But there are only two non-soul/jazz US acts. Billy Joel, whose An Innocent Man was a constant companion back in 1983, and Randy Newman… only two non-soul acts.

One act here also featured on Albums Of The Year: 1973, which I posted in October: Billy Joel.

This mix is a good companion to Life In Vinyl 1983, which features seven of the acts on this list. All of the soul acts featured here also appeared on Any Major Soul 1983.

So, what are your albums of 1983?

As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R, includes home-whammed covers and the above text in an illustrated PDF. PW in comments.

1. Heaven 17 – Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry (The Luxury Gap)
2. Depeche Mode – Love In Itself (Construction Time Again)
3. David Bowie – Modern Love (Let’s Dance)
4. Spandau Ballet – Lifeline (True)
5. Wham! – Ray Of Sunshine (Fantastic)
6. Al Jarreau – Trouble In Paradise (Jarreau)
7. Rufus & Chaka Khan – Stay (Stompin’ At The Savoy)
8. Randy Crawford – In Real Life (Nightline)
9. Billy Joel – Leave A Tender Moment Alone (An Innocent Man)
10. Culture Club – Victims (Colour By Numbers)
11. The Style Council – Long Hot Summer (Introducing…)
12. Nick Heyward – Whistle Down The Wind (North Of A Miracle)
13. Aztec Camera – The Boy Wonders (High Land, Hard Rain)
14. Big Country – Chance (The Crossing)
15. Van Morrison – Higher Than The World (Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart)
16. Pink Floyd – The Fletcher Memorial Home (The Final Cut)
17. Randy Newman – Christmas In Cape Town (Trouble In Paradise)
18. Carrie Smith – Doin’ Things For Her (Only You Can Do It)
19. Womack & Womack – Love Wars (Love Wars)
20. Lionel Richie – The Only One (Can’t Slow Down)

GET IT!

Previous Albums of the Year mixes:
1971 Vol. 1
1971 Vol. 2
1972
1973
1982

More Albums of the Year
More CD-R Mixes

Following from the mixes paying tribute to my favourite albums of 1971 (Vol. 1 and Vol. 2) and 1972 — and 1982 — I continue the series of 50th anniversaries of great LPs.

In 1973 I was not yet an LP buyer, much as I’d love to claim that I bought Can’s Future Days at the age of seven. But I have caught up with that year.

My Top 20 of 1973 (or Top 25, if we include the five bonus tracks) includes a number of acts at the beginning of their success: Lynyrd Skynyrd’s debut album, and also Hall & Oates, Linda Lewis, Billy Joel and Buckingham Nicks (who, of course, would become mega stars as members of Fleetwood Mac). Bruce Springsteen hit the road running with two albums (and then didn’t release another one for two years). John Prine issued his excellent sophomore album, though it was not as well received as his stunning debut two years earlier.

One can’t say that by 1973 Earth, Wind & Fire were obscure, but they were beginning to really break through with their two albums in 1973: Open Your Eyes and Head To The Sky. In keeping with my rule of only one album per artist per year, I picked the former for my Top 20.

Choosing between two albums can be tough. In the case of the recently late Linda Lewis, I really couldn’t decide between Lark and Fathoms Deep. Both are gorgeous albums, and one can do worse than to listen to them consecutively, as if they were a double LP. Gladys Knight & The Pips also released two album 1973. Both were in contention for my Top 20; if you merge the best tracks of these albums into one album, and you’d have an absolute soul classic. The same goes for the two Al Green albums of the year, and to some extent also the two Springsteen sets.

There are many other good albums that didn’t make the Top 25, but merit mention, by acts like Bobby Womack, The O’Jays, Ringo Starr, David Bowie, Freda Payne, The Temptations, and Claudia Lennear. 1973 was a golden year for soul music, clearly.

Aside from my indifference to Aladdin Sane, the obvious omission here is Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon. I must confess that I have never owned that album. Call me a Wish You Were Here man.

The best album cover of the Top 20 is that of Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. I have told the story of that cover, and also Recovered that double LP-set (meaning, each song consecutively in cover versions).

As I did for 1972 and 1982, I let the collection kick off with a track from my album of the year, which in 1973 is Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions. Or I might choose as my Album of the Year the Save The Children live set, which features the cream of the era’s black acts. But, you know, I don’t allow compilations…

So, what are your albums of 1973?As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R, includes home-larked covers and the above text in an illustrated PDF. PW in comments.

1. Stevie Wonder – Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing (Innervision)
2. The Isley Brothers – If You Were There (3 + 3)
3. The Spinners – Ghetto Child (Spinners)
4. Daryl Hall & John Oates – Las Vegas Turnaround (Abandoned Luncheonette)
5. Linda Lewis – Reach For The Truth (Lark)
6. Judee Sill – Soldier Of The Heart (Heart Food)
7. John Prine – Sweet Revenge (Sweet Revenge)
8. Gram Parsons – Streets Of Baltimore (GP)
9. Lynyrd Skynyrd – Tuesday’s Gone (pronounced ‘leh-’nérd ‘skin-’nérd)
10. Little Feat – On Your Way Down (Dixie Chicken)
11. Steely Dan – King Of The World (Countdown To Ecstasy)
12. The Fabulous Rhinestones – Freewheelin’ (Freewheelin’)
13. Buckingham Nicks – Crying In The Night (Buckingham Nicks)
14. Earth, Wind & Fire – Devotion (Open Your Eyes)
15. Donny Hathaway – Love, Love, Love (Extension Of A Man)
16. Billy Joel – If I Only Had The Words (To Tell You) (Piano Man)
17. Paul McCartney & Wings – Bluebird (Band On The Run)
18. Elton John – Harmony (Goodbye Yellow Brick Road)
19. Al Green – Stand Up (Call Me)
20. Marvin Gaye – Keep Gettin’ It On (Let’s Get It On)
Bonus Tracks
21. Sly & The Family Stone – Babies Making Babies (Fresh)
22. Roberta Flack – No Tears (In The End) (Killing Me Softly)
23. Isaac Hayes – Light My Fire (Live At The Sahara Tahoe)
24. Bruce Springsteen – Growin’ Up (Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.)
25. Albert Hammond – Everything I Want To Do (The Free Electric Band)

GET IT!

More Albums of the Year
More CD-R Mixes

Lately I have marked my favourite albums of 1971 (in Vol. 1 and Vol. 2) and of 1972. That era, five decades ago, was a golden period for LPs. I won’t argue that 1982 — 40 years ago — was such a golden time, or even a silver or bronze period. But it was the year when I first started to earn money and could blow much of it on music.

The Nightfly’s Chesterfield Kings
And I wasted a lot of it on irredeemable rubbish (step forward, Supertramp’s Famous Last Words). But 1982 also produced some all-time favourite albums. I loved Donald Fagen’s The Nightfly before I had ever heard a full Steely Dan album (the title of this blog tips you off that I have listened to at least one since then). I remember that I had to comb through several record stores to find a copy, having been seduced by lead single IGY. How delighted I was to discover that the album had such a great cover, with Fagen acting as DJ Lester, a 1950s jazz disc spinner  (I wrote about the cover many years ago).

One thing the cover didn’t do was to convince me of the charms of Chesterfield Kings cigarettes. When I was still stupidly tarring my lungs and stinking up my breath, I tried Chesterfields; the packet was Fagen-cool but the cigarettes tasted horrible. As a recovering smoker (clean for 13 years tomorrow), I’d now say that all cigarettes are abominable, but I had my favourite smokes at various stages of my nicotine addiction. But never Chesterfields.

Album of the Year
Should I ever compile a list of the albums of any year and any genre which I love the most, ‘Too-Rye-Ay’ by Dexys Midnight Runners will rank very highly (as would their 1981 hit Geno, should I ever rank my most-loved singles). It is a richly rewarding album, one that ought to be heard in full as one goes on a musical journey that glides between genres even within the same song, such as in the albums 7-minute centrepiece, Until I Believe In My Soul, which has soul horns, Celtic fiddle and a jazz interlude. The arrangements are superb.

The lot is narrated by Kevin Rowland in his idiosyncratic vocal stylings, aided by some fantastic backing vocals (just listen to the featured track). In turn, Rowland exudes confidence, exasperation, frustration, even neurosis, and a barrel-full of a nervous energy that holds your attention. I think the nervous energy appealed to me most when I was 16, a time on the verge of adulthood when something was waiting to explode, like the furious fiddle in Come On Eileen (the huge hit which, incidentally, only the fourth single from the album! There is a fine piece about it posted recently on the fine Hooks and Harmonies blog).

The Dexys album also included swearing, which in 1982 was still exciting. In Until I Believe In My Soul, Rowland murmurs, “You must be fucking joking”; in the same tone, it has become a stockphrase of mine when I find myself confronted by an irritating circumstance.

And by way of general housekeeping, two things to note about Dexys: Firstly, no apostrophe. Secondly, not a one-hit wonder, even if the US record-buying public was a fool.

Another F-Bomb
I think it was a few weeks before I bought ‘Too-Rye-Ay’ that another new release I had hotly anticipated dropped the F-bomb. Billy Joel did so on Laura, his “White Album” tribute from The Nylon Curtain. I was a big Billy Joel fan at the time, but his new album didn’t excite me as much as I had hoped. It’s a cold album; still I played the LP often enough to get to know it very well. It includes some good tracks, and some that have not aged well. The Piano Man was now bearded, angry, frustrated and disillusioned. In my view, he didn’t need to try some new fashion; I had liked him just the way he was.

The Envoy
In the canon of Warren Zevon albums, The Envoy tends to get a bad rap. Indeed, it sports some duff tracks. But when the tracks do hit, they land their punches well. The featured Never Too Late For Love comes towards the end of Side 2, but it holds its own with any of the best Zevon songs.The One I Forgot
In my unbiased opinion, the recent Any Major Soul 1982 mix is very good, but I wonder how on earth I managed to omit Otis Clay from the mix. He featured on Any Major Soul 1982/83, and his 1982 album produced the lesser-known original The Only Way Is Up (featured on Any Major Originals – 1980s Vol. 2).  It’s not the greatest soul album of the year, I’m sure, but I’m always happy to play it in full. By 1982, Clay was something of a soul veteran — he featured on Any Major Southern Soul with a track from 1971 — and kept recording until shortly before his death at 73 in January 2016.

Luther!
Luther Vandross does feature on the Any Major Soul 1982 mix with the gorgeous Once You Know How. Luther has been rightly criticised for never producing a flawless album, except perhaps 1986’s Give Me The Reason. So it’s fair to say that Forever, For Always, For Love certainly has its flaws. But, hell, it’s Luther Vandross singing flawed material. If Luther sung it, then that usually elevated the material. I think his version of The Temptations’ glorious Since I Lost My Baby might even trump the original. I’ll not accept challenges to a duel to defend that point, but even if you regard the original as unassailable, you’d have a heart of tarmacadam not to applaud Luther’s version, which features here.

Yacht Rock
Yes, I absolutely hate that term and the knowing sneers that comes with it, but I love the genre (as 12 volumes and counting in the Not Feeling Guilty series has amply proved). One of my favourite albums in that genre is Bill LaBountry’s eponymous LP, which includes the glorious Living It Up (featured on Not Feeling Guilty Vol. 1). LaBounty has featured several times in the Not Feeling Guilty series; it is an injustice that he never became one of the biggest names in soft rock.

Yacht Pop
One album that just about squeaked into my Top 20 is Duran Duran’s Rio. For purposes of doing this list, I listened to the album again. Back in the 1980s it was a favourite; I don’t think it has aged too well, least of all Simon Le Bon’s voice, which I find grating. Still, some of the tracks hold up today. Hungry Like The Wolf and the title track — talk about Yacht Pop — are proper pop classics.

Of the synth pop albums in this lot, Rio is the weakest link. ABC’s Lexicon Of Love still shimmers in its pop perfection, and Yazoo — isn’t it time the US accord the group its full name after 40 years? — issued a thoroughly engaging album in Upstairs At Eric’s, on which several deep tracks might well have become hits, especially the soaring Didn’t I Bring Your Love Down. Instead, only two sings were released as singles, Don’t Go and Only You, which were UK #2 and #3 hits respectively.

Prince vs MJ
The end of 1982 saw the release of the biggest album of all time. I’ve made my views of Michael Jackson’s Thriller know before when I put it head-to-head against Prince’s commercial opus, Purple Rain. In the Jackson canon, I very much prefer Off The Wall, but one cannot deny that Thriller was a game-changer; with its genre-blurring and its incredible promotion, it became a huge cultural phenomenon, as the gentle reader of this blog needn’t really be told. I’d say that Prince’s 1982 double-album 1999 was a superior musical enterprise, but Prince was still building his legend. With Thriller, MJ was making his. And to think that the leading single from Thriller was the much-derided The Girl Is Mine.

Not An Illusion
But in 1982, neither MJ nor Prince made me want to get up and put on my dancing shoes — that was Imagination’s In The Heat Of The Night album. Just An Illusion, Music And Lights, Changes, the title track… half the album is dazzlingly great. The rest is good, too. All’s good, except the awful cover. A couple of years later, a cassette tape of remixes of Imagination songs got stuck in my car stereo, and somehow the volume button was broken, too. For a while I heard more Imagination than was good for my soul or sanity. Why didn’t my Motown mix get stuck instead?

Albums on my shortlist that failed to make the cut include those by Iron Maiden, Toto, Marvin Gaye, Hall & Oates, Men At Work, Dire Straits, Lionel Richie, Marlena Shaw, Shakatak, Culture Club and Germany’s BAP.

As ever, there doubtless will be puzzled headscratchings at my omissions. How could I not include Kate Bush’s The Dreaming? Because I’ve never owned or even heard it in full. Same with Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five’s The Message, much as I love the title track. And if I allowed a live album in Casino Lights, why not Simon & Garfunkel’s The Concert In Central Park? Because whatever I’ve heard from it, I’d rather play the studio versions, or the superb bootleg of a 1960s concert I found somewhere.

Companion mixes for this collection are A Life In Vinyl 1982, Any Major Soul 1982 and Any Major Soul 1982/83. Annual expenses for hosting this corner of the web are coming up, so if you might throw a tip in my coffee jar above, I would be grateful.

So, here are my Top 20 albums of 1982. The length of the mix exceeds a standard CD-R, but I’ve made home-thrillered covers anyway. The above text is included in an illustrated PDF. Comments in PW.

1. Dexys Midnight Runners – Liars A To E (Too-Rye-Ay)
2. ABC – All Of My Heart (Lexicon Of Love)
3. Kid Creole & The Coconuts – I’m A Wonderful Thing, Baby (Tropical Gangsters)
4. Donald Fagen – New Frontier (The Nightfly)
5. Michael McDonald – I Gotta Try (If That’s What It Takes)
6. Bill LaBounty – Look Who’s Lonely Now (Bill LaBounty)
7. Al Jarreau & Randy Crawford – Sure Enough (Casino Lights)
8. Michael Jackson – Baby Be Mine (Thriller)
9. Luther Vandross – Since I Lost My Baby (Forever, For Always, For Love)
10. Joe Jackson – Steppin’ Out (Night And Day)
11. Warren Zevon – Never Too Late For Love (The Envoy)
12. Billy Joel – Laura (The Nylon Curtain)
13. Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band – Shame On The Moon (The Distance)
14. Bruce Springsteen – Atlantic City (Nebraska)
15. Simple Minds – Someone Somewhere (In Summertime) (New Gold Dream)
16. Yazoo – Bad Connection (Upstairs At Eric’s)
17. Duran Duran – New Religion (Rio)
18. Prince – Delirious (1999)
19. Imagination – Just An Illusion (In The Heat Of The Night)
20. Otis Clay – Cheatin’ In The Next Room (The Only Way Is Up)

GET IT!

More Albums of the Year
More CD-R Mixes

Once upon a time I thought, instinctively, that 1972 — 50 years ago! — represented an apex in the history of LPs. Last year, I was thoroughly disabused of that idea. The greatest year in LPs clearly was 1971. I was able to compile a Top 20 of 1971, and followed it up with another set of 20 albums which would qualify for inclusion in any other Top 20. And I saw fit to “recover” three albums from 1971 (Tapestry, What’s Going On and Blue). From 1972, I’ve revovered only one, Ziggy Stardust.

Still, 1972 was a great year for albums. I’ve arrived at a Top 20 with plenty “bubbling-under” albums which might even have justified a second volume. But what I’ll do is to tack on tracks from a couple of these “bubbling-under” albums which may be less well-known.

I ignored live albums and compilations; if I had, then Neil Diamond and Donny Hathaway might have been included. Hathaway features anyway, in duet with Roberta Flack. And, of course, such list are entirely subjective. The 20 featured albums are not the best of 1972 —but those I like the best.

The sequence of songs does not suggest a ranking, though the mix starts with a track from the year’s top album. I join the general consensus that Ziggy Stardust is the best album of 1972. My undisputed #2 would be Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together, an album that is a masterpiece of production, arrangement, instrumentation and vocal delivery. All that compensates for whatever deficiencies one may locate in some of the songwriting. At #3 I might place the Carpenters’ A Song For You, a set so full of superb pop songs that it almost looks like a Best Of collection.

One of the Top 20 albums is rather obscure. I discovered Tracks’ Even A Broken Clock Is Right Twice A Day album while researching the Any Major Roy Bittan mix. Tracks was the country-rock band which Bittan was a member of before the great keyboardist hooked up with Springsteen’s E Street Band. I ended up listening to the album on loop. It connected with me. Poco’s Jim Messina was the engineer on the album.

Also less known than is just are The Fabulous Rhinestones, whose co-frontman Kal David we lost in August. I wrote a bit about him in the In Memoriam for August 2022.

One album I battled with was the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St. Releasing it as a double LP was an act of self-indulgence. If I want a fix of 1972 blues-rock, I can eat a peach. Half of the set is pretty much gratuitous rubbish. And even when it’s great, there is the hazard of Jagger sounding like he really needs a laxative. The only side I’d play without skipping a track is Side 2; maybe Side 4, too, but without much conviction. Only one track here, Tumblin’ Dice, would make it into my Stones Top 20. But in this age of playlists we no longer are hostage to bad sequencing and artistic incontinence. So if I rejig Exile on Main St., I get a very good album out of it. So it squeezes into my Top 20. I won’t use Tumblin’ Dice on this mix, nor Torn And Frayed — both are among the album’s best tracks but they’re shortlisted for other Any Major Mixes I’m lining up. Instead, I’m using one of the other great songs where Mick is in soulfully constipated mode.

There are a number of albums that failed to make the cut, but might have made it on another day. Bill Withers’ Still Bill leads that pack. Lyn Collins’s Think (About It) and From A Whisper To A Scream by Esther Philips (one of two great albums she released that year) were other agonising omissions. And then there is Ghettos Of The Mind by Bama the Village Poet, an astonishing poetry set-to-beats album. His soulful voice gives the penetrating words extra power. Tracks from the latter two are included as bonus tracks.

Also contending were Kris Kristofferson (Border Lord), Neil Young (Harvest), Van Morrison (Saint Dominic’s Preview), Mike James Kirkland (Doin’ It Right), Barry Ryan (Sanctus), Barbara Jean English (So Many Ways To Die), The O’Jays (Backstabbers and Ship Ahoy), Denise LaSalle (Trapped By A Thing Called Love), Little Feat (Sailing Shoes), The Rance Allen Group (Truth Is Where It’s At), War (The World Is A Ghetto), Marlena Shaw (Marlena), John Denver (Rocky Mountain High) and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Bands (Will The Circle Be Unbroken). I might also have considered Mike Nesmith’s Tantamount To Treason.

One might expect Stevie Wonder’s Talking Book to feature somewhere. I appreciate its place in the history of soul music, I have no cause to disagree with the critics who value it highly, and it obviously includes some killer tracks, but I just can’t love that album.

Another omission worth noting is John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Some Time In New York. I loved it as a teenager, when the political messages met my level of youthful sophistication. It turned me on to the Irish Troubles and to Angela Davis. When I watched Dog Day Afternoon for the first time, and Pacino screams “Attica”, I knew what he was shouting about. And I loved the faux-newspaper album cover. I was happy to ignore the second LP in the double-set, with the self-indulgent jam sessions, and gave the first two sides another listen. Alas, it’s not a very good album, musically or lyrically or artistically.

Any other year or week, Van Morrison’s St Dominic’s Preview might have merited inclusion in my Top 20. For the purposes of this post I listened to it again. It has glistening moment, but I got bored listening to it, except for the lovely Redwood Tree, and the long, intense Listen To The Lion, the album’s centrepiece. A one point Van goes for a bizarre impression of a stoned lion doing an imitation of an inebriated buffoon’s tactless mimicking of a gibbering idiot. A bit like the man today when he pontificates on Covid and other things of the contemporary world he just fails to understand.

These two mixes serve as good companions to Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, and Any Major Soul 1972 Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, and Any Major Soul 1972/73.

I’ll be intrigued to inspect the releases for 1973 for next year’s 50^th anniversary Top 20. I have a hunch that year didn’t reach the heights of 1971-72.As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R, includes home-ziggied covers and the above text in an illustrated PDF. PW in comments, where you can tell me your favourite albums of 1972 — who knows, I might have forgotten an essential one, or might (re)discover a new favourite…

1. David Bowie – Sufragette City (The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars)
2. Big Star – The Ballad Of El Goodo (#1 Record)
3. Steely Dan – Only A Fool Would Say That (Can’t Buy A Thrill)
4. The Allman Brothers Band – Blue Sky (Eat A Peach)
5. The Fabulous Rhinestones – Living On My Own Time (The Fabulous Rhinestones)
6. Allen Toussaint – Soul Sister (Life, Love And Faith)
7. Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway – Be Real Black For Me (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
8. Al Green – La-La For You (Let’s Stay Together)
9. Laura Lee – Women’s Love Rights (Women’s Love Rights)
10. Aretha Franklin – Rock Steady (Young, Gifted And Black)
11. Billy Paul – Am I Black Enough For You (360 Degrees Of Billy Paul)
12. Curtis Mayfield – Superfly (Superfly)
13. The Isley Brothers – Brother, Brother (Brother, Brother, Brother)
14. Carpenters – Hurting Each Other (A Song For You)
15. Elton John – Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters (Honky Château)
16. Nick Drake – Pink Moon (Pink Moon)
17. Lou Reed – Satellite Of Love (Transformer)
18. Tracks – Anyway Anyhow (Even A Broken Clock Is Right Twice A Day)
19. The Rolling Stones – Shine A Light (Exile On Main St.)
20. Staple Singers – We The People (Be Altitude: Respect Yourself)
Bonus Tracks:
21. Esther Phillips – Home Is Where The Hatred Is (From A Whisper To A Scream)
22. Bama The Village Poet – I Got Soul (Ghettos Of The Mind)

GET IT!

More Albums of the Year
More CD-R Mixes