Kirsten Adamson - In A Big Country

 

 Not exactly a Lockdown LP, but this version of a song on an album previously featured warrants further attention.

https://fatbearslockdownlps.blogspot.com/2020/05/big-country-crossing_7.html 

Kirsten Adamson is the daughter of Stuart Adamson, whose song "In A Big Country" was a 1983 hit single for Big Country and an epic track on their debut "The Crossing" album. Whereas the original  version conjured up heroic visions with swirling bagpipe guitar, pounding drums, epic guitar solos and poetic lyrics, his daughter's interpretation is amazingly different, with just a slow acoustic guitar and an angelic vocal. Just superb.

It's probably the finest song I have heard this year, and deserves a much wider audience

Here is a link to the YouTube performance of the song : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9b8NKVcb3w4

 

Jon Anderson - Olias of Sunhillow

It is at least 40 years since I last heard any of this LP and I can't say I was particularly looking forward to sitting through it again, but as George Michael requested, listen without prejudice !

I bought this album after hearing a couple of the songs on Nicky Horne's 70's late night radio show on Capital Radio. I had no idea who Jon Anderson was, so it was a bit of a surprise to later learn he was the singer in Yes.

A few months later Punk Rock exploded into the country's consciousness and I started listening to The Clash, The Stranglers, The Jam, The Sex Pistols etc, which are a bit of a contrast to the cosmic witterings of Jon Anderson !


Despite being untrained, Anderson plays all the instruments on the album, not that you would guess that. As a result there are no guitar solos, keyboard wizardary or pulsating bass lines but a lot of synthesized music, and an effective use of his voice. A lot of the instrumental pieces are reminiscent of Vangelis, who gets a thank you on the sleeve, and who later collaborated with Anderson, but his participation on this work is strenuously denied. In some ways Olias is also similiar to Mike Oldfield's multi-instrumentation offerings.

This is a concept album, and the story is told on the inside cover. There is some nice looking art work but the story is hard to fathom. Thankfully, the tale of 4 tribes fleeing an dying planet on a Noah's Ark ship is now clearly explained on Wikipedia.

Perhaps unfortunately I was able to find the full album on YouTube, but I noticed that the most popular track had only 40K hits, with most around 10-12K, and one less than 500 hits. One slightly annoying feature of listening on YouTube are the gaps between the tracks, whereas on the record they seemlessly flow.

For me the highlights of this LP are the two pleasant songs "Sound Out The Galleon" and "Flight Of The Moorglade" which have a similarity to the later Yes hit "Wonderous Stories". The early instrumentals on side one ( "Ocean Song" & "Dance of Ranyart" ) are pleasant and inoffensive, being possible music for shampoo adverts, but the album then drifts into a mixture of Buddist, Hindi and perhaps even Japanese influences. "Olias ( To Build The Moorglade )" sounds like a Yes on a bad day.

Listening to side two, I was beginning to get bored with the mystical musings, apart from the gentle spanish style guitar at the end of "Chords", but the finale "To The Runner" is another airy, joyous song finishing with a haunting synthesizer close, similiar to "Shine On You Crazy Diamond Part 9" which ends Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here.

In summary, Olias of Sunhillow has its moments and is a showcase for Jon Anderson's vocal talents, but could do with a better balance between the simple acoustic songs and the spaced out, repetitive instrumental experimentation. However, it is a product of its time, with its mumbo jumbo lyrics, a new age hippy vibe and its creator probably being out of his head on dope most of the time, but it is fine if you like that sort of thing.

And amazingly, I have written all of this without saying it's pretensious crap !

Track Listing :


1. Ocean Song 
2. Meeting (Garden Of Geda) 
3. Sound Out The Galleon 
4. Dance Of Ranyart 
5. Olias (To Build The Moorglade) 
6. Qoquaq ën Transic
7. Naon
8. Transic Tö
9. Flight Of The Moorglade
10. Solid Space
11. Moon Ra 
12. Chords 
13. Song Of Search
14. To The Runner 
 

Released 1976
UK Chart Position : 8

The Alarm - Standards

Rhyl's finest's greatest hits album, even if very few of the songs were hits. Sometimes described as Wales' answer to U2, although more usually as a poor man's U2 or Clash wannabees, The Alarm made a handful of strong tracks, typically rousing songs with anthemic hooks full of earnest big statements.

I bought the 12 inch single version of "Where Were You Hiding When The Storm Broke" and regularly would sing along to the "One By One","Two By Two" and "Three By Three" chants in the second verse. It's hard to think that was in 1984, as I thought it was a few years later than that !

I bought this album after hearing the heroic and wistful "New South Wales" sung in Welsh, and was a little disappointed to find the English version on it.....

The full album of Standards is available twice on YouTube, although both had different track listings to this. Both were missing the final two tracks on my LP, but had other songs not on my LP, so I had to separately search for these in order to play.

Not surprisingly I enjoyed hearing again and singing along to the two Clash style calls to arm ( "Sixty Eight Guns" & "Where Were You Hiding When The Storm Broke"). "The Stand" is not nearly as outstanding but could easily be an album track on London Calling or Sandinista with its Joe Strummer style vocal and Clash style backing vocals. "Absolute Reality" and "Unsafe Building" are better than I remember and I found myself tapping my toes to them.

The Springsteen-esque "Spirit of '76" is probably the best piece of work The Alarm came up with, and the mix of frustration, bitterness, sadness and determination is still very powerful - all seven minutes of it. If I had to recommend just one song by The Alarm, it would be this one. Bryan Adams is probably very jealous of it.

A couple of the late career attempts at aiming for the mainstream mass market ( "Rain In The Summertime" & "Sold Me Down The River" ) still sound prety good, and the wife actually liked "New South Wales", which features a Welsh Male Voice Choir.

The LP ends with a cover of John Lennon's "Happy Christmas ( War Is Over )" which is sung quite nicely and also features the Welsh Male Voice Choir, but I am not sure what the point of it was.

The other songs on the album are nice. Whilst they are not particularly memorable, I would rather listen to them than most things !

Track Listing :

1. The Road ( 1990 - )
2. Unsafe Building ( 1981 - )
3. The Stand ( 1983 - No : 86 )
4. Six-Eight Guns ( 1983 - No : 17 )
5. Where Were You Hiding When The Storm Broke ( 1984 - No : 22 )
6. Absolute Reality ( 1985 - No : 35 )
7. Strength ( 1985 - No : 40 )
8. Spirit of '76 ( 1986 - No : 22 )
9. Rain In The Summertime ( 1987 - No : 18 )
10. Rescue Me ( 1987 - No : 48 )
11. Sold Me Down The River ( 1989 - No : 48 )
12. A New South Wales ( 1989 - No : 31 )
13. Happy Christmas ( War Is Over ) ( 1989 - )

Released 1990
UK Chart Position :47

A-Ha - Stay On These Roads

This is the third album by A-Ha which I essentially purchased  as I liked the title track when it was released as a single.

I remember this as a strong album with a lot of good tunes but looking at Wikipedia I was surprised to see that 5 of the 10 tracks were released as singles. In addition to "Stay On These Roads", I recall "Touchy" being a hit, and of course the Timothy Dalton James Bond Theme Song "The Living Daylights" but couldn't remember "You Are The One"  or "The Blood That Moves The Body" being singles. In fact I couldn't remember the latter at all !

On replay this is still an outstanding LP. If I try to be critical "This Alone Is Love" plods on a bit too long and could be edited, and "Hurry Home" could fade out a bit earlier too. However, this really is nit-picking on a top quality set of songs.

For me the highlight is "Out Of The Blue Comes Green", an epic song with a great melody and a terrific vocal. Indeed, the album is a showcase for Morten Harket to demonstrate the full range of his talent as a singer. "Stay On These Roads" features soaring high notes in the chorus, and a big dramatic powerful coda after the a calm piece of gentle keyboard playing of the main reframe. It is still stunning and not one to try in Karaoke !

Elsewhere, "Touchy" and "You Are The One" are still catchy-pop numbers, although Morten does look alot like a young Richard Gere in the official "You Are The One" video. "There's Never A Forever Thing" is a slow ballad that also features another strong vocal.

I didn't really like "The Living Daylights" when it first came out, thinking it to be a bit overblown and not having a great tune, but listening to it now I thought it was really good. And I should have remembered "The Blood That Moves The Body" as the one with a similar sound to "The Living Daylights" and could have been a Bond theme tune !

This album isn't just about the great singing though, the music is rich and varied and it is full of good, thoughtful, melodic and well structured songs.

Finally, the Norwegian band were not the inspiration for the Alan Partridge catchphrase, which came from elsewhere in Scandinavia.

Track Listing :

1. Stay On These Roads
2. The Blood That Moves The Body
3. Touchy
4. This Alone Is Love
5. Hurry Home
6. The Living Daylights
7. There's Never A Forever Thing
8. Out Of The Blue Comes Green
9. You Are The One
10. You'll End Up Crying

Released 1988
UK Chart Position : 2

Singles :

The Living Daylights ( No 5 - 1987 )
Stay On These Roads ( No 5 - 1988 )
The Blood That Moves The Body ( No 25 - 1988 )
Touchy ( No 11 - 1988 )
You Are The One ( No 13 - 1988 ) 

 

Adam And The Ants - Kings Of The Wild Frontier

And now hopefully for a little bit of fun, from an era when looking like a cross between a native Red Indian, a pirate, a highwayman and a dandy prince splashed with some face painting was fashionable. Throw in a combination of Burundi Beat drumming, twangy guitars, swaggering bravado, a sense of camp and at times nursery school lyrics and you have the receipe for Adam And The Ants, and their brief period of pop dominance in the early 80s.

A flatmate at college ( the same person who sneered at ABC ! ) was heavily influenced at the time, and tried to dress like Adam Ant for a brief period. I never bothered, as even then I knew, at best, I would end up looking like the guitarist !

Whilst "Ant Music" is the song that clinched the band's fame and fortune and encouraged everyone to unplug the jukebox, the earlier "Dog Eat Dog" is a much more interesting piece of music. The title track sunk without trace when first released but did much better when re-released during the height of their popularity. At this time, Adam And The Ants were trying to be taken seriously so it pre-dates the pantomime of "Prince Charming" and "Stand And Deliver", which were still to come

I remember with fondness the silliness of "Los Rancheros" and "Jolly Roger" but the rest of the album is a blank. I'm not sure how well this will have aged !

Not very well as it happens.......

There are still some highs, but there are also plenty of lows. "Dog Eat Dog" remains a great song, and "Ant Music" still sounds good. The fun songs have pop melodies that still make you smile, catchy hooks to sing along to, there's some great guitar play that Hank Marvin would be proud of, and clever backing vocals. "Human Beings" has a good bass line and a good chant ( Blackfoot, Pawnee, Cheyenne, Crow, Apache, Arapho ! ) even if the lyrics are nonsense.

However, it is easy to see why the track "Kings Of The Wild Frontier" wasn't a hit first time around as although the drumming is innovative and there is an effective guitar riff, it is mostly noise and shouting.
 
Unfortunately though, when Adam And The Ants try to be meaningful or threatening they struggle to maintain the attention, such as  "Ants Invasion", "Killer In The Home", "Don't Be Square", with just the guitar as a saving grace. "Physical" is virtually unlistenable and whilst "Press Darlings" might have been biting at the time, now it just sounds petty.

I read that Kings Of The Wild Frontier was voted Best British Album at the 1982 Brit Awards. It wouldn't win that award now......

I'm not sure how, but my copy of Kings of The Wild Frontier is the version released in the US, so has a slightly different track listing to the album released in the UK. It also explains the stick stating "Contains the three English top ten hits" rather than British or UK !


Track Listing :

1. Dog Eat Dog
2. Ant Music
3. Los Rancheros
4. Feed Me To The Lions
5. Press Darlings
6. Ant Invasion
7. Killer In The Home
8. Kings Of The Wild Frontier
9. The Magnificent Five
10. Don't Be Square ( Be There )
11. Jolly Roger
12. Physical ( You're So )
13. The Human Beings

Released 1981
UK Chart Position : 1

Singles :

Dog Eat Dog ( No 4 - 1980 )
Ant Music ( No 2 - 1980 )
Kings Of The Wild Frontier ( No 2 - 1981 )

AC/DC - Highway To Hell

I was never a big fan of Australia's AC/DC ( even though the Young brothers and Bon Scott were from Scotland, and later Brian Johnson was from Durham ), but two of my school friends were heavily into at the time. Having borrowed a couple of their earlier albums from them, there were a few songs I quite liked, such as "Whole Lotta Rosie", "Rock and Roll Damnation", "Riff Raff" and bagpipe flavoured "It's a Long Way To The Top If You Want To Rock And Roll". The occasional song, such as the double entendre packed "Big Balls" was quite witty.

In December 1979 there was alot of excitement in my school that AC/DC were coming to play at the Brighton Conference Centre on their Highway To Hell Tour, and a number of sixth formers were going. Not wanting to be left out I agreed to go along and purchased a copy of the new album so that I would be familiar with the new songs. As you can see, I splashed out £2.99 !

I don't remember much about the concert except that I quite enjoyed it, but looking at the set-list available on the internet, only three of the new songs were included in the set performed that night. With his death in February 1980, it turned out to be one of Bon Scott's last performances.

Highway to Hell was AC/DC's global break-through album, being their first top-10 success in the UK and first album to break the top 100 in the US - it made the top 20. It established the band as one of the major hard rock acts in the world.

I haven't listened to this album since I left school in 1980, and whilst "Highway to Hell" and "Touch Too Much" were major hit singles in the UK, the only other song on the track list that I would say I was familiar with is Walk All Over You and its anthem-like chorus. In fact, whilst I remembered "Touch Too Much" I had forgotten it was actually an AC/DC song. Most people should recognise the riff on opener "Highway to Hell" but I suspect the rest of the material will be fairly monotonous and a challenge to listen all the way through.

Having now sat through the whole album, it is top-loaded so that the stronger songs are at the beginning. After the high point of "Touch Too Much", the fourth track, things start to wane with the closing song on side one, "Beating Around The Bush".

Side Two has little to grab the attention, with three routine songs, with "Shot Down In Flames" the best of them, followed by two very forgettable songs, which I just wanted to end, to close out the album.

However, Highway To Hell was a clear attempt to become mainstream, and to that end it succeeded. A lot of rough edges have been smoothed off, and global domination followed. There are a few decent riffs, but don't listen too much to the lyrics. There is a shortage of the genuinely funny lines found on the earlier albums, and some of the words wouldn't pass modern day political correctness. In this respect Highway To Hell hasn't aged very well.

As to the accusation that AC/DC are boring and samey, I liked the rebuttal from guitarist Angus Young :

"I'm sick and tired of people saying we put out 11 albums that sounded exactly the same. In fact, we've put out 12 albums that sounded exactly the same".

Track Listing :

1. Highway To Hell
2. Girls Got Rhythm
3. Walk All Over You
4. Touch Too Much
5. Beating Around The Bush
6. Shot Down In Flames
7. Get It Hot
8. If You Want Blood ( You've Got It )
9. Love Hungry Man
10. Night Prowler

Released 1979
UK Chart Position : 8

Singles :

Highway To Hell ( No 4 - 1979 )
Touch Too Much ( No 29 - 1980 )

ABC - The Lexicon of Love

The first album alphabetically for the exercise.

Released in 1982, my memory was that this a truly great album full of amazing witty and clever lyrics and great tunes, and not a bad song on the album. I’m sure I played this to death at the time, and one of my flatmates hated “Poison Arrow”. I was never quite sure when he said “You think you’re smart, stupid, stupid” if he was talking to me, or was he just sneering at the lyrics….

I knew how the 4 singles on the album went but I couldn't immediately recall any of the album tracks. I was fairly confident I would be word-perfect ( if not not note perfect ! ) on “The Look of Love”, one of my favourite all-time songs from my college days, and was hoping I wasn't going to be disappointed when I heard the rest !

As it turned out, Date Stamp is probably the best song on the album, and I had completely forgotten it. 4 Ever 2 Gether was much more memorable than I had remembered.The whole of side 2 is superb though. 

Side 1, whilst still good, doesn't hit these heights, and I thought Show Me was probably the weakest track on the album.

A piece of trivia is that the first single Tears Are Not Enough, released in 1981, doesn't appear to have any official video. The video for The Look of Love is suitably cheesy, and the band wear the sort of blazers worn by alickadoos at a rugby club. 
 
One indication is the feedback from the wife, who stated "What's this crap ?" as Show Me started, but had moved to "This is quite nice" by the time Date Stamp was being played !

I wish I had the imagination to write some of lines on this LP, but that probably explains why I am an accountant. Still, the following lines can rarely have been bettered.............


( from Poison Arrow ) 

No rhythm in cymbals, no tempo in drums
Love on arrival, she comes when she comes
Right on the target but wide of the mark
What I thought was fire was only the spark

The sweetest melody is an unheard refrain
So lower your sights, yeah
But raise your aim, raise your aim



( from Date Stamp )

I get sales talk from sales assistants
When all I want to do girl is lower your resistance
Everything is temporary, written on that sand
Looking for the girl that meets supply with demand

( from The Look of Love )

When your girl has left you out on the pavement (Goodbye)
When your dreams fall apart at the seams
Your reason for living, your reason for leaving
Don't ask me what it means

Track Listing :

1. Show Me
2. Poison Arrow
3. Many Happy Returns
4. Tears Are Not Enough
5. Valentine's Day
6. The Look Of Love ( Part One )
7. Date Stamp
8. All of My Heart
9. 4 Ever 2 Gether
10. Look of Love ( Part Four )

Released 1982 
UK Chart Position : 1

Singles :

Tears Are Not Enough ( No 19 - 1981 )
Poison Arrow ( No 6 - 1982 )
The Look Of Love ( Part One ) - ( No 4 - 1982 )
All of My Heart ( No 5 - 1982 )