Living To Music February 2012

Join in if you can, alone or with friends, this Sunday at 9pm with Greg Wilson's Living To Music worldwide communal listening experience. The selected album this month is Paul Simon's Graceland.

http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2012/01/living-to-music-paul-simon-graceland/

How Could I Be Wrong

Musician, songwriter and author Luke Haines formed The Auteurs with girlfriend Alice Readman in 1990, along with friend Glenn Collins and James Banbury.  They made distinctively English melodic guitar pop.

I found a 10" vinyl EP of their 1993 single How Could I Be Wrong at car boot sale last year for 50p:

 

The Auteurs - How Could I Be Wrong (1993)

 Side One.
 1. How Could I Be Wrong.
 2. High Diving Horses.

 Side Two.
 3. Wedding Day.
 4. Staying Power - Live.












The song is taken from their debut album New Wave, which came with a free 7" single and reached no.22 in the uk album chart.

Hop on the bus, Gus

Still Crazy After All These Years was Paul Simon's fourth solo album.  It was his third solo release post- Simon & Garfunkel (The Paul Simon Songbook was released in the UK only in 1965).

I bought a copy of it for £1 at a car boot sale towards the end of last year:



Paul Simon - Still Crazy After All These Years (1975)

 

In the main, this singer-songwriter style album has a jazzy feel, with piano and acoustic guitar featuring prominently.   It produced four top 40 hits in the US.  These were My Little Town (with Art Garfunkel), Gone At Last (an up-tempo gospel track with Phoebe Snow), the title track of course and 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover.

 

It's a mostly pretty downbeat album (not surprising for a bunch of songs written around the time of his divorce from first wife Peggy Harper) and the last few tracks are fairly forgettable, but there are still enough great ones to make it a worthwhile investment or at least repeated listens on Spotify.  Top tracks:

 

Paul Simon – I'd Do It For Your Love       Paul Simon – Still Crazy After All These Years

Paul Simon – 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover

Paul Simon with Phoebe Snow and The Jessy Dixon Singers – Gone At Last

 

The album reached no.1 in the US Billboard Pop Albums chart and no.6 in the UK.  It also won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1976.





Wild Child



Lou in '72

Lou Reed released eight albums with RCA between 1972 and 1976.  In 1977 after he left them, RCA released a compilation of these years, a 1981 re-issue of which I found at a car boot sale for £2.

Lou Reed - Walk On The Wild Side: The Best Of (1977).
The set of Polaroids on the cover feature Lou with
former long- term partner Rachel; a transgender man.

It contains songs from six albums, from 72's self-titled debut through to 76's Coney Island Baby.  1972's Transformer is the most represented album with three tracks appearing.  It has to be said that for a collection of his more mainstream material, the non-appearance of Perfect Day is puzzling.

Thankfully though, there's nothing from 75's Metal Machine Music; a double LP of feedback loops.

This collection is really geared towards the more casual fan (like me).  Definitely a walk on the safe side in terms of Reed's overall solo output, but a great introduction.

Top tracks (Spotify):

Lou Reed – Sweet Jane    Lou Reed – Wild Child    Lou Reed – New York Telephone Conversation



Life Is A Dance

Chaka Khan

Singer Chaka Khan first found fame with funk group Rufus in 1973.  Over her long career she has successfully lent her powerful voice to pop, jazz, R&B and soul, but in 1989 she had a go at house music too.  Or rather, she allowed an array of producers to remix 11 of her hits into extended club versions to make a double album of floorfillers.

I bought Life Is A Dance at a car boot sale last autumn for £1:

Chaka Khan - Life Is A Dance - The Remix Project (1989)

My top tracks (Spotify links below) are the legendary Frankie Knuckles' remix of Ain't Nobody and radio and club DJ Tony Humphries' mix of I Know You, I Live You.

The album reached no.1 in the UK and every single track reached no.1 in the US dance play chart.

Chaka Khan – Ain't Nobody - Remix

Chaka Khan – I Know You, I Live You - Remix Album Version



Happy Birthday David Bowie.

The Dame, Ziggy Stardust, Halloween Jack, Aladdin Sane, The Thin White Duke, The Actor.  Whatever you know him best as, David Bowie turns 65 today.  Here he is with his Spiders from Mars on Top Of The Pops in 1972.

Happy Birthday Ziggy xxx

The Plastic Age

Future super-producer Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes.

Kooky electropopsters The Buggles consisted of keyboardist Geoff Downes (right of pic) with Trevor Horn on bass and vocals (left).  They only made one album together (Downes left the group during the recording of album number two "Adventures In Modern Recording") but their biggest claim to fame is that the single "Video Killed The Radio Star" was the first music video to appear on the brand-new MTV in 1981.

"Video..." reached no.1 in the UK chart.

 

I bought their album The Age Of Plastic for £1 at a car boot sale:

The Buggles - The Age Of Plastic (1980)

They had a few other hits off the album but went their own separate and successful ways not long after. 

Top tracks (Spotify):  The Buggles – The Plastic Age     The Buggles – Clean, Clean

The album reached no.27 in the UK.





Bonus Beats

I found a 12" De La Soul EP for 50p at a recent boot sale.  There'd just been a huge downpour and the box of records I'd been looking through was pretty soggy, but luckily this was at the bottom and mainly dry:

De La Soul - 4 New Remixes (1989)

It contains 12" remixes of four of their most well known songs.  Tracklisting:

Side A.  The Magic Number (Too Mad Mix), Say No Go (Bonus Beats).

Side B.  Eye Know (Daisy Bass Mix), Me Myself And I/Say No Go.

It's not on Spotify and I couldn't find a decent youtube vid, so I made one myself.  Here's Side B.