Month: March 2019

Of all the personas that Bowie inhabited throughout his career, none resonated in pop culture quite like Ziggy Stardust. Part alien and part rock god, Ziggy was Bowie’s androgynous charm made flesh, sparking the public imagination and moving records like nobody had since the Beatles. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars marks Bowie’s ascent to superstardom and has remained a rite of passage for rock n’ rollers the world over since its 1972 release. Bowie’s gift for melody and lyric is showcased here but the Spiders from Mars, particularly lead guitarist and serial Bowie collaborator Mick Ronson also shine brightly. Album highlights: all of it! From the apocalyptic opener Five Years to the hip shaking closer Suffragette City this album is all killer and no filler – a glam rock masterpiece. Wham bam thank you ma’am!

Janis Joplin’s major label debut is an acid soaked polaroid of the psychedelic hedonism of San Fransisco in 1968. The band is smoking hot – intertwining, fuzzed out guitars and swaggering blues jams aplenty – but it is Joplin’s performance that truly sets this record apart from the myriad of psychedelic blues bands that followed in the wake of Jimi Hendrix’s arrival. Highlights include the barnstorming “Piece of My Heart” and a jaw-dropping rendition of George Gershwin’s “Summertime”. Also worthy of note is cartoonist Robert Crumb’s characteristically kooky cover art. Turn on, tune in, drop out, let your freak flag fly, don’t take the brown acid and dig it!

The soundtrack to the Coen brothers’ 1998 ode-to-slackerdom The Big Lebowski is as endearing and absurd as the film that shares its title. There’s an eclectic mix of genres here – rock n’ roll, folk, jazz, blues and opera – but don’t be alarmed by the disparity of these genres if you haven’t seen the film. The Coens have curated a mixtape that, whilst broad in spectrum, is strung together by the same thread of good-natured malaise that runs through the film. Highlights include the Gypsy Kings’ spicy cover of the Eagles’ Hotel California and a rare Kenny Rogers’ expedition into psychedelia on Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In). What are you waiting for? Throw this bad boy on your turntable and mix up a couple of White Russians! The dude abides.