Month: May 2019

Patti Smith has called her 1975 debut record Horses “three-chord rock merged with the power of the word” – a merger that would ultimately allow Patti to distinguish herself from the burgeoning New York CBGB’s scene and reshape punk in her own image. Legend has it that Smith auditioned guitarist Lenny Kaye by asking him if he could play a car crash. He really can! The snarling, garage primitivism of his guitar is gilded perfectly by Smith’s fevered wail, unflinchingly inspired and sincere. Patti wears a lot of different hats on this record – poet, punk, revolutionary and high priestess – and the band wax and wane accordingly, building the songs into cathartic freakouts awash in straining guitars. John Cale’s (the Stooges, the Velvet Underground, Brian Eno) production lets the band breathe, never feeling intrusive but rather a steady hand pushing the band firmly over the abyss. Smith’s background as a performance poet allows her to breathe life into every word which, although surely carefully considered, feel spontaneous and heartfelt every time. Finally, Horses’ iconic cover is a stark photograph of a wry and androgynous Smith snapped by renowned photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (also the subject of her excellent memoir Just Kids). Her expression reads just like this record sounds – fearless, hopeful and ready.

In 2001 the Strokes found themselves in difficult position. After the release of a three track EP (The Modern Age) they had become the subject of a multi-million dollar record label bidding war and endlessly hyped by the British music press as the band that was to save good old fashioned rock n’ roll from the sea of hip hop and nu metal that had supplanted it on the pop charts. Miraculously, the Strokes overdelivered on the staggering hype that had beset the recording process of Is This It and delivered a record that crystallised their ultra hip New York City rock n’ roll lineage (Television and the Velvet Underground in particular) and laid the groundwork for a new kind of rock music that didn’t belong to grunge and didn’t consider pop to be a dirty word. After September 11 the world had transformed overnight into a different place and the Strokes, whether they liked it or not, were the soundtrack of the future. Vocalist Julian Casablancas plays the role of the Lou-Reed-esque sneering romantic perfectly while the glassy stabs of Albert Hammond Jr and Nick Valensi’s duelling guitar laid the groundwork for the sound that was to become known as indie rock. Is This It entered the UK charts at no. 2 and breakout singles Hard to Explain and Last Nite electrified dance floors all over the world. The people had spoken: by all accounts, This Was It. The Strokes had arrived.

Pixies are a hard band to nail down and their 1988 debut Surfer Rosa exemplifies this. On one hand, this record could easily be described caterwauling, riff driven punk rock. Conversely however, it is also characterised by its offbeat sense of humour, nostalgia for Dick Dale-esque surf guitar and a thread of strange sweetness that runs through songs about incarceration, loneliness, insanity and obsession. The ability of songwriters Frank Black and Kim Deal to write songs containing these idiosyncrasies is one thing, but to perform them with such alternating vigorous energy and laid back California cool is a whole other trick. The Pixies emerged on their debut as a fully formed beast – loud/quiet/loud recipe fully loaded – and began to transform the alt rock landscape instantaneously. Like the Velvet Underground, they found mainstream success mostly after their initial implosion but the handful of people who were hip to them from the beginning all formed their own bands, including a young Kurt Cobain. Surfer Rosa doesn’t follow any blueprints – it is a new kind of rock n’ roll percolated in the fevered minds of Pixies. It is sometimes surreal and sometimes sweet, sometimes loud and sometimes quiet – but it is always brilliant.

If you tried to pinpoint the exact moment that Aretha Franklin ascended to her throne as the undisputed Queen of Soul, her 1967 LP “Never Loved A Man (The Way That I Love You” is ground zero. After a stifling run at Columbia Records, A 25 year old Franklin signed with Atlantic, teamed up with gifted producer Jerry Wexler (Ray Charles, Wilson Pickett, Dusty Springfield) and cut Never Loves a Man at the legendary Muscle Shoals recording studio in Alabama. The result was astonishing. At times, the record feels almost spiritual, (Do Right Woman, A Change Is Gonna Come) but at the same time it is packed with bonafide party starters like the title track, Good Times, Save Me and the anthemic Respect. Never Loved a Man is a landmark album in pop music, shuddering with equal parts agony and ecstasy. Long live the Queen!