Marshall Crenshaw made his eponymous debut with this wonderfully catchy mix of power pop and 50’s rock and roll. He got his start playing in bands around his native Detroit and got his break playing John Lennon in the off Broadway production of ’Beatlemania’. ‘Marshall Crenshaw’ was recorded at the Record Plant in New York City with veteran producer Richard Gottehrer. The album evokes the music of Elvis Costello and Buddy Holly, who he actually played in the film ‘La Bamba’. With Crenshaw on guitar and vocals, his brother Robert Crenshaw on drums, and Chris Donato on bass guitar; the entire album is filled with tightly played, shimmering pop gems. ‘Marshall Crenshaw’ went to number fifty on the album chart and sold almost four hundred thousand copies.
"There She Goes Again"
"Someday, Someway" made it to number thirty-six on the singles chart.
"Girls"
"Cynical Girl"
"Mary Anne"
You can hear the whole album on this youtube playlist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a93gTsNiW4k&list=PLCD162AC3436EE4A4&index=14&feature=plpp_video
Life was ecstasy for the Young Rascals when they took this groovy little romp to the top of the charts. Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati wrote 'Groovin'' about weekend getaways with their girlfriends. Cavaliere recalls: "I met this young girl and I just fell head over heels in love. I was so gone that this joyous, wonderful emotion came into the music. 'Groovin'' was part of that experience. If you look at the story line, it's very simple: we're groovin' on a Sunday afternoon because Friday and Saturdays are when musicians work. The simplicity of it is that Sundays you could be with your loved one. And the beauty of is this joyous bliss that at that time I equated with a person, but that's the beauty of music - when it's an example of what you do it lasts forever. You're in love forever because of that moment in time that you captured, and that's what was happening with 'Groovin''."
'Groovin'' was produced by the band with session musician Chuck Rainey playing the Latin bass line. The Cuban groove was not well-liked by the folks at Atlantic Records. Cavaliere says New York DJ Murray the K convinced record company executives to release it as a single: “To tell you the truth, they didn’t originally like the record because it had no drum on it. We had just cut it, and he came in the studio to say hello. After he heard the song, he said, ‘Man, this is a smash.’ So, when he heard that Atlantic didn’t want to put it out, he went to see Jerry Wexler and said, ‘Are you crazy? This is a friggin’ number one record.’ He was right, because it eventually became number one for five straight weeks.” Actually, 'Groovin'' spent two weeks at number one and was pushed to number two for one week by Aretha Franklin's 'Respect' before regaining the top spot for another two weeks.
Groovin' on a Sunday afternoon.
Really, couldn't get away too soon.
I can't imagine anything that's better.
The world is ours whenever we're together.
There ain't a place I'd like to be,
Instead of movin' down a crowded avenue,
Doin' anything we like to do.
There's always lots of things that we can see.
We can be anyone we'd like to be.
All those happy people we could meet,
Just groovin' on a Sunday afternoon.
Really, couldn't get away too soon.
No, no, no, no, no.
ah-ah-ha, ah-ah-ha, ah-ah-ha.
We'll keep on spendin' sunny days this way.
We're gonna talk and laugh our time away.
(Ah-ah-ah.)
I feel it coming closer day by day.
Life would be ecstasy, you and me endlessly,
Groovin', (reelin' and rollin'),
Really, couldn't get away to soon.
No-no-no, no.
Groovin'. un-huh, uh-huh.
Groovin' ay-ay.
The Jam boldly took their 60's fixations into the punk ethos and rose above the crowd with the tightly-wound Mod nuggets of their stylish, socially-conscious debut. 'In the City' was recorded in eleven days at Stratford Place in London for Polydor Records and produced by Vic Smith and Chris Parry. The trio of guitarist and lead singer Paul Weller, drummer Rick Buckler, and bassist Bruce Foxton had begun as a rock and roll covers band until Weller discovered the Who: "I saw that through becoming a Mod it would give me a base and an angle to write from, and this we eventually did. We went out and bought suits and started playing Motown, Stax and Atlantic covers. I bought a Rickenbackerguitar, a Lambretta GP 150 and tried to style my hair like Steve Marriott’s circa ’66.". Although they played with the energy of the punk movement, their fashionable suits and serious musicianship set them apart from their peers. 'In the City' went to number twenty on the UK album chart.
"Art School"
"I've Changed My Address"
"I Got By in Time"
"Away from the Numbers"
The single of "In the City" went to number forty and the riff was used by the Sex Pistols for 'Holiday in the Sun'.
"Sounds from the Street"
"Time for Truth"
Little Feat expanded their sound and found their groove with the joyful jams and country blues of their sublimely surreal second album. ‘Sailin’ Shoes’ was produced by Ted Templeman for Warner Brothers Records at Amigo Sounds, Sunset Sound and T.T.G. It shows the band weaving in and out of the complex compositions with loose and easy grace, with each song having it’s own feel. The iconic album cover was done by artist Neon Parks, the beginning of a long relationship with the band. ‘Sailin’ Shoes’ was the last Little Feat album to feature the original lineup of multi-instrumentalists Lowell George and Bill Payne, drummer and percussionist Richie Hayward, and bassist Roy Estrada. Estrada left when it was complete to join Captain Beefheart's Magic Band. The album also features Milt Holland on percussion, Sneaky Pete Kleinow on pedal steel guitar, Debbie Lindsey on vocals, and Ron Elliott on rhythm guitar.
'Easy to Slip' was written by Lowell George with Martin Kibbee a.k.a. Fred Martin.
“It's so easy to slip
It's so easy to fall
And let your memory drift
And do nothin' at all
All the love that you missed
All the people that you can't recall
Do they really exist at all”
'Cold Cold Cold'
“That woman was freezing, freezing cold
Well I tried everything to warm her up
Now I'm living in this cold hotel
'Cause she passed me, up or she passed me by,
Or I couldn't decide at all
Oh I'm mixed up, yes I'm mixed up
Don't you know I'm lonely
Of all the things I had to do
I had to fall in love
You know she's cold “
'Trouble'
“You yelled hey when your car wouldn't start
So you got real nervous and started to eat your heart out
Now you're so fat your shoes don't fit on your feat
You got trouble
And it's tailor made
Well mama lay your head down in the shade
'Cause your eyes are tired, and your feat are too
And you wish the world was as tired as you, whoa
Well I'll write a letter, and I'll send it away
And put all the trouble in into you had today”
A new version of 'Willin'' was recorded for this album. This is the song that caused Frank Zappa to suggest that Lowell George start his own band.
"I've been from Tuscon to Tucumcari
Tehachapi to Tonapah
Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made
Driven the back roads so I wouldn't get weighed
And if you give me: weed, whites, and wine
And you show me a sign
I'll be willin', to be movin'"
'A Apolitical Blues'
"Well my telephone was ringing
And they told me it was Chairman Mao
Well my telephone was ringing
And they told me it was Chairman Mao
You can tell him anything
'Cause I just don't wanna talk to him now
I've got the apolitical blues
And that's the meanest blues of all
Apolitical blues
And that's the meanest blues of all
I don't care if it's John Wayne
I just don't wanna talk to him now"
'Sailin' Shoes'
"Lady in a turban, cocaine tree
Does a dance so rhythmically
She's cryin', and a singin' and having a time
and gee that cocaine tree look fine
You've got to put on your sailin shoes
Put on your sailing shoes
Everyone will start to cheer
When you put on your sailin' shoes"
'Teenage Nervous Breakdown'
"Some contend that rock and roll
Is bad for the the body and bad for the soul
Bad for the heart, bad for the mind,
Bad for the deaf, and bad for the blind
Makes some men crazy and then they act like fools
Makes some men crazy, and then they start to drool
Unscrupulous operators could confuse
Could exploit and deceive
Conditional reflex theories and changing probabilities
It's a crass and raucous crackass place
It's a plague upon the the human race
It's a terrible illness, it's a terrible case
And it's usually permanent when it takes place
It's a teenage nervous breakdown
It's a teenage nervous breakdown"
'Texas Rose Café'
"Picked up on my phone in Houston
Everybody answered, everybody answered but they won't say why
Then this dancer grabbed me down by the bus stop
And she said I'm takin' you with me to the Texas Rose cafe
I got a fast car, it's a jaguar, and I'll get you to the plane on time
Drinkin' Lone Star, play guitar, we'll have a real good time"
The Black Crowes took their roots revivalism to the next level with this soulful hymn to classic Southern rock and blues. Like their debut, ‘The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion’ was produced by George Drakoulias. Brothers Chris and Rich Robinson brought in Marc Ford to replace Jeff Cease on guitar and he helps the band to open up their sound. Eddie Harsch also joined the band on keyboards; and the interplay is loose and lively with rhythm section of Johnny Colt and Steve Gorman holding everything down. ‘The Choir’ of Barbara and Joy helps to give the album a gospel feel. ‘The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion’ made its debut at number one on the Billboard album chart; but the singles didn’t chart well on the Hot 100. Still, four of the singles went to number one on the Album Rock Tracks chart. The album went to number two in France and has been certified double platinum.
full album:
1 Sting Me 0:00
2 Remedy 4:40
3 Thorn In My Pride 10:02
4 Bad Luck Blue Eyes Goodbye 16:06
5 Sometimes Salvation 22:35
6 Hotel Illness 27:21
7 Black Moon Creeping 31:21
8 No Speak No Slave 36:15
9 My Morning Song 40:16
10 Time Will Tell (Marley) 46:33
'Sting Me' spent two weeks at the top of the Album Rock Tracks chart.
“If you feel like a riot, then don't you deny it
Put your good foot forward
No need for heroics I just want you to show it
Now's the time to shine
Your independence is a half ass deliverance
The train left the station
The recognition of the same old condition
Your symptoms showing through
Well regardless of the truth
You still act so aloof
In the face of your judge and jury
You nave the nerve to say not guilty
But can you sting me
Can you sting me
Right to my rotten bones”
'Remedy' held the number one spot on the Album Rock Tracks chart for eleven weeks.
“Baby, baby why can't you sit still?
Who killed that bird out on you window sill?
Are you the reason that he broke his back?
Tell me, did I see you laugh about that?
If I come on like a dream?
Would you let me show you what I mean?”
'Thorn in My Pride' spent four weeks on top of the Album Rock Tracks chart.
"Are you wanting inspiration
You spill your secrets on me
Then you tell me with a whisper
Of things that will never be.
Do you hear me breathing?
Does it make you want to scream?
Did you ever like a bad dream?
Sometimes life is obscene.
My angels
My devils
Thorn in my pride"
'Hotel Illness' held the top of the Album Rock Tracks chart for six weeks.
“Oh good heavens, baby where's my medicine?
I must have left it outside with my etiquette
The undertaker's rule of thumb
It's hard to talk with a novocain tongue
This room smells like hotel illness
The scars I hide are now your business
I can't seem to make hair nor hide of this
No baby love is not a punishment.”
U2 broke through with the ambivalent ambiance of this tortured tale of repressed desire. ‘With or Without You’ was one of the first songs composed for ’The Joshua Tree’; but took months to get right. Adam Clayton remembers: “The chord sequence came from Bono but, in early versions, it sounded very traditional bedause the chords just went round and round and round. It was hard to find a different take on it or a new way into it; it was just a promise of a song. We started playing with a drum machine and having it build up with a big fat bass.”
The distinctive guitar sound came from Michael Brooks Infinite Guitar, which replaced the pickup on a guitar with a magnetic device that vibrates the strings. Edge recalls: “I was sent a prototype for the Infinite Guitar by Michael Brook. It arrived during the sessions with elaborate instructions on how to hook it up: one wrongly placed wire and you could get a nasty belt of electricity. This piece of gear would have failed even the most basic of safety regulations. When it did come on the road with us, my poor guitar technician would regularly electrocute himself. It was homemade technology, but very effective. It gave me infinite sustain, like a violin. I had just taken it out of the box and was playing around with it in one room while Gavin Friday and Bono were in the control room listening to the backing track of rescued ‘With or Without You’. We were really at an impasse in the search for the right arrangement, and were just at the point of leaving the song to one side. Then, through an open door, they heard the sound of the Infinite guitar combining with the bass and drums and just went: ‘That’s it! But what the fuck is it?”
Bono explains: “Gavin’s involvement in ‘The Joshua Tree’ can’t be underestimated. He personally rescued ‘With or Without You’. He pulled it out of the wastepaper bin, organized it, structured it, and was the one who believed it could be a hit when Brian and Danny had passed on it. It’s my chord sequence, but what makes it special is Brian Eno’s sequencer; he did for ‘With or Without You’ what he’d done for ‘Bad’, sketched it out and improvised. Edge was working on his Infinite Guitar, which makes a beautiful haunting ghost of a guitar sound, and it was going on in one room while the bass chords were going on in another, and I heard them in stereo working together. We brought Edge in and started recording immediately.
The lyric is pure torment. One of the things that was happening at that time was the collision in my own mind between being faithful to your art or being faithful to your lover. What if the two are at odds? Your gift versus domestic responsibility? I had always been the kind of person who would sleep on everyone else’s floor, the eye of a traveling rat, a natural tinker. I would just wander off and be very happy. So now I have this person in my life whom I love more than my life but I’m wondering if the reason I’m not writing is because I’m now a domesticated beast. I’m wondering if I’m house-trained? If I meet somebody and I want to go off with them, to find out what their world is like, I can’t because I’m a married man. It’s not even about sexual infidelity, I just remember thinking: ‘Is this the life of an artist? Am I going to have kids and settle down and betray my gift or am I going to betray my marriage?’ it was a very difficult time in my head. I had met a couple of people on the way who had taken advantage of my naivete, is the best way I can put it, and I realized I know so very little about this world and now, the future looked like I was going to know even less. You can learn about politic, culture, but your emotional life also has to be developed. I think in some senses mind wasn’t, and I was going through all this kind of uncertainty. I was at least two people: the person who is so responsible, protective an loyal and the vagrant and idler in me who just wants to run from responsibility. I though these tension were going to destroy me but actually, in truth, it is me. That tension, it turns out, is what makes me as an artist. Right in the center of a contradiction, that’s the place to be. There I was. Loyal, but in my imagination filled with wanderlust, a heart to know God, a head to know the world, rock star who likes to run amok and sinner who knows he needs to repent. All of those things were going on but I didn’t understand at the time that is actually it…So that song is about torment, sexual but also psychological, about how repressing desires makes them stronger. The most important line is probably, ‘And you give yourself away’. it just flipped it and it releases all the mental tension, which is when the ‘Aah-aah’ comes out. That is what giving yourself away is, musically.”
The Edge says: "Notes actually do mean something. They have power. I think of notes as being expensive. You don't just throw them around. I find the ones that do the best job and that's what I use. I suppose I'm a minimalist instinctively. I don't like to be inefficient if I can get away with it. Like on the end of 'With or Without You'. My instinct was to go with something very simple... I still think it's sort of brave, because the end of "With or Without You" could have been so much bigger, so much more of a climax, but there's this power to it which I think is even more potent because it's held back."
‘With or Without You’ was a worldwide smash, going to number thirty-seven in Demark, fifteen in Austria, thirteen in Sweden, ten in France and Switzerland, seven in Germany, five in New Zealand, four in the UK, two in the Netherlands, and number one in Canada, Ireland, and the US. Adam apparently said he couldn’t believe that the band’s first US chart topper was a song about God. Larry Mullins recalls: “From my perspective, everything was going along really nicely; we were making progress by degrees, sometimes small increments, but always moving in the right direction. Suddenly ‘The Joshua Tree’ was number one in America, for nine weeks. Then ‘With or Without You’ went to number one, We were on the cover of ‘Time’ magazine. We were no longer trying to conquer America. One moment you are on one side of the fence, the moment you are catapulted to the other. This was something most bands only dream about; we were the band.”
See the stone set in your eyes
See the thorn twist in your side
I wait for you
Sleight of hand and twist of fate
On a bed of nails she makes me wait
And I wait without you
With or without you
With or without you
Through the storm we reach the shore
You give it all but I want more
And I'm waiting for you
With or without you
With or without you
I can't live
With or without you
And you give yourself away
And you give yourself away
And you give
And you give
And you give yourself away
My hands are tied
My body bruised, she's got me with
Nothing to win and
Nothing left to lose
And you give yourself away
And you give yourself away
And you give
And you give
And you give yourself away
With or without you
With or without you
I can't live
With or without you
With or without you
With or without you
I can't live
With or without you
With or without you
A new incarnation of Wilco went back to basics for this subtle and seductive musical feast. Founding members Jeff Tweedy and John Stirratt and newer members Glenn Kotche and Mikael Jorgensen took Nels Cline and Pat Sansone with them into the studio for the first time. 'Sky Blue Sky' was produced by Wilco and recorded at band's Loft studio at Irving Park in Chicago. Front man Jeff Tweedy had undergone rehab for his addiction to prescription painkillers, which had resurfaced after a sinus operation that gave him some relief from his headaches: "I've been dealing with depression and panic disorder for a long time. That probably goes as far back as my childhood. . . I come from a family with an alcoholic background, so I've struggled with addiction, or at least alcoholism, for a long time as well. I knew there was a family history of it, and it was something that scared me; but I didn't stop self-medicating."
As a result, the music feels light and liberated, with the musical interplay of Cline and Sansone adding new depth to the sound. Violist Karen Waltuch and multi-instrumentalist Jim O'Rourke also contributed to the sessions. Tweedy says: "We value very much the spirit of spontaneity, but we also work really hard to get it like that. I don't know how to explain it, you know? It's one of those 'you know it when you hear it' things. But it takes more work than people would probably believe...I'm not going to worry about putting anything in code or using semaphore or symbolizing lyrics or anything. Just come straight out and say, 'Hey I think I wanna tell you something.' That's kind of scary, you know? But I think it was a worthwhile thing to do...I got nervous about the technology on 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot'. If you need a certain amp or pedal to make a song what it is, it isn't a song." 'Sky Blue Sky' made its debut at number four on the Billboard album chart and sold over three hundred and eighty-nine copies.
Tweedy says of "Either Way": "I don't know, we all just felt like it sounded like a nice way to ease into the record. Lyrically, maybe it's a bit of a mission statement. In general, most of these songs are dealing with some idea of acceptance, and trying to relate to the world. Relating to reality in a way that comprehends that it's never exactly what you want it to be."
"You Are My Face"
"Impossible Germany"
"Sky Blue Sky"
"Side with the Seeds"
"Please Be Patient with Me"
"Walken"
"On and On and On"
