Mom Always Liked You Best –

Tattoo Song –

Jut before we close in on LP 20, I thought I’d mix things up again with a comedy album this time.

Mom Always Liked You Best! (1965), by the Smothers Brothers. A comedy duo that I have grown extremely fond of over the years. From being able to sing their whole song “My Old Man” as a kid (for better or worse) to now owning several of their records.

The Smothers Brothers consist of the real-life brothers Richard “Dick” and Thomas “Tom” Smothers. Tom, the older of the two, played a fairly hot-tempered, “slow” character, while Dick took on the traditional role of the straight man. They marketed themselves as a folk duo with a side of comedy that seemed to steal the show. Their performances would include traditional folk songs (often with Tom butting in or messing up) and sometimes so more standup material alongside their songs. While most of their act can easily be appreciated on a record through just sound, they offered a lot for the visual performance too. I would highly suggest you seek out some video footage of one of their acts if you enjoyed what you heard.

The album Mom Always Liked You Best! was their last album before their ill-fated show “The Smothers Brothers Show” (not to be confused with their later successful, yet controversial, “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour”). The title track of the album was a further exploration of Tom’s famous comeback line. Whenever he was utterly stumped or backed into a corner because of something silly he had said, he would often respond with, “Mom Always Liked You Best!” I included the other song, “Tattoo Song”, on here as well to give you an idea of what one of their “songs” might sound like. It’s also a good example of an act where Tom tries his best to sound smarter than he really is and just ends up making it worse for himself.

Eulogy To Oscar Romero-

Nostalgia-

The music has been a little harder recently, so let’s go somewhere else…

Individual Choice (1983), by Jean-Luc Ponty. A man whose work I am still fairly new to, but I’ve been mesmerized since then.

If you didn’t guess by the name, Jean-Luc Ponty hails from France. A master on the violin, he was accepted into one of the most esteemed college’s for music in France at the young age of 16 and graduated with the highest honors offered in only two years! He would then perform in orchestras for a couple years before leaving that life behind in pursuit of jazz during the early 60s; however, he wouldn’t leave behind his violin. Ponty took the unusual approach to jazz with a violin, and was able to accomplish this by focusing on horn parts with be-bop phrasings. It’s been said that there was no one that truly sounded like Ponty before him. A similar recent example would be the work of the YouTube star Lindsey Stirling. Just like her “dub-step violin” there really wasn’t a market for “jazz violin” before Ponty (apart from something like Duke Ellington’s Orchestra).

One of the first Ponty albums I came across was this one, Individual Choice. Since then I’ve added several of his albums to my collection. I find his music beautiful and extremely relaxing. It’s my go-to if I ever need anything calm for background noise and may have actually found its way onto my record player just as often as anything else while I was drawing. This album, like most of Ponty’s late 70s and 80s albums, includes a healthy amount of synthesizer, which is also performed by Ponty.

The first song, “Eulogy To Oscar Romero”, was written to honor the influential life of Oscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdamez. Romero was the Archbishop of San Salvador (the capital of El Salvador) and heavily spoke out against poverty, social injustice, and the violence that had engulfed his country through civil war. In 1980 he was shot and killed during mass and is now listed as a martyr for the Roman Catholic Church. This song was Ponty’s way of paying tribute to this man and what he stood for. “Nostalgia”, while still mellow in tone and title, was much lighter overall. Its non-stop synth part provides the baseline for the song while the guitar and violin are free to accompany as they see fit.

I Want You To Want Me-

Goodnight Now-

Alright it’s been way too long since I posted a live album (since the first LP!). So here’s a good one…

Cheap Trick at Budokan (1978), by Cheap Trick. Wow! Talk about a live album! The album based on Cheap Trick’s performance at the Nippon Budokan during their sold out Japan tour.

Starting out as a small little band from Illinois, Cheap Trick was initially meet with some decent critic reviews, but hardly any success when it came to sales numbers or hits. Well, that is no success in their home country. Europe seemed to like them pretty well, and in Japan…well…let’s just say they were labeled the “American Beatles” by the Japanese press! All three of their albums had gone Gold in sales numbers and Japan’s youth were obsessed with the band members in the same way American girls had gone crazy for those Liverpool lads the previous decade.

Cheap Trick at Budokan was the result of their highly successful tour in 1978. After not getting anywhere back in the states, they were suggested to go play in Japan. They knew their records had sold fairly well there, but they were completely caught off guard when they were greeted with the same ear-piercing screams the Beatles had experienced. Just listening to this record is proof enough! After this album’s immediate financial success upon release, Epic records quickly put together an imported release for the US in 1979.

“I Want You To Want Me” is definitely one of their more recognizable tunes with this particular live version garnering the most airplay on radios. A fairly simple late 70s and 80s love song, but still an extremely catchy song in its own right. “Goodnight Now” is their closing tune for their concert (followed, of course, by an encore song). You might recognize their opening song “Hello There,” which is an excellent song to pump things up for the beginning of a performance. “Goodnight Now” is merely the same song with a few lyrical changes to more appropriately relate to finishing a show (plus a huge ending for kicks).

Overall it does everything I like about live albums. It captures the excitement of the crowd, the fun enjoyment of the band, and some stellar performances of the songs themselves. It may not feature some of the more excited improves from live albums by bands like Led Zeppelin or The Band, but the emotion between the band and crowd is executed flawlessly with this record. I’d really suggest giving the whole performance a listen through ^^

Whole Lotta Love –

Moby Dick –

Alright, figured I’d try to do a famous band every 8 LPs or so. So, without anymore introduction, the “Brown Bomber” album…

Led Zeppelin II (1969), by – of course – Led Zeppelin. Like The Beatles, I think it would be completely unfair and incorrect to say that Led Zeppelin created a brand new genre of music, but they definitely helped radically shape it. Led Zeppelin’s blues and later folk music influences greatly shaped their hard rock sound during the early years of metal.

Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and of course Jon Bonham. While not exactly the easily recognizable names of the Fab Four, the Zeppelin’s were definitely heavy hitters respectively in their fields. From Plant’s powerful, bluesy vocals, to Page’s superb playing on his double neck guitar, and their strong writing partnership between the two for their songs. Bonham’s drumming was…simply dizzying, and you can’t forget about Jones. Either for his multiple instrumentality ranging from bass, to organ, Mellotron, and mandolin, or his skills producing the Zeppelin albums.

Led Zeppelin II was the follow up of their impressive debut album, but it was this second album that brought them their initial success. Fueled with the same fusion of electric blues and hard rock of their first album it turned several heads that hadn’t noticed their first output. There’s no “Stairway to Heaven” on this album (that would come later), but Led Zeppelin II is still viewed as one of the most influential albums of its kind. While I really love the acoustic folk influences that are demonstrated in their next album (aptly titled Led Zeppelin III), the non-stop energy of this record makes it a real joy to listen through.

“Whole Lotta Love,” the opening track, was the only single from the album. With its strong guitar riff opening to its unmistakable breakdown, it lit up the charts and was the top song for most radio stations. “Moby Dick,” possibly the “Holy Grail” of drum solos and the song that critics can’t help but compare most drum solos to. While the album version comes in at around 4 minutes, the live versions stretch anywhere from the less often 6 minutes to the more common 30 minute mark. Probably a little self-indulgent, but it was able to truly capture Bonham’s mastery behind a drum set.

Bleecker Street –

Sound of Silence –

Wow, fifteen of these posts! I knew I couldn’t make it much farther without mentioning another artist who had a significant impact on me since I was a kid.

Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. (1964), by Simon & Garfunkel. The debut and initially unsuccessful album by the famous folk duo.

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel had performed music together since they were both 13, originally under the stage names Tom & Jerry (Art & Paul respectively) even releasing a few singles that met with minor popularity. They both shared a deep admiration of the Everly Brothers, which would help shape the similar two-part harmonies of their music. After they left to go to different colleges, they got back together and played in a few clubs under their now famous duo title.

This album was the result of Tom Wilson (famous producer for Bob Dylan, The Animals, and several others) hearing the duo one night. The album would feature five songs written by Simon (sometimes misprinted as 4 songs, but there is a fifth song credited to “Paul Kane” one of Simon’s many pen names) and a few other popular folk staples. However Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. would ultimately flop, not even selling more than 3,000 copies. Why? It was 1964. The British Invasion was in full swing and Beatlemania had officially swept the nation.

Following this failure Simon moved to England to travel between clubs and play folk music. However something fairly interesting happened while he was gone. Wilson had taken “The Sound of Silence,” overdubbed some drums and electric guitar over the track, and distributed it to several radio stations. This new version shot all the way up to the No. 1 spot on the U.S. pop charts. Encouraged by this success the two got back together and went on to pursue what would be become a legendary career.

Both of these songs are more like fine poetry than just another pop or folk song. Like a strong poem, there is beauty just to their rhythm, but there is also more to be found if you dive into what they mean. I am a firm believer that art can take on different interpretations to different people, but I also think that our understanding of the works becomes deeper and more complex when our personal “meanings” are shared with others. Most of my interpretations are very heavily influenced by Garfunkel’s notes on the back of the album, but I will attempt to write up a little something extra.

“Bleecker Street” really stands out to me with its musical harmony and simple imagery. There is this beautiful symbolism of the “fog covering Bleecker Street” depicting this stifling of creativity and the “poet writing his crooked rhyme” selling out to pay the rent (“30 dollars” mirroring Iscariot’s pieces of silver for the betrayal of Jesus). “The Sound of Silence,” another striking poetic endeavor, is much more difficult to pinpoint its complex meaning. While this is a fine example of a work that you should find your own meaning, I agree with Garfunkel’s idea of “miscommunication.” Garfunkel mentions, “There is no serious understanding because there is no serious communication” citing the song’s line “people hearing without listening” and the poet’s failed attempt to “reach out.” I think there are also themes of loneliness, oppression, death, morning, and a warning are found here as well. Some have interpreted it as a response to the Kennedy assassination, and Simon’s performance of it at the Ground Zero memorial also casts in a different light (as well as Disturbed’s excellent cover).

Most people might say that Paul Simon really made his significant impact as a songwriter after the duo split up, like his landmark album Graceland. Personally, I preferred the work of Simon and Garfunkel. I don’t mean to downplay the importance of his solo years, but there was always something about their harmony parts that was just so……perfect 😀

(I Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman –

Little Bit of Emotion –

Wasn’t sure what to pick this week, so I just went with a personal favorite ^^

Low Budget (1979) by The Kinks. While not my favorite Kinks album (Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One easily steals that award), Low Budget is still an album I’m fairly fond of.

In my opinion, one of the sadly forgotten faces of the “British Invasion.” Sure, of course people remember the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, that one song by the Animals, and maybe Herman’s Hermits (a band that I deeply regret not having on here yet…), but The Kinks tend to be forgotten. Most people might recognize their hit single “You Really Got Me” or maybe “Lola” (or a handful of others if you’re a Wes Anderson fan), but ultimately they didn’t have a large amount of chart toppers, neither here in the US or in their home country of the UK.

Despite their lack of chart success, their wide variety of music and pioneering of new sounds had a very broad range of influence in the industry. This is due in part because of the multiple music genres they dabbled in and a lengthy career from ’64 to ’96. From initially helping to define the Psychedelic genre for bands like The Doors and Jefferson Airplane, to paving the way for Hard Rock like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, to inspiring the raw sound of Punk bands like The Clash and Ramones, to even distant Garage Rock like The Vines. In all ways, a truly impressive – if occasionally forgotten – band.

Low Budget, their largest success in the States, was a slight change of pace for the band. Most of their 70s albums were concept albums that focused on themes of nostalgia and other, often complex, ideas that were deemed “too abstract” by critics. While I would argue that Low Budget is still very much a concept album in its construction and arrangement of songs, there is a change of themes to reflect the contemporary economic issues of the UK at the end of the 70s. There is also a musical shift to that more reminiscent of Arena Rock (similar to Queen), but this album also features some songs that shift into Country, Hard Rock, Disco, and even some content boarding on soft-Punk.

While this album pales in comparison to The Clash’s landmark double-LP album London Calling, which also came out the same year, the two albums themes of social poverty and injustice strike a similar cord and the two definitely overlap musically. If you’re a fan of London Calling odds are there’s at least something for you on Low Budget, and if you haven’t heard London Calling before…well I can’t force you to, but you get the idea… (I’d post it here, but that vinyl is so hard to come by… >.<) Oh yeah, songs. I kinda wandered on this week's entry. "(I Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman" features a traditional disco beat, a catchy chorus, and dreary depressing verses. What a combo! But seriously, it centers around dissatisfaction in one's shortcomings and flaws. Disappointed in his self and surrounded by sorrows the singer wishes he could only be more like Superman. "Little Bit of Emotion," on the other hand, discusses how people refuse to show others their true self and emotions in the fear of being rejected, but argues that somehow we must find a way to reach out. Two songs that really speak to me on a personal level. I hope that despite their dreariness they bring some hope to your week.