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Everyday I Love You Less And Less –Kaiser Chiefs
Slightly shambolic but sincere Generation Y Britpop from a band whose appeal
is dangerously close to being blasted away by their rather desperate anointment
as the Next Big Thing in Britain right now. Touted as being the next Blur, they
actually sound a lot like Menswe@r. Their 2005 album ‘Employment’ is
good fun, though.
Sunshine –Keane
Now, I like Keane, personally, and 2004’s ‘Hopes And Fears’ is
a very good album. People complain about –well, their lack of guitars,
as if that was a necessary testosteronical requisite for bandom. I don’t
understand the Coldplay comparisons –to me, Coldplay have achieved the
U2 level of fame where their songs have to address such a general audience that
they can never write anything too specific ever again –but Keane have neater
arrangements and their fans aren’t quite so punchable.
Do You Remember Walter –The Kinks
It must have been hell to be a contemporary of the Beatles and
the Stones. No matter how good you were, there was always the
shadow of the Big Two. No wonder
all the second-stringers such as the Kinks and the Who felt compelled to explore
such bizarre cul-de-sacs in order to break new ground. ‘Walter’ belongs
to the same group of prematurely nostalgic songs as the Beatles’ ‘Your
Mother Should Know’, and is from 1968 ‘The Kinks Are The Village
Green Preservation Society’, their first concept album.
Uncoupled –Chris
Knox
A New Zealand pioneer of lo-fi and a major influence on bands
such as Pavement, Chris Knox has achieved cult status overseas with his
wilfully uncommercial yet
beautiful songs. This one features guitar, his customary drum machine and something
called a crowtheremin. From 1997’s ‘Yes!!’ (the exclamation
marks are ironic).
Empty
Skies –Kosheen
More big beats from Bristol, with vocalist Evans sounding uncannily like an energised
Kate Bush. Similar to a very fast Portishead. From 2001’s ‘Resist’.
Wash
Me Clean –k.d. lang
Not one of the most dynamic songs from 1992’s ‘Ingenue’, but
very elegant and atmospheric. She seems to have gone a bit soft on recent recordings
(duets with Tony Bennet, anyone?) but on ‘Live By Request’, like
Tori Amos’ ‘Venus Live. Still Orbiting’, it’s gratifying
to hear how much her audience loves her.
Your
Time Is Gonna Come –Led Zeppelin
Reviled by the punks but embraced in the past few years by a new generation of
Jimmy Page wannabies. Whevever I hear something that’s getting everyone
excited because it sounds “just like Led Zep” I’d much rather listen to
Led Zep. This song features a gorgeous organ (no, not Robert Plant’s) and
a worryingly sexist lyric. From their 1969 eponymous debut album.
Led
Zeppelin are one of those worrying bands who did everything right
but are still haunted by thirty years' worth of prejudice –yes, they
can be held responsible for heavy metal, yes, they were the kind of band your
dad liked,
and yes, they were one of main targets of Punk. But on the other hand… they’re
rather good. They had the integrity to split straight after their drummer died,
their first four albums are perfect rock, and although some of the tracks on
their later albums are a bit dodgy, they never hung round long enough to become
a cynical money-making joke (*cough* Stones, *cough* U2). Their first two albums
were released within a year of each other, and although The Lemon Song from
1969’s ‘Led Zeppelin II’ (they reserved their creativity
for the music and record sleeves, not the album titles) transparently rips
off Howlin’ Wolf,
that does not detract from its excellence. Since I’ve Been Loving
You is from 1970’s ‘acoustic’ ‘Led Zeppelin
III’ (again with those titles) and is one of those protracted band workouts
which still communicates all the rich effectiveness of this extraordinary group:
the hooks, the guitar solos, the sheer atmosphere of a very, very good four-piece
band. Four Sticks from their untitled fourth album (usually
referred to as ‘Led Zeppelin IV’ or ‘Zoso’ due to the
runes on the cover) is a simple riff repeated over five minutes –that’s
the same simplicity and genius that the White Stripes tap
into. Dancing
Days is another ‘riff’ song from their 1973 album ‘House
of the Holy’, the first album where their quality control begins to let
them down, but who cares when you have tunes like these? In The Light is
from 1975’s ‘Physical Graffiti’, one of those troublesome
classic double albums which could have benefited from a ruthless editing, but
it also
has ‘Kashmir’ on it, so who am I to criticise? On reflection this
is the sort of track that could get a nascent punk frothing (and in 1975 all
punks were nascent except for Iggy Pop and the Ramones), as it is neither concise
or to the point. It’s nearly nine minutes long and takes a while to get
going, but at about seven minutes in it becomes brilliant. Who else can do
that now except for Radiohead? Fool In The Rain is
yet another brilliant ‘riff’ song from 1978’s ‘In Through
The Out Door’, by which stage they were unsure what direction to take.
This problem was sadly solved by the demise of John Bonham in 1980. The
Who should have taken note –loose the mad genius (Brian Jones,
Richey Edwards, Peter Gabriel) and you can carry on. Loose the guitarist (Bernard
Butler, Graham Coxon) and you can still struggle on. Loose the drummer and
you’re
screwed.
Perfect –The
Lightning Seeds
More wistful British pop, like a less butch Madness or happier Smiths. So much
British popular music charts a melancholic landscape, not revelling in pain or
misery, but just concerned with the problems of being alive. Each to their own.
From 1994’s ‘Jollification’. Bad
Things –L7
“ *braap*… I s’pose I should say a few words here” Ladies
and gentlemen, it’s L7. Most widely known outside fan circles for Prodigy’s
cover of their ‘Fuel My Fire'. The demented squawking in the background
here is what I imagine Fitz to sound like when she sings. From the 1997 album
'The Beauty Process: Triple Platinum'.
All Alone
Or -Love
Breezy mariarchi tune from the 1967 album ‘Forever Changes’, one
of those Classic® albums that are well worth checking out.
The
Manic
Street Preachers began as a punk-influenced Welsh quartet with
a line in angry metallic numbers like Born To End from
1992’s ‘Generation Terrorists’. This is a typical early
Manics song, indignant and punchy, like a cleaner, more politically aware
Nirvana. Next year’s follow-up ‘Gold Against The Soul’ was
more polished, but songs like Yourself display the indiscriminate
hostility that makes this group so risible –despite all the words
and targets, who are they angry at and what are they angry about? Sometimes
the world of the Manics is like being shouted at by someone from a student
union. After issuing the splendidly bleak ‘The Holy Bible’ in
1994, they misplaced founder member Richey Edwards, and, like post-Barrett
Pink Floyd, changed tack. 1996’s ‘Everything Must Go’ was
comparatively opulent, with widescreen tunes and a much sunnier sound.
Songs like The Girl Who Wanted To Be God have a buoyant
spirit, but depressing subject matter. 1998’s ‘This Is My Truth
Tell Me Yours’ is even more anthemic, but on Nobody Loved
You the driving energy of anger is being replaced by depression.
2001’s ‘Know Your Enemy ‘ was wretched and lost them
a lot of their popular following, but their 2003 collection ‘Lipstick
Traces’ contained some interesting material, including 2001’s
Blur-ish Close My Eyes. 2004’s largely slammed ‘Lifeblood’ was
a bit lightweight, but the mature Manics can still produce excellent, clear
songs, such as I Live To Fall Asleep.
Lately
-Massive Attack
This is much jauntier than the average Massive Attack song, and I think
it’s
the one with the banned stripper video. From their influential (and Tricky-launching)
1991 debut ‘Blue Lines’.
Surrendering –Alanis
Morissette
I would not wish to be trapped in an enclosed space for any great length of time
with Alanis Morissette. She might just begin talking about her life. 2002’s ‘Under
Rug Swept’ is a definite improvement on ‘Supposed Former Infatuation
Junkie’s horror-diary-rama, but it is doubtful many people were still listening. ‘Jagged
Little Pill’ spoke to so many millions of people, not just women, because
it had the right balance of distance and detail which allowed its listeners to
deeply identify with it. Its sequel was relevant only to Alanis, and a good twenty
minutes too long, to boot. ‘Surrendering’ has a typically strong
melody, and I am no longer listening to the lyrics, so it’s all good, then. Try
explaining Morrissey to someone who’s
never heard of him. Imagine if Michael Stipe had left R.E.M.
in 1988 before all that ‘Biggest
Band In The World’ palaver and continued making albums
mining the same alt-country strain using the same producer. Or
if Bono
had dissolved U2 before ‘The Joshua Tree’ and made
gospel albums with Eno. This is exactly what Morrissey did, continuing
the themes of his Smiths songs with producer Stephen Street,
and his low-profile success without turning into a nostalgia
act makes
him rare amongst lead singers of famous bands who go solo. It
seems the biggest drawback of loosing the input of Smiths guitarist
and
composer Johnny Marr was sacrificing the extraordinary quality
control The Smiths had –the average Smiths song is better
than the average Morrissey song, but the best of both compare
well. The first solo album (before the Smiths had even cooled)
was 1988’s ‘Viva
Hate’, which offered the incandescent Everyday
Is like Sunday,
surely the title track of the most depressing film about Britain
imaginable. 1989 single The Last Of The Famous International
Playboys is a jaunty fan-letter to gangster Ronnie Kray. I
Know It’s
Gonna Happen Someday from 1992’s ‘Your Arsenal’ channels
the emotion (and coda) of David Bowie’s ‘Five Years’.
Bowie’s cover was dreadful. The More You Ignore
Me, The Closer I Get from 1994’s ‘Vauxhall
And I’ is a typical
celebration of small and dysfunctional relationships, the elevation
of angst to art. The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils is
an unusual 11 minute track from 1995’s ‘Southpaw
Grammer’,
building up to a Cure-esque crescendo. You Know I Couldn’t
Last from 2004’s excellent and unexpected ‘You
Are The Quarry’ follows the grunge template of soft verse/loud
chorus –except it has a string section and pianos and includes
the lyric “So don’t let the blue eyes fool you /
They’re
just gelignite / loaded and aiming right between your eyes”.
The word ‘gelignite’ is underused in modern songs,
I feel.
Underneath
It All –No Doubt
This song is from their 2001 album ‘Rock Steady’, the kind of ‘three
great songs + ten tracks of filler’ deals that have made iPods so damn
popular and nearly crippled the stupendously thick, greedy and ponderous mainstream
music industry. The best thing about CDs is that we could program out the filler,
and the best thing about mp3s is that we don’t have to buy it in the first
place just to get those three songs we actually wanted. Er –anyway, No
Doubt’s recent greatest hits album was faultless and showed there was much
more to this surprisingly enduring band than ‘Just a Girl’. This
is a lovely song with a great bridge and a strange, druggy video.
Cast
No Shadow –Oasis
Oh dear…if only they’d stopped in 1996. They fired their drummer
recently and he turned out to be the one they’d had since 1994 –I
thought the Gallaghers got rid of everyone else when they fired Boner and Pugsley
and whoever the hell the other blurry face standing behind Liam with a guitar
was. They were once the greatest band in Britain, now they’re the greatest
pub covers band in the world. This song (apparently about Richard Ashcroft from
The Verve) is from 1995's ‘(What's the Story) Morning Glory’ when
they still had potential. I’ve listened to ‘Heathen Chemistry’ about
four times now and I swear I can’t recollect a single tune.
Mandinka
-Sinead O’Connor
The Michael Jackson of Glengeary, another musician whose music has suffered from
the media attention paid to her extracurricular activities (priesthood, lesbianism,
shopping Shane McGowan to the police, retirement). This 1987 song from her first
album ‘The Lion and the Cobra’ was her first hit, and now seems unusually
simple and direct. Unhappy –Outkast
Despite ‘Hey Ya!” I prefer 2003’s ‘Speakerboxxx’ to ‘The
Love Below’ –less sleazy, not as original but of a consistently high
quality, where ‘Love’ is all over the place and has some dreadful
skits which people are skipping over even as you read this. ‘Unhappy’ is
a minor song but elegant and concise. Give
Up The Funk –Parliament
Although the technology on these songs is dated, Parliament are still a lot of
fun. It’s rare to hear modern music which sounds as genuinely happy and
confident as this. From 1975’s ‘Mothership Connection’. You
Choose –Pet Shop Boys
The Pet Shop Boys have been operating for nearly 20 years, and their fanbase
has shrunk from mainstream to select, but their material is still consistently
strong. Curiously their packaging is always excellent, too. Once the songs became
gender-specific they seemed to go underground…by choice? Because of record
label prejudice? Or just because they became unfashionable? ‘You Choose’ is
a relatively minor song from 2002’s excellent ‘Release’.
The Pet
Shop Boys are nowhere near as popular as they used to be, but
it doesn’t matter because they’ve shown their core fanbase
respect by producing quality albums over twenty years, no matter how many
people are listening. Derided for the simplicity of their synthesiser lines
but applauded for the wryness of their lyrics, for their first three years
they were as popular as any boy band (bet those girls feel pretty stupid
now!) and their only notable Eighties excess was releasing an impenetrable ‘concept’ film –but
that’s okay, because so did Led Zeppelin and Kate Bush. I
Get Excited (You Get Excited Too) is a b-side from 1988 which
was collected on the excellent compilation ‘Alternative’, one
of those rare b-sides albums which are just as good as the ‘proper’ albums
(see Suede’s ‘Sci Fi Lullabies’ and Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘Pisces
Iscariot’). Nervously is from 1990’s ‘Behaviour’,
kind of their coming-out album with several songs about AIDs and mortality,
the antique analogue synths giving it a wonderful autumn feel. If ‘Behaviour’ is
their ‘Revolver’ (this must have been pointed out a million
times, but it’s just occurred to me and this is my vanity project,
goddammit) then 1993’s ‘Very’ must be their ‘Sgt
Pepper’, a wonderful pop album where each track could be a single
(and nearly was, ka-ching!) except for A Different Point Of View.
This album was their last big chart success. Lyrically they were now specifically addressing
the dynamics of gay male relationships, but there is still lots to learn
there about the human condition, specifically themes of non-conformity
and hedonism. The bigots don’t know what they’re missing. The
only thing really wrong with 1996’s ‘Biingual’ is that
it wasn’t as good as ‘Very’. Up Against It has
the line ‘Such a cold winter / With scenes as slow as Pinter”.
1999’s ‘Nightlife’ was excellent, but I’ve already
mined all the best songs for previous soundtracks. 2002’s ‘Release’ was
low-key (in fact it wasn’t available in New Zealand except as an
import for a while) but is another sincere album about relationships (and
a truly evil satire about Eminem). Here is a song of forgiveness
with a slightly disturbing use of a vocoder. From the beginning many of
their albums have been accompanied by a remix album. 2003’s ‘Disco
3’ contains a few new tracks as well, including the perversely dancey Somebody
Else’s Business. They may never produce a truly popular
album again, but they’ve yet to release a bad one, and how many long-running
bands can you say that about?
A
decade after their last studio album, Pink Floyd have
a mixed legacy. Most fans of ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ and ‘The
Wall’ wouldn’t recognise the band’s origins as
English psychedelic pioneers led by the fast-disintegrating Syd
Barrett. Jugband Blues, his sole contribution
to their second album, 1968’s ‘A Saucerful of Secrets’ provides
both a ghostly coda and a chilling warning of the effects of drug
overindulgence on fragile psyches. The studio half of 1969’s ‘Ummagumma’ (from
1969) is their first awful album, but Several Species of
Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With
a Pict is still a laugh. It sounds like Looney Tunes meets
early Billy Connelly. 1970’s underrated ‘Atom Heart
Mother’ features Summer ’68, a dispassionate
song about groupies. Although written by Richard Wright, the song
seems an early indicator of the themes Roger Waters perfected over
their rest of their ‘70s albums, culminating in the unpleasant
nihilism of 1979’s ‘The Wall’. Water’s
last album before his petulant dissolution of the band was 1983’s ‘The
Final Cut’ which is mostly really,really bad, except for
the song Not Now John which has a splendidly rude
chorus. The clever David Gilmour resurrected a kind of Pink Floyd
Lite in 1987, chiefly notable for the astonishing amount of ire
this raised in Waters, whose solo career was not exactly setting
the charts on fire, and the invention of a new musical genre: the
Platinum Nostalgia Echo Album. These are mega-selling albums released
by once-great bands which sell bucketloads despite the quality
of the songs being negligible to the quality of the sound recording.
They are the audio equivalent of Hollywood blockbusters where the
special effects are faultless and somebody forgot to employ a script.
Think Sting, and, frankly, U2. Anyway, Learning To Fly was
a sterling Pink Floyd Lite single from 1987, and What Do
You Want From Me a ripper from 1994’s ‘The
Division Bell’, despite its rather self-conscious attempt
to sound like a Pink Floyd song.
Ana –Pixies
Four brilliant albums (although I thought ‘Trompe Le Monde’ was pretty
awful) in four years, and then they’re gone. The perfect rock trajectory.
The Pixies had a great combination of shoutiness and sensitivity –they
could come up with great big belters like ‘Debaser’ and then something
quite small and elegant like this song from 1990’s spacey ‘Bossanova’.
Their bassist was namechecked by The Dandy Warhols on ‘Cool As Kim Deal’,
and they don’t write songs like that about George Harrison, do they? Slave
to The Wage –Placebo
Poor Placebo. Scorned in Britain for their sexual outrageousness and the obvious ‘outsider’ appeal
of their music (the same quality which makes The Cure and The Smiths appeal to
alienated teenagers), they came up with ‘You Don’t Care About Us’ from ‘Cruel
Intentions’ and suddenly were Big In America. Which just gave the British
more reason to hate them. This song is from 2000’s ‘Black Market
Music’, which saw their appeal scaled back to a niche audience.
A
Rainy Night In Soho –The Pogues
The power of the sound of the Pogues depended on the contrast between their sparkling
musical backing and the shambolic vocals of Shane McGowan. Once his self-destructive
lifestyle compromised the quality of the songs it was time for the Pogues to
find a new singer. This song comes just before that break, from 1991’s ‘Best
of The Pogues’.
Invisible Sun –The Police
I think Sting’s first solo album was okay, and The Police have several
brilliant moments, but oh dear… even after 25 years you can still tell
this the work of a Very Serious Band. From 1981’s ‘Ghost In The Machine’.
Shades –Iggy Pop
Written in 1986 with David Bowie (unfortunately just as he was slipping into
the ‘pants’ period of his impressive discography) ‘Blah Blah
Blah’ suffers from big ambient snare drums and other signs of ‘80s
production which obscure the actual quality of the songs. After a grinding metallist
dip two years later with ‘Instinct’, Pop would regain his Punk Godfather
cajones to a certain extent with ‘Brick By Brick’. But this song
is excellent. And so is his latest album.
Iggy Pop has
had a wildly variable solo career covering nearly thirty years. When The
Stooges dissolved after 1973’s ‘Raw Power’ it was four
years before he emerged with ‘Tonight’ and ‘Lust For Life’,
the results of a period spent detoxing in Berlin with David Bowie. These
two albums contain nearly all of Pop’s famous songs, including Tonight which
was disastrously covered by Bowie on his career-blotting follow up to ‘Let’s
Dance’. Pop weathered punk with a flurry of albums, the best of which
was 1979’s ‘New Values’, containing the entertaining Five
Foot One, with its honking, stabbing rhythmic section. Unfortunately
his next few releases showcased his increasing drug habit, and by 1982’s ‘Zombie
Birdhouse’ his band (which included members of Blondie) appears to
have taken over entirely. In 1986 it was Bowie to the rescue again with ‘Blah-Blah-Blah’,
a good collection marred only by the dated production and featuring Fire
Girl, co-written with the Sex Pistol’s Steve Jones. After
the thudding ‘Instinct’, 1990’s ‘Brick By Brick’ was
seen as a return to form with some sincere and powerful songs, but my favourite
is 1993’s ‘American Caesar’, a brooding, socially observant
set informed by life experience and a great cover of ‘Louie Louie’ as
well as songs like Perforation Problems with its cyclic
guitarists and evil harmonica. Pop’s earlier songs had been about being
young and stupid with a creeping obsession with the military-industrial complex –now
he was writing songs about being famous and aging. Soon after this Trainspotting
made Pop more famous than he’d ever been by prominently featuring ‘Lust
For Life’, but unfortunately the rest of his ‘90s albums weren’t
particularly strong - ‘Avenue B’ had some interesting spoken
interludes and the grinding Facade, but it wasn’t
until 2003’s ‘Skull Ring’ that Pop again exceeded expectations
with an album containing collaborations with The Stooges, Peaches, Sum 41
and Green Day. Whatever is a throwaway song apparently written
and recorded in under an hour, but sounds spookily like prime Blur. His next
album might be a disappointment, but we know there’ll be a good one
along eventually.
Don’t
Be Cruel –Elvis Presley
I only really like about a dozen Elvis songs, very few of them his later ones.
This song is a perfect length at only two minutes. Why don’t backup singers
sing ‘bop bop bop-bop’ anymore? There was once a New Zealand music
programme which ended every week with an impersonator swaggering through
the deserted TV studio to this tune. Let’s
Go Crazy –Prince
The evil little Minneapolis gnome is back, the Michael Jackson who didn’t
screw up, the Madonna who didn’t change, and after 20 years now resembles
a one-man Rolling Stones of funk, gnawing away at the same juicy sex peach, nummy-nummy.
Unfortunately, as he never went away and most of his ‘90s albums were kind
of pants, no one seems to have missed him very much –but my flatmate was
singing ‘Purple Rain’ just tonight, so what do I know? From ‘Purple
Rain’, 1984, when it really was just him and Jacko.
No
Good (Start the Dance) –The Prodigy
A lot of fun, like Darth Vader on amyl nitrate. The really scary stuff came later.
From 1994’s ‘Music For The Jilted Generation’.
Party
Hard –Pulp
The Sheffield Six (or Five, by this stage) go all hardcore for a second with
a pricey video featuring Jarvis and a lot of women with those big feather fan
things. Pulp do not suit choreography –the robot voices are cool, though.
From 1998’s ‘This Is Hardcore’. Pulp are
great, like music for Goths who actually go out and dance. At the
height of Britpop they were the slightly disapproving older siblings
at the back of the dance hall, watching Oasis pour lager all over
themselves and ruining Blur’s shoes. The extraordinary thing
about Pulp is that not only did it take them over ten years of
hopeless slogging before they were noticed –they actually
released four albums during that time which went nowhere, yet they
kept on going. For someone like me who is fairly devoted to a hopeless
cause (this cartoon has been going since 1993) I find that determination
immensely heartening. My Legendary Girlfriend is
a 1990 single from before they were very good, but Jarvis Cocker’s
schtick is already fully formed –sexual desperation, strained
communication, big synths. Lipgloss is from 1994’s ‘His ‘N’ Hers’,
their first major label album. The sound is huge, the emotion raw,
the perception acute. Like the rest of the mighty 1995 album ‘Different
Class’, the observation and topical references of Sorted
For E’s & Whizz mean that it’s timelocked,
but still worthy as one of the wryest songs ever written about
drugs. Ansaphone is a B-side from the same period
which I had on my machine for ages: “Oh, it just kills me
/ when all you gotta do is call / Oh, do it anytime / ‘cos
there’s never no-one home / Never no-one home / Leave your
message on the ansaphone”. And that’s the chorus. Most
Pulp B-sides are interesting if you can track them down, often
more introspective and Pulp-y than the album tracks, like with
the Pet Shop Boys. Sylvia is from 1998’s ‘This
Is Hardcore’, a dark and adult album with a glossy CD booklet
it’s impossible not to leave fingerprints on. If this is
your favourite breakup album you are not a healthy person. The
Night That Minnie Timperley Died is from their 2001 swansong ‘We
Love Life’, a Smiths-esque song of tragedy and regret. And
that was it for Pulp. Cocker went out with Chloe Sevigny for a
while –what a strange world.
Now
I’m Here –Queen
A
statement of intent with some nice stereo separation from one of the
ultimate love-them-or-hate-them bands. From 1974’s ‘Sheer
Heart Attack’, which is pompous, absurd and brilliant.
Queen are,
of course, absurd, but 14 years after the death of Freddie Mercury
and ten years after their last studio album the pomposity and excess
of their music still has a sense of fun which is missing in many
other long-running bands. Starting in the early ‘70s as a
kind of glam Led Zeppelin, early Queen contains many sub-Tolkien
moments, but 1974’s ‘Sheer
Heart Attack’ is their first brilliant album, containing a
wide variety of styles of music, including the bleak In The
Lap Of The Gods… Revisited, including a sing-along
coda and ending with a big explosion. They were first noticed properly
in 1975 with ‘A Night At The Opera’, which included several
prominent contributions from poodle-haired guitarist Brian May, notably ’39,
a kind of operatic rockabilly with drummer Roger Taylor’s falsetto
providing a one-man chorus of Valkyries. The rest of their ‘70s
albums are inconsistent but with many moments of brilliance, including My
Melancholy Blues from 1977’s ‘News Of The World’,
a 3am piano-based song that ignores punk completely. 1980’s ‘The
Game’ was the last of their ‘classic’ albums, just
before a sticky patch of soundtracks and disco-dabbling, and includes
the Roger Taylor (always a boy racer at heart) stomper Coming
Soon. Queen’s ‘80s albums were both less numerous
and less weighty than their ‘70s output, but their singles
continued to be excellent, enhanced by opulent videos. I
Want To Break Free from 1984’s ‘The Works’ is
a hilarious example of this, including a ballet company, a Coronation
St pastiche
(which the Americans didn’t really get, having little history
of transvestite panto) and Mercury dressed as Nijinsky. The last
album released in Mercury’s lifetime, 1991’s ‘Innuendo’ is
rich, stark, glorious and silly, and includes the melancholy instrumental Bijou.
Although there was nothing badly wrong with 1995’s ‘Made
In Heaven’, this is where they should have stopped.
A-C D-J K-Q R-Z
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