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Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts. 18/04/71 : If Only I Could Remember My Name - David Crosby So we've had Stills (decent enough) and Nash (better) earlier this year, so it's only fair we give Crosby a listen - and yes, we've obviously already met Young  (surprisingly decent) because Rolling Stone LOVE him. So let's see how Dave does... Oh dear - it starts with a very wishy-washy number and then follows it up with an 8:11 track which goes on far too loooong. And, yeah, I think "unstructured" is probably a reasonable description for everything here - it just sounds like he wandered into the studio and went "today I'm gonna strum along and sing "doo doo doo" and see what happens". I wouldn't say it's dreadful (and there are some very interesting, almost choral harmonics in places) but it does feel like it could have been a helluva lot better if he'd just put some thought into it. I also have to say that...

Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts. 25/04/71 : Elegy - The Nice OK, OK - we've had plenty of albums of covers this year, so let's break the rules again and have a live album. In my defence, this is our first visit with The Nice and it seems like we're not going to meet them on a non-live album, so I'm intrigued as to what we're going to get here. Well, yes - that was certainly intriguing. One thing I can say without a shadow of a doubt is that Keith Emerson was no slouch on the keyboards - there's some absolutely amazing playing going on here. He also plays for a very long time - there may only be four tracks on the album, but the shortest is over seven minutes long. And what a strange mix of tracks they are - a Tim Hardin cover, a Bob Dylan cover, a Tchaikovsky movement and Bernstein's "America", with the latter closing the album with a good couple of minutes of Hammond Organ feedback. I can't say I loved this (it definitely...

Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts. 02/05/71 : Elvis Country (I'm 10,000 Years Old) - Elvis Presley It may be the '70s but the UK was very much still under the spell of Elvis, so we welcome him back for a twentieth visit, extending his lead at the top over Frank (who's still very much around this year but I've been able to get away with ignoring him). I do have to admit to being slightly intrigued by this one though because apparently it's his country album - which I feel could go either way. Hmmm - I'm not entirely sure I'd quite describe it as his country album because to me it sounds like a pretty normal Elvis album but just with some additional banjo, fiddle or something similar shoehorned into the tracks. I do have to say that none of the tracks are dreadful though (which is pretty good going for Elvis albums of this period) and his voice sounds good on it too - so I'd argue it's a pretty decent normal Elvis album (which is mu...

Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts. 09/05/71 : The Cry Of Love - Jimi Hendrix I'm not a huge fan of letting posthumous albums through, but if I'm going to let it happen then it's likely it's going to be a first posthumous album which features tracks which haven't been previously released and were pretty much complete at the time of the artist's death. And this seems to be very much in that category, so I'm happy to be checking it out. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with this - it gives us a good general Jimi feel, as much as I know what that's supposed to sound like anyway. I certainly can't claim to be an expert but it doesn't feel like this was disrespectful to his memory or an obvious cash-in - and I think that's about all I really have to say on the matter. It's quite a cool album cover though - particularly for a posthumous offering. We're at #9 in the charts this week on his seventh week of a thirteen week ru...

Some old songs in a new (for me) venue! If you've been paying any attention at all, you'll know that R.E.M. are probably my favouritest ever group and I've only ever seen them live once on the Monster tour, none of which was anyone's finest hour - but they (and Michael Stipe in particular) seemed to have an adverse reaction to the Milton Keynes Bowl which meant that everyone who was there remembers Blur's support set much more fondly. Also, having called it a day a mere 15 years ago, the chances of them reforming for the money seem to be extremely remote - they still all do some sporadic music-based stuff these days but they really couldn't be bothered going back on tour (and it's not clear they actually like each other enough to do so). So what's an R.E.M. fan supposed to do these days if they need a live hit?!? Obviously many tribute bands are available (who are probably playing in your local pub as I write this), but one of the more curiously success...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 04/09/26 : WILDCHILD  - Alex Warren  Our second visit with Mr Warren and last time he was "perfectly fine" - I strongly suspect that's where we are again. Hmmm - well. Taken one song at a time, I think it just about qualifies as pf but a whole album of it just gets a bit too much. Every song is aimed to pull at someone's heartstrings or deliver a message (dead dad, lost love, etc, etc, etc) and it all just gets a bit much, without any great variety between tracks. Actually, let me take that back because, on reflection, a whole album of it got far too much - I will not be revisiting this ever. I am somewhat intrigued as to what's going on with the album cover though. And so, obviously, we're at #1 in the charts with a new entry (our tenth in a row), aren't we? The rest of the top five are The Courteeners (another new entry), Michael Jackson,  Olivia Rodrigo  and a Dolly Parton best-of - and boy do...