I came of age in the Northwest of England during the era of Britpop, so it is sobering indeed to go back to 1960s rock, explore some of the music my parents were into, and to realise that Blur, Oasis, the Verve et al. had all been done before, some thirty years earlier. In particular, […]
The Village Green Preservation Society by the Kinks (1968) Read More »
Why is there a big banana on the cover of this album? Would a psychoanalytic interpretation be too obvious? If so, then that’s too bad, because I will proceed to argue in the following review that The Velvet Underground and Nico is as Oedipal a record as you’ll ever hear. Andy Warhol was responsible for
The Velvet Underground and Nico by the Velvet Underground (1967) Read More »
I come from a small town in the north-west of England where people are more spectacularly and disturbingly saturnalian than anywhere else I’ve ever been to or seen. Staggering amounts of alcohol, cocaine, ecstasy, gambling, sex – you name it, it was imbibed (predominantly, though not exclusively) by young men of my acquaintance to frightening
The Doors by the Doors (1967) Read More »
Apparently, the emergence of punk during the 1970s represented a caesura in the history of modern popular music because it marked the final triumph of “the people’s music” – the equivalent of “the audience invading the stage”, according to the music journalist Ian MacDonald. Ever since The Beatles, MacDonald claims, the professional songwriters of the
My Generation by the Who (1965) Read More »
When I were a lad, growing up in the 90s, Revolver was routinely picked by music critics as “the greatest album of all time”. Presumably, these were critics who’d grown up in the 60s and 70s, and who were commenting more on their own formative influences than on what might ‘objectively’ be considered the greatest
Revolver by the Beatles (1966) Read More »
So, as mentioned in the Rubber Soul review, I’m not a huge fan of anything that came out in the 1960s. It all sounds a bit too tinny to me – I prefer the clean, glacial production of the 80s (think Too Low for Zero or Rio). But of all the 60s luminaries, I’ve long
Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan (1965) Read More »
Apparently, on its release in 1966, Pet Sounds proved a bit jarring to most Beach Boys fans. They’d been accustomed to jangly, summery, Californian pop music like “Surfin’ USA”. Then Brian Wilson had a nervous breakdown from all the touring and rock’n’roll excess, and withdrew to the studio to conjure something altogether more complex and
Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys (1966) Read More »
To be honest, I’m not a massive Beatles fan. There it is, I said it, so fuck you. I get that it was groundbreaking, pioneering, but what do I care? It’s music for dead people, or at least, for the living dead. Obviously, from the perspective of musical history and twentieth century culture, I recognize
Rubber Soul by The Beatles (1965) Read More »