The historic Concert For Bangladesh from 1971 has been back in the news since it was finally added to streaming services.
George Harrison had long been friends with sitar great Ravi Shankar of India. When Shankar asked Harrison for help after the Bangladesh Liberation War and torrential rains & flooding had devastated the country, Harrison put together the first major humanitarian concert.
George called on his friends for help…Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Leon Russell, Billy Preston and Ringo Starr. The Beatles were in the middle of their breakup lawsuit, so no Paul McCartney. John Lennon said he’d do it if Yoko Ono was included, but George said no. After about three months of planning, the concert was scheduled for August 1st, 1971. There was a rehearsal on July 31st, and then an afternoon performance and an evening show on August 1st.
After an introduction and a performance on sitar by Ravi Shankar, the Rock show kicked off with some George Harrison songs… “Wah Wah”, “My Sweet Lord”, and “Awaiting On You All”. Those were followed by Billy Preston playing his hit “That’s The Way God Planned It” (a nice version), Ringo Starr with “It Don’t Come Easy” (he flubbed some lyrics, but sounded good), and Leon Russell joined George for “Beware Of Darkness” (one of the best tracks).
Just like on the studio version, Eric Clapton played lead guitar on Harrison’s Beatles song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” (a strong performance, especially by George).
Leon Russell had been on tour with his band & vocalists, and he brought them all along for a stirring in-the-groove medley of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” & “Youngblood”.
Next, George Harrison played an acoustic version of “Here Comes The Sun” with the group Badfinger, who Harrison was producing at the time. Here’s Badfinger’s Pete Ham with George during the concert.
“Sun” was played a little faster than the original, and Pete Ham did an impressive job on the intricate guitar part.
Then it was the Bob Dylan show.
Dylan has five songs in a row on the Concert For Bangladesh album. He chose songs from much earlier in his career, and his whole set was a concert highlight..
George Harrison then finished the concert with “Something” and the song he’d written to help publicize the problem in Asia, “Bangla Desh” (which was the original spelling of the country’s name).
When the album came out in December of 1971, it was a 3-record set, and the lid of the box had this cover.
Besides the vinyl, there was an album-size booklet with excellent photos. I no longer have my records and booklet from 1971, but I did find this shot of some of the pages. You can click & zoom for a closer look
The photos are really good, like this one of Dylan, and the one of Clapton he later used for an album cover.
Despite some early problems sorting out the finances, many millions of dollars have been going to Bangladesh over the years, and the concert raised awareness for the serious problems there.
Musically, it’s a good album to stream. I admit I skipped the long spoken introduction and 16-minute sitar performance, but the rest of the performances are really good, even with some typical minor errors you get with live performances that aren’t overdubbed. Here’s the full lineup of songs now on streaming.
George Harrison deserves a ton of credit for convincing the artists to perform (for free), for dealing with the various labels to make it happen, for working to make the finances come out so the money actually made it to Bangladesh, and for paving the way for future charity concerts.
Paul McCartney has released the film One Hand Clapping. Fifty years ago, in August of 1974, Paul McCartney & Wings filmed the documentary. The video was of the band recording live in Abbey Road Studios. The audio album of the sessions came out this past June. The 67-minute film was released on September 26th, 2024, with limited screenings in theaters.
The original project was shot on videotape, but has been restored (as best you can with old video) to 4K for this release. This new documentary has additional unreleased footage of Paul McCartney performing “Backyard Sessions” on acoustic guitar. Besides some of his own songs, he plays Rock & Roll classics like “Twenty Flight Rock” and songs by Buddy Holly. Included is the unreleased song “Blackpool”.
1974 was a time when the Wings album Band On The Run was #1, and there are five songs from that album performed live in the studio. Here are the songs as they appear on the double CD album.
The audio quality is high, and the band’s playing is very good…quite similar to their performances on the 1976 Wings Over America tour album. The three Beatles songs you see on Disc 2 are just Paul rehearsing at the piano, and are short segments.
There were two new members of Wings, Geoff Britton on the left, and Jimmy McCulloch on the right. Paul, Linda, and guitarist Denny Laine had recorded the Band On The Run album and needed the new drummer and additional guitarist for concerts.
The film has an introduction by Paul McCartney, and features previously unseen Polaroid photos from 1974.
No word yet about when One Hand Clapping might be available for streaming or on DVD. Normally, screenings are a way to have a theatrical release prior to a film appearing on a streaming platform.
Since we can no longer see Pink Floyd or The Beatles, the vacuum has been filled for many years by “tribute” bands. Are they good, or are they poor substitutes?
This week, The Australian Pink Floyd Show came to our hometown, Eugene, Oregon. The closest we came in the past to seeing Pink Floyd was a concert by Pink Floyd leader/songwriter Roger Waters and his touring band. Waters and his band played all of The Dark Side Of The Moon album, and many of the other major songs by the band. And of course we’ve seen Pink Floyd’s concert films. So how did Aussie Pink Floyd stack up?
The show was extremely impressive! The musicianship was top notch, and the light show and other visuals were fantastic! The enthusiastic crowd at The Hult Center applauded as well-known songs started, and then again after musicians nailed some of the extensive instrumental solos. All of us knew we weren’t watching Pink Floyd, but this was a real celebration of their music. We attended with our son, daughter-in-law, and grandson…three generations of Pink Floyd fans.
As the band played “Wish You Were Here”, the circular screen showed photos of Pink Floyd, but most of the film and photos they showed were clever in that they were reminiscent of visuals that Pink Floyd used, but were originals. The band was obviously willing to spend significant money to provide us with a Floyd-worthy show. Here are some more of my concert photos.
Maybe the best compliment Aussie Pink Floyd ever received is that Pink Floyd lead guitarist & lead vocalist David Gilmour once hired them for one of his birthday parties.
The band had a giant inflatable of the bug-looking teacher from The Wall, but instead of a flying pig, Aussie Pink Floyd gave us a fun bouncing kangaroo. There was also a twist on the famous Pink Floyd prism…this one looked like Australia.
We can listen to Pink Floyd on our home systems, but when we want to feel the bass instead of just hear it, it takes a concert. The sound was perfectly mixed, loud but clear, and the vocals could be heard above the instruments. If The Australian Pink Floyd Show has a concert near you, treat yourself.
Ten years ago, a Beatles tribute band came to Eugene. Some friends of ours knew we were Beatles fans and invited us to go with them. I was hesitant. My concern was that it would be something like those not so good Elvis imitators. But, we went to see the band Rain.
Unlike Aussie Pink Floyd (who didn’t try to look anything like the members of Pink Floyd), Rain did their best to look like The Beatles, changing their looks through the different eras of the band. The surprise to me was how good the musicianship was. Rain did a great job of playing The Beatles’ hits, plus their costuming and staging were impressive.
Probably what won me over the most was when Rain did something The Beatles never did. In the middle of all those sets of Beatles eras, the musicians grabbed acoustic guitars and played an acoustic set of Beatles songs with their own arrangements…a nice original touch!
Okay, it wasn’t as good as when we saw Paul McCartney at Arrowhead Stadium, but a talented tribute band can provide a fun evening of the music fans love.
It must be that the vaults of Classic Rock artists are running dry of studio recordings. Over the years, we’ve had box sets with unreleased tracks, alternate versions, and remixes. Now, we’re getting sets of live recordings of old concerts.
The latest is Fleetwood Mac’s Mirage Tour ‘82. It’s a two CD or three Record set of 22 songs from a 1982 two-night stay at The Forum in L.A.
Here are the tracks. The same recordings are on the CD’s and vinyl.
It’s a really good lineup of songs, but if you’re a major Mac fan, you could already own 16 of these recordings. That’s because only 6 of the 22 tracks are previously unreleased. The list prices are…$25 for the CD’s, $60 for the black vinyl records, and $79 for the clear vinyl. The release date was September 20th, 2024.
On that same date, a much more extensive box set was also released.
This is meant for people who really love Bob Dylan and the Band, because their concert tour from 1974 is represented by this huge set.
That’s a total of 27 CD’s from that 1974 tour at a list price of $130. The thing is, the playlist varies a little bit from disc to disc, but overall, you’re getting a whole bunch of versions of the same songs. Normally, an artist would put together a live album from a tour by choosing the best version of each song that was played, then issue a single or double album of the result. Releasing 27 discs has to be a record. Maybe really hardcore fans will love it, but how many versions of “Lay Lady Lay” do we really need?
No one is forcing us to buy sets like these. It’s up to us to determine if this is how we want to spend our money and our time. Also, most music fans subscribe to a streaming service, and can check out the songs without having to make another purchase. Or, we can just buy individual digital tracks if we want to own them. It’s good to have choices.
On September 6th, 2024, Neil Young released his third Archives box set. There are actually two versions. The Deluxe Edition is limited to 5,000 copies and is priced at $450 (available on Neil Young’s official site). It has 17 audio CD’s and five Blu-ray Discs. There are approximately 14 hours of audio and 14 hours of video. Plus there’s a 176 page hardcover book. The second box set has the 17 CD’s, but no video discs and a 36 page booklet instead of a book. It’s priced at $240 (which is about $14 a disc).
Here’s the timing of the three Archives releases. Archives I came out in 2009, and covered Young’s career from 1963-1972. It took eleven years (November of 2020) for the release of Archives II, which covered 1972-1976. And now it’s about four years later when we get Archives III, covering 1976-1987. The 17 CD’s have 198 tracks including 15 songs that have never been released, and 121 alternate or live versions.
Review comments are posted following the song lists below. By the way, when you see “Rap” on a tracklist, it’s just a quick comment from Neil about the music.
The promo for the set says three unreleased albums are included, but some of the songs were already on other albums, often in other versions. Here are the track lists which include details (click to enlarge).
If you had to play someone a “classic Neil Young concert”, this might be it. The first 7 songs are solo acoustic versions, and the other 7 songs are rocking with Crazy Horse. “Lotta Love” makes an appearance 2-and-a-half years before it’s 1978 studio release on Comes A Time. This concert was recorded in Tokyo.
The next Across The Water concert was in London. This one has just eight tracks, but that’s because three of them are quite long. The first three songs are solo acoustic, and the last five are with Crazy Horse. It’s all good, but Disc 1 is the better show.
All but the last track on Disc 3 are previously released. Most of them are solo studio songs from Hitchhiker and solo live recordings from Songs For Judy. The two live performances Young provided for The Band’s Last Waltz film are included.
Imagine sitting in a room while Neil Young plays acoustic guitar and sings about a dozen new songs for Linda Ronstadt & Nicolette Larson. As they get to know the songs a bit, Linda and Nicolette lightly add some harmonies. That’s this recording done at a table in Ronstadt’s Malibu home in 1977. These are not completed definitive versions of the songs, but there is a kind of magic to hearing them coming to life. Even in this casual setting, Neil’s guitar playing is impressive.
Disc 5 above (The Ducks) is a group of musicians Neil worked with briefly in 1977. It’s mostly Country music. Of the 8 songs, Neil sings lead on three, others take the lead on three songs, and two are instrumentals. Seven of the eight songs are live recordings.
The first three songs on Disc 6 are full-band old-fashioned Country & Western recordings. The remaining songs are mostly Neil Young playing all the instruments and doing the lead and harmony vocals. They sound good, and could have appeared this way on albums like Comes A Time, but they’re not quite up to the quality they became with Nicolette Larson singing the harmony parts.
Disc 7 is mostly a rehearsal from 1977. This one suffers from not having a great sound mix. The impression is that it’s “just a rehearsal”, and is less expertly recorded than an actual performance would have been. You can hear the difference when a completed recording “Please Help Me, I’m Falling” is heard near the end. The old Classic Country song is a duet with Neil Young & Nicolette Larson and has superior audio.
Disc 8 is part one of a good 1978 solo acoustic concert Neil performed at The Boarding House in San Francisco. Three of the new songs from that concert are the highlights… “Sail Away”, ”Powderfinger” and “Thrasher”. The studio versions would later appear on Rust Never Sleeps.
Disc 9 above completes the live solo concert with five more songs, but also inserts an unnecessary and out of place version of “Hey Hey, My My” with Devo. The track marked “dressing room” at the end is not a song, just a short audio recording in the dressing room after the show.
Disc 10 is all previously released recordings from Young’s excellent Rust Never Sleeps & Live Rust albums, except the previously unreleased studio song “Bright Sunny Day”, which is fine, but not a classic.
Disc 11 is mostly previously released songs from two of Young’s lesser albums, Hawks & Doves and RE-AC-TOR. Of the three new studio songs, “Winter Winds” is a good country song, and “Sunny Inside” & “Get Up” don’t really work.
Disc 12 finds Neil Young in 1982, with synthesizers and a vocoder (to electronically alter voices). First we get the six vocoder tracks from the Trans album. I find myself in the minority of fans, because I actually like “Sample And Hold”, “Mr. Soul” and “Transformer Man”, but overall it’s not a well-liked album. Next the disc moves into one of the “unreleased albums”, Johnny’s Island. It might be described as “Yacht Rock”, or perhaps “Yacht Pop”. It features a full band of some of Young’s regulars…Nils Lofgren, Ben Keith, Ralph Molina, Bruce Palmer, and Joe Lala. It’s not bad, but the pop music style would probably not have been well received if Neil had released the album in 1982.
Disc 13 is an odd mix of music. It starts with two live solo performances with Neil Young on Banjo. Then we get a couple of very Country songs, before going into Neil’s mostly-disliked album of 1950’s Rock & Roll songs, Everybody’s Rockin’. The disc ends with 6 more of Neil’s “just me on all the instruments & vocals” recordings.
This disc is the country version of Neil Young. The best tracks are near the end… “This Old House”, “Southern Pacific”, and “Interstate”.
Disc 15 above is another live album by Neil Young & Crazy Horse. Not as good as Disc 1 & Disc 2.
Disc 16 has songs from the Landing On Water album, plus three previously unreleased tracks. If “Road Of Plenty” sounds familiar, that’s because it was developed into “Eldorado” for 1989’s Freedom album.
This last disc includes Neil’s piano version of “Someday”, which is superior to the previously released Freedom album version, but not quite as good as his solo live version. For those of you who haven’t heard the live version (taken from a 1989 radio concert) here it is:
Most of the songs on Disc 17 are early takes of acoustic studio recordings, close to demos.
Overall, it’s great that Neil Young releases these historic Archives collections. There are always unreleased tracks and live versions that add to our enjoyment of his impressive musical legacy.
Helpful Hint: If you’d like to stream any of the songs or albums from Archives III, they’re on the Neil Young Archives website. The monthly fee is just $2.99, and you can quit at anytime. The site has all of Neil Young’s releases for streaming. As of this writing, Archives III is not on other streaming sites.
The eleven films last 14 hours, and four of the films were previously unreleased.
The only vinyl is a 16-track 2-record set, Takes, which takes one track each from 16 of the CD’s. It’s priced at $35. It’s also available for digital purchase, and you can check it out on the streaming services.
The Archives II release was especially good with a lot of great unreleased tracks from 1972-1976 after his career high of Harvest. Since the new Archives III covers 1976-1987, it includes the albums Comes A Time, Rust Never Sleeps, Live Rust, Trans, Landing On Water, and more.
The Beatles were the most influential band in history, and it wasn’t just their music. Their hairstyles, fashion choices, and opinions impacted the youth of the 1960’s and beyond. That innovative spirit included The Beatles’ album covers.
The group always used professional photographers and artists to help them with the covers. Some became iconic, and others were less successful. So here are the covers of their original thirteen studio albums ranked from weakest to best.
The 1965 movie HELP! is a colorful comic romp, and the album is filled with great songs like “Ticket To Ride”, “Yesterday”, and of course “Help”. So there’s no explanation for having a boring white cover with the guys simply waving their arms. You’d think they were at least spelling out the title of the album, but no they’re just putting their arms in positions the photographer thought looked good.
Yes it was winter when Beatles For Sale was released in late 1964, but having The Beatles cold and miserable on the cover was not a great look. The downer cover has always seemed to unfairly affect perceptions of the quality of the music on the album. Songs include “Eight Days A Week”, “No Reply”, & “I’ll Follow The Sun”, Sure there were “down” songs like “I’m A Loser”, “Baby’s In Black”, & “I Don’t Want To Spoil The Party”. But they’re good songs, and the cover is simply too uninviting.
There was another lost opportunity with the A Hard Day’s Night album from 1964. The music is excellent and exciting, and the movie is a lot of fun. The best representation of the album and movie is not five little pictures of each of the Beatles trying to make a variety of faces. The American version was slightly better in that it’s more dramatic, and accents their haircuts which were an important part of their image as they were still breaking in the U.S. at the time. Certainly the movie would have been better represented by one of the action photos taken during filming.
The Magical Mystery Tour album cover from 1967 is a little too busy, but did a good job of conveying the spirit of the film, especially with the colorful logo. Although we’d normally like to see The Beatles faces on their covers, maybe having them hidden by costumes was part of the mystery. It was also a good idea to put the song titles on the cover since this was a unique album. It was a combination of six new songs, and five recent singles. This American version became the official British version when Beatles albums came out on CD’s.
Another psychedelic album cover was used for the Yellow Submarine soundtrack in 1968 (shown above on the left). It’s a good cover in that it provides a lot of the artwork from the animated film. Next to the original cover is the Yellow Submarine Songtrack that included a lot more songs from the movie in remixed form. It was released in 1999. The cover is a nice eye-pleasing update.
The 1963 cover for The Beatles’ first album, Please Please Me, was The group looking down from the stairwell at EMI’s London headquarters. The photo was taken by Angus McBean. It’s an interesting shot that has held up well, and was even recreated in 1969 for the planned Get Back album that became Let It Be. That 1969 photo ended up as the cover for The Blue Album hits collection.
Here’s another innovative photo from 1963 that was on The Beatles second album, With The Beatles. It looks like a studio shot with carefully placed lighting, but in reality, photographer Robert Freeman took the photo of the group in a hallway, and simply used the natural light. The photo style made the album cover one that was imitated by other artists.
This might seem like a boring cover, but knowing when it came out shows the genius of it. 1967 was the height of psychedelia with everything bursting with colors and complicated designs. In 1968, The Beatles decided to change that up big time. Paul McCartney was immersed in the London art scene, and found minimalist artist Richard Hamilton to design the cover. It is all white, with “The Beatles” embossed. That was the name of the record, but it quickly became The White Album. I remember some fans even saying they felt cheated that there wasn’t a photo of The Beatles on the cover. Of course inside were four individual colorful photos of The Beatles that were suitable for framing.
In 1970 the final studio album was released by The Beatles. Let It Be has a dramatic black background, colorful photos with white edging, and the title all capitalized in white. Maybe the black color, and the use of individual photos (instead of a group photo) were representing the end of the group. The result is a classy and dramatic cover that stands out among any group of album covers. Credit goes to Art Director John Kosh who also did Abbey Road.
The Revolver cover from 1966 is an example of The Beatles trusting their friend, bassist & artist Klaus Voormann. He used a combination of line drawings and photos to create a very unusual look for the album. It reflected the extremely innovative recordings found inside. The cover told us that Revolver was unlike any album that had come before it. Reportedly, Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein was overjoyed Voormann was able to create a cover to match the music… “Turn off your mind relax and float downstream.”
The 1965 album Rubber Soul has a cover that really reflects the name. The story is that The Beatles were looking at the photo being projected onto a white piece of cardboard that fell backwards slightly and made the image look warped. The Beatles asked photographer Robert Freeman if the cover could be similarly altered to give it that stretched look. Then illustrator Charles Front designed the title to match the look of rubber kind of oozing from a rubber plant. That style of lettering was used often during the psychedelic era that followed.
Album covers don’t get much more iconic than Abbey Road. It might be the most imitated and parodied cover in history. The location of the photo shoot has become a tourist destination. After dismissing complicated ideas (like shooting a photo at Mt. Everest, with Everest a possible album title), recording engineer Geoff Emerick said Ringo suggested they just take a photo outside and call the album Abbey Road. Instead of just posing in front of the building, Paul McCartney provided a sketch of The Beatles crossing the road.
According to photographer Iain Macmillian, “The whole idea was McCartney’s”. Macmillian was on a ladder and took just six photos. Here they are.
What’s amazing is that the photo they used is the only one that’s any good. The other photos look like four disorganized guys kind of stumbling across the street. It seems they were lucky to get the shot of them in full stride. One of the defining aspects of the cover is Art Director John Kosh deciding to not put the name of the group or the title on the front of the album.
As simple as the photo shoot was for Abbey Road, the exact opposite is true for our top Beatles album cover, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Like the music on the album, this is The Beatles’ most intricate and hardest to produce album cover.
Pop artists Peter Blake and Jann Haworth were asked to design the cover. Blake suggested it be The Beatles with a crowd of fans, and said it could be a “magical crowd” made up of whomever The Beatles wanted. After the group submitted a list of names, the design team had to get clearances to use the images. In all, the cover has 57 cardboard cutouts and 8 wax figures, including The Beatles. Today, such a cover would be done electronically, but in 1967 The Beatles dressed in colorful military band costumes and stepped into the complex art piece.
The amount of money spent on the cover was about 70-times higher than normal, but everyone knew the Sgt. Pepper album needed a truly unique cover, so it was worth it..
It’s likely the quality of the music on an album at least somewhat affects our perception of the quality of the cover. Upon completion of this list of best covers, I noticed the top four selected are probably The Beatles’ four most popular albums. You can decide what order to rank them musically.
Both John Lennon and Paul McCartney have new releases of old material in 2024. We’ll start with a review of McCartney’s One Hand Clapping.
These are recordings from 1974 (50-years ago!). Paul McCartney was coming off the success of his Band On The Run album. Although that album was released under the Wings name, it was really just Paul, his wife Linda, and guitarist Denny Laine. The other members of Wings had quit just before the album was recorded. So, McCartney added more musicians in order to perform the songs live.
Paul (bass, guitars & keyboards), Linda (keyboards), Jimmy McCulloch (guitars), Denny (guitars), Geoff Britton (drums)
“One Hand Clapping” has quality recordings of the new band performing live in the studio for what was intended to be a TV special. Most of the songs here are familiar…five of the best songs from Band On The Run, plus the hits “My Love”, “Live And Let Die”, “Junior’s Farm”, and “Hi Hi Hi”. The band is energetic and sounds good on all of the group songs on the album.
Besides the instrumental “One Hand Clapping”, which was supposed to be the theme song for the TV special, there are three short original McCartney songs in a row that were not released prior to the filming. They sound like they’re from the “Tin Pan Alley” era of songwriting. It’s just Paul at the piano performing “Let’s Love”, “All Of You”, and “I’ll Give You A Ring”. Here’s a five-minute audio of the three songs segued together:
They’re raw, but charming, and they show McCartney’s gift for writing melodies.
Also from the non-rock tracks are a couple of standouts…a beautiful version of “Bluebird”, and an acoustic “Sally G”.
“Bluebird”:
“Sally G”:
The released version of Sally G was a fun Country song McCartney recorded with studio professionals in Nashville. Here we get just McCartney on guitar & vocal with an unplugged version. By the way, the few Beatles songs on the album are just incomplete rehearsal segments by McCartney.
One Hand Clapping is not a must have album, but there are enough good versions on it to make it worthwhile for hardcore fans. The two CD set is priced at $25. Interestingly, if they had left off one 4-minute song, everything would have fit on one CD. The choice for elimination…”Maybe I’m Amazed”. It’s a great song, but this version has a tremendous amount of echo on the vocal, and it sounds out-of-sync.
The 2-record vinyl version is $38.
Update: The 50-year old One Hand Clapping film is finally being released. There will be limited screenings in theaters beginning September 26th, 2024. It’ll also include McCartney playing “Backyard Sessions” with an acoustic guitar and vocals on some of his own songs and some classic old Rock & Roll hits. Normally after screenings, a movie will be moved to a streaming platform.
The John Lennon release is another “Ultimate Mixes” album, this time Mind Games. Here’s how the CD versions look on Amazon.
You can see the prices for the 6-CD and 2-CD versions. The album was released on July 12th, 2024.
CD-1 is the original 1973 album, but with improved mixes. CD-2 has alternate takes of the same 12 songs, plus two bonus tracks. By the way, the “Nutopian International Anthem” is not really a song. It’s just 3-seconds of silence that was at the end of Side 1. So it’s funny there’s an “Ultimate Mix” of it.
If you own any of John Lennon’s previous “Ultimate Mixes”, you know the sound quality is excellent. Besides the two discs shown above, the mixes of the other four CD’s in the Deluxe version are titled… Elemental Mixes, Elements Mixes, Evolution Documentary, and Raw Studio Mixes. It’s always interesting to hear the Raw Studio Mixes, because those are the songs just as John recorded them in the studio, without his voice being altered.
The 2-record set has the same tracks as the 2-CD set, and is priced at $48.
Mind Games is not one of John Lennon’s best albums, even though it made it to #9 on the Billboard chart.The title song was the only hit single (#13), but it’s still worth checking out all the alternate takes and mixes.
Here’s what the titles of the individual discs mean. Elemental Mixes are stripped-down versions. Elements Mixes are instrumental versions of the songs with only some of the instruments featured. Evolution Documentary takes the songs from demo form, featuring segments of their development to completed songs. Raw Studio Mixes feature the unaltered voice of John Lennon with the songs mostly in a band-only form before overdubs. There’s also the disc of selected Out-Takes (alternate versions).
It’s a lot to take-in six different versions of each song. Overall, the Ultimate Mixes versions of the songs on CD/Album #1 are best, and are significantly better sounding than the original album. It’s also interesting to hear the various mixes. Besides hearing John’s voice sounding so natural, the various versions let us hear the instruments better, and give us a good understanding of the creativity of the arrangements.
My favorite songs on the album are “Mind Games”, “Intuition”, and “I Know (I Know)”. One recommendation from the Elements Mixes is the instrumental of “Intuition” with the bass and guitar. Here it is:
According to the credits, it’s Gordon Edwards impressively on bass, and David Spinozza with the great guitar touches. Since it’s without the main melody, it makes it hard to recognize the song, but the parts are cool on their own.
Fifty years ago, no one would have thought we’d have new versions of songs by Lennon & McCartney in 2024.
The plan is to have four movies about the Beatles, each from the viewpoint of one Beatle at a time. Only guessing, but the films will probably be named John, Paul, George and Ringo. The movies are being developed by well-known director Sam Mendez, who is working with the full music rights and approval from all The Beatles’ representatives. All four movies are expected to be released in 2027 (update: Now it’s 2028).
And now the lead actors have been cast.
Update (10/08/24): It was reported today that Stranger Things actor Joseph Quinn will be portraying George Harrison. The original story said the casting was not necessarily finalized.
Normally the announcement of a new Beatle project is exciting, and has me looking forward to its release. Ever since this one was announced, I’ve been more wondering than excited.
What made The Beatles so special was having John Paul George & Ringo together. Trying to look at the same important events from four different viewpoints could be amazingly repetitious. Were their viewpoints so different? It could also seem exceedingly long since it’s four movies. Honestly, this seems better suited for a limited series.
The films are not the life stories of the individual Beatles. They’re only going up to the 1970 breakup of the band when all four members were still in their 20’s. The breakup also seems like a downer of an ending that we’ll get four times.
The “Here Comes The Sun” view is that Sam Mendez knows what he’s doing. That each story will be interesting and entertaining, and that the films will become a treasured history of the world’s greatest band.
Here’s hoping younger fans find the films fascinating, and we older fans are still around in 2027 to enjoy them too!
One of the first uses of an expletive in a hit song was by Taylor Swift’s namesake, James Taylor, singing “Go away then damn ya” in “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight” in 1972.
A year later, Chicago had a #4 hit with “Just You ‘N’ Me” with the line “Loving you girl is so damn easy”…done in perfect harmony. In 1976, the Eagles took it one step further by adding God to damn in “Life In The Fast Lane”.
Then when Rap took over, the floodgates of expletives opened.
Using expletives is neither right nor wrong. It’s not a morality problem, because swearing is a part of life, and most of us do it.
The question being posed here is…do the expletives being used by the current biggest star in the world really serve the songs or not?
Taylor Swift’s Folklore is a great album, and the best part is the trilogy of “Betty”, “Cardigan”, & “August”. “Betty” is so strong melodically and lyrically, but there was a problem with it for some listeners. James saying to Betty…”Would you tell me to go f-myself” (using the full word) was too harsh for the story, and the only part of the trilogy with an expletive..
The radio version used “Would you tell me to go straight to hell”. That was enough to convey the story without distracting the listener away from it. That “clean” version allowed it to go to #2 on the Country chart, and let Swift perform it at the CMA awards show.
Using expletives in a song might limit recordings of it by other artists, and possibly reduce its chances of being well thought of by future generations. It takes away a song’s universal appeal.
Swearing is normal in some situations, but the f-word is wasted when it’s used casually. Take Swift’s “Snow On The Beach”. It’s a beautiful duet with Lana Del Rey, and the radio version should have been the official one. The beauty is lost on the album track with the supposed casual-cool of using f-in’. Completely unnecessary. The same goes for “The Tortured Poets Department”. It’s a really good song, and the f-word is so not needed that no one would miss it if it wasn’t there.
To Taylor Swift’s credit, she makes “clean” radio versions of her songs available. On her best songs, she takes the time to record both versions equally well, with lyric substitutions that make sense. Many of her songs with expletives are fine the way they are, but from personal preference I chose to also buy the radio versions of “Ivy”, “Maroon”, “Hits Different”, “Florida!!!”, “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart”, and “Down Bad”. Those last two songs have major hit potential.
Before Folklore in 2020, Taylor Swift hadn’t used expletives in her songs. Certainly some of her songs warrant the impact expletives can provide, but she may want to consider whether she’s overusing them, and that some of her songs would be better without them.
Topic change: It was a little weird how quickly some people jumped on a few negative reviews of The Tortured Poets Department. You’d have thought Swift’s career was tanking. In reality, the problem was that the 31 songs required a lot more listening. People had to get to know the songs before they could evaluate them. The reviewer for CNN initially gave TTPD a poor review. Then he listened to the album more, and wrote a new review saying it’s one her best albums.
Taylor Swift can rest easy. The public has embraced the album. Not only did it set records as it was released, it remained at #1 for twelve straight weeks (a personal best). If it was a poor album, it would have faded fast.
We’ve always needed time to get to know albums. When The Beatles released the White Album with 30 tracks, we honestly didn’t know how good it was the first time we heard it. In time, we picked out the songs we liked. They weren’t all good, but there certainly were enough good songs to make it a great purchase…just like The Tortured Poets Department.
Now we’re left with the question… How in the world did Taylor Swift have time to write and record a 31 song album with how amazingly busy she’s been?
Bonus: Here’s the trilogy of Betty/Cardigan/August segued together.
So many lists try to rank the best albums of all time and inevitably fail. That’s not what this is. There are no albums here that were wimpy on the charts, barely sold, or that most people don’t know. Instead, this is a small list of Classic Rock albums that were highly impactful. They set trends, set sales records, dominated the album chart, and lodged in the minds of the public. This is not a ranking, but a chronology, and we start with an album that garnered unheard of fame, and changed the recording industry forever.
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was like no album before it. The songs showed great imagination. The recordings were extremely innovative in their topics, the instrumentation, and the way they were recorded. There were no breaks between the album tracks, and some songs flowed directly into another. For the first time, all the lyrics were printed right on the album cover. It was 1967, and Sgt. Pepper launched a new age of how artists and fans looked at albums as whole works of art, instead of just a collection of songs. In fact, The Beatles didn’t release any of the tracks as singles, and didn’t include the two hits they recorded during the album sessions…“Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields Forever”. The album held #1 on the Billboard Top 200 for 15 weeks, and remains the best-selling album of the 1960s. You might even remember that Johnny Rivers’ hit song “Summer Rain” contained the line… “Everybody kept on playing “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”. They still do.
The first #1 song of the new decade in 1970 was “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, and the album Bridge Over Troubled Water was not only #1, it became the best-selling album of all time (at that time). It also contained the hits “The Boxer”, “Cecilia” and “El Condor Pasa (If I Could)”. It went on to win six Grammy Awards, including Album Of The Year. The album boasted a variety of musical styles, including World Music, which foreshadowed Paul Simon’s solo career.
Carole King’s Tapestry set a new standard for female artists, and helped lead the singer-songwriter movement of the 70s. Her 1971 album topped the chart for 15 consecutive weeks and stayed on the Top 200 chart for a record number of weeks (318, 6-years)…broken later by one of our other blockbuster albums. Tapestry also had a two-sided #1 single “It’s Too Late” and “I Feel The Earth Move” which spent five weeks at the peak of the Hot 100. Carole wrote or co-wrote all of the songs, including “You’ve Got A Friend”, which she kindly allowed James Taylor to release, and it also went to #1. Tapestry is the third of our albums to receive the Grammy Award for Album Of The Year.
Also in 1971, but on the other side of the Rock spectrum was Led Zeppelin IV. At the time, the title of the album was just the band’s name, but the Roman numeral was added for clarity. Although the album “only” made it to #2, it went on to be among the very best-selling albums of all time and a major influence on the Hard Rock genre. It’s filled with popular songs, including “Stairway To Heaven”, “Rock And Roll”, “Black Dog”, and the acoustic “Going To California”.
A true blockbuster album, The Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd was released in 1973. Although the album only hit #1 for one week, it became the dominant album in terms of longevity. It was on the Billboard 200 album chart for over 15 years, a total of 741 nonconsecutive weeks. No other album is close. Dark Side is one of the best-selling albums of all time, and is always among the highest ranked in any list of best Rock albums. Popular songs on the album include “Money”, “Time”, and “Us And Them”.
Welcome to the Hotel California. It was released in December of 1976, and was an immediate success in sales, critically, and on the album chart, with eight weeks at #1. It contained the #1 hit singles “New Kid In Town” & “Hotel California”. “Life In The Fast Lane” would probably have made #1 too if it hadn’t contained an expletive. In recent years Hotel California has ranked as high as number three on the all time best sellers list. The title song won Record Of The Year at the Grammy Awards, but lost the Album Of The Year Grammy to our next blockbuster.
Just two months after the Eagles’ best album came out, Fleetwood Mac released their best…Rumours. It was a phenomenon, spending a total of 31 weeks at #1. The album was filled with great songs, and FM stations played nearly all of them. Tracks include “Dreams” #1, “Don’t Stop”, “Go Your Own Way”, “The Chain”, “You Make Loving Fun”, and “Gold Dust Woman”. Rumours was certified 21x platinum in the U.S. alone with worldwide sales estimated at about double that. Just last year (2023, 46 years after its release), it was the 9th highest selling album on vinyl.
Born In The U.S.A. is the only Classic Rock album to put seven songs into the Top-10 of the Billboard singles chart. In 1984 and 1985, Bruce Springsteen was all over the radio, and his videos were heavily featured on MTV. Besides the title song, the biggest hits were “Dancing In The Dark”, “Cover Me”, “I’m On Fire”, “Glory Days” and “My Hometown”. Bruce never had another album that was even close in popularity to this blockbuster, which is estimated to have sold over 30-million copies worldwide.
Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms was the album that transitioned music into the digital age. It was the first major album to be all digitally recorded. It was also the album that helped consumers move from vinyl records to compact discs. The record came out first, and then when the CD was released, listeners found out the songs were more complete. The tracks had been edited down for the vinyl, because of the time restrictions of the format. For quite some time, Brothers In Arms was the biggest selling CD. The hit songs included “Money For Nothing” (the MTV Video Of The Year for 1985), “So Far Away”, and “Walk Of Life”.
Honorable Mentions:
These albums were blockbusters too, but not quite at the impact level of the others. They range in order from 1969 to 1986. There are many other great and influential Classic Rock albums that could be added to these, but by the late 1980s Rock’s prominence started to lessen. Classic Rock albums dominated from about 1965 to 1986, even though we’ve had many excellent albums since that time.
Here are the statistics. In the 1960s, 8 of the top 10 selling albums were Rock. In the 1970s it was 7 of 10. The 1980s, 4 of 10. And by the 1990s, only 1 of the top 10 selling albums was Rock.
Maybe every generation feels the same way about their music, but it was exciting experiencing the golden age of Classic Rock as the albums were being released.
