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Miles Davis – Sketches of Spain |
| June 13th, 2004 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: none ]
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Released: 1960
Tracks: Concierto De Aranjuez (Adagio); Will O’ the Wisp; The Pan Piper; Saeta; Solea; Song of Our Country; Concierto De Aranjuez (part one); Concierto De Aranjuez (part two ending)
Best track: Concierto De Aranjuez
Tracks to skip: Will O’ the Wisp & Song of Our Country
Sketches of Spain was the third collaboration between Davis and arranger Gil Evans (first two being Miles Ahead and Porgy & Bess). The centerpiece of the album and the reason it even exists is Rodrigo’s Concierto De Aranjuez. Will O’ the Wisp is a Da Falla piece and the rest are pieces written by Gil Evans, but inspired by Spanish folk melodies. “Inspired” is too easy of a word, as Evans probably just modified existing folk music. No matter. I’ve owned this for 6 years now and it’s still the only Davis/Evans album I own. I will get that fixed one of these days. I like traditional Spanish music a lot (esp. after traveling to Spain and seeing Flamenco live in Seville…wow) and this album always intrigued me. As much as I’ve listened to it, even just now putting on the headphones and doing some severe active listening, I still can’t say that I love this album. It’s considered a classic, but I’m still kind of at a loss to explain why. I absolutely LOVE Concierto De Aranjuez. Miles’ flugelhorn playing in the beginning is so beautiful and what he does on the rest of the track equally so. Gil Evans’ arrangement of the piece is awesome as well; the arrangements all over this album are frequently haunting and sort of grab at your soul in uncomfortable ways. So yeah, I really love that track. The rest? Uh, not really. The main problem I have with this album in general is actually Miles’ playing. On most of the tracks his playing is very shrill and often painful. Sometimes it sounds like he’s just missing notes. I can’t even listen to Will O’ the Wisp because Miles’ playing is so painful to my ears. Same thing on Song of Our Country. Actually, both of these pieces aren’t even that great so it’s hard to get up any desire to hear them. Pan Piper is decent, nothing too special. I like Saeta and the last 5 minutes of Solea is pretty powerful as well. Other than that, eh, it doesn’t do much for me. On all these songs I absolutely love Gil Evans’ arrangements. I know I’d enjoy this album a lot better if Miles wasn’t actually playing on most of these songs, as sacrilegious as that sounds. His tone does not please me in any way on most of this album. And that’s the problem I have with it; Miles does not sound ‘together’ on tracks 2-6. He sounds like he didn’t prepare too much, and didn’t care how he sounded when he played. Yeah, I’m generalizing, I know. To my ears though, that’s how it sounds. Does Miles Davis ruin a Miles Davis album? Not quite, but he could’ve been a lot better. Still, Concierto De Aranjuez is gorgeous and the reason this album exists anyway.
Rating: 82
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Iron Maiden – Live After Death |
| June 6th, 2004 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: none ]
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Released: 1985
Tracks: Intro: Churchill’s Speech; Aces High; 2 Minutes to Midnight; The Trooper; Revelations; Flight of Icarus; Rime of the Ancient Mariner; Powerslave; The Number of the Beast; Hallowed Be Thy Name; Iron Maiden; Run to the Hills; Running Free; Wrathchild; 22 Acacia Avenue; Children of the Damned; Die With Your Boots On; Phantom of the Opera
Best track: Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Track to skip: dude, none
The first thing that I noticed in listening to this album for review purposes is just how damn intense these guys are playing. I mean, they are fearless! I’m a huge fan of all these compositions anyway, but with all the emotion and adrenaline flowing through the band the songs actually become better. And it’s not a sort of sloppiness that can happen with lots of adrenaline; they’re still right on. OK, Bruce Dickinson does mess up a few lyrics here and there, and his voice isn’t perfect, but he’s singing his ass off and it shows. If you’ve never seen Iron Maiden this album is a perfect example of why they’re one of the best live bands of the rock era. Actually, this is one of my all-time favorite live albums. It’s just ferocious!
Powerslave was an extremely successful album and Maiden did a massive tour to support it. In the CD booklet all the tour dates are listed. The tour lasted from August 1984 to July 1985. 11 months, straight touring. No one does that these days. And they didn’t just hit the major cities. In Texas alone they played 7 cities. Who plays in Waco? Maiden did and for them to do that is extremely cool. Most of this album was recorded at Long Beach Arena about ¾ of the way through the tour. Side 4 (Wrathchild through Phantom) is from London’s Hammersmith Odeon, from near the beginning of the tour. The band is playing better on the Long Beach tracks, but I love having those Hammersmith tracks finally on CD. I have the Raw Power 2CD remaster of this album and it’s definitely the best format. For the first time since the original vinyl we get the full thing. The cassette issue cut out the extension of Running Free and the first CD issue completely cut out all of side 4 as well as that Running Free extension. I consider those Hammersmith tracks to be something special for us.
I’d say that this is probably the best Maiden album up to this point and a perfect place to start. You get all the major tracks off the first 5 albums and they’re all played brilliantly. Revelations is still my favorite song, but as for the versions on this album go, Rime of the Ancient Mariner is the best thing on here. Yes, it’s actually better than the studio version, which is saying a lot. The middle bit is extra cool on this. Powerslave is also excellent. The only gripe I have with this is the horrible edit between Run to the Hills and Running Free. Even if these two were played back to back, there wouldn’t be the half-second non-pause there is on this. It’s actually not humanly possible. Very bad edit. But anyway, that’s just a small gripe. This album’s fantastic, what else can I say? Another thing I like about the 2CD remaster are the videos that round out disc 2: we get all of 2 Minutes and Powerslave, and excerpts of Revelations and Aces High. If you haven’t seen the video version of this album (taped on a different night, another bonus) then these clips will whet your appetite until the DVD gets released.
Rating: 98
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The Beatles – The Beatles (The White Album) |
| June 6th, 2004 under Album Reviews. [ Comments: none ]
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Released: 1968
Tracks: Back in the USSR; Dear Prudence; Glass Onion; Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da; Wild Honey Pie; The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill; While My Guitar Gently Weeps; Happiness is a Warm Gun; Martha My Dear; I’m So Tired; Blackbird; Piggies; Rocky Raccoon; Don’t Pass Me By; Why Don’t We Do It In the Road?; I Will; Julia; Birthday; Yer Blues; Mother Nature’s Son; Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey; Sexy Sadie; Helter Skelter; Long, Long, Long; Revolution 1; Honey Pie; Savoy Truffle; Cry Baby Cry; Revolution 9; Good Night
Best track: today it’s Blackbird
Track to skip: although some songs aren’t as great as others, I usually don’t skip any
It’s been a while, maybe even a few years, since I’ve listened to this album all the way through. There are a lot of things I love about this album. It’s obvious right from the beginning that this isn’t a continuation of what the band did on Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour. I love that, for the first time really, this album is a total change in direction from the albums that preceded it. I think it was obvious in the singles that came out before this: Lady Madonna and Hey Jude/Revolution. Another major thing I love about it is the stunning eclecticism of the album. Never before (and never since, sadly) did The Beatles ever put out something that’s as varied as this. The band was always eclectic, but they outdid themselves on the White Album. Oh, about that title…this album is officially the band’s Self Titled album, but since the cover is all white and it’s always been called (even by the band) the “White Album”, well, that’s what I always call it and if I say “Oh, the White Album is great”, everyone will know what I’m talking about.
It’s almost funny how the band just switches direction from song to song. Take the change from While My Guitar Gently Weeps > Happiness is a Warm Gun (and within this song as well) > Martha My Dear. It’s unlogical, but it works! It’s nice how there are really no songs next to each other that are similar. Scanning through the songs, the closest I can come to ‘similarity’ is that both Birthday and Yer Blues are (more or less) 12 bar blues songs. Other than that, every song is a change in direction. And it works! I know there are a lot of people (band members included) who think that it’s too big of an album. Ringo thinks it should’ve been 2 separate albums and producer George Martin thought they should’ve just gathered all the best material into 1 awesome album. I happen to side with Paul McCartney in thinking it’s fine like it is and doesn’t need a thing changed. True, not all of the songs are excellent. Taken as individuals, some (like Wild Honey Pie, Why Don’t We Do It In The Road and some others) aren’t very good compositions and are actually kind of confusing as to why they exist, but when listening to those songs in the context of the whole album they fit perfectly and surprisingly make sense. Yeah, maybe a 1CD version of the White Album would be awesome, but it wouldn’t have that magic that the full thing has. Remember, it’s not just about songs; it’s about how all the songs fit together. Major kudos to George Martin for the excellent sequencing.
The album is a full band effort, even if it sometimes sounds like 4 different people doing stuff alone. Actually, a lot of the album was made that way; running 4 studios at once. This all can be traced to why the band broke up (FYI, Yoko was only one of 1,000 reasons why The Beatles broke up). All that said though, the space really gives each member plenty of room to shine. Paul goes hog wild experimenting with song styles, George gets 4 songs on the album, John shrugs off his LSD and cranks out a TON of great material (much thanks goes to Yoko for influencing and inspiring him), and Ringo gets two bright spots: his first solo composition (Don’t Pass Me By) and a 2nd vocal song in John’s album closer Good Night. It’s an incredibly sweet song John wrote for his son Julian and probably the best melody on the whole album. A great song anyway, it’s even better following the madness of Revolution 9. All in all, this is yet another classic Beatles album. Very few bands can make music this far-reaching, and a lot fewer than that can pull it off.
Rating: 95
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