The Album Review Club - Week #147 - (page 1942) - Blonde On Blonde - Bob Dylan

[mancity2012_eamo]

I’m struggling with Tom Sawyer - listening to it over and over and it’s just not sticking.
I want to like this.

Have you listened to Signals? Great stuff on that. Grace Under Pressure too.

 

[OB1]

I’m struggling with Tom Sawyer - listening to it over and over and it’s just not sticking.
I want to like this.

Air drums are your friend.

 

[BimboBob]

Air drums are your friend.

Too busy to air drum properly.

 

[Saddleworth2]

Rush?
What to make of them?
Still unsure.
Are they the Barron Knights of rock?
Or are they original genius?

 

[mancity1]

And I completely understand why. I loved the earlier description of Rush fans as Trekkies. I’m not a Trekkie nor do I listen to much Rush any more nor anything after Power Windows at any rate, so I think they were a “phase” (“phaser”???) for me but a super important one, and this is by far the record I return to more than any other of theirs (and I own everything between their first and PW).

It’s funny about Working Man as that was very early on when they were basically Led Zep clones and before Peart joined to inject both his drums and his interest in swords and sorcery.

My wife was a huge Deadhead long ago but she’s outgrown it basically. I never got into the scene at all and apart from maybe a half a dozen tunes I don’t cotton to them. Also I am nothing like a hippie :). That said, I think I mentioned that I read a piece that described them as America’s Greatest Ever Band, which might be a thread unto itself. It’s easy in the UK since it produced the greatest band (and probably a goodly number of the contenders), and it’s likely Rush in Canada but who is it in the US? The Beach Boys? Creedence? Springsteen and the ESB? It’s definitely a conversation. In Australia is AC/DC the odds-on (and do they even count since they’re Scottish??)? Or someone else? Anyway — for another time.

It wasn't lost on me that one of your favourite albums you have excellently reviewed to date are from Adelaide where a number of wonderful artists started their careers including the most successful artists albeit I don't like using that term Jimmy Barnes once lead singer for Cold Chisel who never had the looks and presence of a Bon Scott or a Michael Hutchence but IMO have / had better songwriters and better albums than the " big two "

 

[mancity2012_eamo]

Rush?
What to make of them?
Still unsure.
Are they the Barron Knights of rock?
Or are they original genius?

Don’t overthink it.
You’ll like some of it more than others.
They’re just a very tight band that float some boats. They don’t have to be the mother lode or everything that’s wrong in music.
I find both extremes of the love hate debate contrived tbh.

 

[Saddleworth2]

If I woke up tomorrow in 1981 aged 16, I would love this album and probably this band. I can well understand why it has such a strong endorsement by many on here.

The facts are though that 1981 was a little like a musical desert to me. Scanning the top 30 or so albums for that year, I see Moving Pictures ensconced very high in top three or four but you have to go down to the teens to find an album I can remember buying and listening too (Ghosts in the Machine). By that year, I had a very young family, not much of an income and my priorities had changed massively from a year or two prior.

So I have no terms of reference for Rush. I must have heard them of course but never listened to them. I do however have a very strong grounding in the bands that preceded them and (in their own words) influenced them. I was aware that they had changed direction at least twice in the music they played with an initial penchant for Zeppelin like riffing and I once read something about the lead singer being like a Robert Plant who had inhaled Helium. And then of course, a prog stage referencing Yes and Genesis. That is the sum of my knowledge about them.

So, Moving Pictures....
My first listen first reaction to Tom Sawyer was I disliked it. Probably down to the vocals, maybe the lack, to me, of a killer guitar riff. The further into the album I went three impressions started to grow. The first were that this was an extremely competent band, tight and for a three piece had a very full sound. I could hear all sorts of trickery going on with synths and the percussion especially. The bass lines were excellent and I was getting flashbacks to Wetton, Squire and Entwistle.

The second impression was I could hear musical references all over the place, a Zeppelin or more commonly a Black Sabbath riff here a bit of Anderson esque phrasing there. A Keith Emerson run. There was a percussion (xylaphone) intro on one track that I almost started singing 'Play me the old King Cole, that I may join with you'. For some reason I got strong shades of early Marillion too, probably because that band had a similar DNA.

And third, putting the excellence of the musicianship aside, I wasn't really enjoying the songs as much as I would like. I was finding the lyrics over literal, the songs lacking in light and shade....

These impressions have strengthened on subsequent listens, indeed, they are way better than a competent band and that bass/drum is so good. Musically, i am not getting the 'personality' of Rush nor anything that hasn't been done before. Some of the songs are growing on me a little. But, its funny, every time I sit down to write a review and allocate a score 'just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in'.

Whatever I score this @OB1, its a good pick and at the very least I will check out some of their other stuff.
I would like some more time with the album before allocating a final score.

 

[RobMCFC]

If I woke up tomorrow in 1981 aged 16, I would love this album and probably this band. I can well understand why it has such a strong endorsement by many on here.

The facts are though that 1981 was a little like a musical desert to me. Scanning the top 30 or so albums for that year, I see Moving Pictures ensconced very high in top three or four but you have to go down to the teens to find an album I can remember buying and listening too (Ghosts in the Machine). By that year, I had a very young family, not much of an income and my priorities had changed massively from a year or two prior.

So I have no terms of reference for Rush. I must have heard them of course but never listened to them. I do however have a very strong grounding in the bands that preceded them and (in their own words) influenced them. I was aware that they had changed direction at least twice in the music they played with an initial penchant for Zeppelin like riffing and I once read something about the lead singer being like a Robert Plant who had inhaled Helium. And then of course, a prog stage referencing Yes and Genesis. That is the sum of my knowledge about them.

So, Moving Pictures....
My first listen first reaction to Tom Sawyer was I disliked it. Probably down to the vocals, maybe the lack, to me, of a killer guitar riff. The further into the album I went three impressions started to grow. The first were that this was an extremely competent band, tight and for a three piece had a very full sound. I could hear all sorts of trickery going on with synths and the percussion especially. The bass lines were excellent and I was getting flashbacks to Wetton, Squire and Entwistle.

The second impression was I could hear musical references all over the place, a Zeppelin or more commonly a Black Sabbath riff here a bit of Anderson esque phrasing there. A Keith Emerson run. There was a percussion (xylaphone) intro on one track that I almost started singing 'Play me the old King Cole, that I may join with you'. For some reason I got strong shades of early Marillion too, probably because that band had a similar DNA.

And third, putting the excellence of the musicianship aside, I wasn't really enjoying the songs as much as I would like. I was finding the lyrics over literal, the songs lacking in light and shade....

These impressions have strengthened on subsequent listens, indeed, they are way better than a competent band and that bass/drum is so good. Musically, i am not getting the 'personality' of Rush nor anything that hasn't been done before. Some of the songs are growing on me a little. But, its funny, every time I sit down to write a review and allocate a score 'just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in'.

Whatever I score this @OB1, its a good pick and at the very least I will check out some of their other stuff.
I would like some more time with the album before allocating a final score.

I’ve said on here that I got into music relatively late as a 17-year old in the mid-80s. This explains why 1981 means the following for me:

1. City getting to the cup final (I even went to the replay).
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark (or maybe it was 1982 when I finally saw it, such were the weird US v UK cinema release dates).
3. Botham’s Ashes.

 

[Saddleworth2]

I’ve said on here that I got into music relatively late as a 17-year old in the mid-80s. This explains why 1981 means the following for me:

1. City getting to the cup final (I even went to the replay).
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark (or maybe it was 1982 when I finally saw it, such were the weird US v UK cinema release dates).
3. Botham’s Ashes.

Because Scotland didn't televise the FA Cup live (clash with the Scottish version), I had to watch the cup final with some friends at one of their Grannies house in Duns where they could pick up BBC England. We did get Bothams ashes though :-)
I was 23 with a four year old and a two year old!

 

[bennyboy]

Because Scotland didn't televise the FA Cup live (clash with the Scottish version), I had to watch the cup final with some friends at one of their Grannies house in Duns where they could pick up BBC England. We did get Bothams ashes though :-)
I was 23 with a four year old and a two year old!

The Scottish cup final went to a replay that year and I think it was not shown live.
The FA cup replay was weirdly shown live.
I think that's how it went that year.