The Wake

The opening mallet-matted drum roll of Scott Walker’s solo debut is an extremely telling introduction. It instantly becomes clear that this pop album is to be both a heroic and tragic epic. Similarly, glancing upon the portrait of Walker that covers his 1967 Scott is an equally epiphanic experience. Upon a glance or a listen, Scott Walker is clarified to be a deceptively upbeat dark horse of sixties pop. “Man behind the music” clichés however, …

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Big Star - #1 Record

The debut LP of the Memphis Tennessee power-poppers Big Star could be one of the greatest records you’ve never heard. In fact, this beautiful album review could easily be filled with paragraph after paragraph of the numerous artists and rock and roll outfits that have been shaped and influenced by the record’s prose. …

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The Kinks - Something Else By the Kinks

Raymond Douglas Davies is a clever man. As the chief and nearly unchaperoned hit maker for the prolific UK outfit the Kinks, Davies has dabbled in some of the most catchy, interesting and clever rock and roll in the genre’s six decades. Continuing the …

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T-Rex - The Slider

Many bands manage to generate a single rock and roll gem before ricocheting into the depths of music history hell. Like the Kinks, The Velvet Underground and The Hollywood Argyles, T. Rex defied this explode-and-deflate pathway. In September 1971, T. Rex released an album often heralded as a pinnacle of rock achievement and sexiness titled Electric …

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Nick Lowe - Pure Pop for Now People

Do you love Elvis Costello like we do? Hidden in the shadow of Costello’s success is a musician that tastes, smells and even sounds like him. Nick Lowe is that musician, and his album Pure Pop For Now People is a benchmark in modern …

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