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The Best of Arlo Guthrie (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: The Best of Arlo Guthrie
  • Artist name: Arlo Guthrie
  • Year: 1977
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Warner Brothers Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Distinguishing characteristics:
  • Buy it:

The Best of Arlo Guthrie

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve been to Los Angeles about five times, and listened to Coming Into Los Angeles on the airplane every time. I also know Alice’s Restaurant Massacree, but I don’t know the other songs.

What I expected

Joke-folk-rock.

What it was actually like

Alice’s Restaurant Massacree and Coming Into Los Angeles were just as I remembered. Most of the rest of the record was decent, but nothing special.

When City Of New Orleans came on, my first reaction was: I know this song! And my second reaction was: wait a second! I’d never heard City Of New Orleans before, but it took me just a minute to realize that Israeli folk music icon Yehoram Gaon used that melody for his song שלום לך ארץ נהדרת (music, lyrics), one of my favorites!

So that was pretty cool, and reminded me of a certain biographical detail of Arlo Guthrie’s Jewish education when he was a child, and I imagined him, his teacher and Yehoram Gaon all chilling in New York City in the early 1960s.

Grade

4/5: would listen again

Chicago IX by Chicago (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Chicago IX
  • Group name: Chicago
  • Year: 1975
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: CBS
  • Collection: Selman
  • Distinguishing characteristics:
    • Clipped corner (top right)
    • Sticker on front: “Demonstration / Not For Sale” (with track list and “Suggested Cuts,” including “Intro Time” and “Length Of Cut” for each track)
    • Stamp on back: “DEMONSTRATION / NOT FOR SALE”
  • Buy it:

Chicago IX by Chicago

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve heard of Chicago, but don’t know anything about them and don’t think I know any of their music.

Also, this album is just labeled “Chicago,” so I thought it might have been a self-titled debut record, but it was not, and in fact, this group had something like 15+ records that are all called “Chicago,” making it extremely difficult to figure out which one this was. What an obnoxious thing to do.

What I expected

Maybe soft rock?

What it was actually like

I did recognize one song on this record, Saturday In The Park. I didn’t hate it, but I also wouldn’t make any effort to listen to it again, either.

25 Or 6 To 4 had a pretty good blues rock / hard rock vibe with a strong guitar riff, though I wasn’t sure how the brass section fit into it. Make Me Smile was also ok.

Everything else on the record was pure filler, which was pretty distressing as this was meant to be a sort of greatest hits collection.

Grade

2/5: weak, but I was able to listen to the whole thing

“You had to be there” by Jimmy Buffett (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: “You had to be there”
  • Artist name: Jimmy Buffett
  • Year: 1978
  • Number of discs: two
  • Label: ABC Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Buy it:

"You had to be there" by Jimmy Buffett

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

Jimmy Buffett and I go way back! I remember my parents playing his music on a very frequent basis (when I was far too young to understand the lyrics – not that anything in his songs is that complex); it was him, the Beatles the Beach Boys, the Grateful Dead, Neil Young and maybe a few others that were synonymous with music to me.

I have never listened to Jimmy Buffett on my own, however – not once in my entire adult, music-listening life – and don’t think I’ve even heard any of his songs in decades. I still remember and know a lot of his hits, though.

What I expected

Definitely all the classic Jimmy Buffett hits.

What it was actually like

I was a bit let down by this record.

A bunch of the classic hit songs that I expected were included, like Son of a Son of a Sailor, Pencil Thin Mustache, Margaritaville, Changes in Attitudes, Changes in Latitudes and Come Monday, so that was great.

Where, however, was Cheeseburger in Paradise? I don’t even like cheeseburgers and I never have, but to paint a picture of the significance of this song to my life, imagine that you’re four or five years old and your parents blast that song all the time and sing along to it. The line between “music” and “children’s music” gets blurred, doesn’t it? And that leaves an indelible mark, doesn’t it? Omitting it from this record was a weird and bad decision.

And where was Brown Eyed Girl? I never even heard of the name “Van Morrison” until I was probably a senior in high school, so to me, Brown Eyed Girl was always a Buffett song (even though, if I’m being completely fair, Morrison did it way better). The real answer, of course, is that Buffett didn’t even record the song until five years after this album was released, so fine – but it still leaves a gaping hole.

Besides the classics, I was not that impressed with the remaining material, either.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

Amadeus soundtrack (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Amadeus soundtrack
  • Group name: Various artists (most compositions by W.A. Mozart, most recordings by Neville Marriner, Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields)
  • Year: 1984
  • Number of discs: two
  • Label: The Saul Zaentz Company
  • Collection: Selman
  • Buy it:

Amadeus soundtrack

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

Like many people, I’ve listened to a decent amount of classical music without ever learning anything about it, and therefore don’t have a strong sense of Mozart’s style or ability to recognize his works.

What I expected

Just a double record album of classical music, mostly Mozart.

What it was actually like

That’s pretty much what it was.

I think that if someone wanted to listen to a broad classical music collection, this would be a terrible choice because it’s so Mozart-heavy; and if someone wanted to listen specifically to Mozart, this again would be an odd choice because there are a couple of non-Mozart selections on it. I suppose the target audience for this record is people who went wild for the movie Amadeus, but one wonders why they wouldn’t just watch the movie again if it made them so happy. So I don’t really understand this one.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

Animal House Soundtrack (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Animal House Soundtrack
  • Group name: Various Artists (including Richard Berry, Sam Cooke and the Isley Brothers)
  • Year: 1978
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: MCA Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Distinguishing characteristics: clipped corner (top right)
  • Buy it:

Animal House Soundtrack

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve watched Animal House more times than I could possibly count.

What I expected

It’s pretty straightforward – music from Animal House.

What it was actually like

To begin, Shama Lama Ding Dong (not to be confused with Sha Na Na’s cover of the Edsels’ Rama Lama Ding Dong, which is also excellent) is one of my all time very favorite songs ever, so of course I expected it to be included here, and it was.

I don’t normally listen to soundtrack records very often, but I have heard a great many of them over the years, and I don’t recall it being common for them to include sound clips from the movie. To me, that would be more like what I would expect to hear from a score, as opposed to a soundtrack. At any rate, this soundtrack inserted movie dialogue in a bunch of places that made me keep thinking, “If I wanted to hear the scene from the movie, I would just put the movie on,” which raises the question, “Why do people buy and listen to soundtracks?” I don’t know.

Also, was the song Animal House actually used in the movie anywhere? Or did was it just written and recorded solely for the soundtrack?

Anyway, Shama Lama Ding Dong is awesome and DeWayne Jessie, who played Otis Day in the movie, has made an entire career out of reprising that appearance, and there are some amazing covers of it on Youtube, such as this one and this other one.

I think also that the cafeteria scene in Animal House, set to Sam Cooke’s (What a) Wonderful World was my first exposure to Sam Cooke, and I’ve since become a lifelong fan.

Grade

5/5: love it