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Hunky Dory by David Bowie (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Hunky Dory
  • Artist name: David Bowie
  • Year: 1971
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: RCA Records
  • Distinguishing characteristics:
    • “APRS-5947-35-A3E” and “R” scratched into side 1 of LP
    • “APRS-5948-35-A21” and “R” scratched into side 2 of LP
  • Collection: Selman
  • Buy it on Amazon: $49.99

Hunky Dory by David Bowie

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never really gotten into David Bowie at all and never listened to any of his records, but I do know the song Changes that’s the first track on this record, and expect to recognize one or two others, as well.

What I expected

Bowie changed his musical style a lot, so I’m not really sure what kind of music he was making in 1971. Maybe soft rock?

What it was actually like

There was a lot of piano in this record, and it reminded me of Elton John (not in a good way).

Changes was about as I remembered it, which is sort of a piano-driven lounge-inspired pop-rock pop. Its piano and vocal parts are pretty distinctive and I guess it’s representative of David Bowie to me. One thing I realized about it, listening to it now closely for the first time, was that it’s really just a chorus that’s repeated a few times, punctuated by some totally useless verses.

That pattern of a song having quite a strong chorus, but very weak verses, was repeated a few times throughout the record, such as on Oh! You Pretty Things and on Andy Warhol, which also was a generally good acoustic guitar folk rock song.

Eight Line Poem was essentially just rambling with some piano chords, and Quicksand was similarly meandering.

Kooks sounded like Faul’s granny shit, and Fill Your Heart was in that same category, and was also a bit Oompa-Loompa, and had some terrible saxophone.

Song for Bob Dylan did have some Dylan style vocals, but with too much piano, and also not enough melody. The Bewlay Brothers had a bit of that same vocal style as well.

Queen Bitch was almost proto-punk, and I thought it was the best on the record.

Besides Changes, the only other song I recognized was Life On Mars?, from this television series. It was a pretty bad song, and more or less had zero musical value.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

Urban Cowboy soundtrack (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Urban Cowboy: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
  • Artist name: Various artists, including Jimmy Buffett, the Charlie Daniels Band, the Eagles, Dan Fogelberg, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, Kenny Rogers and Boz Scaggs
  • Year: 1980
  • Number of discs: two
  • Label: Asylum Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Buy it on Amazon: $28.09

Urban Cowboy soundtrack

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I have heard of the movie Urban Cowboy, but have not seen it. I recognize a bunch of the artists’ names from the soundtrack, but only a few of the song names.

What I expected

Country, country rock.

What it was actually like

Side One

Rock was the dominant sound of this side, but it was definitely country rock.

I liked All Night Long by Joe Walsh the best, as it was more of a hard rock song that had a strong electric blues influence, with a very good guitar riff.

Jimmy Buffett’s Hello Texas was a very solid country rock song, and I liked the honky tonk piano in Nine Tonight by Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band.

Dan Fogelberg’s Times Like These was very over-produced, like the worst of 1980s rock, and it sounded like it used a drum machine.

Side Two

This side was more line dancing music than the first.

Mickey Gilley’s version of Stand By Me was kind of sad, and I don’t object at all to reinterpreting this classic song, but I do think that if someone wants to mess with it, then it needs to be really impressive not to be treated as crap, since the original is such a classic.

Cherokee Fiddle by Mickey Gilley had great fiddle and steel guitar solos and a very country sound, but terrible percussion.

I’ve always considered the Eagles Lyin’ Eyes a potentially great country rock song, but I’ve never much cared for the vocals in it – they just felt too smooth, like they did not have enough emotion for the song’s lyrics.

Could I Have This Dance by Anne Murray was country, but really slow and boring.

Side Three

I’m aware that there are people who really like The Devil Went Down to Georgia by Charlie Daniels Band, but I have always found it to be a little bit silly and melodramatic, especially the rhyming couplets and almost spoken vocals.

Lookin’ for Love by Johnny Lee, on the other hand, is one that I’ve always liked, especially the good harmony.

The Gilley’s “Urban Cowboy” Band version of Orange Blossom Special/Hoedown was atrociously turned into Oompa Loompa music for no reason that I can discern, but even though they ruined the song, the fiddle solo was still great[1].

I didn’t care much for Bonnie Raitt’s Don’t It Make Ya Wanna Dance, which was very country and had some good fiddle, but was just not a good song overall, and sounded like it was made for country radio. I felt similarly about Here Comes the Hurt Again by Mickey Gilley, which was too whiny for my taste.

Side Four

I thought that Love the World Away by Kenny Rogers, an easy listening song, would certainly be the worst on the record, but that was until I heard Look What You’ve Done to Me by Boz Scaggs. That was in fact easily the record’s worst song and one of the worst I’ve ever heard. “Easy listening” would not even begin to describe it, but “soporific” does, and if I had been listening on a digital format, there’s a 100% chance that I would have skipped this song after 30 seconds or so.

Falling in Love for the Night by Charlie Daniels Band was weirdly trying for that same Caribbean sound that Loggins and Messina were attempting, and also was not good.

Darlin’ by Bonnie Raitt was much better, and thought that she nailed her version.

I also liked Hearts Against the Wind by Linda Ronstadt and J. D. Souther. It was slow for my taste, but an excellent song, and they did a very nice harmony.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

References

References
↑1 Just listen to this version instead.

Welcome To Fat City by Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Welcome To Fat City
  • Group name: Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert
  • Year: 1972
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Paramount Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Distinguishing characteristics:
    • Sticker on album front: F-7-1 / 1972(1)
    • Printed on LP: DJ COPY ONLY / NOT FOR SALE
  • Buy it on Amazon: $13.04

Welcome To Fat City by Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I have never heard of this and have no idea what it could be.

What I expected

Maybe folk rock?

What it was actually like

I didn’t have high expectations for this record, but actually the songs on it were mostly very strong, and as a whole, I definitely liked it.

Several had a country sound, like Nobody Can Take My Dreams From Me, which also had rock influence, but with a prominent fiddle, and great vocal harmonies. Workingman’s Day was also a great country rock song with nice vocal harmonies, and O, Say Can You See! was similar.

Several others were folk style, like Fallin’ In A Deep Hole, which was slower and much more about the vocals, and I Guess He’d Rather Be In Colorado and Not What We Promised To Be.

Morning Go Away started out boring, but then got much more lively, and had a great rhythm.

Readjustment Blues and The JESUS SAYS HELLO Tango were both folk rock, the former pretty good and with mostly just Danoff singing, and the latter with Danoff and Nivert harmonizing.

Baby, What’s Wrong With You started out Oompa Loompa, and kept going back and forth between it and what might have been a good song, then ended up being terrible.

The Fat City High School Fight Song was, as its name implied, a march (like for a marching band) that began with the lyric, “Thank god for marijuana,” and then proceeded to hold a level of weirdness approximately equivalent to Tuli Kupferberg singing, I’d Give Everything for Herzegovina.

Grade

4/5: would listen again

4 Way Street by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: 4 Way Street
  • Group name: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
  • Year: 1971
  • Number of discs: two
  • Label: Atlantic Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics: “G” written inside album sleeve, indicating that my father owned it
  • Buy it on Amazon: $39.99

4 Way Street by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve reviewed an almost absurd amount of Crosby / Stills / Nash / Young music over the past several months:

… (and I know there’s a lot more Young coming up, as well as some more Stills, and who knows what else?) but I believe this will be my first time listening to 4 Way Street.

What I expected

Folk rock, rock.

What it was actually like

Side 1

This side was a kind of acoustic folk mix. Suite: Judy Blue Eyes was a huge disappointment because it was… just a few seconds long? Who the hell had that idea? Teach Your Children was a high point, though; they were laughing with (or maybe at?) each other on stage, and the audience loved it.

The next two songs, Triad and The Lee Shore, were a David Crosby mini-set and were both incredibly boring, a rare accomplishment given the subject matter of Triad, Chinese organized crime.

But Graham Nash saved the day with a piano-heavy version of Chicago that leaned heavily into its Oompa Loompa tendencies.

Side 2

This side kept the acoustic sound, but had less Crosby to mess things up.

The Neil Young mini-set, featuring Cowgirl in the Sand and Don’t Let It Bring You Down, really knocked it out of the park, and his claim that the latter song “sort of starts out real slow and then it fizzles out altogether” was absolutely false: I love that song and how he played it.

It was great to have an upbeat Stephen Stills mini-set after a couple of Neil Young songs that, let’s be honest, can be downers. 49 Bye-Byes/America’s Children was a sort of weird medley singalong, but also, did I really need to be reminded about Nixon, Agnew and Daley? Love the One You’re With was outstanding, with great harmonies and pacing, and I kept thinking that it was about to fall apart into chaos, but actually it just sounded tight and well rehearsed.

Side 3

This side was much more rock and much more electric than the previous two sides.

Pre-Road Downs sounded great and I was so impressed that this guy who, just a few minutes ago was doing Chicago on the piano, and was now rocking out with an electric guitar solo.

The electric blues version of Long Time Gone was exquisite.

I never thought I’d need to hear a ~14 minute long live version of Southern Man, and wouldn’t have expected to enjoy it because it’s kind of preachy, but it actually rocked. Listening in stereo on my father’s floor speakers, it sounded like there were electric guitars everywhere in my apartment.

Side 4

This side kept the electric/rock sound from side 3.

On the subject of preachy songs… when reviewing So Far I mentioned that I “have always found Ohio somewhat catchy but also rather obnoxious,” and that’s still true! But this was a great version of it.

Carry On was really excellent, and they did a fine job with the percussion, and the part after the bridge. This very long (over 14 minutes) jam really ought to have been the final song on the record; ending it with Find the Cost of Freedom just seemed anticlimactic and disappointing.

Grade

5/5: love it

Ace by Bob Weir (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

Ace by Bob Weir

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

It was surprisingly difficult to figure out what this even was. Neither of my parents had any memory of a record called “Ace,” and since that’s the only word on the front of the album, I started by trying to locate a band with that name, which does exist and was recording records in the appropriate time period – but no amount of search engining could identify this specific Ace record.

Finally I started reading the fine print on the back, and saw references to “Robert ‘Ace’ Weir,” ie. Bob Weir, from the Grateful Dead.

Needless to say, I’m more or less familiar with Bob Weir, but not with “Ace,” his nickname and solo project.

What I expected

Cosmic American music.

What it was actually like

This was basically a Grateful Dead record, though I only recognized one song, Playing in the Band, which I mentioned that I loved when I listened to Skull Fuck a few months ago. This was a version I’d never heard before that was pretty similar to what I had heard in the past for the most part, with just some slightly different instrumentation and vocals, until a pretty good extended jam towards the end.

Greatest Story Ever Told was also great, while Walk in the Sunshine, which was very bluesy, could have been good, but was lacking some energy. Similarly, I liked the blues style piano and the guitar solo on One More Saturday Night, but the vocals were very 1980s sounding.

Mexicali Blues immediately made me think of someone that I once knew from Mexicali (and/or its sister city Calexico) and was more of a country song that had maybe a slight Oompa Loompa music sound to it, but it was entertaining and I liked the tempo and the excellent guitar.

Grade

4/5: would listen again