Elvis Costello & The Attractions: Get Happy!! (Columbia/1980)

Get Happy!! is the fourth album by Elvis Costello, third with the Attractions. Unlike his other albums with The Attractions, it has a distinctly R&B feel. It is also, in my humble opinion, Elvis' most cohesive creative statement with The Attractions. Produced by Nick Lowe, who had produced all of Costello's albums to date, does a wonderful job with achieving the perfect balance of getting a suitable R&B production on many of the tracks, while getting the best out of the band and what makes them great.

The album contains twenty-tracks, which is unusual for a non-double album release. Fearing audiophile fears of “groove-cramming”, producer Nick Lowe wrote a disclaimer instructing listeners to fear not as there is no loss of quality as the record nears the end of each side. The album also contains some of his best tracks; “New Amsterdam”, “High Fidelity” and “Love For Tender”. Other standouts include “Secondary Modern”, Riot Act” and the Sam & Dave cover of “I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down”. Truth be told all of these songs display Costello's seemingly easy talent of bending phrases to phrases to perfectly fit the rhyme schemes for his always insightful lyrics.

The sleeve has nice retro cover art by the late, legendary artist Barney Bubbles with some editions having ready-made ringwear on the sleeve. It peaked at #2 on the UK charts and #11 in the US, also reaching #11 on Rolling Stone Magazine's 100 Greatest Album Of The 1980's list in 1989.

I personally cannot recommend this album high enough.   

Video Review, anyone?:

Magazine: Play (Virgin Records/1981)

Manchester's Magazine were one of the finest bands to come out of the post/punk movement. Forming in 1977 after leader Howard Devoto left The Buzzcocks, the band released three excellent albums on Virgin Records. In mid-1980, guitarist extraordinaire, the late-John McGeoch left the band to join Siouxsie & The Banshees. He was replaced by Robin Simon for the Correct Use Of Soap tour (he can also be seen with the band in their appearance in the film Urgh! A Music War). Considering Simon had big shoes to fill in replacing the ever-innovative McGeoch, he fares pretty well here. 


Recorded in late Summer of 1980 at Festival Hall in Melbourne, Australia opening for XTC, Play is something of a neat little sampler of sorts. It contains the classic Magazine cuts “Because You're Frightened”, “The Light Pours Out Of Me”, “Model Worker”, “Permafrost”, “A Song From Under The Floorboards” and their deconstructionist take on Sly And The Family Stone's “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)”. The only glaring omission here is the classic debut single “Shot By Both Sides” (which was the band's only real UK hit). The band sounds in fine form and they certainly have more command than your average opening band.

 Recommended for fans of The Buzzcocks, post-punk and new wave.

 This is the video review:


 

The Electric Prunes: I've Got A World Of My Own (Sundazed Music/2016)

This Record Store Day birthed a single from The Electric Prunes. The Electric Prunes are well-known for the singles “I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night” and “Get Me To The World On Time”. Both songs were recorded in 1966 and were outtakes for the band's self-titled debut album. The Hollies cover “I've Got A Way Of My Own” features Byrdsian backing harmony vocals and the jaunty “World Of Darkness” sounds like an R&B garage rock standard.

A nice and welcome release from a band that doesn't have their back-catalog exploited as much as other bands.  

Here's The Video Review:

Prince & The Revolution: Parade (Paisley Park Records/1986)

Parade is Prince And The Revolution's third and final album. It's also Prince's eight and also doubles as the soundtrack album to the motion picture Under The Cherry Moon. After the Revolution's dayglo psychedelic experimentation on the Around The World In A Day album, Prince took a step back in terms of excessive arrangements. Parade is Prince's minimalist funk album. The album went platinum in the US, was a top five album and made many critic lists' Album Of The Year. The album also spawned three great singles - the masterpiece “Kiss”, the lightly psychedelic pop of “Mountains” and the more r&b flavored “Anotherloverholenyohead”.

The album is unsuspectingly a heavy listen while simultaneously a light, minimal affair. The album starts with the triumvirate of “Christopher Tracy's Parade” (which was originally titled “Wendy's Parade” and is the name of Prince's character in Under The Cherry Moon as well as his pseudonym for “Manic Monday”), “New Position” (a sexy double entendre) and “I Wonder You” (a psychedelic offering with lead vocals by keyboardist Lisa Coleman). “Do U Lie?”, “Venus De Milo” the title track are all cut from a similar light jazzy pop cloth. “Sometimes It Snows In April” is arguably Prince's greatest ballad and given his untimely death being in April, it now carries and additional weight. The funky “Girls & Boys” was a UK-only single and reached #11 there.

The album, as well as Prince's entire Warner Brothers discography is more than overdue for a proper remastering and reissuing. And if that ever happens, the outtake “An Honest Man” and the B-Sides “Love or Money” and “Alexa de Paris” are begging to be included in said reissue. Parade is an unsuspectingly pleasant, welcome and understated addition to his wonderful catalog. Although Parade ended up being de facto final album by The Revolution, they did record one more. Dream Factory was a double album and eventually morphed into the brilliant 1987 Prince solo album Sign O The Times.

Parade is a highly recommended album.   

Here's The Video Review:

Cheap Trick: Found New Parts EP (Big Machine Records/2016)

Recent Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductees Cheap Trick have been making music for over 40 years. Bang, Zoom Crazy Hello their 17th studio album is their first without co-founder Bun E. Carlos and first with Daxx Nielsen (son of guitarist Rick) is a very nice mix of everything that is great about the Trick.

This Record Store Day release offered the new 10” EP Found New Parts – a reference to their last 10” EP Found All The Parts. It's a four song-sampler from their new album. “When I Wake Up Tomorrow” sounds vocally like a David Bowie track and is a great recording. “No Direction Home” & “Do Yo Believe Me” reference Cheap Trick referencing The Beatles. “Arabesque” is repetitive and riffy and only appears on the Japanese version of the album.

The EP works as both a nice little sampler and a nice collectors piece for fans of the band.

Here's the video review:


Special thanks to: Bun E. Carlos and Big Machine Records.

Big Star: Complete Columbia (Volcano/2016)

This year's Record Store Day spawned a number of interesting releases. One of which was Complete Columbia from Memphis, TN cult legends, Big Star. On April 25, 1993 Big Star reunited to play at University Of Missouri. The band hadn't played together since early 1975, and given Chilton's inclination to dismiss the band in interviews it was surprising to even drummer Jody Stevens that the reunion ever happened. Fortunately, it did. The two students who were in charge of the Spring Fling concert at the University Of Missouri were huge Big Star fans and called Jody Stephens, at Ardent Studios (where Stephens still works). He agreed to do the show if Chilton would. To everyone's surprise, Chilton agreed.

The Posies' Jon Aur and Ken Stringfellow, filled in the line-up to replace the late Chris Bell on guitar and the (now) late Andy Hummel on bass, respectively. The band played a great, if sloppy, performance. Legendary music journalist Bud Scoppa, a huge fan of the band, was at this time head of A&R at Zoo Records, recorded the show and it was released to favorable reviews. The album cover artwork is something of a reference to the Radio City artwork and even features a photo from William Eggleston (who also took the photo that adorns Radio City).

The RSD release is the first domestic vinyl release of the album and contains six additional bonus tracks from the show. Upping the number of tracks to 21 over the 1993 CD's 14. It's an excellent and must-have release of any Big Star fan.

Here's The Video Review:

I.R.S. Greatest Hits Vols 2 & 3 (IRS Records/1981)

I.R.S. Records was one of the most influential American record labels of the New Wave era. International Record Syndicate was the brainchild of Miles Copeland III (older bother of Police drummer Stewart). Copeland founded the British record labels Illegal Records and Faulty Products in 1977 and 1978, respectively. He had previously established a relationship with A&M Records and in 1979 along with Jay Boberg and Carlos Grasso, made a deal with them to distribute IRS Records.

I.R.S. was responsible for exposing the general public at large with the likes of The Go-Go's, The Cramps, R.E.M., The Fleshtones, Wall Of Voodoo, The Buzzcocks, Oingo Boingo, The Fall and countless other alternative music acts of the late 1970's and 1980's.

Released in 1981, I.R.S. Greatest Hits Volume 2 & 3 is a double-album sampler of then-current recordings, released on the label. It personally introduced me to several bands when I first heard it. Namely The Cramps, The Fleshtones, The Buzzcocks, The Damned and The Stranglers. The album features two songs by Stewart Copeland's pseudonym while he was in The Police, rare single tracks from both Squeeze and The Police. It features notable entries from somewhat obscure acts like Humans, Fashion, Skafish, Payoloa$ and Patrick D. Martin. It also features curiosities from ex-Velvet Underground cellist John Cale, ex-Damned guitarist Brian James, ex-Squeeze keyboardist/BBC personality Jools Holland, and BBC6 personality Tom Robinson. It contains great songs by The Buzzcocks, The Damned, The Fall, The Stranglers, The Cramps and The Fleshtones.

The album is inconsistently excellent and overall is a pretty good representation of the music that I.R.S. Records. It was a pretty important album in shaping my own musical tastes growing up. There can't be too many better albums of it's kind. It's a great alternative music sampler of the early 1980's.  

Highly Recommended!

Here's the video review (including an awesome K-Tel-esque commercial) :