Tag Archives: Great Album

Great albums, Music Calendar, The Who, The Who video

October 3: The Who released The Who By Numbers in 1975


The Who by numbers

The Who by Numbers pretends to be a series of ten unconnected songs, it’s really only a pose; there’s not a story line here, but there are more important unities — lyrical themes, musical and production style, a sense of time and place.
…
Townshend has now pulled the fastest one of all, disguising his best concept album as a mere ten-track throwaway.

– Dave March (Rolling Stone Magazine, 1975)

The Who by Numbers is the seventh studio album by The Who, released on 3 October 1975 in the United Kingdom through Polydor Records, and on 25 October 1975 in the United States by MCA Records.

“There’s no easy way to be free.”
– Pete Townshend (Slip Kid)

This is Pete Townshend’s journal, his confessions about drinking, women and his other ordeals in life (+ one great song from John Entwistle, Success Story).  I like this record a lot, it stands out as a bit different in The Who’s discography, but it has great tunes and an intimate quality. No anthems this time, but great anyway. Some critics saw it as Townshend’s “suicide note” at the time.

“It’s a song I made the night I stopped drinking” (Pete Townshend):

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Country, Dolly Parton, Great albums, Music Calendar, Singer Songwriter

October 2: Dolly Parton released Coat of Many Colors in 1971

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Coat of Many Colors_Dolly Parton

A new acquaintance in the night
You mean no more to her than all the others she’s held tight
But I know she’s convinced you it was love at first sight
But she’s never met a man she didn’t like

 

Coat of Many Colors is the eighth solo studio album by Dolly Parton, released in 1971 by RCA Records. The title song, which Parton has described as her favourite of all the songs she’s ever written, deals with the poverty of her childhood. It reached #4 on the U.S. country singles charts.

Dolly Parton – Coat of Many Colors (acoustic):

Over the years, Parton would re-record a number of the songs from the album. She redid “Traveling Man” (not to be confused with the Ricky Nelson song of the same name), a song that involved an unusual love triangle between a travelling salesman, a woman, and her mother, for inclusion on her 1973 album Bubbling Over. She would also re-record her composition “My Blue Tears”, an “old-timey” folk-influenced song, with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt in the mid-1970s, for an ill-fated Trio album project. (The recording would eventually surface on Ronstadt’s 1982 album Get Closer). Parton cut the song for a third time in 2001, including it on her Little Sparrow album. “Early Morning Breeze” later appeared on her 1974 Jolene album.

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Great albums, Neil Young

September 27, 2005: Neil Young released “Prairie Wind”

neil young Prairie Wind

Since Prairie Wind is a return to the soft, lush country-rock sound of Harvest; since Neil Young suffered a brain aneurysm during its recording; since it finds the singer/songwriter reflecting on life and family in the wake of his father’s death; and since it’s his most cohesive album in a decade, it would seem that all these factors add up to a latter-day masterpiece for Young, but that’s not quite the case.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine (allmusic.com) – 3,5/5

The Painter:

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Great albums, Music Calendar, Ryan Adams

September 25: Ryan Adams released Gold in 2001

Ryan-Adams-Gold

“All the songs had to work completely and honestly by themselves on acoustic guitar or on piano. If they didn’t, they weren’t worth putting on the record.”
~Ryan Adams (about ‘Gold’)

“[Gold is] me not buying my own bullshit for two seconds.”
~Ryan Adams

New York, New York:

From Wikipedia:

Released September 25, 2001
Recorded The Sound Factory
(Hollywood, California)
Genre Rock, alternative country
Length 70:26
Label Lost Highway
Producer Ethan Johns

Gold is the second studio album by Ryan Adams, released September 25, 2001 on Lost Highway Records. The album remains Adams’ best-selling album, certifying gold in the UK and going on to sell 364,000 copies in the U.S. and 812,000 worldwide. Adams noted that “with Gold, I was trying to prove something to myself. I wanted to invent a modern classic.”

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Great albums, Music Calendar, Steve Earle

September 24: Steve Earle released Jerusalem in 2002

Steve_Earle-Jerusalem-Frontal

“I woke up this mornin’ and none of the news was good 
And death machines were rumblin’ ‘cross the ground where Jesus stood 
And the man on my TV told me that it had always been that way 
And there was nothin’ anyone could do or say

And I almost listened to him 
Yeah, I almost lost my mind 
Then I regained my senses again 
And looked into my heart to find

That I believe that one fine day all the children of Abraham 
Will lay down their swords forever in Jerusalem”
– Steve Earle (Jerusalem)

Steve Earle released this “protest album” post 9/11, but contrary to widespread belief it is not a concept album about the tragic events on that date. Yes, there are some songs relating to it, but only three out of eleven (maybe four). There were som controversy when it came out, especially the song John Walker’s Blues were widely discussed and often slated in right wing media. It is not a song that takes sides, it is a song that tells us that an ordinary American kid fell in with the wrong crowd (in this case, the Taliban). Earle make us look at this boy, and he does not say that he is innocent, but he says that he should be treated like a human being despite his faults and despite his guilt. It is a fantastic song.

“…Earle has crafted a vision of America thrown into chaos, where the falling of the World Trade Center towers is just another symbol of a larger malaise which surrounds us. Before its release,Jerusalem already generated no small controversy over the song “John Walker’s Blues,” which tells the tale of “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh as seen through his own eyes. While “John Walker’s Blues” is no more an endorsement of Lindh’s actions than Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska” was a tribute to mass-murderer Charles Starkweather, even though it’s one of the album’s strongest songs, if anything, it doesn’t go quite far enough.”
– Mark Demming (allmusic.com)

Photo AllDylan
Photo AllDylan

Steve Earle made a “state of the nation” album, and he is confused and he doesn’t come up with the answers, but he asks the important questions!

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