Finally, 14 years later, a second solo album!
And what can be most quickly discerned from even a cursory spin? That at this point, late January ’84, Christine McVie had become such a reliably strong songwriter that she’d fully established a signature style as recognizable as Elton John’s.
This flick is still a wicked knockout a decade later, a near-epic with Scorsese-level aspirations that quite often measures up to the master’s flashiest sagas, ‘GoodFellas’ and ‘Casino.’ The reason why, however, ultimately has less to do with director David O. Russell’s consummate skills, even if this was his strongest work since the startlingly funny war drama ‘Three Kings’ in ’99, concluding a superb three-picture run of vivid realism begun by ‘The Fighter’ in 2010 and extended with ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ two years later.
There’s a really great film to be made about the influential rise and payola-plagued downfall of seminal rock ’n’ roll disc jockey Alan Freed. This well-intentioned yet utterly incoherent mess isn’t that flick any more than the ’99 TV movie that miscast Judd Nelson as the ingenious impresario.
Revisiting A&M Records No. 26
Tamba 4: ‘We and the Sea’ (November ’67)
Now this is serious shit. Makes Sérgio Mendes seem exactly like the lightweight he was — highly capable, yes, and plenty enjoyable, just nowhere near the heavyweight class that this prodigious quartet was punching at by the time sunset fell on the Summer of Love.
Time once more to play the vinyl community’s favorite new game, Who Among Us Remembers This Guy?
Full disclosure: I sure as hell don’t.
And I haven’t found out much about him, either.
Half a century later this is still the oldies set par excellence, a prescient feat all the more astonishing given this curated compilation was merely a decade removed from the pre-Beatles limbo it resurrects.
Pop quiz: Do you recognize the following verse? ‘Take me out and show me off and put me on the scene / Dress me in the fashions of the 1980s / You’re a man, no in-between / You know what your words can mean.’
Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks weren’t the only ones from Fleetwood Mac to pursue solo ventures after the Tusk tour of ’79-’80 ended acrimoniously (again). The front half of the group’s namesake did likewise, releasing his noble failure The Visitor in June ’81.
Revisiting A&M Records No. 24
The Merry-Go-Round: ‘The Merry-Go-Round’ (November ‘67)
Ten installments ago I asserted Lee Michaels was the label’s first true rock star. I stand by that statement, even if it took him four years and five albums to score a genuine chart smash.
